With this chapter, we return to Sango and see just what she's getting up to as a pokemon ranger working under Petal Green!
TREBOR.E: That's an interesting idea…
KedharS: Indeed, it's quite rough having a childhood friend who knows all your secrets.
Just a Bad Writer for Fun: That would make sense, and be pretty in character.
Hellraiserphoenix: She's not back for good, just to get a look at the new competition.
JoshGamerV: Sadly she's only back for a little while. It's good to use her sparingly.
Pokemon Academy: Beginning of Beginnings
Chapter 164
"Silver! Use sunny day!" Sango shouted.
"Castform!" Silver cried, sending a light up into the sky. The sun's rays intensified, heating up the air. Sango was standing on the bank of a large river, Silver floating above the water ahead of her. A large red Crawdaunt was plowing through the water, charging straight for her. The wild pokemon had been occupied with tearing apart a portion of fencing on the opposite shore, but Sango and Silver had drawn his attention with some well-placed ember attacks.
"Now, fire poke assist!" Sango shouted. She held her arm up, and turned on her capture styler. Dressed in an official ranger outfit of orange shorts and a shirt over a black jumpsuit, Sango was looking every bit the part of a professional ranger, styler included. Silver's body began shining and he transformed into his sunny form, a blast of flames erupting from his mouth and spiraling around the capture styler launched from Sango's wrist. The blazing disk spun through the air and arced towards the water pokemon, wrapping around his body. Although it was a water type, which would normally resist the flames, the intense sunlight greatly strengthened the assist, steam erupting from the crawfish pokemon's wet body he began to cook.
"Craaaaw!" Crawdaunt howled, the water around him becoming unbearably hot. The pokemon flung himself onto the shore, panting, and lunged at Sango. Sango leapt back, keeping out of the pokemon's reach, and flicked her wrist. The styler turned back and shot at the Crawdaunt from behind, looping in front of his eyes and blinding him with sparks of flame, before wrapping around him a few more times. Distracted by the attacks, the Crawdaunt thrashed around desperately, Sango looking closely at his movements.
"I know you're feeling hot out, Crawdaunt, but hold on just a little longer," Sango called. "I'm not trying to hurt you, but I need you to calm down!"
Crawdaunt are excessively aggressive and violent, Sango remembered. With no wild pokemon in the area to work off its aggression, it's attacking the farms on the outskirts, meaning the best way to calm it down is to wear it down!
"Silver!" Sango shouted. "Use your flamethrower to really start cooking him!"
"Castform!" Silver nodded, opening his mouth and firing a blast of flames. In a combination of Sango's styler and Silver's flames, the Crawdaunt was engulfed in a tornado of fire that seared his body. When the flames died down, Crawdaunt collapsed, singed but mostly unharmed.
"Okay, Silver, use rain dance to put out the flames," Sango ordered. "Then, cool him down so we can help him heal up."
Silver nodded and energy shot out of his body, clouds gathering overhead. A drizzle of water fell from the sky, extinguishing any remain flames and helping salve the Crawdaunt. Silver floated over to the weakened pokemon and began blowing on him, the cold air soothing the water pokemon's burns. Sango walked over to the Crawdaunt and knelt down next to him, placing a gentle hand on his carapace. Now that she had properly conveyed her feelings and stopped the violent pokemon's rampage, there was nothing to worry about anymore.
"Sorry, I had to hurt you a little," Sango apologized. "But it was the only way to get you to calm down. I'll bring you back to our headquarters to get you looked after, and then we'll relocate you to an area where you can interact with other pokemon."
"Craw…" Crawdaunt weakly replied, looking up at her.
She gave the Crawdaunt a winning smile.
"You won't have to settle for picking fights with wood fences anymore," she giggled, helping the large pokemon stand up. "Let's get you settled back home."
The Crawdaunt nodded, following after Sango as she walked parallel to the river and over the large hills and flat plains of farmland that made up most of Turffield Town. The sky cleared up and Silver returned to his normal form. Sango looked up and took a deep breath, smelling the crisp air of fresh grass after the rain. While she had lived in many places due to her father's travels, she had spent most of her life in Castelia City; she was a city girl at heart, and the relaxed, calming atmosphere of rural farm life was something she had not gotten completely used to. She'd come to Galar, and Turffield, exactly one week ago with her practicum supervisor Petal Green. On the boat ride here, she'd been nervous. She hadn't done official ranger work before, and from what she'd heard of it, she expected to be helping with disaster relief for earthquakes or forest fires, or dealing with large pokemon storming through towns and causing untold havoc. Compared to her lofty expectations, the job thus far had been so… quaint.
Not that there was anything wrong with that, of course. But most of her daily duties consisted of shadowing Petal on patrols, (where next to nothing was found to be wrong) filing reports (detailing extensively the nothing that occurred) and helping with small repairs such as a broken fences or the occasional busted sign. Sometimes, a wild pokemon would stray a little too close to town, and it was their job to scare it back into the wild area. The Crawdaunt attack was the most exciting thing she'd had to deal with on this assignment, and she was happy that Petal had decided to let her handle it herself.
Okay, truthfully, Petal had assigned her to patrol the area on her own, and she had just gotten lucky to run into the aggressive pokemon, but that didn't sound as impressive. Still, Sango appreciated the gesture. She'd heard that practicums differed for each student depending on the ranger base they were stationed at. Some supervising rangers were cautious around student rangers, keeping them on a tight leash because they didn't trust them not to hurt themselves. Others she had heard treated their student interns as a nuisance, having them fill out forms and fetch coffee, not even treating them with the bare minimum of professional courtesy for someone trying to become a pokemon ranger. She was quite grateful not to end up working with one of those kinds. Comparatively, Petal treated her like a fully-fledged (if very new) pokemon ranger, even compared to the actual rangers who were also stationed in town. If Sango was afforded any special privileges or extra oversight, she didn't notice it. Just by observing how she was treated by Petal and the others, if one didn't know better they would think that Sango was every bit as much of a ranger as the rest of them. There were good host rangers and bad host rangers, and from what she could tell, Petal seemed to be one of the good ones.
But darn, did she really have to be assigned to such a provincial area? To say nothing happened here would be putting it mildly. Sango frowned, and internally reproached herself for her thinking. Was she really hoping that something dangerous would happen just to make her life interesting? She should be happy that everything was so peaceful in this part of Galar! But still, Sango had wanted to be a ranger so that she could make a difference. And was she really making a difference out here, where all she was doing was patrolling the borders of the town, herding Wooloo back onto their farms and chasing off the occasional Meowth?
"Hey! It's the pokemon ranger!"
Sango turned her head to see a little girl in red braided pigtails on the other side of the river, standing on the lower rung of the wood fence around the perimeter of the adjoining farm. Her freckled face was pulled into a smile, and even at this distance, Sango could see the admiration shining in her eyes. The overalls-wearing farmgirl waved to her and jumped down, running along the fence in parallel with Sango. A small Yamper followed on her heels, yapping cheerfully.
Sango smiled, and waved back at the girl.
"Ranger! Ranger!" The girl, who Sango vaguely remembered to be named Lucy, called. "You stopped the Crawdaunt?"
"Yup!" Sango replied, nodding her head. She held the hand with her styler up to forehead in an exaggerated salute, putting her other hand on her waist to do an exaggerated pose. "It's mission clear!"
"Castform!" Silver said, floating beside Sango's head and giving a confident smile that mimicked his partner.
"Wow! That's so cool!" Lucy cheered, her eyes shining with awe as she applauded. Sango gave her a wink. "Thank you, ranger!"
"I don't need your thanks," Sango replied. "It's my job to help you with your problems!"
Sango and the girl parted ways with a wave, Sango heading back toward the center of the farming town. Hearing the girl's words of gratitude warmed her chest, and her previous doubts were pushed aside. It might not be very glamorous, and maybe she wasn't helping as many people as she might have liked, but there was no way she wasn't making a difference.
Sango returned to the small building that made up the headquarters of the rangers assigned to the area. She headed inside, leading the wary Crawdaunt in with her.
"I'm back from patrol," Sango declared. The local ranger base was rather small, set up more like a lodge than a base of operations, even down to the furnishings. It reminded her a little of the common rooms back at Bulbasaur Dorm. Besides her and Petal, there were only two other rangers stationed in Turffield. One of them was Scott, a laid back guy with wavy brown hair and green eyes that always seemed to be laughing at something. His clothes were rumpled, and he had a perpetual scruff of stubble that he never shaved. His partner pokemon was a chunky Skovet, sitting on the tile floor and chewing away at a berry. The other trainer was a pale girl named Haley with short black hair and sparkling blue eyes. Opposite to Scott, she was the appearance to staunch professionalism, her uniform carefully pressed and her face sharp and clear. At her side was her partner pokemon, a Dottler.
"Yo, what's up?" Scott yawned, waving to Sango. "The boss is in her office."
"Oh!" Haley's eyes widened as she spotted the Crawdaunt. "We'd gotten some reports that there was a Crawdaunt in the town river causing trouble, and we had planned to go out to stop it. It seems you've settled that issue for us. Well done, Sango."
"You're a credit to us rangers," Scott nodded. "Thanks for working hard as always."
"Compared to you, everyone works hard," Haley snidely remarked. Scott rolled his eyes and intentionally leaned further back into the couch, holding his hands behind his head and lounging further.
"I'll go report to Petal," Sango replied. "Haley, can you call the local Nurse Joy to have her make a house call to look after the Crawdaunt?"
"Sounds like a plan," Haley agreed. Crawdaunt glanced at Sango, and Sango smiled encouragingly. Crawdaunt blinked, nodding his head, and walked over to the other female ranger. Sango turned and headed to the back room where Petal was hard at work typing up reports to the Pokemon Ranger Headquarters for the region. Ritsu was sleeping in a small basket next to her desk.
"Back from patrol?" Petal asked, not looking up from her screen.
"Yes, ma'am," Sango said, saluting her. "Nothing of note to report. I encountered a wild Crawdaunt that was too close to the town, and subdued it. The nurse is coming by to look at it."
"Understood," Petal nodded. "Well done. It probably drove came here as a Corphish and evolved, causing it to drive off other wild pokemon form the outskirts. A little too close to here, it's good you managed to connect with it. We'll take it to Route 4 when the checkup is complete, there it can be with more pokemon of its own kind. In the meantime, write your report for my inspection, then you can take the rest of the day off."
"Yes, ma'am," Sango nodded. She turned to leave, but Petal called out to her.
"Don't leave just yet," Petal stopped her. "We have more to discuss." Petal gestured to the chair in front of her desk, pushing the screen of her computer out of the way so they could talk face to face. Sango nodded her head and sat down in the chair, Silver floating down and nestling into her lap.
"What is it you wanted to talk about?" Sango asked. Was this a performance review of some sort? It had been a week since she'd begun her practicum, and this had been the first patrol she'd been assigned without another ranger's supervision.
"It's about the reason I came to the Galar Region in the first place," Petal replied. Her tone was serious, and it made Sango nervous. In truth, she had been curious about why a top ranger, whose ranks numbered barely in the double digits, would come out to a small town like this that didn't even need five rangers to keep everything under control.
Petal pulled open a drawer and withdrew a file, placing it on the desk.
"The reason I came here… and specifically, the reason I brought you here, was not just because of your talents, but because of your recent associations with certain individuals."
Sango gulped. She had a good idea of what Petal meant, and let the older ranger continue.
"There is an organization the Ranger Headquarters has been following for some time," Petal said. "They call themselves the Children of the Oracles. We've received reports of their presence in Hoenn, Sinnoh, Alola, and Kalos. Furthermore, we have reason to believe they have been in other areas as well. Those people who attacked you and your fellow students at Mt. Chimney, we believe they are part of this organization. As well as the terrorist that infiltrated the Pokemon Ranger Probationary Licensing Exam that you helped subjugate. We have reason to believe he is a member as well."
Sango gulped.
"I want you to tell me what you know of a place known as Anja Karzat."
Sango's expression hardened, and she swallowed. She nodded her head.
"…What do you know about a power known as harmonia?" Sango asked. Petal frowned.
"I've heard of it," Petal nodded slowly. "It's rumored to be a strange power that allows people to speak with their pokemon, and even strengthen them. But I find such things hard to believe."
Sango shook her head.
"It's real," she replied. "I've seen its effects with my own two eyes. I've met people who have that power, and the things they can do… you wouldn't believe it. That guy, Preya, who attacked Marion and I, he had it. And I think some of the people that attacked us on Mt. Chimney may have had it as well, but I didn't get a good look. You might not believe it, but harmonia is real. And it's dangerous."
Petal considered this, staring evenly at Sango's face.
"…I know," Petal replied. Sango's eyes widened.
"Really?" Sango asked, surprised. "Then why…?"
"I wanted to see if you'd tell me," Petal replied. "Most people who know of this power… they tend to keep it hidden, particularly if they possess it. Or if they have reason to hide something. You mentioned that there are other people you know who possess this power, correct? I would like you to tell me their names?"
"…Why?" Sango asked, narrowing her eyes suspiciously.
"The Children of the Oracles are a terrorist organization," Petal replied. "From what little we know of it, its members are primarily made up of people possessing this power, harmonia. As a pokemon ranger, it's your duty to identify individuals who are potential threats to global stability."
"Are you saying that possessing harmonia is synonymous with being a threat?" Sango asked, clenching her knees with her hands to prevent herself from losing her cool.
"Don't be naïve," Petal frowned. "Harmonia itself is a threat. We need to make sure that these individuals do not use this power to hurt other people. As a pokemon ranger, it's your duty to report any individuals you know who could be a threat to society. It is important that these potential dangers do not harm other people. It's for the safety of everyone, you understand. Leaving them to roam freely puts us all at risk. Don't worry, I promise that no harm will come to your friends. We just want to bring them to the headquarters so we can monitor them and make sure that they no longer pose a threat. The names, if you please."
Sango swallowed. This couldn't be real. What this woman was saying… she had looked up to Petal before. In this past week of the older ranger's guidance, she had come to respect and care for her as a ranger and a mentor. But that had all vanished now. She was talking about… no, Sango couldn't even think about it. She could only imagine Kitty and Marion, and even Elaina, rounded up by pokemon rangers and locked away in some facility, experimented on or god knows what.
Sango rose from her seat, Silver floating up beside her. Her expression was cold and filled with anger, as she glared down at Petal, clenching her hands into fists.
"How could you?!" Sango growled, gritting her teeth. "I would never! They're my friends… no, even if they weren't! As rangers, it's our job to look out for the citizens of the world and help them! Not round them up like criminals and lock them away because they might pose a danger to others! Just because they were born with this power, that doesn't mean that they deserve to be treated like criminals or monsters! Throw me out, lock me up, whatever! But if being a ranger means I need to hurt people just for being different, then I'm out! I don't want to be one!"
Petal blinked, and then smiled.
"I'm glad," she said, nodding her head. "Good. So you're the type of person who won't sell out her friends, no matter what. That's reassuring."
"Wh-what?"
"I had to make sure you were the kind of person I thought you were," Petal replied. "If you believed that harmonia users were freaks or monsters who deserved to be locked away, then I wouldn't be able to trust you with what I have to tell you next."
Sango blinked, the energy seeping out of her body. She sunk back into her chair, deflated. A test. It was another fucking test. It seemed that all this woman did was secretly test the character of others. Sango never imagined a ranger's responsibilities included being so duplicitous.
"As of now, you are the only other person in this town that I trust with this information," Petal informed her, picking the file back up and thumbing through it. Haley and Scott are fine rangers, but their temperament… I can't say for sure how they'd react. But I had a hunch that you were different, and that's why I brought you along with me. I need someone I can trust at my side for this upcoming mission. This last week of your performance has just reinforced that by letting me see just how you act around others."
Sango swallowed.
"How… why did you think you could trust me?"
"Because I knew you were the kind of person who wouldn't sell out her friend just to get ahead," Petal smiled warmly at her. She pulled a piece of paper from the folder and laid it out on the table in front of Sango. A lot of the lines on the paper were redacted, but a few things weren't. Among the information present was a picture of a young girl with tan skin and messy seafoam green hair. It was a picture of Marion, though not the Marion Sango knew. This Marion was a few years younger than Sango herself; how old was this picture?
"This folder contains all the details the Ranger Union has on Anja Karzat," Petal replied. "Including on your friend, Marion Rivers. It seems she also possesses harmonia."
"So you already knew," Sango said.
"I told you, it was a test," Petal explained. "There was a chance you weren't aware that your friend Marion had harmonia, so I couldn't be certain if you were actually protecting her or not, but you convinced me that even if you didn't know, learning that she was… different wouldn't affect your perception of her in the slightest."
Sango shook her head. "Marion is Marion."
Petal nodded in agreement.
"The problem is, there are not many people who are as enlightened as you are. That's why we're going to take special care of what comes next."
"And what's that?" Sango asked.
"Before we get into that, I want to tell you a little more about Anja Karzat," Petal replied. "Because the people responsible for it… are the most despicable scum in the world."
Sango swallowed. The venom in Petal's voice was chilling.
"From what we know, harmonia is a power that develops early on in a child's life," Petal explained. "And it's hereditary, to an extent. But controlling that power is very difficult. So what happens when you have children who can't keep those powers under control? Children who go a little… wild? I'm sure you've experienced that for yourself."
Sango nodded, thinking of Elaina. She had.
"A lot of people were worried as more and more cases of harmonia began popping up. And that's when a doctor named Anja Karzat came up with a solution to ease everyone's worries. She developed a… facility, and named it after herself. A facility where parents who lacked the ability to control their child's… abilities could come and seek treatment."
"Treatment?" Sango asked, already sensing what sort of "treatment" they were talking about.
"It was presented as something like Charles Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters," Petal made an analogy, but the sarcasm in her voice told Sango that this was not an apt comparison. "But really what it ended up being was something far more insidious. The doctors at this facility weren't interested in helping the children in their care, so much as exploiting them. It was like a juvenile detention facility, but rather than rehabilitating damaged kids, the doctors were more interested in strengthening their powers and turning them into weapons. Through whatever means necessary. We've had reports of horrible treatments of children and pokemon from that nightmarish place. But they were never anything more than rumors and speculation. On the surface, everything appeared normal. Just a privately run institution by an expert physician treating a very peculiar illness. And in truth… even if there was something more going on there… even if people did believe the rumors of torture and abuse…"
Petal sighed, shaking her head. A pained look of sympathy cracked her pretty face.
"They were probably fine with it. Human beings have quite a talent for excusing atrocities that happen to those who are different. Especially when those atrocities are a result of those differences in the first place. So even if people had hard evidence of what occurred beyond those walls… they would still prefer those children to be locked up and getting the 'treatment' they needed as opposed to being loose on the streets, where they could pose a threat."
Sango's eyes shot down to Marion's smiling face on the picture. Marion had been a part of something like that?
"That's why I needed to test you," Petal explained. "To make sure you didn't hold similar thoughts. I need to be able to trust that you can treat cases with harmonia objectively. I'm glad."
"This place still exists?!" Sango demanded, her horror and shock quickly being replaced with outrage. "How could-"
"No, no, no," Petal said, shaking her head. "Anja Karzat… three years ago, it was destroyed in a terrorist attack."
Sango swallowed.
"Much of the staff lost their lives, and people assumed that the children who were being experimented on did as well. The news reported it as some sort of protest against human experimentation, but apparently, that wasn't the truth."
"What do you mean?" Sango asked.
"Much of the data was lost in the fires, but the Ranger Union managed to recover some of the files on the known patients at the facility," Petal replied, digging through the file and pulling out more pieces of paper. "Including your friend, Marion."
Petal laid the papers down in front of Sango.
"This is a list of all the children and staff that were known to be involved with that facility," Petal explained to her. "See any familiar faces?"
Sango looked through the files. Her eyes widened.
"This one," she said, pulling out a file that showed who could be a younger Preya. "And these two." The next two files were a white-haired little girl, barely a toddler, and an older white-haired boy that looked too similar to her to not be related.
"Exactly," Petal said, nodding. "They're known Children of the Oracles members."
"So what does that mean?" Sango demanded.
"The attack on Anja Karzat wasn't a protest," Petal said, shaking her head. "It may have been something like… a recruitment drive."
Sango's face turned pale.
"You see the issue," Petal said, nodding her head. "These kids… it seems the ranks of the Children of the Oracles are seeded with kids from Anja Karzat. Human weapons."
Sango nodded. No wonder they were so hostile… after what they must have gone through… Sango remembered Elaina's outbursts, and how the crowds had treated her when they got a whiff of her powers. She could easily imagine someone like Elaina turning to terrorism, if for no other reason than to lash out at the people who scorned and abused her. The anger in these children… it must be comparable, or even exceeding the anger Elaina must feel. Sango decided then and there that when she went back to school, she'd make an effort to try and be more compassionate to the poor girl.
"What does this have to do with us?" Sango asked.
"We have reason to believe that certain members from the Children of the Oracles are going to be coming into the Galar Region," Petal replied. "Fortunately, Galar's borders are rather strict about who they let in, thanks to Chairman Rose's recent campaign to Make Galar Great Again and kick out all illegal pokemon. We're here because this town connects quite easily with Hulbury Town, one of Galar's primary ports. We're a sort of backup if you will. That's why you need to memorize the faces in these files. We'll leave this base to Scott and Haley and head out to Hulbury. We need to make sure that none of these people enter this country without our knowledge of it."
Sango swallowed. It was a difficult task. Most of these photos looked to be ten years old, and they were all children. In the time since they were taken, who knows how they changed with puberty? The three who attacked her were distinct, because she had already had reason to suspect them. But would she recognize this boy walking past her on the street now that he was a man? This girl could be sitting in the table beside her having coffee, and would Sango know her childhood had been spent in a facility? She continued flipping through the stack of papers, trying to commit the faces to memory while at the same time imagining what they might look like now. Then she spotted a picture that made her blood run cold. Not because the woman in it was familiar. She was identical. In fact, compared to the person she knew, it looked like she hadn't aged a day. It couldn't be the same girl, the timestamp placed this picture at being taken five years ago. But it was the same cold expression. The same empty eyes. The same electric-blue hair. A glance at the name on the page confirmed it.
This can't be… what is Misato Daisan doing here?!
Things are really heating up in the Galar Region, that's for sure.