The first thing that Hop learned about Pokémon battles was that they're fair. The first thing he learned about being a detective was that the fights, or "anything goes battles'' weren't. As Looker had said, "In the Pokémon battles that you're used to, it's usually a one versus one showdown, where the individual Pokémon's strength, skill, and match-up play the biggest part. Most armed criminals looking for a fight will attack at either you or your Pokémon with the intention to hurt or kill. Most criminals with Pokémon will send all six of their Pokémon out and run, knowing that they can summon their Pokémon back to their Poké Balls. One of the hardest things that Pokémon trainers have when making the transition from trainer to detective is thinking beyond the rules of a standard Pokémon fight. Use everything you have at your disposal, there are no rules."


Hop quickly read through the briefing notes. Someone broke into Hammerlock Vault at around 2:30 am and stole a shard of Eternatus' egg that was on display. At the time of the burglary, all of the cameras mysteriously failed - most likely the work of an electric or psychic Pokémon. The glass protecting the shard was lifted and put back in place without any evidence of physical contact, suggesting the use of telekinesis or a different psychic type move. The police car zipped through the night, alone on the road, making its way towards Hammerlock Stadium.

"It's your first case, you must be nervous." Jenny asked, hands on the driving wheel.

"Yeah a bit," Hop replied before saying, "but I have confidence in my abilities!" he said while excitedly making a fist in the air.

"Full of energy I see, why don't we have you question the witness?"

"Uhh about that" Hop responded while scratching the back of his head. "Raihan, the witness, I'm really close with him, we trained together a couple days ago."

Officer Jenny chuckled for a moment "Sometimes I forget that you're one of the few people who beat the gym challenge. So what team are you bringing?"

"Hmm lets see... Cinderace, Dubwool, Corviknight, Trevenant, Bolthund, and Zamazenta." Hop excitedly told Jenny, while waving his Poké Balls around.

"Zamazenta!" Officer Jenny exclaimed. "I keep on forgetting how stacked your team is, since you're such a novice."

Hop let out a laugh, "Yeah, It was hard to decide on who I should bring as well, I wanted to bring Snorlax but decided that I should bring Trevenant so he can bind any possible suspects if they try and run!"

"You always get so excited while talking about Pokémon." Officer Jenny was smiling, her last partner had been drier than stale bread.

"I couldn't imagine my life without them! What Pokémon did you bring?"

"I brought, Granbull, Herdier, Ferrothorn, Ariados, Klefki, and Chatot."

Hop was puzzled for a moment, "Is Klefki for lock-picking?"

"Yup, you got it. You've got a pretty sharp head on your shoulder despite being a novice."

The car pulled to a stop, Hammerlock Stadium looming ominously in front of them through the moonlight. Both cops jumped out of the car making their way though the giant coppery walls. Raihan was sitting by the front entrance in his nightgown, with this signature hoodie hastily put on, his eyes droopy. He took a quick selfie, typing something before looking up.

"Thanks for coming so late Nurse Jenny - I mean Officer Jenny." He seemed on the verge of falling asleep where he sat.

"Of course, it's our duty to make sure the citizens of Galar are and feel safe at all times. Now can you explain in detail what happened?" Officer Jenny responded in a professional manner. No doubt she'd done this hundreds of times.

"Right so I was uhh, sleeping and then Duraludon and Flygon got out of their Poké Balls and they were- wait Hop is that you?" Hop gave him a smile and a quick wave unsure how he should react.

"Woah, you're looking pretty good in that outfit." It wasn't a lie, Hop was filling up the standard issued uniform quite nicely. Over the years he started to work out. Raihan had seen his progress before, but that didn't stop him from teasing him here and there.

"Uhh, so where was I?" Raihan asked, his words almost slurring.

"Duraludon and Flygon." Officer Jenny stated flatly.

"Oh right, they were acting weird and protective, and this little guy" he said while pulling a turquoise trapinch out of the hood of his hoodie "was acting all afraid hiding behind a lamp. I heard some weird rustling from the Vault, so I went with my Pokémon to check it out, and by the time we got there, the egg shard thing was already gone." Raihan rubbed the head of the sleeping trapinch softly.

Officer Jenny pulled out a Great Ball, taping the button with her index finger. A bright light came out of the Great Ball, forming a Granbull. Officer Jenny crouched down eye level with her Granbull. "Pinky can you check the entrance area, to see if there are any fresh footprints or scents? Besides ours or Raihan's of course." Pinky puffed his chest out and let out a confident growl.

Officer Jenny motioned towards Hop, "Come on, let's go investigate the Vault."

"Thats the wrong way." Hop pointed out while trying to hold back a giggle.

A small blush of embarrassment showed up on her face, "Why don't you lead the way since you know this place better." She said a bit quieter than usual.

There wasn't much of a crime scene, to the naked eye at least. All that really seemed different was that the shard behind the glass display case was now missing. A bright ball of energy appeared and shaped into a Herdier. The Herdier barked loudly a couple times before looking up at officer Jenny. Poor Raihan Hop thought, he's not going to get a wink of sleep .

"Scan the area for any fresh prints or scents, except for ours or Raihan's." Officer Jenny said while walking towards the display case and carefully examining it. Officer Jenny's blue Rotom phone zipped around the room taking pictures of various different objects.

Hop grabbed a Poké Ball off of his belt, opening it, and watching as Bolthund appeared before him. Hop crouched down, and scratched the chin of his Bolthund who was looking at him with anticipation in his eyes.

"Follow what Herdier is doing, you should get some experience in tracking." Bolthund scampered away, barking a few times at Herdier.

"That's weird." Officer Jenny mumbled to herself.

"What's the matter?" Hop asked briskly walking towards the display case himself.

"It's like the report said, there's no evidence of the display case being touched at all. The strange part is that it doesn't seem the display case was moved at all, which usually isn't the case when something is moved by a psychic type move." Officer Jenny started rubbing her chin trying to think of any possible reasons.

Hop thought for a moment before his eyes lit up. "Wait maybe a Pokémon used teleport to get inside, and used it again but with the shard to get out! There don't seem to be any smudge marks from the inside, and the display case is pretty small." Hop paused for a moment. "The only Pokémon I can think of that is small enough and can use teleport is Natu. It can fly as well, so it would make sense that there wouldn't be any prints!" Hop exclaimed excitedly.

"Wow you really do know your stuff. What other evidence do we have?" She paused for a moment in thought, "Rotom, show me the camera pointing to the display case." The Rotom phone zipped in front of both of them and started displaying various photos of the camera taken at different angles.

"Am I missing something?" Hop asked looking at the picture of the camera not finding anything off with the camera.

"No I'm not finding anything either, which is odd, since normally I would have found some evidence of electric or psychic tampering by now... let's take a look on the inside of the camera."

"The inside?! How are you going to do that without damaging the camera?" Hop asked, astonished.

Officer Jenny smirked, "Just watch and learn."

Officer Jenny pulled out a Premier Ball and a Poké Ball opening both. Both Pokémon appeared in the air in front of her, a Klefki and a Chatot. Unlike a normal Klefki which collected keys, this one had lock picks, screws and various other tools. "You know what to do." Officer Jenny told her Pokémon. Both of them nodded their head knowingly and flew up to the camera. The Chatot grabbed one of the smaller screwdrivers with her beak and started unscrewing the screws. As the screws fell they curved off a normal fall trajectory and clung to a magnet that the Klefki was holding. After tinkering with the camera a bit, a metal panel was dislodged, clinging to the magnet. "I got it, I got it, I got it!" The Chatot squawked excitedly while flying in circles around the camera. Officer Jenny's Rotom phone zipped across the room, taking a dozen photos of the exposed interior of the camera. "Bwwzzzip! Here's zzzap photo!" The Rotom phone exclaimed hovering above both cops.

"Nice work guys! Can you fix the camera to the way it was before now?" Officer Jenny beamed proudly.

"Woah! Look at this, the interior was tinkered with a lot, but there doesn't seem to be any-" Hop started describing while waving his arms motioning towards the picture.

Both dog Pokémon started barking loudly interrupting Hop.

"Right, I'll go see what they found out, while you continue looking to see what you figure out by looking at the camera." Officer Jenny informed hop while rushing over to Herdier and Bolthund.

There isn't any internal damage with the camera despite how much it's been tampered with. Hop thought for a moment before reaching into his bags and grabbing the briefing notes. Each camera from the main entrance to the vault was disabled one at a time in order. Hop traced his fingers down to the timestamps of when each camera was disabled. There was a couple seconds in between each camera being disabled. Hop paused for a moment. Wait! I'm getting a feeling a Rotom did this. Hmm it makes sense, there was no external damage, and the Rotom disabled each camera without damaging the system, probably worried about hurting itself.

" Alakazam!" Officer Jenny exclaimed in a moment of realization.

"Did you find something?" Hop asked.

"I didn't find anything, Herdier and Bolthund did, I just figured out what it was." Officer Jenny stated plainly. "The thief and his Pokémon were levitating, more specifically it was an Alakazam. I could tell by the psychic trail."

"The psychic what?" Hop was puzzled. He took pride in knowing a lot about Pokémon, but he'd never heard of a psychic trail before.

"When a Pokémon levitates using psychic powers, or causes something to levitate by using a psychic type move, they do it by surrounding it with psychic energy and controlling that. If a Pokémon like Alakazam is levitating and is close to a wall, floor or different object, the psychic energy surrounding it will gently rub against the surface leaving a 'psychic trail'. Since the psychic energy surrounds every part of the Pokémon equally, if it leaves a psychic trail large enough, an expert can tell what made the trail. Oh, and there isn't actually any psychic residual or anything, the only reason we can see it now is because the carpet has an imprint of the trail." Officer Jenny explained.

"Woah! That's amazing! I've never even heard of a psychic trail before, and I know a lot about Pokémon." Hop said, eagerly absorbing every drop of information about Pokémon that he could.

"Glad I could teach you something, although to be honest it's a trade secret, so don't go around telling everyone." Officer Jenny said the last part a bit quieter.

"Yes ma'am!" Hop shouted.

Officer Jenny chuckled, "You don't have to call me ma'am."

"Somethings a bit off, it seems the scent is just in that one location, and the psychic trail isn't connected to anything. It's like the thief teleported- wait, Alakazam could probably teleport itself and it's trainer in and out with no problem." Officer Jenny thought out loud. "So Hop, what did you find?"

"I think a Rotom was used to disable the cameras, since there was a lot of internal tampering, but very little damage was actually done, and how in the briefing, it seemed like something jumped from camera to camera." Hop gestured towards the different images on Officer Jenny's Rotom phone while he spoke.

"Here's what I got, let me know if you think of anything else. The thief's Rotom disabled all of the cameras, then the thief teleported in with his Alakazam, after that the thief's Natu got the shard, and then the Alakazam teleported everyone out." Officer Jenny quickly described.

"Right! So the next place to look would be the entrance where the Rotom entered from?"

"Yup, lets go." Officer Jenny gave hop a quick but encouraging thumbs up. She pulled out her Poké Balls and called all of her Pokémon in the room back into them. Hop decided to leave Bolthund outside his Poké Ball as they ran back to the entrance.

Raihan fell asleep somehow, despite the racket they were making. He slumped back in his chair, a tiny bit of drool was forming at the corner of his mouth. His turquoise Trapinch was snoring away, happily drooling all over his lap. Pinky the Granbull was sitting down on the floor staring directly at Raihan. It looked very unnerving. His head perked up when he saw Officer Jenny and Hop running towards him. He quickly stood up on his hind legs and walked over to a spot outside the building, directly in front of the main entrance. He growled at the ground before motioning his head up toward the first camera inside the building.

"Bolthund, is this the same smell as inside the vault?" Hop asked while catching his breath.

Bolthund barked twice before he nodded his head.

"Can you follow the smell?" Hop asked while crouching down, his arms resting on his thighs.

Bolthund let out a sad whimper and shook his head.

"It's okay you did a good job." Hop beamed proudly at Bolthund and pat his head, then he looked up, "I'm sure that the thief teleported with his Alakazam here, had his Rotom disable the cameras and then teleported to steal the shard."

"Great, so we figured out how the shard was stolen, and we know three of the Pokémon that the thief used. I'll send in a request for Nurse Joy to check her logs at the Pokémon center to see if someone recently went in with a Natu, Rotom and Alakazam." Officer Jenny sighed in relief, they could finally take a break while Nurse Joy was looking through her logs.

"Wait" Hop interrupted her train of thought. "Couldn't the thief have used a Rotom from his Rotom phone?"

Officer Jenny walked towards the cop car, leaning on the door. She pulled a gain bar out from one of her pockets, "Nah, the Rotom phones will send a signal to Silph co. if the user forcefully breaks the phone open. They usually let us know if anything like that happens. This case would have been a hell of a lot easier that'd happened." She explained in between bites of her gain bar.

"So, what do we do now?"

"We wait." Officer Jenny sighed. "You can do whatever you want, I'll probably get a Star-you's Coffee. I'll call you if anything happens."

"Wait I can do anything? But aren't we on duty? Huh?" Am I getting paid for doing nothing? Hop was confused, there was never any talk about many breaks in the academy. In fact, Hop had been warned about overtime being common.

"Usually we have multiple cases at the same time, so we'd work on another if we came to a standstill with one. I think this being your first case, they didn't want to overwhelm you or something. You want a ride anywhere?" Officer Jenny asked while opening the car door.

"Thanks! But I'm good." The Pokémon center was in walking distance, he'd be able to change into something more comfortable there.

Hop pulled out his Bolthund's Poké Ball. "I'll let others get fresh air, if that's okay?" He asked while sitting down on the steps of Hammerlock Stadium. Bolthund nodded, he looked a bit disappointed but he understood. Hop gently tapped the Poké Ball to Bolthund's nose, watching as Bolthund disappeared into his Poké Ball. He placed all of his Poké Balls on the ground in front of him. Which three should he take out? Over his time as a Pokémon trainer, Hop coined something called "the rule of three". Typically if he brought out his Pokémon people would get intimidated because they looked scary. Hop didn't understand where people got that from, he thought all of his Pokémon were adorable. Regardless, Hop found that he could bring three Pokémon without people being terrified.

Whatever. Hop thought as he grabbed all his Poké Balls and threw them in the air. Six bright lights illuminated the night sky summoning his team. At some point Officer Jenny left, but hop hadn't registered the noise of the car driving away. I really am exhausted. Bolthund looked up at him, tilting his head in confusion. The rest of his team tensed the moment they were summoned, thinking he might be in battle since he called all of them out.

"Relax, I just don't really care if we scare anyone. It's been awhile and I want you guys to get some fresh air before something actually happens." Hop yawned, while he picked up the Poké Balls from the ground.

Hop paused for a minuted, "Bolthund if you want to rest in your Poké Ball thats-" mid-sentence Corviknight grabbed Bolthund off the ground with his claws and threw him onto his back.

Well that works too. He thought while standing up. He motioned for his team to follow him as he strolled towards the Pokémon Center, too tired to go any faster. As his feet moved through the stone paved streets of Hammerlock, his boots crunching an Autumn leaf every so often, his mind wandered. The burglary definitely was premeditated. The thief was far too careful for it to be a spur of the moment impulse. What's the thief like? He definitely knows a lot about Pokémon. What motive could he have? That question puzzled Hop the most. Shards of the egg are being sold legally, so it's not a super rare item. Maybe the thief couldn't afford it, and they wanted to pawn it off for a quick buck? But why steal it from Hammerlock? They would have had a much easier time taking it from some random collector.