“Ok, I’ll head home now. Call me if anything important happens”, Matt shouted on his way out.

Jess rolled her eyes and sat back on her deck chair, chilled drink in one hand and a fan in the other.

“Just go and take your kids to the beach. There hasn’t been a cloud in days and even most pokemon don’t have the energy to make trouble in this damn heat.”, she replied.

Normally the Kanto Ocean Patrol Centre was a lot more alert and professional, but the recent heatwave that had rolled over Kanto had smothered almost all capacity for physically demanding activities. The only ones who had the time of their lives were fire types and pokemon with abilities like Chlorophyll or Cloud Nine.

Schools had been closed for days on account of the heat and most businesses that had the option to were closed down. Only essential workers or those whose business benefited from the heat were still operating on anything resembling a normal schedule.

She counted herself lucky that her younger sister had recently begun her pokemon journey, so she didn’t have to feel guilty for taking the shifts for her colleagues who still had kids to look after. Once the worst of the heat had gone she would be swimming in accumulated overtime, which she could then use for a nice vacation when she actually had the energy to do something with it.

Being paid to laze around at work only to convert those hours into vacation time had truly been an inspired decision on her part. She could even take some time to check in on her sister and help her out with her training.

Just as she was settling in for a few hours of boredom, the crackling of the old radio station drew her attention. The antique was only still in use due to the miserly nature of the Centre’s supervisor and the off-chance that some century-old vessel had miraculously passed every safety check without ever upgrading it. Stranger things had happened, but not often.

Jess heaved herself out of the deck chair with a sigh, deposited her precious drink on a nearby desk, and then sauntered over to the radio. The incoming transmission was barely audible and only after fiddling with the frequency for a bit did she get a decently clear sound.

“… I don’t know where.”

She frowned. That voice had sounded suspiciously young. Maybe a newbie trainer that had underestimated the currents. But how would he have a radio instead of using the emergency function of his pokedex? She pressed the button that allowed her to speak.

“This is the Kanto Ocean Patrol Center, Jess Wright speaking. Could you please repeat your message?”

After a short moment the shaky voice of a young boy answered her.

“Hello Miss Wright. I’m stranded on what I think is an island. I don’t know where I am, and I also don’t know how I got here.”

“Well, that’s not much to go on. First of all, are you or your pokemon hurt? I can coach you through first aid measures you can take.”

“Ah, no. I got a few scrapes when I ran through the jungle but those have been taken care of.”

“Maybe it’s best if you tell me what you do know and we’ll go from there.”

Jess leaned back in her chair. It was a right mess of a situation. As she listened to the boy’s unbelievable tale, the direness of his situation became increasingly clear to her. He had no pokemon and he was stranded on what she was sure was an island, since there was no jungle on the Kanto mainland. That situation was bad, but not immediately life-threatening now that he had found shelter.

What really worried her were the nature of his shelter and its occupant. Vats of preserved pokemon corpses painted a bleak picture about the type of research the lab had probably engaged in, and the abundance of pokemon not native to the Indigo Region suggested either mutation experiments or the involvement of another region, maybe even both.

Pokemon of the Bella’s apparent intelligence that assisted in operations like these invariably ended up with warped personalities. Add to that being abandoned by her trainer and his group and years of isolation, and nobody would be able to predict her behavior. What little she had heard of was encouraging, but not necessarily a guarantee for the future.

Since the pokemon in question was listening in on the call and was able to understand humans, she couldn’t even warn the kid without risking triggering her. She’d have to look up that species to hopefully gather some clues on their general disposition.

“And after you woke up, what happened then?”

“Bella brought me her pokeball and a pokedex and I registered both as mine. Then she brought me up here so I could call you, and here we are.”

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Jess sighed deeply. Of course the boy had bonded with her. Pokeballs were a mysterious piece of technology that was poorly understood even by most trainers. They formed very deep connection between the two parties that had a variety of applications.

Trainers could give non-verbal commands to their pokemon through the connection, but also get an idea of the mood of their pokemon, and how healthy they were. This connection naturally also went the other way though, allowing the pokemon to interpret what their trainers were feeling and also making it possible to make their needs clear to their trainers.

When one side of the connection was much stronger than the other, complications could arise. There had been cases of trainers training weak pokemon to death when they forced them past their breaking point, but also cases where trainers lucked into acquiring pokemon much too strong for them.

In those instances, there were two possible worst cases. One option was that the pokemon terminated the connection unilaterally, which could cripple or even destroy the trainer’s mind. The second option was that they dominated the trainer’s mind leaving them a prisoner in their own bodies.

Being a member of the emergency services had shown Jess the depths both humans and pokemon could sink to. There were of course plenty of cases where the power imbalance never became an issue, but when it went wrong, it went really wrong.

Normally, a trainer would feel the difference in strength between themselves and the pokemon they connected with. Either this Audino was very weak, which given the circumstances was almost impossible, or it was so strong or skilled that it could hide that information from the boy. That was very bad since only ace-level psychic types or leader-level pokemon in general should have that degree of control.

All of this was critical information that the boy was unlikely to have. Not that he could have acted on it either way by that point. While all of that was going through her head she had hammered the info the boy had provided into a nearby computer.

“Alright kid, the situation may look dire, but I’m confident that we can find you and bring you back. The question is now how long you can manage on your own. You need to look around for food near the lab and report back how much you can spot. Don’t eat anything before talking to me though, we don’t want you to make trouble for yourself by eating the wrong thing.”

“Okay. You heard her Bella, let’s find something to eat. I’m starving here.”

“Oh and before you go, look around the lab for clues. There should be something in there that can at least point us in the right direction.”

“Alright. Until later then, Jess.”

“How about you look around in that lab for any clues where you are. In the meantime, I’ll call in some help. I promise I won’t leave this room, so you can call anytime, but it may take a few moments for me to answer.”.

The silence when the boy left was deafening to Jess. It felt oppressive in a way that was hard to describe. Emergencies when children were involved really were the worst. She rose from her seat in front of the radio and sat down at the computer. It was time to make some calls and write some emails.

Her first action was to send a code red alert to all registered emergency responders, as well as an email to all gym leaders, the rangers and the league tagged as the highest priority. If any of them were currently vacationing in the Sevii Islands or beyond and could reach the child once his location was known that would be for the best.

That done she had the unfortunate responsibility of informing her supervisor that his vacation was over. From that point on all of the responsibility would fall on him and she’d be back to being a cog in the emergency machine, just as she liked it. Being responsible for the success or failure of this operation was way too stressful for her.

“Hello, this is Allan Koin speaking.”

“Hey, Mr. Koin, it’s Jess from the Centre. We have a code red emergency.”, she answered him.

Instead of an answer she got a deep sigh, which she took as an invitation to brief him on the situation.

“We have an amnesiac child with probably no rations and no own pokemon stranded on an unknown island. He is currently holed up in a lab that conducted illegal experiments before it was abandoned in a hurry.

He also bonded with what I presume is a fairly strong and skillful pokemon, whose species is unknown to me. He said it’s an Audino, so we’ll have to look into their general disposition. The alert is already out to all to all available emergency responders and the various authorities.”

“…”

“Is there anything pressing that I should do immediately? I thought it would be best to contact both a child psychologist as well as a survival expert, but I didn’t want to decide anything before speaking with you.”

“No, no that’s a good idea. I’ll just have to tell Maggie that I’ll be gone for a while. You’ve done good. I just have to collect my thoughts for a while. We’ll speak more when I’m back. Regarding the pokemon, you can contact Professor Oak. Even if he doesn’t know it, he has the most complete records of pre-split pokemon.

Regarding survival you can ask the ranger branch to send someone. If you don’t have a psychologist in mind, ask Professor Oak about that as well. Just like with the pokemon, if he doesn’t know someone suitable, he’ll know who to ask to find the best.”

“Okay I’ll do just that.”

“Until later then.”

He ended the call.

Her following hour was filled with tense calls in which she repeated the summary that she had given Mr. Koin in a bit more detail. The rangers promised that one of them would come over and be available for the next few days in case any further questions came up after the initial call.

Professor Oak had not only known what an Audino was, he also knew that it originated in the Unova region and had sent an assistant into his archives for further information. He also knew a suitable specialist for children that had survived traumatic events.

Later in a second call told her that he would assemble a team to join the rescue mission if one was necessary or visit the island on their own. It would be their responsibility to both secure the lab document the new species of pokemon present on the island.

Just as she was about to sit back and rest for a few minutes the radio crackled to life again.

“Jess, are you there?”

She shot up immediately and quickly pressed the button.

“Yes, I’m here. Everything alright over there?”