Dawn raced down the street, her hair flying wildly and her cheeks flushed. She turned a corner, rushing through an alleyway lined with large green rubbish bins and bin bags, her pink boots splashing into puddles of water.

  She didn’t deserve this.

  Why had this happened? Why, after all she’d done, had this happened? Every painful breath she took was accentuated by panicked sobs that she fought to swallow—to contain herself. How could she have allowed this to happen to her?

  As she rushed through the long alley, the crinkling crunch of rubbish echoed around her. Emerging from the rancid, unkempt waste were Burmy, their bodies coated in skins made of plastic and aluminium rubbish left lying around by the city’s inhabitants.

  “Get out of my way! I don’t have time for this!” Dawn cried, immediately flinging a Poké Ball at the bunch of bugs. “Tweety, peck now!”

  Bursting forth, the Piplup charged at the little colony of bagworms and stabbed some of them with his beak, fuelled by the urgency in his partner’s voice. He had no idea what was going on, but if she was in danger, it didn’t matter—anything or anyone could and would get mangled!

  The gross cries of the junky worms filled the alley as the little penguin ravaged them with his savage yellow beak. They fired lines of string and silk that webbed Tweety up and tangled his movements, ganging up on him to sink their tiny insect teeth into his fluffy feathers.

  “Piss off!” Dawn kicked them away, allowing her partner to get up and batter the rest of them with pounds and pecks. “Return, Tweety!” she called him back into his capsule as she ran out of the alleyway. The roar of clumped-up voices filled her ears as she entered downtown Jubilife.

  Lights flew by her in blurry colours, with cyclists zooming past and adverts flashing brightly on billboards and buildings—all of which meant nothing to her! All the lights and beautiful architecture were just a way to mask the real problems.

  “That cow! That stupid cow! When I catch her, I’m gonna bloody drown her!” she huffed and puffed before finally arriving at the Jubilife Police Station. She rushed through the door and to the front desk—only to find it absolutely empty. She turned to her side, seeing three other people standing around, claiming they hadn’t been attended to for the past hour.

  Dawn clenched her teeth, feeling her blood boil inside her. Her face grew hotter and hotter as tears welled up in her eyes, and she began to cry.

  She didn’t deserve this.

  Around thirty minutes later, a policeman finally arrived and attended to the other two people waiting, who were unsurprisingly reporting crimes of some sort. When it was finally her turn, Dawn grappled to regain her composure and explained the situation between sniffles and sobs.

  “I-I was on my way to meet someone at the Poké Centre, b-but then I was stopped by a woman,” she said. “She was… she was a bit tall with short red hair. She said her name was Mars, and she was with two other men—it was Team Galactic! I saw the emblems embroidered on their uniforms. They stole my Buneary and the papers I had with me!”

  “Sorry, but there aren’t any officers on standby right now. Rest assured that your report will be filed, and we will handle the matter as soon as possible.”

  “W-what?” Dawn asked. “As soon as possible? She’s gonna get away! They’re probably getting away right now—there’s no time! If we don’t act now—”

  The officer, blasé and almost annoyed, said, “I understand, little girl, but there’s nothing I can do right now. As I said, there isn’t anyone available, so all you can do is wait. You aren’t the only one dealing with a crisis right now, and the person you’ve described matches a frequently reported fugitive that we are hard at work trying to detain. Please trust us and be patient, okay? Is there anything else we can help with?”

  But Dawn couldn’t hear a single word he said. All she heard was a bunch of useless ramblings that weren’t going to help get her Toffee back—words that couldn’t do anything for her. Words that didn’t in any way help heal the police’s notorious reputation for being anything but useful.

  “Team Galactic’s been rampant for how many years now, and you lot can’t do anything about it!” someone said, overhearing Dawn’s situation. The room had filled in the time it had taken the duty officer to arrive from wherever he’d been, and no one was remotely pleased with the way anything was being handled.

  “You lot are too sloppy,” one lady said. “I reported a break-in at my flat three days ago, and no one’s keeping me informed about anything!”

  “It’s like you lot are actively working against us instead of for us! We pay so much tax only for you all to sit on your arses while we get robbed by these gangs!”

  A mess.

  Nothing short of a mess. The entire region. Somehow, there was no place that wasn’t affected by the rampant crime, and poor Dawn was just one of many. Seeing that she wasn’t going to get the help she needed from those she sought it from, she thought of leaving the office, but a sudden hand of fear gripped her in a chilling hold.

  Paranoia was its name.

  It was far from unfamiliar. In fact, anyone who found themselves out and about knew it quite intimately, especially with the far-from-friendly environment of the big cities, and especially at night—but now it felt even more potent. It was then that she suddenly remembered Lucas and reached for her phone, only to see a pile of missed calls. But there was no time to attend to any of that—in fact, there was no time to be sitting around! Did the fear of going out matter at all in a situation like this? The only fear that truly mattered was that of never seeing her precious Buneary again, and that alone was enough to make her barge out of the police station and back into the city.

  She brought Tweety back out of his capsule, and together they scoured the city for any trace of that red-headed woman or any other suspicious-looking members of Team Galactic.

  There was nothing that was going to stop her from finding that woman. Whether it was raining or snowing, whether she was in a gang or not, she’d messed up big time. For the duration of the night, Dawn and Tweety went up and down the streets in the cold of night with steely determination—all night long until the sun rose and the affairs of the city resumed early the next morning, with people bustling in and out of shops and buildings.

  It was in the morning, as she stood near the station, that the idea struck her. It wasn’t one that pleased her in any way, but being pleased wasn’t what this was about. This was about something far more important. She made the call.

  Beep-beep…… beep-beep…… beep-beep…

  “What is it?”

  “Paul… good morning—”

  “What do you want, Dawn? I don’t have time for formalities. You know I’m busy.”

  “I know… I know… I need your help. Something horrible happened.”

  “Oh really? How big did you fuck up this time?”

  “Fuck up? What are you—we’re not doing this right now, Paul. Just help me.”

  “Don’t push it. You’re not in any position to make demands, Dawn. You should be grateful I picked up at all, and as far as I’m concerned, you should be on your way to deliver the papers to Professor Oak in Eterna… wait… oh no… don't tell me: you lost the fucking papers!”

  “Please, Paul, you have to help me—”

  “I told Rowan he couldn’t trust you with those papers! I told him! Do you know what he said?”

  “Please, listen to me—”

  “He said you’d proven yourself! He said you were ready to be taken more seriously! I told him you weren’t. I knew you weren’t—I knew you couldn’t handle any actual responsibility. Oh my god, Dawn—do you know what was in those papers?”

  “It’s not my fault, okay? I was robbed! Last night, Team Galactic stopped me on my way to the Poké Centre and stole the papers! They stole Toffee, Paul!”

  “You got robbed by the Galaxy Gang? That definitely checks out. Congratulations, Dawn. Not only did you let them take your Buneary, but you also let them take some seriously important documents.”

  “We can still get them back—you and me—”

  “Get them back? Are you stupid? Forget about those papers, Dawn. You think I don’t have backups on the cloud for this sort of thing?”

  “What? You mean those papers weren’t even that important to begin with?”

  “Arceus, you’re slow. The only reason I made physical copies in the first place was because these old blokes are old-fashioned and get hard-ons for physical copies—actually, the only reason you were even delivering them is because I’m too busy with actual work to be doing grunt work like that.”

  “What about Toffee?”

  “What about Toffee?”

  “Please, Paul, you have to help me get her back—I don’t know what I’m gonna do without her.”

  “That’s not my problem, Dawn. I don’t have to help you get back anything. It’s not my fault you’re too weak to help yourself.”

  “Paul, I’ll do anything—I’ll pay you—please, just help me get her back from them. I’m begging you—I need your help!”

  “Did you even talk to the police?”

  “Yes, but you know how they are. It’ll take weeks before they even get back to me, and who knows if she even has that much time! Paul, please… just this once…”

  …

  “Ten minutes. I’m at the school. Meet me in the library. Try not to get robbed on the way here.”

  “Oh my god, thank you so—”

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  It would work out. Everything was going to be fine now. All she needed to do was get to him, and everything would be under control. Toffee would be alright; they would find her. Even if she couldn’t do it by herself, with Paul’s help, she definitely could.

  Her mind hopelessly tied to the thought of rushing to the school, she slid her phone into her pocket. Strangely, she thought she’d heard someone call out her name, but she chalked it up to stress as she and Tweety, who was still patiently waiting beside her with his eyes surveying every single passerby, made their way to the Pokémon School.

  Flying past hordes of commuters like herds of Tauros.

  There it was.

  Students like herds of Wooloo and Mareep, backpacks packed onto their backs, loaded with books and files, filed through the school gate. She reached into her pocket for her phone, only to feel nothing.

  “What the hell? Where’s my phone?”

  Like a Copperajah dropping onto her, a heavy load of stress crash-landed, and she began shaking as if frostbitten.

  Her phone had been stolen.

  She hadn’t paid enough attention, and now she’d lost something else. She was losing it. She was losing control.

  Tweety brushed her with his little wing, trying to console her—but his attention was snatched by the noise of footsteps approaching rapidly behind them. He turned with a fierce avian grimace, ready to shoot down anyone stupid enough to attack—

  “Dawn!”

  The girl’s head snapped toward the noise of running behind her, revealing the familiar sight of a boy in a blue jacket with a fluffy white scarf wrapped around his neck, running toward her.

  “What are you doing here, Lucas—Tweety, stop!”

  But before she could even get the command out of her mouth in time, the little blue bird fired a powerful stream of water from his beak like a hose, packing enough punch to bring Lucas to his knees in groaning, wet pain!

  “Oh my god—Lucas, are you okay? I’m so sorry! Would it kill you to wait a second before firing, Tweety? What have I told you?”

  But Tweety chirped in defiant satisfaction. Better safe than sorry. If that young boy was a threat, at least he would’ve been neutralised. Shoot first, ask questions later.

  Lucas squirmed on the floor, soaked by the powerful blast of water that had gutted him right in the stomach and left him winded.

  “Holy shit, that was so strong…!” He held his gut—but in all honesty, he was more impressed than hurt. He didn’t know a little Piplup could learn a move like that. Speaking of which, “What move… was that just now?”

  “What?” Dawn gave him a puzzled look. He had a plaster on his face... more importantly, she was certain he’d been hurt by that blast—anyone would be—but his question told her otherwise. “That was Water Gun—hold on—were you following me?”

  Lucas picked himself up slowly.

  “Yeah… you dropped this by the metro.”

  Dawn’s eyes widened at the sight of her phone.

  “Oh my god—thank you so much, Lucas! I thought someone pickpocketed me!”

  Lucas grinned, pleased with himself.

  “I shouted your name back there, but you were already running away, so I had to chase you.”

  “I thought I heard someone call me,” Dawn said, taking her phone back. “Sorry, I was in a rush—I still am.”

  “No need to apologise. I’m the only one who should be sorry after being late and making you wait. I don’t know what happened, honestly. I set an alarm and everything, but I guess I slept through it,” Lucas said.

  “It’s okay, Lucas,” she told him, clearly eager to move on to another matter. “Sorry, but I have to go right now. There’s someone I need to meet at the school…”

  It was then that Lucas noticed the little bags swelling under her eyes. Her eyes, which were tinted pink like Luvdisc, but there was nothing lovely about how they looked at all.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  “Do I not look okay?”

  “Well, yeah. You look… high. Sorry if that came out wrong.”

  “I look high?” Dawn immediately dug into her bag and pulled out a little Cleffa mirror. He was right! She looked horrible! Her hair was a mess—how could she have let this happen? Her beanie was all wrong in its placement too; it wasn’t the right angle at all!

  She was losing it.

  Lucas watched her fuss over her face for a few more seconds before she suddenly stopped and stared at him with a flushed face.

  “Sorry, I’m a bit of… a mess right now,” she sheepishly said.

  “Yeah, I could tell. You don’t strike me as the type of person to carelessly leave your phone on the pavement,” he told her.

  “Yeah… I haven’t been thinking straight. My mind’s all over the place—and sorry for not answering your calls or calling back yesterday—”

  “Is there something wrong?” Lucas finally asked, unable to swallow his… curiosity more than anything.

  Tears welled up in Dawn as she remembered what had happened on the very street they were standing on the previous night. How she’d been subdued and captured—how she’d been put to sleep and left on the street.

  “Th-they stole Toffee!” she sobbed, tears spilling from her eyes.

  Lucas was caught off guard.

  “What? Who? Who stole Toffee?”

  “Team Galactic. Last night, I was on my way to the Poké Centre… and this… this lady and two blokes ganged up on me and stole Toffee and some papers Professor Rowan trusted me with! I think they’ve been watching me for a while—one of them knew I’d come out at that time,” she cried. “Toffee… she tried to fight, but they were too strong! Lucas, they took her!”

  Lucas felt his heart jostle in his chest, seeing her breakdown.

  “Dawn… I’m so sorry… is there anything I can do to help? You must feel terrible.”

  He didn’t know what to say.

  Team Galactic. Those rotten criminals, always up to no good. He remembered meeting that strange pale man back at the lake… how could he forget? The sight of his Houndoom had punctured his heart and sapped the strength from his muscles.

  “I’d appreciate it, Lucas,” she said. “Actually, I’m on my way to meet another one of the Professor’s assistants. We’re gonna try to get her back, and I’d appreciate the extra help.”

  “Definitely,” Lucas said. “You’ve already done so much for me—of course, I’ll help. I can’t believe those thieves stole Toffee. I’m so sorry.”

  “Indeed, I’m sorry to hear that…”

  A smooth voice slid into Lucas’s ears. Both he and Dawn turned in startled confusion at a man who had suddenly appeared in front of them without them noticing.

  Tweety jumped into action with a loud chirp, loading up a shot of water in his beak—but before he could launch it, a blurry indigo mass intercepted. A greasy smile on its face, it sunk a sucker punch into his gut, dropping the Piplup onto the concrete and making him puke out all the stored water in his mouth.

  “Tweety!” Dawn cried.

  Lucas’s eyes darted in the direction of the sudden attack, almost popping out of his head when he saw it. It was almost… giggling, an amused look on its amphibian face. A Toxicroak.

  “Goodness, you’ve done it now, Dart. At least you held back—I’m terribly sorry. He’s not one to wait and see, a bit on the hasty side…”

  It was a man.

  He looked tired.

  His face was cleanly shaven and… aged. Finely. Like wine. He was dapperly decked out in a smooth coffee-coloured trench coat.

  “Who are you?” Dawn asked, readying a Poké Ball at him.

  The man put up his hands, not trying to escalate things any further.

  “Easy, easy… I’m not looking for a fight. See, I couldn’t help but overhear your conversation… and I couldn’t overlook something so severe.” He flashed a police badge at the pair of youngsters.

  “You’re a real-life detective!” Lucas’s voice burst with excitement.

  “Indeed, I am,” he said. “A globe-trotting member of the International Police. Call me Looker. This snarky guy here is my partner, Dart.”

  The Toxicroak raised a hand and waved his daggered fingers, the red sack under its chin inflating as it let out a groggy, froggy laugh. At least, that’s what it sounded like to them.

  Dawn rushed to Tweety, who was still reeling from the hit, his eyes swirling in dizzying circles.

  “I told you not to rush into things. Sorry about him—he’s also a bit… rash.”

  “Please, I have no qualms against you, youngsters. If I may, I’d like to know your names,” Looker said.

  “I’m Lucas Grey!” Lucas couldn’t contain himself, almost jumping at the man like a jolly Spoink. He was so cool!

  “I’m Dawn. Dawn Diamond,” the girl introduced herself.

  How interesting. A little girl and her friend on their way to school. Students? Maybe… but Looker was certain classes had already started… were they late? Maybe they didn’t attend the school as formal students… researchers, perhaps?

  Additionally, that Lucas boy’s bag was slightly open. A bit careless. His jacket was a bit torn as well. Why did he have a plaster on his face? He must’ve been in some sort of altercation… perhaps an attack from a wild Pokémon?

  More importantly, this girl who’d gotten robbed—perhaps she had clues about where Team Galactic was headed next. She’d said something about meeting someone…

  “I apologise if I’m coming across as a bit nosy, but you said Team Galactic took some papers you had?”

  “Yes, that’s right…” Dawn said.

  “Do you happen to know what was in those papers, Ms. Dawn?”

  The girl shook her head.

  “I don’t know… Professor Rowan told me it was classified, but I heard a few snippets of his discussion with another assistant of his. I didn’t hear much, but… I think those papers have something to do with evolution and the spirits of the lake… He’s been working closely with another Professor from Kanto. Paul probably knows, though…”

  Lucas gave Dawn a confused look.

  “Paul? Who’s that?”

  “He’s the other assistant I told you about,” she said.

  Dart watched Looker put his hand on his chin. He knew what that meant. He was deep in thought.

  Looker smiled and shook his head, eyes to the sky. Now, the lake spirits—he understood that. All over the world, criminal organisations obsessed over legendary Pokémon. Power, control—what better way to secure both?

  Of course, such a task was nigh-impossible… but something about this Galaxy Gang… especially that nihilistic leader of theirs… frightened Looker.

  Now, what he didn’t understand was…

  “Evolution… you said your colleague’s name is Paul, yes?”

  “That’s right,” Dawn hesitantly nodded her head. “I was actually supposed to meet him right now in the library before he left, but I think I’m too late now…”

  “Ms. Diamond, I would greatly appreciate it if you were to take me to meet him right now. There is something extremely important I must discuss with him concerning Team Galactic…”

  “Okay… he’s always busy, but I’ll call him right now. I hope he answers…”

  “Thank you very much, Ms. Diamond.”

  That was right. If he could find out what their true motives were, then Looker would be much closer to dismantling them. But perhaps that would take… some infiltration. But later on. For now…

  “Hello? Paul—yeah, I know… I’m sorry, I ran into more trouble. Please—I'm sorry, okay? Listen: I’m with an agent from the International Police. He says he needs to meet you right now and—what? Yeah… it’s about the papers. He’s investigating Team Galactic, and it’s super important that you two talk… Alright. Okay, okay, I’ll hurry up, jeez. Ten minutes.”