"Hmm?" Upon stepping outside, a girl sporting brown pigtails curled into buns at the roots noticed a Pidove with a letter in its beak. The little bird Pokemon ruffled its wings before flying over to drop said letter into her awaiting hands. This could only be from one person, she thought, watching the Pidove flutter away. When she saw that it was addressed to 'Rosa, my apprentice', that only further confirmed the sender's identity. I wonder what's up? He doesn't normally send messages for fun.

"Rosa,

Lately there has been much unrest among the wild Pokemon, and my latest outing has confirmed my worst suspicions. The Pokemon in Desert Resort have been harassed by a group of humans in uniform, so I can only assume another group has risen to exploit humans and Pokemon. Please meet me at the castle ruins, and bring the dragons.

-N"

"N...this is why you need an Xtransceiver," Rosa muttered, not wanting to think about how many hours or even days it might have taken for the letter to get to her. Shaking her head, she folded the letter up and took out a Pokeball. "Looks like we'll be taking a break from Pokestar Studios, little guy. After all, I'd be a pretty sorry champion if I went and left things alone like that Hilbert did!"

'Are you sure that weird kid can even do anything to help?' Delcatty hissed skeptically as he and Zangoose rushed for the hotel.

'For the last time, he's better than nothing,' the cat-ferret grumbled, crouching in front of the door to their room once they reached it. On the first try, he managed to jump and clamp his teeth around the door handle, letting gravity and a nudge from Delcatty do the rest to open the door.

Zangoose didn't want to bother with trying to close the door behind him, so he just ran in after Delcatty and immediately went about rummaging through his trainer's things.

'What are you even looking for?' Delcatty asked, tilting his head.

'Amy's Xtransceiver. She never takes it with her for things like this because someone might get their hands on it and learn her real name...Aha, got it.'

'Any reason she doesn't want anyone to know?' The cat Pokemon strolled over to watch what Zangoose was doing.

'I would give you a decent excuse if there was one, but there isn't. It'd kill the whole "secret identity" thing for her, that's all.' Zangoose pawed away at the device, eventually calling Smith's number.

'Seriously? I'm losing more and more respect for your trainer every minute, I hope you know that.' A quick "be quiet" glare from Zangoose made Delcatty shrug and turn away to let the ferret Pokemon handle the call.

Smith sat at the Unova Police Force head's former desk, scribbling away on various documents with a perfect imitation of the man's handwriting, when a beep from his own Xtransceiver interrupted him. With a sigh, he switched the wrist device to audio-only mode before answering. "Hmm?...Oh, did they?...No, I suppose I wouldn't mind keeping an eye on them. My stand-in is on his way, yes?...Very well, I'll go see to those two, then. Farewell." After turning the machine off, he turned his gaze to what appeared to be an empty space in the room. "Zoroark? You know what to do."

With a low growl of acknowledgment, the black fox Pokemon faded into view and raised a paw toward Smith. Within seconds, he once again took on the boyish appearance that Amy and several others knew him for, just in time for his Xtransceiver to beep once more. The boy smiled slightly when he recognized the number this time. "Hello?"

Much to his surprise, nothing but frantic growls and hisses sounded from the device and, upon closer inspection, Amy was nowhere to be seen on the Xtransceiver's screen; just Amy's Zangoose and someone's Delcatty, most likely Annette's. Piecing together the situation rather quickly, he answered. "Zangoose, is something wrong? You're at the hotel, right? Calm down and stay where you are—I'll be there in a minute."

Zangoose's growling seemed to have quieted after this, and the Pokemon nodded obediently. "Good, then I'm on my way," Smith assured, ending the call. Knowing what was next, Zoroark faded from view once more and followed the boy outside as they headed for the hotel.

Annette and Amy walked along in silence with their heads down, neither willing to look at the other out of guilt. With their minds racing, neither of the girls even questioned the damp sand or the lack of wild Pokemon. It wasn't until they were nearly at the gate to Route 4 that Amy cautiously raised her eyes to look at Annette. "So...we must have been there at least half a day," she observed, noting the already-fading sunset.

"It looks like it," the teen finally responded with some hesitation. And with that, the two were silent once more until they were right in front of the gate. Holding her hands to her chest, Annette turned to face the detective.

"Amy, I—"

"—Annette, I'm really—"

They both cut themselves off, having spoken up at the exact same time. Awkward as the situation was, it helped relieve the tension from before. With a nervous cough, Amy looked away. "Erm, you first."

"A-alright." Annette took a deep breath. "Miss Amy, I wouldn't be surprised if you hate me now...but please trust me to get your Pokemon back safely, at least. After that...you won't ever need to bother yourself with me again."

"Wait, hold on a second! What?" Amy looked back to the girl in confusion.

"Well, you shouldn't put yourself in any more danger for someone you just met. It just isn't worth it. I'm sure they won't chase you if you stay hidden long enough. I shouldn't have even...gotten you involved with those people to begin with," she explained. "I'll go to Lentimas Town on my own, so...sorry for causing this."

"Hey! Who said I'd let you go there alone?" Amy huffed, placing her hands on her hips. "I made this choice on my own, okay? Besides..." The detective averted her eyes. "...I'm the idiot that had us rush in there in the first place. It's fine if you want to split up because you don't trust me to keep you safe anymore, but if you're only doing it for my sake, don't. I can handle myself just fine, thank you!" She spoke the last words in mock offense.

"It's really not a good idea for you to go..."

"C'mon, don't give me that! I'm going, and that's final. You can stay behind if you want, though."

Thinking back to what was waiting for them at that town, Annette shook her head. "No. I have to go there...for a lot of reasons."

"Alright, then we're both headed for the same place," Amy stated before holding out her hand with an apologetic smile. "So, do you think you can give this detective another chance?"

"I can't change your mind, can I?" Annette asked, already knowing the answer. With a sigh, the girl lightly took her hand. "If anything goes wrong, escape on your own,"

"I should be saying that to you, but it won't be a problem. After all, nothing's gonna go wrong this time!" The woman answered with a confident, albeit childish-looking grin.

If only that were true. Letting her gaze wander, the blonde spotted three familiar figures up ahead. "Hey...Amy?"

"Hmm?" Amy looked up and spotted the figures as well, then squinted to get a better look. On the other side of the gate, approaching from Route 4, was a boy with short, rust-colored hair and two smaller Pokemon beside him. "Smith! What's he...? How did...?"

After a few seconds passed and the Pokemon could be seen more clearly, the two trainers froze. They stood, dumbfounded, as two catlike Pokemon left Smith's side and bounded towards them.

"Loki!" Annette crouched down and allowed the cat to leap into her waiting arms, burying her now-teary face into his fur. "You're okay! I thought they got you..." The Delcatty only let out a contented purr and nuzzled his trainer's cheek to cheer her up.

"Zangoose!" Beside herself with relief, the detective reached down to rub the Pokemon's head playfully. "Of course I never doubted you could make it out..." Despite her words, the woman was shaking at the thought of never seeing her partner again, although she hid that with a big grin. "Heh...I'm proud of you, pal."

"My, you two have been busy," Smith commented, having caught up to the group. "Your Pokemon called me over and led me here. Is everything alright?"

Still ruffling Zangoose's fur, Amy looked up at her old friend. "Smith, you wouldn't believe it! We just barely got out of one of their bases."

"Unharmed, I assume. That's good to hear." Nodding, the boy glanced at each of them and inquired, "Those uniforms you both have seem to be Team Plasma's, correct? Did you see any other teams?"

"Woah, even in situations like this, you're still the same levelheaded kid I've always known! But no, I don't think I saw any," the detective glanced at Annette. "How about you?"

"Well..." The teen fidgeted and hugged her Delcatty, hesitant to speak to Smith until her Pokemon gave a reassuring meow. "Just one or two Team Galactic members."

"Hmm," the boy responded, seemingly unsurprised by this information. He turned his eyes towards the city and offered a polite smile. "Well, it seems it's getting dark out. Perhaps we should continue this discussion indoors?"

Amy got to her feet, holding Zangoose in her arms. "Yeah, before those Sandiles notice us again!"

Moments later, the group was gathered at Amy's hotel room. She and Annette sat at the edge of the bed while Smith took the chair and listened to the detective chattering on in bewilderment.

"...And the big guy himself was even there. I couldn't believe it!" Amy exclaimed, nearing the end of her explanation. "He probably knows it was us, but now we have to go to Lentimas town if we want our Pokemon back."

Zangoose and Delcatty shared a confused glance from their spots on their respective trainers' laps. The others made it to the Pokemon Center just fine, didn't they? Zangoose was about to protest something to that effect when Smith interrupted.

"What really confuses me is that mist you mentioned. Do you know what may have caused it?" He asked, still wearing that calm yet unreadable smile.

"Now that you mention it, Annette mentioned she'd explain that later. Right?" Amy turned expectantly to the teen, but grew worried when she saw the girl was struggling to stay awake. Annette had looked abnormally tired since they met up in the base, now that she thought about it.

"Yeah..." Looking up, Annette turned to Smith. "Could I wait until he's out of the room, though?"

The boy simply tilted his head. "Not that I'd mind stepping out, but it may prove difficult to keep secrets from me while we travel together."

"Huh?" Amy and Zangoose both raised an eyebrow.

"Why...?"

"Well, I'm afraid I also came here to deliver some bad news for you, Amy." His expression changed to that of a more apologetic one. "Mr. Johnson hasn't been too happy with your working pace for a while now, and after taking a shady case like this one..."

The young detective grew a little sick to the stomach, anticipating what was next.

"He's placed certain...restrictions on your license. I've been assigned to supervise you, and failure to do so will leave both of us unemployed."

A sound resembling both a whimper and a cry sounded from Amy's lips. "But...Why couldn't he have waited just a few more months?!" Sighing, she hung her head. "I swear I'm a good detective. I just haven't found any good cases."

"Maybe it isn't a good idea for you to get more involved with Team Plasma," Annette interjected quietly.

"No, no, it's fine!" The woman straightened up and forced a grin. "In fact, this'll work out even better with Smith on our side. He's pretty smart! And he doesn't mind, right?"

"Not particularly. I'm actually rather interested in this case," Smith admitted before holding a hand out to Annette for a handshake. He didn't wait long at all to change the subject to something other than himself, apparently less than eager to go spilling his own details. "That said, I look forward to working with you. So, is there anything you don't want me knowing that I won't find out later anyways?"

Although it was better if less people knew about her and those evil organizations, Annette returned the handshake with some reluctance. Amy seemed to put a lot of trust in him, however reliable that was, and there didn't seem to be any way of keeping the two of them out of this. "No, it's alright. You can listen if you want."

She doesn't sound too happy about it, Amy thought to herself. Still, at least she was willing to let the boy to help out. That was a start, right? "So what happened there? Did you do something?"

"Well...it was a Pokemon move," the blonde murmured, starting to regret offering to explain things.

"Didn't they take all of your Pokemon away, though?"

"They did, but...well..." Trailing off, Annette went silent.

After nearly a minute of waiting in anticipation, Smith finally spoke up. "I heard rumors that they've started to perform experiments on people." This earned a flinch from her; apparently he'd hit the nail on the head. "Were you perhaps...one of theirs?"

"Mhm..." she answered, shaking. It was odd; she'd come to terms with her situation long ago, but actually talking about it was much more difficult than she imagined.

"Ah. I'm sorry to hear that." The boy's polite smile had faded to a more serious expression, but he didn't look particularly troubled despite his words. "Would you be alright with explaining in more detail?"

"Hey...maybe we shouldn't be asking. Annette, you don't have to talk about it if you don't want to." Curious as she was, Amy noticed that Annette was visibly uncomfortable. Unsure of what to do, she tried rubbing the teen's back to try and calm her, only for the girl to give a slight shake of her head.

"No, it's fine. This concerns you now, so you deserve to know," she responded after a moment of hesitation. "Well...that was Darkrai's attack."

"No way! They've caught a legendary?!" As far as the detective knew, only some champions and a select few other trainers ever caught such Pokemon.

"They didn't. All they got from it was a sample of that shadowy substance it's made of, but that was enough for them to reproduce it. I'm not sure what the other teams did with with it, but Team Galactic started taking rookie trainers and implanting that into their bone marrow to get it in their bloodstream. A few of us died right away from rejection," she began, hurriedly spilling details as if the whole experience had been bottled up for too long and was finally pouring out. "At first, it wasn't that bad for those of us who lived. Just a few nightmares every so often, and our blood got a little darker. But then they added more...and more...and then even more, until the nightmares became too much to bear. They told us to start trying to control those nightmares or else it would only get worse, so we tried...and a lot of us failed and went insane. Even those of us who lived were just barely able to calm the nightmares down to a normal level, and that took a lot of effort.

"We all got separated after that, but I'm sure a few of them lived through the rest of the experiments. Soon that dark mist started to appear whenever I woke up, so they made me try to control that, too, and even had me try to use it on Pokemon. They gave Loki back to me after a while—he was still a Skitty then—but neither of us felt up to escaping at that point. If a trainer hadn't passed by and taken us out of there, we probably never would have gotten out."

"Who was the trainer?" Smith inquired, feeling this was an appropriate pausing point. The teen seemed ready to talk herself out of air otherwise.

"Nobody, really...I don't think you'd know him," she stammered, evidently unwilling to say anything more on the matter. "So, anyways...that mist was an artificial version of Darkrai's Dark Void attack. I never really controlled it to that extent, much less used it on another human being, so it really took a lot out of me. I don't understand much else about it other than that it causes sleep and nightmares, so I wouldn't rely too much on it." After a moment, she looked up to see Amy's reaction to all of this.

At first, the detective stared blankly. However, it wasn't long before she rose to her feet—much to Zangoose's annoyance, as he had to leap off her lap at the last second or risk falling off—with a fiery glare and a clenched fist. "How dare they?! Now there's no way I'm letting them off!"

Annette blinked. "You're not worried? Just being around me might cause nightmares, since they gave me more of that shadowy substance."

"I might have a solution to that," Smith offered, calling out his Musharna. "This Pokemon certainly doesn't mind eating nightmares, so we should be fine if you're so concerned about that."

Delcatty growled at the Psychic-type for a moment, but quickly gave up when it offered no response. The strange pink Pokemon simply floated there, giving the occasional quiet hum. It creeped him out, but seemed otherwise harmless.

"Well...alright. Amy, are you really okay with all of this?" It still struck Annette as odd that this person was willing to help out a stranger with this much risk involved.

"Of course. Those teams need to be shut down, and I'm not about to give up until that happens!" At any rate, danger and nightmares appeared to be the least of the enthusiastic detective's worries. "Besides; we're friends now, yeah?"

We are? She hadn't noticed it until now, but the teen was starting to enjoy the detective's company. This person may not have seemed quite as reliable as that trainer, but she did exert that same air of confidence that everything would be alright. It was comforting, to say the least. Maybe we really can stop Team Plasma and the rest of them. Maybe... Annette looked away. "Yeah...I guess so."

Clasping his hands together, Smith announced. "Well, since it's getting late, I suggest we get some rest and brainstorm in the morning. Any objections?"

Amy stretched and sat back down. "Not really, but shouldn't you get your own room? There's only two beds."

"I can't. That would violate Mr. Johnson's orders. I could just take the floor, or you two could share a bed," he suggested.

"Sure, that'd work," the woman agreed.

The complete lack of hesitation made Annette blush. "H-hey, are you sure? I mean, well..."

Genuinely confused, Amy tilted her head. "What? It'll be like when I was a kid and my sis and I would go camping and share a tent, except this is indoors and you're not my sis."

"Oh. Right..." She wasn't sure, but Annette could swear she could hear stifled laughter from Smith's now-covered mouth.

In less than an hour, both girls were sound asleep, facing away from one another. Musharna hovered over them, gathering a dark mist above its head.

"I'm amazed it was that simple," Smith murmured quietly to himself so as not to wake the two up. "Zoroark," he called. In an instant, the fox Pokemon faded into view near the window and waved its paw towards its trainer, changing his appearance to that of someone much older, at least in his early twenties. Pressing a button on his Xtransceiver, the man whispered quietly into it. "I have them under my watch, sir. They've also allowed me to use Musharna on them without any questioning."

After finishing the report, Smith waved a hand to Zoroark, who then changed his appearance back to that of a twelve-year-old before fading out of view again. "Well, then." He looked to the comfortably-slumbering detective. "Good night, old friend." His business taken care of for the day, he climbed into his own bed and fell asleep.

"Hey, Fennel!"

The black-haired researcher rubbed her sleepy eyes and answered her door, confused to see Rosa there. "Hmmn? What is it? You know it's late..." She mumbled, stifling a yawn.

"Well, something really important came up. See, I kind of need Zekrom back..." Although N had entrusted the female champion with Zekrom, that didn't necessarily mean the dragon enjoyed her presence. Preferring to stay in stone form rather than be subject to Rosa's constant babying and dressing up and filming, which Kyurem somehow enjoyed much to his disgust, he had agreed to be left with Fennel, who wanted to see what a legendary dragon's dreams looked like while it was in stone form. It at least offered the old dragon some time to rest.

"What for?" Still rubbing her eyes, Fennel let Rosa in and began leading her to the Dark Stone that contained Zekrom.

"N sent a letter asking me to bring him and Kyurem for some reason. He knows Kyurem's not very strong anymore after being drained, beaten, and caught in a Pokeball, so I don't quite understand it myself."

That was all it took. Hearing the name of a hero he actually deemed worthy of his time, Zekrom floated straight into Rosa's arms from within the Dark Stone, if only out of eagerness to see his old friend N.

"Sounds pretty serious. Be careful, okay?" Fennel slurred, no less sleepy as Rosa waved goodbye and headed out the door.

"Thanks! I'll be alright." Closing the door behind her, the girl tossed Kyurem's Pokeball into the air to release him, then hopped onto his back. "C'mon, little guy. Let's go see N!" With a screech, the ice dragon took to the sky and carried its trainer away as asked.

Three nearly-identical dark figures with white hair appeared as the champion left.

"Fennel's Dream World research is no longer guarded my Zekrom."

"Indeed. We must report back."

"It's a shame. That child's lack of secrecy will be her downfall."

"And yet, that same trait will become Lord Ghetsis' advantage."

Their conversation apparently over, the Shadow Triad vanished.