Barry arrives at Jubilife, to immediately crash into someone.

"Whoa, what-- oh, sorry, old guy," he gets up, finding he's knocked over an older man in a brown trench coat. Kind of like Professor Rowan, but younger, and Professor's trench coat looks nicer on him.

"Old guy-- I'm not that old!" the man yelps, offended, "watch where you're going, young man!"

"Okay," Barry dusts himself off, extending a hand forward, "sorry, mister. Anyways, what're you doing out here dressed like a suspicious detective, sir?"

And mister suspicious detective makes the most exaggerated freaking out motion in the world, waving his arms around and sputtering frantically, "no! How did you know I was a secret agent working for the International Police?!"

Barry stares at him.

The secret agent working for the Interpol recomposes himself, standing tall. "I digress. You're an impressive lad, I can tell. You saw through my disguise immediately!"

Barry is entirely baffled at this point. He doesn't even know what to say-- and Barry doesn't know what to say? That's a statement alright. 

"Now that my cover is blown, allow me to introduce myself," he straightens his coat, and Barry looks at his watch, wondering when he can leave. "My name-- ah, no, I shall inform you of only my code name. It's Looker. They all call me that."

Barry jumps at the chance, "ah, nice to meet you Mister Looker! My name is Barry. Now if you'll excuse me," he steps away, only to feel a hand at his shoulder pulling him back.

"Hold on now, windy boy. You are a trainer, yes?"

Barry groans externally, but he turns around and finds something being tossed into his hand. It's a digital pad-like device, and there was only one option aside from the settings-- something called Battle Videos.

"Here, it's something called a Vs. Recorder," Looker tells him, "it's a device that helps you record your last battle, so you may look upon it afterward as reference."

And Barry's eyes light right up. Didn't dad have something like this?

"It's been a hot item recently, so most of us have one to study suspicious activity!" Looker explains, "however, a few of us retired recently, so this is still fairly new-- if you wouldn't mind a second-hand item, I believe you can make better use of it."

"I'll take it," Barry says, before really thinking. 

He clicks into the battle videos-- it's blank, so either they've wiped the data or this guy's on drugs. Either way, it's working right. 

"Thank you so much for this, Mister Looker! I appreciate it."

But this-- he can make use of this. Dad's taught him a ton about them, because dad himself had to slowly master it in his endeavour to become Tower Tycoon.

Barry's wanted one of these for forever and he can't believe he's getting it from a suspicious secret agent interpol whatever. He ain't looking a gift Gallop in the flaming mane, after all. 

Looker clears his throat. "W- Well, I'm glad you like it. I'm currently investigating suspicious activity from a certain group that's said to dress like spacemen, so if you ever come across anyone like that, do allow me to view the battle data, aye?"

Barry raises an eyebrow. "A certain group that's said to dress like, uh, what?"

"You heard me, boy."

Barry nods. "Okay," this guy is high on something and Barry isn't interested in it. "If I ever uh, meet someone like that. I'll show it to you if I ever see ya. Sounds like a good deal."

Looker hums approvingly, before very awkwardly excusing himself, in a tongue twister of 'if you ever see me, don't talk to me because I'll be on the clock, but you can talk to me if you have information, and talk to me if you're bored or I'm bor-- I mean, I'm not bored. Just don't talk to me if possible, but you can if you want.'

Barry waves at him, still unable to decipher what in the living Darkrai just happened.

Breathing out in a sigh, already exhausted, he heads straight toward the exit of Jubilife City, toward Route 204. He lifts his head to make sure Starly, his Starly, is still overhead somewhere, and walks on.

-

"Barry!" Dawn calls out, almost desperately, as she spots him in the distance.

Professor Rowan stood protectively over Dawn, and Dawn clutched his briefcase to her front, looking troubled. The two figures before them were dressed in black and white uniforms, their hair in a standard bowl cut-- and their expressions were eerily stoical.

"What's going on?"

Dawn rushes over, hiding behind Barry if only to get a safe distance between her and the suspicious grunts. Barry keeps a firm eye on the grunts as their attention turns synchronously to him, sending shivers down his spine.

"They were threatening me. They want some of the Professor's research, and..." Dawn whispers, and Barry's gaze flickers over with anger. "Sorry. Professor didn't bring his Pokemon along, so it's a relief you came by."

Barry nods.

Professor Rowan turns to him. "Glad to see you, Barry. You came from Oreburgh, I suppose? So you've gotten your first gym badge? That's incredible."

Barry nods again, stiffly. Is this really the time to be--

"We repeat."

Barry jumps as the grunts begin to speak. Their robotic tones are flat, authoritative, and their eyes are wide and empty. Barry can't help but liken it to a pair of porcelain dolls.

"Professor Rowan, hand over your research findings on the energy of evolution. This will be our last warning," they say, one of them turning toward Dawn and Barry, raising a Poke Ball in a challenging motion.

Rowan groans, turning over in annoyance. "Now, you guys have been getting on my nerves for the last--"

"Initiating battle formation one. Releasing Pokemon," the grunt speaks over the professor, releasing a Glameow in Barry's direction.

Barry leaps back, and Dawn clings to his arm to avoid falling. They regain their balance, and the other grunt releases a Stunky. Professor Rowan, alarmed, steps back.

"Hold on now--"

"Professor, sense won't get through to them!" Barry hollers, "we'll have to fight. Dawn?"

Dawn steps back a little and raises Turtwig's Poke Ball. She meets Professor Rowan's worried gaze, but she nods, releasing Turtwig. "C'mon Bonsai. Time to fight!"

"Screech."

"Growl."

Their hands shot up to their ears immediately as Turtwig is shot right down with two devastating stat reducers. Barry keeps Piplup in its Poke Ball.

He set his fingers at his mouth and whistled loudly.

"Sarge, Double Team!" he commands before the Starly even descends. Four Starly clones whirl down to the field, swiping through the Glameow and Stunky. "Quick Attack!"

Starly knocks them back, and returns to Barry's arm.

Dawn turns to Barry, before nodding. "Alright, Bon. Razor Leaf!"

Stunky staggers, falling on its face. The Pokemon quickly get up, looking irritated. The leaves slice through the grunts' clothing as well, but they don't even wince.

"It's obvious we have the upper hand here," Barry tells them-- but they don't falter.

"Thief," they say at the same time, and the two Pokemon leap forward, appendages before them.

In a panic, Barry grabs Dawn's arm and drags her out of range, yelling "Double Team!"

Dawn staggers but keeps the briefcase behind her. At the same time, she commands, "Bon, Withdraw!"

Glameow's claws scratch uselessly at Turtwig's shell, and Stunky's attempts to locate the real Starly ends in vain.

"Dawn, use Razor Leaf when you see a chance," Barry says, and Dawn looks over, confused at the vague sentence before Barry's commanding again. "Sarge, get up high." Barry yells, as one lone Starly among the clones swing high into the sky, flapping its wings strong, "Wing Attack!"

Starly cuts in right between them, striking them back before rising to the sky, bringing its tailwind forward.

Dawn knows this is her cue. "Bon, Razor Leaf!" she says immediately, and the Razor Leaf that spins out of Turtwig is captured by the wind, swiping right into the targets.

Glameow and Stunky fell back, and were too dizzy to get up again.

"Nice!" Barry says, raising a hand for a high-five. "That was a great one."

"I had to carry the battle, you idiot," Dawn says, annoyedly returning the high-five, "you could've attacked a little more."

Barry pouts, "don't be such a stickler for the details. Razor Leaf is a field move, so it's more efficient, ain't it? All the Double Teams prevented damage, y'know!"

"Sure," Dawn sneers.

Barry glares. Dawn scoffs, turning away.

The grunts returned their fainted Pokemon to their Poke Balls, robotically returning it to their belts. Rowan sets a firm eye on them as they step toward each other.

"So?" Rowan challenges.

The grunts look at each other, and turn back to Rowan. "Further orders have not been given for this situation. We will concede," they say.

"Good. Now leave," Rowan huffs.

Surprisingly, they just nodded, almost as if in politeness, before marching away in tandem. Dawn hugs the briefcase to her chest, warily watching them as they went.

Barry reaches warily into his pocket-- and his heart drops.

The outside zip of his bag, leading to his TMs case, is open.He checks it quickly-- and one of them is gone. 

He swirls back toward the grunts. "WAIT!"

And as if they've realized their jig was up, they take off running. Barry swears out loud, breaking out into a run after them.

"Barry, hold on! Don't--"

The city is busy at this time of the day. Two turns away and they're gone-- the streets were filled with citizens and tourists and the teal blue hair was nowhere to be seen.

"Geez, Barry! What's with you?"

Barry whirls his head around a little longer-- before reaching into his bag to find that-- Return. His Return TM is gone.

"They stole it," he mutters.

"They stole something?" Rowan asks, "shouldn't've let them off the hook..." he grumbles, "I'm really sorry, Barry. Was it anything too important?"

Barry lets it stew in his head before releasing it as a sigh. It's fine. He wasn't planning on using it anytime soon, anyways. He can always buy a new one from the... no, that isn't the point. It's gone, for whatsoever reason, and...

"No... it's. It's fine," the words are harder than he thought they would be. "At least your research papers aren't gone. Yeah."

He checks his pocket, and the Vs. Recorder is safe in his pocket. Small mercy.

"Are you sure?" Rowan asks, unconvinced.

"Yeah, it's the Technical Mach you gave us, uh," Barry looks away, ashamed, "I'm really sorry I lost it."

Rowan seems surprised. "Is that so? That's no matter at all. If you still want one, I have a spare in the lab--"

"--no, it's fine," Barry insists. Then a little guiltily, he admits, "the truth is, Luce broke his yesterday. So we weren't planning on using it anyways."

Rowan hums at that. "Well, I guess I can respect that..."

"Obviously it isn't fine!" Dawn snaps at them, seemingly having been watching the conversation and disapproving of every line. Both males flinch at her shout. "Thievery is thievery, whether it's something you want to use or not! And you're obviously distressed by it, B. You got something stolen? Well, let's go get it back!"

And she drops the briefcase by Rowan's feet, grabbing Barry by the wrist. He has a second to realize it's happening before Dawn is marching him through the crowd, yelling for anyone that's seen a stupid spaceman looking bowlcup head in this direction.

Her words.

Barry sends a pained look at Rowan, who looks back with a resigned gaze.

"Hey Dawn, really. We lost em, I'm fine, so let's give up!"

"They can't have gone too far," Dawn sneers, letting out a Shinx from her Poke Ball. "Now get your Starly out, we're searching! Let them take advantage of you like this and you're never gonna make it in the world, Barry."

"What are you, my mom?"

"If I need to be!"

"The heck's that supposed to mean?!"

Just a little, Barry is happy that she cares. But he'll never tell her that.

-

They don't find them.

Maybe they surfed off to Canalave, or they had a flier, or they had disguises, but they were gone with the crowd and no one seems to find them anymore.

It's weird. Even with a Shinx's nose and a Starly's bird eye view, nothing came up. As the sun set, they had to give up.

Upset and exhausted, they found a room in the Pokemon Center to stay for the night.

"So? What were those guys, anyway?" Barry says, exhaustedly taking off his scarf and letting Piplup out. Starly perches by the window, pretending to sleep. "Those, uh, spacemen looking people."

Barry looks down to Piplup at his feet-- and he's surprised to find that he had run off to Dawn's feet instead, clinging to her boot. 

That was unusual, and sort of... sad, like a little rejection.

(It's not that dramatic, Barry, he reminds himself. Admiral just likes Dawn, that's it.)

(Definitely has nothing to do with the fact that Admiral acts exactly like Luce, especially in the silent treatment part of the news.)

Professor Rowan hangs his coat by the door and sighs. "Those guys were from Galactic-- they're an energy company, heard of them?"

Dawn furrows her brows, "the ones that drone on about finding a permanent energy source to innovate the structure of the world or something?"

Barry's officially lost. He knows nothing about them-- heck, a power company? They have a strict dress code and haircut, for god's sake. If anything, it's some sort of cult.

"No one knows much about them, other than the fact that they have a building in Eterna, and another in Veilstone," Rowan explains. "They don't make their research public knowledge, but if it's still active, they've got to have something under their belts."

Barry hums.

(Professor Rowan has a lab and commission issued by the Pokemon Association, relying heavily on annual reports of his research to keep their confidence in him.)

(Similarly, if such a big company had a base in two cities under the premise of business, there's got to be a reason why the association hasn't booted them out. They've got research of some form going on, and the association legally can't do anything.)

"That doesn't mean they can steal your research!" Dawn says, fuming, her hands still gripped on the bedsheet. "They even stole from you, Barry!"

Barry groans a little again. It's because he wasn't paying too much attention to himself when those two Pokemon used Thief... But why would they steal Return?

"It obviously wasn't intentional," Barry says, "they were trying to steal from you, but the attack hit me instead. Not blaming you, I'm the one that put you behind me. Just saying we can be at least a li'l grateful it's not anything else."

Dawn bites her lip and fidgets in her spot, "you have a point, but..."

Professor Rowan puts a hand on her head. "Let's put this incident behind us," he says. Sitting by the desk, he takes out his notes to do his work. "So Barry, our talk was interrupted. So you got yourself a Gym Badge?"

They appreciate the change in subject.

Barry shows off his Gym Badge, though he doesn't brag about it. Dawn looks at it in awe, even carting Piplup around to congratulate it for its efforts. His prideful Piplu had the gall to look (dis)honestly pleased by the attention.

"So his name is Admiral, and Starly is Sergeant, right?" Dawn asks, setting the penguin on her lap. At Barry's affirmation of 'Sarge for short', Dawn sets Piplup down beside her sleeping Turtwig and inches closer to Starly, "hi, Sergeant. Can I ruffle your feathers?"

Starly looks over for a moment, and simply looks away.

"Not a friendly guy?" Dawn asks, in a teasing manner.

"Just pat 'im on the head, he loves it," Barry assures her. And surely enough, Starly leans into Dawn's hand when she scratches his head, and Dawn blooms into an excited smile.

Barry turns his eyes to Professor Rowan, who had dismissed the kids to focus on his work. A paw at his feet draws his attention, and he looks down to see Dawn's Shinx asking for attention.

He leans down to pick it up, and the Shinx giggles. Oh, who can resist smiling at this?

"That's Tempest," Dawn informs, "I fed her a berry and she just wouldn't stop following me," she chuckles. "Adorable, isn't she?"

Barry shrugs, rubbing the lynx on the head and under her ears, earning a pleased coo, "well, she's one happy little Shinx for sure."

The next while is spent in relative silence.

Dawn writes in her Journal, and Barry studies the Vs.Recorder.

Dawn sits beside him to look it over together, but they don't say much about it when Barry zooms in on the moment Thief is used, marking the short moment Stunky came too close, but Barry didn't even notice.

"Part of the journey, Barry," Rowan tells him around his shoulder. "One day, it'll be behind you."

And Barry looks at him, letting the words spin in his chest.

He breathes out.

"Course," he grins, "when I see them again they're absolutely compensating for that! And I'm going to be calculating the interest!"

Dawn bursts into laughter at that, and Professor Rowan gives him a fond smile.

Piplup approaches him carefully, and he scoops the penguin up in his arms, hugging him close in a resolved way, trying to hide how desperate he is for the affection.

(Admiral doesn't tear away.)

Barry smiles. "I can do better," he knows.

-

Barry rouses a few hours later, when Piplup's foot strays a little too close to his face. He brushes him away, rolling over to get a little more shut-eye.

The sun isn't up yet, so he checks his Poketch (ugh, four?) and groans.

He notices movement in the dim light, and peeks over the top bunk to the bed under him-- noting that Dawn's awake, seated by the edge of her bed, fiddling with her fingers.

Shinx is in her lap, asleep.

She's making rhythmic signs, and Barry quickly realizes they're the ABCs. He watches for a while as she struggles on the Qs and Rs, tries again, and again.

He watches her for a bit, then he rolls over and goes back to sleep.