The fourth upload of the day! The moment you have been waiting for... the second release of the Pokemon Ranger series! The whole story has been completed but halfway typed. I'll try to upload as much as I can, if school's not taking too much of my time.

Disclaimer: I don't own Pokemon!

Please enjoy!

Pokemon Ranger – Darkness in Almia

Chapter 1 – A New Crisis

Two months had passed since Indigo Plateau was attacked. Solana slowly recovered from her injuries and was able to do mission again. The Ringtown rangers thought that the world was at peace again, but the whole thing was just the beginning of another crisis.

It was early in the morning, but Solana had already woken up. She had been downstairs already and was walking in the corridor where the dorms were. She stopped in front of Lunick's room and knocked on the door.

"Lunick, are you up yet? Leader wants to see us both immediately!" Solana said as she knocked.

"Okay, I'll be ready soon!" Solana could hear a soft thud and Lunick's partner Minun trying to help his ranger. "You go down first, Solana. I'll come down as soon as I'm done!"

Solana sighed as she knew that Lunick had just woken up, "Okay, but don't take too long!"

"Don't worry, I will be there in a flash!" Lunick replied from inside his room.

Solana turned to her partner, Plusle, who was by her foot.

"Plah?"

"It's nothing, Plusle..." Solana picked up the red eared bunny pokemon and let her rest on her shoulder instead, "Let's go back downstairs, shall we?"

Plusle nodded and Solana walked towards the elevator and headed to the first floor. When the elevator doors opened on the first floor, Solana saw that Spenser was leaning against the wall next to the styler recharging machine. His eyes were closed and his face showed a serious expression.

"Leader, Lunick said that he would come down soon," Solana reported and Spenser turned to her with the serious expression still on his face. "Should we wait for him to come down or will you explain the situation now?"

"We'll wait for him. It's better for both of you to hear the explanation from me first," Spenser replied as he walked to a nearby table to sit.

"Understood, Leader!" Solana and Plusle saluted.

"Sorry for the wait!" The elevator doors opened and Minun with Minun on his shoulder ran to Solana's side.

"Okay, since the two of you are present now, I'll start explaining your mission," Spenser stood up and walked over to the two younger rangers.

"This morning, we received a call from Ranger Union in Almia region. It was about Altru Tower and some Almian rangers disappearing when they investigated the tower," Spenser started.

"They just disappeared? But what could have caused the rangers to disappear?" Solana asked.

"We haven't figured out the cause yet, unfortunately... But an Almian ranger named Kellyn managed to come back from the tower, badly injured. He said that the wild pokemon inside the tower attacked him for no reason at all..." Spenser continued.

'It's like what happened in Indigo Plateau... What on earth is going on here?' Lunick thought as his hands curled into fists.

"Lunick, do you remember what happened in Altru Tower a year after the incident in Fiore Temple? I believe you read about it in the newspaper," Spenser asked.

"Well... If I recall correctly, a wild Darkrai was befriended by an Almian ranger to calm it down after it rampaged and three gems called the 'Tears of Princes' hovered on top of the tower until now..." Lunick replied.

"Exactly. The Ranger Union informed us that those gems had also disappeared, leaving only the purified shadow crystal," Spenser continued his explanation.

"WHAT!?" Lunick and Solana yelled in unison.

"How could the gems be stolen anyway? There's a tight security, isn't there?" Lunick asked, still recovering from the shock.

"But what would they do with the gems anyway?" Solana added.

"That's what they want you to find out. Almia is running short on available rangers, so they asked us to help with this investigation mission. We're all counting on you!" Spenser finally finished his explanation.

"Understood, Leader!" Lunick and Solana said in unison as they saluted.

"Alright, dismissed!"

"Come on, Solana! We'll take the Dragonite Bus to Almia!" Lunick grabbed Solana's hand and the two of them hurried to the top floor.

The flight to Almia went smoothly, unlike their flight to Kanto. The half hour trip went by fast as they enjoyed themselves above the white clouds. They saw a flock of Pidgey and Pidgeotto migrating as they were flying.

The rangers could feel the blowing wind on their skin as it blew their hair back and forth. Their pokemon partners, Plusle and Minun, were on their respective rangers' shoulders and were enjoying the breeze.

Suddenly Dragonite roared, but this time it was a friendly one to tell the rangers that they were close to the destination place. Dragonite slowly dove into the sea of white clouds and flew lower to get out of the sea of clouds.

As the clouds cleared out, a rather large island could be seen surrounded by the blue sea. Most parts of the island were green as it had many trees, forests, and grass fields. At the northern part of the island, a very tall building with steel-colored walls stood.

Dragonite flew faster towards the island while going down as well, heading towards the western side of the island. As they were flying above the trees in a forest, the rangers saw a tall red building with a huge tree on the roof.

"Solana, look! Is that red building Almia's Ranger Union?" Lunick asked, pointing at the red building which was a few feet in front of them.

"Yep, it is. That's where Leader told us to go," Solana answered before Lunick turned to her with a questioning look. Solana sighed and continued, "He told me where it is and what it looks like before you woke up this morning..."

"Alright," Lunick turned back to the front and let out an eager smile, "Ranger Union, here we come!"

A few minutes later, Dragonite stopped in front of the Ranger Union and landed on the empty space in front of it. It lowered its head for the rangers to get off before letting out a soft roar. An old man with a stick along with two rangers behind him came out of the building after hearing Dragonite's roar.

"Professor Hastings!" Solana recognized the old man, "Were you the one who called us this morning?"

"Indeed, it was me. We have been waiting for quite a while, so please come into the Union right now before we waste more of our precious time!" Professor Hastings turned back to the door and was going to enter the building when one of the rangers stopped him.

"Come on, Professor... Don't you think we should introduce ourselves to the Fiore rangers first?" One of the rangers said. He was a teenager with brown spiky hair and brown eyes.

"Alright, but make it quick! Evil doesn't wait!" Professor Hastings said before going into the building.

"Geez... That professor can be quite impatient, can't he?" The brown haired ranger commented before turning back to Lunick and Solana, "Well, my name's Keith, Rank 10 ranger."

"I'm Solana, and this is Lunick, my workmate..." Solana turned to Lunick, who had big eyes and was staring at the other ranger.

She was a teenage girl about Keith's age with brown hair tied into two pigtails and blue eyes. She was also staring back at Lunick with big eyes. Keith noticed this and waved his hand in front of her face.

"Hello? Earth to Kate!" Keith said while waving his hand in front of her face.

Lunick and Kate suddenly pointed at each other, "WHY ON EARTH ARE YOU HERE!?"

Who on earth is Kate to Lunick? Well, she's actually... someone whose true identity will be revealed in the next chapter! Stay tuned and please leave a review!

EDIT: The next chapter will be uploaded after I'm done uploading the prequel in my DA. If you're interested, I'm also called DarkGreiga in DA.