Pokemon: Bounty Hunter Alex

A few days later, Alex and the group boarded the airship and flew directly east toward Ula’ula Island, the final island they planned to visit during their vacation.

During the rest of their stay at Aether Paradise, the group spent much of their time enjoying museum tours that covered non-classified information on Ultra Space in general, including its habitats, Ultra Beasts, and the people who lived there. The exhibits also explained the events leading up to the previous president’s replacement, with the primary reasons given being the loss of inhibition caused by Nihilego possession and prolonged exposure to Ultra Energy emitted by the Ultra Wormholes. It all sounded like excuses, but the fact that the museum openly addressed the subject suggested they were at least trying to distance themselves from the terrible reputation of their history.

Afterward came the technology demonstrations, which Rhea enjoyed more than anyone else in the group. She quickly became interested in the isolation technology they used, especially the methods designed to protect people from Ultra Energy, Nihilego possession, and other harmful substances. To her, it was the kind of technology that could eventually be adapted for space exploration, something she had been planning for.

The gift shops ended up being the part everyone enjoyed the most. The Pheromosa cologne smelled surprisingly good, the Guzzlord plushies were extra soft, and even Koa seemed entertained by the Buzzwole action figure.

Needless to say, it had been a surprisingly entertaining trip, made even better by the luxurious accommodations provided by the Aether Foundation.

Alex, meanwhile, didn’t particularly enjoy his time spent as a lab rat. He was poked and prodded with all sorts of tests and devices, made to expend copious amounts of Aura and Dark type energy, and they even collected stool samples for some reason, not to mention the horridly bland food he was being fed.

Still, it was all worth it given that Guzzlord had become relatively docile, content in consuming a bit of his Dark type energy daily. When asked what they specifically gave him, they answered that they essentially gave him ultra-dense metal found only in Ultra Ruins, able to keep Guzzlord satiated for a decade assuming Guzzlord didn’t spend any time battling or training.

It was a bit of a loophole Alex hadn’t seen coming, which meant he now had to consider how to feed the damned black hole because apparently purchasing this ultra-dense metal simply wasn’t a sustainable option if he intended to train Guzzlord.

“Why don’t we feed it the trash we throw out from all our locations?” Maris suggested. “Iris’s Butterfree regularly visits all of our locations in Kanto and Johto anyway, so having them carry the trash back to our base shouldn’t be a problem. It’ll actually save us money along the way.”

“We can even go a step further and sell our trash collection services to villages, towns, and cities,” Celise suggested.

“What about the long-term impacts?” Alex asked. “I’m not a scientist or anything, but dumping raw materials into a literal black hole that produces nothing in return doesn’t seem like a good thing for the planet as a whole.”

“Ahahaha,” Rhea laughed. “You’re definitely not a scientist, Alex. Do you have any idea of the amount of energy this planet gets bombarded with regularly or where that trash actually comes from in the first place?”

“Anything plastic, for example, is a renewable resource, considering it’s a byproduct of synthesizing oil, which comes from plants that only need sunlight for the most part. Then you have the rare earth metals from the ground, less than 1% of which humans have managed to mine. There’s no way Guzzlord will eventually consume all of that. Besides, if you’re that worried about it, we can just focus on feeding it all the dangerous materials that need to be thrown away, like radioactive materials, hazardous drugs, and poisonous corpses. I bet we’d make a killing collecting all of those from factories, hospitals, and food processing plants.”

“Celise,” Alex called out, “take care of the research, would you? I’d like a method to indefinitely feed Guzzlord without breaking our bank.”

“Got it.”

“Rhea,” Alex said, turning to her next. “See if you can have the airship collect asteroids from space just in case. Try to do the math on the expenditure for it and see if we can feed this black hole of mine for centuries rather than decades.”

“I’ll add it to my plate.”

Thinking further on the matter, Alex considered whether Guzzlord would make a good leader for his final attack team, but quickly dismissed the thought.

For one thing, training Guzzlord would be a pain since it would get hungry faster, which might pose problems in the future. For another, it was too slow to be useful as part of an attack team despite its powerful attack stat.

It was better off staying by his side as an immortal tank, the way Steelix and Forretress should have been. With Alcremie by its side to prevent Heal Block from affecting it, it would be able to survive any attack as long as it continuously used Swallow to survive. Given its weight and size, it wasn’t easy to push around either, making for quite the intimidating wall.

That left Alex in a quandary over which Pokémon he should pick for his final attack team. He felt like he should hurry up and decide because his Pokémon were all starting to reach Champion rank and even bordering on Master rank, which meant any team he added late would struggle to catch up to the rest, making them the least effective team in his roster.

He couldn’t delay this any longer, nor could he simply pick at random. He would have to give it some serious thought and come up with a decision by the time they returned from vacation, otherwise it would be too late to add any more Elites to his roster.

“Hey, Dad,” Alvera called out while Alex was deep in thought. “What do we have planned for Ula’ula Island?”

“Hey, sweetie,” Alex said, turning toward her while tabling his considerations for his 6th and final attack team. “Probably more of the same. Why?”

“Oh, nothing, just wondering. It’s a trainer-heavy place, so I was thinking we’d spend some time on trainer battles while traveling the routes.”

“Are you asking so you can get your Alolan Raichu army in line?”

“Yeah, a bit,” Alvera said with a chuckle. “They’ve been restless for battles ever since I started training them. I kind of hyped them up a bit too much about open battles when I bonded with them.”

“You’re free to fight official battles or train against the local wild Pokémon if you want, but it would have to be during our downtime. It shouldn’t be hard though, considering the island’s reputation.”

Ula’ula Island is the most trainer-dense region in Alola, largely because it functions as the main route into higher-level competition. The Pokémon League being based on the island has steadily shaped its culture over time, drawing in stronger trainers, more formal training groups, and frequent challengers passing through on their way to or from League-related facilities. As a result, encounters with other trainers are common across most major routes.

The island’s layout also reflects a practical balance between development and preservation. Although Ula’ula has the capacity to support a much larger population, a significant portion of its land is kept as protected or minimally developed zones for Pokémon habitats. This is partly tied to traditional respect for Tapu Bulu, whose association with the island’s red motif is reflected in local design choices, signage, and cultural references. In practice, this means urban centers are more concentrated, while large stretches of land between them remain wild, which naturally increases both travel difficulty and the likelihood of encounters with wild Pokémon.

Ula’ula is also known for having the most varied weather conditions and terrain in Alola within a single island. Lowland areas tend to be warm and humid, while higher elevations such as Mount Lanakila experience freezing temperatures. It also features open plains, desert areas, rocky regions, forest paths, and island chains, making for the most diverse collection of Pokémon available in the wild. This environmental range has further popularized the island among trainers, since it allows them to test and develop teams under rapidly changing conditions without needing to travel between multiple regions.

There is also a noticeable Johto influence in places like Malie City, where architectural style and urban planning favor traditional layouts with structured districts and communal spaces. Combined with the League’s presence, this creates an environment where training culture is especially strong, and most people on the island have at least some direct involvement with battling, whether recreational or competitive.

And of course, where there is a strong trainer culture, there is a constant flow of money and resources as well, making the island one of the more profitable locations for the Underworld and Team Bones in particular. They had managed to completely claim the island as their own, preventing other organizations from moving into it.

To Alex, this meant he had some culling to do for the sake of Marlo and Leilani. If he wanted a strong bounty hunter presence in this region, he would have to ensure the couple were at the top of the food chain. Hence, he planned to cut down the competition while he was here. This would give them the time they needed to reach the peak of the region without much competition and ensure their safety if they eventually took up his offer of starting a base here under the Silver Network.

Of course, that didn’t mean Alex would just start a killing spree. He would at least do his due diligence, inspect the place and the people, and see if they were problematic enough. After all, Team Bones had two sides to it, the good leaders who pulled the Underworld organization away from criminal activity and focused on family protection and development, and the criminals who would do anything for power and money.

Either way, he had his work cut out for him if he planned to clean up the scum from the trainer-focused culture of the island, which promised far more powerful combatants than the rest of the Alola region.