After the Heist

The Jubilee Museum wasn’t one building. Three wide, transparent cylinders were stationed about the corners of a black glass pyramid. The outer buildings were each half a dozen stories tall, and the pyramid reached far higher than them. The top of the pyramid could be opened to reveal an observatory inside.

Each of the cylindrical towers around it served a different purpose. They were their own entire museums. Fine arts was nearest to the ocean. The Calis Museum was the next one clockwise around the Northern edge of the pyramid. It contained all kinds of artifacts from the old Calis Region and even some from the nation it was today. Then, there was Jubilee City’s Natural History Museum. All of the buildings had been donated to the nation of Calis by different conglomerates. SolveCorp, the central pyramid. Potheel Pharmaceuticals. Charlie and Charley, they made the CC Computer Systems. Lastly, the Alex Clover Investment Firm, they funded the Natural History Museum. The thieves had to have started here.

The line of police had the same idea. It was a foregone conclusion that the fossils being stolen from the museum all but implicated that the thieves had, at once, been at the museum. Zane ran up to a tall police captain. She had artificially slick hair dyed navy blue and a line of reinforced, blue-and-gold Capture Balls strapped to her belt beside a standard-issue firearm and baton. He waved to her, “Officer, I’m here to help, and I- well- where should I start?”

She tapped her foot against the ground, “Look, Kid… You should…” She saw the medal dangling from his neck and me resting on his shoulder. The captain cleared her throat, “Right, a trainer. I’m sure you’re a mighty good one, that right?”

“I’m going to be a champion one day!” He held his hand out firmly.

She shook his hand, “Well, golly. It’s an absolute honor to have you on the force, even just for tonight. It’s rare you get to meet a future champion!” I looked away from her in disbelief. If a random kid my own age told me they were going to be a champion, I would have laughed at them. This was the kind of policework that left Fire and I to go up against three caporegimes, the underboss, and the kingpin of the Starlight Gang alone. We still had our hands.

“Alright!” Zane beamed, “So, uh, what should I do?”

“Right now, we’re just creating a perimeter so that forensics can find evidence that may lead us toward the culprits.”

“Can I help them?”

“It’s better if you and Kichi hold the line here,” The captain patted him on his shoulder. She reached over to scratch me behind my ear, “After all, it’s important not to accidentally contaminate evidence. Anyway, I’m going for a coffee break. Hey, Sergeant Lime, are you coming or not?” She yawned as she walked away, leaving us at her post.

A short, stalky officer bobbled after her. She had big, wobbly ears, “Y-yes, Cap’n! I’m with you!” She saluted.

“Why are you saluting? Didn’t I tell you to stop doing that?”

“I-it just feels right!”

“Whatever,” the captain flicked her hair. “Is Sparkle Donuts still open this late?”
“Twenty-four-seven, now, Cap’n! Has been since eighty-two!”

“Eighty-two? I was born in eighty-six, and I don’t remember it ever being that way.”

“Well, Cap’n… It definitely has been. I used to be the district manager there!” The sergeant kept jogging after, “I’d always salute the regional manager and the executives, and they always liked it.”

We remained there for just over twenty minutes while Zane listened impatiently to the investigation going on inside. He whispered to me, “We should sneak in!” He’d taken one step away from our volunteered post before someone loudly cleared their throat behind us.

A burly man who must have been twice Zane’s height stomped his black boot against the ground. He wore a far more formal uniform than the rest of the officers, and his insignia was far more complex. He grinned widely, “Somebody tell me why there is a child here.”

“C-commissioner!” An officer called out from down the line, “This is…”

“This is Captain Night’s doing?” The commissioner scratched his chin. I thought I recognized him from somewhere, “Of course it is. Carry on.”

“Thank you, Officer.” Zane nodded.

“I wasn’t speaking to you,” the commissioner smiled, “tell me, what did the Captain offer you, candy?”

“I just wanted to help!”

“Why?”

“What do you mean, why?” Zane threw his arms up, “Something was stolen. From a museum, no less. It’s only the right thing to do.”

The commissioner put his hand around Zane’s medal, “The Jubilee Cup. This is an amazing achievement for someone who has only just started training. Tell me, where are you planning to go in your career?”

“I’m going to be a champion.”

“I wonder how many hundreds of kids have told me that over the years,” he held his hands up, pretending to count his fingers. He pressed them together, then sharply held up two, “that many. There have been two who were champions at your age, and a million million who weren't. At least a few hundred won themselves the honor to be some big Capmon's lunch. You hear about it every month or so! The odds really do favor you kids.”

“I can’t wait to say it’s three champions,” Zane smirked.

“Get out of here,” The commissioner pushed a decorative coin into the palm of Zane’s hand. It was a heavy collectible with the logo of the Jubilee City Police Department on it, “show this to an officer, and they’ll buy lunch for you somewhere. Or you could just cook up that Kichi there.”

“I would never!” He threw his hands back.

“Kid, I was joking around,” The police commissioner shook his head, “how do you plan on actually helping catch a criminal?”

“Well, I was going to challenge them to a Capmon battle, then I was going to win.”

“Oh really? Good luck with that. Go on your way, now. Thank you for your help, young trainer. The world would be… worse without it,” The commissioner offered a phony smile and ruffled Zane’s hair with his hand, “I promise, we’ll find the crook.”

Zane started away. He spun back, “W-well, I came out here and you’re letting the Badge Trainer help! It said so on the news?”

The police commissioner scratched the back of his head, “Letting him? Kid, he’s me. This is my job- my first job.” Finally, I remembered. Bartholomew looked completely different outside of his police uniform. Last I saw him, he had a wild grasslike beard and a pair of thick sunglasses. Now, his hair was carefully trimmed, and he wasn’t wearing baggy pants.

“Wow!” Zane blinked, “I-I didn’t realize.”

“If you had, I wouldn’t have bothered telling you.”

Zane nodded, “I want to battle you for my second badge,” he held his breath, “will you be up late tonight, after you catch the thief?”

“Absolutely not!” Bartholomew clenched his fist, “There will be reports to write and press and–” he stopped himself, “Who am I kidding? Don’t get your hopes up, he’s probably not getting found tonight. You’re not yourself without sleep.”

“Sorry.” Zane walked away. I was shocked. Badge Trainers legally had to accept challenges. When I was on my journey, there was more than one whom I hunted down and forced to fight at less than convenient times. Winning a match against anyone was easier when they didn’t want to do it. Zane sighed. He turned a corner and whispered to me, “Let’s find the guy tonight, on our own. Make it so he has time.”

“How?” My tail flicked behind me.

“Easy!” He paced up and down a long alleyway. The distant streetlights flickered in, creating a single line of dim light between the buildings. “I’ve read a bunch of detective novels!” I lifted up my paw, staring at my pads as he continued babbling on, “Hunters always say to think like the prey, so what were the fossils thinking? That’s what the thieves based their strategy on!”

I hopped down from Zane’s shoulder and began sniffing around the alleyway myself. This was close enough to the museum that finding something here wasn’t impossible, but I didn’t expect to. He kept talking, “You know, there was this newscast a couple months ago about how fossils could be revived into new clones of the old extinct Capmon,” he said, “I think Champion Wolfe was on that interview talking about it. So, if I were a fossil trying to avoid getting revived, I’d want to hide in the back of the exhibit to avoid the criminals!”

“Wait…” I mumbled. I’d watched that also. Jubilee City was the home of most of Calis’ tech companies, and the startup that could revive fossils was here, also. If Zane was right, and they weren’t just stealing the fossils to later sell them… I ran down the alley, letting Zane sprint after me. He bent over with his hands on his knees, breathing heavily as we reached Main Street. The distant ocean was black in the night sky, and street lights dribbled overhead.

“D-did you f-find something?” Zane wheezed. I carefully trotted across the street and poked my head around the side of a long, gray office building. A door on the side creaked open. I waited for Zane before slipping inside.

The door creaked open. The tiled floor clattered under Zane’s shoe as he tried to walk quietly. Overhead lights flashed on automatically with a loud clunk. This floor had a billiards table and a large, buzzing vending machine. Footsteps loudly came down the stairs, “Mary! Mary, are you back?”

Zane’s hand lowered to one of his Capture Balls. Mary was a master-ranked trainer and a high ranking member of the new Starlight Gang. Even he remembered his run-in with her. I blinked and took a deep breath, there was more than one person named Mary in the world.

“Hey!” A young woman’s voice echoed through the street behind us, “What are you doing in there?” Zane spun around to see a master just before him. Mary exhaled quickly through her teeth, “Huh, it’s you? I almost forgot about you.” A large backpack dangled down from her shoulders.

Zane planted his feet. “So, how did you do it? Slipping past the police and all?”

“I guess I can tell you,” she hummed. The oozing, spectral body of a Gremcar emerged from one of her Capture Balls. “Gremcar here says childhood dreams taste absolutely delectable. Come now, don’t be afraid to share yours! I’ve heard having a ghost tasting the very dreams in your subconscious mind is almost ticklish!”

Zane let me down onto the ground, “Y-you won’t kill me!”

“Even champions are afraid of me,” Mary yawned, “but, you’re right. Bodies are messy. Gremcar only eats memories, anyway. You’ll forget you ever saw me here… and some other things, too. Gremcar isn’t all that picky! He likes happy memories the most.”

“What if you just hand over the fossils, then I leave?” Zane shrugged.

“What’s in that for me?” She jerked to the side as her backpack suddenly shook. A little cry came from inside. Mary unzipped it and whispered inside, “J-just wait, there’ll be some fresh meat for you too, okay, little one?”

“Is there a baby in there?” Zane yelped.

“Yes… and no,” Mary admitted, “It’s actually about seventy million years old! But, it’s only been brought back into existence an hour ago. Little, starving beast. It’s so noisy I’d wish it would choke if it wasn’t so valuable to me… So powerful!”

The other man finally made his way down the stairs. He stopped in place. “Mary, who’s this?”

“Why weren’t you standing guard, Pete? Doesn’t matter!” She yelled back, “Did you get that Capture Ball?”

Pete smirked, “Here. Catch.” He lobbed it carelessly across the room. It was an irregular Capture Ball with a reinforced exterior and a brown-and-gold decal across it. It sailed through the air, heading straight for Mary.

Zane hopped up off the ground and snatched it out of the sky, “Thanks, Pete!”

“Please, hand that to me,” Mary said coldly. She took a step forward, “Put it in my hand, and I’ll let you leave without any problems.”

“It’s just a Capture Ball, right?” Zane sneered, “I got like a million of those. They’re a dime a dozen! Why’s it so special?” Her bag screeched again. He smiled, “Unless you haven’t actually caught that little Capmon yet! If I use the Capture Ball, then…”

“Gremcar, destroy them!” Mary pointed forward.