The poachers' base was far more complicated than Ai Xing had imagined. He had never expected the Thieves to have such an elaborate hideout. From the outside, it looked like nothing more than an entrance to an underground tunnel, but beyond that entrance lay what amounted to a small maze.
Ai Xing entered the base looking utterly lost, trying to find the Thieves' local leader. With this maze-like layout, however, he had no way of locating whoever was in charge.
The Thieves' base was underground, with passages that looked as though an Onix had rolled through them. They were not particularly large, but there was enough room for a person to pass through. Precisely because the terrain was so simple, they could arrange a tightly packed little maze to keep intruders out-intruders like Ai Xing.
Ai Xing stared helplessly at the maze. He had not expected these people to be so cautious. They had even built a maze right at the entrance to guard against outsiders entering their base.
They've really given me a headache. I'm terrible at maze games, let alone a real maze like this. If I just keep wandering around, I'll waste a ton of time, and they'll be long gone by then.
It seemed Ai Xing would have to think of something.
In the end, Ai Xing did come up with a solution. Elaborate as the Thieves' maze was, it could not stop a Garchomp that knew Dig. Garchomp used Dig to leave the maze and enter the Thieves' base, bypassing their defenses with a shortcut.
That shortcut was still rather crude, though. Garchomp violently hacked through the walls ahead with its claws, easily attracting patrolling Thieves who came to stop Ai Xing.
Still, Ai Xing was a Dragon Tamer Elite Four member. Garchomp easily spotted