"Damnit!" the man cursed as he fumbled for and dropped his cell phone. The ringing stopped as the battery fell out from the phone. Swearing, the man reassembled the phone and waited. Some minutes later, it rang again, and the man quickly answered it.

"Hale and Frogger, P.I., Hale here," he announced.

"Detective Hale, nice of you to pick up," a smooth voice came back.

The man's lips tightened. "Oh. It's you," he grumbled.

"Don't sound so disappointed, Hale, it's unbecoming of you," the voice responded.

"Augustine, what do you want?"

"I just thought I'd point you in the direction of a case. Is that so bad of me?"

"After the last case you pointed me to..."

"Well. That was extenuating circumstances and you know it."

"Extenuating circumstances my ass. I caused the Rhyhorn incident because of one of your 'cases'!"

"Now, I've taken the liberty of emailing you the case files. Why don't you and Finn take a look at it?"

Detective Spencer Hale exhaled loudly. "Augustine, sometimes I want to buy you a drink. Other times I want to kick your ass. Lately, I seem to be leaning towards the latter."

"When you decide to investigate, talk to the Aquacorde police. Tell them I sent you. Well, I must go, Cheerio!" The phone went dead.

At that moment, the door swung open as a Froakie hopped in.

"Froooaaak?" it gurgled.

" Phone call from Gus," Hale replied.

"Roak froak?"

"Yes, another case file. No, I'm not looking into it."

"Roak roak?"

"Why? You know damn well why not!"

"Roooaaaaak."

"Do you even remember the Rhyhorn incident?!"

Even as he said that, he knew he had lost. The first rule of his office:

Never mention the Rhyhorn incident.

"All right, let's take a look."

"Froak," the blue creature croaked triumphantly. It hopped onto Hale's shoulder, and he grunted at the weight, before turning the computer on.

It didn't turn on. Cursing, Hale knelt under the desk to reach the computer's power cord. He reconnected it, sat in the chair and the computer booted up, excruciatingly slowly. Grunting again from the Froakie's weight, Hale sank into the chair.

"Here we go," he mumbled as he opened the email. Reading it, Hale's lips tightened again. Another terrible prank by Augustine.

"See? He didn't even put effort into this one."

The Froakie leaned towards the screen, peering at the words. He gave Hale a mournful look and croaked slowly.

"...You're joking."

"Froooak?"

"...Okay, true, but come on. What in the world could do that to a woman?"

"Croooaak."

"Your gut? What do you mean your gut? The only time your gut speaks is when you have indigestion!"

"Froooaaak."

"Fine,fine, if it'll shut you up."

Hale sighed as he stood up. The Froakie jumped from his shoulder to the ground. They exited the room.

Hale shielded his eyes from the midday sun. Ahead of him, the neighborhood children were playing a game.

"No, I wanna be the legendary hero this time!"

"You're always the hero! Give me a turn!"

"Hey! Why can't a girl be the legendary hero?"

Upon hearing Hale's footsteps, they crowded around him.

"Mr. Hale! Tierno Jr. won't let me be the hero!"

"Hey! He won't let ME be the hero!"

"I told you, the hero wasn't a girl!"

"Sorry kids, I have a case to work. You'll have to settle this yourselves," Hale chuckled in an attempt to extricate himself from their midst. They appeared off-put, but let him leave.

He walked towards the town gates, and was greeted by one of the children's parents, who stooped to rub the Froakie.

"Spencer, Finn, good to finally see you out and about. On a case?"

"Yep. Details are confidential, of course."

"Of course. Well, don't let me stop you from your work!"

Spencer tipped his hat and strolled through the gates to Aquacorde.