(Rena's POV)
"Rena? Rena, are you home?"
"Yeah." I rose my voice loud enough so he could hear me, not tearing my eyes away from what I was doing at my desk. "I'm in my room."
He immediately walked down the hallway that led from the front door to my bedroom, and Kaplan instantly sighed when he saw what I was doing. "You're still working on this...?"
"I can't stop." I finished cutting out the latest newspaper article I was adding to my timeline, and I taped it to my wall among the other hundreds of photographs and newspaper articles. "Not until I find out who exactly did this to me." I stared down at my desk and paused for a moment. "Well, I know who, I just don't know...why. Why me?"
Kaplan sighed, then stepped into my room. His hands were shoved in his pockets, and he stared at all of the clippings taped to the walls. Post-it notes with scribbled algorithms on them were everywhere, lines were drawn from one picture to another, several newspaper articles regarding Team Dim Sun were placed on the timeline in chronological order, but most importantly... Every single newspaper article that was reporting Keith's heroics was up there too.
"Rena, are you sure all of this is necessary?" Kaplan sighed again. "It has been a year, after all... I'm sure the Rangers will take care of things just fine."
"Kaplan." I stiffly spoke his name, staring directly at my wall in front of me. "I have to do this. I have to solve the mystery of what Blake Hall's really up to, what was on that blueprint, and why he tried to have me killed." My eyes dropped down to my desk, and I began cutting out another newspaper article. "I have a really bad feeling about this." I turned to look at him with a determined stare. "The Rangers are fools, and they know nothing of what's really going on. I'm the only one who knows enough about Team Dim Sun to stop them."
"Alright..." Kaplan began to trudge out of my room. "I trust your judgement."
All I gave him was a head nod before getting straight back to work.
I felt a heavy weight placed on my shoulders, and I couldn't help but slump them. I stared down at the dog bed at my feet which had a depressed Mightyena laying in it. He lazily look up at me, then drooped his gaze back down to the floor.
After I was shot, I called him. Kaplan, I mean. He was the only friend that I had left. He drove over to that abandoned air strip immediately thanks to my location services on my phone allowing him to track me, and completely freaked out when he found me unconscious and bleeding out on the floor. With the help of Mightyena, he managed to get me into his car and take me back to his house off the coast of the Ranger School. When I regained consciousness, I found myself looking up at Ms. Claire trying to patch up my injury, which hurt like hell to patch up without anesthetics, but we managed to pull it off. I was lucky that my savior was a gym teacher with a big heart, because not only did he let me, the fugitive, stay with him after I explained who I really was and why I got shot, but he also took care of putting me through physical therapy. We worked hard every day to get me up and walking again, and it took two months just to accomplish that. Just imagine how much longer it took me to re-train myself to fight. I'm still a little rusty, actually...
Ms. Claire moved in shortly after I was shot to help take care of the both of us, and it didn't take long for those two to start dating. They kind of act as a foster family for me in a way. She knew the truth about me too, and yet both her and Kaplan went to such extreme measures to keep me safe and away from the police... I don't deserve their kindness, so I don't understand why they helped me so much. I really don't.
It's been a year. One year ago, I was shot and disappeared off the grid, and I've been in hiding with Kaplan and Claire ever since. It's been a year since I've spoken to Keith. It's been a year since I have hugged Rhythimi, or had an intellectual conversation with Isaac.
And it's been a year since my desire for revenge on Team Dim Sun has consumed my soul.
It's the only thing that makes sense... Blake Hall may be the president of Altru Inc, but I suspect that's nothing but a front for Team Dim Sun these days. You know, the weirdos I met in the Marine Cave who almost killed me because I caught them practicing Pokemon mind control and hypnotism? Yeah, same guys. There's no way that Almia has two corrupted underground forces causing mayhem. There are no coincidences. It has to all be connected somehow...
I stared up at my timeline, tracing the events with my eyes. I had been following this whole thing for this past year, trying to solve the case. My case.
First on my wall's timeline was our one-day internship: the first time Dim Sun made their appearance. The Rangers investigated that weird, mind-controlling red machine, but they didn't figure out what it was until much later. The Vientown Rangers's official report states that they saved a girl from drowning (erm...wonder who that was). When they went to investigate the Marine Cave on Nabiki beach, not only did they save the girl, but they found a strange machine later known as a Gigaremo hypnotizing the minds of the wild Pokemon inside by emitting strange pulsing noises. Three men dressed in all black and purple were seen fleeing the scene. It still remains unknown who they were and why they were there.
Next was graduation. I... I think I'll skip that one. I don't want to think about that day.
After that, I had a picture of the Dazzle mansion circled with a big question mark next to it. I still never did figure out what that blueprint was for, or why they needed me to get it... I wish I knew. That's one big piece to the puzzle I have yet to fill.
Next was the Vien Tribune's article welcoming Keith to the Ranger Base. He looked happy in the picture, but his eyes were dead inside. Somehow I feel responsible for that...
The next picture was a picture of the Vien Forest on fire. The whole forest outside of Vientown that led to Pueltown was up in flames in the pictures, and some of them had pictures of the Vientown Rangers fighting to put out the fire. One picture was of Keith commanding a befriended Blastoise to use his Field Move 'Rain Dance' in order to extinguish the fire. The pictures of the fire now put out revealed several of the Pokemon mind controlling machines, the Gigaremos, all red in color, broken and scattered throughout the forest floor. A strange man later nicknamed 'Ollie' by the Vientown Rangers was caught fleeing the scene, and after interrogating him, it was discovered that strange men in black suits had hired him to place the Gigaremos throughout the forest. The poor guy had no idea what he was doing, and when some of the oil spilled, one of the Gigaremos sparked and made the forest go up in flames. Ollie was released soon afterwards, since he wasn't directly involved with the criminal activity.
The next was a released diagram of the Gigaremo, which showed a small diamond-shaped black stone placed in the center of the machine. According to the Ranger Union's studies of the black stone conducted by Professor Hastings, which I may have illegally hacked into, the black stone is the source of the Gigaremo's power.
Pictures of Pueltown undergoing Pokemon hypnotic chaos was next on my timeline. Not only were several red Gigaremos placed throughout the port city, but so were green and blue ones. The Vientown Rangers Keith and Luana, who were first on the scene, discovered that each Gigaremo could be destroyed by a specific target clear. Red was destroyed by water, blue by electric, and green by fire. Pokemon Ranger Keith stumbled upon a group of shady men with a yellow Gigaremo talking about some sort of experiment down at the harbor, and they readdressed themselves as a criminal syndicate by the name of Team Dim Sun. Their motto was "a brighter future for Almia!" Kinda ironic, considering their name and all. Before they escaped by a boat to sea, Keith overheard them discussing the whole fiasco as some sort of Pokemon mind control experiment, and unfortunately, Team Dim Sun got away with the final remaining Gigaremo type.
Next: the Ranger Union conference. In order to get to the Ranger Union by foot, Keith had to dive into the ocean to retrieve a bridge key that the bridge operator, Brook, had accidentally dropped in the ocean when he jumped into the water to swim after Team Dim Sun. Brook had left the Norward Bridge stuck open in attempt to keep the criminals stuck in Pueltown during the Pueltown Mission, but his heroic attempts proved to be futile, since they escaped by sea and it ended up being a huge waste of time. The Vientown Base Leader, Barlow, was escorting Professor Hastings back to the Ranger Union after he came to the Vientown Base to inspect a recovered Gigaremo specimen, when the two men soon discovered the Norward Bridge stuck open. Because the Professor hates flying and refuses to fly by Staraptor transportation back to the Ranger Union, they had no choice but to call in Pokemon Ranger Keith to retrieve the lost Bridge Key. After diving into the Puel Sea and retrieving it from a sickly Sharpedo who had swallowed it, Keith delivered the bridge key back to Brook and the bridge was then put back down. Now being able to make their way back to the Ranger Union, Keith, Barlow, and Professor Hastings hurriedly rushed to HQ for the conference concerning Dim Sun.
...I may have hacked into the Ranger Union's database with my laptop during the presentation and downloaded all of their files that they had on Dim Sun. Although, you can't prove I actually did that...
Erm... My next newspaper article discussed the strange earthquakes coming from Peril Cliffs, one of Almia's most popular tourist attractions for hikers that was just east of the Ranger Union. When Pokemon Ranger Keith and Barlow were heading back to their base after spending the night at the Union after the conference, horrific tremors erupted through the air, causing the two Rangers to investigate. There they found two of the yellow Gigaremos controlling the minds of the Pokemon at the cliffs. Below them was a Dim Sun minion claiming to be a geologist inspecting the soil by having his two Rampardos ram their heads into the side of the cliff repeatedly, which the Rangers quickly deduced as the cause of the tremors. Strangely enough, there were no Gigaremos in sight to control the minds of the Rampardos, yet they were hypnotically ramming the side of the cliff when the Dim Sun minion only had a strange looking laptop in his possession. Unfortunately, the Dim Sun minion took off running while the two Rangers were busy capturing the two Rampardos, taking the strange laptop with him.
This past year's Outdoor Class. That brings back memories... This past year, Pokemon Ranger Leader Barlow had originally been scheduled to teach at the Outdoor Class, but due to being called away to a volcanic island called Boyleland because all of the Pokemon went mysteriously missing, he asked Keith to do the job instead. So, Pokemon Ranger Keith obliged and taught at the Outdoor Class. On his way there, he ran into two Dim Sun Minions tormenting a Croagunk with that same strange looking laptop that the guy from the Peril Cliffs had. Keith discovered it was their new and improved Gigaremo, which works better and is easier to transport. However, after Keith captured the Croagunk, the "Miniremo" as they called it just exploded. No target clear was necessary. The two minions were left with no other choice but to jump off the bridge and into the water to escape. Although, later on during the Outdoor Class, the drenched minions came back for revenge with a new Miniremo, and they successfully scared the kids by sending two Carnivines to attack Keith. Although, Keith saved the day and sent the two idiots running, successfully creating the coolest Outdoor Class in the school's history.
I hesitated when moving over to the next event on my timeline, and instead of reading it, I went back to the Outdoor Class one and grabbed the DVD I had hanging up next to it and popped it into my laptop, getting ready to watch it again for what must be the five hundredth time.
One of the teachers recorded the Outdoor Class, and Kaplan and Claire surprised me with a copy...
I burst into tears the first ten times I watched it, seeing Keith again. Not only because my heart is ripped to shreds by my own doing, but because Keith, he...
He didn't look so well.
I watched my laptop screen turn from black to the bright colors of Ascension Square, and the video began again. I never realized how much I took school for granted until it was taken from me...
I saw Ms. April, Kaplan and Claire, Principal Lamont, and all of the new students at the school this year... But no Mr. Kincaid. I remember that he mysteriously quit around the time I was shot and disappeared shortly after that. They replaced him with a new male teacher of some sort.
"Hey, guys! I'm Ranger Keith, a rank four Area Ranger here in Vientown!" Keith boasted about his rank as he did his signature back flip and pose with Buizel, making all of the kids bust out laughing.
"Alright, settle down, class!" Ms. April quieted their laughter with a quick interruption. "Does anyone have any questions for Keith?"
"Oh! I've got one!" One student's hand flew up so quickly it startled those around him.
"Yeah, what is it?" Keith chuckled at his enthusiasm.
"Did you ever pull any pranks in school?"
All Keith could do was laugh when Ms. April shot him a death glare.
"Don't be giving my students ideas..." She tugged on Keith's ear, making the red-head wince and cry out in pain.
"OW OW OW! I WASN'T GONNA!"
I fast-forwarded past your basic "what's it like to be a Ranger?" and "what is a really hard Pokemon to catch?" questions, and I pressed play again at the very end where this one girl asked the last question of the day.
"Umm...hehe. I have a question!" An adorable red-haired girl waved her hand ecstatically back and forth.
"Sure. What's up?" Keith pointed to her, allowing her question.
"Have you ever been in love before?"
The hollow look in his eyes that followed immediately stabbed my heart, and I had to try and not let it get to me.
But it was his answer that broke my heart every time that I watched this.
Keith cleared his throat and jammed his fists into his pockets in the way he always does when he's upset, staring down at the floor. "I thought I was."
I shut my laptop and sniffled a little as I wiped at my eyes, and I got up from my bed and walked over to the wall. Back to the timeline again. I have to stop Blake Hall, and in order to do that, I need to figure out what he's up to. So, I must continue reviewing my notes.
...
Keith...
"Ugh, stop that." I abruptly slapped my forehead, startling Mightyena as I scolded myself. "Pull yourself together and focus!" I tore my eyes from the floor and forced myself to look at my timeline again, and I began reviewing my notes once more.
After the Outdoor Class was over, the Ranger Union delivered alarming news to Keith's Ranger Base: Barlow's Styler signal disappeared off the map. So, Keith was sent to Boyleland to go and find him. They all were hoping it was just a big joke, thinking Barlow dropped his Styler in lava or something, but it all took a turn for the worse when Keith discovered Team Dim Sun had been harboring a gigantic Cargo Ship in a hidden harbor inside the volcano cave, transporting not just the island's missing Pokemon onto the ship, but also a tied up Barlow. Keith had to infiltrate the Cargo Ship without being spotted, rescue the Pokemon and Barlow, and then face off with the ship's captain. Who just happened to be Mr. Kincaid himself. Or as he liked to call himself, "Captain Kincaid of Team Dim Sun."
I already knew Kincaid was one of the bad guys, but Keith and the other Rangers didn't.
The whole mission took a turn for the worse when Keith defeated Kincaid's hypnotized Drapion, because the captain fled the ship and ordered his subordinates to pull out the large Kingston Valve at the bottom of the ship, inevitably sinking the ship with all the Pokemon and people on board. While Barlow tried to steer the ship near shallow water as best as he could while sinking, Keith ran to the bottom deck to have Pokemon help him push the valve back into place. Every Dim Sun Minion left on board jumped overboard and swam for their life.
They nearly didn't make it, but thanks to Keith getting the ship to stop taking on water, Barlow had enough time to crash the gargantuan Cargo Ship into a tiny pier off the coast of a small island.
...and that tiny island just happened to be the Ranger School.
Kaplan thought it was the coolest thing ever, and Claire smacked him for it because she was standing right there when it happened and was still traumatized. I had a few laughs when they came home that day and told me about it.
As disastrous and destructive as the mission turned out to be, Keith's performance was enough to impress Chairperson Erma and Professor Hastings: the two people who run the Ranger Union and the Top Rangers. Keith's heroics got him promoted to Top Ranger at age nineteen, and he became the eleventh Top Ranger in the whole world.
I was thrilled to hear that he achieved his dream, but I couldn't help but envy him a little...
Still, I was happy for him.
I can't help but notice a majority of my timeline had something to do with Keith in every article, but to be fair, the boy just seemed to follow trouble and Team Dim Sun wherever they went.
So Keith pretty much was still just being Keith.
Hah... That's good.
On his first mission as a Top Ranger, Keith was ordered to travel east of the Ranger Union to the Chroma Highlands, a foggy mountain valley area just past Altru Park and Pueltown. Somewhere inside the ruins waiting for backup was Top Ranger nine: Sven. Keith, the solo Top Ranger, arrived on the scene to find a mysteriously thick, black fog covering the entirety of the Chroma Highlands, which also made the Styler's voicemail feature malfunction. Keith found Team Dim Sun forcing a flock of Murkrow to spread the fog to cover their tracks, and he was quick to capture the hypnotized Pokemon and bust their Miniremos. He discovered Team Dim Sun had trapped all nearby Skarmory, a Pokemon capable of clearing the fog, in a nearby cave and boarded it up. Keith used these steel birds to clear the fog and restore the Chroma Highlands to its original state.
After he found the entrance to the ruins and pursued onwards, Keith ran into Sven eavesdropping on several Dim Sun minions mining dark shards, the power source for Gigaremo and Miniremo, in the next cave room over. The two idiot boys conspired to release a Skuntank into the room and scare off the poor idiots with its atrocious stench, which they thought was hilarious according to the Ranger Union's report. Pursuing onwards, the two boys discovered a large room guarded by a ticked off Spiritomb that had a huge gaping hole carved out of the back wall. Sven was annoyed that Dim Sun got away with what he assumed to be the legendary "Shadow Crystal," which would be equivalent to the power of one million dark shards. He was confused that the crystal's guardian, who was most likely a Darkrai, allowed it to be stolen.
While they began to retreat, Sven and Keith stumbled upon an old charred shack which was later discovered to be the original Altru Oil building before the industry caught fire some years back and they had to relocate. Upon entering, not only did they discover an old classmate of mine called Ponte living there, but they also found a charred diary that mentioned words like "darkness" and "shadow crystal." The two Rangers concluded it would be best to take the diary back to the Union for further analysis. Ponte had talked with the two boys and discussed how he had joined Dim Sun and quit the same day, indecisive as ever, and he had been hiding out in the shack ever since. They were mining something big down in the ruins, and they kidnapped a dark Pokemon that was guarding whatever they were mining and flew it off in a crate by helicopter somewhere towards the ocean. He remembered hearing the Pokemon's cries the most...
I stopped at the next event and tore the transcript off the wall, skimming its contents. I remember reading this the first time I got my hands on it.
It was a copy of everything said during the meeting held about the diary upon Keith and Sven's return. The diary was nearly burned beyond recognition, but the Ranger Union Scientists began deciphering it. They discovered the diary had belonged to Brighton Hall, Blake Hall's father, who mysteriously disappeared some years back. The diary talks about Brighton desperately searching for a new power source to save his company, and according to the diary, he found one: the dark shards. After that page, bits and pieces of Brighton Hall's panic concerning the side effect of dark shards was readable, but the rest was too burned to analyze. All I could derive from the burned diary myself was that dark shards held an insane amount of dark power that no human should behold, but there was a way to reverse the power. But that was all I could discover...
After the meeting, strange things started happening. Keith took on a peculiar mission to Shiver Camp and Almia Castle up in the coldest regions of Almia that lied north of the Ranger Union, but I have no idea what he was doing there.
I hacked Professor Hasting's computer and downloaded all of his notes to my laptop after that mission, highly suspicious that someone may have been on to me and my hacking. My suspicions were confirmed when I found minimal data to be digital, so I figured the Professor started writing things down rather than typing them.
All I could figure out was that they were beginning to figure out how to reverse the effect of the dark shard's hypnotic power, but whatever they did to reverse the effect only worked 33%. After that, I was in the dark, and I had to rely on newspaper articles to gain the rest of my information. The Ranger Union upped their security, pushing me out with their various firewalls.
The remainder of my timeline was a series of newspaper articles I had clipped and saved. Keith visited Boyeland once again for reasons unknown. Ranger Wendy, Sven's partner, flew off on her partner Staraptor to the Haruba Desert for some top secret mission and did not return. Keith was sent to look for her, but on his way there, his boat was being tipped by large pillars of water being shot up from the ocean floor below him. Keith jumped into the water with his Micro Aqualung, allowing him to breathe underwater. He discovered Team Dim Sun trying to capture a Wailord with large capture machines that shot out an electric beam, pinning the whale Pokemon to the ocean floor. After releasing the Wailord, Team Dim Sun panicked and revealed they intended to use it as a replacement for their Cargo Ship, and they took off with the mamma Wailord's baby Wailmer instead. Keith gave chase on the Wailord's back, up until they arrived at Altru Oil's ocean oil rig.
The Oil Rig had been thought to be abandoned years ago, but it was apparently not. Keith was surprised to see Sven there as well, about to break in and investigate. The two teamed up and raided the rig, discovering that Team Dim Sun had been using it as a secret base. They overheard talk of Dim Sun building something called "the Incredible Machine," and that was all the Ranger Union released to the press. After the mission, however, Kincaid dropped off the grid, the Wailmer was returned to its mom, and Sven returned with a very confused Isaac who had been found in the base with Team Dim Sun.
Keith went on to the Haruba Desert to find Wendy. All I know is that something went horribly wrong, and Wendy had been kidnapped and held hostage by Heath. I have no idea what for or what happened, but Keith had to trade something of great importance for her life.
And now, we've reached present day. It's been four days since Wendy returned very banged up and bruised, and it's been too...quiet.
I've been studying Dim Sun's every move, and I know they're going to strike soon somewhere. I just know---
"Rena! Rena!" Ms. Claire came barging into my room, looking completely distraught and panicked.
"Claire, what is it?" I almost fell over from the shock of her barging into my room, and I watched as Kaplan ran in to catch up with Claire. Mightyena leapt up from his bed, completely startled and alert.
"It's the Ranger Union, something has happened!" She panted to catch her breath, and Kaplan began rubbing her back to calm her down.
"Claire, what did you hear?" He tried to get her to stand up straight again, keeping her calm.
"While I was in Pueltown shopping, there was an explosion at the Ranger Union." She looked at me with panicked and confused eyes. "The whole town is in panic because the Ranger Union is in lock down and they called the police to tell them to stay away for their own safety! Something is going on!"
I knew it...
I stared at the two of them with a fierce look of determination before enveloping them in a tight hug. "I thank you both for taking care of me this past year and hiding me from the police, but this is where it must end." Kaplan and Claire were too shocked to say anything as I let go of them and turned to my closet.
"Rena, where are you going?" Claire blinked at me in confusion.
I shared a look with Mightyena before ripping open my closet doors, staring at the only thing inside it:
My jumpsuit.
I turned to look at my astonished friends over my shoulder with a wry smirk on my face. "I'm going to get my revenge."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
See, I told you guys that last chapter wasn't the end! There's no way I was going to kill Rena with nine chapters still left of the book XD
Okay, to sum up some FAQs before they're even asked XD:
• One year has passed now since Rena was shot, so she's mostly healed, but she's still recovering a little and is pretty rusty in hand to hand combat.
• She hid from the cops with Kaplan and Claire, which was the push they needed to get together, so they're a cute couple now :3
• The whole purpose of the timeline was to show the game's middle events, and now we're going to skip all the way to the end of the game and hope it makes sense!
If you're confused by anything revealed in this chapter, or if you have any questions at all, just comment below and ask them, and I'll answer them to the best of my abilities. I'm trying to not make this confusing, but it's hard if you haven't played the game before XD
Read, comment, vote, and enjoy!