The lavender haired girl got up from her seat and started out the door. She wasn’t quite sure if she had any more tears left to cry, but she knew that she wanted to cry. Why was this happening to her? Her mother, her father, and now Tracy; they were all gone. She touched the bracelet on her wrist; she had never gotten in a fight with Miguel, at least, not really. There was that one time with Forest, but that wasn’t longer than a day. There was no reasonable explanation for Miguel to kill Tracy. It couldn’t have been him.

Suddenly, Bubbles gasped, as arms wrapped around her from behind and nearly knocked her over. “Oh, God, are you okay?” the voice rang out in her ears.

“A- Ash?” Misty came around and took the girl’s hands.

“Bubbles, I’m so sorry. I promise you though, it wasn’t my brother, and it couldn’t have been. He and Tracy, well, they had an unspoken relationship.” The newlywed forced a smile.

“And, Miguel was with us the whole time, he didn’t do it.” Ash added. Bubbles was still a little shocked that they were even there. Had they come back from their honey moon early?

“I know, I wouldn’t even… But what are we going to do? They found his finger prints on the gun.”

“His finger prints?” Misty’s cerulean eyes looked worried. “But, how would he… I don’t think he even knows how to use a gun, let alone aim for a decent shot.”

Bubbles looked at her orange tennis shoes. She shoved her hands in her jean pockets just as Ash said, “Do you think, maybe, he’s being framed? Like, on those CSI shows?”

“Okay, first of all, if he is being framed, whoever is doing it is doing a good, GOOD, job.” Misty said.

Bubbles, who was in front of them, turned to walk backwards, to face them. “Guys, you do realize that no one is going to believe us that he was framed. I think that the only thing to do is bail him out.”

“Bail? My butt; he’ll be charged with murder, and probably sentenced for life. There is no bail.” Ash sighed and kicked at a rock.

As Bubbles went to turn around, she bumped into a tall man. “Oh, I’m sorry, jeez, I need to stop doing that.” She stepped back, but then realized who she was looking at. “Brock? God, what is this, a reunion?”

“I came when I heard about Tracy, but now the news is saying that Miguel did it.” He was wearing khaki pants and a deep green shirt.

“You guys, I’m really glad to see you all, but, I think I should just be alone right now. Brock, I’ll pay for a hotel for you to stay in.” Bubbles sighed. “And Ash and Misty, I’m really sorry that your honey moon had to end so early.”

“You aren’t going to pay for a hotel.” Misty started, and Ash added,

“And you can’t blame yourself.” As an afterthought he added, “Duh.”

“Ash!” Misty yelled annoyed. “Brock, you can stay with us, because paying for a hotel when you have friends is useless.”

“Not useless, just, uneducated.” Bubbles said. “But whatever.”

Ash stared at her. “You already sound like a freakin’ doctor, PLEASE, don’t use big words around me, they bug me.”

As Bubbles turned to go she picked up a newspaper from a stand. As she stalked quickly through the town she skimmed over her surroundings. It wasn’t a really big town; in fact, everything seemed to be built in one basic unit. The only really technical part was the pokemon center, because it happened to be huge. She trudged up the steps to her apartment before unlocking the door. She was greeted by a really worried looking Shadow, and a not to much different Dusk.

“This isn’t right.” She whispered. Golden eyes scanned the room for a highlighter, but found none. “Crap…”

Suddenly her phone rang, and Eclipse started barking. She threw a wadded up paper at the puppy before answering, not with her common greeting, but with a “hello?”

“No ‘boo’?”

“Miguel...?!” She was shocked. “Are you okay?”

“I’m wearing the ugliest thing I’ve ever seen in my life, all of my keys, my phone, and my money are somewhere in custody, and I’ve got the worst headache of my life. How about you?”

“You… you didn’t really do it, did you?” She felt like it was betraying just to ask that.

“No, I didn’t. Listen, I’ve only got, like, ten minutes, talk fast.” His voice wasn’t normal, but sounded like it was trying to defy fear.

“How can you be so calm?”

“Because freaking out would be useless, and because the phone’s tapped.” He smiled, even though she couldn’t see it. “But that’s beside the point. I wanted to make sure you were okay. This isn’t half as bad for me as it is for you.”

“This is way past half as bad for you! Miguel, you’re in jail for God sakes, at least pretend to be upset!”

“Okay, I am, indeed, very upset, but again, freaking out is just going to waste the time we have to talk, which is now seven minutes.”

“I wish you would act like this wasn’t just some normal thing. You’ve been…”

“Accused of murder, I know, for the billionth time. Are you tired; hungry?”

“What?”

“Are YOU okay?”

“I’m… I’m fine.”

There was a sudden beep on the line. Bubbles sighed. “What was that?”

“That was a five minute warning.” Miguel answered. “I think I have some money in a ceramic jar in my freezer. Go get that and buy yourself some groceries.”

“I have money.”

“I need an excuse for you to get my pokemon too…”

Bubbles smiled, but at the same time, realized she was crying. She’d been doing that a lot lately. “I will. Listen, I promise I’m going to find out who did this, and I’m going to get you out of there.”

“Don’t do anything stupid.”

She sniffed. “It’s not stupid if it helps you, you know that right?”

There was a muffled voice in the background. “Listen, I have to go, please, take care of yourself, don’t skip meals or anything like you were a while ago. Eat, sleep, stay alive, visit me from one to two on Saturdays, and I now have to go to a really uncomfortably cell.”

“… Goodbye.”

“Hey,” He said, “I’ll talk to you later.”

She nodded, even though he couldn’t see it. “Yeah, later.”

The line went dead, and Bubbles found herself on her floor crying into her knees.

* * *

As soon as morning came Bubbles walked the few blocks to Miguel’s house to pick up his pokemon. When she unlocked the door, she noticed multiple pokemon wandering around. After a few minutes, she found their respected pokeballs and put them in her backpack.

The house was fairly neat, not much different from her own apartment, except for the lack of a computer monitor with a giant hole in the screen. She wandered to the kitchen and put away any food that could spoil while Miguel was gone, such as bread into the freezer, and some fruit into the refrigerator. Snooping around she dug around his room, just for the hope to remind her of his voice. She was going insane, and it had only been about twelve hours.

She did manage to find a wrist band that said: Believe. She bit her lip and slipped it over her hand, hoping that it would remind her to trust herself. As she re-locked the house, she grabbed the mail for him and walked back to her house. The envelopes were mainly bills, utility, gas, but one had no return address. She opened it, and in really spiffy cut-out magazine letters (like in the movies) a note read:

You will not be returning to your home if I have anything to say about it. You have broken the laws of nature too many times. You’ve survived torture by villains, falling from almost a hundred feet, and from guns, multiple times. You are obviously a special person, meant to dictate the world forever. That is what I will be stopping, by putting you into prison. Let us see how you live when that pretty little girl of yours thinks you killed her brother!

Bubbles stared at the text. This letter didn’t make sense for one, it was repeating itself two, and it was… evidence. Evidence that Miguel didn’t do it! She looked at the envelope to see the address. It was hand written, they could trace the handwriting!

The phone was in her hand before she could blink, and she was calling the police department.

“Pallet Police Department, how may I help you?”

“I have proof that Miguel Waterflower didn’t kill Tracy Sketchit!” She said, “My name is Bu--- Jenna Sketchit, and I went to get his mail this morning, and I found a letter that proves it!”