Pokemon Masters have great importance in society.

They are guards that defend the regions from threats. The first line between the outside and what we’ve built inside the Regions. They work in the Frontier, Government, the Pokemon League, and the Army. They are asked to perform tasks in the name of protecting the Region and its people and in exchange for that hard and dangerous work, society labors to support them through benefits and the high salaries that masters have. It’s an arrangement in which both sides exchange what they need to live or in other words, security for funding, and funding for security.

Two parts of a whole, the whole being the Region itself. Two parts that cannot exist by themselves.

Masters, however, are asked to make terrible sacrifices. In more mundane professions the sacrifice made might be to spend time away from home to travel for a company, not building a family to have time to work towards a great personal ambition or working yourself to exhaustion for a month or two to launch a product in time.

Masters sacrificed way more than that. The Harrington Report estimated that a pokemon master who worked at the Frontier or Mt. Silver would lose at least five pokemon in a ten-year period. Five companions that they raised by hand, probably since they were young kids trying to win the Conference. Some masters even described their pokemon as their family or children and then were asked to sacrifice them for our protection.

The Regions raised many masters. How many would turn into crazy hermits who wandered the Unknown World, unable to enjoy the world they defended? How many would go into murderous revenge against a perceived or real offense? How many were put down by the ISD before they could fulfill a nefarious and ambitious plan?

As Indigo learned with Team Rocket, too many.

The master named Brian returned his eyes to the fire. I felt something in my brain flicker, it was there but I didn’t know what it was. A dark type Pokemon Master named Brian?

“Such a beautiful night. Wouldn’t you two agree?”

“Yeah. It’s art.”

Jess’ eyes blinked with disbelief as she looked between the two of us while her hands dug deeper into the pockets of her winter jacket. Cape hadn't taken his eyes off of the indifferent Cacturne. The other pokemon didn’t react, they were too tense for that.

They could feel the power of the Cacturne.

“Yes, yes, I quite agree...” He leaned back from the fire and took the whole camp. “Looking at this group right here enjoying a nice campfire at night makes me nostalgic… Tell me, how are your journeys progressing?”

“We are doing well, sir,” I said and Jess nodded.

“Everything going well then? No unexpected events?”

“None, sir.”

“No criminal organizations to fight I presume?” He whispered. We shook our heads and he nodded. “Good. The funny thing, however, is that I heard, as I was traveling south from Olivine, that a rock type pokemon burned down Ilex Forest. Since you two are coming from the south I assume you know something about this?”

Jess's eyes flicked to me and I slightly shook my head for her to not ask about the inflection on rock type. The less we knew the better. More importantly was how he knew we were coming from the south.

“Yes, that is true, sir.” I took a pause, “I'm a native of Azalea and we both were in the city when it happened… And helped with the crisis.”

“Not quite a relaxed journey, then.” The master's dead eyes fixed on me. “And I guess you don’t have much information about the incident on top of what has been passed by the news?

I glanced at the motionless Cacturne. “… No we don’t.”

Brian nodded. “Nevertheless, Indigo is going in the right direction if we have trainers as dutiful as you two who show up to emergencies. In my time I unfortunately witnessed trainers running away from alerts more times than helping with them. I reported them, of course, so I guess that might have had an effect... I even heard rumors that a ten-year-old was the first to enter a dangerous raid against the Rockets two years ago at Celadon. He went on to win the Kanto Conference if I’m not mistaken?”

Jess and I both nodded. “Yes, sir, that would be Red.”

“Red?” He chuckled and turned to Jess on the other side of the fire. “Such a shame that we need to hide our youngest prospects with those made-up names, but I'm not surprised that this Red fellow was brave as a Braviary, trainers sponsored by Professor Oak have the reputation for being quite the fearless type,” He turned his head towards me. "Correct?”

Brian was waiting for an answer so I stiffly nodded. He knew who we were, or at least who I was. I should’ve known, no master would step on a twig without knowing exactly what he was doing. Now, what does he want?

He dismissively moved his hand. “Well, I have been in the Other Continent for quite some time so forgive me for speaking so much about such unrelated topics to our conversation.”

I almost rolled my eyes. But that piece of information made us relax a little. No crazy or dangerous Pokemon Master would be allowed to enter a plane that passed the Medial Ocean.

Now we knew that he was, most likely, just joking around with us. He might have a reason to be speaking to us but at least now I could speak more freely.

“It’s no problem, Master Brian,” I said, “we are happy to talk with a Master but, and I don’t mean to upset you sir, could you please fix the surroundings”

Jess’ eyebrows furrowed and her body turned as she looked around trying to find what I was speaking of. Master Brian looked pleasantly surprised.

“Bravo, Scott Wood, as expected of Professor Oak’s trainer.” He said and snapped his fingers.

The biting cold and the deep darkness that forced us to light a big campfire were sucked away as if someone were using a vacuum cleaner on the whole forest. Jess and the pokemon— Cape and the Cacturne not included— jumped in surprise as the entire landscape began to change. Jess gave a sudden scream as goopy shadows fell from the trees and passed under our feet to gather behind our camp. We all turned in that direction and saw the outline of a small creature begin to form between the small grass behind us.

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The darkness formed red eyes that skimmed us. Yellow lines began to appear all over the sleek body that lazily rested in the grass. An Umbreon, and like the Cacturne, that one was way bigger than it had any right to be.

“What the hell was that?!” Jess’s jaw went slack.

“A master’s manipulation,” I murmured. A Cacturne and an Umbreon, huh? “The Dark Marauder?”

“Good attempt.” I looked back at Brian who laughed. “But I’m no mindless brute like that one, I have technique... And he’s also from Hoenn and way older than me.”

“Can we focus on the fact that we were inside of an illusion this whole time,” Jess said standing and looking at the the Umbreon.

It was no illusion. The Eevee evolutions were the masters of field manipulation, capable of warping their own bodies to become the field. Even for their standards, however, that had been the most realistic field manipulation I had seen, even counting Conference Finals. That Umbreon had truly become the night.

I only assumed what was happening because it would be too much of a coincidence for a dark-type master to appear right on the darkest night. I could only guess what was the range of that.

“Snowstorm Shadow?”

“She’s a woman.”

“Why the cold then?” I frowned. “Why not just make it darker?”

He hummed. “It makes more sense for the simple human mind if something dark is also cold… And Dark and Ice are closer than one might think.” He gave a dry chuckle. “But then again everything is closer than you think when you get far enough.”

I decided to stop trying to guess his moniker.

“Stop ignoring me,” Jess grumbled, still standing and still a bit afraid.

“My apologies, Jess Brin, I did not want to make you feel excluded.” She was quiet at the sound of her full name. “Speaking of, how are you Zangoose and Mantyke doing?”

Jess stilled and palmed her belt. I fully turned towards her and saw that two pokeballs were missing. Her face paled and she stopped breathing.

“Jess… Jess!” she looked with fearful eyes. “He is just joking around. Your pokemon are safe.”

The lanky man nodded in agreement. “He still tends to do stuff like that, unfortunately.”

The sound of a punch hitting flesh echoed from the tall grass. We looked towards the forest just as a small pokemon was thrown from the grass and landed face-first on the ground. The pokemon was pink and, while on the ground, we could see a lone tuff of black hair growing from the back of its head.

Another pokemon exited the grass from the same place, this one a lot bigger. It was a bipedal and fox-like pokemon with a combination of black fur and red hair. A Zoroark.

The Illusion pokemon made its way to Jess and extended a hand that had two pokeballs in retracted form between its three claws. Jess quickly grabbed them, put them back on her belt, and then took some steps back until she was standing behind me.

“I don’t believe you two met too many Impidimp.” Master Brian sighed. “At least, I hope you didn’t since they are rightfully known as little bastards in the Other Continent.”

The Impidimp raised its head to glare at the dark-type master.

“Anyways," Brian sighed. "I think we played enough, don’t you agree?”

We exchanged a glance. Jess gulped.

“Now, how do you catch a water pokemon?”

“Huh?” Jess asked.

“A fishing rod?” I guessed.

“No.” The dark master smiled. “We dangle a bait in front of it.”

My eyes widened. Shit.

“You are going to Grey Lake, correct?” Brian asked.

“… Yes.”

“To catch an ice type pokemon?” The dark master rolled his eyes at the lack of response. “Come on, it's not like it's hard to make that connection. However, don’t you find it strange that you aren't finding ice pokemon on the coast?”

“Ice types are rare on the coast,” I said.

“Not to this extent, they aren’t… But that might have something to do with the poachers that are luring them to Grey Lake and capturing them en masse. And yours truly was tasked with hunting them down since I'm passing by the area”

A group is trying to capture a lot of ice type pokemon? Why? I shook my head. Forget why, that has to do with us being bait. “What do you mean by bait? Can’t you just show up and arrest them”

“Unfortunately, no,” His small smile vanished into a cruel visage. “They are going to see me coming from kilometers away. They have someone decent in charge. You see, what makes them a problem of my stature is that their operation halts when someone comes even remotely close to the Lake. They run away like Rattata and hide until the person, usually a trainer trying to catch ice pokemon, goes away. A bunch of vermin that are delaying me from getting my vengeance.” He snarled.

Don’t ask, don’t ask.

Jess thankfully didn’t ask too. “So what is your plan to catch them if they go away?”

“They wait for people to get out, correct?” We nodded. “So I find myself thinking, what would happen if someone stayed there?”

“They would go away?” Jess said.

“No. Nobody stops a big operation like this one for just one measly trainer, Jess Brin.” Brian shook his head. “We don’t know why they are gathering the pokemon, maybe money, maybe some other reason. But my guess as to what's going to happen if you stay long enough is that some brutes dumber than a door are going to appear and try to intimidate you to leave. That will be when I will swoop in and capture them, you go your merry way and I interrogate them, invade their base, and inflict copious amounts of pain before handing them off to the Defense Department. Piece. Of. Cake.”

I stopped to think. That doesn’t sound that bad of a scenario. Making a master owe me one would be good. And also…

“Does that fall under the Civilian Act?”

“Clever kid. Yes, it does.” The dark master nodded.

“And you only need one bait, right?”

“Scott?”

I turned to look at her. “Remember our talk after the incident?”

She seemed like she wanted to argue but after some seconds she looked away.

Master Brian grinned. “The best bait would be the twelve-year-old, of course, no one suspects a true beginner. But we of the League are not so cold as to choose a younger person for even a slightly unsafe undertaking like this one if we can help it, of course... I also don’t want to talk to her uncle. So you, the sixteen, can be the only bait.”

He snapped his fingers and a Wigglytuff appeared near Brian with a pink glow. The pink pokemon had a very cheerful expression which comically contrasted with the somber faces of Cacturne, Impidimp, Umbreon, and Zoroark. She also had a big bag strapped on her back.

“Wiggly.” She said cheerfully to Brian and the others with a raised pink arm. Only the Umbreon and the Impidimp gave a sign of listening to it.

“Wigglytuff, could you please teleport Jess here to Oliver’s Town, please?”

“Wigglytuff!”

The pink pokemon strolled to Jess and extended her arm. Jess returned her pokemon, gave goodbye, and reluctantly grabbed the Wigglytuff arm. Both briefly glowed in pink light and disappeared.

“Now, as per the act, the reward for your help.” He threw me a journal that appeared in his hand. “You can use this to train while at the lake. You can copy it, but I want it back later.”

I looked at it and saw that the tag had written on it “Notes of Year Two”.

“However,” Master Brian began to search in his many pockets for something. After a full minute, he took out a normal pokeball and showed it to me. “Since you are Professor Oak’s trainer and I kind of owe him one or two favors. I will offer you the chance to convince this ice type to go with you. I found it wandering about in Unova and it said it wanted a good trainer. And who’s more competent than a trainer vouched by Professor Samuel Oak himself?”

He threw the pokeball to me and I caught it. His Cacturn and Impidimp instantly turned into red lights that flew toward their pokeballs. The Umbreon jumped above us and landed on Brian’s side while the Zoroark landed on the other side.

“Clever, I can use him as the reason why I’m staying at the lake for so long,” I said. Brian pointed to his head and winked. “But what if I find something better at the lake?”

“Unless you find Articuno himself I don’t think you are going to find something better.” He laughed. “Good luck, Scott. Train for some days and find some way to have fun with your pokemon. Think about this whole thing as a vacation and don’t worry. I will be watching you.”

“That doesn’t reassure me at all.”

He raised an eyebrow and he and his pokemon disappeared. It was not a Teleport this time. He simply vanished from the camp, even the stumps that his Cacturn created had vanished. The only things that proved that he had been here were the journal and the pokeball.

I put down the journal on a rock and grabbed my Pokedex to check the pokeball. It was already temporarily authorized for me so I guess he knew that I would take the job, or would have forced me to?

I used the scanning function to scan the pokeball and my mouth dropped when I saw which pokemon was inside.

It was a Cryogonal.