CHAPTER 1500: AZAO

Haruna was the name of the Nurse Joy from Camphrier Town.

Yuga nodded and said, "Yes, Miss Joy sent me here."

Before leaving the Pokémon Center that morning, Nurse Joy had already told Yuga that she had made a call ahead of time. The man in front of him already knew someone would come looking for him today.

The black market boss standing before Yuga was named Azao. Although he looked rather unkempt and wild, he was actually the son of the mayor of Camphrier Town—though he didn’t get along with his father.

Initially, Azao established this black market just to go against his father. But unexpectedly, the black market thrived more and more, eventually becoming Azao’s main business.

However, the smooth development of Camphrier Town’s black market was inseparable from the mayor’s involvement. Even though the two didn’t get along, they were father and son after all. The mayor couldn’t completely ignore Azao.

Although the mayor disliked Azao’s line of work, he still secretly helped him out of many tricky situations. Azao wasn’t stupid—he was well aware of this, but he just pretended not to know.

"Mmh..." Azao replied lazily. He lay sprawled on a chair with one leg resting on the table and asked carelessly, "So, what do you want from me?"

Suddenly, he seemed to realize something. He sat up straight and looked at Yuga warily. "Wait a second... What’s your relationship with Haruna Joy?"

"Huh?" Yuga was a little stunned by the question.

Azao stood up and walked over to Yuga, scanning him from head to toe.

"Not bad looking... Don’t tell me the Joy family sent you to be Haruna Joy’s boyfriend?"

When he said this, his tone carried a subtle note of hostility.

Yuga finally realized what was going on. He looked at Azao with a faint smile and asked, "You like Miss Joy?"

Azao immediately reacted like a cat whose tail had been stepped on. "What nonsense are you spouting?! Who would like that crazy girl?!"

Seeing his evasive gaze, Yuga knew he was being stubborn. He chuckled and said, "I’m just an old acquaintance of the Joy family. I came to Camphrier Town on some business. It has nothing to do with Miss Joy."

Azao visibly relaxed. He walked back to his chair and flopped down with a mysterious air. "Alright then. Haruna has helped me out quite a bit. For her sake, if there’s something I can help with, I will."

Yuga gratefully said, "Thank you very much." As he spoke, he took out a piece of paper. On it was drawn a strange "R"—the insignia of Team Rocket.

"I want to know if anyone carrying this symbol has appeared around Camphrier Town recently," Yuga asked, pointing to the symbol.

If Yuga had known the mayor of Camphrier Town was a member of Team Rocket, he probably wouldn’t have come to Azao for information—no matter how trustworthy Haruna Joy’s recommendation had seemed.

At first, Azao didn’t pay much attention to the symbol on the paper. But then something seemed to click, and he stared at it for a long time.

"What is it? Have you seen it?" Yuga asked, noticing his odd behavior.

Azao simply said, "You go back for now. Come find me again at this same time tomorrow—I’ll give you an answer."

Yuga paused to think for a moment and replied, "Alright, I’ll come again tomorrow." Then he turned and left.

After Yuga left, Azao called over one of his men and gave an order. "Keep an eye on things here. I need to step out for a bit."

"Yes, sir!" the subordinate replied respectfully.

Azao quickly drove off from the black market. But just as his vehicle left through the gates, Yuga quietly emerged from the shadows, watching the car get farther and farther away.

He had found Azao’s behavior suspicious, so he hadn’t left immediately. He had originally planned to sneak back into the black market to gather more intel—but unexpectedly, Azao had left on his own.

Yuga summoned his Mismagius and said, "Mismagius, follow that man and see what he’s really up to."

"Mismagius~"

Mismagius responded as it materialized, then instantly vanished again.

Azao drove all the way home, and as it happened, his father had returned to pick something up. The two ran into each other.

"Well, this is like the sun rising from the west. You’re actually home at this hour? That’s rare," said Itō, the mayor of Camphrier Town.

Azao responded with sarcasm, "You managing to stay alive and healthy up to now is even rarer than the sun rising in the west."

"You..." Itō was so angry he could hardly speak.

"And where’s that ’Klee’ guy?" Azao asked, ignoring his father’s livid expression.

"What do you mean ’that guy’? That’s your cousin. Don’t you have any manners?" Itō roared. "Instead of worrying about where your cousin’s gone, why don’t you deal with your ridiculous clothes and that mop on your head?"

Itō found his son’s appearance extremely unpleasant to look at.

Azao remained unfazed. "You know very well whether or not he’s my cousin."

A few days ago, his father had suddenly brought someone home and claimed that the man was a distant cousin. Azao had found it strange at the time—he had lived for over twenty years and had never once heard of having such a cousin.

He hadn’t thought much of it then, but today, when Yuga showed him that symbol, something about it seemed familiar. That’s when he remembered seeing the same symbol on a communicator in that so-called cousin’s room.

Although Haruna Joy hadn’t revealed Yuga’s identity over the phone, she had mentioned that Yuga was on a secret mission sent by the League.

Anyone being secretly investigated by the League... how could they be involved in anything good?

At this moment, Azao was desperate to figure out what kind of secret this fake cousin was hiding.

According to his father, this cousin had moved to Camphrier Town due to a job transfer, and because he was new to the area, he was temporarily staying at their home.

Azao was deeply skeptical about this.

Ignoring his father’s dark expression, Azao summoned a house servant and asked, "Where’s Klee?"

The servant answered nervously, "Young Master Klee said he had something to do and went out."

Speak of the devil—just then, Klee walked in from outside. Seeing both Itō and Azao there, he greeted them with a big smile. "Uncle! Azao! You’re both here!"

Azao kept a cold face and said nothing. Itō nodded and replied, "Just came back to grab something." Then he quickly left—he was afraid he’d die from anger if he stayed around his son any longer.

Klee could tell the father and son had gotten into another argument. Trying to help, he said, "Uncle’s getting older, Azao. Try not to fight with him so much." Ever since he had come to this house, the two were constantly at each other’s throats.

Azao turned around and walked away with a parting shot: "You sure like to meddle, don’t you?"

Klee was left standing there awkwardly.

In truth, Klee was none other than Alex. After betraying the League, he had assumed a new identity with the help of Mayor Itō. He was now responsible for handling Team Rocket’s lab affairs and serving as the liaison with the mayor.

Alex knew a bit about the tensions between Azao and Itō. Their relationship hadn’t deteriorated overnight—it had been a long time coming.

Itō’s family had once been aristocrats in the Kalos region, but they had declined drastically, to the point of completely losing their noble stature.

Despite this, Itō still clung to memories of the family’s former glory. That’s why he had placed extremely high expectations on Azao during his childhood, hoping he would amount to something and restore the family’s reputation.

But Azao wasn’t a particularly bright child. Most of the time, he performed poorly, showing no particular talent in anything. This infuriated Itō, who then turned to beatings and scolding—especially after Azao’s mother passed away, his father’s discipline became even more extreme.

As a child, Azao had looked up to his father. To the residents of Camphrier Town, Itō was a good mayor. But one day, Azao saw his father accepting a bribe and using his position to pull strings for others.

From that moment, his father’s image shattered in his mind. Later, he discovered more instances of his father breaking the law. After that, Azao became increasingly rebellious, eventually becoming one of the town’s most infamous delinquents.

Whenever townspeople spoke of Azao, they would shake their heads in disappointment. This made Itō feel deeply ashamed, and he would frequently beat or scold Azao at home—but Azao continued to do things his own way.

When Azao was sixteen years old, he finally couldn’t stand his father’s beatings and scoldings anymore. He got into a physical fight with him, and after that, he ran away from home.

That was when he met Haruna Joy. Haruna took him in when he was sleeping on the streets, and after learning that he was the infamous troublemaker from town, she didn’t look down on him—instead, she became his friend.

Later, Azao returned home. Although Itō still scolded him frequently, he never dared lay a hand on him again. However, by then, the relationship between father and son had already deteriorated beyond repair. Over the years, it hadn’t improved; it had only gotten worse.

Growing up under such conditions, Azao could hardly be considered a "good person." Otherwise, he wouldn’t have gone on to run a black market. In a place like a black market, filled with shady characters, it’s nearly impossible for someone too "good" to survive, let alone thrive.

After Azao left, Alex returned to his room to grab something and then went out again. As soon as he stepped out the front door, Azao quietly appeared from the staircase on the second floor. After thinking for a moment, he decided to secretly follow Alex.

Azao trailed Alex all the way to the town’s biotechnology company. Although Alex was very cautious, he failed to notice Azao tailing him.

Having spent years in the gritty underworld and dealing regularly with all sorts of tricky individuals through his black market dealings, Azao had developed excellent skills and instincts for stealth and observation.

This biotech company was, in fact, the very same one Team Rocket used as a front for their secret laboratory.

Seeing Alex enter through the front door, Azao circled around to the back of the building and spotted a ventilation shaft.

He climbed up to the shaft and released a Meowstic. A flash of purple light glinted in Meowstic’s eyes, and the grating on the vent was quietly opened. Azao then crawled through the ventilation duct, making his way into the interior of the building.

Since this biotech company had been chosen to serve as the cover for the secret lab, its surface-level operations appeared completely normal. Inside, all the employees were working diligently and earnestly.

By this time, Azao had already lost track of Alex.

Azao sneaked through the building like a headless chicken, running around aimlessly. He couldn’t find where "Klee" had gone, which only made him more convinced that there was something seriously wrong with the man.

Then, a particular elevator tucked away in a corner of the company caught his attention. No one had used it the whole time—but oddly enough, a person was stationed in front of it, standing guard.

Azao looked around and, seeing that no one else was nearby, made a hand gesture to his Meowstic. Meowstic quietly stepped out from the shadows, its body emanating waves of strange, psychic energy. Immediately, the person guarding the elevator seemed as if time had stopped for him—he froze completely, not moving a muscle.

Only then did Azao step out of hiding, walk over to the elevator, and open the door to enter.

Once inside, Azao realized that the elevator didn’t have any buttons for going up—only a single button that went down, and it led to just one level.

After Azao had been in the elevator for a while, the guard finally snapped out of his frozen state. He stood there silently, as if nothing had just happened.

As the elevator descended, Azao felt it dropping steadily. But the moment the doors opened and he took a single step out, an ear-piercing alarm blared suddenly, scaring the life out of him.

The moment the alarm went off, a group of people wearing black uniforms came rushing out. Every one of them had the unmistakable "R" logo on their uniforms.

At that critical moment, a Mismagius suddenly appeared out of thin air. It quickly pulled Azao and Meowstic close, and in the blink of an eye, their figures vanished.

Just before they disappeared, a red flash sparked in Mismagius’s eyes, and the elevator let out a loud "clang"—Mismagius had sabotaged the inner workings of both the elevator and the alarm system.

When the group of black-uniformed people arrived, one of them asked, "Why did the alarm suddenly go off for no reason?"

"Could someone have broken in? Search the area—quick!"

"Go get someone to check what’s wrong with the elevator and the alarm. They’re still going off!"

...

The technician arrived quickly to examine the elevator. After finishing his inspection, he reported, "It’s fine. Just a minor issue where the elevator’s wiring connects to the alarm system. It’s been fixed."

Everyone sighed in relief—it was good news that nobody had broken in.

"How could a properly functioning elevator suddenly glitch like that?" someone asked.

The technician replied, "It’s not like the elevator is new. A minor malfunction here and there is totally normal."

Meanwhile, Mismagius who is still invisible, carried Azao and Meowstic out of the biotech company building and flew all the way to a corner alley. It dropped them off and vanished in the blink of an eye.

Azao, who had a belly full of questions, could only swallow them down as he watched the Mismagius disappear without saying a word.

He figured out that the Mismagius belonged to Yuga. While he was grateful to it for rescuing him, he was also angry at Yuga for not trusting him. With a cold snort, he took Meowstic and went back home.

Upon arriving home, he didn’t alert anyone. Instead, he quietly returned to his room.

Mismagius flew all the way back to the Pokémon Center and relayed everything it had witnessed while following Azao to Yuga. Although it couldn’t infiltrate the lab directly because of Azao, it had still uncovered the location, which was already a massive breakthrough. From here, Yuga could handle the rest himself.

Originally, Yuga had only asked Mismagius to follow Azao in hopes of uncovering a clue—but unexpectedly, he had hit the jackpot and found Team Rocket’s base of operations.

Whether or not Celebi was there didn’t matter anymore—having the base meant they had a lead.

And so, in the dead of night, once most of the people in Camphrier Town were fast asleep, Yuga quietly slipped out of the Pokémon Center.