A/N PLEASE TAKE A FEW MINUTES TO READ THIS: So... Yeah. Not your usual Pokemon Ranger Fic, I suppose. This one is set AFTER the whole storyline of Shadows of Almia, and it really jumps around from POV to POV, so it's not really the expected, "Let's retell everything that happened in the storyline from the main characters Point of View" fic. If you're reading this, then you KNOW what happened in the storyline of Shadows of Almia. If not, I suggest you get the game and play it through.
So, after completing the game and the browser and the capture arena and dealing with the stupidity of the repetitive cutscenes, I got to thinking, "How did Kate just bounce back? She faced a nightmare in and of itself! Darkrai was unmercifully hard, and besides the fact that she beat him, how did she just go on smiling?!" and then I got to thinking, "Well, maybe the game lied and she really didn't just bounce back." and that led to thoughts of "If she didn't just bounce back, if she was really hiding all sorts of miseries, then what could happen later on in the story, the part you never see?" and therefore, this idea was born and it was growing all the time.
PAIRING: Kate/Keith, obviously.
FULL SUMMARY: Kate has disappeared. Tensions rise in the Ranger Union as at first, search parties go out, but with no success, and later, Keith reveals that he just can't operate well enough without her. Sven and Wendy, wannabe-cupids that they are, set him up with a new girl. But this girl has more to hide than meets the eye. And what's wrong with the Pokemon this time, with odd gashes appearing on all sorts, sea and land Pokemon included?
POKEMON RANGER, OUT OF THE DARKNESS - Prologue: Troube In The Ranger Union.
The Operations Room at the Ranger Union in Almia Region was a panicked jumble of Operators and Mechanics and three very confused Top Rangers standing before the screen that revealed where every Top Ranger, all twelve of them, was in Almia. Except for the little problem that there were only eleven flashing lights on the screen, three of them at the Ranger Union, two out working in the Haruba Desert, two in Pueltown, two in the Hia Valley, and two off in Boyleland. One of the three Top Rangers that were staring at the screen, a younger boy with red hair, stated despondently, "She's not there."
An older Ranger with a cowboy hat on his head nodded and looked at the Fine Styler on his arm, before sighing, "Her Styler Tracker is off." He glanced at the younger boy worriedly, "But Keith, there's no need to worry… after all, Kate is perfectly capable–"
"I know she's capable! We both started out in the Ranger School and I saw how good she was with a Styler… She was never afraid of getting hurt… she knew when she should help people… she stepped forward when everyone else besides myself stepped back…" the boy, Keith, shook his head with his eyes closed, "She was always grinning."
The third Ranger and only girl of the three blinked slightly, "She never seemed to grin after Operation Brighton… four weeks of nothing but blank stares or staring off into space… She was never quite the same."
Keith sighed, "Wendy, the thing that bothers me is… she hadn't been quite the same. Rhythmi and I tried to talk to her every day, but she was so… reserved." He trailed off, looking back up at the screen, "Her hair was always up before Operation Brighton… that was the first… and only… time that it was down."
"Her hair was down?" Wendy asked, sudden confusion and worry appearing on her face. "How did that happen? When I saw her right after the event her hair was up."
Keith shook his head, "She never spoke about it after that, so I didn't know just how it happened, but I do know that her hair was down when I pulled her out of the darkness. She captured Darkrai with a vigor that I had never seen before from her. Her eyes were sharp, her gaze hard… she was way too… determined… to get it over with."
The older ranger 'hummed' in thought: tapping his chin as he started to pace. Keith looked up at him and raised an eyebrow, "What are you thinking, Sven?"
"I'm thinking," Sven started, "That she doesn't want to be found. Look at the signs that have been building up without our noticing. She stopped grinning, she stopped talking to everyone, and she was more determined to finish the Browser, and the Capture Arena too, once she had found it. And then when she had finished everything off, she merely fielded everyone's congratulations. Now she's disappeared. She wanted to finish it all before taking a leave of absence, but she knew that the Union would still have a way to contact her, and that they would. So she's turned off her Styler tracking device, because she knows that's the only way we really have of tracking her. Kate has learned a lot from her time as a Ranger, and she's gone through much more than most of us here have. I'm sure she just needs a break or something." His voice wasn't all that convincing, even though everything he had said had made sense. "We'll give her a few weeks, then start looking."
Keith looked away from the two older and more experienced Rangers before him, and his voice shook dangerously when he finally spoke, ready to break, "I hope she's all right."
Sven and Wendy shared looks with each other, sensing the despair that was washing over Keith. His usually vibrant, bright green eyes were now a dark hunter green color, and his cheeky grin had vanished. Neither had really questioned his relationship with Kate, but now they both had to wonder. Kate had always been semi-open, semi-reserved when around Keith, as though she was trying to hide something from him; neither had noticed that Keith had been getting more and more exuberant whenever he talked to her, grinning madly whenever she smiled.
Had he loved her? One look at the disappointed eyes was enough to give that question a resounding yes. Did she love him? ...That, was a much trickier question.
Wendy shook her head almost imperceptibly before striding out of the room, followed soon after by Sven, leaving Keith to only stare at the screen where the telltale flashing light that marked where Kate was remained missing.
'I hope to Ho-oh that she's all right.' He thought, finally turning away when he felt Rhythmi's eyes on him, and leaving the room to go lie under the Tree of Harmony. It was going to be a long time before he saw Kate again.
---One Year Later---
Keith had grown over the last year. His ambitious work in the field made many of the older Rangers come to envy him, though none of them ever truly saw him interacting with other Rangers. Rhythmi, the number one Operator in the Union due to more quests acknowledged and more data transmitted over the year, watched worriedly as Keith once more walked past her without acknowledgement.
"Keith," she finally spoke up sharply, before he made it to the stairs. He stopped mid-step, not looking around at her. "You need to talk to someone." She continued, "You can't just keep going on like this."
"…"
"Keith, are you even listening to me?"
"…"
"We used to be so close, Keith." Rhythmi was almost crying now, "What happened?!"
"…Kate."
The word was said so quietly she almost thought she had imagined it. Keith still didn't look around and his head was bowed, and she could see that his fists were clenched. Rhythmi blinked as he stormed up the stairs to the top floor to sit under the Tree of Harmony once more.
---
Sven and Wendy had their heads bowed and they were determined to get things going on the right track. The first thing they needed to do was to get Keith out of his funk. They got a report in from the Pueltown rangers on duty that there was a new girl taking up residence there and that although she kept to herself, she was very nice.
"You think maybe she might be able to get him out of this?" Sven asked Wendy, looking covertly over at Keith, "I mean, he's been like this for nearly a year, ever since Kate went missing."
"Have you even heard the reports about the girl? She saved Melody; she has to be good." Wendy muttered, also glancing to get a look at the morose ranger. "After all, she had the courage to dive headfirst into the water while our rangers were already on the way, She had the strength to pull Melody back up, and she had the knowledge to perform CPR and bring Melody back." She grinned, "She's perfect for mister gloomy over there."
Sven rubbed his chin in thought, before nodding slightly, "Maybe you're right. Contact the rangers in Pueltown, and tell them that one of them is going to go to Vientown to keep watch with Barlow. We'll need a reason to send him there, you know."
"Right!" Wendy nodded, punching in the data on her Styler before sending the message. Keith looked up briefly when Sven told him he was going to be stationed in Pueltown for the time being. He shrugged silently and stood to move out, get a Staraptor, and get going to Pueltown.
'It was going to be a long time...' he thought sadly, 'a long time to get used to this again.'
A/N: SO there we are. I know it's really short of a chapter, but bear with me. This was basically the introduction chapter and things will get better next one, which I'm working on right now. I'm sure all of you are wondering what Wendy meant about that girl -grins- but alas, you shall be forced to wait until the next installment. =P