DeStaav Pokémon Investigation Bureau
Chapter 1: One Last Job
A crowd had gathered around two injured Pokémon, lying on the outskirts of town among the tall grasses and overhanging trees that made up its border. One, a Hariyama, was lying on his back and seemed barely conscious; the other, an elderly Lucario whose fur's familiar blue and black had both shifted to a silvery blue-gray with the ravages of age, was crouched low to the ground and breathing heavily. Both had clearly been in a fight—their bodies were marred with bruises and strange burns, and the Hariyama's clothing was in tatters.
"What happened to you guys?"
"Yeah," another member of the crowd called out, peeking over the larger Pokémon in front in an attempt to get a better view. "Who did this to you?"
"I… I don't know," the Hariyama muttered, groaning and coughing. "It was an ambush…"
The large-bodied Pokémon attempted to pull himself to his feet, but was unable to muster up enough strength and slumped to the ground once again.
"I was hit from behind," he continued, turning his head slightly toward the nearby trees. "I don't know what… some kind of psychic attack, I think… and before I could react, it hit me again from the side. If it wasn't for Elder Lukhan, then I… I believe I surely would have died."
The Elder in question, the ancient Lucario, turned toward the direction of the crowd's voices. Lukhan could not see the other Pokémon gathered around him, at least not in the way that anyone else could see; his eyesight had begun to fail him years before, and he now wore a blindfold over his nearly-useless eyes so that what little vision he had left would not interfere with his superior aura sense. It was with this sixth sense that he could pinpoint each of the creatures standing around him, from the tiny flicker of energy that was a young Pidgey to the brighter lights of Mareeps, Linoones, and a single Pidgeot.
"I arrived shortly after he was attacked," the old Lucario began, slowly standing up to his full height and leaning on a wooden staff that he carried. "But as for the identity of his attacker… I cannot say. Its aura signature was that of a species I have never seen before."
"Didja fight it off?", the Pidgey chirped, fluttering up above the larger Pokémon and landing on the back of a Piloswine. "Where'd it go?"
"Unfortunately… it seemed that nothing I could do had much effect on the creature," the Elder sighed. "I launched a Dragon Pulse at the creature when I arrived, but it seemed to shrug it off without any difficulty… it counterattacked with a blast of some kind of unusual energy, but then seemed to be startled by something and fled the scene."
He paused and took a breath, then continued.
"By the time I had recovered from its attack, it had vanished into the forest. I could only barely sense its presence… there was no way I could have caught up with it at that point."
He wobbled for a moment, bracing himself with his staff; at his age, it was hardly surprising that he wouldn't have been able to give chase. Still, what he had said worried the other Pokémon. Though old, he was still powerful; his body may have grown frail with age, but an attack like Dragon Pulse, drawing upon his inner strength rather than the strength of his muscles, would not have been weakened by mere physical changes. Whatever monster could shrug off such a powerful technique as easily as this one apparently had would be a serious threat to almost anyone in the little Pokémon village if it happened to return.
Something had to be done about this, before rumors of a mysterious attacker lurking in the woods drove the village into a panic.
In a cramped and extremely dusty room, a Jigglypuff rooted around in a filing cabinet, pulling out several incredibly full folders and tossing them onto one of the nearby tables. A Squirtle walked into the room with a somewhat dazed look on his face, blinking several times at the sheer dustiness of the room. He removed his glasses, attempting to wipe off the layer of dust but only succeeding in leaving behind an annoying smudge on each lens. The little turtle grunted slightly and then turned away from the Jigglypuff, attempting to clean off the offending dirt with a weak spray of water, but apparently he didn't know his own strength—what was intended to just spray the glasses enough to clear them of dust instead sent them flying out of his stubby blue hands, tumbling to the floor with a splash.
"What the hell!?", the Jigglypuff suddenly shouted in a voice far deeper and more manly than one would ever expect to hear coming out of such a pink and fluffy Pokémon. "Damn it, Ed! Whaddya doin' sprayin' water around here, ya freakin' blind cave turtle? You're gonna ruin all my papers if you ain't careful!"
The Squirtle groaned. He'd only been there for a few days, and this was already at least the tenth time he'd accidentally called down the Jigglypuff's wrath.
"Sorry, Fat-Head," he blurted out, turning back toward his round, pink coworker after drying his glasses with a stray bandana someone had left lying on the floor nearby. "I didn't mean to make such a mess, I just—"
"And what'd I tell ya before about my name?"
The Jigglypuff sat the folders aside and turned around in his chair. He pointed to his hat, which had a miniature plaque sewn into the front to act as a nametag. Engraved quite clearly across it was the rather unfortunately-spelled name "Fatheade DeStaav."
"It's Fatheade. Pronounced 'fah-theeeeed!' And you better get it right next time, or I swear, I'm gonna…"
Fatheade just stood still and shook one of his fists in Ed's direction, mouth half-open, for a few seconds afterward. His rant was interrupted by the sight of a Chikorita standing at the other end of the hall, a heavy-looking mailbag slung over her shoulder. Immediately his eyes widened and the angry look on his face vanished, replaced with a slightly awkward grin. With one stubby, flipper-like arm, he waved.
The Squirtle blinked, confused by Fatheade's sudden change in behavior, then turned just in time to see the Chikorita turning to head off down a different hallway. He turned back toward Fatheade, and of course the look on his pink, pudgy face was even more ridiculous than before.
"Whoo! Did ya check out the tail on that one?", he said, just quietly enough that the Chikorita wouldn't be able to hear if she happened to still be just around the corner. "And that leaf—did ya see how long and shiny that leaf was? Damn, I'm glad our old mailman retired!"
"Aw, come on," Ed mumbled, rolling his eyes. "She's not even in your egg group…"
Fatheade grinned even wider and narrowed his eyes, leaning closer to the Squirtle and whispering.
"Who ever said anything about eggs?"
He groaned and turned away.
"Um… I think I'm just going to go check the mail," he said, plodding off down the hallway and carefully avoiding the small puddle he had created just a minute or so earlier. "Who knows, maybe we'll have a new job this time?"
Fatheade snorted.
"Don't bet on it, kid," he said, turning back around in his chair and picking up one of the folders once again. "Last time we had a real job was weeks before you even got here. Hell, I'm almost thinkin' of closin' down this business and movin' on if it keeps on like this for too much longer..."
"So, anything interesting in the mail today?"
The Chikorita stopped just short of the door, turned, and shrugged. As far as the Squirtle could see, her mailbag didn't seem to be any less full than before; if they had gotten any mail, it wasn't much.
"Looked like just a couple of plain envelopes to me," she said, "A couple of bills for somebody named 'Fat-Head,' and another one from some tiny little village up north... so, I'm guessing that's a no."
The Squirtle snickered; for a moment, he almost wished Fatheade had been there to hear the most recent object of his inappropriate affections butcher his name just like everyone else did. He then waved goodbye to the leafy mail-carrier and headed over to the mailboxes, passing by Fatheade's box (which undoubtedly contained nothing but the bills he had been letting pile up for weeks already) and moving toward the box reserved for mail that wasn't addressed to any specific member of the team.
"This must be it," he said, picking up the lone envelope. "Return address is somewhere called 'Polunk Village'… so I guess that must be the place north of here, then."
"Polunk, huh?", a quiet voice from somewhere above him said. "Yeah… that's about four days' walk from here… if you make it quick."
For a moment, the turtle glanced around, not seeing anyone. He then, finally, looked up and discovered that a reddish-colored bug Pokémon was attached to the ceiling overhead, antennae twitching slightly. For a moment, the twitches of the antennae stopped entirely; then, the bug suddenly rolled into a ball and came crashing down, narrowly missing the Squirtle and bouncing to the other side of the hallway on impact, leaving behind a small dent in the floor.
"Yeah… I bet you'd take a little longer to get all the way up there," the mystery Pokémon said, uncurling her body and revealing herself as a Venipede. "Maybe even a full week if Fatheade tags along."
"Go on," another voice from above said. "Open it. We wanna see."
The Squirtle recognized this voice right away—and he couldn't help but roll his eyes in response to what it had said.
"You don't even have eyes, Varney," he said, briefly glancing up at the corner of the ceiling where the Zubat's voice had come from. "And don't even try to tell me you can read with echolocation again, that's just ridiculous!"
"Not as ridiculous as you spitting up sparkling spring water," the bat snickered, swooping down and latching onto the mailboxes as if attempting to get a closer look despite his lack of eyes. "Now c'mon, open that thing up!"
The Squirtle nodded, glancing to Varney the Zubat and Lopendra the Venipede for just a moment each before focusing his attention on the envelope in his hands. He carefully removed the wax seal holding it shut and tucked it inside his shell for safekeeping, then lifted the letter itself out of its container.
"Let's see," he said, skimming over the letter while the other two Pokémon watched (or leaned in and pretended to watch, in the case of the eyeless Varney.) "It says it's from one of the town elders of Polunk Village… something about a series of mysterious attacks on residents and travelers over the past few weeks. And they suspect that the culprit is…"
He paused. Did he just read that right?
"What?", the Venipede asked, rearing up to get a better look at the letter, "The culprit is what?"
"I don't know if you guys are gonna believe this," the turtle said, "But it says here… that they think the attacker might be either an unknown species of Pokémon… or not a Pokémon at all."
At that moment, Fatheade waddled into the room, overhearing just enough to know that something unexpected had come in the mail that day (and it wasn't just the new mail-carrier, either.) He walked up to the trio of Pokémon that were gathered around the letter, waiting for just a moment before speaking up.
"So you're sayin' somebody's gonna hire us to track down a new species?"
The Squirtle spun around suddenly, not expecting to hear Fatheade's voice in the mailroom. He then nodded slightly and continued reading the letter, mentioning bits that seemed significant as he came to them.
"The mystery attacker used blasts of some form of energy, possibly psychic," he said, "Ambushed a Hariyama and nearly killed him… shrugged off a Dragon Pulse from the town elder like it was nothing… but then seemed to get startled by something and run away."
"What kinda Pokémon is this place's Elder again?", Fatheade said, leaning against the wall near the mailboxes. "Said he busted out a Dragon Pulse… so is he a Dragon-type or what?"
"Says right here the name is Elder Lukhan," the Squirtle said, "And that he's a Lucario."
Fatheade nodded.
"Interesting," he mumbled. "So whatever this mystery Pokémon is, it doesn't seem to want a fair fight with a Fighting-type. Think about it… sucker-punched that Hariyama with some kinda psychic blast before he even saw it comin', then ran for cover as soon as somebody it couldn't ambush showed up? Definitely somethin' that can't stand up to a Fighting-type in a straight-up battle."
"Hmm… and the letter mentioned it taking a Dragon Pulse to the face without even flinching," Lopendra added. "Not many things can pull that off."
"Steel-type. I'll bet ya a dozen donuts this thing's a Steel-type," Fatheade said, pacing away from the wall a bit. "Nothing else handles Dragon attacks too well, y'know? And Steel-types are weak against Fighting attacks, too. That's gotta be it."
The Squirtle frowned.
"I dunno… something tells me there's more than that going on here," he muttered, poring over the letter for a second time for any hints as to why his boss's explanation didn't seem quite right to him. "I mean… I guess this thing could just be some undiscovered Steel-type, but…"
Fatheade patted him on the back.
"Hey, don't worry about it," he said. "We're all just pullin' guesses outta our asses here. Only one way to find out for sure, right?"
He reached up into a slot next to the mailboxes, pulling out a wooden sign that had collected dust from disuse. Carved across it, in rough letters, was the simple phrase "AWAY ON BUSINESS."
"Head up to this Polunk place 'n' try to track us down a mystery Pokémon," he said, pulling a cigar from seemingly out of nowhere and lighting it with a sudden spark of flame that emerged from the tip of his other hand. "One last real job before we shut this thing down and start lookin' for work somewhere else. Whaddya say? Varney, Lopendra, Ed… you in?"
Each of the other Pokémon nodded in response, then immediately ran (or crawled, or fluttered) off to pack their supplies for the trip. Fatheade laughed and puffed on his cigar, blowing a single huge smoke ring up to the ceiling before waddling down the hallway toward the front door with the "AWAY ON BUSINESS" sign in tow.