Lorelei

Several blinding lights shone on Heiduo's face.

The slight burning sensation made Heiduo open his eyes.

Sitting before him were a blue-haired Jenny and an ordinary-looking male police officer.

Officer Jenny?

One of the two most extraordinary kinds of humans in the Pokémon world. He had not expected their first meeting to be in a place like this.

He looked around and found himself seated in an extremely narrow metal chair, his clothes changed into a black-and-white striped shirt and trousers. The walls around him were dazzlingly white. Aside from Jenny and the officer, there was a massive opaque glass wall and a wooden door in front of him.

"Name!"

Jenny held a ballpoint pen in her hand, constantly twirling it.

Heiduo knew it was a psychological tactic. By drawing the subject's attention, it encouraged them to unconsciously blurt out an answer.

And there were the two lamps above his head. The harsh light would wear down his mind and exhaust him.

He understood all of that, but he had no way to counter it.

"Heiduo," Heiduo answered weakly.

Jenny glanced up at him and continued, "Gender!"

"Male."

"Place of origin!"

"I don't know."

"...Place of origin!"

"I don't know."

Smack!

Jenny slammed her hand down on the table and snarled, "Confess and be treated leniently! Resist and be punished severely!"

"I really don't know. I have amnesia. I have no memories of my past at all! I only know what happened in the last five days!" Heiduo answered innocently. If the Jenny across from him truly knew criminal psychology, she should be able to tell he was not lying.

Sure enough, Jenny froze slightly and turned to look at the officer beside her.

The officer held a black tablet, with a red-and-white Poké Ball printed on its back.

His finger swiped lightly across it, and he nodded at Jenny.

"His previous medical examination confirmed damage to the memory centers in his brain!"

Heiduo was stunned. He really did have missing memories? But after thinking it over, he realized that his failure to inherit the original owner's memories was most likely related to that wound.

"This..." Jenny looked troubled. How was she supposed to continue the interrogation? Yet the next second, her expression returned to normal.

"Tell us what you know," Jenny said coldly as she looked at Heiduo.

Heiduo opened his mouth. What was he supposed to say? He was just a rookie; he still had a long, long way to go before he could reach Team Rocket's core secrets.

"Team Rocket has an internal trading website." Heiduo looked up at Jenny. Seeing that she did not stop him, he continued, "It handles a great variety of trades, including Pokémon, items, all kinds of rare and precious materials, and electronic equipment with broad applications.

"The most popular ones—"

Before he could finish, the wooden door opened.

A female officer handed several sheets of paper to the male officer.

The officer gave them a cursory look, then leaned close to Jenny's ear and whispered something.

Jenny frowned, took the papers, and quickly scanned them.

Heiduo shut his mouth. Jenny clearly had no interest in listening to him anymore, so why waste his breath?

"Don't stop!"

The male officer sternly tapped the table, only to be stopped by Jenny raising a hand.

Jenny put down the papers and looked up, her gaze somewhat complicated.

"Heiduo, male, fourteen years old, from Michina in the Sinnoh region. Father: Hei Zhe. Mother: Bai Kui." Jenny spoke each word distinctly before asking Heiduo, "Am I right?"

Those names... He did not even have the strength to complain.

Heiduo honestly shook his head. "I don't remember them."

"It doesn't matter if you don't remember. Someone will help you remember." Jenny began gathering the things on the table, leaving only those sheets of paper behind. Then she stood up and tugged on the male officer's clothes.

The two opened the wooden door and walked out.

Heiduo was left alone in the interrogation room. He stared blankly at the pitch-black glass, which seemed as though it let him see outside, yet also seemed to show only his own reflection.

Only when you sat in an interrogation chair did you understand how uncomfortable it was. Heiduo could not even scratch his butt when it itched.

How was his Ekans doing? Would it be released into the wild?

And Elekid, and that Pokémon he had just bought... The books! Right, the books! He had not even finished half of them. It would be such a shame if they were simply disposed of.

He had not expected to end up in a police station in the Pokémon world. It felt a little too real.

The protagonists in those fanfics had ridiculously good luck, didn't they? They could actually survive and grow stronger under the Pokémon League's nose.

Or was his luck just too terrible, dropping him into a world where the Pokémon League was unbelievably powerful?

Just as he was feeling completely listless, even imagining how many days he would be detained and whether food in Pokémon detention centers cost money—

The wooden door opened.

A red-haired woman with a short ponytail walked in and shut the door behind her.

She sat down in the chair.

Honestly, without any Pokémon by her side, Heiduo had no way of knowing who she was.

Could she be one of the Pokémon League's higher-ups?

The red-haired woman carried the aura of someone in authority. Every movement reflected her lofty status and powerful confidence. She said, "Heiduo?"

Heiduo nodded.

"I never expected to meet you here." The red-haired woman smiled faintly. Though she wore glasses, her bright eyes had not lost any of their luster because of them. On the contrary, when she smiled, her eyes resembled a pair of stars.

The last person like that had been an actress named Shuangye. At barely twelve or thirteen, she had played Heiduo like a fiddle while also pinning down Heiduo, who possessed seven points of strength, leaving him utterly unable to resist.

So women were all natural actors. The smarter the woman, the better her acting.

Having suffered once, he could not let himself suffer a second time.

Heiduo slowly said, "You seem to know me?"

From the red-haired woman's tone, she seemed extremely familiar with Heiduo.

"Of course! I've seen you, and you've seen me. But unfortunately, it seems you've forgotten me." The red-haired woman's expression did not change at all as she said this. Her lips claimed regret, but she was not regretful in the slightest.

The red-haired woman stood and walked over to Heiduo, leaning her backside against the table.

She said, "Let me introduce myself again. My name is Lorelei. I suppose I'm your parents'... friend?"

Lorelei!

Heiduo stared wide-eyed. He might forget any Pokémon character with few appearances, but Lorelei? He would never forget her.

One of the Indigo Plateau Elite Four, Lorelei of Ice!

The spokesperson for frost, a powerful woman feared and admired by countless Pokémon Trainers!

Whether in the anime, manga, or fanworks.

No female Elite Four member had ever received such detailed characterization and such a high appearance rate as Lorelei.

"You don't seem to have forgotten me? Or... did you see records about me in Team Rocket?" Lorelei watched Heiduo's expression and frowned slightly. "Can you tell me how they evaluated me?"

Uh.

Heiduo was speechless. He had no idea how to explain it, since all his impressions of Lorelei came from Earth.

Seeing the troubled look on Heiduo's face, Lorelei imagined all sorts of inappropriate words. She waved a hand and said, "Just kidding. Business first."

"Tell me, why did you join Team Rocket?"

Lorelei narrowed her eyes.

Heiduo suddenly felt a chill run down his spine, followed by uncontrollable goosebumps.

Why had the air gotten colder?

Heiduo tried to speak, only to find his scalp tingling and his heart pounding in panic.

"I... I... so—"

Heiduo took a deep breath and forced himself to calm down. In that state, he could not even form a complete sentence.

A trace of something unusual flashed across Lorelei's face and vanished in an instant.

"What if I said I had no idea why I joined Team Rocket? By the time I had memories, I was already a Team Rocket grunt—would you believe me?" Heiduo looked quite serious. It was indeed the truth. When he realized he had transmigrated, he was already inside Team Rocket's Special Training Camp.

"Oh?" Lorelei neither confirmed nor denied it, then asked, "Then why didn't you escape from that place? If you didn't want to join Team Rocket, you should have tried every possible way to flee."

"Then why are there records of Captain Lan Hui transferring trading points to you, as well as records of you buying Pokémon? And this was after that captain explained the situation to all of you." Lorelei tossed a sheet of paper in front of Kurozawa. It detailed Heiduo's search records and his exchanges with the seller.

Heiduo shuddered. The Pokémon League was so powerful! It could even obtain something like this!

"Then... what if I said I wanted to use Team Rocket as a stepping stone, gain a certain amount of growth from it, and then escape? Would you believe me?" Heiduo asked in return. The ultimate art of speech was mixing truth with lies, lies with truth. Never speak absolute truth, but never speak complete lies either.

Lorelei stared at Heiduo's face without saying a word.

After a long while, just as Heiduo awkwardly looked away, Lorelei smiled. "Whether I believe you or not, the problem now lies with you!"

"Hm?"

"You probably don't know the Pokémon League's laws, do you? After all, you've lost most of your memories." Lorelei flipped through the papers in her hand, pulled one out at last, and placed it before Heiduo.

"According to Article 5, Clause 13 of the Pokémon Protection Act: the following Pokémon may not be freely exchanged or bought and sold, such as Dratini, Kangaskhan... Offenders shall receive criminal detention of no less than five years and no more than life imprisonment, depending on the severity of the circumstances."

Lorelei smiled. With every word she spoke, Heiduo's heart sank another notch.

He had never imagined that buying and selling Pokémon could be such a serious matter. Wasn't the law too harsh?

"In your case, you'll be sentenced to at least seven years. Didn't expect that, did you?"

The Ice Queen's face was full of mischievous delight, as if seeing Heiduo's ugly expression made her happy.

Heiduo lowered his head in thought. He had wanted to raise a hand, but gave up after realizing he could barely move.

"...I didn't expect it. I know nothing about the law."

Honestly, he had never had that much time to learn about such nonsense as laws. Though he had been born into a society governed by law and had been a law-abiding citizen in his previous life, seven years for buying and selling Pokémon was still unbelievable to him.

Lorelei smiled broadly. "Ignorance is no excuse before the law. If you intend to claim legal ignorance to escape punishment, I advise you to give up."