Shauna gasped loudly while leaning on the tall gates of the daycare center she, Trevor, Tierno, Calem and I, walked to together. She was amazed to see that one of Serena's Pokémon were staying here
"It's Gloomy!" She cried. Calem sneezed, already feeling better after Shauna gave him the medicine. His cold vanished, only barely, but at least all he does is sneeze a bit and had a runny nose "look guys! It's Gloomy!" Shauna cried to the boys
"I know, that's why we walked you guys here with us" Trevor said "We noticed Serena's Gloomy behind this fence, so Tierno and I went to ask the daycare couple about it. They said someone dropped off her Pokémon here after she was announced missing" I walked over to him
"What did you say?" I grabbed his shoulder tightly, making him blue and stiff "did you say after?" He nodded quickly "how does that make sense?"
"Easy there" Tierno raised his hands to calm me. I snapped my head to him, glaring hard to intimidate him "u-uh... you shouldn't take your anger out on him. Don't shoot the messenger! That's what we were told!" I let go of the boy's shoulder to listen "maybe who ever kidnapped Serena didn't want her Pokémon getting involved, so they took them here?"
"Don't be stupid" I hissed. Calem stood next to me
"The Pokémon don't seem in any stress. If someone else brought them here, they wouldn't look as relaxed as they do now"
"They?" Shauna asked. Calem pointed at a Venusaur and Empoleon. I gasped at the Empoleon, remembering that was the same Pokémon, in its final form at least, Serena left with to Kalos when she first left "those are her Pokémon too!"
"Why are most of her Pokémon here..?" Trevor asked "we didn't even see them"
"And can't you only drop off two Pokémon at a time?" I held my chin at Tiernos question
"There's a chance they were still in their capsules when brought here... but what doesn't make sense was that they were dropped here after her disappearance? Either someone she knew dropped them off when knowing they couldn't take care of them, or she kept her Pokémon away so she could meet you guys without having too much Pokémon to carry, or the records might had used a wrong date when dropping them before, not after, or..." I kept thinking "if I can look into their security cameras to when her Pokémon were dropped off, we might get some clues on who brought them here" I snapped my fingers at Z "get some data, now" it obeyed and went off to speak to Serena's Pokémon.
The group talked about the things I said as I spaced off, walking to the fence to stare at Serena's Pokémon. My eyes stopped at Empoleon looking at me after Z was done talking to it, and it slowly walked over. I jumped on the fence to sit on, watching it make a good distance from me. This Pokémon was a Piplup when I last saw it back in Sinnoh, and knew before anyone else that I was scared of it
"It's been awhile..." I said. It nodded "you've grown so much. You're strong"
"Em" I nodded
"Do you have any useful information to where we can find Serena? Did you tell Z?" It nodded "thank you..." I raised my arm towards it "I'm... glad you're doing well" it stared at my hand surprised. When taking a step forward, I shook and moved away "guess I haven't changed..." it frowned as I jumped back on the grass, where I can see Calem frowning at me. I ignored him and walked into the daycare place with everyone going inside first to investigate
The place was rather small with a few tables and a tv with a desk against the wall leading to another room and possibly the exit to the outside of the daycare yard. My eyes caught a glimpse of a missing poster for a odd looking Pokémon with wild white hair
"What's this Pokémon?" I asked out loud
"That's a Furfrow" Calem said almost too immediately. I looked at him staring at the poster blankly "they're pretty popular with people who have a lot of money" Shauna leaned on me to look at the poster too
"Yeah! I remember this Furfrow! Serena and I went to visit that palace near by for research on mega evolution! But we decided to help this little guy when the owner lost it. The owner just didn't know that even Pokémon need some space" she crossed her arms "some people just don't get Pokémon's needs"
"Have you seen it anywhere?" We turned to see a fancy young man talking to us
"Is that you, Calvin?" Shauna smiled "it's been a long time!" He smiled "everyone, this is Calvin! Serena and I met him a long time ago in that palace I told you about!" He bowed to us
"It's a pleasure to meet the rest of Shauna's friends" I'm not her friend
"So your Furfrow..?" Shauna asked
"Yes, my grandfather is looking for his Furfrow... it would always sneak off for some air, and even if I know my grandfather can be annoying, Furfrow never leaves the premises. Please, tell me you've seen it. There's even a reward for its finding" I looked back at the poster, seeing the prize money was large enough to hire the entire police unit in Kalos to make a search party
"No, I'm sorry... but we haven't. We just got here" Shauna frowned. Calvin nodded and looked at Calem to speak and say what he knew, but he dodged the question, staring at nothing and walked away to the guys to get a tissue. When Calvin looked at me, all I did was stare
"Huh... that's strange" his cell phone rang "oh? A phone call?" He gasped with a smile "grandfather must've found Furfrow! I knew it shouldn't have been made a big deal" we watched him taking the call "hello, grandfather?" It was silent for a moment. Right when I wanted to leave to talk to the owners with the boys, the guy dropped his cell phone. The look on his face held complete terror and was now shaking
"What's wrong!?" Shauna gasped "is Furfrow okay?"
"I-It seems that they found it..."
"That's great!" From the way he looked, it didn't seem like great news "but... what's the matter?"
"They found Furfrow... buried in route 7... dead" Shauna gasped loudly, cupping her mouth. I stood there astonished "my apologies... I have to go" he ran off. Shauna begun crying
"Shauna?" Trevor hurried over "what happened?"
"Something... pretty terrible" I stared at the door, then the poster "there's nothing we can do about it now" I glanced over at Calem still at the desk, glancing our direction with cold dull eyes. If I can remember correctly, wasn't Calem in route 7 where I found him in front of a grave?
"Y-yeah..." Shauna wiped her tears away "w-we have to focus on what we came here for" I pet her head, seeing if it'll calm her down, since it worked with Serena back in the day
"It's okay, it lived a pretty privilege life" after trying to cheer Shauna up, we went back to talk to the daycare couple and have them agree to let us study the security camera footage. The old man tried assisting us, but I reassured that I would handle all the equipment from there
There was no videos from the pass 2-3 months in sight. When the gang thought they lost hope in seeing at least some clues on what could had happened to Serena being separated from her Pokémon, I was able to put my skills to good use and found at least the footage I wanted, but because it was nearly lost footage synced into the computer that I did pick up before, that's why it was possible to find it at all, the image was very bury to see. There was no telling if any person walking in could even be identified as a male or female. I lost fate in the search of the perfect footage and gave up
"You're actually giving up?" Calem blinked confused
"Trust me, if I can do more, I would had" I snapped my fingers, making Z come "I might had given up, but Z still can at least do more than I can" I placed Z on the equipment "you know what to do. Look for the footage" it nodded and synced into cyberspace
"Do you really think it can find it?" Trevor asked
"If my skills had a name to it, I would say that I have a doctors degree in hacking, which is the highest degree you can get, I guess. I know I'm that good, a professional even, and if I can't get through it, Z definitely can"
"You're really cool" Tierno said. I leaned on my seat and crossed my arms, taking in the fact
"How did you get so good at hacking?" Shauna asked
"I spend most of my days growing up in the library and read every book in that building back in Sinnoh"
"No way! Every book?" Trevor gasped "where did you get the free time to do this? Serena never told us about this"
"She doesn't even know I'm a terrible person, and there's a big reason why I'm like this, she doesn't have to know anything about what I've kept from her, and I like to keep it that way... just until I tell her everything" Calem leaned closer to me
"Everything?" I moved his snotty face away
"Yes, everything" a image appeared on the screen "here it is"
"Already?" Trevor gasped
"Isn't it scary how easily you can access this? For what reason did you need to improve this skill to the maximum?" Calem asked. I typed on the keyboard to make this video accessible to play
"None of your business"
"How are you feeling, Calem?" Shauna changed the subject, thankfully so I can focus on the video
"Oh... I'm feeling a lot better. Alittle snotty, but now I'm great. Thanks for the medicine"
"You should thank Sophia! She got you a prescription for your cold" everyone looked at me, from what I can feel "uh... was I not suppose to say that?" She asked me. I shrugged
"I didn't go to a doctor, how did you get a prescription?" I sighed, finally getting the video back
"It's not impossible to get a prescription without a doctor seeing you" which was true "if you don't believe me, look it up" just because the fact was true, doesn't mean I used that method. Shauna knew I was lying, but chose not to say anything about it. Smart "if you guys are done talking, I can always play the video by myself" Tierno quiet everyone so we could watch in silence
A girl with two Lucarios, wearing roller skates and a helmet, rolled into the building with a small pouch in hand
"Korrina?" Shauna said
"Know her?"
"She's a gym leader" Calem explained. We put our attention back to the video
"Hi! I would like to drop off a friend's Pokémon!" The front desk lady looked in the pouch
"There's 3 Pokémon... we only accept two-"
"My friend is missing... somehow, I received 4 of her Pokémon!" I looked at the Lucario just standing there, knowing which was Serena's "I thought it be better if I dropped the rest of them off here. I have too much on my plate, and I can't possibly take care of all of these Pokémon on my own. They belong to Serena! She's Kalo's showcase queen"
"Why couldn't the bitch hand them off to mom or any of you guys?" I asked out loud. Everyone looked at each other
"I see... I know exactly who you are talking about" the old lady nodded "I will take care of these darlings, no problem" Korrina bowed deeply
"Thank you so much! I'll try to get them off your hands as soon as possible" she waved and left the building. That was all the video had to show
"Is this girl a friend of yours?" I stood up calmly
"Pretty much, yes" Trevor said
"I think she has a good reason why she didn't put the burden on someone else" Tierno thought while I took out my computer to look at what the Pokémon told Z "like many people, she's also looking for Serena in her own way. We are all friends" he looked like he added that last part because of my eyebrow twitching "and-and I'm sure she didn't want to put more work on us!" I sighed, moving a extra strand of hair from my face
"Thanks for explaining" I closed my laptop "but it's fine. From the information Z synced into computer, it seemed that even her own Pokémon doesn't know even much. Empoleon took a glimpse of what happened. Someone wearing red, glasses and all, even hair, was near her before it lost sight of anything else. It said it might have been forced back in her bag and next thing it knew, her Pokémon were transferred to Korrina"
"Someone wearing red, glasses and hair?" Trevor thought for a moment "doesn't ring a bell or anything"
"Same here" Shauna said, then turned to Calem for a answer. He just shook his head, confused as all of us were
"But at least we know she was kidnapped for sure. The description wasn't all that good, but it might stand out if we keep a look out. Not saying they will wear the same thing as before, but because of that, our search is going to be much more difficult"
"Yeah... since we have to look for someone who took her. We're still left with no other clues" Shauna said. I tried ignoring them, knowing what they were saying was getting serious. It was getting harder and harder to solve this case. It's getting me more frustrated
"Sophie" Calem took my shoulder
"Don't touch me..." I covered my eyes. When he took to long to remove it, I slapped it away "I said don't touch me" I stared at the floor, not wanting anyone to look at my face "I don't want you to look at me" I walked out as fast as I could, wanting to get as much alone time as possible before these people try to comfort me for being the nice people they are... agh
Instead, I caught a large crowd of police man surrounding the area a few yards away. I gasped loudly and nearly fell back, only to have Calem catch me and stand me up right
"What's going on?" Tierno asked. The Calvin guy from before, ran over
"Hello everyone" he bowed a little, frowning hard
"What's going on..?" Shauna frowned "is your grandpa's Furfrow found around here..?"
"Unfortunately, yes. Someone spotted a grave near by that wasn't there the prior day. They had to investigate to see if it was Furfrow, which it was" I snapped my head at Calem surprise. Maybe I'm making too much of a assumption, because even if Calem was standing in front of that grave last night, someone could had buried it before he showed up
"And the status of this Pokémon?" I asked. Everyone looked at me. Calem stared at me with a eerie frown I didn't think someone could make. He was looking at me like he was worried, a bit angry, but tried to keep it cool
Calvin looked a bit uncomfortable to talk about it "they won't let me see it, but I heard it was slaughter" everyone gasped "there was no fingerprints to know if it was a person or not, and what lead them to dig the grave was a trail of blood going into the hole covered by a stone" he glanced at me, trying to look through my sunglasses "a possible suspect could had been a Pokémon for all we know. Though there's not really telling what it was, I overheard the police saying a few late night trainers saw a Haunter roaming around, which don't appear around these parts" my eyes widened
A Haunter? Now that he said that, those hands that grabbed the Rattata did look like a Haunters. It couldn't be the same Haunter, could it?
"That's so strange..." Shauna frowned, holding Trevor's hand "this kinda remind me of what happened in Lumiose"
"We shouldn't get scared by this" Tierno said "if we just be careful and stick together, we shouldn't get hurt"
"It's a bad idea to think that way..." Calem said "you should always be scared of the unknown... even if you're careful, there's no guarantee it can't happen to us" Shauna hugged Trevor for protection. I stared at Calem looking at nothing before looking back at the guy staring at me dead in the eye
"What are you looking at?" I glared. He gave a suspiciously looking smirk, which caught me off guard. That smirk...
"Grandfather was very fond of that Pokémon. It was a priceless creature that was worth allot of money... it died in someone or something's hands, for no reason. I would had thought you would show more sympathy, you know... since what happened back in Sinnoh..." I slowly took off my sunglasses in pure shock as he kept that signature smirk of his
"Wait a minute..." he looked so different, I didn't even recognize him! "You're..?" Romeo..? He shrugged his arms
"Did you not remember who I was, dear Serenity?" He chuckled. Everyone didn't expect the words and stared at us back and forth all confused. I slowly removed my shocked face to glare at him slightly "I admit, I almost didn't recognize you in those clothes! But how can I miss that beautiful face of yours!? You ask all these questions, yet you don't show that you even care? How do I know you weren't the one who committed the crime?"
"You've got to be kidding me. Out of all people, you suspect me to do such a thing?" He frowned, quite angrily "if I knew who the fuck hurt that innocent Pokémon, you already know what I would had done. It would had been the same fate I put your father through, remember?" I tilted my head to the side, amused
"You bitch..." he quickly grabbed the back of my head and pointed his knife at my neck, keeping it a few centimeters away from my skin. The group panicked, I raised my hand to stop them, already expecting this to happen
~~
Whoa whoa whoa! Where did this come from?! Who is this guy!? What just happened?! He knew her by Serenity, so he knew her by that name before! Wonder what's up