The end of things.  A pokemon fanfic by Rocko

DISCLAIMER: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.

The following story may or may not bear any resemblance to characters and places, real or imaginary.  To a large degree, they're a product of my rather vivid, and sometimes disturbed, imagination.  I don't follow any specific story line, and I'm the first to admit I'm open to stretching the subject material way beyond anything recognisable to those who play the games.

That's the point of such fiction.  Don't be held by limited boundaries.  Express your imagination.

Emphasis on YOUR imagination, though.  Please don't reuse, refuse or recycle any of my personal characters, plot lines, concepts, or other such stuff without my permission, thanks.  Some of this stuff is personally inspired, so doing so would be really...aggravating ;). In fact, it may result in drastic action on my part, causing me to be forced to slap you around some, probably with a dead fish.  Likely a smoked cod. That would be unpleasant for all concerned, especially for the cod.  So, be creative!!!  The mind is a terrible thing to waste, so use it to create your own idea, leaving mine to fester in my mind where they belong ;)

This is also a work in progress.  While I'm open to constructive criticism, especially relating to grammar and spelling issues (and I HATE poor grammar.  It may all be the English language, but some people's interpretation of it is...unfortunate), I don't respond to trolls.
If you don't have something useful to say, don't waste your breath.

Otherwise, I value the comments.  This is the first thing I've written in a decade not related to dry, dusty research papers, so don't be surprised if it needs a bit of work ;)

Oh, and remember, this is written in English.  As in, "English” spelling. Australian English, to be even more specific.  We do things a little bit differently down here.  So, if a word looks as if it's spelt wrong, check the alternative spelling first, before commenting, please, as being called a "bloody illiterate wanker” often offends ;)

Let me know what you think of it....

Chapter 1: Poachers.

The door creaked loudly as I pushed it open and walked onto the old timber veranda that straddled the rear of the cottage.  I made a mental note to do something about it, yet again, and yet again lost the thought into the back of my mind almost immediately.  It was only one more thing to do, in a never ending list of things to do here.  There were other priorities, important ones, and this wasn't one of them.

The timber cabin straddled a small ridge overlooking the evergreen forest I'd called my home for nearly a year now.  Its perch allowed it an expansive view over the entire valley, with the dusky mountains acting as backdrop for the picture perfect panorama beneath.  The creek, almost a small river now due to the ice melt cascading down its reaches, almost drowned out the noise of the local avian wildlife that attempted to overwhelm the senses.  For such an isolated place in the middle of nowhere, it was certainly noisy enough.  Regardless, it was an impressive place to live.

Some called the view "stunning" or "majestic". Many of these same people told me how lucky I was to live in a place like this, and that I should be "happy".

Yeah.  Lucky.  Happy.  Words that had lost their meaning for me a long time ago.

Not that it wasn't dangerous here, at times.  There were plenty of things up here that'd kill you, and enjoy doing so.  Not just the cold and rain.  People often went hiking in the upper valleys to enjoy the wilderness.  But sometimes, the wilderness enjoyed them a bit too much in return.  While most came back, every season a few didn't.  Not common, for sure.  But sometimes, they just vanished.

Nature is, at times, a harsh mistress.

That's why I love her.

I made my way down the gravel path that led to the work shed, swinging open the large timber doors which accessed the vehicle area.  Securing the doors by their catches so that the gentle breeze wouldn't close them on me, I jumped into the driver's side of the Rangers truck.  Tossing my lunch bag behind the seat, while checking the rear mirrors for anything still behind me, I ran my hands over the wheel, before sliding the key into the ignition.  Waiting for the old diesels glow plugs to warm up enough to turn over, I tuned in some old Eagles classics I hadn't heard for a while, before settling with "Desperado"; a song that always struck a chord with me for some reason. 

As far as a piece of shit goes, the truck wasn't too bad.   Sure, it was ugly, but then again, I'm no beauty queen either. It ran...most of the time anyway, and was as reliable as you generally saw this far out from Ranger HQ.  At least it handled the rougher tracks easily enough, in a place where technology was few and far between, and modern "conveniences" even rarer.

Plus, the radio worked.  You can't ask for more than that.

After starting the engine, a cloud of black smoke spat out the exhaust, momentarily dimming the sunlight streaming through the doorway.  Backing through the smoke, I decided to leave the shed doors open.  After all, who the hell would steal anything from up here, anyway?  Most of the time I didn't even bother locking up the house, or the small Rangers office attached to it, simply because there was nothing worthwhile in there to steal.  If stealing a few pens, and some dirty dishes, got someone's rocks off, they were welcome to them.  Besides, if they really wanted in, a crappy door lock wasn't going to stop them.  Perhaps they'd even do the dishes before they left?  It'd be one less thing to do on the chore list, anyway.  There was no-one out here I needed to impress anymore, so who gave a shit.  It was one of the few pleasures of living alone now.

They never bloody ended, those chores.  Take today's Ranger priority list, for example.  A group of 4 kids trying to get through the mountains had got stuck, and one of them had attempted to scale the cliff face to try and get help.  Slipped, and ended up making pizza of himself on the rocks at the bottom.  Fucks sake, they'd already called through to Ranger HQ on their 'dexes, and they'd been told that help was heading their way once the fog lifted the next morning.  Had they waited, they would have had their happy ending.  But no, someone had to be a hero, and "go for help."

Dead heroes don't help no-one.
Another dead kid, making the news spotlight for an evening, before the world moved on, and no-one cared any more.
If they ever really cared to start with.

The song reached its end as I approached the river.  Shifting the truck into low range, I carefully began crossing the ford, watching for loose rocks that had shifted in the unusually strong current.  The old girl made the bank easily enough, without being worse for wear, and churned up the gravel cutting onto the track to the mountains.

"It may be raining,

But there's a rainbow above you.

You'd better let somebody love you...

You'd better let somebody love you...

Before it's too late"

I turned the radio off, before I began choking up again.
Some things I couldn't handle well anymore.
That was one of them.

However, luckily, my thankless tasks for the morning didn't involve scraping up splattered bodies, or rescuing hysterical survivors.  Nor did it involve checking for lost pokeballs amongst the gore, and seeing if their contents had survived.  I'd seen enough death to last me a lifetime, and HQ knew it.
They left the search and recovery to those who still empathised with it.
Me, I had bigger worries.

Poachers.
More fucking poachers.
And I fucking hate poachers.

The forests straddling these mountain valleys are a haven for more wildlife than any other part of Johto.  It's like someone tried cramming every sort of animal into the one place, seeing what would survive to make a life of it here.

Bet whomever they were got a surprise when they all did.

In fact, you'd be hard pressed swinging a skitty around by the tail without taking at least one other pokemon out in the process.

It was that sort of place.

Is it noisy?
Hell, yes.

Is it irritating?
Damn right it is.

Is it amazing.
Unfortunately, yes.  Too amazing, unfortunately.

The abundance of wild life brought out all the "wannabes" of society, to "try their luck".

From kids looking for a new pokemon candidate to whoop some other trainers ass...
To the researchers and scientists who studied the lot of them doing it.

Most of the time they kept to the lower valley, or the more well known sites such as the towers, or the ruins of Alph, leaving me to my peace and quiet in the upper reaches.  Sometimes, they didn't, and I had to bear with them, and their endless inane questions.  Used to drive me crazy, which wasn't much of a trip.

Storm used to laugh at my attitude to this, calling me a grumpy old bastard.  He was right, I guess.  Smart arse that he was.  But back then, I seemed to have a much higher tolerance for the stupid factor, and could let it roll over me without pissing me off like it did now.

I guess I lost all that when that life ended.

So, kids and cretins.  They were my lot to deal with.
When their luck held, they went home happy.
When it didn't, they went away in a black body bag.

The wilderness is like that, sometimes.  Nature is a bitch.
But at least she's my bitch.

Then, of course, there were the poachers.

They came for only one thing, of course.  Wild pokemon.  Bag them, tag them, and sell them.
It wouldn't have been so bad if they actually gave a shit what they went for.

But all too often, their traps were indiscriminate in what they caught, with their occupants often ending up dead.  Either killed by the traps they were caught in, or suffocated while crammed together in bags or cages on the way to the black market.

So, yes, I fucking hated poachers.

When the call came through of loud noises in the Upper Pass area, the first thought that went through HQ was poachers were up there yet again, causing more havoc.
Their second though was to send me up there to deal with it.

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 They call it job satisfaction, because they know I like to handle poachers my way.

I call it "Karma".

And I handle poachers my way.

The truck rattled along the gravel track towards the upper valley, climbing through the forest in a cloud of dust.  The roads here were never properly graded, given the lack of traffic.  Occasionally they threw a dozer up here, but more often than not, it just made more of a mess of the road surface.  A light shower would then turn the pass into the trail from hell, as the dirt here went from hard as rock to clogging clay if someone even farted water near it.  In the upper reaches particularly, traversing a sticky, slippery hell-path, with a sheer cliff on one side, and a 200 foot drop off on the other, was no picnic. 

At least not a picnic with a happy ending.

They were always on my back to dump the old rust bucket, and get with modern transportation.
A pidgey, or charizard, or something.  Jesus, even a fucking flygon if I wanted it.
But I didn't want it.  Not again.
Eventually they stopped offering.
I didn't ask again, so they didn't offer further.
Worked for me.

The truck was an antique from a bygone era.  An era when life was cheap, and work was easy.  A relic from before technology had gone forever.
Yeah, well, fuck that.  I like the truck.  Ugly POS she was.

Storm used to constantly take the piss about that, too.
The truck is a shit bucket.
The truck is unreliable.
The truck will die on you at any moment, leaving us marooned to spend the night shivering in Shitsville, Nowhere!

Yeah, Storm...but when the truck dies on me, I can have her fixed.
I couldn't do that with you now, partner, could I?
No, I couldn't....

Shit....

Continued in Chapter 2: Introductions

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