Poké Earth

Maxwell's eyes shot open as the footsteps started, luckily for him, they seemed to be going the other way, toward the opposite end of the alley, where Will had apparently entered. Maxwell knelt down. "Listen Nemo.", He whispered to the trembling pup, "You can not let that boy or his shinx know what we saw.

Will walked back towards where the others were, still petting Korinku.

Maxwell returned his shivering companion back to his pokeball and quickly but quietly sneaked into the alley, crouching by the still warm corpse. A pokeball lay there. Empty.
Maxwell looked around. No pokemon corpses to be found. He stood and backed away.
"There's a pokemon, probably scared for its life running around this town..."
He snatched up the pokeball and began to run out of the alley, making it several corners away before dialing Will's pokedex.

Will pulled out his pokedex, opened it, and answered the call. "Hello?"

"I lost you.", Maxwell said, panting tiredly, doing his best to sound tired and out of shape rather than like he had just seen a dead body. "Is everyone alright?"

"Yeah. A woman was being mugged. The mugger ran when he saw me, though. Where are you?" He said, as if it were completely true.

"Um... not sure." Maxwell replied truthfully, looking around. Above his head he saw a large neon sign. LOLITA'S DINER. "Oh. I'm actually right by Lolita's diner. I'll call the others and tell them to meet us here, okay?"

"Alright. I'll head that way too. Be there in a few minutes." He said, before hanging up.

Maxwell sighed. Over breakfast, he would have to try to squeeze as much information about the missing pokemon out of William as he could without giving away what he already knew. That he was dealing with a killer.
He dialed Riley's number into his pokedex and waited for her to pick up.

Will walked up to the diner and stood there next to Maxwell.

*after fruitlessly searching the bar, kiril and his zangoose head for a diner with neon lights, hoping the kids from the train would be there*

The fruit bar hanging out of the side of her mouth, Riley fumbled with her pokedex to pick up the incoming call. "H'rru?" she mumbled into the reciever around the bar.

"I got lost...", Maxwell said sheepishly. "I'm with William outside Lolita's diner. I'll get us a table. Sending the map point now." He hung up and sent her a point beacon, lighting up a dot where the diner was on her pokedex's map.

"Hey," Aaron said casually as he walked towards Riley, "was that your friend on the phone just there? He took off before I even had a chance to say 'Nice to meet you.' I was hoping I could make some friends in this town, since you all seem to know each other already."

Gulping down the last of the bar, Riley turned to Aaron. "Mmph. Yeah, uh... follow me. I'll be better company with an actual meal in my stomach." She pointed to a little blip on her pokedex, the luminescent blue text next to it completely unreadable from any distance greater than a foot. "Food," she said simply, and began to walk away laboriously, glancing down at the backlit screen of her all-purpose gizmo.

Aaron followed the girl and her chatot. Although he had already eaten, he was still happy to be joining everyone. At first, Aaron was worried, having never been away from home for extended periods of time, that he would be lonely. However, now it seemed as though he had found some friends on his first day. Maybe it really wouldn't be so bad after all.

Breakfast passed by without incident. Maxwell spent most of the meal completely quiet and staring down at his quickly vacating plate. This would less than likely arouse the suspicions of his friend Riley however, as this is how he spent every meal since long before he met her. As he was finishing his plate of ketchup with eggs, he finally spoke up.
"So, uh, Aaron. What's your story? Why did you come out to Endhaven?"

"Well," Aaron began, setting down the cup of tea he was drinking, "I was inspired by one of my good friends back home to go out on a journey with Shadow. I looked around, and found this one region of Endhaven that looked amazing. I come from a small community where my family ran a farm, and this place I looked up sounds kind of like home to me. I guess I mostly want to try and make a good life for myself raising and training pokemon."

He paused for a moment to take a sip of tea. "So," he began again, "if you don't mind me asking, what brought you here?"

Maxwell was silent a moment, taking a sip, or moreso gulping down his entire mug of coffee before refilling it with the pot on the table.
"My mom and I have been devoting a lot of our time to help find homes for abused and abandoned pokemon. I've honestly been feeling a bit trapped though. Staying home day after day... I couldn't take it much longer. So I decided to go out on a journey. Find myself.
Mom has a friend out here who runs a shelter for rescue pokemon. I'm gonna live as a boarder there and help take care of the pokemon as well as do some visits and battle training with them."