"It was… humans?" Clefairy asked. It was true the attacks were weird, coming from unusually violent Pokémon that didn't stop at the usual territorial brawls, but she could hardly believe humans would go so far. She turned in anger at Bulbasaur "This is what humans like her do?"
"No." Bulbasaur replied "This is wrong. Our breeders thought us what rules the humans have to follow. It's important, see, because a lot of wild Pokémon don't know, so human-raised Pokémon are supposed to fill them in." She sighed "Humans can't catch wild Pokémon that refuse to challenge them. If a Pokémon clearly displays fear or distress in fighting, a Trainer is supposed to stop the combat and let it go. Moreover, there is a limit to how far they can go. Catching an entire Clefairy clan is against the law. You guys aren't rare just because you don't make many eggs."
"Humans hunted us?"
"You fetched a good price as a pet. Just be glad you aren't a Farfetch'd or a Lapras." Bulbasaur replied. "The point is, this is not what trainers do in general. This was done by someone that had no problems going against the law."
Giuls looked at the two Pokémon discussing something. It was hard to figure out what the argument was, but Bulbasaur was talking a lot.
Then Clefairy nodded and… sit down. Before long, she was sobbing. The sound was pitiful, probably because it came from a voice that any person would have found incredibly cute. Giuls wondered what Clefairy felt. She had just lost her entire family and all her friends.
"Should I catch her?" She thought. The idea had come to her mind in a second, and now she realized she was seriously contemplating it. After all, Clefairy had attacked her. She was allowed to take her now, right? Back in school, she had always thought Clefairy was a beautiful Pokémon. Having one had been her dream for a while, after receiving a Clefairy PokéDoll from her dad. And now one was standing there…
She put her hand into her pocket and bag. Looking for what she needed.
Clefairy noticed Giuls behind her, but only when she touched her she realized the girl had something in her hand. She reflexively glared at Bulbasaur. 'All lies after all. She is just going to catch me! Humans are the worst!' She thought, preparing to fight back…
And in that moment Giuls put the Moon Stone and a few Berries on the ground, with a smile. "I am sorry for what happened. For what the humans did to you. I can't do much more, but with this you will be able to survive for a while and evolve when you need to. I'm sure it will be enough, if what you did to that room back at the lake was any indication."
Clefairy looked at that smile. The human was being… kind? She looked at the Moon Stone, and picked it up. She observed it closely. The pink Pokémon didn't need the object, but having it was going to make her life a lot easier. At least, if she ever needed to become stronger, she could use it. But… Was there really a human ready to just let her walk away with no problem after robbing them, attacking them, and then asking for her help?"
Giuls stood up and sighed. "Well, I guess we should go Bulbasaur. I'll have to find another way around that stonewall, then I will report everything to the Police. Hopefully they can figure out more than me." She turned again to Clefairy "Be safe, Clefairy. If I ever find out what happened to your family, I will bring them back."
Clefairy was shocked. Was that it? She was not going to catch her? Just give her that gift and leave?
"See, there are a lot of things I don't like about Giuls." Bulbasaur said "She has no style, she tries to boss me around, she is boring… But I think there is one thing that's good about her. She is nice."
"Come on Bulbasaur, we need to figure out where is a trail. I really need to sleep tonight." Giuls called with a yawn.
Bulbasaur scoffed "See what I mean with her bossing me around? What a lousy trainer, what would she do without me?" However, she started walking, yawning a moment, before turning to Clefairy "Oh, right, one sec." The Grass-type closed her eyes and Clefairy felt the constant loss of energy she was feeling before disappear. "There, I removed the Leech Seed. It would have come off anyway in ten minutes or so, but why waste time." With that, the Grass-type strolled off, following her Trainer.
Clefairy gazed at both leaving.
Two hours later, Giuls was sleeping in her bed. The owner initially had tried to kick her out, but Giuls had proven to him that she had no Pokémon capable of using an attack of that magnitude of power, and explaining what had happened at the Clefairy. Together they had called the police, and they had promised to come investigating. After that, the owner had let the girl take a room.
Bulbasaur, on the other hand, was not sleeping. She was busy thinking about what had happened that night. 'If she wanted to, she could have killed her, me, or both.' She thought, the image of the wiggling finger and the following explosion still in her mind. 'Makes me wonder how she knew what would come out. Metronome is random, unless I was taught something wrong.' She thought back to her time at the breeding center and shook her head. No, that couldn't be it. More likely, Clefairy's confidence was a gamble based on her using Metronome a lot. 'Thinking about it, there were a number of moves she could have used to cause the same, or more, damage. I guess she was just banking on any of those coming out.'
She could remember some stories on Metronome Venusaur had taught her. The most amusing was that of a Togepi tapping into a Legendary move and using Magma Storm. Well, amusing because she was at sea. On land, she could have burned down a forest with it.
She stopped that train of thought after a quick chuckle and stared at the window, the stars fading as the night gave way to dawn. Bulbasaur worried. 'As much as I dislike a lot about her, she is my Trainer.' She thought, pondering what to do. After her fight with that cursed Doduo, she had already given up on the idea she was perfect. That had been probably one of the hardest day of her life. She could still fee the Pokémon beaks hitting her again and again, and the sensation of blacking out. Before then, she had thought only a Fire-type like Charmander could beat her, and that was an unfair advantage. But Doduo had used mostly Normal-type moves, and she had landed a single hit. And recently she had realized how hard it was to fight even one on one tougher opponents that resisted her moves.
That second train of thought was stopped by the window creaking. She saw… a star-shaped shadow entering. Reflexively, she pretended to be asleep, only to see Clefairy, the same one they had left in the forest, breaking in. 'Well, this is quite the deja-vu.' She chose to keep an eye on her rather than jumping on the offensive, and she saw the Pokémon open the bag and take out a Poké Ball. Then it started pressing the button over and over. Nothing happened, but Bulbasaur figured out what was going on.
"It only works if a human is holding or throwing it." She explained. Clefairy jumped back with an high-pitched shriek, before regaining control. Bulbasaur chuckled at that, and the Normal-type pouted.
"That's stupid, why can't I just catch myself?"
"Older models did that, but there were some problems with people setting Ball traps to avoid fighting, and ending up catching unwilling Pokémon to then sell or trade them off, scamming people. So they changed it to require an actively present human." Bulbasaur smiled noticing the Clefairy's expression. 'I was the smartest one at the breeding center after all.' She thought, feeling her usual pride.
"So how do I do this?"
"Can't you wait for her to wake up and catch you? We can have a good fight as well." The Grass-type replied "I still want to throw you around a bit for that Fire Blast."
"In your dreams." Clefairy replied with a grin. "But no, I'd like to just join up with you all and help her from now."
"Well, then we can just do this." Bulbasaur picked up the Poké Ball with her vine and put it in Giuls' hand. Clefairy nodded and jumped on the bed, pressing the button. With a flash of light, she was absorbed. The Poké Ball moved for a few seconds, then it stopped. After another moment, Clefairy popped out.
"Well that was interesting." The Pokémon said, scratching her head "Not sure what to do now."
"What did you do with the stuff Giuls left you?" Bulbasaur asked "You might want to pick that up."
Clefairy nodded, before showing Bulbasaur the Moon Stone "I'll leave this here and go take everything else. If she wakes up…"
"Yeah don't worry, humans sleep eight hours a day if they can. Sometimes more. She isn't waking up for a while."
"I see. Well, I'll be back in an hour or so." Clefairy said, climbing out of the window again. 'I need to teach her how to use a door.' Bulbasaur thought, taking the Poké Ball from Giuls' hand and putting it in her belt.
"Yes, a trainer confirms Clefairy group disappeared over night and another one attacked your inn. Are you sure this… Yes sir, I understand this is quite problematic. Yes I understand… Yes… Very well, we will start an investigation. Thank you." The police officer put down the phone and sighed.
"What was that about the Clefairy?" He turned to look at his colleague. They were both stuck with this turn answering the calls often, so they knew each other well.
"Ah, nothing, just some Trainer has followed a wild Clefairy that caused property damage and found out a suspect case of illegal capture on Mount Moon. Probably some idiot that thought he could make easy bucks catching Clefairy and chose to take on a clan to dodge the difficulty of their shy behavior."
"Sounds bad."
"Sounds stupid, that's what it sounds like. And a hassle to investigate. We will need to check most Pokémon transfers from Cerulean and Pewter for weeks now to try and track an unusual amount of those." He put forward a mail to the administrator of the Kanto Trade and Deposit PC Servers, then grimaced "Right, they haven't fixed yet the internet mess Team Rocket was causing."
He picked up the phone and put out a call.
"Yes, Mister Bill Veeren? Hello? Yes, I'm sorry for the late call. Yes, I know what time it is. More like an early call, right. Well, we need access to any transfer to and from Cerulean and Pewter. Yes I know that's a lot, but we need to focus on Clefairy only, so that should reduce the load. We need to verify any unusual amount of Clefairy being sent to and from the cities. Yes, including the Mount Moon Server, isn't that the same as Pewter? It hasn't been for months? Sorry, they don't really forward everything to us. Yes, thank you. Thank you, bye." He put down the phone again, and leaned back on his chair "Well, that's it. We will keep an eye on the servers. After this I will compile a file and an investigator will go out to take a look at the area. Should be easy to solve."
"Sounds good." The second one said, taking a glance at his phone and shaking his head to move a strand of black hair from his face "Sorry, I need to take a bathroom break, this thing is uncomfortable and I need some water. Think you can handle it?"
"Sure, go ahead, it's a slow night anyway." The officer said. The other one smiled and walked to the bathroom. Then he took out his phone. It ringed three times, then a voice spoke from the other side.
"Code and pass. Codename of the contact."
"I134, Cloyster17. White Vileplume."
The other side made a pause, then a female voice spoke "Yes, I134?"
"We have a problem. The Clefairy raid was discovered. Investigators will be dispatched tomorrow."
The voice on the other side paused. "How did they find out."
"I don't have the detail, someone else replied. Something to do with a Clefairy thief leading a trainer there." He replied "I will forward the full case once a report is ready."
"Do that asap. White Vileplume out." Ariana almost crushed her phone with her grasp. She stopped only because getting a new one could take a while and right now she didn't have the time "Get me Archer." She said to the voice that answered. She put a hand on the microphone and pointed to a grunt "And get me Domino, we need to make adjustments to the plan."