Sigh... No review yet... Anyways, here's the new chapter.

Disclaimer: I don't own Pokemon Ranger characters!


Pokemon Ranger – Darkness in Almia

Chapter 2 – Union Briefing

"WHY ON EARTH ARE YOU HERE!?" Lunick and Kate yelled while pointing at each other before all four of them went silent for a few seconds.

"Lunick, do you know her?" Solana asked.

"Yes... Sadly, she's my little sister Kate..." Lunick answered with a sigh.

"Why do you have to say 'sadly'!? For your information, I was the one who captured Darkrai and saved Almia!" Kate grew angry and stomped angrily until she was in front of Lunick.

"And for your information as well, I captured Raikou, Suicune, and Entei one after another to save Fiore... Not to mention that I captured Kyogre a few months ago..." Lunick made a comeback in the bragging with a sly grin, which made the younger female ranger growl angrily.

"Fine! I admit that you win this time only, but don't forget that I've won debating against you for about 999 times already!" Kate turned to Keith, who was watching the siblings arguing near the door, "Let's go, Keith! The professor will be mad at us if we take more time here!"

"Alright, alright..." Keith saw as Kate entered the building and then turned to the two older rangers, "Your Dragonite will stay outside, right? You know that it won't fit through the door!" He said jokingly.

"Yeah, but he will be heading back to Fiore soon after some rest here," Lunick replied with a smile before turning to Dragonite, "Take your time here to rest, big guy!"

Dragonite let out a soft roar as it obeyed. Keith along with Lunick and Solana went inside, leaving the large dragon pokemon outside to rest before it flew back to Fiore.

Both Lunick and Solana were in awe as they entered the building. Clean white walls combined with yellow sparkling floor and air conditioning. There were only a few area rangers on the ground floor, some of them were helping the operators in charge of styler recharging behind the counter in the middle of the big room.

"Impressive, isn't it?" Keith asked the two, "I believe I had the same expression as you two when I first came here as one of the twelve top rangers."

"I guess I can say that this is pretty cool! Don't you think so, Solana?" Lunick turned to her and she nodded in agreement.

"I know you'd say that... Come on, we'll take the escalator to the second floor!" The three of them headed towards the left side of the room, going up on the escalator.

The second floor had some empty space near the escalator. On their left, there was a door between to corridors, shaping a big room behind the door. Next to the farthest corridor, there was another room smaller than the other one between the corridors.

"Come on, the professor should be waiting in his lab. It's the door at the opposite side of the room," The three of them walked over to the door. Keith pulled out a white card with a black stripe on it and swiped it on the device next to the door, making it slide open.

"An electric lock, huh? The Ranger Union has some quite advanced technology compared to Ringtown Base back in Fiore..." Lunick commented.

"The professor's idea. He doesn't like to be bothered by unimportant people when he's doing some research or something," Keith let out a sigh, "Now I think we can expect him to blow up on us for taking such a long time..." Keith shuddered a bit before going in, followed by Lunick and Solana.

"Finally, everyone's here!" Professor Hastings said with a slightly annoyed tone.

His lab was almost full of monitors and strange devices. He was standing in the middle of the room with Kate beside him. Behind them, there was a capsule shaped machine. Its bottom half was made of machines while the top half was made of transparent glass. Inside the glass, there was a rather strange looking black stone.

"I guess I'll start explaining about what we've found out so far," The professor turned to Lunick and Solana, "This case might have something to do with the incident in Indigo Plateau two months ago."

Professor Hastings turned away from the rangers and looked at the strange black stone inside the machine, "As much as I don't believe this, the stone inside is actually a shadow crystal shard. What I don't believe is that the shadow crystal was supposed to be purified during Operation Brighton three years ago."

"What if it's just a different type of stone?" All eyes were on Solana, "I mean, what if the stone is actually something that looks very similar to the shadow crystal shard but it's actually different? Don't you think it's possible?"

"Perhaps it is, but somehow it isn't. The structure analysis of both samples had identical results, and the energy readings were exactly the same. According to the ranger whom we sent to investigate Altru Tower, the pokemon attacked him mercilessly unlike when the shadow crystal took control of them..." Professor Hastings explained.

"A device..." The gang turned to see the door slid open, revealing a wounded ranger with bandages on his arms and legs. He had brown hair and was about the same height as Lunick and Solana. He was wearing a red ranger uniform jacket and dark brown shorts identical to Keith's.

"Kellyn, my boy! You shouldn't be up yet!" Professor Hastings told the wounded ranger worriedly.

"It's okay, Professor... I'll be fine after that long rest for the past few days, but I was told that shouldn't be out for difficult missions yet," The ranger, Kellyn, replied and stepped into the room slowly.

"I saw a man in black at the tower before I blacked out. I believe he was carrying some kind of device shaped like a gun, but it had a small antenna on top of it," Kellyn started.

"A gun shaped device with an antenna..." Professor Hastings put a hand under his chin while thinking as he paced back and forth in the room, "Could this be the one causing the pokemon to be more aggressive?"

'This is bad... Those pokemon must be suffering too...' Lunick thought as he curled his hands into fists, "Then we should prevent things from getting worse by going to the tower right away!"

"Absolutely not!" The sudden angry voice coming from the old professor shocked the rangers in the room, "It's not safe to charge towards an unknown enemy without a plan! We have no choice but to be on standby here for at least a day, or until we come up with a perfect plan to strike."

"But..." Lunick was cut off by Solana, who put a hand on Lunick's shoulder.

"The professor's right, Lunick... We don't know who our enemy is and what they're up to, so it's best to take the time and come up with a decent plan," Solana suggested. Lunick hesitated at first, but he finally gave up in the end.

"Now that's settled, I'll give you a day off to prepare for tomorrow," The professor then turned to Kellyn, "Kellyn, I need you to stay here for a moment. I still have some questions to ask you about what happened in the tower when you went there the other day."

Lunick, Solana, Keith, and Kate left the room, leaving Kellyn with Professor Hastings. They went down to the ground floor with the escalator and gathered in the nearest corner. Suddenly, a weasel like pokemon with two tails along with a white squirrel like pokemon ran over to them.

"Buizel! Pachirisu!"Keith noticed the pokemon running towards them. The weasel pokemon, Buizel, ran over to Keith while the white squirrel pokemon ran over to Kate.

"Are they your partner pokemon?" Solana asked.

"Yeah, this is my partner Buizel. I met him during one of my early missions in Summerland," Keith replied as he petted the weasel's head.

"Ah, I remember now! I've heard about you from Cameron and our Leader that you stopped a wild Gyarados from rampaging, right?" Lunick asked.

"Yes, yes, he's the one..." Kate replied, feeling annoyed, "Pachirisu became my official partner right after I became a ranger years ago."

"Well... I guess I can say that's pretty great!" Lunick turned to the rest, "So what should we do now?"

"How about getting some pokemon capturing training?" Keith suggested.

"Good idea. Shall we head out now?" Kate asked and the others nodded before they all headed out.


The next update for this story will come soon, hopefully... Please leave a review!