Pokémon Detective Case Files

Chapter 495 Commodity Exchange is a Perilous Leap

Chapter 497 Commodity Exchange is a Perilous Leap

Even in situations requiring humility, Azure can confidently assure everyone that she is by no means a rash or impulsive person.

A careless person.

Whether it was when she was young and competing with her peers in Pallet Town, or when she chose to become a trainer and travel around, or even after becoming a detective in the Unova region, she has always stood out among the people she knows when it comes to her thorough approach to things, her ability to see the big picture, and her considerate attitude towards all parties.

In fact, the reason she was able to confidently choose to become a detective's assistant was precisely because of her confidence in her abilities in this area.

Of course, she inevitably made her share of mistakes during her detective work. But the agency had a good director—Hugo—who was never the type to silently watch others embarrass themselves or hesitate to offer advice. Therefore, Azure believed that she hadn't made any particularly serious errors in her life so far.

However, this record seems to be coming to an end today.

Azure looked at the four motionless purple steel plates in front of her in despair.

Officer Jenny and Sera looked at her, completely bewildered.

Behind them, Cresselia floated lightly in the entrance hall in front of the Feathered Residence, below Hugo's magnificent silk painting.

It was this legendary Pokémon that, the moment it entered the detective agency and began to fully perceive, detected a dreamlike aura in the storage room of this house that even the sensors couldn't detect.

Do we have to get this close to discover it?

The detective girl glanced back at the god of dreams, mentally ranting and raving.

Azure remembered that when this Cresselia came to see Hugo, it had been in a café just across the street from the Feather Residence.

She subconsciously felt that this legendary Pokémon had probably already checked the nearby offices with Hugo—who knew that the busy detective, like her, hadn't returned after arriving in Flying Cloud City. This was also one of the reasons she subconsciously overlooked the fact that the source of the anomaly was at the Feathered Residence.

Otherwise, how could she have made such a serious mistake!

"Um—Miss Azure."

Finally, Officer Sera broke the deathly silence of the Feather Residence.

"What are these four strangely shaped purple metal plates? These things, pressed under the yoga mat and the small Pokémon exercise dumbbells, seem completely unrelated to dreams, don't they?"

"These are the pieces of evidence we found in Samuel's case." Azure looked at Sera's superior. "Miss Officer Jenny should remember, right? When Hugo and I brought these things back from the open sea, the police station sent you to verify them."

At this moment, the woman at the pedestrian crossing was awkwardly grinning. As a detective, she hadn't forgotten what happened just a few months ago: "I was just going through the motions back then—"

"In fact, the fact that the police station sent me, a detective who was not a professional evidence collector and knew Hugo, to investigate the case at that time was itself an expression of their unwillingness to handle the matter in a special way."

She then added—

"Back then, Team Aqua's dark web black market in Unova had just been discovered, right? The forensics department was incredibly busy. Because of that case, they had to examine hundreds of dangerous items, like the Galar Coral from the locked-room mystery, that could potentially be used as murder devices. Even though they had sent extra people from other cities, given the scale of that case, even if they brought in all the forensic experts in Unova, they would still be working day and night for over half a month. There simply weren't enough people to handle the unexpected finds of unofficial detectives—that's what my superiors told me. Besides, I figured that since even that guy in the white jacket couldn't figure it out, even if they gave it to the forensics department, they probably wouldn't get any results."

"The only thing that's particularly obvious is that they 'didn't see anything amiss.'"

Sera watched as Azure, taking advantage of Officer Jenny's explanation, moved a purple metal plate from the pile of clutter. Azure blew on one of the metal plates, kicking up a cloud of dust.

To be honest, with so many things in the pile of clutter, Azure, the former detective's assistant, really bears more than 90% of the responsibility.

Although the Feather Residence is spacious, the addition of another resident inevitably made the office feel cramped with furniture rearrangement. Many items that were inconvenient to sell ended up piling up in the storage room—after all, that's what the storage room was for. The newly moved-in Azure also needed to buy living supplies for herself and her Pokémon, including the recently moved exercise equipment.

And so those purple trophies, resembling surfboards, were buried little by little in this dark little storage room—right in the very heart of the two detectives' daily activities.

And yet, for something so close to her, she spent an entire day and night searching for it, even dragging Officer Jenny and Miss Sera into the mess!

"Looking at them carefully now, these surfboards do look pretty strange—"

Azure crouched in front of the purple armor, her eyes scanning the scene before her intently, trying to figure out something to save face.

"It's not even a surfboard, you might as well say." Officer Jenny banged on another metal plate without any politeness. When she inspected the area on behalf of the Fei Yun Police Station, she had already confirmed with trace evidence that there were no explosives inside, so she wasn't worried now. "This heavy block of metal would probably sink with a thud if you threw it into the sea. Besides, what surfboard is this shape?"

Indeed. Although these four purple armors are oval-shaped like surfboards, their surfaces are not smooth. There are many gaps that look like metal seams, a streamlined, slender ridge along the central ridge, and a groove at the end that resembles a cannon muzzle. To put it bluntly, the overall shape looks a bit like an enlarged iron. The other side of the armor is flat, but it also has many seams, giving it a very mechanical feel.

And look at the distribution of those seams—

Sera squinted behind her glasses.

For some reason, those seams reminded her of the old-school transforming robot cartoons she watched on TV when she was a child. In the recently released movie "Mechanical Bangalore's Counterattack," the villain's mecha also had a similar spliced ​​structure. Normally, it looked like ordinary armor, but once activated, those gaps would move like joints.

Just then—

Let's get straight to the conclusion.

Azure seemed to have finished her research and looked up at the metal plate that had been wiped clean of dust.

"These purple metal plates—they might be alive."

"Alive?" Officer Jenny's idly tapping the metal plate stopped abruptly.

"Of course, it has to be a living being, since only living beings can dream. But my reasoning goes beyond that."

The detective glanced at Cresselia floating in the distance, then said—

"These boards were seized by Hugo while he was tracking down the Navy's smuggling ships. At the time, we thought they were some kind of supplies that the Navy took with them when they left the United States, but now that we think about it carefully, the true value of these purple armors is probably much higher than that."

She slowly stood up from the ground and crossed her arms.

"In that Team Aqua smuggling incident, Team Aqua brought an entire modified destroyer disguised as a giant cruise ship from the Hoenn region to Team Plasma—the wreckage of that ship is still underground in Giant's Cave. However, for illegal organizations like Team Plasma and Team Aqua, it's difficult to establish a normal business relationship based on mutual trust. In a situation where both sides could betray each other at any time, transaction models like prepayment or pay-after-use are simply impossible."

Therefore, large transactions like this often need to be conducted simultaneously by both parties.

"In other words," Officer Jenny stroked her chin, seemingly following Azur Lane's train of thought, "if Team Plasma wants to acquire Fleet Aqua's ships, they must simultaneously pay Fleet Aqua something of equal value?"

"That's right. When we were investigating the cargo that Team Aqua had placed inside Wailord's mouth, we only found these four metal plates."

Azure held up one finger.

"After eliminating all impossible options, the last one left is the truth. Although Hugo always said that options in reality cannot be completely eliminated, at least in this case, we have no other more reasonable explanation."

She reached out and pointed to the four silent purple metal plates.

"These things are the payment Team Plasma paid to Team Aqua. Considering the technological capabilities of that evil organization and their ability to cause anomalies in dream energy—they are most likely a kind of biological weapon, like Mewtwo developed by Team Rocket in Kanto. The reason they've been piled up in our storage room for so long without any signs of activity is because they've entered some kind of dormant state."

The detective looked intently at Officer Jenny and Sera.

"Of course, if we want to verify this answer, it's actually very simple; we can just call the police station in Raven City. The leader of Team Aqua should be locked up in their detention center by now, right?"