A year had passed in the Academy, and Sora was one the first list of people to graduate. Apparently Daniel's report on how he handled the mischievous Pokémon (it was only listed on the official reports that only level five or above Rangers could get to protect the two) and how it was Sora who discovered the truth had given him the right push for early graduation.

Because of his age, he would still have a human partner with him at all times, even when he got his Pokémon partner.

"Eager to get a partner Pokémon Sora?"

"Somewhat. I'm kinda hoping to get one that flies," he admitted.

It was a common joke among the Rangers and the trainees that Sora always had his head in the clouds, which was why his name meant 'sky'.

Another joke was that he was always shooting for the stars, which was why his last name was registered as Hoshino.

(Hoshino Sora= Hoshi (Star) no (of) Sora (Sky). In other words Starry Sky, or the best translation I can make at the moment. Get it?)

"That reminds me...anyone know what happened to those two Pokémon?" asked Sora.

Rory winced. Sora honed in on him with concern.

"That rich punk who got tricked tried to burn down the forest. Apparently the Zoroark you encountered used to be one of his Pokémon, but it escaped and destroyed it's Pokéball. Daniel was barely able to get the baby out in time."

"Where's Zorua now?"

"In the kennel where we keep the partner Pokémon too young to survive outside the school. Apparently it's refusing to eat," said Rory.

Sora immediately went to the kennel and found the baby Zorua. The second it saw him, it barked.

Sora gently rubbed it's fur.

"Easy there little one."

"I don't believe it. That little fox has been refusing to come near humans for nearly a week! Why's it so attached to you?"

"Because it knew me from before. I was the one who found out it was Zoroark causing all those incidents, and she let me pet her baby before the attack. It associates me with good things, since it's mother wasn't afraid of me like the other humans," explained Sora.

"I'm going to talk to the professors about this," said Rory.

A few hours later Sora was given the Zorua infant as his partner, since he was the only one it would go near and would allow to feed it.

They had a psychic-type confirm Sora's thoughts on why it trusted him.

Since Zoroark hadn't chased him off, the baby thought this human was safe to be around. It didn't hurt that Sora was so young himself. According to some of the older Rangers, the Zorua's mother had realized Sora was barely grown himself, that coupled with his actions had her label him not a threat to her or her child.

Sora stepped on the podium, the baby Zorua on his shoulder like a bird Pokémon would. He would be turning eleven soon, and already he had a headache waiting for him once he left the Academy.

Apparently the rich brat who killed Zoroark had learned the infant it was protecting was still alive, and had demanded that the Union hand it over.

Having it registered as Sora's Pokémon partner had stopped most of it, but the kid wasn't relenting one bit. Due to the fact he was a new Ranger, it was unlikely Sora would be able to keep Zorua away from the creep.

Receiving his certificate (making him a full Ranger, along with a proper styler) he walked down proudly and sat next to Rory, who was also graduating.

"So which station they put you in?"

"Yet to be decided, thanks to this mess with that rich brat. The Union is still trying to get him banned from the League, but it's slow going because he has lawyers," said Sora sourly.

"Too bad. I doubt the League will be able to get Zorua away from you...he is your partner after all!"

"Yeah. I just wish that Zorua hadn't lost his mom because of a human," said Sora sadly.

Sora was in a relatively small Ranger Base (he was placed in an out of a way one to keep the brat from finding him until it was all over) when he noticed something odd.

"Is that a Noctowl with a letter in it's claws?" he asked bewildered.

Ranger captain Micheal looked outside.

"That doesn't look like any Noctowl or Hoothoot I've ever seen. Not even the Shiny breed look like that!"

When the bird landed, it gave Sora a dirty look.

"Harry Potter? Who the heck is that?"

They left the mystery for later as there had been reports of a Mew nearby. Normally they wouldn't care, but the sad fact was that whenever a rare or legendary Pokémon was spotted, trainers had the bad habit of destroying their surroundings trying to catch it.

One of the unspoken jobs of a Pokemon Ranger was to repair the damage done by trainers.

So they had to find Mew and hopefully see if they could persuade it to go elsewhere, where it would be someone else's problem.

They didn't need a legendary Pokémon on top of dealing with the mess that had already been dropped on Sora.

"Mew~"

"There it is!" said Sora.

"Alright. Sora, you capture it and explain the situation," said Mike.

Mainly because he had the strangest feeling Sora had to do it.

"Capture on!"

Sora looped his styler around fifty times (not in a row, because Mew kept breaking the circle) and didn't notice that the line had started to change colors with each successful loop.

"Mew~!" cried the tiny pink cat.

It's job was done, which was to pass on a rare gift from Giratina, since Mew could roam around a lot more discreetly than the Pokémon who ruled the Distortion World could.

A few days later, more creatures who greatly resembled Noctowl and Hoothoot kept showing up. But Sora had other worries.

"Mike, my styler's acting funny. I mean the lines it makes are the wrong color!"

"Show me," he said.

Sora looped his styler around a random Zigzagoon, and the colors were prismatic, not light blue as they were supposed to be.

"Now that is strange. I better call Professor Hastings!"

Professor Hastings came four days later with news.

"It appears that Sora's styler has been given a very rare type of energy. All my analysis say that it closely resembles that of Giratina."

"Seriously?" said Sora.

"I believe Mew may have come here to give you a piece of it's power, though why I have no idea."

"Maybe because of those weird Noctowls and Hoothoots outside?" said Mike dryly.

Professor Hastings looked and saw the birds, though they clearly weren't Noctowls or Hoothoots.

"Oh my! Why didn't you contact us sooner! Those poor owls must be terribly frustrated!" said Hastings.

"What are 'owls'?" asked Sora.

"It's a rather unusual phenomena in our world. Every so often creatures called 'owls' appear to deliver special letters to young children to teach them how to control an odd power called magic. The thing is, those children have to pass through Giratina's Distortion World to get to the one that lives side-by-side ours. From what I can tell, Sora is one of those lucky children who can pass through it to the other dimension."

"Can I come back to this one?" he asked.

"Of course you can! Why else would the Ranger Union know so much about it? We're the ones in charge of patrolling the breech and regulating who comes here. Believe me, we've had some trouble in the past when ordinary wizards show up trying to run the place," said Hastings.

They had to go find Palkia and Dialga to fix the portal so that only those who knew what the Distortion world really was could come through. As wizards tended to think of Pokémon as lesser creatures, Giratina usually kicked them out.

Sora whooped with joy and Zeke (Zorua) barked with laughter as they flew on the Dragonite Bus to the Union Headquarters. Because they were going with Professor Hastings, they were allowed to see it despite the fact they had never been there before.

The requirement of the Dragonite Bus was that you had to know what the place looked like for them to take you there. And telling them from a picture wasn't good enough, as many rookie trainers learned the hard way.

Finally they landed, and Sora looked somewhat disappointed that the ride had ended.

"A fan of heights? You'll probably love the other side...those wizards have found a way to fly on brooms of all things," said Hastings with amusement.

"Here now, don't tell me they actually agreed to hand over that Zorua!" said one of the rangers in disbelief.

"Certainly not! But we may have found a way to keep them both from being found until the case is over," said Hastings.

"He a Potential then?" said the older Ranger.

"Apparently. There were a great many owls hanging around the Ranger Station he was at," said Hastings.

"What did they all say?"

"Harry Potter."

"Ah. In that case we better check with the goblins and get this sorted out straight away, or else we'll have a bigger headache later," said the older Ranger knowingly. He had a grimace on his face when he heard the name.

Sora was told to wait with the other 'potentials', which was the name given to all possible wizard candidates. Ever since the rift opened thirty years ago, Rangers have kept an eye out for magical potential so they could head off the owls. It saved them a headache of dealing with calls about birds who clearly weren't Pokémon in the areas. As Rangers they wanted to limit the damage of a non-native species in the world.

"Hey! My name's Joseph, what's yours?" asked a trainer.

"Sora. And this is Zeke."

"Cool, a Zorua! How'd you catch him?"

"I'm a Ranger, not a trainer. His mom was killed by this greedy trainer and since I was the only one it would warm up to, they assigned him as my partner," said Sora. Zeke barked in agreement, nuzzling his partner. As far as Zeke was concerned, Sora was his big brother.

"Ouch. I have one like that too, an Eevee. Poor little guy was being chased by one of them evil organizations bent on controlling Pokémon, and I rescued him. I had to dodge attempts to steal him when I was picked up by a Ranger and told I had the 'potential' to be a magical. I figure a few years out of my journey isn't going to kill me, and this way Evans and I can be safe while we get stronger."

"Did you say you're a ranger candidate?" spoke up a girl nearby. She was wearing the fake-ranger uniform, for those who wanted to be one, but had yet to pass the exam.

"No, I'm an actual ranger. I got lucky and was allowed to graduate the Academy early, but because of Zeke's mom being killed by her previous owner, I was sent to an out of the way Station until the mess could be sorted out."

"How old are you?" she asked, staring. He looked about the same age as she was!

"I'm eleven," said Sora grinning.

She blinked, then shook her head.

"Where are my manners. I'm Cindy."

"Sora Hoshino. What?"

"The same Sora Hoshino who graduated at the top of his class when he just turned eleven? The one who all the older Rangers are watching to see what you do next?" she asked with stars in her eyes.

"Um...yes?" said Sora.

"How do you know all that?"

"I'm a hacker, and this is my future partner Digit," she said simply, pulling out an old Pokéball. Inside was a Porygon2.

"You can't bring a Pokémon and expect it to be your partner. And the only ones allowed in the Academy are the ones that have been there for years or those like Zeke...too young to fend for themselves."

"I thought Pokémon Rangers who have already made a bond could bring theirs with them?" she said wide eyed. Sora shook his head.

"You aren't allowed to have a bonded Pokémon in the school unless it can't fend for itself. Zeke had to stay in the kennels where they keep the Pokémon who have already bonded but can't handle their surroundings until the trainee graduates. It cuts down on the fighting," explained Sora.

"Aw...and Digit was hoping to see the school with me," she said.

"Well Porygon2 is a mostly digital Pokémon, so you might be able to get away with it living in the computer they have in the rooms so long as your roommates don't give you up. But then again if you explain to the teachers they might let you get away with it. None of my roommates had a Pokémon in there so I wouldn't know."

Suddenly one of the older Rangers came in.

"Alright kiddies, now my name is Ranger Richard, and I'll be your escort. Keep in mind that this is an entirely different world than ours, so those of you with Pokéballs, please put away your Pokémon for now. Those of you who are Rangers, or Ranger candidates, keep your partners hidden, if you can. The existence of our world isn't that well known, and we would like to keep it that way to avoid problems," said Richard.

One of the potentials raised their hand.

"Yes?"

"Why can't we have our Pokémon out, and why are Rangers the ones who take us there."

"The answer to your first question is simple. Past the Distortion World, where Giratina rules, there are no Pokémon. Now before any of you freak out, or start missing home, there is a rift that leads right back to the Distortion World and we have sign posts with the permission of Giratina that lead you back to the Ranger Union. Secondly, it was decided by the Elite Four and the Head of the Union at the time that Rangers, who work to keep the balance of nature in our world should be the ones to take the children to and from the other side, because we have experience and our capture stylers draw less attention than say, a rampaging Charizard. Now, there are magical creatures on the other side, and part of our agreement is that you all get a copy of the book that has most of the information in it for free on your first year through. I would advise that you read the book and make a note on the danger section as to how difficult it will be to come across them. We also have a second book that some of our more...enthusiastic members have made to compare these creatures to their Pokémon equivalent. You'll have to buy it though, and they cost a thousand Pokédollars."

Hearing this was sanction by not only the Elite Four (the very people most trainers dreamed of beating in a battle), but the head of the Ranger Union meant that this was a very serious matter.

"Also, I would like to remind you that should you get a pet, which according to tradition will be either an owl (he held up a picture of a bird that resembled Noctowl and Hoothoot), a cat (here he had a picture of a Meowth) or a toad (he held up a final picture of Politoad), that you should remember that they are not native animals in this world, and you should keep track of their actions at all times, or the Rangers will be asking questions and making you do paperwork."

That got many of the children to wince, and none of them enjoyed paperwork. Sora was one of the few who didn't, as he could care less. He had joined the Ranger Academy at an age where many would start their journeys, and had gotten used to doing homework.

"Everyone have their team in their Pokéballs? Rangers, remember to keep your partners out of sight for the moment," Richard called. Several flares of red, signaling the return of the Pokémon that had been let out, and they made their way through the Rift.

Technically there were openings in the Rift near places that had reflective qualities, mostly mirrors and clear lakes. But this was the most stable one and it only opened during a certain period of time in this specific place.

Giratina, the Pokémon that controlled the openings, had a deal with the Rangers so that they could come through with the potentials each year.

How, no one really knew, but it was a mystery that many have tried to figure out.