A New World, A New Stage, The Same Act

by Purple Pony

Growing Frustration

Alice and Johnathan stood in the clearing, staring at each other. Alice had freed Johnathan from his webbing prison, and the two were now trying to figure out what to say now that Cresselia left.

John spoke first. "I am so sorry, Alice. I was desperate to not believe you simply because I had it in my head that you were just a no good crook that deserved jail time."

"I'm sorry too, John. I never really thought about having to do this. I always assumed that we could keep doing what we were doing. Then this whole moving to another world thing happened, and our whole thing was destroyed. I wasn't going to tell you about being Fox until I retired as Fox." Alice slumps over slightly.

John walks over and hugs Alice. Alice freezes for a moment, then hugs back. "Let's just agree that mistakes were made, and now we can start over." Johnathan says.

"Agreed." Alice replies, before backing out of the hug. "Hello there, my name is Alice Maximilion. I'm a scientist in Lumiose City attempting to prove that people are a kind of Pokemon. I am also a wanted criminal known as the Phantom Thief Fox, whose name I inherited from my entire family tree. It's a pleasure to meet you." She then cheekily sticks out her paw, as if to shake.

Johnathan, deciding to play along with 'starting over', replies. "It's a pleasure to meet you. My name is Johnathan Trace. I'm a police officer dedicated to catching a certain thief. My family has been chasing said thief for generations, and while we've never succeeded, I'm the closest anyone has ever come to catching her."

Both of them immediately break out laughing, and laugh for several minutes. On the verge of tears by the end of their laughing fit, both of them sit in the grass. Johnathan then starts to finally relax, but he first thinks of something.

"What now?"

"Huh?" Alice asks back.

"What do we do now?" Johnathan says. "I can't arrest you now, because now I have a conflict of interest. However, I can't just let you walk away."

"Well, what do you propose I do?" Alice asks.

"The way I see it, there are several ways we could go about this. One, we continue doing what we were doing, with you doing your thing and stealing, and me trying to catch you."

"Won't work. Somebody will notice something is wrong if you aren't trying your hardest."

"Good point." John says. "Two, you stop being Fox."

"HAIL NO!! Fox is my life here. Plus, how would you arrest all of those crime bosses without me guiding you?" Alice screams.

"Okay, okay! It was just a suggestion!" Johnathan manages to calm down the now irritated Zoroark. "Three, I retire as a cop in order to help you."

"Don't do that to yourself, John. You make a terrible criminal." Alice points out.

Johnathan huffs. "What can we do, then? I want this to work, but it can't work right now."

"Plead for amnesty from the crown?" Alice suggests.

"Oh yes. Because pleading for amnesty after having stolen the crown jewels of Equestria, among other things, is definitely going to end up with you not behind bars. I know this country's thing is weaponized friendship, but you cannot be serious." John dryly replies.

About then, the two former humans notice the sun starting to peek over the horizon. "Please tell me you left some sort of note for my Pokemon, or else Baltimare is going to be a madhouse."

Alice chuckles sheepishly. "Whoops?"

---

Back in the city

---

"It doesn't take a genius to conclude that Fox literally stole Johnathan!"

A Combusken, a Mightyena, and a Noibat, joined by a light blue showmare, all stood in front of the guard chief's desk, presenting the card that Fox had left on their doorstep. Said guard chief was also sipping her third cup of coffee that morning, and was probably going to need several more before breakfast at the rate this day was going.

"I get your worry, but this card is not nearly enough to start an investigation. Besides, do you even know where to start looking?" the chief asked the group.

The group all looked at each other, before sighing. "No, ma'am."

"Go look for him before you start your patrol. Dismissed."

As the four walked out of the guard station, Trixie started to formulate a plan. "Okay, Echo, search all over the place, see if you can find anything. Heat, Howl, we'll split up and search on the ground for him. If he's in the city, we'll find him. Meet up here in an hour, and if we haven't found him, then we start to panic. Got it?" Trixie received three nods in response. "Good. Let's go!"

The four burst out of the door, and standing right there was a certain Lucario, with a smug grin on his face. "Worried, were we?"

That was clearly not the right thing to say, as Heat proceeded to High Jump Kick him and send John sprawling down the sidewalk. "Don't just say that! You were kidnapped by Fox! KIDNAPPED! Of course we were worried!"

John coughed, trying to catch his breath. He may have been a Pokemon for a month, but he sure wasn't used to getting hit. "Sorry. I was trying to calm you guys down before you accidentally burned the city to the ground."

"Fair enough." Howl conceded. "So, what happened?"

"Can we talk about this after duty? I need to figure out how exactly to explain it." John asked.

"We can talk and patrol at the same time. Spill." Echo said.

---

A few hours later

---

The four Pokemon guards were eating lunch at a cafe. Well, one of them was eating. The others were trying to comprehend what the first had said.

"So you were kidnapped by Fox..." Started Heat.

"...who dragged you into the woods..." Howl continued.

"...and tied you to a tree..." Echo carried on.

"...before confessing her love to you..."

"...and revealing that she was also Alice..."

"...and then you had a freak attack..."

"...that was calmed down by Cresselia..."

"...before you finally accepted it..."

"...and then she let you go..."

"...and you DIDN'T arrest her?" Heat finished.

John nodded. "What else could I do? I wasn't about to arrest Alice."

"THAT'S NOT THE POINT!!!" Howl howled.

"So now I need your guys' help." John said.

"Huh?" All three asked at once.

"I need to figure out a way to make this work. I want your help to figure out how we can be a couple that doesn't involve retirement or jail time."

The four Pokemon all went silent for a couple of minutes. Until..."Wait, I just thought of something!" Echo cried out.

"Well, spill. What's your plan to save my relationship?" John asked.

---

A half hour later

---

The wagon pulled up in front of the mansion. The four Pokemon, plus Trixie, all piled out of the wagon and walked up to the front door. Johnathan, being the only one who knew what they were doing, rang the doorbell.

A mare opened up the door. "Can I help you?"

"Yes, I'm looking for an Alice Maximilion. Is she here?"

"One minute." The mare then closed the door.

A muffled shout of "Alice!!" and a few hushed words later, and a now familiar Zoroark opened the door. "JOHNNY!!!" The two hugged, being very careful to avoid John's chest spike. "How good to see you! And you brought your partners! Come in, come in!" She ushered everyone inside and to the living room.

In the living room, there was already quite a party. All of the members of Alice's team, as well as Sleight Hoof and Quick Storm, were waiting for them.

As soon as the newcomers walked into the room, however, there was a less than friendly introduction.

All of the Pokemon, save the former humans, growled at each other and looked ready to go at it.

John and Alice quickly got in between the nearly fighting groups. "I just told you this morning what we were going to be seeing, you idiots." John said.

"We've been over this, Pokemon, no fighting inside!!!" Alice reprimanded her team.

The two groups blinked, and managed to calm down enough to be considered civil. The servants sighed in relief, not wanting to rebuild the room again.

Trixie, meanwhile, had frozen up upon going in the room and seeing her idol sitting there. "S-S-Sleight H-H-Hoof?"

After hearing his name, Sleight looked at the blue showmare standing in the room. "The Great and Powerful Trixie, I presume?"

"You know who Trixie is?!" Trixie had slipped into the third person again.

"Your advertisements were all over the city. And your shows are some of the greatest of this time."

Trixie fainted after hearing the praise. "Oh dear, it's happened again." Quick said, before a couple of servants carried the giddy mare off to another room.

"Alright, Echo." John said to the Noibat hovering around him. "What's your big idea to make this work."

"I still can't believe we're trying to make this work." Rascal muttered.

"I still can't believe we never recognized you in all the time we spent together outside of thievery." Heat muttered back. "I mean seriously, how stupid were we?"

Echo, clearing his throat, proceeded to say his plan. "We go to the Princesses."

Everybody fell over, unable to comprehend that THAT was his big plan.

"Are you KIDDING me?!" John shouted at the bat. "I thought you had an actual plan, you bat crazy Pokemon!"

"SERIOUSLY?!" Alice shouted as well. "Are you TRYING to get us thrown in jail for life?!"

Heat and Howl just laid on the floor, unable to comprehend the sheer stupidity that would probably cost Echo his dessert for the next few weeks. Rascal, Shade, Spinner, and Charlotte, on the other hand, were trying to refrain from doing something irrationally stupid in order to punish the Noibat. Scep, meanwhile, was laughing so hard he nearly passed out.

Even Quick and Sleight were amazed at just how unbelievably unimaginative that plan was.

"Hear me out, okay?" Echo regained everyone's attention, but had to wait for Scep to stop laughing before continuing. It took a few minutes, but eventually, "I know that sounded incredibly stupid and likely to go wrong, but hear me out. John is already in favor of the princesses after helping her deal with some corruption after the crown jewels' heist. He could vouch for Alice using that angle.

"That probably wouldn't work alone, though. So, all John would need to do is list how many thieves that Fox has aided in apprehending and uses that as evidence that she is not a bad person, and that she is on the correct side. He needs to show the princesses that Fox is not only not a villain, but she is also providing a tremendous service by being able to expose all manner of evildoers.

"If THAT doesn't work, then we would need to have Cresselia show up and vouch for their love and hope that we can get the pity angle. I've heard that the princesses are lenient on some villains if that happens.

"Between John's record, Fox's ability, and a love story told by the Pokemon equivalent of their Princess Cadence, I don't see how the princesses could possibly throw the two of you in jail. After that, we focus on how we get this all to work. But we need to make sure we are in the good graces of the princesses before something stupid happens and we all become fugitives. Does everybody understand?"

The room was silent once again, this time in awe. "How did you come up with that?" John asked.

"I have the highest brain size to body weight ratio. I'm probably the smartest one in the room. When we retire from being police officers here, I was going to become a lawyer." Echo says nonchalantly.

You could almost hear the Kricketot chirping in the background for a few seconds.

"ANYWAYS!" Alice says loudly to break the silence, "That could work. The problems that could arise are nowhere near as bad as I'd thought, and the potential is a lot better than anything I've ever come up with."

"However," John speaks up. "this relies on you revealing yourself and your whole squad to the leaders of the nation, and thereby breaking nearly every rule that Fox has. Are you sure that you can do this?"

"I've faced down underhanded crime bosses that had my team outnumbered ten to one with the type advantage before I could shoot Shadow Balls out of my hands. I can handle this."

Comments

[Eonflare]

That probably would work actually. Equestria pretty much slaps you on the wrist for anything as long as you got connections.

Pretty unfair if you ask me, but hey.