CHAPTER 254

"So you're saying that Abel Torres is in this city?"

The lights of the interrogation room were so harsh I could feel them on my skin. Apparently this was one of their most comfortable rooms, which was why it had a nice couch that I was seated on, but other than that there wasn't much else. The police officer dragged his chair a little closer to me with a stoic, but worried look. The last time I'd been with an officer was in Sandgem, and that had been a terrible experience. I had come in here thinking that I'd be treated the same way.

"His Zoroark, more specifically. A Unovan dark type that can turn into other living things through illusions," I explained. Could they actually turn into non-organic beings? Questions for later. "She was with his Hypno. Abel himself was on the mountain on route 213 and caught a Leafeon."

Officer Pugh let out a heavy sigh and ran a hand over his bald head. He was taking me seriously. Giving credence to my claims. Arceus, it felt good for my words to matter. Sometimes I wondered what had happened to that officer in Sandgem and what would have happened if they had taken our claim seriously. I doubted that Cyrus would have been apprehended. He'd probably Teleported out as soon as he'd found the lake and called Charon. Maybe it would have made a difference, still.

The chubby officer wrote for a few seconds on his notepad, but I continued. "It'd be nice if you could announce his presence here for people to take precautions and everything. Zoroark could be anywhere," I muttered. And we wanted him to feel the pressure. Better he slows down stealing or stops entirely, even if he might take precautions and become harder to find. "We think he has links to the poachers on route 212, but we have no hard proof yet. Just evidence."

Mr. Pugh nodded. "Is that everything?"

"Yeah, I believe so."

"Thank you for your report," he said. "You wanted this to be anonymous, correct?"

"Yeah."

He went over my story another time to make sure he had gotten every detail correctly, and then let me out of the interrogation room. He led me back to the lobby, where more officers worked around the clock behind reinforced glass. Cecilia was there waiting for me. She'd given her report too, with Croagunk there to confirm everything (every police station had at least one psychic).

"Everything went okay?" She asked.

"Yeah, swimmingly." I grabbed her hand and squeezed it, leaning one of my crutches against the plastic chairs. "Now we wait. Abel will be put on blast, and he'll wonder who screwed him over. Maybe that'll make him stop sending his Zoroark out on these kidnapping missions."

It was hard to remember that what he was doing technically wasn't illegal— or at least the catching part of it was. Who knew what happened to those Pokemon afterward? A sudden shiver shot up my spine and my hand tightened around Cecilia's. I let go, grabbed my crutch and we walked out of the station.

"Denzel, Emi and Pauline are coming back today," she said. I knew she was trying to change the subject to cheer me up. "Pauline said she'd try to catch a sixth in the Safari Zone."

Louis and Maeve had too, although they'd come up empty yesterday. Maeve was specifically looking for a Yanma while Louis didn't even know what he wanted yet.

"Good. Any later, and she'd fall too far behind. How are you planning on getting Croagunk up to speed?"

"Scyther seems to have taken a liking to her, and she enjoys Slowking's jokes, believe it or not," Cecilia said with a beautiful laugh that left just as fast as it came. "She's still having a tough time, but hopes of saving her friend drives her. For now, I'll just work on her basics and have her focus on a few moves. Poison Jab, Venoshock, Rock Smash— and I'll have her learn Brick Break. Then, we can expand."

I paused for a few seconds, and then moved to face her. "Say, why don't we go to the beach later? My team's going to be all healed soon, and I want to teach them how to swim."

Cecilia smiled. "Swim? For Wake?"

"Well, that and the general applications of swimming," I specified. "It's just a good skill to have. What do you say?"

We had gone on a date in Sunyshore where I'd shown her the isolated beach, but the weather had turned against us that day and we couldn't go into the water. It had been too cold, and the rain hadn't been in our favor either. Of course, I wouldn't be able to go in the water due to my cast, but that didn't mean I couldn't go to the beach and sit on one of those chairs or a towel to take in the sun. Cece could go and enjoy it.

"Obviously yes," Cecilia said with a roll of her eyes. "Slowking will be better off improving his swimming as well, and it would be nice for Talonflame and Scyther to practice getting out of the water as fast as they can."

"Awesome."

We walked back to the Pokemon Center, which took a while because of how slow I was. I picked up my team as soon as they were ready. After texting the group chat about the police report going through (we figured it was time to inform everyone that Abel was in this city and possibly working with poachers), we decided it was time to leave for the beach. Beforehand, though, I had to address my team in private. I donned the swimsuit we'd bought at the Hotel Grand Lake and wore a shirt and a pair of shorts over it before making my way to the park on Princess' back.

Actually, could sand damage my cast? I'd better put a plastic wrap around it just to make sure. Eh, I'd look it up later. Right now, I was too busy smiling at how good the wind felt against my hair.

Princess landed near that same park where we had played music for the Kricketot in, and I released the entire team when I got there. Sweetheart, who showed her first signs of molting, shivered within her shell as I rubbed her chin and the spot between the spikes on her head. One more after this one, and she'd evolve. The sparks coming out of Honey's fingers were smaller now. I couldn't wait until I could finally hug him again. They all greeted each other in different ways. Sunshine patted Sweetheart on the head while he grunted at the others until Honey gripped his hand and patted him on the shoulder. At this point, the dragon didn't feel anything from the relatively small electric shocks that never made it past Princess' barrier. Princess hovered above me and let everyone greet her first.

Arceus, she was turning into a brat. For now, though, I let her have her time.

Two minutes of greetings later, I was sitting on Princess' fluffy back. She had lowered herself to the ground for me, and I could almost sink into her.

"So, we lost against Barry— but," I stopped to raise a finger. "The fact of the matter is, we could have won had I just been better. Made better decisions. The loss is on me."

They were reluctant to agree, of course. I knew a bunch of 'what-ifs' were running through their minds right now. What if they'd been stronger? Faster? Dodged that one attack? It was a train of thought that could utterly consume someone if they let it run wild, but we'd learned not to do so. I clapped my hands to have them focus back on me.

"In two days, I'm getting paid enough to buy a TM for each of you," I said. "And we'll keep our heads in the game. Barry Lane is the strongest first-year. He had all of Professor Rowan—" I stopped, remembering that none of them knew who that was. "A really famous Professor. The most famous one in Sinnoh, in fact. He has all of his resources, and we almost got there. We're strong, guys. Revel in it. Doesn't it feel good?"

Honey smiled, revealing his flattened teeth, and he let out a motor-like giggle. Sweetheart roared, causing the floor under her to rumble. Princess rubbed her head against my hand and cheered with a cry. Angel caressed everyone with vines, and Sunshine didn't swat it away like he used to do. Buddy sagely nodded, an almost-silent click reverberating across the woods.

"We'll go further, still," I grinned. "The next time we fight Barry, it'll be our win. For now, though? Back to training! Today's going to be a little special, although Honey will be exempt because we don't want to get anyone electrocuted. Any guesses?"

Jellicent immediately guessed, taking the fun out of the entire situation. Sweetheart and Angel cheered, although Sunshine snorted and waited for me to say he'd gotten it wrong.

"It's true. You're going to learn how to swim."

Turtonator balked.

—

"You aren't nervous? Not even a little bit?" I asked my girlfriend.

"Why would I be? I'm going to be strapped in a saddle."

I pouted. "You're no fun."

Seeing her be all anxious about flying would have been cute, but then again she'd been completely zen when Craig had flown us back to Eterna City. Princess lowered herself to allow Cecilia to climb on first. It was her first time flying with two people, but I was confident she'd grown confident enough with flight for it not to matter. Two was definitely her max, though. There was no way we'd ever get up to three. Pauline's Braviary, meanwhile, could probably carry six people with the right saddle. Cecilia helped me up on Princess' back, and I strapped myself in too, ignoring the butterflies in my stomach when she wrapped her hands around me from behind. I knew for a fact that she didn't need to do it either.

But it felt good to.

"Go ahead. To the beach," I told Princess. "Uh, preferably a spot without many people?"

Togekiss was already in the air before my sentence finished, and I smirked when Cecilia's hold on me tightened at the sudden burst of lateral speed. Nervous after all, hm? The fairy type rose high above the Pokemon Center (which was the only area other than specific landing pads trainers were allowed to land and take off from) and made her way to the southern tip of the city. We'd be bypassing the docks and continuing that way toward the beach, and obviously she'd have to find the closest landing pad to the beach. With how famous Pastoria was for its beaches though, there was bound to be one near.

Route 212's swamp was far away in the corner of my eye.

"How's your second— wait, third time flying?" I asked, turning my head toward Cece.

She had the cutest grin on her face.

"It feels liberating!" She screamed. "I can't wait until Lehmhart can carry me around!"

"Oh! With everything, I forgot to ask! How did your first lesson go?"

Her smile fell slightly. "Not that great. He could hover, at least, but flying horizontally is still beyond him. So technically, we can fly, but not quick at all. Slower than Sigilyph, really."

"You'll get there," I said. "Oh, by the way, I've been getting better at the piano and stuff. I was thinking, maybe I could do a little something with Lehmhart, since he loves music so much."

"Grace, that's a fantastic idea! He'll be ecstatic!"

She bent forward to kiss the back of my neck. Tingles.

"Maybe I'll get back into music too," she pondered. "It'll be good to have a way to further bond with him."

"You can play, like, every instrument, right?"

"Not every," she scoffed. "Just a lot. I'm quite rusty in anything that isn't the piano."

Which made sense, since she'd been the one to tutor me.

Cecilia continued. "Clarence used to sign me up in all these music competitions," she groaned. "In public, he'd act like he didn't care what place I got, but if I didn't score first, when we got home he'd scream at me and say that I humiliated him," she sighed. "The worst part is that I believed him."

"He'll pay, don't worry," I promised.

After a pause, she spoke up again. "Sorry I ruined the mood."

"You're allowed to speak about anything," I shrugged. "When something's on your mind, just tell me. No secrets, remember?"

The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

Cece spoke— and I knew from the way that she was talking that she had a smile on her face. "Fine, then. You look very attractive in those shorts. I'm glad you're finally wearing them."

My face felt hot all of a sudden. "Not when we're flying please," I stammered.

"I mean, I was basically waiting the entire time for you to put them on. I bought them for you in Eterna—"

I had Princess make a sudden drop, and Cecilia screeched, practically strangling my waist in the process.

"Sorry! That was a little rougher than I thought it'd be," I said. "Are you okay?"

"...Yes."

Princess finally finished her ascent, and we soared through the skies. Almost ten minutes later, we were on the other side of Pastoria. She circled the beach for a few minutes to spot the most inactive area before landing nearby. I had Angel carry me the rest of the way, although he decided to put Cece on his head too. The beach back in Sunyshore had been active, but not crammed with people like this one. A trainer and his Hitmonlee played beach volleyball against another trainer and his Frogadier. It was fun to see the fighting type kick the ball instead of using his hands. Hundreds of people lay on towels splayed out on the beach, tanning their skin while they either slept, read books, browsed their phones or more. There was some kind of race in the background with trainers riding their water types along the beach, and one of them let go of her Sharpedo due to her speed and tumbled into the water.

It was hard not to get swept in the festive atmosphere, and it was also hard to remember that a crisis was currently gripping the city. We reached the final stretch of the beach where sand bled into woods and there was no one here. The closest people were dots to our east.

Cecilia grabbed a towel from her bag, and then dropped it on the fabric as soon as Angel lowered us onto the sand. She snatched my bag out of my hand and said she'd deal with everything, so I was stuck making sure the plastic wrap around my cast was well-adjusted. The weight of the sun felt wonderful on my skin. Cecilia handed me some sunscreen, along with my sunglasses. She'd already been wearing hers on her head from when we had landed.

"Want water?" She asked. "I brought food too. Just snacks, though."

"Oh. I forgot about all of that," I muttered. "I'll have some later, thanks!"

Before our actual date could start, we needed to get our teams started on training. I released my Pokemon, and Cece released hers. I could already see that Croagunk had lingering apathy for Zweilous, who started smelling at the sand. Zerst even took a bite, though he spat it out immediately when Cecilia snapped her fingers and yelled at him. The poison type gravitated toward Scyther the most, and she seemed to outright fear Lehmhart. His huge size made him daunting to approach, but when Slowking happily waved at Golurk and tapped him on the knee, she was content to approach. Lehmhart released a few bits of steam and got on his knees, outstretching a finger toward Croagunk, who… shook it. That had hardly been a shake. More like a pat.

I turned back toward my team, and Sunshine looked as horrified as he'd been before. Usually, it was just because he called Sinnohan beaches trash, but today it was because he feared the water.

"Okay, we're going to do this one by one, okay? Five minutes max in the water for everyone— less for you, Sweetheart. You're going underwater, so thirty seconds max. Am I clear, young lady?"

The rock type froze, then nodded in her shell.

"Good," I smiled. "Buddy will be there as a lifeguard. He'll keep a part of himself here with me so he can warn me if anything goes wrong and I can recall you. Sunshine, your goal is to stay afloat in the water by using Shell Trap. Princess, see if you can glide across the water by floating. Angel, look into using your vines to propel yourself up and forward. Honey… well, you can already swim pretty well, and your electricity would hurt Buddy, and we don't know how far it'd spread, so sit this one out, okay?" I asked. His face fell, and his two tails straightened. "Sorry, but it's just to be safe, okay? The last thing I'd want is for an accident to happen."

The electric type agreed, and it was hard not to feel distressed at how disappointed he was. He was a kid, and kids liked going to the beach to swim.

"And hey, Sunshine, Angel and Sweetie will keep you company when it's not their turn," I said. "So! Who wants to go first?!"

Sweetheart volunteered instantly. I could tell that the most reluctant one (besides Sunshine) was Princess, who was already working on some kind of elaborate sandcastle with Ancient Power. I'd have her and Sunshine go last, then.

Results of our swimming experiments were… mixed. Sweetheart had to constantly output air out of her vents, or the water would flood them. I had to recall her four times until she got the hang of it. Angel sank as soon as he got deep enough into the water. He could keep himself afloat for a little while, but being in water permanently for him was going to be harder than I thought. Princess' swimming was just fine. She was being spoiled about it and hated when her fur got wet, but she could easily glide across the water. Sunshine was surprisingly decent, keeping himself afloat and moving forward as long as his shell was in good condition. Just him being in the water created a great amount of steam, and the explosions only added to that.

All in all, it was a work in progress. The goal was just to give them the tools to escape the water, save for Sweetheart. They were never going to rival Wake's Pokemon on their field. Cecilia was doing the same thing, training Scyther and Talonflame to fly out of the water. Slowking was… somewhere under the surface, training himself to swim faster than he usually did.

After forty minutes or so, I was confident enough to not just spend the entire time looking at the water. Croagunk was training her agility by climbing on Lehmhart's body as fast as she could while the ground type tried to pluck her off. Walking with crutches on the beach is the absolute worst, I thought with a tired groan. Cece had been nice enough to wait for me to finish up presiding over training, and she was already waiting in her swimsuit. Once I made it to her, I threw off my shirt and shorts, trying to forget how silly I must have looked with my cast on, and sat next to her on her towel, even though mine was empty.

She started talking about some movie Denzel had told her about, and then somehow segued into the fact that her movie knowledge was basically zero. I quite literally couldn't believe it, and decided we were going to remedy that at some point by spending an entire day in my room after having rented DVDs.

Times like these were precious.

—

I'd dropped off Cecilia at the Pokemon Center after our date. I had fallen asleep on the tail end of it because I'd been so tired lately, and she'd been content to let me sleep. Still, I had something to do before I went in as well to shower.

Even though it was the third time I was flying today, it felt freeing to be back in the skies. Princess' back was more comfortable the more I got on it, even with the saddle. I ran a gentle hand over her neck as she gained in altitude, dodging a cloud (flying through clouds was not illegal, but not recommended). After reaching the ACE Trainers' usual height and a cold gust of wind rushed through my clothes, I had Princess scan the surroundings to see if we could spot Ariel. No brilliant spot of yellow ever got my attention, so after five minutes of looking, worry crept up my neck. Was she fired? Can ACE Trainers even get fired? They'd probably be discharged. On one hand, the thought of her being punished for failing us so spectacularly felt somewhat satisfying, but on the other, she was the ACE Trainer I was most familiar with.

And if she was gone, who had they replaced her with?

A cry from Princess snapped me out of my thoughts, and she turned toward a dark spot in the sky. I squinted, still constantly running my hand on her back.

"Your eyesight's better than mine. What is that?" I asked, leaning toward her ear.

She answered Honchkrow, and it was then that I remembered that a man with that Pokemon had revealed his cover when Abra had tried to whisk me away with Teleport back in Veilstone. His name was… Maxwell, I remembered. I ordered Princess forward, and with a flap of her wings, the momentum shifted. Wind whizzed past my ears in the same exhilarating fashion it had our first flight, and my lips stretched into a thin smile.

As we approached the ACE Trainer, something dawned on me.

Honchkrow weren't supposed to be this big. Usually, they were four feet tall, or somewhere around those lines. This one was slightly bigger than Princess was. Was he another insane genetic mutation like Pauline's Braviary? I'd been so shaken during the Abra attack that I hadn't noticed at all. The dark type's feathered cap tipped itself as he hovered in the air with his two wings lazily outstretched. Maxwell's dark hair was unkept and he looked tired, but other than that he was the same as every other ACE Trainer. The orange uniform, strong-looking with lean muscles and a few scars here and there, the most prominent one being a cut stretching from the top of the right side of his lip to his cheek, stopping right below his eye. Lucky. What was particular about him was that he didn't wear any goggles to protect his eyes.

"'Afternoon," he lazily drawled, much more emotive than Ariel ever was. "How can I help you, Ms. Pastel?"

"Hi. Um—" Arceus, now that I was here I didn't know what I wanted to say. "Okay, first off, what happened to Ariel?"

"Rotated through the formation. She recused herself as your contact and I was ordered to take her place," he explained. "She's still hanging around."

How the hell did she hide something like Dragonite? She might have had other fliers— honestly, the fact that I didn't know the Pokemon teams of the people protecting me didn't feel normal, but secrecy and all of that. They weren't allowed to get close to me or become attached so they could make the hard decisions down the line, like… kidnapping me and keeping me locked in a cell should the need for it arise. I have no idea why that's the first thing that came to mind.

"Okay," I exhaled. It was difficult to speak this high up in the air. The sound of the wind was deafening, and it blew against my face, so it wasn't carrying the sound of my voice very far. "I have a few questions for you, if you don't mind!"

"Answering what you want to know is my job so long as the questions are reasonable," Maxwell nonchalantly shrugged. Honchkrow let out a mocking cackle, not at me, but at his own trainer. He didn't care at all, though.

"The poacher's base is somewhere on route 212's swamp. I feel like—" I groaned when more wind interrupted me. "—I feel like a couple of fliers should have been able to spot it?"

Maxwell nodded. "Pastoria has sent a couple already. No reports of any base being found. Hearthome helped by sending their own Rangers down their side of route 212, but there was nothing either. No base found."

So they had tried. The entire narrative online made it seem like the League was doing nothing. Of course, a full search with hundreds to thousands of boots on the ground wasn't feasible. Even if they used the Rangers, the risk involved would send the casualties skyrocketing, both from potential attacks from poachers and the Pokemon in the swamp thinking that humans were invading again. A massive sweep like that happened every time a city expanded. Pokemon fought back as best they could, but at the end of the day, they were always beaten back. The average Ranger wasn't actually that powerful. Less than the usual League Trainer, at the very least. Of course, there were definitely a couple thousand stronger than I was throughout the region, but the point was, there was no political will to send a bunch of Rangers to their deaths in a swamp for a base that may or may not have existed.

I moistened my lips. Good thing Alex was teaching me things fast.

A few powerful trainers could have dealt with this, like Craig, Aubri and the others who routinely made it to the Conference, or at least I thought so. Maybe they wouldn't have found the base either, but they had the power to do things. Unfortunately, trainers like them were more worried about where they'd place in the Conference than things like this, and it wasn't their job to do anything anyway.

"Could it be underground? Out of view from any flier?" I asked.

"Under a swamp? You'd have better luck building a flying castle," he dismissed. "They're good at hiding, which makes sense considering they apparently have Abel involved."

Ariel must have told him about that.

"He learned some new tricks," I warned. "His Hypno knows Miracle Eye, now. He used it to Teleport Zoroark around. You know what that means, right? He can have his Zoroark act independently and have her essentially be anywhere at any time."

Maxwell's eye twitched, and it wasn't because of the wind. It made sense for him to be wary of being in a city. People knew what he looked like, even though he had no striking features. Zoroark could turn into anyone at will. Such an ability still boggled my mind. She didn't even need DNA like Ditto did! So while Zoroark kept to the city and the Safari Zone, Abel kept to catching Pokemon in the wild. How many wild Pokemon had they caught, anyway? There was no way Leafeon and Wooper were the first, and they also targeted trained Pokemon. Why? Wild Pokemon would be possible to influence so they were ready to be sold, but trained Pokemon? Malamar had brainwashing, but he needed to be close to his victims, or he'd eventually lose his connection.

"What's with all this poacher talk, Ms. Pastel?" He asked with narrowed eyes. I couldn't help but notice that he was sticking with that name.

"If I told you to do something about them, would you do it?"

"No. That is not the mission I was assigned to do," he immediately answered.

Of course. My shoulders slumped, and Princess let out an angry chirp, calling the ACE Trainer a bunch of swears that Sunshine had taught her. Some of these were even new to me. Honchkrow smirked at her outburst, and I calmed her down by caressing her head.

I nodded. "Okay. What if I told you that we were going to do something about it, then?"

Maxwell raised an eyebrow, and his Honchkrow cackled once more. The dark type apparently loved when someone went against his trainer. "Then I would tell you that is horribly unwise, stupid, dangerous and that you should keep playing badges."

Playing badges. I didn't like that tone, but he was a grown man, so maybe that was how it looked from his perspective.

"But will you stop us?" I asked.

Maxwell hesitated. "My orders say no, and I listen to my orders. If you weren't allowed to put yourselves in danger, you'd grow slower, and we can't have that now, can we? We'd have to step in should you be attacked by a human trainer, but I doubt you'll have any luck finding a base of operations. At this point, we believe they're Teleporting somewhere else after they steal anything. With Abel's psychics, it would be very likely."

I wanted to smirk and cry at the same time.

Good.

Now, how the hell were we going to find a lead?

—

It was evening now. I'd spent the last few hours of the afternoon getting Buddy started on Taunt and making plans for him to further his encroachment into water manipulation. I had a lot of ideas swimming in my mind, but I needed something that would actually help him. It was nice to create a move, but what we needed was more utility with the water. He already had Water Spout and Hydro Pump, so he was good on that level for a while. I tapped a finger against my chin and slung an arm around the backrest of my chair, pushing myself back against the desk.

Barry had Roserade possess plants with spirits. Could I do the same with water? Of course, I had Night Shades to fill that niche, so I wasn't looking for pieces of water to attack our opponents.

Buddy had two weaknesses at the moment. One, he was too fragile. Even when he solidified himself, an attack powerful enough could dismantle him and it took a precious amount of seconds for him to come back together— sometimes even a minute if he'd been damaged too much. Two, he could be frozen too easily, and since he was fully made of water, that was a death sentence in a fight. Scald was an option, but that was a temporary fix that would only break him out of the ice just like Water Spout, not stop the freezing entirely. A defensive move, then. Coating himself with water wouldn't work with the ice problem, but what if that water was possessed? Or what if that water was coated in dark TE?

I actually had no idea if it would work, but it was an idea. Wake had at least one ice type move on almost all of his Pokemon at the seventh badge, and Buddy was too instrumental to that battle to leave those weaknesses unaddressed.

We'd practice that tomorrow.

I almost had all the TMs I wanted to buy in mind save for two because of budgeting, and due to the contract, it would be some months until I could renegotiate a raise again. I hadn't understood it at the time, but the Poketch Company definitely hadn't been as lenient as they had looked to the naive person I'd been in Hearthome.

"Next time, I'll ask for a whole lot more," I muttered.

I spent the next hour alternating between studying Wake and rewatching my battle with Barry until my phone rang.

Denzel, Emilia, and Pauline were back.

And Arceus, they'd taken their sweet time.