xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Ecruteak City, 10:43 a.m. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
"You ready?" Adam, dressed in a red T-shirt with a black pair of pants and shoes with a green apron, said towards his wife as the pair stood in the backyard of the Rarest Level Ranch.
"As I can be..." Marie, dressed in a matching apron with a pink collared shirt and gray pants as she held a Pokéball in her right hand.
"The kid said all you had to do was open the ball and make sure Lopunny sees you." Adam said as he rubbed the back of his bald head. "But was he telling the truth is the big question..." He continued as he looked at Marie.
"One way to find out." Marie said as she steeled her resolve and proceeded to cock back her arms. "Lopunny, come on out!" She exclaimed as she threw the Pokéball.
Emerging from the ball was Lopunny, as stoic as she ever was and still blank in the eyes and facing away from Marie and Adam. Looking back at her husband, Marie took a deep breath and proceeded to walk in front of Lopunny as her actual trainer bent forward to be eyelevel with the Normal type Pokémon.
"Hey..." Marie said cautiously towards Lopunny.
Suddenly, upon looking at Marie, Lopunny begun to blink her eyes multiple times. Shaking her head slightly, Lopunny put her hand on her head as color begun to return to her eyes. Looking around, Lopunny proceeded to recall where she was and then looked at Marie.
"Lopunny?" Lopunny said, finally speaking.
"Ah!" Marie exclaimed.
"Holy Miltanks..." Adam said with wide eyes.
"Lopu-lop!" Lopunny said happily as she recognized Marie and Adam.
"Welcome home!" Marie said with similar happiness as she reached her arms around Lopunny and proceeded to hug the Normal type.
"Awesome!" Adam said as he approached Marie and Lopunny as the Pokémon hugged her back.
"Hey, hey. You okay? Remember anything?" Marie asked as she put her hands on Lopunny's shoulders.
"Lopunny..." Lopunny said in a negative tone as she shook her head left and right.
"Can't recall anything about being used by someone else?" Adam asked as Lopunny looked at Adam and shook her head again. "Really was in a trance..." He commented as Marie stood back up.
"Regardless, you're back." Marie said with a smile towards Lopunny.
"Lopunny! Lopunny!" Lopunny said while nodding with a smile.
"I... I am so sorry." Marie said as her eyes started to water as Adam and Lopunny looked at her. "I couldn't go... Find you myself..." She said while holding back tears as Lopunny raised her hands and wiped Maries face.
"Lopu..." Lopunny said in a calm tone as Marie smiled as Adam approached.
"Everything's going to be okay. Lopunny, why don't you go enjoy the yard? I'm going to talk with Marie." Adam said with a warm smile as Lopunny nodded and proceeded to hop away towards the backyard pond where a bunch of other Pokémon were congregating. "You okay?" He asked towards his wife as she wiped her eyes with her arm.
"I'll be fine." Marie said calmly as she watched Lopunny chat with the other Pokémon. "I'm just happy to see she's alright." She continued.
"Considering that Carter kid said that all that Lopunny needed was to see you to act normal once again, guess we can take most of what he said at face value." Adam said as he folded his arms.
'"The Snagem Family..."' Marie said as she turned around and walked back inside the ranch house with Adam following behind.
Walking past the living room and then heading towards the computer desk that had open logs for the Pokémon in their care, Marie clicked on icons to lower the pages before heading down to a browser icon. Clicking on it, she opened up the internet and typed in the term "Snagem" on a search bar.
"What makes you think you'll find anything on these other thieves based on the name alone?" Adam questioned.
"It's worth a shot... Where was Carter from in that tournament?" Marie said she searched online.
"I think it was Pyrite Town." Adam said.
"Okay, let me look that up and- ah, here we go." Marie said as she found some web links. "Some place called the Orre region?" She said as she looked at her husband.
"Heard of it. It's a region that's way far out. Said to be really lax with law enforcement and has a pretty bad reputation for Pokémon habitation." Adam said as he scratched at his stubbled chin.
"...How bad?" Marie said in curiosity.
"The region is predominantly desert and harsh mountain ranges. There are some hospitable areas for general people but in terms of Pokémon, the only Pokémon that really thrive in the wild there are Ground or Rock types." Adam explained.
"You ever been? You seem to know a lot." Marie said with a smirk.
"I used to travel a lot before we met." Adam replied jokingly before Marie rolled her eyes and turned back towards the screen.
"There used to be a criminal outfit called "Team Snagem" in the region." Marie said as she clicked a secure link. "They were said to have been known for having a device called the "Snag Machine."' She said as she read online articles.
"Great name..." Adam said sarcastically.
"It was apparently some kind of device that allowed for caught Pokémon to listen to the orders of other trainers by having their Pokéballs be put through it." Marie said as she read what was on her computer screen before clicking on an "images" tab.
Appearing on the screen was a series of bionic arm attachments on mannequins. One model appeared like a grey bionic arm with a dark tube connecting the shoulder to the hand, another looked like a dark blue and orange shoulder pad with a wrist guard of a matching color scheme.
"...You think this is how Lopunny was brainwashed?" Adam asked.
"Probably..." Marie said with a serious tone. "Did Carter mention in the call what the machine he used looked like?" She said.
"Kid said that him and the other thieves had this tall orange thing on wheels with a robotic arm." Adam said as he looked at the screen as Marie scrolled through the images before stopping at an image matching the description. "Like that..." He said with a serious face.
'"Snagem Family..." "Team Snagem..." "Family..."' Marie said as she stood up from the desk. "And Carter mentioned the code names they went by..." She said as she turned to Adam.
'"Son," "Daughter," "Cousin," "Father," "Mother" and "Grand Matriarch."' Adam said, listing off the code names. "And Carter was "Son." Carter Snagem." He continued.
"And we got the second one too: "Imani Snagem."' Marie said as she scratched her chin as Adam suddenly remembered something.
"...Isn't there someone we should be telling all this to?" Adam said as Marie looked at him with confusion.
"No, why- oh... Oh yeah." Marie said until realizing what he meant and then made an embarrassed expression.
Meanwhile, as the Dibiase couple discussed the situation with the stolen Pokémon, a certain individual was in his trailer in the backyard with his Pokémon, attempting something difficult. Inside of his mobile home was Keats, the entire inside covered in plastic wrap with open jars of peanut butter and damaged crackers littering the whole area, as he stood at a table with Pineco and Timburr standing on the table with Druddigon and Rotom standing and floating behind him, respectively.
"Attempt number two hundred and forty-three..." Keats said as his gloved heads slowly moved a cracker downward onto another cracker that had a small layer of peanut butter on it.
"Why izzzz this so stressful?!" Rotom exclaimed.
"Pineco-pine!" Pineco said loudly in response to Rotom talking.
"Sorry, zzzzt." Rotom said apologetically.
"Can everyone be quiet!?" Keats screamed as he crushed the cracker that was in his hand. "The last few crackers had been ruined by kneejerk reaction; we have to be careful-... Crap!" He said angrily and then noticed he broke the cracker. "Druddigon, please get me one more..." Keats asked with a tired tone.
"Drudd..." Druddigon said as he reached his claw down and picked up a bag of crackers as Keats pulled out another cracker.
"Is this attempt number two hundred and forty-three still or two hundred and forty-four?" Keats questioned.
"You didn't lower the cracker onto it yet zzzzo it's still two hundred and forty-three." Rotom replied.
"Okay, good..." Keats said with a sigh of relief.
Putting the new cracker in-between both index fingers, Keats proceeded to slowly lower the cracker down over the other cracker that had a layer of peanut butter on it. Sweating profusely, Keats swallowed spit as Druddigon, Pineco and Timburr looked at Keats lowering the cracker. As he got closer and closer, Keats and his Pokémon were bending forward in intrigue as he was on the verge of completion before placing the cracker down and the peanut butter seeped out onto the table.
"Gaaaahhh!" Keats screamed in frustration.
"Piiiiiiiii!" Pineco screamed as well.
"Druuuuuuddd!" Druddigon roared.
"Tiiiiiiimm!" Timburr shouted.
"Zzzzzzzt!" Rotom buzzed in anger.
"Damn it!" Keats exclaimed as he grabbed a mug that was on table next to Pineco and proceeded to throw it at the window at one end of the trailer, breaking through the wrap and then through the glass.
Approaching the trailer from the outside was Marie and Adam as Marie picked up the mug that was still intact on the ground.
"Strong mug, hehe." Adam said jokingly as Marie shook her head.
"Keats!" Marie said loudly as Keats popped his head through the plastic wrap and shattered window.
"Oh hey! You guys want peanut butter or crackers?" Keats said with a smile.
"Don't you mean "peanut butter crackers?"' Adam questioned as Keats' smile went away and he made a face of pure agitation.
"No!" Keats exclaimed with rage in his tone as Marie and Adam were taken aback by his sudden angry tone.
"...Sorry we asked, jeez." Marie said in response as Keats' expression softened.
"Forget it. Last hour has just been frustration with trying to make snacks. What's up?" Keats asked as Adam and Marie walked over to the entrance to Keats' trailer, opening the door and stepping inside.
"We have to talk- blergh!" Marie said until suddenly stopping and smelling Keats' home. "What the hell have you been doing in here?!" She said while holding her nose.
Upon hearing her question, Keats, Timburr and Druddigon proceeded to point in the direction of the open jars of peanut butter that were messing up the wrap covered floor. Adam, curious, stepped over to one of the open jars and proceeded to pick it up and sticked his finger inside it to eat a bit of it.
"Seriously?" Marie said as she walked over to sit down in one of the seats where Keats was making his last cracker snack.
"I was hungry... Actually, hold on." Adam said as he put down the jar and looked around the trailer. "I got to hit the can real quick." He said as he noticed the door that might be the bathroom in Keats' trailer.
"No! No! No!" Keats shouted as he ran past everyone to get in front of the door to keep Adam from going in. "Don't go in there!" He said while blocking the entrance to the bathroom.
"Why?" Adam said with confusion as Marie raised an eyebrow while still holding her nose.
"...I haven't cleaned it in months..." Keats said as his eyes were darting left and right. "And not because of anything else..." He thought with a sweat drop coming off his face.
"...Guess I'll go back inside... You can tell him the stuff." Adam said while scratching his head as he walked out of the trailer.
"Keats, you really have to clean this place up." Marie said as she let go of her nose.
"I've been out of the house for weeks and it's my first day back! Of course the place isn't going to smell that great!" Keats exclaimed in his defense as he sat across from his sister with his Pokémon standing next to the pair.
"Still... At this rate, I'm going to need to hire you a cleaner." Marie said as she looked around at the peanut butter on the walls and the bits of crackers on the floor.
"It's whatever." Keats said nonchalantly before turning to his Pokémon.
"Can you guys go outside?" Marie said towards Pineco, Timburr and Druddigon as the trio nodded and proceeded to move towards the exit and walked outside.
"Man, it's going to be hard having them live in here with me." Keats said with a headshake.
"What do you mean?" Marie questioned.
"Living in here, this small little place, with me." Keats said as he pointed at the ceiling of his home.
"You know you can just keep them in their Pokéballs when they sleep right?" Marie said in response as his eyes widened.
"...That would actually be very useful, now that you mention it..." Keats said from the realization.
"How is it possible you have lived this long without even understanding some common knowledge stuff like this?" Marie asked as Keats shrugged without saying a word. "Well, part of the reason we came out here is I wanted to say thanks." She continued.
"Huh?" Keats mumbled. "For Lopunny?" He asked.
"Yeah, obviously." Marie said as Rotom floated over to them.
"What did you think zzzzhe meant?" Rotom asked.
"I don't know, having rent money for once?" Keats replied as he pointed over to his bed on the other side of the trailer with the prize money he got from the PokéPotluck tournament. "How much do I owe? Three months' worth?" He said as he stood up and walked over to it and grabbed a couple of bills out of the case.
As he walked into the bedroom of his trailer, Keats looked down at a large pile of socks for a moment that was stirring in his bedroom as Keats turned his head back towards Marie.
"Everything okay?" Marie asked as her and Rotom looked on.
"Yeah, it's fine." Keats said in a suspicious tone before walking back into the living area.
"...I'm actually going to need more than this." Marie said as she stood up and took the money out of Keats' hand.
"What?!" Keats replied in a shocked tone. "Are you bumping my rent now?!" He continued.
"...The "Giant Pineco of Aspertia?"' Marie said while folding her arms as Rotom floated behind her as Keats looked at her with wide eyes.
"Uhhhh..." Keats mumbled.
"Burning down a park?" Marie said.
"Uhhhhhhhhh..." Keats mumbled some more.
"Stealing construction equipment, getting an Officer Jenny beaten up by a Stunfisk, random explosions everywhere, destroying a rental boat, being a public nuisance on Unova Airlines..." Marie said as she continued to list off things that Keats had done while in Unova.
Following her listing of issues, Keats proceeded to go over to his bedroom again and grabbed the briefcase, glancing at the pile of socks again and noticing they were now even smellier, before closing the door behind him, walking back over to Marie. Keats' sister then proceeded to place the case down on the table as Keats grimaced at Rotom as he felt that the reason Marie knows anything about the finer details of his journey in another region was because of the phone Pokémon.
"Sorry, zzzzt." Rotom blurted out.
"You stupid hunk of plastic..." Keats thought angrily.
"I'm taking about half of this and donating it to some friends over in Unova to fix some of the hassles you caused. You can keep the other half." Marie said in a critical tone.
"...Can you not tell anyone I was a giant Pineco?" Keats asked with sweat dripping down his face.
"Depends, what do you have to say for yourself?" Marie said while folding her arms again.
"...Sorry..." Keats said apologetically.
"Good... Now then." Marie said as she sat back down in the seat in front of the table. "Tell me about the battles you had." She asked with interest.
"Huh?" Keats mumbled.
"We don't get Unova Battle Club tournaments on TV here in Johto. I want to know how the battles went. You finally fought some people, right?" Marie said in a surprisingly chipper tone as Keats sat down in front of her.
"Well first I lost two matches to some bowl cut kid with a Rock type thing and then I lost to some skinny old guy with a Bug type thing." Keats said as he began to describe his experience in the Battle Clubs.
"Rotom?" Marie asked as Rotom floated over to show the trainer cards for Joffrey and Limuel.
"Joffrey had a Gigalith and Limuel had a Dwebble, zzzzt." Rotom said.
"And you had Pineco and then you had caught Timburr by this point, right?" Marie asked.
"Yeah, and I suuuuucccckkkked." Keats said as he laid back in his seat. "I didn't even know Bug was weak to Rock and the old guy's Dwebble knew a Flying type move against my Fighting type." He said as he recollected his experience in the region.
"Everyone starts somewhere." Marie said with a smirk and a headshake.
"Didn't win my first actual match until I battle some hot trendy girl in the tournament with some cactus Pokémon." Keats said. "Then I fought some laidback weirdo with curly hair that had some odd slippery blue thing before I beat Carter and Lopunny." He said as Marie nodded.
"So you started a win streak. Nice." Marie said while looking at her brother.
"After losing two matches. A record of three and two isn't a good record in my book." Keats replied.
"I've lost plenty when I was coming up. You find some more people to battle and I'm sure those two losses will mean nothing." Marie said. "Lopunny is fine now, by the way. The kid was actually telling the truth." She continued.
"Good. Last thing I want is to go back to Unova any time soon." Keats said with furrowed brows.
"Doubt you can after everything you did..." Marie thought.
"But hey, one down, five to go." Keats said as he stood up from his seat and begun to take some of the peanut butter drenched plastic off the inside walls.
"We investigated further into the group." Marie said as Keats turned back around to look at his older sister.
"Oh come on! I'm supposed to be doing the thief hunting here!" Keats said as he pointed at himself.
"And when you interrogated that Carter kid, you just kept asking questions like "where does ham come from" or "why did that Tentacool become an enormous Tentacruel in that one environmentalist movie that came out nine years ago?"' Marie said as Keats made an embarrassed expression as Rotom looked at Keats judgmentally.
"And like I told Rotom, I thought it was important!" Keats exclaimed.
'"The Snagem Family" is what me and Adam found." Marie said as she looked at her brother.
"...That name's stupid." Keats replied with squinted eyes.
"Based on what we found, there was a crime syndicate in a region called Orre and there was a group that apparently got their hands on one of these devices called a "Snag Machine."' Marie explained as Keats listened. "They are- er, were a group called "The Snagem Family" and might be a splintered group from the original group called "Team Snagem."' She continued. "Their shtick was that they were a bunch of thieves masquerading as a family and each of them were codenamed. "Grand Matriarch," "Daughter," "Cousin," "Father," "Mother" and Carter was codenamed-" Marie explained further until Keats spoke up, interrupted her.
"Baby!" Keats exclaimed.
"No. He was-" Marie said until Keats spoke up again.
"Embryo!" Keats said, even more sure in his tone.
"No!" Marie exclaimed in annoyance at her brother blurting out answers.
"...Placenta?" Keats said in an unsure tone.
"That'zzzz not even a form of matter of a child!" Rotom exclaimed in frustration.
"Okay! Okay! Jeez..." Keats said in a defensive manner. '"Grand Matriarch" is also a funny way of just saying "grandma."' He thought.
"Alright, we're getting off track." Marie said as she tried to get everyone focused up. "The guy mentioned the name of one of them: "Imani." Codenamed "Sister."' She said as Keats looked at his sister.
"And which one does she have?" Keats asked.
"Zzzzhe has your sister's Zzzzableye." Rotom said as Keats raised an eyebrow.
"Your what?" Keats questioned.
"My Sableye." Marie stated. "And we got what region she's hiding in. Hopefully this will be an easier find for you." She said.
"Alright." Keats said as he pulled down more peanut butter drenched plastic. "Where am I headed next?" He asked.
"Alola." Marie stated as Keats suddenly dropped the wrapping on the floor.
"Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuugggggggggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh..." Keats groaned.
"Keats?" Marie said as Keats continued to make his groaning noise.
"Hello, zzzzt?" Rotom said as Keats continued groaning.
"Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuugggggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh..." Keats moaned more in a complaining tone.
"...When he stops, tell him to start getting ready to go." Marie said towards Rotom.
"Yezzzz, ma'am." Rotom said as Marie stood up and took the briefcase of money with her as she walked past her brother who was still groaning.
As she walked out of the trailer and looked over at the random Pokémon on her ranch, she smiled at Lopunny as she saw her Pokémon playing with the Pokémon that her and her husband were caretaking. Turning around to look at her brothers slightly dilapidated trailer, she pulled out a cellphone from her pocket and looked up "local cleaners" on a search engine.
"Seriously need to get his place cleaned before he catches more Pokémon in Alola." Marie thought as she walked back towards the ranch house.
Man, my place is a serious dung heap. I haven't swapped the filter on my air purifier in weeks and the dust build up is causing me to get really sick. My throat is really scratchy too and I think I stepped on an old plate that had rice on it originally. Whatever, woo! Back home in Johto, Keats has finally managed to bring home one of his sisters Pokémon and she is finally acting like a normal... Well, a normal Normal type Pokémon. Now that Keats has celebrated by failing to make snacks and his sister plans to take a pile of his prize money to get some of mayhem he caused fixed, his journey will soon take a turn in the hot sun as he is heading to Alola!... But first his place needs a serious cleaning. What will happen first?! See you next time on Wannabe!
Keats' Pokémon:
1. Pineco.
2. Timburr.
3. Druddigon.
Authors Note: (Next chapter is going to be different than normal.)