The end of things.  A pokemon fanfic by Rocko Wallaby

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.

Chapter 4: Decisions made.

I finally made it to the clearing near the waterfall, just on dusk.  I'd thought about heading further up the range, but the dwindling daylight and increasing wind chill made me reconsider so, with a sigh, I pulled up in the small camping area near the lagoon, bringing the trick to a halt just short of the water's edge.

It was just as I remember from the last time.  While the roar of the cascading waters had a tendency to drown out the surrounding wildlife, it also had a peaceful, rhythmic beat to it, courtesy of some irregularity in the rocks underneath the fall, I assumed.

It really was a beautiful place, and I should have visited more often.

However, the memories, while good, were still too painful.

I dropped the tailgate and pulled out my camping gear, dumping it in an untidy pile near the rear of the truck.  I preferred to keep close to the old girl, both as protection from the sometimes unpredictable weather, but also for having the safe house in the event something large and hungry decided to investigate me and my gear a little too personally.

I set up my swag, and blew a bit more air into the self inflating mattress. Ranger or not, an uncomfortable night sleep lead to an uncomfortable day following, and I liked my bed comfortable.

My cooking gear followed next, setting up the folding hot plates over the cold remains of the previous fire.  I also grabbed some logs from a bag in the back of the truck, squeezing them underneath the hot plate ready for lighting.  Yes, I do realise it sounds strange bringing pre-cut firewood into a forest, but when you've been forced to scrounge around in the dark and rain looking for dry wood, which then needs to be cut to size, as many times as I have, you'll realise the benefit of being prepared for anything.

Besides, cutting wood at your leisure at home, while downing a cold beer, was much more enjoyable than doing it after a hard day in the field.

With the fire lit and bedding set, and my chair perched near the warmth of the fire's edge, I sat back and let out a long sigh, stretching my toes towards the warmth.  It had been years since I was last up here.  I'd been studiously avoiding the place all that time.  On a couple of occasions, I'd grabbed my fishing gear with the intention of coming up here to try my luck, but something always seemed to come up before I left.

Or perhaps that was just an excuse.

Besides, as Storm had said, there are other ways to catch fish, if you're desperate enough.

I just wasn't that desperate anymore.

While there was still enough light to make out the details, I pulled out my topographical map of the area and pondered where to head the next day.  A few options presented themselves. While the chance of the noises being caused by poachers was high, there were certainly other possibilities, and at that point, I had seen no other signs that anyone had came this way recently.

Chewing on some jerky I found in my kit while my dinner simmered in the fire pit, I considered the likelihood of the noises being natural. It was certainly a possibility.  All sorts of strange and odd pokemon lived this far up in the wilderness, and I wouldn't put it past something big causing all the commotion.

Another option was a land slip, or even an avalanche in the areas higher up still covered in snow.  The spring thaw, while well underway, took it's time reaching those higher peaks, and it wasn't unusual to have an avalanche occur even late into summer, to the detriment of more than one unwary tourist.

Thing is, I had a gut feeling about this one, and I'd learnt over the years to trust such feelings, as they tended to be accurate more often than not.

This feeling reeked of poachers.

Besides, I needed to let off some steam.  Poachers would do just fine, thanks.

I ducked back to the truck, and reached behind the seats to the weapons locker located there.  Hunting was illegal in all areas of the reserve, but as a Ranger, I had to be prepared to deal with anything I encountered, either human or animal.  Not that I had any right to go shooting at anything that looked dangerous, mind.  However, poachers were another matter.

It had been 20 years since the introduction of the "Wildlife Protection and Proliferation Act” by the governing council.  Before this, it was a free for all blood-bath of hunting and fishing, all in the name of "recreation".  Over the years, the uncontrolled removal of animals from various reserves, both here and elsewhere, had caused the local populations of animals to dwindle alarmingly, and in a few cases and a few species, extinction was looming.

So, the Ranger leaders came up with the Act, which was then effectively forced through the council for approval.  It was a "protect or procrastinate" scenario, and the Rangers back then weren't overly tolerant of procrastinators.

Did it cause trouble with the yahoo's who felt their weapon ownership was an Arceus given right?

Oh, hell yeah.  The courts were clogged for years, with every redneck in the land demanding their right to slaughter their share of wild pokemon indiscriminately be honoured.

No surprise the pokemon concerned tended to get pretty grumpy when they encountered humans violating their territories.

However, all the laws in the land couldn't prevent the small minority sneaking in and killing off anything they found in the area.  A law is only as good as the enforcement it produced, and at first, little was done to really police it.

So the Rangers were called in to pick up the pieces.

Most of the time, our duties involve education, and confiscation of illegal weapons.

Personally, I had a reasonably tolerant attitude to most visitors, and only used confiscation where necessary.

However, there was another side to the powers we were granted.

In a situation where our lives were endangered, or the lives of pokemon were in the balance, we were granted the use of lethal force, if necessary.

Poachers rarely went without a fight.  They often were better armed than we are, and had no compulsion in taking out a Ranger who stood in the way of them, and their profit.

Given the choice, I prefer taking out a few poachers, than dealing with the alternative.

I checked over the 12 gauge I'd removed from the cabinet, and made sure it was clean, and fully loaded. 

No point being unprepared, either for the night, or for the following day.

Putting the weapon in a canvas sleeve near my swag, as protection against any possible rain, I climbed into the bed and turned off the camp light.

Lying back, I stared at the glory of the heavens, unpolluted by the city lights, and sighed deeply, before turning on my side and falling asleep.

__________________________________________________

Of course, life wasn't completely free from unexpected complications when Storm joined the clan.

Toilet training was easy enough, particularly given you could instruct him in exactly what to do, and where to do it.

Although catching a quilava perched on the john, while reading a comic book (yeah, he hadn't bullshitted about the reading ability, either), was fucking hilarious.

Until he learnt to close the door, which he did in a huff whenever he was caught out.  He never did see the funny side of that, and often took great offense when we broke into hysterical laughter after catching him parading around with toilet paper stuck in his quills.

For such a practical joker, he often had a poor sense of humour.

Other things took a bit more practice.

Bathing was one.  He just couldn't see the need.

Weeks passed before we could convince him the water wouldn't kill him, or make his fur fall out, or "dilute his male essence", any of the numerous other lame excuses he came up with to avoid getting wet.

Finally, it was only after being threatened by my old man to " take his stinking carcass out on the back porch to sleep", that he finally caved in, albeit reluctantly, and agreed to some basic hygiene rules.

Otherwise, my folks took to him almost immediately.  They always had been "pokemon people" and having a walking, talking fur-ball in the house was a novelty that didn't seem to end for them.  Course, at times he came across a bit...colloquial...and he needed to be reminded that there were, in fact, some topics that were best not brought up at the dinner table, especially when my parent's friends were over. Storm thought this was just hilarious, and seemed to take endless pleasure in beng even more disgusting and obnoxious.  Of course, it earned him more nights on the back porch, but at least this time he deserved them.

What did they expect?  He was new to all this.

Sleeping arrangements were another thing.  For such a dominant creature, he had a real issue with sleeping in a room alone.  When we first put him up in the spare bedroom, we'd be awakened during the night by loud shrieks, only to find him cowering in the corner of the bed with the blankets wrapped around his head.

He never discussed his fears with us, but over time, it became such a problem my parents relented, and let him sleep in my room.  While he had a cot my dad made up for him, most mornings I found him tucked into the bottom corner of my bed, snoring peacefully under the sheets.

I never minded his company.  In the end, my parents gave up on it, and let him in peace.

At least they got a full night's rest that way.

He was also rather odd for his species.  Not that I really had any personal direct experience with pokemon in general, let alone his kind, but from the moment I encountered him in the forest, he'd never showed any inkling to shoot flame from his back and head.  The best he ever managed was a bit of steam, and even this was pretty ineffective.

Of course, it made his living in the house a lot easier, as my folks had this fear of waking one night with the place burning around us.  The way he was, he never even smouldered the sheets, or set the smoke detectors off.  In all, he was a pretty good house guest and, overall, did nothing much my folks complained about.

He made up for it, though, by being a fast, tough little bastard. 

I recall the first day I took him to school.  One of the senior kids, of a mind to strut his stuff, wandered over behind Storm and, after calling him a runt, decided to clip him over the head behind his heat patches.

Not a clever idea, that.

After receiving a good smack to the ears, and another to the stomach, which left him gasping in pain on the floor, the bully ended up apologising to an irate, grumpy quilava, who stood over him with his paws balled into fists until he was satisfied with the response.

While it earned us both a detention (the bully and I, that is.  Storm just came along for the ride, and to laugh at us while we moped doing an essay in "Why I should respect pokemon"), at least it stopped any further harassment from the other students, most of whom were in awe of him for beating the crap out of the guy.

Of course, some people never got the hint.

The pokeball incident was one of these.

I'd just gotten back from a field excursion, where the class had been taken out to the Rangers HQ to see them in operation.  I suppose it made an impression on me, given my later career choices in that area.

Storm had decided to stay home for this one, having seen enough forest to last him a life time.  Besides, mum was making poffins, and she clearly needed assistance.

Typical.

I'd been dropped off the school bus just down the road from my house, and Storm had planned on meeting me there.

What I hadn't expected, was that someone was waiting for him first.

Following the incident some months earlier when I'd found Storm in the forest, I'd managed to catch up with my good friend, Roy Snatcher.  I never had liked dobbers, and his being responsible for a month worth of detention had left a fairly sour taste in my mouth.

So, I ended up planting a fist in his.  Repeatedly.

This didn't help the situation, as I found myself in even more hot water, but it did achieve 2 things:  One, he kept his distance from us from that time on.

And two, shit, it felt good!

As I said, I wasn't a nice kid sometimes.

However, I should have realised things wouldn't end there.  While I went on with my life, Roy stewed on the matter until he came up with a solution he thought would fix us both.

He'd capture Storm in a pokeball, and take him from me.

The whole pokeball issue was a real sticking point for Storm.  Until then, he had refused point blank even to consider getting in one.  While I personally couldn't blame him, there were some legal ramifications he refused to believe with remaining "wild", namely that unless he was "caught", he was a prime target for any would be dipshit trainer who thought they'd have a go catching him themselves.

We'd argued about this endlessly, until I simply gave up and let him have his way.

That was my mistake.

Roy thought otherwise.  Knowing I'd be away on the trip, and realising it was more than likely Storm would wait for me at the bus stop, he hatched a plan to capture Storm before I arrived, claiming his ownership from me.  In doing so he would realise his revenge on the both of us.

What he didn't plan for, though, was Storm's willingness to rip him a new one when he tried.

After being surprised by the first attempt, Storm shrugged off the ball's ray of light with some difficulty, and was glaring around for the source of the assault.  While Roy tried frantically to capture him a second time, the quilava stalked him furiously, before knocking him on his arse, and belting the shit out of him.

By the time I'd arrived on the Scene, Roy was quite unconscious, not to mention black and blue, and the creature standing over him roaring loudly, was no longer a quilava.

He'd evolved into a typhlosion.

Shit!  A very big, very pissed off typhlosion!

With the help of some bystanders, we managed to calm the now much larger creature down enough to get the story from him.  Apparently, the capture didn't succeed, purely due to Storm's will power.  He was so determined to not be caught, the ray couldn't take a hold on him.

The strain had still taken its toll, however, resulting in the burst of energy causing his evolution.

When Officer Jenny had arrived, she took our statements, and arranged for Roy to be stretchered to the waiting ambulance.  She looked seriously at the still fuming typhlosion, before giving me the pointed advice that I needed to ensure he remained under control in the future, or she wouldn't be able to cut me the same slack next time.  I promised to deal with it, before she sent me packing for home, sheepish typhlosion in tow.

Needless to say, my parents were also unimpressed, although they did understand the situation better than I'd hoped.  With Roy recovering in hospital, and little permanent injury to show for it, we had lucked out there.  However, mum turned to Storm, looking up at the typhlosion now dominating the kitchen where we stood, and told him, bluntly, to mind his manners in the future.  After 5 minutes of berating, I almost grinned, having received the same speech many times before, but the effects on Storm were much more obvious.  His ears drooped, and his whole body shook, to the point mum relented a bit, and told him he could go think about what he'd done.  With this, he spun and bolted for our room, hiding himself under the bed covers to escape further punishment.

The big pussy.

Although mum could be real scary when she wanted to be.

It did lead to one positive, though.  I'd picked up the pokeball Roy had used to try and catch Storm, pocketing it after the incident.  It wasn't till I was home that I realised I still had it.  Aimlessly tossing and catching it in my right hand while doing an assignment essay I had been set as homework following the Ranger HQ trip, I didn't hear Storm approach until I felt him nuzzle into my neck in apology.  Gently stroking his fur, he finally calmed down enough to stammer out a further apology for his behaviour.

Finally sitting back on the floor facing me, he sighed and told me I'd better get it over with.

"Get what over with?" I replied in confusion.

He pointed at the ball, sighed again, then waited for my response.

Looking at the ball curiously, I held it out towards him, pressing the capture button as he pressed his nose against it.

A blinding flash of red light later, and he was gone, leaving me holding a momentarily shaking ball, that quickly went quiet.

I immediately released him from the ball, and was smothered by his response, my face pressed tightly into his chest fur as he hugged me closely.

"Thanks" he whispered to me, still clutching me to him firmly, paws kneading my back gently.

"Don't mention it" I replied in a muffled voice, through the fur in my mouth.

And that's how I captured my first, and only, pokemon.

Not that he spent any time in the ball.  It was a silent agreement between us he wouldn't have to.

Neither of us minded though.  Life simply went on as usual.

Although my bed now seemed a damned sight smaller than it used to!

The lard arse!

Continued in Chapter 5: Silent progress.