Pokémon Detective Case Files.

Chapter 153 The Escort's Plan

"Damn it! Why is that monkey still chasing me?!"

An elderly man with gray hair and beard, wearing a beige police uniform from Liyong City, ran frantically on the street outside the police station.

Behind him, a Pokémon with flames burning on its butt followed closely.

The Pokémon was small in size, but its pursuit was incredibly swift.

From an outsider's perspective, all one could see was a bright streak of fire leaping and bounding along in a zigzag pattern, using the ground, road signs, bus stops, and trash cans along its path to accelerate. Each leap left a shallow, charred mark.

But in the terrified look in the eyes of the old man being chased, the approaching flame behind him seemed like a demonic claw from the abyss.

The unsuspecting Unova citizens on the street might not recognize the species of that Pokémon, but the old man was different. He had been a professor at a top university in the Sinnoh region, teaching public relations, a subject that had nothing to do with Pokémon. However, he was very familiar with Chimchar, one of the beginner Pokémon in Sinnoh.

What's scary isn't the breed of this little fire monkey, but what it's about to do!

Although the old man was wearing a police uniform, he dared not call for help or turn around to fight back. He could only continue running with his frail human body.

Why would someone nearing sixty years old desperately flee through the streets? Why must he be forced to run away in such a pathetic state in front of this incredibly weak monkey? Where exactly did Quixote's near-perfect plan go wrong?

Smura, one of the seven sages of the Plasma Group and in charge of promoting the group's ideology, couldn't help but ask himself these questions.

Amidst his heavy breathing and rapid heartbeat, images from the past sixty years flashed before his eyes—

Among them were the pride and joy he felt when he worked hard to obtain his degree; the resentment and indignation he felt when his peers ostracized and surpassed him in the field of research; and the passionate swearing-in ceremony he made with six other like-minded scholars in a café in Raven City... But what remained deep in his memory was the tremor he felt from the depths of his soul when he looked up at the sky during the king's coronation ceremony not long ago.

From that moment on, he truly regarded the Plasma Group, the organization he had helped create from the very beginning, as his lifelong faith.

Having witnessed the great glory of the chosen heroes and heard the call of distant gods, the rules of the mortal world have long become irrelevant.

If it were the university professor named Smura from the past, he would never have gotten involved in such a conspiracy. But Smura, the sage of the Plasma Group, could calmly taint his hands with corruption.

If no one ventures into the mire, how can people reach their ideal destination?

This whole thing started with N's departure—

A monarch traveling incognito cannot be without the accompaniment of a high-ranking official, and Smura is the one among the Seven Sages chosen to secretly protect N.

But the so-called protection is not just about the physical level; more importantly, it is about maintaining the purity of Wang Sheng's ideals.

The Elven League is adept at using a facade of harmony to conceal its own filth. If N is deceived by their glamorous appearance and abandons their ideals and the Order, the consequences will be unimaginable—so declared one of the Seven Sages.

Smura himself was quite dismissive of these concerns, believing that N wouldn't abandon his beliefs simply because of a mere alliance. However, the Seven Sages were, after all, seven individuals, and the high-ranking members of the order, comprised of elites from various fields, each had their own ideas. Ultimately, Vio and Quixote joined forces to persuade all the high-ranking members to launch a secret operation called "Escort."

Much of the "escort" operation involved propaganda work within the cult, so Smura was naturally chosen as the overall head of the operation. As a veteran, he certainly wouldn't personally act as a bodyguard secretly following the group, but since it concerned the collective faith of the Plasma Team, and sometimes involved classified matters, he had to carry out the work alone and discreetly.

Smura likes to call his work "publicity." From his youth, he discovered that he had an incredibly keen insight into the social sphere, able to instantly discern what the masses liked and disliked.

He is not a psychologist, nor does he possess superpowers such as hypnosis, but he is a quick learner. The history of public relations cases is an inexhaustible treasure trove of experience. His rich experience and superb academic qualities allow him to always be one step ahead in understanding situations and to always be in a position of effortless negotiation.

Based on this ability, he can conceive a brilliant speech in an instant, remotely control the surge of collective consciousness like the King of Thorns leading the tide, discover grievances and fears where no one is paying attention, and turn uneasy emotions into flames of anger... In face-to-face conversations, he can also turn unfavorable arguments into favorable viewpoints, and plant originally unacceptable viewpoints in the minds of the audience.

But coalition officials and police seem more inclined to call his underhanded actions “incitement.”

In the 115th year of the League Calendar, the first Pokémon liberation movement march erupted in the Unova region. In Raven City, known as the "Fashion Capital," more than three thousand citizens and twenty artists spontaneously took to the streets, smashing their Poké Balls. This performance, almost a piece of performance art, shocked the entire Unova region, becoming the first wave of a new era.

In 116, a large-scale protest erupted in Fantawild City following a "Pokémon abuse incident." Through the machinations of a then-unknown organization, the protesting trainers clashed violently with the League police, resulting in the arrest of three trainers.

But the day after they were detained, an even larger protest erupted, with demonstrators nearly setting fire to the League building in Sailbridge. Under pressure, the League was forced to release the three imprisoned trainers ahead of schedule. In this incident, the cult, which had been secretly developing for many years, revealed its true colors for the first time, and the name "Team Plasma" appeared in Unova's newspapers for the first time.

To this day, nearly a hundred protests and public riots have erupted in the Unova region, all of which demonstrate Team Plasma's courage and determination to completely change the world.

While such demonstrations aroused some resentment among the United States population, they also brought a steady stream of new followers to Team Plasma. Moreover, each uprising pushed the United States Alliance one step closer to the brink of collapse.

Today, more than half of the United Federation officials have begun to yield to the power of the Order, no longer resorting to threats of violence as they did in the early years of its development, and have gradually adopted a more yielding and compromising approach to coexistence. The idea of ​​"Elf liberation" has long been deeply rooted in people's hearts and has almost become the political correctness of the United Federation's intellectual and artistic circles. Those who disagree with it are fiercely attacked by the so-called public.

—Apart from the Seven Sages, no one knew that these grand movements had a common planner: this old man with white hair and beard.

In this city of Liyong, Team Plasma had always been aware of the shady dealings at the power plant—the female engineer named Arno had attended several gatherings among the followers, and after a slip of the tongue, the news that Director William had used Pokémon to develop the factory through self-destruction had eventually led them to the round table of the Seven Sages of Team Plasma.

As N was about to embark on his journey, the seven wise men unanimously agreed that allowing the true nature of the power plant to be fully revealed by the king would have profound educational significance.

Smura's original plan was to directly expose the factory's dark secrets, allowing N, who was touring the country, to witness firsthand the greed of humanity, so that the king, who felt pity, would see the irreconcilable conflict between humans and Pokémon.

But Quigish, the original advocate of Team Plasma, N's adoptive father, and one of the Seven Sages, thought such a revelation was too gentle. He maintained his expression, which seemed to be always filled with compassion, and subtly pointed out that if things could be made irreversible, it might strengthen N's determination to change the world.

As their eyes met, Smura understood the unspoken meaning in his old friend's words and silently nodded his aged head in response...

The power plant's fate of destruction was sealed at that moment, just like the college student who died in a fire in a deep alley six months earlier.

Chapter 154 The Incredibly Easy "Publicity" Work

Although he was one of the seven sages of the Plasma Group who were revered, Smura was not a living god. Of course, he couldn't just chant some spell at the elves in the factory and make them all self-destruct.

Even if similar methods existed, N, who could hear the Pokémon's thoughts, would immediately detect it, rendering all the planned actions meaningless.

Nevertheless, this old fox knew how to subtly change the environment around his target, how to quietly amplify the emotions of those involved in the event, and how to use interests and prejudices to escalate conflicts to an irreconcilable degree—through "propaganda," he could make the final outcome of the event conform to his wishes.

Stripped of the Seven Sages' magnificent robes, lies become Smura's most powerful weapon.

The cult followers supporting him from the rear would vouch for his different identities, so Smura only needed to prepare a few different outfits to change his identity like Ditto and Zoroark and move freely in Tatewake City.

No one would have guessed that an old man who was panting while walking would be a conspirator with an imposter identity. Smura thus brazenly moved between the coffee shop, the Liyong Power Plant, and the police station. His identity was always unremarkable, but he was able to get close to his target in the shortest amount of time.

Even before N finalized the itinerary, Smura had already sneaked into Rikyu City multiple times, where he bumped into the frustrated Arno at a coffee shop. He lied and claimed to be an editor at a publishing house, offering to help her publish the Pokémon Release Guide—and in fact, he did keep his promise; printing several batches of books with Team Plasma's resources was no easy feat.

During their subtle conversation, Smura tried to reignite the engineer's resentment towards the factory manager, but without success.

This former extreme elf protector fell into despair after the accident. Although he remained active on social media, he no longer had the will to oppose William in the real power plant.

But by then, Smura had already achieved his goal.

Just before N arrived in Liyong City, Smura changed into an exceptionally formal suit and deliberately chatted with strangers in front of a meadow near the factory where wild Pokémon gathered, pretending to be a "League official." He then entered the factory under the pretense of "visiting a friend."

The so-called friend, of course, refers to Arno, who recently went to the bio-power generation zone to repair the equipment. Taking this opportunity, Smura got up close to the group of Magnemite and the Voltorb group.

To his surprise, the factory did not strictly restrict the Pokémon's freedom outside of work hours. He easily found an opportunity to spend time alone with these Pokémon. In fact, their treatment was far from bad. These exploited Pokémon did not even feel that their daily self-destruction was a chore.

However, Smurf's talent in "propaganda" also came into play when facing Pokémon—according to Arno's past leaks at Order meetings, the biggest hidden danger of spontaneous electricity is that it can blur the Pokémon's perception of the power of moves, making them numb.

Starting from this point, Smura skillfully implanted the suggestion that "demonstrations and uprisings can improve treatment" into the minds of these elves. Seeing the spherical elves nodding thoughtfully, the sage couldn't help but feel a pang of pity.

The explosion at the power plant was inevitable. As long as William continued to profit in this way, those naive elves would eventually head down the path of self-destruction. They were better off being cared for while working at the factory, but if decades later, these elves were released back into the wild due to old age and power failure, their instinctive self-destruction would kill them as well.

I simply brought the inevitable tragedy forward a little.

Smurf isn't afraid that these Pokémon will reveal their actions to N through their thoughts, because as long as their actions are carried out, these Pokémon won't have the chance to convey their thoughts.

"We should have stopped then. There was no need to take such a big risk to frame the Alliance. We really shouldn't have taken Quixes's advice..."

The old man, who fled in panic before the little Chimchar, was filled with regret.

Everything was going smoothly. When the explosion went off, Smura was even discussing the book publication with Arno in the café where they first met, unintentionally creating an alibi for the woman.

He still remembers the female engineer's expression changing several times in an instant after the news was released—first, she was shocked and expressionless, then she opened her mouth wide in relief, and finally she looked heartbroken with tears in her eyes.

Smura wanted to get more inside information from Arno, but after Arno received a phone call, he fell silent. After fidgeting for a while, he hurriedly got up to leave and never showed his face again.

Following the explosion, through reports from the trio of ninjas secretly following N, the old man learned that N had made contact with the case as planned. Those who had been following N had cleverly moved the Pokémon colony N was about to visit, creating a disappearance incident to point suspicion at the Liyong Power Plant itself—Smura remained noncommittal about this, because regardless of the truth they fabricated, the core issue would always be the irreconcilable conflict between humans and Pokémon. The tragic deaths of dozens of Pokémon should serve as a wake-up call for the inherently kind-hearted young king.

The only variable is that N is always accompanied by a young girl, but the black-haired girl doesn't seem very smart and doesn't appear to be the type of person who can see through the scheme, so there's no need to worry about her.

If Smura were to slip away at this moment, even if someone turned Liyong City upside down, no one would notice his existence.

The real mishap occurred in the subsequent actions—N, as expected, followed the Order's wishes and began to doubt the League, but the Seven Sages seemed to have underestimated their king's determination and ability to act. He actually planned to gather wild Pokémon to attack the city!

Just as Smura was debating whether to stand idly by, Quidditch called, ordering him to make sure that this march, personally led by N, was a catastrophe worthy of being remembered in the history of the United States.

"If we make a big fuss, the information loopholes left behind might be exposed, right?" Smura subconsciously questioned. He didn't doubt his own "propaganda" abilities, but if the plan were changed in this way, the cleanup work would undoubtedly become very troublesome.

Given the current rampant activities of the Plasma Group, a mere raid on a police station wouldn't attract much attention, as the Order's spies within the Alliance could even help cover it up.

However, if the march expands to the scale demanded by Quetzalcoatl, the Li Yong Police Station may simply give up resistance and allow or even assist N in investigating the truth of the bombing. If the only conclusion found is a flimsy suicide, the march will turn into a complete farce—which will damage the reputation of the King and even the entire Order!

Quixote's response was—

"In this world, truth and lies are actually ambiguous. You only need to provide more than one possibility, and the majority of the people will choose their own truth based on their preferences. Smura, as the head of ideological promotion among us Seven Sages, you can't possibly not understand such a simple principle, can you?"

The cryptic language hints at a simple fact: a trick used by all clever criminals—perjury.

Perhaps because the operation to orchestrate the factory explosion went too smoothly, after realizing his old friend's scheme, Smura agreed to the plan without much hesitation.

Just like all the actions planned by this old man, these seemingly impossible large-scale actions were actually surprisingly easy to carry out—an unprecedented march only required two things: scale and name, and therefore only two things to do.

The Dark Trinity, who had been waiting around N, began to act separately in order to escalate the situation. They gathered Pokémon that were hostile to humans scattered throughout the city and stockpiled them, planning to release them all when N led the industrial zone's Pokémon into the city. This task could not be left to ordinary followers, because if they did, N might be able to learn the mastermind behind the event through telepathy. Only the three ninjas could do it without leaving a trace.

He himself would need to put on a police uniform, pretend to be a retired police officer from out of town, casually pass by the evidence office in the Li Yong Police Station, and slip a forged investigation report into it.

Stealing a piece of evidence from the police station is incredibly difficult, but stuffing a new one in is as easy as pie.

—That's what Smurf originally thought before meeting Chimchar and Piplup.

Chapter 155 Hugo's Little Ones

At the Liyong City Police Department, surrounded by his trainers and police officers, Bogaman gestured as he reported what he had discovered.

The detective's Pokémon skills were disastrously poor, but he taught them a lot of tricks and techniques. Through agreed-upon hand signals and reasoning, he quickly grasped the current situation.

Earlier, Hugo devised a plan to use himself as a scarecrow to attract the attention of the police leadership, allowing the two elves to operate covertly within the police station. However, the real purpose was to get the latter to investigate the evidence storage room and preemptively retrieve the false evidence placed by the mastermind.

At this point, Chimchar and Piplup have clearly exceeded expectations. They not only successfully found the evidence file, but they even bumped into the mastermind himself at the police station! Even now, Chimchar is still chasing the mastermind all over the streets!

"It feels like in your mouths, the mastermind has become a creature like the 'Tantan Mouse' that's everywhere..." Officer Jenny couldn't help but complain.

In fact, the detective's deductions about the mastermind behind the incident were not unfounded. The Liyong Power Plant explosion involved far too many inexplicable coincidences, making it difficult to believe it was merely a simple accident.

If your room is crammed with a giant Snorlax, then the first thing you'll suspect when you see broken bottles and jars on the floor is that enormous creature.

Naturally, Hugo set his sights on Team Plasma, the most rampant evil organization in the Unova region.

Why would an Electric-type Pokémon, which has followed the rules for many years, suddenly rebel and demonstrate?

Why was Arnault not at the factory when the explosion occurred?

Why would an elf happen to witness Alliance officials entering and leaving the factory?

And why did all of this have to happen at this particular time?

It just so happened that N was passing through Liyong City on his travels.

Behind every coincidence lies a certain inevitability, and if this inevitability is linked to plasma clusters, everything makes sense.

Only plasma clusters can profit from chaos. Or rather, their goal is chaos itself!

It's exactly the same scheme as back in Flying Cloud City, the same trick that caused the chaos at the Pokémon exchange...

Looking back now, that duel in the wilderness was also very strange—since N is now the king of Team Plasma, there must be someone secretly protecting him. But in the battle in the abandoned industrial wasteland, N was easily knocked unconscious and dragged away by Azure and Touko, which is definitely not normal.

The members of Team Plasma could not stand by and watch their spiritual leader be defeated, much less tolerate him being dragged away like cargo by two little girls.

Generally speaking, those henchmen would suddenly appear when N is in trouble, throw two smoke grenades on the ground, and then disappear with their king—that's how the plot should develop to be considered normal.

Hugo and Azur Lane split up their operations primarily to prevent such a standard scenario from unfolding. In that case, a fierce battle would be inevitable, and it would be best for a detective whose mere presence would hinder Pokémon performance to stay away from the battlefield…

However, the plot did not unfold as Hugo had predicted, and the green-haired youth's subjects never appeared.

The detective didn't believe that Team Plasma, who wielded immense power in Unova, would make such a lapse in judgment. He guessed that his subordinates were probably on a more important mission. Having witnessed N gather a large horde of wild elves, the subordinates felt there was no immediate need to worry about the safety of their target, so they temporarily set aside their security duties and began to act independently.

What would be the more important task?

Hugo shifted his perspective and began to consider the issue from the enemy's point of view. He quickly reached the same conclusion as Smura—assuming the protest was about to break out, the Plasma Group's supporters could only support their leader in two ways: scale and motive.

Hugo had no idea where the Plasma Group would be or what kind of mischief they might be up to in the city, and as an outsider detective, he was powerless to stop the villains' actions.

But he was on his way to the police station to verify his suspicions. If someone really intended to plant false evidence in the police station, he could conveniently solve the problem of false evidence at the same time.

.

The two generals who will carry out the infiltration and search mission are Piplup and Chimchar.

Of Hugo's three Pokémon, Turtwig is the most careful and steady. Although it is still in its small, baby stage, its personality is already close to that of its final evolution, Torterra.

After learning various reasoning skills from the detective, it gradually developed into the type of armchair detective, becoming more and more leisurely and staying in the office as much as possible without going out, which is why it always stays at the Feather Residence.

The Grass-like Tortoise's favorite thing to do is to reread the case information collected by Hugo. If it finds anything unusual, it excitedly approaches the detective, shaking its vines and waiting for a reward. Hugo's atlas containing information about Team Plasma contains much of the information the Grass-like Tortoise gleaned from between the lines of newspaper files.

The little fire monkey's personality is most similar to Hugo's. However, besides the fun of solving puzzles, it actually enjoys the thrill of intellectual games even more.

Perhaps because of its size being similar to that of humans, the little chimpanzee always enthusiastically roams through all sorts of accident scenes. Whether it's infiltrating to collect evidence, participating in reasoning, or assisting in investigations, it always executes the detective's orders like a perfect all-rounder.

It can patiently spend an entire day staking out and taking the necessary photos for the detective; or, when a murder occurs, it can examine every clue at the scene, such as footprints, bloodstains, hair, wounds on the body, lividity, and personal belongings, to deduce the true nature of the case.