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The Saga of Kings, Book I: Hero

Written by,

Vile M.F. Slanders

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"The King who is situated anywhere immediately on the circumference of the conqueror's territory is termed the enemy."

"The King who is likewise situated close to the enemy, but separated from the conqueror only by the enemy, is termed the friend of the conqueror."

-Vishnu Gupta, Arthasastra: Book VI, "The Source of Sovereign States."

-v-

Chapter VII: Water and Stone

He rides his bike to work.

He eats his meals from a can.

He rarely shaves, and though he frequently bathes, soap is seldom used.

He lives out in the Frontier.

In a tent.

His greatest vice is an insatiable appetite for jelly filled donuts.

Sugar coated only, and the filling must be raspberry.

Some people say that he just can't leave the Trainer's life behind him.

Some people just call him a madman.

Some people once called him, 'The Mad King.'

You know who he is.

He is an environmentalist.

A philanthropist.

A capitalist.

And a war-profiteer.

He is a self-made multi-billionaire.

An ambitious genius.

A mortal legend.

His name is Enzo Davinci.

The founder of the global trade phenomenon, Chimera Industries.

What is his goal-?

"-Cut this weird ass biography crap out right now. What do you mean, what is my goal?"

"Um… Mister Davinci-"

"You can just call me Enzo, sugar."

"Uhh…"

"Look toots, I know that you've probably heard the rumors. I had rabies once. Just once. I got better. I'm not gonna start frothing at the mouth and bite you on the jugular. So you can lighten up."

"I ah… I just…"

"Babe, don't take the sweet talk seriously. I have absolutely no interest in those soft parts of yours hidden beneath the skirt. And don't take that statement the wrong way either. It's not that you're ugly. It's just that you're not my type."

"Uh…"

"Oh. Don't tell me. It's twitching again, isn't it?"

"...Is it supposed to do that?"

"Hell if I know. I wasn't exactly sober when I finished the thesis. Actually, I never finished the thesis. I got halfway through the development stage, looked at what I had designed thus far, said 'fuck it,' and then I just went ahead and prototyped the alpha model. And then I jammed it into my head."

"Umm..."

"Do you smell cotton candy, or is it just me?"

"I… I- I think… I don't know what to think anymore."

"Yeah, I really wish that I could make the buzzing stop too. I think that I need to have this thing cut out. I had strong reasons to believe that an Abra's medulla oblongata would have provided a sound platform to start with, you know? But now? I'm beginning to think that this surgical augmentation is going to drive me insane before I develop ESP. I might need to reconsider-"

"-You put an Abra's brainstem inside your head?!"

"No. Hell no. There's no room for an Abra's brainstem in my dome. I just stripped out an Abra's Phrenosensu node, spliced it with my own DNA, and then I let the sample go cancerous. Then I salvaged the untainted genetic material that persisted through the sample's post mortem. After that, I introduced the untainted genetic sample into another Abra's Phrenosensu node, and repeated the process in order to filter out even more of the genetic discrepancies. And then I did it over, and over, and over again; until I finally had myself a completely benign Enzo Davinci Phrenosensu node. And then I had my surgical team insert that perfect specimen inside my right eye, and wire the Phrenosensu node's nerve endings into my occipital lobe. Thus far… It's been a complete failure. I haven't even been able to pass a single Zener Test with a positive score yet. It's too bad really. I was rather looking forward to playing weekend poker with an ESP advantage, but it seems that I'll be going under the knife again instead. What a bummer."

"...Are you insane?"

"You're the one interviewing me for a biography. Author's opinion? You tell me."

"You're insane."

"...God, all that fucking cotton candy is making me feel real peckish. Where did I put my donuts?"

"...You ate them. An hour ago."

"Fuck me. That was the last box..."

"Can't you order another?"

"NO! YOU DON'T GET IT! THAT WAS MY LAST BOX! AND NOW-!"

"-...-"

"-And now it's all gone…"

"...Ar-are you actually crying over an empty box of donuts?"

"What would you do?"

"...Order a new box of donuts?"

"HEY! THAT WAS MY IDEA! DO YOU HAVE ESP?!"

"...N-no?"

"...Oh shit. I need to take my meds. I think that I'm losing my mind."

"...You... don't say?"

"Have you ever jammed a big ass syringe into your eye before?"

"...!?"

"I'll take that as a No."

"You're not going to do that in front of me, are-?!"

"Oh, that stings…"

"..."

"That's smarting…"

"..."

"I bet this wouldn't hurt so much if you weren't watching me do this…"

"..."

"Okay, I'm done now."

"...I think that I'm gonna vomit…"

"Not in my office-! Uhg…"

"...M-mister Davinci? Are you okay?"

"Yeah… It's just kind of weird, you know? Having an organ that's not supposed to be in your eye socket starting to swell up? I can feel the inside of my head right now. That's pretty weird, right?"

"...That is pretty weird…"

"Okay… I'm not smelling cotton candy anymore. Or feeling hyperemotional. And I think I have control over my mouth again…"

"...Why did you put a psion's voodoo gland inside your head?"

"Better question. Why not?"

"...Because it would drive you insane?"

"But I didn't know that it would drive me insane before I put it in. Now I do know that. So even if I don't develop ESP from the alpha-stage, I still discovered something valuable from this ordeal. Something that might come in handy for the beta-stage of this little project."

"...So you just took the plunge? Without checking to see how deep the water was first?"

"That's kind of how I operate. I think that's why most people call me crazy."

"Well… You are crazy..."

"Okay."

"...Um… Can we get back to the interview?"

"Sure. Where were we at?"

"Your goal?"

"..."

"Mister Davinci?"

"...My goal?"

"...You do have a goal, don't you? I mean, your Chimera Industries-"

"I never intended to raise Chimera Industries. It just… took off, and somehow, I took off with it."

"But you put so much effort into building a Pokemon marketing empire-"

"No, I didn't. I just did what I loved doing. Cooking up new ideas, and then putting them into the flesh. Someone else decided to commission me to do that. I didn't even choose the name, 'Chimera Industries.' That name came out of a department that I never knew my financiers had provided me with. I'm not joshing you. I'm rudderless. Everything that I've ever had happen to me… Just kinda happened."

"But before Chimera Industries, you took on the Indigo League! You must have had a goal back then! You're a Quad-Flame Finalist! You earned the fourth quota victor title eleven years ago in Indigo's 1064th Seasonal Finals! You defeated the opposing fourth quota victor in a landslide triumph! You even posed a challenge to the Reigning Champion Lance-"

"Here it comes..."

"-And then you bailed at the last moment, just so that you could be the first man to patronize a new donut shop opening up in Celedon?!"

"...Have I ever mentioned that I really, really, really like my donuts?"

"No one believes that! Everybody says that you got cold feet, and that you backed out of a fight that you couldn't win!"

"Don't ever say that in front of Tenacious. I'm telling you right now, he was fucking pissed at me for pulling out of the League. It took me four years just make it up to him and rekindle our friendship. Tenacious could've kicked the shit out of Lance without my brilliant strategies, and I denied Tenacious his chance at fighting the very battle that he had been born for. He's still a little sore about it..."

"...Do you really believe that you were going to beat Lance with just one mon?"

"Heh! Tenacious wiped out the entire 1064th Indigo League's Finalist quota roster and Elite Four solo! He was still in prime shape after we laid waste to Giovanni in order to earn the right to challenge Lance! It was just Tenacious and me the whole time, starting from Victory Road, and going all the way to that final match! We owned the Indigo League! You tell me that Tenacious couldn't do it!"

"Well, we'll never know now. You refuse to even attend the Indigo Seasonal Finals as a spectator."

"Yep."

"Can I ask why?"

"Sure."

"..."

"..."

"...Why?"

"Because."

"...?"

"..."

"...Are you serious?"

"Always."

"...Why am I even wasting my time interviewing you?"

"Good question."

"Do you think that this is funny? Is this just a game!? Is everything just a game to you?!"

"Sure."

"...I can't believe this."

"Okay."

"You know what, Enzo? I believe you. I believe that you have absolutely no clue in regards to what you want! I believe that you're just the product of pure luck and favorable circumstances! I believe that you never had a single goal in your entire life!"

"Okay."

"I'm done! I'm finished! You will never hear from me or my firm again! I'm just going to tear up this single paragraph of your biography, because there is no story to you, Enzo Davinci!"

"Okay."

"...-"

"-...-"

"-...-"

"-...aaaaHHHARGG!"

"..."

"..."

"Damn. That woman has some serious anger issues that she needs to address."

"..."

"Hey Sammy? Could you send up another box donuts to my office? And while I'm still coherent, could you also schedule me for an operation to have this Abra's tumor removed?"

"One box of donuts and an appointment with the chop shop? I'll make the calls right away, Mister Davinci."

"Thanks a tonne, Sammy. Have I ever mentioned that you're my favorite secretary?"

"Everyday, Mister Davinci. Oh, and there's a line on hold for you. It's on the Military's channel."

"Oh, that's right. I forgot all about that... Patch 'em through to my office, and put that donut delivery on hold."

"Right away, Mister Davinci. Is there anything else that you need done?"

"...Yeah. Send Tenacious up to my office. I'm gonna want his input on this."

"I'll call the Ranch, and have them ship him out. I imagine that it will be about five minutes before he arrives at your office. Did you want to answer the military's call now?"

"...Sure. I'll deal with the formalities while I wait for Tenacious. Send me that line, and then close this channel. You know the drill."

"Of course, Mister Davinci."

"..."

"..."

"..."

"...Right. Let's see what problem the Director of ACE has for me today…"

They weren't human.

They had never been human.

That was just an illusion.

A tactic that TH had devised to scare the wits out of his opposition.

Those Ghosts were just imitating human form in order to inspire a horrifying implication; all in the effort of securing a mental advantage over TH's correspondents in ACE.

They weren't human.

They had never been human.

They weren't human.

They weren't human.

They weren't human…

My eyes snapped open when the shuttle hit the patched tracks. A brief message over the PA system from the conductor confirmed that it was only a small bump, a temporary discomfort that would not harm the shuttle or its cargo. The Diglett had ruined the tracks before, and the rail engineers had always managed to keep the tracks properly maintained.

There was no need to worry.

Except that I wasn't worried about the tracks.

I was grinding away at what had transpired last night.

And I was worried sick, let me tell you.

TH was haunting me. I was convinced of this.

He knew something about Operation: Wounded Hearts.

TH had set the entire stage last night, calling ACE out in full view of my hiding place.

TH had shaken ACE to the core, just to get them to reveal something to me.

The Black King.

That was a callsign. A reference.

A reference to TH.

And as Agent Stockholm had let slipped…

...The Black King was also a part of Operation: Wounded Hearts.

The thing was, I had never been told of TH's involvement in my little Operation.

And judging from Agent Stockholm's reaction…

...TH wasn't even supposed to know that he was a part of Operation: Wounded Hearts.

Last night, TH had suggested that our repeated run-ins with one another had been a device of fate.

That was just Theron being an ass.

ACE had thrown the two of us together on some stage, and neglected to inform either one of us about the other's role in it.

I was beginning to think that the Operation: Wounded Hearts that I had undertaken was just a farce for the Real Operation: Wounded Hearts.

So why did TH go through all of that trouble just to enlighten me to ACE's secondary agenda?

What did he stand to gain from my awareness of ACE's ploy?

Why was TH interested in me?

It wasn't just ACE's misleading Operation: Wounded Hearts that had brought TH and I together.

My private discussion with the Devil of Kalos had revealed quite a bit more than my addled brain was capable of processing at the time.

Fact: TH was above ACE's authority.

Fact: TH had been working for ACE.

Fact: TH had betrayed ACE.

Fact: ACE was offering TH something big, something that they hoped would buy TH into their cause.

Possibility: TH was dissatisfied with ACE's offer, apparently due to the delay that ACE required for converging the assets together for his payment.

Possibility: TH had absolutely no interest in accepting ACE's offer.

Possibility: TH might have actually been using ACE to secure something that he wanted, effectively reversing ACE's manipulation scheme.

Fact: Whatever TH was interested in, it had something to do with the Indigo League, Operation: Wounded Hearts, ACE, and me.

But why me?

TH had made it very clear last night that he had a personal interest in me.

TH had "invited" me to sit down beside him and engage in a "casual conversation."

There was practically nothing casual about our conversation. Virtually everything that TH had said or done during our exchange had been scripted.

-And I had played right into the Eidolon King's hands.

Discussing the names of scientists and Grecian Gods?

-TH had used that train of dialogue to learn me.

When TH had postulated that Typhon could have killed me in his match against Brock?

-That was TH informing me that he had spared my life.

When TH ripped on my Crossed Arms, and degraded my Echo in front of me?

-That was a test. TH had wanted to know what drove me, and how far it could push me.

But even with TH's scripted interrogation, there were certain events that were completely adlibbed.

When TH asked me what I knew about him, and I replied with "More than I wanted to know?"

-TH's reaction implied that my response had hit something personal in him. And TH couldn't conceal that wound.

When Pariah had tried to cut me in half?

-TH had panicked. I wasn't supposed to die, and his Ghost was going to fuck that up.

When TH had apologized for his Echo debasing retort to my assertion regarding his "Godforsaken mind?"

...I don't know if that was just TH trying to buy my confidence, or a genuine attempt at making amends. But I had insulted TH when I insinuated that he didn't understand self-sacrifice; that much was certain.

And when TH shook my hand, and spoke those pretty words about "embracing kindred spirits?"

Theron Halcyon had named me as his rival.

Back in my Pewter City ACE sponsored inquiry, Agent Stockholm had spoken at least one honest word.

TH and I were going to meet in the League.

TH and I were going to duke it out for a Throne.

Thanks to Operation: Wounded Hearts, TH and I were fated to become each other's rivals.

...Back then, in that shuttle trip to Cerulean City…

...I didn't know exactly what that rivalry was going to do to the two of us. I don't think that even Theron knew how our rivalry was going to affect the both of us.

...But our rivalry was going to involve a whole lot more than just the League.

...A world's worth more than the League.

Cerulean City.

Lovely place actually. I can't find all that much to complain about in Cerulean City.

-Except that I'm not really welcome there anymore.

Cerulean City was an old port town. Before Vermilion City had opened its naval base to civilian traffic, Cerulean was the only available port for ships coming into Kanto from the northern Unova and Kalos Regions.

Because of the commerce Cerulean developed with those two nations, a surprising amount of both Kalosian and Unovian culture has shaped Cerulean's social makeup.

There are Kalosian-style Barista Cafes and Unovian Cask Whiskey Distilleries sitting quite comfortably next to one another in commercial Cerulean.

Same with the Kalosian Garden shops and Unovian Weapon shops.

And Kalosian Fashion Apparel Retailers and Unovian Pharmaceutical Recreation Establishments.

...I think you get the idea.

But beyond the apparent trappings of those foreign nations, it didn't pay to be a foreigner in Cerulean.

Some rather… colorful history arose in Cerulean City, due to the politically unstable relationships between the Kalosian immigrants and the Unovian refugees.

Kalos and Unova do not get along.

-At all.

Unova has invaded Kalos more than they have any other nation, and Kalos…

Well, pissing Kalos off isn't exactly the best idea.

Needless to say, Kalos answered Unova's repeated invasions with blood for blood.

-And then some.

The Kalosian people may be the most cordial individuals that you will ever meet in a social setting…

-But in times of war, they'll stoop even lower than the Unovians.

Which is quite a feat, when you consider just how savage the people of Unova are.

And unlike Unova…

Kalos has a powerful ally.

Sinnoh and Kalos work even more effectively together than Kanto and Johto do.

And Sinnoh hates Unova almost as much as Kalos does.

So despite this region of Kanto offering the Kalosians and the Unovians an honest chance at a fresh start…

Some feuds just run too deeply to be forgotten in places far removed from their origins.

Almost one hundred years ago, Cerulean City burnt to the ground.

Twice.

In the span of a decade.

All because of a Kalosian and Unovian conflict that spilled out from their respective nations and into the Kanto region.

Cerulean City served as an unofficial battleground for a war that our nation refused to take part in.

The first burning was relatively minor. The stage for Cerulean's first blaze was set when the adopted Kalosians and Unovians of Cerulean dug trenches in the downtown region of Cerulean City...

-And then they began killing one another throughout the entire utopia, catching numerous Kantonese civilians in the crossfire.

Then, eight years later in a similar Cerulean skirmish brought about by the same foreign war…

Cerulean City caught fire for the second time, this conflagration ended up spreading much farther throughout the city's precincts than the previous blaze had. Cerulean City became an absolute hell, while yet again, the Unovians and Kalosians bloodied the streets with each other and the innocent Kantonese casualties. And when the Kantonese military declared martial law in Cerulean City, and moved in to quell the rising anarchy…

The Kantonese natives of ruined Cerulean City collectively decided that they had suffered enough of foreign wars.

And as for the people of Kanto?

...We can be pretty brutal too.

The Kantonese natives of Cerulean City just executed virtually every foreigner within the City walls after the second raze of Cerulean.

No warnings, no requests for recompenses, no get out of town by tomorrow mornings…

...Just more vengeful bloodshed.

After that, Cerulean kind of closed its port to foreign immigration ships.

And when Vermilion opened its port to global traffic…

Most foreign vessels found Vermilion's naval bastion port worth travelling the extra klick for; due to the absence of Cerulean's treacherous Wrecker Cape…

...And the lack of Cerulean City's indigenous population and their prejudices.

All of those Unovian and Kalosian storefronts in Cerulean?

They're not owned by Unovians and Kalosians.

The people of Cerulean just kept the foreign family names on the signs, and offered the same kind of goods, in an unsuccessful attempt at drawing more tourists into Cerulean City.

After the massacre of Cerulean, the City and its people were subjected to a state of economic decline, but it was a gradual decline.

Wrecker Cape still has a rich bounty of seafood year round.

And the limestone foundations of the Cerulean district is riddled with caves.

Many of Cerulean's caverns were natural.

-But some of those earthen holes were artificial.

As well as serving Kanto as the chief producer of seafood, Cerulean also developed a pretty respectable opal and calcite mining trade.

The grandeur of Cerulean City may have been drastically diminished since the second razing, but there is still plenty of life kicking about inside of Cerulean City's marble walls.

Just not the diversity of life that made Cerulean so appealing a hundred years ago.

I wrestled my way out of the Cerulean City terminal and out into the briny Cerulean air.

I had to take a moment just to drink the location in.

There's just something about Cerulean….

...Something about the glorious marble architecture weathering down into a dilapidated state.

Something about the rustic setting imposed upon yesteryear's finery.

Something beguiling about the shabby regalia that Cerulean's people and buildings don as casual vestments.

Excessive. Quaint. Honest. Unapologetic. Crude. Refined.

It just doesn't seem like it should work, and yet-

...Cerulean City works quite well.

No one dreams of making it big in Cerulean. Everyone is just content with an honest day's toil in the mines and at the dock, followed by a cheery night at the pub.

No one really aspires to greatness in Cerulean. The general population just desires a simple life along the Kantonese coast.

Everyone in Cerulean enjoys simplicity that is, except for Misty Willows.

Misty is the youngest girl of the influential Willows family. Misty was the fourth daughter of Geraldine Willows, who has maintained the position of CFO in Cerulean's largest shipping industry for two whole decades even amid the Cerulean export market's recession. Geraldine's first three daughters were more than happy to follow in their father's lead, educating themselves in both global commerce and business management...

...But the youngest red-headed daughter?

-I really think that Misty did half the things she did, just to piss the rest of her stiff-necked family off.

Whereas the other three Willows girls were prim and proper, professionally self-portrayed, and cleverly quiet…

Misty was the wildchild.

The firestarter.

The antagonist.

While her older sisters would be attending their courses in Applied Ergonomics, Misty would be cutting class and stowing away on Cerulean's fishing trawlers.

And once Misty made her presence known to the grungy fishing crews…

Misty demanded to learn the skills of a commercial angler.

And despite her pampered upbringing, which was due in part to her father's financial resources...

-Misty was a true-blooded Cerulean, meaning that this young red-headed loudmouth wasn't afraid of getting her hands dirty.

It was quite the scandal, from Geraldine Willows's perspective.

It was made even worse when his underaged daughter publicaly displayed her rather extensive knowledge regarding humanity's carnal desires.

Misty just about wound up disowned when the press caught word of some of her 'technically' illicit pastimes that were carried out in international waters.

But in international waters, the laws are written by the Captains of the ships, and enforced only upon that ship.

So Misty fucking the Captains of a few fishing trawlers out in international waters, despite her youthful age, wasn't 'technically' illegal.

But it was a sign of things to come.

You see, not only was Misty utilizing the fishing trawlers and their irreputable crews for satisfying her sexual appetite and learning deepwater fishing techniques…

...But rather than accepting pay for her services to the trawlers, Misty instead requested a portion of their catch.

Yep.

Misty's first Championship team came exclusively out of a trawler's drag-net.

Misty had an Angler's eye for a catch's size and health.

And Misty also had a Trainer's eye for a mon's battle potential.

"The Tomboy Mermaid."

Misty had originally earned that title from the horny trawler crews.

But when Misty entered the League with her team of deep sea behemoths…

The nickname took on a whole nother meaning.

At the conclusion of Misty's fifth Gym Match, the Tomboy Mermaid was chalked up as a League prodigy.

Misty had started her League career by deploying an exclusively aquatic team. A Type-specialist team, which quickly drew the scrutiny of the League's Analysts. It was a diverse and strategically formatted aquatic team, which under Misty's capable training and leadership, brought Misty unto the Indigo League's Victory Road in just her second year of competition.

Unfortunately for Misty, she didn't pass the Victory Road Trial the first time around.

Fortunately for Misty, she left the Victory Road Trial with both her life, and the better half of her original Championship team, intact.

So in her third year of League certified competition, Misty made sure to brush up on her Frontier survival skills as well.

The second time around at Indigo, Misty beat the Victory Road Trial, and then crushed her opponent in the qualifying round. And when Misty made one of the first quota victor ranks in the finals, she called Lorelai Nikitin out into the ring...

...And then Lorelai Nikitin beat the piss out of the Tomboy Mermaid in Misty's very first Elite Four challenge.

-But Misty didn't quit there.

Oh hell no.

That spiteful redheaded Cerulean Harlot came back for a third attempt at the League, practically drowning anyone who was unfortunate enough to wind up between her and Lorelai Nikitin at the start of the Finalist rounds.

And when Misty called Lorelai out into the battlefield again…

...The war concluded with Misty Willows earning the first Flame on her year-old Finalist License.

Then Misty secured the second quota victor rank, and called Agatha Poe out into the ring in order to challenge The Matron of Whispers for the Tomboy Mermaid's second Flame...

...Right before Agatha Poe and her infamous Triplets made another ghost story out of Misty Willow's third attempt at the League.

After her defeat at the hands of Agatha, Misty posed a challenge to Cerulean's previous Gym Leader in the post-finals...

-And that vindictive ginger left Indigo Plateau with a League recognized station as a Gym Leader.

Now Misty was prepping for her fourth attempt at the League Seasonal Finals.

And everybody knew, based off Misty's previous catfight with Lorelai…

-That Agatha Poe was next on the Tomboy Mermaid's shitlist.

Though Misty was Kanto's lowest ranking Gym Leader with only a Mono-Flame on her license, Misty's rough and tumble backstory, combined with her exceptionally entertaining League performances…

-And those sexy bikini model photo shoots…

...Meant that Misty was one of the most popular Gym Leaders in Indigo League's entire Kanto division.

Women wanted to see this free spirit of theirs conquer the Indigo League, and have Misty place a Queen on the Throne again; seeing as womanhood had suffered aught but Indigo Kings for over a century.

Men just wanted an autographed picture of Misty Willows wearing her scantily finest, embossed with her lipstick print kiss on the rim.

-And everyone not in Misty's League fanclub?

Well, we each had our own desires of Misty.

-And some of us…

...Are a bit more ambitious than others.

I headed straight for Cerulean's Blackhat HQ in the City's northwestern precinct, as originally planned.

Blackhat Team Seven's HQ wasn't a Reserve Outpost.

It's far more modern than that.

Due to Blackhat Team Seven being stationed within a city's perimeter wall, there are quite a bit more luxuries available to Blackhat Team Seven than what you'd typically find on a Reserve Outpost.

-Like a fully functioning septic system, an endless reserve of hot water, air conditioning and reliable heating, and all the electricity that the Blackhats would ever require to power their unnecessary entertainment appliances.

From a Ranger's perspective, all of these conveniences were unbecoming of the beret.

But if High Command was going to take away the Blackhats' video game consoles, then High Command was going to remove a prime incentive for any Ranger to work for a Black Beret.

And at any rate, not one Ranger in the Corps was going to gripe about the Blackhat's indulgences.

The Blackhats had earned their wanton conveniences, and sadly, they rarely had a chance to enjoy them.

The Blackhats were some busy motherfuckers, and if they weren't killing the endless armies of feral mon; then the Blackhats were generally attending to their biological necessities so that they could function enough to kill the next batch of hyper-lethal mon.

So when Blackhat HQ's desk jockeys cleared me for access to the Blackhat's personal quarters, I wasn't surprised at all to discover that the joint was void of Blackhats. A quick perusing of the recent Blackhat mission statements currently put Team Seven roughly seventy klicks south of Cerulean, lethally engaged with a-

-Snorlax.

Oh boy...

...I hope that they gut the fat fucker alive.

After uttering a string of curses and ill-wishes against Snorlaxkind, I turned my attentions onto the other artifacts strewn about Team Seven's Barracks. The same basic military setup applied to the Blackhats' accommodations as it did in all Ranger compounds. The CO had his own Quarters, and the rest of his unit shared living space in a billet.

Beyond a collection of personal effects, such as family photos, wine corks, playing cards, and the occasional action figure; each Blackhat's bunk area was decidedly spartan. I could pick out Captain Lewis's bunk pretty easily. There were only three photos and a torn out page from a poetry book tacked to the inner wall of her accommodations.

Though the page of poetry struck me as odd, only one of the photos did.

Each photo was of Captain Lewis. One was an old service photo from her time in the Military, way back before she joined up in the Ranger Corps. The Military's young auburn soldier was wearing the exact same straight line of mouth that old Captain Lewis still wore beneath her red beret in the second picture; this one serving as Captain Lewis's first Ranger identification photo.

But the third photo…

...Was of a very young civi version of a beaming Mary Lewis, arms strangling a grinning boy years younger than her, who was likewise topped with the same auburn wavy hair that spilled out onto Mary Lewis's shoulders. Both the boy and the young Mary Lewis were struggling to hold a pair of ice-cream cones away from their brawl, and looking mighty happy doing so. I suspected that it was a sibling picture.

That photo was the only image I ever saw of Captain Mary Lewis smiling. It was bit of a shock for me. I had originally assumed that Captain Lewis was born with her perpetual scowl and a rank look in either eye.

-At least, that's what she let on in our interactions. Then the poem's title caught my attention.

"Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night" -Dylan Thomas.

-Okay.

...That poem actually suited Captain Lewis rather well.

My curiosity satisfied, I returned to the center of the Barracks, and sat down at a lounge table. The table bore some small hint of the Blackhat's lifestyle. A game of cards and ashen cigars were awaiting the return of their Blackhats, who had hastily smothered their tobacco and placed their hands face down when the latest call went out.

After twenty minutes of drinking in every tangible aspect of this silent hall, I found myself wondering how much longer it was going to take Team Seven to finish murdering that Snorlax.

As it turned out, it didn't take Blackhat Team Seven too much longer to drop that fresh Delta-Five than it took for them to slay the Snorlax who had mauled me.

The base's siren went off, alerting the staff to the return of Blackhat Team Seven.

Both the base's medical personnel and their mon Wranglers were scrambled, and I quickly rose from the Barracks to accompany the deck crews out into the the docking yard. I entered the yard just in time to witness sixteen colossal airborne Gyaradosia buzz the open compound, rolling their sails and venting their flight bladders for landing preparations. The Great Wyrms were hissing out vaporous expulsions through their mouths, attempting to decrease their atmospheric buoyancy by vacating the compressed helium stored within their flight bladders, all while the Gyaradosia's massive Pterois-like dorsal and pectoral sails fanned and furled about in the air like a colorful hurricane. Each showy fin was even bigger than the draconic Dendrobranchiata that slithered majestically at the heart of those painted membrane clouds. These huge spine-ribbed aerofoil fins provided the Gyaradosia with the necessary thrust for aviation, though these mighty sails were currently being utilized for the opposite purpose; as the Serpents strained against their own buoyancy for want of lower altitudes.

The Wranglers were tossing cables up to the Blackhats saddled behind their Gyaradosia's armored rostrums, barking positions and countdowns out to one another as the deck crews tugged the living zeppelins onto firm ground. Each deck crew deftly assisted their assigned Blackhat from their designated mounts, before stripping the saddles clear of the Gyaradosia's rostrums. With the hang time relief complete, the Wranglers yielded the Dragon-Snakes over to the medics for their routine post-conflict checkups. Then the Blackhats formed up, and all sixteen Elites turned over their Gyaradosia's Heavy Balls to the Deck Chief, before each and everyone of the Blackhats received the same efficient medical examination that was being administered to their mounts.

Within three minutes, every Gyarados and Blackhat had been cleared by the medical personnel, and then it was rest and recuperation for both the mon and the men. The Wranglers flagged in the slop trolleys for the Serpents, and all sixteen members of Blackhat Team Seven moved in formation towards my current location.

I didn't need an order to stand aside at attention and salute.

These were the Blackhats, and these Elites didn't bark for their respect.

To my shock, the entire Blackhat unit came to a halt before me, and a Lieutenant Colonel Rionaldo answered my salute.

"Chief Warrant Officer Bastard." The CO of Blackhat Team Seven met my eye.

"Sir." I respectfully replied.

Lt. Col Rionaldo just chuckled as he released me from my salute.

"At ease, Bastard. Welcome to Cerulean City. Glad to see that you could make it." The Lt. Col extended a hand to me. Quickly overcoming my disbelief, I shook Lt. Col Rionaldo's hand firmly, before placing my own digits behind me in the at ease stance.

"I hope that you weren't making too many friends while you were awaiting our return, Ranger." The Lt. Col indicated my facial bruises with a grin.

"Just a bar fight with some Skinheads in Lune, sir. I've been aught but honorable conduct since entering Cerulean City." I replied.

Half of Blackhat Team Seven started chuckling. Captain Lewis wasn't among the chortling section.

"I hope that you gave the Skinheads hell, Bastard." The Lt. Col whispered dangerously.

"I gave them better than that, sir. I gave the Military a taste of the Frontier." I answered. A round of whooping Blackhats followed my clandestine boast.

"Good to hear it, Ranger. Fall in with Team Seven. If it's mess time for the Wyrms, then it's mess time for the Rangers. Let's get something to eat before we discuss any further pleasantries." I couldn't believe that the Lt. Col of Blackhat Team Seven was formally inviting my worthless self into his outfit.

But my disciplined feet heeded his order, even while my mind struggled to accept this honor. Team Seven parted ranks, and I took my place between Captain Lewis and Lieutenant Roscoe. There was no order to march.

The Blackhats didn't need orders to act.

All seventeen Rangers stepped off on the same foot, and every pace was measured in equal length to perfection. The timing was flawless. Such a mundane practice was executed in adherence to the strictest codes of martial etiquette, yet so casually did Team Seven achieve this unity; that we seemed a single beast made of separate parts, all acting out these mirrored motions in an unmarred coalescence.

-And I was a part of that animal. For that brief moment, I received a tantalizing taste of my lifelong dream.

This was what I wanted. This is what I lived for.

-This was the whole reason for why I had chosen to wear a beret.

...And then not even five paces later, Lieutenant Roscoe ripped ass in a particularly long and foul gust, and a sudden convergence of Blackhat fists connecting with his person ruined the moment.

Laughing and mocking with one another, Team Seven's immaculate formation collapsed, and a disorganized unit shuffled into the compound, red faced and winded.

...Well…

Even so...

-It was still pretty damn good.

"So Captain Lewis tells me that you secured the Boulder Badge through some unconventional means, Bastard." Lieutenant Roscoe grinned at me over his cigar. The evening meal had been sumptuously prepared and summarily consumed. The Blackhats had their own gourmet cooking staff, and whatever the Blackhats asked for dinner was exactly what the Blackhats ate.

Tonight it had been live-boiled Clauncher and distilled butter, served with seared Kobe striploin taken right off the ass of a pampered Miltank; who had previously lived her entire life in the lap of malt beer and barley oat luxury.

It was one of the best damn things that I had ever eaten, and it was served inside a Ranger Compound.

Yeah. I really wanted to be a Blackhat now.

"I took advantage of the pen in my Gym Battle with Brock. I earned myself both a Badge and a promotion well ahead of its time for my devious little misdemeanor." I replied. Lieutenant Roscoe snorted, before offering me one his fat cigars.

"Unovian fermented Petilil weed. Imported. Those bloodthirsty savages can actually make a decent cigar." Lieutenant Roscoe announced as he cut the tip and lit up my cigar with a match.

A decent cigar?

-If this was just decent, then it would have been sacrilege to put anything finer between my teeth.

"I guess Unova can actually make something incredible other than a war. Damn…" I removed the cigar from my mouth and stared at it in admiration for a moment, before putting that pungent butt back on my tongue. Lieutenant Roscoe just chuckled.

"Warrant Officer Bastard." Captain Lewis's stern voice was butting into the conversation just to ruin my cigar.

"I just received word from ACE, stating that they lost contact with Alexandria last night. Any idea what might have happened?" Captain Lewis asked me. I pulled out my Tact. Pad for the first time since the Planetarium.

"What the hell?" My surprised voice exclaimed. Alexandria was in lock-down. I entered my bio-signature and pulled up Alexandria's OS menu.

Alexandria's status had him listed as "Gone to Code".

"Rescind it." Captain Lewis ordered over my shoulder. I entered the OS prompt, and punched in the command that would reboot Alexandria's quantum matrices.

About two minutes later, a fully functioning Alexandria greeted me with a diagnostics system log.

"His Distortion contingency software tripped last night at twenty-four-hundred hours. Why the hell did it activate?" Captain Lewis was glaring at my computer suspiciously.

"I haven't got a clue…" I was looking at my own Tact. Pad, completely mystified.

-In appearance.

ACE wasn't telling me something, and I would be damned if I let on that I knew about it.

"Probably just a bug. You said that it was a new update, didn't you Lou?" Lieutenant Roscoe asked.

-He called his superior 'Lou?!'

"Could even be Alexandria testing out his new software. But he should have known that he was going to require his operator's assistance in rescinding manual stasis." Captain Lewis ignored Lieutenant Roscoe's breach of etiquette and looked right at me. I just shrugged.

"Alexandria never alerted me to any test runs. If the dumbass computer decided to run the software without first informing me, then there's not much that I could've done about it." I pulled up Alexandria's diagnostics system log again.

"Look. He never even sent me a message. So why did you enter stasis, Alexandria?" I asked my Tact. Pad.

"..."

"Distortion anomaly was detected."

"..."

"What kind of anomaly?" I asked.

"..."

"Distortion seep."

"..."

"In Lune?"

"..."

"Affirmative."

"..."

"-Don't ask it any more questions, Bastard." Captain Lewis ordered. I put down the Tact. Pad, and turned to her, curious.

-So you're in on it too?

"What don't you want me to know, Captain Lewis?" I asked slowly, a curl of smoke rising my cigar. Captain Lewis gave me a severe eye.

"The only thing that I will tell you, Warrant Officer, is that last night in Lune; ACE made contact with Theron Halcyon. The three Agents that established communication with Theron Halcyon barely escaped him with their lives. I suspect that Alexandria might have come in contact with residual Distortion emissions, which were likely formed by Theron Halcyon's presence in Lune. You were in the same town, at the same time as Kalos's most wanted; and you didn't even know about it. Lucky for you." Captain Lewis reported.

That testament didn't give me enough to work with.

I didn't know if Captain Lewis was aware of ACE's Operation: Wounded Hearts farce, or if she was just trying to protect me from TH.

But either way, I couldn't trust Captain Lewis. Or any other members of the Blackhats who were involved with Operation: Wounded Hearts.

"You mean that ACE couldn't send me a message, and tell me to camp out the night in the Frontier instead of Lune? Cause that'd be a whole lot more safe than sleeping anywhere near that grey-eyed freak." I grumbled. Captain Lewis didn't pay my remark any heed. She was still staring at my Tact. Pad with a dubious expression plastered to her stern countenance. Lieutenant Roscoe poured a pair of crystal snifters full of Cognac, and passed one over to me.

"Well, enough about that hogwash, Warrant Officer. What's your plan of action for engaging Willows? We can't expect a repeat performance of the Pewter City Gym battle. Your get out of jail free card was a single use tactic." Lieutenant Roscoe asked me.

"The League has already patched that loophole up?" I asked, a grin splitting my face around the cigar.

"It took them all of an hour to write a new penalty clause into article twenty-seven. You give that stunt another go, Bastard; and the Rangers will never compete in the League again." Captain Lewis informed me.

"Damn. I was gonna request the temporary use of a Blackhat Gyarados for my match against Misty." I joked. Lieutenant Roscoe snorted.

"You wouldn't be getting my Wyrm for that League bullshit. Ol' Tisiphone would rip the Cerulean Gym apart if you deployed her against Misty." Lieutenant Roscoe chuckled.

"So what is your game plan, Ranger? You have almost a full two weeks to coordinate your strategy. How are you going to start?" Captain Lewis asked me. I settled back into my lounge chair, filling my mouth with a drag from my cigar, and chasing it down with a lick of Cognac before exhaling the fumes.

"My first preparation for this war? It's pretty basic, actually. Get to know your enemy." I grinned at both of the awaiting Blackhats.

Misty Willows had a routine. Just like every other human being on this planet of earth, the Kantonese Gym Leaders preferred to live by a comforting set of daily norms.

Misty would wake up at five-and-a-half-hundred hours, and begin her morning stretches, before the Cerulean City Gym Leader decided to attend to her morning breakfast.

Misty typically dined on a glazed croissant with her Kalosian espresso con panna, which was followed by a side of freshly picked mountain berries to top off the early morning repast.

After breakfast ended at six-and-a-half-hundred hours, Misty headed straight into the Cerulean City Gym, and began her daily training regimen with her Championship team. On days scheduled to be free of Gym challengers, Misty then went to work training her Major, Intermediate, and Novice teams in basic battle technique reinforcement. On such challenge free days, Misty didn't leave the Cerulean City Gym until twelve-hundred hours.

At twelve-hundred hours, Misty waded through the daily mob of her fans, both tourists and locals alike, everyone of them pleading the Cerulean City Gym Leader for her photo or an autograph.

At twelve-and-a-half-hundred hours, Misty Willows scaled the northern wall of Cerulean City, and made her way out into the Frontier just to escape the clinging crowd.

R&R for the Tomboy Mermaid was a topic of much debate, but the common consensus stated that Misty spent the next six hours of the day swimming, fishing, and sunbathing in privacy; out on the white sanded shores of Wrecker Cape's Frontier lagoons.

At roughly nineteen-hundred hours, Misty Willows entered Cerulean City through the northern gate, and from there she returned to the Cerulean City Gym for one final practice session with her Championship team.

After that, it was fine dining followed by exclusive dance clubs, and then another day's conclusion met in bed at twenty-three-hundred hours.

It sounded like the perfect life for a professional League Trainer. And I was looking to exploit it.

At eight-hundred-hours on the day following my rendezvous with Blackhat Team Seven, I was standing outside of the Cerulean City Gym with a nefarious intent.

A little Ranger sweet talking accompanied with the Fucking Bastard's own infamous charm, and an easy mark amongst the Cerulean City Gym laundry staff was giving me a tour of the facilities; right after both she and I had hastily washed off the fun stuff in the Cerulean City Gym's shower room.

Her job really wasn't all that glamorous, but the Gym's dirty utilitarian necessities was exactly what I was after. Helping her push a linen cart around the Gym while she collected the bundles of spent towels from the Gym's numerous aquatic departments may not have been the most entertaining chore, but I made it the best job ever with a steady stream of lewd deadpan banter and casual flattery.

-I know that I'm a terrible human being.

I had this poor girl wrapped around my finger, and I didn't even feel guilty about ditching her simpering blushes when she secured me what I wanted.

-A towel, taken from the Gym Leader's own personal locker room.

But just to make it up to the sweet little lass, I did buy her one hell of a lunch.

That has to count for something, right?

...Yeah, well then...

-Fuck you guys too.

It was almost thirteen-hundred hours when I bailed on my first Cerulean date, and made straight for the City's northern wall. Following the week-old pile of Gym memorabilia litter stacked right up against north-eastern precinct's perimeter wall, I traced Misty's grapple points over Cerulean City's first outlying defence, and then I deftly crossed the Hades's Swath beyond it. Once I was concealed beneath the tropical Frontier treeline, I removed a Pokeball from my belt, and called forth my Hunter-Killer.

"Cortez, report." My scarred hound appeared in a flash of light, calmly awaiting my directive.

"Alright pooch. I need you to find me a redhead. Can you pick up her scent from this?" I asked, offering my dog the Gym Leader's appropriated towel.

One voracious whiffing of the towel later, and Cortez was pointing me in the direction of a relaxing Cerulean City Gym Leader.

"Thataboy. Take pole, ten meters ahead. Standard plan of engagement. Signal alerts, and fall back to me before we encroach upon the target." I ordered. Cortez quickly complied, doing his Pathfinder finest to coordinate the optimum secure route through the Frontier and up to Wrecker Cape's lagoons.

Cortez had done another beautiful job. This damn Growlithe was as good at finding safe passages through the Frontier as I was at killing the mon who lived there. My hound never let me down. We were still in the cover of the trees when Cortez fell back to me, and huddled his tattered ass low. I clambered after him on my elbows and knees, covering the remaining distance as stealthily as possible. When the humus rich soil gave way to the limestone sand, Cortez came to a halt, and I carefully shifted a sparse layer of foliage aside.

And there she was.

Her redhead bobbing up and down in the rolling surf.

Diving low, before coming back up with a juvenile Shellder clutched in her hands.

The Tomboy Mermaid.

Gym Leader Misty Willows.

The Tomboy Mermaid pulled a knife out from its hold between her teeth, and sank the blade right in between the Shellder's mantles, before Misty pried the bivalve's protective outer layer wide open. One quick thrust with her blade severed the Shellder's demibranch, preventing the mollusk mon from mounting any offensive countermeasures against Misty's sudden invasion. Following a thorough series of abductor-rending rakes with her knife, Misty cast the mutilated Shellder aside in disgust. Apparently, that mollusk didn't offer a bounty of pearls sufficient enough to sate the Tomboy Mermaid's appetite for glamour.

-Sucks to be a Shellder, I guess.

"Okay, Cortez. You wait in the bushes. Give me a howl if something's coming for us. I'm gonna go in and scope this broad out." I ordered.

Cortez just sneezed at me.

"Come on, pooch." I grinned at my hound.

"Learn something from your CO. You might be able to use what I show you, mutt." I slapped Cortez's scarred rump, and made to leave my cover.

I took my softened steps through the white sands slowly, still holding true to the original goal of discretion.

Misty didn't even know that I was standing at the shoreline until I spoke up.

"Finding anything worthwhile down there?"

Misty's knife slashed above the rolling wakes, tip aimed level with my person, and her feral eyes locked onto me.

I smiled pleasantly and raised my passive palms to shoulder level.

"I'll take that as a No." I grinned. The right answer. Misty snorted, and sheathed her knife in its thigh-mounted thong.

"...Since when do the Rangers send their patrols this deep into sector Alpha?" Misty asked, her voice surprisingly high pitched and nasally.

-Well, nobody's perfect…

"Patrols? I'm technically on leave." I smiled.

Chivalrous remarks regarding Misty's protection wasn't going to win any favors with this woman. Misty was clearly capable of defending herself, and she wasn't going to put up with any Ranger providing macho commentary.

"A fan then. What? Did you want an autograph that badly?" Misty sounded disappointed.

"Now, Gym Leader... A little humility please. I'm a fan of your bikini shots, but when it comes to you and the League? You're gonna have to earn that respect." I smirked. Misty suddenly realized what she was playing with.

The Cerulean City Gym leader should have figured it out pretty quickly.

Misty was practically the female version of me.

"Oh really?" Misty fluttered her eyelashes, voice falling into a dangerous octave.

"And just how do I earn this Ranger's loyalty?" Misty simpered.

Holy fuck.

This woman was a charmer.

"By beating me in a Gym battle?" I suggested, echoing Misty's dangerously coy tone.

Misty started in surprise.

"A Ranger in a-? Oh!" Misty's face lit up with a sudden intuition.

"-Oh, you're that Ranger who competes in the League! I've heard about you…" Misty was giving me a scrutinizing eye.

"You hear anything good?" I asked, my charming smile stretching from ear to ear.

Misty answered that panty moistening smile with her own.

This was a stalemate.

We were both playing the same damn game, and matching each other bluff for bluff.

The only way to measure a victor in this contest now, was to discover who was going to initiate first.

"I certainly didn't hear anything good from Pewter…" Misty tried to shake my resolve with that cunningly disarming voice.

Not happening, Willows.

Bask in this smug look.

"Well, not to offend Brock Aissatou, but he really isn't my type." I chuckled.

-The cards were down...

"So what is your type, Ranger Zane?" Misty's voice was dipping into the seductive range.

-Not yet, Gym Leader. I haven't even shown you my hand yet.

"Let's see here…" I began, fixing a practiced eye on Misty.

"-Clever, confident, gorgeous, capable, charming, good-looking, and slightly cocky." A Ranger's slow, teasingly contemplative voice answered the Gym Leader's question.

Score.

Big time.

The Cerulean Harlot was turning red.

"...Sounds like you have some pretty high standards, Ranger. What girl could possibly satisfy such complex tastes?" Misty was struggling to keep from folding her hand.

-But I was ready to lay my Aces down high.

"...Oh, not many, not many at all. 'Course… I can think of at least one…" I met Misty's eyes with that soft grin.

Misty started to giggle.

-This round was mine.

"Ahem… Do you, um… Are you interested in helping a girl out of a tight spot? I just can't seem to find a decent clutch of pearls today. But maybe you could jump into the lagoon with me, and… ease my dilemma?"

Good God.

-This girl was just as shamelessly promiscuous as I was.

I was already fighting the heat.

Misty knew how to play her game.

The Tomboy Mermaid had scored almost as high as I had.

"I'd love too. But you see, there's a problem… I forgot to pack my swimming trunks back when I left Viridian." My every inflection was matching Misty's, one coy enunciated syllable at a time.

"Then swim without them, Ranger. I don't mind..." Misty giggled.

-That's just what I had been waiting to hear.

My uniform came off in a teasing display of casual dignity. Misty's eyes widened on sight of my scarred up torso, but she didn't cover her mouth with a hand.

The people of Cerulean aren't exactly squeamish, and Misty was no exception. Though that surprised look was retained throughout the entire strip tease, it still changed dramatically when I dropped my shorts; and revealed the family's pride to the Cerulean City Gym Leader.

Make no mistake-

-That girl was just about to rush the shore for me.

I entered the chilly surf without so much as a goosebump rising to hint at bodily discomfort. It wasn't until I was up to my bare waist in froth that Misty revealed the Ace up her sleeve.

-The foam behind the Tomboy Mermaid lifted in a massive swell; and breaking free from the ocean's surface, rose an all too familiar shape.

I locked the fuck up.

-I should have figured it out sooner.

Of course Misty wasn't all alone out here in the Frontier.

The Gym Leader had brought one hell of a deterrent with her out into Wrecker Cape's lagoons.

"...Look at you, you beautiful fish…" I murmured in reverence.

Misty's eyebrows rose right up into her wet red bangs. The Cerulean City Gym Leader was not expecting that reaction from her potential playmate.

"...What's her name?" I asked softly, as a guttural rumble shook the clinging foam free from the colossal blue armored snake.

I could feel that sound reverberating in the water.

"How did you know that Calypso was a she?" Misty asked, astounded.

"The barbels. They're white. That's the only way to tell a juvenile Gyarados's gender apart. Otherwise, you'd have to wait for their first molt, when they grow their sails. The males always have the more vivid sails." I murmured, approaching the fledgling Gyarados unafraid.

Calypso hissed at me.

"...Easy, Calypso. I don't play rough, unless it's requested." I continued closing the distance between me and the young Gyarados, well aware that fleeing a dragon-snake was potentially even more dangerous than holding your ground.

When a Gyarados smells weakness, it identifies that weakness as a food source.

-But push a Gyarados too far by aggressively advancing on it…

...And anything near an enraged Serpent is liable to wind up dead.

"Calypso. Play nice." Misty cooed as I came to stand below that Serpent's huge mouth.

"Look at you…" I murmured, running a hand down Calypso's jaw.

"What a beautiful girl…"

Calypso was watching me carefully. She didn't fully trust this strange Ranger, but Calypso's Trainer had given her an order. And a Gym Leader knows how to train even the most volatile of mon.

"...New addition to your Championship team?" I asked Misty, firmly patting the corner of Calypso's mouth.

"...Next season's Championship team, maybe…" Misty was looking at me with a whole new level of respect.

When a Gyarados makes its presence known, the intelligent thing for any witnesses to do; is to not draw the Serpent's attention. Gyaradosia are notoriously unstable, and though their species is very rare…

The recorded disasters caused by feral Gyaradosia are the stuff of legends.

-Everybody knows not to mess with a Gyarados.

...Everybody, except of course; handsome, suicidal, dragon-snake obsessed, horny fucking Rangers.

"You sure know your way around a Gyarados, don't you?" Misty giggled, when I deftly ducked below a shifting barbel.

-You do not touch a Gyarados's nerve-rich facial whiskers. That will just piss them off.

"Are you kidding me? I've been pining for one of these gorgeous monsters since I was five. How old is Calypso?" I asked. Misty shook her head with a big ol' soft smile on her face.

The Gym Leader was impressed.

"Well, she came from Chimera, so… Calypso is almost a full year old now." Misty answered. I snorted.

"Enzo and his rapid growth therapy… Crazy fucking egghead." I gave another firm pat on the edge of Calypso's maw, and the giant dragon-snake began to sink below the briny surface.

"What an amazing beast…" I murmured when Calypso resumed her aquatic guard duty. Their wasn't a fricken mon in the lagoon that would get anywhere near Misty with a giant fucking Gyarados watching over her back.

Misty was even safer in these Frontier waters with her dragon-snake then she would be on a Route with a Ranger.

While I was shaking off the awe, my own respect for Misty was climbing the notches.

-What timing.

The Gym Leader was clearing her throat.

"So Ranger?" A redheaded Mermaid found her way into my arms, and drew me further out into deeper water.

"Is there a story behind these scars?" Misty asked, licking a finger tip, and swirling the moistened digit around in one of my shoulder's waxy dimples. A fond smile played on my lips.

"There's a couple of stories…" I answered softly, as the bottom half of Misty's bikini surfaced in the water next to me.

-You know my rule.

I may kiss…

...But I don't tell.

When Misty Willows finally returned to Cerulean City, she sparked a new set of controversial waves within her fanclub. Misty had always left Cerulean City alone, and the Gym Leader had always returned home alone; but today…

-Today we were breaking that unwritten tradition.

I received a minor taste of the celebrity life when word reached the paparazzi. Word stating that Misty Willows had entered Cerulean City's north gate accompanied by a handsome young Ranger. The two of us had barely made it as far as a city block before a drove of flashing cameras and handheld recorders descended upon the Gym Leader and I.

"Misty Willows, who is this-"

"Cerulean Channel four. Gym Leader, is this Ranger a-"

"Adam Tintz, I represent the Cerulean Bugle. Tell me, Ranger-"

"Just a couple of words-"

"-Can I have a moment of your time?"

"-If it's not too much to ask-"

Good God, I was just about to call up Damascus and order my snake to clear a path through the human swarm. The paparazzi was actually forming a ring around us to halt our advance. Frantic voices were overlapping one another, creating an alarming cacophony that triggered an inborn panic response within my person. And my growing anxiety sure wasn't helped by the incessant blinding camera flashes either. My sense of sight and sound were under assault, and my mobility was thoroughly repressed.

-This was intolerable.

How could anyone stand this?

"I'm afraid that any official comments on my behalf will have to wait for a scheduled interview. Now if you'll excuse me, I have a dinner to attend." Misty was ever so polite when addressing this invasive mob. I don't know how she did it, remaining so cordial in the face of all those parasites; but now I could definitely understand why so many celebrities opted to wear the same fucking ugly aviator shades that Misty Willows was currently donning.

-When that many camera flashes are going off point blank in your face, you need to wear fucking eye protection.

"Well that was fun." I grumbled when Misty's Gym staff denied the crowd of reporters and journalists access to the Cerulean Gym. Misty started laughing.

"It's a little bit annoying, but… It's also kind of flattering." The Gym Leader chuckled.

"Yeah… I don't know if it's my scene." I grunted, blinking the white and blue blurs out of my sight. Still laughing, Misty removed her aviators, and put them over my eyes.

"There. Now you won't be caught off guard on our walk to dinner…" Misty was still playing the game, and after our evening in the lagoon…

-I was more than happy to play along with her.

More than happy.

"Shit. I think that you can make these goofy things look even better than I can." I grinned. Misty surprised me with a camera flash from her holocaster.

"I don't know… Those aviators compliment the beret pretty well." Misty teased, rotating the holocaster's display my way.

"Naw, that look is only being pulled off by the handsome mug with the cheesy grin. Damn, that guy looks sexy." I chuckled, getting another eruption of giggles out of Misty.

"So… Are you going to change before dinner, or are you going to wear the uniform?" Misty asked. From anyone else, that would have sounded like a request for me to swap suits. But Misty's teasing smile at the word uniform implied her preference.

"Just let me make sure that I shook all the sand out at the lagoon. I don't want to be a disgrace to the Cerulean City Gym Leader or the uniform." I smirked. Misty's smile widened.

"Give me about a half an hour. Make yourself cozy." Misty put a lingering hand on my shoulder as she slowly walked off to her private quarters in the Cerulean Gym. I did as my second date of the day requested, and after a good thorough shaking of my Ranger onesies, I sat down in the Gym lounge to patiently await my hostess. It wasn't too boring. Like in every Gym, there was a video stream of the residential Gym Leader's most inspiring League battles. So I was privileged to play witness to a recording of Misty creaming Lorelai in the Indigo League's prior seasonal finals.

-Poor Lorelai. The aspiring Sevii novelist just couldn't get a break with all these Kantonese Gym Leaders stomping up and down her spine.

After I was midway through Misty and Lorelai's League match, the aforementioned Gym Leader reappeared, wearing a banana yellow islander long dress with faint red traces of hibiscus blooms ringing the hem. An intricately pleated corset and bow frilled the lower back of the dress; bestowing Misty with a far more cinched figure than her athletic body would normally portray. Her red hair was pulled back into chignon, and decked out with a pair of massive red wooden kanzashis. Misty's feet were decisively bare of conventional shod, instead the Gym Leader had favored an elegant yellow footwrap that climbed from the soles of her feet and wrapped tightly around her shapely calves; with a freshly cut red lily interwoven in either ankle knot.

To say the least, Misty looked gorgeous.

Complementing her becoming attire, a fresh layer of cosmetics and a light dash of perfume had turned the Tomboy Mermaid into a fully fledged tropical beauty.

"That, right there… That is the definition… of ravishing." I was not so overcome by Misty's appearance that I couldn't find something charming to say. The beaming Gym Leader snapped open a red stained hinoki ogi with a flick of her wrist, and giggled behind the cypress fan.

"You almost make me feel underdressed. It's a good thing that I remembered to wear my SO bandanna today." My cheesy grin wasn't going to get old anytime soon. A glowing eyed Misty donned and adjusted a fresh pair of aviators, before stretching a bare arm to me. Taking that sinewing arm in a cordial hold, The Cerulean City Gym Leader and the soon to be infamous Fucking Bastard walked out into the evening mob, and headed blissfully towards Misty's favorite Johotonene restaurant.

"Do you always place your orders of Omakase with the greeter?" Misty laughed when we sat down at her private balcony table.

"Yep. I like to live dangerously." I answered, chuckling right along with the Gym Leader.

"Oh, Misty... what are you getting into?" Misty giggled to herself, leaning her right temple against a fist.

"Aw, come on now. You're gonna make me blush." I teased. Misty just buried her face into the tablecloth, her shoulders shaking with the breathless laughter. I was still smiling when Misty lifted her grinning head up off the table.

"Okay… Okay… Slow it down. I can hold my breath for as long as is humanly possible, but I still need to breathe…" Misty fought back the chuckles, her eyes watering. I just gave Misty a smarmy look, which made beating the giggles all the more difficult for her.

"Okay… Zane- Is it alright if I call you Zane? Saying Ranger Zane over and over again just sounds so formal…" Misty finally found enough breath with which to speak.

"Shit. You can call me whatever you like, just so long as you're still smiling when you say it." My cheesy grin is a lethal weapon under the right circumstances, and woe on Misty…

...Now was proving to be one of those perfect storms.

"-Knock it off, Zane!" Misty smacked me with her fan, struggling against another fit of giggles.

I just kept on smiling at her.

This was a pretty damn good time.

I was feeding off Misty's nasally laughter as much as she was intoxicating herself on my dopey charm.

"Alright. I'll try again. Zane." Misty straightened herself out as much as she could, but one look at my goofy grin had her wrestling with the mirth again.

"Fine! I'll just ask! Zane, would you tell me about your Gym match with Brock?" Misty took several deep breaths, and fixed me with a level eye.

"I could." I stated, still grinning. Misty began to knead her brow.

"...Oh God… Would you please tell me about your Gym match with Brock?" Misty almost sounded frustrated, but she wasn't fooling me.

We both knew that this was all just foreplay.

"Hmm… Maybe?" I answered innocently.

Misty threw her fan at me.

"Just tell me, you cocktease of a Ranger!" Misty chortled.

"-Well… There isn't much to say." I replied. Misty made a face.

"You're kidding me! You walked into the Pit, beat Brock in a Novice match by breaking the rules, somehow managed to convince him to grant you the Boulder Badge, and then you walked out of the Pit with an Intermediate-Two License?" Misty was gaping at me.

"That was the entire event in a nutshell, yep." I kept right on grinning.

"Oh, for fuck's sake… You aren't going to tell me, are you?" Misty leaned her cheek on a palm.

"That would be revealing classified Ranger intel." I officially coughed into a fist.

"You little bitch… You aren't going to hand me any advantages, are you?" Misty grumbled, though that smile was still animating her face.

"Nope. You'll get to find out how I operate in a Gym ring soon enough, Willows." I smirked. Misty sighed.

"Okay… Well, if you refuse to tell me about your match with Brock… Maybe you could tell me about the match that followed yours?" Misty tried.

I froze stiff.

The day's first expression of discomfort crossed my face.

-I just couldn't get away from him…

"You mean, TH's battle with Brock?" I muttered. Misty swallowed.

"Due to it being a Private match, Brock isn't legally allowed to discuss it. I've put in a request to the League for any footage recorded from last year's Kalosian League Finals, but… It seems that the Kalosian government destroyed all public documents pertaining to the Eidolon King." Misty explained. That revelation struck me dumb with a sudden epiphany.

"...Political Decimation. King Arturia must be trying to destroy TH's identity in Kalos by erasing his history… Of all the shallow bureaucratic maneuvers..." I muttered under my breath.

"Say what?" A distraught Misty Willows asked me.

"Nothing… Just musing on what you told me…" I grunted. Misty looked at me with concern. I'd been acting invincible and witty all day, and now I was showing Misty the other end of Zane Bastard's personality spectrum. Worried. Brooding. Introverted.

-Haunted.

"...What would you like to know?" I reluctantly asked Misty at last. Misty spread her arms apart with a bewildered expression; as if the answer should be obvious.

"How does TH fight? What strategies does he employ? How does TH himself react to the events of the battle? All of it, any of it, even the most insignificant detail!" Misty was looking worried too.

"...TH posed a challenge to you, didn't he?" I asked. Misty swallowed hard.

"...Not yet. But I know that it's coming. I need to learn everything that I can-"

"-Be prepared to lose. And don't push your mon too hard. TH will just kill them before you have a chance to intervene. Did you hear about Quartz and Lithe? What TH did to them?" I asked. Misty shuddered.

"It couldn't have happened to a more ideal victim. Brock loves his mon like family. The only thing that has been keeping Brock away from a Quad-Flame ranking is his inability to sacrifice his mon…" Misty murmured. I could detect a trace of pity in her voice.

"Yeah, well TH exploited that. After TH burned Lithe away into the Distortion, Brock just called it quits. He was weeping up a Goddamn flood for his dead trilobite. And TH just smiled at Brock. As if he found the whole sordid affair funny…" I growled the last bit.

"So TH knows how to get inside his opponent's head?" Misty asked. My breath left my lungs in a rattling laughter.

"You have no idea how good he is at it." I whispered. Misty gave me a moment to shake off the dread, before asking her next question.

"-What about his strategies? Did you notice TH deploying any particularly ingenious or unorthodox designs?" Misty asked.

"...TH goaded Brock into making the first move. A reckless move. One of TH's Ghosts, Pariah, was waiting to intercept Quartz's attack with a cursed shield. As soon as that Rhyperior made contact with Pariah… The Ghost started killing her." I answered grimly.

"Is that how Quartz died? A curse?" Misty asked, the Cerulean City Gym Leader was hanging onto my every word.

"No…" I shuddered again.

"...Pariah fucking cut that Rhyperior in half with a single sword stroke." I hissed. Misty fell back into her seat. The bug-eyed and pale expression said it all.

"...Pariah killed her with one attack? A Rhyperior? A Championship Rhyperior?!" Misty couldn't believe what I had just told her. I still struggled to believe it, and I had witnessed it.

"One stroke. Nobody saw it. Quartz was still alive when Brock called her back into her Pokeball, but… I imagine that Brock dug a grave for Quartz before he let her out for the last time…" I whispered.

"...Poor Brock…" Misty sounded like she was gonna start grieving for her rival in the League.

"TH only used two of his Ghosts in that match. Pariah actually killed pretty quickly in comparison to Ghost number two; Typhon…" I spat that foul name out. Misty covered her mouth.

"-I've heard about that Ghost before. One of the Kalosian legends. Typhon, the Unyielding. Typhon, the Maelstrom. They say that he's never fallen in battle, and that no one has been able to Channel Typhon for centuries…" Misty murmured.

"Yeah, well your information is dated. Typhon yields to TH. And after seeing the shit that Typhon pulled… I could almost believe in the legends of his invincibility." I was interrupted by an itamae, who came to our table to roll and cut an appetizer of Alomomola Sushi, before pouring Misty and I a round of sake.

"So…" Misty began after the itamae had left us. I drained the first round of sake, and longed for another to appear.

"...How did Typhon fight?" Misty asked. I snorted.

"Like a Goddamn devil. That Jellicent burned everything that hit the field with Ghostfire, and he polarized his Distortion seep in order to fill the Pit with miasma. Total field control. Typhon wasn't going to let Brock claim the home-field advantage. I didn't see much of Brock's Cradily duking it out with Typhon, mostly because I was too busy trying to avoid the fucking miasma… But Brock's fossilized plant didn't stand a chance. Typhon shrugged off everything that Brock's Cradily threw at him, while that freaky Ghost just focused on burning the fossil down. Brock wisened up, and benched his Cradily before TH could kill her. But then Lithe came out…" I paused, and forced myself to eat a piece of Sushi. The powerful and pleasant flavors of a Cerulean dragon roll did wonders for chasing away the terror.

"Lithe was fucking beautiful. I honestly thought that Brock's Kabutops could stand up to Typhon. Typhon couldn't touch Lithe with the Ghostfire, so that fast motherfucking Kabutops had an advantage. Initially." I ate another wad of raw fish, and tried to chase Typhon's memory out of my mind.

"Lithe ripped Typhon to shreds. Any other mon would have died from that reaming. Any other mon would have fallen to the ground in pieces. But it was all a ploy. TH was just trying to lure Lithe and Brock into a false sense of security. The very moment Lithe committed himself to the finishing cut, Typhon intercepted that Kabutops with his Ghostfire. Then Typhon reversed time itself using a halo rift, and undid all the damage that Lithe had been able to inflict on him." I paused in the telling, as three more itamaes arrived to divvy up the second course on the Omakase menu. Marinated Qwilfish Fugu fillets, served with warmed sake. The Qwilfishs' spined tails were added to the drinks, slowly bleeding a minor neurotoxin into the sake. I knew better than to down this round quickly. The buzz you get from Fugu sake is best after the poison and liquor have had time to steep together.

"After that freaky Ghost crippled Brock's trump card, TH gave Typhon clearance to sink the Pit into a fucking Distortion sub-cell. Everybody in attendance got a taste of the darkness. And I do not want go back into that hell, even if it's one of the outer shells." I sampled my Fugu, and tried to ease my rattled nerves. Misty had barely touched her meal. I could understand why.

Not even Agatha Poe's infamous Triplets could manage the unnatural feats that TH's Ghosts pulled off so effortlessly.

"Lithe was pulled directly into the Distortion sub-cell's penumbra. Then Typhon did something weird, and called up this violet aurora. I'm not entirely sure how it works, but this aurora seemed to intensify and hasten the burning of Typhon's Ghostfire. Lithe disintegrated in a matter of seconds. Well, seconds as far as the human awareness can measure outside of the Distortion. I couldn't figure out if I was stuck in that Distortion sub-cell for an eternity, or if I had never actually been in one. That place will fuck with your head..." I was clutching both temples when I finished the telling. It was a long time before Misty asked her next question. Long enough for the third course to arrive.

-Just fucking awesome.

Octillery Sannakji, and the final preparations were carried out right at our table. I watched as those still living infant cephalopods were relieved of their appendages, and then the writhing limbs were seasoned with soy and sesame; before a round of soju filled a fresh set of ochokos.

"Just what I wanted to eat… Wiggling tentacles…" I put on my best smile for my date, and lifted a chopstick load of thrashing limbs into my mouth. You had to be careful when eating Sannakji. Those suction cups still functioned, and as well as sticking to the inside of your mouth; Sannakji could also grip your throat mid-swallow and choke you.

The things that some people call gourmet dining…

-Why did I order Omakase?

"And TH… Did he react at all?" Misty sounded worried. I struggled to speak past the Sannakji lodged in my throat, choosing to down a Fugu sake chaser before answering the Cerulean City Gym Leader.

"...He never stopped smirking for a second. He never even spoke a word. He barely moved at all. Nothing phased him. TH just radiated this… aura of manipulation. Like he knew how it was all going to end, and he set the whole damn scene up beforehand." I sighed, and took another shot at the Sannakji.

"...So do you think that TH is unbeatable?" Misty asked me in a peculiar tone. I forced down the dismembered Octillery, and met her eyes in a cold gaze.

"Nothing is unbeatable. But TH is a League Champion. And you can tell that he earned his Penta-Flame rank, just by watching him fight." I answered. Misty blew out her lips in a sputtering gale.

"Right, well… As you can imagine… This season, I've opted to train some Ghost-Killers for the Finals. Agatha's Triplets won't fare particularly well against a Hoennese Sharpedo and a Kalosian Greninja. I made a few deals with the shipping lanes to acquire some whoppers for Enzo Davinci. I'm getting the first brood of Chimera Froakies and Carvanhas at a discount price because I nabbed Enzo a pair of species that he didn't already have in his Ranch. The Carvanhas were easy enough to purchase, but the Froakies? I had to go through some contacts in the Kalosian Marche Noir in order to secure those rare puppies." Misty seemed pretty smug about her new Wraith-Slayers, but I wasn't so sure that they'd be as useful against TH as they would be against Agatha.

"You will be getting? You mean to tell me that you don't have your aquatic Dark-Types yet?" I asked. Misty slumped slightly.

"No, not yet. But I'm training a dozen of each. You see, unlike Brock Aissatou… Misty Willows doesn't cry over spilt milk." Misty put on her Championship face. I snorted.

"Misty Willows doesn't eat Sannakji either, does she?" I challenged Misty to a contest of resolve. Misty locked eyes with me, and lifted her chopsticks decisively. Pinching a pair of Octillery limbs between the ivory boughs, Misty lifted course number three to her lips.

She hesitated when one of the tentacles flailed against her chin.

Misty was turning green.

I buried my chopsticks into the platter, and began to casually pop writhing tentacles into my mouth, one at a time.

Misty's dining hand started to tremble.

One big ol' Ranger grin was gleaming across the table at Misty, with a wiggling tentacle held prisoner between the incisors.

Misty slammed her eyes shut, and then jammed her chopsticks directly into her throat, before attempting to swallow the Sannakji whole.

Bad move.

You needed to chew those suction cups into a rubbery paste before you even tried to swallow them.

Misty began choking within seconds.

I honestly thought that I was going to have to administer a heimlich maneuver on the Cerulean City Gym Leader.

-Which almost sounded like fun.

But I guess that if you rinse your throat with enough sake…

...You can wash the sticky limbs clear of your esophagus.

"That was so gross!" Misty gagged. I was still laughing when she waved a waiter over, and snatched a bottle of premium cask aged sake from his serving platter.

Guzzling the commandeered alcohol straight from the bottle, a minor fountain of sake erupted from Misty's nose and mouth when the potent spirits burned my date for her haste.

"-Classy." I smirked. Misty raised a middle digit to me, and resumed chugging the bottle of sake.

Oh boy…

...Misty was going to be a sloppy handful tonight.

And an hour later, in Misty's private abode…

...My messy prediction proved well founded.

That girl's sex drive wasn't inhibited in the least.

-Even if the rest of her was...

"Ohgawd…"

I woke from another dreadful memory, tears pooling in either eye. I wasn't in Viridian Prime Outpost's sickbay. It wasn't the night after Echo's funeral.

Cerulean.

I was in Cerulean City.

It was morning.

I wasn't crying my heart out to Darwin.

I wasn't begging to die.

I was in Cerulean City. Echo's funeral had concluded months ago.

-But the memory was so alive…

"Mmmph…"

Something red groaned from my chest.

-Oh yeah…

I was in Cerulean City. In a bed of pleasures. Previously sleeping beside a celebrity Trainer.

Misty Willows was a bit reluctant about waking up quite this early in the morning, especially after last night.

-Good.

It gave me the time I required to collect myself in privacy.

I gazed out at the sea through Misty's penthouse suite skyview. The sun was still far from the rising, but the moon shone through the sparsely clouded sky, lighting the inky ocean surface with a pale rolling reflection. A slight hint of blue tinged the horizon, drawing a clearly defined line betwixt the water and the sky.

And between the ocean and below the penthouse windows; the first lights of activity were beginning to flicker into existence, as sleepy Cerulean woke to greet the rising day.

It was breathtaking.

Old marble Cerulean looked beautiful from this roost in the sky.

It was the perfect distraction.

The perfect contrast.

I needed something evocative to help me bury the memories again.

I had just dried my eyes and steadied my breathing when an incoming hail on my Tact. Pad brought the Tomboy Mermaid that much closer to awareness.

I fished the Tact. Pad out of my discarded coat's breast pocket. Misty just about threw a half-sleeping tantrum over the sudden commotion, but she settled down appropriately when I pulled her naked form against mine. It was only after the Cerulean City Gym Leader had quieted down that I dared to check the caller ID.

-RCBHT07-U04

It was Captain Lewis, waking both me and my date with the Ranger's morning horn.

"Good Morning Captain Lewis." I said it with all the novelty of a schoolboy.

"Warrant Officer Bastard. What have you to report?"

Fuck. Captain Lewis wouldn't even wish me a cordial good morning. And here I thought that I was bad at being human…

"Well I was operating incognito behind enemy lines, but you just shot that to shit." I grinned down at the redhaired beauty resting her curious head on my shoulder. Misty was wide awake, and eagerly eavesdropping on this official exchange.

"What do you mean covert? I thought that you were studying Misty Willow's League strategies. Why would that manner of reconnaissance require a subtle approach?" Captain Lewis's icy voice hinted at her suspicion.

"I studied every Gym Leader's League history in extensive detail before I even left Viridian Prime Outpost for Pewter. I know how a certain Misty Willows thinks in a League match, I know her entire Intermediate-Two roster, and I reviewed every recorded Intermediate-Two challenge that Misty answered since she first became a Gym Leader. I did my homework, Captain. Now I need to do my fieldwork." I was still grinning at Misty when I said that.

I should have known better than to flatter her.

-Misty's hands started getting rather playful beneath the sheets.

"So you're training your team for an aquatic Gym challenge then?" Captain Lewis asked, her voice already becoming something testy.

"...Ahem. Some-something like that?"

Misty's head had disappeared below the covers, and a sudden redheaded swell at my midriff meant that Misty's hands were getting tired.

"What's going on, Zane?" The cool voice of Captain Lewis asked.

I had to bite my tongue.

-All because Misty knew how to use her tongue…

"Just… Just an in depth-"

I cut myself off, gritting my teeth against a rising moan.

"Where are you currently located?" Captain Lewis asked.

"I didn't get the street number-"

Misty was taking her position above me now, finally deciding to pleasure herself on her plaything.

"Don't tell me-" Captain Lewis groaned.

-She was interrupted by Misty's moaning.

This redheaded broad liked to play dirty.

"Is that-?" Captain Lewis began

"-Just the television." I hastily replied.

"Oh... Zane…"

Goddamnit.

I could hear that moan echoing on Captain Lewis's end.

One look at my wickedly smiling date told me the whole story.

Misty was getting her vengeance for last night's Sannakji fiasco.

"Report to HQ at eight-hundred hours, Warrant Officer. That should allocate you a sufficient amount of time to complete your fieldwork. And then you and I are going to discuss current affairs plaguing the Cerulean district's Ranger Corps. That is all." Captain Lewis spat.

-Click.

"Who was that bitch?" Misty paused the action for a casual conversation.

"My Commanding Officer." I grumbled. Misty looked down at me curiously.

"Eight-O'-clock, huh? That gives us four hours…" Misty began. I smirked from below her.

"So does this mean that you're going to finish what you started?" I asked. Misty was answering my smirk with her own. Then she lifted her loins from my hips, and placed the sweetest fruit upon my lips.

"Only if you kiss it…" Misty teased as she put a hand behind my head.

"Ranger Zane Bastard, reporting as ordered." I stood at attention within the Team Seven's Barracks.

As far as my lone eye could see, only one Blackhat was in attendance.

Captain Lewis, sharpening a knife by her bunk.

"At ease, Bastard." Captain Lewis set aside her knife, and fixed both cold eyes on me.

There was a drawn out pause...

Then-

"Fieldwork." Captain Lewis stated in that iron tone.

"I got results." I replied.

"Really? Beyond getting your dick wet in some back alley whore?" Captain Lewis asked.

-Come on, Captain Lewis…

...You should know that I can do better than that.

"You did hear the other happy voice on my end of your morning call, right? That voice belonged to a certain Misty Willows." I tried not to smile when I said it.

"Nice!" Lieutenant Roscoe suddenly appeared from behind one of the bunks, wearing the shit eating grin that should have been on my face.

A tittering of laughter from every oblique corner told me that the majority of Blackhat Team Seven was in subtle attendance. They started creeping out from the shadows, everyone of them donning the same evil grin.

...Fucking Vets, man.

-They really like fucking with one another.

Captain Lewis worked her mouth. Apparently, she didn't quite concur with Lieutenant Roscoe's analysis.

"What exactly did you learn, Ranger? Anything of relevance for your Gym battle?" Captain Lewis asked.

Every Blackhats' smile faded. Stern eyes fell on me.

-Fortunately, I did learn something relevant from my date with Misty Willows.

"My opponent is confident on the surface, but conceals her doubt beneath that. Misty Willows is impulsive, a risk taker, and prone to acting on bad judgement based off her predictable moodswings. She'll attempt to secure total field control before making any overt moves against her opposition, she'll utilize both flattery and the authority of her social station to get underneath her adversary's skin; and if it means winning? Misty Willows will play just as dirty as a Ranger." I reported to Blackhat Team Seven.

Lieutenant Roscoe quirked an eyebrow.

"Shit, kid. I do not want you as my midnight wingman." The Blackhat Lieutenant announced. A smattering of chuckles followed Lieutenant Roscoe's jab. Captain Lewis was measuring me intently.

"...And what did Misty Willows learn from you, Bastard?"

Oh…

-Fuck.

"...That I'm indestructible, cocky as shit, charming as all hell, really good in bed, that I hate Ghosts-"

"-How did Misty Willows learn about your run in with TH?" Captain Lewis cut me off with her dire tone. I cleared my throat.

"...Last night's dinner revealed what kind of game Willows plays. Frankly, I think that Misty would have just fucked me at the lagoon and then let me find my own way back to Cerulean City. But I had information. Information that a Gym Leader wants so badly that she'd even invite a playboy out to dinner just to learn it." I answered. Lieutenant Roscoe looked over at Captain Lewis with a peculiar expression on his face. The rest of Blackhat Team Seven were shifting eyes with one another.

But Captain Lewis's cold eyes were locking gaze with only one Ranger in the Barracks.

-Chief Warrant Officer Zane Bastard.

"So Misty Willows only pumped you for information on TH?" Captain Lewis asked. I snorted.

"Captain Lewis, Misty thinks that I'm just a Ranger scamming my way through the League. She doesn't identify me as a threat. To the Cerulean City Gym Leader, Zane Bastard is just the flavor of the week. But that grey-eyed freak? He's up to something in Kanto, and everybody wants to know what it is." I reported.

Hint:

-I wanna know too.

"...And just what did you tell Misty Willows about TH?" Captain Lewis asked.

And that shrewd icy tone told everything that I wanted to know.

-Captain Lewis is in on it…

...Is there no one that I can trust?

"Only what I know. I related to Misty all the strategies and techniques that TH utilized in his Pewter City Gym Battle. Basically, I just told Willows that she'd best prepare for a creaming. If Misty can't get above a Mono-Flame rank in her three years of competing within the Indigo League Finals, then she hasn't got a prayer against Kalos's Reigning Champion." I replied.

I liked to keep what I knew about TH to myself. I didn't need an agency like ACE figuring out that I knew more than they wanted me to.

"So Willows doesn't know anything that might jeopardize Operation: Wounded Hearts?" Captain Lewis requested further clarity.

"If you don't believe me, then you can ask Alexandria. The eavesdropping shit probably recorded every word. I wouldn't be surprised at all if some of ACE's surveillance teams had to clean their shorts after listening to the show that Misty and I gave them last night." I smiled when I said it.

"-I learned my lesson the first time, Captain Lewis. I'm never letting my mouth run free again." I managed to repress a shudder when I recalled my little security breach incident in Pewter.

-I did not want to get gassed by ACE.

"Very good, Ranger. Now that you've completed the first prerogative on your mission requisition, let's discuss the second."

Every Blackhat found their feet and angled their salutes to the man standing right behind me. I recognised that voice instantly.

I about-faced and placed my fingers against my brow as Lt. Col Rionaldo raised his salute to answer ours.

"At ease, Rangers. Blackhats, saddle up. We've got a standby Black handle in the Vermilion District. Get your Wyrms prepped for a seek and destroy. The Arbok situation in the Prague is getting out of hand. We're hunting down their spring burrows and torching them before they can start laying their eggs. Stand to, Team Seven. We are boots in the sky in five."

Every Blackhat fell into formation in a flash, knives were stripped from the armory walls, and prepacked field kits were shouldered in seconds. The entire outfit turned to their commanding officer with a roar.

"AD HONOREM!"

I was caught in the moment. I almost found myself shouting with them.

Team Seven charged out of the Barracks, leaving both a Lt. Col Rionaldo and a Chief Warrant Officer Bastard alone in the newly silent room.

"I don't have much time, Ranger, so let me make this quick. Cerulean Prime Outpost is requesting aid in sector Alpha. It's Cerulean's Walkout season, and the local Vets are suffering personnel shortages across all divisions. Captain Lewis was happy to volunteer the support of a Viridian Sapper unit to assist Cerulean Prime with clearing out some Beedrill hives. You are to report to Cerulean Prime Outpost immediately, and swap your League loadout for the appropriate ordnance-"

-I was already beaming.

It had been way too long since the Fucking Bastard had blown something up.

"-I've also alerted Cerulean Prime Outpost to monitor the ordnance returns very carefully. I know your reputation, Bastard. Every ounce of unused C4 is to be returned to the Quartermaster upon completion of your mission. Every ounce. You are not to pocket the leftovers."

...Son of a bitch…

"Yes sir!" My back straightened against the slump that threaten to crush my heart.

I may have disobeyed such specific orders in the past, but pissing off a Blackhat CO was not a risk that I could comfortably entertain. That said, my ears were starting to ring, and my spine was already tingling from the anticipated booms.

-Maybe I wouldn't sneak an ounce of fun out of Cerulean's ordnance depot, but I'd make the most of what I specifically could.

"Good. I've radioed ahead to ACE. They'll give Alexandria clearance to disengage the Trainer's Eyes. Your trip north should be quick and uneventful, Ranger. Dismissed." Lt. Col Rionaldo and I parted ways, and the Blackhat CO hoofed it after his regiment, as I trucked it for the HQ's southern exit.

I had barely made it to Cerulean City's northern gate when sixteen Gyaradosia rose from the western precinct in a staggered finger-four squadron formation. From that distance, I couldn't visually identify which Blackhat was fulfilling which role, but I knew Team Seven's Flight Leader roster by heart.

Lt. Col Rionaldo was flying Squadron Leader on Red Flight as Red-One, Captain Lewis was heading Blue Flight as Blue-Leader, Captain York was heading Yellow Flight as Yellow-Leader, and Major Pallin was heading Green Flight as Green-Leader.

The other Blackhats generally swapped roles between Element Leader and the Wingman roles, depending on what Flight they were deployed in, but certain designated Flights always had their staples.

On Blue Flight, Flight Wingman always fell to Lieutenant Roscoe, just as Element Leader on Red Flight always fell to Chief Warrant Officer Davis.

Just like in every disciplined outfit, certain unit pairings in Blackhat Team Seven had a more effective synergy than they did with any others.

...I was starting to get the impression that there might have been something going on between Lieutenant Roscoe and Captain Lewis, but the thought of cold old Captain Lewis in a romantic relationship with another human being was nothing short of laughable.

-Especially with the young Lieutenant Roscoe, who seemed only mildly more tame than me.

Chuckling my ass off, I sent a salute towards the Gyaradosia; as I watched that blue cloud of armored and ribbed-sailed dragon-snakes fly out over the southern Route that connected Cerulean City with the Gouge, before I turned in the opposite direction and made my cheery way up north towards Wrecker Cape.

...Sexy redheads, fresh seafood, beautiful architecture, ordnance dispensing Blackhats, and Kanto's highest concentration of Gyaradosia per cubic kilometer...

Yep.

-I was really beginning to fall in love with Cerulean.

...And then I had to go and fuck it all up.

The welcome that I received at Cerulean Prime Outpost was a little unnerving.

...Okay…

...I'll be honest.

-It was downright disturbing.

The Mount Moon Rangers had not been yanking my chain in the least. The entire Ranger Corps knew who the Fucking Bastard was. There was a Goddamn welcoming formation just waiting to salute my ass into Cerulean Prime Outpost's compound.

-I wasn't ready for that.

I was accustomed to just being another soldier in the uniform.

Not a fucking VIP.

After that awkward moment had been endured, I shook hands with Colonel Merrien, the regiment commander of Cerulean Prime Outpost, and then I received a formal reception and recognition within full view of her regiment; before I was comfortably put in my proper place among the infantry units with a Sapper designated loadout. My Squad's CO, Lieutenant Crosby, put me in the spotlight as his number two, before he let the Fucking Bastard take honorary command of his outfit.

Commanding Walkouts for me was a breeze. I could impose my superiority over Walkouts with an evil smile, but Vets?

-I was the youngest soldier in that entire six man squad, and though I had a higher or equivalent rank to more than half of the outfit…

Every one of these Greenbacks was a Veteran, with enough battlefield experience on me to make the Fucking Bastard look like a Walkout himself.

I hadn't even left the L-Straight into Sector Alpha yet, and I was already feeling the pressure.

-But I sure as hell wasn't showing it.

One thing I did appreciate about the squad I had been stationed with, was that they were all respectfully silent. There was no idle banter, or questions pertaining to my decorations, as there had been in Lune.

We were a squad of Veteran Rangers, hellbent on wiping out some Beedrill.

Relating war stories came secondary to the mission's primary objective.

-Murder the bloody mon, and then destroy their fucking homes.

And I was having a good time with my return to the front lines.

If the Vets were impressed by Cortez's nose, then they were amazed at Damascus's insane size and power. The first two Beedrill hives were crushed by my Rock-Snake, while Cortez, Vauban, myself; and the Vets with their own G.I. mon wiped out the swarm.

After we had finished slaughtering the Beedrill swarms, we Tang'd both ruined hives and lit up the remains.

Everything was going by the book.

-Right up until a Beedrill scout caught wind of us, before the fugly bug whooped Cortez in a race to hive three, and alerted the entire swarm to the Ranger's presence in their territory.

We had to hole up beneath our Bastion Class Onix, while we worked out a strategy for clearing out the attacking swarm. Cerulean's wetlands were too damp for Viridian's standard Beedrill swarm counter-tactic of igniting a swathe of the woods, and sitting back to watch as the light-obsessed bugs killed themselves by flying into the fire. The Rangers of Cerulean had to deviate from the easy stratagem, and improvise with what we had on hand.

Fortunately for the shitty circumstances, the Fucking Bastard had come to Cerulean packing some serious heat.

Cortez had given us plenty of forewarning to the approaching swarm, which allowed me to deploy Damascus in his most valuable suit. Before the swarm of Beedrill could even get within range to needle-rape us, a protective tunnel had been dug and quickly covered by my bigass Bastion Class.

If it wasn't for Cortez's nose and Damascus's tunneling skills, we might have lost a unit or two to the Beedrills' initial attack. But we made it through that shitfest without accruing a single Ranger casualty. We paired a G.I. Vileplume with my Vauban for a coordinated subterranean deployed pollen emission, and then our two noxious mon paralyzed the Beedrill swarm with an anesthetic dispersal that we ventilated from surface-breaching shafts dug from below ground. Following the incapacitated swarm's elimination, I laid waste to the third hive with my general issued explosives, and then the Vets and I took our sweet time clearing out the chorus of mon that responded to the boom.

After the resolution of that little fiasco, the Vets lightened up considerably. They started singing clandestine marching tunes on our way to the final hive, putting my name in place of the melodies' hailed badasses; who were crushing Swanna heads under heels and strangling Sevipers with bare hands. To the Cerulean Vets under my command, the Fucking Bastard was living up to his legend.

It should've been flattering.

...But for me…

-I just wanted to be treated like a soldier.

...Not some kind of Hero...

"What's the status of those charges, Bastard?" Lieutenant Crosby asked me.

"Leads are hot, lines are set, and charges are live. Give me a few more seconds to mold this cone, and we'll be good to go. A shaped charge dispersing the boom into the soil should limit the noise. Hopefully, we'll draw less attention setting this one off than hive three's detonation did. I smell like a fucking butcher shop after vaporizing all those Bidoofs." I reported. Lieutenant Crosby snorted.

"Yeah, I like that idea. I can still taste the red mist. Don't you think that your secondary clear-all was packed for overkill?" Lieutenant Crosby licked the inside of his mouth with an unpleasant expression on his face. His normally olive green uniform was speckled with blood from the previous hive's clear-all.

"...When I lay the charges… I like to ensure… That nothing's gonna be standing… after… I blow the scene…" I answered cautiously, as I gingerly fastened the final loop of Det. cord around a shaped wet-ANFO package.

"There. The hive is rigged, the clear-all is in place, and the triggers are primed. Let's blow this bitch into Beedrill hell, and put our bets down on who answers the boom first. Twenty Sandz says that the Mankeys beat the Bidoofs to the clear-all this time." I grinned, finishing up the final checks. I heard the Lieutenant strip a crisp twenty-Sandz bill out of his wallet.

"I'll meet that bet, but I'll also put down an extra five on the Oddish beating the Shroomish." Lieutenant Crosby chuckled.

"Well I'm ten Sandz in the hole already, but fuck it. You're on." I peeled out my own money, and tossed it into the pool, before both the Lieutenant and I retreated a hundred-and-fifty meters south of ground zero to regroup with the awaiting G.I. mon and the Ranger Vets.

"Damascus, would you kindly dig us a bunker? If you make it deep enough, then I'll put on some Bach for you..." I politely requested of my ornery Rock-Snake, who had yet to kick my ass today.

A minor rumble was all that Damascus responded with, before he grudgingly dug the Rangers and I a deep trench for cover.

"Thanks, Gramps..." I slapped Damascus's heavy lower jaw when he resurfaced.

"-For not knocking me out…" I added in a spitting undertone.

RUMBLE.

If I didn't know any better, I'd say that last rumble sounded pretty smug.

"Here's your fucking music, you disloyal piece of shit." I grumbled, selecting Bach's Mass in B minor on my Tact. Pad for my erratically behaving Onix. We all clambered down into the bunker, before Damascus hunkered over us, and then my Rock-Snake shifted a layer of loose soil over his exposed beads; concealing both his glimmering presence and the bunker entrance.

"Alright, is every head accounted for?" I asked Lieutenant Crosby. The Vets all answered to roll call, before I released the safety pin on the detonator's primary trigger guard.

"All units standby for detonation-" I flipped open the trigger guard, and placed my finger on the switch.

"-Countdown begins at T-minus ten. Ten-"

"-Nine."

"-Eight."

"-Seven."

"-Six."

"-Five."

"-Four."

"-Three."

"-Two."

"-One."

"-FIRE IN THE HOLE!" I hollered as my finger smashed the trigger into the switchboard.

-That has to be one of my favorite phrases to shout out loud. Everytime I get to say it, something beautiful happens.

In this case, a Beedrill hive just disappeared into a white cloud of papery debris and concussive noise. We could feel the explosion's vibrations shaking dirt loose from the walls of our hastily constructed bunker.

"First clear-all is primed! Get ready for the chop!" I called out. I peeked out from a crack between Damascus's earth covered bulk and the bunker's ridge. Now we were just waiting.

-Waiting for the rodeo to show up.

It didn't take too long for the first crowd to arrive. A couple of rustling Tangela and screeching Fearows entered the perimeter of ground zero within minutes of post-devastation. Some Poliwhirls followed the first line up, hammering their wiggling guts with their slimy mitts. Then a lone Oddish joined the fray.

"Fuck… Come on, you dirty little Mankeys… get my tab into the clear…" I begged, while Lieutenant Crosby slapped me on the shoulder. The other Vets were alternatively mourning and celebrating their own bets.

"-YES! A MANKEY! THERE'S A FUCKING MANKEY IN THE TREES!" I had never been so happy to see a filthy little monkey-mon before in my life. Lieutenant Crosby buried his laughter in a palm. I was now five Sandz richer because of that stupid little Mankey.

It was almost a shame that I was gonna have to blow his ass up in less than a minute.

-Almost.

"Okay, they're getting angsty. Let's sweep this crowd, and prime the secondary clear-all. Standby for detonation. T-minus five seconds. Five-." I started the countdown immediately after I saw a Tangela beginning to swap blows with a Poliwhirl. We couldn't have the mon breaking out into a murderous brawl. They might leave the clear-all's radius, or even upset the primers once they started going apeshit on one another.

"-Four."

"-Three."

"-Two."

"-One."

"-FIRE IN THE HOLE!"

I flipped the first clear-all's switch, and a ring of C4 and shrap-pack detonated right underneath the feet of all those furious mon.

"HELL YES!"

The baited mon disappeared just like the Beedrill's hive had, except the vapor left behind by this lot was noticeably ruddy in coloration. You could hardly see the red mist through all the dust, though.

-But we could still hear the sound of mon chunks hitting the ground in a fleshy downpour shortly after the explosion's echo had rebounded back to the point of origin.

-I love my job.

"The second clear-all is primed. Let's see what the mon bring in next." My voice was getting something giddy. This is what I lived for.

-The fucking BOOM.

"We've got more Mankeys and Bidoofs incoming. And there's my late Shromishes. Man, they look pissed-! -Holy fuck! We've got an Abra! A FUCKING ABRA JUST TELEPORTED IN! Permission to blow the clear-all prematurely!" I was bouncing on the balls of my feet with an uncontrollable glee.

I've blown up tonnes of mon before. Metric shit loads of mon.

-But I ain't never blown up a sneaky as hell Abra.

"Are the mon within the perimeter of the charges?" Lieutenant Crosby hastily asked. I took my eyes of the rare psion prize and made a deft calculation.

"It'll leave some big pieces, but their chance of survival is non-existent. They'll still get hit with the concussion. The outlying mon will choke to death on their own hemorrhaging lungs." I reported.

"Permission granted. Blast that psion into kingdom come before it picks up on our intentions and teleports the hell outta dodge." Lieutenant Crosby ordered.

"-FIRE IN THE FUCKING HOLE!" I hollered, flipping clear-all number two's switch into the ignition setting.

BOOM.

-That Abra was toast at the flick of a switch. And so was all his little mon buddies.

"Confirmed kill! One less psion for Cerulean to worry about! Priming clear-all number three!"

The survivors of clear-all number two were already on the ground, seizuring as they bled to death from within. Some of the still living mon were missing a lot more than their intact alveoli. Several Bidoofs had been blown damn near in half, and a shellshocked Primeape was dragging its bloody stumps right over the hidden charges of clear-all number three.

"...Don't worry, fugly. It'll all be over with soon." I growled, flipping the trigger guard off clear-all number three's ignition switch.

"Last clear-all is primed. This is the long fuse. We are holding out for the stragglers. If you gents have any last minute bets to make, now's the time to put your money where your mouth is." The Fucking Bastard shot his evilest grin at the gathered Vets.

None of us were fucking worried about the hordes of bloodthirsty mon converging one-hundred-and-fifty meters north of our Bunker. This was as textbook as Ranger work could get.

We were shooting Feebas in a fucking barrel, and after clear-all number three blew, all we had to do was sit underground for half-an-hour, telling jokes and counting Sandz; until we were absolutely positive that nothing nasty was arriving late to the party.

"Okay, we've got the swing-shift crews coming in. There ain't much left in this portion of sector Alpha. T-minus two minutes till detonation." I watched as several smaller hordes moved into the bloody devastation of the Beedrill's old hive.

"Shit, I still don't see why we don't just bomb mon like this every fucking day." A Vet chuckled.

"We don't have enough ordnance for that, and we never did. And this tactic doesn't work against certain mon. Look up the war on mon following the Brink Collapse. If blowing mon up could have killed 'em all, they would've been able to do it back then." I grumbled, wiping a sheen of sweat off my brow. The anticipation was killing me, and the stuffy bunker wasn't making it any easier on my pores.

"Did they really hit Regigigas with a nuke?" One Vet asked me in a suspicious voice. I snorted hard enough to burn my nasal cavities.

"No, they hit him with two nukes. Regigigas walked it off in a month's time. After that, we just stopped using nuclear ballistics altogether. The aftereffects of a naked fusion reaction in the earth's atmosphere hit us a lot harder than it hit the mon." I grumbled.

"Well, shit. Thank God the Lima-Threes are all gone." Another Vet muttered.

"Yeah, small miracle that. Too bad they didn't disappear sooner." I spat.

"Alright, standby for detonation. It's getting quiet out there. Time to make a ruckus. T-minus fifteen seconds. Lieutenant Crosby, would you like to do the honors?" I asked, offering the ignition switchboard to my Superior Officer.

"It would be my pleasure." Lieutenant Crosby peeled his gloves off, and took the ignition switchboard from me with a grin.

"You have the football, make the play in T-minus Five-"

"-Four."

"-Three."

"-Two."

"-One."

"-LET THERE BE LIGHT!" Lieutenant Crosby shouted as he flicked the switch. Every Ranger in the bunker collectively held their breath.

...It took us about fives seconds to release that same breath.

"...Aw, FUCK!" I spat.

There was no boom.

"-That's not supposed to happen?" A concerned Lieutenant Crosby asked me, and my palm met my face at high velocity.

"-Give me the switchboard. Oh, please don't be a dud…" I begged, taking the switchboard from my CO. I primed the detonator again, before hitting the ignition switch.

Nothing.

"FUCK!"

-We had a dud clear-all.

"Gimme a second, gimme a sec… Let me try this…" I tied clear-all three's detonator into clear-all two's ignition switch, before repeating the prime/ignition process all over again.

Still fucking nothing.

"Aw, crap... The remote primer might have come loose from an earlier explosion. But I packed that shit in tight. That shouldn't-"

-BOOOOOM!

Every Ranger hit the deck.

-That was a big one.

It was intentionally big, I should add.

...As I had promised Lt. Col Rionaldo, I wasn't pocketing any leftover ordnance.

-Mostly because I had made damn sure that there wasn't going to be any leftover ordnance.

Every last gram of C4 and ANFO that I had left went straight into hive number four's final clear-all.

The last explosion of the day was also gonna be the biggest.

We could all feel that concussion shaking our lungs and rattling our teeth.

-I might have overdone it just a little.

...Just a little.

"WHaT-"

"InnN-"

"THe-"

"SAne-"

"HELL-"

"-WaS THat?!"

I could barely hear Lieutenant Crosby through the numb ringing in my ears.

Damn.

This was gonna be another one of my Sapper horror stories.

"...Delayed detonation. -That happens sometimes."

I couldn't even hear my own voice.

"-Is everybody alive?" I asked from my position on the ground.

"-Umph..." The Ranger closest to me had both fingers in his ears, and he was choking on the falling dust. I patted him firmly on the shoulder, and held my curved index finger and thumb together in the 'Are you okay?' hand symbol. After he took a moment to collect his stunned wits, the wide-eyed Ranger gave me the thumbs-up.

"Fuck me. That was loud…" Still sitting on my ass, I planted my shoulders against the bunker wall, and breathed out a sigh of relief.

"-Was it supposed to be that loud?!" Lieutenant Crosby rounded on me.

Oh fuck…

-Think quick, Zane...

"-I configured the primers to detonate the charges in a chain sequence. The delayed detonation must have ignited every primer at once. -That's why it was so damn loud."

I lied through my fucking teeth. I could have killed us all with my reckless overdose of fun. But my CO didn't need to know that. As long as Lieutenant Crosby didn't see the manifest detailing my ordnance usage, then I could play on his ignorance of demolitions procedure and keep my Ranger's badge on my chest.

This type of shit right here could get me dishonorably discharged from the Ranger Corps.

This wasn't the first time that something like this had happened.

...If I haven't clarified it in the past…

-My Sapper exploits are the stuff of nightmares.

"God almighty… I thought that was gonna kill us all..." Lieutenant Crosby gasped, putting a hand over his hammering heart.

I tried not to swallow.

-I didn't want to let on how accurate Lieutenant Crosby's fearful admission was.

"...So what now?" One shaken Vet asked the bunker.

"-Now? We wait." I grunted, lifting myself to my feet.

"Hey Gramps! You okay?" I walloped one of the ivory beads above my head with a closed fist.

-RUMBLE.

I don't even know why I was worried about Damascus. That far-off explosion was fucking tiny compared to some of the shit that had scourged Damascus in the war following the Brink Collapse.

"That's my beautiful snake. Hold up a little longer, Damascus. Once we're sure that the perimeter is secure, I'm putting your stony ass on R&R. You did a damn good job today, Gramps. A fucking fine ass job." I gave Damascus's beads a few more fond pats, before settling down into the bunker, and then I punched in my snake's favorite classical playlist on a shuffled loop.

Damascus had done a spectacular job today.

He hadn't even attacked me once.

-It was a new personal best.

We were back at Cerulean Prime Outpost, stuffing our faces in the mess hall. A thorough medical examination had relieved me of any guilt after my inappropriate and dangerous demolition. No one had been seriously injured, and the only wound of note was one Vet's shattered eardrum. It hurt like a bitch, but it wasn't going to render him deaf. Besides, he got to kick back on the R&R scene for week while he waited for his eardrum to recover.

The Fucking Bastard was still getting the guest of honor treatment, and after my temporary Cerulean command had filled the mess hall with the tales of my day's deeds, a laughing and cheering collection of Cerulean Vets were raising their soup cups in a toast to me.

-Strangely, I was okay with this.

They were applauding the destruction of four Beedrill hives and the slaughter of hundreds of mon. Not revering the Fucking Bastard as a war hero.

"-And then... and then Lieutenant Crosby stood up out of the trench! He was all like, 'They're dead, and I ain't waiting around for the dust settle,' -and then…" One of the Vets I'd served with was choking to death on his own laughter as he recounted the aftermath of hive three.

"-And then he got a facefull of the red mist! He started retching and choking on that vile cloud, and we were all laughing in the trench-"

I was laughing myself. The memory of Lieutenant Crosby's premature departure was pretty fucking funny.

"I told him not to get up, but he was gonna be the tough guy and-" I started, still chuckling.

-A sudden snapping of heels and flying salutes interrupted me as every Ranger at my table rose to attention. I followed suit and about-faced.

"Warrant Officer Bastard." Colonel Merrien released the gathering from our salute, and brought the entire mess hall's awareness onto my person. I in turn, gave Colonel Merrien my fullest attention.

She was pretty young for a Colonel. I pegged the blonde Regiment Commander before me as somewhere in between forty and forty-three years of age, her face lacking even one meaningful wrinkle to mar her stern expression.

"Yes sir?" I replied. The Colonel's left cheek twitched. One of Colonel Merrien's Aides approached us, his left arm draped in a white sheet.

"I called an old friend of mine when I learned that you were visiting my Outpost. A good old friend of mine. Somebody you might remember. And this friend of mine made a little request of me." Colonel Merrien shifted something out of the crook of her arm. My eyes lit up the very instant I saw what it was.

"Colonel Isaac Howes sends his regards." Colonel Merrien smiled, handing me an amber bottle of fifty-year old scotch.

"You old coot…" I whispered fondly of my Viridian Commander, as I accepted the bottle from Colonel Merrien.

This was the good stuff. My paycheck couldn't even cover the cost of this untapped bottle. This one bottle was worth more than half of my annual pay.

"It's not every Ranger who gets to drink liquor almost three times their own age in my mess hall." Colonel Merrien snapped a white gloved hand, and the Aide behind her quickly whipped off the linen cloth concealing a silver platter of crystal snifters in his arms.

"-As a matter of fact, if said Rangers won't share their exquisite beverage… Then they can turn their bottle over to a superior officer for detainment." Colonel Merrien selected a snifter from the silver platter, and leveled her crystal with my scotch.

"Fair enough." I grinned, popping the wax seal off the cork and prying the bottle open. I poured Colonel Merrien her drink, before filling a snifter of my own.

"Ad honorem, Warrant Officer Bastard." Colonel Merrien raised her snifter.

"Ad honorem, Colonel." We clinked our crystals together in a toast, before we both sampled a lick of my favorite drink.

-And then every fucking Ranger in the fucking mess hall lined up for a hit of my scotch.

...That bottle was more than half-empty when I finally got it back from them.

...I could have broken down weeping for all that premium scotch that I was never gonna taste.

"Alright, I gotta a question for you boys." I sat back down in the mess hall after guaranteeing that my remaining scotch was securely hidden. I was saving the last of it for a special occasion. A very special occasion. There was more than just some supreme quality liquor in my half-empty bottle of gifted scotch. Something of a nostalgic sentiment had filled all that empty space now.

"Shoot." The Vets were grinning. The smug fucks were still gloating over their opportunistic binge at my expense.

"Where's the best view of Wrecker Cape?" I asked, pulling my Tact. Pad out. The Vets exchanged a glance.

"-Looking for a photoshoot?" One Vet asked with a quirked eyebrow.

I pursed my lips.

"Kind of. I knew a kid back in Viridian. A cartographer. He… Well… I thought-" I cleared my throat, and maintained my composure.

-But these were Vets.

They heard exactly what I was trying not to say.

"His name was Erin. He was a good kid... A good Ranger." I couldn't keep the sting out of my eyes, even though the rest me could pull off the facade.

...I don't know why I thought that snapping pics of Kanto's landmarks was something that Erin would approve of.

...I don't know why I was trying so hard to keep their memory alive…

"Do you have a GPS on that?" One of the Vets asked me in a soft voice, indicating my Tact. Pad with a nod. I pulled up the navigation menu, and handed my Tact. Pad over to him.

"Alright, let me see… There we go. That's where you want to be." The Vet set a waypoint on my Tact. Pad, and returned the device to me.

"You get there by sunset, and you're gonna be in for a real treat. Just be aware that the highlighted route crosses over the White Warrens. There's Parasect in those rocks that come out at night. You won't find any clean water, much to eat, no dry vegetation for tinder, or even a soft place to sleep. But if you want the best photo-op in all of Cerulean, then you've gotta risk a safari to get into position." The coordinate providing Vet gave me the blow-by-blow.

"I'll pack some MREs and extra water then. And I'm not worried about sleeping on the rocks. I've been in shittier places before." I snapped my Tact. Pad shut with a sigh.

"Might want to hit up Sickbay for some booster shots and antivenoms. Those Parasects are fucking nasty if they get you with their spores. You and your mon are gonna want every form of protection that you can get, just to ensure that you all don't get your septic-ridden corpses picked clean by the mushroom-crabs." Another Vet suggested.

"Thanks. I'll definitely go do that then. But my Vauban's a Saboteur Class. She ain't got nothing to worry about." I managed to smile when I settled back into my chair.

-Speaking of my Vauban...

...I could really use my sweet little girl right now.

"A Saboteur? Can she detect spore emissions?" A Vet asked.

"Yeah, but my Growlithe is the best Pathfinder-"

"-Deploy them both. A Pathfinder's nose gets all kinds of fucked up if they inhale the spores. That parasitic shit will kill a Growlithe's olfactory receptors before they can even relay the nasal infection to the brain. Keep your Pathfinder pathfinding, but use your Saboteur as a microbe detector. You'll get through the White Warrens without a hitch." The Vet gave me a friendly smile.

I reflected that smile to the best of my ability.

"Thanks for the advice. I appreciate it." I tapped my beret and inclined my head to the gathered Greenbacks. Then I stood up and made to leave the mess hall, so that I could finish my preparations for a trip into the White Warrens.

"Warrant Officer Bastard?" One Vet called out to me before I had even put down more than five paces.

I turned around, well aware of just how beaten the expression on my face was.

"-It was an honor meeting you." The Vet rose to his feet with every other Ranger in the mess hall. Then a roomful of salutes were raised to me.

Again. Yet again I was made to play this cancerous role.

I don't want this…

A shaking breath accompanied my raised arm.

"The honor was mine, Rangers. Ad honorem." A hoarse voice replied, as I released the Cerulean Rangers from their salutes.

"AD HONOREM." That mantra resounded throughout the mess hall in a deep chorus.

...I was never gonna get accustomed to playing this role.

"..."

"...And even here at the end…"

"..."

"...I still can't accept it…"

"Okay Gramps, that's enough soaking for now." I sighed, switching off Damascus's music. The loose soil beneath me had something to say about that.

RUMBLE.

"Come on, Damascus… Would you just give me a fucking break? I can't leave your crazy ass behind at Cerulean Prime; and anyways? I'm heading back out into the Frontier. You gonna come with me or not?" I halfheartedly kicked the shifting dirt beneath me.

Rumble…

Thank God. My grudge-happy snake wasn't going to shaft me for interrupting his nap.

"Get up here, you old shit. I'll let you out on the return journey. I don't need you catching parasites from the Parasect. Scrubbing down your bulk is a two-day affair. But the Parasect are nocturnal, so by tomorrow morning I can allot you some slithering time." I filled Damascus in on the plan as he poked his conical head above the shuffling earth.

"All the way up, Gramps. You know how the Pokeball works."

...Rumble.

One disgruntled Onix pulled his pearlescent body up on to solid land, and shook the mud from his beads with a quiver. I still couldn't believe how pretty Damascus was. I'd practically lived with this snake back in Viridian, when we both served together under Doug.

Yet every time the sun lit up his golden whorls, my breath would still catch in my throat; just like it had back when I first met Damascus. My two-thousand year old snake...

All that time and abuse had weathered this once ugly Rock-Snake into an almost surreal piece of art. I couldn't help myself from picking the sticky mud out of Damascus's rippled jade horn-scar with an expression of reverence.

"You know, Gramps… Sooner or later, you and I are gonna figure it out…" I slapped the smooth cheek below one of Damascus's uniformly milky blue eyes. Damascus turned to face me directly, before his elongated plate of a top jaw lifted above his heavy sledge of a lower jaw, and my grumpy old snake belched an ammonia hurricane right into my face.

"Fuck you, you old bitch!" I fell back coughing, desperately fanning at the air and spray with my hand.

RUMBLE.

My fucking senile Onix was laughing at me.

"Damascus, you are dismissed!"

-Bitch.

I hold your Heavy Ball.

-So fuck you.

"I swear to God, Damascus… We're either gonna hit it off, or one of us is gonna end up killing the other…" I growled down to his Heavy Ball as I returned it to my belt, before I selected two of the standard G.I. Pokeballs from the three that rested next to Damascus.

"Vauban, Cortez. Report." Two beams of white light condensed into my stalwart Growlithe and my sweet little girl.

"Alright you two. Here's the sit-rep. We're going out on a little safari north into sector Delta. We're going to be climbing hills, and navigating karsts. There's no soil, no clean water, no shrub, and virtually no edible food where we're going. So you two are going to be carrying your own mess and water. On top of that, I'm gonna give you two the rundown on Cerulean's indigenous roster. Cortez, bear with me, cause I know that you already know it." I started strapping harnesses onto my two quadruped mon, before outfitting the tack with saddle bags stuffed with my mons' grub, water, and meds.

"Vauban, we have Parasect in these rocks. That's why you're out alongside me and Cortez. I need you to signal alerts when you start picking up spore emissions. Cortez and I will hit the dope, and then you're going to find us a path around the cloud. Watch Cortez when he's pathfinding. He'll show you the navigating ropes. Now for the list of other shit that we have to worry about."

"Beedrill, obviously. No point in reviewing something that we're all very familiar with."

"Glooms and Vileplumes. We're in the jungle now, so the jungle mon are something that we have to worry about. Fortunately, for two mon species that are almost as toxic as you, Vauban; Glooms and Vileplumes are pretty docile as long as you don't piss 'em off. And don't let that Bulbasaur curiosity get the better of you. If you smell rotting meat, you are not to investigate. That smell ain't a free meal, Vauban. That smell is a Vileplume's bloom, looking to lure tasty little Bulbasaurs into a sticky trap."

"The Weepinbell, Victreebel, Tangela, and the Tangrowth. They'll eat anything and everything, but all four of them prefer to bait and snare big game, rather than go hunting for it. The rule for avoiding these four mon is pretty simple. Don't step on any constrictor vines, and don't stick your head into any tangles or pitcher plants. If one of these mon manages to kill you, then you deserve to die for being fucking stupid. Moving on."

"The Abras and the Kadabras. Yeah, I ain't too keen on tangling with psions either, but thankfully; these two are pretty rare. Abras will virtually never engage prey that travels in a posse, so the three of us grouped together provides a deterrent. Kadabras are stupid rare, so I hesitate to even mention them. But if one of these freaks does shows up, then be prepared for anything. Kadabras can use their Psychokinesis to move around stupid quick, and they can electromagnetically charge their targets faster than almost any other psion. They also have some ridiculously oversized Phrenosensu nodes, so a Kadabra's ESP will trump even Cortez's nose. Fortunately, beyond throwing shit around at mach ten and being an absolute bitch to hit; Kadabras are not adept at Hypnotic-Dictation, especially the feral ones. We don't have to worry about cognitive incapacitation. And Damascus will make a Kadabra regret the day it was born when twenty-two tonnes of Onix squishes the wily little bitch into the Cerulean limestone."

"Fearow, standard shit. Nothing that we haven't dealt with before."

"Clefairy and Clefable. Yep, there be fairies in them hills. They play pretty timid initially, and both have a tendency to imitate distress and gratitude as a baiting tactic. Hell, they may even try hugging you when you 'rescue' them. They'll also try leading you on all friendly-like, just to trick you into following them over to their dens. But once they drag you into their clan's ring, your skin is coming off in sheets; and they'll actually cook your still screaming, skinless corpse medium-rare before they eat you. If a Clefairy starts doing its victim routine for us, then we'll play along for a bit. But I've got first dibs on gutting the sick little fucker alive when we're done fucking around with it."

"Poliwraths and Politoeds. Poliwraths are territorial and aggressive, but even I can smell them before they'll be able to pick up on us. Either way, Poliwraths are not something that I'm particularly worried about. They're fairly strong and robust, but they don't take well to getting cut open. Think of these guys as Cerulean's version of the Nidorino, minus the pack formation and venom, but with more bulk and power. Cortez knows how to take down a mon three times his own size, and Vauban can trip up shit as big as the Ursaring. You two do what you're good at, and then you let me do what I'm good at. You knock 'em down and I'll cut the fucker up into kibbles, and then we'll save on our rations by boiling his mucous-coated ass down into stew. Politoeds are actually pretty timid. They're nasty in a fight with their powerful kicks, but outside of their mating seasons, they'll only engage if first met with a hostile incursion. If we leave them alone, then they'll leave us alone."

"Vigoroths and Slakings. Yeah. These are Cerulean's big ones. Scary as hell. Slakings are almost Snorlax scary. Slakings can tear a Nidoking apart like the Nidos are made of string cheese. Funnily enough, Slakings and Vigoroths are both vegetarian. Vigoroths are territorial, but they generally make more bark than bite. If a shrewdness of Vigoroths start hollering at us, then we're gonna give them their space. They typically won't engage unwilling adversaries, so retreat is our best option. Slakings are in the same vote, except that they're even less likely to chase you if you run. They'd make the Delta-Five list in a heartbeat if they would actually get off their fat asses and wreck shit, but Slakings are some lazy sons of bitches."

"Primeapes and Mankey. Textbook bipedal tactics. Shitloads of adrenaline. About as violent as a mon can get. Other than that; all you need to know is that if we see either one of these two mon, then we're killing the filthy little monkey on general principle."

"The Ninetales and the Zoroarks. Like the aforementioned Abras and Kadabras, these are another two different species of fox-mon with some similarities in their hunting tactics. Both love to fuck with your head. Ninetales will use Hypnotic-Dictation to mess your life up, and Zoroarks can use the Distortion's gravitational anomalies to bend light and fabricate some crazy fucking illusions. If we come across something that doesn't have a shadow or make any noise, then it's probably a Zoroark's illusion and we are going on high alert. Check your targets for their shadows before you engage them. It may look like a Tangela, but if that Tangela is casting the shadow of a handsome Ranger in a beret; then that Tangela is probably me. Zoroarks have wiped out entire Ranger Squads before by using only their illusions to scare the units into killing one another off. So let's not join the deceased's ranks as another Zoroark-victim statistic. As for the Ninetales, they like to get inside their prey's head and shut 'em down before blowtorching them. So if you start feeling a buzzing sensation in your dome, remember the counter cognitive assault training that we received back in the academy. All three of us are smarter than a feral Ninetales, so it shouldn't be to hard for us to use their mind game antics against them. Just make sure that you prep your head before they start rerouting your synapses. If you're too late on the draw, then the Ninetales has already won. Fortunately, and I really mean fortunately; Ibn Taymiyyah's Code applies. Both the Ninetales and the Zoroarks are as rare as fuck."

"Dratini and Dragonair. I ain't shitting either one of you. As of last year, the Cerulean Rangers have confirmed Dragon colonies forming up on the northern edge of Wrecker Cape's coast. They're generally seen out in the water hunting on the reefs, but sometimes they'll ditch the fish and go ashore for the red meat. We don't want to fight any Dragons. You can cut a fucking Dratini in half, and it will still come flying at you in a homicidal rage as if nothing has changed. Dragons don't know what pain is, but they sure love inflicting it. If a Dragon does jump us, then Damascus is our best recourse. I wouldn't expect a Dratini to back off even if it's fighting a snake eight times its own size, but that's just the way they're programmed. Dragons are fucking crazy, and they would rather die in battle then flee for their lives. But if we do end up engaging one, then I'm gonna try my hand at catching it before we elect to kill it. Even if they're feral, Dragons still sell like hotcakes on the market, and I wouldn't say no to a little extra Sandz in my pocket."

"Those are the most common or most dangerous threats this far north in Cerulean. Now we all know what to expect, so keep your eyes peeled and your nasty attitudes at the ready. We are going to be spending the night in the White Warrens, so this qualifies as a safari. But as far as safaris go, this should be a great primer for our match against Misty. A Gym Leader is nothing compared to a night in the Frontier. So let's try not to die before we take on the Tomboy Mermaid." I finished with a rallying speech for my two mon, who looked none the worse despite the connotations.

This safari may have sounded like one hell of a risk for just a measly photo, but I needed to escape from the crazy world for a little bit.

Murderous monsters with a diverse menagerie of weaponry was something that I could handle.

-But all of this crap at Cerulean Prime Outpost and Blackhat HQ?

...I needed to get away from it, and clear my head. My standing orders were to prepare my team for engagement with the Cerulean City Gym Leader, and not one Ranger was going to label a safari into Wrecker Cape's Frontier as anything other than a thorough training regimen.

It was the perfect excuse to leave society behind for a bit, and go take my tumultuous emotions out on the feral mon and their Frontier.

And while I was at it, I'd also get a decent picture for that scrapbook I was putting together…

"Cortez, Vauban. Both of you are on point, three meters ahead. Take it slowly, Cortez. I want you to teach Vauban the basics. Once Cortez gives you a vote of confidence, Vauban; you are going to be stuck on that hound's hairy ass like a dried turd. Let's move out." I gave my orders with the tone of command, and both my dinosaur and my dog hurried to carry it out. We had only just crossed the from the L-straight and into sector Delta when my team element was showing off its stuff. Vauban was ever the attentive little pupil, and Cortez was ever the patient little teacher. It made me smile just watching the two of them working together like they did.

I always knew that those two had some kind of secret bond that they never really showed to me, but even so, it was still pretty obvious that Vauban and Cortez were tight as squadmates. Generally, mon of dissimilar species don't really connect with one another, even after having been through the worlds of shit that me and my Squad had been through together. But Vauban was an absolute doll, who treated everyone like a friend. And Cortez?

-Well, Cortez and Vauban's bond made a whole lot more sense, after I had learned a bit more about my mysterious dog.

...And what he had lost along with his former CO…

"Hold up, Vauban."

We were roughly eight klicks away from my Tact. Pad's designated photo op waypoint when I called for another rest. Something was bugging me.

"-Are you okay, girl?" I asked, cautiously approaching my Bulbasaur.

Vauban was shaking like a leaf in the breeze from her bulb to her toes.

"Vauban?" I put my hand on her twitching shoulder, and my little girl jumped.

"Cortez, get over here." My voice sounded worried. Cortez wasn't too far off, but he was every bit as wary as I was when he approached Vauban and I.

Vauban's bulb was quivering. Which was generally a Bulbasaur's biological que for an incoming pollen dispersal. But Vauban hadn't spewed me with any of her toxic pollen yet, and this was the third stop we had made for addressing her peculiar behavior. Vauban shook herself out of it by the time Cortez caught up to us.

"What's going on, girl?" I gave my flower toad a thorough examination. Other than a nervous look in Vauban's eyes, there wasn't anything wrong with my Bulbasaur.

"Are you having a reaction to the spores?" I asked, feeling Vauban's neck for a pulse.

Vauban swallowed.

My little girl had done her navigation duty as well as I would have expected from Cortez. Vauban had found two spore clouds on our trip north, and both times she had successfully led Cortez and I around the invisible emission. While Cortez and I hit the dope, Vauban probed the ground we were walking on, checking for any fungal dispersing leavings beneath the rocks. We made it through both fields without stepping into a Parasect's excrement, which was the pathogen equivalent of an anti-personnel mine.

Vauban had done me proud, but I was beginning to suspect that I had overestimated Vauban's toxin absorbing constitution. I was rifling through Cortez's share of the meds when I finally caved into precaution.

"Keep it cool, girl. I'm gonna give you a booster shot and a little hit of the dope. If the spores really are fucking with you, then the meds will fight 'em off." I stripped the packaging off a booster shot, and prepped the dosage accordingly. Pinching one Vauban's belly scutes, I exposed the tender dermis beneath the scale, and sank the syringe needle directly into Vauban's external iliac artery, before dumping the cylinder into her bloodstream.

"Just take it easy for now, Vauban." I pressed an inhaler into Vauban's mouth, and gave her a solid shot of fungus-neutralizing antibodies to the tonsils and the soft tissues below her tongue. Vauban hacked a bit on the dope's vapors; but with a quick toss of her head, my steadfast little girl moved to resume her split position on poll with Cortez.

I was keeping a close eye on my little girl as she Cortez covered the last eight klicks in record time. My theory pertaining to Vauban's illness seemed well founded, given that after the medical attention; my sweet Vauban didn't even hint at a symptom of another one of those unusual episodes coming down on her.

-But my little girl still looked wicked nervous.

We made it to the waypoint roughly ten minutes before sundown, giving me plenty of time to scope out a decent range for my photo take. I was looking down at something pretty special on a high ridge above the karst, and breathtaking though it was…

...It had all the charm of a graveyard.

Wrecker Cape had formed almost fourteen hundred years ago when good ol' Regigigas had one of his decade-long tantrums, and decided that the earth's tectonic face needed rearranging. The Walking Mountain carved a trench from South America all the way over to the east Asia coast in his mad pursuit of the deep sea dwelling Kyogre. According to the historical records, Kyogre hadn't exactly faired well in one of the Lima-Three's many pissing contests, and he was in desperate need of a medical leave that would spare the wounded whale from any of the Lima-Three's future dick fights.

-But Regigigas was pretty single-minded in his hunt for the injured King Orca. I guess that Regigigas didn't want his buddy Kyogre missing out on all the fun, and Regigigas made that rabid intent known when he finally gave up on trying to dig Kyogre out of the north pacific's expansive abyssal plain…

...And just decided to bury the fucking King Orca with a continent instead.

I don't know why Regigigas hoofed it all the way back to South America for his continent. Australia was so much closer, but I suppose that the Lima-Threes weren't quite as brilliant as they were fucking powerful.

Because after a decade of fishing through the abyss's mud for a giant fucking whale, all it took Regigigas was a week to plow the fucking western coast of South America into the eastern coast of Asia.

-The Terra Divide.

It should have killed us all.

Life had not evolved on this planet to keep up with that rate of environmental change, or the aftermath that resulted from such a massive level of tectonic commotion. Contemporary humanity thought that Regigigas was going to rip the earth in half with that crazy stunt of his. But thanks to good ol' Regigigas and his consecrated marriage of the Andes Mountains and the East China Sea, only half of the world had to weather through a mere two-hundred years of fallout-induced winter while we waited for the dust to settle.

-And when the dust finally did settle, we had to completely reconfigure all of the earth's maps; thanks to a couple of missing continents, a couple of reshaped ones, and a couple of misplaced ones.

But one of the earth's new locations that caught the rapt attentions of humanity's geologists, cartographers, and marine biologists in the years following the Terra Divide; was the northeastern coast of Kanto. Most notably, a location that was dubbed Wrecker Cape centuries later when the Cerulean district was first settled by seafaring man.

Wrecker Cape.

One of the most treacherous of the earth's waterways known in the Post-Brink era. It started with one nasty alien limestone landmass collapsing directly into an abyssal trench, before mountainesque reefs cropped up in the waters surrounding ground zero; right on the sunken remains of South America's north-eastern ridge. Which allowed for the newly-submerged nutrient-rich Amazonian basin to feed a wild variety of coral colonies all along the northeastern Kantonese coast.

From an aquatic mon's perspective, Wrecker Cape has it all. Two opposing oceanic currents merge right before the coast's plunge into the abyssal trench. The northeastern current carries warm and heavily oxidized water south from the equator, and the southeastern current comes in packing the ice cold and nutrient enriched water traveling north from the southern ocean. On top of the two different oceanic currents providing northeastern Kanto with two dissimilar types of temperate water, Wrecker Cape also has a diverse arrangement of sub aquatic geological habitats that has allowed for the unseasonal birth and rearing of almost every species of aquatic mon known to man; which effectively means that food is never in short supply at crazy ol' Wrecker Cape.

...But from mankind's nautical perspective of Wrecker Cape?

...Aquatic hell is all of one fathom down.

It's not just the mon, though you can well imagine the kind of problems that Wrecker Cape's deep sea behemoths plague the fishing trawlers and shipping lanes with.

Wrecker Cape is primarily considered so nautically lethal because there could be a Goddamn mountain peak half a fathom below the deep water's surface, and you wouldn't even know about it until after you had already scuttled your vessel all across a long sunken sierra range.

Humanity has managed to map Wrecker Cape's dangerous locales out pretty damn accurately; but even so, the weather phenomenon is absolutely rampant in a location as environmentally chaotic as Wrecker Cape. Thanks to Wrecker Cape's near equatorial position, the pair of opposingly temperate oceanic currents, and the geological nightmare right beneath the ocean's surface…

...Every day is the perfect day for a perfect storm at Wrecker Cape.

"Am I the only one who sees tombstones when I look at that?" I asked my resting dog and tired dinosaur when I looked out across that limestone expanse.

Cortez said nothing.

Vauban just wheezed uneasily.

"Yeah, that is something to see. And I'm already feeling more depressed for it." I grunted, drawing out my Tact. Pad.

The White Warren's deep secret.

The Cold Boutique.

Thousands of shearing limestone spires stretching up into the moody Cerulean sky.

Not a visible scrap of living anything within sight for leagues.

Just a short uniformly white sanded shore connecting the Cold Boutique's spires to the coast…

...Before a spider web's network of jagged faults broke the entire karst up.

Add to that desolate scene the countless perfectly circular deep pits of sterile milky blue water, clouding around the interiors of their layered shores...

And the occasional cry of a seafaring avian mon…

...And the Cold Boutique just makes for an unnaturally miserable place.

"That is just fucking creepy." I shuddered, spitting off to the side.

This was unique. I'd never seen anything like this on earth. It didn't look like a piece of the earth. It looked like the shattered white aretes of an alien world.

...A dead alien world.

"That is something else…" I muttered, snapping a picture of the Cold Boutique with my Tact. Pad before the recomended due time.

Alexandria made a nervous warbling as he processed the image.

And I was to overcome by this scene to harass him.

But that feeling of awe was nothing compared to the breathtaking vista that revealed itself to me when the descending sun's golden rays pierced the reddening skies.

The entire karst began to glimmer.

It took my awestruck brain forever to pin the culprit responsible for the Cold Boutique's second face.

-Gypsum.

Those crystalline shards permeated the spires and the sand, creating a surreal shimmer over the entire Cold Boutique. The cloudy pools of water turned a new shade of baby blue as the angled rays of sunlight diffracted through their sediment thick layers; and darker whorls of limestone were revealed in the dying day's final beams, casting serpentine bruises across the Cold Boutique's entire range.

It was beautiful.

It was unearthly.

It would become one of the most haunting memories that I would know in the months to come.

I had just enough sense at dusk's climax of a painting to snap a picture of the perfect place at the perfect moment.

...Even if Erin didn't give a shit about my photographs of Kanto's landmarks…

...I knew that he would've still loved to have see this…

That first new breath filled my ruined lungs with a rattle. I could feel my single eye warming up.

I didn't fight it.

Here, I could let it out.

Here, I was alone with those who already knew me.

So far away from all those people, all those Rangers just looking for a hero…

Here...

...I didn't have to hide it from those eyes.

It took a couple of moments after sundown had hidden the glimmering marvel again for me to collect the scattered pieces of myself. They more or less just fell into their proper order, untangling the worn fibers of my mind, while loosening the cold weight in my chest; leaving me feeling whole, but hollow…

I was me again. That little me I had tried so hard to bury so long ago.

For this one perfect moment...

...I could be me again…

When my heavy breath could finally be offered in a voice, I summoned up my steel; and hoarsely called to my two awaiting mon.

"...Okay, Rangers. Let's go find a campsite. I'm not stupid enough to try and navigate a karst in the dark, so let's call it-"

And that-

-That's as far as I got.

The fucking mon.

They always have the shittiest timing.

And this mon's appearance was so spontaneous that my weary brain couldn't even hope to sequentially process its sudden arrival and react to it with the necessary punctual accordance.

-A Goddamn Kadabra teleported in right out of nowhere, just six meters further west over the rise, plopping those forked toes of his on a higher elevation than us.

My whole body was already buzzing with the Kadabra's primary EM charge when my hand shot to the Heavy Ball on my belt.

"DAMASCUS-!"

-Nope. That Kadabra wasn't letting me call up my fucking Rock-Snake for a tussle. His fucking ESP had already identified the biggest threat in this posse of meatwads.

It wasn't the startled Bulbasaur.

It wasn't the roaring Growlithe.

-It was the fucking handsome Ranger, calming his jarred commander nerves with the happy thoughts of a Surprise-Onix-To-Your-Face-Bitch.

The weirdest Goddamn physical sensation tingled across my entire frame when the Kadabra's reverse polarity EMP threw my ass over the rise and straight off a cliff.

Before my feet had even left the ground, I had already developed whiplash in my every joint, and I was suffering from a crackling ache in my every muscle.

But that shitty experience was absolutely nothing compare to the little nerve-jangling that I received when I hit the limestone floor headfirst after a plummet of twelve meters.

-Psions.

They like hitting you hardest when you're mentally compromised.

That Kadabra could have been stalking us ever since we'd first left Cerulean Prime Outpost enroute to the White Warrens, keeping tabs on us with his ESP from well outside Cortez's olfactory sphere of awareness; just waiting for me to drop my mental guard before he pounced on his evening feast.

-I fucking hate psions…

Don't ask me how I lived through that. By rights, I should be stone cold dead after that fall. My spine should have gone straight through the top of my skull when my dome slammed into the rocks.

-But my sweet little Vauban somehow got one her vines around my falling body…

...Aw, fuck...

...God, I still feel so guilty for what I put her through after that…

"-Oh my God. I'm gonna kill that Walkout Comm Operator. Just you wait. When I find that dumbass, I'm gonna skin him fucking alive."

"Oh fuck… Don't tell me that we're locked out…"

"Yep. The gate's security program tripped on the fourth failed input. Looks like we're spending the rest of the night in the Hades's Swath."

"Oh shit…"

"Tell me about it. I did not want to be eating MREs for breakfast. I'm gonna kill that fucking Comm Operator-"

"Fuck breakfast, man! We're five-hundred meters away from the Viridian Frontier! We're something else's breakfast-!"

"Well... We will be something else's breakfast if you keep shouting like a fucking idiot, Carlos."

"We're fucked! We're so fuck-?!"

"..."

"...!"

"You done screaming yet? Or do I have to sit on your mouth all night long, Carlos?"

"...What are we going to do?"

"What are we going to do? Well, you're gonna calm the fuck down. Then I'm gonna cook me up some of the Ranger's 'finest' enchiladas. And then I'm gonna take the first watch while both you and Riot sleep off whatever foul shit you two ate."

"...You're serious?"

"What good would panicking do for me right now, Carlos?"

"..."

"..."

"...Zane?"

"Goddamnit, Carlos. I really don't like that gooey tone of yours."

"..."

"..."

"..."

"-Were you going to ask me something? Cause this awkward silence is pissing me the fuck off even more than your puppy-dog-eyed pleading."

"...Umm… Zane? Why did you become a Ranger?"

"Cause the Beret fits my dick like a glove."

"...!?"

"..."

"...Heh-Ha-Hah... No, I'm totally being serious, Zane."

"..."

"..."

"...You really wanna know why?"

"I did ask, didn't I?"

"You already know why, Carlos. For fuck's sake, everybody at Viridian Prime knows why."

"...Yeah… But it's not just for the Black Beret, is it?"

"..."

"...?"

"..."

"...Uh oh."

"-What?"

"Is the Fucking Bastard having one of his deep moments?"

"I dunno. Does Carlos want to move our camp over to the treeline?"

"Come on, Zane. I know you aren't a Fucking Bastard all of the time."

"..."

"..."

"..."

"...Something personal?"

"Carlos, I really don't like it when people try digging into me."

"Dude, I just want to know what makes you tick. You act like the Rangers are the only thing that matters to you-"

"They are."

"...What about your family?"

"Don't even fucking go there. My family kicked me out for being who I wanted to be. The Rangers took me in and gave me the means to be who I wanted to be. Fuck my family. The Rangers are my family."

"...So is that why you push yourself so hard?"

"...Quit digging, Carlos. Last warning."

"...Okay..."

"..."

"..."

"...So what about you?"

"...What do you mean?"

"Why did a dumbass like you put on a Beret? And why the fuck did a pussy sign up with the Infantry?"

"Heh… Well… Honestly?"

"..."

"..."

"...I'm waiting…"

"...It was because of my family."

"You mean they put your ass on the curb too?"

"No! Well, no… Not really. Actually, not at all. I just… I didn't know what I wanted to do with my life."

"..."

"...You see, my madre and padre aren't exactly… The wealthiest of parents. And they have nine kids to feed-"

"Holy fuck! Condoms were invented to prevent mistakes like you from happening!"

"Fuck you, Zane! Fuck man, I was spilling my guts out to you, and you had to say something like that!?"

"..."

"..."

"...I'm sorry, Carlos… I didn't mean it like that-"

"Did you really just say that you're sorry?"

"...?"

"..."

"-Ah, fuck you! You conniving little bitch! You were just acting offended, weren't you!?"

"...Maybe?"

"That's it. Get up. We're moving our camp over to the treeline."

"Oh come on!"

"Are you done fucking with me, Carlos?"

"Dude, I just-!"

"You do know that I'm just fucking with you, right?"

"...!"

"..."

"...Fuck you, Zane..."

"Ahem."

"...?"

"...Nine kids?"

"...Well, fuck it. Yeah. There's nine of us. I'm the third oldest, and the biggest disappointment."

"Shit. And I thought that I was the only one."

"...It's not like that. My ma and pa worked themselves to the bone just to put me through school, and I barely managed to graduate. They kicked my ass to do the best that I could, but… I was a stupid kid who just wanted to fuck around..."

"Honesty is such a bitch, isn't it?"

"Are you allergic to sympathy, Bastard?"

"No. I just prefer my sympathy with milk and cookies."

"Madre de dios… Holy shit, Zane. Anyways… I fucked up, and I ended up sitting on my ass in my parents' house with absolutely nothing planned for my life after graduation. Basically, I was just mooching off my ma and pa when they were already strapped for cash caring after my younger siblings. And I was… Wearing out my welcome, still fucking around like a kid in school..."

"..."

"..."

"...So what happened?"

"...Well… It's gonna sound sappy…"

"This is already sappy. So make me some fucking syrup."

"Usted puhta… Fine. Long story short? My dad took me out on a walk."

"...Wow. What a shitty short story."

"-We talked, man. We just talked. My pa told me about his childhood. He told me that he fucked up just like I did. He told me that he spent his entire life trying to fix that one fuck up…"

"..."

"...He told me that he and my ma only pushed themselves and us so hard because they didn't want their kids to fuck up like they had…"

"..."

"..."

"...I'm sorry, Carlos…"

"Well don't be. It opened my eyes. I knew that I had to do something, but my piss-poor diploma wasn't going to open up all that many doors-"

"So you joined the Rangers?"

"...Basically, yeah. It was the best paying job that I could get, and some of the G.I. bill's benefits even extends to my siblings, so…"

"...So you maximized the benefits by jumping on the frontlines to help your old man out, huh?"

"...I'm doing the best that I can. Family comes first, you know? Heh… It's… It's kind of funny, actually… In a sad way..."

"...?"

"...You see, my pa thinks that he fucked up..."

"..."

"...But he did alright by me, and I want to make him proud…"

"..."

"..."

"...I wish that I could say the same about my old man…"

"...?"

"..."

"I'm not going to dig, Bastard."

"Heh… Fair enough."

"..."

"...I haven't talked to my dad for the past three years. I tried calling my mother two weeks ago… But I should've known better…"

"...What happened to your ma?"

"...Dad doesn't want me talking to her… He's pretty high up in Silph's hierarchy… So… It ain't too hard for him to keep me from talking to her…"

"...He's rich?"

"...Yeah. You see… I… I had a pretty cozy life back then, before I swore my oath. I had… My dad had a future planned for me, and I… I had the credentials to fulfill it…"

"..."

"...But I didn't want to be like my dad… I had a… a dream. A stupid, childish dream. I wanted a Black Beret… Way back then… I thought that it was just a fancy hat worn by badasses who rode their Gyaradosia to work… I didn't know what it meant. I didn't know what I would have to do in order to earn one… But if I had known… Then I wouldn't have wanted a Black Beret..."

"...So what changed?"

"My dad… Heh… He sent me for a walk. He told me about his past before he kicked me out the door. He told that he worked his ass off to build a fucking empire for me… An empire that I would have inherited if I would've just followed in his footsteps… He told me that I stabbed him in the back when I swore my oath. Told me that the mon were gonna kill me, and that his empire was gonna fail without his heir. Told me that I had just wasted his entire life… Told me that I was the biggest fuck up of his life… Told me to never come back. Told me that I didn't have a home anymore..."

"..."

"...He told me that he didn't have a son anymore…"

"..."

"..."

"...Oh my God, Zane…"

"..."

"..."

"...So, long story short? The Rangers became my family. The Rangers became my home... And I'm gonna get that Black Beret, just to make my family proud."

"...And your dad?"

"Fuck him. I wouldn't shed a single fucking tear for him if he croaked tomorrow. Hell, I could talk to my mother again if he did, so fuck his ass."

"...You really miss your ma, then?"

"...Yeah… She… tried talking my dad down… She tried to get out of his arms just to hold me again… The last thing I heard from her before he slammed the door in my face was that I'd always have a home…"

"..."

"...That I'd always have a mother…"

"..."

"...That I'd always have a father…"

"..."

"..."

"...Zane-?"

"Don't say a fucking thing, Carlos. I don't want sympathy. I don't want to remember…"

"..."

"..."

"...If your pa opened the door to you again… What would you do?"

"Beat the fucking piss out of him."

"..."

"..."

"...Could you ever forgive him?"

"No. He can have his fucking empire. For all the love it gives him, he can have it all to himself. I just want to hold my mother again…"

"..."

"..."

"...The bell tolls, Carlos. Vauban and I will watch your back. We'll wake you and Riot for the second watch."

"...Yes sir."

"..."

"..."

"..."

"Zane? I just wanted to say-"

"Don't. I'm already regretting letting my mouth run. Just go to sleep. And forget all about this, cause that is exactly what I'm gonna do. Never speak a word of this to anyone, Carlos. Not a word. Do you hear me?"

"...Yes sir. I can take first watch if-"

"I said, 'The bell tolls,' Ranger. Close your fucking eyes and shut your fucking mouth. I said that I've got your back. That means go to bed. Now."

"...Okay."

"..."

"..."

"...Carlos-?"

"..."

"-Wow. That was fast…"

"..."

"...Come here, Vauban…"

-What a shitty fucking dream.

The first thing that I noticed when I came to was the pain.

I honestly thought that Damascus had shafted my ass again, I was feeling that terrible.

But then the pain reminded me that I was alive.

And that triggered a little bit of recall.

What had tried to kill me-?

-Oh yeah.

The fucking Kadabra.

Then something bumped into me.

"...Vauban-?"

-I thought I recognised that wheeze...

I forced my noncompliant eyes wide open, and suppressed the agony of my screaming spine as I shot straight the fuck up, my right hand going for Doug's knife.

That fucking Kadabra-

-Was nowhere in sight.

I was on the lower crags of the White Warrens. It was well after dusk, and dawn was still far in the rising. High tide had already come and gone, and the shore's pebbled edge was slowly creeping out.

And my little girl-

-What the fuck was wrong with my little girl?!

"VAUBAN!" Fuck the rules of the Frontier. I screamed her name at the top of my range. I could barely tell that thing was my little girl-

-But I could see her pissed off bulb quivering above the mass of writhing white roots, and I could hear her moaning in pain underneath it all.

Grass-Types.

They come in two varieties.

One, the weird Chloroplisms.

Two, the fucking creepy Symbiotes.

Chloroplisms are plants. Obviously.

They're just a bit different from the vegetative organisms that evolved on earth.

Different, as in; almost every possible way conceivable.

The Chloroplism's cells have several distinct similarities in both structure and function to earth's indigenous plant cell template. Rather than the terran-indigenous plant cell's typical cellulose cellular wall, Chloroplisms opted for the fungi's choice of chitin for additional durability. The average size of their vacuoles are three times the average size of a normal plant cell's vacuole, which is necessary for locomotion, seeing as the Chloroplism's motor functions operate mostly via cellular hydraulics…

And every single one of their Plasmodesmata are interconnected with a mitochondrion, which effectively serves as something of a complex nervous system…

-Between every single cell.

Yep.

Who knew that such a crude design had the potential to serve as the single most extensive neural highway thus far discovered in a living organism?

Every single cell in a Chloroplism is connected to the exact same neural network. Chloroplisms don't have brains, because they don't need them. Not when every single cell in their body is operating on the exact same frequency. This allows Chloroplisms to mount incredibly rapid immunity responses to infections, permits for more efficient cellular material exchange, aids in the coordination of erratic and spontaneous cellular divisions, allows for a ridiculously accurate cellular triage; and a Chloroplism's neural network handles all of this, plus operating the organism's standard motor-reactions; for an iota of the cellular energy exchange generally associated with a complex multicellular animal's nervous system.

There are of course, certain drawbacks to this neural network design. Chloroplisms do not possess any form of non-inherited behaviors; simply because such an extensive, yet crude, nervous system cannot tolerate overly complex neural transmissions. You can still train a Chloroplism, of that you can have no doubt…

...But it involves a Trainer learning how to incite a Chloroplism's inherent behaviors in a series of patterns that translates into complex behaviors, which necessitates far more attention to detail from the Trainer than is normally required when training mon. Chloroplism Trainers don't exactly train their mon in the traditional sense. Instead, Chloroplism Trainers literally have to instruct their mon in accordance to Ivan Pavlov's bell ringing recitals.

That said, inciting certain behaviors in Chloroplisms is pretty easy.

Want to see a Vileplume attack another mon?

Then just make the Vileplume feel threatened, and point it in direction of the mon that you want dead.

Other than the obvious poking-your-flower-with-a-stick method, certain botany techniques have also proven effective in the training of Chloroplisms. Everything from ambient UV exposure, calculated nutrient dosage, establishing a strict routine of watering times, and even fucking bonsai can alter a Chloroplism's inherent behavioral reaction patterns; meaning that the more specific instructions you divulge to your flower-mon through "environmental brainwashing," generally the better tailored that flower-mon will be for a distinct role.

Most Chloroplisms are toxic in one fashion or another, seeing as they'd make for easy meals otherwise. The Chloroplisms that aren't toxic, are generally covered in motion sensing trichomes from canopy to root; and the non-toxic variants are almost always equipped with some seriously nasty hydraulic-cell-structured constriction vines.

Those vines can exert pressures capable of crushing granite blocks into rubble, and some can even apply sufficient force to bend girders into coils. It all depends on the size of the vines in question, and the amount of water available within the Chloroplism's cell vacuoles.

-And then we have the Symbiotes.

Which, as far as altruistic parasitic relationships go, isn't so bad.

It's just kind of creepy.

Symbiotes are a union of at least two separate organisms from two different Kingdoms; both of which have evolved to serve as the union's respective hosts, or the union's respective parasites.

Essentially, it's what happens after a predatory Chloroplism develops a taste for a certain species of mon, and then evolves to 'infect' that specific mon species for a more efficient exchange.

Does this sound creepy yet?

Just wondering, 'cause my skin is already crawling.

Yep, some carnivorous Chloroplisms have evolved not only to bait and snare prey, but to infect them as well. Most mon species that develop a genetic tolerance for these parasitic Chloroplism infections eventually evolve into a Symbiote species.

Vauban is a Symbiote. According to the mon fossil record, the Bulbasaur species did not originally have a bulb growing out of their spinal column. The proto-Bulbasaurs and their evolved states were just fat grazing lizards; whose only real defense against their natural predators was a thick layer of protective blubber, and a wicked set of unfurling tusks in their segmented jaws.

In other words, proto-Bulbasaurs were nothing special in the world of mon; other than choice cuts of meat with all that calorie rich fat in them.

That changed completely when a parasitic Chloroplism's infection of the proto-Bulbasaurs resulted in a symbiotic relationship.

You see, evolution is one smart fucking biological engine.

The proto-Bulbasaur's parasitic Chloroplism rather enjoyed having a host that could provide a mobile source of nutrition while sharing a similar penchant for sunlight. That particular Chloroplism adored its reptilian host so much, that it decided to take their parasitic relationship to the next level. Instead of killing its proto-Bulbasaur host off in the act of Chloroplism reproduction, which is a fairly typical function in the parasitic Chloroplism world; this Chloroplism decided that it would rather 'link' its reproductive organs with the host's reproductive organs. And the newly formed reproduction system began to mass produce a joint-project mon. A new species of mon, that would be born with a foreign organism taxonomically dissimilar from itself already growing out of its body.

-Okay.

Give me a moment…

...Cause I just gave myself the heebie-jeebies.

The bulb on Vauban's back isn't actually an organ belonging to the reptilian mon underneath it.

It's a completely separate organism, from a completely separate Kingdom, sponging its required nutriment right out from the blood and spinal fluids of the cute little lizard that lives beneath it.

The parasitic Chloroplism stands to gain quite a bit in this relationship. Such as; a reliable and steady supply of nutrients, a brain that was formerly missing in its nervous system's design, a mobile flowerpot that can ferry it out of the shadows and into the sunlight, additional surface area for its chloroplasts to soak solar rays via the host's dermis, and an extra set of teeth to use in a fight.

So what does the host gain?

That should be pretty fucking obvious.

The host gains an alternative means of energy production, thanks to the photosynthesis of its parasitic Chloroplism; a new sensory and immunity platform, thanks to the Chloroplism's bizarre yet highly effective nervous system…

...And a whole new arsenal of nasty funk that generally isn't found in the Animal Kingdom.

Predatory mon don't find the neo-Bulbasaur's tasty fat reserves quite as delicious as they did the proto-Bulbasaur's blubber; seeing as there is now a lethally toxic enzyme mingling within the Bulbasaur species's protein structures.

And not many predators favor fighting a mon that can paralyze them with an anesthetic pollen, before said mon begins taking chunks out of that predator's numb ass with those scary fucking Bulbasaur teeth.

The proto-Bulbasaurs were exclusively herbivores in their diets.

That all started changing when the proto-Bulbasaurs became Symbiotes, and they gained the evolutionary means to kill and eat the mon that had previously killed and eaten them.

"VAUBAN!" My knife was drawn in that shattered breath. Something was attacking my girl. Something was hurting my Vauban. I was gonna kill whatever the fuck-

My knife came up short when I heard Vauban squeal.

I could see her now.

Her red eyes were looking up at me, all fearful and desperate…

And I could only stand by, frozen in place, as my panic-stricken brain worked out the situation.

"Oh hell no, Vauban…"

My little girl struggled to poke her tiny head through the roots, even as they punished her for trying to move. She actually looked apologetic…

"...Not now… Not here…" There were tears in my eyes again. At any other time, I'd be overjoyed to see this.

Vauban squealed again, and those white roots drowned out her face when they grappled with the little Bulbasaur trying to escape them. I had force myself to remain calm, and refrain from assisting Vauban. Agitating that bulb would only make things even worse.

"Why?! Why here?! Why now?!" I was screaming to no one and nothing in particular. This just wasn't right. This just wasn't fair.

Vauban was starting her evolution cycle. My little girl was growing up into an Ivysaur.

-Which was anything but good news.

Bulbasaurs, being Symbiotes, are pretty fucking picky about the kind of environment that will support their evolution cycles. Or more specifically, their fucking bulbs are.

Due to their inherently unstable symbiotic relationship, Symbiotes require extensive preparation before the turn in their evolution cycles. For the reptilian Bulbasaurs in particular, the Bulbasaur needs one heavy fat reserve for sustained torpor; and rich loamy soil with plenty of exposure to water and sunlight for the bulb.

In a perfect world, I would have planted Vauban's pudgy ass in a greenhouse for her week-long evolution cycle. In a perfect world, I would have taken notice of the signs my little girl was giving off. In a perfect world, I would have correlated Vauban's sudden weight gain and her increased anxiety as those Bulbasaur hormones played havoc with her disposition.

In a perfect world, I would have been prepared for Vauban's evolution.

But in the real world…

My ignorance and negligence was going to kill my little girl.

"DAMASCUS, REPORT!"

Fuck the Frontier. Fuck my own reservations of risking the Parasect for a nocturnal trip to Cerulean.

Fuck this fucking two-faced place.

This was an emergency.

Vauban's bulb had started its evolution cycle in time with lizard that shared a genetically encoded symbiotic relationship with it. The problem was that my Vauban wasn't ready for her evolution, even if her bulb decided that it was time to start growing up without her. The means to guarantee Vauban a secure evolution into an Ivysaur had been denied to both the dinosaur and the bulb.

And despite being a mindless plant…

-Vauban's bulb knew that it was in trouble.

The Chloroplism that had been conceived and birthed within my little girl was starving.

-And it was trying to separate itself from its lifelong host.

Vauban's bulb was rejecting her.

And if it managed to pull itself out of her spinal column…

-My little girl was dead.

Damascus hadn't even fully configured to his physiological parameters when I risked my own life to pick up Vauban and her angsty bulb. That stupid plant was dying of hunger, and it didn't have the brainpower to realize that we could feed it if it would only be patient. Vauban's bulb was trying to separate itself from her, and seek out a new host for infection. That Bulbasaur-specialized Chloroplism was beginning to regress into its old parasitic programming. Fortunately for me, my olive green BDU was made from synthetic materials; so Vauban's bulb didn't taste a host when I cradled her writhing cage against my sternum.

In these circumstances, transporting Vauban in her Pokeball could be lethal if I tried to recall her. Due to the onset of evolution, the Pokeball's physiological diagnostics wouldn't recognise a Bulbasaur when the dematerializing beam hit Vauban. The Pokeball would process something entirely different, and whatever was recalled into the Pokeball's immaterial storage unit would not enter whole. In other words, it would be forced symbiotic separation by computerized dematerialization. Either Vauban or her bulb would be sucked into her Pokeball, which would kill my little girl in the process.

It felt like a no-win situation.

-But this was just another day in the Ranger Corps for the Fucking Bastard and his little girl.

"Damascus!"

I have no prayers for you, snake…

-You had better fucking remember who I am.

"Damascus, we need a lift! Southwest! Cerulean! Make it fast!" That was the voice of a desperate Ranger. A voice that Damascus was well familiar with. My addled Onix could still put two and two together.

-Do what I say when I say it, or else someone is gonna die.

Damascus didn't waste a second of my life. My snake lowered himself without so much as a grumble. I pulled myself up unto Damascus's third neck bead, and stripped off my coat to swaddle Vauban's probing roots with it. As long as Vauban's bulb thought that it was imprisoned, it would slow down the separation process. Unlike most living creatures, Chloroplisms don't struggle when they're restrained. They'll wait to see if whatever is smothering them cuts them loose, before fighting for their freedom. Chloropisms are all about resource management. As long as I could convince Vauban's bulb that it was in no immediate danger, I could forestall the Symbiote's dissolution. As it was, the synthetic fibers of my uniform could keep Vauban's bulb contained without harming it, until the hunger made her bulb truly desperate.

Damascus hadn't even covered sixty meters when my mind snapped with a new dilemma.

"Where the hell is Cortez?!"

-Where the hell was my dog?!

Damascus shifted his mass on a pivot, never losing momentum as his entire form curved northwards. I struggled to grip my smooth-sided snake with my thighs, even as my arms wrestled with the thrashing Bulbasaur in my disrobed coat.

I was rifling through my kit for a torch when Damascus let loose a rumble. Onix can't smell, but they can pick up magnetic and electrical charges exceptionally well. Damascus's magnetic sense had picked up a life form's bioelectric signature, not far from the rise that the Kadabra had thrown me off. While my snake pulled us precariously up the escarpment, I lit up my mag-light and shot the LED beam into the thick darkness.

"CORTEZ! CORTEZ, WHERE ARE YOU!?"

Vauban didn't have time for this. It might already be too late to save her. Those roots weren't suppose to come out of her body, period the end. Even so, I wasn't leaving Cortez behind. But if that Kadabra had killed my dog-

"CORTEZ!"

-That Kadabra better not have killed my dog.

My heart went straight into my throat when Damascus ascended the limestone rise, and my torch's light fell onto a graphic scene. There was Cortez, not far from where we had been ambushed by the Kadabra.

Laying on his side.

In a puddle of blood.

There was fucking blood everywhere.

"CORTEZ!" I damn near dropped Vauban when I lept from Damascus's neck.

Cortez didn't respond as I trucked it over to the ruin.

"Ohgawd…"

-My dog…

"-Cortez?"

I couldn't believe it...

-Cortez had torn the fucking Kadabra into bits.

The biggest piece of the Kadabra that my torch could find was his bushy tail.

-After that grisly scrap, second place went to the severed joints of a toe.

Everything else was in bloody shreds.

-And my dog…

"Cortez! Respond!" I had my hand on that Growlithe's neck, searching for a pulse beneath his jaw.

Cortez's teeth told me that there was a lot more than just a pulse kicking around in my dog.

Those fucking canines of his sank right into my bare wrist.

-I couldn't have been any more overjoyed.

"-Ohgawd."

I was casting Vauban's precious seconds to the wind, just to cradle my wounded dog's head. Cortez was hurt, and how bad I couldn't tell.

But he was alive.

Alive and still fighting.

"It's okay, Cortez… I'll get you help… Come on boy, let me go!" Those teeth were doing some serious damage to my forearm, and my panicking dog quickly released my wrist.

"It's okay, just hold on! I'm putting you in your ball! You'll be, fine Cortez, you'll be fine!" One quick medical examination of my pooch told me most of what I needed to know.

The vast majority of blood soaking into Cortez's fur wasn't seeping from his wounds.

Most of that blood belonged to a dismembered Kadabra.

-That psion had fucked with the wrong Growlithe.

Cortez was recalled into his Pokeball, and the device's internal biological diagnostics pinged my hound as unfit for duress.

Yet the Pokeball failed to alert me to a terminal condition plaguing Cortez. He was beat to shit and likely disoriented from both his wounds and the Kadabra's EMP nerve attacks, but my dog would live.

-But I wasn't granted any such reassurances regarding my screaming girl. Vauban was in bad shape, and her condition was obviously deteriorating. If that bulb managed to pull itself free of her spine, its next act would be to turn the paralysed Bulbasaur into its first emancipated meal.

I had absolutely no time left for dawdling. I wasn't letting my Vauban die. My ass was back on Damascus's neck, my voice was screaming, 'south post-haste,' and my swaddled little girl was squealing from her cradle in my arms. No contact I could offer would bring any comfort to my Vauban. She was in too much pain to be aware of much anything else, even my soothing voice.

I sure as hell wasn't gonna let Vauban die, and it seemed that Damascus shared my desperate sentiment.

Many people familiar with Mineral-mon make the mistake of assuming that they're all just bulky, cumbersome, graceless, dumb beasts.

Many people who are familiar with Mineral-mon have never seen an Onix moving at full tilt before.

As far as Rock-types are concerned, the Onixia species are the cruisers of the Mineral-mon world. Despite their established status as one of the largest and heaviest of mon recognized by science, Onixia are not slow creatures. Nor are they inelegant, or mindlessly stupid. Due in no small part to the Onixia's massive scale and their serpentine physiology, the Onixia species can quickly cover vast quantities of ground with some of the eeriest movements ever beheld by human eyes. An Onix basically is a giant living chain of stoney beads that mimics the locomotions of a snake, which makes for one bizarre spectacle by itself; but when you combine the species' signature lashing slither along with the Onixia's rock hard carapace and their incredible momentum…

-And not only can the Onixia move rather quickly, but deviation is rarely required from their intended course, seeing as the Onixia have absolutely no qualms whatsoever about crushing anything unfortunate enough to stand in their way.

Needless to say, Damascus carved his way south through all that Cerulean limestone, and when the treacherous foliage of Kanto's northernmost coastal jungle dared present itself as an obstacle to my snake…

...Well, Damascus just pulped the fuck out of the jungle too.

Thanks to the Kadabra's EMP blasts that had fried my person and everything on it, my damaged G.I. radio couldn't even transmit a hail for aid to the Cerulean Rangers; and we were so far off the beaten path that Alexandria's broadcasts couldn't locate a receiver to relay our distress. My mind was racing as I dissected our options, grinding over the set of circumstances and their predictable outcomes. It didn't take me too terribly long to realize that the Cerulean Rangers couldn't do a beneficial thing for Vauban. Her condition was not only lethal for her, but if that bulb gained full dictation over its own nervous system…

...Then we wouldn't be operating on a Bulbasaur anymore. We would be attempting to perform surgery on a Waterloo Saboteur's self aware arsenal. An arsenal that would likely identify the invasive scalpels, suction, and clamps as a hostile intent. Vauban's bulb was essentially a sentient bomb now. One untimely or misplaced snip could set off a minor dispersal which would kill anything exposed to it with some of the most horrifying pathogenic reactions that can be suffered upon a living body.

The Cerulean Rangers did not have the equipment, expertise, or inclination required to warrant the risk of operating on my little girl. If the Rangers caught wind of a Saboteur Class Bulbasaur undergoing symbiotic separation, their first act would be to appropriate the malfunctioning unit, and then carbonize the faulty Saboteur unit in a hermetically sealed oven.

Vauban would still be be breathing when the Rangers punched in the incinerator's four-digit temperature and warmed up the vacuum cycle. This charring tactic was our standard procedure for disposing of the Pollutants. This was the Rangers' safest method of exterminating all manner of biological threats. Just keep subjecting the specimen to extreme heat in an atmosphere devoid of oxygen for an extended duration; until nothing is left, save for some crispy flakes and a small mound of ashes. The Rangers regularly made charcoal briquettes out of Muks and Wheezings using this tactic, before incarcerating the caustic remains within lead-lined barrels for an indefinite period at designated hazardous waste storage facilities.

...So in other words?

-Fuck the Rangers. There was no way in hell that I was condemning my little girl to a premortem cremation. But if I couldn't rely on the Rangers to save my Vauban…

"-Damascus, slow down! That's Nugget Bridge!"

-Then I was gonna have to turn to the private sector.

I really don't remember how long Damascus was wreaking havoc out on the Frontier, nor did I particularly notice at the time; but it wasn't until my Rock-Snake haphazardly scaled Wrecker Cape's Route Wall that I finally snapped out of my stupor. We were travelling downhill fast, only klicks away from Cerulean's fortified northern mining bridge. It was well after midnight, and our unexpected return to Cerulean City was coinciding with a late shift of Cerulean miners on their peaceful trek home.

Every one of the grimy hardhats were startled shitless when a giant fucking Onix came straight out of nowhere and barreled it past them on an intercept with Nugget Bridge. This was a fairly unusual event. Normally, miners are more accustomed to encountering the rare Onixia a solid klick below ground, inconveniently coiled up on a desirable ore deposit.

Onixia very rarely come above the earth's crust, so you don't expect to see an Onix tearing up the surface world in a mad dash for civilization. To those poor miner's eyes, Damascus must have looked like a living battering ram, moving at livid speed on a beeline trajectory towards their homes. In hindsight, I can't blame the miners for trying to stop us.

But Damascus and I sure as hell weren't gonna let them.

I didn't even see the sign stating the weight limit of Nugget Bridge. For all I knew, Damascus could have actually exceeded Nugget Bridge's designated gross restriction. But even so, I didn't particularly care.

We had a small army of deep digging Excadrills and boulder hauling Machokes gearing up for a brawl and hot on our tails; all backed by a desperate mob of pick-wielding miners. I was screaming, 'Godspeed,' at the top of my lungs when Damascus rammed his way through Nugget Bridge's southern crossbuck gates. Some of the miners must have holocasted ahead to the Cerulean authorities, 'cause it wasn't long after we breached Nugget bridge that we heard shrill sirens blaring in distance and saw the flashing lights gathering ahead to greet us as Damascus and I approached Cerulean City's northern wall.

The alarm had been raised. Everybody in Cerulean City thought that a pissed off Onix was coming in hot to lay waste to their homes. So you can imagine the awestruck looks I received when Damascus came to a sudden halt before the City Guard's frontline of men and mon, and a Ranger cradling a thrashing coat leapt from the neck of his Onix, before recalling the gargantuan rock-snake back into a Heavy Ball. I didn't even bother explaining myself to the stunned City Guard forming a defensive perimeter around Cerulean City's northern gate. I just shouted my intentions out loud-n'-clear, before shouldering it past the dumbstruck fucks still barring my way.

"This is a Ranger Corps emergency! Step aside!"

The City Guard was too flummoxed with this strange turn of events to waylay my passage. I was in Cerulean's downtown before they could even get my identity. As I would later find out, if it wasn't for the Arbok situation in the Prague; I might have had to tussle with some Blackhats before gaining access to Cerulean City. But my addled mind couldn't find the drive to waste processing power on such trivial conveniences.

My desperate brain could only think of one thing.

-Saving my little girl.

I hadn't the cognition to spare for contemplating the repercussions of my unannounced Onixia incursion. But as it stood, the people of Cerulean were so relieved to discover that they weren't gonna have to defend their city from a rampaging Damascus, that they didn't even bother to get in my way and slow me down. Their gratitude was prolific enough for them to warrant leaving me the fuck alone as I kicked in Cerulean City's head-branch Pokemon Center doors.

"Doc! Doc! Get me a fucking Doctor ASAP!" I screamed as I hoofed it to the Pokemon Center's front counter.

-Hello nurse, so much for your good morning.

"What's wrong?!"

-I'll give the pink haired candy stripe props for responding to my crude greeting with urgency.

"I've got a G.I. Bulbasaur undergoing symbiotic separation! I need a botanical surgeon fast!"

In hindsight…

...I should have left out Vauban's G.I. status.

"A military Bulbasaur?! Isn't that a Saboteur Class?"

Well, nurse pink hair? Go ahead and color me impressed. You actually paid attention in med school.

"Affirmative! Hence the GET ME A FUCKING SURGEON NOW!"

-I was panicking too much to realize how deep a grave I was digging for my Vauban…

The nurse's face clouded over, but she punched in a three digit number on her desk phone lickety-split.

"Transfer me to the Botanical Department…"

"..."

"Doctor Emmets? This is Joy at the front kiosk. A Ranger just brought in a G.I. Bulbasaur Saboteur Class undergoing symbiotic separation."

"..."

"That's what I thought. Okay. I'll tell him." Nurse Joy covered the phone's mouthpiece with palm, before turning to me with a nervous look in her eye.

"We can't operate on your Bulbasaur, Ranger-"

-That phone was out of her hands and at my ear and mouth before nurse Joy could even finish her statement.

"WHY THE FUCK NOT?!" I roared into the mouthpiece.

"Goddamnit, this is a Pokemon Center! Don't shout in the lobby-"

"Listen to me, Doctor Fuck-its, I'LL FUCKING YELL WHEREVER THE FUCK I WANT TO, WHENEVER THE SHIT HITS THE FAN! NOW GET A ROOM PREPPED FOR SURGERY, BECAUSE YOU ARE OPERATING ON MY VAUBAN IMMEDIATELY!"

-Don't fuck with a desperate Ranger.

Bad things happen to those who dare defy that sage advice.

"Ranger, you need to calm down! I can't legally operate on a Saboteur Class! Our insurance doesn't cover militarized mon mishaps! If your Saboteur detonates within the Pokemon Center, or God forbid, anywhere near Cerulean; It's going to kill countless civilians! We can't take the risk!" Doctor Fuck-its informed me. My whole body went cold when I realized…

-That Doctor Fuck-its was right on the money.

"-Doc… You gotta do something… She's dying! My little girl is dying!" I was fucking begging, and everyone in the lobby could see it. Vauban was thrashing in my arms as the seizures began to take hold. Once that bulb broke her spinal column…

-It would be too late to save my little girl.

"...How advanced is her condition?" Doctor Fuck-its cautiously asked on his end.

"She entered shock just an hour ago! The roots are still coming out! We can save her if we act now!" A ray of hope was reflected in my voice, but Doctor Fuck-its wasn't going to be the one to save my little girl…

"I can't operate on a Saboteur Class, Ranger. I just can't. But-"

-Oh that 'but' of yours saved your ass from having me call up Damascus and ordering him to lay waste to this fucked-up medical facility.

"-But there's a botanical specialist in Cerulean. She quit working here about a week ago. She's a civilian who runs the graveyard shift in the Azure precinct's Pokemart. She knows her material hardcore, but I don't think that she has access to the facilities required for an operation-"

"What about Saffron?! What about Celedon?! Give me some options here!" I shouted. I didn't care if this broad was the best botanical surgeon in the world! If she didn't have access to an operating room-

"Your Bulbasaur would never last the duration of the trip! And they would never let an unstable Saboteur Class on the shuttle anyways-"

"What about air-transit?! What about Aviation?! Wouldn't that be-"

"Oh yeah, that's a great idea! Let's put a malfunctioning Saboteur unit in high altitude! Are you fucking kidding me?! Your Bulbasaur's dispersal could affect the entire east coast if she detonated on high! That lethal cloud could cover hundreds of kilometers from up there-"

"WELL, WHAT THE FUCK ELSE CAN WE DO?!" I roared over the sensible Doctor in my desperation. I should have known better than to ask.

"We have an incinerator on the premises. Other than the girl I mentioned earlier, that's our only other option."

Doctor Fuck-its really needed to work on his bedside manner. If that phone had been his throat, my reflexes would have crushed his fucking larynx like a grape. As it stood, I just snapped the phone in half with one hand.

"Oh my God!" Nurse Joy wasn't accustomed to seeing her office staples reduced to shrapnel. I put Vauban on the counter just so I could use both hands to hold the two broken ends of the phone together.

"This girl… The Azure precinct you said?" I growled to Doctor Fuck-its. I could barely hear his voice over the ruined phone.

"Her name is Gwyn. I can't remember her last name. She has some… emotional issues that might have played a part in her… employment termination at this Pokemon Center, but she's the best damn botanical surgeon that you're ever going to find in Indigo."

"Is she working at the Pokemart right now?" I asked, trying to calm myself.

"I don't know her weekly schedule, or even if she is working there anymore, but either way… You're gonna have to go through the Ranger Corps' High Command in order to authorize a civilian's medical operation on a Mil-Spec mon-"

"Well guess what? I'm a fucking Special Operative in the Ranger Corps. That red tape doesn't hold me back. Do you have access to a terminal with a secure link to the Ranger's network?" I found a cold steel in my gut, and presented it to Doctor Fuck-its as my voice.

"Affirmative. I'm accessing the Ranger Corps' medical records now… I'm gonna need your service tag-"

"Chief Warrant Officer Zane Bastard. Whiskey-Dash-Two-One-One-Zero-Five-Seven-Three. Saboteur Class, designation: Uniform-Zero-One-Four. Codename: Vauban. Serial Code: Open-Brackets, Two-One, Close-Brackets; Nine-Zero-Zero-Two-One-Seven-Five-Dash-Two." I related the necessary information before Doctor Fuck-its could even finish requesting it. I knew damn well what was required to access the Ranger net's medical record database. Every Special Operative did.

"...I have access to Vauban's medical manifest. Under your authority, I can forward a copy to the designated civilian the instant you establish contact. And Ranger-?"

"-What?!" I had just wrapped my arms around my flailing coat when Doctor Fuck-its shot me the last bit.

"-Best of luck to you and Vauban both."

That sentiment was offered with the best of intentions, but I didn't even bother to reply.

It was just a waste of Vauban's precious time.

I was out of the Pokemon Center door and hoofing it west to the designated Azure precinct's Pokemart before Nurse Joy could even blink.

Pokemarts. The only time you'll ever see the hardcore competitive Trainers patronizing these establishments is after the Trainer Marts have closed.

Thanks to their mon grooming and therapy services, Pokemarts are generally open twenty-four seven just to provide their customers' Pokemon with the required around the clock attention that certain delicate species require.

That said, most Pokemarts operate with only a skeleton crew after midnight. Generally they manage to function with even less than the bare essential staff, but still…

-A Pokemart's front doors are never locked.

Which was a damn good thing for me and Vauban.

-If 'Gwyn' was in, that is.

Gwyn.

If I knew who she really was before I met her…

-I would have made the Azure precinct's Pokemart my very first stop in Cerulean.

I had just about torn the glass swinging door from its hinges when I dashed into the Pokemart. Predictably for the late hour, there wasn't a soul behind the counter.

"Hello?! Anyone in here?!" I slammed my hand down on the counter's bell, anxious as all fuck.

"-I'll be with you in a second! I'm almost done here!" A voice shouted from the back room.

"I don't have a fucking second to spare! This is a fucking emergency!"

I should have known better than to expect the clerk to take me seriously. He probably heard that line on a nightly basis working the late shift. Only the fucking wackos patronized these establishments after midnight.

"I said that I'd be with you in a minute!" The clerk hollered, his voice growing annoyed. But that irritated tone had nothing on the rage that shook my clenched neck.

"I'M FROM THE RANGER CORPS, MOTHERFUCKER! DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT THE FUCK THAT MEANS?!"

-That warning reduced my wait by a negative integer squared.

The absent clerk booked his ass to the counter, and froze solid when he saw that I wasn't joking about the color of my uniform.

"...Oh shit…"

That's right, you professional mon-humper. I'm from the dark side. The ying to your ethical yang. I'm a professional mon-killer.

"I'm looking for a 'Gwyn.' Apparently she's a registered botanical surgeon. Any idea where I might find her?" I didn't even have to get into character. Vauban's predicament had put me in the perfect state of being for making mon-humpers shit themselves silly. I was full-on danger mode; no bullshit tolerated, no mercy to spare, and both hands itching to solve all my problems with the crudest means that mankind has ever established: Violence.

"Manager! Gwyn! I need you at the counter! There's a Ranger looking for a botanical surgeon!" The young clerk was panicking fast. It must have been the look in my eye.

-But that crazy enraged look was about to change something drastically…

"What do you mean there's a Ranger at the counter? The Rangers don't-" The manager barked back, rounding a corner in the backroom.

'Gwyn' stopped dead in her tracks when she caught sight of me.

-And I froze stiff when I saw her.

Her name tag did say 'Gwyn'...

-But that face had another name I was familiar with.

It took me a moment to overcome the shock. A moment, and a squeal from Vauban. I ignored the ice running down my spine, and pulled up the strongest voice that I could muster.

"I have a Bulbasaur undergoing symbiotic separation… The local Pokemon Center refuses to operate on her, and the Rangers will kill her if they find out about her condition… Please… Please, I'm begging you… save my little girl…" I was weeping at the end, and not all those tears were being shed in fear for Vauban. Those particular tears were reflected on a certain botanical surgeon's face as well.

-We had never once met before…

...But we both recognized the other…

"...A Saboteur Class?" Gwyn asked me in a quiet voice.

"...Please… I don't want to lose another one…"

That face was bringing it all back. I was standing at that ledge again. I was facing their screams. I was looking right at them as they died…

"...Ricky, go clear out the cooler immediately. And break out one of the hermit-tents. Not the display model. That one has holes in it. Set up a new hermit-tent in the cooler. I have to go get my kit from home. Ranger-" Gwyn was giving orders in a level voice, even though she could barely see through the glistening pools in either eye.

"-You're helping Ricky set up a makeshift operating room. You're also paying whatever it costs us to operate on your Bulbasaur, regardless of whether she makes it not. Now hurry it up, both of you. I'll be right back." Gwyn pushed right past me without a second look. I briefly wondered if she was just gonna ditch me in Cerulean and run away again…

-But then Vauban's scream pulled me out of it, and both Ricky and I hauled ass to the cooler to begin portering all the Pokemart's perishable products into the hallway, just to make room for the hermit-tent that would serve as our sterile section.

"I need fifteen CCs of Romifidine now." Gwyn ordered of me.

Ricky and I were playing nurse to Gwyn's makeshift operating table.

-I really, really had to hand it to her…

Gwyn was operating on a malfunctioning Saboteur unit without wearing the prescribed Alpha-two Hazmat rig as a standard precaution.

Gwyn was going into a lethally toxic Bulbasaur equipped with only a dust mask and latex gloves for protection.

"I don't think that an anesthetic is gonna work… Saboteurs are designed to metabolise any foreign substances introduced to their-"

"I'm well aware of what a Saboteur's Waterloo metabolism is capable of, Ranger! Now get me the fifteen CCs of Romifidine, or get the hell out of my operating room!" Gwyn was shaking at the gills. That wasn't just urgency making her feel so anxious.

I was in the same room as Gwyn, and it was obviously bringing up some painful memories for her too.

"Fifteen CCs of Romifidine. Roger that." I filled the syringe just past the measured line, before ejecting the cylinder of what little pocket of air still lingered within the needle. I passed the prepped anesthetic over to Gwyn, and she sank that needle right into Vauban's spine without even taking a second of our time to check for a clearance in between the Bulbasaur's vertebrae.

Gwyn didn't need to locate a point of injection. True to her reputation as a prodigy, she knew exactly how many vertebrae lined the spinal column of Bulbasaur, and had every bone's location mapped out in her memory.

"That'll keep the bulb busy for a while. Part of the toxin metabolism process inhibits the immune system's response so as to perform protein breakdown on the invading material and structure imitation. It's not going to stop your Bulbasaur from feeling the knife, but it will give her bulb something to chew on while we extract the roots-"

"-Extract?! I thought that we were trying to reverse the separation-!"

"-If you have a problem with my methods, Ranger; then you can take your Bulbasaur straight to an incinerator! You are not a botanical surgeon! You aren't even a certified surgical technician! So you either do exactly what I say, when I say it; or your Bulbasaur will die!" Gwyn finally lost her head on me. I was almost grateful that she screaming at me. At the same time, I was beginning to understand what had drawn Brenda to her in the first place…

"Both of you start untangling those roots, and then start placing the ends in ice water. We're going to slow the bulb's metabolism down to a crawl."

-Melissa had some serious fucking guts…

"...It's gonna be okay, Vauban… We're gonna get you taken care of, girl…" I was pulling that tangle of roots apart as gently as I could. Ricky took the knobbly bloodstained strands that I handed him, and submerged them in bowls of ice water. Melissa was already prepping Vauban's back for surgery, while rotating her portable sonographic instrument around Vauban's traitorous bulb.

"Alright, the primary root is still linked to her spinal column. That just elevated her chance of survival to seventy-percent. But the oral roots are pulling out of her arteries, and the dermis roots are trying to digest her soft tissues. We have to keep the oral roots firmly lodged in her arteries, but the dermis roots have to come out immediately. Ricky, as soon as you're done sinking those roots, I need you to go fill a trough with the heavy loam mix and bring it in here."

"Got it!" Ricky was caught up in the scene. He hadn't a clue just how fucking lethal this Bulbasaur was. Ricky didn't even know that we were operating on a bio-bomb in his place of employment. All that fifteen year-old mon-humper saw when he looked at Vauban was a mon in trouble…

"Okay! That's the last of the roots! I'll go get the soil ready!"

...And just like every good mon-humper, Ricky wasn't about to stand idle while my little girl was suffering.

-I could've kissed that empathetic pubescent shit for his blind devotion to my Vauban.

Ricky sealed the hermit-tent on his way out of the cooler, and rushed off to fill a trough with nutrient rich dirt. Leaving just me and Vauban alone in the cooler with the widow of one of our dearly departed squadmates.

"...Melissa?" I didn't even know where to begin. Sorry just sounded so hollow in my guilty heart.

"-This is a really bad time for that conversation, Zane." Melissa somehow managed to keep her voice calm as she started her first incision. I held Vauban's screaming chin against my shoulder when the knife dug into her.

"It's okay! It's okay Vauban! Don't worry! I'm here! I'm right here! You'll be okay, girl… I promise you'll be okay…"

-I made that promise to Brenda too…

"Just keep her calm, Zane. That's the best thing you can do right now." Melissa made her second incision, and Vauban just about leapt off the table when the pain reached her brain.

"Hold her steady, Ranger!"

I had both arms wrapped around my crying girl, my face was pressed up against hers; my mouth was murmuring nonsensical reassurances, and my wounded heart was bleeding for my screaming Vauban.

"-I'm going to try extracting the dermis roots, and then we'll plant them into the soil. Then I'm going to inject Vauban's bulb with a heavy dose of steroids and additional nutrients. During that phase, we're going induce hypothermia in Vauban, and chill her bulb just a few degrees short of freezing. If we can initiate torpor while the bulb is in the process of explosive growth, there's a chance that we can fool the bulb into thinking that it's found a new host when we thaw it out in a favorable environment. Then right before the Ivysaur evolution cycle completes itself, we'll surgically reinsert all of the removed dermis roots back into Vauban's hide. It's our best chance of saving both her, and her continued service to the Ranger Corps…" Melissa spat that last part out with venom. I couldn't blame Melissa at all for hating the Rangers. Not after Melissa's wife had been brutally murdered in her service to the Ranger Corps.

Ricky came back into the cooler, dragging a trough full of foul smelling soil over towards Melissa. It was harrowing work, holding my little girl while a surgeon cut her up, but I wasn't gonna betray my Vauban to my own squeamish feelings.

I had a duty to fulfill to my family. I had to remain calm and supportive for my Vauban. Even if I wanted to scream with her.

"That's the last of the dermis roots. Ricky, help me wash the blood off them. Ranger-" Melissa was calling me away from my weeping child, but I knew that I had to do more than just comfort Vauban.

"I need you to start planting the roots in the soil as gently as you can. I'm going to lower the temperature of the cooler to 3.9 degrees celsius. We're going to start the torpor process, so I can't have your body heat upsetting Vauban's thermal balance. No more contact is to be made with your Bulbasaur. Do I make myself clear?" Melissa was actually speaking softly to me.

"Yeah… I understand…" My voice was ragged when I pulled away from Vauban. My little girl was looking up at me with the terror and pain plain on her face. I pursed my lips and met her red eyes.

She didn't want me to leave her.

-Vauban thought that was going to die.

"Vauban… Listen carefully…" The whole room was growing silent when that tone emanated from my mouth.

"You've never once let me down. Not once. You've done me fucking proud everyday since we met. And I… I've let you down almost every Goddamn day…"

I could feel a lot more than just Vauban's eyes on me, but I was only there for my little girl.

"...That all changes today. I'm never letting you down again, Vauban. You hear me? Never fucking again-"

I had to take a moment to wrestle both my shattered breath and my quaking face back under control.

"...So don't you… So don't you fucking dare… Change your tune on me, Vauban. Don't you fucking dare start letting me down…" Vauban's terrified eyes softened. My little girl knew who I was. My Vauban knew who that voice belonged to.

That voice belonged to her, and it belonged to only her.

...Vauban was the only person that I could ever be that miserable little kid for again…

"Just don't worry, Vauban… You're absolutely fine, just the way you are. I just need… Please, Vauban… Just be patient with me… It's gonna take me time to figure out who I am…"

I was tearing into my old wound. The old wound that only my Vauban could remember.

I was tearing open the old wound that the Fucking Bastard had been originally created to cover up.

"You're gonna be okay, you goofy bitch. You know who I am. And you know what it means when I make a promise…"

Vauban swallowed. Her fear was gone. She was looking up at me with those gooey red eyes of hers. If I didn't know any better, I'd say that my lizard's tears weren't being shed for the pain anymore.

Those were tears of profound joy.

My little girl finally had her Zane back.

"Just take it easy, Vauban. When you wake up, I'll be right there, right next to you. I promise."

-And that's when Melissa decided to initiate the bulb's artificially induced growth therapy…

...And my little girl started screaming all over again.

"The procedure was a success. Vauban is out cold and her bulb has ceased the separation process." Melissa told me when she walked out of the cooler. I was gasping in relief while Brenda's widow stripped off her blood stained gloves, and started scrubbing the toxic blood off her forearms at an employee's handwashing sink.

I'd been made to wait outside the cooler after Vauban had succumbed to torpor. Ricky had already been sent home ahead of the end of his normal shift. He was still getting paid for the hours that he wasn't working.

I had guaranteed it.

"I don't know how much is left in it, but consider it a downpayment for the expenses." I handed Melissia my Expense Account card, and the weary surgeon could only stare at me.

"I didn't think that you'd be fit for active service, after what that Snorlax did to you." Melissa's cold voice cut me to the core.

"Technically speaking, Melissa? I'm not fit for active service…" I answered softly.

"-Well, boo-hoo."

I just took it. Melissa had every right to want me dead. I wasn't going to defend myself from her. I deserved everything that she wanted to throw at me.

"Are you just going to stand there, looking like a lost little brat? What's the matter, Zane? Have you lost your nerve? Are you that pathetic? You know, Brenda used to tell me that you were indestructible…"

-Those words brought my dead stare up from the floor.

...Brenda used to talk to Melissa about me?

"Melissa… I did everything that I could… I swear… I did everything I could to keep her alive…" I never wanted to beg. I never intended to plead. I never wanted to be selfish. But I couldn't help it.

Melissa wasn't the only one who loved Bren…

"...Then why is she dead, Zane... And why are you still alive?"

The grief and hate in her voice held the same jagged edge that echoed in those bitter words.

I didn't have an answer for Melissa. I would never find that answer.

"...You should've died with her… I wouldn't hate you so much if you had…" Melissa was shaking with the anger and the tears.

-I could reflect that same sentiment...

This is what I deserved. This is what I had been preparing myself for since I decided to seek out Melissa. This was exactly what I needed to hear…

...And it all felt like it was going to kill me…

"I promised her… I promised Bren that I'd bring her back to you…" My child's voice was squeaking past the choke in my throat. I dug into my wallet and pulled out the ruined photo…

Brenda.

Melissa.

The two smiling girls.

The two crying lovers on their wedding day.

...I offered it to Melissa with a shaking hand.

I presented her with that terrible little photo while I curled into myself just from seeing her smiling face again…

Brenda.

My Brenda…

Melissa threw my hand wide, and sent that photo flying.

"That's not my Brenda, you stupid fuck!" Melissa was livid. She was spitting through her tears at the cowering Ranger, who couldn't stop his own weeping for all of the world.

"...She's gone, Zane. She's dead. And I'll never get away from her ghost…"

-Oh, how familiar those words sounded to me…

"...I'd do anything, Melissa… Anything to bring her back to you-"

Melissa started choking on her tears just to laugh. But this was far from a funny laugh.

"Anything? Anything?! You couldn't do anything! You couldn't do anything to save her then, and you can't do anything for her now! I don't want to hear your worthless apologies! I don't want to see your selfish tears! I just want my Brenda back…" Melissa fell back against the wall, breaking apart at the seams.

...And there was nothing that I could do to comfort her.

...Nothing that I could do to ease the suffering of Brenda's widow…

I straightened myself out. I stifled my own tears. I held myself with as much dignity as I could possibly muster.

"I'm sorry for your loss, Melissa. I'm sorry that your wife died under my command." I solemnly stated.

She wanted to hate me? Fine.

That was perfectly fine.

If Melissa wanted to hate me, then I'd be the Ranger that she could hate without any moral bars to hold her loathing back.

I'd be the Fucking Bastard for Melissa.

"I wish that my condolences were worth something more to you, but I understand why they aren't. Thank you for your assistance in saving-"

-Melissa was suddenly in my arms.

-She put herself there.

Melissa's face was pressed up against my sternum, and she was weeping into the front of my uniform. I could barely move for all of my shock. Something small and urgent in my head told me that I needed to do something quick, but in the end...

...All I could do was hold her…

...All I could do was grieve with her...

...And I didn't know what else I could do…

"Request denied."

Captain Lewis was laying down the law.

"Captain, Vauban is out of commission for at least another week. That leaves me with only Cortez, Damascus, and Darwin. I cannot beat Misty without the fourth member of my team. Both Cortez and Damascus are at a serious disadvantage in her Gym, and Darwin-"

"I said, 'request denied.' You are not postponing your Cerulean City Gym challenge with Willows. That is final." Captain Lewis didn't even blink. And I was left fuming across the desk from her.

"Okay. Why don't I just hand Willows my forfeit notice now, and spare my squad the humiliation-"

"-You will be in that Gym's ring three days from now, Zane. And you will leave that Gym ring with the Cascade Badge. You will not forfeit the match. Do I make myself clear?" Captain Lewis cut me off.

-No. You didn't make yourself clear. You made yourself a target for all of my pent up frustrations.

"Yes sir! I'll immediately start training Cortez on how to dog paddle even faster than a Starmie that can psionically jettison itself through the water. And Damascus? Hell, I'll just carve a prismatically coefficient hull into his bottom half. I'll make that Onix float in water even if it kills him. Oh, and Darwin? I've been trying to train that obese failure in basic combat applications for over a year now without any tickle of success, but fuck it! I'm sure that in three day's time, I'll have turned that worthless fucking Magikarp into a Championship heavyweight! Why don't we all just say 'fuck reality' right fucking now and shoot for the moon; because in Captain Lewis's world, stupid is an unstoppable fucking force!" I was going way past my rank and its prescribed etiquette in this unfathomable situation, but this was some seriously stupid fucking bullshit.

"Are you quite finished?" Captain Lewis wasn't even phased by my explosive rant. She should've strung me up by the intestines for railing on a Superior Officer in the way that I'd just ridden on her, but that cold hearted bitch didn't even give a fuck.

-Which only made even me more angry.

"You are behind schedule, Zane. You're a month and a half behind schedule. The Venomoth incident in Viridian cost you a massive chunk of the season. We cannot afford anymore delays in the League. Regardless of whether or not your squad is prepared for an aquatic Gym battle, you will still challenge Misty Willows for the Cascade Badge. And you will win that Badge." Captain Lewis sternly informed me.

"Shit, if only I had your fucked up confidence, then I could stupid my way through the entire fucking League with nothing more than a six-mon roster of Darwins." I replied.

-And that smart ass comment was the last straw.

Captain Lewis had my face crushed into the desktop with one of my arms twisted behind my back even faster than it took for her previously-occupied swivel chair to hit the floor.

"Okay, Zane. We'll go about it the hard way." Captain Lewis's voice hadn't changed a bit. Her cold tone sounded just as causal when breaking me over her desk as it had sounded when addressing me in all of our other 'civil' interactions.

Normally when I was put in this kind of a position, I would have started making lewd comments regarding grandmas and their creepy fetishes; but when a pissed off Blackhat has you pinned against a hard surface, and is only a couple inches of pivot away from snapping your arm off at the shoulder…

...Even a Fucking Bastard wisens up.

"Base command, this is Captain Lewis. Lt. Col Rionaldo? I'm making a formal request for another Blackhat unit to accompany Warrant Officer Zane Bastard and myself to Cerulean Prime's Frontier training facilities."

"..."

"Thank you, sir. I'll instruct the deck crews to prep Solomon and Tisiphone for a field exercise immediately."

"..."

"Yes, I'm bringing the Wyrms. It seems that our Warrant Officer Bastard is going to require a little bit of encouragement in order to adequately perform his assigned duties."

"..."

"I'll put him on now, sir."

A radio's headset was jammed into my ear, and the corresponding mouthpiece was positioned next to my smashed lips.

"Warrant Officer Bastard?" The voice of Lt. Colonel Rionaldo sounded in my ear.

"Yeth thir?" I couldn't exactly articulate with a mouthful of cherry and beech, but I still endeavored to answer the Blackhat Commander with what little dignity I had left. All was silent for a moment, before Lt. Col Rionaldo sighed on his end, and elected to pen a touching epitaph for yours truly.

"It was nice knowing you, kid."

-Click.

"Twansmissin compwheat." I grunted up to Captain Lewis. She yanked that radio right out of my head, and dragged my disheveled figure off her desk.

"You have five minutes to holster up in a flight suit. You'll be riding on Solomon with me. Prep every available unit on your team for a scrapping, and let them know beforehand that they're only going to be suffering so much today because their CO decided to get lippy with his CO. You will be bleeding in the dirt right alongside them, Warrant Officer Bastard. I guarantee it."

Captain Lewis's tone never shifted. She probably ordered take-out with that ice cold voice. She barely gave me two measly seconds to straighten out my beret before she was hoofing it towards the Blackhat's locker room, leaving me to scrabble in her dust.

...

"Boy, oh boy. Did you piss off ol' Lou or what?" Lieutenant Roscoe was grinning like a sumbitch when he greeted me in the docking yard.

"Does she have Snorlax in her family's ancestry?" I grumbled to the Lieutenant, who burst out laughing at my jab.

"Son, those big evil fat fuckers ain't got nothing on Captain Lewis when it comes down to a spiteful rage. They haven't got shit on that cold hearted bitch. Ain't that right, Lou?" Lieutenant Roscoe galled me when he announced our conversation to the entire docking yard.

"Cut the hyperbole, Lieutenant; and get on your fucking Wyrm." Captain Lewis was right behind us.

That voice made me want to shit myself.

Captain Lewis was not amused by my Snorlax family reference.

She wasn't fucking amused at all.

"Yes sir." Said a very happy Lieutenant Roscoe, directing a gleeful grin to my ashen-faced person right before he disappeared.

Fucking Vets, man…

They really…

-Really…

...Like fucking with one another…

"Warrant Officer Bastard, this is Solomon. Solomon this is Warrant Officer Bastard." Captain Lewis introduced me to her awaiting Gyarados.

-Who decided that he could introduce himself in the loudest and most terrifying way imaginable.

That huge blue mouth was suddenly a scant meter away from my face in one of Solomon's lighting quick reflexes, flecking me with chords of spit and causing my entire spine to rattle with that one loud motherfucking roar.

-Gyaradosia.

Need I say more?

"I think he likes you, Warrant Officer!" Lieutenant Roscoe hollered from his Gyarados's rostrum saddle.

"You can eat whatever is left of him when I'm done working him over, Solomon." Captain Lewis promised her Wyrm. She was standing right next to me when Solomon had decided to show off his vocal fortitude, and Captain Lewis was completely unfazed by the decibels that had knocked my lapels loose.

I, on the other hand, was immensely grateful that my flight suit was equipped with a waste collection and cycling system; which had saved me the grief of changing my shorts.

"Have you been trained for Aviation before, Warrant Officer?" Captain Lewis asked me, passing an enclosed flight helmet my way. I accepted the helmet and managed a stiff nod.

"What kind Aviation units?" Captain Lewis continued her grill of my Academy credentials.

"...Class Twos, and a little bit of Class Threes-"

"-Oh, he is so fucked!" Lieutenant Roscoe was laughing his ass off, all while doing handstands on his Gyarados's saddle.

"Not good, Warrant Officer. Not good at all. Do you know what Flight Index the Gyaradosia species belongs to?" Captain Lewis fixed her stern gaze on my glassed-over and hollow eye.

-Of course I fucking knew.

"...Class Six."

Gyaradosia have that Class all to themselves. Even the Aerodactyls and the Salamencia species are easier to fly than the fucking Gyaradosia.

"Don't worry, Zane! I've trained Tisiphone for Aerial Retrieval! She can catch your ass before you hit the ground!" Lieutenant Roscoe was giving me his friendliest evil smile.

...Just so we're clear on something…

-Aerial Retrieval isn't a rescue procedure. Aerial Retrieval is a combat maneuver. So this was Lieutenant Roscoe kindly informing me; that if I fell from Solomon's rostrum, he'd let his Tisiphone swallow me alive.

"Well, Warrant Officer, you're going to have to learn how to fly Class Six sooner or later. I'm giving you Solomon's reins for our flight to Cerulean Prime. Try not to piss him off." That was all Captain Lewis had to say before her deck crew hoisted me up onto Solomon's saddle, and put his heavy reins in my shaking hands.

"Give him hell, Solomon!" Lieutenant Roscoe cheered. Captain Lewis took her position in saddle's second cusp behind me.

"Are you ready, Zane?" Captain Lewis asked me after we'd been strapped in by the deck crew. I drew a shaking breath, and steeled my nervous self with it.

"Deck Chief! This is Blackhat Solomon! Requesting clearance for takeoff!" I shouted across the docking yard with the firmest voice that I could summon.

"Roger that, Blackhat Solomon. You are cleared for takeoff. The skys are clear and the opposing wind speed is minimal. Proceed to an altitude of eleven-hundred meters and maintain cruising altitude for your heading twenty kilometers north-east. Begin your descent ten kilometers before reaching your destination. Bring them all back home alive, you filthy Wyrms! Fly high!"

Both Tisiphone and Solomon let out an earth shaking roar, and with a squeeze of my heels and a slight twist of Solomon's taut reins, we lifted off from the docking yard enclosure; and proceeded to fly parallel with the rising sun.

"You can ease up now, Bastard. The rough bit is over." Captain Lewis informed me over the mic.

"Not a bad climb for a Gyaradosia virgin's first time! Of course, your final grade will have to wait until the landing!" Lieutenant Roscoe tossed in his two Sandz.

"Good God, all that fucking bucking for just a measly eleven hundred meters of altitude…" I groaned, trying to loosen up my bruised and aching thighs.

"Blame the Gyaradosia's zeppelin physiology. That's why they'll never make the private sector's list of viable Aviation units." Captain Lewis said through the com set.

"Come on Zane! Do a barrel roll already!" Lieutenant Roscoe suddenly came up on our port side, throwing down a snakey burst of speed on his massive Tisiphone.

"-Don't." Captain Lewis grabbed my wrist as I started manhandling Solomon's reins.

"-Was he really gonna fucking do it?!" Lieutenant Roscoe shouted over the mic in disbelief.

"I'm the Fucking Bastard, Lieutenant. Don't dare me to do something and not expect me to do it." I grinned into the mic.

"Ooooh shiiit. I can't wait to see how you land that beast. They're gonna have to rebuild Cerulean Prime after you plow it into the ground. I can already tell." Lieutenant Roscoe started showing off on Tisiphone, doing one handed supermans on the saddle's pommel.

"Quit the showboating Lieutenant, before you get yourself killed." Captain Lewis grumbled over the mic.

"Oh, get off Lou! Lighten up a bit! It's the perfect day for flying! Come on, Tisiphone! Give Solomon a little lip!" Lieutenant Roscoe was fucking loving it dangerously.

"Jerry, don't you dare-!" Captain Lewis began angrily, but that was as far as she got. Tisiphone invaded our airspace, and bit down on Solomon's throat.

"Waw-hoo!"

We had a fucking cowboy on the back of a fucking Gyarados; cruising at eleven hundred meters above fucking sea level, just trying to piss off our own fucking Wyrm.

"Get 'em Solomon!" I roared, twisting Solomon's reins to port and kicking my Wyrm in the rostrum.

-Which was the stupidest thing that I could've done.

Egging a Gyarados on when it had just been attacked at cruising altitude is anything but a good idea. Especially when you're riding that Gyarados.

-But despite being a stupid idea?

...It was still fucking exciting.

"Oh FUCK!"

Lieutenant Roscoe and Tisiphone were suddenly a lot closer than anybody was comfortable with. The two flying snakes were beginning to coil around one another in the initial sequence of an aerial dual.

"DISENGAGE! DISENGAGE!" I was hollering to the furious Gyarados below me.

-We were gonna get crushed between those two tussling Wyrms.

"That's enough!" Captain Lewis took the reins from my hands and jerked hard on Solomon's bit. That Gyarados broke off immediately, nearly throwing my ass off his saddle in the blind haste he only knew in obeying his CO's directive. Tisiphone righted herself out after Solomon's coils started falling away, and both pilots put down a healthy distance between their two angry snakes.

"Don't you ever do that again, you crazy son of a bitch!" Lieutenant Roscoe wasn't laughing anymore.

"What?! You started it!" I was justifiably indignant.

"Jerry, if you keep pulling shit like this, I will ground your ass for good!" Captain Lewis growled into the mic.

"How's this all my fault?! Zane was the one-" Lieutenant Roscoe was bitching from his saddle.

"-You're the Lieutenant, Jerry! So fucking act like one!" Captain Lewis was truly pissed. And even Reckless Roscoe of Blackhat Team Seven was smart enough to back down when faced with this Ursaring of a woman.

"Yes sir!" It was all business tone from good ol' Roscoe.

"And you-" Captain Lewis rounded on me with a rumble. Then I heard a private communique alert over the mic, and I switched my radio onto the designated secure channel.

"-Good job." Captain Lewis's stern voice informed me, before she switched back to the open channel.

I was smiling like my namesake when Tisiphone and Solomon fell back into the standard two-wing formation.

"It really is a beautiful day for flying." I announced, stretching my legs and arms against the frigid air resistance.

The clouds were still high above us, but the land was far below us; and from up here in the sky, we could see glimmering Cerulean not far off to our south, and the creeping shadow of Mt. Moon stretching across the sunlit surface of the earth.

Sprawling green jungle below us, white dappled heaven above us, sparkling blue ocean before us, and the visible curvature of the earth following a line across the horizon on all sides.

-What a fucking experience.

Why did I join the Sapper Division when Aviation was a viable career option for me?

-Oh yeah...

"-Still, it would have been an even more beautiful day for blowing something up…" I mournfully amended.

"Okay Cortez, listen closely." I knelt down beside my hound, and clipped a radio transmitter to the corner of his scarred up ear.

"That thing has a wicked horn that can cut you in half with a single stroke. She's fast on her feet, but don't let that limber frame fool you; she's a lot stronger than she looks." I tested the radio with my own ear, ensuring that my voice was reaching my dog across the closed channel.

"Now you have the advantage of range, but remember; that thing is an Interloper. A Blackhat Interloper. She can fade right into the Distortion and phase out right on top of you in a split second, so when she starts her feinting tactics, you go on the defensive. Keep moving, and make your motions erratic. She can only feint so many times before she exhausts herself, so that's when we'll make our finishing move. But before the you even think of performing the finisher, you need to remember one thing; keep moving." I patted my hound's rump, and stood back; relinquishing the field to Cortez.

"Are you ready Zane?" Lieutenant Roscoe called out to me across the Frontier training yard.

"Ready." I replied. My calm dog hunkered down ever so slowly and wiggled his haunches. Some of the Vets spectating were already cheering my name.

"And are you ready Captain?" Lieutenant Roscoe called out to my opponent.

"Ready." Captain Lewis answered from her Absol's shadow.

"Well then, germs and gents… LET THE BATTLE BEGIN!" Lieutenant Roscoe finally found a use for that loud mouth of his.

Lieutenant Roscoe could have made for a phenomenal League commentator.

-If he cleaned his language up.

"CORTEZ! ENGAGE INTERLOPER!"

"Karst, put that dog down."

We had just gotten started…

-And it already wasn't looking very good for my hound.

Karst didn't waste her time feinting. She had no need to. Karst had Cortez beat in the speed and power departments, and she proved that in the first three seconds of the match when she deftly evaded Cortez's initial gout of flames…

-And then trampled my dog into the mud.

"Cortez!"

My dog was up on his feet in a flash, and now he was eyeing Karst with a wary glare. That Absol didn't even seem to be concerned about the tiny dog that dared to rise for another round of punishment. Karst started grooming her shoulder with a tongue, as if she wasn't worried about the outcome of this fight.

-Karst was completely at ease, that is; until somebody made her care about this fight.

"Take out his legs, Karst." Cold ol' Captain Lewis knew exactly what I had been planning to do all along, and she knew exactly how to fuck it up.

My anti-Interloper strategy was shot to shit when Captain Lewis just decided to overpower and cripple Cortez instead of utilizing Karst's feinting capabilities.

"Okay, that's enough!" I shouted after Karst trampled my dog for the fourth time. Cortez hadn't even singed a single one of her white hairs yet, and he was getting the shit kicked out of him by the endless assault.

"I said that's enough!" I roared when Karst headed butted my snarling dog into the dirt.

"Cortez, fall back to me. You did well enough-"

-Karst stuck her horn in between Cortez's fore legs, and tossed his ass into the air.

"I SAID ENOUGH!"

-Nope.

I didn't get to say when enough was enough.

"Karst, beat that dog to within an inch of its life." Captain Lewis calmly ordered. And Karst was happy to oblige.

I was looking at my Captain with naked horror inscribed on my expression. Karst pounced on Cortez again, forfeiting to a feral rage as she bit into my dog's throat; before ragdolling poor Cortez like a chew toy, and dropping his still ass in the dirt.

"That's not enough, Karst. That Growlithe can bleed more than that." Captain Lewis berated her Absol for breaking off early.

-And Karst returned to torturing my yelping dog with a gusto.

"ENOUGH!" I took to the field with my knife drawn, ignoring the cries of outrage that our Vet spectators made when I kicked that evil Absol off my hound and pulled his bleeding ass out of the mud.

Cortez licked my chin when I held him against chest. I could hear him wheezing through his bloody snout.

"It's okay, Cortez, it's over. I got-"

-Something hit my right temple with enough force to send me into the dirt.

"You're not allowed to enter the field in the middle of match, Ranger. That qualifies as an automatic forfeit." Captain Lewis put her boot heel on my crawling hand, and started twisting the skin under her treads.

"I forfeited the match when I recalled Cortez!" I hissed from the ground.

Captain Lewis's other foot connect with my ribs.

"You're not allowed to forfeit." Captain Lewis informed me.

"I'm not watching my soldier get hurt for nothing-"

-A boot toe in my mouth shut me up fast.

"That's technically not a soldier, Warrant Officer. That's a servicemon. Same damn thing as a bullet. Now use it like a servicemon." Captain Lewis stood back, while I coughed on the gravel and the blood.

"Get up. We're not done training you, Zane." Captain Lewis ordered. I pushed my shabby self to my feet and stared down my CO.

"Good. Now take your position on the opposite end of the field."

I did exactly as I was ordered, abandoning my pooch on the stage, and taking my ragged position on the mark.

"Okay, Zane. I'm giving you the first move." Captain Lewis announced when the field had been reset for the second round. Karst sat down on her haunches, and started licking Cortez's blood from her uplifted paw; acting like there was nothing in the world that could possibly trouble her Absol self.

"Cortez?" I looked over to my beaten dog. One purple eye fell on me.

I almost choked when I gave him my next order.

-Cortez knew what was going to happen to him.

...And he didn't blame me for it.

"Take her down!"

Cortez broke into a gimpy run, snarling with those black lips of his drawn back from the canines, and a rabid hate glowing in either mismatched eye. He was gonna face his flogging with dignity, no matter how severe the punishment was.

Karst let him close the gap for her, before she shot back up to all fours, and cooly resumed beating the fucking hell out my Cortez.

And I had to watch the entire thing, stripped absolutely helpless as my stalwart hound put up his best against Karst, even in the face of certain futility.

-The only victory that could be achieved in this match…

...Was me holding back the tears…

"Cortez is in the infirmary. He'll make a full recovery before your match against Willows. Karst didn't inflict a single wound anymore severe than what that Kadabra already did." Captain Lewis informed me while I sat in the dirt. Our Veteran spectators were gone. Lieutenant Roscoe had run off with Tisiphone to go deliver an overdose of overkill to a gallows drape of Tangrowths infesting the frontline of Sector Foxtrot. Leaving just me and Captain Lewis alone in the Frontier training yard.

Alone to carry on the lesson.

"...I thought that we were gonna be training, Captain Lewis. But the only thing my dog learned from that sham was what pain feels like. What was the point to all that?" I growled.

Captain Lewis laid me on my back again with a fist between my eyes, and then added another boot-shaped bruise to the collection of blue skin forming on my ribs.

"What did you learn, Bastard?" Captain Lewis asked.

I didn't answer her. I was too busy glaring across the ground and off into the distance. But Captain Lewis had an answer for me.

"-You learned what it feels like to be rendered helpless."

-Oh, this lesson again.

"There was absolutely nothing that you could do, was there?" Captain Lewis kicked me in the jaw, just to pivot my distant eyes over and on to her.

-Unfortunately for her, she was only going to get one eye.

My fake eye popped right out the socket from the force of her kick, and rolled off into the mud.

-But I still met her severe gaze with my one cold eye.

"So how did you like feeling helpless?" Captain Lewis asked.

"...I'm never helpless." I growled past my bloodied teeth.

"Wrong answer." Captain Lewis stomped on my solar plexus, just to drive the point home.

"You should know by now, Bastard. You of all people should know…" Captain Lewis's voice wavered ever so slightly as I choked for breath beneath her.

"...I know what it is to be helpless. I don't need you reinforcing that." I spat, pulling myself out of the curl.

"...I don't think that you do understand what is to be helpless." Captain Lewis started picking me up, if only to drop my limp ass back on the ground.

"You see Bastard… You've lost. You've lost it all. Your edge, your drive, your focus, and your discipline. You've lost everything that made you a soldier." Captain Lewis just left me on my back in the dirt.

"I was afraid that this was going to happen. You finally caved into that soft side of yours, didn't you?" Captain Lewis actually sounded upset.

"...Is there a problem with that?" I asked in an iron tone.

Captain Lewis just sighed.

"What was it Bastard? Was it nearly losing your 'little girl?' Did some of that PTSD finally manage to crack your mold? Or maybe it was you meeting the widow of your deceased squadmate in Cerulean."

I swallowed the burning in my throat.

"How long have you known about Melissa's location?" I asked as I rose into a sitting position, while somehow keeping the anger out of my voice.

"So it is the widow. I wondered why you started acting so strangely."

"How long?" I repeated my toneless question to Captain Lewis, as I picked my fake eye up out of the dirt, and stuffed it in a coat pocket. It was a long while before Captain spoke again.

"...We never lost track of Melissa Eckleson. As far as we were concerned, she never even disappeared." Captain Lewis answered quietly.

"So is that ACE talking, or the Ranger Corps?" I looked up at Captain Lewis with my one eye.

She didn't answer.

"...ACE… Why am I not surprised?" I stated with a sigh.

"You might want to tread carefully, Zane." Captain Lewis whispered a warning to me. I just snorted.

"Why? I'm lost, remember? I'm obviously just a fucking liability now. High Command doesn't want a broken down soldier leading their campaign, so I guess that means I'm out of Operation: Wounded Hearts-"

Captain Lewis moved like a bolt of lightning. I was on my feet and being forced into a straightened position in the blink of an eye.

"...No. You're not out, Zane. You're still in." Captain Lewis's voice had gone hoarse. She was dusting me off and avoiding my calm gaze.

"...What can I do, Captain Lewis? I'm helpless every second of everyday, and I have to wear a mask just to throw people off-"

"-Quit talking like that. Now." Captain Lewis was genuinely pissed. I did as I was ordered, and shut my mouth tight.

"You're the Fucking Bastard, Zane. The star of the Ranger's future. So stop this self exploration bullshit train that you decided to jump on, and be the Fucking Bastard again. We can't afford your selfish reflections. We need a soldier on the Throne, Zane. Not a philosopher." Captain Lewis growled.

"You brought me into this Operation because you wanted a soldier… But have you ever asked yourself what kind of soldier you were gonna get?" I was still numb to it all. The pain, the grief, the fear, and the anger.

-I couldn't feel any of it anymore.

I was hollow. Dead. Void of my illusions. Naked. The mask cast aside.

"Get your ass back into position on the field, Zane. I am not done turning you back into a soldier yet." Captain Lewis hissed.

Like a puppet, I did exactly as I was ordered.

I didn't care.

I was fucking lost.

...And I didn't want to be found.

"Solomon, report." Captain Lewis broke out her ultimate weapon. The nastiest species of mon to serve in the Ranger Corps.

Look at you, you big angry snake…

Were you really once just a dopey Magikarp, blissfully jumping out the water for no other reason than because you wanted to fly?

...Do I really want my goofy Darwin to turn into you?

"Send out your big one, Zane. You don't even know what helpless means yet…" Captain Lewis was approaching her redline. She was near wit's end with apathetic me.

She wanted a soldier?

Fine.

-Then I'd show her a soldier.

"Damascus, report." I raised my own Heavy Ball, and released the tragic King of Mount Silver from his prison. My lost and broken Damascus. My ancient and hurting snake. A puppet who fought against his own strings.

-The perfect soldier.

"Damascus. Can you remember who I am?"

My giant white snake turned his milky blue eyes over to me.

I had never once addressed grandpa Damascus with that voice before, but my amazing snake…

...My amazing snake knew exactly who I was to him…

For one terrible moment, I saw the hope widen Damascus's eyes. I saw the disbelief.

-He thought that I was his Doug…

...And I had to tell Damascus the wretched truth...

"...Doug is dead, Damascus… I'm Zane… You remember who Zane is, don't you?"

It would have been kinder to grandpa Damascus if I had just killed him then. I saw that look of hope go cold like a dying ember, as cruel reality set into my poor snake's warped brain.

"I'm sorry, Damascus… I'm so sorry… I miss him too…" Damascus may have looked away from me, yet those coils of his still tightened protectively around my person all the same.

I wasn't his Doug…

-But I was still a part of Damascus's family.

"...So here's the deal. You see that ugly fucking snake, over there by the woman in the Black Beret?" I softly asked. Damascus reluctantly lifted his head and faced the pair of Rangers that I was indicating.

Solomon huffed up, and spread his massive fins in a vivid display. Chromatophores lining the inside of his pectoral and dorsal membranes exploded with wild colors, as a rainbow washed over the surface of an Alpha Gyarados's fins. Every fluttering sail on that snake shifted through every metallic shade in the spectrum as Solomon ruffled his striking raiments. Gyaradosia look big enough without those fins, but when they're preparing for a fight…

...Gyaradosia will flare their colorful sails just to make themselves appear three times larger than their already massive size, all for the purpose of intimidating the fucking piss out of whatever they're about to kill.

"That's your opponent. And this is our game plan..." I sighed. Damascus turned back to me with a curious look in his eye. He'd never seen a Gyarados before. Even in Damascus's two thousand years of living, the Onixia's and Gyaradosia's two vastly dissimilar habitats combined with the extreme rarity of their separate species, meant that these two titanic snakes would never meet one another in the natural world.

They were supposed to be the sovereign Kings in their own elements, never doomed to cross one another's paths.

"...We're going to lose. You're going to get hurt. I'm going to intervene, and get hurt right next to you. Then I'm gonna be seperated from you, and I'll be forced to watch as that Gyarados beats you to within an inch of your life. And then it's going to be my turn to get flogged alone while you recover. I just wanted to apologize to you now, Damascus… Like I should've when we first got thrown together…"

My snake let out one hell of an angry rumble.

-I don't think that Damascus liked my plan.

"I'm sorry, Gramps… But there's nothing that I can do to change it-"

-Damascus slammed his tail on the ground with enough force to stagger me where I stood. He balanced his ass on the last three beads of his tail, and ascended straight into the heavens on his incredible length.

Behold the King of Mount Silver.

-Lording it over this little blue worm in his shadow.

-Bask in my splendor, you tiny insignificant snake…

...This sovereign King is gonna eat your dead ass for a fucking snack.

Solomon fell in on his sails, and hissed up at the towering Damascus.

But my pissed off white snake's RUMBLE drowned out that feeble snarl.

-Damascus didn't like my plan at all.

...So my ornery old man of an Onix was gonna show me a real plan.

...

"..."

"To this day, I still can't believe what Damascus did next."

"..."

"-But let me tell you right now, Doug's ancient snake was a bottomless bag of infinitely devious tricks… "

"..."

"...And this match against Solomon and Captain Lewis?"

"..."

"-Well, this was just going to be the first of many surprises that my Damascus had in store for me."

"..."

...

Damascus held his position in the sky, looking down on the roaring Solomon like this angry blue fish was nothing more than an irritating bug.

"Solomon, bring that mountain down." Captain Lewis ordered of her Gyarados.

-Nope.

This mountain is perfectly capable of coming down himself.

Damascus lunged from his roost in the heavens, and brought his rumbling mass down on Solomon with an unreal speed that nothing made of rock should ever possess.

I was just as shocked as Captain Lewis when those two colossal titans crashed together in a stalemate, and began weaving their powerful coils around one another. Solomon went straight for Damascus's throat with his roaring maw, and my indestructible snake intercepted Solomon's lunge by slamming his hammer of a head right into the gaping mouth of a Gyarados.

Damascus knew how to play dirty, and Gramps wasn't turning over his Crown of dominance to this young upstart of a Gyarados without one hell of a fight.

"Solomon, break free!" Captain Lewis shouted to her struggling snake. In CQC, Damascus had the advantage. He was bigger, heavier, stronger, and a shitload harder than any Gyarados alive. But if Solomon could get into the air-

"Damascus! Pin those fins!" A sudden swell of urgency conquered my inhibitions.

-Oh, how the tables had turned. Damascus did exactly what I asked of him, and woe on big bad Solomon…

-My angsty Onix was sporting for Cortez's vengeance.

I heard that Gyarados's fins snap as Damascus worked his sledge of a jaw over Solomon's spines, and my Onix bit down hard on that Gyarados's left pectoral sail, before Damascus twisted the beads of his neck to maximize the damage. Solomon screamed in a bloodthirsty rage, and brought his own massive mouth down around Damascus's conical head.

Gyaradosia have one nasty bite. The amount of newton force that their jaws can apply will crush stones into dust, but even so…

-Damascus was one big ass stone, decked out with smooth, sloped, deflecting sides; which afforded a mighty poor purchase for Solomon's mighty jaws.

That Gyarados was already fucked.

-And Damascus was just getting started on working Solomon's ass over.

"Damascus, it's crippled! Get below ground!" I roared out to my unbelievable snake. Damascus shook off that Gyarados like a clinging branch, and then dove into the element that had secured him a Crown for these past two-thousand plus years…

-Oh no, Captain Lewis. Don't you worry 'bout a thing.

...We're not going to shaft your pissed off Wyrm.

-Shafting just wouldn't get the point across.

I alternatively dragged and stamped my boot into the ground, and subtly relayed my orders to Damascus through the terra-medium in phonetic morse code. It was just one of the new crazy tricks that Doug had taught the vibration hypersensitive Onix named Damascus when that senile old snake had officially joined up in the Corps.

-Surface. -Coil. -Dive. I said.

-RUMBLE. Damascus replied.

That's Onix for, 'Roger that.'

Captain Lewis had spread her snake out nice and wide, trying to prevent any serious damage from being done to Solomon by providing a bigger target than Damascus could coordinate a direct shafting on.

Poor Captain Lewis.

-You've played right into my hands.

Or more specifically…

-You've played right into Damascus's crushing arches.

The earth erupted in a spray of dirt and ragged sod, as a towering Onix rose back into the sky like a ornate white obelisk. Damascus had completely missed his mark, rising two whole meters off Solomon's three o'clock.

-At least it looked like he missed.

Damascus curved inwards, directing his descent towards the lunging Solomon with a graceful arch…

-And my heavyweight snake barreled right past the murderous Gyarados in what appeared to be a blind fall…

...Then my Damascus reentered the crust, completely ignoring the glancing blow from Solomon, while my Onix's tail end remained firmly lodged in his original exit shaft…

-And that enraged Gyarados was caught between the pinch in Damascus's closing beads and the hard-packed earth when my snake tightened up the slack.

-Captain Lewis figured it out one move too late.

There was nothing that she or her Wyrm could do to escape Damascus now.

-And my miraculous snake was coming back up to throw another terra-binding loop around the thrashing Gyarados.

"That enough!" Captain Lewis roared when Damascus added a third loop to the lethal embrace crushing Solomon.

"Damascus, abstain." I gave my order with a smile that would have left the Fucking Bastard whinging.

...But that Fucking Bastard…

-Was still gonna get the last fucking laugh.

"DAMASCUS! ABSTAIN!"

-Oh shit…

...That wasn't my Damascus anymore.

"DAMASCUS!"

Solomon was screaming and gnawing at the beads crucifying him to the ground, but no weapon that Captain Lewis's Gyarados could wield would break the bulwark of Damascus.

The King of Mount Silver had never eaten a Gyarados before…

-Though I could've told him that they tasted like prawns...

"DAMASCUS! ABSTAIN THIS INSTANT, YOU SENILE OLD FUCK!"

Yep. He was back in his commander's seat.

-I guess that the Fucking Bastard still served a purpose.

"TISIPHONE! SORT THEM OUT!"

-Hello, Lieutenant Roscoe. A little late to the party are we?

A second Gyarados suddenly entered the fray, and bit down on Damascus's coils from on high in the sky.

-But the vicious King of Mount Silver…

-Was taking all comers.

Damascus rose from the ground yet again, and threw his next loop around both the airborne Tisiphone and the grounded Solomon, before he started pulling his former arches loose from the first victim…

...If only to drag the two Serpents together in a three-snake's deadly embrace when Damascus began throwing a fresh set of loops over the both of them.

-That crazy old Onix was winding a stoney grave around a pair of Gyaradosia with his emancipated mass.

And for all their unbridled rage and obscene power…

...Those livid Gyaradosia couldn't break themselves free from their certain doom.

-I couldn't believe it.

Damascus hadn't beaten just one Gyarados…

-Doug's ancient D5CU had wrangled a pair of Blackhat trained Delta-Fives simultaneously, and he was taking his own sweet time constricting the two of them to death.

"DAMASCUS! CUT THEM LOOSE!"

-Holy shit.

We had just rendered two Blackhat behemoths absolutely helpless.

I would have been gloating like a motherfucker if this didn't mean Damascus's likely termination. If Damascus killed two G.I. Gyaradosia against his superior's orders, there wouldn't even be a delegation held to determine his future in the Ranger Corps...

...After I had incarcerated him within his Heavy Ball, the Rangers would seize that prison from me, before releasing Damascus from it above the ocean's continental slope; and then they would just let that heavy Onix drown at the bottom of the sea, dozens of kilometers away from any shore that could provide him with a timely escape.

Not even miraculous Damascus could hope to survive the Ranger's tried and true Onix execution design. It had never even come close to failing, and it never would.

-But there was no way in hell that I was going to let the Rangers kill this unique snake in coldblooded vengeance.

I would die before I let that shit happen.

"ALEXANDRIA! BEETHOVEN'S FIFTH, STAT!" I whipped out my Tact. pad and hoofed it into the raging Serpents' lethal dance with that dramatic four-note opening motif heralding the buildup of something awful.

-Oh, what a great way to ruin one of my favorite songs.

This lovely tune was probably gonna be the last song that Damascus ever heard.

I ducked beneath a Gyarados's massive fluked tail, rolled my ass under a pair of Dragon-Snakes' colliding bellies, dodged one livid blue mouth striking at anything that dared to move-

-Just to find Damascus's head before the Blackhats did.

"Damascus, listen to me!"

The angry King of Mount Silver was shaking with the effort of restraining these two powerful snakes in his coils. Damascus didn't even look at me when I clambered up onto his cheek. All hell was breaking loose around us as the two Gyarados raged against the earth itself for their very lives, and their each and every deafening bellow was punctuated by a ground shaking crash as the massive blue beasts slammed what few parts of their physiology had been spared the imprisoning coils of Damascus into the soil.

"DAMASCUS! PLEASE! STOP THIS!" My face was right in front of his massive milky-blue clouded eye, consuming his entire left cone of vision as I tried to get that featureless misty orb to focus on me.

"DAMASCUS, COME ON! LET THEM GO! JUST LET THEM GO!"

-Come on you stupid fucking mentally deranged snake…

"YOU KNOW WHO I AM! REMEMBER WHO YOU ARE!"

And those desperate words…

...Finally penetrated the King of Mount Silver's lost mind…

...And my Damascus…

...Came back to me with a start.

"Loosen up! You need to loosen up!"

I could just see the faint silhouette of a cloudy pupil focusing on me when I gave that order. Damascus heard my voice. Gramps was able to remember who I was to him…

...And in doing so…

...Damascus was able to remember who he was to me.

"Just let them go, Damascus. Slowly."

Those coils started loosening, and both Wyrms struggled to pull themselves free.

"-Hold up! Wait until the Blackhats calm them down!"

I'd reclaimed control of my snake again. I'm leaving the rest up to you, Captain Lewis.

I was gasping for breath, hanging onto Damascus's lower jaw while Lieutenant Roscoe and Captain Lewis berated their snakes into a relative calm. They weren't getting crushed anymore, but those two Gyaradosia were itching to murder the Onix that had put them in such a dire situation.

"Okay, Zane. Cut 'em loose." Lieutenant Roscoe gave me the command after roughly two minutes of him yelling at and beating his Tisiphone. Captain Lewis had gotten her Wyrm under control less than half a minute before Lieutenant Roscoe did.

"Okay, Damascus… No one is gonna hurt you now. Let them go." Damascus barely hesitated to heed my gentle command. The odd snake out and the Reigning Champion of the Serpents widened his arches enough for the two Gyaradosia to slither their angry way free.

"Good job, Gramps. Good job." I patted Damascus's lower jaw when he collapsed against the earth, utterly exhausted from his battle with the Blackhats.

"Warrant Officer-"

-And that was Captain Lewis walking all over Beethoven just to ruin the moment.

"...Yes sir?" I turned to Captain Lewis with that weary look she hated so much filling my eye. Captain Lewis actually swallowed on sight of my emotionally spent visage.

"...Congratulations. That was a first. Solomon has never lost to an Onix before. You're ready for the Cerulean Gym."

And those stern yet wispy words was all it took to shatter what was left of me.

-I broke down bawling against Damascus's wheezing mouth.

"Hey you…"

"..."

"...I know that you can hear me. Wake up."

"..."

"This is no time for your beauty sleep, Vauban. Rise and shine, Ranger."

"..."

"...That's my little girl…"

"..."

"What are those tears for, you goofy shit?"

"..."

"I told you that I'd be here when you woke up. Did you really doubt me?"

"..."

"Easy, Vauban! Easy! Sheezus… Just slow down, girl... Slow down. You're still in recovery."

"..."

"...But you made it. Heh... I knew that you would…"

"..."

"...Sorry to break it to you, Vauban, but you're gonna have to sit the Cerulean Gym out."

"..."

"-Don't look at me like that. You earned your rest. I wouldn't be here right now if it wasn't for you, girl…"

"..."

"...I said take it easy, Vauban. Your evolution took a lot out of you."

"..."

"What? Didn't you notice? You're an Ivysaur now, Vauban. A fricken Ivysaur…"

"..."

"...Look at you…"

"..."

"...Here my little girl has gone and grown up on me…"

"..."

"...Hey."

"..."

"...Don't you worry, Vauban."

"..."

"No matter how big you get…"

"..."

"...You're always gonna be my little girl…"

I left the hermit-tent, and sealed the cooler door behind me. Closing my eyes and pressing my forehead against the cold steel door, I breathed out a shaky sigh.

"...Thank you, Melissa…"

"...Is she okay?" A soft voice asked over my shoulder.

-I might have sniffled a bit before I answered her.

"Yeah… She's back… Vauban's okay… Thank you-"

"-I didn't do it for you." Melissa stated harshly when I turned around to face her.

I closed my eyes again, and waited for the storm of hate to hit me.

"...I did it for Vauban. That poor Ivysaur has no idea what kind of monster she serves."

"...Melissa-"

"-Just shut up, Zane."

I opened my eyes again. One very angry blonde haired beauty was coldly glaring at me in a watery-eyed stare.

-But I could see the struggle in those eyes.

Melissa wanted to hate me.

She was trying her best to loathe my guts…

...But-

"...I don't know what to think of you…" Melissa snapped, that icy visage cracked and fell away from the weeping woman who once again entered my arms.

"...You can hate me, Melissa… I want you to hate me…" I struggled to keep my watery voice firm when I buried my cheek into her crown.

"...But I'll be there for you… If you want me to listen…"

We were both crying again. Both grieving for our Bren.

"...Zane… Did she… Did she ever talk to you… about me?" Melissa shuddered in a gasp.

I choked before I could answer.

"You were the apple of her eye. The one person she held closest to her heart. She missed you, Melissa… She missed you so much…" I was gagging on that memory. The memory of Bren and I after the Nido-pyre…

-I was right there talking to her again, telling her…

...Telling her that it was gonna be alright…

...Promising her that I'd bring her home to her wife…

"...You loved her too, didn't you?"

Melissa was the one supporting me now, as I collapsed with the grief. She lowered me softly to the ground while I gasped in agony for want of breath.

"Zane…"

I couldn't look at her.

-It was all my fault.

It was all my fault that she had died-

I had lied to my Bren-

"...Thank you."

...And those were the last words I heard from Melissa…

...For a painfully long while…

And here we were.

Eight days since the Kadabra incident.

Three days past the date commemorating Damascus when he had damn near killed a pair of Blackhat trained Gyaradosia.

Two days after Vauban had woken up.

-A fucking crowd of journalists milling around Chris Lebreau's independant film crew.

Captain Lewis sitting in the stands, the sole Blackhat in this entire complex.

A drove of Ranger Vets and their families occupying the better half of the bleachers.

-Misty's fan club filling out the remaining seats…

...And another two live film crews, representing national news syndicates, both hand picked for me by my bestest redheaded fuck buddy herself; Misty Willows.

The stage was set.

-And the Queen of the Cerulean ring had just publically accepted my challenge.

The crowd's roar was deafening.

"AD-HONOR-RUM, AD-HONOR-RUM, AD-HONOR-RUM!" My Greenback Veteran cheerleading squad drowned out the squeals and shrieks of Misty's fan club with our call sounding out loud and clear in a clandestine chant, all accompanied by the timed stomping of hundreds of Ranger boots.

I couldn't believe that this League match had warranted a withdrawal from the Veterans' Sacred Vault of Leave. Taking a day off from active service to spectate a Gym battle would have been akin to high treason under normal circumstances…

"Well, Zane Bastard…" Misty was loving the legal public use of my last name.

-These were far from normal circumstances.

The Rangers had left the frontlines to root for their solo act in the League.

"TEAR HER TO THE GROUND, BASTARD!"

-That particular group of Vets were also loving my last name.

Misty was smiling through the Veteran's interruption with that mischievous twinkle in her eye.

"...I do hope that you have the stomach for this round of Omakase…"

-Really? Girl, that was almost two weeks ago.

Have I ever mentioned that Misty is the single most vindictive broad that I have ever met?

"Fuck. I wasn't the one who choked on the third course."

-Fuck your broadcasting rules of political correctness.

Cause I'm the Fucking Bastard.

-I have absolutely no qualms whatsoever about cursing over the Gym's PA system during a live broadcast.

"WHOOOO!"

-And I think the crowd likes it when I talk dirty anyways.

Boy, oh boy.

The Tomboy Mermaid's grin was turning something ugly.

I on the other hand, had both hands cordially held behind my back, bouncing on the balls of my feet while wearing the most innocently charming smile that could ever be fashioned on a human face.

-What's the matter, Misty?

You mean to tell me that this isn't foreplay?

Misty tossed off her skintight red bathrobe, and revealed that smoking body clad only in a yellow two-piece string bikini, before the tomboy Mermaid rolled that redhead of hers and starting performing her limbering up routine for her fans.

-That girl knew how to put on a show, I can give her that much.

"We'll see who's choking on the third course this time, Bastard…"

More cheers from her fans, and a chorus of wolf whistles from the berets.

"-Now Gym Leader, a little humility please…" My smug as fuck voice dared to drop that line over the PA.

The berets started laughing their asses off when the cameras zoomed in on the scandalized expression plastered across Willow's face.

Don't look at me like that, Misty…

-I'm not the one selling my body for a little bit of fame.

"-CONTENDER TO THE LEAGUE! YOU HAVE EXTENDED A CHALLENGE TO THE REIGNING CERULEAN CITY GYM LEADER, MISTY WILLOWS! MISTY WILLOWS HAS ACCEPTED YOUR CHALLENGE! THE CASCADE BADGE HANGS IN THE BALANCE! DO YOU HAVE WHAT IT TAKES TO CLAIM YOUR TROPHY?!" The League commentator interrupted the exchange before Misty and I could make the challenge anymore lewd.

"Does the Gym Leader have what it takes to stop me from claiming her Badge?" I asked, my voice still carrying that smirking tone. The Rangers started howling over the boos of Misty's fanclub.

-Do it for the audience.

The very first rule of the League.

"I'm going to drown you out of the League for good, Bastard. Let's see how long you can tread water." Misty was answering my jab in kind.

"Well shit. I still don't have those swim trunks, Gym Leader. Can I swim in your pool without them again?"

-Answer that one, Misty.

The crowd was going nuts. Every girl in Misty's fan club went livid, and every eyebrow on the males shot straight up against the ceiling. The Rangers started moshing against the Gym tank's glass wall, despite the fact that we hadn't even begun the fight yet.

-But that nasty shaking red face and those perfect teeth chattering at me from across the Gym was the best compliment yet.

Was that below the belt, Misty? I'm so sorry about that.

-Snort.

Getting under Misty's skin was a whole hell of a lot easier after you had already been in her pants.

Our mon hadn't even been selected yet, and I was already playing the Gym Leader for a fool.

"CONTENDERS! CHOOSE YOUR POKEMON!" The commentator decided to hurry things along before I made an even bigger scene. The Battle Screen lit up over the Tank, and Misty's six-monster Intermediate-Two roster hit the feed alongside my four-Ranger League roster.

My Ivysaur, Vauban. My Magikarp, Darwin. My Growlithe, Cortez. My Onix, Damascus.

And my four mon were squaring off against…

Ray, the Starmie. Overture, the Politoed. Piddles, the Quagsire. Shellshock, the Blastoise. Gale, the Dragonair. And Brutus, the Croconaw.

Which three would Misty pick to battle the three I chose?

Well, nobody would know until the respective contenders hit the field.

Misty was scanning my four for the most likely threat to her ring. That distinction obviously fell to Vauban, who's Saboteur arsenal could poison the aquatic half of Misty's ring. Not one of her mon would take well to a lethal toxin dispersing throughout their crucial environment. Vauban alone could strip Misty of her home field advantage…

...But the problem was?

...Vauban was currently sitting cozy in a Pokemart's rear facility cooler, resting in a trough of chilled mud; watching this very Gym match's live broadcast on a television that cool little Ricky had set up for her in the hermit-tent.

-But Misty didn't know that.

And she was going to arrange her lineup based off her mon's amphibious combat capabilities in anticipation for a ground pounder's fight.

I ruled out the Starmie at once. They couldn't even breathe on land, unless they utilized their psionics to lift a sphere of water around them first-

-Which was an outlawed tactic in restricted Intermediate-Two competition.

But the other five members on Misty's Intermediate-Two roster?

Everyone of them could fight on land as well as they could in the water.

-But one particular mon of Misty's caught my eye, and held it with dread.

That one mon could tactically counter my entire Vauban free roster with stupid ease.

I'd seen this species of mon in action before…

-And it could wreak absolute havoc on anything standing at the shoreline from the relative safety of the water.

And only one member of my team could even swim out and engage it in its element…

-Darwin, my useless fucking Magikarp.

...Who I had to add to my Gym roster simply because without my Vauban…

...My team had been reduced to the bare minimum junior competition required threesome.

But even so, picking that one tactical mon was huge gamble for Misty to take.

If Vauban turned her swimming pool into a septic tank, then this big bruiser was going to have to fight on dry land…

...And even the dumbest League Analyst knew that this mon wouldn't fair well in a one on one with Damascus on terra firma.

And that Onix was definitely gonna be on my three mon team.

-Cause no one on earth is stupid enough to bring a Magikarp to their Gym Challenge, right?

...Sigh…

I entered the Challenger's ring kiosk, before turning to my stage console, and then I punched in the three names that would comprise my Cerulean Gym challenge team.

Damascus, Cortez, and Darwin…

-Only a miracle could possibly save us from certain defeat.

Misty had already entered her three mon crew, and now the Battle Screen lit up with the Indigo League crest, before a flash of lighting threw Misty's and my Trainer Licenses against one another for the whole of the world to see.

All of this theatrical nonsense for pleasing the audience…

-Oh well. I guess that the League really isn't for the competitors anymore...

One dramatic bolt of lighting later, and Misty's portrait was arranged above mine on the Battle Screen. Then three red and white spheres lit up in the lower corner of either portrait.

The match had begun.

And now, it was time for the first round of the Cerulean City Gym battle.

-The same battle that would make the Fucking Bastard infamous throughout all of the Indigo League…

COMPETITORS! THIS IS ROUND ONE! MISTY WILLOWS, AS THE REIGNING CERULEAN GYM LEADER, PRESENT YOUR LEAD!" The commentator's voice drummed up the excitement, and I could feel myself growing more nervous by the second. Sticking to the League codes, Gym Leader Misty sent her mon out first; so as to grant the advantage of species recognition to her challenger.

And what a mon it was…

Four narrow meters of blue-backed and white-bellied limbless eel. Two glassy azure beads on the very end of its tail. One practically insignificant fourteen centimeter long shearing horn resting between the winglike white crown of its external gills. And a misleadingly serene expression portrayed by those giant soft black eyes.

"-AND OUR GYM LEADER HAS CHOSEN GALE TO LEAD THE ASSAULT ON THE BASTARD'S INCURSION!"

"The fucking Dragonair. Could you have been anymore obvious?" I muttered to myself.

Gale, Misty's best bet at an anti-Saboteur lead, was sent straight into the dry portion of the Gym for the optimum Ivysaur slaying position.

I had a sneaking suspicion that Misty had chosen this mon to keep my absent Vauban off the field, simply because we both knew that my Ivysaur would get nuked by that smooth bodied Serpent before Vauban could even fire a flare off. Dragons are nasty fucking beasts with their innate perchant for excessive violence, and if that strip of mucus coated muscle got its prehensive coils around my Vauban…

-Then no amount of Waterloo enhanced speed was going to save my little girl from a Dragon's fury, and no amount of weaponized toxins were going to weather down a Dragon's wrath fast enough to keep that slippery eel from tearing my Vauban into shreds.

Damascus would have been the obvious Dragon counter from me, but then Misty could've just called a substitution in the first round and rotated the field to one of her nimble fighters in order to escape Damascus's heavy blows. Though truthfully, Misty only had one mon that could even hurt Damascus…

All Misty needed to do in order to counter Grandpa snake was relocate any three of her mon into the water before my Onix could crush them, and then I would be forced to substitute the landlocked Damascus out with another one of my mon just to keep the battle going.

Gale was the perfect choice for Misty's lead. Her Dragonair could threaten Vauban off the scene, or force me to drain my three substitutions in the vain effort of keeping pace with the Tomboy Mermaid on her homefield.

So I had to do something unpredictable.

-I was gonna have to start gambling in the first round.

"Cortez, report!" One battle hardened G.I. Growlithe answered the call, and stood face to face with a bloody Dragonair that outclassed him in power and dexterity…

-But Cortez still maintained an advantage in range and speed.

In other words, I hadn't deployed a counter to Misty's Dragonair.

I had as good as offered a compromise. Both Misty and I could commit these two mon to the fight, and neither one of us had a clue which one would come out on top.

"-AND WHAT A PECULIAR CHOICE! ZANE BASTARD OF THE RANGER CORPS HAS ANSWERED MISTY'S DRAGONAIR WITH CORTEZ! CAN THAT UNEVOLVED GROWLITHE RUN WITH THE DRAGONS YET?!"

"Mic test. Can you hear me, Cortez?" I pressed a finger against the combat headset that Captain Lewis had provided me with, a gift from the Blackhat's own armory.

My normally silent hound woofed an affirmative.

"WE'RE ONLY SECONDS AWAY FROM THE OPENING ROUND! LET'S SEE IF THE RANGER'S MARTIAL TRAINING CAN COMPETE WITH A CHAMPIONSHIP TRAINER'S REGIMEN!"

-The Rangers were booing out the Commentator for his questionable choice in preparation comparisons.

I took a look at the Battle Screen's timer. I had fifteen seconds to debrief Cortez before Misty and I started swapping blows.

"Good. Now listen up. Dragons. They get pissed. Easily. We're using that. Annoy the fuck out of him, but don't commit to an assault until it stops listening to Misty-"

-Eight seconds…

"-Do not let it go into the water. That is priority."

-Four seconds…

"And do not get caught in those coils. You have the speed. Use it."

...And...

"COMPETITORS! THE FIRST ROUND HAS BEGUN! FIGHT!"

"GIVE IT HELL, CORTEZ!"

"GALE, EAT THAT LITTLE DOG!"

Here we go…

Gale lunged right at my pooch with a warbling moan. That Dragonair's hidden mouth unfurled into a drooping downturned oral hood of fleshy lips, and the pharynx of a Petromyzontiform telescoped out into a hideous pink cup of barbed dirty teeth, before Gale slithered towards Cortez with that grotesque maw rattling.

"EVADE THAT WORM, AND BURN ITS ASS IN THE RETREAT!"

Cortez barely managed to skirt that eel's rattling mouth, but Gale didn't even give Cortez the required time to open his catalases for a fiery discharge. My heart leapt into my throat when that Dragonair rounded on a vertebrae and struck Cortez with a maddened shriek.

I saw blood dripping from Cortez's scar when my growling dog fought off the Dragon's clinging mouth.

"-AND FIRST BLOOD GOES TO GALE! CAN THAT GROWLITHE EVEN HOPE TO DEFEAT A FUTURE CHAMPIONSHIP DRAGONITE?!"

No good.

Gale was a lot faster on land than I had anticipated.

"Cortez, don't use your flames unless you're out of his striking range! You're gonna have to cook him from a distance!" I shouted into the mic. Cortez started taking some calming breaths while the Dragonair opposing him fell back into coiled pile of nasty.

"What's he up to, Cortez-?"

Then I saw the arcs jumping between Gale's feathery external gills.

"-CORTEZ, GET OUT OF THERE NOW!"

Cortez saw it coming before I even started yelling at him. A blinding discharge of electricity jolted to a pointed stone jutting a mere eighth meter away from where my dog had been previously standing.

"-AND IT LOOKS LIKE CORTEZ'S TRAINING IN THE RANGERS CORPS HAS PREPARED HIM FOR THE STORM!"

-Oh shit.

Gale could do that as a Dragonair?!

-Their species shouldn't even have access to their electrical attacks until they evolved into Dragonites!

"Enzo Davinci knows how to make a phenomenal Dragonair, doesn't he Zane?" Misty's coy voice ended in a mischievous giggle over the Gym's PA system. And she was smiling something wicked when the stunned pallor washed over my face.

-A Chimera Dragonair.

We were in trouble now.

"-HOW WILL ZANE AND CORTEZ ADAPT TO THIS WYRM?!"

"Scratch range, Cortez! You're gonna have to get in close-"

-An even bigger charge of arcs began forming between those feathery gills.

"-RETREAT! START RUNNING AND STAY LOW!"

Enzo Davinci…

-I'm really hating your guts right now.

"-AND GALE HAS CORTEZ ON THE RUN! LOOK AT THAT LITTLE GROWLITHE GO!"

Cortez was trucking it. We were trying to utilize the broken terrain of Misty's dry ring for drawing off the lighting by using both the elevation and the shape of the field's stones as conductors, but this required some seriously quick calculations on both mine and Cortez's parts.

I was eyes on the Dragonair, calling out Gale's movements and the headings of his electrical discharges, while simultaneously trying to plot a course through the dry ring's topography for Cortez.

And Cortez?

-He was the sorry son of a bitch trying outrun a lighting storm and evade the Serpent flinging it at him, all while his desperate CO shouted coordinates and maneuvers into his ear.

"-LOOK OUT RANGERS! GALE'S COMING IN FOR THE SWEEP!"

-And that damn League commentator wasn't helping things.

"-He's ten meters off your six, charging up a volley!"

"-YOU CAN RUN CORTEZ! BUT YOU CAN'T HIDE!"

"-There's a gap in the rocks eighteen meters on your one-o'clock; use it for cover!"

"-LOOK THAT GROWLITHE MOVE! UNBELIEVABLE-!"

"-You're too high on the ground, Cortez! ROLL-ROLL-ROLL!"

"-OH, YOU'VE GONE AND WOKEN THE DRAGON NOW, CORTEZ!"

Oh dear God…

-That bolt was fucking huge.

Cortez rolled into a ditch just in the knick of time, and that massive arc of lightning crashed into the high rising stones above Cortez's ditch.

"-I DON'T BELIEVE IT! GALE JUST CAN'T PIN THIS DOG DOWN-!"

"Get to low ground now! He's gonna have to warm up his Sach's organ after that one! You have time to relocate- SHIT! HE'S RIGHT ABOVE YOU! BREAK LEFT! BREAK LEFT!"

"-AND THERE'S STILL NO STOPPING EITHER ONE OF THEM!"

That fucking Dragonair wasn't giving us a moment to breath.

Fucking Dragons, man…

-They just won't quit for anything.

"Having problems, Ranger?" Enter the cute nasally voice of Misty Willows over the PA system.

-But it was gonna take a lot more than some fluttering eyelashes from the Gym Leader to distract me from my duty to my dog.

"I could go easy on you, if you ask nicely…" Misty simpered my way.

"-GALE IS WITHDRAWING! WHAT IS MISTY PLANNING FOR HER DRAGONAIR NOW?!"

"Cortez! he's falling back to the shore! You have to stop him now! Do whatever it takes!"

"-AND CORTEZ IS GOING ON THE OFFENSIVE! WILL THAT DOG REACH GALE BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE?!"

"...All you have to do is kiss it, Zane…" Misty made a V with her index and middle finger, before waggling her tongue between the crooked digits at me.

"-Sorry, but I don't like the taste of fish! CORTEZ, LIGHT 'EM UP!"

This would go down in the League archives as one of the most vulgar Gym Battles of all time.

Okay Gale…

-We've heard Chimera's thunder.

...Now reap Waterloo's fire.

Cortez was bred and trained in the exact same militarized facilities that Vauban was. Waterloo. Chimera's warmon production division. And Waterloo had designed their Hunter-Killers from the ground up for two purposes.

One: Hunting.

Cortez had a snout filled with four times the Growlithe's natural quota of olfactory receptors. A Waterloo Hunter-Killer could fucking smell a Fearow's fart in an atmospheric dilution of one part per ten-thousand gallons.

-At sea level.

And that was just the nose of Waterloo's Hunter-Killers. Their ears are every bit as sensitive as their noses are, and the neural pathways that links their sense of sight, sound, and smell to the brain are six times more extensive and robust than nature's standard issued Growlithe.

If it makes a noise, a smell, or leaves a visible signature…

-Then a Waterloo Hunter-Killer can track and find it through almost any terrain.

And now we come to the second ingredient on Waterloo's Hunter-Killer recipe.

-Killing.

...That should go without saying.

Just as watered-down civilian market friendly Chimera Industries had gone ahead and supercharged their competitive Dragonair's physiology by genetically activating the latent organs required for deploying their evolved form's high voltage electrical discharges…

-Well...

...You really, really, really don't want to know what Chimera's military production division went ahead and did to their Growlithes.

-Waterloo.

They've been proudly providing Indigo's servicemen with top-of-the-line monster derived death and destruction for the last eight fucking years.

...

"RED ROVER, RED ROVER, YOU HAVE CLEARANCE, RED ROVER!" I roared it into the mic.

-I really shouldn't do that to Cortez. Waterloo might have given him the capability to expel an atmosphere ionizing jet of flames at a temperature of four-thousand degrees celsius…

...But Waterloo never really figured out how to keep those insane temperatures from injuring the Growlithes that could produced them.

"START CHARGING THE CORE!"

-And there was another reason as for why Cortez's white hot flames really weren't feasible for combat situations. Well, actually two other reasons.

One, it took Cortez roughly forty seconds to fully oxidize the tissue linings on his catalases, and Cortez couldn't actually move all that fast when suffering from the breathless agony of a melting throat.

Two, the range. Cortez's standard wide dispersal gouts covered a maximum area of around six meters in circumference in a four meter long conical projection. But these particular flames? They came out in a coherent burst of blinding white, measuring only eight centimeters in diameter and covering all of a measly meter in distance.

But with only a sustained burn time of three seconds at continuous exposure?

…My Cortez could generate enough thermal concentration to melt a neat little hole clean through one meter of solid steel.

-Yep.

A Dragonair is made of meat, not steel.

How long do you think that Gale's mucus hide was gonna last against that?

"-WHAT IS GOING ON WITH THAT DOG?! DID GALE SNEAK A HIT IN?!"

-No. Cortez was doing that to himself under my orders.

Cortez started retching the very second he put his Waterloo genes to work by dropping every biological restriction that evolution had ever imposed on him. My dog was already hunched up with the pain, and I could see the blood dripping from his mouth as he broke into a staggered charge for Gale after the five second primer.

"-CAN CORTEZ EVEN HOPE TO DRAG THAT DRAGON AWAY FROM THE WATER?!"

Gale was idly slithering for the aquatic section, completely oblivious to the hound baring down on him. Which was anything but good.

"Cortez, you have to rile him up!"

That Dragonair was reluctantly breaking off from a fight with Cortez on the orders of its Trainer, but there's no such thing as a domesticated Dragon, and try as they might…

-Chimera just can't figure out how to suppress the hyperviolence response that dictates the entire Dragon Family's existence.

"-AND THE CLOSE QUARTERS DUAL HAS RESUMED!"

Cortez caught up with Gale just as that Dragonair dipped its head in the water. One canine snapping at the Dragon's beaded tail triggered that angry eel's natural response. Lashing out of the water to take a chunk out of Cortez with that disturbing mouth, Gale came up just a few centimeters short.

"-THAT DOG CAN MOVE!"

"Keep him busy, Cortez!"

Gale started spitting in rage as he heeded Misty's radioed order to retreat into the water, but Cortez was gonna inspire that unstable Dragon with a little bit of disobedience by sinking his Growlithe fangs right into Gale's white belly and chewing off a piece of takeout.

"-AND CORTEZ FINALLY LANDS A BLOW! WHAT A DEVIOUS LITTLE HOUND!"

That squirming hunk of Dragon gut dangling from my hound's mouth was the final straw for Gale.

Fuck the League rules.

Fuck all these cameras.

Fuck Misty.

This little pooch was gonna fucking die.

"-AND WHAT'S THIS?! HAS CORTEZ BITTEN OFF MORE THAN HE CAN CHEW?!"

-Which was absolutely perfect.

Why I'd be saying that about a Dragon losing its head on my mon would gall anyone spectating this match, but that Dragon's ludicrously savage strike was exactly the kind of excuse I needed to permit for Cortez's Waterloo tactic.

You see, this was a restricted challenge. I was entering the Cerulean ring without a hope in hell of victory, or even a vague League clause to cheat with. I was at a significant disadvantage, and I had to neuter my team's potential just for the security of ensuring their continued lives regardless of a loss. I didn't want to lose a single one of monsters that I'd come to call family, and I was willing to get off my Fucking Bastard high horse to make sure that my family was still intact tomorrow morning.

What I had ordered Cortez to do was illegal in restricted format. Our overheat tactic was completely against the rules. But there was one little clause in section thirteen that designated a circumstance where the rules of a restricted battle could be rendered legally void.

-If one of the participants lost control of their Pokemon in a restricted format…

...And if that Pokemon tried to kill its opponent or any non-combatants in the vicinity…

...Then the opposing Trainer was permitted to do anything in order to save their own Pokemon or any spectators from the noncompliant Pokemon's assault.

I could have even deployed Damascus right alongside Cortez, and ordered them both to kill that rampaging Dragonair…

...And Misty would still be held liable for any damages that were accrued after that act.

There's a reason for why only the stupid crazy or the stupid brave train Dragon-types.

You may earn a Dragon's grudging loyalty by violently proving to it that you're the boss…

...But you will never be able to dominate them.

Gale had lost it. That Dragon wasn't listening to Misty's orders, and that was made as plain as day to me with a look over to her side of the field. Misty was screaming obscenities and death threats at her Dragonair through their closed channel, but Gale couldn't give a shit less.

-Pain.

It's not the same thing to Dragons as it is to you and me.

When most living organisms wind up injured in a precarious situation, the fight or flight instinct triggers. That's a basic hereditary response genetically encoded within the vast majority of all living things.

-But not Dragons.

They have only one programmed response to pain.

-Kill.

Dragons don't back down even when they're losing a fight or completely outgunned. It's the trait that makes their Family so dangerous to train, and ensures that only the strongest members of their species will ever make it to breeding age. In the Dragon world, to lose a fight is to die, and to win a fight is to kill. There is no in between. Even the Nidoking will turn prey loose if the quarry proves that it's too big of threat to handle, but not the Dragons. They are hard coded killers, and the only thing that will ever stop a committed Dragon from murdering you is their own death. Humanity has tried to override that draconic code for as long as there has been Trainers on this earth, but we've made next to nothing in headway when it comes to taming the most rabid of beasts.

-A point that was being proven in the Cerulean City Gym's ring as Gale put everything he had into killing my Cortez.

...And Gale was coming uncomfortably close to putting my dog down for good.

"GALE HAS GONE APE! MISTY MUST NOT BE ANY HAPPIER THAN HIM-"

-Misty wasn't ordering Gale to do that. Gale was succumbing to his feral Dragon side, and that wild Wyrm was even scarier riled up than he was under Misty's guidance.

My hand went straight for Damascus's Heavy Ball when Gale took a bite out of Cortez's ribs, and left a bleeding gash across half of Cortez's scar.

"-OH, THAT HAD TO HURT! ANOTHER DECISIVE BLOW SCORED BY GALE!"

-My hound was in a bad way.

I was maintaining the countdown in my head, while simultaneously denying the urge to send out Damascus and draw both knives, before advancing in an all out assault staged to save my doomed dog. But we only had twelve seconds to go before Cortez redlined his catalases and burnt that Dragon to a crisp. And I needed to pretend like Gale's outburst was perfectly acceptable.

-Because if I did call up Damascus and rush the field to save Cortez preemptively…

...My Cerulean Gym match would be called off, and I would have to earn the Cascade Badge in later challenge.

But we had all pieces that we needed right here, right now in the Cerulean City Gym.

We had the media's attention, and we had the support required to a make a scene for all of the League's devotees.

We couldn't afford to risk losing it all to a rescheduled match.

-And anyways?

Despite the situation developing on the Gym ring's shoreline?

Everything was going exactly to plan.

"-LOOK AT THAT! GALE HAS FINALLY PINNED CORTEZ DOWN! THIS ROUND IS OVER-!"

-Right up until Gale got a coil around my agony disorientated dog, and followed it up with a full on constriction.

"CORTEZ!" I was screaming into both the mic and across the field.

-That Dragon was breaking his ribs, make no mistake. A Growlithe isn't supposed to bulge and twist like that, and now that he had Cortez pinned down, Gale was moving in for the kill.

"-WHAT'S GOING ON DOWN THERE?! HAS GALE-"

-Five seconds.

My hand raised Damascus's Heavy Ball to shoulder level.

"-COMPLETELY-"

-Four seconds.

Doug's knife was drawn, my designated Challenger's kiosk field access gate was already behind me, and the rough terrain of the Gym ring's dry portion was crunching under my running boots.

"-LOST-"

-Three seconds.

Misty was chewing on her nails as the tears rolled down her face. The Gym Leader had given up the instant Gale's first coil had wrapped around my dog. She couldn't stop her Dragonair, and now Misty was just waiting for Cortez and Gale to die.

"-HIS-"

-Two seconds.

Gale lunged towards my constricted dog with that horrid mouth, and that fucking Dragon wrapped his sinewy jawless maw around Cortez's bugeyed face.

"-HEAD!?"

-One second.

...An unusual glow started forming from the inside of Gale's throat, and that same light started illuminating the pink membrane sucking down Cortez's head.

-Time.

"CARBONIZE THAT DRAGONAIR NOW!" I roared into my headset, praying that this wasn't some twisted illusion.

And thank you, Waterloo…

You twisted sons of bitches gave my hound exactly what he needed to dispel all of my doubts.

"-WHAT IN THE SANE HELL-!?"

Gale cut Cortez loose faster than you can blink. That Dragon was a bloody burning mess-

...And my dog…

-My dog was fucking pissed.

Fuck the broken bones. Fuck the bleeding gashes. Fuck near death experiences. Fuck the weird ass hairdo that Gale's saliva had left him with.

-Fuck Dragons.

Cortez was letting Gale have it, and was looking mighty vindictive when he turned that Dragon's slimy hide into charcoal.

"-IS THAT EVEN LEGAL?!"

Damascus was out in a flash, and the League Watchmen hit the field with nets and tazing rods.

"ABSTAIN AND FALL BACK TO DAMASCUS, CORTEZ!" I shouted that order as loudly as I could.

Damascus knew what to do on the spot. His addled brain could still put that Bastion Class lesson of two and two together, and somehow get four.

My Bastion Class Onix turned himself into a living bunker, while Cortez cut his stream of nuclear hot flames short, before making a gimpy dash for Damascus's coils.

-And that fucked up, half charred Dragon was in screaming pursuit of my wounded dog within seconds.

Gale was beyond livid.

Cortez barely made it to the safety of Damascus's bulwark when Grandpa snake closed the gap, and then just let Gale rail on his unbreakable hide.

There was no way in hell that the Watchmen were gonna be able to safely wrangle that feral Dragon off the field without beating it into a crippled state first.

"-Are we still filming this?" The commentator had forgotten to take his finger off the switch.

-Yep. This is League sponsored Dragon abuse being filmed live.

Fortunately for Misty's bank account…

She wouldn't have to purchase a replacement Dragonair from Chimera Industries after the League Watchmen were finished working Gale over.

Damascus's indestructible walls gave the Watchmen the time they required to violently restrain Misty's savage Dragonair without the need to resort to something that might have resulted in permanent damage.

The Watchmen dragged that bloodthirsty Dragonair off the field, and even though Gale could barely move for all the punishment they'd put him through…

-That Dragonair was still doing his damndest to kill them all.

Fucking Dragons, man…

...I can't believe that we put them into Pokeballs…

I collected my wounded dog from grandpa Damascus, before leaving my rumbling snake on the field, and then I returned to my kiosk with Cortez bleeding in my arms.

"Right. So does that mean that I won the first round?" I called out over the PA system with the most casual tone that I could muster.

I even managed to shoot the Fucking Bastard's patented charming smile into the lens of every Camera crew.

-Take a hint, Misty…

I'm offering you one hell of a mercy.

"...O-of course you won. Anyone could see that-" Misty's feeble response over the PA system was punctuated with a nervous giggle.

You could have heard a pin dropping in that ring.

The entire Gym was dead silent.

-I had just won the first round by a technicality and an absolute sham perpetrated by both myself and the Cerulean City Gym Leader.

-And we weren't fooling anyone.

But then…

"..."

What was that sound, growing louder by the second?

"Ad-honor-rum."

"Ad-honor-rum."

"Ad-Honor-Rum!"

"AD-HONOR-RUM, AD-HONOR-RUM, AD-HONOR-RUM!"

Oh…

...That's just my fan club.

-The Ranger Corps.

"AD HONOREM!" I roared it into the PA system at the top of my formidable range…

-And everyone in the stands stood up with an earsplitting cheer.

Do it for the audience.

-It all makes sense now.

"ARE WE GONNA OPEN UP ROUND TWO YET?! OR DO I HAVE TO COMMENTATE FOR THE CERULEAN CITY GYM?!" I shouted out, and another incredible cheer just about floored me with its volume alone.

"Well Ranger, I rather like my job, so you'll have to wait till I retire to even apply for the honor of commentating in the Cerulean City Gym. So stay outta my way, Bastard. ROUND TWO IS ON IN TWO MINUTES! COMPETITORS! TAKE YOUR PLACES IN THE RING!" The League commentator finally remembered his voice.

We were back in business.

"Cortez, you are benched for the remainder of the match. You did me proud, dog. You did me proud." I ran my bare hand through shaken Cortez's saliva afro, and waved the waiting medical staff over to my beaten dog.

When they carried Cortez out on a stretcher, that scarred up dog fixed both of his mismatched eyes on me…

-And Cortez manage to give me that trademarked smug look of his.

"Rest easy, pooch. We'll take care of the rest." I told Cortez over the mic, and then I switched the channel to another private designation.

"Damascus?"

RUMBLE. I could hear him from across the Gym.

"-It's all your show now, old man. Don't let me down."

And with those words, my bigass beautiful snake took his shining place at the center field, while the film crew's spotlights started painting those grainy golden whorls...

...And a hush came across the yammering crowd when my gorgeous Onix craned his neck over the bloody mess that Gale had left on the shoreline…

-And then Damascus slammed his head into that Dragon's creeping bloodstain hard enough to rattle the far off occupied bleachers.

"-THAT IS ONE POWERFUL SNAKE!"

-Obviously, mister commentator.

My Damascus lifted his blood painted face from the sand, and glared across the aquatic portion to meet the eyes of the Cerulean City Gym Leader…

-And then my Damascus let loose the longest, deepest RUMBLE that I'd ever heard him make yet.

...What the hell is wrong with my snake?

I don't think that I'll ever really figure Damascus out.

-And that's just perfect as far as I'm concerned.

"It seems that your Onix has taken a disliking to me, Zane…" Misty's coy voice was back on the PA system.

-Well, you are the stupidly ambitious redhead who's crazy fucking Dragonair tried to kill Damascus's squadmate, so…

"That's not a good thing, Gym Leader. That's not a good thing at all." Listen to the evil smugness in my voice.

"-Just look at that Onix…"

-Even the League commentators see something new and breathtaking every once in awhile.

The crowd was drinking in my gorgeous snake, and even after his psychotic self-applied gory warpaint display…

-Damascus still looked like a new World Wonder, glimmering all gold and pearl at the water's edge.

"Well then… let's see here…" Misty chewed her lip as she considered her next move.

In Intermediate-Two and above, the Gym Leader only had to reveal their lead to the challenger. After that, it was all fair game. Misty could choose whatever she wanted after I had already revealed my hand in Damascus.

But I still had all three substitutions, and for all Misty knew…

My final mon was Vauban the Saboteur, fully capable of crippling her team and stripping her of the home field advantage; which would pave the way for mighty Damascus, who could wipe them all out on the Gym's dry portion of the field without even breaking a sweat.

From the League Analysts' perspective, my choice in Damascus for the second round was well founded. By League code regarding Gym terrain, Misty would have to deploy her mon onto the dry portion's halfway point to 'even out' the field for terra-bound Damascus. After the release though, Misty could order her mon into water, and I had only one chance at stopping it from reaching the aquatic portion.

To Misty's eyes, I was trying to bait her into committing to her Onix counter; just so that I could call a substitution, and safely swap in Vauban to ruin the Gym Leader's only weapon against Damascus.

-But as I've said before?

Vauban wasn't with me.

Darwin was sitting in her rightful seat, and I intended to keep that embarrassing Magikarp hidden for the entire match.

-So this was me bluffing the Gym Leader into sacrificing the number two on her roster.

Because nothing she had could take Damascus out.

-Save for one mon.

And Misty had to keep that one mon safe until she was positive that Vauban wasn't gonna screw it over.

"Brutus, come on out." Misty spoke softly when she called up her two-meter tall Croconaw, and then fixed me with a pleading eye.

"-An… Interesting choice of Pokemon for our Gym Leader. Brutus…" The commentator was baffled at this turn of events, but I sure as hell wasn't.

I understood the message in Misty's eyes.

-Don't hurt Brutus too much.

Misty had already accepted a loss to me.

Gale had failed her. Misty had been pivoting on her Dragon's ability to thwart Vauban. A Vauban that I had yet to reveal.

-And I had played the gambling Gym Leader and her unstable Dragon for absolute fools. Misty was so desperate to hold onto the field advantage that she had elected to play her Dragonair against my Growlithe in a coin toss match-up; all in the effort of keeping my Vauban off the field while banking her three substitutions for countering the G.I. Onix and the G.I. Ivysaur.

-And that match-up's coin toss had favored me.

In Misty's mind, I had her pinned no matter what. One substitution could win me the match.

Misty would be damned if she let out her big one. And she'd be damned if she let out her runner up.

-But if Misty knew that my Vauban was absent…

...She wouldn't have sent Brutus out as camera fodder.

-Misty didn't know that I was hinging my victory on one thing.

...If the big one got into the water before Damascus could crush him…

-Then Misty would win with laughable ease.

"-COMPETITORS! THE COUNTDOWN HAS BEGUN! FIFTEEN SECONDS UNTIL THE START OF ROUND TWO!"

"Okay, Damascus. This is gonna be a slaughter. You have that Croconaw soundly trumped in the 'everything' department."

"-BOTH ZANE AND MISTY HAVE LOST ONE OF THEIR POKEMON TO THE FIRST ROUND! BOTH COMPETITORS ARE NOW DOWN TO JUST TWO POKEMON IN THE SECOND ROUND!"

"...And we already pissed off Brock, so we could really use an ally in the League…"

"-I THINK WE ALL KNOW WHO ZANE HAS IN HIS THIRD BALL! THE ONLY QUESTION WE HAVE NOW IS; WHAT WILL MISTY'S STRATEGY BE TO DEFEAT BOTH VAUBAN AND DAMASCUS?!"

"...So this is me asking you really nicely, Gramps… Please don't kill Brutus…"

"-AND WITHOUT FURTHER ADO…"

"-THE SECOND ROUND…"

"-HAS BEGUN! FIGHT!"

"Cut him off, Damascus." I calmly ordered into the mic.

-That poor Croconaw never stood a chance.

Brutus dropped to all fours and made a mad dash for the shore, but grandpa Damascus…

-Wanted to show off with this particular morsel that Misty had offered to him.

Brutus made it all of three meters forward into his aquatic bound charge, before Damascus's powerful tail intercepted the waddling blue Sphenosuchia…

...And then sent Brutus flying bodily into my kiosk's gate, shortly after the projectile Croconaw had travelled roughly half of the ring's entire length through the air at peak velocity.

"-OH MY GOD! BRUTUS-!?" The commentator was staggered for words.

"I FUCKING SAID DON'T KILL HIM!" The Fucking Bastard was roaring into my mic.

Misty jumped out of her horrified skin and clapped both of those shaking hands across her gaping mouth, before the Gym Leader's terrified eyes widened to size of tea cups.

"...Goddamnit, Damascus…" I groaned as an inanimate Brutus flopped off the kiosk gate, and onto the dry portion's craggy floor.

-RUMBLE. Damascus said, as he glared across the field at me.

That's Onix for, 'Fuck you too.'

"-WE'RE GONNA HAVE TO WAIT FOR THE MEDIC'S VERDICT ON THAT ONE…"

Brutus wasn't getting back up. That gator was deathly still on his belly with those golden eyes of his staring straight ahead, while the medics charged into ring with a fully stacked trauma cart rushing in right behind them. If Damascus had killed that Croconaw in restricted competition…

-Then we were through in the League. Period the knucklefucking end.

Come on Brutus...

...I'm begging you…

...Please...

-Please, don't die on me…

It took the medics all of five seconds to forward their verdict to the commentator.

"-A ONE-HIT KO! THE SECOND ROUND GOES TO ZANE BASTARD AND DAMASCUS IN RECORD SETTING TIME!"

-Well, to be perfectly fair?

Brutus was only in the air for two seconds…

The Rangers were going absolutely insane in the stands. While all of the civis rushed for the tank's glass wall with horror plainly inscribed upon their faces, the entire Ranger section rose to their boots and hurled their berets into the air with a deafening cheer. Then the grinning Greenbacks locked elbows with one another, before the assembled Veterans started rattling the Gym's bleachers to the kicking tune of the can-can.

I couldn't stop laughing at them for all of the world.

-This is why nobody wanted the Ranger Corps to reintegrate with society.

We're just too fucking twisted to give a damn about being obscene.

Brutus was hauled off the field to the finishing notes of the Ranger's ballet, and I looked over to the Battle Screen.

"-IT LOOKS LIKE MISTY WILLOWS COULD BE IN FOR A THRASHING FROM THE RANGER CORPS IF SHE CAN'T GET DAMASCUS OFF THE FIELD!"

-Funny, the commentator started his spiel in round one with absolute confidence in Misty…

"Well, Ranger. I've got one left. Let's see if you have what it takes to earn my Badge." Misty managed a humble smile my way, and I felt a slight twinge of pity for the ambitious Tomboy Mermaid's wounded pride…

...But then I thought about my poor dog bleeding in the Gym's infirmary, and that pity was quickly expelled.

"I'm looking forward to pinning that Badge on my coat. Should we get started then?"

Hint:

-Shall we wrap this up?

"I'm not finished yet, Ranger. So don't start patting yourself on the back." Misty found a confident smile to send my way, but I saw the doubt in those eyes.

Misty was all show. She'd found her potential. And now Misty would do anything to hold onto the everything she had earned in that limit seeking pursuit. Misty Willows had pulled the wool over everyone's eyes for as long as she could, but certain walls just kept getting in the Cerulean City Gym Leader's way.

-And here I had truly believed that Misty was a Queen among Maids…

Oh well…

...On with the show.

"-THE THIRD AND FINAL ROUND IS UPON US! ZANE BASTARD HAS TWO POKEMON AND THREE SUBSTITUTIONS REMAINING! MISTY WILLOWS HAS ONLY ONE POKEMON AND THREE SUBSTITUTIONS REMAINING!"

-And Misty still didn't know about the Magikarp in my final Pokeball...

"-THE FINAL ROUND'S CLOCK WILL BEGIN AT THE SOUND OF THE BELL! BOTH COMPETITORS WILL HAVE EXACTLY TWENTY MINUTES TO DEFEAT THE OTHER IN RESTRICTED FORMAT!"

-We didn't need that much time. This round would be decided within the first ten seconds. Either Damascus would crush Misty's final mon and win me the match, or that Testudine bruiser would claim victory for Misty the very instant it entered the water.

"-IF THE CLOCK EXPIRES BEFORE A VICTOR IS DECIDED, THE TRAINER WHO ACCRUED THE FEWEST CASUALTIES WILL WIN BY ATTRITION. COMPETITORS CAN NOW CONVERT THEIR SUBSTITUTIONS INTO THIRTY SECOND TIMEOUTS! DAMASCUS IS LANDLOCKED ONTO THE FIELD! GYM LEADER MISTY WILLOWS! SEND YOUR FINAL POKEMON INTO THE DRY STAGE!"

-Ouch.

...Now I really was feeling bad for Misty.

Misty didn't even call out his name when her final mon started to condense from his Pokeball's discharged materialization beam.

Misty didn't even look like a Gym leader from where I was standing.

Misty Willows looked like a quiet child being forced out onto a theatrical stage.

-All that Mermaid's bravado was melting away.

...Just how many people on this planet of earth hide behind a gilded mask?

Misty's final mon was finally revealed when the white light had faded, and the world could now see the star of Misty's Intermediate-Two team.

-And let me tell you…

...Those turtles don't look so fucking huge when they're standing in the shadow of an Onix.

Shellshock. The only mon from Misty's original Championship team to still draw breath.

Every other member from that first team had perished at Indigo, save for this Blastoise.

...And three attempts at Indigo's League Finals under Misty's ambitious leadership had taken its toll on her very first mon.

-That poor Blastoise was in even worse shape than I was.

...He'd once been blue. You wouldn't know it looking at him now. Lorelai's frostbite had scarred Shellshock's hide into an ugly shade of mottled and veined grey. One of his eyes had been lost to a feral Rhyperior's shearing horn in Victory Road, and the mess left behind by that wound now disfigured the entire right side of Shellshock's face. This Blastoise only had one of his original six front toes still twitching out of the end of his left side's twisted stump of a foreleg, and Shellshock's bowed lower legs were missing most of his splayed flipper feet.

...And the shell?

...That Blastoise's charred shell was a permanently peeling keratin blister, thanks to Agatha's Triplets and their vile Ghostfire.

-This was Misty's once legendary Shellshock, the Foil.

His one remaining claim to fame?

-He had lived through it all.

This beast was a Veteran mon.

This Blastoise had seen total war.

He had been torn rent limb from bleeding limb. He had been gored straight through his eye socket and cored through the brain. He had been frozen solid in a flash freeze. And after all of that, he had been tortured in a Distortion sub-cell by a Ghost's unholy flames…

-And Shellshock had lived through it all.

...Yet for whatever reason…

-This Blastoise was still fighting.

Still fighting in a rank well below the station he had earned through hard service, the same station that he had summarily lost to the mutilation he had suffered in the pursuit of a Throne.

-Still fighting for the Trainer who had raised him from a tiny Squirtle.

...Still fighting for the Trainer who had put him through absolute hell…

There's no mask pretty enough in all of the world to hide that sin, Misty…

...And though you may have the conscience to repent for your crime…

...How on earth could anyone possibly forgive you?

...You really are no different from me…

"-LADIES AND GENTLEMEN! WHAT AN HONOR THIS IS! SHELLSHOCK, THE FOIL GOES TO WAR AGAIN!"

-Yeah, everybody look at the big bad Blastoise.

...But can anyone else see that little redheaded girl grieving in his shadow?

"-GIVE SHELLSHOCK A ROUSING APPLAUSE! IT'S BEEN ALMOST FOUR MONTHS SINCE HE TOOK TO THE FIELD LAST, AT THE ONE-THOUSANDTH-AND-SEVENTY-FOURTH INDIGO LEAGUE SEASONAL FINALS IN MISTY'S CLIMACTIC BATTLE AGAINST AGATHA AND HER TRIPLETS!"

-No.

...I didn't think so.

"...Shellshock?"

That Blastoise's one-eyed vacant stare snapped into focus when his Trainer called out his name.

-And nobody even noticed the uncertainty in Misty's voice when she called her very first Pokemon by his name.

"...Are you ready?"

Shellshock's neck twitched in response as the remaining half of his brain struggled to answer Misty with a voice…

Misty's eyes slammed shut.

...I know exactly what she was fighting.

-I know what that war can cost you.

...I know what that scream takes to suppress…

"...Shellshock. One more time…"

You can beat it, Misty...

-Just face it one more time...

"-ONE MORE TIME! EVERYBODY! PUT YOUR HANDS TOGETHER! GIVE IT UP FOR SHELLSHOCK!"

...That ear shattering cheer sickened me to my core.

-But it was nothing compared to the revulsion that galled me next.

"ONE MORE TIME, SHELLSHOCK! TO BATTLE! SHOW THEM THE FOIL'S MIGHT ONCE MORE!" The Cerulean City Gym Leader shouted out in that decisive and ruthless voice.

-And you just lost it, Misty.

You lost the war.

...You're fucking lost.

Shellshock's ruined face began to spasm. That pitiful look of hope in his one eye began to harden.

...And that poor turtle's broken face was twisted by all of the hate.

...He hated her...

"DAMASCUS." My toneless voice emanated from the Gym's PA system speakers.

My white snake turned away from the seizuring Blastoise before him, harkening to the severity of his CO's expressionless voice. Damascus met my iron gaze with those calm milky blue eyes of his.

...I fought back the anger as my teeth chatter against the cold wind born in my breath.

"DESTROY HER FOIL."

-Yeah. I saw that look, Misty.

...And I don't even care about it anymore.

-You're lost.

You're fucking lost.

...And you won't ever be found.

Damascus turned back to that wreck of a Blastoise with a vehement rumble.

And then everyone in the bleachers began to scream and cheer...

-When will you people ever see?

This is how we kill our dreams…

...This is how we forfeit to our fates.

"-FIVE SECONDS UNTIL THE FINAL ROUND! EVERYONE-!"

"-FIVE!"

The crowd followed the commentator's lead.

"-FOUR!"

Shellshock's twitching face solidified into that expression of pure loathing.

"-THREE!"

Misty threw her voice in with theirs.

"-TWO!"

My single eye swept the entire Gym one last time, drinking in all of this horror and making it the fuel of my ire.

"-ONE!"

"-FIGHHHHHHHHT!"

-No.

This isn't going to be a fight.

This is going to be an end.

"DAMASCUS! KILL HIM!"

"SHELLSHOCK! DO IT NOW!"

"..."

"You're all looking at me mighty funny right now."

"..."

"...Just a moment ago, you lot were all looking about as guilty as fucking sin."

"..."

"You all know what I'm talking about. We did it to ourselves."

"..."

"...And you know what?"

"..."

"We deserved a whole hell of a lot worse than what we got."

"..."

"If it wasn't for the fucking King-"

"-..."

"-SAY THAT AGAIN, YOU IGNORANT LITTLE FUCK!"

"..."

"You... have... no idea. You haven't got a clue…"

"..."

"...Really? Then tell me. What do you think it was?"

"-..."

"Heh. That blue... You should trade that seedy sweater in for something white."

"...-?"

"...And then you should go take a walk on the King's path, and see just how dark that white becomes."

I should have seen it coming.

I was fighting a fucking ambitious Gym Leader at the end of her rope.

-I should have known that it was coming.

The Fucking Bastard would have seen it coming.

But I was blind…

Blinded by my hate…

Blinded by the self-loathing…

...Blinded by the fear…

When I looked at Shellshock, I didn't see an opponent for me to overcome.

-I saw where my path led.

Misty had pioneered that path for me.

If nothing else, the Tomboy Mermaid's cruelty had at least shown me…

...Who I didn't want to become.

And I was afraid.

I was afraid that it was already too late for me.

Too late for me to turn away from my chosen path...

But then I looked at Shellshock…

-And my every shadow of a doubt was erased.

I now knew with certainty.

I now knew a conviction.

I now knew beyond my every prior inhibition, that I didn't want my little girl to hate me in the same way that Misty's little boy had come to hate her.

...Shellshock's life had become a disease.

...And I…

...I wanted to cure him.

-But Misty's crutch…

...The very same crutch that Misty had abused, until there was nothing left of him but a forgotten hope and a bitter hate…

...That broken crutch…

...Was still so much more than anything Misty could ever hope to deserve.

-Blastoise.

They're some pretty fucking scary animals.

Everybody knows that those turtles are as tough as nails, and Shellshock stood before me as the incontestable proof.

But the one trait that separates the Blastoise from virtually every other species of mon recorded in the known world, isn't their ability to weather through the kind of shit that would kill almost every other breed of mon ten times over.

-It's those fucking shoulder mounted dual hydro cannons.

Blastoise have a six chambered bladder taking up nearly the entire swell of their massive shells.

Each chamber ends in a valve, and each ascending valve is designed to withstand ever escalating amounts of pressure.

These chambered bladders have a separate pair of final valves that end right before either ivory root of those dual hydro cannons.

The Blastoises' massive muscle lined bladders and their robust valves serve as the biological mechanism employed for generating the forces required for the hydro cannons to launch a continuous jet of water under such an extreme amount of pressure…

...That the hydro ballistics fired from these canons can still retain enough pascals to punch right through a sheet of twenty-two gauge plate steel after the projectile has already covered a distance of forty meters.

In the world of mon, the Blastoise species are regarded as the living equivalent to humanity's pre-Brink MBTs.

Their aquatic evolution sacrificed speed for obscene power at range and an extremely resilient constitution.

But if a Blastoise possess any inclination towards keeping those incredible guns stocked with ammo…

-Then that turtle has to be stationed in the water.

Blastoise can't just magic up ammo for their hydro cannons out of thin air.

-They need to be sitting cozy in a supply dump, channeling a constant feed of water through their mouths and into that chambered bladder, just to keep those scary guns of theirs roaring hot.

-So like a fool…

...I had rudely assumed that Shellshock was helpless against Damascus on the land.

...But what I had failed to consider in my desperate attempt at freeing Shellshock from his life in hell...

-Was that Misty's Foil could have entered the Gym's ring packing a fully loaded gun.

Damascus and Shellshock were positioned opposite the other on the dry portion's halfway mark. There was all of thirty meters between them, and the shoreline was a scant fifteen meters of distance from Shellshock's back.

And there was no way in hell that Misty's Foil was going to cover that piddly shit fifteen meters before my angry old man of snake covered his thirty meters and killed that Blastoise with one mighty blow.

-But Misty wasn't gunning for the shoreline.

Not yet.

-She had to bait her trap first.

Damascus heeded my order with a rumbling advance. My Onix could cover thirty meters in the blink of an eye, thanks to that huge serpentine physiology of his.

And I had just ordered my snake to advance with all due haste into the optimal range of Shellshock's guns.

-Just as Misty had anticipated.

When those hydro cannons went off, my commitment to cold blooded mercy was lost to both the shock and the angry bellowing of my old snake.

Point blank. A full bladder's salvo.

-Damascus didn't have a prayer.

"DAMASCUS!"

"GET TO THE WATER NOW, SHELLSHOCK!"

"-WHAT A TURN! BRUTUS HAS BEEN AVENGED!"

Damascus was writhing on the ground in abject agony, while his central beads oozed with his ammonia blood.

Tough though they may be, an Onix's surface is riddled with microfractures. It's just a harmless side effect of a Mineral mon's rocky carapace alternatively expanding and contracting due to variations in temperature. These cracks are so tiny that you can't even see most of them with the naked eye, even when you're standing next to one of the Onixia bearing mention.

But when that pressurized jet of water hit Damascus's deflecting rounded sides…

...That high pressured water forced its way into my snake's microfractures…

...And suddenly Damascus's tiny fractures weren't quite so tiny any more.

And as any geologist can tell you…

-Water can erode all stones.

Even the shallowest of oceans can bury the tallest of mountains.

"-WHAT'S THIS?!"

-Well…

...I guess there are some mountains that are just too stubborn to sink.

'Cause Damascus was picking himself back up.

-And my snake was struggling against the pain just to bring down that retreating Blastoise.

"MOVE SHELLSHOCK! RUN!"

-You heartless bitch.

As if your Foil could run on those fucked up flippers.

Shellshock had turned his back on the moaning Onix, and fixed his hate filled glare on the shoreline. And then that ragged Blastoise plodded off towards the water…

...One slow staggering step at a time.

All the while, my Damascus forced himself to move another ten meters…

...Before my ancient snake slammed his massive body back down into the sand, bellowing in rage as the pain tortured him for even trying to move.

-You couldn't see it, now that most of those deepened microfractures had sealed themselves…

...But Shellshock's dual hydro cannons had just about split my white snake in half.

"COME ON DAMASCUS! YOU CAN DO IT! YOU NEED TO DO IT!"

-Get up, you old man…

Please, don't let me down-

That desperate plea filled my chest with a cold dread.

Were those the same selfish pleas that had turned Shellshock into a tragedy?

-I hesitated to give my following command.

And every Ranger could see me locking up.

-But I couldn't do it.

I couldn't order Damascus to continue.

-But that spiteful old man…

...He sure as hell didn't need me telling him to do shit.

Shellshock was at the shoreline when Damascus cut loose with the single angriest RUMBLE that Onixkind has ever produced...

-And my snake was back in the game, slithering through the sandy meters on a ramming intercept with the newly wet-toed Shellshock.

"-WHAT IS THIS SNAKE MADE OF?!"

-Spite.

Two thousand years worth of pure, unadulterated; heavily-concentrated and premium-aged spite.

...And it was almost enough…

-To stop that Blastoise from limping into the water.

Shellshock, The Foil.

...Even cruel God wept for you when you obeyed that red headed monster's order.

"DAMASCUS! HOLD!" My pissed off snake entered the sandy shallows of the shore, just as Shellshock fell to his belly in the water, and pivoted both guns dead level with my white snake.

My finger was jammed into my console's 'Substitution' button. And a thirty second timer began counting down on the Battle Screen.

"Damascus, return." My snake was still glaring down the barrels of a Blastoise fortified in the water when the red dematerialization beam extended from Damascus's Heavy Ball, and brought him back into the safety of my kiosk.

My hand raised another Pokeball, and Misty's eyes hardened.

The one that she had been fearing.

The one that could deploy a flare on the dry portion's field, well outside the effective range of Shellshock's guns.

The one who could truck it across the length of the shoreline at a speed well ahead of that turtle's hydrostream; while she sprayed a toxic pollen into the water that was so potent, it could kill every living thing in a lake within minutes of diffusion.

-So why did the Fucking Bastard look so worried?

"-ZANE HAS CALLED A SUBSTITUTION! DAMASCUS HAS BEEN INJURED, AND SHELLSHOCK IS IN A PRIME GUNNING POSITION! BUT CAN ZANE'S SABOTEUR WIN HIM THE MATCH?!"

I looked over at my console.

There it was, the red button at the very top.

The one button that I was dying to push.

The 'Forfeit' button.

"-VAUBAN! -VAUBAN! -VAUBAN! -VAUBAN!" The crowd was cheering her name. I wondered for a moment what my little girl would be thinking of me right now, as she watched this event unfold on a television, all cozy and cared for in the chilly confines of a Pokemart's rear cooler.

-I wondered if my sweet Vauban felt guilty...

"-YOU HAVE TEN SECONDS TO MAKE YOUR MOVE, RANGER! IF YOU DO NOT SEND OUT A POKEMON BEFORE THE TIMER REACHES ZERO, YOU WILL AUTOMATICALLY FORFEIT THE MATCH!"

"-ZANE! -ZANE! -ZANE!"

I gritted my teeth, and glared at the standard G.I. Pokeball clenched in my trembling hand.

"-FIVE SECONDS!"

...Goddamnit...

"-FOUR!"

...I just couldn't do it…

"-THREE!"

Misty was looking at me all funny. Why hadn't I committed my Vauban to an easy win?

"-TWO!"

"AW, FUCK!"

"-ONE!"

"DARWIN! REPORT!"

The timer hit zero, just as my Pokeball released its occupant into the aquatic portion of the Cerulean Gym's ring.

Once again, an eerie silence had overcome the entirety of the Gym.

And then…

...Someone snickered.

-Some people started chortling.

Then someone screamed out an obscenity in the stands…

...And the floodgates of laughter spilled open.

I punched my 'Substitution' button again in the midst all that laughter. I converted both of my remaining substitutions into a full minute timeout, and devoted that purchased time to a little heart to heart with my fish.

Misty was ogling at me from across the field.

-Was this a joke?!

Yep. It was.

-My obese joke of a Magikarp, just paddling around in the aquatic portion of the Gym ring.

Darwin.

I swapped my mic's channel onto a setting that I had sworn before a Blackhat I would never have to use.

"...Give me a breach if you can hear me, Darwin."

-Splish.

-CRASH. Said Darwin.

People were pressing their wide-eyed smiling faces up against the tank's glass wall, drinking in the biggest joke to ever been released within the Cerulean City Gym.

"Okay. Darwin. I'm gonna be straight with you."

"You can't take that Blastoise."

Darwin stopped swimming in his happy circle, and turned to face the wreck of Shellshock, who was now glaring his mindless hatred at my fish from the frothy shallows of the shoreline.

"But Darwin? I don't know what else to do…"

My fat fish swam right up to the surface, still looking at that Blastoise.

"Now I know, this isn't fair. This isn't fair at all. But I have to ask you for something, Darwin…"

My obese Magikarp was sitting perfectly still in the water.

"...You remember that medal you earned, saving my ass from the Venomoth?"

Misty had found her cool with a mile-long-smile. For whatever reason, Zane Bastard had just delivered her a victory on a silver platter.

"I need you to prove me wrong again, Darwin…"

"...I need you to be the miracle that saves my ass again…"

...And that goofy Magikarp leveled himself out in the water, still facing that brain dead and hating Blastoise…

-Before my brave Darwin began to aggressively flutter his feeble fins in preparation for an attack.

"..."

"...You can't train a Magikarp for combat applications. This is an undeniable fact."

"..."

"I'd wasted a year of my life learning that one established truth, as I endeavored to crack the genetic secret of what type of stimulus was required to activate Darwin's latent pseudodragon genes; which in turn, would trigger the evolution cycle of the world's biggest monster."

"..."

"So for any ambitious Trainers out there, still sporting to earn their Gyaradosia the hard way, let the Fucking Bastard lay it out for you one last time."

"..."

"-You. -Cannot. -Train. -A Magikarp. -For combat. -Applications."

"..."

"...Yet in spite of this incontestable truth…"

"..."

"...Well before he even became the Midgar…"

"..."

"...My Darwin…"

"..."

"...Had secured his place forevermore within my heart…."

"..."

"-As my Hero…"

If I had thought that Gale and Cortez's duel had been tax on my mental faculties, as well as the truest test of my mon's element synergy with their CO…

-That first round was absolutely nothing compared to what Darwin and I went through in the start of the final stage.

"-SHELLSHOCK FINALLY HAS THAT WILY FISH PINNED- WAIT! DARWIN JUST BREACHED HIS WAY OUT!"

"-He's eight meters off your starboard stern, sucking down brine for another salvo!"

"-YET ANOTHER SUCCESSFUL EVASION FROM DARWIN! HOW LONG CAN THIS FISH CHEAT DEATH?!"

"-Dive three fathoms down, go for a feint, and then breach at the very last second!"

"-I CAN'T BELIEVE THAT THIS MAGIKARP HAS LASTED THIS LONG! WE'RE FOUR MINUTES INTO THE FINAL ROUND, AND SHELLSHOCK HASN'T EVEN SCUFFED A SINGLE ONE OF THOSE RED SCALES YET!"

"-Bank to your portside and dive two fathoms down on my mark- Shit! BANK STARBOARD NOW! DO IT NOW!"

"-GOOD GOD, LOOK AT THE SIZE OF THAT MAGIKARP!"

-Yeah, that was one big red fish in Misty's ring. Meaning one big ass target for Shellshock's dual hydro cannons.

Darwin was gambling by the skin of his non-existent teeth, for odds even lower than a child's hope in hell.

-My fucking Magikarp was proving himself worth his every fucking Sandz.

"-I JUST DON'T KNOW WHO IS GONNA TIRE OUT FIRST!"

-Neither did I.

Nor did Misty.

But whoever tired out first…

-Would lose the match.

-League Code 36, Article 42:

The Final Round.

And the Rules of Attrition.

-The final round will award victory to the Trainer who sustains the least amount of casualties throughout the course of the match. Appointed League officials, henceforth referred to as 'Judges' will gauge the parameters of either competitor's Pokemon and their post conflict conditions at the conclusion of the final round…

...Forbearing the event of a stalemate due to the process of the final round timing out, Judges will award victory to the Trainer whose overall roster of Pokemon accrued the least amount of injuries warranting medical attention…

Darwin could still win. But for that to happen, we need to make it all the way to the end of the timer without losing a scale on my fish.

-Damascus was out. He couldn't hurt that Blastoise in the water, and their last stand off against one another had resulted in Misty's Shellshock inflicting a crippling injury on my snake.

-And Darwin couldn't even hope to leave a mark on that ridiculously tough Blastoise. But we still maintained an advantage in this match.

Misty had one uninjured mon.

I had one badly injured mon and one uninjured mon.

You don't have to be a mathematician to add up that kind of logic.

-We could still win.

But that all depended upon my ability to guide Darwin through this hell of a trial, as well as on Darwin's ability to just keep on being the fucking miracle.

The clock just struck the fifteen minute mark.

We were a fourth of the way there.

-And if Darwin was half as exhausted as I was…

"JUST FUCKING BREACH!"

-Then we were never gonna make it.

I didn't think that it was possible for Shellshock to start getting anymore pissed off than he already was, but Misty's hate filled turtle…

...Had decided to take his entire cruel life out on my Magikarp.

I couldn't afford to pity him anymore. I had only heart for Darwin.

-And that heart was hammering hard.

"-SHELLSHOCK IS GIVING IT EVERYTHING HE'S GOT, BUT THIS CRAZY MAGIKARP JUST REFUSES TO GO DOWN!"

How do you like my fish, Misty?

You hear that sound coming from the bleachers?

Is that Shellshock's name they're screaming?

"-DARWIN! -DARWIN! -DARWIN!"

-Nope.

"Cute Magikarp, Ranger, but Shellshock has fought even bigger fish before-"

"-I couldn't tell." I spat that line right back at Misty, and watched her recoil from the venom in my voice.

You can go to hell, Mermaid.

-If you actually felt just one ounce of his pain, you would never have put him in this ring.

"DARWIN! GO LONG!" I shouted to my Magikarp, and Darwin broke out a shuttle burst of speed, flying well out the range of Shellshocks guns.

But that turtle was repositioning for a follow through, and my Darwin jettisoned himself in a loop in order to avoid the subaquatic discharges from Shellshock's dual cannons.

Shellshock's range was cut in half below the surface, and all that combat training I'd gone through with Darwin was finally paying off. Not the combat part, obviously; but the endurance that Darwin had built up in all of my exhaustive conditioning was beginning to reveal its measure.

Until this moment, I had no idea that my chunky fish was that nimble. But that ignorance was all on me; simply because the bitter truth was...

-I'd never given Darwin a chance to shine before.

And that goofy fat fucking fish…

...Was positively itching for his chance to shine.

Oh, Darwin…

-You are so much more than I deserve.

"Shellshock. Turn down the taps. On pursuit." Misty ordered of her Foil, and again, Shellshock mysteriously followed his loathsome Trainer's command.

"Darwin, go deep." I countered my command to Misty's, just as Shellshock stowed his cannons in favor of increased hydrodynamics for the pursuit.

It didn't take very long for Misty Willows to figure out that her Shellshock just couldn't keep up with my Darwin in a race.

My fish was swimming circles around her Blastoise.

-Literally.

The crowd was laughing again, but they weren't laughing at my miraculous joke of a fish. They were laughing at Shellshock, as my Darwin twisted that turtle every which way but straight. That Magikarp was dashing about in loops dangerously close to Shellshock's razored beak, and there was absolutely nothing that Shellshock could do stop to him.

That laughter hurt. That laughter cut deep.

I could see the grieving child poking past the Tomboy Mermaid's mask. Those eyes were wet and red, and those teeth were clenched and shaking.

-It's too late for that, Misty.

You had your chance.

-And you burned him up.

I wasn't laughing with the crowd. I was sending my own hurtful message directly into eyes of that grieving child.

-This was anything but funny.

This was all just sickening.

And I let Misty know that with my cold glare alone.

"SHELLSHOCK! START CORRALLING THAT FISH!" Misty ordered, and her turtle once again paid heed to the demoness who had scourged his entire existence.

Did some part of that tragedy still love her?

-Or was that just a fragment of hope, clinging on to the memories of better days?

Shellshock opened his cannons up again, and started firing at my fish. Only now, Shellshock wasn't aiming for Darwin. He was using his cannons to cut off Darwin's escapes.

I realized what Misty was planning just a second too late.

Shellshock was herding Darwin into the shallows, trying to get my erratically leaping fish to beach himself on the sand.

"Darwin, you've got to get out of there!" My blood went cold when I saw the diminishing space my Magikarp had for outmaneuvering those guns.

Darwin shimmied to the left-

-And a cannon blast cut him off.

Darwin shimmied to the right-

-And a rock stopped him dead.

"GET HIM, SHELLSHOCK!"

-No.

I have faith in you, Darwin.

"DARWIN! YOU'RE GONNA HAVE TO SWIM RIGHT AT HIM!"

Desperation, faith; what's the difference?

I need you to do something, and I know that you can do it.

-And Darwin did it.

Pivoting right on his tail fin, Darwin broke into an aquatic charge on an intercepting route with the two guns aimed straight at him.

"Breach on my mark!"

I knew what to look for.

Newton's Third Law of Motion.

-The pressure generated by those cannons was so intense, that the waterlogged Blastoise firing them off was pushed backwards by the opposing force.

In order to compensate for the muzzle drift of his canons, Shellshock had to use what was left of his limbs and vigorously tread the water. I waited for the Blastoise's telltale thrashing, before giving Darwin the mark.

Shellshock started warming up-

"READY!"

Those fucked up stumps were paddling now-

"-MARK!"

And my Darwin breached just in time to avoid the salvo.

-And that was when I noticed that something was wrong.

Shellshock was only shooting one cannon.

That was supposed to be biologically impossible. His chambered bladder wasn't designed to withhold the pressure of only one cannon going off at a time. Both barrels needed to dump that water as quickly as they could in order to prevent a cataclysmic tissue failure. The Blastoise species possessed a biological safeguard in order to prevent their cannons from being fired separately. That safeguard? Both of those final sets of valves operated off the same neural transmitter.

There was no way in hell that Shellshock could open one valve and close the other at the same time.

It just wasn't possible-

Shellshock's second barrel was rapidly leading Darwin's descent. The same principle of physics that I'd used to gauge the shot was also being utilized by that turtle to rapidly position the second gun.

Using the muzzle drift of his first shot to enhance the speed of his pivot, Shellshock lined up the second gun's barrel on my airborne Darwin...

-And when that cannon fired…

...Shellshock's aim proved true.

"-A DIRECT HIT ON THE FLANK! THAT FISH IS TOAST!"

Darwin was thrown right against the shore with that blast. He had never even reentered the water after that last breach. And nimble though my fish was…

...Those fins could only flail uselessly in atmosphere.

My hammering heart entered my throat.

There he was. My fallen miracle.

On his side.

Perfectly still.

Blood staining the water in which he drifted.

His red scales surfacing around him.

"DARWIN!"

"-AND THAT WAS A ONE HIT KNOCK OUT SHOT FROM SHELLSHOCK! WHAT AN UNBELIEVABLE TURN AROUND!"

I just about entered the field with the medical squad.

-I almost forfeited the match.

But a stern cold voice in my ear stopped me dead.

"Stay on position, Zane. One more boot outside that gate will cost you the match."

-Captain Lewis, radioing me from the stands.

What was she talking about?

I had nothing left to fight with-

"You don't have much time. Eleven minutes remaining, and the clock is still counting down. Prep Damascus for a scrapping." Captain Lewis told me the last thing I wanted to hear.

"To hell with that! Shellshock is still in the water-!"

"That was an order, soldier. Now carry out your duty." Captain Lewis killed the feed, and I was left to watch in shock as Darwin was ferried out by the League's medics.

-How bad was he?

They didn't even tell me.

I looked down at my final Pokeball.

Silver and white. A ring of blue beads encircling the bulky crown.

My old snake.

Damascus.

"Shall we finish this, Zane?" Misty's coy voice sounded across the Gym.

I looked up at Misty. The timer had started again. I had thirty seconds to make my play.

I looked back at that red button. The button labeled 'Forfeit.'

I looked back at that redheaded monster, smiling her finest for the adoration of her fans.

And then I looked over to Shellshock, and I met those loathe-locked eyes.

Was it worth it? Was all that pain really worth it?

Could anyone justify that?

Then I looked to the Heavy Ball in my palm...

-And my mind was made up on the spot.

"Damascus. Report." My injured snake entered the field, already shaking against the pain from his prior injury.

Misty was smirking at an easy mark, an Onix too wounded to even evade her Blastoise's guns.

"Damascus." I called out to my snake, and bit my lip. I had put up with enough of this already...

-If they didn't want me in their Operation…

...Then they didn't have to keep me there.

"Your call. Forfeit or fight." I whispered to my snake over the mic.

Damascus started to rattle with a low rumble.

I didn't know what to make of that.

That crazy old snake could've said, 'Poodoo pie,' for all I know.

"You're gonna have to give me more to work with than that, Damascus."

-RUMBLE.

And that Onix's crashing tail gave me the answer I'd been looking for.

"-Okay then…"

-I had my snake's support.

"...We fight."

I put my calm eyes on Misty, and saw her waver when Damascus mirrored my gaze to her.

-Do you miss that, Misty? Sharing something with your family?

"-AND THE MIGHTY DAMASCUS RETURNS FOR THE FINAL EVENT! WHAT IS ZANE AND HIS SNAKE PLANNING TO DO NOW?!"

-We don't know. But we're gonna do it anyways.

"Well then, Zane… I'll make it quick." Misty spoke softly from across the field.

-Go ahead and try, Misty. You go right ahead and try.

My crippled old man, against your ruined little boy…

-Heh.

Even if I lose…

-I'm still gonna hold on to more than you will.

"-THREE SECONDS TO GO!"

Yep.

"-THREE!"

-Just get them over with already.

"-TWO!"

"...I'm sorry, Shellshock…" I found myself murmuring.

"-ONE!"

"...I tried…"

"-FIGHT!"

And no sooner had those words been spoken, then Shellshock's cannons fired their opening salvo at my snake…

...And my old man…

...Just stood there and took it.

"-WHAT-?!"

"-WHAT JUST HAPPENED DOWN THERE?!"

"...Damascus?"

My old man just shook off the water, and turned back to me.

-He was just as confused as I was.

"...Shellshock?" That lost little redheaded girl was back, looking down at her Blastoise with concern.

"-SHELLSHOCK'S CANNONS HAD NO EFFECT?!"

-Well color the Gym surprised.

I wasn't the only one expecting Damascus to get cooked by that.

"...Oh no…" Misty covered her worried mouth.

-That wasn't supposed to happen?

"-Oh no…" Misty was looking at her Blastoise with a fresh level of guilt.

-And suddenly it all clicked.

"...Fancy trick. Firing off one cannon like that. Neither Darwin nor I saw it coming. I take it that Shellshock's brain injury had something to do with him being able to pull it off?" I asked over the PA, my voice growing cold when I glared across the ring at Misty.

Misty fucking swallowed. I could see her throat bobbing from where I stood.

"...Looks like your Blastoise has just fired off his last round. And judging from the state he's already in? That was probably the last round for the rest of his life. I hope that last shot was worth a Magikarp..." I growled.

Misty's whole body started trembling.

"Willows?"

I wasn't gonna get a verbal acknowledgement from her.

"-I just wanted to tell you something."

Those horrified eyes met mine.

"...You make me sick."

"SHELLSHOCK!"

"DAMASCUS!"

"-GO DEEP!"

"-GET THAT TURTLE!"

I'm gonna find a way Misty…

I'm gonna find a way to open your blind eyes before the end.

Misty's Foil hoofed it into deeper water, just as Damascus slammed his head into the shallows that Shellshock had previously occupied. I was in a spitting fury. That turtle was out of Damascus's striking range, and though Shellshock couldn't hurt my snake anymore...

-Neither could Damascus harm him in deep water, and other than the unhealed war wounds that he'd entered the field with…

Shellshock didn't have a mark on him. My own time stalling antics were coming back to haunt me. And we'd already burned up half the clock for Misty.

-Whatever the hell we were going to do, we needed to do it fast.

"Hey Gramps? My trick bag is cleaned out. You got anything to play with?"

-RUMBLE.

"That's a no… Shit…" For the first time since Shellshock had entered the field, I could afford the luxury of slow contemplative thinking. I tried to look at the problem from all sides, but no matter what angle I approached it from...

-It all boiled down to us being absolutely helpless.

"The turtle can't hit us, and we can't hit the turtle… Why can't we hit the turtle?"

-Because the turtle is in the water.

"So we need to get the turtle out of the water, but I didn't bring my fishing tackle… So we can't get the turtle out of the water, but we could try-"

-Bingo.

"...Damascus? I just had me a crazy idea. You up for doing some damage?" I asked my old snake.

-RUMBLE.

That's Onix for, 'Hell yes.'

"Damascus. Start digging."

And my clever old snake…

...Instantly caught on to my line of thinking.

Damascus lunged into the Gym's dry sand, and started digging deep.

The whole Gym shook as Damascus tore through the earth below it.

"Find me a cave in that Cerulean limestone, Damascus. Find me a big cave."

-My plan?

If we couldn't take the turtle away from the water…

...Then we'd just have to take the water away from the turtle.

-But in hindsight?

That clever idea ranks among my list of top five 'Stupidest Ideas that I've Ever Acted On.'

I had my eyes glued to the timer, while Damascus's tremors grew more and more faint.

He'd been digging for almost two solid minutes now, and there was still no telltale RUMBLE sounding from the deep hole that Damascus had left behind.

The commentator was silent.

Other than the obvious, he'd didn't have too terribly much to commentate on.

But my plan was anything but obvious.

-It really was just flat out stupid.

After about three minutes had passed, the audience started to murmur amongst themselves.

-But I still didn't hear my snake rumbling from afar.

I finally looked away from the countdown when the clock turned over to the last five minutes.

Misty was watching me with a nervous look in her eye. She knew that I was up to something, and I was content to just stand by and smirk.

Four minutes to go, and I was starting to feel nervous. Damascus had been digging for a long time. Maybe he couldn't-

-RUMBLE.

-Scratch that. The old man had finally found exactly what I was looking for.

"Alright, Damascus. Here's the plan. I want you to dig a shaft at a downwards angle, connecting to the hole you just dug into that cavern. Then I want you to connect the other end of that shaft-"

-RUMBLE.

"Okay, smart ass. If you know what to do, then fucking do it already."

-I was smiling like my namesake when the tremors started shaking the Gym again.

I looked over to where Shellshock had decided to hole up. All the way over against the opposite wall, in the deepest water that the Gym offered. Right below Misty's feet.

There was blood oozing from both muzzles of Shellshock's dual hydro cannons, summing up my theory quite gruesomely.

This was Shellshock's last fight. Those cannons would never shoot lethal rounds again.

-Maybe now that she had used up his last asset, Misty could finally find the heart to cherish her little boy for something more than his combat prowess. Maybe now, Shellshock could finally have his Misty back…

...Or maybe Misty would just boil him down and turn him into stew.

-I didn't even care anymore. I was so past caring about Misty Willows.

"Damascus we've got a minute and half left. You better be-"

-Thunk.

Oh boy.

-Thunk!

People started racing for the tank's glass wall. Something weird was happening to the floor of the ring's aquatic tank.

-Why was that mud spraying into the water?

...Because my snake was adding a new renovation to the Cerulean City Gym's wet portion...

-A drain.

-THUNK!

"Damascus, you better have dug yourself an exit tunnel…"

...RUMBLE?

"...Oh hell no, you stupid motherfucking senile old-!"

THUNK.

-Uh oh.

...Why had the elevation of the Gym floor suddenly dropped?

Everybody.

In the Gym.

Went.

Dead.

Silent.

-I could hear something cracking from beneath the ground…

And then…

-The whole Gym bounced.

...And a buckling fissure that stretched from wall to far flung wall…

-Split the entire compound in half.

-What had I just done?

"DAMASCUS-!"

"SHELLSHOCK-!"

"-GET THE HELL OUT OF THERE NOW!" Misty and I were screaming the same damn thing to our two mon simultaneously.

Everybody in the stands started screaming.

The floor jounced again-

-And the entire wet portion of the Gym began draining into a newly rent fault, which stretched out and merged with the bulging crack that spanned from the Gym's northern wall to its southern wall.

Water and limestone.

-They don't mix.

...Actually, they do. Which was the problem currently besieging the Cerulean City Gym.

All that loose limestone beneath the Cerulean City Gym was washing away in the onset of a subterranean flash flood.

-What had we done?

...Well...

-Damascus and I had just turned the entire Gym compound into ground zero for a soon to be gaping sinkhole.

Thank God, half of those people in the stands were trained Rangers.

-Who, as it happens, also remembered to bring their G.I. mon with them.

The Greenbacks were hustling under the command of Captain Lewis to aid in the evacuation of the Cerulean City Gym. The camera crews were still struggling to unplug and pack their shit up, when a massive falling chunk of the ceiling…

...Convinced them that all their equipment could be replaced.

-Then the tremors brought about by the folding earth knocked Misty clean out of her kiosk. A Ranger's Pidgeotto snagged her falling ass right out of the air before the Cerulean City Gym Leader could splatter her brains against the now surprisingly dry aquatic tank floor.

And Shellshock?

-That ruin of a Blastoise had hauled his ass up unto the dry portion of the Gym well before the wet portion had even finished draining.

That hateful look of his was finally gone.

That poor turtle was scared out of his half-dead mind.

And Damascus?

...Where the hell was my snake?

"DAMASCUS! REPORT IN!" I shouted into my mic.

There wasn't an Onix's rumble to answer me over all the sounds of the crumbling Gym.

"DAMASCUS! FALL IN!"

Shellshock was right at my kiosk gate, and trying his damnedest to scramble up the enclosed ring wall.

"DAMASCUS! WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU!?" I was getting wicked worried for the fate of my snake, when the ground split open beneath my feet, and I just about fell into a darkness deep enough to rival the Distortion itself.

Somebody's arms grabbed a hold of me before I could finish toppling into the abyss, and then I was being dragged away from the devastation by the Blackhat's most vicious bitch herself, Captain Mary Lewis.

"DAMASCUS!"

My old snake-

-Where the hell was he?!

"DAMASCUS!" I was screaming through tears and clenched teeth.

"LEAVE HIM, ZANE!" That was the urgent voice of Captain Lewis fighting against me as I struggled to remain in place.

...My old man…

"DAMASCUS!"

"DON'T MAKE ME KNOCK YOU OUT, RANGER!" Captain Lewis finally found a firm purchase on my uniform, and hauled me up over her shoulder.

...I was bigger than she was. How the hell did she do that?

"GRAMPS!"

Never leave a man behind…

...Never abandon your family…

"DAMASCUS!"

-RUMBLE!

I think that's Onix for, 'SHUT THE FUCK UP ALREADY!'

We started feeling a new set of tremors following on the tail of that rumble. I could just barely see the Cerulean ring's floor from my position in the Kiosk, but I could still see the fumbling stumps of Shellshock's forelegs desperately trying to find leverage on the enclosure's elevated rim.

...And then all of the sudden…

...That fucked up turtle…

...Was flying high into the sky, riding on a pillar of loose dirt.

...And following this earthen pillar…

-Was a rather unique looking Onix still gunning for the fight that we had both agreed upon.

After having been shafted up into the Gym ceiling, Shellshock slammed hard on his belly not even a meter behind Captain Lewis and I…

-And then a massive shadow passed over the three of us…

Before my Damascus fell on that stunned Blastoise maw first.

-Then strangely enough...

A sudden jarring tremor from the settling earth tilted one of the abandoned national news' syndicate cameras at just the right angle…

And a live broadcast captured the image of an Onix pinning a Blastoise to the Cerulean City Gym's crumbling floor…

...Right before the still functioning Battle Screen fell from its roost in the concaving ceiling…

...And with a loud spray of glass and sparks, the previously falling Battle Screen closed the curtain on the live stream of Zane Bastard's Cerulean City Gym challenge…

...With just fourteen seconds on the clock to go.

I had earned the Boulder Badge by cheating.

- And I had honestly believed that I would never be able to beat that level of controversy in my League career.

But just one Gym challenge later?

-I had earned my Cascade Badge by tearing the Cerulean City Gym into the earth itself.

Or at least, that's how Cerulean remembers me. Misty just about broke my new Badge when she wordlessly pressed it into my palm.

...But that redhead's expression said it all…

-Here's your fucking Badge. Now get the hell out.

And as for Misty's Cerulean based fan club? I received their message loud and clear.

-You've got until morning to get yourself gone...

Yeah…

I really did like old Cerulean…

...But then I had to go and fuck it all up.

Astoundingly, the same travesty that condemned the Cerulean City Gym as unfit for habitation; also failed to accrue a single casualty from either man or mon.

You can thank the Cerulean Rangers for that.

-Who were currently just too busy to care, as they celebrated my victory by getting roaring drunk and hunting for increasingly larger objects to hurl down Cerulean's newest attraction.

-The Cerulean Crater.

A massive gaping hole in Cerulean City's heart, commemorating the location of the Historical Cerulean City Gym.

Funnily enough, I was covered by the both League's insurance and their codes regarding Damages Accrued to League Property During League Certified-

-You know what?

Fuck the League.

I had bigger problems to deal with right now.

-Such as the press.

Who, unlike the disgruntled Cerulean denizens, really wanted the Fucking Bastard to stick around.

I was glad that I still had those ugly fucking Aviator shades that Willows had lent me, 'cause otherwise I might have developed epilepsy when the paparazzi assaulted me on the outskirts of the Cerulean Crater.

-I'm not even gonna repeat what those bloodsucking bastards asked me.

But halfway into mine and Captain Lewis's mosh through the endless swarm of reporters, my Tact. Pad started buzzing with an incoming call from Fuck-Nuts.

"ZANE! YOU MAGNIFICENT BASTARD! OH MY GOD, THE PHONE JUST WON'T STOP RINGING-!" Apparently, Chris Lebreau really likes answering phones.

-The freak.

"HOW DID YOU DO THAT?! DON'T TELL ME THAT IT WAS PLANNED?!" Chris's euphoric insinuation drew the entire crowd of reporters even closer to my socially claustrophobic person.

"...No, Chris… It wasn't planned…"

-I felt like I was gonna throw up.

"Well, whatever! It was fucking brilliant! This is exactly what we needed! I have both Indigo's channel four and channel seven knocking down my front door for a live interview with the Fucking Bastard! Fucking Indigo wants to interview you!"

"...That's great, Chris… That's just fucking great…"

-No it fucking isn't.

"You did it Zane! You fucking did it! Just wait until the press does a background check on your League credentials! When that whole Pewter City Gym catastrophe crops up on their radar-"

-Oh my God.

I couldn't even breath for all of the mics that were suddenly being shoved into my face when Chris mention the Pewter City Gym incident.

-I was seriously going to blow grits over every fuzzy mic-

"-Enough of this bullshit. Solomon, get this filth out of my way." Captain Lewis sounded every bit as pissed off as her Gyarados did, when she released him from his Heavy Ball, and ordered Solomon to drive the swarm of reporters screaming into the road.

"Do you remember how to fly a Class Six, Bastard?" Captain Lewis asked me after the paparazzi had been subdued by a Blackhat Gyarados.

I could barely nod my green-tinged head.

"-No you don't. You were flying with a saddle and harness last time. I'm advancing your curriculum. We're barebacking this Gyarados the hell outta here."

Then Captain Lewis flung my trembling ass over the rostrum of her Wyrm…

And the two of us left Cerulean City for a scenic cruise over Wrecker Cape.

-And I still have the bruises on my thighs from all the uncomfortable bucking that Solomon put me through on our barebacked flight.

"Solomon, fly low. Take us to Cerulean's southern gate discreetly." Captain Lewis ordered. Solomon let loose a deep rumble, before the hiss of helium could be heard as the buoyant gases vacated his flight bladder through his mouth. The massive fins closed against the armored sides of the beast, and Solomon began a steady descent south.

We entered Cerulean City via the south gate, into a district of the fair city that had been crumbling since the second burning. This wasn't the beautiful and popular northern precinct, or the meandering downtown section.

Southern Cerulean was a ghetto, and not even the paparazzi would risk a trip into the depths of crime and destitution that plagued the southern half of the city. That said, even Black Market enforcers knew better than to pick a fight with a Blackhat. The scum of the streets scurried to make themselves scarce in light of Captain Lewis's presence.

It's just common knowledge. Rangers don't put up with any form of intimidation tactics. Posturing gangster antics to a Greenback is the same damn thing as requesting that Ranger to work your dumb ass over. And the Blackhats aren't afraid of letting their terrifying G.I. mon loose to make a scene out of the least little dispute. As Captain Lewis's recent outburst regarding the press stood testament to.

So unlike the paparazzi, we were feeling pretty safe in that dump of a precinct.

That said, I was still numb to it all.

The fact that I had just destroyed an entire League Gym compound, endangered hundreds of lives, pissed off the general population of Cerulean, and alienated yet another Gym Leader…

...Yeah, I felt like absolute shit.

I really wanted to visit Cerulean sometime in the future, but the lynch mobs were gonna deter me from that. I just followed Captain Lewis's silent footsteps through the ghetto in complete shock, and when she finally came to a stop before a street vendor, I just about planted my nose in the back of her graying dome.

"Congratulations, Zane." Captain Lewis turned to me with an ice-cream cone after having completed her transaction with the street vendor.

I could only stare at her offering in disbelief.

"...Seriously?" I asked, accepting the ice-cream cone from my CO with an incredulous expression on my face. Captain Lewis stiffened ever so slightly.

"A simple 'thank you,' should suffice, Ranger."

"Fair enough. Thanks for the ice-cream. Now where's the booze?" I actually managed to grin at my scandalized CO.

"I don't drink, and according to Alexandria's latest progress report, you need to lay off the sauce. You've had one too many close calls while under the influence. It's time to sober up, Zane." Captain Lewis informed me, starting on her own cone.

"Fuck that." I grunted, digging Colonel Howes's fifty-year-old gift out of my kit. But those cold eyes of Captain Lewis's froze me solid.

"-Alexandria and I could make your prohibition a standing order, Ranger." Captain Lewis warned me in an icy tone before I could even pull the cork out.

I was grimacing like a sore bitch when I took my first bite of ice-cream.

"...It's delicious." I reluctantly grumbled to Captain Lewis. And I couldn't believe what happened next.

Captain Mary Lewis of Blackhat Team Seven, who was recognized as both the most severely tempered broad and the coldest hearted bitch in all of the Ranger Corps…

...Was actually smiling at me.

"Chris Lebreau was right, Zane. You made the spectacle that we needed you to make in order to get this Operation into the public's radar. You did well, kid."

-That was not what I had been expecting.

"Yeah. Great. You know, I actually liked Cerulean. I actually liked it a lot…" I was whingeing on the spot.

"You can't make an omelet without breaking some eggs. And you broke one very famous and expensive egg, Zane. The Cerulean Gym is now the primary ingredient in your League omelet. Now you just have to garnish it." Captain Lewis was still smiling, though there was an uncharacteristic mischief playing in those normally cold eyes.

"Right. I just hope that my dead corpse doesn't serve as the seasoning to this omelet." I moaned, stepping off on my right foot. Captain Lewis gave me the reins on our walk through the ghetto. After finishing the ice-cream, we were both completely silent. Right up until-

"-Zane?"

"Yes sir?" I halted my pace, and about faced to my Superior.

"What is your next move?" Captain Lewis was back to her normal self. I couldn't repress my sigh. After all the shit that I'd gone through in Cerulean, I had actually been hoping for a little break while my ravaged team recovered. But the mission was behind schedule. I had postponed both of my first two Gym challenges due to unforeseen circumstances.

Captain Lewis was reminding me that there was a deadline to Operation: Wounded Hearts.

-The Indigo League's 1075th Seasonal Finals. Just eight months away.

"I dunno yet. There's only two more Gyms that will accept Intermediate-Two challenges, and frankly, my squad isn't ready for a Major-ranked Gym battle. I need to compare my roster against Ericka Valhallen's and Lt. Jackie Surge's Intermediate-Two crews, just to get an idea-"

-And that sudden familiar sensation cut me off dead with the dread.

Captain Lewis reacted to it like a bolt of lightning.

"KARST! REPORT!"

Captain Lewis released her Interloper, and one pissed off Blackhat Absol appeared in the center of Cerulean's ghetto streets, before making a beeline straight for a shadowed alleyway. That Absol already knew what it was up against. Interlopers do not like Ghosts. Not one bit. Karst's horn was lowered for the kill and her snarl was rendered in a spitting fury.

Captain Lewis's Absol never stood a chance. Something stopped Karst dead in her tracks with a metallic crash, before her fluffy white ass was hurled right back at Captain Lewis's feet by something that we couldn't even see.

At least, we couldn't see him until he was standing less than a meter before us, his massive sword's jagged tip positioned above Karst's ribs at a perfectly vertical angle. That terrifying shrouded hulk assumed a regal stance, and prepared his two-Ranger audience for an Absol's bloody execution with an ascending pommel.

"That's enough, Pariah."

The Aegislash checked his plunge; sparing the unconscious Karst, and instantly disappeared from our line of sight. A repetitive and distinct sound reverberated from the blackened alley, and his freaky highness stepped out into the failing sunlight; lackadaisically clapping his hands together while that giant fucking sword, shield, and shroud reappeared right behind his left shoulder.

"Bravo. Bravo…" TH was smiling when he slowed his applause. Those shade-hidden eyes were fixed dead center on me.

"Well done, Mister Bastard. Well done indeed. I must confess that I laughed myself hoarse when news of your Cerulean victory reached my ears…" The lazy clapping came to its final cadence, and the Eidolon King slowly lowered his lethargic palms to his sides.

"What do you want, Halcyon?" Captain Lewis was in the danger mode. I knew Captain Lewis's stern voice. I had heard whispers of her friendly voice. But I hadn't heard her business tone since the Snorlax incident in Viridian.

I'm amazed that TH only raised an eyebrow in response to that lethal voice. I would have been booking it for the closest exit if Captain Lewis's deadly tone had been directed at me.

"Merely to congratulate our aspiring Blackhat on his latest triumph, of course." TH was ever so pleasant when he addressed Captain Lewis. Captain Lewis shifted suddenly, cooly moving into position between the shocked me and the smirking him, her hand calmly reaching for the Pokeballs on her belt.

"Zane. Take Solomon and run. Run as fast as you possibly-"

"-Exodus." TH waved his arm in one of his contemptuous gestures. And what answered that listless motion of TH's was his own fucking shadow, defying the angle of light in a blackened wave as it stretched out from him to us, invading Captain Lewis's shadow and my own.

The instant that darkened bridge connected us with TH, the blood froze solid in my veins. That unnatural cold heralded a specific Ghost's presence. I could see him grinning in the merged shadows. I played witness to that bleeding mouth of his splitting open like a fetid scab. I could hear him chuckling from the Distortion in a chorus of wicked voices, encompassing every unhallowed and eldritch range in its every pitch; vexing our ears with the tortured moans of both the conceivable and the unimaginable. I could feel that Ghost crawling under my icy skin…

-Exodus, TH's fucked up Gengar.

I couldn't voluntarily move a muscle in my frame, and neither could Captain Lewis. We were servants to the legendary White Shadow of House Halcyon. We were nothing more than dogs chained to the kennel master of the Eidolon King.

If TH had wanted to kill us at that point, then his Exodus could have simply strangled us to death with our own fucking hands.

Nothing could deny Exodus, the White Shadow in his immutable form. Nothing could resist this calibre of spiritual possession.

"If you are quite finished with your unfounded plotting, I would feel more than obliged to release you from this rather unnecessary fetter. I came here to speak with you, not to murder you in cold blood." TH was fucking loving this. You could tell that just by looking at his evil grin. He had rendered a Blackhat Captain and her petty Ranger accomplice absolutely helpless without so much as breaking a sweat.

"Exodus, I believe that my verdict has been heeded. You may release them." TH ordered of his lidless-eyed Gengar.

...There was something almost reluctant about that unearthly cackle as TH's grinning shadow hid within the Eidolon King's natural silhouette.

I just about fell on my numb ass when TH returned my self-dictation back to me.

"So what did you come here to say, Halcyon?" Captain Lewis growled. I had to give my Captain props. She barely shuddered after having her will violated by the Eidolon King.

"Oh, there's so much for me to say, Captain… And so little of it pertains to you." TH didn't even bother to look at Captain Lewis when he addressed her. Concealed or not, I could feel those creepy eyes of his staring straight at me.

"Then let me rephrase the question: What do you want with Zane?" Captain Lewis hissed. That jarred me out of my stupor. TH finally broke eye contact with me to shake his head and chuckle.

"Where to begin? Maybe with ACE's security details hounding my every movement- Oh forgive me, ACE's attempts at hounding my every movement-"

"-So what's the tally up to now? Eight dead Agents?" Captain Lewis cut TH off mid sentence. TH just smiled at her.

"Your casualty reports are dated, Captain. Surveillance Team four's failure raised ACE's weekly fatalities up to eleven Agents this afternoon…" TH politely corrected Captain Lewis.

I couldn't have found my breath even if I was suffocating. This was fucking horrifying. TH was ever so casual when referencing the human beings that he had recently murdered. It wasn't right. TH should've felt something for those lost souls, even if they were from ACE…

...He should've felt something other than amused.

"They're like cockroaches, really. No matter how many you crush under your heel, there's always a fresh swarm of detritus to replace the countless smitten." TH fixed his evil gaze on me, giving me that knowing smirk; as if he could read the cold horror in my thoughts.

"And what does Zane have to do with you slaughtering ACE surveillance personnel?" Captain Lewis tried to drag TH's attentions back to her, but it was to no avail.

TH was still smiling at me, like I was a tasty piece of meat with a cute little joke written on it.

"It seems that ACE simply cannot take the hint, and leave me to mine own devices. So instead of wasting my and mine revenants' time taking out any more of the rubbish; Oh, and wasting anymore of ACE's dwindling supply of Field Operatives, I thought that it would be for the best if I proposed a compromise." TH finally deigned it appropriate to meet Captain Lewis's cold eyes.

"I will allow ACE to closely monitor my activities within Kanto, without them needing to fear for any further casualties… Under one circumstance." TH's gaze shifted over to me again.

"The ACE Operative responsible for monitoring my activities will be one of mine own choosing." TH smiled at us both, indicating his choice of ACE Operative with an inclined head directed my way.

-Now I was ready to puke.

-And TH was only getting started.

"Zane is a Ranger, not an ACE Agent." Captain Lewis grunted. TH started chuckling again.

"Really? I have an official dossier with his identification specifying an ACE Service Record… Every initiative of which has been certified by the ACE Director's own handwritten decree." TH mocked.

My stomach bottomed out against the ground, and started seeping into the cracked tarmac.

I was a registered ACE Operative?

-That was news to me.

"-I would recommend against acting on that little contingency, Captain Lewis. Listen to your conscience in this regard. I won't allow you to fulfill that order." TH was quick to add. I looked up at Captain Lewis with a new level of fear. I could see her fighting some kind of internal battle right behind those distant eyes.

"...Cap? What's going on?" I almost backed away from Captain Lewis when I asked her that. Something wasn't right with Captain Lewis, and I could see that it was tearing her apart. But Captain Lewis couldn't answer me. She was somewhere else, somewhere far away from me or my voice.

"I'm terribly sorry, Zane. Allow me to explain. Captain Lewis is currently struggling with ACE's directive concerning liabilities to Operation: Wounded Hearts-"

"-Shut the hell up!" Captain Lewis snapped out of it, and rounded on TH like a Ursaring on the fritz.

"...Though it seems that my concerns were misplaced. Our dear Captain simply cannot bring herself to terminate her long lost sibling's replacement, even if ACE gave her a direct order to do so…" TH smiled warmly at the two of us.

Captain Lewis was weeping.

And I felt the vomit bubbling in my throat.

-ACE had given Captain Lewis an order to kill me if I ever found out about my ACE credentials?

"Go to hell, Halcyon… Just go to fucking hell already…" Captain Lewis spat, wrestling the agony back under control. But TH wasn't done toying with her yet.

"Oh, that's coming Captain Lewis. That's coming quite soon. When my Ghosts finally deliver me into the Distortion, I'll be sure to give your brother my regards… And explain to him how his death at the hands of his sister was all just an unfortunate tragedy brought about by the Military's sordid miscommunications…" TH was living it up. I was choking right next to the crumbling Blackhat who had standing orders to kill me.

This thing wasn't a fucking human being…

TH was a Goddamn monster…

"I- I can't allow it, Halcyon. You are not taking Zane out from under my command." Captain Lewis summoned up every remaining ounce of her resolve and presented to the Eidolon King in a cool challenge.

-And all TH did was laugh his fucking head off at her challenge.

"My dear Mary Lewis! I am so sorry to have placed you in such an embarrassing set of circumstances! But I am afraid that I must remind you…" TH's chuckles winded down into that demeaning smirk.

"...You simply do not have the authority or the means required to deny me my choice in an ACE sponsored escort. So now I must turn to you, Zane…" TH ever so slowly pivoted his head over to me, while the giant fucking Ghost at his shoulder adjusted the angle of its blade.

"-Where do you intend to pose your next League challenge?"

I couldn't answer TH.

I couldn't even breath.

-How was that even relevant?

"What are you playing at, Halcyon?" Captain Lewis growled. But TH was finished with her. He didn't even pay Captain Lewis's murderous glare any heed.

"It seems as though your options are limited to either Vermilion or Celedon next, unless you wish to pose a Major ranked challenge against the Kantonese Gymnase Meister hierarchy… Which I would advise against." TH's smile was gone. He was all business now. My overwhelmed brain struggled with this transition, even while Captain Lewis struggled for a footing in this conversation.

"Just what are you trying to do, Halcyon?!"

"...Surely you're not considering Celedon next, are you Zane? You don't want to return to Celedon. You have family there. Or at least, what's left of your family…" A smile flickered on TH's face for the briefest moment, while his horrid connotations sank into my already broken mind.

"SHUT THE FUCK UP, YOU FUCKING FREAK!" Captain Lewis was losing it all over again.

"-What do you mean, what's left of my family!?" I lost it on the spot. The fear of this monster was suddenly gone. He was crossing the line again. I was ready to kill TH. What the fuck was he on about now-?!

"You mean to tell me that no one told you? I could've sworn that the Rangers were obligated to inform their members of a death in the family…" TH feigned his shock with a cold smile. My Captain staggered. It took one long moment of me suffering TH's cruel smile and the cold dread seeping down my spine before Captain Lewis's haggard face turned to me with a dire portent. She was trying to answer for something. Some kind of wrong perpetrated against me, a wrong that had been authorized by the Ranger Corps' own High Command themselves.

I could tell that Captain Lewis knew exactly what TH was on about, and she needed to say it before he could.

I could tell that just by how she was facing me, but refusing to meet my desperate eye.

"...Chief Warrant Officer Zane Bastard…" Captain Lewis began that solemn line around the same point that I started hyperventilating. She could finally lift her watering eyes to mine.

"...It is with my deepest condolences that I dutifully inform you of the death of your mother, Abigail Hobbes."

...I hit the fucking ground like a falling rock.

I was drooling and weeping into the road.

Every breath of mine began in a wheeze, and my each and every exhale ended in a squeal.

-This can't be happening…

This can't be happening to me...

"-Mom?" I choked on that word when my gut forced every wind that I had left into my closing throat.

"Leukemia. Such a dreadful way to die…" TH's dry voice sounded in the background, but I could barely hear it over the blood rushing through my ears.

"...That's enough, Halcyon. You've had your fun." Captain Lewis's broken voice warbled.

-Oh no.

Theron wasn't done yet. He wasn't even close to being finished with me.

"Hardly, Captain. You neglected to inform your petty Officer of the late Abigail Hobbes's time of death…" TH actually sounded irritated with Captain Lewis. It took a moment for that implication to register in me, but before I could devote any process to it, I saw my Captain fall to her knees out of the corner of my apathetic eye.

I just wanted to die…

There was nothing left for me here…

Everything that I'd ever loved had been taken from me...

"...Zane?" Captain Lewis picked up my limp body off the road, and pulled me into a protective embrace.

"...I'm sorry…" Captain Lewis moaned.

"Tell him. Like you should have told him… Six months ago…" TH was fucking livid, his vocals shifting into that mix of hate-filled cries, mingling with all those screams of agony and all those pleas for mercy, all overlapping in those hundreds of horrid voices.

I threw Captain Lewis away from me, and dragged my furious self to my feet.

-Six months?!

My mother had been dead for six months, and not one Ranger in all of the Corps could find the fucking heart to fucking tell me?!

"-Zane!" Captain Lewis was still on her knees, and my lost breath came back to fill my fucked up lungs in a rabid tempest. My crying eyes were wide and hideous, there was spit flying from my clenched teeth every time I exhaled, and my temples were going to rupture for all the hot blood raging through them.

"Six… six months?!" I roared, before filling my torn throat with a shallow breath.

Six months. Well before I accepted my mission in Operation: Wounded Hearts. Well before I was promoted to Chief Warrant Officer. Almost two whole months before a Snorlax had mauled me and murdered my Echo…

They had all stabbed me in the back.

-All of them.

ACE. The Rangers. High Command. Captain Lewis. Colonel Howes.

-Every fucking one of them.

"If it is any consolation to you, Ranger... Your mother did not die alone." TH was speaking to me again, and my livid eyes turned to face the Devil of Kalos.

"There was one individual who remained by her side throughout the entire ordeal. One other person who loved your mother enough to hold her hand throughout her final moments…"

"-Don't listen to him, Zane! He's just trying to get inside your head-!"

"SHUT THE FUCK UP, YOU LYING BITCH!" I almost drew my knife when I rounded on Captain Lewis. Those pleading eyes of hers went stone cold dead when they met my hellish gaze. She knew it now.

-I was fucking lost.

"...Your father performed his marital vows honorably, and served as the sole individual who stayed by your mother's side, right up until the very end." TH wasn't smiling. He wasn't mocking me. There was something of a sympathy in that voice, and layered somewhere beneath it…

...There was a quiet respect.

"...But if you were to so request, I could repeat her last words to your father for you…"

-That's just Theron's fucked up way of trying to make amends. He wasn't trying to antagonize me with that dreadful offer. He wasn't trying to piss me off even further than I already was. But he sure as hell did.

"You can shut the fuck up too, you fucking freak." I hissed to his smirking Highness. Pariah hefted his sword.

"And you can go back to hell, you fucking abomination." I growled at his Aegislash. TH's smile was poison to my eyes, as he placed a restraining hand on the hilt of Pariah's blade.

"Thank you for your service, Pariah. You have served me nobly. You are now dismissed." TH banished his huge fucking Guardian with a soft voice and a gentle pat on the pommel. I guess the two of them had made up after that little fiasco in Lune, 'cause Pariah didn't even hesitate to carry out his new orders. That Ghost of a Knight silently departed back into the blackened lands from which he'd came, without even lighting up his red eye to remind Zane Bastard that an angry Ghost wanted him dead.

"Zane?" TH extended a hand to me.

"-Shall we make for Vermilion next?" TH smiled ever so charmingly when he addressed the grieving and pissed off Ranger just two meters away from him. I took my sweet time drawing those ragged breaths, before I stalked my way over to the Eidolon King's immediate vicinity. Through the penumbra of TH's Distortion seep, I could feel every one of his fucking Ghosts scratching at the fabric of reality, all of them desperately trying to break free of the Distortion and haunt my emotionally compromised ass for breakfast.

But Theron had them all under his command.

-And not a single one of his Knights were going to defy their King's sovereign decree.

I swatted TH's offered hand away from my person, and glared down into his shade-covered eyes.

"Alright, TH. I'll play your stupid fucking game for now. But don't you dare treat me like a fucking pawn. And you can quit playing your fucking mind games on me as well." I wasn't letting him get under my skin. TH could've killed me with a flick of his wrist, this mortal monster could have cast me directly into hell with the tiniest flicker of his thoughts…

-But I wasn't fucking afraid of the Eidolon King.

If killing me was the best that Theron could do…

-Then I had nothing to fear of TH.

I honestly thought that my heathen ass was Ghostproof.

-How fucking funny that thought seems to me now…

"Of course, Zane. I had rather hoped that you would rise above this petty tribulation. And you have not disappointed me." TH folded his arms across his chest and beamed at me. The weird fuck was actually proud of me, but even if his pride in me was exposed for anything other than my boldness, I still wouldn't have given a fuck. We were doomed to meet on some kind of field, the Eidolon King and I.

We were fucking doomed to learn one another, and to measure ourselves off of what we discerned from the other in our union.

...But I'm getting ahead of myself.

-That part of the story will have to wait.

And following that bitter epiphany, the Devil of Kalos and the Fucking Bastard turned their backs on the fallen Blackhat Captain Lewis and her defeated Absol; before marching north, side by side, towards Cerulean's shuttle terminal.

"Now tell me one thing, TH…" I growled when we were out of the earshot of any ACE sponsored Blackhats.

"Please, Zane. I would prefer it if you would refer to me as Theron." TH humbly requested.

"I could also call you Grave-Fucker if I wanted to, so why don't we just keep it at TH?" I spat. TH remained respectfully silent.

"...Now for what fucking reason did you drag me into this shitfest for?" I hissed. TH stopped walking for a moment, and that wicked smirk returned with aplomb. Meeting my eyes with those sequestered grey orbs of his, the Devil of Kalos uttered the following phrase-

"-Inimicus inimici mei amicus meus est."

-Well it's a damn good thing that I'd been brushing up on my latin.

"-The enemy of my enemy is my friend."

I coldly replied with the contemporary translation. TH's smile widened.

"Just so that we understand one another, Mister Bastard." TH chuckled. I could only glower at him.

"Like that's ever gonna happen." I growled through clenched teeth. TH just kept laughing his ass off. A buzzing from TH's front pocket sounded, interrupting that vile laughter; and the Eidolon King calmly drew some kind of communications device from his breast pocket. I don't know what kind of tech could have possibly stood up to an incessant barrage of Distortion screams, but it goes to figure that the Devil of Kalos would have had access to it.

"Dear me, can my Royal Court do nothing right? Forgive me, Zane. I must take this call in privacy. I will meet you at the Cerulean shuttle terminal shortly. Tram Three. Docking bay six. Private car. We make for Vermilion within the hour." TH gestured to the road north.

"You can keep that private car all to yourself. I'll ride my badge on economy. I'd rather smell the dirty hippies and listen to the screaming children than put up with your haunted ass for thirteen hours straight." I growled. TH kept right on smiling at me.

"Then by all means, Zane. Whatever makes you feel the most comfortable." The Devil of Kalos bowed to me with a wicked grin, before he turned his back on the glaring eye of the Fucking Bastard, and sauntered his merry way right into a newly rent Distortion rift.

When that screaming hole had sealed and taken the grey-eyed freak with it, I could finally drop my fucking guard. After I'd fought back the tears again, I headed straight for a flower shop and then followed it up with a trip to the postage office.

...I had to send a very late boutique of flowers to my mother's grave.

"Good evening."

"You've checked my White King. Congratulations, Halcyon. Now you have my personal attention."

"It's about time that you returned my calls, Director."

"...Just what are you getting at?"

"Only that your absence in my dealings with ACE has come across as, shall we say… A tad disrespectful?"

"Our agreement stated that you and I would never have contact-"

"Which was a rather foolish edict on your part, and a rather inconvenient stipulation forced upon my person."

"..."

"..."

"...Well now you've forced me to revoke my absence. If this isn't treason-"

"Au contraire, Director. Treason? Heh. I reserve such a maneuver for my last resort."

"You've claimed one of my Kings-"

"Correction. I've claimed two of your Kings. Or do you mean to tell me that you have somehow eliminated the Black King from the board?"

"..."

"...Ah. I see. So Theron Halcyon is still irreplaceable?"

"I've got to hand it to you, Halcyon… You've played your hand damn well. You've managed to manipulate this entire situation in your favor. You're right. I can't replace you. The good King Arturia is that close to declaring war on Indigo. There's only one thing stopping him from sending troops over to our shores. There's another Kalosian King currently hosted in Indigo. A Kalosian King that actually maintains more public favor than Arturia does. The only thing holding King Arturia back from war with Indigo is your presence here. So what's your next move?"

"My next move depends entirely upon how reasonably the Director of ACE conducts this delegation."

"...So what do you know about Operation: Wounded Hearts?"

"Everything. I even know how it ends-"

"Bullshit. I don't buy into that whole religious cock and bull tripe about you seeing into time. You're no Prophet. The only thing those cursed eyes of yours can see is rot. Not time."

"Whatever helps you sleep at night, Director."

"Well then, Prophet… Let's be perfectly hypothetical for one second. Let's say that you're only an aggravating thorn in my side. A necessary thorn. A thorn that I can't remove, but a thorn that I sure as hell don't have to patronize. Other than that contrived necessity, what do you really own as a bargaining chip?"

"Quite a bit, I would imagine-"

"The White King can be replaced. Go ahead and kill him. Zane is almost as much of an irritating a thorn in my side as you are. You have nothing-"

"I have no intentions of killing our White King, nor holding him hostage as a bargaining piece. Did you truly think me so desperate that I would actually conform with such a shallow maneuver?"

"..."

"...I can't believe this. I am genuinely insulted."

"So you just kidnapped Zane to get my attention?"

"Kidnapped? For the love of the Crown…"

"Cut the theatrics, Halcyon. Spit it the fuck out. Why did you commandeer my White King?"

"...Very well. I suppose that I can be upfront with you."

"..."

"..."

"Well?"

"...I have but a meager handful of years left on this earth before my spirits steal me away from my necessary role. Your projected timeframe will take decades to bring fruition. Decades well beyond my own expiration. An expiration that neither you or I can afford. Operation: Wounded Hearts is progressing far too slowly. I am accelerating the proceedings."

"-Excuse me?"

"Director… You honestly thought me only a Crowned pawn, didn't you?"

"You aren't suggesting-?"

"Of course I am."

"...This won't accelerate your return to Kalos! We still need time to-!"

"Dear me, Director... I didn't come to ACE with a plea for a coup! I didn't flee Kalos like a wanted criminal! I simply departed by my own volition. I do not require your agency's aid in deposing Allan Arturia!"

"...Then why did you come to Indigo with a plea for asylum?"

"Now that question I would have happily answered if only you had granted me with a direct correspondence to your station sooner. But instead, you chose to operate from the shadows of Adamus Oscarin and your loyal ACE hounds, all of whom are now dead…"

"-Why did you come to Indigo, Halcyon?"

"I can answer that query by proposing a different question of which you can petition of me, Director. Ask me how long I've known about Operation: Wounded Hearts."

"...!"

"Ask me."

"...How long have you known about Operation: Wounded Hearts?"

"...Since before the Kalosian League's prior Seasonal Finals."

"-How?!"

"I have my means."

"Really? So why didn't you tell your King Arturia about it back then?"

"Because my means were interpreted as treason, and Allan Arturia foolishly favored sticking my head on a pike instead of heeding my advice."

"...So that's why you summoned up your Aegislash and stabbed him in the back with it?"

"It was the primary reason for my betrayal, yes."

"Are you sure that serving him as his dog for all those years had nothing to do with you twisting the knife in his spine?"

"I merely clarified that Allan Arturia's paranoia was the primary reason for my betrayal. But if I must also confess; a healthy amount of spite supported my secondary prerogative."

"Well, well… It's all starting to make sense now. Except for one key detail..."

"You want to know why I spared Allan Arturia's life?"

"Obviously. I can't discern a tangible reason for why he's still sitting on the Kalosian throne."

"Oh, you can't discern a reason, Director… But my eyes can."

"...What is that supposed to mean?"

"Give it time. You don't believe in religious cock-and-bull tripe. Or rather, you do not believe yet…"

"..."

"..."

"...Okay, Halcyon… I'll play along with that. But now I need to know something else. Something a bit more substantial than a Prophet's vague prediction. I want to know what your game plan is."

"Is this an acknowledgement of my deserved role in Operation: Wounded Hearts that I'm detecting?"

"I'm considering it. But I need to know your angle. Nothing you've done since entering Kanto has assisted Operation: Wounded Hearts in any way, shape, or form. As a matter of fact, you've been nothing but detrimental-"

"Really, Director? Your lack of foresight depresses me…"

"Then explain yourself. Starting with my dead Agents."

"Your nerve simply astounds me. I provided you with plenty of warning regarding my privacy and the consequences of its violation. And you dare to ask me-"

"You see, I don't buy that. Not for one second. You killed my surveillance teams because you're hiding something-"

"And of course, I assumed, incorrectly it appears; that after I had slaughtered enough of ACE's hounds... The master of those hounds would finally deem it fitting to grant me an audience with his person."

"..."

"..."

"...And Pewter? Would you care explaining to me what that catastrophe was all about?"

"My sudden absence in Kalos generated quite a bit of controversy. The Eidolon King, disappearing without a trace? Allan Arturia denouncing me as a coward who fled to the shadows in fear of his majesty? The previous League Champion, assuming my rightful station in my stead? Quite the controversy; wouldn't you say, Director? Some even dared to whisper that I was dead…"

"...So you used the Indigo League to project your presence in Kanto, just to reassure the Kalosian people that you still lived?! You almost started a war with that stunt!"

"Oh, yes… A war. A war that you barely noticed from your terrified roost in Indigo. You were too busy preparing for a war that would never have even reached your shores. You never noticed the real war, the war simmering in a distant nation… Did you not hear all of Kalos screaming my name in glory when their Champion reappeared in a foreign land, not as a cowardly shadow, but as a conquering King?"

"...That was one hell of a gamble, Halcyon…"

"And my purpose in Pewter was two-fold. You do of course, remember who else was present for my victory at Gymnase Meister Brock's Pit?"

"...Zane… The White King…"

"Precisely."

"...How does he work into your plan?"

"For the sake of our Operation, I cannot overtly compete within the Indigo League. Someone else must claim Indigo's coveted Throne. But say that I had a confidant… a publicly recognized ally… an understudy of sorts…"

"...Oh my God. You're fucking insane."

"I thought that you would approve of my little adaptation to our Operation…"

"-Can you make it work?"

"Of course I can."

"..."

"..."

"...I completely underestimated you."

"-Should I accept that statement as an apology?"

"..."

"I don't have much time, Director…"

"You'll receive your credentials immediately. I'll have both yours and Zane's decorums delivered to your private car on the Cerulean shuttle. Congratulations, Vice-Marshal Halcyon. You're now a player in this game."

"If I may be perfectly frank, Director?"

"Of course you may speak frankly, Vice-Marshal."

"-It's about fucking time."

"Heh… Damn. And I thought that the people of Kalos refused to use profanity…"

"We reserve such vile expressions for deserving circumstances. This delay qualifies."

"Very well. I look forward to accessing your results. I do hope that you're up for the detail, Halcyon… This kind of Operation cannot tolerate any further forms of non-compliance…"

"I'm already invested in the outcome of Operation: Wounded Hearts, Director. Here's to a brighter future for all of humanity."

"And here's to the brighter futures of all those who brought humanity this new era of prosperity, Vice-Marshal."

"..."

"..."

"If the pleasantries have concluded, then I believe both you and I have obligations that require our immediate attendance. A most pleasant evening to you, Director."

"And the same to you, Vice-Marshal. I'll contact you directly from now on. Let's keep this latest development between the two of us for now. The situation in Kalos is still far from stabilized, and I don't need Arturia complicating things when he finds out about your promotion."

"I concur with your desire for secrecy. I will of course, divert mine own assets into calming the Kalosian Crown. Well, the Royal Court will know peace at least… But I'm quite sure that Allan Arturia will soon assume his preordained role when I've stripped him of all his other options…"

"...Glad to hear it. This meeting has concluded. I'm cutting the feed now."

"..."

"..."

"Well... That was predictable."

"..."

"...What is it, Pariah?"

"..."

"...I am aware of this. But it is necessary."

"..."

"We need more time. Let them believe what they want to believe."

"..."

"Yes, I know that now… I should have seen it sooner. But his empowerment is a risk that I must take."

"..."

"...No. I forbid it. You and I both know that Zane isn't just a puppet. And unlike my recent dealings with the Director of ACE…"

"..."

"-I have absolutely no intentions of betraying the Bastard King."

.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Wrecker Cape. "Dragons, fairies, and foxes; Oh my!" Almost sounds like Comic-Con…

-We Pokemon old-timers all have that one 1st-gen mon that we hold accountable for starting our lifelong obsession. Can you guys figure out which one of the "original" 151 Pokemon now carries the blame for inspiring Vile Slanders' monstrous works of Pokemon based fanfiction?

Here's a surprise. It wasn't Gyarados.

It was fucking Onix.

-Hail to the King, baby.

By the way...

-Are 66,000 word chapters just a little too big?