Chapter 73 - Ghost Hand's Bounty!

On route three, a small body of water churned and a giant sea serpent-like Pokemon sprung up from it. This could be no other Pokemon, but Gyarados, it took 30 minutes to traverse to this area.

Gan jumped off and thanked Gyarados before recalling it. The moon sat high in the sky, it was still deep into the night, so no one was around these parts.

"Goodness, that was close. Those waters are so cold, I need to warm up fast or my body might start to experience hypothermia." Gan's Team Rocket suit provided some protection from the elements, but only to a certain extent.

Gan summoned Growlithe and both Charmanders to start a fire. Well, he needed wood first, so he had Machoke and Graveler go fetch some.

"This will do for now." Gan raised his hands around both Charmander's tails to warm up. He caught the first Charmander near Pewter City back then, but its talent was too poor. Gan consider trading it for something good later down the line.

Gan wasn't willing to waste resources to boost 1-star Pokemon's talents; this was too time-consuming and costly.

Gan summoned quite a bit of his Pokemon, this included Kadabra, Haunter, Koffing, and the trio of Rhyhorn. One of these Rhyhorn were apart of Gan's League Team, while the other two were the males he caught back then with her.

Gan started a fire when Graveler and Machoke brought over some wood. He slowly took off his clothes and changed into something else. Gan instructed them to set up his camping tent...oh, how handy this tent was.

Soon, the Gengar tent was set while Gan was taking out other things such as chairs and a table.

"Oh, brother, today was crazy but I managed to get away." Gan started to think about many things, those young trainers from Pallet would surely resent him greatly.

"That Charizard, it had 6 friggin stars, what in the hell was that about?" That Charizard was clearly a veteran, it was an old-timer from back in Oak's day. This was the logical reason, its strength was indeed suitable for a past Champion.

"Six stars, that's just too damn strong!" Gan couldn't stop thinking about that; he didn't even have an active 5 star yet and he has already seen a pinnacle leveled Pokemon. This wasn't even mentioning the fact that he hadn't been in this world for a long period of time.

"There has to be more to it to reach that level, it wasn't simply by using stardust and star pieces or whatever." Gan had a gut feeling that it was more to it, it couldn't be that easy, and he was right.

"Ah, I'll figure that out later, let's check some of the loot, hehe!" Gan, first and foremost chose to check Saffron's loot.

"Hmm, that spoiled rich kid should have something good in this bag." Gan opened the backpack, it was indeed one of those legendary spatial backpacks. Once he stuck his hand inside, many images popped up in his mind.

What Gan saw was surprising, this little stuck-up boy was indeed wealthy!

There was exactly ₱50,000, 50 Pokeballs, 30 Raspberries, 10 Bottles of Moomoo Milk, 2 Rare Candies, 20 Potions, 1 Dusk Stone, and a Silver Bottle Cap.

"A Silver Bottle Cap? It couldn't be what I think it is?" A feeling of excitement came upon Gan before he quickly inspected the Silver Bottle Cap.

[Silver Bottle Cap: Maximizes one IV stat.

"Just as I thought!" Gan was stunned, but he had no understanding of the IV system in this world, he couldn't even see them.

The Silver Bottle Cap gave off a strong feeling of power, it had a silver-white tint of light coming from it at all times. Gan gazed at the Dusk stone, which gave off an ominous glow and a feeling of emptiness.

"This can be used on Murkrow or Misdreavus, but I prefer Murkrow instead. That clown was indeed loaded, it's a good thing I robbed him." These types of stones were hard to come by in this region, but he manage to get one.

"I even managed to rob that kid with the Eev...I mean Umbreon. I guess he was planning on teaching his Umbreon the TM-Dark Pulse." Gan essentially ruined his futuristic plan by stealing it instead.

"This bag should be worth a lot, but this depends on the grade. Such a bag isn't even being sold in stores yet, but that kid had one already, jeez." Gan couldn't sell it to stores for many reasons, so while he was here, why not sell it in the black market?

Gan knew the marketing price for this bag, and it was sky-high. If he were to sell it on the black market, he was sure he could get more money for it. This bag wasn't out yet and many Team Rocket or other Black market buyers would purchase it.

"I'm friggin rich!" Gan felt a rush of glee, he had gained so much from this heist.

Gan recalled a few of his Pokemon before walking and then crawling into his tent. Some Pokemon were to stay out and remain on watch for any Trainers or Rattata looking to cause trouble.

Growlithe cuddled up next to Gan as they both slowly dozed off.

...

-Pallet Town, Police Station.

While Gan was lavishing over his gains, others were downcast about their losses. Inside a closed-off room; there were seven individuals standing around.

"Tell us, what happened? We need to know everything." Janna sighed before clicking a pen top to take down the report.

"We were robbed, that bastard took-"

"Language, Saffron." Prof. Oak interrupted Saffron and said.

"Sorry, but that's what he really is. He stole my spatial backpack and knocked out Yellow with his Gastly. Just look at what he did to my face, he stomped on me like I was garbage, how dare he?!"

The side of Saffron's face was swollen, he had to apply some medicine in that area for it to go away. If he didn't want to use some ointment, then the other method was to hold a small sack of ice on his face.

Saffron swore up and down that when he took down Team Rocket, he would find this evil bastard and make him suffer greatly!

"You said 'he', what do you mean by that? How many of them are there?" Prof. Oak frowned and asked.

"From what we saw, there was only one guy. He was clearly alone from start to finish, he could even use telekinesis. He even..." Pink stopped there, she gritted her teeth when she recalled being called horrible names by this Team Rocket character.

This guy even...skirted her, she had to make him pay no matter what!

"One guy?" Prof Oak's face scrunched, he was robbed by one guy! Prof. Oak felt his heart rate speeding up, he thought he was having a heart attack but this wasn't the case.

"She isn't lying, that Ghost-handed bast...I mean Team Rocket guy must have been an Agent. He was working alone and was easily able to suppress us—he also stole my TM!" Gray said begrudgingly.

Gray had a thick bandage around his arm where Nidorino had impaled him. He was injured and robbed; this was the worse feeling he had ever felt in his life.

However, every time he saw Saffron, he knew he wasn't as bad off as him. Saffron was taken for everything he had, so this made Gray feel better knowing that he still had his spatial backpack that housed his valuables.

Yellow didn't say anything, her expression turned pale every time she recalled the experiences. She was really timid and meek, so this was hard to deal with in her case.

"Describe him, we need a description. She called him Ghost Hands, right? Did he call himself that, or was that something you named him?" Officer Janna asked sternly.

"That's the name we call him, he used mainly Ghost-type Pokemon with a Nidorino and Machoke. He threatened to dislocate Saffron's arm if we didn't hand over our valuables." Pink clenched her fist as she explained everything.

"Are you guys alright? I hope this isn't a serious mental blow for you guys. This world is filled with evildoers, and you're going to run into many different gangs that inhabit other regions. For this region, there's Team Rocket, but there are other gangs across the world that are, in fact, worse."

Prof. Oak had to let them know, the world outside of Pallet wasn't full of rays of sunshine and rainbows. There were people who wouldn't hesitate to slaughter and steal from them. Prof. Oak considered them fortunate that this Team Rocket Agent didn't kill them, but only opted to rob them instead.

"Prof. Oak is right. Are you guys really ready to leave on your adventure? If not, you can wait until you're 18, this is also a good age."

"No...we can leave soon, we won't wait that long!" Yeah right, they thought. They weren't waiting until they were 18, forget that!

"Uh...okay." Janna was speechless before she continued. "I got him down as Ghost Hands, now you need to describe him... like his appearance, not how he beat you up and robbed you. I think we get that by this point."

Janna stifled her laughter, she quickly did this to not show any disrespect, but their expressions were too priceless. They kept bringing up how they were robbed—like, we get it already, but it was still funny to some degree. Janna felt that Saffron deserved that beating, this brat was far too arrogant.

Pink, Saffron, and Gray's mouth's twitched. Did this officer really care about our situation?

"I think it would be better if I drew a description of him. Afterward, you guys can put a bounty on him or something." Pink's eyes flashed with cold glint, she was adept at drawing and could easily sketch up this Team Rocket member's description in detail.

"Perfect! Tom, bring her an empty picture frame, some pencils, and some coloring pencils. We'll have you draw him up; this is actually better, I've heard of your artistic skills." Janna smiled, this was what she was concerned about the most, but now this criminal could be drawn up.

"Valuable research was stolen, we need to capture a few Team Rocket members and question them. Team Rocket has gone too far, this is a serious blow to my research." Prof. Oak had just gotten those Mega stones 3 days prior, and now they were taken away from him.

"We'll try out best to retrieve them for you, but there are no guarantees in this matter." Janna could only shake her head and give him empty ȧssurance.

This was all up in the air at this point.

"How much will the bounty be?" Janna turned to Prof. Oak and asked curiously.

It was ₱150,000!

...

Meanwhile, many ranked trainers and officers flooded into Viridian city during the night. It looked like they were coming to take over the place; they had even cut off Viridian forest's entrance and exit.

No one was allowed to pass for a period of time.

They set up blockades around each route going in and out of the city. How could the people of Viridian city not notice this uproarious change? Many lights in the city started to flash on, this easily sparked the attention of the city's people.

While this was going on, Gan was comfortably sleeping in his tent cuddled up next to Growlithe—without a care in the world.