Pokemon: Apocalypse (Pokemon/Our World)

Liftoff 1.9

April 2015

The eight of us stumbled back up the stairs, almost but not quite in a broken panic. We leaned heavily against the wall, our near-death experience shaking us to our bones. Pokemon were, as a rule, stronger than humans, but most things in the forest were susceptible to bullets like every other game. That seeming invulnerability, paired with the darkness, enclosed quarters, and the way an ice type sandshrew shattered expectations, pressed down on us like a physical weight.

Ranger Swanson looked around and took stock, making sure there weren't any unnoticed injuries. Thankfully, the only injury we had was someone from Swanson's team, a shattered arm he probably wouldn't be using for a good six months, if at all.

Rocket positioned himself over the mouth of the stairs, looking down into the darkness to make sure we weren't followed.

Luke, the man with the shattered arm, was whimpering quietly, cradling his arm to his body in a vain attempt to stop the pain. I tried not to look at that. I'd never been great with body horror. Seeing his arm turned to so much jelly made my stomach flip.

"W-What the hell were those things?" Pete, the man who'd been my driver, stammered.

"Sandshrew," another said. He was a squat man with a shotgun. I was grateful he had the presence of mind not to fire it while we were crowded together in the stairs. "It's supposed to be a ground type."

"He's right. They're not supposed to be aggressive. Dex says they roll up to avoid attackers when threatened, not hit first," I explained. I was trying to make sense of it all. Why the hell were those things ice types? "Supposed to make burrows and curl up, like armadillos."

"Fuck your dex!" Luke's friend, Alex, said. "What the hell was that?"

"I don't know," I said, shaking my head. "Like he said, sandshrew are ground types. They belong in the Arizona desert, not up here in the Cascades."

"You're supposed to be the fucking pokemon expert! What the fuck do you mean you don't know?"

"I mean it's not in any game or anime we've ever seen! I can't know something that was never released!"

"You took us down there!"

"We were looking for the body!"

"Hey, knock it off!" Swanson barked.

It didn't matter. He wasn't truly a sergeant and we weren't his soldiers. Alex was too pissed to care. He surged forward and, before I could react, sucker punched me in the jaw.

My head was flung back as pain bloomed on the side of my face. My vision was swimming. I hadn't been in too many scraps before; I sure as hell wasn't a fighter. My back collided with the wall and I tried to catch myself.

There was shouting as the men restrained Alex. Javier, the ex-army guy from my truck, stepped in front of me protectively. Then the shouting was undercut by the pissed off snarl of a seven feet long murder-scarf. A high-pitched shriek of terror and pain followed as Alex figured out just what he picked a fight with. I had to stop it. Things got way too out of hand as it was.

"Stop!" I shouted. "Rocket, to me!"

At the same time, a gunshot rang through the air. Swanson had his pistol aimed at the ceiling. He was glaring at us all, his mustache bristling furiously. "Enough! Shane, keep a hold on Rocket. Alex, you fucking idiot, you deserved that. Take Luke and get back to the trucks."

I grabbed Rocket by the tail and dragged him over to me. He complied, but never took his eyes off the men. His claws were extended in sheaths of white light, Slash, ready to disembowel Alex for attacking me.

Alex wasn't doing much better than Luke now. He did get his arm up in time, but a split second and a single cut was all it took to open his arm to the bone. He glared at me with unbridled hate. What had begun as a bout of hysteria had quickly become raw animosity between us. I couldn't say I was in a charitable mood either.

The room fell into an awkward silence. More than one man was eyeing Rocket with caution. For his part, Rocket seemed completely unbothered by their stares and made a show of licking his bloodied paw.

I could tell by the raised fur that stood on end that he was just as agitated as the rest of us. Reaching down, I stroked his back and did my best to calm him down. I needed to show that I was in control, that Rocket would listen to me. The absence of a pokeball never felt more apparent.

Ranger Swanson did his best to get us focused again. "What else, Shane? What does an ice type know? If we meet them again, what can we expect?"

"That Sonic the Hedgehog shit was Rollout. Those things are probably faster in the open, builds even more momentum. The most basic ice type moves are Powder Snow and Ice Shard, both ranged, one a conic blast of cold, the other a dagger of ice," I said with a grim nod. I thought more about it. "Normal sandshrew also know Poison Sting, but I have no idea how strong their venom is. It looks a lot like Rocket's Pin Missile. We're lucky. They either don't know the move or didn't use it."

"Alright, that's good. If we have an idea of what they can do, we can prepare."

"I ain't going back down there, Tom," one of the others said.

"And I'm not asking you to. In a perfect world, we'd pick up James' body to bury but I'm not risking us. Just knowing he's gone is going to have to be good enough," he said firmly. "But that doesn't mean we won't see those things again."

"If they haven't come up after us, we're probably fine," Jarvis ventured.

"The body wasn't eaten either, I think," Pete added. "Do they eat meat?"

I shrugged. I felt uncomfortable at the way they all turned to me. In their minds, I had a mammalian pokemon and so I must be an expert on shrews. I wished I could tell them, but I had no idea either. "Not a clue. Shrews eat insects, but pokemon aren't really their counterparts. I know they eat berries so they might be omnivorous."

"Fine, if that's what we've got to work with, that's what we've got to work with," Swanson grunted. He motioned for us to move. "Come on, let's get back to the trucks. We'll figure out our next move once we've regrouped."

X

Our next move was to check our equipment and head back inside to confirm what happened to the other five men. It was not a popular decision. More than one person wanted to give up the men as lost and go home.

"We need to go back," Ranger Swanson said firmly. He looked tired, resigned, like he'd expected casualties and he was just going through the motions now. "You'd want us coming for you if you were stuck somewhere inside and unable to get help."

"Or they're dead, Tom," Henry was the big guy who smacked the sandshrew out of the air from hitting me in the face. "I'm with you, you know I am, but they're probably dead."

"They might be," he nodded, "but that doesn't change things on our end. We still need to know what killed them. We need to know so if we have to come back, we come back better prepared."

"I don't know, man," Pete said. "For all we know, there's something that's got them sandshrew so pissed off."

"The sandshrew aren't going to be coming up or they would have already."

"Yeah, but that doesn't mean there's nothing up there. I'm sorry, Tom, I'm staying put."

That got more than a few grunts of agreement. Truthfully, I didn't like the idea of going back there either, but taking a pit stop by the trucks made it worse. It gave us time to take stock of our lives, to think and wonder and begin to fear the unknown. We should have gone straight up; then we'd have had six people. As it was, few looked willing.

I considered my options. It wasn't as if I disagreed with Ranger Swanson. This wasn't a diner or something else that we could skip. This was a hospital in the middle of a mountain town, just about the only one reliably stocked for miles. There was a good chance we'd have to come back here eventually.

If regrouping out here was a bad idea, I felt that going back to Carnelian Bay would be even worse. I'd seen it in Bend. Humans had a herd mentality; it made us feel safe when we were in large groups, even if that large group was all but defenseless. I feared that if we had to come back, the town would make me do so at the head of dozens of men, most of whom I wouldn't trust with a can of beans, never mind mine or Rocket's life.

If we were forced to leave here and things came to that, fine, but I'd rather know what I was up against.

"I say we go," I said with a nod to the men. "Look, I know I'm the new guy, but hear me out. Put aside whatever happened to team two for a second. We need medical supplies, right? What other options are there? I guess the airport must have an emergency hospital on-site."

"We cleared that out when we swept the parking lots for gas," Jarvis said.

"The pharmacy's cleared out too, so…"

"Shane's right," Ranger Swanson said. "We don't have much of a choice. The absolute minimum we need to do is figure out what's in there before we can come back with more men."

"Easy for you to say," someone scoffed. He glared at me with naked suspicion. He wasn't the only one. Though I was happy with Rocket backing me, I knew I'd see some backlash for this eventually. He spat to the side with disdain. "You two have pokemon of your own. That's all good for you, but ain't nobody watching my ass but me."

"Yeah, whoop-de-doo, you've got a magic ferret to do your fighting for you, kid," Henry said. "That's great, but that don't do much good for anyone else. Same with you, Tom. I figure your pigeon will jump through the window to help you out in the upper floors, but that's no help to us."

Ranger Swanson looked at them, then at me. He eventually sighed but nodded. "Alright, volunteer basis only. I'm in, you, Shane?"

"Yeah. It's better than not knowing. I figure we'll have to come back no matter what."

"Anyone else?"

Javier stepped forward and patted me on the back. "I'm in too. Can't be worse than Iraq. I ever tell you about going door to door in a fucking dustbowl?"

"Didn't you tell me you were a driver?"

"Shhh."

"Fine. The rest of you, sit here for two hours. If we're not back or radioed in by then, head back to Carnelian bay," Swanson said. "Let's go."

As we turned toward the hospital, Rocket looked back at them with utter disgust. Three men and two pokemon wasn't a terrible party, all things considered. I'd rather have a smaller team I could trust than a bunch of idiots press-ganged into this getting in each other's way. I felt we could handle most low-level threats easily enough.

No, what I was really worried about was the clear division between the ones that stayed and us, especially Rocket. Protecting me or not, Rocket bit a person and they'd remember that. They didn't trust him to protect them, which would make working with them harder in the future.

The inverse was true too. Rocket lost all respect he had for them when they refused to accompany us. I could tell; if there was ever a chance he might have considered them "pack," it sure as hell didn't exist anymore.

With a wary heart, I led us into the hospital for our second dive.

X

The three of us followed Rocket upstairs. Odor Sleuth made scouting the hospital much less time consuming, allowing us to skip the ground floor altogether in search of the five men from team two.

Outside, Scout the tranquil circled the building, keeping track of our progress through the windows. Ranger Swanson said Scout wouldn't have room to maneuver and kept him circling overhead. He'd be able to intervene swiftly regardless because of the building's layout. Personally, I thought it was so the men stationed outside wouldn't just ditch us.

Rocket led us toward another stairwell, only to let out a quiet bark of warning. We approached as silently as we could and stayed by the windows so our aerial support could keep an eye on our position.

Then, as we walked into the second floor hallway, Ranger Swanson's foot bumped into something.

"Shit," he yelped, jumping back. We held our weapons tight with surprise.

I didn't blame him. He'd bumped into a sandshrew. Or, part of one. The cadaver was frozen solid and had been flipped on its back. It skidded along the ground like a grisly hockey puck.

"Holy shit," Jarvis whispered. "What the fuck did that?"

I swallowed down the bile and knelt to study it more closely. The sandshrew was a mess of red. Its internal organs had been scooped out, as if the plate-like hide on its back had been turned into a serving bowl for the world's most macabre ice cream sundae. What flesh remained clung to the body in thin strips, as if whatever had done this had torn it to ribbons as it disemboweled the poor creature.

"I don't know," Ranger Swanson said, "but I bet we know why those things downstairs are so aggressive."

"Claws, not teeth. The wounds are too deep and long to be a bite. From multiple directions too, not just one strong hit," I said. Next to me , Rocket bristled and let out a cautionary whine. "I know. We'll be careful."

"Body's frozen solid."

"So it's another ice type?" Jarvis asked. "Fuck, think we can juryrig a flamethrower or something?"

I nodded. "Sounds about right. An ice type with long claws meant for tearing. Parts of the shrew are missing so it wasn't just some kind of territory dispute. Something's been eating these guys."

"Any pokemon you know that fits?"

I ran through a quick list of ice types, but there was only one that came to mind. "Sneasel. Maybe a weavile if we're really unlucky."

"Which is?"

"Ice and dark dual type pokemon. Think weasels with extra-long claws. They're canonically said to steal eggs and whatnot."

"Pack animals?"

"Small groups? One distracts the bird while the other steals from the nest."

"Fucking hell," Swanson swore. "Alright, good. We have a good guess of what's here. Expect more than just a pair though. The sandshrew might have come in for some reason and their predators followed. Then our boys came in and…"

"As good a guess as any," Jarvis grunted. He'd switched his hunting rifle in favor of a shotgun, though I wasn't sure how useful that would be. Sneasel were supposed to be fast as fuck. "We done here?"

Ranger Swanson looked like he was considering it. "Rocket, how close are we to team two?"

"Lin," he growled softly. His head twitched toward a wide hallway lined with plastic chairs. It looked like it doubled as a waiting room.

"In there then, huh?"

"Close enough that we can take a peek, but I think we should head back."

"Agreed. I'm not comfortable with snea-" I started to say, only for Rocket to launch himself towards the ceiling with a Liftoff, claws out and fangs bared in a wicked snarl.

"Linoone!" he barked.

I saw him twitch and ducked before my brain registered the threat. I hit the ground just in time. A weaponized icicle lanced through the air, exactly where my head had been two seconds ago. I twisted around to find that I'd guessed correctly. A weasel with a crimson plume on its head and midnight-black fur snarled at me.

Rocket's counterattack, a Quick Attack-empowered Slash, found it before it could react, opening a wide, deep cut along its abdomen.

It fell to the ground with a yowling screech of pain.

"Ambush!" Ranger Swanson shouted unnecessarily.

Jarvis dove on top of it, hunting knife out and stabbing down repeatedly. Good. Pokemon were durable as fuck. I'd seen pidgey tank a pistol before and keep going for several minutes; I wouldn't have trusted that thing not to get up with its intestines hanging out either.

I scanned my surroundings. These fuckers almost got me, somehow bypassing Rocket's Odor Sleuth until it was almost too late. Was it the strength of a dark type? I shuddered to think what would have happened had I a less perceptive partner.

Out of the corner of my eye, I spied the shadows move. A wooden stand that had been placed decoratively along one wall, flower vase and all, hid a sneasel beneath it. One struck from above so the other would follow up from below for maximum disorientation. It was almost uncanny how human their thought process was. Thankfully, they weren't too coordinated either, giving me a second to act.

I punched Swanson on the back of his knee, taking him to the ground with me as a second Ice Shard missed him by inches. Raising my crossbow, I loosed my arrow, but I wasn't as fast as Rocket. The sneasel managed to avoid a killing shot, only taking a grazing hit to its side.

Ranger Swanson brought his own pistol to bear, nailing the thing twice before it could slink off into the shadows. Or he tried, but we were forced to the ground again by another sneasel and a larger, meaner big brother. Had they been allowed to continue their assault, we would have died then and there. Two more sneasel were bad enough, but a weavile? Three men had no chance.

That was when Scout blew out the windows with a Gust, launching the weasel pokemon across the hall. It sent us rolling too, but close to the ground as we were, that was better than getting skewered by flying icicles. At the same time, Jarvis' shotgun went off, only for the sudden gale to knock the gun off course.

All three of them landed on their feet. Our air support was smart enough to avoid coming into the hospital, wary of the ice types.

I cursed my luck. We should have ducked out when I guessed the species, even if we weren't positive. Quickly, I slung my crossbow and pulled out my holdout pistol. The bow was great, but it was far too slow to nail pokemon like these when I wasn't the one doing the ambushing.

"We should leave," I whispered. "Back toward the stairs. Slowly."

Jarvis grunted in grim resignation. He pumped the gun to discharge the spent shell and cycle another. "I don't think that'll work. They might follow and I don't wanna turn my back to them."

"Into the waiting room," Ranger Swanson ordered. "We need to fight. We'll have more room to move than the hallway."

"So will they."

"Just do it! Scout, Gust!"

I complied. I didn't have a choice. I disagreed, but making the suboptimal decision was better than arguing about it mid-fight. I had Rocket launch his own salvo of Pin Missiles to distract the sneasel pack before dashing into the waiting room. There, we rushed behind the secretary's counter for cover. A second later, Rocket dove into the room and behind the desk, leaving behind a streak of white light.

"We can't let them circle us," Jarvis said. He was right. It wasn't like we could turn the heavy counter. They'd just pick us off in seconds.

"Scout will flank them, but ice beats flying, right?" Ranger Swanson asked me.

"Yeah, we can't leave him alone either."

"Plans?"

They entered the room. We fired a few times, but mostly to keep them off our backs. I grabbed a ceramic pencil holder and hurled it at one sneasel. It dodged with a cackling noise that was halfway between a snarl and a laugh.

Then, ice formed between the weavile's paws and a wide-area Icy Wind buffeted us all. It was like nothing I'd felt before. There was something inherently supernatural about it, a wongness that made it clear to me that this was an unnatural sort of cold. I only stood up from behind the counter for a moment, but my fingers were already blue. My ears stung as blood tried to force itself through like molasses.

I'd once wondered what elemental moves would be like. A Water Gun would surely just be a pressurized jet, right? No different than being punched really hard? Ice was just like any other solid projectile, but more brittle than rock, surely.

No way in hell. Turned out, we weren't that lucky. Aura was real, and with it, elemental aura. I didn't like my chances if I had to take an Icy Wind straight on.

Rocket leapt atop the counter and loosed a barrage of Pin Missiles that kept them at bay for a few seconds.

I thought fast. It'd be close but… "Rocket to weavile. He can take it so long as he's not ganked from behind."

"We'll keep the other two busy then. You and Jarvis. Scout and me."

The four of us looked at each other with a nod. Weavile would be tough for Rocket. He'd always had the speed advantage until now. I wasn't sure if he could take one; they sure as hell weren't a joke in the games. Still, we'd have to make do and be grateful that Rocket wasn't at a type disadvantage on top of a speed gap.

"On my go," Ranger Swanson said. Then, he began counting down on his fingers.

"Rocket. Hone Claws into Liftoff," I rattled off his orders quickly. This wasn't an official battle where I'd be able to command him throughout. This moment was all I had. "Stay at range and strafe with Pin Missile. Bug trumps dark."

"Go!"

A lot of things happened at once.

Rocket all but vanished in a blur of white. Liftoff, damn near his signature now, turned him into a streaking missile that immediately captured every eye. That gave us slow humans the chance to poke out from behind the secretary's counter.

Jarvis and I immediately took aim at one of the sneasel, but it vanished in a Quick Attack. Drawing a bead on it, even in a closed room, was damn near impossible. Jarvis' shotgun rang out again and I heard a hiss of pain in response, but it wasn't down yet. The shot must have clipped it.

We immediately lost momentum when an Ice Shard forced us to duck our heads again. I almost died there, but I got ready to do it again, as many times as necessary to keep it distracted and give Rocket the single combat he needed.

I was grateful in a way. The battle would have gone even worse for us had not the sneasel closed in for the kill. Instead, it seemed relatively content to take potshots at us from a distance. I wondered if this was the cruelty of a dark type at work.

While we were trying and failing to pin down one sneasel, Ranger Swanson leapt out from behind the counter. He took aim at the second, only for it to rush towards him with what looked like a Feint Attack. Darkness rippled along its form like a living shadow. It almost seemed to evade notice, as though standard vision slid off its coat.

"Fuck!" he swore. He tried to dodge out of the way, but was unable to evade in time. "Gah! Shit!"

The sneasel had latched onto his shoulder, hook-like claws leaving deep puncture wounds through his thick jacket. Ranger Swanson tried to wrestle it but was unable to pull it off.

"Scout! Quick Attack!" I commanded, shouting at the top of my lungs. I had no fucking clue if that bird would obey me. Hell, it'd be weird if it did, but trying was better than waiting around watching him get mauled. I sure as hell didn't feel safe taking aim at Ranger Swanson.

Talking wasn't free. An icicle almost took my eye, but Jarvis chucked the office chair in the way.

The tranquil, swerving around the building, burst through another window. Scout let out a crooning warcry before dashing towards his mark. His talons sank into the sneasel and ripped it off Ranger Swanson. That earned another grunt of pain from the man, along with streaks of blood from where the sneasel's claws left their mark.

The old park ranger jumped on the sneasel, immediately stabbing it with his hunting knife. He then proceeded to wrestle the fucker in a sight that would have seemed comical had I not known better. Pokemon were deceptively strong despite their size. As it was, the man was effectively wrestling a particularly pissed off buzzsaw.

I must have been distracted because our sneasel had taken that chance to run around the counter, facing both Jarvis and I. It held an Icy Wind in its paws, ready to slow us down and pick us off one by one.

"Out!" Jarvis called.

We dove out of the way. It missed, but so did we, the gale too strong for us to properly aim in.

"Gust!" Ranger Swanson roared. His arm was littered with cuts despite his thick winter wear. He chucked the sneasel into the air. "Give us space!"

That proved to be a mistake. Jarvis and I were halfway up, stumbling to our feet. The sudden gale in a limited space threw us around like ragdolls. I felt half a dozen cuts and bruises from flying stationary, chairs, and anything else the tranquil could lift and only avoided a concussion-via-mug by slapping it aside with my pistol.

"Fuck, Tom!" Jarvis yelped in pain as he collided with a chair.

Getting thrown around like a pinball by a magic pigeon wasn't fun, but it did distract the sneasel pack. It immediately switched targets to Scout, dismissing Jarvis and I as lesser threats.

It fired off a quick Icy Wind, not fast enough to take down Scout, but fast enough to still clip his right wing. Frost formed rapidly around the limb. Scout let out a pained squawk with every wingbeat as he forced his stiffened muscles to move.

Ranger Swanson's sneasel had been slammed into one wall, but the little fucker was still up and kicking His hunting knife was stuck inside the sneasel, but it ignored the wound in favor of launching a Quick Attack right back at the bird.

At the same time, I unloaded the rest of my clip at the sneasel that had been ours. Mid-Icy Wind, it was unable to respond in time and went down. I ran over and slammed my own knife into its throat, making doubly sure it wouldn't get back up again.

I turned to find the last sneasel, but Swanson had already punted the sneasel off his bird. A final bang rang out from Jarvis' shotgun. This one was on target and the wall behind it was painted a messy red.

Finally with room to breathe, I reloaded my pistol and searched for Rocket. He had taken the weavile out into the hall. I found them there, fighting more like rabid raccoons than pokemon. It brought into focus just how little training they had. Watching them was like nothing from the anime. There wasn't a give and take, just a yowling, biting, clawing mess of fur and blood as they rolled around.

I could guess what had happened. With a bug type move in Pin Missile, Rocket had the edge at range. But with Icy Wind and Ice Shard, the weavile was definitely faster on the draw, faster movement too. It had quickly rushed my partner down despite his best efforts and turned their fight into a melee one.

"Make some distance!" I shouted to no avail.

Whether he heard me or not didn't matter. He just couldn't afford to do anything but fight back. If he tried to leap away, he'd only be turning his back on a weavile, a particularly painful type of suicide. I could see countless cuts and slashes along his body. Despite the natural toughness of pokemon and the thick fur, blood stained his cream-colored coat.

I drew a bead on the pokemon, not hard considering they'd given up all pretense of using moves or techniques. Still, I was loath to pull the trigger. They changed position as they bit and clawed at each other that I risked killing my own partner.

"Rocket, trust me!" I shouted desperately. I said that, but I had to trust him in turn, trust that he'd move. "Liftoff!"

My finger depressed the trigger. At the same time, white light clad my partner. His tail curled up between him and the weavile, before launching him clear into the air. He braced against the ceiling with his claws.

The weavile had a split second to look surprised before I dumped the entire magazine into it. I probably landed only half the clip, if that, but that was enough. Combined with all the damage Rocket managed, I didn't need to put it down, only give Rocket the chance he needed.

Then, as the last shot faded, Rocket dove down from the ceiling. He left an audible thump in the tile, rupturing the frame altogether. The world's most pissed off murder-scarf struck like a fluffy lightning bolt. His Hone Claws-enhanced attack ripped clean through the weavile, decapitating it for the coup de grace.

I sank to my knees. It was over. I could hear my own heartbeat pounding in my ears in the sudden silence. Three sneasel and one weavile almost killed us all. Hell, it probably would have killed damn near any other group in Carnelian Bay. My breath came in ragged gasps as I came to grips with that.

I felt a firm hand on my shoulder. "Nice shooting," Jarvis said with a nod of respect.

"Rocket did all the work," I said. My voice came out in whispers. The newfound quiet felt almost sacred, as though it had a weight of its own I was almost afraid to disturb. I saw my bleeding partner and whistled. "Come here, Rocket. I have a first-aid kit in my backpack."

"Good. You're done," came Ranger Swanson's gruff voice. He stumbled out, Scout the tranquil held in his uninjured arm like a football. His mangled shoulder needed to be looked at as well. "That… That was fucking stupid of me. I shouldn't have pressed us in here once you guessed these weasel-things."

"We still need to find team two. And you didn't; we got ambushed here," I grunted back. I did my best to clean Rocket's many cuts with my water bottle. They weren't too deep thankfully, the natural durability of pokemon proving itself again, but he was positively littered with gouges made by the weavile's hook-like claws. "I'd want you guys to come look for me if I go missing too, Ranger Swanson."

"Tom, kid. It's always Tom. I reckon this is more humbling than I'm used to."

Jarvis kicked the ground and pulled out a cigarette. He lit it with a match and offered us one. "Ehh, you did alright, Tom. Could've been worse. I saw you wrestle one of those fuckers."

"Fat lot of good that did. I don't think I'll be moving this arm right for a while."

"It bought us time."

I turned down the cigarette and kept my hands busy disinfecting Rocket's wounds with iodine. He whined pitiably but made no attempt to move away. Just the fact that he let me fuss over him meant we were clear, but I had to check. "Rocket, we're alone, right?"

"Lin-linoone," he chuffed out a nod.

"Smell any other humans except us?"

"Oone…"

"Alive?"

"Linoone," he whined, placing his paws over his snout.

'Well, fuck," Tom swore. "They're gone then, huh?"

"Stop it," Jarvis said. "Not a waste, Tom. This wasn't a waste. We're hurt, but the hospital's free pickings now."

"He's right. Least we can do is take the bodies back," I added.

"We can hope."

Tom let out a sigh as Jarvis finished wrapping up his shoulder. He stood and did his best not to bring attention to it. "Alright, let me radio the boys downstairs. Seeing how we did all the fighting, they can be the ones to carry the bodies."

"Amen to that."

Author's Note

Hysteria is a scary thing. It makes people do stupid shit, like punch the sole person with a pokemon in the room. The context is less important than that Rocket attacked a person. He went from "tame" to "dangerous."

I legit forgot that Ranger Swanson's first name was Thomas. I spent half the chapter calling him Ron and had to go back and edit the names back. I've never seen a single episode of Parks & Rec. Pop culture is scary.

I'm not happy with this fight scene. I felt it was a bit too… flawed? I don't know how to describe it. It almost felt too easy. On one hand, sneasel should go down quickly if you can land your hits. On the other hand, I'm not sure I made it clear how threatening a party made of assassins could be (because that's basically what they are).

Thank you to all of my patrons. As many of you know, I update one of my stories once every weekend publically. However, I update much more frequently on Pat-re-on, usually about 10 chapters a month spread across various stories. That means the number of chapters available on Pat-re-on is always growing. As of now, this is how far along each story is:

- ACL & Bunny Quests: Same as public
- Apocalypse: 1.12
- The Holy Grill: 2.4
- Homeless Bunny: 22
- Legendary Tinker: 8.5
- Plan? What Plan?: 4.13
- When is a Spoon a Sword?: 4.12
- Troll in the Dungeon!: 16
- Let There be War: 9 (Complete)

Total Chapter Difference (Pat-re-on - Public): 32

Liftoff 1.10

April 2015

We found the frozen bodies in another room of the hospital alongside the remains of other animals. They hadn't largely been eaten yet, not enough time for that, but they were still a gruesome sight. Much like the sandshrew, their chest cavities had been torn out and their internal organs pulled free. With this, we could fully dismiss team two as having been killed in action. Without a pokemon with Odor Sleuth or some other means of detecting the sneasel, the outcome was a foregone conclusion.

Of the twelve of us, Luke and Alex had injured arms, one by sandshrew and the other because of Rocket. Tom had his shoulder mangled by a sneasel and a myriad other shallower cuts from wrestling the thing like a reckless fool. Jarvis and I were largely unharmed so we joined the rest of the men in clearing the hospital of bodies.

Then came loading up the trucks. We couldn't afford to leave anything behind so twelve men were divided into six, two per truck, to make up for team two's absence. We took what we could, not just hospital supplies and medicine we recognized, but different metals, wires, and a generator and water purifier we thought someone might be able to get working. Even so, it wasn't enough. We couldn't clear even a fifth of the hospital so we'd have to return eventually.

"Shane, we're about to head out," Jarvis called. "What're you doing?"

We were about to leave but I had an idea. "Say, the sandshrew came in and made a burrow in the basement, right? And the sneasel came to chase their prey, making them aggressive?"

"Yeah? What about it?"

"So the sandshrew should calm down now, right?"

"Nope. No way in hell, man. We're not going to get James' body back."

"Not now, that'd be stupid," I agreed. I stripped off my jacket, covered in blood, grime, sweat, and some of Rocket's fur. I also fetched the weavile's corpse and placed it atop the jacket, leaving it just outside their burrow.

"What's that supposed to do?"

"Pokemon are smart," I explained. "I figure they'll be able to connect the dots."

"You think they'll come join your team or something?" Jarvis asked skeptically. "Even if they do, trust me, the boys won't like that. They killed James."

"I know. An ice type sandslash sounds pretty cool, but you're right, recruiting one would be hard. But I still want them to know what we went through to take out the weavile. Maybe next time, we won't have any trouble with them when we have to come back here."

"You really think they're that smart?"

"Definitely. I reckon Rocket's smarter than most of you."

"Asshole. Alright, funny guy, let's get going."

"Yeah, let's."

X

The trip back was uneventful, if awkward as hell. We traveled in the same formation, with Rocket and I stationed at the back of our little convoy and Scout perched up front to rest his injured wing. As we weren't transporting any food, the trip didn't see us fighting any pokemon.

Tom, Jarvis, and I had developed something of a reputation for badassery. Not only did we take on four pokemon, one of which was fully evolved, we walked away without a single death between us. There was respect in the way the other men saw us, respect I felt was undeserved.

The truth was, I seriously thought I'd die several times over during that fight. We barely scraped by, and that was with Rocket taking on the weavile. Hell, without his senses, just the initial Ice Shard would have drilled a neat hole in the back of my skull and that'd have been that. If anything, the encounter proved just how out of our weight class pokemon truly were. For us "rangers" to be competitive with the wildlife, we needed pokemon.

So that was what I told them when asked to regale them with our exploits. Jarvis agreed. He might be ex-army, but he wasn't some reckless jarhead who knew could distinguish Crayola colors by flavor and thought himself immortal. Pokemon were fucking terrifying, plain and simple.

It wasn't all undeserved hero worship. Luke and Alex, and a few others, looked at Rocket and I like we were one step away from becoming serial killers. Their eyes were full of fear and mistrust. Javier didn't think they'd do anything, but I felt that I should keep an eye on them anyway. With how critical pokemon were to our survival, that sentiment could bite us all in the ass.

All told, of the eighteen men who rode into Truckee, six were dead and three were injured enough to be out of the fight for a while. It was a somber trip back.

X

We arrived and Tom, Luke, and Alex were sent off to see Dr. Lansdowne, one of two doctors we had currently in Carnelian Bay and the only one who refused to leave Truckee when people started going down the mountain. Prognosis wasn't good: the doc said Tom and Alex shouldn't go out ranging for a few months. As for Luke, the sandshrew did a number on his arm. Blunt force trauma turned the bone to so many splinters and it was debatable whether he'd ever regain full usage of the arm.

While they did that, I helped the boys unload and organize our haul. Work needed doing, no matter who got injured. The bodies of team two were lined up and covered respectfully. If they had families, I didn't know. I wasn't sure I wanted to know.

Hunter and Shane Adams, the two resident mechanics, came by to drive off with the trucks. They'd all been loaded down with gasoline and I made sure Shane, other Shane, knew to get the boat fuel to the lake. Vincent Jackson did say he'd need that to keep some of his ships running.

After that, Rocket and I made ourselves scarce. It felt too awkward, standing around with men I didn't know, mourning men I couldn't even remember the names of. Maybe it wasn't a good idea, probably made me look standoffish, but then again, I didn't want to stand there and keep reminding them that I had a pokemon pal and they didn't. Rocket scared people, and for damn good reasons.

We, Tom, Rocket, and I, reconvened in a few hours with his daughter over a light supper of canned beans, fresh tomatoes, and a whole bulb of roasted garlic.

Sabrina brushed her dirty-blonde bangs out of her eyes and eyed the sneasel and sandshrew corpses with a worried frown. Though I'd left the dead weavile with one of my jackets for the living sandshrew to smell, I'd made sure to bring back one sandshrew corpse and one sneasel for proof, not that I thought she'd doubt her dad.

The rest of the sneasel?

Meat was meat. Rocket had a couple new chew toys. Maybe I'd see about a necklace of red plumes later too.

"So, what do you think?" I asked her.

She looked at me hesitantly. "I'm not sure. I took a few ecology courses in grad school, but I'm a vet, not an ecologist. I don't have the background to draw conclusions. At best, I'd be making an educated guess."

"That's better than what anyone else can manage," Tom grunted. He was shirtless, with his shoulder bandaged up after the trip to Dr. Lansdowne. He sat in the corner, nursing a glass of pilfered bourbon. "Tell us what you think."

"Well… We know that pokemon are eating each other. They're smart, but this proves that predator-prey dynamics still exist, even in absence of human need," she said cautiously.

"We knew that already."

"We guessed. This is the first time we've seen actual evidence of a predatory pokemon specifically hunting down a nest of prey pokemon. You said the sandshrew were inside the hospital basement, right?" She paused and we nodded as one. "Well, that would mean the sneasel pack had to go out of their way to search them out. I figured pokemon would prefer to go after easier prey, but…"

"But maybe they liked the challenge?" I added. "It seems fairly consistent that pokemon strive to evolve. Not all of them, but most try in their own way, right?"

"Maybe, or maybe the pack developed a complex culture. Back when we were rubbing sticks together for fire, humans bragged about who could bag the biggest game."

I gestured to the sandshrew's hardened hide. "You think sneasel were hunting sandshrew, not just for sustenance, but because it was a way to brag about their hunting prowess? Prove themselves to the pack?"

"Maybe. You know how sneasel evolve with Razor Claw? What if what was a vague reference in the game is a more concrete part of their life cycle now? A culture of competition, and maybe even intragroup duels to the death, might be part of how a sneasel evolves. Again, I'm just making guesses. Like you said, Shane, pokemon are smart, smart enough to develop an ego."

"Alright, fine. Pokemon packs are like little tribes with their own cultures," Tom grunted. "What can you tell us about the sneasel physically? That's more your thing, right?"

Sabrina nodded and picked up the body, showing not a hint of squeamishness. She motioned for us to get closer and expertly peeled back an eyelid. "Yeah, veterinary science focuses more on animal anatomy, nutrition, and physiology than ecology for sure. You can learn a lot about a creature's hunting behavior by their adaptations.

"Take this eye for example. See how it's big and round? Nice, fat pupils that are bigger than they should be on an animal this size, right? This shows that they're adapted for hunting in low light, owls or big cats. I can't be sure because the body's already undergone rigor mortis, but I'm pretty sure the pupils don't contract into slits either."

"And what's that tell us? Don't all weasels have snake eyes?"

"They're not snake eyes, dad. Slitted pupils maximize depth perception while you're close to the ground. Cats, foxes, and other small hunters all have them too. It might surprise you, but big cats do not have slitted pupils. And neither do sneasel, and I'd guess weavile.

"This tells me that even though they're small, they don't hunt near the ground normally. Shane, do you remember what their dex entries say about them?"

I nodded. Of course I did. Fighting them for my life had a way of jogging my memory. "They like to eat eggs. So I'm guessing they'd prey on young birds too if they can get them."

"Right. They're egg thieves. Meaning they primarily hunt along treetops. It explains why their claws are more hooked than straight, as if they're primarily for clinging to trees and uneven surfaces and combat second. This is why I said the sneasel pack might have been intentionally seeking out the sandshrew. Unless they went out of their way to look, I can't think of a reason they'd normally interact."

"Watch the trees, especially at night. Is that what you're saying?"

"Yeah, I guess I am. Big pupils like these are also an indication that they're hypersensitive to light. Try blinding them; it might be useful."

"Thank you, Sabrina," Tom said. "We lost a lot of good men today."

"Now we know better, dad. It wasn't your fault."

"It sure doesn't feel that way sometimes. Thanks for your help. How's Spade been?"

"He's fine. The little guy is helping to dig a well closer to the trailers. Maybe then we won't have to go all the way down to the lake for fresh water."

"Yeah, that'd be nice."

We talked a bit more about what it meant to find an ice type sandshrew, but her guess was as good as mine. So far, our hypotheses ranged from Earth becoming an entirely separate region and the pokemon somehow rapidly evolving to suit our biosphere to a Team Rocket experiment of some kind that somehow made its way to the Cascades.

In the end, all we knew was that, coupled with the pika-clone I killed in the gas station, it wasn't an isolated incident.

X

May 2015

Things settled down over the next few weeks into something resembling a pattern. Carnelian Bay was the kind of small town I'd have loved to grow up in: The view couldn't be beat, everyone knew each other, and there was a sense of community that was simply absent in the cities of Before.

Granted, that was largely because of necessity, and I feared the children would grow up to be idiots with the half-assed education we had going on, but the town couldn't win at everything.

I'd built a bit of a reputation for myself, both as a ranger and a recluse. With Tom incapacitated, there wasn't anyone going around trying to organize large scale expeditions, which meant I was more or less left to my own devices.

I quickly fell into a routine of sorts. Rocket and I would vanish into the woods for two or three days. There, we did our best to hunt, firstly for ourselves and secondly for the town. We typically came back with an elk and several hares and fowls, more than enough to square away my contribution to the town's continued prosperity.

When we weren't out hunting, we were training near the town walls. I made it a point to train near the designated farmland as much as possible. Not only did it get me a fair bit of goodwill from farmers as we could be relied on to respond to threats on a dime, we also got to know some of the grass types fairly well.

I was hoping that I could entice an oddish or skiddo to my side by showing that I could help a pokemon improve. Even if none of them joined my team, I wanted Rocket to spar with the grass types and be exposed to grass type energy. Seed Bomb was one of the most important coverage options for linoone after all.

I'd had no such luck so far, but I was optimistic. At the very least, the skiddo were far less skittish around the linoone now. Unfortunately, the oddish were primarily nocturnal and we only caught sight of them once in a while during the dawn and dusk hours.

Rocket improved a great deal. The injuries he sustained against the weavile recovered flawlessly with a little help from Sabrina. Or perhaps that was the natural pokemon vitality at work. Either way, though I wouldn't have said he was ready for combat of that level again, he was up and hunting again in mere days. Over the weeks, he quickly returned to fighting shape.

This time, we worked on Dig. It wouldn't have helped against the weavile, but I saw it as an invaluable mobility and ambush option when we were out in the wild. He began by practicing his accuracy, tracking the vibrations of footsteps until he could consistently snatch a rabbit or pheasant hopping about on the surface. Then he moved on to incorporating Liftoff into his ambush, making him that much faster.

I really wanted to get him started on better ranged options, maybe Swift as it was both homing and a normal type move, but I wasn't sure where to start.

Unfortunately, our frequent disappearances painted me out to be some sort of hermit. Even when I was in town, I was often training with Rocket, not exactly socializing. I tried to make up for this by eating lunch at the canteen instead of in my trailer as often as possible, but it was a work in progress.

On the plus side, the days were warming up. The way Pat told it, we were slowly relying less on the grass type pokemon to speed up growth. Oh, they were and likely always would be critical, but as the farmers cultivated more land, built up more seed, and the plants got more sun, they were seeing bigger yields.

The town either air dried or smoked most of the food, meaning we had a bigger need for wood. They also expanded the cafeteria area, making a central food storage facility that had several dedicated organizers. Throw in the completion of the fish farming operation and things were looking up.

X

I leaned back against a tree trunk as I read by the fire. We were out in the wilds again, nestled in a little trough of dirt that Rocket dug for us. He was currently dozing with his head in my lap, sleeping off a food coma from the bull elk we killed. As the hunters, we got the choicest portions for ourselves and it wasn't uncommon for us to turn our camps into a feast.

Though the cervids shed their antlers in February and March, they already boasted big bulbs covered in thick, plush velvet in May for me to easily tell them apart. The does, I tried to leave alone, as was proper.

"There are a grand total of four dungeons near the Lake Tahoe area," I read aloud. It was a copy of the notes Sabrina had gathered so far.

According to her, Carnelian Bay knew of just four dungeons nearby: three found by the rangers, one by Vincent. That last one in particular worried her somewhat as it was located entirely underwater. There was one at the base of the air traffic control tower, another near the Rubicon Trail trailhead south of the town, and a third near the Stampede Reservoir, which was the one I'd passed on my way from Sierraville.

I didn't think there would be so many in such a small radius. A former ranger team had gone into the airport dungeon, only to never return. Based on news reports from before the collapse of other dungeons, what few examples we had, Sabrina guessed that it was a flying type dungeon of some sort, though what precisely the challenge was, was anyone's guess. It could be that the dungeon refused to allow any form of retreat. Or it could be that the team misjudged the difficulty of the challenge, pressing on at the prospect of an unlocked aura only to be faced with hidden depths.

In the interest of preserving resources and manpower, no other attempts had been made to explore them since. Considering the way a single encounter with a sneasel pack killed six men, I didn't think anyone else would be eager either.

X

June 2015

About two months after we'd moved to Carnelian Bay, Rocket and I came across something that shattered our isolationist routine.

The two of us were returning from a fruitful three-day hunt, dragging behind the carcass of a large, bull elk. I also had four and a half rabbits strapped to a paracord line by their little feet. We were headed to the Icebox, what the town started to call our central food storage, when we noticed a dozen people gathered around the warehouse, gawking like schoolchildren.

I saw Jarvis hanging back and headed over. "Hey, Jarvis. What's going on?"

He looked at me, then down at Rocket. "Shane. You just coming back?"

"Yeah, had a good hunt. Why's everybody standing around the Icebox?"

"Something broke into storage last night. It's got people up in arms. Come on, I'll show you."

So saying, he shouldered his way past the crowd. As we got past the throng of bodies, I saw what he meant. From the outside, the warehouse didn't look any different but inside, it was a mess.

Both the meat and vegetable storage had been broken into. There were a set of deep furrows carved into the concrete, as well as scattered food and plastic, as if something had wrestled with the plastic containers to crack and tear into them. It was clearly the work of a pokemon.

"Well, shit," I groaned as we headed back to the front. "We know who did this?"

"Yeah, that fucking weasel you've got is suspect number one!" I heard. I turned to find Alex glaring at me. He still had his arm in bandages and so had been relegated to helping sort the food. Behind him were several more people, a few of them I recognized as butchers or town chefs here. None of them looked happy.

"What the hell are you on about? We were out hunting, genius. We weren't even in town for the past few days."

"Like hell you were. You probably came back at night to fuck us over. See those claws? What else could have done that? They're even nice and low to the ground too."

Rocket growled low beside me, making people step back nervously.

I slung the bag of meat I'd been carrying onto the ground. It fell with a dull thump and the drawstring came loose, dropping most of a bull elk we'd been lugging around. I pulled off the rope of rabbits and threw that on top as well. "Again. We were out hunting, dumbass. Meat just magically pops up out of nowhere, does it?"

"Enough of that," Jarvis said, stepping between us before Rocket could use the idiot's other arm as a chew toy too. "Shane's right. He's been hunting so you can cool it, Alex."

"Well what else did it then?" someone else asked. "That linoone's the only pokemon we have with claws like that."

"You're forgetting Spade the drilbur."

"The what?"

I sighed. Pokemon might have been a globally popular franchise, but the fifth gen wasn't exactly as well-known as the others. "Ground type. Mole. Big claws. Sabrina Swanson has him but I doubt it's him either."

"Well we've only got one suspect here."

Austin McAllen, the mayor's son, walked over with Sabrina. The two looked a bit out of breath and was sweating slightly despite the brisk morning air. "We can confirm Shane's alibi. Rocket was my first guess too, no offense, so I ran off to check with the gate guards. Shane took Rocket with him three days ago."

"Some offense taken," I drawled sarcastically, "but at least you're smart enough to check things out before pointing fingers."

"Then what raided the food supplies?"

A heavyset woman pushed her way through to the front of the crowd. I recognized her as one of the people who regularly handed me small pouches of spices and herbs for Rocket in exchange for a fresh fowl or two. We hadn't talked much, and I barely remembered her name, but she did teach me some more efficient ways to clean and portion venison.

She shot the accusing men a derisive look and tossed something onto the desk. It was a silvery steel, but not in any shape I recognized. It was bulbous and rounded, as though someone had cast a puddle with aluminum.

"You idiots don't bother looking, do you? You saw the big gashes and didn't look deeper," she said. "Whatever raided the Icebox also did this. This used to be one of the meathooks in the smokehouse."

Sabrina leaned over curiously. "Melted straight into a puddle, huh? Definitely not Rocket. Or Spade for that matter. So you boys can stop pointing fingers."

"A poison type then," Austin added. "I can't think of a move besides something like Acid that would eat through stuff like this."

"A poison type with sharp claws?"

"Maybe not like a mammal though. The gouges left behind don't look like a pokemon with three claws per paw or something. Just one."

This honestly pissed me off. It's not like I'd been lazing around. The moment something happened, that fuckwit Alex decided to use it to settle a petty grudge. Even after the evidence exonerated Rocket, some of the people were looking at him like he was a thief. I took a deep breath and tried to be the bigger man. The best way to clear Rocket's name would be to find the real culprit. Then I could happily tell Alex and his moronic friends to eat shit.

I considered what we knew. Singular claws, sharp, and maybe with some crushing force. They also had acid, or maybe fire that could melt a meathook into a pretty puddle.

"A skorupi," I said. "Bug and poison dual type from Sinnoh."

"Aren't they more desert-dwellers?" Austin said.

"They're found in southern SInnoh, the Great Marsh if I remember right."

"Ah, yeah. That's still too warm compared to here, surely. But otherwise, I could see it. Big claws, strong poison, probably eat whatever they can get their pincers on."

"Might be a variant, like the sandshrew," Sabrina said. "We thought sandshrew were desert-dwellers too, remember? Then you rangers ran into an ice type variant."

Jarvis grunted. "Don't remind me."

"How about toxicroak? They're poison types too, and don't they have a single, sharp claw?"

"They do," I said, "but amphibians don't do well in the cold either, right? I mean, I guess we can say they might be variants too, but I don't think that's helpful."

"Ehh, the Sierra-Nevadas are home to a type of frog actually. The yellow-legged frog, I think. I read about it. But you're right for the most part. We should stick to the possibilities we know."

A few more options were considered, only to be thrown out. Beedrill, because the gouges were along the ground and because we rangers would have spotted at least the hint of a hive. A grass type with both Acid and Razor Leaf, like oddish or gloom, because they didn't need this kind of sustenance.

"It could be a nidorino or something," Austin said. "Who said it has to be a claw? Singular gouges like this could be a horn instead. It'd explain the thrashing and the mess they left of the rest of the food."

"Point. But by that logic, it doesn't need to be a poison type either," I pointed out. "Fire could melt steel just as easily as acid, right? And we might be more likely to see a fire type in the mountains than a poison type, especially since they can keep themselves warm."

"Crap, you might be right."

"We don't know enough," Sabrina said with a sigh. "We can guess that they came along the ground, or maybe beneath it, but that's way too many possibilities."

"So what do we do?" I asked.

"I can get dad to post Scout as a guard during the day, but he's diurnal," she said. She looked at some of the blank faces and sighed. "He sleeps at night."

"How about Rocket then?" Jarvis said. "He's got amazing senses. He could keep a lookout right?"

"And leave the weasel with the food? You're fucking with me," Alex said, feeling awfully brave since he knew Rocket wouldnt' rip his face off right this moment. "Watch, I'm still saying he did it."

"You're a dumbass, Alex, shut up. So, Shane?"

I flipped Alex off. In the end, this was Rocket's choice. I gave him a good scratch behind the ears. "Up to you, bud. If you want, we could just ditch and go out on another hunting trip for a week or two. If this shit keeps happening, they'll know for sure we're not the problem."

"Come on, Shane," Sabrina urged. "Rocket's Odor Sleuth is incredible. We'd have a better shot at finding the real culprit if he helped."

"Then stop treating Rocket like a thief. Shitty way to ask for help. 'Clear his name?' Fuck off with that shit; he's clear."

"I'm not saying he isn't," she said, shooting them a dirty glare. "It's everybody's food that's on the line though."

"Still up to Rocket."

Rocket climbed up onto the table. He took a sniff of the metal and shook his head. "Lin."

"Don't know what that means, bud. Is that 'I want nothing to do with this,' or is that 'I can't smell anything suspicious?'" He tapped his foot twice. "Okay, fine, second one. Too many smells here. People, food, carcass processing next door…"

"We'd still rather have Rocket to sniff the culprit down if they show up again."

"Fine, you in, bud?"

"Linoone," he barked with a nod.

I sighed in disappointment. Truthfully, I was hoping he'd join me on a long hunting trip out of town, maybe let these idiots figure things out for themselves. Alas, pokemon. I could imagine his train of logic: Carnelian Bay was home now, which meant these people, no matter how stupid, were his people. I didn't think he had pack instincts or anything of that nature, but he wanted to help.

Rocket was a better person than I.

"Fine, let's go, Rocket. We're done here."

"Where are you going, mate?" Austin called.

"We're going to look around town. We have a few suspects, right? I may as well check things out. It'll be more productive than standing around here with my thumbs up my ass."

"Ah, yeah. Good luck."

"Yup."

"Come back and check in with me if you find something," Sabrina called. "I'll go through what I know on my end too."

I waved behind me as Rocket trotted along at my side. This whole thing left a bad taste in my mouth. I knew we weren't the most social pair, but I'd thought Rocket and I had earned some measure of trust from the town. I did realize I was letting the vocal minority get to me, but I couldn't help it. This shit reminded me of the reason I'd left Bend.

Grumbling, I headed out to check out my first lead. What Sabrina said about toxicroak made me wonder. I didn't think it was likely, but crossing the possibility off the list would be good in itself. Maybe Rocket would be able to sniff something out near the lake shore with far fewer people and distractions.

Besides, Vincent and his buddies were always good for a chat. They always had a fresh fish or two for Rocket to snack on. And considering no one was bleeding out in the warehouse for talking shit, I thought he earned the treat.

Author's Note

A couple short timeskips this chapter.

Towns are great, but you do have to take the dumbasses with the normal folk unfortunately. Sometimes, it means getting caught up in commitments you didn't actually want.

Animal fact? The biggest scorpion in the world is the giant forest scorpion, which is a whopping nine inches long. However, despite how scary it looks, its venom is relatively weak because it has arguably evolved to crush prey with its superior size and weight rather than envenom it.

In fact, even the deadliest scorpion is not usually lethal to a healthy, adult human. The scorpion with the deadliest venom is the deathstalker, also known as the Palestine yellow scorpion (no points for guessing where it's found).

And yes, if the "deathstalker" sounds familiar, that's because RWBY copied the name.

Thank you to all of my patrons. As many of you know, I update one of my stories once every weekend publically. However, I update much more frequently on Pat-re-on, usually 8-10 chapters a month spread across various stories. That means the number of chapters available on Pat-re-on is always growing. As of now, this is how far along each story is:

- ACL & Bunny Quests: Same as public
- Apocalypse: 1.13
- The Holy Grill: 2.6.5
- Homeless Bunny: 23
- Legendary Tinker: 8.5
- Plan? What Plan?: 4.13
- When is a Spoon a Sword?: 4.12
- Troll in the Dungeon!: 18
- Let There be War: 9 (Complete)

Total Chapter Difference (Pat-re-on - Public): 31

Liftoff 1.11

June 2015

Sabrina was right. It could be another ice-adapted pokemon like the sandshrew. Maybe it was some kind of skorupi or trapinch. Or maybe it was an entirely different pokemon none of us had ever heard of like those pika-clones Rocket and I killed by the gas station in Sierraville.

But if it was, there was fuck-all any of us could do about it. We were working off extremely limited information so trying to predict the fauna and flora of the pokemon world was an exercise in futility. So, putting aside the ridiculous hypothetical of a "pokemon no one knows exists," I decided to start by investigating the possibilities that were easiest to knock off.

That was how I found myself at the pier.. Lake Tahoe was as beautiful as always. Seeing its waters made me feel small, in a good way. The lake didn't care about the town's problems; all things would pass in time. Even in the moment, it wasn't as though the thieving pokemon were existential threats to the town or anything.

The vandalized storage and the missing food was a big deal, but more because it got people riled up rather than because the town was in danger of running out of food. We had crops and cooperative grass types. We had capable hunters and fishers. The ruined food was inconvenient and we might have to tighten our belts a bit, but we wouldn't starve.

Now, if only a handful of fuckwits hadn't pointed their grubby fingers at Rocket, then I'd have felt pretty relaxed overall.

I watched as Rocket dashed forward, almost tackling a little boy off the end of the pier. The boy lost his hold on his fishing rod, sending it falling into the lake. A blue mouse chittered angrily on his trainer's behalf before hopping below the water to get the rod.

"Rocket!" the boy cried, grabbing my partner and shoving him away. Phil Jackson, son of the yacht club's president, looked back and saw me coming. "Shane!"

"Hey, kid. How's the catch?" I asked with an easygoing smile.

He held out a large pail filled with water. Inside was a trout, I still wasn't able to tell what kind, about the length of my forearm. "Not too bad. Wanna join me? You can borrow my spare rod."

"I'd love to, but no. I need to talk to your pops about something. Where's Vincent?"

"Aww, are you going after the fish thief?"

"Wait, what? Fish thief? Someone's been stealing from here too?"

"Here too?"

I sighed. We were talking around each other. "Some pokemon got into the food storage. Ruined a bunch of stuff. Rocket and I have been put in charge of tracking down the one that did it. Tell me about the fish thief?"

"Oh, it's probably not that? There's a small flock of ducklett that show up to take some fish from the pens every few days. Dad and the other fishermen are there with guns to try and drive them off."

"Any trouble there?"

Phil shrugged. "Not really? I think it's not really about the fish for them. They treat it like a game. No one's gotten hurt. Plue's fought one of them though."

"Oh? This little guy?"

"Yup! Plue almost won too! Do you think Plue will evolve if we keep fighting the ducklett?"

"Maybe? I honestly don't know if game logic applies here," I said honestly. "Are levels even a thing?"

"How did Rocket evolve then?"

"Ah…" He evolved when he helped me kill someone on my way out from Bend. That wasn't exactly what I wanted to tell a ten year old kid though. "I guess battling might help."

"See? Watch! Plue is going to be an azumarill one day!"

"I believe you, Phil."

"Say, can we help?"

"Hmm?"

"Help you find the culprit. Like a detective!"

I thought about it. Marill weren't the greatest battlers, not unless one had Huge Power, but I still didn't know how abilities worked in the world now. I was relatively sure that some abilities could be developed. Sabrina and I theorized that things like Telepathy or Levitate would be teachable to some pokemon while other abilities like Flash Fire might be an innate, biological talent. It probably varied from pokemon to pokemon as well. What I was sure of was that Plue didn't have Huge Power.

Even if it did, it wasn't as though Plue was used to fighting for his life like Rocket was. If the thief did turn out to be a dangerous wild pokemon, I didn't think I could count on the marill as an ally. For that matter, I'd feel awful if something happened to Plue, or Phil. Explaining to Vincent or Elaine that I got their little boy killed wasn't my idea of a good time.

Then again… Huge Power was useful, but that wasn't all the marill line had going for them. Marill were known for more than just combat.

In the anime, Tracey Sketchit, Professor Oak's assistant, had a marill. He was perhaps the most annoying character in the anime, but he did use his pokemon in creative ways. His marill used the oil sac on the tip of its tail to float and had exceptional hearing, one good enough to scan an entire river.

Phil took my silence as grounds to keep begging. "Please? We'll be super helpful! Plue has been practicing his Water Gun! And his Pound!"

"I'm sure he has, but I don't need a battler right now," I said, ruffling his hair. He looked down in disappointment.

"Oh, come on! We never get to do anything around here."

"I didn't say you couldn't help. I said I didn't need a battler. Say, I know a marill has some of the best ears in the world, right?"

"Marill!" Plue cheered, looking like a smug marshmallow.

"And, he can keep an eye on the lake. Sabrina and I think that the food thief might have come from the lake."

"Ooh, like a totodile?"

"Maybe? But probably not. We found melted metal so it would need to be a pokemon that can learn moves like Acid. It also needs to have tough claws or teeth."

"Oh, Totodile don't learn Acid."

"No they don't. Which is why, between you and me, I think it might be a toxicroak. You know what those are?"

"FIghting and poison type. But with those cool claws. Ooh, that might be it."

"And since it's still a frog or toad or whatever-"

"-it might have come from the lake!" he finished for me.

"That's right. So I need you and Plue to look sharp. Walk around a little and if you hear something, let me know, okay?"

"Yeah! We'll catch the toxicroak for sure!"

I almost smiled. It was cute how he'd already decided that the culprit was a toxicroak. It wasn't likely, but having a living sonar like Plue wandering around would give us a clue if the thief did come from the lake.

"You need to promise to come get me though," I warned. "Okay?"

"I promise, Shane. Are you going to add the toxicroak to your team after you beat it?"

"Maybe. We'll see. Be careful, little man."

"You got it."

With that, I headed towards the fish pens so I could have that chat with Vincent. He probably wouldn't mind me putting Phil to work, but the man deserved to know what his son was up to.

X

Vincent and his fishermen had no further information for me where the food thief was concerned. He hadn't even known about the situation until I told him. On the plus side, the humans and ducklett flock had struck up something resembling a competitive rivalry, to the point that the fishermen had begun to load their rifles with blanks and set aside a few fish for them anyway. That was good; the town could use more pokemon.

Having found nothing at the lake, I headed out towards the farms. Oddish were capable of learning Acid if I remembered right. And, though they weren't known for it in the games, I wouldn't put it past the real versions to pick up Razor Leaf. That could potentially explain the gouges. It wasn't likely, but checking in on them would help me strike off another suspect.

"Rocket, any scent trails you've noticed so far?" I asked him as the fields came into view.

"Lin. Linoone," he grunted. He flicked his nose towards the men, particularly the two sets of carts that got sent back and forth from town. One was for produce, the other was for offal and other food waste to turn into compost.

"Just the usual then, huh?"

"Oone."

"Yeah, I figured. No way it'd be that easy."

I'd had him sniff around the Icebox a bit earlier. Unfortunately, because we also did the butchering next door, it was hard for him to pick out unique scents going in and out of the Icebox. Pretty much everything smelled like carcass to him. The most I could get out of him was that the acid used had a distinct smell. Hopefully, he'd be able to identify the culprit if he encountered them even if he couldn't say which way they'd gone.

"Pat," I called. The head of the farmers had found himself with a conundrum: Now that it was in June, what did farmers do? He wasn't always a farmer after all. "How's it going?"

The answer, as it happened, was "build a greenhouse." Or several. They weren't real greenhouses, at least not ones made entirely of glass, we didn't have the materials or expertise for that, but he and his boys managed to convert a few nearby bungalows into something serviceable with a bit of clever construction.

They basically took out the roof and the non-load bearing sections of wall to insert more windows. The result was a weird, square, polka dotted building with glass and plastic windows for sunlight. The important thing was that the interior was a bit warmer and wasn't blasted by the wind.

The farmers had managed to grow some summer-y plants indoors, sheltered from the cold wind until they could mature a bit before being taken outside. Apparently, bell peppers, cucumbers, and brussel sprouts were decent picks for this, not that I knew anything about that.

"Not too bad," he said. He hefted a plastic tray of adolescent plants. "Taking these cucumbers outside. I think the days are warm enough now for them to grow."

"I'd help but… Say, you seen any of the oddish around?"

"Oddish? What do you want with those little fellas?"

"They can learn Acid. You were here this morning, right?"

"They can? Do you think one of them was responsible? They're mostly nocturnal so I guess they could have headed into town without anyone noticing."

"Maybe?" I said. "I don't think it's likely but I feel like I should check anyway. Oddish mainly take nutrients from the soil so it's not like they need the food, not unless they're lacking some very specific nutrient that they can't get from the ground or the compost we spread."

"Yeah, I hear you." He nudged his head towards the bungalows. "We don't see them too often though. They like to hide beneath the bungalows during the daytime. If you see some shrubbery in the shade, that'd be them."

"Thanks, Pat."

"No problem. You're not going to just start fighting, are you?"

"Nope. Mostly just ask a few questions."

"Alright. Good luck, Shane."

He walked off and I approached the buildings. They were set about three feet above the ground on supports, leaving a shaded area beneath. The space below was good for keeping out vermin and protecting the building from flooding.

I plopped down and took a seat in front of the ramp that led up to the bungalow. Truthfully, I wasn't sure how I ought to go about this. How did one interrogate a pokemon anyway? I was fairly sure our culprit wasn't the oddish, but it wasn't as though I could just ask.

Then again…

"Say, Rocket, do you mind going down and pulling on an oddish leaf?"

"Linoone?"

"Yup. Go apologize for waking it if it's asleep, but we need to see it use Acid. See if one of them will show you the attack."

"Linoone…"

"Then you're going to smell it. If it smells like the acid we saw, we'll have to try something else to confirm. If it doesn't, we can write off the oddish from our list of suspects."

My buddy gave me a skeptical look but did as I asked. He slunk beneath the bungalow and began to chirp and bark lowly. When he found an oddish that wasn't quite asleep, he tugged on its leaf until it gave him the time of day.

X

A few minutes later, we had our answer: Turned out, acid, and maybe pokemon saliva, smelled more or less similar. Rocket could tell them apart, but not well enough to fully rule out the oddish.

That led to me grabbing a piece of metal to see if the acid spouted by oddish could melt steel. Which was how we ultimately crossed them off our list.

Rocket and I strolled back into town, curious and determined, if a little disappointed. Considering that none of the fishermen nor Plue were aware of any aquatic pokemon coming onto land, and the oddish weren't capable of melting metal, I was forced to continue my slipshod investigation. Unfortunate, as I'd hoped I could get this over with quickly.

We were just past the gates when we were greeted by Javier. The squat, Hispanic man had put on some muscle in the months that I'd known him. Not that the ex-army guy was ever skinny, but the constantly active lifestyle gave him a more weatherbeaten look.

I had a feeling we were the same in that regard. I'd gotten more exercise since the bombs dropped than I'd ever wanted. It was funny, how every kid wanted to go on a pokemon journey but no one ever thought about the sheer amount of walking that involved. Short of having a mount or a teleport slave, you'd be getting those steps in and then some.

"Hey, Shane. How goes it?"

"Not bad, man. How's the wife?" I asked for the sake of small talk. Javier was incredibly lucky in that regard. Somewhere between his rangings, guard duty, and training some semblance of military discipline into the rest of us, he'd managed to draw the eye of a young woman who worked at the town's sole school. I wasn't sure how it happened or whether their relationship would last, but for now, one of my few friends was happy and that was enough.

"She's doing well enough. We're pretty sure she's expecting now," he said with a nervous smile. "You ever go through something like this?"

"I'm twenty-six, man. No, I don't have a kid."

"Yeah, well, you'll get it then. Shit's scary. I'd almost rather be shot at again."

"You'll do alright, Javier. You and Tara get along fine."

"I know, but a man worries… Say, you busy right now? I heard about the pokemon that got into the Icebox."

"Right now? Not really. I've just been crossing out the obvious suspects. I know now that it's probably not from the lake. I don't think something followed the carts in from the farms either."

"So what next then?"

"A night watch," I said with a sigh. I wished I could delegate to someone else, but Rocket was by far the strongest pokemon we had, and the one most alert from his time hunting. In the words of a genocidal frog: It had to be me; someone else might get it wrong. "Rocket and I will set up a tent next to the Icebox. We'll see if something comes back tonight."

"Good idea, man."

"What'd you need anyway?"

"Well, Tara asked me to show some of the boys how to shoot a gun. You know, all them little ones at the school."

"Aren't they like ten?"

"Most of them, yeah. I was about that old when dad showed me and well…"

"They ain't got no one else. Point taken."

"Wanna help me out? Take half the kids? They might like Rocket too."

I waved him off. "Pass, man. Any other time, maybe, but I was going to catch a nap as soon as I report to Professor Kush. Gotta stay up all night. Maybe tomorrow night too."

"I still can't believe you call Sabrina that. Or that Tom hasn't gutted you for it," he said, shaking his head in amusement. "Alright, man. Sucks to be you."

I flipped him off as I walked away. "Fuck you, Javier. I'd rather deal with pokemon than those little ankle-biters."

"Yeah? See you around, Shane."

"Yup."

X

I reported in with Sabrina so she could collect all the information we'd gathered. She decided to make a chart listing out the likelihood of certain culprits based on what we knew such as habitat, hypothesized diet, affinity for acids, etc. Was this the way to go about an investigation?

Well, truthfully, we had no clue. Just because I lived in the DC area before this all began didn't mean I worked for the government or was part of the FBI or something. And Sabrina, she was just a vet. The only thing that made either of us qualified was our pokemon knowledge, and of course Rocket being a pal.

She did have the bright idea to take stock of exactly what our thief stole so we could set out some bait. Rocket had dug a small burrow for himself downwind of the food so that he wouldn't give himself away via scent, if that was applicable to the pokemon we were dealing with at all. Off a ways, myself and Pete, another of my ranger buddies, hung out in a tent, ready to reinforce Rocket if necessary.

We stayed up throughout the night. And the night after that. And after that. All to find our bait completely undisturbed.

Which wasn't to say nothing happened. Our thief had managed to get into the supplies again, completely bypassing Rocket's exceptional nose. Worse, the amount of food stolen, and trashed, was increasing. In one night, they carried off two dozen pounds of assorted meats and vegetables, an absolute impossibility for normal animals.

I hated that this didn't narrow things down. I knew from experience that Rocket ate way more than a normal weasel or ferret. Pokemon seemed energy-positive, that is, they seemed like they produced more energy than they consumed with the way they fired off elemental attacks, but I'd learned that this wasn't strictly true. Or at least, there was a calculation involving aura that I was too stupid to make out on my own.

Sabrina said something about a heightened metabolism that ran circles around her understanding of biology. She also said that, like with most animals, the diversity and quantity of a pokemon's diet likely varied dramatically depending on the individual and season of life.

Which was to say, we still didn't know much.

"I told you they're worthless," one of the men, a pudgy, burly fellow who was part of the construction and remodeling team, said. He gestured at myself and Pete angrily. "Alex is right. Either his oversized 'coon's the culprit and we're letting the fox watch the henhouse or 'Ranger Shane' has no fucking clue what he's doing."

That seemed to be a growing sentiment. It was one I couldn't readily refute either. I'd tried to be methodical with my investigation, but the bare truth was that I had no results to show for it so far. I'd kept watch for days, only for the culprit to sneak right by both Rocket and I. What else could I say?

I tried to ignore them, but hearing them pointing fingers at Rocket was starting to get on my nerves. Me? I got it. I was hilariously underqualified to be a "real" ranger. Rocket? No way; he didn't do anything wrong.

"Now, hold on," Austin said. The mayor's son had lost a lot of his naivete over the past few months, especially since he almost lost a finger to a metapod of all things, still had the scar, too. Not all, but living in Carnelian Bay had helped him get over himself. "Let's not jump to conclusions. We know it's not Rocket because linoone can't use poison type moves anyway."

"Then I guess Shane ain't got a clue. So much for the 'best tracker in town.'"

"Well, what now? Do we set up a perimeter of volunteers every night?" Another person said. I didn't recognize her, but that wasn't saying much considering how little I interacted with most of the town.

"We can… Or we can take in the information Shane and Rocket got us and figure things out," Sabrina said. "Look, we've had people watching the lake and the farm. The walls would keep most pokemon from entering through the road."

"I'm saying it's a flying type," Pat added. I did say that makes the most sense, right? Maybe one that can use fire to melt the plastic?"

"Possible, but most flying types are diurnal." She saw the blank looks on people's faces and sighed. "They're awake during the day. And fire is… fire. We would have noticed, surely, especially at night."

"Okay, so what's going on then?"

"The culprit is digging from the ground. It's the only thing that makes sense."

"That would bypass the linoone. And it's not like Shane's the only one who's been staying up at night for us. Pete and Javier joined him too," Austin said. "Between the three of them, I'd trust that we would have seen something coming. Unless the thief just dug up from the ground and there was nothing to see in the first place. We should look around for burrows. If the pokemon's smart, it'll have collapsed the tunnel behind it, but that should still leave a sign somehow."

"Right. Good plan, Austin. You go and see the graveler. Do you think you can get them to help? I know the tunnels have gotten much bigger since we arrived. Could a few of the branches have been abandoned by the graveler and taken up by new pokemon? That's how ecosystems expand."

"Maybe? It's kind of a crapshoot if they'll help us or not. They like to be left alone. Although… Maybe if I told them that the bones we've been sharing with them might also be ruined?"

"We ought to ask anyway. Take a bribe. That ought to at least get them to hear you out."

"You're right. I'll get on that." The mayor's son turned to me. "Wanna come along? You showed us where the thief isn't, so I figure you may as well see things through."

I looked down at Rocket, then at Austin. He'd matured a great deal but a part of him still thought he could befriend any pokemon with enough food and good vibes. I was a little worried that he'd get his hand bitten off if he encountered something below ground.

He was one of the few guys around Carnelian who didn't treat Rocket like a wild tiger. I'd never hear the end of it if something happened to him.

"Yeah, I think we'll tag along," I said. I turned to Sabrina with an idea. "Rocket's not the best digger though. He knows Dig, but I doubt he's better than a drilbur. Can we bring Spade?"

"Of course you can. Spade's not a fighter though, remember that," she said. "He should keep you from getting lost at least though. Be sure to take extra batteries. And maybe something to dig with, just in case, you know?"

"I hear you. When do you think we ought to go?"

Austin scratched his head. "Ah, how about after you get some sleep? You've been up all night again."

I yawned and started to walk away. "Alright, sounds good. You know where my trailer is."

Author's Note

I tried experimenting with an "investigation" but I don't think I like this kind of writing. I'm not sure if I'll try to add a mystery like this again. My brain just doesn't work this way.

The thing about cucumbers is true in Tahoe. If you start indoors, you can take the plants out after a bit to finish in the garden.

A few people guessed the thief already. Bravo, you poke-nerds.

Thank you to all of my patrons. As many of you know, I update one of my stories once every weekend publically. However, I update much more frequently on Pat-re-on, usually 8-10 chapters a month spread across various stories. That means the number of chapters available on Pat-re-on is always growing. As of now, this is how far along each story is:

- ACL & Bunny Quests: Same as public
- A Life Worth Living: 1
- Apocalypse: 1.11
- The Holy Grill: 2.6.5
- Homeless Bunny: 23
- Legendary Tinker: 8.6
- Plan? What Plan?: 4.13
- When is a Spoon a Sword?: 4.12
- Troll in the Dungeon!: 19
- Let There be War: 9 (Complete)

Total Chapter Difference (Pat-re-on - Public): 30