An earthquake? So soon after the fires too. The city surely can't stand it after something like this. He pulls off his gloves and calls out his Umbreon. They're going to need help with search and rescue.
An Umbreon approaches with life ring in his mouth like it is a frisbee. The item is clearly stolen, and has been missing since the night before. Seems someone didn’t have enough time to turn the item into the scavenger hunt.
Blake gets up, ready to stop another scavenger, but stops short when he sees the Umbreon. No, it's not his, his would have rolled over and displayed his belly the moment Blake was in sight. But this guy was plodding on the boat, returning the life ring.
He can't be mad. At least it was smart enough to return it. Blake gently tugs it out of the eon's mouth. "Hey, good boy. Be careful about taking things that don't belong to you, alright?" He offers a hand to let the Umbreon sniff it before petting it.
"So yeah, Marnie isn't a bad leader. If you ever decide to get off your boat, we'll throw you a party! Team Yell are big fans not only of Marnie, but any gym leader who don't use megas or dynamax or-"
Blake cut the caller off with a chuckle. "Yeah, I get it, Susan. They like duking it Indigo style." The man stopped walking to look at some flowers on the ground.
"Yeah. Pretty much." There was a scream in the background. "Sorry, sounds like the opening act is about to begin!"
"You better go then," Blake stated. He crouched down. "Go live."
"Yes sir!" The line cut off before the man could tell Susan not to call him "sir".
Blake held out his phone to make sure it indeed did hang up, before powering off his phone. That should be the last of the New Year's calls he expected from his former gym trainers and students. Any stragglers stuck in Unova or Alola would have to go to voicemail. Finally, he ripped up the flowers from their stalks. After shoving them into his coat pocket, Blake started walking again.
Despite its name, the Silence Bridge creaked under Blake's steps. A fisherman on the side nodded to Blake. He returned the motion, continuing northward.
Even in the daylight, Lavender Town always was dark. The presence of the town was like walking into a wall of odor. Only the brave, unaware, or desensitized would continue repeated trips in a year.
Looking up, Blake scowled at the radio tower. With both hands, he flipped it off. The thing was too sleek, too "spikey". It would have fit in better in Celadon.
With a satisfied huff, the man shoved his hands into his pockets. His left hand pulled out the bouquet of wildflowers and grass. Looking that way, Blake saw the Fuji house, the windows lit up but blocked by a closed sign. Blake knocked with the back of his hand. He needed new gloves, the leather in these were finally starting to give, he realized.
What little he could see behind the sign indicated two people talking. One was confirmed to be a woman when she peeked over the sign. She ducked back down and the door opened a little.
"Umm, Mister..." The brunette paused, making a face. "Taaaan" she looked at Blake, drawing out his name. He nodded. "Na? Ka?"
"Yep."
The single word was enough to get the woman to relax. "Are you here to drop those off? You could come in and leave them at the mausoleum yourself, I'm sure Mr Fuji-"
"Nope," Blake cut her off. "Just give them to Ivy Kato." They're was an awkward moment of silence as Blake put his hands back into his pockets. "Thanks.
With that, he turned away. The door quickly shut as he walked away. Blake pulled his right hand out of his pocket to look at the glove. He kept these in good condition for a long while. His brow furrowed. Very rarely did he ever get so sensitive that these weren't enough. If the gloves weren't thinning, then there were two reasons for them failing.
Blake froze. Shock overcame his face when he felt something cold on his neck. All he could do was whisper.
Current Location: Unknown, last seen in Seafolk Village
Childhood
[Jun] was born in Vermilion City. Watching the ships go in and out, [Jun] became obsessed at the idea of traveling. His family were against him traveling, even as a trainer.
A fellow fan at the Pokemon Fan Club helped [Jun] get his first Pokemon, a Bulbasaur. With his starter in hand, [Jun] attempted to escape to Saffron City. However, a Vermilion Gym trainer caught him mid escape. Rather than turn [Jun] in for being an unregistered runaway, the trainer brought him to the gym leader. The trainer, the gym leader, and [Jun] came up with an agreement. [Jun] would train at the gym, having his save this Pokemon's skills be assessed regularly. He could only go out onto the nearby routes with supervision to catch Pokemon there.
When the gym leader felt the kid was strong enough, they'd go together to appeal to [Jun]'s father, a member of the Indigo Elite Four. This ultimately came to a battle that [Jun] swiftly lost. However, his care for his Ivysaur made [Jun]'s father agree to let him go out on his own.
[Jun] took the leader's advice and trekked to Pewter City to start his gym circuit. The first four gyms, Boulder, Cascade, Thunder, and Rainbow, came easily, but the Saffron gym was tougher. At the advice of another trainer, [Jun] headed to Lavender Town to see if he could meet a ghost type. Hunting during the day proved futile, so he resolved to search the tower at night.
What happened that night, or the two weeks after, is unknown. [Jun] simply vanished. A fisherman on Route 12 spotted a boy walking off of the bridge and falling into the water. He managed to save [Jun] from drowning, but noted it odd that the boy neither made a sound or had Pokemon with him. He was brought back to Vermilion to try to recover. It was hypothesized that he came across grave robbers who decided to kidnap him during that night. [Jun], however, claims that he has no memory of this.
The spark for adventure had been snuffed. [Jun] withdrew from all people and Pokemon, only bonding with a Meowth that wandered into town from the shipyard. Meowth's trainer gave [Jun] his business card, which listed his name as 000.
Law Enforcement Career
[Jun] joined the Vermilion police force, specializing in information gathering. His reputation for gathering information backed by witnesses was notorious, he was given new officers to train on the task. The officer was noted to always wear gloves on the job and interacting with people, only taking them off for occasional handshakes with witnesses. Fellow officers joked that he had watched too many Unovan shows and misinterpreted the phrase "the gloves come off".
Looking for an advancement of his career, [Jun] contacted the number on the card given to him years prior. After a chat about Meowth, the agent put a good word in for [Jun]. Not long later, they met up for [Jun]'s orientation as an Interpol agent.
Codenamed Claws, he focused on cases of trafficking restricted Pokemon. This included the sale of pseudo-legendary pokemon as pets (illegal in all regions, only exception is the dragon clan in Blackthorn city) and unregistered safaris in non-capture regions. Like when he was a police officer, Claws only took off his gloves when interacting with witnesses.
During his time in Interpol, Claws discovered he had developed a low-level psychometry skill. While it explained his sudden aversion to directly touching objects, Pokemon, and people, it made him realize that he was in danger. Anti-psyker sentiments were rising. If anyone decided his "gut feelings" were too off, he would come under immediate suspicion.
There was one exception Claws discovered to his psychometry skill: dark type pokemon. Realizing that most psychics tend to stay away from such pokemon, Claws accepted a sneasel as a partner for a mission. He was immediately relieved to discover that he paired well with the new pokemon. It also seemed that most suspicions were thrown off as Claws gathered more dark types.
Gym Leadership
Suddenly, during a mission in Oblivia, Claws turned in his resignation from Interpol. At this time, he moved both of his parents to a nursing home in Blackthorn City from Celadon. Finally, he legally changed his name to Blake Tanaka.
Agent 000 reached out to the gym leader in Goldenrod City, who was looking for a replacement. The (now) former Vermilion gym leader endorsed the recommendation. Blake joined the Gym as a Leader in Training for a year, learning about the process of running the gym and interfacing with the league.
At the end of Blake's program, he was set to be the new gym leader. Due to the unique typing, many trainers flocked to the gym to study under him. As most did not have an idea on how to find these Pokemon, Blake made the controversial decision to open his gym at night.
Concerns were raised by the city about trainer safety when they were forced to battle at night. Police patrols were increased, but demands were still made to have the gym open in the day. To comply, Blake extended the hours to include the afternoons, but as a free martial arts dojo for kids. His trainers were given the option to choose either the evening shift as a trainer or the afternoon shift as a teacher.
Blake had met through this program one of his closest friends, Alric. Alric was the parent of one of his students. The two bonded while chatting about the student's growth and unique Pokeball designs. On Blake's days off, if he was not sleeping, he was at Alric's apartment, playing shogi.
Many years later, during Team Rocket's takeover of Silph Co, Blake shut down the gym. He met up with city leaders to try to develop a plan for if a similar attack should happen there as well. Thankfully, nothing happened. However, after the event, Blake suddenly retired from his position. All he said on the matter was that it was time for someone younger to take the position.
Blake bought a boat with his savings, intending to go to Seafolk Village. He has not been seen since, but has remained in contact with Alric.
