Liftoff 1.8

April 2015

I walked into the ranger station and looked around. There were more people in here now, all getting ready for our outing tomorrow. Some were looking over their equipment. Others were gathered around a table, playing Hold 'Em to pass the time. Like Ranger Swanson said, there were no pokemon so Rocket drew the eye.

I nodded towards them and walked up to the receptionist's desk. "Yo, Sabrina, heard your old man wanted to see me?"

"Shane! Hey, how's it going?" she greeted. In her hands was an old Gameboy Color, Pokemon Red slotted into the cartridge.

"You're really playing Pokemon? Aren't you supposed to be the receptionist?"

"Studying! I'm studying! It's the job of the pokemon professor to stay on top of things, you know," she pouted. "I'm copying down any information that could be useful while we still have spare AA batteries."

"Huh, nice. Good for you, Sabrina."

"Yeah, it's not just the pokedex. I'm talking to every NPC, reading every sign and notebook, that sort of thing. Anything that might indicate behavioral habits of pokemon goes in my notebook so I can sort it out later."

"Okay, fine, you're a very studious person."

"Damn straight. How dare you say I'm playing. Watch. You're going to remember the name Sabrina Swanson as the very first pokemon professor in this world."

"You know, now that you say it like that, it doesn't sound right."

"What doesn't sound right?"

"You need a tree name. All pokemon professors have tree names. Oak, Elm, Birch, Rowan, Juniper… Hell, even the side characters like Brock's girlfriend had tree names. I think her name was Professor Ivy?"

"Yeah? Well, sorry I can't change my last name. I'll just go find a guy with the right last name to marry, just to soothe your OCD."

"Please do," I said with mock-seriousness. "It's very important. Tradition must be upheld."

"How 'bout I just change my name? We're in NorCal so I can just call myself Professor Redwood after the trees here."

"Hmm… Professor Redwood of the Cascade Region? That doesn't sound bad."

"See? Or I can head up to Oregon and call myself Professor Mary Jane."

I laughed. "They don't smoke that much."

"Yeah they do."

"Okay, but it's rude to point it out."

"Yup. I'll change my name to Mary Jane Kush."

"Not while you live under my roof," Ranger Swanson said with a frown. His mustache twitched upward but he managed to suppress the smile. "Shane, you're here."

"Guilermo told me you were planning something big."

"It ain't nothing big, just ranging out to Truckee for a salvage trip. The Adams brothers got done checking over our trucks so we're going back to see what we can salvage."

"Isn't this a bit early for Shane, dad?" Sabrina asked. "You're always saying how dangerous trips outside can be."

"I walked down from Oregon with Rocket, remember?" I told her. "I'm not going to just keel over at the first sign of trouble, Sabrina."

"You're both right," Tom grunted gruffly. "What my daughter's trying to say is, we've got six trucks and eighteen guys. More than that and it's hard to coordinate, leaves the town less defended too so it ain't wise. We load up these trucks with all the useful things we can find in Truckee, going street by street. That means we're bound to encounter pokemon; there's only so much we can do to avoid them. And when we're all loaded and coming back? A six truck convoy isn't very quiet."

"And not taking the trucks is impossible."

"Right. If you want to walk, it's four or five hours. By truck, just half an hour. Not even a question."

"Alright, I hear you, Tom. What's the most dangerous thing you've had to guard the truck from? I want to know what the worst I should expect is."

"Scout, my tranquill, can handle the flying rats-"

"He means spearow," our resident professor said.

"-and they're the most common things we see out here. They can be a problem if there are too many. We've had an oversized rat rip holes in the tires before-"

"Raticate. Assume Bite, maybe even Hyper Fang if we're unlucky."

"-and a black pooch-thing that travels in packs."

"Poochyena, no mightyena yet thankfully. I keep telling him that poochyena evolve fairly young and we should see the evolutions in the wild sooner or later."

"Sneasel too, boss," one of the rangers who'd been listening in chimed. "I'm telling you I saw one out the corner of my eye."

Tom grunted. "And I'm telling you I have no idea what that is."

"Bipedal weasel with huge front claws, dad," Sabrina said exasperatedly. I assumed she'd explained before. "It's got a red crest on its head. If you see one, leave it to Rocket or Scout because it's way too fast to tag with a gun."

"Eh, I'll be the judge of that, missy. There're other things out there, but none are as aggressive. Or they don't eat the same things we do so won't bother us if we don't bother them. Normally, I'd insist on taking you out for a few days to hunt, see what you're really made of , but I heard from Pat that you took out five of those flying rats the other day."

"Mostly Rocket, but I shouldn't be dead weight tomorrow. Just a quick trip there and back then?" I asked.

"Don't plan on it. It's only half an hour there, but finding something useful can take a while. We split into three teams of six people and two trucks each. It saves gas and gives us enough people to act as lookouts while the others search."

"Got it, anything else I should know?"

"Nah, get out of here. Just be back tomorrow morning. I'd give you a time, but not all of us have clocks. I'll ring you on the walkie-talkie so keep that close."

"Alright, will do."

X

True to my word, the next morning found me at the ranger station once again. Rocket was hyped. He didn't say anything, but I could tell in the restless twitch of his tail. He'd never traveled with others before. It'd always been the two of us, wandering the woods in a vaguely southerly direction. We had no plans beyond our immediate survival. Now, we'd be an integral part of supporting a town.

"Excited, Rocket?" I asked, giving his ears a scratch.

"Lin," he chuffed, head laid in my lap. His ears flicked back and forth with interest, taking in all the sounds around him.

The two of us were in the bed of the sixth truck. By sitting in the back, the idea was that Rocket would be able to use his keen senses to guard our rear.

We'd be traveling in two columns, using both lanes of the mountain road now that traffic laws weren't a thing. Old Tom was seated up in the first truck, hunting rifle laid across his lap. Up ahead, Scout the tranquill circled us in lazy loops, watching with a keen eye for danger.

He also had a drilbur called Spade, I'd seen it when I first arrived, but it was a coward that loathed battling. It had joined the town thanks to some quick thinking on Sabrina's part. It mostly stuck around the burrows with the diglett and graveler or mooched food from Sabrina at the station.

The notion of a pokemon that didn't want to battle was anathema to what I knew, but I supposed there were always exceptions. More's the pity, I knew exactly how obscenely powerful excadrill could be. I'd used one in my playthrough of Black and Black 2; it was oftentimes more useful than my starters.

Still, Tom figured Spade was more Sabrina's than his and no father would think leaving something to protect his daughter was a bad thing so no one made a fuss.

The trucks themselves had been heavily modified to resemble something out of a zombie apocalypse movie. Metal grates had been added to raise the walls of the beds, both so things wouldn't fall out and to keep out casual intrusion from wild animals and pokemon. The wheels had been chained to get through snow and slush, with additional supplies loaded onto crates that had been welded to the truck body. There were even lengths of barbed and razor wire lashed around the truck grates and front.

"Whoever made these really liked Mad Max," I mused as I leaned against the wall. There was no roof so Rocket wouldn't have any trouble covering the sky in Pin Missiles.

"The Adams brothers," my partner for the mission said. He was named Javier, a buff, squat fellow who'd done a few tours in Iraq in the Before. "And yeah, they're pretty kooky but they really know their way around cars."

"That's good. How many of these salvage missions have you been on?"

"Fourth one," he grunted. The trucks started to move. He pulled out a cig and a lighter, pausing with a raised brow to see if I'd care. When I nodded, he lit his cancer stick. There were three men per truck, one driver and two overwatch, so Rocket and I were the only ones who'd care. "These things are worse than Iraq."

"How so?"

"Watch, going there's easy. Truckee's only thirty minutes away even in slush like this. I reckon the noise of the trucks annoy a few, but they won't bother us. But searching the town? Coming back? That's trouble."

"I don't get it."

"They're smart."

"I know that. Rocket can understand you and me just fine. We'll probably run into a few pokemon in Truckee while we search, but why would coming back be dangerous?"

He grunted and exhaled. His mouth stretched open like a fish, forming a smoke ring that lingered in the air. "They're smart as hell. They don't know much about human creations, but they do know that when we roll by, we're picking up the useful things. So they wait 'til we pick out the edible stuff like canned food. Or they know we're tired. Some of them, man, they treat us like grocery bags with legs."

I paused at that. It was a disconcerting thought, though not one I was unfamiliar with. Pokemon had to eat, and unlike the anime, they ate more than pet food and berries. As smart as they were, many wild pokemon weren't too different from wild animals; when presented with easy food, they'd go for it. It just so happened that there were usually easier sources of calories than humans. But if we loaded up trucks with food, then well… the cost-benefit calculus suddenly changed.

I looked down at Rocket. As if to sense my unease, he opened a single eye to look up at me. "I trust Rocket to keep me safe."

"Good for you. But if it's all the same to you, I'm keeping my rifle close. I suggest you do the same."

X

Javier was right. We arrived in Truckee within the hour. The trees were laden with snow and the road had been partially flooded with slush, but our little convoy went unmolested.

Truckee was a small town by the standards of California, only sixteen thousand people or so before the move, but for a platoon of eighteen people, that was more than large enough to make salvaging difficult. The town covered more than thirty square miles and, according to Javier, was named after a Native American chief.

We'd headed up North Shore Road and past the Truckee-Tahoe Airport, a small little thing that had already been searched, mostly for stuff like fuel from parked cars, coffee beans, and the like. It was the location of a dungeon gate, one of a handful the town knew about. No one had approached it over the past month because there had been too much to do getting the town set up and self-sufficient. They understandably couldn't afford to waste manpower and resources just to confirm that a dungeon was deadly.

We turned onto Donner Pass Road, Truckee's main street, driving by a Circle K that had also been emptied. A few minutes later, we stopped in front of the Nevada County Superior Court.

Old Tom, here Ranger Swanson, addressed us from the first truck. "Alright, boys, here we are, first stop. The town is starting to produce more food than we need, so our priority this raid is going to be medicine, fuel, and books. We don't want the young'uns growing up dumb as you sack o' rocks."

A round of nervous chuckles ran through us. There was an awkward energy in the air and more than one of us kept a hand on our weapons, eyes furtively darting around for threats. I hoped that since we weren't gathering edibles for the most part, we'd be able to avoid most pokemon.

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"Now, that don't mean you shouldn't take food if you find it, but that's not our priority today," he continued. "So here's how it's going to work. Team one, you'll be headed to that library over there. Pick up some textbooks. Instruction manuals for how to build things, survival guides, encyclopedias of local wildlife, how-to guides for medieval food preservation, whatever the hell looks useful. Hell, grab some blank paper and notebooks if you find 'em.

"Team two, you're going to the Tahoe Forest Hospital. No, better yet, start at the pharmacy across the street. You're more likely to get things us non-docs can use. Find bandages, disinfectants, insulin, and anything else you recognize.

Then he looked to the six of us at the back. "Team three, you lot are going to that NAPA Auto Parts right across the street. Fill up on gas and pick up some tools and parts while you're at it. I'm sure the Adams brothers will love you. If you have the space, start raiding the cars in the parking lot for even more gas. You guys will be furthest out so keep an eye out, clear?

"Clear," we echoed. I saw his eyes linger on Rocket and knew he'd placed himself and me in such a way that our pokemon would provide the most coverage.

"Can we go raid the liquor store before we leave?" one of the guys asked. He pointed at another building. Sure enough, there it was, Zander's Spirits.

"You shut your goddamn mouth Harvey," Tom grunted, then acquiesced with a rueful chuckle. "Maybe. If we get a good haul."

"Hell yeah!"

I rolled my eyes but couldn't begrudge the man. We all had things we'd prefer to forget these days. So long as he indulged within the walls, I wouldn't mind joining him.

With the promise of booze as reward, the six trucks separated into three teams of two.

Between the six of us sent out to the car parts store, it was decided that some guy named Chadwick, emphatically not to be called Chad, should be the head of our little squad. He was the most experienced or something; I didn't see the point in saying otherwise.

He had me, Javier, and Pete, our driver, out in the parking lot of NAPA, his reasoning being that Rocket probably fought better in the open and could act as a lookout far better than the rest of us.

"Hey, Shane," Pete called. "You ever siphon gas before?"

I shook my head. "No, now's as good a time as any to learn though. How does it work?"

Javier tapped the metal crate that had been welded to our truck bed. He opened it up to reveal two cylinders attached to hoses. There were also several plastic containers, empty by the looks of it. He handed me one container and a hose before waving me towards Pete.

"Alright, cool. That there is a siphoning pump. Basically, since we can't really crack open a fuel tank, we need to create a pressure difference between the tank and the exterior. You stock one end of the hose inside the tank and pump. That'll suck air out and lower the pressure. Eventually, gas is going to crawl up the hose. After that, you can stop and let gravity take over for you. With me?"

"Yeah, that sounds simple enough. Why are there only two pumps though?"

"Because one of us should keep an eye out along with your pokemon."

"Fair enough. Should I watch then?"

"Nah, you go ahead and try. Start filling up from the cars around here. You can expect anywhere from three or four gallons to fifteen depending on when the owners last filled up."

So Javier and I worked while Pete sat atop the hood of our truck, rifle in hand. To his credit, he kept an eye out and occasionally reported back with the walkie-talkie to check in. From the sound of things, the salvage mission was going well.

Team one had found a few guides that they thought might be useful, including a guide to mushroom cultivation in colder climates, as well as guides to poisonous plants in the area that Ranger Swanson hadn't had in his already sizable collection. By radio chatter, they were thinking about cultivating porcini, white chanterelles, shaggy manes, and slippery jacks, though they admitted some would be harder than others.

Unfortunately, team two hadn't had as much luck. They found a few cardboard boxes and had filled them with over-the-counter drugs like Tylenol, but it wasn't as though any of us were pharmacologists. They did head to the back of the store, but their knowledge was limited so they weren't sure which prescription drug would be safe to consume. It didn't help that the pharmacy, being one of the more obvious locations to search, had largely been raided by others the month prior.

We did have two doctors in Carnelian, so Ranger Swanson told them to gather up all that they could find. We'd just have to take a gamble on what was and was not useful. When they were done there, they were told to cross the street to the hospital for bandages and other supplies.

As for us, the other half of team three were having a blast. NAPA Auto Parts was a pit stop, which meant they didn't just sell car parts. They also had things like cigarettes, flint, electric generators, and batteries. Naturally, there was a stock of gasoline, but much of that had already been taken.

I heard the walkie-talkie crackle to life.

"Hey guys, do we need ship fuel? Over." came the voice of John, one of those who'd gone inside.

"I don't know," Pete replied. "It's all the same, right? Over."

I paused siphoning to crack open the radio. "No, it's not. Cars and boats use different types of petrol, over. One won't work on the other. Take the ship fuel. I visited the pier the other day. Vincent said his boats need more of that to run properly, over."

"You sure? Who's Vincent? Over."

"Vincent Jackson. Rich guy who used to be part of the yacht club. He repurposed his boat to start fishing, over. It's important for food, over."

"Alright, new kid. You got it, over."

I was glad. According to Vincent, the fish farm was going great, but that didn't mean a working boat or three wasn't useful to have. This close to a vacation lake, it made sense for a store like this to carry boat fuel.

Pete and I switched off in an hour. I sat atop the truck with Rocket by my side, watching the two men venture further away from our car. We'd siphoned all the gas from every car in the surrounding lot now. When I asked what was next, they told me to sit tight and keep watch while they went inside and joined the rest of our team.

"This ain't so bad," I told Rocket, giving him a good scritch behind the ears. He hadn't moved once since we'd parked. I got the feeling that he was a little disappointed at not picking up food.

"Oone," he huffed.

"Don't be like that. The store's also got charcoal. You like smoked things, right?"

"Lin? Linoone."

"Yeah. We'll go hunting when this is over, just the two of us. We can smoke something. Maybe we can even come out here alone, make it a weekend trip for a few days. We'd draw a lot less attention than the whole convoy, right?"

"Lin."

"See? Just think of this as a scouting mission for ourselves in the future, eh? Besides, quiet is good. I'd rather be bored than be fighting for my life."

Just as I said that, my walkie-talkie came alive in a burst of static.

"N-No! Get it off! Aaah!" I heard one of the men scream.

"What the hell was that? Team two, come in!" Ranger Swanson's voice followed a second later. "Fuck! Check in! Team one's all fine."

"Team three's fine. We're in the store hauling boat fuel," Pete said.

"Shane here. Rocket and I are standing watch outside."

"Team two!" Swanson barked. When there was no response, he swore again. "Shit, they're either gone or they're in no position to respond. Drop what you've got and gather in front of the hospital."

We hurried to comply. When we arrived, we found team one already there. They were parked around team two's trucks, both abandoned.

The hospital was a small compound made up mostly of two story buildings, with the main building being three stories. Though it was one of the main medical facilities this side of Tahoe, it obviously didn't see as many patients as a hospital in the city.

Ranger Swanson nodded to us as we drove in. Scout, his tranquill, alighted on his shoulder with a quiet croon. "Good, you're here. We've got twelve people. Four of you will stay out here with Scout as lookouts. Eight of us will be heading inside. We'll do a floor by floor search. Shane, Rocket, you're coming in with me."

I nodded, nervously adjusting the strap of my backpack. I didn't relish the thought of intentionally going into danger, but it was clear that this was expected of me as the only one with a groundbound pokemon. "You got it."

"We could just leave," one of the rangers said. "If they haven't picked up, they're probably dead. Ain't no sense in going inside."

"We don't know that," Swanson grunted, "They could be unconscious or holed up in a position where talking is risky. Even if they are dead, we owe it to them to confirm. We'll also need to come back to the hospital for supplies too so it's not like this problem's going to go away"

'Yeah? Well count me out. I'm staying out here where I can shoot something before it comes for me."

"Coward," another ranger mocked.

"Shut it!" Swanson barked. "None of that. You want to stay out here? Fine. Keep that radio close, you hear?"

"Yeah, yeah."

I observed silently. It wasn't something I hadn't seen before. Ranger Swanson had command and did well enough when nothing was going wrong, but when we had to walk into danger? Then nerves were frayed and people started acting up. I saw similar things in Bend. Greed. Self-preservation. Understandable things, but ugly.

In the end, we did manage to divide into two teams. The eight of us, made up of Ranger Swanson, myself, Javier, Pete, and four others, checked our gear one last time before heading into the hospital. I had my trusty crossbow, the M1911 holdout pistol, a survival hatchet, and a nice, thick hunting knife.

I climbed aboard team two's truck beds. I rummaged around until I found what I was looking for, a discarded beanie soaked with sweat from loading the truck with medical supplies.

"What're you doing up there, Shane?" Javier called.

"Tracking. We can do a floor by floor search, or we can have Rocket find the guy this belongs to," I explained. I tossed it to Rocket, who leisurely snatched it out of the air. "Odor Sleuth, bud."

"Linoone-lin. Lin-oone," he whined. He took a few sniffs of the beanie. His ears perked up, which I knew to mean he had the trail.

"He can do that?" Ranger Swanson asked.

"Sure he can."

"Then you two up front. We'll follow behind you."

"Yes, sir. Rocket, we're going in," I said with more confidence than I felt. "Keep up Odor Sleuth. Expect fighting."

X

As it turned out, Rocket led us down to the basement. Behind me followed seven men, all armed similarly to myself. A few even had spears made from sharpened steel pipes with duct tape wrapped around them for grip.

We ignored the non-functioning elevator in favor of the stairs. There, Rocket paused, took one sniff of the air below, and let out a quiet bark.

"What's that mean?" Pete asked.

"It means beanie-man is downstairs," I said. "Dead or alive, Rocket?"

"Lin," he chuffed, burying his nose in his paw."

"Dead. Well, Ranger Swanson? Your call. We go find out what killed him?"

"It's Tom, kid. And yeah, we go down. We need to know if that's going to be a problem. The last thing we need is something crawling up behind us while we search the rest of this place. I also want to get James' body back if we can. We owe it to him."

I saw the men nod, though some did so reluctantly.

"Right. Rocket, head down slow. Flashlights, please."

We stepped down stair by stair, treating each floorboard like there was a land mine beneath it. Considering the bullshit revolving around pokemon, I wasn't willing to say that wasn't a possibility.

The basement was noticeably colder than the first floor. A difference of ten feet down, and already I could see hoarfrost forming all over the metal railing. The floor was slick with ice and our breaths loosed clouds of condensed water that caught our flashlight beams. This clearly wasn't something natural and it had us all on edge.

We found the one called James, or what was left of him, in front of what looked like a storage room.

"Holy shit," Javier gasped.

I heard a few men retch. I wanted to join them. The poor guy had his head cracked open, caved in like a watermelon dropped from the roof. I looked him over and found that his legs had been given the same treatment. His shins were shattered, splinters of bone poking through a coat of crimson.

"Back," Ranger Swanson ordered. "Back to the stairs. Shane, what the hell caused that?"

"I don't know," I said, voice cracking in alarm.

I ran through every ice type I could think of. Seal? No, they wouldn't be out here, same with cloyster. Jynx? No chance. Sneasel? They had claws, not sledgehammers. Swinub and piloswine could probably do it, but I didn't think they'd be in some hospital basement. Warthog and mammoth types didn't scream they'd be at home here. Same with snover and abomasnow.

"Well fat lot of help you are," I heard someone mutter, only to quiet as Rocket growled low.

"To the stairs. Carefully," Swanson warned. "Body's uneaten so they don't want us. We leave, it'll be fine."

"Linoo!" Rocket barked, knocking Swanson down.

"What the fu-"

"Pokemon attack!"

Our flashlights swung wildly but caught nothing. I ducked when I heard gunshots go off. A ball of blue sailed through the air, where Ranger Swanson's head used to be.

"Shrew!" I heard.

That sinking feeling in my stomach was back. Shrew? Sandshrew? I tilted my flashlight down, confirming my suspicions. A sandshrew, but blue. It was coated in a thick layer of ice-like armor. It had uncurled from its ball and began to chitter angrily at us.

"Sandshrew!" I yelled. I hauled Ranger Swanson to his feet. "They're short!"

"What the fuck? Aren't these things ground types?" Pete yelled.

"Doesn't matter. Head for the stairs!"

"Rocket! Cover us with Pni Missile!" I ordered, shoving people back.

More chittering filled the air. That thing wasn't alone. Javier swung his flashlight, showing us a hole in the corner of the wall we'd missed. Three more crawled out and brandished their claws menacingly.

These things had burrowed clean through the cement, though for what, I couldn't say. Maybe they just wanted four walls to call their own and figured they could use the space. Or they were interested in something in the storage rooms. Fuck if I knew; I wasn't Oak. I wasn't even a vet like Sabrina.

A flurry of sharpened hairs launched from Rocket. Several of us raised our weapons and fired as we retreated onto the stairs. It didn't matter. The sandshrew curled into balls and bullets and hairs alike bounced with clear, pinging noises.

All that got us was a set of glaring, angry pokemon. The way their claws scraped against the frozen ground made for a distinctly hair-raising sound.

"Shit, I think they're mad," Pete muttered helpfully.

"Don't you fucking turn around," I whispered harshly. "You turn around, you won't know when to dodge. Slowly climb up backwards. Rocket, keep their heads down with Pin Missile. If they launch at us, don't block, just use Tail Whip and try to sweep them to the side."

We did just that. We weren't getting James' body back.

Then, all four of them used Rollout, launching themselves like demented Sonic on crack. Rocket leapt into the air, pivoting sharply to slap two of them off course.

Another, Henry or something from team one, stepped in front of me. He shoved me back and brought his steel pipe to bear, swinging as heavily as he could manage while stuck with so little room. The sandshrew let out a yelp of surprise as it was bunted into the ground.

That would have hit me in the face had Henry not stepped through. Shivering, I made a note to do something nice for the big guy. Clearly, my reliance on my crossbow and a hunting knife wasn't good for defense. I didn't know what "good defense" there was against an angry pokemon, but at least I'd live long enough to workshop the idea.

The fourth however, struck true. It had slid against the wall, rolling up the hoarfrost like it was a personal racetrack. It flew above my head to nail the guy behind me. The dull snap of breaking bone filled the air.

"Aahhh!" he screamed out.

I quickly picked up the sandshrew, about two-thirds the size of a bowling ball, and shot-put it away from us. "Up! Keep going up!"

I had no idea what the fuck was going on. Sandshrew were ground types. That had been established fact since the original Pokemon Yellow. Why the fuck was an obvious ice type variant here? What even was it?

It was like that not-pikachu Rocket and I faced. A new pokemon. Or maybe a regional variant? Were those a thing? Divergent evolution based on habitat? For all I knew, this thing could be a Team Rocket experiment a la Mewtwo. The world had never seen a hint of any of the canon "baddies" in the dungeons, but the Rockets were exactly the kind of crazy who'd try something like this and make it everyone else's problem.

The eight of us made it back up the stairs with only one injury, some guy named Luke. He'd managed to bring his arm up in time to keep his face in one piece, but the sandshrew had turned that arm to so much jelly with one Rollout. We now had visceral confirmation how that James fellow died.

Author's Note

Javier is correct. Truckee is an old town, dating back to the mid-1800s. It was named after a chief of the Paiute tribe by the name of Tru-ki-zo. According to Wikipedia, he was a friendly chief who greeted travelers by saying "Tro-kay!" which in Paiute meant "Everything is alright." Could be anecdotal, but it was funny enough to reference.

Airplane fuel, like boat fuel, is incompatible with a car's engine. Siphoning it from an aircraft won't do you much good; you're better off just raiding the parked cars, lounges, and stripping useful metal from things.

The neighborhood we saw them salvage from exists. I literally pulled up a Google Maps so I can think about what might be reasonable for six trucks to raid.

Now, is this how you should carry out a raid? Probably not. I'm sure there are a dozen military folk who know better, and a hundred more keyboard-berets, but you'll just have to forgive me for never having engaged in urban warfare of any kind. Also keep in mind that the guy they put in charge was a park ranger. This is more or less the best they could do.

Now, we know that sandshrew is the Alolan variant, but Shane has no fucking clue. For him, thinking a hyper-aggressive variant is some kind of science experiment isn't an unreasonable guess.

Why are the sandshrew there at all? Why the fuck are they so damn murder-happy? What happened to the other members of team two? Find out more on Dragon Ball Z!

Animal fact? Alright. The pygmy shrew is the smallest mammal in North America and the second smallest in the world. Unfortunately, the crown of smallest in the world belongs to the bumblebee bat, weighing in at just 2 grams.

Thank you for reading. To reach a wider audience, and because I enjoy a more forum-like setup to facilitate discussion, I like to crosspost to a wide variety of websites. You can find them all on my Link Tree: https://linktr.ee/fabled.webs.