Chapter 92. A Family Man

"Now, Darren. While my Pokémon tear this place apart, why don’t you tell me about your backers?" Alex said, now sitting behind Darren’s desk, facing the unarmed man across it as explosions echoed from downstairs.

"Like I said earlier, if you know, then you’re supposed to know. Trust me when I say, it’s for your own good."

"Fine. I can drop it. It’s not like I’m intentionally targeting them anyway. I just run into you guys more often than not," Alex replied, disinterested. A brief silence followed, broken when Darren spoke.

"You knew about the cops, didn’t you?" he asked.

Not only did Alex know about the cops, but he also knew that facing Darren in a battle would end in defeat. Darren was a proper trainer with powerful Pokémon, ranked just below Champion level. He would have steamrolled Alex’s team.

Alex’s best bet was to confront Darren and use his gun against him in the dark. Doing so meant throwing away every safety net he had—just for a single shot at winning.

It was a risky gamble, but it paid off.

Plus, the odds were in Alex’s favor. There’s a certain brutal romance to killing a man with a point-blank shot to the head—executioner style, as he kneels before them. Alex figured he could just grab the gun right at that moment, if he could.

"Yup. One of them has a personal grudge against me and would dedicate his entire life to killing me. Of course, he can’t do it himself—he’s a cop, after all. But he can work with guys like you, who would hire him in a heartbeat," Alex explained.

"He doesn’t know that, of course. If he did, he’d lose motivation."

"Haaa," Darren sighed wearily.

"So," Alex continued, "anything here you want to keep away from the cops or the League?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well, once the police get wind of what happened here, they’ll probably stroll in like they own the place. They did the same with Don, and they’ll do it again. So, anything you’d prefer I take care of personally rather than let fall into their hands?"

"There’s a safe behind the picture. Code 1142. There’s some cash in there and my private transactions. It’d be great if you could get rid of it. I don’t want them getting their hands on it."

‘Good. Bonus income,’ Alex thought.

"You do know they’ll just read it off your mind, right?"

"We have psychic implants that lobotomize us if our memories are accessed."

"Is that why the League hasn’t taken you guys down yet?"

"It’s also why they don’t mess with Argent Solutions, even though they know it’s owned by our backers."

"Wow, that’s terrifying. So that’s the real reason you won’t tell me their name."

"That, and it’s useless to know. You won’t find them anyway."

"True. Besides, they’re easy enough to identify. Just find the nearest human supremacist and shake them a little," Alex said as he unlocked the safe.

Inside was some petty cash, inventory records, land deeds, bank transfers to shell companies, sources for their raw materials, and several transactions linked to an Amelia and Amy Holt.

"Wife and daughter?" Alex asked.

"Yeah. I don’t want them to lose everything because of my mistakes."

"Why did you join them, by the way? You seem like a decent guy."

"I used to have a son too—until I lost him in a Pokémon flood."

"Ah, that’d do it. I lost my parents as well."

"Then you should understand why I do what I do."

"I understand that it’s stupid. So what if a Pokémon killed your son? You want to kill all Pokémon now? What would you do if I killed your daughter? Wipe out all humans?"

Darren’s aura suddenly spiked, crackling with potent electricity and unmistakable fury. Alex shrugged it off, then casually tossed the transfer record of Holt’s wife and daughter to the floor and blasted it with a Thunderbolt, disintegrating it.

“Point is, it’s stupid to blame anything other than those with actual ill intent. Just eat the Pokémon that killed your son and find a way to forgive yourself. Don’t drag anyone else into your self-hatred. You already lost a son. Now you’ll lose your wife and daughter.”

“The League could have prevented everything!” Darren shouted.

“Not unless you want to piss off Arceus,” Alex replied. “Face it—Pokémon are a force of nature. They own this world whether we like it or not. And honestly, it’s nice having them around, threats and all. The alternative’s just as bad. Humans won’t stop dying if there aren’t any Pokémon. They’d just kill each other instead.”

Darren sat in silence, fuming, as Alex gave up trying to convince him. People like Darren carried more hate than they knew what to do with—because they’d lost someone they should’ve protected. Worse, they couldn’t find anyone to properly blame and get revenge on.

“Anything else? Maybe a cache of weapons or a room full of cash?” Alex asked casually.

“In the office building you raided last month. There’s a cache hidden in the loading dock,” Darren said, finally meeting Alex’s eyes. “Take it as thanks for protecting my family.”

‘Another bonus. Nice,’ Alex thought.

As the explosions and echoing cries around the building began to die down, Alex stood and asked one last question before taking charge of the cleanup.

“Why the eyeshadow? It looks very emo,” he asked, genuinely curious.

“Electric-type Pokémon create blinding flashes when they battle. I wear it to reduce the glare.”

“Ah. Makes sense.” Alex nodded. “Alright then. Just sit tight while I clean up the place.”

Alex cleaned up the entire building with his Pokémon by evening, then called the cops to come in, stating that he’d be submitting Darren along with everyone else who had a bounty.

Once the cops arrived, Alex submitted video evidence recorded by Rotom during the raid before leaving in a hurry.

He needed to empty the cache before the League could send their own people to sweep the property.

The cache contained more guns, money, bullets, and other gear than Alex knew what to do with. He basically had enough equipment to heavily arm a hundred men.

In the end, he decided to hand over everything—except the money, bullets, and grenades—to Jenny at the mansion before heading home. She might find a use for all that top-of-the-line equipment.

The bounty, however, wasn’t nearly as significant as the money he’d found in the cache. In total, he made seven million from the bounties of everyone there. Even the previous bounty had been worth more than Darren and his crew.

Darren may have been a greater threat than Don, but he had caused less trouble. That meant the League wouldn’t bankrupt themselves over one Darren—unlike Don, who had caused significant economic damage across three regions.

With this financial windfall, Alex now had over 50 million Pokédollars—and within the next two weeks, he’d have even more once the first batch of harvests was ready.

When Alex made it back home, he ended up calling the police again—to retrieve the assault team that had attacked his farm while he was away. Or at least, what was left of them.

Morpeko had done a real number on the intruders. Many were missing chunks of flesh from their necks and limbs. Not many had survived.

Alex liked it this way; it made one thing clear—the farm was a death trap, and attacking it would be a fatal mistake. Hopefully, people will take the hint.

Alex checked in on Lyra and found that, while she was mostly fine with the deaths, she had clearly taken some time to calm down after being visibly shaken by the carnage.

She’d taken the job thinking she would only have to defend the farm against wild Pokémon—completely forgetting about Alex’s line of work.

The battle had been a wake-up call for her to start taking the job seriously—otherwise, she might end up dead from a stronger assault on the farm.

Lyra wasn’t the only one who got a wake-up call. The other girls now had firsthand experience with what Alex actually did for a living—and it terrified them a little.

That is, until Maris shared the farm’s updated budget and their significantly healthier bank accounts. Suddenly, they didn’t mind quite as much, as long as he kept the battles away from the farm.

Over the next two weeks, Alex checked in on the progress of the berry trees and the hydroponic farm and found it satisfactory.

The only real problem was the lack of manpower and the heavy reliance on Elara—without her, the entire hydroponics system would collapse. So, Alex had Elara write up a user manual for the tech, while he bought some supporting Pokémon to help Kaia manage the berry trees.

Thanks to the increased budget, he went a little overboard and picked up a few extras.

He assigned a Grimer to the septic tanks and a pair of Goomy and Dewpider to handle algae and mineral deposit cleanup in the hydroponic farms, keeping everything clean and sterilized—all of them acquired from the local sewage facility.

A pair of highly trained Minccino, evolved into Cinccino, were assigned to clean the houses and mansion, acquired from a breeder specializing in training house-cleaning Pokémon.

He also picked up a pair of Skiddo to help Kaia with harvesting and maintenance, along with a Vespiquen and a pair of male Combee to assist with pollination and honey production. All sourced from the neighboring farms who were happy to sell them as an apology for setting up the wall.

Overall, the place was truly starting to look more and more like a real Pokémon farm.

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