Author's Note:

Yeah, so here's the next chapter and the first author's note, but that's only because I forgot. To clear some things up; this is my first fanfic so there will be a few errors here and there. Additionally, reviews will be greatly appreciated and would be a big confidence booster.

In this chapter; action! Well, momentarily anyway.

Enjoy!

Chapter 3: The Rangers

I was awoken by a boot to the stomach.

Crying out; I tried to get up, but I found myself pinned to the ground by another boot. I looked at my aggressor; his face was hidden by a black balaclava and what appeared to be a black combat helmet. It was then that I noticed the bright red 'R' on the front of it – Team Rocket insignia.

"Oh Fuck." Was all I could say.

The Rocket turned to talk to his friend – Who was pointing an assault rifle at Maverick and Raiden.

"Radio command. Tell them we have found the dragonite." The one with the rifle said.

"Yeah, what do we do with the trainer and the luxray?"

"We can't let em' go, so cap em', we'll burn the bodies."

"Roger that."

He turned back to me, crouching down slightly. "Sorry kid, it's nothing personal. But hey, you won't die for nothing; we're gonna get a stack of cash for this." He stood back up to his full height, took a pistol from his holster and levelled it with my head. I closed my eyes. My life was over, just turned 18. I would never get to be a trainer either. I just hoped Raiden would manage to escape somehow.

A shot sounded out.

I slowly opened my eyes again. The pistol had shifted aim and the Rocket holding it was looking away. – I noticed why; the other Rocket was sprawled on the ground, his clothes were burnt and smoking but he seemed to be alive. Maverick must have hit him with a hyper-beam, I thought. The Rocket near me raised his gun to the dragonite, but never got the chance to fire as he was hit by another hyper-beam; sending him the same way as his friend. "Are you okay?" Mav asked, rushing over to me. "Yeah, I think so." I replied, getting to my feet. "What the fuck?!" Raiden shouted. It wasn't hard to tell he was shaken up, so I thought it would be best to return him to his pokeball.

I turned back to Maverick and he shoved the Rockets' assault rifle into my arms. I looked at him questioningly but he refused to look at me. "Finish the job." He said coldly. "Maverick…" I began, but he cut me off. "No, you have to. If you don't they will only find us again. And next time I might not be able to save you." He still wouldn't look at me. I examined the rifle in my hands; it was an AK47, the typical 'bad guy' gun. Well, video games taught me something at least. This one looked like it had seen better days; the wood furniture was scratched all over and the front grip was held on with duct tape. I pulled the bolt back slightly; there was already a round in the chamber. These guys were ready to take lives, so I was ready to take theirs. I strode over to the one who had kicked me and lined the muzzle up to his head, just like he had done to me. "You're fucked, kid. You're all fucked. The rockets will tear you apart!" He said under laboured breaths. I just grimaced and looked away, pulling the trigger. There was a loud bang and report from the rifle as it bucked in my hands. I didn't look at what I had done; I knew exactly what I would have seen. I just stepped over the body and repeated the process with the other Rocket. Once the deed was done, Maverick came over to me. "Look, I know you don't feel good about this…" He started, putting his paws on my shoulders. "…But trust me, you did the right thing." I shook his paws off. "How was that the right thing? I murdered two people!" I growled at him. And then he did something that shocked me; he hit me, hard, in the face with an open paw. I stared at him, clutching the now throbbing side of my face. "Sorry, you needed that. Look Jack, they were going to kill you, and they wouldn't pretend to give a shit about it either. They want me because I'm the only one who knows the fate of my old trainer." He paused to think for a minute. "We need to find the Ranger station, we can tell them everything. Make the truth known." There was an unmistakeable look of determination on his face. "There are bound to be more Rockets around. Hang on to the gun; you will need it to defend yourself if I can't."

I felt overwhelmed by the task, and by the sheer seriousness in his voice. There was no denying it; I was bloody terrified. "I can't do this, Mav." I said shakily, running a hand through my hair. "You can, Jack. You are strong, I can tell. You will be fine. I wouldn't ask you to do something you couldn't." I did feel a bit better at that. "Okay Mav, I'll try." He smiled slightly, and turned to one of the bodies and took off what appeared to be some sort of thick black vest with large pouches protruding from the front. He handed it to me. "Body armour; just a bit of mental security for you." He laughed. "It should have some extra ammunition in there too." He added. I slipped it over my head and secured the straps. It was heavy, but Mav was right; I did feel more secure. Then it hit me, like a ton of bricks; how did Maverick know all this? And why has his attitude changed almost completely? Realising it now was a little unsettling. I felt as if I didn't really know him. "Maverick…" I started, taking in a deep breath, "…Who are you?" He just sighed before replying. "I never lied to you, Jack. But I haven't told you everything, either. I've been working with the Rangers for the past year, unofficially of course. I monitored Team Rocket for the most part, trying to slow down any progress they made." I held up a hand to stop him. "So where do I come into this? And why did you pull the whole 'I just wanted to be on your team' thing?" This turn of events was starting to get to me, and I had to admit I felt betrayed. "I am sorry about that. The truth is that I do need a trainer, but one that is tough enough to join the Rangers, one like you." Oh, that was rich. "So, me then? It's me, the one you picked out of the bunch to go like a lamb to the slaughter. All for what? To avenge your dead trainer? Fuck!" I sat down and buried my face in my hands. "So all I am is a vehicle, to get what you want. A means to an end." The orange reptile crouched down next to me. "It's not like that. I don't want vengeance, and this isn't some fucking suicide run either!" I looked up at him and caught his glare. "All I want is to make sure that no one else has to go through what I went through. If I have to sink the entire Rocket Empire to do it, then so be it." And with that he turned and walked away. I scrambled after him. "Hey, wait!"

"I knew you would understand." The dragon said with a smile as I caught up to him. "Well, it's not as if I have a choice now, is it? I'm on the Rocket's shit list too." Now that I thought about it, I was probably going to be on Raidens shit list as well; he was still in his pokeball and knew nothing of what happened.

It was only when it burst into life that I noticed Mav was holding the dead Rockets' radio. The voice that sounded out was female and angry. "Davis, do you have the dragonite or not?" Mav raised the radio to his mouth. "Yeah, we got him." He said with a smirk, trying to impersonate the man. "What about the trainer and his Pokémon?" The voice asked again. "The trainer has been taken care of, don't worry boss." There radio went silent for several seconds. "Who is this?" The voice demanded. "Oh, piss." Mav cursed. "Units 2 and 3, alpha team is compromised! Respond to location immediately!" The voice sounded panicked as Mav switched off the radio. He turned to me, "We should probably pick up the pace a bit, c'mon we need to get to the Ranger station." And we ran out of the clearing and back into the forest.

We had been walking for well over four hours before either one of us spoke again. Mav was the one to break the silence. "I bet you're pretty pissed at me, after all that." I just huffed, thinking of an appropriate response. "Yeah, I guess I am. I mean, I understand why you did what you did, but that doesn't make it any easier for me, or Raiden. It's going to be a while before I can trust you again." I took a pokeball from my belt. "I'm going to let Raiden out now; he deserves to know what's happening." There was a small flash of light, and the luxray was back. He looked around wide eyed, surveying the area before he exhaled and relaxed slightly. "They were rockets." He stated. "And they were trying to kill us." He was glaring at me, with a mix of anger and fear on his face. "Why in the bloody hell were they after us?" I wasn't going to enjoy this. "They were after Maverick, and because we knew him the rockets tried to kill us to cover their tracks." Raidens glare dissipated as he shook his head. "Well, fuck. So we are going to be hunted for the rest of our lives." At this point I wasn't sure how this was going to play out, and then Maverick spoke out. "No, we won't. We are going to…" He was cut off by Raiden. "Shut it, fatty. You're the one that brought this whole thing on us!" He snarled at the dragon. "What did you call me?!" Mav snarled back, baring his decidedly large teeth. "Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't realise you were dumb and fat!" I had to dive out of the way as Maverick let loose a flamethrower, but the more agile luxray dodged it before letting loose a storm of electricity that would make Thor himself jealous. The attack hit and Mav was sent skidding along the ground. But he soon jumped to his feet and let out a fearsome roar. "I'll kill you, you fucking cat!"

I couldn't let this fight continue, they would probably kill each other. I made a step forwards when someone grabbed me around the neck and pressed a gun to my back. "Don't move, rocket scum." Came a familiar voice. "Boris?" I asked. He released me and holstered his pistol. "Oh hey, it's you! The one with the luxray!" He said in a surprisingly pleased tone. He then noticed said luxray tumbling around on the floor with the dragonite. "I see." He muttered to himself before taking out his pistol once more and firing a shot off into the air. The effect was quite comical; both Pokémon stopped immediately, Raiden hanging onto Mavs arm by his teeth and Maverick with his fist pulled back ready to punch him on the nose. Boris casually walked up to the pair. "What do you think you are doing?" He asked, the two Pokémon looking more than a bit embarrassed. He turned to the dragonite. "Maverick, this is your new trainer, yes?" the dragon nodded. "Then what were you doing fighting with his Pokémon!?" The Russian shouted. "He started it!" Mav retorted, rather childishly. "Rebenok! Child! You are a Ranger, Maverick. Start acting like it!" Boris then turned to Raiden, "And you! Save your fighting for the real enemy, eh? Get some discipline!" He walked back over to me. "Your team has a lot to learn, my friend. Follow me to the station."

The journey – all 50 metres of it – was in silence. Both Raiden and Maverick were dragging their paws behind us, hanging their heads in shame. Boris had taken my stolen rifle and body armour, I didn't ask why – I just assumed it was because it was enemy equipment, but still, in a strange way, I felt naked without them.

The ranger compound was basically a large square, with tall concrete walls on all sides. The entrance was a couple of red and white striped barriers with a security booth on either side. As we approached the barriers, a voice called out from one of the booths; "Hey, Boris. I take it Maverick has found himself a trainer?" The ranger asked. "Yes, but it seems they aren't on the best of terms at the moment." Wait, how did he know? The ranger in the booth raised the barrier and we carried on through. Inside the compound, a row of landrover defender four-wheel-drives took up half of one of the walls. Each vehicle was painted in the same olive green colour and appeared to be lightly modified, featuring a large nudge bar and a winch mounted on the front. Past the vehicles was the main building; constructed largely out of wood, the building was single floored and had two large automatic glass doors at the front. We walked through the doors and into the air-conditioned lobby where we were greeted by a totodile at the front desk. "Hello!" It beamed. "Welcome to the Sunyshore ranger station… Oh, uh, hey Boris." The crocodile Pokémon looked at us inquisitively. "Who's this?" He asked, pointing at us with a claw. "It doesn't matter, Rico. Just look after these two while I go find the boss." He turned to face Mav. "Maverick, you go and do whatever it is you usually do." And with that he turned and walked off further into the building. The dragonite gave me a look as if to say 'I'm sorry' before following Boris. That just left me and Raiden alone with the totodile. I took a seat next to the window and Raiden sat on the floor in front of me. "So you're going to be a ranger, huh?" Raiden started. "Yeah, I'm sorry about that. We don't have much of a choice; Mav really did put the screws in us." It was only then that I realised Rico was still listening. "Ah, it's not all bad mate, especially for a Pokémon like you." Raiden tilted his head slightly. "Explain." He demanded. "Larger Pokémon like you and Galina get to go out on all these cool missions." He stated excitedly. "But Pokémon like me are stuck at a desk." He trailed off, looking a little down. "Well I guess it'll just have to do." Raiden said to me, ignoring the totodile. "I'm sorry it's turned out like this mate, I know how much training would have meant to you." I said as I looked over at my luxray. "Shit happens. Besides, it's not like it was your fault." Silence fell upon the room, Rico pretending to read a book whilst Raiden and I just stared at the ground. "I killed two people today." My voice held no emotion. Rico threw his book down and leaned forward on his chair. "Oh ho, no way!" the little water type shouted. "You got to tell me all about…" He stopped in mid-sentence due to the glare I gave him. "I was wondering where you got that gun from." The luxray stated. "I can't say I wouldn't have done the same thing either. I was just a little spooked at the time."

"Mister Walker." We all looked up at the man standing before us; He was tall with very short blonde hair. He looked very business-like wearing a shirt and tie, an odd contrast to the camouflage clothing often seen around the station. "So, you want to be a ranger do you?" He asked, leaning towards me. "Uh, yeah, I guess." He produced a small sheet of paper and a pen from a file Rico handed to him. "Okay, sign here and here" The man told me, handing me the paper. "What, just like that? No interview?" Raiden asked. "No, I couldn't spare the time and we are really low on staff." And with that he took the signed papers and left, "Boris will show you the ropes." He said over his shoulder. "Well, that was easy." The luxray commented after the man was out of earshot.