dhibooks Chapter 460 460: 460. Surveillance
Chapter 460 460: 460. Surveillance
Jacob's expression didn't change when Darkrai's warning reached him. He wasn't surprised. With as many rivals and enemies as he had accumulated, being watched was simply part of the territory now. If anything, no one watching him would have been the stranger outcome.
"Let's go see," he said quietly, and reached for his Poké Balls to recall his team.
Whoever was out there had enough nerve to surveil him, which meant they weren't careless. Anyone willing to move on Jacob would need to be working with at least Elite-level Pokémon. His team, strong as they were becoming, wasn't uniformly there yet.
He began recalling them one by one — and then his eyes landed on Dragapult.
He paused.
The rest of the team was still working toward Heavenly King level. But Dragapult, freshly evolved and carrying Quasi-King strength, was already capable of contending with opponents at that tier. And the match with Sceptile had made one thing clear: Dragapult hadn't shown everything it had. Not even close.
Jacob wanted to know how far it had come.
After a brief moment of consideration, he kept Dragapult at his side and recalled the rest.
The night outside was dark and still.
Moving under the cover of an Alakazam and a Sableye, a slender man named Roman made his careful way across the construction site, skirting past the site manager and working his way toward the battle arena.
He was a professional — a private investigator with a solid reputation for this kind of work. Miniature cameras were mounted on his chest and on both of his Pokémon, running continuous footage. Part of that was documentation. Part of it was insurance: if things went badly, the live feed would be the only thing standing between him and a very short career.
He had watched the arena from a distance first. The energy fluctuations coming from inside it, the columns of fire lighting up the night sky — it had made him wonder whether Jacob had developed some kind of new research that had gotten out of hand. Whatever was happening in there wasn't ordinary.
As he drew closer, a thread of unease worked its way into his focus. He knew what he was doing wasn't strictly legal. But the laboratory wasn't in official use yet, and if he were caught, a trespass charge was the worst realistic outcome. A short detention, a fine, maybe. Against the payment his employer had offered, that was barely a consideration.
He was nearly at the entrance when it happened.
A Dark-type energy fluctuation moved through the air around him — silent, completely undetectable. Roman noticed nothing. His Alakazam and Sableye caught the edge of something wrong, a faint tremor of wrongness that made them uneasy, but before either could react—
Sleep settled over Roman like a closing fist.
His eyelids dropped. His thoughts slowed. He tried to identify it — Hypnosis? When? How? — but the questions dissolved before they could form into anything useful.
He was asleep before he hit the ground. So were both of his Pokémon.
With Darkrai's current strength — pressing the upper limits of King level — putting two Quasi-King Pokémon and one unarmed human to sleep was effortless.
Five kilometres away, in a dark minivan, Roman's partner Ares stared at three monitors that had just gone black.
"Something's wrong."
He leaned forward, searching for anything in the static. There was nothing.
He didn't hesitate — he picked up his phone and dialled the emergency line immediately. If Roman was in danger, every second mattered.
He was still pacing when Jacob's voice came through the dead feed.
"A camera?"
It was enough. Ares's blood ran cold. And then, with a sharp burst of static, all three monitors cut out permanently.
Ares stood very still for a moment.
Someone had found Roman instantly, neutralised him and both his Pokémon without any warning, and located the cameras without even searching. That wasn't the work of someone who happened to notice an intruder. There was a professional on Jacob's side — someone very capable.
They might have badly underestimated this job.
Back inside the arena, Jacob crouched over the sleeping investigator and searched him methodically. He found a voice recorder. Nothing else of value.
He straightened up, turning it over in his hand. No identification, no documentation of who had hired him. A dead end.
His phone rang.
He looked at the screen. Eleanor.
He answered, keeping his voice low. "What is it?"
"Someone named Ares just filed a police report. He's claiming his partner might have been killed by you." A brief pause. "It came to me because it involves you. Are you somewhere you can talk?"
"Yes." Jacob was mildly surprised. Barely five minutes had passed since Roman had gone down. Eleanor's reach continued to impress him. "He's not dead. He was surveilling me. I found him — he and his Pokémon are sleeping, completely unhurt."
"Good. If you'd actually hurt him, it would have created complications." Her tone was direct, matter-of-fact. "The two of them work for a private detective agency — investigation and surveillance, mostly. I know the firm's director. Do you want me to find out who sent them?"
"Please. I'd appreciate that."
"Don't mention it." He could hear a smile in her voice. "Though I do have one condition — don't forget what you promised me."
"I haven't forgotten. I'm working on it."
He ended the call and looked back down at the still-sleeping Roman.
Today had been a useful reminder. A detective working in shifts could maintain surveillance on him around the clock, and that kind of sustained monitoring was genuinely difficult to defend against. You could catch one person — but the next one would already have the footage.
And if his relationship with Raya were ever documented and made public, the fallout would be significant.
The attacker always had the advantage over the defender.
A private detective agency.
Jacob turned the thought over, then picked up his phone again and dialled Raya's number. He had some questions about how these firms typically operated.