Ralts managed to deal with Abra just fine, no big problems on her part which made me swell with pride.

She dragged Abra towards the unconscious Crimson and dumped the creature on the floor.

He had stopped bleeding, I just wrapped a bandage around his leg and waited for the actual professionals to arrive to actually deal with his injuries.

They arrived 10 minutes after I shot Crimson, which was kinda disappointing to be honest. I thought they would react faster.

They shipped Crimson to a police car but they gave Abra a pair of handcuffs which I thought was very weird, but when they explained why, their reasoning made sense.

Pokémon can't teleport through shaking molecules or something. Apparently it distorted their Teleport and if they attempted to do it anyway horrifying things would happen to them.

Things like reappearing with their insides outside, entire body parts missing or just going straight up kaboom.

I wasn't sure how it exactly worked since air molecules are constantly moving. I asked the officer about them but he just explained it was some high tech shit someone invented to contain teleporting Pokémon if necessary and told me to stop bothering him about it.

They asked me to come along to the police station.

I told them I was tired and would come by in the morning which they were totally okay with.

My guess was that Hylla pulled some strings because they didn't even bother asking my name, instead I could just stumble my way towards Charizard and fly off.

It was getting late and the adrenaline had stopped pumping through my body, thus I needed a place to crash down at.

Being a good trainer, I thanked both Charizard and Ralts.

I couldn't resist the urge to say: "Told you so."

Ralts gave me a weak punch and Charizard gave me a mock growl.

We arrived at a nice quiet Pokémon Center and I returned Charizard to her Pokéball and claimed a room inside.

Once I found a nice room I released Charizard and decided to use her as a pillow because that's what dragon Pokémon are meant to be.

The following morning I left the Pokémon Center to visit the Jubilife Midtown Police Station which was a very mouthful name, though that didn’t stop me from enjoying dawn to its fullest.

It was a beautiful morning, the sun was just above the horizon and I decided to wake up earlier and just get my business with the police done.

As I walked through the city I saw the gears of the city slowly being greased by its waking people. Some were headed to school, work or whatever reasons they had to wake up this early. I saw some people jogging, or to start their work out at the park. Some of them were accompanied by Pokémon but most of them were just alone.

It was mostly quiet.

When I entered the police station I got a small applause which was very good for my ego. Afterwards things quieted down and everyone went on their way. I was taken to a backroom and I had to explain the entire process of capturing Crimson for the reports.

Being a liar, I told them I figured out where Crimson's location was by eliminating possibilities instead of using Ralts' emotion radar.

Maybe it was wrong of me to lie but I would rather keep Ralts' abilities a secret, especially since I had never heard about someone doing something similar.

I had to give them my Trainer ID before I could claim the bounty, surprisingly it wasn't as much as I thought, it was still a shitload of money and I really appreciate it nonetheless. I learned something new in the process, apparently Pokémon related problems had a higher priority than other threats.

Again, there was an algorithm involved that calculated the bounty, it factored in the amount of danger, the time the problem has been going on, the chance said problem could create more problems, the threat level and the amount of people affected by said problem.

It was again a very delicate process that was mostly hidden to prevent exploitation.

The league deemed Pokémon related problems more important because Pokémon had the ability to destroy towns if they had the numbers or were powerful enough.

Still, the money I earned was quite a lot, way more than I got from the entire Team Rocket situation.

The fact that Crimson remained untouched until I came along made him a very pricey criminal. I accepted the money and went on with my day.

I briefly spoke with someone from the news who wanted to make an article about it. According to a police officer it was for PR, seeing how a 16 year old Pokémon trainer managed to take down an infamous bank robber would apparently inspire a lot of other people according to them.

Charizard deserved to be in the spotlight as well so when they asked for a photo I released her to be on it too.

In the end Ralts sat on top of Charizard while I was standing in front of the pair with a big grin on my face.

It was a cool photo and they promised to send me a copy when the next edition was out.

Ralts enjoyed her short moment of fame which gave me a false feeling of accomplishment, I had promised her that we would become famous and although this was a small step it was a step after all.

Sadly, Fate didn't smile for everyone.

It was late noon when I decided to give a call and return to Charizard.

I had spent the entire day flying with her and Ralts because, well do I need to explain that? Flying is awesome.

The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

While I was calling Hylla the nurse at the Pokémon Center was doing a check up on both Pokémon, just to be sure.

The Pokémon Center had a PC I could use free of charge.

I found a computer to use in a backroom that provided me with enough privacy to make a video call.

However when I called Hylla she didn't give me her usual smirk.

She was sitting cross-legged on a big bed, her long purple hair looked messy and she had red rings around her eyes.

The style of the room suggested it was a hotel or something similar.

Next to her on the bed was a big pile of fast food.

"Hello Dust," Hylla said, "Congrats on your victory over Crimson, quite the game you were playing."

She gave me a weak smile.

"Thanks," I said hesitantly, "Your Charizard really helped me."

"Yes. Charizard seems to like you a lot," Hylla mused.

"Well, no one said my Pokémon have good taste." I joked.

Hylla didn't smile.

"Okay, I'll cut to the chase," I muttered before looking Hylla in the eyes, "You look like shit Hylla, what's wrong?"

"Now that's not something a lady likes to hear," Hylla said tiredly,"But to be honest I feel like dying right now. I've been staying up for 37 hours and 13 minutes straight."

She rubbed her eyes and yawned. "I’ve been staring at computer screens all day."

"For what?"I asked.

Hylla shrugged. "Spitting through data, tracking money across multiple region borders, directing a mission and I just went through Crimson's entire laptop."

I thought back to yesterday evening, "You said you were helping with a raid?"

She nodded, "Yes, we managed to find the current location of the Snatchers, a hiker saw their camp while he was out in Eterna Forest. The League's special team and the Pokémon Rangers decided to launch an attack together in hope of stopping them and hopefully freeing some poor Pokémon before it was too late."

She gave me a disappointed look.

The Snatchers, I had heard about them but solid information about them was scarce.

They were a group who traveled across the world and kidnapped Pokémon, wild or owned, it didn't matter to them.

The big difference between them and Hunter J was that they were shrouded in mysteries. Unlike Hunter J, they didn't steal Pokémon to sell them.

No, if a Pokémon got snatched by the Snatchers it was as good as gone. No one knew what happened to them but it was clear that everyone who came in contact with the Snatchers disappeared and would never be seen again.

It was quite unsettling, especially since no one knew anything about their reasoning or members. They just traveled from place to place and snatched, seemingly at random, Pokémon.

"How did it go?" I asked dreadfully.

Hylla sighed. "Well I was in charge of coordinating the communication between the squads and everything seemed to go alright; we found their location with surprising ease and managed to catch them off guard..."

"But it went wrong," I concluded.

"They set the entire forest on fire," Hylla said with disgust, "Can you imagine the nightmare that the fire caused? Stuck between a very hostile camp of Snatchers and a forest fire?"

She cast her eyes down, "They managed to turn the tables on us after that. It was a nightmare. Both Pokémon and men were consumed by the fire before the Rangers managed to put it out. Massive damage to the local ecosystem and we failed to catch any of the Snatchers."

I was left speechless; how was one supposed to react to that?

That sucks?

Better luck next time?

"So yeah, not everyone had as much luck as you did." Hylla cast down her eyes..

"Sorry," I eventually said, still at a loss for words. "At least you managed to drive them off."

"Yes, at least that. However, after that my job wasn't done yet." Hylla turned her eyes back to me again, she pointed at the junk food pile next to her. "I've been stuck in this room the entire day, analyzing the scarce data we managed to uncover during our brief raid."

"Got something?" I asked.

Hylla gave me a grave look. "Sadly I did. We managed to find a record of all the Pokémon they snatched during their stay in Sinnoh."

"What did you get out of it?" I asked.

She leaned to the left and grabbed something that was outside the camera's view. Hylla pulled it into the frame. A second later she held a long list.

"See this?" She asked, "These are all the Pokémon they snatched, can you see the pattern?"

She held the list in front of the camera. Her voice sounded strained.

To me it was just a random list of Pokémon names. I shook my head.

"That's because there isn't one," Hylla yawned, "The Pokémon on the list are not rare, pretty or powerful, it's seemingly random. Almost as if they just snatch Pokémon out of sadism but…"

"But?" I urged her to continue.

"Well, I had been working on this problem ever since the catastrophe in Eterna forest," Hylla continued.

No shit, you look like you came back from the dead.

"I just couldn't let it all be for nothing," Hylla sounded very emotional to me, though she managed to hide it very well, I could almost convince myself I had imagined the crack in her voice.

"And it all seemed to be useless junk we got until the Jubilife City Police force sent the League the data that was stored on Crimson's Pc."

I raised an eyebrow, "Crimson has a connection with the Snatchers?"

"Not directly but they are similar in some ways," she paused to think. "Did you know that Crimson stole 1756 TMs last year? A crime that made no sense in the public's eye, however after recovering Crimson's data I found out that he himself was tasked to get as many TMs as possible, in exchange he got paid three times as much as they're worth!"

"You managed to figure that out in one day?" I asked incredulously.

"Working non stop all day and night," Hylla reminded me with a pained groan. "And it paid off because Crimson held the piece to solve a part of the Snatchers mystery."

She gave me a weary smile. "I tracked down the channels Crimson used for monetary transactions, turns out, both the Snatchers and Crimson get their money via the same networks."

I briefly closed my eyes to reconsider everything Hylla had just revealed.

My first thought was that someone was putting together an army, using the TMs to power his Pokémon, except that couldn't be it. That made no sense.

Hylla's list also contained worthless Pokémon that were unfit for battle.

I began eliminating all the possibilities that didn't fit the details and came to an ugly conclusion.

Hylla had been patiently waiting for me to reach the same conclusion, I opened my eyes and one gaze of hers told me I was right. We shared the same dark look.

"How sure are you?" I asked, hoping for a 'not sure at all.'

"98% sure," Hylla said with her eyes down, "Pokémon are snatched too frequently to form a sustainable assault force and too random for a collector. I did consider that they were sold for body parts but the local black market shows no significant increase once the Snatchers enter a new area."

"Oooh fuck," I muttered, "So what's the League going to do about it now?"

"The Snatchers already received a B as threat level because of their body count and even after their slaughter in Eterna Forest they were still not threatening enough to change their threat level."

"They refuse to change it?"

"No, they did change it." Hylla answered with a sad smile. "After I showed them the new information Crimson's capture revealed and my conclusion they agreed to change their threat level to A."

"You think it's that bad?"

Hylla fixed her eyes on me. "Whoever receives all the Pokémon and TMs shouldn't be underestimated."

She tapped a few buttons on her laptop and clicked a few times and a news article popped up on the screen, it was about a small island in the Kanto region disappearing overnight.

Hylla grimaced.

"After all, history shows that whenever someone is experimenting on Pokémon, tragedy follows."