And now, for the final listing of the party Pokemon.

For the Ice slot... GLACEON!

For the Fire slot... PONYTA!

For the Dark slot... HOUNDOUR!

For the Fighting slot... MACHOP!

And, for the Ground slot... GIBLE!... yes, I know it wasn't in the list of choices. Get over it.

xxx

Wanderer

xxx

Ranma looked down at the egg in her lap and sighed, thinking of how she had obtained it.

Flashback.

"So wait... I can pick out any one of these eggs, right now?"

"Well... partially true." Jin answered, as he selected an egg at what seemed to be random and set it in front of the redhead. "You can have any egg you want, as long as it's this one."

End Flashback.

The egg itself was actually a pretty good selection, though. It was an Eevee, and such could fit into one of many of the typesets she'd chosen once it evolved. She'd checked the dex, just to brush up on which possibilities she had, and had been astounded at the sheer amount.

Three she knew of, Vaporeon, Flareon, and Jolteon, who evolved upon exposure to a water, fire, or thunder stone respectively. After that, things got a little more difficult.

There were two who Eevee could only become once it was 'Happy' enough, though some suspected that the key factor wasn't happiness at all, but something more difficult to describe. It would become a psychic Espeon if this happened during the day, and a Dark type Umbreon if it happened at night.

Then there were another two that evolved when near a specific stone, but also had to level up in order to trigger the evolution. Glaceon and Leafeon, Ice and Grass type respectively.

Then there were even more esoteric types, as apparently Eevee could evolve into something for every listed type. Draceon, for instance, was a dragon type eevolution. However, in order to get it, the trainer would have to find both a dragon fang and a dragon scale, then personally craft them into an amulet, and the Eevee would have to wear it for no less than thirty level gains from the point it put it on in order to evolve into the lauded Draceon. If the trainer had someone else make the amulet, it wouldn't work, and if the Eevee took it off at any point, the whole thing would have to start all over from the very beginning. The other evolutions were similarly difficult to obtain.

Ranma had decided that was entirely too much work, and so had chosen to go with Glaceon instead, and was on her way to Snowpoint city. For two reasons... first, there was an agent there that she had to deliver something to. She wasn't sure what it was, because it was in a locked briefcase, but the agent was apparently studying a huge statue of what might be a pokemon. Second, the frozen boulder that was supposed to trigger the Glaceon evolution was just southwest of the city limits.

Ranma blinked as, inside her head, there were sounds like someone falling a foot or two to the floor. Then a door opening and closing, footsteps, and another door opening and closing. Then silence. Then after a couple minutes, she sweatdropped as there was an audible flushing noise.

'Do I really want to know what you're doing in there, Rei?'

"Mhrfluh? Wha? Oh."

'I'm going to pretend I didn't hear anything in the last few minutes, all right?'

Akwardness ensued.

'So, uh...'

"..."

'Yeah.'

"Where are we?"

'Ah. Right now... I'm not sure. This thing doesn't have windows. In about an hour, though, we'll be in Sinnoh region's Snowpoint city.'

Rei remained silent and Ranma sighed as she began explaining everything that had happened while she was asleep.

xxx

"Yes! We got a Caterpie! Go Eevee! Go me!"

Celia continued cheering, getting all the loud out of her system before they entered the Viridian Forest proper, where anything too loud would attract hordes of angry Beedrill.

So far, she was doing very well as a trainer. She'd caught a few wild Pokemon, kicked the ass of a few trainers, and had traveled a good distance on her own. Nobody she used Eevee against had even a chance of winning. Well... except... there was her. The first person she'd matched up against, the blue haired, incredibly lucky tamer.

"I wonder how Wondergirl's doing anyway?"

xxx

Rei sneezed.

"..."

"...?"

'... right. So what happened then, Rei?'

"As I was saying, commander Ikari ordered that every remaining N2 mine in Japan be dropped within the angel."

'Wait... with his son still inside?'

"The orders were to wait until his life support would have run out, giving him a window to escape, then drop the mines in if he didn't."

'Wow. That's harsh. He could give my old man a run for his money in the 'worst parent of the year' awards. Seriously though, not one person tried to rescue the kid?'

"Rescuing pilot Ikari would have been classified as a suicide mission. My orders to protect him had already been privately rescinded, and frankly I did not like him that much. And as he escaped on his own, the matter is moot."

'How much time did he have left?'

"Approximately three and one quarter seconds."

'... Thats harsh, y'know, R...'

"...?"

'It's hatching.'

Their eyes dropped to the egg in their lap, a deep crack running down the side. The sight was almost hypnotizing to watch as it bulged out slightly and a tiny claw poked out, followed by a slightly strangled mewling noise. The crack bulged out again and a small chip of egg fell off. Then a larger one did, as more cracks spiderwebbed outwards.

Ralts hopped down from her resting place and began helping the creature escape its egg, peeling back the shell to let the desperate infant crawl through. Like all newborns, it wasn't exactly the prettiest thing in the world.

The Eevee's fur was wet with the fluids within the egg, matted directly to its skin and giving it all the appeal of your average drowned rat. Its eyes were closed and it was shivering from the cold breeze of the transporter's air conditioning. Ralts shoved the rest of the egg out of the way and to the floor and began running its tiny hands through the fur. The thick, gelatinous liquid was quickly brushed away, leaving the Eevee's fur relatively dry as it opened its eyes.

Just one clincher.

The fur, normally a muddy brown, was much softer and paler than it was supposed to be. More like an equal amount of white sand and normal dirt had been blended together, really. It had a pale glimmer to it, sparkling slightly whenever it moved. And the Eevee's eyes, rather than they typical black, were a pale, watery blue.

'Well that's interesting. I wonder what happened?'

"It is Shiny."

'That's not a familiar term to me... and the way you pronounce it makes me think it's important.'

"From what I have read, every Pokemon has a one in approximately eight thousand chance of being born with an alternate color scheme, as a Shiny Pokemon. There is no real difference between them and others except the visual, and that they can learn a greater array of techniques."

'That's nice. But what I was wondering about was why it decided to hatch now, when Jin said it would be another week at least before it did.'

"...I... do not know."

Ranma shrugged and began stroking the newborn Eevee behind the ear, an affection that it only took a moment to decide it really enjoyed. Ralts teleported back to its perch on their shoulder.

'Coincidence. This is a good thing, though... it means we don't have to waste too much time just sitting around in this backwater town and running odd jobs for the higher ups. We can just evolve Eevee, deliver the suitcase, then get the hell back to Kanto. At least I know something about that place, and I know something about Team Rocket, however outdated. I don't want to leave that until neccessary, and everyplace other than Johto has its official 'Team' of bad guys I've never heard of. Team Magma, Team Aqua, and Team Zephyr? They're apparently constantly bickering over who's top dog in the Hoenn area. Around here is Team Galactic, and all they would tell me about them was that they wanted to recreate the world in their own image. Team Snagem and the Cypher syndicate each run their respective chunks of the Orre area. Even if Team Rocket is relatively reformed, these other guys AREN'T, and I want to stay the hell out of their way for as long as possible.'

"That seems to be reasonable. However, you should consider that, as we work for Team Rocket, we may eventually be assigned a mission that brings us into close contact with these other Teams. For instance, Team Rocket has a very close working relationship with Team Snagem."

'... SHIT! I hadn't even thought about that...'

The sphere they were traveling in began vibrating at a high frequency. A signal that they were coming into real space at the end of the long-range teleportation, something like the way a pilot would suggest that passengers of an airplane fasten their seat belts before the plane began to lower altitude for a landing. Ranma was uncertain of the specifics of this form of travel, but had noted that it required four Kadabra to 'launch' the sphere towards its destination, and probably at least as many to 'catch' it at the end.

The sphere stopped vibrating, and then there was a crunching sort of noise as it set down in the landing pad.

She stood and considered sending Eevee into its designated Pokeball. Nah. It was small enough not to draw any real attention to them, and maybe it would grow faster outside the ball, like Ralts seemed to. Right now it was... she checked the dex. One percent. No, two now, her mistake. And Ralts was all the way up to nineteen. So it looked like there would be two evolutions sometime today. Neat.

The door hissed as it slid open and she stepped through.

"Ah... you've finally arrived, Grunt Ranma."

Ranma frowned. She really hated being called that... but until she was promoted to a higher level, she was stuck with it.

"Please, come with me. We need to close down the transporter room so it can be prepped for its next use. Our hold in this region is rather limited, so the facilities are rather basic, but I'm sure you won't be staying here long anyway. The only person who stays here apart from me is Associate Kaz. I see you have a delivery for him. One moment..."

The talkative girl left for a moment, then came back with a big, heavy coat.

"If you aren't used to the sort of temperatures we get in Snowpoint, then-"

"I'll be fine. Where's the temple?"

"Are you sure? It's really, really cold..."

"I said I'd be fine."

"... Alright, Grunt Ranma. It's your skin. Your frostbitten, agonizingly numb skin. The temple's outside, you can't miss it."

Ranma grunted and left with the case, effect ruined as Ralts and Eevee began snoring softly from their positions on her right shoulder and in the crook of her left arm. She opened the door and stepped out, only to realize that the girl hadn't been overexaggerating the cold. It felt like her blood was going to freeze in the veins if she held still for too long.

It was refreshing, actually. She hadn't been this cold since Genma decided it would be a good idea to make a trek through Siberia and they'd been caught in a blizzard. All they'd been wearing was rags. They'd had to find a cave and share their body heat to survive. It had been the most horrifying experience of the young Ranma's life.

She focused on her Ki reserves as she walked, focusing on spinning and whirling them madly within her body, something like a reversed 'Soul of Ice'. A Soul of Flame instead. It worked perfectly, and she could feel herself warming up. And here was the Temple.

"Hey!" Hey... ey... y... "Anybody in here?" in here... here... ere...

Nice echo. Ranma contemplated yodeling for a moment.

"Just a minute. I'm back here. What do you want?"

Ranma paced into the large room, glanced around and headed for the giant statue. There was a guy poking around near its feet with something. That would probably be Kaz. Nothing really remarkable about him... except his hair. A four inch high mohawk that turned into a long ponytail at the end. Dyed neon green.

Ranma ignored it as she held out the suitcase.

"Special delivery for Associate Kaz."

"Oh. That's what you're here for then. Put it on the table and I'll get it later. I'm busy now."

A vein popped out of Ranma's forehead at how rude this bastard was, but she set the case down before opening her mouth for a witty retaliation.

KRACKOOM!

But was interrupted by an explosion from outside. Kaz darted up and dashed for the door, frowning, and possibly worried that the ancient temple could collapse. Ranma followed somewhat slower. When she reached the exit, it wasn't just Kaz outside and staring into the air with fascination. Every person in town, it seemed, had left their houses to watch, and when she looked up she saw why.

She could only recognize one of the battling figures, but it was one that she knew well. Nobody really forgot a flying minotaur with tentacles, after all. The other...

"That's Lugia, one of Johto's legendary birds..." Kaz whispered in awe. "But what is it fighting?"

Taro was at a disadvantage in the fight, as while Lugia had no qualms with firing multicolored beams and blasts of compressed air at him, he was restricted to all he could do with his body. Granted, he could probably give superman a hard time in a wrestling match, but if he couldn't get close enough to land a hit, then what did it matter. But then he got sneaky.

On the next pass, instead of attempting to get close and attack, Taro thrust his fingers out and let loose a focused blast of ink, directly into Lugia's eyes. It screeched at its sudden blindness and Taro moved in for the finisher. But at the last possible second, Lugia cleared the vision in one eye and let loose an Aeroblast at point blank range. It would have been impossible to miss, and Taro went flying away, impacting in the ground somewhere outside of town. Lugia turned and flapped unsteadily away, victorious.

The people began muttering something about forming a search party to go see if that monstrous Pokemon was still around, and if so, to attempt to capture it so that it could be studied in depth by a qualified professor. Ranma was already halfway to the city gates.

xxx

Taro groaned as he dug himself out of the pile of dirt and snow, ears ringing. Odd... he could almost make out something like someone yelling. He rubbed at his ears to get them working again.

"... -tyhose Bastard! Where are you, Pantyhose Bastard! I know you're out here somewhere, you fishnet wearing freak!"

A huge vein extended from Taro's forehead.

"Saotome... are you quite sure that this is the best way to go about locating your... friend?"

'Oh yeah, sure. He'll be here any minute...'

Ranma blinked and seemed to slide to the side as an enormous fist slammed into the patch of snow she'd just been standing on.

'Y'see? Here he is now.'

"Attempting to do us grievous bodily harm."

'Well, yeah, but you know how it is. Can't make an omelet without cracking a few skulls and all that.'

"I believe the word you were looking for was eggs."

'You've never tried to cook an omelet in Nerima, have you.'

Taro bellowed his rage and pressed the attack as Ralts wisely teleported itself and Eevee to a nearby tree branch. Then the fight began in earnest, with the two pokemon as avid spectators.

It was actually fascinating for them to watch... the monster that was not of their brethren was huge, fast and powerful, but the red facet of the mistress was simply too swift to hit. Within a minute there was a large circle where the loose snow had been packed down into the dirt from the strikes of fist, hoof and tentacle. It was incredible. No matter what the monster did to attack, the red facet was simply not there when the blow struck. Then she decided to finish it, leaping onto its head and using it as a springboard directly into the air while she pulled out a... copper kettle?

"Strike of the boiling rain!" she cried, as her hand turned blue and she used it to spike the kettle. The metal shattered and the hot water inside hissed as it spread out and fell. Taro bellowed in horror as the steaming liquid splattered against him, his monstrous body melting down into his true form. Somehow, his clothes appeared in the process.

"How'd you like that, Pantyhose freak?"

"Nn... stupid faggot."

They glared at each other for a moment. Then tiny smirks cracked through their angry faces, followed by a snicker or two, then full blown laughter.

"Damn... It's been a while Taro. How the hell did you end up here?"

"Don't know. Dunno where 'Here' is either. Last thing I remember was back in Nerima, barging into the old freaks room. Then everything went black and I found myself falling through the air without any cold water handy. Landed in the lab of some guy named 'Willow' of all things. Of course he didn't introduce himself immediately... probably had something to do with how I busted a cold water pipe on the way down. He passed out when he saw the transformation."

"OH. That sucks. Well at least you still have both your forms."

"... You're locked, then?"

"Not quite... I'm just kinda sharing space with a girl right now."

"How's that work?"

"I'm... not really sure myself. Basically, it's hot water for her and cold water for me."

Taro whistled in sympathy.

"Sucks to be you. Anyway, once the Willow guy woke up and got a decent explanation of where I came from and the curse, he suggested hunting down some Legendary pokethings. Said that one of them might be able to put me back."

Ranma grunted.

"Well, I guess it's as likely as anything else. My original plan seems like it's probably going to be a bust, so..."

She blinked as Taro raised a finger to point over her shoulder.

"Your animal thingies are glowing."

She turned just in time to catch the tail end of the evolution process as Ralts doubled in height as a Kirlia and Eevee became Glaceon. Her eyes trailed beneath the tree, to where a large, ice covered boulder stood. How the hell had she missed that?

"Well... that was interesting." Taro said hesitantly. "But I really gotta scram. It took me hours to hunt that thing down the first time, and that was when I had some idea where it was. Now I'm gonna have to spend a long time hunting down another of those legendary thingies."

"Yeah... good luck with that."

Taro wandered off as Ranma turned back to her newly evolved Pokemon.

"Now then... let's see what you can do."

xxx

Ranma was mildly impressed. Rei had noted that and then bowed out of further assistance with the training, as battle seemed to be more Ranma's forte. She needed to arrange and edit her daily report.

Kirlia's psychic abilities had improved dramatically upon evolution. Her telekinesis could lift two and a half times the amound she could as a Ralts, and she'd picked up the Psychic attack somewhere. Far more powerful than a simple Confusion attack. Also, either her control had slipped, or she had become more able at entering minds. Where before, Ranma had just had to focus on what she wanted and hope that Ralts was listening at the time, now she could feel when Kirlia entered her mind... it was a strange sensation. Not unpleasant, simply strange... as though a silk cloth had been dipped in cool water and was running across her brain. In a few minutes, she would set her on Kata to see if she'd improved any, but there was something else first.

Glaceon was still relatively weak. She, Ranma had checked with the Pokedex as she felt uncomfortable calling any living being that she would see often an 'it', had gained an Aurora beam attack, but that was about it from the evolution. That, Tackle, Growl, and Leer were her extent of abilities. Ranma hated to call Genma useful in any fashion, but there were times where it seemed that his oceans of stupidity evaporated to reveal a seabed of genius beneath. Case in point, the Umi- and Yama-sen-ken.

And later, when he realized that Pandas were not meant to stand on their hind legs for long, and had taken off into the mountains for an entire week to figure out a way to fight in his cursed form without damaging his spine. After all, injuries inflicted passed between forms. When he'd returned, he'd developed the Shiashi style of combat, requiring the user to be on all fours. And then his stupidity had returned all in an instant as he demanded that Ranma train in this style as well. Completely forgetting that he would have all sorts of problems with it because he was not meant to walk on four legs. The Neko-ken didn't count.

However, it seemed that the Shiashi style would finally see some use. She made her mental request, and Glaceon's head jerked up as Kirlia connected their minds.

'If you can hear me, nod.'

Glaceon nodded once, slowly.

'Alright. Now, do as I do.'

Ranma dropped down to all fours and the kata began. Kirlia withdrew partially from their minds as she recieved her own instructions, and began to go through her own soft kata.

It was many hours later, near sunset, that the brutal training finally came to a close and they began to trudge back through the snowdrifts to Snowpoint.

xxx

"You were out for a while."

Ranma grunted at the thinly veiled interrogation as she sipped at a cup of hot chocolate. It was thick... very thick. If she had to guess, then she'd say that it was actually a whole lot of molten chocolate mixed with a little milk. It was wonderfully good.

As things turned out, the nosy girl was named Carol and was actually Kaz's little sister. And she seemed incapable of shutting the hell up. Not that she would actually come right out and tell her to anyway... that would be a poor action from a guest.

She just had to deal with it until she left tomorrow. First thing tomorrow. No, wait... she would have to wait for Carol to get up so that she could order the Kadabra to prepare the transporter and send a message back to Viridian to let them know to prepare things for her return. Well crap. At least in the morning she might be tired enough to keep her mouth shut while she worked.

The mug was empty, she noted. With a curt 'Good night' she rose and headed off to one of the on hand bedrooms.

xxx

A.N. Now, how many of you thought I'd forgotten about Celia? Haha... no. She's the rival, and later on she will be playing major roles. Also, for those of you who remember way back in chapter two? Yes, a good chunk of the Nerima wrecking crew is scattered all over the multiverse... Taro is just the first to make an appearance.

And anyway, I'm going to keep changing Celia's lineup according to what's available in Kanto, rather than doing what I am with Ranma/Rei and commiting to a final team right from the very beginning. The only one she'll keep is her Eevee and whatever it evolves into... probably my own invention of Draceon... while the other five slots could change at any given time. So you shouldn't be surprised if, later, she has a completely different lineup from one chapter to the next. Basically, she's going to be catching at least one of everything she sees.

Also, I recently considered the fact that Ranma would, eventually, be leaving Pokemonland. It might take a long time, and it might take twenty or more chapters of writing to get to that point, but yes, they will eventually move on. I did title this story 'Wanderer' for a reason. Now, that means that they'll be stuck with just that team of six when they leave, and there are places I might send them to that would be nice for them to have some backup. Large, intimidating backup. So, I've decided to go back on my word and pick an extra three backup Pokemon from a list.

METAGROSS. Note that if I go with this one, it will be shiny. White and gold is just more awesome than blue and gray.

AERODACTYL. Just for the intimidation factor of a giant, stone Pterodactyl.

MAGNEZONE. Because it looks like a UFO, and that's awesome.

GYARADOS. Granted, it has a REALLY HUGE and glaring weakness to electricity... but on the other hand, it's just plain HUGE and mean looking.

MISMAGIUS. Why not. Ghosts are scary, y'know?

ABSOL. Has a blade sticking out of its head. If that's not intimidating, I dunno what is.

SCYTHER. Because of its freaky blade arms.

DRAGONAIR. Is supposed to be able to affect the weather somehow. Nifty.

Now, I'm not going to use all of these. I gotta narrow them down to three selections. As there's eight there, that means five of them will be gone. They still won't be part of the main team, though. Keep in mind that these eight were selected for the intimidation factor, and not for any particular strengths or weaknesses they might have.

Now, current teams...

Ranma/Rei.

Kirlia, F, 22

Glaceon, F, 8

And Celia.

Eevee, M, 12

Rattatta, M, 6

Pidgey, F, 7

Caterpie, M, 4

So yeah, at the moment Celia would be owned in a battle with Ranma or Rei. And the Level up aura thingy will slow down as they get more powerful and stop affecting them entirely at a certain point... say... eighty or ninety percent. Just so you know.