Chapter 13

Dude Where's My Mon?

(-¤-)

I stepped out into the crisp city air and stretched out my stiff muscles, the sound of cars driving along and loose crowds of people walking by reminded me of my own city. The air here however was much cleaner and the streets much less cramped, most people got around here on public buses and subways. I could hear people happily conversing with one another as they journeyed to some unknown destination. The bustling city had an aura of joy and calm.

Jubilife was a wonderful town.

The global trade system building reached up to the heavens behind me, looking for all the world like some evil villians lair from an old super hero movie. The massive antenna that comprised a fourth of the buildings height was hard at work managing long range artificial teleportations with its sisters across the land and overseas. Trainers of all shapes, shades, and styles filtered in and out of the marvel, hoping to score big with their next trade.

I was one of the ones that left with a smile on their face. Driftloon and Bob were gone, traded away to a few training hopefuls in unova, in Bobs case without so much as a goodbye. A flying type specialist and a bug trainer respectively, the later seemed quite excited to finally get his hands on a male combee of all things. In my hand I now held two new team mates, both of whom would provide my team much needed type coverage.

I flipped open my new black pokedex to scan them. It was the first model from the anime, the kind Ash received from Prof Oak. The suprisingly hefty weight of my new device rested comfortably in my hands as it connected to my new pokeballs.

The device was interesting to say the least, while it didn't have wi-fi capabilities it held a litany of scanners to probe and identity pokemon from a glance. Close range to pokeballs could reveal a projected stat screen for each one, and even told me the moves they knew. It worked like a mechanical field researcher, recording every data point it could pry up.

Not to mention the ridiculous amount of information that was jammed into the thing. I could pull up dozens of research papers pertaining to just about any pokemon from the depths of its archives. The fat guy in the games was right, technology is incredible.

The known moves of each one scrolled across the screen as I pointed it at each, my smile grew as I saw that the one I traded Driftloon for did indeed have the promised egg move. A rare and useful move among pokemon that would allow them to become a hard hitter.

A gust of wind blew past the sidewalk I was currently employing, urging me to pull my jacket closer. New and haphazard stitching pressed lightly into my upper right arm as I walked further down the street. The homemade patch sewn into my sleeve was square and purple, thick bleached string held it to the cloth, a simple depiction of Suicunes crest painted onto the lavender fabric in a deep sky blue. Evidence of my promise to defeat him.

I had bought the supplies for that little project from the craft store in Sandgem. A small collection of paints and swathes of varying textiles sat in my bag, waiting for the next promise to defeat a god.

My boots struck the ground at a lazy pace as I began to wander through the city streets. My mind filled with giddy new ideas for battle strategies and move combos. We would have to find a nice wide open space away from people to introduce ourselves to our new teammates. I was pretty sure the city had places designated for pokemon battles, that was kind of a given in this world. A battlefield would work quite nice for th-

I felt something brush my hip as two soft and very recognizable clicks reached my ears. My head snapped around to see a larger man wearing a thick brown jacket and a lighter drivers cap standing behind me hunched over. Our eyes met for just a moment before I caught sight of what was in his hands. Two pokeballs.

Two painted pokeballs.

He shoulder checked me to the ground before I had a chance to react. The world going sideways as he shoved his way through the crowd. I caught myself on the concrete and scrambled to my feet before taking off after him.

"THIEF, THIIEEF!" I screamed hoping someone would heed my words.

People looked around confused as they tried to find out who but the man ran into the street, narrowly avoiding being hit by a taxi as he dashed across the road. I weaved my way through the crowd into the street after him, desperate to keep eyes on him.

His legs were longer than mine but he didn't seem to be a very good runner. My youthful energy and adrenaline fueled panic pushed me faster than I had ever run before. But I was simply keeping pace without getting any closer.

He ducked into a alley, as I rounded the corner and saw him on the otherside of a fence, barricading the wire mesh door with a trashcan weighed down with garbage. He took off as he set it down, running for the next street over.

The fence was high so shoving my way through or climbing would take to long. I leapt onto a steel garbage can, up to the dumpster just beyond it and hoped to what ever god brought me here that I could still pull off this next bit without my old bodies muscle memory.

I threw my weight at the wall while carrying my forward momentum, the durable rubber of my boots gripped the brick. I only managed to get three steps before I pushed myself to far from the wall but it was enough to sail over the fence. I hit the ground in a roll in an effort to not shatter my ankles and keep my forward energy.

Parkour bitches.

I broke back into my sprint as he made it out of the corridor. I wasn't far behind him, his blockade attempt had slowed him down far more than it did me.

Dark and grimy walls gave way to a bright open plaza with people mill about. A fountian in the center stood above the crowds and spit water into a pool below.

I briefly considered drawing my machete to wing it at the guys ankles but figured some stupid adult would stop me in a misguided attempt at being responsible.

He kept shoving people out of his way, each warm body slowed him down a little. I was gaining in his wake, inch by inch. I reached for the hem of his jacket, trying to snag it in my desperately stretched fingers.

"COME HERE YOU BASTARD!"

That wasn't me.

The thief juked to the right far too suddenly for me to course correct. I caught a flash of orange and face before I collided with said mug. I came to a dead stop as all the wind left my lungs from the sudden force.

We crashed to the ground in a tangle of limbs and pain. My head was reeling as I tried to make sense of where I was. What was I doing again, something about Jack and Luke?

OH SHIT!

I scrambled back to my feet again, whipping my throbbing head back and forth trying to find the pickpocket amongst the people milling about. Nothing, not even a flash of brown.

I lost them, they were gone.

Ok, ok, don't panic. You can fix this. Sure you've only got two brand new traded pokemon who probably won't listen to you and have absolutely no real tracking skills, but thats fine you got this. You just need to-uh, need to, um. Uuhhh.

"FUCK!"

Oh god, what do I do? Do I call the police? Oh shit is it still 911 here?! What was he gonna do to them!? Was I ever gonna see them again!? Oh shit oh shit oh shit.

"YOU!"

My vision was abruptly filled with the face of an extremely pissed off boy. His hands had fistfuls of my jacket, bringing me closer to his teeth and ire.

"WHAT WERE YOU DOING I HAD HIM, YOU IDIOT!" He snarled.

"Excuse me?" I was very aware of his hands on me, he needs to stop touching me, right now.

"DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT YOU JUST DID, HE HAD MY POKEMON YOU DUMB GIRL!" He spat venomously.

The insult snapped me back to reality, I saw several city goers glancing at us curiously as they passed. None made a move towards us though, typical big city dweller activity.

I pried his hands from me and pushed him away. The feeling of his skin on mine lingered past the seperation. I violently wanted to scrub it off.

"Me!? I was already chasing him, you came out of fucking nowhere and body checked me!" I spat back.

Now that he was both off of me and not smacking his skull into mine I got a much better look at him. His hair was jet black and spiked, his orange with white trim short sleeve jacket held the flipped colorings of his track pants. His clinched fists were wrapped expertly in boxers tape. Stone grey eyes drilled into mine, as if daring me to fight him. Not to mention that he was super jacked for a 10 year old.

"YOU SHOULD HAVE LET SOMEONE COMPETENT CHASE HIM! NOW HE'S GONE AND IT'S YOUR FAULT!"

Ok I don't care how young or swole he was, I was gonna kick his ass.

"You wanna fucking go you turd!"

"BRING IT TWIG!"

"Stooooop!"

Suddenly I had an owl in my face, staring eerily into my soul with enormous eyes. I stepped back and saw that the new voice belonged to another kid who had a noctowl perched on her backpack. She was pushing mister orange back and trying to calm him down. Though that honestly only seemed to make it worse. After a few moments of one sided bickering he finally just stomped off, presumably to fume about losing the thief.

The new kid turned to me. Her skin was the color of dark stained oak, and complimented her outfits color scheme of dark and light blues. An indigo unzipped hoodie covered most of her torso, with a sky blue shirt brandishing a feather symbol making itself known just underneath. A simple blue pleated skirt came down to her knees. Her extremely curly black hair had been tied up into two large puffball ponytails that was vaguely reminiscent of mickey mouse. The incredibly thick leather falconry glove looked out of place on her thin frame.

"I'm so sorry, he's just worried about his pokemon thats all." She sounded small, her voice pleading.

Not sure why she was making excuses for him though, kid was still a dick. Then again I didn't really make an effort to de-escalate that situation. Still though.

"Its fine" I took the moment of calm to scratch off the feeling of touch on my collar bone, "he said he got poke-robbed to, guy managed to swipe two of mine." I huffed, before eyeing her noctowl, it was pretty big, and looked fairly strong and well groomed, for a moment I thought it might have been a shiny before I realized that they were supposed to be browns and not gold and red like Ash's. Eyes like that could probably spot something from miles away.

And it could fly...

"Hey, did your noctowl get a good look at that guy before he got away?" If he did then maybe we could salvage this mess.

She perked up at the question before turning her head to look at the night flyer. "Um, did you see him Clock?" The bird nodded with a quiet hoot.

"Great! Then do you mind helping me to track that jackass down? With Clock here we could probably pick up the trail again." I pleaded. So far she was my only hope for a reunion.

"I, guess I could, do that." She mumbled. Jeez this kid needs a self esteem boost.

"Clock" she adressed the noctowl, "could you do a perimeter sweep, target is previously seen thief, report back once you have confirmed location." The bird of prey nodded before taking off and rapidly ascending.

Perimeter sweep? Confirmed location? Gotta say I was not expecting military jargon out of her. But her noctowl looked pretty powerful and listened without hesitation. I wander how strong she is. I could see at least two more balls on her belt, and her glove looked well worn. Cuts and marks from talons littered it.

"So, how do you know small, buff, and angry over there." I attempted small talk while Clock looked for a visual confirmation. She held her eyes to the sky for a moment before turning to adress me.

"Oh, um, well you see, Citrine is a freind from my hometown. We started traveling together a few months back." She looked down and scuffed her foot along the ground. "I'm Lazuli, whats your name?"

A boy named Citrine with an orange theme, and a girl named Lazuli with a blue one. That sounds made up, but then again weird coincidences like that were the norm here.

"I'm Alice, did you get robbed as well?"

"No, he only got Citrines pokemon. I was in the pokemon center when it happened."

Speaking of.

"Hey! We gotta go, that jerk isn't going to catch himself!" And he's still mad.

"Uh," she shrank back at his stern tone, "we, well. We need to, uh, wait for Clock." She pointed up weakly. I glanced up noting that the noctowl in question was nowhere to be seen, fuck that thing was fast.

"WHY!?" He screamed, a vain popping out on his head.

"Uuuuhh." She shook.

I squeezed myself between the two making him back off. This kid needs a good mouthful of fist, but seeing as I'm an adult, sorta, then I should at least try to calm him down. And if that doesn't work, then I can punch him.

"Look kid, the bird is looking for the bastard as we speak. He can cover alot more ground than us and we might even find his hideout." As I explained he slowly stopped gritting his teeth, though the frown never left, "our best option is to wait here until he gets back."

He glared at me for a moment, meeting my equally as pissy stare. Finally he relented and backed off with a frustrated "fine."

Well these are certainly an intresting pair. If I had to hazard a guess, Lazuli is a flying type trainer, based on her glove and pokemon. And Citrine is probably a fighting type trainer, judging by his boxers tape and weirdly ripped physique.

Type specialist are pretty common, and for good reason. Mastering a single type was much easier than mastering all of them. Gym leaders for example were considered masters of their chosen types. With skills forged from hard earned knowledge, you'd be hard pressed to beat a gym leader with type advantage alone

Generalists however were a whole nother beast. Without specializing in one type they have to dedicate their time over a broader field of topics. Knowing alot about pikachus can help with other electric types, but not about many others. As such generalists tend to gain strength and skill at a much slower rate. But once they get up to a decent level they become incredibly difficult to deal with. Each one is essentially a wildcard, with a grab bag of random skills and pokemon that make planning for them practically impossible.

Thats why most champions are generalists. While specialists tend to share certain weakness with others of their type preference, generalists are able to shore theirs up with an almost infinite amount of options. Thats why I didn't specialize. It'll take me longer but I'll be all the stronger for it.

We waited for awhile as I mulled over mono type trainers, generalists and the disadvantages of both. Mostly I was doing it to keep myself from freaking out again. If I don't occupy my mind with something I was going to have a meltdown. Someone had my rabbit and bat, and I have no clue what's gonna happen to them if I don't find them.

Oh god what if he's a psycho and he eats peoples pets for shits and giggles. Nope! Don't think about it, just chill for awhile. Everythings gonna be fine.

Probably.

Finally after what seemed an eternity Clock the noctowl returned. Both me and Citrine hopped up immediately as they descended onto the glove of Lazuli. Who despite her thin frame held the large bird with little difficulty.

"Report, was mission successful."

The bird replied with a single hoot.

"Was target observed to be on the move."

Two hoots.

"Distance and direction."

They answered with one long hoot followed by a smooth turn of its head to the left.

She meekly turned to us, "Clock says hes stopped a mile away to the west." She pointed towards said direction.

I had marveled at the exchange between them. Such precise communication was impressive, I've just been doing charades with mine whenever I asked them a question. I need to step up my game.

"Then lets go! He's not gonna break his teeth by himself." Citrine stomped forward, his fury renewed.

I followed his lead, kid was right. Someones about to have a hell of a dentist bill.

(-¤-)

We followed Clock for about 20 minutes, while it was just a mile away we also had to go around buildings and hop fences. Adding to the distance. When we arrived we found clock perched on top of a run down warehouse. He cocked his head left and the to the right, signaling that we were here (Laz told us to watch for that motion).

It was a large and featureless block of a building, designed purley for function. The only windows I could see were sat just below the roof. The walls were 2 story tall panels of sheer sheet metal, paint cracked from age and lack of care. I could see a chain link fence around the property and an access ladder leading to the roof.

Citrine stretched the bottom of the fence up without effort and we crawled under, a few old semi trailers stood between us and the building. I noted that I recognized none of the brands plastered across the near billboard sized cargo totes, except for Silph. Co.

We peeked around the last trailer, making sure that there was no one to spot us. An empty lot met our eyes, no one.

Clock swooped down to us, coming to a rest on Lazulis gloved arm in a practiced motion. He clicked his beak twice before quietly hooting three times. Lazuli nodded before addressing us.

"He uh, says that theres three people inside."

Ok thats more than I had hoped for but it was fine, we've got him cornered. Now we just need a plan.

"Alright heres what we do," I began spinning out a bullshit plan on the spot. "I go in first and cause a distraction, when they're occupied with me you two go in and find where they stashed the balls. Mine are painted, can't miss them. After that come find me and help me take them out." It was pretty vague on the how but it sounded good. Also I'm very good at distractions.

"Why do you get to fight them first?" Demanded Citrine.

Because I'm actually an adult and I'm not about to let 2 children brawl with a bunch of criminals while I sneak around in the back like a coward.

"Because you don't have any pokemon, and shes a bit to meek to do it. You need to back her up incase something happens."

He growled at me for a moment before spitting out another 'fine.'

"Alright, is everyone good with the plan?"

Laz raised her hand.

"Shouldn't we call the police?" She asked.

I hate cops and would rather avoid them when possible. Either useless most of the time or down right harmful to the situation. I mean for fucks sake, Officer Robert never even figured out that I torched his crusier. I wasn't entirely sure what cops were like here but I don't remember them saving the day in the anime all that much.

"Do either of you have a phone?"

She shook her head.

"Me neither, my plan it is."

(-¤-)

Alice Thorn

Apr 15


Team

Oh fuck oh shit oh fuck.

I want my buddies back.

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Moves: ?

Ability ?

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Moves: ?

Ability ?


890¥


In Box

N/A

I know people are gonna be wondering about the touch thing for when Alice 'met' Citrine. And basic answer is that its a trait I have that I decided to chuck into her as well. She doesn't like being touched by people she doesn't know very well, and the feeling of being touched lingers, only way to make it stop it to rub it away.

Oddly enough it doesn't happen with animals.

I have no idea why I'm like this.