A Saga of Tanya the Chansey: 43

A/N: ALRIGHT! TIME MARCHES ON! BUT I (IN SPITE OF CHRONOS'S SANDY GRIP) HAVE MANAGED TO GET A LITTLE LESS THAN HALF OF MY COMISSIONS DONE! THE REST WILL BE DONE TOMORROW OR THE DAY AFTER, ALONGSIDE THE NORMAL CHAPTER TOMORROW!

I AM BEYOND HUMAN!

Also, thank you to Giants Craft for the commission.

Also also, I agree with everyone that the solution to the last chapter was to make it longer. So I did here. As always the next chapter's real start is clearly marked.

---

Tanya hurriedly shoves a heal pulse into another injured human, this one showing obvious concussion-like symptoms along with a heavily bleeding cut just above the hairline above the ear. At her heal the human’s slightly too wide pupils abruptly constrict to normal, then just as quickly widen again when the heal pulses adrenal side effect kicks in.

But just as soon as Tanya lifts her arm Sylveon’s ribbons wrap around the man’s shoulders and seem to almost become more real for a single instant before his alarmed flailing stops before it can really begin.

Tanya quickly moves on, bounding over to the next person she’d been directed to, an older man with greying hair in a lab coat who’s struggling against two younger men holding his arms.

“Let go of me! There’s still time!” He shouts. “We can't let them get away with this! I– hng!” He grunts, wincing as he tries to use a leg with an already swelling ankle to pull harder and almost falling into the grass before looking back up at his distressed looking captors. “Y–You’re in on this aren't you? Well I swear, you’ll never work in a research laboratory again if it’s the last thing I–”

“Sit. Down.” Tanya says calmly, picking the man up by the waist and using a combination of physical strength and telekinesis to lay him on the ground, shoving his chest back down as he tries to rise. “You’re only making this worse.”

Poking at the injured ankle she determines that, while originally he’d probably just rolled the ankle, further stress on the injury seems to have knocked something loose and now the joint isn't fitting right. Halfway to a dislocation.

“You.” She says, pointing at one of the men who were keeping the man from running into the building. “Give me your labcoat.”

She needs to keep the ankle in its proper place while she’s healing it or the ligaments can heal too loose.

The man hesitantly points to himself after a second.

“Me? I–I’m not hurt?”

“No your labcoa–” Tanya emphasises before cutting herself off at the realization of the language barrier, then her eyes begin to glow purple in preparation to just take it–

“Slyveon, help Chansey, ribbons on the ankle!” Amelia calls from a short distance away, the ‘mon looking up from tending to a distressed looking human and sprinting over.

Tanya blinks, adjusting her plan quickly.

“I’ll move the ankle into the proper position, hold it there.” She says, ignoring a muffled hiss of pain though clenched teeth from the patient, followed by a much longer hiss when the ribbons wrap around the joint and squeeze.

Then her arms sparkle green and the man starts to thrash about with new vigor, Tanya holding down the injured leg until she can feel the love saturate the body and stop attacking the injuries.

“He’s healed.” She says, lifting her arms and scanning for the next marked target.

As she works, the ‘mon keeps an eye on the building as it starts to catch fire in ernest, a window on the second floor bursting from the inside and letting out a long tongue of flame that reaches into the sky.

Soon enough, the last person is healed, and almost immediately after Amelia jogs over as the soot stained people form into a crowd while a few run off to find a phone in the nearby buildings.

“Ok, as far as anyone can tell everyone from the lab made it out.” She says, glancing at the building as yet another window bursts. “Apparently five people in a group called Team Magma broke in and started setting things on fire...” She trails off, staring at the blaze as it grows hotter. “...do you think they’re alri–?”

 She’s interrupted by the sight of five heavily soot-covered people in gas masks and goggles running out the front door, and as they step into the clear air, they remove their masks one after the other before one immediately points an accusative finger at another to his left.

“I told you it was a left turn at the stairs!” He shouts, throwing the gas mask to the ground. “It was literally three doors and a hallway! How did you get us lost!?”

The accused yelps indignantly and points back.

“This wasn't the plan! We agreed to start fires after we grab everything! But you and Pat just had–”

“Hey!” Shouts a third, roughly shoving the second man. “No real names!” 

The argument continues, and as it devolves Tanya keeps scanning over the criminals, looking for the reason they’re so confident.

They’re standing in the open, no obvious weapons on their person aside from two pokeballs on each of their hips. That might be enough to inspire confidence considering the fact that none of the students or researchers seem to have pokeballs, Amelia certainly seems unnerved. But they don't have any ‘mon currently out, so they’re probably assuming Tanya and her partner will conclude it's a bad bet to…

The ‘mon blinks at her train of thought.

…that is of course assuming they plan on attacking the criminals, which she isn't, that is the role of police and first responders. Interfering would only add confusion and break the understood rules when interacting with situations like this.

“Shut up! All of you!” Shouts a more mature sounding man, interrupting the bickering trio and holding a metal briefcase. “Extract now! Argue later! Before–”

As if summoned by her thoughts, Tanya hears the quiet sound of sirens rapidly grow louder before a small fire truck the size of an ambulance speeds around the corner into the university proper and plows though the grassy quad toward them.

“Boss!” One of the arguing trio shouts an alarm, pointing at the fire truck as it skids to a stop and four people in full fire suits jump out the vehicle. “It’s the fire department!”

Everyone flinches in unison at the proclamation, but their leader recovers first, pointing at three gangsters in a wave, “You three, slow them down!” He shouts as firefighters break into a run toward them, reaching for pokeballs on their hips.

 The three who were ordered to stay hesitate, glancing at their leader as he runs in the opposite direction with a person who’s yet, but as two of the firefighters send out a swampert each, they likewise grab pokeballs and flick them open.

“Alright you puffed up buzzkills, lets see how you like– glk!” One starts as a slugma appears in a flash of light, but he’s interrupted when one of the swampert open their mouth and release a torrent of water, knocking both ‘mon and human back and onto the ground.

It doesn't go much better for the other two, but Tanya’s attention is drawn to the two as they run in the opposite direction, too far for her to easily get a telekinetic grip on them… if she were to try and catch them, which she isn't. Regardless, they’re likely going to get away.

“They’re getting away.” Amelia mutters, unintentionally mirroring her partner’s thoughts. “Taillow, keep a safe distance, but follow the–”

She stops as both criminals freeze where they stand at the strengthening sound of a rumbling engine from the direction they were running. 

“Crap. The leader grunts, tightening his grip on the briefcase before pointing at his remaining subordinate as he turns to run down a nearby gap between buildings. “Stall her! I need thirty seconds!”

As soon as the words leave his mouth, a green haired woman in a police uniform slides around a corner just before he’s out of sight, a growlithe leaping out the side car before it's even stopped and sprinting for the magma member still in his gas mask as he releases a camerupt from a pokeball.

“Fire blast!” He shouts, muffled through the mask, but neither Growlithe nor her partner slow down as the ‘mon opens his mouth wide to inhale. Instead Growlithe speeds up, shooting past the ‘mon as the officer rips a small object from her belt and sprays a stream of liquid into the open mouth.

The criminal takes a startled step back as Growlithe continues charging toward him and reaches for his second pokeball, but Growlithe catches the arm in his teeth with a leap before the man has a chance and drags him to the ground while the criminal’s ‘mon staggers for a second before falling over with a snore.

The officer gives a sharp whistle the instant the man hits the ground, getting her partner’s attention and pointing down the alley.

“Runner!” She calls, pulling a pair of handcuffs and roughly pulling the man onto his stomach as Growlithe sprints in the direction she pointed.

But before Growlithe can even get to the intersection, Tanya’s head snaps to the sky as an orange blur shoots into the–

Is that a dragon?

After a moment of shocked disbelief, she recalls some promotional material with artist's renditions of a similar creature. With a bit more mental digging she remembers that it’s just a non-native ‘mon she’d not studied, something that starts with a ‘c’ if she remembers correctly.

Tracking the dragon across the sky, she slowly pulls her egg back in her pouch, only realizing now that she’d taken it out in the first place. Looking down, she sees the police officer looking up from where she’s kneeling on the magma member's back and speaking into a walkie talkie.

 Looking around as the officer grabs Camerupt’s pokeball and recalls the sleeping ‘mon, Tanya realizes Amelia had moved from beside her and is now talking to one of the firefighters, gesturing to Taillow then to the second floor windows. The firefighter nods seriously before waving for another to follow and marching toward the fire, pulling down his clear breathing mask and twisting a valve on the back of his tank as he does.

In short order, all four members of team magma who were caught are brought to one spot by the green haired officer, assisted by four more of various ages and genders who arrived shortly afterward, and as the swampert spray water through flaming windows dousing the fire, Amelia trots over to one of the officers and gestures at the criminals.

A second later she waves Tanya over from where she’s trying not to get in the way of any of the professionals, then points at the battered looking humans as they sit in a line.

“Could you heal them?” She asks.

Tanya hesitates for a moment, glancing at her partner with a mildly inquisitive expression, so the human shrugs and continues.

“Everyone needs healing.” The nurse in training says simply.

CH43

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!”

“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 cause 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 Sylvon 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 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 through. She walks toward the wall mounted device as if trudging through molasses, slowly extracts her arm from Sylveon’s grip, then reaches 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.”