With the last of the fleeing poachers caught and restrained, the raid was effectively over.
The sheriff leading the operation sought Nova out almost immediately, clapping him on the shoulder with a wide smile.
"To be honest, when Gym Leader Charlie of the Luma Gym told me you'd be handling the escape route alone, I was a little nervous," the sheriff admitted. "But you more than lived up to your reputation. Well done."
Nova smiled back, though it took some effort to make it look natural. The man was being sincere, he knew that. But his reputation in Goldenlight City was, at best, a complicated one — and hearing the word "reputation" used in his direction had a way of sounding like a backhanded compliment whether anyone meant it that way or not.
"You're too kind," Nova said. "Ambushes are just sort of my thing. I'm not much good at anything else."
The sheriff laughed, then reached into his wallet and counted out a few bills, pressing them into Nova's hand.
"Alright, I won't keep going on about it. That's your payment. Now get inside the base before the others pick through everything — there are some rescued Pokémon in there you might want to take a look at."
Nova thanked him and headed inside with Arno lumbering along at his side.
He counted the bills as he walked.
Five hundred League Coins.
He tried not to grimace. It wasn't nothing, but it wasn't much either — especially considering the sheriff had bent the rules to pay him directly from his own pocket. Under normal procedures, the service fee owed to trainers who responded to an official League summons would take at least two weeks to process and arrive. That was simply how official operations worked. Trainers were expected to answer the call when a sheriff needed backup, and the compensation, while guaranteed, was rarely anyone's idea of a windfall.
Still, working alongside the League did come with one perk that had nothing to do with money.
Trainers who participated in a sanctioned raid like this one were permitted to choose a Pokémon from among those rescued during the operation. Many of the Pokémon seized from poaching rings had been illegally taken from other regions — species that simply weren't found in the Seidai region under ordinary circumstances. That kind of access was difficult to come by, and it was a large part of why so many trainers from Goldenlight City had volunteered for the mission in the first place.
For Nova, though, the offer was less exciting than it sounded.
It came down to how his training system worked.
The system functioned like a highly specialized analytical tool, built to assess individual Pokémon and design customized training plans around their specific strengths. The key word was specific. The system was most powerful when working with Pokémon that had something genuinely unusual about them — a rare ability, an atypical stat distribution, a physical trait that set them apart from others of their species. Given the right foundation, the system could build on those qualities over time, shaping the Pokémon into something that would leave other trainers scratching their heads.
Arno was the clearest example of this.
When Nova had first partnered with the Nidorino, the system had flagged two things immediately: its abnormal size, and the unusual potency of its venom, which was far stronger than anything standard for the species. Working from the training plan the system generated, Nova had spent the next two and a half years focusing almost entirely on developing those qualities. The result was Arno's current state — a Nidorino with venom powerful enough to qualify for what the system classified as the [Toxic] attribute, representing a level of poison potency well beyond what most trainers ever encountered.
The downside of this approach was that finding a Pokémon worth investing in was genuinely difficult. Individuals with the kind of standout qualities the system could work with were rare. It was the main reason Nova still only had one partner after all this time.
He wasn't expecting to find anything special here. Poaching rings moved product, not quality — their hauls tended toward common species caught in bulk. But Arno's evolution was getting close, and once that happened, Nova would need to start thinking seriously about filling out his team for the next stage of his journey. He didn't need perfection — just potential. Enough for the system to work with.
He stepped into the warehouse section of the base and quietly activated the system's scanning function while the other trainers moved excitedly around him.
The results appeared almost instantly.
A sea of white names, with a scattering of green ones mixed in. A handful of blue.
Nova exhaled slowly through his nose.
According to the system's classification, a white nameplate indicated that the Pokémon in question had enough natural talent to reach around Level 30 under proper care — and not much further. Past that point, their development would begin to plateau. Progress would slow, then stall. Pushing them beyond their ceiling would require disproportionate time and resources for increasingly small returns.
Level 30 wasn't nothing, but it wasn't impressive either. For a starter Pokémon, Level 30 might not even be enough to reach a final evolution. It was a ceiling that explained why so many casual trainers found their partners stuck in mid-stage forms year after year — either the Pokémon's potential had simply run out, or something had gone wrong during training that prevented them from reaching even that modest limit.
Trainers in the field generally called it amateur-level talent. Politely.
Green nameplates stepped things up — Pokémon with that rating had the potential to reach around Level 45 with consistent, quality training. That was solidly professional-level. Enough to be genuinely useful in serious battles.
Blue nameplates represented a meaningful jump. Level 60 potential, under optimal conditions. Pokémon at that tier were the kind that formed the backbone of Gym Leader-class trainers' teams — reliable, powerful, and capable of holding their own against most opponents they'd face.
Arno's nameplate, by comparison, was purple.
Purple indicated potential up to around Level 75 — the kind of ceiling that put a Pokémon in the same territory as the partners of regional Champions and Elite Four members. It was exceptionally rare, and it was the reason Nova had poured everything he had into the Nidorino rather than catching additional partners in the meantime.
As for a gold nameplate — the system's classification for Champion-level potential, theoretically capable of growing beyond Level 75 into territory few Pokémon ever reached — Nova had not seen a single one in the sixteen years since he had arrived in the Pokémon world. Not once.
While he stood quietly in the corner running the scan, Arno padded over and settled beside him, choosing not to return to its Poké Ball. The system displayed Arno's full profile automatically.
Species: Nidorino Level: 45 Ability: Poison Point Hidden Ability: Hustle
Attributes:
Toxic — Venom potency is far above average. Doubles the chance of inflicting poison on contact, and doubles damage dealt to opponents already suffering from Poison or Badly Poisoned status.
Large Frame — Significantly larger than the species average. Grants modest boosts to Defense, Special Defense, and Attack; slight reductions to Speed and evasion.
Psychic Heritage — Inherited Psychic-type capabilities from ancestry. Psychic-type moves receive a minor power bonus.
Special Force — Special attack moves receive a minor power bonus.
Moves: Psychic (inherited), Horn Drill (inherited), Thunderbolt, Toxic, Toxic Spikes, Stomp, Sludge Bomb, Poison Jab, Poison Sting...
Training Direction: Evolve using a Moon Stone.
Without the system, Nova sometimes wondered if he might have ended up like Ash from the anime — catching partners on a whim, following instinct over analysis, never thinking too hard about talent or individual differences. There was something admirable about that approach, honestly. But Ash's track record of releasing or leaving behind nearly every Pokémon he had ever trained made it a difficult model to follow in the real world, where building a truly elite team required deliberate, long-term investment.
The system gave Nova a different path. And with that path came higher standards — for himself, and for the partners he chose to walk it with.
There was no point forcing a partnership that wasn't built to last. It wouldn't be fair to either side.
He had his answer. There was nothing here worth taking.
Nova gave the warehouse one last look, then turned and walked back outside with Arno, stepping into the cool night air. The sheriffs were still busy loading the arrested poachers into police vehicles, sorting through the operation's paperwork, and cataloguing the seized Pokémon for transfer.
The sheriff who had paid Nova earlier turned around at the sound of footsteps and blinked in surprise.
"You're out already? That was fast."
Nova gave a small, tired smile. "There wasn't anything in there that suited me."
The sheriff raised an eyebrow. "Are you sure you don't want another look? I spotted a few Alolan Pokémon in the back — species you don't normally see around here."