=Chapter 20, The Greedy, and the Greedier!=

(Team Snagem Member's PoV)

"Alright, so we know where it is and where it's going to be!" She said to her fellow Snagem Members. "Now here's the plan, we'll separate into three teams. "Team A will be responsible for stealing the Key Stone, Team B will create a diversion by creating a bit of havoc, and Team C will act as backup in case everything goes south with their Pokemon! Are there any questions?"

"I have one quick question."

"What is it?"

"Why are we making different teams if were Team Snagem?"

She smacked him with the side of her hand. "You idiot, we're still Team Snagem, we're just dividing ourselves into smaller teams for this operation! Honestly am I the only one here who even bothered with school?"

"It's not my fault, Algebra was too difficult!"

"Whatever, look just remember the plan and we'll all be richer than the Pokemon League Champion!" She said.

"Why are we stealing this Key Stone to begin with, aren't they supposed to be like… super rare and make you super powerful?"

"Yea, in fact why are we stealing it for someone else, why don't we keep it for ourselves?"

"You idiots, the guy who's paying us said it won't work for any of us." She snapped. "You think I would be planning this with you all if I could use this Key Stone for myself? The only reason we're getting this thing is for the big fat pay check we get at the end of this. Now just stick to the plan you nincompoops, alright?"

"Got it!"

After everyone started leaving the hideout she shook her head and face palmed herself. "I had to quit High School, why did I have to drop out of High School?"

(Jacob's PoV)

"So tell me again why it is I found you wrapped up with your Milotic coiled around you, with your entire team sleeping around you?" Karen asked as she, Jacob, and Sara ate breakfast outside with their teams.

An hour ago Jacob was awoken by Coral nudging him, causing him to wake up to Karen's barely suppressed grin on her face. She had gone through the "Awww that's sooo cute" and everything else one could say to when they saw something precious and cute in front of them. He tried to save face, but there was no avoiding that she had caught him and his team in a tender, team-bonding moment. His team didn't understand why Karen was giggling insanely as he and they woke up, and he didn't try to explain his situation to either party.

Sara knew the reason why, but out of respect she kept her words private.

"I'm not telling!" Jacob said, frustrated that she would just not leave him alone about that. "Can't you just accept that I wanted to spend the night with my team? Don't you do anything with your team like that?"

"Jacob I've been a trainer for a few years longer than you, I found Ziggles when I turned eleven but never went on an adventure for reasons that I don't feel like sharing. In all that time, I have never met a trainer who ever slept with his entire team in a Pokemon Center room the way you did, unless something was up." She said with a giggle. "Coral was making sure to keep the sun out of your eyes the entire time I was in there, and she wasn't easy for me to convince to wake you up!"

Jacob sighed and took another mouthful of their breakfast so that he could avoid answering the question. After swallowing and seeing her eyeing him again while suppressing the urge to giggle fiercely, decided to finally answer her, if for no other reason than to get the embarrassment over with. "Alright, they were keeping me company so I wouldn't feel afraid." He said as his cheeks turned red.

"Keeping you company, what for?" Karen asked.

"Because… I couldn't sleep last night…"

"And that's because?"

"I was… afraid of the lightning… from last night's thunderstorm…" He said, waiting for the burst of laughter to arrive.

Arrive it did, as Karen luckily finished what she was eating before she burst out laughing, holding her sides at the revelation of Jacob being afraid of lightning. "You're afraid of thunder?" She asked incredulously, to which he nodded in embarrassment. "That has got to be the silliest thing I have ever heard of… a trainer with Pokemon who could turn him inside out, is afraid of something as natural as a thunderstorm!"

Unfortunately for her, his team happened to have been very close by, and unlike her team, she didn't have a Pokemon advantage in terms of diversity for her lineup. She had only three different kinds of Pokemon for her team, whereas he had five. A lesson she learned the hard way as Coral, overhearing Karen laugh at Jacob for being afraid of lightning, had snaked her way over to her and gave her the scariest of glares Jacob had yet seen from his 'modest' Milotic.

"Uh… I mean…" She said as the Milotic only moved her face closer to her, still glaring at her with very angry eyes. "Not that there's… anything wrong with… you know… being afraid of lightning… everyone's afraid of something… right? Eh hehe he…"

"Milotic…" Coral said before she backed away, returning to her spot with the rest of Jacob's team.

(She said, that's what I thought.) Sara translated for him.

"You had to get a Milotic for your team and your friend from Littleroot had to get a Gyarados for hers, what is it with you people from Littleroot and getting really strong Pokemon?"

"Sorry Karen, but it's not like I planned on having Coral join us, she was just a small Feebas remember?" Jacob said with a small smile.

"Yea well, just tell her to stop glaring at me like that!" Karen said. "In any case, what are we planning to do today, I already checked the Gym to see if the leader was there but no they weren't. There was another sign saying that it was closed and the leader would be back, sometime in the future."

"Well I guess we could go look for a Key Stone in Mauville today." Jacob said, remembering his dream from last night.

"A Key Stone, are you serious?" Karen asked. "You told me that Key Stones are like super rare, who could have a Key Stone just floating around here that they're willing to part with!"

"Yea I know that, but I want to go look around for a Key Stone and see if we can find one." He said. "Who knows, we might get lucky."

"Well in that case what are we waiting for?" Karen said with a huge grin, finishing the last of her food and calling to her team to finish theirs quickly. "Let's go and find ourselves a Key Stone!"

Jacob's team finished their food, and after recalling their teams back into their balls, Jacob, Sara and Karen returned to Mauville City and made their way to the Square where all of the shops were up and already selling their merchandise.

All around there were trinkets and presentable objects trying to catch the eyes of trainers and tourists, begging to be purchased for whatever reason. "Alright Jacob let's split up and see if we can find ourselves a Key Stone!" She said excitedly. "First one to find it gets to keep it!"

"Alright." Jacob said as she went to start browsing the shops for that Key Stone.

Jacob and Sara walked among the shops and shopkeepers, checking the merchandise and avoiding asking to specifically for what they were looking for.

While they didn't find the Key Stone they were looking for at first, Jacob knew that it just had to be somewhere nearby; his teacher wouldn't have asked him to do this for no reason. After about twenty minutes of searching with no luck, Jacob became just a little bit more focused in trying to find it. He really wished that he knew what this Key Stone he was looking for looked like, all he had to go on was a speck of light and what Jessy's Key Stone looked like.

(Jacob, why are we looking for a Key Stone so suddenly?) Sara asked as they left yet another stand which was only selling bargain price potions.

"To be honest Sara, last night when I was sleeping I had a visit from my teacher in my dreams." Jacob said, recalling his dream so clearly. "He wanted to talk to me about a dream I was having, in it there was this speck of light, and thanks to his help we learned it was a Key Stone. After we talked about it, I learned that it must be close by and trying to get me to find it. He said it might have belonged to someone in my family, so he asked me to try and find it."

(Your teacher, the one who you keep saying taught you everything about Pokemon?) She asked him. (What's his name; you never tell us what his name is.)

"I call him Arky, but he has another name he goes by." Jacob said. "Though I promised him I wouldn't reveal his Pokemon name and species to anyone, but just believe me when I say he is the coolest Pokemon I have ever seen. Not to mention smart and strong, he knows everything there is to know about Pokemon!"

Hearing him talk about his teacher sparked Sara's curiosity, and he could tell that she was really curious about who his teacher was now. However she held back as somehow she sensed that whoever this 'Arky' was probably had good reasons for why he didn't want him to tell what Pokemon species he was to others. He sensed through their connection that she really wanted to ask about him, but refrained from doing so out of courtesy and respect for Jacob.

"The only problem with what Arky asked me to do is how am I supposed to find this Key Stone, I mean where in all of Mauville City could it be?" He complained, more to himself than to Sara.

This was the problem with Arky's request; he had no idea where to start. All he had to go on was what Arky said about Key Stones didn't exactly have a far range to find the DNA they were connected to. He told him it was close by, very close by, and if it was still searching for his DNA, based on whoever owned it previously, it had to have been either used heavily by the owner, or very recently, as well as someone he was related to.

Wondering who could have owned the Key Stone and knowing that they were probably related to him caused him to think. He had no relatives here in Hoenn, and the Officer Jenny he had overheard years ago said he had no relatives for at least two regions over, which meant he had no choice but to grow up in an orphanage until he could become a Trainer. If this Key Stone belonged to someone he was related to, who were they, and why didn't they visit him or why didn't anyone find out who they were. Key Stones were rarer than Nuggets, there weren't many trainers who had them, surely someone must have known who they were if they had one of these Key Stones on them.

"I wonder who this Key Stone belonged to." Jacob asked himself as they finished checking another stand for the Key Stone, but seeing nothing.

After an hour of browsing the stands Jacob and Karen regrouped and had to admit defeat for now, and since it was about lunch time, they decided to eat before checking in on the Gym to see if the leader was there, however they weren't back yet. This greatly confused Jacob, because he had never heard of a Gym leader ever once being away for such a long period of time.

After the visit to the closed Gym again as well as their lunch, Karen asked Jacob why the sudden interest in finding this Key Stone. "Seriously Jacob, I know we're board out of our minds and don't have a Gym Leader to prepare for, but why do you want to find a Key Stone here of all places?" She asked him.

"In truth Karen, it's like I told Sara, my teacher visited me last night and asked me to try and find it." He said, scratching Sara's green hair, electing a very content sigh from her. "He told me about Key Stones and that one was very close by, in fact he thinks it might have belonged to a trainer who was related to me. He said I didn't have to go looking for it, but he told me that I should…"

"Whoa whoa, what's this about, your teacher visited you last night?" Karen interrupted. "How could that be, you were in your room the entire night, and you had five Pokemon around you, one of them you were literally wrapped in! How could you sneak out to visit your teacher, or were you up talking to him and that was why you took forever to wake up?"

"No, he visited me in my sleep, in fact it was in my dream that we spoke to each other!" Jacob replied. "He's a psychic type, that's why he was able to enter my dream."

"You had a psychic type Pokemon as a teacher?" Karen asked. "Way cool, I wish I had a psychic type as my teacher when I was your age! I had to learn out of books from a library and watching the Pokechannel on TV."

(How do you know he was a psychic type?) Sara asked him, too content with her head scratching treatment to look up at him.

"Well during my first two years with him, he did things that I couldn't figure out, such as moving heavy objects and using moves that weren't psychic in nature or type." He explained. "He also tripped me one time, making me fall into a pond of water without touching me."

Karen laughed at this as she and Jacob stood up. "You are the coolest trainer I've ever had the fortune to meet!" She giggled. "Oh man, why didn't I stick with you sooner, all the cool stuff happens around you it seems?"

After that they returned to the Square to try and search for the Key Stone, and upon entering they noticed a huge crowd of people gathering around this one particular stand that seemed to have been set up recently, because it wasn't there when they looked earlier. Surrounding the stand were a good thirty or forty people who were all chattering and pointing at something in front of them. Jacob also felt a familiar sense of something drawing him closer.

"I wonder what's going on over there." Karen said as she and he noticed the large crowd grow only larger as more people joined it, trying to see what was being displayed.

"Let's go find out." Jacob replied as Sara shifted so she could sit on his shoulder more comfortably.

Walking over to the stand and fighting through the crowd to get a glimpse of what the stand was selling that would draw such a crowd. Then he finally managed to push through a pair of people to get a look at the object everyone was staring at, gossiping about, and eyeing with desperate eyes.

It was the very object Arky had asked Jacob to find, a Key Stone.

"No way…" Jacob whispered to Sara as Karen sidled up next to him to stare open mouthed at the Key Stone as well. "There it is Sara."

The Key Stone was just as small as all of the other Key Stone's Jacob had seen, or at least as small as the pictures in Electra's book had showed. It was no larger than a marble, and imbedded in a bracelet that could have been worn by anyone. The Key Stone had a small DNA symbol on it, and shined in different colors of the rainbow while glinting in the sunlight. The Key Stone itself was beautiful and looked in perfect condition by comparison to the bracelet it was embedded into, as though it had been cleaned and polished constantly. As for the bracelet itself, it was a simple metal bracelet, with bits of rust and discoloration from being heavily worn and exposed to the elements.

This was not a clean, freshly discovered, ready to meet its first trainer Key Stone. This was a Key Stone that had seen many Mega Evolutions in many battles over the course of many, many days!

Jacob was not surprised to see why a huge crowd was surrounding this particular stand now, anyone would have stopped to see it.

"Man, I want that Key Stone!" Some Coordinator moaned sadly.

"You want it; I think everyone here wants it!" A trainer said.

"Who wouldn't want a Key Stone?" A third person said. "Look at it, that thing is beautiful!"

(Wow Jacob, I've never seen a more beautiful stone in my life!) Sara told him.

Jacob was of the same opinion as Sara and everyone else, the Key Stone was indeed beautiful; it was just sitting there looking absolutely beautiful in front of everyone, glinting in the sunlight as if it were crafted by a master. There was only one question Jacob could think of at that moment, staring at the Key Stone in front of him.

Why hasn't anyone purchased it yet?

Karen answered that question the moment it popped into his head however. "Fifty million Pokedollars?" She shouted incredulously. "Is someone high on Koffing fumes or what? No stone is worth fifty million Pokedollars, not even the rarest stone in the world!"

"Says you missy!" The store clerk said from behind the stand, sitting in his chair and making sure to keep his stand clear so that everyone could see the price tag. "I've done research into this thing, I know its worth a lot more than a Mega Stone, and I aim to get rich off of this thing! If you don't like the price, then you might as well get out of here."

"Are you still high on Koffing fumes, nobody here in Mauville has that much money!" Karen responded back angrily, only proving her point by looking around at everyone around the stand. "You expect trainers in Mauville City, who are just trying to earn their third badge, and are already straining their earnings just to survive on the road, to be THAT loaded? Look at us all, do you expect any of us to have fifty million just lying around to spend on a Key Stone? I barely have enough to buy souvenirs for myself after my friend and I shopped for traveling supplies for both us and our Pokemon. And if I'm right the rest of us do this as well, do you expect any one of us to have that much money?"

There were nods and words of agreement from nearly everyone around the stand. "Also that's just trainers you're trying to sell to, we don't make a lot of money nowadays outside of the championship and, heck even the Pokemon League Champion's don't have that much money, if they did they wouldn't be traveling to Mauville City looking for a Key Stone, they would already have it! Also Pokemon Coordinators, do you expect them to have that much money, correct me if I'm wrong but most Coordinators aren't rich, in fact they're even worse off money wise compared to us Trainers right?"

"Yea, I can barely afford to feed myself and my team as well as keep my costume clothes and performance pieces cleaned!" A Coordinator said. "If the Pokemon Center didn't offer free room and board, we'd be sleeping on benches or begging!"

There were more agreeing voices among the Trainers and Coordinators gathered around the stand, but despite everyone agreeing and complaining about how the seller was trying to sell the Key Stone for so much, he was adamant and refusing to sell it for anything less. So seeing that they were not going to be getting it, Karen stormed off with Jacob and Sara following in her wake to go outside so they could cook their own meal.

After a brief search for some fresh berries, Jacob started working on the meal for their teams while Karen continued to brew and steam over the stupidity of that salesman. "How can someone have such a rare stone but be so stupid!" She yelled as Jacob stirred the soup with both of their teams eyeing it hungrily.

"Are you going to keep complaining or are you going to pass me the seasoning?" Jacob asked as he sliced up the Pecha Berries before adding them into the pot.

Karen picked up the seasoning and tossed it over to him before resuming her rant. "I mean he's not a Trainer, he's not a Coordinator, and so what does that make him?" She said angrily. "A merchant, that's what he is, just a stupid guy trying to make a quick Pokedollar from us honest Trainers by playing on our wants and needs. We all want a Key Stone for ourselves, and he's the ONLY ONE with one for sale for probably miles around! I mean what kind of world do we live in when someone just flaunts us with something like that, and they know nobody can possibly pay that much! I mean where's the justice in that? Where's the honor and the sport when somebody…"

(Jacob… was that the Key Stone your teacher said you had to find?) Sara asked him as Sara continued to rant and rave about a Key Stone being right under their noses.

"I think so, I didn't see anyone else with a Key Stone for sale, or even anyone showing off a Key Stone." He told the Kirlia when she walked up to the pot to take a sniff of his latest creation. "If it was the Key Stone he asked me to find, how can we possibly get it? You saw that price; fifty million is just way too much! It would take me winning the Pokemon League Championship at least three times before I could afford it."

(Hmmm.) Sara said thoughtfully as the two of them racked their brains to come up with something.

Harold, wanting to know what Jacob was talking about with Sara, asked him as they waited for the food to finish. So he explained to his starter about Key Stones, what they did, how valuable they were for Trainers and Coordinators, and of his teacher visiting him in his dreams to tell him what he should do about the Key Stone that they had just found a few minutes ago. "So now we're just wondering what we should do about it Harold." He told his starter, and now his team as they had gathered around him to hear the explanation. "Arky believes that the Key Stone is supposedly trying to reconnect with me because it's somehow linked to my DNA, and that's why he asked me to try and find it. He said I should be the one to have it, if for no other reason than so that it doesn't get misused or abused."

Having a multi-directional conversation with his team was rather difficult, but thanks to Sara's translating skills he was able to manage to answer all of his team's questions.

"Arf?" Ivan barked in confusion, to which Sara translated. "Why not just take it?"

"Because it's not ours Ivan, you can't just go around taking what isn't yours." He explained to the Mightyena.

"Milotic… Milotic tic?" Coral asked. "Why not… if your teacher says it's yours than it's yours right?"

"I'm afraid that's not how it works either Coral, just because the Key Stone might be mine doesn't mean it is mine." He told the Milotic. "I'm afraid money prevents us from getting it, it's just too expensive to get by normal means."

"Grovyle… Grovyle vyle Gro?" Harold asked him. "I don't understand… if you can't purchase it and it doesn't belong to you now, how can you get it?"

"I don't honestly know Harold; I honestly haven't the faintest clue." He said with a sigh.

"Swellow?" Roran chirped. "So now what?"

Jacob sighed as he tried to find an answer to that very question. "I don't know Roran, I really just don't know what we should do now." He said.

While Jacob and his team were talking about what they could do to get the Key Stone, Karen had been ranting about 'unfair business men' and 'ripoff artists'. So she hardly noticed the bowl of food he put in front of her after he divided the rest among their teams. After that they decided to return to Mauville City.

Once they entered Mauville City through the north entrance, they saw Officer Jenny and her friend Electra talking. Electra was drinking a cup of coffee and had bags under her eyes, but still smiled and talked animatedly to her friend.

"Hello there kids, had a safe as well as fun visit to Mauville so far?" Jenny asked as they approached the pair.

"Yes ma'am." Karen said with a small smile. "At least before we met a big jerk in the square just now we were having a decent visit."

"Oh, why's that?" Electra asked.

"We found a Key Stone for sale in the Square, but the person selling it refused to sell it for anything less than an absurd price." Jacob replied as he bent down to help Sara onto his shoulder.

"A Key Stone for sale, that's quite the rarity nowadays." Electra said with a smile. "So what was the price tag for that stone?"

"A whopping fifty Million Pokedollars!" Karen said exasperatedly as Electra took a drink of her coffee.

"Pfffff, WHAT?" Electra spat as she spat out her coffee all over Officer Jenny's uniform. "Sorry Jen but… what kind of Wheezing Fumes is that guy smoking? No Key Stone is worth that much unless it's under very, very, very specific conditions!"

"That's precisely what I said!" Karen said. "The guy was trying to sell it for fifty mill and he expects us to have that much money? I tried to convince him but he was determined to try and get rich with it. To be honest I don't even know if that thing is real, I mean he's clearly not a trainer so how do we know it's legit! Man why didn't I think of this before when we were in front if it?"

"Well if it's fake than it's easy to tell, as for if it's legit the only way to know its value is for me to see it personally." Electra said as she rubbed her eyes a little. "Is the guy still selling that Key Stone right now?"

"We wouldn't know, we left about an hour ago to make ourselves lunch so we haven't gone back to check yet." Jacob said.

"Well how about we go and…" Electra started saying as Officer Jenny's radio started beeping, causing her to answer it with a serious expression.

"This is Jenny, what's wrong?" She said. "What's that, the entire city camera network just turned off?" There was silence as whoever on the radio replied. "Well get on the radio and alert all personal, this happened every time Snagem has 'snagged' a Pokemon from its trainer! Also inform all personal to report any unusual activity to me the instant they see it. And don't you dare tell me that we couldn't protect another kid's friend, I'm getting tired of filling out Missing or Stolen Pokemon Reports and never finding them!"

Jenny put the radio back to her belt before breathing another sigh of frustration. "Again Jen?" Electra asked in understanding.

"That's the twelfth time this has happened, I don't understand how they've been able to manage it, but the entire city's camera network just went static. We can't see anything in or around the city at HQ! I've been telling the chief that we're doing everything we can, but our jobs are on the line if we can't catch these guys."

"Team Snagem, how can a bunch of thieves just shut off an entire city's camera network?" Jacob asked. "Don't you have like, protection or backup systems to prevent that from happening?"

"Yea, Jacob and I had a run in with Snagem a while back, and they weren't the most sophisticated or educated bunch we've ever met!" Karen said. "How could these goons do that?"

"That's what Electra has been trying to figure out." Jenny said, glancing over to Electra as she nodded in agreement.

"Yea, I've been working twenty four seven trying to figure that answer out, but nothing." She said as a group of trainers walked in with a Torkoal from the entrance, apparently tired as they were all gasping for breath. "I'm guessing that whoever is doing this has some very good hacking skills, because there is no way they could be bypassing every security measure I put it! It's just impossible, I've used every trick in the book to secure the systems, heck I even have backup systems for the backup systems and still they find a way to shut them all down!"

(Sara's PoV)

As Jacob and the others talked about security systems and Snagem and other things that she didn't really understand, she felt something was wrong in the back of her head. She could sense negative emotions close by, but because of the huge number of humans in this big city, she could not clearly sense specific people's emotions besides her trainer's.

All their time she had sensed some bad people, but because there were so many she could not pick them out clearly, so she simply ignored them as best she could unless they were very close to Jacob and her.

Now however she was sensing a huge swarm of negative emotions, and they were very close by.

Yet for some reason they weren't directed at any person or Pokemon in particular, instead they seemed to be directed at some object.

As she sat atop Jacob's shoulder she looked over at the group with the Torkoal, and focused her powers to try and read their emotions to discern their intentions, not sure of what was going on around them.

It took her a few seconds, but eventually she felt their emotions, and while they weren't exactly calming or nice, they weren't overly threatening or evil. In fact they seemed more nervous than anything else.

That was when she felt something odd about one particular trainer, a girl of about Karen's age. Her mind felt familiar, a little too familiar.

(Jacob's PoV)

They continued to talk about how Snagem could be breaking into Mauville's security feed, before Karen came up with the most ridiculous idea she had come up with to date. "Maybe it's an inside job?" Karen suggested. "You know, somebody inside the police force could be working with Snagem?"

"No way are any of my officers working with those guys!" Jenny all but shouted at the teen. "Our newest graduate from the police academy just had his Poochyena snagged while on duty, and my Growlithe barely avoided being snagged while he and I were snacking outside! Besides, even if that were possible, the only ones who have that kind of access to the security feed are myself, Electra, and the chief! No way is this an inside job!"

"So how could they be doing it?" Jacob asked.

"Wish I knew!" Electra said with a tired sigh, pulling out a large metal pen and chewing on one end that had Pokeblock with her teeth.

"Sorry to break the conversation, but really girl how can you chew that thing?" Jenny asked.

"Hey, I've had this pen since I graduated high school!" She said, chewing on the Pokeblock end. "I added this sweet chewy on it ever since I started working here at my many jobs! It's how I get through each day after being run ragged!"

"You've only got yourself to blame for that." Jenny said with a sigh.

(Sara's PoV)

Sara kept her eye on the girl as she glanced around while her friends talked to each other. The Torkoal seemed more than content to just look around. Still she tried to remember where she had seen that girl, she swore that her mind felt familiar, she even had a look in her eye that made her feel slightly afraid.

That was she realized where she had seen the girl.

She had seen her back near Verdanturf Tunnel, back near Rustboro.

She was the Team Snagem girl who grabbed her roughly after she surrendered to save Jacob and the others!

(Jacob's PoV)

There was a series of noises coming from the Square that they heard, and by the sounds of it they seemed to sound like fireworks. "Was there a festival or show supposed to take place in the Square?" Karen asked.

"No, there isn't a festival or any sort of celebration supposed to take place for at least three weeks." Jenny said suspiciously as she started to move toward the door leading to the square.

(Jacob, Its Snagem!) Sara said to him and pointing over at the group with the Torkoal.

Before Jacob could reply at that exact moment a bunch of screams and eruption of explosions occurred, right afterwards the doors were forced open as a group of people and Pokemon ran from the square, a trail of smoke following behind them. "GO, GO, GO!" The lead person said, a girl holding something tightly in her hand as she a Pokenav to her ear. "WE HAVE IT, GET OVER HERE!" She yelled into it.

"STOP RIGHT THERE!" Jenny said as she pulled out a Pokeball. "OFFICER JENNY, MAUVILLE POLICE, HOLD OR ELSE!"

"Torkoal, Smokescreen!" A guy from the group with the Torkoal shouted.

"Toooorkoaaaaaaal!" The Torkoal said, before releasing a thick cloud of smoke from its mouth.

The smoke was thick and caused them all to cover their mouths and cough, allowing the people running from the Square to run past unhindered. "Come on let's go!" A girl shouted angrily as a Pokemon was recalled back into its Pokeball.

A few seconds later of everyone coughing and the smoke finally cleared enough for them all to see. The people and Pokemon had all vanished, but from what they could see of the Square, there was quite a bit of pandemonium going on. Jenny's radio went off and she instantly answered it. "This is Jenny!" She shouted. "I just encountered a group of suspicious characters who near the north entrance, someone tell me what's going on in the Square!"

There was silence before the answer to that very question arrived in the form of the guy who was trying to sell the Key Stone. "Officer, did you stop them?" He yelled.

"Slow down, what happened?" She asked.

"Those thieves, that's what happened!" He shouted angrily. "Those goons just made off with my Key Stone!"

"Wait, they stole the Key Stone?" Jacob asked, his stomach suddenly twisting and making him feel extremely sick.

(Jacob… that was Snagem!) Sara said to him, trying to remain calm but it was impossible as his worry made her worried as well. (Snagem just stole the Key Stone your teacher asked us to find!)

Jacob nodded in agreement, not needing to be told what he already knew now. Arky had warned him about the power of a Key Stone being abused, and now Team Snagem had a Key Stone in their possession! Arky had also asked him to get the Key Stone if for no other reason than to keep it safe! If Team Snagem had a Pokemon capable of Mega Evolution then there were very few Pokemon capable of matching that power.

How Jacob wished Arky was there to help him, guide him, advise him, anything at that moment! The last time he and his friends fought Snagem they won only because of a very angry, very powerful, and very well trained Gyarados. His best Pokemon couldn't handle so many opponents at the same time, and by the looks of it there were just as many here in Mauville as there had been near Rustboro.

The odds were once again stacked against them, if he and Karen or anyone else doesn't go after Snagem, they would get away with the Key Stone. Yet if they did they would be outnumbered and possibly have to fight a Mega Evolved Pokemon. He doubted many trainers would want to take on Snagem knowing those odds, and he knew time was of the essence, they had to go after them fast or they'd get away.

He should go after them, but even knowing the stakes, he was not sure what he was going to do now. *And I thought earning my first Badge was an ordeal!*