[X] My Assistant

[7eeveelutions]

Deep within the rainforests of Fidona, Pokemon of many different varieties could be heard communicating with each other. The trees and underbrush were filled with the songs of birds, the grunts and growls of foxes, wolves, and cats, and many sounds, some more unique than others.

Such as the sound of a Ninetales being slammed into the ground and yelping.

In fact, in this particular part of the forest, the sounds of a battle had been ongoing for nearly fifteen minutes.

The (male) Ninetales was on a path through the northernmost portion of the island, nearly 50 miles north of the small town of Fidona that gave the island its name. The path itself, while clearly visible, was also quite clearly not very well-traveled; it was originally made of cobblestone, but was in the latter stages of disintegration and now contained just as much dirt and weeds as it did stone. On one side of the path were the large trees that made the rainforest so famous, while on the other side of the path was a small clearing maybe a hundred feet wide shaped somewhat like a circle.

On one side of that clearing was the Ninetales' Trainer, a bulky Hiker who looked like he was about to pull his hair out in frustration. Across from him sat a tall, thin Ranger, who was perched on a boulder about as big as he was and looked far calmed than the Hiker. In front of the Ranger stood a little female Espeon wearing a reddish-brown Ranger vest.

Notably, the Ranger had a short sword with a red-brown sheath dangling from one side of his waist, and a small black plastic holster on the other side, although the contents of the holster were not visible. The Hiker, of course, had a giant backpack with what appeared to be some kind of fold-up tent attached to it.

"This is going much better than I ever would have hoped......" the Ranger muttered.

Just going off of size alone, the Espeon should never have won that battle. She was not yet fully grown, and her height currently sat at about two and a half feet. The Ninetales, on the other hand, was not only fully grown but actually substantially bigger and bulkier than most of its species, and it stood right around four and a quarter feet tall. In addition to this, there was clearly a huge age difference, and thus a huge difference in battle experience. It was quite clear what would normally happen when something that big got a hold of something that small.

But that hadn't happened. In fact, the Ninetales had yet to even land a hit on the Espeon. Whenever it tried attacking from range, the Espeon would either dodge or use Protect. If it tried to close in and strike, the Espeon would not simply dodge, but do something far more dangerous.

Every time the Espeon was caught at close range in an unfavorable situation, it teleported into a more favorable location.

And that was why the Ninetales was currently lying flat on his belly with his legs spread out in random directions.

He had attempted to use Flamethrower as a distraction to get the Espeon to dodge, then use Quick Attack to catch it while it dodged. Only moments before it had already forced the Espeon into using Protect to block another attack, so she had to wait a little while before she could use it again. The hiker had ordered the combo attack thinking this would be their best chance, as the Espeon was clearly getting tired by this point.

But then she had teleported to a position about ten feet directly above the Ninetales, and had used Telekinesis on herself to give her body downwards velocity. Essentially, she turned the dodge into a flying drop-kick that struck poor Ninetales right on his back.

And to make things worse, the Ranger and his Espeon were communicating through telepathy, so the Hiker and his Ninetales didn't ever have the sligtest clue about what was coming next.

As his Pokemon struggled to stand back up after that attack, the Hiker decided to take the easy way out and cast aside his pride so that Ninetales could rest.

"All right, that's enough! We forfeit. You win, Ranger. That little Eeveelution of yours is surprisingly adept."

"Ahh? You give up? Well, fine. Scarlet hasn't lost a battle yet since she learned how to teleport. It isn't something most people or Pokemon are used to fighting against. Nobody seems to have the slightest clue how to counter it...... except for me, of course. My name is Scott by the way. I'm an Area Ranger from the Loch Ranch area, but I'm all the way out here because of some personnel shortages."

The Hiker recalled his Ninetales. "My name is Luke. I'm actually the head of the Fidona Tour Services. I usually try to make a point of challenging all the rangers I see, but..... I'm not used to losing. This was just a 1 on 1 battle though, maybe if it had been two on two or 6 on 6......"

"4 on 4 is the best I can manage, but you still would have lost, because then you would have been distracted by Scarlet while a more threatening member of my team attacked." The small Espeon suddenly teleported again, this time onto Scott's shoulders with her backs legs on his left shoulder and her front legs on his right shoulder, and her body curved around the back of Scott's head somewhat similar to a neck pillow.

"...... I am going to have to go home and reflect upon this battle. If we meet again and have a rematch, you can be sure the outcome will be different." Hiker Luke started off down the path southwards back towards Fidona.

Scott and Scarlet watched them leav, before Scott fed his Espeon a pair of berries- Oran and Leppa- to restore her health and strength. Afterwards, she finally got down from his shoulders, and he returned her back to the Great Ball she resided in so she could rest. "Guess I might as well get back to patrolling......"

He looked up at the sky for a few moments and tapped his sword sheath twice with one of his fingers before jumping down off of the rock.

[7eeveelutions]

With a quick teleport, Scarlet moved from the ground on top of a tall reinforced-steel cage that was currently empty. From here, she tried to use her psychic powers to survey the area to determine where she needed to go next.

But there was so much chaos and so many lifeforms of both the human and Pokemon variety that her powers were overwhelmed. As a result, she lost track of not only the two humans that had been helping her, but also of Ebony and Ruby.

As she came to a quick "I don't know what to do next" conclusion, she was nearly blown off the top of the cage by a large explosion. All sound stopped reaching her ears for about a minute before she regained her hearing and stood back up to investigate the cause of the blast.

It appeared a Charizard was loose, and the fire dragon was causing destruction to everything it saw that looked like it belonged to the poachers. The female human was nearby, but she looked uninjured and was attempting to free some birds.

Scarlet could not see the male human from her vantage point, but she could see his Scyther flying around, so he must have entered the base too.

The poachers seemed to be split into three groups. One group was on the far side of the base, probably near Ebony and Ruby. The second group was converging on the wild Charizard, and by extension, on Kaya. A third group was gathering outside a house in a corner of the base not far from her position. It appeared they were trying to regroup, and possibly were waiting for someone. Maybe the lead poacher was outside the base?

She desperately wanted to find her Trainer, but Kaya might need some help soon and she couldn't just abandon the human and her Pokemon team now that she had led them here...... but they would never win on their own, even with an enraged Charizard on their side.

So the little Espeon set to work trying to free some reinforcements by opening the cages near her. Her method was simple- she was not strong enough to break the cage bars or the padlocks, but using her telekinetic powers to remove the screws that fastened the door hinges to the cage was much easier. Scott had taught her to do just, in fact, in case she was ever alone with some caged Pokemon.

Plus, it was much quieter than blowing up a helicopter, and also far less noticeable than Ruby's Flamethrower.

There were four occupied cages near her.
The first held ten Zigzagoon. They didn't seem like they would be of much help, instead simply scattering in every direction, but having them running around trying to escape would at least distract the poachers.
The second one held a Riolu. Helpful.
The third one held a Tropius, who didn't really seem to want to leave the safety of the cage, so it was of no help.
The fourth cage held four Deerling, who simply ran off like the Zigzagoon did.

In other words, from four cages the only ally she managed to find was a single male Riolu. With a single telepathic command, she sent him off towards Kaya and moved to four more cages.

The first cage in this set was empty.
The second cage held both a male and female Leafeon and three Eevees, all of whom refused to leave the cage's safety.
The third cage was also empty.
And the fourth cage held an aggressive Carnivine, who tried to eat her the moment she let it out.

She quickly fooled the Carnivine by teleporting behind it, and the hungry vine-thing set its sights on a poacher who had just arrived on scene instead.

So that set of cages had no allies for her. On to a third set.

The first one held three Growlithe, who seemed to be eager to join the battle.
The second cage was empty.
And the third and fourth cages were badly damaged and missing their doors. The third cage had a few unconscious Pokemon inside it, while the fourth cage was empty. And next to that cage......
_________________________________________________________________

After Lucie opened Scott's bag for him, and then said something about something which he didn't understand- was she talking about food?- Moss went digging through the bag, and quickly found one of the two items he was looking for.

It was a leather pouch that was tied shut by a string, and appeared to be glowing orange. The pouch was quite warm to the touch, and Moss had little doubt that if Lucie knew what it was, she'd go running off with it to sell it for money.

Inside was Ruby's Fire Stone, and it was about a third larger than most Fire Stones and thus was worth about a third more. It was a flawless stone, and Moss knew enough about it to know that most jewelry-making humans would do anything to get it so they could cut it up and use it in place of things like diamonds or emeralds.

That mad Vulpix probably wanted this stone, and it would get him on her good side later on, which had plenty of benefits.

The second item that the Leafeon was looking for was right below the stone's pouch- Scott's cell phone. As with all Rangers, the phone had been modified with a special SIM card and other hardware that allowed it to connect to not only the cellular grid but also to a military satellite network that was used by Furoh's law enforcement, Rangers, and Coast Guard since the region didn't have an actual military right now. As a result, the phone could always connect if long as the user had a view of the sky.

But Moss was a Leafeon. He couldn't use a cell phone even if he wanted to. And the pudgy human girl next to him didn't seem like the type who wanted to call the police to help out, and in any case she seemed more interested in the Fire Stone's pouch that was sitting at his feet.

That was when the girl reacted to something. Fearing an attack, Moss turned around...... and found Scarlet rubbing up against the girl's legs with three Growlithe behind her.

Help had finally arrived!

And to make things better, Scott was finally starting to wake up.
________________________________________________________________

It had been a bad day. First he'd had his head smashed by a shotgun barrel, then he was burned, shot with exploding paintballs, and finally knocked out a second time.

He couldn't move anything but his head and left arm. Everything below his shoulders was in so much pain that he was paralyzed, and his right arm was also immobile below the elbow, since that happened to be where one of the firecracker paintballs had hit and caused a burn.

But as he opened his eyes, Moss was there. And so was Scarlet, and that girl from earlier he'd been trying to help when this whole thing started. And three Growlithe too.

Scott was lying on his stomach, with the giant burn from the super-heated sword across his back. Of course, most of the paintballs had hit his stomach and chest, so it was still really painful to be lying down like that......

As he regained his senses, he noticed all the fire caused by Ruby's flamethrower, and the smoke from a differet area where the helicopter had used to be. Was the base under attack?

That was when he realized that Moss was holding his cell phone in between the Leafeon's jaws. His grass-type seemed to want him to call for help with it...... which meant the poachers weren't under attack from the Rangers or the police, but from someone else.

Using his good arm, he took the sightly-slobbery phone and opened up the texting app. It was a special app used by law enforcement, and thus automatically added itself to various contact lists based on location.

Using it, he sent out a single short text to every Ranger, policeman/woman, and civilian with a police scanner on the entire Fidona island......

Code 34.

It was law enforcement code for "Officer down, in need of immediate assistance." The text message was also accompanied by his GPS coordinates.

By the time they arrived, he'd probably already be dead, but maybe his Pokemon and this girl could be saved.

That was when he remembered that almost every single law enforcement helicopter on the continent had be grounded due to the event earlier in the day. In other words, help was likely not coming until tomorrow at the absolute earliest, unless there was a group of civilians with a police scanner nearby.

He looked at Lucie and started to say something, before he noticed a Pokemon standing behind her. It was an Absol, and for a moment Scott thought he was doomed and that the poacher boss was here to finish him off...... before he realized the Absol had only three legs.

It also appeared well-fed, so it must belong to someone. But it wasn't hostile, so it didn't belong to the poachers......

So he asked Lucie, "That Absol...... is it yours?"

He paused for a moment, and then managed to cough out, "And where...... is my Vulpix...... and Umbreon?