“Slow down you idiot!”

It took me a moment to register what the person had yelled out by which time it had zoomed past by a good 20-30 meters. Slamming on the brakes I came to a sliding stop with the eevees a second delayed before they too slowed down to a stop before running back towards me. I stood up on my bike and turned around to where I had seen the person briefly. Around 30 meters back standing under the shelter of a large tree was a man dressed in faded tan and green uniform, his green pants several shades lighter than the plants surrounding him and his tan top had a small logo on his left chest hand side. This gave him a work uniform vibe rather than a military look (which I was judging solely from TV shows) though the frown on his face said he was not a happy man. He turned to his side and said something, which I was too far away to hear, but shortly afterwards a massive bird walks out from behind the tree. As the bird walked behind the man to stand out in the middle of the trees I was able to see that it was fractionally taller than he was. Its brown feathery body had 3 large red feathers protruding from the back of it, though what really caught my attention was that it had 3 heads.

One of the heads was swivelling around, continuously looking into the trees while the second was facing upwards, scanning the canopy of the trees, while the third was looking directly at me.

“Dooooooo-Drio!” called out the bird, no Dodrio, from its middle head which was followed by it snapping its razor sharp foot long beak in my direction. I felt my gut start to clench. Back home there are no natural predators outside of zoo’s so I had never actually been face to face with an animal that wanted a piece of me and some part of brain I didn’t know existed was waking up and realising we were no longer at the top of the food chain. As I reached down with my left hand to the knife I had on my belt I heard a growling start up around the bike. Pausing what I was doing I looked around to see all of my eevees with their heads down, hackles up and teeth bared slowly advancing to stand in a row in between me and the pawing Dodrio. My eyebrows shot up on my face. “This is new” I thought to my self in surprise. My dogs in the past have never been violent. Violent tendances are actively bred out of working dogs as no one wants them to take a chunk out of a sheep whilst they are working or excited, at worse case they tend to nip at the heels or tails of slow moving animals. The 5 of them now looked like they were ready to throw down in a way I hadn’t ever seen before. “I’m guessing more than their appearance changed when Mew did his thing to them” I thought.

“Sir, I’m going to need you to recall your pokemon, under the Viridian City Ranger Code, and approach to answer questions” the Ranger called out.

Thinking quickly to myself I tried to think of a valid excuse for not recalling my eevees, as the real answer of not owning any pokeballs while having a team around me in the middle of a forest would likely alarm the man in front of me or make him think I am lying straight away. I didn’t want to get on his bad side as I desperately needed help. Hoping that they would listen to me, as I wasn’t sure what else might have changed with them now, I called out to my team.

“Easy guys, get in behind me. It’s alright”

The team stopped their growling and trotted back to stand next to me, though I noticed that they all still had their ears pinned back against their heads, and the fur on the back of their bodies was still raised up. They listened to me but they definitely were still on edge.

“Ahh excuse me Sir, not to break the rules or anything but my stuff was all stolen earlier” I lied.

“Stolen” he replied questioningly, raising an eyebrow.

“Yeah, ahh nothing evil just I had all my stuff in my bag and some pokemon ran off with It. I’m guessing they were trying to get at the food in there. So I’m, ahhhh, a tad lost and in a rush trying to get back before It gets dark.” I continued on in my lie. I put a sheepish smile on my face and started to rub my head like I was embarrassed to be telling him this.

Releasing a big sigh the ranger turned to his pokemon and gave it a command quietly that I couldn’t hear, but which caused it to relax though its 3 heads continued to look around the forest. After speaking to the dodrio he started walking towards me in which I hopped off the bike and responded by heading towards him. I wanted to make a good impression as while I may have started off by lying to him I was incredibly relieved to see another person, even though I had no idea who he was. Being alone in a strange forest in a different universe was definitely getting to me. Coming to a stop just short of the ranger I gave him a quick up/down glance. He wasn’t a particularly tall man, his head being only a bit taller than my shoulder making him around 5 foot 10, but he looked solid. Not overly muscly like he had been crushing it in the gym, but the dense muscle of a person who worked hard and had years of conditioning behind them. Im not the best at guessing peoples ages but I assumed he was in his thirties, not old but not my age. Looking back to his face I saw that he had a frown on it as he did the same assessment of me. Giving myself a quick glance I could guess why he was a bit confused, while my wet weather gear was well made and designed for being out doors it is not an outfit designed for travelling long distances through a forest.

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“Alright Trainer, my name is Ranger Tom, please tell me your name, ID number and how you have ended up here with no gear and that vehicle” Ranger Tom asked.

Continuing on with my lies from before I replied “G’day Tom, my name is Josh and I can’t remember my ID number off the top of my head. My card was in my bag when it got taken sorry. I had stopped to have something to eat and while I wasn’t looking a Pigeotto swooped down and took off with my bag. As for the bike, that belongs to my family and I just borrowed it for the day. I thought I’d be able to get far further with it than I would on foot without camping for the night. Once it was taken I thought I had better head home rather than stay out here overnight with no gear but seem to have gotten a tad lost trying to head back.”

Even as I said this out loud I was cringing inside. “What a crap lie. No way he believes that. Why didn’t I just tell the truth?” I thought to myself.

Tom squinted at me while rubbing his hands together in front of himself as he seemed to think. He seemed to come to a conclusion after a few seconds as he grunted and put his hands on his hips. “Well Josh, despite being well dressed you did not prepare very well. And you should know better, your trainer ID is supposed to be kept on your person at all times. That said part of my job is helping you trainers when you get into trouble so it’s your lucky day after all Josh. If you kept going this way you would’ve travelled parallel to Route 22 until you hit the mountains. I’m assuming that you would like me to lead you back to the road?”

“Yes please Tom. Jeez, I would be completely lost without you.” I said in relief. If he can lead me to a road I was sure with the bike I can get to somewhere with food and shelter before I ran out of fuel. With me replying yes, Tom nodded at me and turned around and walked back to dodrio before jumping onto its back. Realising that he did not intend to mess around I jogged back to my bike where my eevee’s were all waiting glaring at Ranger Tom and his pokemon. “Relax guys” I said to my team (It feels weird that they might actually understand me now) I thought to myself, “He is going to help us get out of this forest. So you guys want to run or ride on the bike first?”

With a series of barks and calls my eevee’s ran in front of the bike, aggression forgotten, and I quickly started the bike and took off after them.

Tom turned his head slightly so that he could look and the stranger out of the corner off his eye. Dodrio had been his partner for a long time and didn’t need him giving directions anymore, a quiet word saying head north and dodrio’s innate sense of direction would do the rest. There was something seriously strange about this guy that did demand his attention, or at least needed monitoring. The shear amount of oddities just didn’t make sense. The guy just casually says he borrows the motor bike to go out for the day when Tom knew they cost thousands upon thousands of dollars to buy, let alone the cost of running them. Fuel is expensive to buy due to the costs of making it and protecting the sites from wild pokemon who don’t like the mining and chemicals. The rain jacket that he was wearing was a name and make that he had never heard of before, K-ai-wak-a?, which was strange considering he worked in an outdoor profession and him and his colleagues had had many late night arguments about which outdoor gear was the best. The terrible lie about how a pokemon just stole his bag which contained all off his belongings and left and he did not even an attempt to get it back? The oddest one of all was the 5 eevee’s he had. Five. Each one to buy from a breeder would cost tens of thousands of dollars and money wasn’t the only factor. The Association played favourites with who could get them and then tied them up with contracts once they did. Even Ace trainers didn’t have enough clout to get more than one for their team. And yet here was this strange man in the forest with 5 of them, all looking like they were the same age to his eye. The odds of coming across a wild eevee was incredibly rare, let alone five?! No, things were definitely not adding up so he decided to keep an eye on him while he could before alerting his contacts in town to investigate him while he turned back to do his original job. The energy surge that had every pokemon in a massive range take off running. While he couldn’t feel it himself even his dodrio, who had been in countless battle with both trained and wild pokemon, had hid behind him seeking shelter. Something had happened further in the forest and he was going to try track down where before sending in a research team. It could be a sign of a rift opening but history suggested that shouldn’t happen again for hundreds of years. He will have to see if and other disturbances had been recorded when he next checked in at Ranger HQ. Till then he would keep an eye on the stranger before handling him off to others in Viridian City.