Annette's Delcatty paced around the room, tail lashing. When he had woken up, the feline seemed to be bothered by some scent, and he had taken it upon himself to stick his nose in every corner of the ground to find whatever it was. He had even hissed at Zangoose, who didn't seem to notice anything out of the ordinary.
"Loki, what's wrong?" Annette asked for the third time, only for the grumpy Delcatty to growl at an empty space and grow more frustrated that his trainer didn't understand.
"Doesn't he normally act like this?" Amy asked, thinking back to how that Pokemon pretty much hissed at anything that wasn't its trainer. She and Zangoose had decided to stand in the corner with Smith's Musharna, since that seemed to be the safest place from the cat's wrath.
"Not at all. He's a really sweet Pokemon, and normally he only acts up when he thinks something's wrong."
Zangoose rolled his eyes at that statement and hissed what was most likely some sarcastic remark. Delcatty turned to glare at him, and this might have led to a fight if Smith hadn't walked in.
"I'm afraid Team Plasma was telling the truth. Your Pokemon's ID numbers were found in the records at Lentimas Town's Pokemon Center yesterday evening," Smith told them, shaking his head. After a moment, he looked to Annette with a strained smile. "The nurses didn't look too happy to see me after I mentioned you by name."
Delcatty narrowed his eyes at Smith and stalked to his trainer's side while she answered. "Yeah...they're really protective."
"That makes sense. They really didn't seem like they wanted to let me talk to you that first time," Amy added.
Smith put a hand to his chin in thought. "I can see why, knowing your predicament. How much do they know?"
"I only told them about Team Galactic and asked if they would let me hide for a while. They assumed my nightmares were just because of trauma, and they didn't ask many questions since I was training to be a nurse before...everything," Annette answered, keeping her head down. "They don't know anything about Team Plasma reviving."
"Woah, they really do a lot to take care of each other," Amy said, impressed. In her line of work, coworkers who got along were few and far between...or maybe that just applied to her. Not noticing the apparent look of relief on Smith's face, the detective stood up and made her way to the door. "But enough of that; let's get training! You're looking gloomier by the second in here, so maybe some fresh air will cheer you up."
The detective didn't give anyone much time to protest before she marched out, fist raised in enthusiasm. Shaking his head slightly, Smith pulled out a Pokeball to call Musharna back only to notice the teen was staring straight at him. "Hmm?"
"Well..." Reluctant to keep speaking, the blonde fidgeted and seemed to trail off until a hiss from her Delcatty broke the silence. "Thank you...for having your Musharna keep the nightmares away."
"Oh, it's no trouble at all," he answered with a somewhat strained smile. It was hard to look this kid in the eye, after seeing firsthand what could happen just from sleeping in the same room as her without using Dream Eater. Pocketing Musharna's Pokeball, he frowned at the empty space that Delcatty had once again taken to hissing at.
With a start, Annette quickly scooped up her Pokemon. "Well, we should catch up to Miss Amy!" With that, she scurried out of the room in a hurry to catch up to the detective and be near someone she could at least somewhat trust.
Smith watched her leave before placing a hand on the empty space. "You aren't used to keeping it up this long, are you?" In response, the empty space wavered and faintly revealed a Zoroark. "I can't say this is a good time to rest, though," he added. Zoroark nodded weakly and vanished once more as its trainer walked out of the room.
Route 4's gate, Castelia City
"You three; I'm afraid I'll need to see your trainer cards before I can let you pass." A guard stood by the gate and held out his palm, standing in the small group's way.
Amy bit her lip, less than eager to comply, before finally staring down the guard. She had a trainer card, sure, but that had her name and hometown on it. "There was never any law for that."
So that's all Mr. Johnson's replacement was able to make them enforce? Smith thought to himself. "Actually, I was told our police force would be making some changes. I must have forgotten to inform you, given there were other matters to attend to at the time." Noticing Amy's sour expression, he added, "Your real name isn't so bad, you know. It can't hurt to show him."
"You know it?" Annette interjected, a little surprised. Anticipating a long conversation among the group, the guard crossed his arms and waited.
"Yes. Before she became a detective and found out she was permitted an alias, she went by her first name. It's actually—"
"Aaaand that's enough for now, Smith!" The detective cut in, moving to cover Smith's mouth only for the boy to sidestep out of the way.
"It's not good to keep secrets," he reasoned, calm as ever.
"That's not the issue, though! I just...really don't want a lot of people knowing!"
"We're still going to have to show him our cards, though. Rules are rules."
Amy's half-determined, half-pleading gaze met Smith's unruffled countenance, and Annette began to wonder just how long they could keep it up before the woman gave a sigh of resignation. But now I'm kind of curious, the teen thought, trying take a peek at the ID Amy fished out only to find it covered by a sticky note. "Huh...?"
"D-don't look! Er, please." Amy hurried over to the guard and handed him the ID. One short inspection later, the card was handed back to her and hurriedly put away before Annette could read it. The guard merely raised an eyebrow and held out a hand towards Smith who, oddly enough, pointedly avoided letting his card face toward the blonde the whole time. What? Him, too?
It was then that Annette decided that secrecy must have been some kind of detective quirk, at least among those Miss Amy worked with. Still giving her two traveling companions a puzzled look, she showed her trainer card to the man and followed after them.
"We should be able to reach Nimbasa in a little over an hour, but it could take longer to get from there to Driftveil. Do you want to rest at Nimbasa or just walk the whole way?" Smith asked, either not noticing or not caring about Annette's confusion as she trailed behind he and Amy.
"I say we walk all the way to Mistralton and sleep on the plane ride there!" Amy answered eagerly. At that, Annette and Smith shared a glance in what was most likely their first mutual agreement before the boy answered.
"That won't be possible, at least not on foot. There's still Chargestone Cave to worry about."
"But shouldn't we try to get there as fast as possible?" The detective urged.
"As fast as humanly possible, yes. Besides, you'll have a perfect opportunity to train when we find a place to stay so it won't be a waste of time."
Annette glanced from Amy to Smith and back, almost certain the woman would protest more. However, she was surprised to find Amy really considering it. It seems like Mister Smith is used to dealing with her, she thought, slowly beginning to realize just how helpful it was to have the boy around. Maybe it couldn't hurt to put some trust in him, but the way the Delcatty in her arms glared daggers at him made her have second thoughts. What is it about him that's making Loki so agitated?
"Alright then...we'll walk to Driftveil and stop there for the day," Amy finally decided, apparently satisfied with that plan. "And then we'll go to Route 6 and train like there's no tomorrow!"
"And if you don't mind, I'd like to take a look around the city while you two are training," Smith added.
"Sure, but aren't you supposed to keep me under watch to make sure I'm doing my job?"
"It should be alright, provided you don't wander off," the boy explained.
Before Amy could respond, Annette had reached out to tug on her sleeve. "Wait; there's someone up ahead." The detective would have wondered what was so odd about that, as they had passed plenty of strangers so far, but when she turned around, the look of absolute disgust and horror on Delcatty's face told her something was wrong.
Looking ahead, the woman spotted a redhead girl waiting by the gate to Nimbasa City with her arms crossed and head down. By the looks of things, Annette's Delcatty was the only one to recognize her, but it didn't hurt to make sure. "Do either of you know her?"
Both Annette and Smith shook their heads and with a shrug, Amy continued walking while they followed behind. However, just as the group was passing her, the girl's head snapped up as though she had just woken up from a nap. Oblivious to this, they would have kept on walking had she not suddenly shouted after them.
"You two!"
Amy turned around to meet angry eyes that were wet with oncoming tears. When looking to both Annette and Smith offered no help, she hastily asked, "What's wrong?"
The girl didn't answer at first; her gaze simply darted between Amy and Annette before finally resting on the latter. "What did you do to Alfred?!" The stranger cried, gripping Annette's shoulders and making her drop Delcatty. Not understanding what was going on at first, the blonde stared in surprise until the other girl continued, sobbing.
"He still won't wake up! Why?! Make him better!"
It quickly became evident to Annette that this was about those grunts she put to sleep earlier. If she knows one of them, she's probably from Team Plasma, too. Tensing up, she was prepared to slip out of the stranger's already weak grip and run off. Having been mostly desensitized by Darkrai's nightmares, she didn't really have it in her to pity someone, least of all an enemy, who only had a watered-down version that would most likely wear off by the end of the week.
Receiving no response from Annette only made the girl keep glaring at her through more tears. "He was only doing his job! Make him better, or—or I'll take you back to our base right now! Ghetsis shouldn't care if I don't wait, as long as you end up there anyways!" Just as her grip on Annette's shoulders began to tighten, the stranger was forced to let go as Amy put her in a light hold from behind and pulled her away.
"Let go of me!" The stranger whined, trying and failing to wriggle free.
"Not until you tell us who you are and what Team Plasma is planning," Amy answered sternly, secretly grateful that her self-defense training had come in handy.
"Please! I'm not even supposed to be here—I...if they found out I blabbed to the enemy, they'd be mad!"
"Then you'll have to explain everything to the police instead, and they know just how to get answers out of you." She wasn't sure the threat would work at first, but when the stranger relaxed she let out a sigh of relief.
"Judy," she answered quietly. "That's my name." Evidently, Judy was reluctant to say much more. "If I answer your questions, do you promise not to turn me in to the p—wait, no...do you promise to tell me how to make Alfred wake up again?"
Do we even know how to do that? Amy gave Annette a quick glance, and when the blonde nodded, she looked back down to Judy. "Yes, but only after you answer our questions. Okay?"
"Alright, but I don't know very much."
"Then first of all, why does Ghetsis want us to go to Lentimas town?"
"He said there's something he wants you to find for him, and a bunch of us were told to go there and wait for you. We were also supposed to treat you like allies until he gave the signal, because he said it would be too risky before then."
"So there's a trap waiting for us. Do you know how many grunts are there?"
Judy shook her head. "Normally we're sent out in teams of two or three, but we're not always told how many teams there are. Hey..." She shuffled her feet a bit. "Could you maybe let go if I promise not to run off? I'm getting a little sore."
The heroic types often tended to be merciful to a fault. Amy, of course, was no different, so she loosened her grip and stepped away, all while Smith shook his head, stifling an amused smile, and Annette gave her a baffled look.
It was no surprise to either of the detective's companions when Judy whirled around and kneed Amy in the gut the moment she was free, then whipped out a Pokeball. "Braviary, go!"
Still trying to recover the breath that was knocked out of her, Amy's attempt at dodging the massive bird's talons had all but failed as it gripped her shoulders. Within seconds, Judy was on the Valiant Pokemon's back and it carried them several feet into the air. "I'm sorry, but I can't let you go now that you know about the trap, so come with me and I won't hurt your friend!"
Not again, Annette thought, anticipating yet another failure. "Loki, use Si—"
"Whirlwind!"
With a few simple flaps of his wings, Braviary sent Annette, Smith, and Delcatty all flying back until they crashed into the wall of a building with a disturbingly loud thud. Too winded to be sure if what she was seeing was real, Annette thought she could see a black shape next to what looked like an older version of Smith, which would've left her confused if both figures hadn't immediately vanished with hisses of frustration. What was...? No, that doesn't matter. Lifting herself up with shaky limbs, the girl called back her battered Pokemon and coughed weakly. "Wait..."
Judy frowned when the sand that her Braviary's attack had lifted up finally cleared. It seemed the brown-haired boy with them had slipped away, as he was nowhere to be seen. I think it'll be alright, though. He's not part of the plan. "What is it?"
"Your friend...you wanted to wake him up, right?" Annette held her left shoulder, which seemed to have taken most of the impact, and limped closer to them. "Rather than taking us to your base, you should take us to Lentimas Town. That thing Ghetsis sent us to find...should be able to cure him, and if we go...it won't...get you...in trou...trouble," she got out between pants and coughs. It's not much, but at least there's a chance of escaping once she lets us off there. And I do need to find that Lunar Wing...
Meanwhile, Amy writhed around and struggled to get out of Braviary's grip. Perhaps it was a good thing she wasn't successful, since there were few safe ways to land at her height. Judy didn't seem to pay the detective's efforts any mind, though. "And how can I be sure you'll both go looking for it?"
"Because we're not deceptive cowards like you!" Amy chimed in, now trying to reach for Zangoose's Pokeball.
"We both...have our own reasons for going. Even if you...had flown away, we would have kept going anyways," the blonde answered. "But...if you'd prefer...you could leave us...at your base and...never cure your friend."
Giving it a moment of thought, Judy told Braviary to lower himself without letting go of the detective. "If you go back on your word, I won't show mercy next time. And tell your friend to stop wriggling," she said, helping Annette onto the Pokemon's back.
Ceasing her struggle with a pout, Amy glanced up. "Annette, are you okay with this?"
"Yeah, it'll work out somehow. Are you?" She was ready to help get the detective out of this, one way or another.
"I guess so. We were headed there anyways and if you're going, so am I."
"You say it like I'd let either of you go," Judy complained. "Be sure to hang on so you don't fall, okay?"
"Alright." Annette complied, holding on to the Plasma grunt and closing her eyes to ensure she'd never look down. This person was probably a safer flyer than a certain boy she knew, but that didn't make her flight experiences on that Archeops any less traumatizing.
"Hey, do I have to be carried like this?" Amy asked, hanging limply from Braviary's talons.
"Well, you don't necessarily have to be..." Judy began, making no move to stop Braviary from taking off.
"But I'm still going to be," Amy finished unenthusiastically.
"Yep~!"
"Are you still mad at me for putting you in a hold?"
"That may or may not happen to have something to do with it," the Plasma grunt chirped as they made their way to Lentimas Town. "So what are your names?"
"Annette."
"Detective Amethyst!"
Judy raised an eyebrow. "That sounds like the name a nine-year-old would give herself after finding a list of gemstones," she teased.
"Sh...shut up! It's an invaluable alias that protects my family, and its very existence proves that I care about the safety of others!"
"She goes by Amy if you prefer that," Annette whispered.
"Ah, okay." Opting to leave it at that, Judy had her Pokemon speed up a little as she ignored Amy's attempts at justifying herself.
Author's Note: Well, that took longer than expected! But during these two months or so, I've been able to plan the story in a much clearer direction so hopefully I won't get writers' block as often. You guys have been really patient, and I'll try not to stretch that patience as far as I have. Updates might also be more frequent when June rolls around and summer break starts.
As always, thank you so much for reading this far and I hope you enjoyed the chapter!