Giovanni.
The name rippled through the group with an edge of panic that no one tried to hide. Giovanni had only surfaced a few months ago, and yet every person present knew exactly who he was.
He was the one responsible for the Qi Family's downfall. One of the key figures behind the shipwreck incident. The International Pokémon Association had raised his threat classification several times over in quick succession, placing him above Huxley, the leader of the Dawn Society, on their priority list.
A fearsome battle record. A Darkrai and a Lapras as his signature Pokémon. In the short time he had operated, Giovanni had built a reputation that commanded genuine fear from serious people.
No one present could say with confidence that they could beat him.
Every instinct told them to run. But the Rainbow Wing kept their feet planted.
It wasn't in their hands — Whitney still had it. If things turned violent, the fight would be between Giovanni and Whitney first. That meant there was still a window, still a chance to let the two of them exhaust each other and move in afterward.
Greed had a way of overriding good sense.
Edwin's gaze settled on Giovanni, and despite himself, he felt the weight of it — the tall figure, the Gigantamax Lapras behind him radiating cold that pressed against the skin from twenty meters away. Edwin considered himself no ordinary Trainer. As the head of the Heaven Poaching Group, he believed his strength could at least rival some of the Heavenly Kings. He was not in the habit of feeling outmatched.
But Giovanni and that Lapras were a different category entirely.
Giovanni had been the most discussed name in underground circles for months. He had gone to war with God's Coffin. He had killed Champions. Every appearance he made left something destroyed behind it. Edwin looked at him now and felt, with uncomfortable clarity, that there was a genuine gap between them.
Whether he could actually take the Rainbow Wing from this man was a question he didn't have a clean answer to.
Jacob stepped out of the Mist and let his gaze move first to the box in Whitney's arms, then to Whitney herself.
He spoke quietly, the voice he was projecting — slightly hoarse, measured, carrying its own gravity without needing to be raised. "Give me the box."
No demand in it, exactly. Just the calm assumption that it would happen.
The rest of the group went silent without being told to. Everyone's attention shifted to Whitney.
Whitney turned her head toward him. The ice shards caught in her long dark hair caught the moonlight, and the effect was striking in a way that had nothing to do with warmth.
Before she could respond, a voice came from somewhere in the surrounding darkness — hoarse, and not entirely steady.
"Don't give it to him! Giovanni is a wanted criminal — the Association has a standing bounty on him. If we stall long enough, reinforcements will arrive and he won't be able to escape. The Rainbow Wing won't go anywhere either." A pause, the voice gaining a fraction more confidence. "Our people are close. We hold together against Giovanni — he can't beat all of us before they arrive!"
Several voices followed immediately.
"That's right — we hold him here together."
"Even if we can't take him down, we can stall long enough."
"Whitney — don't hand it over!"
Everyone understood the logic. The moment the Rainbow Wing passed to Giovanni, the odds of ever seeing it again were effectively zero. The appeals made sense on the surface.
A quiet sound came from beneath Whitney's helmet. Not quite a laugh — more like the start of one that didn't bother to finish.
She turned her head toward the direction the first voice had come from. "Pokémon Association reinforcements." Her electronic voice carried a flat note of amusement. "So they're planning to sweep up Giovanni, Edwin, and me all at once. How efficient."
She let that land for a moment.
Among the people present, only three had identities that couldn't survive daylight scrutiny — Giovanni, the most-wanted name in current circulation; Edwin, head of a poaching organization with an international rap sheet; and Whitney herself, the true leader of the Dragon Sand Society. Everyone else concealing their identity behind a mask tonight was almost certainly a high-ranking Association affiliate who couldn't afford to be seen here. They weren't hiding from Giovanni. They were hiding from their own colleagues.
The person who had spoken wasn't rallying a defense. They were trying to light a fire between Giovanni and Whitney and stand back to watch it burn.
Whitney's gaze moved across the masked figures in front of her, slow and entirely unimpressed. The hatred in her eyes didn't require the helmet to communicate.
"Giovanni." She turned to look at him, then shifted to Edwin. "Edwin. I have a proposal."
She let the silence hold for one beat.
"We clear the field — the three of us together. The Rainbow Wing goes to Giovanni. Whatever else we recover from the others, Edwin and I split between us." She paused. "Does that work?"
The masked figures felt the temperature drop in a way that had nothing to do with Lapras.
Jacob hadn't expected that. He had prepared for any number of scenarios tonight, but not this one. The woman had earned her reputation.
He was still processing it when Whitney pulled the box from her arms and threw it directly toward him.
Jacob caught it on instinct.
"Edwin?" Whitney's voice rang out again.
Edwin had been watching with the detached interest of someone observing a battle from a safe distance. Now he considered the offer properly.
Giovanni was the strongest person in this clearing by a clear margin. The most likely outcome, if things stayed as they were, was that Giovanni walked away with the Rainbow Wing and Edwin came back with nothing — or worse, took damage trying to contest it. But if he aligned with Giovanni now, the calculation changed completely. A near-zero chance of coming away with something became a reliable probability of walking away with meaningful gains.
He adjusted his glasses and looked at Jacob. "I have no objections. The question is what Giovanni says."
Both of them were watching him now. Jacob felt the weight of the decision — the box in one hand, both exits clear, the easier choice being to simply take what he had and leave.
He didn't take long.
"Then it's settled." His voice was even, unhurried. "Lapras — G-Max Resonance."
The reasoning had assembled itself quickly. The identity he was wearing tonight — Giovanni — wasn't one that fit neatly inside the Pokémon Association's structure. He couldn't walk that line, not in any meaningful timeframe. What he could do was maintain goodwill with the underground organizations that operated alongside him, because the alternative was standing entirely alone against God's Coffin, and that was not a position he intended to be in.
Beyond the strategy, there was something simpler. Whitney had handed him the Rainbow Wing without hesitation, without negotiation, without demanding anything in advance. That kind of directness meant something. Jacob could be cold-blooded when the situation called for it, but not toward someone who had just demonstrated that kind of trust.
Gigantamax Lapras reared back and released a massive beam of Ice-type energy skyward. The aurora that followed it lit the dark above them in pale blue and white — and then the temperature dropped sharply as a colossal sphere of ice formed overhead and came crashing down.
The signal had been sent.
"Salamence — Dual Wingbeat!"
"Greninja — Hydro Pump!"
"Baxcalibur — Icicle Crash!"
The three of them moved at once.