Chương 43: 43-Detention

She's hungry.

Tanya takes a long breath and leans against the wall of an interrogation room they'd been taken to after the situation at the volcanology lab was stabilized. Despite her civic mindedness, she'd been slightly wary when the police officer –who Amelia had apparently met before, as she knew her name was Officer Jenny– asked them to come down to the station for a statement about the members of Team Magma, more specifically anything she'd heard them say.

Amelia proved to be even more civic minded than her in this instance, immediately agreeing to get in the sidecar without a second thought, requiring Tanya to get into her pokeball.

Admittedly part of the reason the 'mon was slightly hesitant to be taken by the police is the fact that –apparently– they'd assumed Amelia was a full fledged nurse and part of the first responder team. It was only when the real nurses appeared in an ambulance, only to see their jobs already complete, that everyone realized they'd been working with the equivalent of an unpaid intern.

Even the most reasonable authorities don't care for being tricked, they especially don't like looking foolish. Amelia and her had inadvertently done both, it's for that reason Tanya assumes that they've been left to languish in this interrogation room for the past few hours after giving a detailed statement of what they'd seen and heard and being told they'd be released 'soon'.

Amelia sighs, drumming her fingers in a basic polyrhythm before pushing her head off the metal table she'd been resting on.

"So…" She muses, rolling her head over to her partner.

"Why do you think they burned down the lab?"

Tanya turns to face Amelia fully and makes an inquisitive hum, prompting her partner to continue.

"Team Magma. I'm pretty sure they said that they started burning the lab early, but that means it was always the plan. I wonder why?"

The 'mon tilts her head.

"To cover their tracks I'd assume, harder to tell what they stole."

The trainer nods, glancing at Taillow as he snoozes on the corner of the table across from them.

"Yea, that's the other thing I don't get." She says with a hum.

"Unless you're stealing like… I dunno, rare earth metals there's nothing valuable that you can sell easily in a volcanology lab."

"And you wouldn't need to burn the lab down to cover your tracks.""

Right?" The nurse in training agrees, snapping her fingers and pointing at her partner.

"So they had to have been stealing the research."

Tanya nods slowly, working the problem over in her mind.

If they're stealing research it narrows down the list of reasons to why they'd steal it, her deep dives into the world had her interacting with Mauville University and they're publicly funded, so their research is publicly available. Meaning someone wants it to the exclusion of everyone else. But that leaves the most important question…

"So who's the buyer?"

Amelia nods back, drumming her fingers again.

"... It's oddly thematic to their naming convention too." She hums.

"Maybe some geothermal company? Or a survey discovered… I dunno… gold in one of the lava channels?"

"Now you're just guessing." Tanya snorts.

"We need more information, but unless that lab was working on just one project…"

Amelia grimaces.

"Yea. Fwoosh." She says with a sigh.

"Glad there are actual professionals working on this. Because I'm stumped."

Tanya huffs a laugh as she nods just before the door to the interrogation room opens revealing an unfamiliar officer.

"Sorry to keep you waiting Miss Joy." He says awkwardly, coughing into a fist.

"We ran into a little trouble with the procedure getting you out of here. But it's all cleared up, so you're free to go."

Amelia is standing before the officer is even done speaking.

"It's alright." She says, almost cutting off his last syllable as she recalls the still asleep Taillow into his pokeball.

"Is everything alright with… me? Did I do something wrong?"

The officer, if anything, looks more awkward, rubbing the back of his neck as he holds the door open for her to step out."

Ahm.

No Miss Joy, it's just… In the first month and a day of a journey, it's the law that if a trainer ends up in a police station for any reason we're obligated to inform your guardian before releasing you and we had some trouble getting a hold of–"" What!?" Amelia shouts, whipping her head around to stare at the cop in alarmed disbelief.

"You told my mom!?"

The cop looks… surprisingly alarmed, flinching away from a girl more than a head shorter than him and stepping quickly away as he closes the door.

"I'm sorry Ma'am, but it's the law–"

"Is she here!?" Amelia interrupts, looking around wildly as if expecting her mother to jump out from behind somewhere or drop from the ceiling.

"Oh Mom is going to kill me!"

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"No Ma'am!" The man says loudly, clipped tone as if responding to a superior officer.

The response seems to momentarily calm Amelia down, stilling her nervous fidgeting and causing her to stare unblinkingly at the officer.

The man straightens his back, swallows, and continues in a steady tone.

"As stated before, there was some difficulty getting in contact with your guardian, we got in contact fifteen minutes ago, and after explaining the situation Miss Joy requested we release you to the supervision of your aunt."

Amelia finally blinks, takes a deep breath, then clasps her hands at her waist.

"Alright." She says calmly.

"Thank you officer."

The man seems once more disproportionately relieved by the ease in tension in the room, quickly walking them down the hall back the way they came a few hours ago. As they walk, Tanya realizes that 'aunt' doesn't actually narrow down who's picking them up very much but whoever it is probably wont make much difference.

Approaching the door that leads to the main lobby, Tanya trails behind her partner to walk through the door single file, and as they do she hears another male voice mutter a comment behind her quietly enough to not be intended to be heard.

"Scared of a little girl, what would the chief think?"

"Shush! Don't you even–!" The officer who'd led them here hisses back.

"It's like being yelled at by your grandma.

It's weird!"

Tanya huffs in amusement as the door closes, inside she realizes she 'aunt' who came to pick them up is none other than Venessa, who's standing silently in the middle of the room, hugging Sylveon close to her chest and wrapped equally tightly with ribbons up and down her body.

Seeing her partner standing awkwardly next to the scene, Tanya steps beside the trainer as Venessa pulls her face out of Sylveon's neck with a wet sniff.

"And you just ran into a burning building!?

What were you thinking!?" She yells, voice wobbly and tears in her eyes.

Sylveon looks away, expression irritated even as his ribbons shift and tighten around his partner.

"I–"

"You weren't!" Venessa interrupts shoving the 'mon's face into her collar.

"You weren't thinking!"

It's at this point that Amelia shifts awkwardly, and the movement prompts the elder Joy's head to jerk to look at them and Amelia to hesitantly wave.

"Hey Aunt Vee– hrk." She's cut off with a hiss as Venessa abruptly turns the hug into a three way affair.

"You're alright!" She cries out, voice relieved, but then she quickly pulls back and her face morphs to anger.

"What we're you thinking!?"

Amelia blinks at the sudden tone shift, wiggling slightly in a vain attempt to get out of her aunt's grip.

"Wh– Hey!

I didn't start this! Sylveon just ran off!" She defends herself, prompting the 'mon to glare at her before quickly looking anywhere but at his partner as her eyes switch back to him.

As both Amelia and Sylveon try to explain themselves Tanya realizes Chansey is nowhere to be seen, glancing at the clock, she realizes the pokecenter isn't closing down for another thirty minutes, so presumably she's still there.

Looking back at the rest of her group, she sees that they're getting nowhere fast, so she starts slowly trying to herd the amalgamation of ribbons and limbs toward the door.

—--

"... Sorry for missing my evening shift Aunt Vee." Amelia sighs as they step off the stairs leading up from the subway to the surface.

"Hmm?" Venessa hums, still carrying Sylveon."

Oh!

That. It's no trouble." She laughs.

"Do you mind if I just do the last of my hours tomorrow morning?" The trainer asks.

"I'll just head out a few hours later–"

"Amelia, sweetness." Venessa laughs."

Technically acting as a first responder to an emergency doesn't count. But… you know… you got way more work experience doing that. I'll handle it.""

Oh.

Uh." Amelia stutters.

"Thanks Aunty."

Venessa laughs again, wiggling her arm to try and wrap it around her niece, but finds it too entangled in ribbons, so she just bumps shoulders.

"It's no trouble, we're family!" She says with a grin.

"I'm just glad I talked Joana out of driving down here."

Amelia twitches at the statement.

"... Mom was really going to come down here?"

Venessa's smile twists as she gives an awkward cough.

"Yep… The only reason she called me at first was because of how…

worried she was about you." She says with a slightly fake laugh.

"I think the only reason she's not driving down here is because it's faster for me to pick you up…"

Both Joy's shiver.

Turning the corner, they arrive at Venessa's apartment building and step inside. Following a quick trip of Tanya inside the pokeball and up the elevator they arrive at the floor to see Chansey standing in front of the doors.

Venessa tilts her head slightly.

"Chansey?"

"... I forgot the spare apartment key in the office." She mutters, prompting Sylveon to sigh exasperatedly, still almost encasing his partner's torso in ribbons.

"Just typical." He mutters.

Walking down the hall toward the apartment, Tanya hears the faint sound of a telephone ringing. A sound that only grows louder as they approach the apartment door.

It takes a bit of fumbling to get the key out of Venessa's pocket with Sylveon still refusing to let go, but when the door is finally unlocked and they step inside, Tanya confirms the fact that it's their phone that's ringing.

As they file inside and close the door, the ringing stops as they miss the call. The silence lasts approximately two seconds before it starts ringing again.

Amelia winces at every ring.

"Maybe we could… We could… Uh…"

Venessa seems equally disturbed by the ringing of the phone, but powers though, walking toward the wall mounted device as if trudging though molasses and slowly extracting her arm from Sylveon's grip beforereaching out to remove the phone from the receive–

"Where is she!?"

Joana roars from the other end of the speaker.

"I swear to my last breath Venessa! If my daughter isn't on this phone five seconds ago I'm COMING DOWN THERE!"

The elder joy nods calmly, holding out the phone toward Amelia.

"It's for you."