Azula was sitting on my shoulders while picking apart my hair with her tiny claws. I looked up at the buildings as I walked between them.
The red tiles clung together in an ancient Japanese fashion. The kind you would see in Kyoto. Man, I could go for some tako-yaki right now.
I stopped in my tracks. This kept happening. Every once in a while I would get such a vivid sensation of something. For a brief second there, I could feel the taste of something incredibly delicious.
But now it was gone.
And I just felt all the more empty.
Zuko was taking a nap in his pokeball. I now had a trainer belt with magnetic strips. It felt professional. The ball had surprisingly little weight to it. You'd never imagine that a living breathing creature was housed inside. Zuko was still a little too erratic for me to let out in public. But I figure one on one bonding is important too.
And I have wanted to explore the city ever since I got here. So I'd do both.
Azula was only giving me mild pain by trying to tear my hair out of my head. It would be fine.
Walking through the streets, the city felt really alive. Everyone addressed each other by their first names. It was crazy how everyone knew each other. They would even wave to me and say hi. I was expecting people to treat an unknown element with caution or fear. But instead everyone was excited to see me. It was refreshing. They really must not get any new faces around here.
Many people had pokeballs on their belts too. I did see the odd great ball and ultra ball, as well as some other miscellaneous types of balls. Some looked polished, others were worn and had the markings of many battles.
A lot of people had Pokemon by their sides. I saw a lady with a Lucario. A big burly dude had a towering Abomasnow. I saw through a window where a chef and a Scyther were cutting up sushi together.
I eventually started waving back. I even walked up to some people to say hello. I did tend to keep my distance though. After the first time someone asked me what I was doing here and how I got here I realized that small talk might not be a good idea. I simply spouted how I forgot if I left my oven on and booked it out of there.
The person had given me a weird look but hadn't stopped me. If they had asked me what an oven was I'm not sure what I would have said.
I continued to make my way around the city. The architecture really was beautiful. Plus I got to see all the different pokemon, and actually see how those sprites looked in real life.
I was letting Azula play with a fire hydrant as I read the menu to a restaurant when a shadow enveloped the entire area. Gusts of air crashed down making me lose my balance as my ears pulsed with the sound of wingbeats.
The ground shook as the massive figure landed next to me. I quickly rushed over, scooping Azula back up onto my shoulders.
Giant red wings. Blue scales. Sharp fangs.
Salamence.
A rider with a uniform hopped off the dragon's back and walked up to me. I eyed the hilt of a machete strapped to his back, as well as the two enormous knives on his waist. He had two ultra balls and one pokeball on the other side of his belt.
The Salamence followed behind him, mirroring his every step.
"Hey there!" The rider said with a cheery wave. "I've gotten some reports of people around town seeing somebody new. Some kid with a Charmander. Nothing harmful. But I figured I'd come check up on you. Ya know, just in case. I don't get much to do when I'm on city patrol. Nobody ever really does. I guess that's one of the perks when we live in a city where we banish our criminals to the countryside." The ranger laughed heartily, even slapping his knee.
"Uh. okay." I replied, trying not to look at the towering dragon behind him. Azula, on the other hand, stared up at the dragon in awe.
The ranger pulled out a little notepad and pen. "Okay so uh, who are you? What are you doing here? Just basic things to put on record. We don't get many new faces. But I imagine you know all that." The ranger mimed throwing his hands up in the air. "Ya know. Standard procedure. This is why I don't like city patrol. Out in the countryside I actually get to do interesting stuff."
That actually sounds pretty interesting.
"Like what?" I would have been more worried about asking such obvious questions that most people would know, but everyone here so far had been unusually accommodating. Small knit communities did tend to have more trust, I think.
The ranger looked at me with confusion. "You know, wrangling wild pokemon. Making sure territorial disputes won't bleed towards the city. Making sure certain populations don't get out of hand. Staying out of the way of the Kings. Looking for lost travelers. All that Ranger stuff that they preach in the schools."
"The Kings?"
The ranger looked at me once again. "Okay so you dodged my questions the first time. I'd normally let that slide, cuz you know standard procedure for this is kind of dumb. But you're asking a lot of questions. Who are you?"
Well I suppose that was bound to happen. My curiosity did get the best of me. I pulled out my newly issued license.
"Trainer Red. Field Researcher licensed by Professor Oak."
The ranger's eyes bulged at the mention of Oak. He must be really important. I did remember that Master Balls were rare. Gamebreaking rare. I narrowed my eyes. Like you only get one. Ever. Per game.
Huh.
"Alright kid. Oak is the real deal. Well, I am actually pretty bored right now. How about I just show you. That sounds more fun than just explaining things anyway."
The ranger motioned towards his hulking Salamence.
My eyes widened. "You want me… To get on that."
The ranger patted me on the back. "Piper is a she. Don't look her in the eyes. She might eat you if you do."
My face paled.
The ranger laughed again. He slapped me on the back. "Kidding! I'm only kidding! Piper's a sweetheart. She wouldn't even hurt a Cutiefly."
The Salamence ducked her head and shined a bright smile at me. I only noticed how my entire body could fit between those gargantuan jaws. The multiple lines of jagged teeth. The breath that stunk of death and destruction.
I gulped.
Azula slapped me on the back of the head, bringing me out of my paralysis.
"Alright alright I'm going." I gave Azula a nasty look. She merely stuck her tongue out at me in response. Did she learn that from Zuko?
I slowly climbed up the blue scaled leg. I did my best to avoid the spikes along her back as I crawled up to the saddle. I pulled Azula down from my shoulders and placed her in front of me.
The ranger hopped up onto Piper's back with one giant leap, getting comfortable holding onto a spike behind me. He patted Piper's back.
The entire world began to shift as the Salamence prepared for flight. It was disorienting. She raised her red wings in the air, the wingspan stretching across the entire clearing. With two mighty flaps we were in the air. Gravity tried to tear my organs out as we climbed higher and higher.
We flew over buildings, the shadow of a majestic dragon shooting across rooftops below.
Soon enough we reached the outskirts of the city. The ranger patted Piper's back to give her directions.
"HAVE YOU EVER SEEN THE WALL FROM THE OUTSIDE?" The ranger yelled over the wind.
I shook my head.
Azula was mesmerized. She flapped her arms in the air, pretending like she was the one flying. The fire on her tail erratically tried to keep its form in the whipping wind.
We crossed over the wall. The wall was far less pristine from the outside. It bore burn marks and gouges. It had clearly been through a lot. I saw rangers positioned at watchtowers along the wall. Some of them recognized Piper and waved.
Stray wild pokemon roamed outside of the walls. A lone Nidoran kept trying to headbutt the wall, falling over after each hit. It reminded me of World War Z.
Once we got to a higher altitude, Piper let out her wings to just glide. The wind became far calmer. I could see the land out for miles and miles.
The ranger poked me in the back.
"So, what do you want to know?"
I kept my eyes on the view. The giant mountain range over to my right. There was snow at the edge of my view.
"Why is there snow over there? It's quite warm here. I don't see how there could also be snow in the same region, let alone so close."
The ranger tapped his chin.
"That mountain range houses one of the warp gates. It connects to Snowpoint in Sinnoh."
Uh…. what?
"Warp gates?"
"Yeah. How do you think your Professor Oak got here?"
I turned to the ranger. "Like a portal?"
"No. Not quite. It's kind of just a tear in reality. Dialga and Palkia really fucked shit up when they battled. You're just walking through the mountain path when it bleeds into Snowpoint in Sinnoh. They both look the same from both sides. It doesn't feel like you're traveling anywhere. There are a couple warp gates all over the region. They're locked in a general location, but move all the time. I guess I can use the caverns as an example. You can just be walking around in the underground caverns, going through a tunnel, and even though that tunnel seems perfectly normal, by the time you've made your way through you're in Cerulean Cave. The gates are always to places with a similar environment. Otherwise the gates wouldn't meld so seamlessly to the outside world. But there are some people that specialize in finding the gates. Tough part is, most of the Kings hang around the warp gates."
Well that was a lot to wrap my head around. Cerulean Cave. Mewtwo. Tears in reality.
"You mentioned the Kings before. What are they?"
The ranger laughed. "Kid, you do not want to mess with the Kings. You see, there's typically one area of every region that's particularly dangerous. Where the wild pokemon are particularly strong. We don't have that here. In fact most of the warp gates are connected to those particularly dangerous places of the other regions. The trouble is, it's not just connected to locations that coincide with our time. The warp gates are always changing. Usually there's at least one that connects to the real world in real time. Besides being shit hard to find, another reason people don't like trying to come through the gates is they might get spit out at another time. That's why people pay top dollar for a good guide. So these gates can also spit out wild pokemon, all from the most dangerous areas, at any time. How do you think that affects the local populations?"
I looked at the ranger. "Invasive species. They might take over the entire ecological chain and tear apart the food web."
The ranger smiled. "Exactly. But the wild pokemon didn't take that lying down. You see they already constantly competed amongst themselves. When they found out that there would be constant challengers when they hung around a certain location, they formed colonies there."
Well I guess that'd add to the growing list of why people don't fuck with the warp gates.
"Okay, so what? The Kings are just the strongest pokemon of certain areas?"
The ranger laughed.
And kept laughing.
In fact he was rolling around the back of the Salamence, getting dangerously close to the edge.
"HA! If only it were that simple. Kid, some of these species can live quite a long time. Rhyperior can live for millenia. Tyranitar can live for centuries. But the thing is, time works differently here. Do you know who our Champion is?"
I shrugged.
The ranger looked me in the eye. "Taimu."
That name rang a bell. But not in the typical way. Of a bell that rang in the middle of a hurricane, landslide, and earthquake all at once. Where it kind of felt like I heard it, and made a connection there, but it was lost amongst all this other chaos. No, this was of the memories I had made while here. Right. Taimu. That's who Nurse Joy had talked about. The first Champion. Wait… But she said that was centuries ago. My face paled.
The ranger watched my reactions. "So you get it. Time works differently here. It doesn't affect us as much as the real world. You see the sun?"
I looked towards the sky. Or what should have been the sky. There was violet and aquamarine energy dancing in bulbous configurations. There was a spot where light seemed to shine behind.
"It's murky, kind of like we're seeing the sun from underwater." I replied.
The ranger nodded. "Exactly. The sun is moving normally today. But some days, the sun doesn't set like normal. It can take a couple more hours than usual. If we're unlucky, it can even stay up for what would have been multiple days. And the same things happen for nights. Not even two months ago we had a long night that lasted two and a half weeks. That's why we had food stores. Ranger's have to man the walls 24/7 on long nights. Lots of nocturnal creatures flock in numbers to attack Champion's Hold. It's the only source of light for miles so it can attract all sorts of nasties."
I looked back at him. "And so what do the Kings have to do with any of this?"
The ranger grew a faraway look as he scanned the horizon. "The Kings are wild pokemon, yes. But they have been the apex predators of the land for hundreds of years. Most of them are only supposed to have lifespans of a couple decades. Kommo-o are certainly not supposed to live more than two centuries. And they certainly aren't supposed to grow to 25 feet tall. These Kings are constantly battling with very powerful wild pokemon. All the apex species of their own time. Our rangers wouldn't stand a chance. Some of these wild Pokemon could rival an Elite Four's veteran pokemon. The Kings might even be able to challenge an entire Champion's team at once and win."
I gulped.
"Now usually there's one established King per area. In the Sky Jungle, a Starfallen Zard reigns supreme. It's clan has ruled the sky there for centuries. Only the Draconids dare live up there."
I stopped the ranger. "Hold on. People live up there?"
The ranger smiled. "People live everywhere. Did you think Champion's hold was the only garrison in Starfall?"
The ranger continued. "Yeah. They've had to lay low for the last couple months though. Apparently somebody was dumb enough to steal one of the King Zard's eggs. They haven't caught the fucker yet, but they'll probably be skinned alive. The Draconids worship the Zards. It's probably the only reason they're still alive. Crazy bastards, all of them. You'd have to be raving mad to try and train a Starfallen Charizard."
I softly touched the pokeball on my belt.
Oak wasn't that crazy, was he?
I want to ask about Starfallen Charizard, but I'm worried suspicion might fall on me. Or would it be more suspicious not to ask about it. I'm sure I can't keep it a secret forever that Oak gave me one of the fuckers.
"What about the other Kings?"
"Well, the valley has two factions. They're constantly warring with one another. The warp gate tends to be somewhere in between where they keep camp, but it's not consistent. On one side is Tyranitar. He used to like to live in the mountains, but got scared off by Sabre. Now he likes to hang out in the valley and duke it out with Tyrantrum all day. Both Tyranitar and Tyrantrum are huge. Well, Tyrantrum are pretty big to begin with. But this one is particularly big. Not as big as Kommo-o in the jungle, but still swallow you whole with room to spare kind of big. The scales tend to side with the Tyrantrum faction. Garchomp, Flygon, Krookodile, Druddigon, and all the others. The earth, mineral, and alloys tend to stick with Tyranitar. Rhyperior, Gigalith, Aggron, those kinds of nasties. Even bigger mons like Steelix bow to Tyranitar. He's beaten them all into submission. While the valley tends to be the safest way to get to Champions Hold, if you get caught in between those two factions when they're brawling, you're a dead man."
I'm kind of glad that I don't have concrete memories of anything right now. I'm not sure if I would have been able to keep up with the information otherwise. Did the fact that my head was empty make it easier to store information?
Those all seemed like quite powerful pokemon. I recognized all of them. Wait. Except one. What would be strong enough to scare a Tyranitar off? Tyranitar had to be crazy territorial. They were said to be able to break mountains. What could contend with that? What could scare it into retreating?
"Sabre. What's that?"
A grim look crossed the ranger's face. "Something you should pray you never have to fight. Starfallen Arcanine. It's an Ice/Alloy. Brute 8, Fang 10 and Claw 10. Of course those are just speculated. They're so fast that people that get killed by them never even notice it. I think Sabre is a couple centuries old, but people speculate it might actually be over a millenia old. You'd think that with age, and the cold, she'd be slower. But she's still so fast that only one person has ever seen her. Ever. Most people never see her before she kills them. The skilled ones likely manage a glance before they die. Taimu was the strongest of us, and still barely escaped with his life. Some people think that Palkia let's pokemon from other Universes come into ours. Sabre's probably the best evidence for that. She could rule this entire region if she wanted to. Only Kommo-o might stand a chance. We've lost a lot of rangers to the mountains. And the thing is, we're still not sure if Sabre's ever had to fight seriously. "
I let the ranger take a moment to himself. Starfallen Arcanine. Ice and steel type. Objectively, a pretty shitty typing defensively. 4X weaknesses to both fire and fighting. But if it was fast enough that nothing could hit it? And powerful enough that nothing survived the first hit? Yeah that thing was a monster. Ice was one of the best attacking types. Pair it with steel for good defenses. I doubt there are any fighting types or fire types that like to hang out in the snowy mountains. Plus with that steel typing it could just tear through every other ice type with ease. I can't imagine how anyone could face a giant sabre-tooth tiger with essentially adamantium bones and superspeed and ice powers and metal powers. Jeez. That was a daunting list. Maybe it really was the King of another Universe before it got trapped here.
The sun was getting low in the sky, and the ranger patted Piper's back to signal her to turn around.
"It's about time we head back. You don't want to be out here at night."
As if on cue, a massive screech sounded from our left. A scaled creature with a wingspan of over 60 feet leapt into the air. It's jaw was sharp and had rows of glittering teeth that were big enough that I could see them from hundreds of feet away. Each of its talons were bigger than a person.
An Aerodactyl.
But not the kind that I knew.
"Shit." The ranger pulled out one of the ultra-balls from his belt and pressed the release.
The red energy shot out and pooled into the form of a black bat-like dragon. Noivern.
"Disorient it! Distract it while we get back!"
The Aerodactyl immediately zeroed in on us. Its eyes were filled with hunger. It licked its lips as it eyed Piper. What kind of monster sees a Salamence as prey?
I silently pointed my Pokedex at the creature. "Aerodactyl. Scale/Air. Fang 8, Claw 7. Flee on sight. Flee on sight."
Those were high numbers.
I nearly dropped the Dex as Piper flapped forward. She sped towards Champions Hold. Noivern kept blasting the Aerodactyl with sound attacks.
As we got closer, other rangers noticed the commotion. More pokemon were released into the air.
I saw a Dragonite, two Altaria, and a couple Pidgeots and Staraptor.
"RANGER, RETURN YOUR POKEMON!"
A voice shouted from atop the Dragonite. The ranger, I still hadn't gotten his name, pointed his ultra ball towards Noivern and returned it.
"HYPER BEAM!"
The Aerodactyl has been a little disoriented by Noiverns sound attacks, but it ignored it. The Noivern was nothing more than a small pest to it. It had continued to barrel towards the city, chasing us, with the Noivern continuing to pepper it with attacks all the while.
We passed the line of rangers. I looked back to see all the rangers' pokemon charging up orange energy in front of their mouths.
"FIRE!"
And just like that, the sky lit up as a dozen beams of orange energy blasted into the Aerodactyl.
It was knocked from the air, falling towards the ground.
But after falling a couple hundred feet, the Aerodactyl shook off the hit and spread its wings. I was blasted with a gust of wind as the air currents changed, pulling like a vortex towards Aerodactyl. Flapping once, it retreated back towards the valley, carried by the wind it commanded. There were scorched black marks where the hyper beams had hit, but the Aerodactyl seemed fine. It turned its head and let out a guttural screech as it retreated. It eyed the rangers as it flew away, but made no move to attack.
The remainder of the flight continued in silence. Neither of us really had anything to say after that.
The ranger eventually dropped me off at Oak's lab.
"I'm Will by the way. Ranger Will. Feel free to call me up anytime."
"Red." I offered my hand. "Just don't make me have to shit my pants over a fucking Aerodactyl again and we'll be cool." I replied.
Will laughed. "I shit my pants every time I see one of those fuckers too. If you're wondering why they're out here though, it really goes to show how much of a monster a Starfallen Zard is. They've chased out all of the Aerodactyl from the Sky Jungle." Will cocked his head. "Well, almost all of them."
He scratched his head. "My CO is probably gonna yell at me. I'll have city patrol for the next month as punishment at the very least. I'm sure I'll be bored, so hit me up if you want to know any more."
"Sounds good man."
Piper and Will took off into the night sky, leaving me alone with my thoughts. And Azula. Who looked rather shaken up. I would have returned her before, but on top of Piper's back I was worried that if I let go of my grip to grab a pokeball, I might fall off. Or drop the pokeball. Neither seemed like good options. So I had just clung onto Azula and the handhold on the saddle for dear life.
Just like everything else in this fucked up region, I was left with far more questions than answers.
I returned to my room for the night. Azula walked alongside me. I let Zuko out to run around and burn off some energy.
Taimu. Kings. Ancient pokemon. Variants. Oak. There was a lot to wrap my head around.
At the very least, I knew I wouldn't be bored for the foreseeable future.