The Beginning
(Warning: This book contains light hearted scenarios and comedy, but will also contain violent descriptions and language that may not be for the faint hearted. You have been warned. If you don't like seeing certain words that make you uneasy, then heed this note)
Hi there. My name's Ash Ketchum. Today I start my first day at high school. All of my friends have got into the same school so I am excited and raring to go. To be honest, I have no idea how we all made it into such a prestigious school.
Don't you know what school I am talking about? It's the best school in all of the region! Lumiose High School of Academic Perfection is the precise name. L.A.P is what the school is known as and the only jokes anyone can make about this school is the perverted use of that very word. Most students of other schools are just very jealous of the talent in L.A.P.
When I say talent, I mean brains. Everyone is a top scorer. The top 10 in the first year usually achieve 99-100% and there are at least five students that tie first place. It is hectic.
Me and my friends? Oh, we finish right at the bottom. Surprised? Because I am not. I can barely hold my own in Math, it's hectic. Let's not forget every other subject on the curriculum. It isn't just me either. All of my friends are very bad at the subjects the school has to offer. We barely scraped entry into the school. We didn't even get the minimum percentage of our overall scores. The reason we got in was due to our innate abilities as first-rate detectives. Each of us in the group has individual abilities that make us unique and make our team unstoppable.
Let me tell you a story of a crime we uncovered in Middle School. Even today, we still don't know what truly happened. But, that night made us realise what we wanted to do and how we were going to do it.
2 years ago is when the story started.
It was a dark night. The rain had just begun to pour across the glass roof of the greenhouse. The wind whistled through the pipes and cracks along the floors, reverberating through the silence. Thunder hid beneath the clouds, a dull roar across the night sky.
"Why are we in here again?" Gary asked, looking around at us all, our big group of friends.
Gary...he was the one we called 'bad cop' in the group. His intuition and physical ability made him a good teammate. He was also the one to put the pressure on the others in our class that would commit petty crimes, like bullying or theft.
"I heard there was a crime scene near this greenhouse and it started raining, you moron," May replied with a frown, before chucking a handful of chocolates into her mouth.
May loved anything that was sweet. She could never part ways with her love for chocolate. Yeah, especially chocolate. She was always eating that stuff, but she never gained any weight. She was pretty much hated by anyone that wasn't us, but she didn't let that bother her. That's her speciality. She was good at keeping calm, even under insane pressure. It was good for when things got hairy.
"You and chocolates, again? God, you never stop eating that rubbish," Iris folded her arms and stared at May dead in the eyes, who just stuck her tongue out in reply.
Iris was the athlete of the group. She was very agile and quick on her feet and also probably the smartest out of all of us. Iris was always helping us learn new things and also using her smarts, or, what she had, to fit crimes together like jigsaw pieces.
"I wish I could eat it all the time but I would probably just get really fat," Dawn frowned, looking down at her stomach area.
Dawn? It was kind of strange because as a group, we all had certain capabilities that made is a good team. She didn't have much to bring to the table. She was really popular with everyone in school and a great dancer. She performed in a lot of shows but didn't have anything to bring to the table here. Well...sometimes, she would have useful information and save our butts.
"Probably..." Kenny murmured under his breath. Suddenly, a fist came crashing down on top of his head. "Ow!"
"I heard you, idiot." Misty scowled at Kenny, who looked up at her with a certain fear in his eyes. Only fear Misty could bring to the table.
Kenny was quite the smart talker. He was always cracking jokes here and there, especially winding Dawn up, that was what he was good at. They had a certain connection, him and Dawn. His smart talking was very useful for the group.
Misty on the other hand, now she was the definition of a 'bad cop'. She was always aggressive and it was useful for helping to keep people in order. Before joining up with us, she was part of the volleyball team and she was ruthlessly putting her underclassmen through drills all day.
"Let's stop the fighting, we need to focus," Drew got up from his sitting position and walked into the middle of the greenhouse. "What are we going to do, wait till the rain lets up?"
"I think that's a good idea. Although we could be trespassing. We can only go so far following our passion," Cilan pointed this out and everything fell silent for a moment.
Drew was just like May and that sort of made them a good pairing for if we ever had to split up. It made plans more versatile in any case. He was calm under pressure and also like Gary, intuitive and very physical.
Cilan was the best of the best out of us all. He was the ultimate detective. He was a born detective right from the get go.
"That's true...maybe we should wait," Serena agreed, pushing her hair behind her ear. She looked at me for a moment and smiled, before moving her gaze elsewhere.
Serena was Dawn's best friend. She was great at baking, which May enjoyed using to her advantage and she was basically just like Dawn. She brought in results at the times that were the hardest. Like when you lose something that is right in front of you. She would find it. However, she was also interested and knowledgeable in the medical field. We thought this was good for examining bodies, even if we expected to start out doing 'pretend' detective work.
All of us made a club that year, after this certain case. We usually heard things on the news and decided to test our own skills against real life cases. After making a film club in the first year of middle school and only watching detective films, we slowly began to learn and love the ways in which the detectives worked and decided to try it ourselves. I mostly thought it was stupid that we were copying TV, but on that day, I didn't realise we would actually pull something off.
What are my specialities? Nothing really. I am just a boring neutral with a passion for detective work. I had no specific skills, I could just work with the information we were given. I was the back-line when things got tricky if we couldn't work anything out at all. You'll understand soon enough.
The rain had finally let up and we all decided to take a step outside. The wind was still blowing ever so slightly and the thunder had lightened significantly. In the distance, the thunderstorm had pushed onwards, lightning flashing across the sky not too far away. That's when I noticed something in the dark. It was red and there was a pool of it at the shed a few feet away.
"Guys..." I spoke for the first time since sitting in the greenhouse. Everyone turned to where I was looking.
"What is it?" Gary pulled up his phone and turned on the flashlight, shining it across the shed door. I could instantly tell it was blood and that was when the smell hit each and everyone one of us.
May dropped her chocolate and everyone began to retch, some of us vomiting on the grass at the smell. It was one hundred percent a dead body.
"Looks like we found something completely different than what the news reported..." Cilan, who was the only one taking the smell like a normal occurrence. He took up a mask and put it over his face to stop the smell from hitting his nose and slowly opened the door and there the body was.
"Oh my god..." Misty, who was also not vomiting at this point put her hand to her mouth and gasped. Her body began to shake as she looked at the body.
It was completely mangled up, missing arms and the bottom half of its jaw. Both legs were nailed to the floor and the body was leaning back against the back wall of the shed. It had been there for a while. I ducked away to stop myself from feeling sick and sat against the glass of the greenhouse.
"The blood here is fresh." Cilan knelt down at the door and studied the pool of blood. "But the body clearly looks much older than today. I would say it has been here a few weeks. Someone was here recently and it seemed like they were hurting. Maybe..."
"No. That's wrong," Serena pulled out her phone and also turned on her torch, stepping into the shed. She pushed up the top of her red cardigan to her nose to get rid of the smell, although it didn't do much to lighten the effects. She inspected the shoulders of the dead body and turned back to face Cilan. "Someone cut the arms off it looks like. The blood is around the shoulder area and matches the colour of the blood on the floor. It's definitely fresh from the body, this was a recent event."
"So that means we could be near a person wielding something capable of cutting off body parts?" May spoke out loud, in a shaky voice. She was feeling a little scared. That and she had dropped her chocolates, so she couldn't eat them now.
Suddenly, everything went silent. There was a realisation around the group that there could be someone nearby. Maybe even watching us at that very moment. I had that feeling that you get when you wonder if someone's eyes are burning into the back of your head, so I snapped my head around to the bushes. In the silence, there was a rustling around and then the silence continued, the bushes shaking around before settling into a sudden stillness, like statues.
"Did anyone else feel like they were being watched just now?" I had to ask, looking around the group. Some were still pale as ghosts, looking away from the shed. Gary, Iris, Cilan, Misty, Me and Serena had all recovered and the others nodded.
"I heard that sound...in the bushes. It could have been the guy that did this," Misty folded her arms and she waited for a response while drowning herself in her own thoughts. Everyone seemed to agree, but no one was speaking. There was a lot of mess on the ground and even I knew plenty y of people had sore throats.
"I never expected something like this...but somehow... It makes me excited!" I randomly spoke what I was thinking and there were a few raised eyebrows in an instant reply. I decided that they were being silent to let me continue so I did. "Of course, seeing a dead body. Let me repeat, a dead body is something we should never have to see, especially like this. Clearly, we could barely keep it together. But, even though this has been a troubling experience for some, we all have to understand that the line of work we are aiming for will have these kinds of issues. Every job has an issue that you have to overcome. You don't ever back down from the problems you face. You take the bull by the horns and push it back to stop it from causing harm, right? So grab that bull and push with all you've got. Don't ever give up. Ever. We need to continue so we can become better. Stronger. Be able to take on anything in the world. Become an unstoppable team. Who is with me?"
I looked around, realising I had just randomly spoken my mind. I felt a little embarrassed but I knew what I was saying was right. We couldn't give up after everything we had said. Everything we had decided. I was just hoping that everyone else could see that. That they could believe that.
"I am." Cilan broke what I thought to be an awkward silence. I turned to him and he smiled warmly. "You're right, Ash. I'm ready to push that bull back. I'm ready to become what I have dreamt of becoming."
"As am I." Serena also replied and I moved my vision to her. She ducked her head, clearly hiding something and then looked up for a moment. She too smiled a warm smile and then nodded. There was no further explanation needed.
Everyone else nodded and there seemed to be a quick murmur of agreement. Slowly, one by one, they all seemed to smile in a pattern, standing around and facing me. I felt my body jump for joy, but I was frozen on the wet grass, staring at all of my friends.
"Let's do this," I nodded and it was decided.
We spent the next year setting up for our entrance exam to L.A.P. The only reason we actually wanted to get in was quite simple. We didn't want to look smart or be seen in that way. No. We knew we were going to be bullied for only just making it through exams or even failing some. It was all worth it. We wanted to get into L.A.P simply because it was the best academic high school in the whole region. This meant they had books beyond the knowledge of standard high school students. That included things on medicine, detectives and also subjects we were preparing to work all day for, like psychology. It was a class only available to seniors, but we planned to study the textbooks anyway and try and learn, even though that was the most difficult thing for us. Iris was the one leading the charge towards the academy. It was all or nothing. L.A.P or bust. We managed to scratch and claw our way through the exams and got into L.A.P.
The first day was now. The opening ceremony was done.
The first order of business, I hear you ask? I thought it was a little obvious. Maybe too obvious for my liking.
It was time to set up our club and start our journey. It was time to reach the skies and go beyond our limits. It was even time to break a few laws for the sake of bringing criminals to justice on our own. We didn't care if we were our own little 'Scooby Doo' group. We didn't care if we were breaking laws and trespassing. It was all for a passion we all shared. Something that made our friendships twice as strong. The club was a step in the right direction towards a bright future.
The Investigation Club.
It was time to begin.
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I hope you liked the little beginning. This is something I bet no one has ever tried before. It's like a light-hearted story but with mystery, action and drama. So sometimes, things won't be serious but when we get right into the story, it's all gonna start kicking off. The next chapter will start off with another look into the past from Serena's perspective and the amourshipping will also kick in :)
The creator of the cover told me not to tag her, but I just want to say thanks (if she is reading) and I hope you all like the cover
I also want to mention that although there are Pokemon in the background, they won't necessarily have a link to the story. Some of them are irrelevant and others are going to be the basis of pets. I will tell you in the note at the end if I mention any of Ash's Pokemon as pets (like Talonflame as a pet bird, for example)
Thanks for reading the first chapter, I hope you are excited for more :D
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