"Earthquake!"
Dian glanced at Eevee and Beedrill behind him, but ultimately decided not to send them after the fleeing figure... Misdreavus wasn't with him right now, after all. If this was bait...
A mere figure lurking in the shadows wasn't worth taking such a huge risk.
Besides, he didn't need to guess who they were... Who besides Team Rocket had this much time on their hands?
Still, letting them escape so easily wasn't his style.
"Eevee, Synchronoise!"
"Beedrill, Pin Missile!"
Feeling a faint tremor, Dian glanced at the completely unconscious Nidoking... It would probably need to spend ten days to half a month laid up at Nurse Joy's.
Eevee and Beedrill exchanged a glance. Then Eevee closed its eyes, sending invisible waves spreading in every direction.
Although Synchronoise could only damage Pokémon of the same type, it was actually extremely useful for locating targets.
"Vee!"
Bzz—
A red gleam flashed in Beedrill's eyes, and a dense barrage of white, needlelike spikes bombarded the suspicious area.
The figure in the darkness had known things were going wrong the moment Nidoking was utterly overwhelmed... He was just about to secretly take out a Poké Ball, recall Nidoking, and retreat.
Oh, crap!!
Out of the corner of his eye, the figure spotted several streaks of white light...
"Golem!!"
A bald, scar-faced man suddenly appeared, hoisted the figure onto his shoulder with one hand, and immediately sprinted toward a preplanned escape route.
"Hey, my Nidoking! And that Golem!"
The bald, scar-faced man glanced helplessly at the red-haired boy on his shoulder. "That's not your Nidoking. It belongs to Team Rocket!"
"You can explain this whole mess to your father yourself!"
After those two sentences, he fell silent... In truth, the scar-faced man was furious. Raising an excellent, or even powerful, Pokémon wasn't easy, even