Naturally my first instinct was to punch the piece of shit across the face, but let me think realistically here.
I had boxed with a Magikarp even while wearing a protective suit and my hand was still hurting afterward.
What would happen if I tried the same thing with a fat fuck like Munchlax? I was pretty sure it would be like punching Ivor's face all over again and while I was many things, I was not a masochist.
"Thankfully Mrs. Claudette gave us his Pokéball before we left." Emma said, stepping slightly in front of me. "Mister, if you don't mind… please head back upstairs."
Civilians couldn't get caught in the middle of active cases, I could guess the paperwork alone when they complained was a nightmare.
Skinny let out a long suffering sigh.
"You lot better catch it and get it out of my building." He announced. "I'm going to charge that owner for every bit of the damages!"
He turned and started back up the staircase, misjudging the height of the low beam at the top of the doorframe and connecting with it solidly on the way through.
You know what. If that was what being that tall involved, I was fine where I was.
Emma moved to my side and I stopped playing the sounds from my Rotomphone… they had been doing their job on my own ears too at this point, whatever algorithm had decided those were the noises a Munchlax found irritating had clearly also decided that humans deserved to suffer equally.
"Always be gentle with runaway Pokémon like this." Emma said, her voice going quieter as she reached into the small side pouch on the detective uniform feeling around for Soli's Pokéball. "Sometimes they leave because they want to try something new. They aren't harmful… especially ones that have been loved for most of their lives. We just need to return it and—"
The next instant Emma's face was completely white.
Soli had punched a hole in one of the flour sacks with one grubby fist and thrown a handful directly at her face.
It landed perfectly.
Emma stood there with flour coating her from the nose upward like she had been hit by a very small snowstorm.
"You were saying?" I asked, and I did laugh. I'm not going to pretend I didn't.
Emma tried to glare at me but with the flour situation happening on her face she looked more cute than intimidating.
She opened her mouth to say something and my own face went white.
Soli had reloaded and caught me full in the face with the second shot.
The flour spread across my uniform, dusted Ralts off my shoulder, and somehow reached the Riolu egg in the harness.
"Rara!"
"MUNCH! Munch munch munch!" Soli let out while slamming the back of its feet into the floor repeatedly, bouncing on the spot.
It was absolutely laughing at us. A Munchlax was sitting in a storage room surrounded by stolen bread, covered in flour itself, and laughing at two detectives.
Emma finally got the Pokéball out of the pouch and pressed the button in the centre, pointing it squarely at Soli.
"Return." She said.
The red beam shot out clean and straight however Soli picked up one of its remaining loaves of bread and held it directly in the path of the beam.
The Pokéball swallowed the bread and the ball clicked shut then it opened up again on its own and the bread fell out onto the flour-covered floor with a dull thud.
"..."
I stared at it.
"I didn't know Pokéballs were that useless." I said. Was there a legal avenue for charging the Pokéball company for manufacturing defective products? I was genuinely asking.
"It's an old Pokéball." Emma said with a sigh. "It was made before the new generation of balls that everyone uses now so its obviously lower quality."
She watched Soli resume eating with flour continuing to billow gently off the sack it had punctured. "We can't force it in a limited space like this, everything here is expensive and we've already caused enough collateral."
She was right, the flour alone was a significant loss and the bread was a separate line item.
"I gue—"
I knelt down on one knee.
If physical coercion wasn't going to work, there was one other option available to me.
Talk-no-jutsu!
A technique I was still working out the exact origin of in my recovered memories but which I understood instinctively to be incredibly powerful in the right circumstances.
"Soli." I said.
Munchlax stopped eating and it looked up at me.
"You know your trainer has been very worried about you, right?" I said. "She's been looking for you everywhere since you left. She's been crying."
The first two parts were completely true. The crying I was less certain about but it felt directionally accurate given how Claudette had looked when we arrived.
"Munch?"
"She asked us for help to bring you back." I continued. "And you don't want to go? Don't you love your trainer? What if something happens to her while you're not there? Who's going to protect her?"
There was a silence in the flour-dusted storage room and Soli dropped the loaf then it dropped the second half-eaten loaf beside it.
Afterward, it stood up on both feet and waddled through the flour toward us, leaving small round footprints behind it.
"Munch… Munch."
"I think it wants to go back." I said, straightening up.
We had solved both cases. That was a good feeling actually… Emma looked at me and nodded.
"Right, who's covering the damages here?" I asked. As long as it wasn't coming out of our paychecks, I was prepared to feel unbothered about the flour situation.
"Claudette will settle it with him." Emma said. "Our job is done, Let's return Soli and let the two owners work it out directly."
She paused. "I have to say Paxton, you were very sharp to put those two cases together."
"Come on Em." I said. "Even the average dummy could see the connection from the locations alone."
It had been genuinely obvious. What I was actually wondering was why Soli had left a shop that sold croissants and éclairs for a bread bakery… That felt like a downgrade by any reasonable metric.
"You'd be surprised." Emma said, rolling her eyes in a way that suggested she had extensive evidence to support that statement.
"Anyway, let's get out of—"
The staircase made noise again.
Skinny came back down and one look at him told me everything… his face was red with veins visible at his temples.
"My… my… MY FLOUR!" He dropped to his knees on the storage room floor, staring at the expanding white cloud still settling from the punctured sack, then looked up at Soli with an expression of genuine personal devastation. "YOU… YOU… YOU NINCOMPOOP!"
I processed that word.
Nincompoop.
Who called a Munchlax a nincompoop? What did that word even mean? Where had he been keeping that?
It took several minutes to settle everything… Skinny wanted to physically hold Soli on the premises until Claudette came to pay in person, which Emma handled with the Bureau's emergency fund after a back and forth that tested everyone's patience, and at the end of it we were finally outside in the alley with Soli waddling between us.
"I hope I never have to go back in there." I muttered.
"Don't say that." Emma said. "Some citizens are just under significant stress from the reconstruction so the whole city is disrupted."
She glanced at Skinny's building behind us. "Though I'll admit he overreacted somewhat."
Soli was keeping pace between us, that was actually surprising… It had been fully committed to the flour and bread operation approximately twelve minutes ago and now it was just walking calmly down the alley like a normal Pokémon on a normal afternoon.
"You know we look like a happy family." I said, reaching down and taking Soli's hand. It let me and his palm was warm but slightly sticky with flour.
"Happy family?" Emma raised an eyebrow. "You still have flour all over your face."
"Rara~"
Right.
Skinny had let Emma use the sink to wash up and he had also let Ralts use the sink but he had not let me use the sink for no stated reason. Talk about the blatant sexism, you wouldn't see this in Hoenn.
"It gives me cla—"
"Soli!" Claudette's voice came from further down the alleyway and we all turned.
She was already running toward us with her arms open, moving faster than a woman her age had any business moving.
Soli tore its hand free from mine immediately and scuffled toward her at maximum Munchlax speed which was not fast but was fully committed.
Both of them were slow. It took almost a full minute for the reunion to complete. When it did, Claudette grabbed Soli in both arms and spun, which meant Claudette was carrying a Munchlax in a full spin like it weighed nothing.
She was crazy strong.
"Don't you dare leave me again." Claudette said, her voice cracking slightly.
She blinked but the tears came anyway. "You idiot. You made me so worried. Do you hate me? Why did you leave me alone?"
"Munch~" Soli made a small sound then it began to glow.
I didn't blink.
This was the first time I had seen evolution happen right in front of me and I wasn't going to miss it.
A blue-white light spread from Soli outward filling the alley around it. Claudette stepped back with one hand over her mouth as the light kept growing… the shape within it shifted and expanded making the outline stretch upward and outward in all directions.
High friendship. That was how Munchlax evolved so it had to genuinely care about its trainer… Cool.
The light faded.
Where Soli had been standing was now something considerably larger… a Snorlax which was round-bodied and enormous, blue-grey from head to toe with a broad cream-coloured face and a belly that made the alley feel noticeably smaller.
It had a small head relative to the sheer scale of the rest of it and tiny eyes blinking in the afternoon light with stubby arms and legs that somehow supported all of it without complaint. It stood on two legs and looked down at Claudette with those small sleepy eyes then it reached down with one massive paw and lifted Claudette carefully onto its shoulder.
She sat up there like it was the most natural thing in the world with one hand patting the side of Soli's enormous head.
"Oh Soli~ What a kind gentleman you are." She said from up there.
Snorlax let out a low rumbling cry and then attempted to walk forward through the alley. The alley was not wide enough for a Snorlax so it reversed carefully.
"We can pass around." Claudette said cheerfully from its shoulder as they began navigating toward the street the long way.
Before disappearing around the corner she looked back at us and smiled warmly.
"Thank you both from the Looker Bureau. My grandson told me about the wonderful work you do and I'm very grateful." She said. "Since you came from that shop, I assume Soli caused some trouble for young Mr. Marchais… He's an awfully thin young man for someone who makes bread, isn't he?"
That's what I thought! She noticed it too!
"Please don't worry about that ma'am, it's already been settled." Emma said and threw Soli's ball at her.
Claudette nodded and caught the Pokéball Emma tossed up to her in both hands then Soli turned the corner and they were gone, the sound of enormous footsteps fading down the street.
Emma rolled her neck and cracked her back.
"That was a good mission." She said. "Seeing the people of Lumiose City smile makes it worthwhile for me honestly… but how do you feel?"
"Fulfilled." I said. "I'm also ready for more."
"Good, because several new missions came in today and if we move quickly we could finish them before—" She had her Rotomphone out and I reached over and took it from her hand cleanly before she could finish the sentence.
"Em." I said. "Our promise."
She bit her lip.
"I said I would rest." She said. "But there are missions that need—"
"I can handle them." I said. "I've got the gist of it now. Right Ralts? We can do it together."
"Rara!" Ralts raised both palms.
Emma looked at me for a moment then she exhaled.
"Fine… I'll sleep…" She said and upon noticing the look I was giving her, she sighed. "I'll sleep for the full eight full hours. Don't look at me like that but before I go, bring out your Rotomphone. I need to set something up."
I handed her Rotomphone to her then held mine out and she cleared her throat.
"Authorize: Looker Bureau." She said.
My Rotomphone blinked.
[Would you like to download Looker Bureau App?]
[Y / N]
"Tap Y." Emma said. "The city made me get the authorization code specifically so I could always access the system from any device if mine was ever lost or damaged. The app isn't available for regular download."
I tapped Y and the app loaded with a clean interface, mission board, filed reports, active cases, all of it. "There are four more missions for today. You can handle those and then rest."
She pocketed her own Rotomphone and Emma looked at the ground for a half second like she was working out whether to say something else.
"Good luck Paxton. I'll be going." She said.
Then she jogged off down the street with both hands behind her back, moving like a ninja. I noticed it the night we first met too… Emma ran weirdly.
I watched until she turned the corner and then pulled out Fletchling's Pokéball.
"Fletch!" She came out already looking for something to battle with her chest puffed.
"We're not battling." I said. "You're on the team for the missions. You'll be our eyes in the sky and eyes on the ground as well, in short, you're the aerial unit. I'm coordinating and Ralts is morale support." I paused. "It's not like she can move that fa—"
Ralts pulled my hair.
Fletchling instead of responding to any of that brought one wing up to my face and gently dusted off some of the remaining flour still sitting on my face from the storage room incident.
"Fletch fletch?"
"It was a Munchlax." I said. "It threw flour at my face."
I turned the other way and let Fletchling land on my shoulder, then adjusted the Riolu egg harness against my stomach and checked the missions board.
We had four cases to do… Let's make some money!
…
Several hours later, I was sitting on a bench in Parc Solange massaging my forehead with two fingers.
"My head hurts." I muttered.
How was Emma doing this every day by herself? Years of experience was the only explanation I could land on that made sense because it wasn't the cases that were difficult… The cases themselves were mostly straightforward once you looked at them correctly.
It was the people. Skinny hadn't even cracked the top three of today's most annoying encounters.
One woman had filed a mission requesting help finding jewelry that had gone missing from her home and I found it within twenty minutes… tucked in the back of a drawer she clearly hadn't opened recently.
When I brought it to her she smiled warmly and then asked me to also clean the house since I was already there.
Sure she paid me 20k in cash but still… that's slavery! But is it truly slavery if you get what you want?
"Fletch~"
"Rara~"
The two of them were running around in the grass nearby or Fletchling was running and Ralts was doing her best, which was a competition that had a predetermined winner but Ralts seemed unbothered about the gap.
The park was pleasant in the evening light with the fountain catching what was left of the sun and the small pond along the eastern side reflecting the clouds.
A few Magikarp drifted in the pond which I saw and decided not to think too hard about given my relationship with Magikarp.
The last mission for the day was here at Parc Solange in Bleu Sector 6.
It wasn't really a big park as it had a fountain in the middle, benches scattered all across, a small pond with a few Magikarp in it and a children's play area.
The Park officer who was called Betrand reported that for the past week, the park descended into chaos around sunset to evening with benches getting frozen solid mid-sit with people getting their clothes stuck to the wooden benches, the fountain itself had iced over three times in the past week despite it not being winter time yet.
The report said that even a group of elderly men who usually came to the park to play a game of pétanque, whatever that was, had their metal balls frozen together in one unusable clump while even a mother complained that her child's juice box had been frozen solid too.
"It's obviously an Ice type." I said to the egg next to me on the bench. "And if it's a good one, maybe I'll catch it, the coverage would be useful."
I checked my Rotomphone. "Rotom… when is Riolu hatching?"
"Bzzt, Within current estimates, the egg should hatch tonight or tomorrow morning. That window is reliable." Rotom beeped.
Having Rotom was genuinely like having a personal AI assistant that also made terrible beeping noises and occasionally gave unsolicited opinions but I appreciated it.
I glanced over at Fletchling and Ralts… they had moved to a game of tag except Fletchling wasn't allowed to fly, which still felt unfair because even grounded Fletchling was faster than Ralts by a considerable margin.
Fletchling was clearly using it as training. Ralts was clearly aware of this and also clearly not stopping.
A cold wind hit my face and I didn't look.
The wind increased, blasting more cold over my face but I swooshed my hair back with one hand.
"Thank you for reminding me that my haircut still looks good." I said.
"Runt~"
It was a Snorunt which was not a bad Pokémon at all… it had two evolutions, Glalie and Froslass, and after watching a few battles online involving Froslass I had real feelings about that Pokémon.
Ghost and Ice coverage on the same evolutionary line was useful and Froslass specifically had a style to it that I respected.
"Hey." I said. "Come sit."
I tapped the space on the bench next to me.
There was a pause, then the bench dipped slightly and Snorunt was beside me with its round body, triangular hat-like head, small grey face looking up at me from underneath it. The Pokémon had nice hopping power too.
I scanned it immediately.
[No. 361 — SNORUNT, The Snow Hat Pokémon]
[Type: Ice]
[Gender: ♀ Female]
[It is said that a home visited by Snorunt will be prosperous. It can withstand cold of minus 150 degrees Celsius. It subsists on ice and snow.]
[Catch to see full details]
It was a female so the Froslass evolution was available.
"Snorunt." I said, looking at her directly. "Do you want to make money and take your tricks somewhere bigger than this park?"
"Sno?" She tilted her whole body to the side slightly, blinking.
I pulled up a picture on my Rotomphone which was of Slateport City beach in the Hoenn region, the beach was packed with people, there was sun on the water too… I showed her the whole thing.
"Like here." I said. "There are infinitely more people to mess with which means more reactions. This park has what… fifteen people on a good evening? That's barely a warmup."
Snorunt's eyes went wide looking at the screen.
"Sno sno~" She hopped twice on the bench.
"We have to make a lot of money first." I said, pulling out an empty Pokéball and pressing the button to maximize it. "Then we go. Do you want to join my squad?"
I held it out and didn't move.
She could run or she could freeze the ball. Honestly she could do whatever she wanted about it… I wasn't chasing anyone across a park this evening.
"Sno!"
She bumped her head directly against the ball. It clicked shut around her and wobbled once on the bench before going still.
[No. 361 — SNORUNT, The Snow Hat Pokémon]
[Type: Ice]
[Gender: ♀ Female]
[Level: 13]
[Moves: Powder Snow · Leer · Double Team · Icy Wind]
[It is said that a home visited by Snorunt will be prosperous. It can withstand cold of minus 150 degrees Celsius. It subsists on ice and snow.]
"Nice." I pressed the button and released her back out. "Welcome to the team Snorunt. We'll be heading to the dome to—"
On the bench behind me, a young man with large nerdy glasses was sitting there… I now realized had been there for a while.
He was holding a dark purple flower with pink petals which was a strange combination but genuinely pretty and he was looking at the girl sitting beside him with a trembling expression.
I turned back to Snorunt and she was gone.
"Beck." The young man's glasses slid down his nose slightly as he extended the flower. "I know this may come as a surprise but I'm very much in love with you… Please go out with me!!!"
He bowed his head as he said it, holding the flower out and his glasses fell causing him to bend over to pick them.
Beck smiled warmly.
"O-okay…" She said.
Good for him, even heavily bespectacled nerdy-looking men with poor timing on their glasses could find love? What a world!
They leaned toward each other… He was going in for the kiss… She was going in for the kiss… It was all aligned perfectly and then…
Suddenly, his trajectory changed and the girl's body moved too, trembling from what was probably a cold gust of wind.
I don't know the exact geometry of what happened in the next half second but what I can see was that he somehow got his tongue in her nose.
Her entire expression changed in an instant.
PAH!
The slap landed across his face hard enough to knock his glasses sideways off his head entirely. They hit the bench and bounced.
"I KNEW you were using me for one of your perverted experiments!" Beck was already standing, stepping back with her face red. "You… you…!"
She grabbed her bag and walked away at speed and he scrambled after her abandoning the flower and his glasses too.
"I can explain… Beck… it wasn't… the wind…"
She was not stopping.
Fletchling and Ralts, who had paused their game to watch the entire sequence unfold, both winced at the same time and I winced too.
That slap had a sound and soon the park was quiet again.
I walked over to the bench.
Snorunt came running from underneath it and hopped up next to me, looking extremely pleased with herself.
"You're a troublemaker." I said.
"Sno sno~"
I looked down at the dark purple flower with the pink petals sitting abandoned on the bench.
"I'm sure he won't mind." I said, and picked it up.
"Sno?" Snorunt looked at the flower and then at me with a confused expression.
"Well." I said, holding it up and examining it in the evening light. "I'm going to use this to confess my undying love to my Boss Mable today."
My Rotomphone notification went off.
[Z-A ROYALE: Tonight's Battle Zones will soon be active. Report to your nearest Zone within the hour.]
"Alright!" I stood up. "Everyone… move out! We head to the lab, get prepared, then it's the Z-A Royale!"
I pumped my fist and Ralts and Fletchling matched the energy immediately. Snorunt hopped even though she clearly hadn't understood what was being said but matched the room regardless.
I grabbed the Riolu egg from the bench and started clicking the harness back into place.
"And you." I said to the egg directly. "You better hatch tonight."
It was time to beat some new trainers in the Z-A Royale! After giving this flower to Mable and taking Magikarp back into the team of course!