"There is an incident of wild pokemon attacking a ship at the sea south of New Bark Town. We are going to resolve it."

That was the only information we received from our commander before we scrambled. Before we know it, we are already flying our way there. We could have teleported there with the help of psychic pokemon, but trained psychics strong enough to teleport us from our camp located near Violet City to New Bark Town in one jump are rare to come by. There wouldn't be enough of those in the 1st Regiment to bring us all to our destination.

However, I have a dragonite who is more than capable of high speed flight while carrying six people on her back. An average dragonite can circle the globe in sixteen hours by flight. We don't need a psychic to teleport us anywhere. Dragonites are extremely fast flyers, Tino can bring us to New Bark Town within a minute or two using her max speed.

"I never knew having a Flying Specialist on our team would be so convenient. I can see why the 9th is so reluctant to let you go." Rufus laughed as the harsh gusts of wind blew by our faces while Tino fly us to our mission location.

Apparently, this is the fastest form of transport to New Bark Town my team had ever experienced short of teleportation.

"Look sharp, here we are."

Our commander's words got us back at attention as we stared down below. The south of Johto faces the clear blue sea, which is where we are at now. Specifically, we are now a few kilometres down south from New Bark Town.

"Zephyr, let Torrent down and then remain in the air to help keep a lookout. Torrent, your water types will be needed."

"Don't need to tell me twice." Torrent, which is Rufus' codename, said as he released his pokemon in mid-air. His water types appeared on the sea as I let out the rest of my flying types as well. Crown grabbed onto Torrent and safely sent my teammate down to ride on one of his water types.

It is not uncommon for Rangers to bump into poachers or other criminals while on duty. Most poachers have an obvious lack of morals and have no qualms in committing murder. The last thing we need is for poachers to accidentally learn our real names and try to use that to find out where we live and harm our loved ones to get back at us. Hence, the need for codenames when we are out on the field.

The good thing is that we are allowed to pick our own codenames. Mine is Zephyr.

"A few hundred meters ahead is a ship in distress. Report has it that it is under attack from wild pokemon and they are unable to evacuate because of that. Our priority is to get all the passengers aboard it to safety. Torrent, Zephyr, you two will focus on protecting and escorting the civvies to dry land at New Bark Town. Reinforcements are currently on the way to pick the civvies up with the required transport. The rest of us will board the ship to defend it. Questions?"

"No, Sir!"

"Then let's get to it. Remember the drill."

We reached the distressed ship soon enough. Once we are there, Cremator, Venom, Nightmare, and Powergirl wasted no time in jumping down from Tino's back to land on the ship while sending out their pokemon to battle the large mass of water types. Torrent's own water types are doing a great job in holding off the group of wild water type pokemon while creating a large platform of ice on the sea to be used as a makeshift raft using ice type techniques.

"We are from the Johto Ranger Force! Please keep calm and follow the instructions to evacuate the ship! Women and children to the front, please!"

We managed to somehow maintain a sense of order among the panicking passengers despite the mayhem happening at the background. My flying types quickly picked up and deposited any passengers they found onto the raft of ice Torrent's pokemon had built. The rest of my teammates are defending the ship from harm with their pokemon.

It is in situations like this that you get to see both the bright and dark side of humanity. There are people who willingly offered others to board the raft first despite how they are obviously shaking in their boots in fear. There are also those who adamantly insisted that they should be the first to board the raft, and 'Do-you-know-who-I-am?' is a common phrase often spouted from their mouths.

As a Ranger, it is my duty to save lives, but unsurprisingly, I always made sure that these people are always the last to make their escape. I always do like to see these type of people squirm a little in fear.

"Something's not fucking right with these pokemon!" I heard Nightmare, which is Adam's codename, yelling through the comms as he battled the pokemon attacking the ship. "Sir! I don't think these are wild pokemon! They act too fucking trained to be one!"

"Test it! Try to catch one of them!"

There was a grunt and the sound of several crashes through the comms.

"Pokeballs don't work! Sir, this isn't your usual search and rescue operation! This is a planned attack on the ship! We need to call in the STAR forces!"

There were several mentions of "FUCK!" through the comms. If this is a planned attack, then the nature of this mission changes. Even if the Ranger Force are made up of trainers, Rangers don't find themselves in combat with other trainers often. Most of the combat we faced are against wild pokemon, who are often less trained and less skilled than those trained by trainers. Protection, prevention, and rescue are the things that Rangers will be concerned with. Combat is not our specialty even if there are many of us who are good at it. The only time we fight against trainers is if we are stopping Pokemon Poachers. Anything that is combat related are often delegated to the STAR forces, which are the Indigo's equivalent of the special forces.

"Torrent! Zephyr! Venom! Get the passengers out of here NOW!"

"On it!" Torrent and I yelled out in affirmation as Jacky, whose code name is Venom, jumped from the ship and landed on the ice raft with a roll to break his fall. The rest of them have their own means to escape the ship if the need arises, so we shouldn't worry too much about them. What we should be worried about are the passengers. Assuming that this is a planned attack and not a random one, then there are only two reasons why anyone would attack the ship.

Either there is something on the ship valuable enough for an attack of this scale to be staged on it, or the target are the passenger(s) themselves. We will find out soon.

"Incoming!" I heard Powergirl, which is Amy's code name on the field, yelling through the comms as she warned us of a new threat. "Four o'clock direction! Flock of flying types heading your way, Venom! You three need to get to dry land ASAP! You are all sitting psyducks!"

"I'm staying on the raft to defend the civvies!" Venom shout a reply back through our comms. "Torrent! Get your pokemon to pick up the speed! Zephyr, I'm counting on you!"

"Leave it to me!" I yelled out from where I am riding on Crown's back as Torrent's pokemon started to hurry and push the raft of ice towards New Bark Town at a faster speed. Crown is my starter and the most agile flyer on my pokemon team. The rest of my pokemon hovered in the air in a V formation, ready to face the dark cloud of flying pokemon approaching us from afar.

I spotted the pidgey line, spearow line, zubat line, butterfrees, ledyba line, murkrow line, and the exotic wingull and ducklett line among others. It's like someone just gathered a random congregation of pokemon that has wings and can fly and simply throw them all here to fight us.

I also spotted a few fully evolved dragons in the mix. At the very least, I spotted two salamences and an altaria. Someone really wants someone dead or something gone for them to send fully evolved dragons after us.

"Tino, Echo, get the dragons! The rest of you, take the rest of the flock out of the air as fast as you can! Let's go!"

With a collective war cry, my team charged into battle with me on Crown's back.

"Emi, Cosmo, Hawk!"

The three new members of my team who had only joined us two weeks ago shortly after I was posted to the 1st Regiment swiftly took down a flock of fearows near us. I chose an emolga, sigilyph, and hawlucha from the League's pokemon reserves to add to my team because 1) I don't have members on my team yet with their secondary typing and 2) They are small enough to fight effectively in enclosed spaces should I ever find myself in that scenario. The three of them are not yet up to par with the rest of my team, but they are good enough to be used on the field.

Things were going well for us, as well as things can get after we found out that this is more than a simple search and rescue operation. There is definitely going to be a big investigation to be conducted later.

I see Echo and Tino teaming up to take down the evolved dragons within the flock of enraged flying types. Some of the feral pokemon that attacked us managed to get through me and my team and head towards the ice raft, but it is nothing that Venom and Torrent couldn't handle.

It was about five minutes in that I realised something odd.

"Guys! Not all of the flying types are trained! Most of them should be wild pokemon! Just take down the leader and the rest should disperse!"

Such a method is a common tactic used by trainers in the olden days to control a large number of pokemon. They either capture the leader of the pack of wild pokemon or train a pokemon from scratch to later use it to lead a group of wild pokemon of the same species. By controlling the leader of the pack, trainers themselves effectively control the pack of wild pokemon as well. However, the downside is that once the leader of the pack is brought down, the pack usually disperse as fast as they came.

In our case, that is one thing we can exploit.

And then, one of the most ferocious roars I had ever heard reached my ears.

Another feral flying type made its appearance known as a small grey speck in the sky before quickly getting bigger and bigger as it approached us. My eyes widened in disbelief and I can feel my heartbeat quickened at the sight of the newcomer. I had only seen drawings or 3D models of its species before because such a pokemon should have been extinct.

"Crown, duck!"

Crown managed to swerve right out of the way just as a Hyper Beam was fired from that pokemon, indiscriminately frying any pokemon unfortunate enough to get caught in the crossfire, uncaring if it were friend or foe. That Hyper Beam had some serious firepower packed into it.

"Guys?! I know this sounds unbelievable but-" I was cut off when Crown suddenly took a sharp turn to fly higher into the air to escape the pursuit being launched on us by the newest player into the game. Great, we had somehow got its attention and it is now hot on our literal tail.

"Zephyr?! This is Cremator! Come in!"

"THERE'S A FUCKING AERODACTYL HOT ON MY TAIL!"

That was the last thing I managed to scream out before Crown started to do a series of quick aerial manoeuvres to escape the ferocious aerodactyl, who is also a surprisingly quick and agile flyer despite its size as it snapped its jaws savagely. I took this time to hurry and check on the status of the rest of my pokemon team. Tino and Echo are still busy with trying to put down the enemy dragons and the rest of my team are also being held up by the rest of the flock of enraged flying types.

It is just me and Crown against the crazy aerodactyl, and typing wise, Crown is the least-suited candidate I have in facing against a rock-flying dual-type.

"Alright, not the worst odds that we had faced before." I muttered to myself to clear my mind before speaking to Crown.

"Crown, we need to get that aerodactyl away from the raft."

My pidgeot and starter crowed out an acknowledgement as we steadily flew higher and away from the raft, doing our best to lure the aerodactyl to go after us instead. Everytime the aerodactyl started to lose interest in us, Crown would fire an Air Slash or Air Cutter to make sure its attention is still on us and the chase will continue. Aerodactyl is starting to see us as its greatest threat, and is slowly ignoring everything else just to hunt us down. This is slowly working out in our favour.

It is obvious about two minutes into the scuffle that Crown might not be able to beat that aerodactyl in a contest of speed with me on his back, so it now all boils down to a matter of skill. Thankfully, the only ranged attacks aerodactyl seems to know are Ancient Power and Hyper Beam, which is easy to avoid if you know the signs to look out for.

Crown folded his wings and did a barrel roll in mid-air to avoid another Ancient Power fired our way. The aerodactyl tried to maul us with its jaws with a Crunch, but Crown pulled off a Double Team that left an afterimage behind, confusing the aerodactyl long enough for us to safely pull away.

"Hurricane!"

With a single flap of his massive wings, Crown conjured and slammed a raging hurricane right at the aerodactyl, dealing our first big attack onto the behemoth. The aerodactyl emerged from the attack relatively unscathed. It being a rock type eliminated a lot of possible options Crown could use. With me on his back, Crown is also fighting against the aerodactyl with a severe handicap.

The aerodactyl tried to nail us with Supersonic, which Crown easily dispersed with an Air Slash before flying out of the way once more when aerodactyl came charging right at us. I was about to bark out another command when Glide came into the picture with a Metal Claw, taking some of the aggro away from Crown and I when Glide landed his attack right on aerodactyl's head.

"Good job, Glide! Thunder Fang! Clip its wings!"

My gliscor chomped down on aerodactyl's left wing with a massive discharge of electricity. The aerodactyl screamed in pain as it tried to use its jaws and claws to get Glide off its wing, but Crown fired accurate shots of Air Slashes that disrupted its every attempt. The aerodactyl spiralled down towards the sea with Glide latching onto its wing. With one of its wings disabled by Glide, it had already lost its ability to fly.

First rule when dealing against flying types: Always try to clip their wings.

There was a shot of Dragon Pulse fired from a distance that hit the aerodactyl squarely in its abdomen, dealing another burst of substantial damage. Echo, my noivern, flew right in and started to assist Glide by bombarding the aerodactyl with an assortment of ranged attacks. The aerodactyl is losing its ability to fight back, but it is not as quick as I would like it to be.

We need to really hurry and contain the aerodactyl before things spiral out of control and the prehistoric pokemon somehow managed to land a lucky shot on the raft, which isn't that far away to reach for a flying type. All it takes is a single slip up and the results could be disastrous. Aerodactyls are known to be the king of the skies in their prehistoric era for a reason.

"Crown, after it!"

Crown folded his wings and did a sharp nosedive as we chased after the falling aerodactyl.

Prehistoric pokemon are supposed to be extinct. While the Fossil Revival Technology had already been invented and there are already living revived fossil pokemon roaming the earth, seeing a prehistoric pokemon running around is still a very rare sight due to the astronomical cost of reviving one. Furthermore, all known prehistoric pokemon are being held in trainer captivity because they are either revived from fossils by trainers who wished to add them into their team, or revived by scientists to conduct further studies on them.

There really shouldn't be one running amok like this in the wild.

I'm not sure if the aerodactyl is already registered by a pokeball or not, but I guess we will soon find out. Capturing it will be the safest approach to contain the highly aggressive pokemon. If capture fails, then I will have to find a way to somehow disable it long enough until we get the civilians to safety.

"Echo, Water Pulse! Glide, paralyse it with Thunder Fang! I'm going to try and capture it!"

The aerodactyl is still free falling towards the sea with Glide's jaws firmly chomped on its wing. Echo hit the aerodactyl with a blast of water at the same time Glide released another massive discharge of electricity, weakening the aerodactyl further as it thrashed about in the air.

I primed an empty pokeball in my right hand as Crown continue to dive down after the aerodactyl, quickly closing the distance between us. The moment Glide's jaws let go of aerodactyl's wing, I threw the pokeball at the prehistoric pokemon.

Come on, please work. Please let it work. Let this aerodactyl be a wild pokemon or we are so screwed.

The pokeball stopped fidgeting soon after aerodactyl was sucked into the pokeball, signalling its successful capture. I managed to catch aerodactyl's pokeball with my outstretched hand and Crown immediately did a sharp U turn to pull us up back into the air again. From the quick glance of my surroundings, I think things have settled down somewhat. Most of the flying types in that huge flock had dispersed or had been defeated by the rest of my pokemon during our scuffle with the aerodactyl.

I radioed my commander as my pokemon finished up with their respective battles before hovering in the air beside me and Crown.

"Cremator? This is Zephyr. The prehistoric threat has been neutralised. It is a wild pokemon, surprisingly enough. I had captured it."

"This is Cremator. Copy that. We had also just finished up and we are on our way to regroup with Torrent and Venom. Race you there. Torrent and Venom, I need a sitrep on your side."

"This is Venom. There is no casualty on our side. The transport sent in by reinforcements had already arrived. I had also enlisted the help of the ship's captain and confirmed that all the passengers onboard are accounted for. Torrent and I are escorting the transport on their way to New Bark Town. I can already see dry land."

"Something is really fucking wrong if there was really an Arceus-to-honest aerodactyl flying around shooting Hyper Beams here on the freaking sea. Zephyr, are you sure you aren't seeing things?"

"You want me to set the aerodactyl on your ass, Nightmare?" I quipped back at Adam as my flying types finally spotted the rescue ship Venom was talking about. They automatically split up to circle around the ship in the skies above, flying in a formation that can allow them to quickly protect the civilians on it at the slightest hint of danger.

"YES! Please do that!" Powergirl's excited voice rang through the earpiece we wore on our ears.

"I can video the entire thing." Torrent offered.

"I can provide the popcorn when we watch the video." Venom added.

"All of you should just crawl into a ditch and die."

"Don't be a spoilsport, Mr Edgy." Cremator's voice drawled out just as a humongous charizard flew parallel to Crown, gliding in the air beside us on our right. Powergirl and Cremator rode on its back, and I returned the thumbs up I saw Powergirl sending my way.

"With all due respect, Sir, my codename is Nightmare." A hydreigon flew on my left with Nightmare as its rider.

"Could have fooled us all with how edgy you are." Torrent laughed from where he is on the ship with Venom. His water types are swimming alongside the ship at a leisurely pace with him riding on his feraligatr.

"Shut the fuck up, water hose."

"Commander, permission to allow Zephyr to set the aerodactyl on Nightmare's ass right now."

"YES! I TOTALLY WANT TO SEE THAT!"

"I second that, Sir."

"Sir, can I?" I added cheekily.

"I heard you, people, but if you are the aerodactyl, will you want to bite Edgy's stinky ass? Let's be considerate people, yeah?"

There was the sound of grinding teeth through the comms. One guess as to who it came from.

"Fuck off, shitheads."


Name: Skye Bale, 16, Female

Known affiliation: Indigo Ranger Force, Johto Region, 9th Ranger Regiment, 1st Ranger Regiment

Rank: Staff Sergeant

Code Name: Zephyr

Pokemon Team:

1. Pidgeot (Crown), male

2. Gliscor (Glide), male

3. Skarmory (Dia), female

4. Crobat (Beats), male

5. Jumpluff (Cotton), female

6. Dragonite (Tino), female

7. Noivern (Echo), male

8. Emolga, (Emi), female

9. Hawlucha (Hawk), male

10. Sigilyph (Cosmo), female

11. Aerodactyl

Name: Jacky Marsh, 19, Male

Known affiliation: Indigo Ranger Force, Johto Region, 1st Ranger Regiment

Rank: First Lieutenant

Code Name: Venom

Pokemon Team:

1. Scolipede

2. Crobat

3. Tentacruel

4. Nidoking

5. Skuntank

6. Venasaur

7. Toxicroak

8. Weezing

9. Dragalge

10. Beedrill

Name: Amy Rose, 17, Female

Known affiliation: Indigo Ranger Force, Johto Region, 1st Ranger Regiment

Rank: Sergeant First Class

Code Name: Powergirl

Pokemon Team:

1. Furret

2. Pidgeot

3. Lopunny

4. Ursaring

5. Wigglytuff

6. Exploud

7. Blissey

8. Tauros

9. Miltank

10. Cinccino

Name: Adam Clive, 20, Male

Known affiliation: Indigo Ranger Force, Johto Region, 1st Ranger Regiment

Rank: Sergeant First Class

Code Name: Nightmare

Pokemon Team:

1. Houndoom

2. Honchkrow

3. Umbreon

4. Weavile

5. Shiftry

6. Sableye

7. Greninja

8. Hydreigon

9. Pangoro

10. Krookodile

Name: Rufus Grandell, 21, Male

Known affiliation: Indigo Ranger Force, Johto Region, 1st Ranger Regiment

Rank: Master Sergeant

Code Name: Torrent

Pokemon Team:

1. Poliwrath

2. Kingdra

3. Dewgong

4. Gyarados

5. Feraligatr

6. Slowking

7. Crawdaunt

8. Floatzel

9. Jellicent

10. Golisopod

Name: Pyral Furnes, 38, Male

Known affiliation: Indigo Ranger Force, Johto Region, 1st Ranger Regiment

Rank: Lieutenant Colonel

Code Name: Cremator

Pokemon Team:

1. Typhlosion

2. Arcanine

3. Charizard

4. Magmortar

5. Magcargo

6. Alolan Marowak

7. Torkoal

8. Infernape

9. Emboar

10. Pyroar

11. Chandelure