"What's the relevance of the Pokémon in the masks?" Blue finished her omelette in thought.

"There's always a chance it's just personal significance to the perpetrators." Green exhaled, tapping the table in irritation.

"But it could correlate with the victims so far." Red pointed out before taking a large bite of his pancakes.

I stayed silent and concentrated on drinking my berry smoothie. Sitting at a table with these three made me feel like I was the main course for breakfast.

"What are you thinking?" Blue asked.

It took me a while to realise I was the one being addressed until the feeling of attention made me flush pink.

I gulped and then admitted, "I think there's a symbolic importance behind the masks."

"Like what?" Green probed.

That boy made me more nervous, it was like he was analysing all my answers for any potential flaws.

"Pokémon are abstract, there are so many perspectives to observe..." I trailed off and looked up at the bright eyes of Red, who had spoken in unison with me.

"Wait, you've actually read 'How Pokémon got away'?" His face broke into one of those smiles that transformed my cheeks into Tamato berries.

"Yeah, I took it out from the bookshelf," I smiled to myself, "It was full of plot twists."

"Right?" He nodded his head, "and that last cult-like scene at Mount Moon?"

I leaned forward and grinned, "Of all the places, I wouldn't have expected them to end it there. All the clues pointed to Cerulean Cave"

"Exactly, but it completely made sense when I read back at all the Clefairy references." Red put his knife and fork down and looked at the other two, "everyone else just criticises the novel."

"It's complete fiction; unrealistic and unhelpful." Green rolled his eyes at the two of us.

"Maybe not," Blue let her fork noisily clatter onto her plate, "let's get back to the unit. Tell me, what Pokémon do you think that Gothitelle represents?"

I had to speed walk to catch up with them as we moved to collect our fed Pokémon.

"I'm thinking of a tower," Red smiled as Pika ran up to his shoulder, "it's described as a goth tower sometimes."

I snuggled ChuChu into my arms and murmured, "That sort of reminds me of a Chess piece."

"The rook?" Green returned his Scizor into a Poké Ball, "do you think they're orchestrating it like a game?"

"It certainly makes sense," Blue pinched the cheek of her Wigglytuff fondly and then returned her, "what with the entire 'Check mate' business."

"Not completely," Green shook his head and the group began walking to the elevator, "sure, Vespiquen can be the Queen but what about Gardevoir?"

"I can only think of something to do with her psychic abilities, or her human-like appearance." Red sighed

"Not a chess piece." Blue pointed out before groaning at the near-packed elevator, "they need to really install more of these."

I looked up at all the tall people, then sighed and squished forward into a compressing spot between Blue and Red. ChuChu looked back at me and we shared an expression of disdain at the claustrophobic setting. Time seemed to slow when the elevator came to a halt at the fifth floor, and the crowd walked out. They pushed forward and we struggled to get out of their way as I shielded my Pokémon with my arms. A sharp elbow pushed me away and I yelped as my body lost balance, falling to my right.

"Arceus, it's always the fifth floor that act like Tauros." Red muttered, his voice echoing from above my head as I steadied under his grip.

"Nice catch Red, put her in a Pokè Ball now." Blue smirked at me as I buried my face in ChuChu.

"You're so small." Red commented whilst I stepped away from him and out of the elevator.

"You like him Yellow."

I glared down at the Pokémon, "Don't you dare."

"Yes Yellow, knock that giant down." Blue chuckled in amusement.

I'd been in a furious exchange of eye contact with my partner, and looked back at them in surprise, "What? I was talking to ChuChu, sorry."

"I wish I could talk to Pokémon." Red enviously commented as we headed to the conference room to meet Lance.

"It's great until they start taunting you." I muttered, glancing over my Pokémon as she scurried into the common room with Pika on her heels.

"It would be useful." Green looked at me, "do you converse with Pokémon normally?"

"No," I shook my head and fidgeted with the sleeve of my blazer, "it's really easy because of my close connection with ChuChu, but with other Pokémon it's more about reading their feelings rather than actually talking."

Blue opened her mouth to comment when four unified notifications cut her off. We all pulled out our phones to see Lance's passive message:

Fly to Pewter City ASAP.

*

It's hard to prepare yourself for these kind of situations when all you're doing is observing the leftovers; we should have prevented this.

The bank in Pewter City wasn't as big as Ceruleans' but from where I stood, it would be impossible to realise a crime had just occurred inside. The sky was lit in a bright blue, with few clouds obstructing its clarity as they slowly roamed. Though the area was taped off, it wasn't hidden from the rest of the population. People stared in curiosity and worry for a few seconds as they gazed at the police members still at the scene, but then carried on talking about the new Pokétch model.

"It's good that you could come earlier, we've got some interesting pointers from this one." Lance ushered us towards him as I returned one of the DAPP's rental Pidgeot into its Poké Ball.

"They didn't follow the normal procedure?" Blue asked as her head darted in different directions.

"Well they did initially, but their strategy was flawed thanks to Noland's swift shot of that Gardevoir."

We followed Lance as he began walking to the building, but as I eyed the outside curiously, my eyes met that of the same pink-haired woman from Cerulean. Nurse Joy gazed at me warily as she unfolded a white sheet, and I gasped then stepped forward to see the Pokémon.

"I don't think that's a good idea," Lance held my arm as I tried moving away, "You're only going to hurt yourself."

He was right and I knew it, but it took a huge amount of strength to walk into the building without running to the Pokémon.

The place leaked with eeriness and a colossal absence of presence. Some of the glass windows that separated cashiers from customers had been shattered, which really didn't seem necessary since the hinges of the small joint door were blown away. There were a few police officers who were gathering evidence; one was slowly picking large shards of the broken Poké Ball to my far right.

"Seems like they enjoy the adrenaline of the entire experience, half the things done weren't necessary." Blue read my thoughts as she pointed to what I'd analysed, "if they were armed, I'm sure the people would've voluntarily given the money."

"Mmm, true." Lance nodded his head in distraction, then left us as he began to talk to one of the officers.

We watched as he retrieved a flash drive, then walked back to us with an expression of irritation. "This is the fourth murder and I don't think it will be the last. We've got some interesting evidence from the footage, I need you to really dig deep and find some leads. Make a copy from the analytical lab when we get back Green, for now just skim around the scene."

Lance passed the item to Green, who pocketed it gratefully. I watched the others depart in confusion, not exactly sure where or what to look for.

"What's wrong?" Lance stood beside me as we watched Red begin to question Nurse Joy.

"I hate this all," I murmured, "I want to help, but I don't know what to do."

"You know, when I was your age, your parents used to be my role models," I looked at Lance in curiosity, "they could draw the most precise conclusions from minor details that everyone overlooked."

"Sounds like those three." I looked back and noticed two police officers stuttering nervously around Blue as she intimidatingly pointed at the bullet one had packeted.

"One day, I managed to ask your mum what helped her be so analytical. You know what she said?"

"There's a special pill that she saved for me?" I raised my eyebrows hopefully.

"You wish," Lance snorted, "no, Yellow. She told me that every single person experiences life from a different perspective. It's when we're not looking for anything specific that answers comes to light."

"You think so?" I murmured quietly, "I feel so out of place."

"That's normal, you've been thrown head-first into an S-rank mission." Lance's tone was tainted with a snarky attitude.

"That wasn't on purpose," I met his eyes, "I'm not a complete dunce Lance, you really gave them no choice but to be stuck with me."

"There we go," He pushed my back lightly and I consequently took a step forward, "Use that logic."

I began walking forward uncertainly, then stopped and looked back. Meeting Lance's confident brown eyes, I smiled and then moved to reach Red.

Nurse Joy, who was on the verge of leaving, took my arrival as a signal to quickly move away in case of another emotional outburst.

"What Pokémon was it this time?" I chewed on my lower lip and tried to hush the roaring emotion in me.

"Spearow." He frowned and looked back at the notes.

I thought about the possibility of a pattern, it just didn't look feasible. None of them were anatomically similar, nor did they share any type.

"What do you think?" Red interrupted me.

"There's really only one pattern but I doubt it's relevance." I looked back at him for confirmation to continue, "both Charmeleon and Wartortle are second stage evolutions, whilst Weedle and Spearow are first stage. Do you think they'll choose a third stage evolution next?"

"It's possible, but think about how large that strata would be."

"At least we know they're only focusing on Kanto Pokémon, it would be worse if they had scattered choices from across other regions." I tried to leak some optimism into my tone, but the harshness of reality wasn't easy to brush aside.

"I didn't think about that," Red shot me a glimpse of a smile, "guess there's one small thing good about it."

"Think Kanto is personal to the perpetrators?" I felt a little more comfortable asking questions when Red's face didn't look ready to bury someone.

"Again, it's one of those uncertain possibilities. It could also be the opposite; they might just specifically dislike Kanto."

"There's nothing solid to work with," I hugged my blazer around me, "but we can't keep letting these Pokémon die."

"Exactly," Red sighed and I felt him shift closer to me as our eyes met, "that's my motivation Yellow, and I think it's yours too."

A/N: What Pokémon do you think will be next, or will there even be a next time?

I've been meaning to say this but thank you so much to all the readers, voters and commenters for helping keep me motivated to write. You guys all really help, and I know this book is small so thank you for investing time into reading it <3

Baiii