Cloudburst dived under the branches, her wings silent. She spiralled under the twisted white branches, avoiding the hanging vines as they swayed in her passage. As she passed the densest vegetation she straightened and her wings began to beat.
Whoop. Whoop. The sounds were faint, but with only the bubbling of the marsh to accompany them the wing beats carried far.
They were not training as they hiked today. David expected to arrive in Fuchsia in the next few hours, and he wanted Pidgey to be fresh for... He wanted her to be fresh just in case. A new city in this strange world awaited them. A new city with trainers to battle for some much needed cash. A new city with dangers of its own. It was better to be ready.
So Cloudburst dived between the sparse trees, swooped between the vines, and danced in the sky. She was having fun, flying for the sheer joy of it. The sparse trees in the bog provided an obstacle course, but one she could approach at full speed. It was a new experience for her and she loved it.
David watched her with a smile, but his thoughts were elsewhere. His backpack had a new weight to it, and he had so very many new questions.
What did he call his new Pokemon? He didn’t know their official name - it wasn’t in ‘Beleaf in them’, the closest thing he had to a Pokedex for Bug types. Which said a lot given that the leaflet was mostly about Grass types.
He knew they were an early evolution of the moth Pokemon, but currently they looked closer to a gigantic bee. The bushy purple fur wasn’t all that similar to the signature yellow and black, and their eyes were red instead of black, but colour, limbs and wings aside, a bee was what they reminded him of.
David frowned. Listing them out made the differences larger than he’d realised. There was also ‘Beedrill’ to consider. A waspy, bee-like Pokemon if the descriptions did it any justice. Bee was not a good name for the new Pokemon. So what was? What did you call a baby wasp? Grub? Larva? Pupa? A.. what was it again? Apid?
He sighed. Why was it only in weird situations that high school biology classes became relevant?
Actually, how old was his new Pokemon? If they were very young, giving them a name might raise some eyebrows. And what gender were they? He’d been told Pidgey was female on the day he received her, but how was he meant to figure that out with a wild Pokemon? Did he bring them to the Pokecenter? Did he ask?
...was he supposed to check?
David groaned. No. Not a current problem. Hopefully not a future one either. His new Pokemon was asleep for now, and when it woke up, he had a lot more to figure out.
Could they battle? What Moves did they know? He needed to see them in action, but would he need to find a wild Pokemon to train against? Would Pidgey fight them? If the two of them fought, how was he supposed to give orders? Did he support one not the other? What about-
David jerked back as feathers flashed in front of his eyes.
“Pidgey!” He complained, but she had already climbed above the trees. She hovered above a fork in the road, swerving above the left path.
“Fine,” David grumbled, following after her. If she wanted to go this way, she could have just said. There was no need for the flyby.
As time passed the trees grew more regular and less gnarled. Cloudburst reluctantly slowed her dives and spent more time gliding alongside David. The paths they walked became more maintained. The ground grew firmer beneath his feet. The rotting pools of water disappeared completely.
David was fascinated by how this was all achieved.
Long trenches stretched across the area, never straight, but weaving in some pattern he couldn’t understand yet. Each trench was full of light grey rocks, which felt similar to limestone. Between these trenches was dry land. Dry soil.
Fuchsia city had reclaimed this land. They had drained the swamps and they had done it on a massive scale with what seemed to be all manual labour. He’d been walking for an hour through this land now, and the trenches continued, stretching off into the distance in neverending lines. Even with the aid of Pokemon, this was like nothing he’d ever seen before.
David had attended lectures about the Dutch Polders. He’d studied how they built their dikes, but while those projects were massive in scale, they were also broad. Huge embankments made from local material surrounded the area, but they didn’t weave throughout it. Here trenches were dug into the earth every ten to twenty metres, carving the land into small plots.
It was fascinating.
Examining the trenches, and speculating about how they were dug occupied his mind until the Route 18 paths merged into a road. A few minutes later, a wooden cabin decorated with a silver mountain appeared between the trees.
David rolled his shoulders and called for Pidgey. With a slow, reluctant squawk she abandoned the air and landed down beside him. As they got closer to the city he would need to recall her to her pokeball, not willing to repeat his encounter with a Saffron police officer, but for now it should be fine if she walked alongside him.
They continued down the road, ignoring the Ranger’s office for now. He had no plans to immediately return to Route 18 and the things were never-
“Hello there!”
‘Oh.’ David turned in surprise to see a man jogging over from the office.
A man with lime green hair?
“Hello, welcome to Fuchsia,” The man said, slowing down as he got closer. He was tall, roughly early twenties at David’s best guess and he really had green hair. The man’s long, pale lime green hair was swept back and fell to just below his ears. “Sorry, Route 18 has been quiet for a while so I wasn’t ready.”
“Hi,” David said, a little taken aback.
“Pidgey!” Cloudburst chimed in, hopping back towards David.
If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.
“I wasn’t sleeping or anything,” The man said, waving his hands. “I was just reorganising the storage when I heard your call.”
“Right,” David nodded, not entirely sure what was going on. “Sorry, who are you?”
The man blinked, bushy green eyebrows bobbing with the motion. They seemed to dwarf the rest of his facial features which were petite in comparison. “Oh. Right. I’m Louis, I’m a ranger apprentice.” Louis gestured back at the office. The gesture made David finally look away from all the lime green. Louis wore an outdoor uniform, a dark grey workout top and.. olive green cargo pants. Three pokeballs were woven into a belt around his waist.
Rangers. They managed the Routes. Noah, the White Pokeball convoy leader, had warned him about being caught in high badge zones before. Was this a surprise inspection? David tensed, and gripped the straps of his backpack. He should have put his hat and scarf on as soon as the building came into view.
“I’m manning the office today, usually it would be a full ranger, but the Route’s been quiet and there’s increased patrols because of the-” Louis cut himself off. “Things are busy elsewhere.” He finished lamely.
“Ah.” David looked down at Pidgey beside him. She’d lost interest in Louis and was scanning the surrounding area instead. He turned back to Louis. “So do you need help or..”
“Oh.” Louis winced. “I forgot that part didn’t I?”
David nodded, relaxing as a smile crept onto his face. It might still be an inspection, but not a serious one if Louis’s attitude was anything to go by.
“Do you have some time to fill out an entry form?”
David hesitated. He wasn’t as concerned about using his trainer licence here as he had been in Celadon. Everything he’d heard stated that Fuchsia was no friend of Saffron, but he wasn’t eager to be flashing it around either. The Psychics looking for him were only a small part of Team Rocket.
”It’s not something for the Rangers,” Louis continued, seeing his hesitation. “It’s for Fuchsia city, who run this branch of Rangers, but this is city business not League business.”
David stared at him blankly. “What does that mean?”
Louis made a face. “You don’t have to do it as it’s not League business, but I’d recommend it. If you don't, someone will be assigned to find it out anyway. Fuchsia is run differently from everywhere else, and security is very high because of the Safari zone.”
“Oh.”
Was added security a good thing or a bad? He definitely didn’t like the idea of someone being assigned to look into him. That sounded very dystopian, secret police like. There were endless holes in his backstory and a Ranger finding no information would raise a lot of flags.
Increased security around Fuchsia might make Team Rocket less of a threat though.
David inspected Louis. Another question was if he trusted the stranger before him. Louis had come from the office, but he had no proof that the man was who he said he was, or that the information would be going to Fuchsia city and not Team Rocket.
“Want to have a look at the form first?” Louis asked hesitantly.
David pursed his lips. As much as he wanted to say no, he didn’t have a good reason to yet outside of suspicions. “Sure.”
He could always decide not to complete it after getting a look at the form.
-.-
David took his first look at the inside of a Ranger’s office and was a little disappointed. It was all too normal. The entrance room had two wooden desks, both facing the doorway and chairs for visitors to sit on. The walls were covered in posters with practical camping advice, warnings about littering and survival tips. It didn’t feel any different from a park office back home.
Louis left him at the door, striding behind a desk and pulling open one of the filing cabinets behind it.
Off to David’s right was the door to a storage room. The door had been left ajar, which given the hefty key in the lock was not standard procedure. The room was as basic as any storage room, but the contents caught David’s eye. There was the normal gear - what he would expect to see in any rescue operation. Backpacks, jackets, climbing gear, first aid kits, foil rescue blankets. Then there were the weird items. Inflatable rafts, lifejackets, diving gear, oxygen tanks, ice picks, spike crampons and what looked to be firefighting and hazmat suits.
His eyes were wide when he turned back to Louis. This was what he had been reorganising?
“You said you were a Ranger’s apprentice?”
Louis nodded, his head still half buried in the filing cabinet. “Yeah, I was accepted at the end of last season.”
David took another look at the storage room. It was half rescue, half doomsday shelter. “Why a Ranger?”
Wait, was that too personal?
“If you don’t mind me asking.”
Louis laughed, still flicking through the cabinet. “I don’t mind. The Rangers are a little different in Fuchsia, but I get where you’re coming from. Days if not weeks out patrolling the routes, camping in the rough. Worse pay than any gym or tournament trainer, and ten times the risk. It’s- Ah.”
Louis pulled a form out of the cabinet and turned to David. “Here it is. Sorry, this office is a mess. Form FC...”
Louis tilted his head back and groaned. “This is last years.” He turned back to the filing cabinet.
David walked over and sat down on one of the chairs in front of the desks. He wasn’t sure if he’d complete the form yet, but he didn’t think this was a trap anymore. “So why become a Ranger then?”
“I hated my journey,” Louis said with a shrug. “Not the training and camping and all that. That I enjoyed. It was the battling, the circuit and the gyms that I hated. My team and I fought our way to three badges, but we were exhausted. Picking battles for Poke, the tension for challenges and dealing with the hard losses... It wasn’t for us.” His fingers, flicking through the cabinet, froze. “Not that journeys are bad or that I dislike the circuit or anything.”
David sniggered. Louis seemed like a nice guy. “I think it's a little mad too.” He gripped Pidgey’s ball, hanging from his neck. “I always feel a little weird watching Pokemon fight.”
Louis turned and blinked at him. “Really?”
David nodded, shifting in his seat at the surprised look on the Ranger apprentice’s face. They must have been talking about the money aspect rather than the battling itself. As he did, a box on the desk caught his eye.
“Did you say form FC?” He plucked one of the sheets of paper out of the box. “FC-18?”
“Yes!” Louis slammed the cabinet closed and turned. “Where- Oh come on.”
David smirked and began to read the form. It was basic enough stuff. Reason for visit, number of badges, accommodation in Fuchsia and trainer id. Nothing he had an issue with aside from trainer id.
“Who gets these forms?”
“The city management,” Louis responded, flopping into the seat behind the desk. “It’s used to keep track of trainers in the city, but little else. It’s not posted publicly or anything.”
David hummed. There was still a risk then. Team Rocket could have a mole like in Saffron. “What about the accommodation field? I haven’t booked a hotel or anything.”
“Eh.. you can put down Fuchsia campsites for that. Camping outside of the city is banned unless you’re travelling. It’s another Safari zone thing. The campsites are great though. Running water, cooking facilities and everything like that.”
David bit his lip. It was a risk, but so was the Pokecenter, and he would have to visit there eventually.
“Have a pen?”
David signed on the dotted line.
Louis saw him off before disappearing back inside to tackle the storage room.
David started back on the road, considering whether to release Pidgey or not when he heard it. Chatter grew with every step, until the road turned and there were houses. The treeline met the city without any gap in between.
Steep pointed roofs stabbed at the sky, always at least two per building, packed like layers of earth on a cliff side. The lower half of these houses were white, built from the white marsh trees. The upper was blood red. Every house was densely packed, cluttered together with small narrow streets between them. People darted back and forth across the thin roads.
So this was Fuchsia city.