Interpol is an organization built as the sword of the Pokémon World Government against organizations that cannot use the principles that the Pokémon League, for both trainers and coordinators, has instilled, specifically those that instill not using Pokémon to kill other Pokemons and people. While Interpol, of course, rarely kills people using Pokemons, there are a lot of indirect ways that things just don't go the ideal route of no humans and Pokemons dying while Pokemons are being commanded by humans.
This is the Interpol's job: to partake in missions that normal Pokemon trainers may, in their lifetime, see once or twice and still be repulsed by. In a way, they are very similar, but one will likely be because of human carelessness while the other is an intentional choice of directly or indirectly causing lethal harm.
Obviously, the world government can't normally commission trainers to just capture criminals worthy of being wanted dead or alive, so they asked exceptional individuals, or more blatantly, 10-year-old children who are better adaptable in these kinds of situations, giving them training and the title 'independent agent'. One of the examples is the current champion Blue, his Rival Red, and the current visitor of the underground base of the Interpol in Pewter City, projected champion of the current Sinnoh League season, Cynthia Celestica.
It was now the last week of Cynthia's visit to the Kanto region at the request of the Interpol, and right now, she's casually scrolling on her Pokegram while eating breakfast, which is just sweet bread and black coffee, with her Pokemons sitting beside her, eating their Pokemon foods, too. The headquarters of Interpol in Pewter City, like any other city, is located underground the Police headquarters of the said city, expanding horizontally to the outskirts and vertically downwards into the ground.
Generally, the number of floors for the headquarters varies depending on how big a city is and how many agents should be deployed, which is further determined by how many activities of the most wanted criminals, dead or alive, are seen in the location. In this specific place, it was only a two-floor complex, as Team Rocket activities are historically low, and even now, the only activity of suspicious individuals is the recent activities of Team Rocket in Mt. Moon around a year ago, which is the jurisdiction of the Interpol of Pewter City.
That's why the agents of this city is relatively relaxed, with more time to follow the normal scheduled breakfast, lunch and dinner except of doing all of those extremely early or even skipping it just so they can carry out missions after missions in the recent flushing out efforts the Interpol has been doing, which is also the reason why Cynthia Celestica can casually scroll on her phone while also having breakfast.
"Oh, I should send that to him, huh."
While Riolu, who is besides Cynthia, snapped its head while tilting it as if in wonder of who is its trainer is talking to, Cynthia already hit the send button, sending a selected photo of her riding an Onix with the Pewter gym leader Brock to a new friend she have made in Kanto, Anthony Dover, the son of the Dover couple which she met by accident in the Cinnabar Island Center of Green Development's satellite lab along route 12 of Kanto when she requested to test their training areas.
Cynthia, who had learned at that time that the boy she had met was the reason why she was here, immediately made sure to make connections with him, as he seemed to be someone that has potential to be a rival, something that she can't find besides the champion of Sinnoh himself, who is 3 times her age. They won't be on the same wavelength if Cynthia tried to befriend him; the other trainers in Sinnoh are afraid of her and her prowess in battle to even consider her as a rival, while Steven and Wallace, as well as Blue and Red, are already immersed in their own rivalry; actually, they were the ones who inspired her to find a rival.
Cynthia can't find one in Sinnoh, and Lucas and Dawn (whom maybe only Anthony knows as of now) are yet to exist while she doesn't have the opportunity to go to Unova, Kalos, and other regions as she's still busy carrying out associate field researcher jobs as she was one as well as challenging the Pokémon League.
_Hopefully, Anthony won't disappoint._
While thinking of such, Anthony, Cynthia's 'rival prospect's' chat head popped out of Cynthia's phone. Apparently, he also sent a photo with a sentence attached to it. The photo is that of a table of what seems to be a very cramped schedule, while the text says: You really have a very colorful life compared to mine. I have to collect all of that data inside the schedule.
Looking at this, Cynthia tilted her head, seemingly confused.
_I don't have this kind of schedule when I'm an intern... that's weird... ah, right, he almost got kidnapped and then most interns in Kanto this year has been reduced to 7, it was quite the viral news even now and Prof. Oak's reputation have taken a hit... but still, they should only shorten the curriculum or the time where they are in a single place to make sure that its harder to kidnap them at the same time and then making them go back if the lab is already secured than before..._
Cynthia also realized something weird: all of the cities and routes were places that Interpol has already swept, making them statistically safer for them to collect data.
_It seems like Prof. Josie used her connections to make the safest route of data collection while also making sure that they would be going around in a lot of places so the two of them can be hard to catch... this is most probably because she's worried about Team Rocket suddenly acting revenge on Anthony, after all he's the one who foiled their Hail Mary plan of learning the real reason why Sir Ben Dover retired._
While Cynthia was able to glean a lot of information from something seemingly so insignificant like a schedule table, she suddenly felt a hand tapping her shoulder, making her look to her left shoulder and above. She saw a girl with green hair, a hallmark of the Jenny family, and also tactical gear loaded with a taser, bulletproof vest, and a built-in Pokeball holster.
The girl seemed to be 13 years old, just like Cynthia. The girl is, in fact, another friend of the same age as Cynthia, Alexandra Jenny, a young girl from the Jenny family who chose to immediately be part of the Interpol than to try being a trainer or a normal police officer first.
"You really give importance to your communication with the son of Ma'am Hana and Sir Ben, huh?"
Cynthia chuckled before standing up and cleaning the table of the plates and bowls of her Pokemons and then wiping off the table, something that she's been putting off because she's looking at Anthony's schedule. Cynthia then replied.
"Yes, he might be a good rival in the future. You see, I'm born in a town that doesn't have that many people, so I'm not blessed with a childhood friend that wants to compete with me; actually, not many of the children in my town wanted to be trainers and instead wanted to become archaeologists like my grandma."
Professor Carolina is in a way like Professor Josie, except she's the head scientist for anthropological studies in Sinnoh specializing in archaeology, which Cynthia also specializes in (though she's professionally a broad anthropologist), so the most famous figure in Celestic Town is her grandma, who is not a trainer at all and has never become one.
Celesticas are a historically trainer-researcher clan, but some became either pure trainers or pure researchers.
"Heh, I do wonder how the minds of talented trainers work... I see him more as an Interpol agent talent, the way he was able to get out of that perilous situation while the Pokémon of Elite 4 Agatha that's supposed to protect him got knocked out. 'Normal' people would be freaking out for quite some time after that, no matter how much of a legend their parents are."
Cynthia nodded, agreeing to her friend's words.
"However, I think he's still more of a normal trainer than a prospect Interpol agent. Maybe an Independent agent at most."
While Cynthia was saying such a thing, Alexandra Jenny put an envelope in front of Cynthia, which had a 'Confidential' marking on it.
"I agree, he seems to be the type of guy to have the same kind of clause in accepting a diversion mission like you."
Cynthia smiled before picking up the plates and bowls as well as the envelope before silently nodding.
If one of my Pokemons gets harmed, I will directly get involved.
Such is Cynthia's clause.
_______________
She was a girl who found the whole streets and anything without a roof her house longer than she can remember. She doesn't know how she even lived before gaining consciousness; all she knew was that she's been fighting bird Pokemons for rotten berries, spoiled vegetables, and anything that can resemble something edible.
Of course, unlike Pokemons, she also looked for change that accidentally got discarded, and using them alongside many days, even months of saving, she would be able to buy real food, something that won't make her stomach growl every night. Though from how many spoiled foods she has consumed, these gurgles have decreased to almost random and in-between instances.
The girl's life, who seems to not even have a name, is composed of such an endless loop. Eat spoiled food, find coins and bills in the ground and sewers, sometimes fight other kids in the streets for food, and also sometimes wait for a vendor's goods to fall to the ground to snatch before taking off as fast as possible. She didn't steal, since that would make her and her Pokemon, a Meowth, be subject to being beaten up.
Of course, she had a Pokemon, a Pokemon that's like her: on the streets without a name and without knowledge of their origins. The girl felt bad for the Pokemon who doesn't have a name, so for a week after she found it, she looked around with the limited vocabualry she acquired from listening to the people around her over the years, which included a lot of vulgarities for a suitable name for the Pokemon and while she's at it, she remembered that she doens't have a name too, so she also find one for herself.
During that time, the streets of their city, apparently named Pewter, always had the names 'Hana' and 'Ben', people who are embraced in praises with names not attached to vulgarities. Somehow, the girl also wanted to become like that, to have a name that doesn't end with 'bitch' or 'brat' and a presence that won't be followed by a wooden or metallic stick.
So, their name was decided: she will be 'Hana,' and her Meowth will be 'Ben'. And together, Hana and Ben continued to become partners; with Ben being able to naturally learn moves, it also learned how to pickpocket, something that Hana never taught it how to. However, because of this, they were able to have more days where they were able to buy food that's warm and filling, and because Hana knew that Ben could protect her from attacks by other street kids and wild Pokemons, she prioritized healthy Pokémon foods that made Meowth grow more muscles than her own.
In any case, she's not a picky eater, so eating a cup or half a cup of Pokemon food is just fine. Year after year, the two grew old. Hana became a teenager, though petite, as if puberty rejected her growth spurt, while Ben became a Persian, now able to hunt Bird Pokemons and predate them as its food, making Hana able to focus all the snatched money of Persian focus on its food.
At that time, she expected herself to soon become taller and more mature, and maybe she could soon find a part-time job, so they don't always need to sleep in the streets, or worse, sewers if they get into trouble stealing money, which Hana has long become accustomed to and numb to. However, despite Hana and Ben's life seemingly slowly being stirred in the right direction, Hana noticed something.
Ben seemed to always be cold, especially during winter, when they have to spend all their days in the sewers. No matter what Hana did to hug and console it, it would continue to shiver. Hana has even stolen a lighter and some charcoal while cleaning some cans that were yet to be rusted to create soups from the bird Pokemons Persian predated, yet that would only comfort it for a moment.
Hana once again found a problem, a problem she had to solve.
"Ben needs a Pokeball."