Porygon-Z let out a cry, which sounded like a mix of a fax machine, a coin drop and some sort of distorted synth while staring at him with its yellow round eyes while tilting his head a bit. Its skin texture looked like some sort of smooth plastic.

Lukas was already trying to remember every single info he could about Porygon-Z in his mind, which wasn't really much since the only thing he could recall is a single phrase from a video he probably watched a month ago saying that Porygon-Z was good at offensive but sucked on the defense.

Then Porygon-Z suddenly let out another cry and started looking around, with its twitchy body trying to stay still, while its detached spinning head locked on whatever caught its attention.

"Uhhh…" Before Lukas can say anything, the Porygon's head quickly turns and locks on him, making Lukas take a step back. "Hi…?"

Its body twitches and it flies closer to him, tilting his head to the side and letting out another cry.

Lukas takes a deep breath while going through his whole mental script again. "Hey… Little… Uh, guy I guess… I understand that you might be a bit confused but basically, I… Kinda saved you back there and you can go away if you want but… Could you lend me a hand? I'm seriously lost and have no idea where the closest city is."

It stays silent for a few seconds, twitching here and there until it suddenly stands still in front of Lukas, in complete silence, just to start twitching again and let out a happy cry… Or whatever that sound was.

"Alright uh… Can you help me find the nearest city from here?"

The Porygon does a little nod and lets out a series of cries and… Some sort of generic computer sounds…

It twitches its body and flies towards the sky, and after a few seconds it comes back down and spins his body, letting out another cry and flying away from Lukas.

"Hey! Wait!" Lukas screams as he tries to catch up with it, but unfortunately his legs had other plans in mind.

As his foot touched the ground, pain flowed through his whole leg making him trip and fall on the ground.

Lukas lets out a few groans while trying to get up with the help of his cane, and after standing back up, he looks around, trying to see where Porygon went, just to instantly get jumpscared by it letting out a cry right behind him, making Lukas almost fall on the ground again.

“Ugh… Hey… Can we do that tomorrow? I feel like my legs are going to break if I take another goddamn step.”

Throwing himself between the roots of the nearest tree, Lukas closes his eyes and takes deep breaths, trying to organize his thoughts again. After a few seconds he opens his eyes and stares at the dark canopy and the stars that can be seen between the leaves, until he closes his eyes and falls asleep.

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The gentle touch of the morning sun hits Lukas face again. Slowly opening his eyes he looks around while feeling a terrible backache. Getting up with the help of his cane, he has a slight sense of deja vu… Until he remembers what happened the day before.

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He painfully stretches his body, trying to alleviate the pain in his sore limbs while recalling what happened the day before. He looks around for Porygon-Z while trying to think about his next steps until he sees it.

Porygon-Z was floating… Somewhat menacingly, staring at Lukas a few feet away while twitching from time to time. He slowly approaches Porygon-Z, but it doesn’t react. Finally, face to face with Porygon-Z, he snaps his fingers in front of the digital pokemon while saying. ”Porygon?”

Again, no response, but before he could snap his fingers again, something turned back on the pokemon’s head and it let out a short cry, which scared the shit out of Lukas, almost making him fall.

After taking a few awkward steps back, he recomposes himself a bit and says. "Geez… Uh, good morning to you too."

The digital pokemon replies with a simple generic beep and again, twitches. Then, suddenly, he flies to an apparent random direction and disappears between the trees.

Lukas just stares for a few seconds into the general direction that Porygon went until he snaps back to reality, picking up the suitcase, his cane and Porygon's pokeball and starts following it.

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It was a busy morning at the Saffron Ranger Base. It's the start of the week and we'll probably have a lot to do considering what happened yesterday according to the news.

Alvin was calmly walking through the corridors, mentally preparing himself for what's coming next. It was not the first time Alvin had done this sort of job before, it was actually quite common but not at this scale.

He snaps back to reality when suddenly someone touches his shoulder."Mornin' Al'."

"Oh, mornin' Kris." He replies while slowing down a bit. Kris was considered the overall new guy around although it has been one year since he joined the Rangers, so he's probably just reaching his senior to do some questions.

"Have you seen the news?" He says while adjusting his glasses. Alvin replies with a simple nod and he proceeds. "I wonder how they manage to make these hideouts, anyways, do you know if it's the Celadon rangers or us that are going to deal with that?"

"Totally us. At least a good portion of us are going to work on the cleansing." Alvin says while opening a door to the outside of the base.

On the other side, hundreds of rangers with their pokemon walk around, looking for their platoon while some stand in line waiting. Alvin picks a pokeball on his belt and lets Flareon out.

"Oh yeah I heard that before but what exactly y'all mean by 'cleansing'?" He says while looking at his belt, looking between his pokeballs.

"Well, we clean the mess. We destroy whatever they made off route, work with the affected pokemon and check the area to see if there's anything left."

"Doesn't sound that bad." He finally chooses one of his pokeballs and releases his Sandslash.

"Well… The only bad thing about this is working with the wild pokemon. You see, a lot of off-route pokemon are not too fond of people, and with what they went through, you have to be very careful with what you do and say around them. Basically don’t piss them off, they are already stressed enough and you don’t want them to take it out on you." Alvin explains as he scans the area, until he finally spots their group.

They quickly move through the crowd of Rangers aiming for their group. Arriving just in time, with their senior joining them a few seconds after, they silently wait with the whole platoon for him to speak.

“Alright folks, here’s how it’s going to work. Apparently they weren’t expecting that many pokemon to be there and many still need at least some medical attention, so half of y’all are going to escort the Pokemon Center staff at the outskirts of Saffron to the area and help them with all the equipment.” He stays silent for a second looking at everyone and proceeds. “The other half will scout the area, search for traps, trash, anything man made and bring it to the warehouse area to be burned. In case the thing you just found can’t be burned for reasons, there’s going to be a corner to leave those. Anyways, we are leaving in twenty minutes, if y’all forgot anything be quick, or else you’ll have to walk there.”

After finishing, he turns and walks off while everyone follows him towards the parking lot outside the Ranger Base.