"Under the Kalos Pokémon League, you are under arrest. Tell your Pokémon to stand down," Araceli commanded the older man. He did as requested and both Onix and Barbaracle stepped away from Tetsu. Araceli lifted the man up, grabbing the Pokéballs around his belt and locking them after returning both Pokémon.

A few minutes later, Officer Jenny turned up. She took the man away in handcuffs. Mudkip just as she left, Nurse Joy right behind her. Nurse Joy had a Pokéball in her hand and a very concerned, almost panicked, look on her face.

"What happened here?" she cried out as she looked at the wrecked room. While there weren't any expensive equipment in the battle area, we had broken through two separate walls, destroyed most of the floor, and left quite the mess from everything we messed up.

"That's what I wanna know," Araceli joined in, though she sounded more curious than upset.

"Well, I was attacked by that old dude," I answered them. "Did you not hear any sounds from our battle?" There was no way in hell that no one noticed nothing wrong.

"Nope, our battle rooms are designed to keep all noise, gasses, and vibrations, anything battle related, isolated from the rest of the Center," Nurse Joy said. "We've had many people complain about battles keeping them from sleeping, so we had the battle areas redesigned."

"You might want to redesign them again because that guy almost killed Nautilus," I directed to her.

"The Malamar?"

"Yes. I accepted his task because he wanted to test out a new move. He tried it and I had Nautilus use Endure, which is the only thing that saved him. He said the move was supposed to kill Nautilus, but it didn't," I started. I continued to explain what happened, to Nurse Joy's horror and Araceli's confusion.

"Why did he want to kill your Malamar?" Araceli finally asked. "If he really wanted you and Malamar dead, why did he let you heal him?"

"Ya know, I would love to know that too," I sighed. "Hopefully Officer Jenny can get the information from him."

"Yeah, but that's normally a difficult thing to do," she mentioned.

"Even with mind reading being a thing?" I asked.

"Yes, we have laws against it."

"I… fine. So how does the League normally get information from criminals?" I pressed.

"I don't know, I'm not a League interrogator," Araceli deadpanned.

"..."

"What? You asked."

"Whatever. Thank you for the help," I said.

Officer Jenny returned to ask me questions, which I answered with as much detail as possible. She said she didn't know what the goal of the dude was, but she's been getting reports about lower-ranked League officials getting attacked randomly in public. She shared that she thought a new criminal organization was forming, but she wasn't too sure quite yet.

Araceli then reminded me we had a battle in a few days and left to get back to her research. I walked back with Nurse Joy to get Tetsu and myself checked up. Nautilus would be fine, though he won't be able to battle or train for the next three days. Tetsu also needed to take it easy for a couple of days. I was told my internal injuries would normally take a week or two to fully heal, but given how fast I healed my previous wound, that would be reduced to four days.

I checked my phone and saw that Professor Sycamore explained a few things. TLDR, the League no longer saw me as a priority, or suspect number one. They decided to just have me be checked up on by their agents, Professors, or Gym Leaders. With that, and a simple 'Sweet, thank you' text back, I went on my merry way to check with my team.

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

Doctor's orders were to relax for the next few days and load up on calories while our bodies were fixing themselves. No need to tell me twice. I rented a movie on my phone called Paldea Jones and the Temple of Houndoom. I found I could watch it on the TV already in the room by logging in with my Trainer credentials. Before beginning the movie, I had everyone pick the food they wanted to eat during the movie.

Tetsu wanted Sinistea Chips and a large bowl of cereal. Mudkip went for rice pudding and a strawberry-banana crêpe. Nautilus chose nachos, the same kind I had for our first meal together, back when I first caught him. I decided to make it two orders of nachos, as well as an order of spaghetti with Grumpig meatballs for all of us to share.

Mudkip and Nautilus were very into the movie, forgetting about their food during most of it. Tetsu wasn't paying attention to it, preferring to stay in front of me and plead for head rubs. I thought it was a good movie. I had seen it already because it was this world's version of Indiana Jones, but it felt like a new movie because of how central Pokémon were to the movie. From the traveling methods, action sequences, and overall special effects, I was very sure Pokémon played a vital role in everything.

After the movie, we finished up the food before talking about the day.

'If he wasn't such a coward, I would have thrashed him left and right,' Nautilus fumed.

"You don't even know the move Thrash," I told him.

'Some trainer you must be if I still don't know it," he huffed out.

Tetsu and Mudkip giggled, well, more like Mudkip giggled and Tetsu let out some metallic grinding noise. I'm pretty sure she was amused.

'Naut, why are you complaining about him now? Weren't you praising his str-' Mudkip began to question only for Nautilus to quickly shut down the telepathy link. All I heard from Mudkip after that was 'Mud, mu. Mudkip!'

I let them deal with that as I enjoyed the fact that Nautilus secretly praises me to Mudkip. Looks like I have my own advertiser/cheerleader for future team additions.

I then put on a Pokémon comedy, as per Mudkip's request. It reminded me of watching Tom & Jerry, or Loony Tunes. In fact, these were more comical because of the Pokémon. Seeing a living hunk of metal like Copperajah being exaggeratingly terrified of a Rattata was very entertaining. Throughout the movie, I could see Mudkip's eyes gain a glint with each new scene.

Uh oh, that's not going to be fun. Before I could tell her anything, there was a knock on the door. I walked over to find someone that looked like a League agent, or a generic secret agent; a black suit, black shoes, short dark brown hair, dark sunglasses, and an earbud that went down the back of his shirt. He handed me a letter.

Once I had it, he briskly walked away. That was weird. I walked back in and opened the letter.

[ Marco

It seems you've survived our attempt at your life. You are much stronger than we thought. Given that, I would like to meet you in person. Go to the marina tomorrow after 3pm. From the station, go to the third stall on the right. Ask for The Rose and show them this invitation. ]

Are they dumb? Do they really think I would go after they tried to kill me? I need to tell Prof. Sycamore, but he's probably home with his family. I'll wait till tomorrow; he needs his family time. Talking about family time, I took a look at the three Pokémon in the living room.

They were all starting to fall asleep. I could see how tired they all were after today's events. Tomorrow we'll go for a stroll after talking to the Professor. I picked up Tetsu and laid her on the bed. I then took Mudkip to the bed and put her next to Tetsu. Nautilus was still trying to fight the sleep he was feeling as he floated over and laid down next to the bed.

I sat next to him, thinking about my new life. I really just took all of this in without batting an eye. Almost like I was ready to live a new life. But now, thinking about everything that has happened so far, I just wanna go back to that tiny apartment full of thrifted or roadside furniture. I wanted to hug my girlfriend and feel her comforting warmth. I wanted to hear her voice again, making fun of me for being so forgetful and nonchalant. I wan-.

I felt a warmth land on my shoulders. I turned to look at Nautilus, who was staring intently at me. His arm was draped over my shoulders and held me tightly.

'We don't want you to leave us,' he said. I smiled, thinking about my younger brother Junior and how he told me the same thing when I left for college.

"I don't want to leave either. But…" I hesitated. Did I want to tell him about my family? Of course I did, I just wasn't sure how to. I guess I didn't have to tell him with words.

"Nautilus, I want you to see some of my memories of my own family. The family I left behind, the ones I had before you, Tetsu, and Mudkip."

He nodded and closed his eyes. This time I felt a slight nudge in my head, as if someone was knocking on a mental door. I let him through the door and into my memories. The Pokédex said Malamar have some of the strongest hypnotic powers in this world, so I'm sure they are proficient in memory manipulation. I also trusted Nautilus.

After a few moments, I felt a strange sensation of something leaving my head and Nautilus opened his eyes. He looked at me with sad eyes before closing his eyes again and forming another mental link. This time, he was showing me his memories.

I saw a small group of Malamar and Inkay traveling together in the middle of a forest. There were nine Malamar and 15 Inkay other than Nautilus. For weeks, the Malamar would go out and hunt Pokémon while the Inkay followed behind to watch and learn. At some point, the Inkay were allowed to hunt as well. This went on for a while, but Nautilus was the only one that couldn't fully hypnotize his prey.

He was made fun of by most of the group, but his parents and two other Inkay always stood up for and comforted him, always managing to motivate him to try his best next time. One day, Nautilus failed to hypnotize a Fletchling and it escaped. None thought anything of it since it was a normal occurrence. Then, the Fletchling came. Except, it brought a whole pack of Fletchinder and Talonflame with it. Nautilus' group was attacked, though they managed to fight the birds away with few casualties.

The group was furious with Nautilus, so they kicked him out. His parents and siblings tried to argue against it, but they were kicked out as well. Now that they were separated from the pack, the group of five were being hunted down by Pyroar, Diggersby, and Talonflame. While trying to defend from a Beedrill colony, Nautilus' parents separated themselves from their children. After that, the two older Inkay were killed off by a Golbat in the middle of the night, leaving Nautilus alone.

It was only two weeks after that that Nautilus tried to attack me. Once Nautilus broke the psychic link, I pulled him into a bear hug. We all had our own stories and reasons for being taken away from our families, so we understood each others' pain. No matter what happened in the future, Nautilus, Tetsu, and Mudkip were my family. I would love them and protect them at all costs and I knew they would do the same for me. As we hugged and comforted each other, we fell asleep.