Everybody gasped at what I just said. However, I do understand why they gasped. I mean, I was accusing a Rescue Team of lying. I felt everybody's eyes on me as I walked to a space where everybody could see me.

"What!? Are you accusing my leader of lying!?" Houndoom snarled at me.

"Actually, no," I said, "But I find it quite odd by a couple of things. I mean, where's your proof?"

Team Pitchblack sort of blinked in shock at this question. They looked amongst themselves as Cofagrigus chuckled and shook his head.

"What the heck are you talking about, kid?" Mandibuzz asked, as her leader put Zev back down on the ground with Psychic.

I replied, "Well… I mean, where's the proof that Zev stole something? I mean, I'm sure you guys are a very respected Rescue Team, but from what I know, you need to present physical evidence if someone does something illegal. You can't just blame someone because they're a bad person like a thief."

I immediately heard some chuckling and scoffing from the crowd upon hearing that. I secretly took a deep breath. That may be true from what I said, but I doubt the residents of my new home would like to make an exception. Luckily, their sarcasm and disagreement matched with my confidence as Lucario agreed with me.

"No, Thomas is right; you cannot judge a person guilty or innocent, based on their reputation. That can allow revenge and grudges to go too far," he said as he looked at Team Pitchblack, "We need to see some evidence of this crime, or Zev is gonna go free."

Cofagrigus smiled at him and said, "Luckily for all, we brought the item in which he stole. Houndoom, if you please."

It was then Houndoom walked behind them and came back with a bag in his mouth. But not just any bag; it was Sasuke's bag. As the crowd talked amongst themselves, I looked back at Sasuke. He nodded, saying he'd come assist me in a bit. I turned back to watch Houndoom place the bag near his leader and sat near Mandibuzz as both smiled.

"This is the bag that we caught Zev stealing," Cofagrigus said to Lucario, and then turned to me, "Satisfied, Pikachu?"

I blinked as I folded my arms, yet pointed to the bag and asked, "Okay, whose bag is that?"

Cofagrigus blinked as he responded, "It belonged to a Sandshrew who was relaxing on the beach. This bag is filled with berries the young Pokémon had."

"Okay… so, if I were to go down to Sunshine Beach right now and check, would I find this Sandshrew?" I asked.

Mandibuzz said with a slight hint of nervousness, "Probably not; he was walking to his home. When his bag was stolen, we promised we would recover his bag from Zev."

"Then… why didn't you return the bag? It doesn't make sense. You promised to return it to him, but he left? Shouldn't you have asked him to wait in the Square before he walked away?" I asked confused.

The crowd talked to each other, showing that they agreed in a way. It didn't make sense. Team Pitchblack looked at each other with a bit of surprise. I bet they weren't expecting a defense for Zev at all. I smirked as I chuckled under my breath.

"However… the truth is… I know you're lying. That bag doesn't belong to any Sandshrew," I said.

"It belongs to me," Sasuke said as he walked past me and approached his bag.

The crowd gasped in shock as they said things like "What? But that's impossible!" or "It can't be…" I listened to all the disbelief as Whiscash Elder blinked in shock and Lucario watched with a glare. Sasuke walked over and grabbed the bag.

"This is my bag; the same bag I ALLOWED THOMAS TO GIVE TO ZEV," he said, telling the audience.

I walked up and slowly approached Zev. I reached for the ropes on Zev's mouth to let them go, so I could use him to reference. However, I was approached rapidly by Houndoom who growled at me and Mandibuzz who glared at me. I suddenly found Naruto and Sasuke stand in the way and shield me. I kinda shook in shock, but my brothers stopped the advanced by the members of Team Pitchblack.

"Do not touch our brother," Naruto said, making it clear.

I looked past my brothers and said, "I'm not untying him; I'm removing the ropes on his mouth, so he can speak."

As the two backed off and my brothers relaxed, I began to get the ropes off of Zev's mouth. Man, they were SUPER tight on his mouth. He grunted a bit as I pulled it off. He wiggled his nose and sighed as he sniffed in his nose, trying to make it feel right.

"Geez, could you guys tighten these ropes anymore? I can still feel my blood flow," he said sarcastically to Team Pitchblack, causing them to glare at him and Whiscash Elder to take notice.

"I got an idea," Sasuke said as he turned to the Elder, "I'll give you a brief version of my report of the rescue mission and ALSO tell you why Zev is innocent. I'll tell all the details of the mission later."

The Elder nodded with a smile and said, "Very well, go ahead."

With a slight groan of disgust from Team Pitchblack, Sasuke bowed and then began to explain the whole series of events to clear Zev's name.

"Right after we were assigned to your mission, I decided to stop of G.K and P.K's store to buy some berries because of the Pokémon possibly poisoning us and hurting us," Sasuke said, then turning to the Kecleon Brothers, "Now, with Whiscash Elder here and you telling the truth, what did I bring there to put the berries in?"

"You used that bag," G.K said as P.K nodded.

Sasuke nodded with a smile and continued, "Okay, after that, Zev had encountered us and was chased off by Team Pitchblack. After they all had left the view of sight, we headed into Tiny Woods. Now, when we had found the fissure of where Caterpie had fallen in, I had shown my team this bag with the berries in it. Am I correct?"

Naruto and I immediately nodded as we smiled. Batsu folded his arms and nodded at this as well. We all turned to King, who had an annoyed look on his face. He was a bit hesitant to agree; my guess was he really didn't want to help Zev, which could be he was still sore about that bullying comment that Zev said to him and thus the two were rivals. However, with a punch from Batsu on his left shoulder, the Charmeleon rolled his eyes and nodded.

"Wait, why is King agreeing with you?" Lucario asked, "He wasn't in the group Whiscash Elder assigned."

Sasuke replied with a smile, "Well, we had gotten to the fissure and Batsu had sensed somebody was following us. When I attacked the bush that King was hiding in, he jumped out and revealed that he followed us, wanting to help. So, I decided he could aid us and he joined the mission."

Whiscash Elder chuckled as he looked at King. The fire bully blushed and smirked as he looked away in the corner of his eyes. I guess that he was really excited that the Elder took notice of him. So, that's why he tagged with us: so he could get acknowledged and have a shot at possibly being in a rescue team.

Sasuke nodded and continued, "So, the five of us went down and began to search for Caterpie. We made our way closer to him when we saw who, guys?"

"Zev," all of us who were on the mission said.

Team Pitchblack blinked in nervousness and looked at each other. Seeing their faces, the crowd began to talk amongst themselves about the current issue at hand. I smiled as we were presenting a good case for Zev. I looked at him; he had his head lowered. Maybe it was shameful for him to be protected by others?

"Right," the Buizel said, "We encountered him along the tunnel. He wanted the bag from us, but then was able to hear us out about our mission. It was then that Thomas was able to strike a deal with him."

"Whoa-whoa!" Cofagrigus interrupted, turning to me, "You mean that Pikachu bargained with a thief? Is he out of his mind? That's detestable and unforgiveable!"

"Where the heck do you have the right to get off on him? You're lying about Zev doing a crime he didn't commit. You have no right to talk to my brother like that," Naruto said.

"Hold on," Sasuke said, grabbing their attention and said, "Zev?"

The Grovyle raised his head and looked at Sasuke as he asked, "Will you tell all of us what the promise was?"

Zev looked down and said with an embarrassed voice, "He said I could have his headband and the bag if I cooperated."

"HAH!" Cofagrigus said, cutting Sasuke off as he was about to speak and with his teammates smirking, "Then this story is NOT true! The Pikachu's headband is still on his head. You just proved yourselves liars!"

"Cofagrigus!" Team Pitchblack heard and became silent as Whiscash Elder spoke, "Please be quiet. You're arguing with a teenager. He didn't interrupt you at all when you spoke. So, please let Sasuke finish."

"Thank you, sir," Sasuke continued as the three mumbled in disappointment, "I'll explain that in a second, Cofagrigus. Anyways, after we had gotten Zev to join us, we had found that Caterpie was being held hostage by an angry and vicious Ariados. Caterpie?"

Sasuke turned to the child and asked, "When we came to rescue you, who was in the team?"

Caterpie smiled and answered, "It was you, Naruto, Thomas, Batsu, King, and Zev."

Half of the crowd started to believe us as my brother went on, "So, to make a long story short in which I will tell you the detail laters, Elder, we had gotten Caterpie safely out of there and out of the fissure. Now…"

He then turned to his mom and asked, "Mrs. Butterfree, when we got out of there, was Zev with us?"

"Yes, he was," she said smiling, "I even thanked him personally."

Sasuke nodded and said, "After they had left and gone back home, Zev started to head out. Thomas gave him the bag, but when he handed the headband, he said he really didn't want it. So, he took the bag and left. Which leads the question…"

Sasuke returned his vision to Zev and asked, "Zev, what happened after you left?"

The thief basically gave him a look of 'Finally! I can explain!' and smiled. I guess he was really happy that he was finally able to explain about what happened. He glared at the team that had him captured and tied up and then looked back at us.

"Well, because I had gotten injured in our fight with Ariados, I was really tired and unable to fight really. As I was traveling back to the Square, I got ambushed by Team Pitchblack and tied up. They rubbed in my face that they were gonna get me in trouble. Now that I mention being tied up, these ropes are really tight; it's starting to hurt a bit," Zev said, struggling a bit.

Sasuke turned to the Elder and said, "I think we presented Zev's defense pretty well, sir."

"Why, you!" Cofagrigus started to say.

It was then that the crowd began to talk loudly, but argue with each other. Half of them didn't want to believe a word we had said and wanted Zev to be banned for good. However, the other half of the crowd saw that Zev was innocent and didn't want to ban him if he didn't do anything wrong. The crowd suddenly became so loud, that Whiscash Elder had shot out a Thunderbolt that was LOUD. It was so loud, that it caused everyone there to jump and my soul to almost go out of me. We all turned to see him with his eyes closed and with a calm look.

"So, let me get this straight…" he said, "On one hand, I have one of my top respected and strong Platinum ranked teams telling me that a Pokémon, who's known for stealing, has stolen a bag from somebody like he's done many times before… yet on the other hand, I have a team of Rescue Team Exam candidates who are claiming that bag belongs to them, has Zev agreeing with them, and have four witnesses, including the one they rescued…"

I could feel my heart beat as we all listened to what he would say next. I hoped and prayed that he would be able to understand and reason. I mean, I know Zev did some horrible stuff, but it wouldn't be fair to be accused like this. After what was like an eternity but only a few seconds, we heard him speak.

"Team Pitchblack," he said, "After Sasuke gives his report, I would like to speak to you three about lying to me over a serious matter."

Yes! It worked! I felt so happy for Zev then. He was smiling and happy as Lucario walked over to him and used the spikes on his paws to cut his ropes. He stood up and rubbed where the ropes were hurting him.

"What?!" Cofagrigus said as the whole team was in shock, "You're honestly going to take their side over ours?"

"Cofagrigus, I respect you and your team; I know that on missions you won't let me down," the Elder replied, "but Thomas and Sasuke have showed me four witnesses, including two of our store owners. Even the client and child they came to rescue. So, later, I want you to come to me and talk about your rivalry with Zev."

He turned to the Grovyle and said, "Zev, I apologize. You are not banned. You are free to go."

Zev nodded and looked at me with a smile before saying, "Thomas… I… I gotta split. Here, take your bag back. That way, no one is gonna claim I did anything today. See you later."

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