Chapter 10: Police Report

After seeing everything that happened back at the Fight Club, the two boys decide to take their new friend to the hospital and get some rest before reporting the incident to the police.

We ran for miles, until we were certain nobody was following us anymore. We had just crossed the border of the district and arrived in Rust Town. We could finally stop to take a breather. It must have been close to morning at this point.

"Okay…" said Thomas, still panting. "Was it just me or did you guys also see this?"

"I don't know," I replied. "Are you talking about the fact that there is a whole illegal operation running an underground fight club where Pokémon are used as slaves and get killed for entertainment? Or are you perhaps referring to the fact that this Heracross right here Mega Evolved without any Mega Stone and beat the living crap out of all these guards? Cause in both cases, yes. I saw that."

"That was so messed up," said Thomas. He approached the Heracross who had his hands on his knees and was staring at the ground. He was clearly still in a state of panic. "How did you do that buddy? That was insane!" he said, as he reached to put his hand on the Pokémon's back. But the Pokémon reacted nervously, pushing him away and stepping away in self-defence.

"Hey!" screamed Thomas. "Watch it!"

"Wow there," I said calmly. "It's okay, Heracross. We're not here to hurt you. We just want to help! Remember, we just escaped from that place with you."

I put both my hands in front of me to show that I didn't mean any harm, and approached him carefully.

"You even saved us from all those guards!" I continued. "You can relax, now. We are your friends. All of us here. Everything we'll be alright and you won't get hurt anymore. I promise."

I extended my hand closer to his head and continued slowly moving forward. He was trembling. He probably didn't really understand everything that was going on. He must have been in shock after everything he went through.

"Shhhh. It's okay. I won't hurt you. Trust me."

I gently touched the back of his head. He twitched at first, but eventually calmed down. I petted his back.

"It's okay now," I told him, trying to be as reassuring as I could. "Why don't you get some rest now? Would you like to get inside this Pokéball?"

He closed his eyes and sat, surrendering himself to me. I clicked on the button of my Pokéball and Heracross materialised into red light that was sucked into the device, which then turned dark green.

"We need to get him to the hospital," I said to Thomas as I got up. "He had to deal with a lot of stress and probably has some injuries which we don't know about."

Thomas agreed, knowing it was the right thing to do.

Rust Town was a small village, not big enough to have a hospital of its own. So, we had to go all the way to Azurite Town in order to get some help for our new friend. When we got there, the nurse understood the situation and took him to the Pokémon Intensive Care without losing a second, just in case, to perform all their tests and to make sure he was all right. They told us it would be better for him if he stayed at least for a day, so they recommended to come back by tomorrow afternoon to check up on him.

"Understood," I said. Then we left.

We decided it would be best to head back home and get some rest for the rest of the night. So, we headed towards Thomas' house who lived nearby. On the way, we passed by the group of thugs that bullied that kid on the first day of school. They were hiding in a corner of the park, probably smoking I don't know what and getting as high as a Koffing. I don't think they noticed me though, and it was better that way (we dealt with enough shit for the night).

After having walked in silence for a while, Thomas was the first to speak.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I didn't mean to… you know-"

"Don't worry about it," I said. "We couldn't have known."

"But man, that was some messed up shit," he continued. "For real! We should probably report that to the police."

"You're right," I said. "I just really don't know what else we could do about it, seeing how many people are involved in all of this."

"Yeah!" he said. "And I mean think about it, who knows what else could be happening right now under our noses? This is probably just the tip of the iceberg!"

"For sure," I said. "But for now, I really need to go back home. My mother is probably worried sick... And I'm completely exhausted."

"Let's meet tomorrow, then," he proposed. "First thing in the morning. I'll meet you at your house and we can go to the local police station together."

"Sounds like a plan," I said.

We walked through a few more blocks until we reached Thomas' house.

"That's my stop," he said. "I'll see you tomorrow."

"Okay then. Good night," I replied.

After that, my house was only a few minutes away. As I entered by the front door, I tried to remain as quiet as possible, and then I noticed that the TV was on. I went into the living room and saw my mother, sleeping on the couch with a half-finished bowl of chips on the table in front of her. She must have seen that I went out and waited for me to come back, but couldn't stay awake. It was understandable, since she probably worked until very late. She must have been exhausted.

I went to her room and grabbed her blanket, which I brought to the living room. I gently put it over her, making sure to cover her whole body while trying not to wake her up. I kissed her on the forehead. "Sorry for being late, mom," I whispered. "I love you."

I went up to my room, where I released my two Pokémon from their Pokéball. They were already half asleep. "You two did great tonight," I told them. "I'm proud of you."

I grabbed them in both my arms. I laid them at the end of my bed and let them sleep there, like they always would. I got undressed and put on my pajamas, then buried myself under my sheets.

But to be completely honest, I couldn't sleep that night. So many thoughts were going through my mind.

'What the hell was that about tonight? For such a big thing to be possible, there must be some sort of organisation behind all of this. Was there more to this?'

And then I started thinking of all the possible atrocities that could be going on in this world without us even knowing about it.

'Beside forcing these poor Pokémon to battle, they could be selling them, enslaving them to do hard labor or maybe even worst… eating them? I mean, I heard stories about people hunting Pokémon for their meat… But a law was passed long ago to make consuming living beings illegal. So, that couldn't be an option… right?'

It was driving me nuts. I was worried.

I hoped Heracross was going to be okay.

The next morning was pretty rough. I was woken up by the sound of someone knocking at our door. Who was that? What time was it?

I looked at my clock. It was 7:30 am. I probably had at most three hours of sleep.

I heard my mother yell from the kitchen. "Comiiiiing!"

I got up and headed downstairs, rubbing my sleepy eyes. It was Thomas. He was all dressed up, his bag on his back and his Quilladin just beside him, ready to go.

"Good morning," he said. "I'm sorry to bother at such early hours. Are you Noah's mother?"

"That would be me!" she said, enthusiastically. "Are you one of his friends from the academy?"

"Yes," he answered.

"That's so sweet!" she exclaimed. "I didn't know Noah already made new friends! Why don't you come in? I'll go get Noah. He must still be sleeping."

She turned around and when she saw me in the stairs, she looked surprised. My hair was probably all over the place and I must have had the face of an old man with bags under my eyes.

"Ah!" she gasped. "You're awake. Go fix yourself up. Don't make your friend wait. I'll cook you guys some breakfast."

"Sup," I mumbled. I went back up to take a shower.

"Thank you for your hospitality missus," politely said Thomas.

"It's nothing," she replied. "And no need to be formal. You can call me Eve."

"Well thank you then, Eve," he said.

"So, you guys went out last night?" she interrogated the guest.

"Ah… erm, yes!" he replied nervously. "We- erm… we went out to… practice! Yes, to practice for tomorrow's tournament at the academy."

"Oh! I see," she said, eager to hear the details. "That's good, that's good! Noah has been training day and night for weeks for this competition. You guys must have worked hard since you came back so late!"

"Yeah. Ha ha!" uncomfortably laughed Thomas. He clearly felt bad about telling lies like that to someone he had just met a few moments ago.

I got out of the shower, put my clothes on, packed my stuff, woke up my Pokémon and put on my hat, then went downstairs to join the newly made friends. Ditto had joined Thomas at the table with a knife and a fork in each hand, impatiently awaiting his food.

"Noah!" said my Mom. "I didn't know you already made a friend! Why didn't you tell me earlier? He's very sweet."

"I erm… the subject never came into a conversation." I answered. "But anyways, we should probably get going. We have to important stuff to take care of."

"What are you boys going to do so early in the morning?" she questioned.

"Well," I started. "We need to get some more training for the tournament at school. You know..."

"Well why do you stay a bit longer and get some breakfast first?" she asked. "You must be hungry and you'll need some energy!"

"Yeah… I'll pass on the burned toasts." I said. "Thank you though, Mom. I really appreciate it. I'll be back later!" I grabbed my friend by the arm and dragged him off of his chair. "C'mon, let's go before she asks any more questions," I whispered.

"Okay, bye then!" she said as we watched us leave the house. "It was nice meeting you, Thomas!"

"Oof," I said in relief. "Close call. Did she ask anything about last night?"

"Yeah," replied Thomas. "But I didn't mention all the trouble we got into. Did you talk to her about it?"

"Not yet," I said. "I don't even know if I should. I wouldn't want her to get all worried about me. But anyways, why did you come so early?"

"To be honest," he started. "I couldn't sleep at all last night. And I figured we didn't have any time to lose, you know."

"So you too, huh?"

The police station was about 15 minutes away from my house. On our way there, we had to pass by some district where I rarely go. For some reason, I always had a weird feeling about that place. I didn't know if it was about the houses or the air, but it just didn't feel safe. And somehow, I had this strange feeling while we were walking. First, I heard some noise from the roof of a house, and then I thought I saw something move behind the bushes, and it didn't sound like a Pokémon. It almost felt as if someone was there… watching us. I looked up at Thomas, but he didn't seem to have noticed anything. He was walking fast and looking straight ahead, as usual. Despite that strange feeling, I decided to overlook it and forget about it. Was I being paranoid? I don't know… It must have been the wind or my brain playing tricks on me.

We finally made it to the police station. Rust Town's Police Department. Once we went in, we were greeted by a female officer. She had short green hair under her police cap and she was wearing a blue uniform which was identified by her police badge and her name. Officer Jenny.

"Good morning young men," she said with a bright and warm smile on her face. "How may I help you?"

"Hello officer," I started. "We would like to report a crime."

"Alright," she said. "Just fill in these papers right here and submit your report when you are done."

"Wait, hold on," insisted Thomas. "I don't think you understand, we saw something. And it's really important! We would like to talk to you. Personally."

"I understand," she answered calmly. "Let's go in my office, then." We followed her to a little windowless room with a single desk and a few chairs. We sat down. "So, what is it?" she asked.

"You see," I resumed. "We were in the Red-Light District yesterday evening. It was very late. We had bought tickets to go see a Pokémon Battle event, but when we got there, it wasn't that at all. These people weren't even real trainers. They just had a whole bunch of Pokémon, who they obviously mistreated and beat repeatedly, and they had them forcefully fight against one another under extremely dangerous conditions, and that, until one of them would die! We believe that there is a whole underground criminal organisation who arranges those cruel and illegal battles, and all of that is happening right under our nose!"

"Also, if I may," added Thomas. "I'm pretty sure that wasn't the only thing that was going on in there. I mean… All of these people acted so crazy. They were right at each other's throats. Some even had weapons! There must have been drugs and all sorts of shady things in that place, and we need to do something about all this."

The officer turned her chair around and looked at the ceiling, scratching her chin. "Hmm, that's very interesting," she said. "Did you boys participate in any of the business that supposedly happened at that place?"

"What?" I jabbed. "What do you mean? Of course not, that's why we are reporting it!"

"Okay," she continued. "Do you have any proof of what has been going on? Or that it wasn't the first time it happened?"

"Proof?" asked Thomas. "We rescued a poor Heracross who had been enslaved for I don't know how long in there. He's in Azurite's hospital right now getting treated in Intensive Care. Isn't that enough? Just go there with some of your men and you'll see for yourself that what we are saying is the truth! This isn't just any small unimportant case. We are suspecting there is a whole criminal organisation behind all of this."

"I understand your concern," said the officer. "But we can't base ourselves solely on your testimonies to build a case on this. And top of that, the Red-Light District is out of our jurisdiction. You're going to have to follow up with the higher authority if you want to do something about it."

"This has to be some sort of sick joke, right?" I rebuked angrily.

"Listen," she said. "How old are you guys? Fourteen? Fifteen at most? You kids sure are brave to come all the way to the police to report this. But unfortunately, there's nothing we can do to help. If you'll excuse me."

She got up from her chair, opened the door and showed us the way to the exit. I was at a loss for words.

"What the fuck?" snapped Thomas in frustration once we got outside.

"I have no idea what just happened," I said. "It was as if she wouldn't even listen to what we had to say. It all seems suspicious."

"Yeah," he agreed. "Something must be going on and it just might be bigger than what we thought."

"Do the kids know about anything?" asked a voice.

"I don't think so, but they have seen a lot." answered officer Jenny.

"They're still young boys, they shouldn't be much of a problem." said another, more feminine voice.

"Still, we should keep an eye on them… Just in case they end up putting their noses in places where they shouldn't," said the first voice.

"You did well, Jenny. Keep us updated if they come back or if you see anything," said the second voice.

"I will."

~ End of Chapter 10 ~