Hey bill sick with the flu wish me luck, anyway bill i was wondering what happens to a pokemon if their ball is destroyed, either while theyre inside and while theyre outside. Do you happen to know?

First, best of luck and plenty of rest, anonymous. I hope you get well soon!

To answer your question, it may be a comfort to know that inside every poké ball in existence, even traditional ones made by Johtonian artisans, there is a failsafe system. If a poké ball loses functionality (by breaking, by losing power, or so on), the failsafe will immediately nullify the capture matrix and release the pokémon the ball is synced to. In laymen’s terms, that means that a pokémon will be released if its poké ball is too damaged to work. Furthermore, let’s say the poké ball is outright crushed with a pokémon inside. If this happens, the same thing occurs: the capture matrix (which you might see as a flash of red or white light) will be negated, and the pokémon it’s containing will be released.

Incidentally, when I say “released,” I mean “the pokémon will need to be captured again.” Without a poké ball, neither the storage system nor the league’s database cannot keep track of your pokémon, so for all intents and purposes (i.e., legally speaking), the pokémon that had been inside that poké ball is no longer considered to be officially yours. Granted, pokémon that have bonded with you will very likely still be loyal to you regardless of whether or not they have a poké ball, but it’s nonetheless a good idea to keep this in mind, should you find yourself with a broken poké ball and an unruly tyranitar you were in the middle of training.