And….

-Police Chief Marvell POV-

The last two weeks have been an absolute nightmare, between the rapidly rising gang violence that's leading to almost unheard of daily casualties….both civilians and gangbangers alike…. and the exposed blatant corruption from a mid-level city official found dead in his house after a night cap turned fatal that showed implications of a much deeper source has kept me running on nothing but cigarettes and coffee for days now.

I've been chasing my tail on new leads trying to figure out where to even begin…. I mean everyone knows that some branches of the league are full of scummy politicians that have a finger in unsavoury ventures more often than not, it's basically public knowledge….but you can't really do anything about it even knowing, because without evidence it meant nothing…

But when one Mr Bengie Kusunawa was reported missing after not showing up to work for 4 days a few officers were sent around to his home to find out what was going on…..they found the back door unlocked and a terrible stench was wafting through the house….so they investigated and found Mr Kusunawa dead in his wine cellar with a broken neck…looking like a drunken accident..

Things spiralled out of control almost immediately after that, they found evidence of his sources of "extra income" which implicated a few local politicians and seemed to tie in heavily with the gang known as "the toxic arboks" and if the "right" police officer found that paperwork it would have disappeared before it saw the light of day like it usually does….but much to the dismay of a LOT of corrupt politicians and some higher level arboks it was a Jenny who found the evidence ….and being the paragons of virtue that they are bred to immediately blow the whistle and brought in some squeaky clean superiors who have a nose like a growlithe and are more bloodthirsty than a gyarados to start hunting down the those implicated…..

And once they found one thread, they seemed to find many more….people being locked up left and right and others found dead in their houses…some seeing no other way out rather than take their lives for some of the things that would eventually come to light….others seemed to be silenced by others to keep them quiet.

Gang violence has gotten so bad that even Mr Giovanni the viridian city gym leader had to take time out of his busy schedule to step in….he seemed very happy to help, enthusiastic to help clean up some of the corruption that plagues our great city…

Even after weeks of intensive, almost war-like battles we managed to clean up a good chunk of the slums' drug manufacturing depots and a few trafficking and kidnapping rings….but nowhere near enough to really hurt the gangs, enough to bleed them a bit sure, but it's barely a black eye in the grand scheme of things…

But I have to wonder about the cost….death has been a constant companion in the last few weeks, I've lost a few friends in the crossfire but….it's what we signed up for .....wasn't it?

It might just be the lack of sleep, nicotine shakes or I'm just hungry but I can't seem to shake the feeling that we're missing something….it might have something to do with Mr Kusunawa's case and how his Grimer was never found and how that little detail was buried under all the mountains of shit that has been shovelled our way after his death….but we don't have the time or spare manpower to even humour a side investigation at the moment, we-

*BAM!*

"Chief!!!..another gang war has broken out near the south district grain elevators!! It's bad!! We're already confirming reports of multiple civilian causalities! And officers on scene need backup!"

" OH…FOR SUCK SAKE!!"

I hop up from my desk into a sprint behind officer Leah.

When will this end….

-Gideon POV-

"Huff….huff….huff…..I fucking hate this….wheewew…."

I'm currently laying under my favourite shady spot in our "training ground" after suicide drills and stretching out….I don't care what anyone says….exercise is unnatural, the human body just isn't designed for this kinda punishment…

I look over to see my mons working themselves into the ground with random battles and heavy conditioning under the most intense gravity Ferroseed has been able to produce to date….

Especially Meowth….he's been a little down after learning he was the only one who took a pretty solid hit against the arboks almost 3 weeks back, I told him it was just different circumstances but he wasn't hearing it….he liked training before but now? He's especially brutal on himself….working on speed, strength, reaction time and his move pool usage….not to mention his 3d fighting using trees in the Forrest to springboard attacks…but the result is showing…he's getting stronger day by day and adapting….I've had to up his food intake a bit to compensate I also had to pull him back a few times when he was going overboard but it's working pretty well…

Machop is his usual self, throwing himself into bone-crushing and soul-punishing amounts of training with glee and working on every muscle his body can produce while competing against Meowth, who in turn saw Machop competing and upped his game again….it's a pretty brutal work out routine….they both have little to no energy at the end of the day even with heal pulse treatments…but another thing Machop has really taken in stride is his love for cooking…

He insisted I buy more tapes….yes they used tapes, DVD and USB aren't really widespread things….weird how TMs are CDs though. Meh…anyway, he's been cooking up feasts copying whatever he sees on his cooking shows to a point….and it's pretty good stuff….he even insisted on him cooking meals for my mons, especially after Skiddo and Miltank joined the crew….

Skiddo was pumped to begin training after his harrowing night of being on the Ekans' food menu, but I had to hold him back for a week to make sure he was good to go…. The amount of poison he spewed was way too much to be safe….he almost had more poison than blood in his veins….he responded by not allowing me to pet him for that entire week, thinking it was some sort of punishment for me….after a bit of a "conversation" with him it turns out he was pretty popular with the kids at the farm he ran away from…and he's a bit of a diva…

That "conversation" was a painfully long game of charades with assistance from Slowpoke and Meowth….

He's very young and he saw Pokémon battles from time to time and decided that was the life for him, but the farmers didn't want him battling…he was a farm mon and nothing more, he seemed to disagree and took off into the woods to find something to fight and eventually got lost…

Miltank on the other hand was pretty calm when she woke up, thankful to have been rescued and was going over the moon to see Skiddo was safe and happy….turns out she was rather fond of the combative sassy little goat being as she was there when he was born…and when he went missing she went after him, eventually finding him just before both of them were captured by Arboks and thrown into feeding grounds for young Ekans….

She was a soft country cow through and through, but she was happy to stick around to keep an eye on Skiddo….she was a little reluctant to battle but after nearly dying and having to watch Skiddo nearly die as well she put that reluctance aside to train…..it did help that I told her that she wouldn't be a main battler but more of a support…just helping out and healing, which she took in stride…but I also made it clear that she would be training just as hard as the others….I don't care if she doesn't battle but I wasn't going to bring around a Pokémon that COULDN'T battle…. So she's been undergoing some pretty heavy battle and gravity training…

But I ran into a problem I had to deal with the food situation, that being Skiddo and Miltank are vegetarian only….turns out that on the farm they fed them livestock-type food….the kind that keeps em fat and docile and not much else….and that doesn't sound like battle mon food to me.

I went in to check out the Pokemart and turns out they didn't have battle-type food for either species….of course, I gave them a list of like 30 different species and mixed them in….don't know if it fooled em but looking from face value it did…

So I had to make their food from scratch….but that led me to talk to an older lady, looking maybe mid-60s, who worked behind one of the counters at the Pokemart…she used to be an ace trainer back in her younger days and give me a few tips on Pokémon food…

It turns out store-bought battle mon food isn't ideal, I mean it's ok…but not that great, it's more for newbie trainers who don't know much or are just learning the ropes…apparently the more veteran trainers all make or have someone make their pokemon food from scratch, and while doing so is pricier, it's much better for the Pokémon's health and strength in the long run.

It's really just basic meals that normal humans enjoy but with certain hyper protein and other hyper nutrient supplements mixed in but in bigger portions….which led me to ask about how you would go about herbivores and how to feed them….she told me how she specialised in grass types and a few of them were vegetarian too, she told me a few recipes….a lot of them being stir fry and things of that nature but the big ingredient being ketsueki mushroom, a blood red mushroom that was almost the size of my head that actually had more proteins in it even compared to a bloody tauros steak….a vegans wet dream…

And didn't they let you know it when it came to pricing….$30 a kilo, but goddamn did it taste good, humans can eat it too….so after buying up hyper protein and other Pokémon food supplements which set me back a pretty penny I returned home to cook….with aid from machop and tried out a few recipes.

Miltank and skiddo fell in love with the mushrooms almost instantly which caused a cascade effect where pretty much everyone demands it as part of their 3 meals….food cost has skyrocketed but the result is a large boost in energy and training times for all my Pokémon…I worked it out at roughly $30 per mean per pokemon…. So $90 a day to feed em full of the good stuff counting all the meat I have to buy now and not counting their favourite berrys and other various foods they enjoy in their down time…

Becky was keeping machop on the straight and narrow when it came to cooking, but it became o by the guy had talent and would soon outshine our resident chef/captive/guest…but miltank was also a dam fine cooking assistant to machop…with prep and with dishes…I barely had to do anything…

She's surprisingly dexterous with her hoof like hands…and she doesn't mind cooking with meat at all…even as a vegetarian she never minded others eating meat, she understood how nature worked being a Pokémon and all…

Ferroseed has been pretty much the same…emotionless face hiding her fear of social interaction, but there was just a smidge of satisfaction radiating off her lately after giving a beat down to 4 evolved Pokémon in a 4 on 1, so she gained a very small amount of confidence even if she doesn't show it….she's also very much enjoying the new ketsueki mushroom and whatever meat meals she's been getting lately…a bit more pep in her…roll?….

And finally we come to Slowpoke…..same ol Slowpoke….doing what needs to be done and nothing more…I mean yes, he trains as hard as everyone else but that's mainly because I make him, I've been trying to keep him on meowths level of training but meowth and machop keep escalating it and Slowpoke is forced to train harder much to his dismay…he was a little sulky for a bit but the new diet brought him around eventually …it's hard to tell he was sulking though, but I knew him well enough now to see when he was acting strange…

His training is finished for the day as he's currently laying on his belly with his legs by his side and tail swaying gently in flowing water of the large stream taking a nap in the afternoon sun….he may be a lazy goofball but watching him let's me relax for some reason…

All of a sudden his eyes shoot open as his body stiffen and he looks back into the water and….