Wanderer

xxx

Things whirling, things changing. Chaotically whispered thoughts, streaming through a sleeping girls mind. Weapons were crutches, for the weak. Honor above all. To lose in battle is the greatest shame. Girls were weak, fit only to be protected by the stronger males.

Why?

The girl had seen, time and again, that while fighting unarmed lent the fighter a good deal more versatility, they could still be 'disarmed' just as easily as any weapon-user. Case in point, all of the street fights where Genma had turned sneaky, and broken an opponent's arm to win.

Honor above all. But was blind obedience to a concept truly honor? Honor had demanded that she wed all three, yet honor demanded that she marry only one. Honor had left seppuku as the only viable option, yet she had never chosen that path. Why, if honor truly meant so much? Honor was a pleasant concept, but there were times when it had to be guarded with secret, dishonorable actions. That was a truth of life.

Is losing in battle truly the greatest shame imaginable? The girl could easily think of two, three... even a dozen more things more shameful than loss. Sometimes losing a battle teaches a lesson that you would otherwise have never learned. Granted, losing was never pleasant, but there was always the chance for an eventual rematch. It was not neccessary to be the best at everything, all the time. Sometimes the wise path was to bow out, and gracefully take the second place.

Were girls weak? That had been disproven time and time again. Girls had the potential to become strong, just like men. Over time, Ranma had learned to keep quiet about this opinion, but until now it had never changed. And what of herself? For now, and for the forseeable future, she was in a female body. Did that make her weak? No. No, she was still strong. Rei was strong as well, but in a different way. She was obviously not a fighter, but Ranma could feel her power simmering within them at all times.

That brought up a question to her sleeping mind. If she could feel Rei's power at all times, even when her body was the dominant one, and if, as she suspected, her enormous ki reserves could be sensed even when Rei was the dominant, then were the wild pokemon fleeing her, or Rei?

Her eyes opened to the starry sky as what felt like a bolt of lightning shot through her brain.

xxx

"Saotome. I have business I must attend to. You may sleep more once you have relenquished our body to me."

'... Fine. Too tired to argue.'

A few minutes and a body switch later, Rei was tapping at buttons on the pokedex as Ranma returned to snoring in the back of their head. A couple more taps and she had it.

'The myth of creation, Man and Pokemon.'

Access granted to Field Researcher Ayanami Rei.

The machine buzzed for a moment before the folder opened, and Rei began reading it.

Preface written by Professor Oak.

For a very long time, it has been believed that the world was crafted by certain of the Legendary Pokemon, who expended most of their power in the effort and hid themselves away. Recent sightings put them somewhere in the Sinnoh region.

However, the recent discovery of this myth carved into the walls of an ancient ruin seems to both disprove and outright contradict this theory.

As a scientist, I have long studied the question, 'where are we going?'... but as a human being, I cannot deny that the question 'where did we come from?' has its appeals as well. Perhaps we shall never learn the answers to either of these questions, especially as this myth is so vague. It could well be that the 'First' and 'Second' are some form of prehistoric, yet undiscovered Legendary Pokemon. Or it could be that they represent something else entirely. We may never know for sure.

Rei absorbed this and tapped the button to continue to the actual myth, eyes narrowing imperceptibly.

The Myth of creation.

In the beginning, there were the First and Second (There was evidence of old damage to the wall here, obscuring several words.) and the First fought with the Second, and for many moons and passes of the seasons they did battle over which would claim the world for themselves and their progeny.

But with time, both grew weary of the seemingly endless battle, as both were evenly matched. Then the Second spoke to the First, and it said "Lo, but is not our battle over the land itself? Should we continue, we shall ruin the land, and our battle shall then be meaningless. Would it not then be wise to cease, then, and share this world between us and our progeny?"

And the First considered the Second's words, and saw the wisdom therein, and did agree to the Second's plan.

And so the First removed a portion of itself, and crafted its children in many forms, and they took to the sea, and the sky, and the land in abundance, and became populous, and encircled the world, each to its own preferred place. And the First smiled and turned to the Second, inviting it to take its turn.

And the Second considered for many turnings of the sun and moon. Then it removed a portion of itself, and crafted its children in two forms alone, male and female, and they were weak and fearful, and could not take to the sea or the sky, but could only live on the land. And the First showed his amusement towards the children of the Second, saying "Lo, should ye not have considered more fully before crafting thy children? These weak beings shall all have died out within three generations, and my children alone shall walk the lands."

And the Second turned, and said "Perhaps. But I have given my children a gift that ye have neglected to give yours. We shall yet see what happens three generations hence.

And so the First and Second withdrew from the lands for a time and left their children. And when they returned, the children of the Second had grown in number, and had convinced many of the children of the First to protect them as they multiplied and built comfortable dwellings for themselves and their protectors. For the Second had given its children the gifts of intelligence and logic and reason, and so they swiftly became dominant over the children of the First. And the First gnashed its teeth and howled mightily, but could not deny that this was due to its own oversight.

And the children of the First were Pokemon. And the children of the Second, Humans.

Rei leaned back into the wall as she considered that, one hand idly going back to stroking the Ralts' horn. It shivered in its sleep at the contact.

First and Second... that was just a little too familiar for her comfort. After all, in her world, the Angels were the children of the First Angel, Adam, and humans were technically the 'children' of the Second Angel, Lilith.

Her suspicion confirmed, she began to wonder if there was some possible way to cause Third Impact here. Just for practice. Then she shoved the thought away. If Adam and Lilith had agreed to share this world instead of bickering over it, then there would have been no reason for a third Impact.

She noted that there was a link at the bottom of the page and pressed it. Though she couldn't help but wonder how it was related in any way.

A report on 'Shiny' Pokemon.

It is a well documented fact that every so often a trainer will come across a Pokemon of an alternate color scheme from the norm. It is very rare, but it has been proven that for every eight thousand or so eggs laid by a specific species, one will be of an alternate color scheme and have a natural form of 'glitter' in its fur/scales/feathers etc. However, given the rarity of these 'Shiny' Pokemon, and the fact that many eggs laid in the wild will end up as a meal for predatory Pokemon, the actual chances of finding a Shiny Pokemon in the wild is these days closer to something like one in twenty thousand.

Through a great deal of personal effort, I have conducted a study of these 'Shiny' Pokemon, but have been incapable of finding any genetic reason for the shift in color scheme, or for why it is sometimes barely noticeable, while others it is impossible to miss. The best example of this is the Magikarp, whose shiny form is a pure, lustrous gold, and upon evolution becomes a crimson Gyarados.

That begs the question, if there is no true difference between any generic Pokemon and its 'Shiny' counterpart, then why do Pokemon of alternate color schemes exist at all?

Addendum: While, as previously stated, there seems to be no true difference between any Pokemon and its 'Shiny' counterpart, it has recently been discovered that Shiny pokemon are more versatile in that they can learn a wider variety of moves than any normal Pokemon. Further study into this is pending.

Addendum the second: An old hermit with a Shiny Dragonair was discovered living in a hut in the same ruins where a controversial myth was discovered to be carved into a wall. (Link here to 'The Myth of Creation, Man and Pokemon') Upon conversation concerning his Dragonair, he stated that 'The gifts of the First flow more strongly through this one.' The next day, in an attempt to glean more knowledge from the curious old man, I and three of my aides returned to the hut. The man was dead, apparently having passed on in his sleep, and there was no sign of his Dragonair anywhere.

End of report.

Rei stared at the screen for a moment longer, then tapped at a few buttons, sending the Pokedex back into a low power state and resetting it to the default encyclopedia. She was tired.

And the sun was rising, directly in front of her. She frowned in slight irritation and focused.

"BWAGEA! I'm up, I'm up! Waddya want?"

Rei tapped a button on the Pokedex before sliding it back into her pocket. She had considered the possibility of their I.D. being checked while Ranma was in control, and had taken measures.

'The Pokedex is now temporarily registered to you. I am relenquishing control of our body, and suggest that sometime today you visit that training facility.'

A splash of water later and Rei was replaced with the grumpling redhead. Inside their head, she closed her mental eyes. This was nice. Unlike outside, where the stupid sun would still aggravate her eyes as she tried to slept, in here she could easily obtain blissful darkness. She was asleep in seconds.

Ranma, however, was not pleased. She'd been in the middle of a dream where the entire Nerima Wrecking Crew, save her, had been turned into zombies. It had been awesome. She'd not been able to touch them, for fear of infecting herself with skin to skin contact, but she had been equipped with a really big sword and a shotgun. She'd just been about to blow zombie-Genma's head off when the electric pain had coursed through her brain.

She didn't know how Rei had learned to do that, but it was becoming most annoying. So... now she had a choice. She could stay here and nap and risk getting her brain fried when Rei woke up and realized that she hadn't done anything in the interval. Or she could go and do something. Possibly train Ralts. She paused and thought about that for a moment. After a couple of evolutions, Ralts would be about her height, give or take a few inches, and reasonably human-shaped, so why not? She was a psychic type, so who would expect her to suddenly give something a good kick to the head?

Well... maybe not that far. Psychics were supposed to be pretty frail, physically. So until Ranma got her toughened up, she'd have to be sticking to the softer arts, like Tai Chi, or Aikido. At least until she could find a couple of good sized boulders.

In its sleep, Ralts broke out into a cold sweat.

Ranma considered the idea a second time, then discarded it. No need for breaking point training... as far as she understood the 'Effort Values' thing Nabiki tried to explain to her a few times, if she wanted to increase Ralts' defense, she would have to fight things with high defense ratings. The same went for all the other stats as well. It might seem odd for her to offer so much knowledge about something without compensation, but ask even the tiniest question about her favorite game and it was like you were throwing a switch in her head. The girl simply could not shut up about it, and you could not get away. Before that day, Ranma had been completely unaware that Nabiki could roof-hop.

Actually, she wasn't sure Nabiki had known she was roofhopping... she was just keeping pace with him while nattering on and on about her favorite subject. After that, Ranma had been careful not to bring up anything even remotely close to the subject.

She hopped off the building and headed off towards the edge of the city. She'd find a small, private clearing to teach... actually it would probably be faster just to let it suck the neccessary info out of her head and then correct it if it did something wrong.

She began focusing everything she knew about the softer styles into the forefront of her mind. Given just how much she knew, that took a little effort.

xxx

To Ralts, it was like a dance. An elegant dance of destruction, as proven by the red facet when she only tapped a finger against a thick tree, yet still left a deep impact mark.

They had started slow, the red facet putting what it had wanted Ralts to take in the forefront of its mind, then watching as it fumbled through the first kata. Red had sighed and then stepped forward to perform the kata herself, slowly, but with an incredible inner grace that Ralts couldn't help but envy. Ralts movet to match Red's motions, and after a few tries, Ralts had matched her move for move.

Then the next time through was a little faster, and Ralts had to work at it a little harder before she matched Red's speed. Then the tempo increased again, and she had to push harder just to keep up, grace having flown out the window. Red held that speed for about an hour, until Ralts was somewhat competent at it. Granted, she was slicked down with a sheen of foamy sweat, and while she matched the speed Red was showing she had all the gracefullness of a drunken water buffalo, but she could feel her overall speed rising. After another few minutes, Red slid to a complete stop, not even breathing heavily.

Ralts collapsed on the ground, panting heavily, as the adrenaline rush gave way to aching muscles and exhaustion. Red grunted as her eyes flicked to the sorry mess Ralts was in. Then she bent down and picked her up.

"Not too shabby. Still need a bunch of work, but you're doing well. Let's get you cleaned up."

And somehow, that one bit of halfhearted praise made it all worth it.

After wiping down the little monster with a damp rag, Ranma considered what to do next while it curled up in his lap. One hand snaked down automatically to rub at its horns, sending its leg into unnoticed spasms. Now then... go take a look at that training facility place, or pass them by completely and head through Viridian forest to Pewter city.

On the one hand, passing team Rocket by might finish whatever had to be done here faster. On the other, once Rei found out that she had skipped meeting with the rockets, she would probably pump a few thousand volts of electricity through their brain. Tough call.

"Alright, Rockets it is."

xxx

She was already regretting this decision. This place... it didn't seem to be used so much for training so much as for trainers to stand around and eat the free snacks while placing bets on who would win in the off chance that a Pokemon battle got started.

There was a raised box near the arena, with one way windows on the outside. At a glance, that was where Giovanni would be. The two big, hulking men in cheap suits confirmed that suspicion. Now, to get in, she would have to challenge a few people to Pokemon battles and put up a good showing.

Or she could just do this.

She walked casually up to the two guards, who looked confused at first, then frowned dumbly as she came to a stop between them.

"Hey, little girl, maybe you should just run along now..."

Both her hands flashed out in a blur, striking points that induced sleep and paralysis and locked up the bones in their legs. In effect, they fell asleep standing up. Then one hand went to the doorknob. Naturally, it was locked. She kept turning it.

After a moment, brute force won out and there was a tiny noise of the metal in the lock giving way as she swung the door open and stepped inside. None of the trainers outside noticed the sound or cared that she was entering the restricted area... after all, if she wasn't supposed to be there, then the guards would have stopped her, right?

Inside the box, it was dark. The only lighting came from two sources... the tinted windows and a couple computer monitors. She could see that someone was sitting in what looked like a very comfortable, reclining leather chair, although she couldn't make out any features just yet. Then the man spoke up, in a deep, raspy voice.

"You know, conventionally, a trainer would be out there, displaying the abilities of their Pokemon before I decide whether or not to invite them up here."

Ranma shrugged, but not enough to dislodge Ralts.

"I've never been conventional. And I'm really more of a 'Hands-on' person. Why leave Pokemon all the fun bits?"

"He... Hahaha. I like you. You have spunk. Catch."

He flipped something through the darkness towards her. Cursing the dim light, she managed to snag it out of the air by the tips of her fingers. Judging by the feel, it was metal... a pin... and in the shape of a capital 'R'. Of course.

"Show that to the guard at the breeding center and he'll let you through. Then ask for Jin, he'll give you the whole tour and explain things to you. Now get going, I have business to attend to."

Ranma shrugged and flipped the pin up her sleeve as she turned and left. This had been a total waste of time. She paused outside the training facility to consider the pin. No. Total waste of time, dammit.

Crap.

She sighed and started hunting for someone who knew where to find this 'Breeding center'.

xxx

"Move along little girl... you need special permission to enter here. Not just any run of the mill..."

Ranma sighed and flipped her wrist in such a way that the small pin dropped into her palm. Upon seeing it, the guard's entire demeanor changed from hostile to some sad, pathetic excuse for pleasantness.

"My apologies young miss... do come in, please. We simply hadn't recieved word yet, you know how it goes."

"Where is Jin."

"Jin... Jin, Jin, uh... right about now he's probably overlooking the hatcheries. I'll take you there. Frank! Get your fat butt out here and take a turn at the door, already!"

The second guard grunted and grudgingly got up and turned off his small television as he waddled out, stains of beer and some sort of sauce dripped down the front of his uniform. Ranma frowned with disgust as she followed the first guard inside. She hated coming near to people who reminded her of Genma.

The building was, frankly, huge. Half a dozen football fields could have fit within easily, but it only took a moment for them to track down Jin in a room full of eggs.

"Hey, geezer! The boss sent another one."

Jin slowly turned around, revealing himself to be a very old man in a lab coat and bandages taped over his left eye.

"Hmm... so I see. You can go."

The guard nodded and left, visibly relieved at the dismissal.

"As for you lass, I'll be back in a moment. Touch nothing."

Ranma began sweating as the old man left. Keeping her hands to herself... it wouldn't be so much of a problem for her as it would for her old man, but she'd been trained from a very young age to have a 'Want, Take, Have." kind of personality. If there was something she needed, the easiest way to get it was with a five finger discount, right? At this point, what she needed most was extra pokemon. The urge to snatch a few eggs was nearly overwhelming.

The fact that she had no idea what would hatch from which egg was all that was holding her back, really. It would suck if she burnt bridges so soon and all she had to show for it was a handful of Magikarp or something.

After a few minutes passed she grew steadily more irritated until the old man came back and immediately swept his eyes accross the racks of eggs and nodded to himself. Oh. It was some sort of test then.

Ranma wondered absently if she'd passed.

"Well now lass... what can I do for you?"

Without a word, Ranma flashed the pin again and Jin nodded.

"I see... you'll be wanting the tour before making a final decision then, I'd expect? Well, my old bones aint up to a walking around the entire facility all at once, but I got a map around here somewhere... just give me a second... ah, here it is. Now we are here... go on, take a look... In the hatchery. In the breeding center, two of every type of eggs are kept here and can be requisitioned by operatives who've done enough jobs for us, while the rest are sent to the main incubation chambers, which are miles away. Once those start hatching, they are placed in the wild to help aid in raising the levels of some dwindling species of Pokemon. Since the founding of this breeding center, the wild Eeevee population, for instance, has risen a full twenty three percent, and there are a full six new breeds of Pokemon flourishing in the Kanto region that had never managed to make an ecological niche for themselves before."

"That's... fascinating." Ranma drolly replied.

"Isn't it though? Now this area here is the actual breeding area, where we place the Pokemon that have gone into heat. Naturally, after the first few accidents involving randy monsters and busty interns we've labeled the area as off limits. Even when one of the staff has to go in, they don't dare enter without the special suits dipped in chemicals that smell horrible enough to kill the interest of even the most amorous Muk."

Ranma blinked, not sure what to make of that.

"You don't need to worry about most of the rest of these... they're where the scientists do sciency crap and the like. And over here is the corrals where the pokemon live when they're not in heat... Oh, and here's the transportation chamber. It links up to a chamber in Saffron, one in the Johto region, one in the Hoenn region... can't remember which city just offhand. One in the Orre region and one just outside Snowpoint city in the Sinnoh region. Granted, we don't have much business outside the Johto and Kanto regions, but Giovanni felt it neccessary to establish the other small footholds as well."

"I... really don't care. I just want to do my job and get paid. Maybe collect some Gym badges on the side."

Jin snorted.

"Gym badges? You? You must be joking. These days only the elite of the elite run gyms... far better than how things used to be. You know Pewter city up north used to have a gym? But the leader, Brock, was pathetic. He would only use a weak Geodude and Onix in the gym battles, never mind that neither was above fifteen percent. Any old punk with nothing but their starter could beat him!"

Ranma coughed sheepishly. This... could be a serious problem.

"No. These days there's four gyms still open here in Kanto. The gym here in Viridian, the Dojo in Saffron, that one run by Ninja in Fuschia, and the gym in Cerulean. But to challenge the Elite Four, you still have to qualify by having eight gym badges, so you'll have to travel to at least one other region."

Ranma groaned.

"That... really sucks."

"Yes. As such, most trainers responded by not battling at gyms anymore, and so the gyms responded by becoming even more elitist and their members became more powerful... vicious circle, lass. And there's a lot of distance between the regions, so unless you can afford tickets to those fancy cruise vessels, or you have access to transportation chambers like ours, you're shit out of luck, kid."

"... Well fuck."

Jin smacked a ruler right into her forehead.

"Language, lass! You're an operative of Team Rocket now!"

"Great... just great... so how many jobs do I have to do to requisition an egg."

"Actually... you can select one right now."

xxx

A.N.

Can't think of anything to say. Nothing at all. Hm...