Pokémon Detective Case Files.

"Dragon Claw!"

Having been mentally prepared, Cynthia was not surprised at all when she lost the initiative and calmly had Garchomp use its skills to defend itself.

It must be said that Da Ye's position as Elite Four member was not given away for nothing. Infernape's close-combat skills are extremely solid. Even the Fighting-type Gym Leader, Ari, of Veilstone City has a Pokémon whose Fighting ability is far inferior to this Infernape.

Even more worrying is that Infernape's offensive momentum is steadily increasing.

"This 'close-quarters combat' combines 'enhanced punch' and 'energy gathering' techniques. Although I've used this move countless times in the selection trials, facing it personally is still quite stressful."

Watching Garchomp's "Dragon Claw" gradually go from dominating Infernape to almost falling behind, Cynthia couldn't help but feel a little emotional.

Although Infernape maintained its fierce "close-range" offensive, it had not yet revealed any weaknesses. She could only let Garchomp continue its defensive stance and wait for its opponent's defensive status to decline.

Anyway, the outcome is already decided. Judging from Big Leaf's performance in the elimination rounds, Garchomp can easily hold out until Infernape is exhausted.

Tick, tick, tick.

"Close combat," "Dragon Claw," "Close combat," "Dragon Claw," "Close combat"... Attacks and blocks are performed alternately with a certain rhythm.

Time ticked by, and the exchange of blows between the two sides reached an extremely dangerous point. A single misstep could result in mutual destruction. Defense and health became meaningless in this duel; it all came down to who could hold out the longest and land the first skill's damage on their opponent!

The battle was in full swing, but at this moment, the Bug-type Elite Four member, Aru, suddenly jumped up in the viewing room, drawing the attention of Satoru Kikuno and the others—

"It's a metronome! Infernape is carrying a metronome! Elite Four member used my tactic!"

Ah Liu seemed both indignant and relieved, and loudly proclaimed this.

Metronome: When a Pokémon holding this item uses the same move repeatedly, the move's power increases by 20% each time it's used. After using the same move 6 times, the power will double—it's an unassuming item with an extremely high potential!

This is enough to reverse the power imbalance between the two elves!

Even A-Liu, who was watching from afar, could see Da-Ye's intentions. How could Zhu-Lan, who was in the eye of the storm of battle, not see them?

As Infernape's attacks became increasingly outrageous, Cynthia heard a ticking sound hidden in the arena, and without hesitation, she gave the order—

"Garuda, retreat and ascend into the air!"

The Infernape's attack must be stopped!

"Infernape, leap up and chase after it! Use 'Close Combat' for the fifth time!"

"Soar into the sky!"

"It's no use, Infernape has already caught you!"

Big Leaf's eyes widened; his bloodshot, crimson eyes already foresaw the fate of his defeating Garchomp. Infernape's deep blue claws were almost gripping Garchomp's hind legs.

A previously unattainable wish is about to come true!

Zhu Lan sighed deeply; the moment had finally arrived.

"A boxer's power primarily comes from the ground. Only with the support of a solid ground can a fighter's combat strength be fully unleashed. Only when the ground provides a reaction force can a punch have power, and only then can a whip kick and knee strike cause maximum damage—I, who have trained Lucario, know this all too well, and right now, your Infernape is high in the sky."

"Whether it's smashing the terrain, raking through the earth, or leaping into the air, my goal has never changed—to lure your Infernape into jumping into the air! Right now, you're stuck between rocks and ravines, and Garchomp is dominating you from above. So, no matter how much your Infernape's power is boosted by its stacked status effects, it's no match for Garchomp right now..."

"Da Ye, you are ultimately a Fire-type Champion, not a Fighting-type Champion. That's why you lost!"

In mid-air, Infernape suddenly pulled Garchomp's hind leg, but for some reason, it flipped Garchomp's entire body over.

Next, Infernape saw an incredibly ferocious dragon face, with golden cross patterns that looked like it was aiming at itself, and two bright red dragon eyes, as if stained with blood.

"Garuda, 'Outrage'."

Dragons have scales that cannot be touched; if touched, they will be enraged, and those who offend them will surely die.

"Close Combat" and "Reverse Scale" were activated simultaneously, with the light of fists and the roar of dragons complementing each other, but the momentum of one side grew weaker and weaker, like a dream bubble quietly disappearing in a vacuum.

Finally, the two figures in the air fell back to the ground. One Pokémon stood still, while the other rolled away and landed in the distance.

"Cough, cough, cough."

With a wave of his hand, the referee cleared the dust and fog in front of him, and the battle was immediately apparent. Without needing further confirmation, he simply raised the small red flag.

"Infernape is unable to battle, and Elite Four member has used up all his Pokémon. Cynthia wins 2-6, retaining her Sinnoh Champion title for the eleventh time!"

Applause, cheers, shouts, flowers, symphonies, podiums... countless things representing joy and glory emerged at once, and the Sinnoh League's arena instantly turned into a sea of ​​jubilation.

.

Hugo was still looking at his phone, wanting to see Da Ye's pained expression, when a text message suddenly popped up on the screen.

Perhaps due to the time difference in the broadcast, the champion, who was smiling gently on the podium, sent Hugo a text message—or perhaps Zhu Lan on the podium was secretly sending the message with her hand behind her back.

"You owe me one?" Bilan glanced at the text message and became puzzled.

The detective couldn't help but shudder. He was going to be running errands for his sister again, and he wondered what kind of trouble he would run into.

Chapter 135 The Black Sheep in the Power Plant

Guitarist Lu rambled on for a long time about the history of Liyong Power Plant's rise to power, leaving everyone backstage speechless.

It wasn't the lengthy narrative that was boring, but rather the fact that the power plant, which the former breeding consultant had so enthusiastically praised, was now gone with an explosion.

He built skyscrapers, hosted lavish banquets, and enjoyed boundless glory, but it was all just a fleeting moment of brilliance. Director William's ambition to reform the energy industry had only just begun when it vanished in a sudden disaster.

"Sorry, Lu has always been a long-winded person with rather extreme views. That's why we've always had her write the lyrics for our band."

The bald drummer, Cook, was surprisingly good-natured, breaking the dull atmosphere with his witty remarks.

“It’s nothing.” Hugo waved his hand and continued to press the guitarist, “During your time working at the Liyong Power Plant, did you notice anything strange? I mean, any signs of a serious incident?”

"Strange thing?" The guitarist shook his long brown hair. "I left the company a year ago, how could I possibly know the signs before the explosion? You'd be better off asking Telt about this."

"No, I'm referring to serious incidents, not explosions. Have there been any disputes or conflicts within the factory?"

Amidst the astonished gazes of the crowd, the detective continued to explain, "Liyong Power Plant is an outlier in the industry, and it inevitably faces both overt and covert attacks from its competitors, as well as internal conflicts. Miss Lu was in the factory at the time, so she must have heard some unusual rumors, right?"

Seemingly because the memory was quite distant, the guitarist pondered for a while before finally speaking—

"Perhaps because of the different work fields, I didn't feel much industry competition from outside the factory at the time. However, there were indeed some dissenting voices among the employees of the power plant."

"There really is one." Martin, the keyboardist who looked like a student, was surprised and looked at the calm detective in front of him with some admiration.

"Please be sure to explain in detail." Hugo opened his notebook containing case information once again, clearly intrigued by the scent of a crucial clue.

“The employees at Liyong Power Plant are generally very united. But if I had to name an outlier, I do remember one such person,” Lu said slowly and carefully, choosing his words carefully.

"She was an electrical engineer. The woman strongly opposed William's construction of the bio-power generation module in the factory, claiming that inducing Pokémon to generate electricity for humans was tantamount to abusing these Pokémon. At the time, we thought this engineer might be a troublemaker sent by another factory, but now it seems that she probably shares a similar stance with Team Plasma, who have been making a lot of noise lately."

"Do you remember this lady's name?" Hugo asked, holding a pencil.

"I'm sorry, I don't remember." Lu replied earnestly, looking ashamed. "During the last period of my time working at the factory, I had completely shifted my focus to the band. I had heard a little about what was going on inside the factory, but I didn't inquire further."

"It's alright, the information you provided is already very valuable," the detective considerately reassured them, then steered the conversation back to the electrical engineer's ideas—

"She advocated for the rights of Pokémon, believing that they should live freely without human control. That lady must have held that view at the time, right?"

“Yes, yes, that was her slogan back then.” The guitarist nodded quickly and added a few more words—

"However, unlike Team Plasma's atrocities of forcing people to release Pokémon, that person only objected to forcing Pokémon to work, saying that it would cause harm and violate some kind of morality. But that is actually unreasonable. We humans still have to work to make a living, so why can't Pokémon be incorporated into the factory system? You know, there are plenty of Pokémon working with humans outside of power plants."

"Yes, the engineer was indeed a bit unconventional at the time, so it's understandable that she was seen as an oddball."

Hugo jotted down two more notes in his notebook, but immediately asked—

"However, these views don't seem to be considered extremely dangerous ideas. Just having such thoughts wouldn't cause conflict in the factory. Did this electrical engineer take any drastic action in response?"

The guitarist nodded: "That's exactly what I'm about to say. That engineer was originally in charge of the bio-power generation block, but after displaying this abnormal idea, she was immediately transferred to another department by the factory manager. But even so, she still relentlessly opposed the factory manager's expansion policy, expressed inappropriate opinions on various occasions, and sometimes even dared to barge into leadership meetings to demand the elves' right to freedom... She kept acting like this until that incident happened."

"An incident?" Drummer Cook asked, puzzled. "What kind of incident?"

At this moment, guitarist Lu suddenly gave a wry smile and scratched his long brown hair sheepishly—

"Oh dear, I can't believe I didn't think of that right away. Time really is a merciless beast that feeds on memories..."

After a moment of reflection, the musician's gaze turned sorrowful and heavy, and he said solemnly to Hugo—

“Detective Hugo, I remember now. There was a terrible accident at the Liyong Power Plant. In my opinion, it was almost a murder.”

"A murder case?"

As soon as Lu uttered those words, the air in the backstage room froze instantly. Both Cook and Martin held their breath.

The style of the Poison Gas band is, after all, punk rock rather than death metal, and the sudden appearance of such bloody words in daily life is even somewhat frightening.

In the four-person room, only Detective Hugo continued to take notes, his indistinct little words arranged in phrases on the horizontal lines, as if waiting for someone to crack a code.

"Please continue."

The detective in the white coat remained unmoved, nodding calmly and gesturing for the guitarist to continue.

"Okay." Seeing the detective's highly professional composure, the guitarist nodded and continued digging into the depths of his memory—

"That electrical engineer was always going against Manager William, and with her inexplicable ideas, she was universally hated by the entire factory staff. When the manager was not around, the staff would often argue with the engineer."

"Are there any employees who support the engineers' point of view?" the detective asked curiously.

“Not a single one.” Lu shook his head without hesitation. “Factory Manager William has a very high reputation in the factory and treats his subordinates equally. Therefore, all the employees regard that woman as a troublesome troublemaker in the factory. Even the department she was in would deliberately target this engineer who disagreed with the factory manager.”

"You didn't even remember this engineer's name? How do you know about her department?" Martin, despite his frail appearance, keenly noticed the contradiction in his companion's words and asked without thinking.

"Because that was the trigger for the incident." The guitarist sighed, then stated the somber truth—

"As the conflict and contradictions intensified, an accident finally occurred. During a heated argument, the electrical engineer accidentally shoved an ordinary employee who was speaking up for the factory manager, causing the employee to fall from a high platform and triggering a major production accident. Accidents in factories are always particularly tragic, and in this case, the ordinary employee unfortunately died."

Lu shook his head, clicked his tongue, and continued to express his thoughts—

"Don't tell me it was an accident. The employee who fell was killed by that woman, wasn't he?"

Chapter 136 The Anomaly in the Dojo Tournament

"I see, I see."

After listening to the information provided by the guitarist, Hugo nodded in satisfaction, casually tore off the page from his notebook containing the information, shredded it into a pile of extremely fine strips as if using a shredder, and then threw it into the wastebasket in the backstage room.

If someone were to examine the detective's notebook, they would see that half of the tattered, cheap little book had been torn out, leaving only a dozen or so blank pages.

"Is that an important clue? Should we take it outside and destroy it?" Cook asked cautiously, pointing to the wastebasket, noticing the detective's strange behavior.

"No need. This isn't confidential information; it's just a personal habit. It means I've clarified a certain logical relationship and no longer need to rely on text for summarization."

Hugo closed his notebook, spoke casually, and then turned back to the witness—

“Miss Guitarist, your description has given me almost a complete picture of the incident, although some details are still missing—do you know anything about what happened after the engineer caused the production accident?”

"She didn't seem to resign immediately, and this seems to have caused a bit of a stir. Many employees said that her staying at the factory was shameless." Ms. Lu seemed to have already guessed the detective's question and answered without hesitation, then shrugged and said, "I have absolutely no idea what happened after that."

“Thank you.” Hugo nodded, then turned his gaze to the other two musicians—

"Out of caution as a reader of mystery novels, let me ask you this: shouldn't the four members of your band know about each other's lives?"

Cook and Martin hesitated for a moment, glanced at each other, and then nodded.

"Since we know each other well, you should all be able to testify to each other that you have nothing to do with the accident caused by the engineer two years ago, or the explosion that happened not long ago, right? Please don't rush to answer. Think about it calmly for ten seconds before telling me. I reiterate, this is not to doubt you, it's just a routine question to be prepared. If you have any questions about your colleagues, it's better to talk about them here and now."

The detective's tone was so sincere, as if it possessed a convincing magic, that it actually made the three of them accept an unreasonable interrogation of each other.

Lu, Cook, and Martin, the three musicians, closed their eyes and began to think deeply.

Ten seconds later, the three of them said in unison—

"There is absolutely no doubt about it."

The detective in the white coat snapped his fingers, abandoning any further investigation into his alibi, and bowed deeply like a magician taking his final bow: "Thank you all for your cooperation. I won't bother you any longer..."

“Wait a minute.” Miss Lu interrupted the detective’s closing remarks rudely. “When you go out later, take the trash from the wastebasket with you. Aren’t there often plots like that in comics, where the detective’s left-behind items cause a new bloody case? I don’t want to become a new victim of a case because of my past work experience.”

The drummer and keyboardist listened and nodded repeatedly in admiration, saying that Miss Lu was indeed meticulous in her work, and that their carelessness had almost caused the band a lot of trouble.

Even seasoned detectives were taken aback by these words, and couldn't help but smile wryly—was the detective profession really that badly regarded among young people? Almost as bad as Absol…

.

When Hugo, completely unladylike, left the backstage area carrying a trash bag and arrived at the gym battle area, he witnessed an utterly absurd scene.

An even more unrefined person appeared before him—

Homiga, the Poison-type Gym Leader, sat on the floor like a duck, her white hair disheveled and tears welling in her eyes. Six Poké Balls were scattered around her, and even her Electric Bess was thrown to the ground some distance away. She looked completely defeated.

Meanwhile, the assistant, Azure, who had been left behind earlier, was now awkwardly standing on the other side of the battlefield, holding Eevee in her arms and with an Archaeopteryx on her head.

Beside her, the massive Blastoise stood as steady as a mountain; two mischievous Gengars were making faces at each other, one of them undoubtedly being a Ditto; Clefairy, standing next to Azure, didn't make any moves, but her smug smile almost reached her eyebrows.

The assistant looks way too much like a villain... The detective couldn't help but think to himself, did they beat up the gym leader with sheer numbers?