Clarissa felt uneasy being away from her Pokémon for such a long stretch of time. She had grown up with them, trained alongside them every single day, and occasionally even slept beside them. Now she was about to take part in an operation without them, and she had never felt so exposed and vulnerable.

It wasn’t as though she was defenseless. Alex had personally trained her in physical combat, putting her through injuries ranging from flesh wounds to broken bones and even torn patches of skin. She had wanted to kill him for that last one, though fortunately they had an exceptional in-house doctor who made sure the healing process left behind no scars.

Now, here she was, leaping from rooftop to rooftop knowing she had no backup. No hidden source of confidence she could unleash to fight against fate. The experience felt surreal, and she couldn’t help but lose herself in it beneath the moonlit sky.

“Hurry up, princess!” a voice shouted through the intercom in her helmet. “We haven’t got all night.”

“I’m coming, Rhea,” Clarissa replied before leaping off toward their next target location. “What are we hitting now?”

“It’s a warehouse full of illegal drugs this time,” Rhea replied. “It’s a good thing I’ve brought an extra large space bag.”

“Why can’t we just destroy the building with all the drugs in it?” Clarissa asked.

“Best-case scenario, they get their drugs back because the police will be too busy cleaning up after Alex. Worst-case scenario, the entire city gets high from fumes of burning drugs with unknown effects.”

“Right, sorry. I wasn’t thinking,” she replied.

“Chill out, princess. I don’t know what you’re worried about, but you’re in good hands. I’ll take care of you.”

Right, she wasn’t alone. She was with Rhea, a psychopath who loved explosions and causing chaos when Alex let her off her leash. That didn’t comfort Clarissa in any way, shape, or form, but at least she wasn’t alone.

They made their way a few blocks before reaching their next destination, another warehouse where drugs were repackaged for local distribution. It was a good thing all the criminal activity was concentrated in a small area of the city, designated as Underworld territory. Otherwise, it would have been difficult to get everything done in one night without a teleporter or a flying mount. She was starting to miss her Charizard again, hoping she was doing well in Poké Pelago.

“We’re here,” Rhea said over the intercom, before tossing a large duffel bag to Clarissa. “You go collect the drugs inside while I set up the explosives.”

“Got it!”

Clarissa grabbed the bag and slipped inside the warehouse through a broken window. Inside, she found not only packaged drugs stacked on pallets, but also tubs of raw materials and what looked like a small refinery. They weren’t just repackaging drugs here; they were also starting to produce their own product. It was a good thing they were destroying everything tonight.

With cat-like movements, Clarissa made her way around the guarded warehouse, storing everything that wasn’t bolted down. It was fortunate their operation was quite small, so any leakage or contamination shouldn’t be dangerous to the entire city, maybe just the local area at worst, where only criminals lived.

“Hey! Where are the drugs?!”

“Fuck! We’ve been robbed! Sound the alarm!”

Alarms blared, lights flooded the nearly empty warehouse, and the guards outside started rushing inside, compromising Clarissa’s position.

“Looks like we’ve been caught,” Rhea said. “How much longer, princess?”

“Just one more pallet,” Clarissa replied as she stored it in the duffel bag, suddenly revealing the guards on the other side.

“Intruder!” the guard shouted as he opened fire on Clarissa with a submachine gun, sending a random assortment of bullets hurtling toward her.

Clarissa immediately took evasive maneuvers, flipping backward in multiple clean somersaults as she avoided all the bullets and Pokémon moves shot at her. She kept moving until she reached the nearest window behind her, now shattered from the gunfire tearing through it, then vaulted through the opening with a final backflip and landed outside. She cartwheeled to the side, evading even more bullets, before jumping, avoiding all the shots that punched through the wall, and meeting up with Rhea on the rooftop.

“Let’s skedaddle,” Rhea said as the pair jumped to another rooftop nearby and escaped.

“Where’s the intruder?” a guard who had just arrived asked, with the rest following behind him as they entered the warehouse.

“Gone, and she took everything.”

“Should we go after her?”

“And leave the warehouse unattended? We still have equipment they didn’t take to protect. We’d better wait for the boss to arrive.”

“The boss is going to kill us.”

Once Rhea and Clarissa landed on a nearby rooftop in plain sight a block away, the facility’s guards rushed into the warehouse to secure what remained. Meanwhile, Rhea took out the detonator and waited with visible excitement.

“Ehehehe,” Rhea giggled to herself as she circled her finger over the detonation button.

“What are you waiting for?” Clarissa asked with concern.

“The perfect moment.”

“We’re only supposed to target the inventory, not kill people.”

“This is a change of plans brought on by the escalation of information. Alex and Nyx didn’t know this facility was starting to work on their own manufacturing, which means they’ve just earned their one-way ticket to hell.”

The perfect moment arrived when an important-looking man, surrounded by guards, made his way from a nearby building and entered the warehouse to check for himself. Rhea didn’t hesitate as she pressed the button and sealed their fates.

BOOOM!!!

“Nyahaha~”

Clarissa shook her head at Rhea’s antics. She had a few screws loose, but at least she was on Alex’s side while Alex was on the League’s side. At least, that is, when they weren’t threatening him with corruption and a good time.

“Ah~ That felt good. Come on, princess. Our next target is guns and ammunition from a smuggling operation.”

As Rhea and Clarissa continued their raid of theft and destruction throughout Underworld territory, the bosses of affected operations and the leaders of budding criminal groups received the most insane message on their phones all over Hau’oli City.

-----

To the people doing bad things,

Hi. This is a warning letter.

You are doing very bad things, and that is not okay at all. I don’t think you really understand how serious this is, and how close you were to being part of the other groups. You should stop now, please.

Other people who kept doing bad things… they’re not around anymore. So please don’t be like them, and don’t think you will be the one exception.

Stop everything you are doing right now. You still have time to walk away and be better. Clean up the mess you’ve made, apologize, and make it right.

This is the only time anyone will be nice about it.

If you don’t listen, something very bad will happen next time, and by then it will be too late.

Bye-bye,

A Concerned Citizen

“What the fuck is this shit?” criminal bosses throughout Hau’oli City shouted as they were jolted awake in the middle of the night.

They had already been dead asleep when their phones suddenly started blaring despite being set to silent. Now an anonymous number had sent them this stupid fucking message written with the vocabulary of a 10-year-old child.

Were they supposed to take this shit seriously?

Immediately, they considered ignoring the message but instead decided to make it someone else’s problem, so they called their subordinates. Some were connected enough to receive the news immediately, while others still had no idea what was going on. By morning, however, everything had become clear.

Almost all the Underworld forces in the city had suffered. Most were low-level gangs who barely held any territory, now scared shitless. A few dozen were more serious players who had managed to get their foot in the door and start making money, but they had completely lost their inventory and facilities overnight. A handful of the top bosses who couldn’t be fucked with were wiped out entirely, their territory swarmed by police and converted back into League control.

In a single night, the entire criminal landscape of Hau’oli City had changed. For most, it looked like an opportunity to rise through the ranks and expand their operations until they remembered the asinine message that had woken them up in the middle of the night. It was a promise that they would be next if they took the obvious next step. Whoever had cleaned up the city would do it again without hesitation.

Obviously, there were still a small few who ignored the letter, but they quickly found that there were plenty of neutral Underworld forces that were untouched and would end up competing with them. It was a lesson learned the hard way some time later.

As for the perpetrators, they took a short rest before returning to their shopping trip, with far less interference for the remainder of their stay. The Underworld was too preoccupied with recovering from its losses to cause any meaningful disruption.

Alex and the group continued their week in Hau’oli City in the same unbothered rhythm, focused on souvenirs, unique food experiences, local wardrobe purchases, relaxation, and sightseeing. Conversation eventually drifted toward their next destination, Poni Island, the remote, sparsely populated island of the Alola region known for its rugged natural terrain, strong traditions, and sites of significant Pokémon and spiritual importance, with a surprise heading for them, or Alex in particular.