Disclaimer: Kusudama does not anything, Pokemon or otherwise.

Dawn shut the top of her laptop, leaving her desk lamp to flicker a bit of light into the darkness alone. The light shone on all the items she had scattered on her desk: a pile of folders labeled in her neat print, her detective badge, a pencil holder filled with Piplup pens, and a box of chocolates. Dawn, passing her eyes over the chocolates, smiled and grabbed a white chocolate truffle that she plopped into her mouth. She chewed slowly, thinking over the events of the day.

She had come in that morning at eight, as usual, and headed to the conference room. On an average day she would be briefed on her assignment, or she would get keep working on an old assignment, but, oh no, not today. Today her boss, Brock, had stopped her outside the conference room and led her to one of the more private rooms to tell her that her partner, Kenny, had resigned.

She and Kenny had a history that went way back, all the way back to their sandbox days when the two went to school together. In fact, Kenny and Dawn had been friends throughout their elementary school life—and their middle school, high school, and college careers. So when the two had joined the same firm, it was only logical that the two were partnered together. Unsurprisingly, the two worked great together, and had one of the highest success rates in the whole firm.

But now Kenny was gone, Dawn mused, glancing over an old casual company picture. She and Kenny were standing next to each other, holding up two fingers behind each others heads. The most complicating aspect of his resignation for her, however, was going to be finding her new partner.

Dawn's eyes moved over the glassy picture to Paul, who worked in the office across from hers. She secretly hoped Paul would be her new partner; after all, Dawn giggled girlishly, a blush tinting her cheeks, Paul was the best-looking guy in the whole place. Knowing Brock though, he wouldn't allow it.

Dawn sighed; she was probably going to end up with some beginner fresh out school that had no experience whatsoever and a superiority complex to boot. Or some partnerships could be mixed up and she would end up with someone already working at the firm; maybe May?

Nah, her partnership with Drew was too successful to be jeopardized. Zoey didn't even need a partner to get things done, just like Paul, so she was out. And Harley….

Dawn shivered. Anyone but Harley, who annually went streaking through the company building as a 'special Christmas tradition'. Dawn had no idea why he hadn't been fired, but she was suspicious it had something to do with Brock's wacky sense of humor.

But it was no use thinking about it, Dawn groaned, grabbing her laptop case from under her desk. Either way, whoever Brock gave her, she probably wouldn't do nearly as good as when she was with Kenny.

Dawn slipped her laptop into its bag. She would find out who her new partner was tomorrow, so she would just have to wait. A few more items went into her bag, and with a last piece of chocolate, Dawn had packed up and swung out the door.

When Dawn walked in the next morning, Brock was leaning against the secretary counter and chatting up one of the Officer Jenny's that frequently passed by. Jenny's Growlithe soon spotted her and nuzzled against Dawn leg, its orange fur ticking her skin. The two of them had worked together before, usually when Dawn had some tracking to be done. She patted Growlithe lightly on the head before it scampered back to Jenny's side, alerting both her and Brock of Dawn's presence. Jenny waved politely; Brock excused himself to come over.

"Hey, Dawn, I need to talk to you."

Brock had dropped his flirty face. Dawn wasn't sure whether or not that was a bad sign.

"I found you a new partner. He should be getting here in a few moments."

Oh. That was bad.

"I expect you to make him feel welcome." Brock let himself smirk. "But if he's being a jerk, that's okay, just smack him really hard and I'll look away."

Brock was joking, and that made Dawn feel a little bit better. She laughed, adjusting to the idea.

"Will do, Brock!" She chimed, winking at her boss. He smiled back, before his attention was distracted by someone walking into the room. Dawn stopped herself before she turned around—after all, it was probably her new partner. She could feel him coming closer, his shoes pounding on the tiled floor, and something small—a Pokemon?—scampering next to him.

"What's up, Brocko?"

Dawn whirled around, eager to find the source the voice. When she saw him, she did a double take.

Wow.

He was half a foot taller than her, wearing jeans, a white undershirt, and a black and yellow jacket. His jet black hair stuck out at odd angles around his head, barely contained by a red and black hat. A Pikachu grinned at her from its perch on his shoulders. He grinned an identical grin at her.

"Hey, here comes the man of the hour! Ash, meet Dawn; Dawn, you're new partner, Ash."

Ash stretched out a gloved hand. Dawn looked at it uncertainly, but then put forth her own hand. At once, Pikachu ran down his arm, up hers, and raced around her neck until it was on top of her head. Ash burst into laughter.

"That always gets them, doesn't it, Pikachu?" He chuckled, giving Pikachu a high-five. Brock shook his head. "Don't you think that's getting old?"

"And why would it?"

"Because that's the billionth time I've seen it, you idiot! It's not even funny!"

Ash winked at her. Dawn wasn't really sure what to do—besides for Harley, who was a complete head case, seriousness was the policy of the day for everyone else at the company. Brock caught her uneasy mood.

"Don't worry, Dawn, Ash isn't normally like this. He's just happy to finally be on the job."

Ash nodded, and then switched to a different topic. "Hey, Dawn, do you have any Pokemon?"

Dawn's hand immediately fingered the Pokeball chain she had around her neck. She smiled happily. "Yeah, I have one. My Empoleon; he's the cutest thing ever! I've got him as a Piplup for my tenth birthday, and the two of us grew up together. We battled a little bit when we were kids, but I stopped battling after I got into middle school."

Ash nodded. "Yeah, middle school is usually the cut off time for most child battlers. Pikachu and I did the same thing, mostly when my mother banned me from it." He scratched the back of his head sheepishly. "But I think I still battled for a few years afterwards. My mom threw a fit when she found out."

Brock gave Ash a look. "Hate to say I told you so, but back then, I told you so." Brock glanced back at Dawn, and ignored an immature raspberry Ash blew in his direction. "Oh, and Dawn? Sorry to say this on such short notice, but I think you should just take some time to do a bit of tidying up today. Ash and I have some stuff to talk about."

Dawn looked between the two. Ash had his hands behind his neck, a clear 'whatever' reading across his face. Brock stared at Ash intently, until Ash seemed to finally relent and drop his hands. The two walked away; Pikachu waved behind it at her, and Brock glancing behind to give her a nod. They disappeared as they turned into the hallway that led to Brock's office, leaving Dawn standing alone in the front room.

Dawn didn't have much of an idea what she planned on doing with her day without a direct assignment, but decided to just goof around inside her office. There wasn't much to do but sit around, eat chocolate, and surf the internet, but Dawn managed to make do. She even felt pretty good about not skipping work and going shopping, a strong temptation for her whatever she did.

She should probably do something productive, though. Dawn scratched her head for something she could do while twirling around in her swivel chair. She could try figuring out more about her partner—yeah, Dawn though, snapping her fingers, she probably was onto something.

She opened her laptop and plugged the cord into the power outlet, before settling into her chair. It twisted and turned as she waited for her computer to load. The black and white characters flashed across her screen; Dawn eyed them impatiently. Eventually her laptop was ready for use, and Dawn immediately clicked directly into the file book.

The file book was a collection of data gathered by the government for crime-solving purposes and contained information on all the government's citizens: birthdays, relatives, lifestyle habits, and especially past criminal activities.

Dawn clicked onto the search page of the database. She searched her memory briefly for the name, and eventually typed in 'Ash Ketchum'. Dawn tapped the enter key quickly; the computer hummed in exertion.

Dawn waited for a few minutes. The computer kept humming, a continuous dull roar that seemed to persist on and on. It kept going and going and in return, Dawn felt herself growing more and more worried. The file book was notoriously slow; however, Dawn was pretty confident the file book wasn't that slow. Her laptop droned on, but Dawn was already caught up in all the possibilities.

It was extremely unusual for files to go missing in the file book. Dawn had never seen an incident like this—in all of her years as working as a detective, the file book had been the slow but reliable tool she and her colleagues turned to when they needed a source of information.

The next moment, her computer stopped humming. 'No search results found' was written clearly and boldly across the screen, confirming the biggest of the worries prying at Dawn's mind.

If Ash Ketchum didn't have a file, it meant something was up. And if something was up, it meant Dawn was going to be on the case.

Whew. I think I lack any stamina when it comes to writing. Anyway, this was my first piece of writing, and I think I did okay. -shrug- First fic, yay!
Just a note, for anybody who may be worried, this is not a Pearlshipping fic. This is pure Pokeshipping, Dawn just happens to play an important role.