"Congratulations on beating Kong!" The gate guard greeted Joey once he'd entered the building. It was the same smiling man with the Growlithe as always. Some people looked in his direction at the excited words, trainers and other youngsters. They all looked dubiously at the Rattata at his side.

Joey simply rolled his eyes at the scepticism and addressed Barry. "Thanks, Barry. It was partially you that set me on the right path. There really isn't much of a point in training a Rattata in anything but evasion. It's what won me the match."

"Not the fact that the Mankey lost its temper?"

"I caused it to lose its temper. I guess it played a part as well. Were you there?"

Barry shook his head. "Nope, but I watched the recording. Nice work exploiting Mankey's anger issues. It won't work on future battles though. The gym's Pokemon will get more disciplined the more badges you have. Harder to get them off their game. I think you'll do fine until the fourth badge challenge, that's where it gets really tough. It's where my journey ended," he said with a forlorn sigh and leaned down to pat his Growlithe, who was lying on the floor with its tongue out.

"I heard," Joey muttered. "It's when the gyms start using almost exclusively evolved Pokemon. The bond necessary to achieve that almost assures a higher level of battling."

"I think the only exception is Surge. I heard he uses one of his Raichu for third-badge challenges as well. But it's a younger one, and you can use three Pokemon to beat it. They say he tries to teach synergising team strategies against singular powerful opponents, but I think the dude might just be a bit of an ass," Barry said with a laugh.

"A hard-ass, maybe. Anyway, I have to get training. Celadon is the next goal. I'm not thinking about Surge yet," Joey said.

"Everyone refers to it as the Celadon badge," Barry said with a roll of the eyes. "I know the gym leader's name is hard to pronounce. Who names their child Tadghsiobhan anyway? But, you can score extra points if you use it. Man has a complex, which may be why he named his daughter Erika. Anyway, go train," the man said, shooing him off with a hand. "You're the most consistent trainer in this whole city, everyone else is standing at the gates looking at the exit anxiously since the Arbok situation."

One could tell at that point who in the crowd of trainers was listening in, as they all got red in the face at Barry's words.

"Well, it is scary. I just think the likelihood of meeting one is about as high as getting attacked by any other feral wild Pokemon. Have a nice day, I'll call for help if something happens," Joey said with a nod, exiting the building to the route.

"Some rangers running around, you'll be fine!" Barry shouted after him while the youngster swerved to the right to get to the usual clearing that they trained in. While the Ekans situation had cleared up in the north and Joey had gone to the east a few more times to challenge wild Mankey, it was most convenient to train in the south gate. Joey hadn't succeeded in using a ranged ghost move yet, even if he was getting close, so the angry Caterpie with its String Shot was an invaluable training partner. Any damaging move would necessitate medical care whenever Rattata failed to dodge and any status-inflicting move would mess with Rattata's brittle hold over fighting-type energy.

With String Shot one could just clean up and keep going, and Caterpie had been happily providing that String Shot in return for some berries. They hadn't been back for a few days, mostly preparing for Kong by battling Mankey, so Joey was anxious to find out if the bug-type was interested in continuing their deal. Rattata's success rate wasn't anywhere near perfect yet.

After some walking Joey and his starter entered the clearing and noted that it was empty.

Usually, there were at least some Oddish, or Pidgey to watch them train. Rattata's ears swivelled and Joey noted that it was eerily quiet. Had they met a wild Pokemon, or seen one on the way here?

Barry had said that there were rangers doing something in the area, so maybe they'd scared off the wildlife, Joey thought to himself, not thinking much of the oddity.

What he was missing, however, was his training partner. Without Caterpie the trip could quickly become pointless. "Caterpie, where are you?" Joey asked into the clearing, before repeating the question in a louder voice.

"Ta, ta, taRattata?!" His starter joined in.

They walked around for a dozen seconds or so before some branches rustling caught their attention. They both looked up at one of the bigger trees, only to find a Metapod looking down on them from where it was curled up on a branch, sticking to the tree in a larger white cocoon. Even if most Pokemon looked the same to a certain extent, Joey and Rattata both recognized the Caterpie that they'd spent a significant amount of time with at this point.

"Metapod!" the bug Pokemon shouted angrily, causing Rattata to perk up and turn fearful eyes to Joey.

The youngster could only tilt his head in confusion. He and Rattata had gotten very far in their journey of understanding each other. However, this interaction he didn't understand, perhaps because another Pokemon was present who he wasn't that familiar with. "You evolved, congratulations?" he asked, more than stated. A String Shot landed at his feet from where the Metapod was resting, and Rattata ran up to Joey and tried to pull him away by the hem of his shorts.

"Ah, we're running away," the boy noted, promptly turned around and found himself looking at the empty eyes of a gigantic purple snake. The Arbok was just perched there next to one of the trees of the clearing, its large body stemmed up against the ground and its hood flared in their direction, giving them a full view of the eye pattern known to intimidate its enemies.

It was disconcerting, now that Joey saw it in real life. "Any chance we could handle this peacefully?" he asked as he took a step back and put a hand on the Pokeballs at his waist. The eyes of the Arbok remained empty, or, now that he saw them more up close, psychotic. Without any particular preamble, it opened its mouth at the duo of boy and rat and shot out a wide cone barrage of purple glowing pins.

Recognizing a Poison Sting when he saw one, Joey recalled Rattata to his belt by clicking the button of his starter's Pokeball and phased himself into the shadows faster than he'd ever done before. It was perhaps due to the speed of this move that he didn't do it well enough to truly leave the clearing behind and he found himself ejected from the shadows next to the tree that Metapod was stuck to. The Arbok glared at him, and struck by a bout of nausea Joey found himself unable to repeat his escape at this very second. He used the time to take out his PokeNav and press the S.O.S button. He didn't bother looking at the screen to see the red flashing light and just threw it to the side.

The Arbok followed the device with its gaze where it landed in the grass, before deciding that it was irrelevant. Then it coiled in itself and sprang forward with an open mouth, large fangs dripping venom. Joey just about managed to stumble back and start gathering the energy necessary to shadow away, nausea or no nausea, when he noticed that the Arbok's trajectory would bring him up the tree towards the Metapod rather than next to the tree towards Joey.

It was at that moment that Joey could have perhaps sacrificed Metapod to have more time to run away or to gather himself for a longer-distance shadow sneak. However, just as one didn't have time to consciously think when one was involved in a car crash, Joey didn't have time to think here either and simply reverted back to his training.

If a wild Pokemon was trying to kill something you didn't want to be killed, throw a Pokeball at the threat. A completely nonsensical move in this situation considering that he couldn't climb the tree and bring Metapod away while the Arbok inevitably broke free. It would have been a better move to catch the Metapod and let Arbok bite into the tree bark. But, this is what Joey's instinct defaulted to. He'd never thrown a Pokeball faster in his life, and it flew true. Only that it simply bounced off the Arbok, a slight film of blue electricity signalling that it was a captured Pokemon.

That was when Joey's belt shook, and Rattata forced his way out of his ball with sheer willpower alone. Before Joey could even consider if he liked that or did not like it, the little rat was already blurring upwards in a Quick Attack and impacted the Arbok right in the belly, knocking it slightly off course and causing it to crash-land into the ground.

"Arboookkk!" it screamed angrily as it righted itself to face Joey's starter.

"Rattata, tata, tataatata!" Was the reply.

Joey looked at where the failed Pokeball had fallen, but could only curse when he saw that it was lying on the grass right next to the Arbok. His hand went to Rattata's Pokeball still at his belt, ready at any moment to recall him in case he was in danger.

Arbok reared its head back and opened its mouth wide. A shrill sound emitted from it, causing Joey to wince in pain and Rattata to step back and cover his ears with his paws. Then suddenly the biggest String Shot that Joey had ever seen landed in the snake's mouth, stopping the screech attack and causing it to close its mouth and swallow the sticky thread. It made a disgusted face, before surging forwards again, this time towards Rattata.

"Detect and Hyper Fang the back of its head," Joey quickly ordered, left hand now gathering ghost-type energy for the ranged attack he'd been working on. If it ever needed to work, it was now. Arbok sailed at Rattata, opening its mouth, dark energy gathering within it, only for the rat to perfectly sidestep the attack and scrabble up its hood, digging into it with his claws. In the span of less than a second, a Hyper Fang clamped down on the Arbok's neck from behind.

Before Joey could celebrate however the snake's tail struck Rattata and threw him into the air. The rat sailed a graceful arc, the Arbok opening its mouth towards the sky to catch its prey within its maw. Joey knew that Rattata couldn't manoeuvre in the air and that the safest thing to do was to recall the rat. He unclipped the Pokeball and was about to do just that when a string shot once again landed in Arbok's mouth. However, this time a shining green lunar crescent of chitin quickly followed, seemingly working its way along its own String Shot to lodge itself firmly in the Arbok's wide open mouth.

The Arbok tried to bite down, but the Metapod simply gleamed in the usage of its most stereotypical attack, Harden. As Rattata landed on the floor safely, Arbok started thrashing, different elements flashing from its mouth, trying to dislodge the Metapod.

"Hyper Fang its neck!" Joey shouted as he scrambled for the Pokeball he'd thrown earlier, paying careful attention to stay out of reach of Arbok's tail. He'd recovered enough to use a long-distance Shadow Sneak and the energy was prepared. He only needed to get the Pokeball, somehow catch Metapod, recall Rattata and run the fuck away.

"Rattata!" his starter shouted as it lodged a glowing white Hyper Fang right at the neck area under the Arbok's currently malformed mouth. The Metapod was forcing its jaw open to truly comical proportions. The Metapod was bigger than average, at around one metre. A diameter that apparently even a snake couldn't just swallow if the diameter in question dug its tips into its mouth correctly.

For all intents and purposes, it looked like the Arbok would be defeated before Joey could get to the Pokeball, from how it was starting to flag in its efforts. Rattata who was continuing to gnaw at its neck was already covered in a significant amount of blood.

Of course that was when Metapod started glowing a bright white not of hardening, but of evolution.

"Fuck!" Joey shouted as the Arbok coiled in front of him in its struggles, separating him from the P. If he didn't catch Metapod right now it would evolve into a Butterfree and be bitten clean through by the Arbok's powerful fangs.

He started gathering ghost energy for an attack again, hoping that maybe he could provide the last bit of damage needed to knock out the Arbok and prevent it from killing Butterfree. "Rattata, give Metapod your Everstone!" he shouted meanwhile, as his right pointer finger started crackling with ghostly energy.

His starter listened, stopped its attack, climbed up the Arbok, slipped off the Everstone from its collar and rode the Arbok like a cowboy would ride a raging bull, stuffed the thing right into the evolving Metapod's mouth. The glow stopped, leaving behind an incredibly hardened Metapod with an Everstone clutched desperately in its mouth, while it was lodged in the mouth of the Arbok whose energy was now seriously starting to dwindle.

"Bite down like your life depends on it, both of you!" Joey screamed as he brought up his now vibrating finger to point it right at the Arbok's torso.

"Rattata!" his starter shouted, echoing his words as he was thrown off the rampaging snake only to immediately right himself and jump forward again to Hyper Fang at its neck. No orders necessary.

Joey finished building up the energy in his finger and shot it off directly at his starter. What came out was a black and purple ball sizzling with distortion, which passed harmlessly through Rattata, but punched itself directly into Arbok's now wounded neck. The snake stilled from the attack and a literal fountain of blood gushed out onto Rattata, completely drenching him. The now red rat fell off, revealing a horribly gouged piece of meat which used to be the snake's neck. The Arbok spasmed, not in resistance or in an attempt to swallow the Metapod, but because it was dying.

Once, twice, three times it vibrated and shook in place, before finally collapsing like a felled tree, the Metapod falling out of its mouth like a rugby ball.

The whole thing had barely taken thirty seconds, but the clearing was unrecognisable. Splatters of blood were everywhere, a huge corpse of a snake dominated the space, accompanied by a red Rattata and a Metapod whose face seemed to be straining immensely from how hard it must have gotten from all the Hardens.

"Wait, where's the Everstone?" Joey suddenly asked into the clearing. Metapod didn't seem to have it, but if that was the case then it certainly would have started evolving again. It was just lying there, groaning. He suddenly scrambled back towards where the Pokeball had fallen to capture the bug when he saw the puncture wounds running along its body. Without the Arbok threatening him he was easily able to retrieve it. He threw it at the Metapod to stabilise it for the journey to the Pokecentre, just in the same second that he realised that it must have swallowed the Everstone. He also recalled Rattata, knowing it was time to fuck off out of here and run to the cit-

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Before he could consider the rest of the situation overly much a gigantic Pidgeot crash-landed onto the Arbok's corpse in what looked to have been a very overpowered Tackle, breaking the corpse's spine and very nearly bisecting it through sheer force alone. A young man in the orange ranger's outfit and a scar on his face jumped off the bird's back and frantically looked around, his glance passing over the corpse of the Arbok, the blood splattered all over the clearing and then finally Joey, who himself had some flecks of red on him.

"35-second response time, pretty fast," Joey commented as he stepped towards the ranger, feeling completely exhausted. Mentally and physically.

"Are you alright, kid?" the ranger asked as he rushed over and put his rough hands on Joey's shoulders as if to stabilise him.

"Hey, the thing's dead, all my Pokemon are alive, I'm alive. I'm doing great actually." He paused. "I would feel better if you could give me a lift to the centre doe, might have some critically injured Pokemon. I think my Metapod swallowed an Everstone," Joey said, wondering at the last bit. 'My Metapod', he thought, rolling the words in his mind.

It could be his, the green bastard. It had potentially saved Joey's life after all. But he'd have to ask first, Joey liked the bug's attitude, but if he didn't want to be a battler it would be a waste of time to keep them around. He'd situate it in the back of the orphanage, it wouldn't have to go hungry again for the rest of its life for its service, that was sure.

"Everstone, what?" the ranger asked, confused, before snapping back to attention. "Potentially critical," he muttered. "No time to lose." He speed-walked back to the Pidgeot, dragging Joey alongside himself. Both of them mounted the gigantic bird which was looking down haughtily at the corpse it had landed on. The two trainers mounted the bird, the only difference was that the ranger did so with confidence, and Joey with slight trepidation.

"You know I've actually never flown before-" Joey started saying, but the rest of his words were cut off by a violent take-off as Pidgeot jumped into the air as if by some invisible signal. Its large wings quickly transformed that jump into a confident burst of speed which took them straight into and over Saffron in less than a minute. Joey had never gone very far in the first place, so it made sense that it wouldn't take long for such a fast Pokemon to get there quickly.

"Got one proc with two crits, flying centre to start med before questions," the rangers suddenly said from in front of Joey, who mostly heard it because he was clinging to the man's torso like a lifeline. The words obviously weren't meant for him, and he looked up while they descended to double-check the ranger's headpiece. A little black ball of machinery stuck in his ear which he had just finished speaking into. Now the man was listening, nodding his head every now and again.

They landed, the ranger quickly jumping off the bird and helping Joey down. Not that he would have needed the help, but he took the hand nonetheless.

He looked around himself to double-check, feeling a bit paranoid from how the Arbok had jumped him unexpectedly. But all he saw were curious pedestrians gaping and occasionally taking pictures of the huge Pidgeot. Not many of them noticed the blood-stains covering some parts of Joey's body, and these were the ones that started to whisper while throwing him concerned looks.

The youngster didn't even have to walk into the centre, as he was promptly pulled forward by the ranger, who half dragged and half carried him up to the counter, where he muscled in front of a small queue of trainers with sour expressions on their faces.

"Got two pot crits," the ranger said to the nurse Joy stationed behind the reception desk, ignoring the protests of the trainers behind them, while Joey deposited his Pokeballs onto the outstretched tray.

"Metapod with Arbok fang puncture wounds, potentially swallowed and Everstone. Rattata with severe exhaustion, potential bone fracture from being tail-whipped by the same Arbok," he said succinctly but only got a nod from the nurse.

Joey turned to the ranger who'd escorted him here, but the man was just listening to someone on his headpiece, scowling at the air. The man made a follow-me gesture, and Joey walked back to the Pidgeot again, leaving the now curious trainers behind. They'd perked up, somewhat fearfully at the mention of an Arbok and were clearly interested in asking Joey about what had happened. They were just probably scared of doing so in front of the ranger. After all, being a ranger was some tough shit. You needed to be top 8 at a conference to even qualify. Accepting the position after and getting the requisite training removed your ability to participate in future conferences. That's why some Rangers were trainers who could have otherwise been conference winners.

Joey wondered if the ranger who'd flown him here was one of these. The man, seemingly finished with his conversation, turned his head and looked at Joey. "I reported the situation to my superior," he informed the boy. "Are you comfortable with giving us some information on the incident now? It could potentially help the ongoing investigation," he said in a clipped tone.

Joey got the feeling that the man took his job a bit too seriously, but wasn't going to disdain that right now when the situation actually was serious. Any other youngster ganked by that Arbok would have likely just died.

"The sooner the better, I need a shower," he said with a nod, getting a small grin from the man.

"Good, I'm not qualified to lead an interview, so we will wait for my superior to arrive," he managed to say, just as a flash of blue light that signalled a successful teleportation appeared to his right. By the time Joey was done blinking the spots out of his eyes, an older man with salt-pepper hair had appeared, also wearing an orange jacket, but missing the hat. There were some additional insignias on his right shoulder, but Joey didn't recognize any of the symbols.

He'd never been particularly interested in being a Ranger.

Stereotypical, perhaps, but most kids dreamed of being rich and famous trainers, not government agents. No matter how important their jobs actually were.

"You alright, kid?" the man asked gruffly as he got down on one knee to speak to Joey at eye level, and recalled the Kadabra that had brought him there. The fox-like Pokemon disappeared in a flash of red.

Joey blinked, cracking up a bit internally at the fact that the two Rangers had asked the exact same thing. "I'm fine," he said with a shrug, looking into the man's dark blue eyes, trying to convey that he was in fact OK. "Let's just get the briefing out of the way. I want to check up on my team," he said.

"Admirable, but I'm afraid I'll need the consent of your legal guardians for that first, you're a youngster, aren't you?" the man asked, throwing a quick stink-eye at the younger ranger. It seemed like the man had forgotten about the difference in legal status between a youngster and a trainer. The latter was technically an adult, while a youngster still needed a parent's sign-off to do a lot of things. Not that it affected much, parents in the Pokemon world were quite laissez-faire.

"I don't know actually," Joey said as he scratched his chin in thought. "I got my first badge and upgraded my licence, so I'm actually half a trainer, half a youngster."

"Ah, that means you're legally an adult when it comes to things like these. Comes with having a Pokemon strong enough to beat a gym leader's first-badge challenge," the man said with a smile, seemingly happy to not have to talk to any guardians or whatnot. "I'm head ranger Marron," he introduced himself with an extended hand.

Joey shook it, grimacing at the strength of the handshake. "Call me Joey. Now let's get on with it, I have places to be," he quipped, causing Marron to laugh out loud.

"A man after my own heart," he joked, before gripping his kadabra's pokeball. "Teleport to the base is ok? Got recording equipment to review the discussion later. Less likely for us to need you after."

"I don't think that's a smart idea," Joey said without explaining why. He didn't feel like elaborating on his typing. "I'd rather stay closer to my Pokemon, can we do it in the centre?" he asked.

The two rangers frowned and looked at each other before Marron nodded. "Alright, private, you're not dismissed yet so come with me. You'll protocol the talk," he ordered, at which the private recalled his Pidgeot, which dissipated with an ungracious squawk. It had been interrupted while grooming itself.

Marron walked past Joey with the energy of a man that expected to be followed, and knew that he would be. Joey and the private went with him into the Pokemon centre, again drawing gazes and whispers from the present trainers. One of them, a green-haired boy wearing a purple tank top, somehow gathered up the courage to step up to Marron as he walked past.

"Excuse me. What-" he started, before being shut down.

"No. none of your business. No comment. Leave us alone," Marron rattled off, not even looking at the boy, as he led his two ducklings behind the reception desk, where he exchanged a simple nod with Nurse Joy and walked into the corridor behind the desk.

Joey looked around curiously as they passed what seemed to be a glass-paned room for emergency surgery, in one of which he saw Metapod being checked over by a pair of concerned-looking nurse Joy and a chansey. In a second room, he saw his Rattata being showered off by a friendly-looking Golduck, at whom the rat was chittering. There were lots of grand gestures involved and Joey got the feeling that his starter was recounting his heroic encounter with the Arbok, or still bragging about how he'd beaten Kong.

He didn't get to peek for long, as he quickly found himself in a lounge area that was probably unoccupied because of the cases Joey had just brought in. He sat down on a comfortable plush armchair that nearly sucked in the entirety of his body, while Marron sat down on a normal chair. The private pulled out a notepad and pen from somewhere and remained standing.

Joey fished out his youngster licence to get ahead of the inevitable question to do so. "Here's my licence so you can contact me in the future and put my identification Number on the report," he said, and the private quickly scribbled down the relevant details, before returning it.

"You must have passed your licence exam around 2 months ago?" Marron asked curiously and in a friendly voice. The youngster realised that he was getting the friendly treatment due to his age. Otherwise, the whole thing would have likely been quite brusque.

"Yes, I was actually the second-highest scorer in the region," he said with a nod.

"Impressive. And your Rattata knows Hyper Fang then? That's quite a feat, usually, they need to be a bit more developed than that. I think the normal timeframe is around three months of training." The head ranger scratched at his stubble.

"How do you know about Hyper Fang?" Joey asked curiously.

A shake of the head. "It's a simple deduction. Considering that you managed to kill the Arbok before Pidgeot crashed the last bit of body integrity it still had… between the two Pokemon you had with you Hyper Fang is the only move that could have breached its natural defences."

"Yes, it was quite an awkward but incredibly lucky situation. Rattata's Hyper Fang isn't particularly advanced yet. I'm still leading him through the proper calcium diet to strengthen his incisors, and his control of the energy is rudimentary at best. The reason he was able to get anywhere with it was that the Metapod lodged itself in Arbok's maw, incapacitating its biggest weapon, ranged and bite moves, and also making it mostly concerned with the bug in its throat. Rattata meanwhile was just gnawing at its neck with Hyper Fang. I'd say for ten continuous seconds all in all. Would be enough to fell a tree, really. So it's not surprising it managed to open up a big enough wound to bleed the snake dry," Joey explained and saw how surprised the rangers were at the depth of his explanation.

But also, how horrified they were to hear a twelve-year-old child talk about death and killing so casually. He was probably an oddity in this case, but the simple fact that he was an adult trapped in a child's body, while also having his mind probably twisted to a certain by the distortion running through his soul, meant that he would never be normal.

He'd never killed anything larger than a goat in his last life and it had been for sustenance, not self-defence, but that experience along with some high-stress and dangerous situations he'd experienced driving a car in south Italy meant that he was decently equipped to handle such situations. The distortion likely just added a last polish to the psychopathic response he was experiencing to the event that would have traumatised most others.

"Now that we're on the topic of the Arbok, could you perhaps tell me about the incident? Starting perhaps from when you left the gate. Did you know about the danger?" Marron asked.

"Well, I'd just upgraded my license and received my second Pokeball and team slot. It was still daylight so I decided to do some training in the clearing I'd used before. I went to the south gate because I remembered that the Ekans situation happened at the north one. I thought it might be safer."

"Do you know that the clearing is right at the edge of the radius you're allowed to explore?"

"Yes, I've never left that zone. I prefer having my licence," Joey said with a bit of annoyance at the insinuation

Marron put up his hands defensively and put the conversation back on its course. "So you went to the clearing, then what happened? The Arbok ambushed you there?"

"I wanted to meet up with the Caterpie that inhabited the clearing, but I found that it had evolved in my absence. It tried to warn me away, but it was too late. Then I got ambushed," Joey corrected.

Here the head ranger, and the private tensed up. "Did you try to throw your Pokeball at Arbok, and run?"

Joey closed his eyes and nodded with a sigh. "Yes, I did. It was almost by instinct that I threw it." He left out the fact that he'd first tried to shadow-sneak away. "It didn't work. The Pokeball behaved as if the Arbok was already captured. Blue electricity fizzles. The Pokeball fell to the other side of the clearing."

The two rangers grimaced and shared a meaningful look as Joey continued. "That really screwed me over, as I could maybe have used the Pokeball to catch Metapod and run. But with that, I was either abandoning Metapod to die or risking my own life to potentially save us all. Arbok tried to eat Metapod then, but it got lodged in its throat. That's how I won the battle. Its thrashing kept separating me from the Pokeball, making me unable to capture Metapod to get it out of its situation, if I had even been able to hit that throw. Debatable," he muttered. "Considering that Arbok would eventually bite through Metapod, I had to incapacitate it. That meant that my only choice was to stay and battle. I didn't really aim to kill it, it's just how it happened honestly," he finished with a shrug. He would have been perfectly fine with knocking the thing out, but its constitution had seemingly been too powerful for that.

"You did the right thing," Marron said calmingly. "Sometimes we don't have a choice, and wild Pokemon often don't know when to give up. So rather than fainting, their anger, or willpower, whatever you may call it, results in a fight to the death." He tapped his chin. "One last question, though. What happened with the Everstone, you mentioned Metapod swallowed it?"

Joey nodded. "Yeah, while it was in the jaw of the Arbok it started evolving." The private winced. "It would have died if it had evolved successfully, so I told Rattata to give it to Metapod. The issue is that it can only hold it in its mouth. When we finally beat the Arbok the stone was nowhere to be seen. I think that if Metapod had lost contact with it, it would have evolved right after the battle. My conclusion from this thing is that it swallowed it accidentally."

"Alright. I think that's all the information we need for the log," Marron told the private, who stopped scribbling at the words. "On a more personal note," the man continued as he turned to Joey. "How are you feeling?"

The youngster tilted his head and considered. "Well, I'm not gonna go past the gates anytime soon. Until I read about this Arbok situation being resolved at least. Otherwise, I'm happy to be alive. It's a thing we take for granted, huh, until we don't have it anymore." He laughed.

"Life?"

"Yeah, being alive. I guess almost dying changes your perspective."

"It does tend to give one the desire to live with fewer regrets," the head ranger sighed, stood up and extended a hand for Joey to shake.

"Regrets come from not trying," Joey said with a grin. "I don't have any." He turned to the corridor with the emergency rooms, trying to see if he could spot any positive-looking activity. "If you don't mind, I'd go check up on my Pokemon now."

"Go ahead," Marron said. "I'd like to thank you for being there. If it had been anyone else we might have had to transport back a human corpse. You're a weird kid, but if you managed to survive that bullshit, you must be a hell of a trainer."

"You have my address. Any physical expression of thanks you can mail to me, or transfer directly to my bank account," Joey said as he left the lounge, leaving behind two confused rangers.

He held up a hand as he walked past the rooms where he'd seen his Pokemon on the way to the lounge, both empty now. It was shaking. He examined the phenomenon as he stepped out behind the reception desk next to the nurse Joy stationed there. It wasn't that he had been unaffected by the event entirely. But the accumulated stress was leaving him quite quickly.

Perhaps he would have an adrenaline crash soon.

He watched, almost from a third-person perspective, the trainers ambling around the Pokecentre, eating, going to their lodgings, and receiving their Pokemon back. He went to wait in line, ignoring the stares he was getting. Ignoring anyone who tried to speak to him. He was here to know one thing, one thing only.

"How's Rattata?" he asked a serious nurse Joy once it was his turn again. The woman wordlessly shoved a Pokeball in his hand, and Joey recognized it to be the one holding his starter.

"He's fine. A bit scared, maybe. Even if he doesn't show it," the nurse muttered. She looked around shiftily. "Your Metapod, however. We're still examining her, but it seems to be true that she swallowed the Everstone. We went ahead with attaching a new collar to your Rattata, but you'll have to wait for more details on the situation. We called in a bug-type expert to look at Metapod, but it might take another hour or two until we have enough information to have a serious discussion. We have your number if you want to leave and be called back," she suggested, but Joey just shook his head.

"I'll go to one of the computers," he said with a sigh, clipping Rattata to his belt and leaving the queue to get to the last free computer that he'd seen. He muscled in front of a few people to sit down in his space, but once he did he finally relaxed a bit.

Debt towards Metapod or not, Rattata was still more important to him as a friend and partner. His being alright already meant that this whole thing had ended much better than it could have in the worst case. Metapod being alright and evolving without complications, to go do whatever Butterfree did would just be the cherry on the cake.