Roy ca to a stop beside Sima Yi and stepped down from Ninetales. One by one, he returned his Pokémon to their Poké Balls — Ninetales, Zeraora, and Lucario — until none remained at his side.
During the journey to the base, he had also used the lucky draw chance he had earned for completing the task. As the skill wheel spun and the options appeared before him, it beca clear that every skill on it carried real power. No matter which one landed, if it could be passed to one of his Pokémon, the results would be significant. Roy wasn't greedy about it. As long as he could claim one of these skills and teach it to a mber of his team, that was enough. There had been skill tasks before, and there would be more in the future.
"Here's the plan," Roy said, keeping his voice low and casual. "I'm playing the part of a stranger looking to join your organization. That's the identity I'm going in with — no Pokémon on , nothing that stands out. As long as your leader doesn't turn out to be tied to my enemies, nothing unexpected should happen."
Sima Yi had nothing to say to that. He gave a short nod. His job was simply to bring Roy inside. Whatever happened to Roy after that was none of his concern.
The skill that had landed on the wheel was Blaze Kick.
Blaze Kick — The user channels the fierce heat of its fighting spirit, concentrating all of that fla into a single focused point before releasing it in one explosive burst. It deals trendous damage upon a clean hit.
Reading through the description, Roy recognized it imdiately as a powerful offensive move. The raw damage potential was extraordinary — far beyond what ordinary strength alone could produce. The catch, of course, was accuracy. Land the hit and the result would be devastating. Miss, and all that power was wasted.
The skill appeared as an icon wrapped in a fiery red glow, contained within a faint, transparent bubble.
Before using it, Roy held it for a mont in his palm. The bubble settled against him, and a faint symbol lit up on his body — even without activating it. It was a strange sight: an ordinary human, one who had ford no bond with any Pokémon through a Poké Ball, carrying the glow of a Pokémon's move on their skin. The skill wheel didn't seem to care about that distinction.
When he recalled Lucario into its Poké Ball, he placed the skill bubble on Lucario at the sa ti. A pale white light flickered briefly beneath it. That answered one question — it wasn't limited to humans. The skill could attach to Pokémon as well, regardless of their physical makeup.
Though it could work on nearly anyone, the actual power it produced was tied directly to the user's own strength and physical ability. A person with little training or a weak constitution might activate Blaze Kick and produce little more than a slightly stronger-than-normal strike. The move would work, but it wouldn't shine.
Lucario, however, was a different matter. With its natural Fighting-type and Steel-type physique, its exceptional attack power, and the soundness of its limbs, it was built exactly for a move like this. Giving Blaze Kick to Lucario ant it could be used to its fullest potential.
With that in mind, Roy's choice was easy. He assigned the extracted skill to Lucario.
Out of curiosity, he also ran one more test — placing the bubble on Mini-Q, a Pokémon with no conventional hands or feet. The result was imdiate: the icon turned grey the mont it touched Mini-Q's form. Grey ant unusable. So rigid conditions had to be t for a move like this to function, and Mini-Q simply didn't et them.
The extracted skills were powerful, but they weren't without limits.
Inside the base, a figure in a black robe stepped forward and delivered his report.
"Boss. Sima Yi has returned, but he hasn't co back alone. There's a stranger with him — not Sima's older brother, but soone else entirely. Looks completely ordinary. Weak, even. No Pokémon on him at all."
The robed figure stepped back after finishing. Everyone who entered through the rock cave was spotted by the sentries inside as a matter of course. mbers of the organization passed through without issue. Non-mbers who arrived under escort were a different matter — if they showed any sign of being a threat, they wouldn't be allowed in so easily.
But Roy showed nothing. No Pokémon. No visible power. Nothing that set off any alarm. To the people watching, he was just a plain, unremarkable civilian being led in by one of their own.
The leader leaned back and waved a hand dismissively.
"Nothing to worry about. Let Sima Yi in — he did well this ti. And if all he's brought along is so ordinary person, then let's hear what that ordinary person wants."
The leader knew the story well enough. Sima Yi and his brother had both been ordinary people once — humans that no Pokémon had ever chosen, with no natural path to becoming Trainers. The stranger walking in beside Sima Yi now looked exactly the sa way. Unremarkable. Unselected.
What the leader didn't know was that Roy was anything but ordinary beneath the surface.
Roy carried the power of Aura — the sa force that ran through Lucario's veins. More than that, as Lucario had grown and its Aura had deepened, Roy had changed alongside it, as its Trainer and partner. The connection between them had quietly shifted sothing in Roy's own body, pushing him from an ordinary human into sothing closer to a person with a natural psychic sensitivity — not quite the sa as a true Psychic-type ability, but a rare and different kind of inner force all the sa.
Roy stepped through the cave entrance and into the space beyond.
It was nothing like the dark, rocky tunnel it appeared to be from outside. The mont he crossed through, the interior opened up into a wide, well-lit area — almost as bright as an ordinary afternoon. Small structures dotted the space within, each one built with a clean, modern look that carried a distinct sense of advanced technology. The cave was rely a front. What lay behind it was sothing else entirely.
Roy took it in quietly and kept walking.
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