Self-Destruct.
That was the connection.
All three of these Pokémon could learn self-destruct moves at low levels. Graveler could learn Self-Destruct by level twenty-four. Pineco learned it as early as level six. And Magnemite — Magnemite could inherit the far more powerful Explosion right from birth through egg move breeding.
The breeding data Nova pulled from his scan confirmed it without any room for doubt. All three Pokémon knew a self-destruct move.
Someone had placed them here as living bombs.
Three of them, buried in a ruin that had been abandoned for some time. Nova did not want to think about how many more had been hidden across the rest of Lune Town.
There was only one organisation operating within the Norlandia Alliance that would be willing — and capable — of carrying out something on this scale. Only Original Team, the transnational criminal organisation, would dare to plan something this broad.
They were going to flatten Lune Town entirely.
But why?
Nova had no way of following the logic of people like that. If he could, he would probably need to have his head checked. He pushed the question aside. There was no time for it.
His only clear thought was to get away from here, as fast and as far as possible.
He called Corviknight down from the sky at once, climbed onto its broad back, and prepared to leave. Taylor's inheritance chest could wait — he was not going to risk his life over it.
But as Corviknight settled beneath him and the first sharp edge of panic began to fade, Nova did not give the order to take off.
His mind, once it had steadied, came back online.
He ran through everything he knew.
First — for reasons unknown, the organisation intended to wipe Lune Town off the map completely.
Second — whatever they were planning, they were doing it quietly. If Safest had known anything serious was coming, he would have had no reason to lie when his own life was on the line. His only report had been that Lune Town had seen more visitors than usual lately. Nothing more.
Third — the local bosses running this town had received no warning. The casinos were open. The dance halls were operating. Nobody was leaving.
From those three points, the conclusion came quickly.
Lune Town itself was not the target. The town was just a container. What the organisation wanted to destroy was every single person inside it.
The buried Pokémon were only the opening move. After Self-Destruct and Explosion tore through the streets, the organisation's people would move in to finish off whatever — and whoever — remained. No survivors. No loose ends.
And if that was the plan, then the land surrounding Lune Town had almost certainly already been covered. Escape routes, cut off. The whole town turned into a sealed hunting ground — easy to enter, impossible to leave.
The fact that Nova had flown in on Corviknight without any resistance meant nothing. That same organisation would not simply watch him fly back out again, especially not now.
Worse — if someone was spotted scrambling to evacuate in a hurry, the organisation would immediately assume that person had found out about the demolition plan. They would bring everything down on that one person before they could warn anyone else.
Which meant that if Nova tried to leave right now, he would draw every ambush on the perimeter straight to himself. He would effectively be running interference for everyone else in Lune Town — buying them a chance at survival by getting himself killed in the process.
Nova went cold at the thought. It was a good thing his head had not completely shut down from the shock. If he had flown out of here in a panic and died protecting a town full of criminals, that would have been a genuinely awful way to go. He would have had a hard time explaining it to anyone.
He took a slow breath and looked at the situation more carefully.
The abandoned market where he was standing had no people in it at all, which was likely why the organisation had only planted three bombs here — a token placement, nothing more. His position was relatively safe compared to the rest of the town.
Growlithe had already swept the ruins three times and had not turned up anything else. Three bombs, and no more.
If Nova dealt with these three now, the organisation's demolition plan would not reach him directly. And when the organisation's people eventually moved into the city to clean up, that would be his window. At that point, they would believe everything was going according to plan — their hidden arrangements fully laid out, their guard relaxed. Nova, who had stayed quiet and out of sight, would be the one in the shadows.
It was exactly the kind of situation he had found himself in with Taylor. The moment the enemy steps into the light and assumes the fight is already won, the person watching from the dark has every advantage.
Since leaving was not an option, Nova stopped rushing and started working through things properly.
The first step was to have Growlithe extend its search outward. He needed to know whether anyone from the organisation was watching this demolition point. If someone had seen him uncover the bombs, his position would be compromised the moment the organisation moved into the city. That was a gap he could not afford.
Growlithe made a wide sweep of the area. It came back having found nothing — no one watching, no one nearby. Even the wild Pokémon roaming Lune Town seemed to be giving Nova's corner of it a wide berth after the way he had handled things on his way here.
No surveillance meant Nova could deal with the three sleeping Pokémon however he chose.
He went with the simplest option. He had Nidoking carry them across the road and set them down in the open wasteland on the other side.
Then, thinking that leaving them in plain sight was a little too obvious, he had Corviknight use Sand Attack to half-bury them under a layer of dirt and dust.
With that handled, Nova turned his attention back to the ruins. He did not know exactly when the organisation planned to trigger everything, but leaving empty-handed felt wasteful given the risk he had already taken to get here. He would open the safe first and take whatever was inside — though if the contents turned out to be too heavy to carry during a fast escape, he would leave them without a second thought.
Nova had Nidoking clear the concrete from the southeast corner of the ruins. Once the blocks were shifted, Nidoking carefully recalled the Toxic Spikes and Venom Drench it had set there earlier. The dark purple poison softened as Nidoking drew it back under its control, pulling together into a thin stream before flowing back into its horn.
Taylor's half-collapsed office was right in front of him. Nova released Purrloin from its Poké Ball and pointed at the safe on the far side of the room.
"That's the one," he said. "Think you can open it?"
Purrloin looked at the safe. Then it looked back at Nova with its pale green eyes, and for just a moment, Nova was fairly sure he saw contempt.
"I could open two hundred of these in a single night," it said. "If I felt like it."