"Something's off," Ash said, stopping mid-step.
James turned back. "What?"
"Those two women only ever saw Meowth. To them he was just a stray Pokémon wandering too close. Nothing worth flagging." Ash looked down the empty street. "But the surveillance went up the moment I arrived in the square, not before. Not when you three were scouting for days."
He let that sit for a second.
"They recognised me specifically. Which means they have a connection to Team Rocket, and my face has been in their system since I took down Archer's top field agent."
James and Meowth exchanged a look.
"That would also explain why nobody bothered us the entire time before you got here," James said slowly.
"Exactly."
Meowth crossed his arms. "So the Rockets are after Latios and Latias too. Same as Lugia before."
"They've been building a pattern," Ash said. "Every Legendary that surfaces, they move on it. What I don't know is what the larger plan is. Archer's memories didn't have anything on this operation." He started walking again. "Let's move. We know they're Team Rocket now. Let's find them before they find what they came for."
James grabbed Meowth by the arm. "Come on."
...
Two minutes later they were standing in the empty basement.
Research materials were scattered across the tables, data cables still connected between machines, half-packed equipment left behind in the rush. Whoever had been here had moved fast but not quite fast enough to clear everything.
Meowth crouched beside one of the terminals and scanned it. "They had a serious computer operator. That's the only explanation for how they spotted my intrusion so quickly. Whoever she is, she's good."
"But not fast enough," James noted.
"Nobody's faster than me when I've got a cable in," Meowth said without a trace of modesty.
Ash looked around the room. Research printouts, annotated maps of the canal system, thermal scanning data. Methodical, professional work. These two weren't field grunts.
"Pika."
Pikachu's ears went flat against his head. Then he was off Ash's shoulder and on the ground before anyone could react, already sprinting toward the basement exit in a blur.
"He found something," Meowth said.
Ash was already moving. James grabbed Meowth under the arm and ran.
...
On the water, the speedboat cut a clean line through the narrow canal, Annie at the wheel and Oakley's laptop open beside her, screen still processing.
"We need more distance," Annie said, watching the waterway ahead split into three branches.
"We have time." Oakley's eyes were on the screen, expression shifting. "Wait."
The laptop was pinging.
She'd pre-loaded the biometric and thermal profiles for both Latios and Latias into her system before leaving the basement, one of the few things she'd had time to save. The scan was running passively in the background and it had just found a match, one of them, right here in the canal district.
Oakley looked up.
A girl was standing at the far end of a dead-end alley off the main waterway, backed against the wall, watching the speedboat with wide, cautious eyes. Her body temperature read fourteen degrees below normal human baseline.
Latias.
"Annie," Oakley said quietly.
"I see her."
They pulled the boat alongside the alley wall, stepped off onto the stone path, and approached from both sides, unhurried. The girl had nowhere to go. Annie reached for her belt.
"Arbok, go."
"You too, Ariados."
Both Poké Balls snapped open. Arbok raised its hood and fixed its gaze on the cornered girl, swaying slowly. Ariados clicked forward on its legs, mandibles parting.
"Hssss." Ariados reared back and launched a burst of white silk directly at the girl.
"Pika, CHUUU!"
The Iron Tail connected with Ariados mid-launch. The hit was clean and absolutely brutal, the white silk scattering harmlessly as Ariados cartwheeled sideways and slammed into both sisters simultaneously, sending all three of them tumbling backward onto the speedboat in a heap.
Pikachu landed in front of the girl, tail still glowing, and looked back at the two stunned women on the boat with completely flat eyes.
Arbok stared at Pikachu.
Pikachu stared back.
Annie sat up slowly from the bottom of the pile, hair across her face. "...What."