Electivire sat in the conference room alone. He sighed, trying to prepare himself mentally for the day to come. He was getting one of those feelings again. It was one of those feelings a person gets when they just know that something's about to go wrong. Electivire propped his head up on his arm, trying to keep himself awake. He hated that horrible feeling more than anything. Even before, when Mismagius wasn't around, he had acted as the leader. At this point he was so used to his job that whenever he had this feeling, he was usually right.

"Electivire!" One of the Delibird came flying through the window. "We've just received an important message."

"What is it?" Electivire asked.

Delibird took a message out of his bag and handed it to Electivire. Electivire read though it a few times to make sure he wasn't misunderstanding anything. "So he's back? This is just one of those days… Who's available?"

"Team Overgrow, Team Sandstone, and Team Sleuth."

Electivire sighed. "Is that all?"

"Unfortunately." Delibird said. "Things have gotten really busy lately. But Team Overgrow has been prized for its expertise in tracking down criminals. And both Team Sleuth and Team Sandstone have members who were either actors or past criminals."

"Alright, get the tree of them up here as fast as you can." Electivire said.

"Are you serious!" Aamira said, failing in her attempt to hide her disappointment.

Charmeleon crossed his arms. "Afraid so. There are a lot of weird things going on around Ignis lately, so Dad decided to move the tournament to early spring. It's going to start the day after our spring festival. Just as well, most people would prefer to only go to Ignis once a year. It's pretty isolated, you know? But no one can resist the spring festival, even though spring hasn't come in years in Ignis, and missing this tournament is out of the question."

"I was really looking forward to this…" Quill said. "Anyway, aren't you supposed to leave for some ultra important mission today?"

Charmeleon sighed. "Unfortunately. It's in Aequor too, can you believe it? Not that I can even step foot in their underground city; I just have to wait on a nearby island for when they eventually decide to show up. But it was a mission requested by my dad, so I really shouldn't complain. He wants me to go to Aequor as an ambassador to discuss the strange things that have been going on lately. You know what we're like in Ignis; if anything goes wrong it's because of Aequor. They meddle a lot in our affairs, sure, but I don't see what the point would be for us to blame them for everything. Although they suggest that weird things have been going on there also, which I must admit is a little suspicious."

"You… The two of you have friends all over, don't you…?" Murkrow asked nervously.

"Huh? Yea, I guess we do." Aamira said with a smile.

Charmeleon looked at Murkrow suspiciously.

"Come on, Charmeleon." Quill said. "Murkrow's part of our team now. Give him a break."

"Well after nearly being poisoned it's a bit hard for me to trust anyone around here, you understand? Plus if Honchkrow's been telling his little lackeys to follow people, it wouldn't surprise me if it was a Murkrow."

"You wouldn't know who it is, would you?" Quill asked Murkrow.

"It wasn't…" Murkrow froze up for a moment. "I… I'm sorry. I just can't…"

"It's alright, we get it." Aamira said. "You're still too scared of Honchkrow. To tell you the truth, he terrifies me sometimes so I understand how you feel."

"Really?" Murkrow seemed to find this hard to believe.

Charmeleon sighed and started walking towards the door. "Well, I'd better get going. Typhlosion's probably waiting for me." Charmeleon left, leaving the members of Team Sleuth behind with nothing to do.

Luckily for them, their boredom didn't last long. The next moment, an extremely out of breath Delibird came flying towards them. He was about to fall to the ground, he was so tired.

"Team Sleuth!" He said through his raspy breathing. "Electivire wants you in the conference room right away!"

Aamira and Quill looked at each other.

"Looks like we have a new mission!" Aamira said.

"You're coming with us, right Murkrow?" Quill asked.

"I… I suppose so…" Murkrow said timidly.

They weren't the only ones there when they got to the conference room. Team Sandstone and Team Overgrow were there also, along with Electivire, who was looking very agitated.

"I've called these three teams here for a reason of the utmost importance." he said. "That sneaky thief that calls himself the Black Claw has appeared again."

Everyone looked around and started murmuring to each other, except for Aamira who has no idea who it was.

"For those of you who don't know who the Black Claw is," Electivire saved Aamira the embracement of asking, "he is a notorious criminal that has stolen many precious artifacts of this world. No one was able to stop him, even with the clues that he purposely left behind. Years ago he sent a challenge letter to our friends of Team Overgrow here to fight him inside of the Stony Ridge dungeon. When they got there, they found all the treasure that he had stolen and a note saying that he would be back in a few years to start over again. He wanted a challenge, no doubt in that, so he must have waited until he thought more worthy teams had shown up."

"Hey, Murkrow." Sceptile said. Murkrow jumped in surprise. "You're a criminal, aren't you? Would you know anything about this guy?"

Murkrow shook his head. "Some criminals love bragging about the things they do. Others prefer to keep their home and work life separate, so to speak."

"That makes sense." Venusaur said. "Well it was worth a shot to ask."

"Hang on, I know a bit about him." Glameow came walking through the door. "Hello, Murkrow. It's been a while, hasn't it?"

Murkrow flinched back.

"Just tell us what you know." Electivire said.

"Apparently he was an old member of the gang. You know, Honchkrow's team. No one really knew who he was though. Apparently Honchkrow was always mad at him because the Black Claw never really did what he was supposed to. This might surprise you, but Honchkrow can't stand the idea of stealing. At least not stealing any more than he needs to. Which is a bit strange considering he thinks kidnapping is alright."

Aamira was sitting with her head down on the table, obviously bored out of her mind. "Makes sense to me." Everyone looked at her curiously. "Steal a person, at least they have a chance to fight back. Steal an object and it's pretty much yours from the second you pick it up. Even criminals like Honchkrow have to have some moral value, right?"

"I suppose that makes sense." Glameow said. "Anyway, a while back Honchkrow started to lose his patience. He gave the Black Claw a chance to return all the stuff that he stole before taking him to a secret prison somewhere."

"Could it have been Mismagius's dungeon?" Quill asked.

"I don't think so." Glameow said. "He's constantly sneaking off somewhere. He's been sneaking off to who knows where, both before Mismagius was defeated and after. There's no doubt in my mind that it's the same place, but only his favorite little servants get to go with him. Right, Murkrow?"

Murkrow jumped in surprise and started shaking his head vigorously. "I know nothing! I swear I don't know!"

Quill sighed. "Just relax. And Glameow, you have to stop scaring him like that."

"Oh fine…" Glameow said, sounding obviously disappointed. "So anyway, I have no idea who the Black Claw is or why Honchkrow let him go. If I'm right, it must mean that Honchkrow is planning something big. He might be using the Black Claw as a distraction for something."

"This increase in mission requests lately isn't enough?" Electivire said. "Or maybe it has something to do with it. Everyone but the three teams here had to leave on important missions today. It can only be assumed that this is part of their plan. What are the odds that this would be a coincidence?"

"Oh, one more thing. And this I know for a fact." Glameow said. "In spite of his codename, Black Claw, he never uses his claws. From what I've heard of him, he's actually more of a white collar."

"White collar?" Quill asked.

"She means a con artist." Aamira said. Everyone looked at her in surprise. "Oh come on! It's not me! He disappeared a long time before I even showed up!"

Everyone laughed.

"We have no idea what to expect from you." Sceptile said. "So are you an expert on this sort of thing?"

"I don't know, let's find out." Aamira sat up. "You said he left clues, right? He must be pretty skilled then. What we need to do is see more than he wants us to."

"What do you mean?" Roy asked.

"If he leaves clues behind, then he would only tell the ones looking for him what he wants them to know. He would never tell them too much so he could avoid being caught, but he would tell them enough to at least get some amusement out of watching them struggle. It's this perfect amount of clues that have no doubt caused his fame, or infamy in this case. On top of that, the obvious clues he leaves behind would be enough to distract from any small mistakes he may have made to leave behind unintended evidence."

"So what you're saying is that we need to find more clues than he wants us to find." Roy said. "I bed Sandshrew and I could do that. He has really good senses you know."

"Yea, no problem for us." Sandshrew said.

"Now hang on." Electivire said. "I called all three teams here so you could all work together on this. You might be able to succeed where other teams have failed working alone."

"Right." They all said at the same time.

"So where do we go from here?" Sandshrew asked.

"A better question would be, where is the Black Claw going."

"Exactly." Electivire laid the note he had received a while before on the table. "To follow his usual pattern, he has given his clue in a riddle. 'It may seem as though time has stopped, at least it does for me. Soon enough, once again, I'll have treasure as far as the eye can see. My dear friends, I've missed you so, I've waited each day for this. To return to my former glory, which I truly miss. First matter of business, tonight at midnight, I will strike while the iron is hot. Try as you might to capture me, I will never be caught by you lot.' And in the note 'lot' is italicized, meaning that's probably the clue."

"There are so many different definitions of 'lot' that might apply to this." Sceptile said. "A portion of something, a piece of land, part of a city, or a collected amount of things or people."

"Maybe that's it." Venusaur said. "Where would a lot of people be gathering?"

"Have you heard that the pokeringer competition is coming to town?" Electivire said. "The prize for first place is a huge trophy made of solid gold. And at the top is a ring-shaped diamond."

"That's enough to catch anyone's eye. I mean, if you're into that sort of thing." Glameow said. "Too flashy sounding for my liking, but that's exactly the sort of thing the Black Claw would like."

"The trophy is being held in the warehouse over in the west side of town. Breaking in there would be no easy matter."

"So how do we stop him from taking it?" Sandshrew asked.

"What if someone were to steal it before he could…?" Aamira looked around the table at the other pokemon.

"Are you kidding?" Venusaur said. "You want us to break in and steal it ourselves?"

"It could be what he wants us to do." Sceptile said.

"I think that he would think anyone would panic upon hearing that he had returned, so he would wait for them to try to move the trophy before making his move. Then maybe pretend to be the person supposed to transport it somewhere and run off with the trophy before anyone knows what happened. If we took it, we would know who to trust, right? We wouldn't be fooled by something like that."

"That's true…" Roy said. "But stealing? I don't know if I could do that."

"Well to make it seem convincing to the Black Claw, we can't tell anyone about it. Which means this would have to be a real robbery." Quill said. "Which means we need to be really careful. We'll need a guard with good senses, which means you two would probably be best. Murkrow could fly above to keep an eye out for anyone suspicious. Then the rest of us can go inside to actually steal the trophy."

Electivire sighed. "This worries me deeply. If you wanted to become criminals, we would have to watch our backs around you."

They all laughed.

"I could probably do some digging around to find a map of the warehouse." Glameow said.

"The best time to do this would probably be half an hour before midnight, since the Black Claw said he would strike around midnight." Venusaur said.

"I don't like this, Roy." Sandshew said.

"It's alright." Roy said. "We just have to stand guard. And after we catch this thief we'll give the trophy back. Right?"

"Of course." Aamira said. "We're not going to turn into real criminals because of this."

After figuring out what each person was going to do, the teams disbanded for the rest of the day to get ready. On their way back to their room, Murkrow stopped Quill and Aamira.

"What is it?" Quill asked.

"I have to warn you about something." he said. "It has nothing to do with the Black Claw, but it's really important. There's someone here. He's a traitor. He's been passing information about the two of you on to Honchkrow. And he's the one who attempted to poison Charmeleon. Although that's not entirely what happened."

"What do you mean?" Aamira asked.

Honchkrow shook his head vigorously. "I can't say! I won't say anymore than that! If you two are so great then you should be able to figure it out, right?"

"Alright." Quill said. "We'll figure it out on our own. There are a few teams here that hate us, or hated us at one point anyway. I wouldn't put it past any of them to do something like this."

Aamira nodded.

That night they all gathered a small distance away from the warehouse. Lucky for them, no one was around that night. Apparently not many people came near the warehouse at night.

"There are rumors that ghosts appear around here at night." Venusaur said.

Aamira laughed. "You don't actually believe that, do you? Ghost type pokemon, maybe, but ghosts? Like dead people? It's absurd."

"Believe whatever you want to believe, we've seen ghosts before." Sceptile said.

Glameow picked the lock with one of her claws. Roy and Sandshrew stood guard outside along with Murkrow who was circling above them. The members of Team Sleuth and Team overgrow proceeded inside the warehouse. Aamira didn't sense anyone nearby, so they figured it would be okay for them to talk.

"I haven't seen Meganium in a while." Aamira said to Sceptile.

"She went abroad. Apparently there's a desert across the ocean she's always wanted to visit. After being trapped in a world of darkness for so long, of course she would want to travel a bit."

"Ah, I see." Aamira thought again about Lucario, but realized she couldn't start thinking about him at a time like this. "So what is pokeringer anyway?"

"It's a sport for flying type pokemon." Quill said. "It's getting pretty popular lately too. Teams of three flying pokemon each compete against other teams. Each takes a turn to battle against a member of the opposing team while trying to fly into the air and grab a ring from a balloon. After they get the ring, they need to put it on a wooden stake to get a point for their team. Whoever wins two out of three matches, meaning one for each team member, wins the game. But even if a team is down by two, they play through the last match to see who wins in the last match. In that way it seems like it's all about having fun and trying your best, even though these competitions can get a little dangerous sometimes."

Aamira distinctly remembered hearing a story about when Articuno, Zapdos, and Moltres got into a fight. Their fight destroyed a whole half of a mountain range and created Pacis, the plane country. It didn't surprise her that the competition could get a bit violent.

"I hear the favorite to win the tournament is Team Yellowjacket. Combee, Vespiquen, and Beedrill. Amazing that bug types would get so far in a sport consisting entirely of flying types." Venusaur said.

"They beat Team Seadrop last week!" Quill said. "They were the favorites to win beforehand. But the team leader, Gyarados, is huge! I still can't believe they lost to Team Yellowjacket."

"Yea." Venusaur said. "Well that's the thing with poison sting, right? I can't believe that at first people weren't even sure whether Team Yellowjacket should be allowed to compete. They've done so well so far. So what's the next match?"

"Team Yellowjacket versus Team Flamewing, the dragon pokemon team." Sceptile said. "They're going to have some trouble with this one."

"Aye, for sure." Venusaur said. "Charizard, Salamence, and Flygon are no pushovers, that's for sure. Oh but what an upset! No bird pokemon are going to the finals!"

Sceptile nodded.

To Aamira, it seemed a bit strange listening to people talk about sports. She had never thought about it much, but there must be lots of sports in this world. She tried not to laugh when she thought about what would happen if the first person she met after getting amnesia wanted to play a sport instead of form an Investigation Team. Where would she be now if that had happened?

'I'd be dead along with everyone else.' She reminded herself. 'It's a good thing I met Quill.'

They found a safe at the bottom of the warehouse. Using her large ears and experience as a past criminal, Glameow was able to crack it easily. They all gasped. The trophy was a lot bigger than they expected. At the top was a ring made of diamonds that was obviously supposed to be shaped like the ring used in the competition.

Aamira walked up to it. "This thing is as tall as me. I would think they would make it a bit smaller for the convenience of the winners." She tried picking it up, but quickly gave up. "This is going to be tough…"

The sound of frantic cawing came from behind them. Murkrow came flying in, breathing heavily. "Someone's here! They attacked Sandshrew and Roy."

"What? Are they okay!" Quill asked.

"Sandshrew's pretty badly hurt and Roy's out cold.

"Murkrow, stay here with us." Sceptile said. "Aamira, Quill, and Glameow, you three go to try to find him and help Roy and Sandshrew if you can."

"Right." The three of them ran off towards the entrance.

"This is strange." Aamira said. "I don't sense anyone."

"He might be using one of those stones to hide his aura." Quill said.

They searched the warehouse as best as they could before agreeing that they weren't going to find him in there. They ran outside and found Sandshrew and Roy laying on the ground. Both of them looked pretty badly hurt, but Sandshrew had managed to keep from fainting.

"What happened?" Aamira asked. "Did you see who did this?"

"Uhm…"

"Oh, sorry." Aamira said, remembering that Sandshrew was blind.

"I heard them attack. They attacked Roy first and knocked him out. I heard him coming for me, so I fought back, but I wasn't really a match against him. I heard him run inside of the warehouse."

"We didn't see anyone." Quill said.

"What if he got past us?" Glameow asked. "He might have found the vault."

"I'll stay here and help Sandshrew and Roy with their injuries." Quill said. "You two go back to find the others."

Aamira and Glameow ran back to the vault as quickly as possible. Their hearts were pounding, admittedly with more excitement than exhaustion. When they got there, both members of Team Overgrow were out cold and Murkrow was just barely hanging on to consciousness. The trophy was gone.

"Murkrow, did you see who did this?" Glameow asked.

"No." Murkrow said weakly. "Whoever it was, they were too fast. He attacked us and took the trophy. I was too dazed to see anything!" Before they could ask him anything else, Murkrow passed out.

A while later, Sandshrew, Roy, and Quill joined up with the others. After Quill helped to treat the wounds on Venusaur, Sceptile, and Murkrow, they all sat and talked about what might have happened.

"We didn't see anyone come in." Aamira said. "And we didn't see anyone go out, which might have been possible if they weren't lugging a giant trophy. It's possible they are using one of those stones, but I think that it would be too risky for them to try to sneak out while lugging such a heavy trophy."

"So what do you think happened?" Venusaur asked.

"Well if it were me, I would hide the trophy and sneak out and wait until word got around about the theft. Then I'd return to the scene and take the trophy while no one's looking. Obviously anyone would start the investigation with the vault, so it would be the perfect time to sneak away with the trophy."

"But where would they have hidden it?" Quill asked.

Sceptile laughed. "You're going about this based on that mystery book, aren't you?" he asked Aamira. "About the bank that was robbed and all the coins that were stolen?"

Aamira nodded. "It was one of the last books I read during our vacation. They found the coins in a trashcan close to the vault. The detective in the story was watching some kids play hide and seek one day and he noticed the strategy of the one kid that could never be found. The kid would look for the most obvious hiding place, then pass it up and hide in the second most obvious place. The seeker would look in the most obvious hiding place, and then walk right past the second most obvious hiding place where the kid was hiding. That's how they figured out that the coins had to be hidden somewhere near the vault in a place that would be easily overlooked."

They all walked out of the vault. The police had arrived by now and had been informed by Electivire about what had happened. They had searched all over and hadn't been able to find the trophy or the Black Claw anywhere.

Aamira noticed a few crates stacked on top of one another that were pretty close to the vault. Venusaur lifted off the crate on the top.

"I bet it's in the middle crate." Aamira said. "Anyone might suspect that it would be in either the top or bottom crate because that would be either the easiest or least expected place."

"I bet you're right." Sceptile said.

Venusaur used his vines again to open the middle crate and pulled out the missing trophy. The police started cheering for the three teams that had solved the mystery.

"Hide and seek, huh?" Quill asked Aamira.

Aamira sighed. "Yep. It seems that inspiration comes in all forms."

"But wait, who took the trophy in the first place?" a Breloom on the police force asked.

"That's right, we're still not done here." Roy said. "None of us saw who it was, even the ones who were attacked."

"I think I've figured it out." Aamira said. "Who was there when the members of Team Sandstone and the members of Team Overgrow were attacked? Truthfully I didn't want to believe it, but the evidence is overwhelming."

"Well there was Murkrow, but it couldn't have been him." Roy said. "He was attacked too."

Aamira started pacing, a bad habit of hers whenever she was thinking really hard. "Remember a few hours ago, while we were at the meeting about the Black Claw. We were sure that someone would want the trophy to be moved somewhere else and whoever the Black Claw was would try to be one of the pokemon to move it so he could steal it. This way he would blend in with anyone else and the trophy would disappear without a trace. Well what if the same thing happened in this case? What if it was someone we trusted enough to think he wouldn't be the one to take it?"

"You can't be serious!" Murkrow said. "This is all circumstantial evidence!"

"Murkrow are most active at night, isn't that right?" Venusaur asked. "So naturally you would have pretty good eyesight. From the height you were flying at it would have been easy for you to tell who it was, no matter how fast they were moving."

Aamira climbed into the crate and pulled out a smashed black-blue feather. "This feather was obviously crushed under the trophy. If that's true, that means the feather must have fallen in before the trophy was placed in the crate. The only way that would have happened would be if you were the one who put it in the crate."

Quill took out the Aura Glass and looked at the trophy. "The only prints on here are from when Aamira tried and failed to lift up the trophy and Murkrow's talon marks on the ring at the top of the trophy."

Murkrow bowed his head and started chuckling to himself. "So the big boss was right after all. There's no getting anything past the two of you."

Something swooped down from the top of a tall shelf. It flew towards the trophy, apparently breaking part of it off because of the metallic clang that followed. The figure landed some ways away behind the trophy. Standing there was Honchkrow with the diamond ring in his beak.

He took the ring out of his beak and held it up with his wing. "What do you think? I used to be a champion pokeringer, you know? I almost miss those days.

Murkrow flew over and landed in front of Honchkrow. "Lord Honchkrow. Everything went exactly as planed."

"So you've been fooling us from the beginning!" Aamira snapped at him. "I can't believe I trusted you!"

"Now, now. We didn't have this planned from the very beginning." Honchkrow said in a matter of fact way. "Murkrow here is a genius, I tell you. He played a weak fool just to get you to trust him after the two of you attacked him. Then when he had the chance to run he swapped that white stone you took from him with a fake and I joined up with him along with a few other Murkrow. He gave us the stone to assure us that he hadn't turned traitor and the two of us came up with a plan to test the investigative abilities of Team Sleuth. He would become the Black Claw again and lead you on an investigation. This way we would be able to test the full extent of your abilities for ourselves. Just as I predicted, he was caught, but I was waiting for the moment when you were one hundred percent certain it was him. Congratulations, you've passed out test. Now the real fun can start."

"What do you mean by that!" Quill asked.

"You'll see soon enough." Murkrow said smugly.

"I must say I really am amazed at how trusting the fearsome Team Sleuth really is." Murkrow said. "But not trusting enough to be fooled by a simple act like this. This might be more difficult than we anticipated."

"We?" Aamira said.

"Honchkrow and I, of course." Murkrow said. "I pretended to just be a simple servant to Lord Honchkrow, but in reality, I'm his right hand. Or, right wing in this case."

"You've got to be kidding!" Quill said.

Honchkrow shrugged and smiled smugly. "What can I say? He's like a son to me. He had to get his twisted genius mind somewhere, right?"

Murkrow laughed.

"You can have this back." Honchkrow threw the diamond ring to Aamira. Even the ring alone was a little heavy. "And Murkrow, don't you have something to say to them?"

"Yes, of course." Murkrow said. "Normally I leave a note behind after a successful theft, but this wasn't exactly successful, was it? But I did keep you in the dark for quite some time, didn't I? So what the heck? You've been hoodwinked by the Black Claw! And don't you forget it!"

"Until next time, you two." Honchkrow flew off. They tried to make a grab for either Murkrow or Honchkrow, but Murkrow used Mean Look at the last minute, freezing them all in place and flew off after Honchkrow.

After the effects of Mean Look wore off, everyone picked their selves up off of the ground.

"I guess we were just too trusting." Quill said while they were walking back.

"Really? I don't think so at all." Aamira said.

"What do you mean?" Quill asked.

"So we got tricked once? We technically still came out on top, right? We figured out it was Murkrow the whole time. Things are getting harder for us, you know? But we can't forget what's most important to us. We can't forget that our friends are the ones we know we can trust no matter what. Now of course we haven't known Murkrow for very long, but do you really think we can do everything on our own?"

"No. Of course we can't. No one's that good. So we know that no matter what, we can rely on our friends like our other team members, the members of Team Overgrow, Team Sandstone, Team Sky, and Team Blazer and everyone else too. We know that we can depend on people like them."

Aamira nodded.

"How interesting." Honchkrow's boss said to them. "So you were able to fool Team Sleuth with such a simple act for so long?"

"Yes, master." Murkrow said. "Of course it was Honchkrow's plan."

"Don't be so modest, young Murkrow. We believe that you are starting to move up in the world. In this world especially. Maybe it is time that we shared some more of our secrets with the two of you."

"Thank you, Master." Honchkrow said.

"But no matter what I tell you, the two of you will follow us in our plan, is that correct?"

"All I want is revenge against Aamira for what she did to me. I don't care what I have to do as long as that's the outcome." Honchkrow said.

"And I'll do anything that Lord Honchkrow asks me to." Murkrow said.

Their boss smirked, though it was hidden in the darkness. "Excellent."