((Note: Sorry for the numb-skull mistakes in the story, I'll fix them as I catch them))
To browse through each chapter, just hit Ctrl+f and search for "1.", "2.", "3.", etc.
1.May 27th, 2025
My name is Max. I am a 16-year-old from Puel Town. My teacher told me to practice my writing in this journal she gave me. I am okay at writing as it is. I mean, the occasional run-on sentence plagues me, but I am one of the best in my class. Anyway, school is over. I have finally graduated from Ranger school and the world is mine.
My mom says being a ranger is a dead-end job, but there weren't any trainer schools in my area. Back before the "Dry Age" stared, there were thousands of times the amount of Pokemon there are now. The geniuses thought it would be a good idea to completely dry out the sea. Their reasoning doesn't make sense to me. I've had it explained to me time and time again, but I still don't get it.
With the water almost completely depleted, a huge chunk of the population of pokemon were wiped out, along with a large number of people. Some scientists were able to reverse the drought after experimenting on some pokemon called "Castform." They made a ton of Castforms which were able to reverse the drought by using a move called "Rain Dance." The move usually only affects a small area in which the pokemon are battling, but the scientists charged the Castforms up. I'm not 100% sure about the scientific details, but the scientists did the trick and the drought was reversed. Needless to say, conditions improved, but the pokemon population took a major hit. The pokemon population is still dying out after the catastrophe, which means I will be spending all of my time chasing Sandshrews and Geodudes my entire career. Even worse, their was a strange virus loosely related to Pokerus that stripped pokemon of their powers.
I wasn't even born when this all happened. My older sister was just three when it all happened, but she talks about it like it happened yesterday.
"I was able to keep Jingjang alive because I kept some of the water mom would give me each day for her." she would constantly tell me.
Lau is as thick as thieves with Jingjang. She takes that Wigglytuff everywhere with her. My sister is a journalist, and Jingjang will give the people she's interviewing the dirtiest look if they don't give a good answer to Lua's question. Jingjang got that strange strain of Pokerus a while back, but she's fought through it. Lau didn't even battle, so her and Jingjang weren't that upset when they found out. You can tell that Jinjang gets really sad, though, when she's around other pokemon who use their powers.
As for me, Plexer is my partner in crime. Plexer is the son of my mom's Persian, Fuoma. You can definitely tell that Lua gets her love for pokemon from my mom. My mom has been friends with Fuoma since she was three and found her rummaging through the trash.
The only reason I am telling you all of this is because I am trying to teach Plexer how to talk, and I always think that someone deserves a proper introduction before you talk about them. So far Plexer can say "Hello," "Oh no," "Yes," "Too bad," "I really must be going," and "Well, at least you tried." Funny enough, he can understand the basics of what I tell him like most pokemon, but he never bothered learning how to reply. Meowths can pick up the language fast, though, so it's not much trouble.
Plexer is a really smart pokemon too. The brief month or so you're supposed to bring a pokemon to school, he completely passed every other pokemon by light years. I wish I could say the same for myself in relation to the other rangers, but let's just say Plexer picked up a lot of my slack.
Honestly, I think the main reason my teacher gave me this journal was to push me in the direction my sister went. Lua went to ranger school too, but she ended up working for a big ranger newspaper called, "Almia Weekly." I have no problem writing, but I definitely wouldn't say I'd pick it over being a Ranger. I start an internship at Altru Park in a couple of days. I know, it's park duty, but it's better then collecting dust in Puel.
2.June 1st, 2025
So I show up in Altru Park, and this kid "Sirius" shows up and throws a styler in my face. First of all, he's a 17-year-old so he thinks he has seniority over me because he's been doing this for a whole year. Let me insure you that Plexer runs circles around his little squirrel-pokemon-thing. He has some stupid nickname for it, and you can see the pokemon flinch every single time he says it out loud. You feel bad for the poor thing. I've seriously considered calling People for the Ethical Treatment of Pokemon. They could probably dump a bucket of fake rubber Slowpoke tails on him and take the Pachirisu.
Anyway, the styler was made out of some cheap plastic. I thought I was going to get lead-poisoning just from being around it. The little numbers they gave us in ranger school had to be worth twice as much as the thing I was handed, and it took 100 circles just to get a Sandshrew.
"Welcome to Altru Park. My name is Sirius." he said with a stupid smug smile on his face and his Pachirisu quivering in the corner of the ranger headquarters.
"Hey...my name is Max." I sputtered out. You have to give me a break, because I was nervous. Sure, I could plainly see that this guy was no good, but I knew I'm going to have to deal with him for the next year.
"Well, Max, first thing is first. Forget everything you've learned in ranger school." I swear at this point his Pachirisu rolled her eyes.
Yes, he started it all on that note. "Forget everything you've learned..."
The first part of my day was pretty uneventful. I circled the park a countless number of times, and directed a couple of tourists to the nearest bathroom. The second part became a little faster though. I was passing the "Keep Off Grass" sign for the fifteenth time in the northeast part when I heard some woman screaming a couple hundred feet away. I ran to the direction of the screaming to find a 20-something girl running in circles with a Sandslash digging holes and popping up every turn she took. I grabbed my styler and started drawing circles, and plexer ran off trying to keep the Sandslash still. Finally, hundreds of circles later, the Sandslash was dazed and confused enough to stumble off.
"Well, well well...," Sirius said with that same stupid smug look on his face, "it looks like you've taken my advice. Congratulations on your first successful mission." He then through a newer styler at my face which felt closer to the cheap quality of the ones we had at ranger school.
"Uhm, why didn't you just give this to me at the beginning?" I said. I was a little frustrated, but I tried not to make it show.
"Well, I didn't want you to go and give a high-quality styler to some unqualified wannabe ranger." Sirius shouted. "I had to see you in action first, before I gave you a nice styler. I mean, these things aren't cheap."
That's the only thing that Sirius said that made sense all day. The budget for the Rangers wasn't that deep after the Dry Age started. The main purpose of Rangers was to protect civilians from out-of-control pokemon, but since a large number of the pokemon died off, there was almost no purpose for the rangers. We can prevent the occasional Sandshrew from bugging someone, but no one is going to get seriously injured by one. Besides, Altru Park didn't get as many visitors as it used to, because the "luxurious green rolling fields, and cool breezes" it once offered were replaced by piles of sand and a beating sun.
I pocketed the cheaper styler that he gave me and handed it off to Plexer. Plexer understood the basic mechanics of the styler, and one as simple as the styler I was first handed was no problem for him to control. Hopefully something exciting happens before I'm driven to tie Sirius up and throw him to a group of deranged Sandshrews.
3.June 5th, 2025
Okay, maybe Sirius isn't as bad as I thought he was. He is still way too smug for his own good, but he has some decent characteristics too. His Pachirisu, Patch (yeah, I told you it was bad), managed to spend the entire day directing people to the bathrooms for us, so we didn't have to walk around in the 110 degree heat.
We were sitting around in the ranger headquarters playing Namco Museum on the Game Cube. Seriously, a Game Cube. The fact that they have a Game Cube seriously highlights how little the budget is. The building is a tiny little shack with two windows, one door, one bathroom, and a room with a T.V. in one corner and a PC (still running Bill's storage system) in another.
"I can't believe you beat the highscore for DigDug." Sirius said. "That score has been there for 20 years."
"Wow, is everything in the headquarters that old?" I asked looking to the carpet that I was sitting on which seemed like it hadn't been vacuumed in a decade or two.
"Well, at least everything is in decent condition." at this moment, I swear the Game Cube coughed.
"Hey, do you want some mac and cheese?" asked Sirius. "Wait one second. February 10th... 2006..." He then popped off the top of the can. "Oh..wow. Never mind." Sirius then tossed it into the trash can under the computer.
All of the sudden the styler began buzzing.
DOODADODADABEEEP
"Do you want to take this one?" Sirius asked me grabbing the Game Cube controller out of my hand and sitting on the ground in hopes that I replied yes.
"Sure. I haven't been on a mission since my first day here." I said while I nudged Plexer awake.
"Oh no..." Plexer responded to my hand on his shoulder.
"I guess that works in this context." I replied. Plexer hopped on to his feet and grabbed the scarf my mom gave him on his departure.
We walked twenty feet out of the headquarters and immediately saw a crowd forming.
"Give me back my hat!" a girl shouted.
I ran up to the crowd to see what was going on, and saw Cacnea running in circles with a hat that seemed around two sizes too big.
"Go Nueve!" she shouted.
I have only seen one Ninetails my entire life. My first grade teacher had one, and she only brought it to school twice the entire year.
"You know what to do, Nueve!" she said. The Ninetails quickly used flamethrower on the little Cacnea, which seemed a little rash. The little Cacnea flipped over onto its side in a fetal position.
The girl grabbed her hat which was thrown a couple feet to the side after the attack. She looked up to the side and saw me dressed in my ranger uniform.
"Oh pokemon! Did they seriously call the ranger headquarters when I told them I was fine." she turned to the two or three people who were standing around her. "Did you seriously think I'd have a problem with a tiny little Cacnea!?"
"Well... they have tiny little spikes. It could really hurt if you touched it!" one of the guys said nervously.
The girl then sighed and turned to me. "Look, I'm really sorry. I know you rangers get really disappointed when you run out to a mission just to find everything sorted out. You must get a whole mission every week. I'm a trainer though, and I couldn't resist."
"A trainer? What are you doing in Almia?"
"Oh, I'm just visiting relatives. I'm from Cinnabar Island. I'm June by the way!"
By this time in our conversation, Plexer was playing around with Nueve.
"Haha! Look at those two! Well, I've got to get going. I might see you around later. I'm pretty good at getting in chaotic situations."
The rest of the day was spent fishing through the cupboard for food that hadn't expired, and watching the news.
4. June 9th, 2025
Sirius and I were just sitting around the Game Cube as usual when we heard a loud knock at the door.
BAM! BAM! BAM!
"Max? Max?"
"Well, the door is calling you." Sirius said as he snatched the Game Cube controller out of my hand.
As soon as I went to turn the handle the door slammed open.
"Maxwell!" screamed June with delight.
"June?" I said still trying to regain my balance.
"So, it seems that I'm going to be in Almia a little longer then I expected." June said sitting down on the rug next to Sirius.
"How come?" I asked struggling for the controller back from Sirius.
"Well my dad is doing renovations on his gym, and I had to come up with some excuse to avoid getting caught up in that mess and.."
"Wa-wa-wait! You're dad is a gym leader?" I said. June is a gym leader's daughter. I know that it's silly, but it's almost like I was in the presence of royalty.
"Yeah, you might know him as Blaine?"
"Your dad is BLAINE." I said with my jaw on the floor.
"So, like I was saying, I didn't want to get caught moving a bunch of boxes. I know it's selfish, but honestly, can you blame me? So I'm going to be staying in Almia for what may be the rest of the summer. My dad threw the whole "I'm renovating my gym," mess on me last second. It can take anywhere from a month to three depending on how crazy he goes."
"What brings you here?" I asked.
"This seems to be the most interesting part of Almia." she responded.
"Do you see what we're doing right now?" Sirius asked finally adding his presence to the conversation.
"Have you seen the rest of Almia?" she retorted.
"Agreed." Sirius and I said in unison.
"So, how do I get one of those stylers?" she asked grabbing the one that was sticking out of my pocket by its antenna.
"Give me a second." Sirius said dropping the controller and running in to the kitchen and rummaging through one of the cabinet drawers. He returned a couple of minutes later.
"Here you go." He said chucking one of the stylers at her.
"Hey! I thought you needed to graduate from Ranger school to get one of those." I exclaimed.
"Like we ever use them. Besides, she's the daughter of a gym leader." Sirius said regluing his eyes to the television.
June then examined the styler for a couple of minutes.
"Hey! Why do you guys have it set so it can only receive signals from Altru Park?" June said laughing.
"Because we're stationed in Altru Park. The other areas have there own rangers." Sirius said.
"That's no fun!" June said. A couple of switches later, a loud "beep beep" emitted from June's styler.
"Let me see your stylers." June said after she already grabbed both of the stylers from Sirius and I.
A few more switches later, you could hear a "beep beep" emit from our stylers too.
"Now the range should cover up to half of Almia!" June said with a wide smile on her face.
"Great, now we can know how uneventful the rest of Almia is." Sirius said rolling his eyes.
"Just you watch! We'll make it into Almia Weekly in no time!" June said.
"How do you know about Almia Weekly?" I asked.
"Everyone reads Almia Weekly, it's the biggest ranger newspaper in the world." she replied.
"My sister writes for the Weekly." I replied with a smug smile, which I soon wiped off as soon as I realized it had gotten there.
"Oh my pokemon! Are you serious!? What's her name?" June squealed with her jaw now on the floor.
"Lua."
"Lua Mawberry!!! She's my absolute favorite! Her and Jingjang are so amazing! You know they have a segment on the news once a month! I look up the video online all the time!" June said.
At this point, I thought we both had reached an equal amount of amusement in who was related to whom.
The rest of the day was spent with Sirius destroying June and I in Melee.
5.June 10th, 2025
"WAKE UP!!!" June shouted a whole inch away from my ear.
"Huh? Wuh?" I muttered while rolling on to my face.
"I said...WAKE UP!!!" she shouted again but at twice the volume.
I started to feel the shape of the Game Cube controller pressing into my stomach.
"What time is it?" I sighed with my eyes closed and scratching my neck.
"6:30 in the morning." she said with a big bright smile.
"6:30? 6:30! It's still night time!" I collapsed back on to my pillow.
"Nope! It's ranger time!" June squealed as she pulled the pillow out from under my head.
THUD!
"Why..." I started to cry under my breath.
"Sirius is already making some black tea. We have a busy day ahead of us."
"Busy? We haven't had a mission since your hat was stolen." I said while I struggled to get out of my sleeping bag.
"Well that's going to change today. Our stylers started buzzing 10 minutes ago!"
"We have a mission!" I screamed with excitement.
"What's the mission?"
"We're delivering packages!!!" June said with a smile that didn't quite fit her face.
I immediately shot a look over to Sirius, which he gladly exchanged with me.
"The mail man delivers packages."
"So do we today!"
"How many packages are we delivering." I said grabbing a mug shaped like the head of a Pichu which Sirius had filled with black tea.
"Around 124."
"Around?" I said as I tried to find the right way to drink around the Pichu's tall ears.
"130..." she said pulling a large sack that she left on the porch through the door.
"Oh no..." Plexer sighed as his palm smacked against his forehead.
We then set out on our journey through 110 degree heat, delivering packages to various citizens of Almia.
"Why are we doing this?" I panted as I dragged the bag across the sand. It was my turn to hold it.
"We've got to earn their trust if we want to receive any missions from them."
"So we've got to help them in order to help them?" I whined as the bag got caught on a rock.
"I didn't get it either." Sirius sighed as he readjusted Patch who was falling asleep on top of his head.
"Oh, hello! Hello! Hello!" an old lady sung as she shut the gate to her house behind her. "Do you have packages for me?"
"Uh...Ms.Robinson?" June asked after looking down an extensive list.
"Yes! I'm so excited! I've been expecting some Belue berries which I ordered online from Hoenn! They make for the most exquisite pies!"
the woman sung even louder.
I rummaged through the bag with the 50 or more packages we had and located the one with Ms.Robinson's name on it.
"Here ya go!" I said with an exhausted smile on my face while I handed it to her.
"Oh, are you a ranger?" the woman screamed with excitement when seeing the badge on Plexer's scarf.
"Yes, we are." I said with another bright, but exhausted smile.
"You must give me the address of your headquarters so I can send you...(one...two..three...)SIX slices of pie!" she said with a huge
smile on her face.
June quickly jotted down the address of our headquarters and handed it to her.
"Where are we going next?" I asked handing the bag off to Sirius.
June pulled out the list again and quickly scanned.
"Oh my pokemon!!" June screamed.
She turned the paper toward Sirius and I and violently pointed to the last line on the page.
"Ranger Union!" Sirius shouted.
"We're going to Ranger Union?" I said, immediately being reinvigorated by the news.
"Yes, and it's our last stop! We're dropping off the rest of the packages there!"
We trailed across what seemed to be thousands of miles of Almia in the heat, pulling the bag off of hundreds of rocks and regularly
dumping sand out of our shoes, but with huge grins on our faces.
There it was, the Ranger Union. The last time that I had been at the Ranger Union was on a field trip, where we got to spend a brief
moment or two talking to the receptionist in the lobby and we caught a glimpse of a few star rangers.
"I can't believe that we're at the Ranger Union." Sirius said staring straight up the top of the facility.
"And you two were questioning why we went on this little mission!"
I started to walk up to the front of the building when an older ranger twice my size walked by.
"Heh... who are ya' three little rangers?" the man asked.
June rolled her eyes. "We're from the Altru Park sub-section, and we're delivering official packages. We have 50 of which we have to deliver to you."
"Just drop em' on the porch." he said releasing a Skarmory out of its pokeball.
"I'm sorry, but we must deliver the packages to the person they are addressed to. I need to talk to a Susan Birch." June said in a voice
that was much more official then the usual one she used.
"Ol' Susan! Ha! Good luck getting a hold of her." the guy laughed with his head tossed back.
Suddenly, all of our stylers started to ring, including the man who was laughing at the time.
DOODADODADABEEEP
He then clicked his styler, and still heard the ringing sound.
DOODADODADABEEEP
"Uh, wait just one second. Maybe ya' can see Susan." the man said as he grabbed all of us by the back of our shirts and dragged us into the Ranger Union.
"I'm not sure if this is how I planned on entering the Union for the first time." June said nervously.
After a brief ride up the escalator, the man started yelling, "Susan, ya have some visitors!"
"Er.. hello?" said an older woman walking quickly out of a room toward us.
"These three were outside saying that they had a delivery for you."
"Excellent! The latest stylers are here!" Susan said grabbing the bag out of Sirius' hand. "But why didn't you just tell them to leave the bag on the porch?"
"You see, right as I told em' that, my styler started ringing, but when I clicked 'accept', them's stylers were ringin' too."
"You three aren't from the Ranger Union. You shouldn't be receiving missions up here." she said with a blank look on her face. "How did
you even manage to receive signals up here?"
"I messed with the settings on the menu..." June said looking at the ground in embarassment.
"Of course! But why would you try to receive signals from other areas?" Susan asked.
"We never get any missions, and when we do, it's just a Sandslash chasing someone around." Sirius confessed trying to get loose of the
man's grip.
"Oh, well, thank-you for the delivery." Susan said as she started to slowly walk back to the room she came out of.
"Wha...wait! You aren't going to repremand them!?" the man cried out.
"Oh..." Susan slowly turned around. She shook her head and said "Tisk tisk!" and continued walking back to the room.
The man groaned. The man then threw us out of the Ranger Union and yelled at us in a garbled-up phrase.
"Well, that wasn't the reception I was expecting to get." June said petting Nueve who was waiting outside with Plexer and Patch.
"Let's start heading back," Sirius sighed, "we have an hour walk until we're back at headquarters."
We spent the rest of the night toying around with our stylers and bits of the cheaper styler Sirius originally gave me in order to lengthen its signal.
To browse through each chapter, just hit Ctrl+f and search for "1.", "2.", "3.", etc.
1.May 27th, 2025
My name is Max. I am a 16-year-old from Puel Town. My teacher told me to practice my writing in this journal she gave me. I am okay at writing as it is. I mean, the occasional run-on sentence plagues me, but I am one of the best in my class. Anyway, school is over. I have finally graduated from Ranger school and the world is mine.
My mom says being a ranger is a dead-end job, but there weren't any trainer schools in my area. Back before the "Dry Age" stared, there were thousands of times the amount of Pokemon there are now. The geniuses thought it would be a good idea to completely dry out the sea. Their reasoning doesn't make sense to me. I've had it explained to me time and time again, but I still don't get it.
With the water almost completely depleted, a huge chunk of the population of pokemon were wiped out, along with a large number of people. Some scientists were able to reverse the drought after experimenting on some pokemon called "Castform." They made a ton of Castforms which were able to reverse the drought by using a move called "Rain Dance." The move usually only affects a small area in which the pokemon are battling, but the scientists charged the Castforms up. I'm not 100% sure about the scientific details, but the scientists did the trick and the drought was reversed. Needless to say, conditions improved, but the pokemon population took a major hit. The pokemon population is still dying out after the catastrophe, which means I will be spending all of my time chasing Sandshrews and Geodudes my entire career. Even worse, their was a strange virus loosely related to Pokerus that stripped pokemon of their powers.
I wasn't even born when this all happened. My older sister was just three when it all happened, but she talks about it like it happened yesterday.
"I was able to keep Jingjang alive because I kept some of the water mom would give me each day for her." she would constantly tell me.
Lau is as thick as thieves with Jingjang. She takes that Wigglytuff everywhere with her. My sister is a journalist, and Jingjang will give the people she's interviewing the dirtiest look if they don't give a good answer to Lua's question. Jingjang got that strange strain of Pokerus a while back, but she's fought through it. Lau didn't even battle, so her and Jingjang weren't that upset when they found out. You can tell that Jinjang gets really sad, though, when she's around other pokemon who use their powers.
As for me, Plexer is my partner in crime. Plexer is the son of my mom's Persian, Fuoma. You can definitely tell that Lua gets her love for pokemon from my mom. My mom has been friends with Fuoma since she was three and found her rummaging through the trash.
The only reason I am telling you all of this is because I am trying to teach Plexer how to talk, and I always think that someone deserves a proper introduction before you talk about them. So far Plexer can say "Hello," "Oh no," "Yes," "Too bad," "I really must be going," and "Well, at least you tried." Funny enough, he can understand the basics of what I tell him like most pokemon, but he never bothered learning how to reply. Meowths can pick up the language fast, though, so it's not much trouble.
Plexer is a really smart pokemon too. The brief month or so you're supposed to bring a pokemon to school, he completely passed every other pokemon by light years. I wish I could say the same for myself in relation to the other rangers, but let's just say Plexer picked up a lot of my slack.
Honestly, I think the main reason my teacher gave me this journal was to push me in the direction my sister went. Lua went to ranger school too, but she ended up working for a big ranger newspaper called, "Almia Weekly." I have no problem writing, but I definitely wouldn't say I'd pick it over being a Ranger. I start an internship at Altru Park in a couple of days. I know, it's park duty, but it's better then collecting dust in Puel.
2.June 1st, 2025
So I show up in Altru Park, and this kid "Sirius" shows up and throws a styler in my face. First of all, he's a 17-year-old so he thinks he has seniority over me because he's been doing this for a whole year. Let me insure you that Plexer runs circles around his little squirrel-pokemon-thing. He has some stupid nickname for it, and you can see the pokemon flinch every single time he says it out loud. You feel bad for the poor thing. I've seriously considered calling People for the Ethical Treatment of Pokemon. They could probably dump a bucket of fake rubber Slowpoke tails on him and take the Pachirisu.
Anyway, the styler was made out of some cheap plastic. I thought I was going to get lead-poisoning just from being around it. The little numbers they gave us in ranger school had to be worth twice as much as the thing I was handed, and it took 100 circles just to get a Sandshrew.
"Welcome to Altru Park. My name is Sirius." he said with a stupid smug smile on his face and his Pachirisu quivering in the corner of the ranger headquarters.
"Hey...my name is Max." I sputtered out. You have to give me a break, because I was nervous. Sure, I could plainly see that this guy was no good, but I knew I'm going to have to deal with him for the next year.
"Well, Max, first thing is first. Forget everything you've learned in ranger school." I swear at this point his Pachirisu rolled her eyes.
Yes, he started it all on that note. "Forget everything you've learned..."
The first part of my day was pretty uneventful. I circled the park a countless number of times, and directed a couple of tourists to the nearest bathroom. The second part became a little faster though. I was passing the "Keep Off Grass" sign for the fifteenth time in the northeast part when I heard some woman screaming a couple hundred feet away. I ran to the direction of the screaming to find a 20-something girl running in circles with a Sandslash digging holes and popping up every turn she took. I grabbed my styler and started drawing circles, and plexer ran off trying to keep the Sandslash still. Finally, hundreds of circles later, the Sandslash was dazed and confused enough to stumble off.
"Well, well well...," Sirius said with that same stupid smug look on his face, "it looks like you've taken my advice. Congratulations on your first successful mission." He then through a newer styler at my face which felt closer to the cheap quality of the ones we had at ranger school.
"Uhm, why didn't you just give this to me at the beginning?" I said. I was a little frustrated, but I tried not to make it show.
"Well, I didn't want you to go and give a high-quality styler to some unqualified wannabe ranger." Sirius shouted. "I had to see you in action first, before I gave you a nice styler. I mean, these things aren't cheap."
That's the only thing that Sirius said that made sense all day. The budget for the Rangers wasn't that deep after the Dry Age started. The main purpose of Rangers was to protect civilians from out-of-control pokemon, but since a large number of the pokemon died off, there was almost no purpose for the rangers. We can prevent the occasional Sandshrew from bugging someone, but no one is going to get seriously injured by one. Besides, Altru Park didn't get as many visitors as it used to, because the "luxurious green rolling fields, and cool breezes" it once offered were replaced by piles of sand and a beating sun.
I pocketed the cheaper styler that he gave me and handed it off to Plexer. Plexer understood the basic mechanics of the styler, and one as simple as the styler I was first handed was no problem for him to control. Hopefully something exciting happens before I'm driven to tie Sirius up and throw him to a group of deranged Sandshrews.
3.June 5th, 2025
Okay, maybe Sirius isn't as bad as I thought he was. He is still way too smug for his own good, but he has some decent characteristics too. His Pachirisu, Patch (yeah, I told you it was bad), managed to spend the entire day directing people to the bathrooms for us, so we didn't have to walk around in the 110 degree heat.
We were sitting around in the ranger headquarters playing Namco Museum on the Game Cube. Seriously, a Game Cube. The fact that they have a Game Cube seriously highlights how little the budget is. The building is a tiny little shack with two windows, one door, one bathroom, and a room with a T.V. in one corner and a PC (still running Bill's storage system) in another.
"I can't believe you beat the highscore for DigDug." Sirius said. "That score has been there for 20 years."
"Wow, is everything in the headquarters that old?" I asked looking to the carpet that I was sitting on which seemed like it hadn't been vacuumed in a decade or two.
"Well, at least everything is in decent condition." at this moment, I swear the Game Cube coughed.
"Hey, do you want some mac and cheese?" asked Sirius. "Wait one second. February 10th... 2006..." He then popped off the top of the can. "Oh..wow. Never mind." Sirius then tossed it into the trash can under the computer.
All of the sudden the styler began buzzing.
DOODADODADABEEEP
"Do you want to take this one?" Sirius asked me grabbing the Game Cube controller out of my hand and sitting on the ground in hopes that I replied yes.
"Sure. I haven't been on a mission since my first day here." I said while I nudged Plexer awake.
"Oh no..." Plexer responded to my hand on his shoulder.
"I guess that works in this context." I replied. Plexer hopped on to his feet and grabbed the scarf my mom gave him on his departure.
We walked twenty feet out of the headquarters and immediately saw a crowd forming.
"Give me back my hat!" a girl shouted.
I ran up to the crowd to see what was going on, and saw Cacnea running in circles with a hat that seemed around two sizes too big.
"Go Nueve!" she shouted.
I have only seen one Ninetails my entire life. My first grade teacher had one, and she only brought it to school twice the entire year.
"You know what to do, Nueve!" she said. The Ninetails quickly used flamethrower on the little Cacnea, which seemed a little rash. The little Cacnea flipped over onto its side in a fetal position.
The girl grabbed her hat which was thrown a couple feet to the side after the attack. She looked up to the side and saw me dressed in my ranger uniform.
"Oh pokemon! Did they seriously call the ranger headquarters when I told them I was fine." she turned to the two or three people who were standing around her. "Did you seriously think I'd have a problem with a tiny little Cacnea!?"
"Well... they have tiny little spikes. It could really hurt if you touched it!" one of the guys said nervously.
The girl then sighed and turned to me. "Look, I'm really sorry. I know you rangers get really disappointed when you run out to a mission just to find everything sorted out. You must get a whole mission every week. I'm a trainer though, and I couldn't resist."
"A trainer? What are you doing in Almia?"
"Oh, I'm just visiting relatives. I'm from Cinnabar Island. I'm June by the way!"
By this time in our conversation, Plexer was playing around with Nueve.
"Haha! Look at those two! Well, I've got to get going. I might see you around later. I'm pretty good at getting in chaotic situations."
The rest of the day was spent fishing through the cupboard for food that hadn't expired, and watching the news.
4. June 9th, 2025
Sirius and I were just sitting around the Game Cube as usual when we heard a loud knock at the door.
BAM! BAM! BAM!
"Max? Max?"
"Well, the door is calling you." Sirius said as he snatched the Game Cube controller out of my hand.
As soon as I went to turn the handle the door slammed open.
"Maxwell!" screamed June with delight.
"June?" I said still trying to regain my balance.
"So, it seems that I'm going to be in Almia a little longer then I expected." June said sitting down on the rug next to Sirius.
"How come?" I asked struggling for the controller back from Sirius.
"Well my dad is doing renovations on his gym, and I had to come up with some excuse to avoid getting caught up in that mess and.."
"Wa-wa-wait! You're dad is a gym leader?" I said. June is a gym leader's daughter. I know that it's silly, but it's almost like I was in the presence of royalty.
"Yeah, you might know him as Blaine?"
"Your dad is BLAINE." I said with my jaw on the floor.
"So, like I was saying, I didn't want to get caught moving a bunch of boxes. I know it's selfish, but honestly, can you blame me? So I'm going to be staying in Almia for what may be the rest of the summer. My dad threw the whole "I'm renovating my gym," mess on me last second. It can take anywhere from a month to three depending on how crazy he goes."
"What brings you here?" I asked.
"This seems to be the most interesting part of Almia." she responded.
"Do you see what we're doing right now?" Sirius asked finally adding his presence to the conversation.
"Have you seen the rest of Almia?" she retorted.
"Agreed." Sirius and I said in unison.
"So, how do I get one of those stylers?" she asked grabbing the one that was sticking out of my pocket by its antenna.
"Give me a second." Sirius said dropping the controller and running in to the kitchen and rummaging through one of the cabinet drawers. He returned a couple of minutes later.
"Here you go." He said chucking one of the stylers at her.
"Hey! I thought you needed to graduate from Ranger school to get one of those." I exclaimed.
"Like we ever use them. Besides, she's the daughter of a gym leader." Sirius said regluing his eyes to the television.
June then examined the styler for a couple of minutes.
"Hey! Why do you guys have it set so it can only receive signals from Altru Park?" June said laughing.
"Because we're stationed in Altru Park. The other areas have there own rangers." Sirius said.
"That's no fun!" June said. A couple of switches later, a loud "beep beep" emitted from June's styler.
"Let me see your stylers." June said after she already grabbed both of the stylers from Sirius and I.
A few more switches later, you could hear a "beep beep" emit from our stylers too.
"Now the range should cover up to half of Almia!" June said with a wide smile on her face.
"Great, now we can know how uneventful the rest of Almia is." Sirius said rolling his eyes.
"Just you watch! We'll make it into Almia Weekly in no time!" June said.
"How do you know about Almia Weekly?" I asked.
"Everyone reads Almia Weekly, it's the biggest ranger newspaper in the world." she replied.
"My sister writes for the Weekly." I replied with a smug smile, which I soon wiped off as soon as I realized it had gotten there.
"Oh my pokemon! Are you serious!? What's her name?" June squealed with her jaw now on the floor.
"Lua."
"Lua Mawberry!!! She's my absolute favorite! Her and Jingjang are so amazing! You know they have a segment on the news once a month! I look up the video online all the time!" June said.
At this point, I thought we both had reached an equal amount of amusement in who was related to whom.
The rest of the day was spent with Sirius destroying June and I in Melee.
5.June 10th, 2025
"WAKE UP!!!" June shouted a whole inch away from my ear.
"Huh? Wuh?" I muttered while rolling on to my face.
"I said...WAKE UP!!!" she shouted again but at twice the volume.
I started to feel the shape of the Game Cube controller pressing into my stomach.
"What time is it?" I sighed with my eyes closed and scratching my neck.
"6:30 in the morning." she said with a big bright smile.
"6:30? 6:30! It's still night time!" I collapsed back on to my pillow.
"Nope! It's ranger time!" June squealed as she pulled the pillow out from under my head.
THUD!
"Why..." I started to cry under my breath.
"Sirius is already making some black tea. We have a busy day ahead of us."
"Busy? We haven't had a mission since your hat was stolen." I said while I struggled to get out of my sleeping bag.
"Well that's going to change today. Our stylers started buzzing 10 minutes ago!"
"We have a mission!" I screamed with excitement.
"What's the mission?"
"We're delivering packages!!!" June said with a smile that didn't quite fit her face.
I immediately shot a look over to Sirius, which he gladly exchanged with me.
"The mail man delivers packages."
"So do we today!"
"How many packages are we delivering." I said grabbing a mug shaped like the head of a Pichu which Sirius had filled with black tea.
"Around 124."
"Around?" I said as I tried to find the right way to drink around the Pichu's tall ears.
"130..." she said pulling a large sack that she left on the porch through the door.
"Oh no..." Plexer sighed as his palm smacked against his forehead.
We then set out on our journey through 110 degree heat, delivering packages to various citizens of Almia.
"Why are we doing this?" I panted as I dragged the bag across the sand. It was my turn to hold it.
"We've got to earn their trust if we want to receive any missions from them."
"So we've got to help them in order to help them?" I whined as the bag got caught on a rock.
"I didn't get it either." Sirius sighed as he readjusted Patch who was falling asleep on top of his head.
"Oh, hello! Hello! Hello!" an old lady sung as she shut the gate to her house behind her. "Do you have packages for me?"
"Uh...Ms.Robinson?" June asked after looking down an extensive list.
"Yes! I'm so excited! I've been expecting some Belue berries which I ordered online from Hoenn! They make for the most exquisite pies!"
the woman sung even louder.
I rummaged through the bag with the 50 or more packages we had and located the one with Ms.Robinson's name on it.
"Here ya go!" I said with an exhausted smile on my face while I handed it to her.
"Oh, are you a ranger?" the woman screamed with excitement when seeing the badge on Plexer's scarf.
"Yes, we are." I said with another bright, but exhausted smile.
"You must give me the address of your headquarters so I can send you...(one...two..three...)SIX slices of pie!" she said with a huge
smile on her face.
June quickly jotted down the address of our headquarters and handed it to her.
"Where are we going next?" I asked handing the bag off to Sirius.
June pulled out the list again and quickly scanned.
"Oh my pokemon!!" June screamed.
She turned the paper toward Sirius and I and violently pointed to the last line on the page.
"Ranger Union!" Sirius shouted.
"We're going to Ranger Union?" I said, immediately being reinvigorated by the news.
"Yes, and it's our last stop! We're dropping off the rest of the packages there!"
We trailed across what seemed to be thousands of miles of Almia in the heat, pulling the bag off of hundreds of rocks and regularly
dumping sand out of our shoes, but with huge grins on our faces.
There it was, the Ranger Union. The last time that I had been at the Ranger Union was on a field trip, where we got to spend a brief
moment or two talking to the receptionist in the lobby and we caught a glimpse of a few star rangers.
"I can't believe that we're at the Ranger Union." Sirius said staring straight up the top of the facility.
"And you two were questioning why we went on this little mission!"
I started to walk up to the front of the building when an older ranger twice my size walked by.
"Heh... who are ya' three little rangers?" the man asked.
June rolled her eyes. "We're from the Altru Park sub-section, and we're delivering official packages. We have 50 of which we have to deliver to you."
"Just drop em' on the porch." he said releasing a Skarmory out of its pokeball.
"I'm sorry, but we must deliver the packages to the person they are addressed to. I need to talk to a Susan Birch." June said in a voice
that was much more official then the usual one she used.
"Ol' Susan! Ha! Good luck getting a hold of her." the guy laughed with his head tossed back.
Suddenly, all of our stylers started to ring, including the man who was laughing at the time.
DOODADODADABEEEP
He then clicked his styler, and still heard the ringing sound.
DOODADODADABEEEP
"Uh, wait just one second. Maybe ya' can see Susan." the man said as he grabbed all of us by the back of our shirts and dragged us into the Ranger Union.
"I'm not sure if this is how I planned on entering the Union for the first time." June said nervously.
After a brief ride up the escalator, the man started yelling, "Susan, ya have some visitors!"
"Er.. hello?" said an older woman walking quickly out of a room toward us.
"These three were outside saying that they had a delivery for you."
"Excellent! The latest stylers are here!" Susan said grabbing the bag out of Sirius' hand. "But why didn't you just tell them to leave the bag on the porch?"
"You see, right as I told em' that, my styler started ringing, but when I clicked 'accept', them's stylers were ringin' too."
"You three aren't from the Ranger Union. You shouldn't be receiving missions up here." she said with a blank look on her face. "How did
you even manage to receive signals up here?"
"I messed with the settings on the menu..." June said looking at the ground in embarassment.
"Of course! But why would you try to receive signals from other areas?" Susan asked.
"We never get any missions, and when we do, it's just a Sandslash chasing someone around." Sirius confessed trying to get loose of the
man's grip.
"Oh, well, thank-you for the delivery." Susan said as she started to slowly walk back to the room she came out of.
"Wha...wait! You aren't going to repremand them!?" the man cried out.
"Oh..." Susan slowly turned around. She shook her head and said "Tisk tisk!" and continued walking back to the room.
The man groaned. The man then threw us out of the Ranger Union and yelled at us in a garbled-up phrase.
"Well, that wasn't the reception I was expecting to get." June said petting Nueve who was waiting outside with Plexer and Patch.
"Let's start heading back," Sirius sighed, "we have an hour walk until we're back at headquarters."
We spent the rest of the night toying around with our stylers and bits of the cheaper styler Sirius originally gave me in order to lengthen its signal.
