Chapter 10:

"I just don't get it. Why would thieves go and steal a Pokemon skull? Maybe they could sell it to a Pokemon collector, but honestly it's not really worth the price of going in to where a Gym Leader of all people reside!" Hawes exclaimed. He then turned to his wife and said, "What do you think, dear?"

"I think that it's strange that they also broke several other of the exhibitions, but only took a few random things. Most of them not valuable. They even took the tail bone for a Magikarp which can be bought anywhere for about 50 pokedollars. I especially don't like that they broke into this one." Lenora said, nodding her head towards the exhibition with the Light Stone.

"I know. Thank Arceus they didn't take it. We both know what it really is," Hawes said with a shudder.

Suddenly the entrance way to the museum burst open and two trainers ran up to them. Lenora recognized them as the trainers that had challenged her earlier. She remembered one of them was called Black, but she couldn't remember the other's name.

"We saw all the police outside here, what happened," the black-haired boy with glasses asked.

"We've had a robbery, boys. A group of thugs ran in here and stole our dragon skull."

"Do you know where they went!? We can totally go after them!"

"Hmm… well they were last reported to be seen in Pinwheel forest, but boys, we have no idea whether or not they're trainers or what levels their Pokemon are. It might be best just to leave this to the police and me," Lenora assured them.

"No way!" Black yelled, "I want to take down those thieves." He then turned and ran out the door. Cheren stared after him for a moment before running after him.

"They certainly have a lot of energy. Who knows, maybe they'll be able to find them."

Black ran out of Nacrene city and headed strait for Pinwheel forest. Cheren, on the other hand, was thinking more clearly and had called an uber to pick him up and take a car all the way to Pinwheel forest seeing as it would have normally taken at least three hours to walk all the way there. He also texted Black to come back and ride with him.

"Smart thinking Cheren," Black said as they both hopped into the car.

"Well obviously you were going to go to Pinwheel forest no matter what, so I decided to save some time and just get a ride there."

When they arrived at Pinwheel forest, it seemed quiet. They both ran into the forest and moved quickly through the woods. Fortunately, they weren't attacked by any Pokemon allowing them to make quick progress.

Black and Cheren started to hear voices from up ahead. They both started to run faster to see what the commotion was, and when they turned a corner, they saw a group of Rangers surrounding guys dressed in black and toting a large Pokemon skull. The poor guy actually holding the skull looked like he was going to faint from exertion.

"You know, if you hand over the skull and come quietly it'll be much easier for all of you."

"No way! Our bosses will totally bail us out!" and with that they brought out their Pokemon to battle. They mainly consisted of Woobats, Purrloins, Patrats, and Trubbishes.

"Is that all you got," Black yelled rudely at them.

The Rangers glanced over at Black and Cheren before saying, "Don't worry kids, we've got this handled. You don't need to play hero and try and stop all of them by yourselves." They all brought out their extremely well trained and powerful Pokemon to take down the thugs. The battle was over in moments, with the Ranger's Pokemon KOing each of the thugs' Pokemon in one hit.

"No way! I totally thought our Pokemon would have won that battle!" One of the thugs said.

"How old are you? How many badges do you even have?" the Ranger asked in irritation.

"Um…" the thug said. On closer inspection, Black could see that most of the thieves were actually quite young. All of them looked either around his age or younger. "That doesn't matter," the thug continued, "besides the guys that hired us will get us out of here."

"I hate to break it to you delinquents, but no one's going to come here for you. I don't know if you've ever heard of a getaway car, but you didn't even get one. They left you to haul around this skull and get caught by the police."

"What! They would never do that!" one of the boys insisted.

"Well, either way. You're all under arrest," a voice sounded from behind Black and Cheren. It was Lenora.

"Eek!" one of the girls in a black hoody said, "it's Gym Leader Lenora, I hear she's really scary!"

"I can be quite intimidating if I want to be. Now, tell me who you are and who hired you to do this."

"I'm Jake from Castelia town and the other two are Cassandra and Jack, they're from there as well. Look, we grew up along Narrow Street in Castelia City and we just wanted to make a quick buck. This fancily dressed dude approached us and asked us if we wanted jobs. We said yes and he told us to steal this Pokemon's skull thingy. He even gave us that smoke ball thing and paid us in advance and told us there would be more if we returned it to him."

"… how old are you three?"

The trio glanced at each other and said, "We're… sixteen."

"Where did you get the Pokemon?"

"They also gave us the Pokemon and said that we could keep them."

Lenora sighed and said, "Look, we're going to have to arrest you, but if you keep cooperating and tell us all about the people who hired you, you'll probably be put on probation and do community service for a year. It's clear that you're not really the ones behind this and you were hung out to dry when the real criminals did whatever it is they wanted to do." And with that the kids were cuffed, their Pokemon taken away, and they were led out of Pinwheel forest.

"We finally made it," Bianca cried out in relief, "you know they never tell you how much a Pokemon journey would physically hurt! My feet are dead tired."

I nod my head in agreement. I was excited to sleep in an actual bed and to sit around for a couple of hours massaging my feet. Nightstar of course, was completely fine because he had sat on my shoulder half the time. Sometimes I wished I had a Pokemon I could ride around and do the same thing.

"Hey what's going on over there?" Bianca asked, pointing at the flashing Police car lights by what looked to be a museum. "Let's go check it out!"

The bystanders told us that apparently a Pokemon skull had been stolen, but the thieves had already been arrested and processed. Now the police were just investigating to see whether anything else had been stolen.

"Well I hope they open back up soon," Bianca insisted, "I really want to battle Lenora!"

"It's already late in the evening and you haven't caught a fighting type yet. Don't worry, I'm sure the gym will open back up soon, and you'll be able to battle."

I inspected a crowd and saw a familiar head of wild green hair. "N," I called out to him and he turned and smiled at us.

"Did you get everything done that you needed to?" I ask him.

N glanced over at the flashing police lights and then back at me, "yes I did. How was the rest of your day travelling here?"

"Exhausting," Bianca complained, "let's go inside and sit down, okay. My feet are killing me."

We walk over to the Pokemon Center where N and Bianca get a room to stay in. I can't actually stay here because I'm not a trainer. "Oh, I have to go and tell Dr. Hawes that I'm here. He's the one I'm interning for and the one that'll provide a room."

"Alright Ivory, how long is your internship anyway?"

"It's only for about two days, less time than I spent in Striaton City."

"Cool, I'll train up my Pokemon in the meantime and challenge the Gym Leader!"

N smiles gently at me and says, "good luck, you'll do amazingly in whatever thing you end up doing."

I smile at this and feel my cheeks heat up as I start playing with my hair, "Thanks," I say softly. 'Why was I acting like this?' I thought to myself as I turned to walk out of the Pokemon Center. Nightstar looked up at me and gave me a little smile and a knowing look. 'Nightstar totally thinks I have a crush on N… do I?' I silently ask myself. I'd known N when he was a kid and ever since I had started travelling with him, I felt so much more natural and confident, but that was just because we were friends right? 'It helps that he's pretty cute,' I thought to myself before saying, 'shut up! He's like a brother, nothing more!' Then the little voice came back and said '… he doesn't have to be.'

At this point I had approached the museum and tried to shake my head of any stupid thoughts I had about N and walked up to one of the police officers. "Um… I need to see Dr. Hawes." The police officer looked at me before pointing at a man in a lab coat and saying, "that's him over there."

I walk over to him and hear him tell a woman next to him, "…we'll have the stone processed and in a couple of days we'll get the results back. If the energy levels don't match up, we'll know that…"

The woman looked over at me and interrupted Dr. Hawes by saying, "may we help you, young lady?"

"Um… my name is Ivory Greystorm and I'm here about an internship with Dr. Hawes."

Dr. Hawes whirled around and said, "Ah yes, you're the Whisperer Aurea was telling me about. Let me introduce you to my wife, Lenora."

I looked over at her in amazement and said, "wow you're the Gym Leader aren't you!"

"Yes I am, it's a pleasure to meet you Ivory."

Hawes sighed before saying, "unfortunately, this isn't the best time for you to be here, but no worries. We'll still have you complete your internship. We want you to be with the Pokemon when we first restore them from their fossils. The Pokemon are typically aggressive when they first come, and they'll attack our scientists ruthlessly. With you there, the Pokemon should be calmer and more receptive. Normally, we have our local Whisperer who works with the Rangers come and do this, but I figure this will be a nice break for him and it'll give you some good experience."

Lenora did say though, "it's getting a bit late though, so you should probably just go to your hotel for the night and we'll come and get you in the morning. Josh," she said indicating to a trainer standing dutifully next to her, "will take you there to your room. Hawes and I still have more we have to go over with the police."

'That was a bad battle,' Lenora thought to herself as she recalled her fainted Watchhog, 'I would never lose to a kid so clearly lacking in strategy normally. It must be the stress of waiting for the results on the Light Stone.'

She walked over and handed the boy his badge, "what was your name again?"

"N"

"Well N, I'll admit that I must not have been on top of my game. You didn't really have a strategy and half the time you didn't give your Pokemon any commands. That's consider quite a feat to accomplish that because it implies that the Pokemon and their trainer are so in sync that they don't need to use words to get their wish across. However, most trainers are unable to do this until they've spent years and years working with their Pokemon. Most people still can't do that even if they've been around their Pokemon for a long time. However, seeing as you've only just started your journey and this is only your second badge, I'm inclined to think otherwise. It reads more like incompetence on your part and luck on your Pokemon's. You also had a Timburr with you this entire time, but instead you used a Tympole. That doesn't make a lot of sense when you could use Timburr's type advantage over my normal type." 'Not that it really mattered,' Lenora thought sullenly, 'his Tympole was still able to take down both my Herdier and my Watchhog. I can't believe I botched this match so horribly.'

"Anyway," Lenora said continuing, "here's your Basic Badge. Remember, Castelia's Gym Leader, Burgh, is even tougher."

N takes the badge and looks at it as if it's a slimy piece of trash and says to Lenora, "thank you. Your advice on how to better hurt other Pokemon is always appreciated." He then rudely turned without waiting for a response and walked out the door.

'I seriously wish I could take the badge back,' Lenora thought acidly. 'That arrogant brat doesn't even deserve to be a Pokemon trainer. If I had been more on my game, I could have taught him a lesson. Well, at least I can report him and warn the other Gym Leaders about him. Maybe, they can do their jobs properly and knock him down a couple of pegs. Burgh certainly can.'

Lenora walked down to the basement of the lab where she saw Hawes doing some carbon dating on some old bones and the Whisperer, Ivory, playing with an Archen that had been recently revitalized. "How's the Pokemon adjusting, Ivory?"

Ivory grins and says "Archen keeps looking around the city whenever I take him out. I think he's having a hard time adjusting to all the tall buildings and the fact that people and Pokemon live together in the same place. He kept staring at a couple of trainers having a Pokemon battle and seemed interesting in joining the fight."

"Do you think he's ready to accept a trainer?"

"Definitely."

Hawes than says excellent and presses a button and tells the reception, "bring him down to the lab."

An older gentleman comes down and looks the Archen sitting peacefully in Ivory's arms and exclaims: "oh, he's magnificent! Are you sure it's alright if I take him with me?"

Hawes nodded and the man brought out a fancy ultra ball, "Oh, will I have to battle it."

"No, it should be fine with a Whisperer around."

Ivory than looked directly at the Archen and said, "this gentleman over here is going to be your new friend and companion. He's very excited to meet you!" The Archen then looked at the man and hopped over to him and stood submissively at his feet. The man smiled and captured the Pokemon with his pokeball.

"I must say that it doesn't seem like I would even need a pokeball with him," the man said.

"Actually, Archen would have become more aggressive if Ivory weren't here. The pokeball will allow you to connect and bond to each other without using a Whisperer as a medium."

"Well thank you good sir, and you especially little lady," he said while tipping his hat in Ivory's direction and he turned to take his new Pokemon back home with him. He nodded respectfully to Lenora as he exited the room.

Hawes turned to Ivory and said, "Thank you so much for your assistance Ivory! You're all complete with your internship and you can head off to Castelia City now."

"Thanks Hawes! Thanks Lenora!" she said as she bounded up the stairs with her little Shinx bouncing up behind her.

Lenora walked over to her husband and asked seriously, "Any news?"

"Yes, and it's bad. The stone emitted no power signature meaning that it most certainly isn't the Light Stone."

"That means that one of the patron gods of all of Unova is in the hands of some well-organized, elusive, and potentially evil criminal organization."