Red surveyed the pile in front of him, frowning.

“Two underripe oran berries, a spoiled apricorn, some Paras mushrooms- not sure if those are edible, though- a razz berry, and whatever this thing is.” He held up a shriveled pink fruit and gagged.

He looked up to see Bulbasaur hopping towards him, tossing up a cloud of dirt and leaves every time it landed.

“Find anything, buddy?” he asked. Bulbasaur closed its eyes and let out a solemn croak, as if to tell him that it hadn't.

This was Red’s fourth day in the Viridian Forest, which was four days too many, in his opinion. Since that Mankey had stolen his food, he had to resort to foraging, scrounging up what little scraps he could find.

It was time consuming and, more often than not, barely enough to sustain himself. He was lucky that Bulbasaur could make its own food using photosynthesis, or he’d really have been in a bind.

‘Though,’ Red thought to himself, ‘If there are Paras mushrooms lying around, there’s definitely a Paras colony nearby… If not for the grass dual typing overlapping with Bulbasaur, I actually wouldn’t mind catching one.’

He looked down at Bulbasaur, who shuffled over to him, resting against his leg like a green, amphibian puppy. The two sat in silence together, each absorbed in their own thoughts, until a faint buzzing noise cut through the serenity.

Red tensed up. He recognized the sound of a Beedrill- one had tried to take Bulbasaur from him while they were practicing Sweet Scent. It would have gotten away with it too, if not for a well-timed Vine Whip.

Luckily, the sound soon faded away, and he relaxed once more. But then, a thought struck him.

‘If there are so many Beedrill around, it has to be for a reason, right? Maybe, just maybe… There’s a hive nearby! And a hive means… honey…’

He licked his lips, and in a lapse of judgment driven mostly by hunger, decided that he was going to get some honey- no matter how hard he would have to fight for it.

Red packed away a few choice morsels from his food pile, then began walking in the vague direction of the buzzing noise. It wasn’t a great lead, but he figured it was his best option at the moment. Eventually he came across a small piece of what he could only assume was a Beedrill wing, lying on the ground.

‘Hopefully,’ he thought, ‘that means I’m on the right path.’

Since he wasn’t sure what direction to head to from there, he opted to move towards the nearest landmark, a particularly large tree.

As he grew closer, he got a better look at the giant oak, which was covered in strange yellow bumps. He stopped at the edge of the clearing, peering at the tree in the middle. It was difficult to make out, but the bumps seemed to be Kakuna shells. As he took a step forward to get a better look, he heard someone coming from behind, and turned around, alarmed.

“Hey, kid!” A voice cried out, “What do you think you’re doing?”

A young man with light brown hair was running towards him. The patch sewn onto his red jacket told Red immediately who this man was; a pokémon ranger.

Rangers were part of an organization of trainers, whose main job was to protect the ecosystem. They mainly handled invasive species and population control- if there was anything abnormal about the local wildlife, they investigated the cause, and fixed it if possible.

The ranger finally reached him, and paused, panting for breath. Red gave him a moment to collect himself, then looked at him questioningly.

He stood up straight, and said, “This is a ranger protected area. The hive here is preparing for an evolution ritual, which mustn't be disturbed.”

“Evolution ritual?” Red murmured.

The ranger nodded. “Yes,” he said, “you see all of those Kakuna? The Beedrill are gathering nutrients for them, which will allow them to evolve. We’re keeping the area clear so that no one interferes.”

”Besides,” he added, “only a fool would approach a Beedrill hive without proper protection. What were you thinking?”

“I was… uh… looking for honey?” Red said sheepishly.

The ranger looked surprised, then shook his head, saying, “Beedrill don’t make honey. You’re thinking of Combee, which isn’t even native to Kanto.”

‘Ooooooh. I really need to check the pokédex more often.’

“Now,” he said, “We can’t exactly have you hanging around here, so… Do you know where you’re headed?

Red nodded, and told the ranger that he was going to Pewter City.

“You’re pretty far off course, then. The road to Pewter City is all the way other there,” the ranger said, pointing through the dense undergrowth. “How about I show you the way, so we can make sure you don’t get lost again?”

Red wasn’t keen on the idea, but the ranger gave him a look that told him it wasn’t really much of a question. He begrudgingly accepted, and followed the ranger, who introduced himself as Martin, back to the forest’s main path.

“There we go,” Martin said, “about a day's walk until you reach Pewter City, I’d reckon. Good luck, alright?”

Red turned to leave, but before they could part ways, Martin’s pokégear began ringing. He pulled it out, and began talking to the person on the other end. After the call was over, he looked at Red, and said, “Hey. Listen, I’m gonna need you to stick around.”

Upon seeing Red’s irritated look, he stammered, “H- hey now, calm down. See, remember those Beedrill? And how I said they were doing a super important ritual? Yeah, apparently something came in and disturbed it. Now they’re really peeved, and I’ve been tasked with deescalating the situation.”

“Unfortunately,” he said, “I’m only one guy, and my boss is refusing to pull any of the other rangers out of their work to help me.”

Red wasn’t very happy, but after Martin promised “appropriate compensation”, he caved in and agreed to help him- a decision he immediately regretted, upon realizing that he would have to walk all the way back to the Beedrill tree. His legs were already starting to cramp.

Nevertheless, he and Martin eventually found their way back to the tree. At first they moved at a fast clip, but Red’s aching muscles slowed him down until Martin had no choice but to keep pace with him.

As the two got close to the clearing, they began to hear frenzied buzzing sounds. Martin stopped, and leaned against a tree. He thought for a moment, then addressed Red.

“Alright. The main problem here is that we don’t actually know the specifics behind the situation. All we have to go off is that their ritual was interrupted. What we’re missing here is the how and why.”

Red nodded along, only half listening.

“And, as a ranger, I need to address the situation directly. If it’s human interference, we have to find the people behind it, and give them a stern talking to. If it’s an invasive species, we need to capture it, and relocate it. Et cetera.”

Martin kept talking, but Red stopped paying attention, peering through the tree trunks in an attempt to get a better look at the commotion. Masses of Beedrill were frantically flying around, and Red would have been worried if not for their focus being purely on the center tree. However, no matter how hard he tried, he still couldn’t tell what they were doing, as the swarm had completely blocked off a clear line of sight.

A flap of wings from behind Red caught him off guard, and he turned around to see that Martin had sent out a Pidgeotto, which was holding a camera in its talons.

“We’ll use Kuki here to get some footage of the location. He’ll try to get a good shot of the tree- if anything’s going on, we should be able to spot it,” Martin told him.

He watched as Martin pressed a button on the camera, and the Pidgeotto rose into the sky. It was difficult to tell from his angle, but the avian pokémon appeared to circle around the clearing several times before coming back down.

The bird hovered in front of Martin, who took the camera from it and pressed a button to end the recording. Red stood behind Martin, and after waiting a few seconds for the video to process, the two played back the footage Kuki had taken.

Since Kuki had to stay high in order to avoid detection, most of the details were lost in the video. This meant that picking out anything useful was tricky, but after a couple of minutes staring at the screen, Red noticed an odd tan-colored blur. It was little more than a smear, but it occasionally popped out of the branches, and whenever it did, the Beedrill seemed to move around much faster, as if agitated.

He pointed it out to Martin, who frowned, and studied the footage for a few minutes. Eventually, he let out a small “aha!”, and turned to Red.

“It looks like that thing right there is the cause of our problem,” he said, pointing to the blur. “And if I were a betting man, I’d be willing to say that’s a Sentret.”

Red’s brow furrowed, and he said, “You think? Aren’t Sentret native to Johto, though?”

“That’s the point! If it were a species native to the forest, they would have known not to interrupt the ritual. Johto’s still close by, so it’s not unreasonable to say that a ‘mon could have crossed over without realizing.”

Red thought about this for a moment, then nodded. It made sense.

“So, that leaves the most important step,” Martin said, “Now that we’ve identified the problem, we need to solve it. I think the most efficient way to go about this is for you to capture the Sentret; then we can relocate it back to Johto.”

Inside, Red was exhausted, but he didn’t let it show. Instead he just waited while Martin set up some equipment. He sprayed Red with some Repel, then sat down with a pair of binoculars.

“I would have liked to record this, but I don’t want Kuki caught in the crossfire,” Martin told him, as he got into a comfortable position. Red walked into the clearing, trying to maintain his confidence despite the threat of nearly a hundred angry Beedrill looming over him. As he walked forward, more and more of them turned to look at him, which was more than a little unnerving. Luckily, they seemed to stay away from him, thanks to the Repel.

As he got closer to the tree, however, they grew more agitated. Red wasn’t surprised- he knew they wouldn’t be too keen on outsiders after whatever had happened. He stopped at the base of the trunk and looked up. Aside from the hordes of Beedrill and the Kakuna that were still attached to the tree, nothing seemed too out of place. At least, until he looked closer.

That was when he saw the hundreds of tiny yellow shell fragments scattered across the forest floor. He stared at the scene in horror.

‘Who did this? Why? Surely a random Sentret wouldn’t be so aggressive towards a Beedrill swarm it doesn’t even know, right?’

Then he heard a faint laughing sound come from above him. His blood ran cold as he recognized the noise, and saw a round shape pop out from behind a branch.

‘That’s no Sentret.’

The Mankey stared at him, and narrowed its eyes. Red responded by slowly pulling out Bulbasaur’s pokéball and pressing the release button. The seed pokémon grumbled wearily, then shook away the tiredness and adopted a fighting stance. The Mankey hesitated, as if unsure whether or not to stay and fight, but eventually hopped down the tree, growling at Bulbasaur. The two pokémon stood in place, staring at each other. Each waited for the other to make the first move.

And then, in an instant, they both launched into action, charging forwards to attack.

“Vine Whip! Try to grab it!” Red yelled, as Bulbasaur extended its vines towards the Mankey. The rotund pokémon dodged at the last second, letting the vines crash into the tree behind it as it charged towards Bulbasaur, raising its leg for a Low Kick. The Beedrill began to form a circle around the fight, watching curiously as Mankey’s kick made direct contact with Bulbasaur’s face. It let out a short cry and retaliated with Tackle, but it didn’t do much against the fighting type.

Mankey screamed in rage, and let out a flurry of lightning fast blows. Bulbasaur tried to break its opponent's momentum, but it was driven forward by some sort of primal instinct, not letting up for even a moment.

Red grit his teeth, watching what seemed to be a losing battle play out before him. He ran his finger over the groove of the pokéball in his hand, contemplating his options.

‘I really ought to catch it, but it would be such a hassle to have that thing around,’ he thought, as Bulbasaur jumped out of Mankey’s range.

Mankey took a deep breath, sharpening its focus, and ran back towards Bulbasaur, ready to dish out another Fury Swipes. Before it could land a blow, however, Red recalled Bulbasaur, and pulled an empty pokéball out of his backpack.

“I don’t think either of us want this,” Red said, pressing the capture button, “But with how much trouble you’re causing the locals, there’s not really any other option.”

Red threw the ball at the Mankey, which tried to run away, but couldn’t get very far. The primal rage left its body, leaving behind only exhaustion, and it surrendered to the containment mechanism.

Or it would have, if Red hadn’t misjudged Mankey’s position, and thrown the ball in completely the wrong direction. Instead of hitting the mischievous furball, it smacked one of the nearby Beedrill right in the face. It sucked the large bug inside, but it immediately broke free and glared at him. The Beedrill all turned to Red with a glint in their eyes, and he gulped.

“Martin,” Red gasped, forcing his way through the underbrush, “angry Beedrill.”

The ranger turned to Red, alarmed. “What happened?” he asked.

“No time to explain.”

“How am I supposed to know what to do if I don’t know what’s going on?”

Red groaned, and said, “I tried to catch the Mankey, but I missed and beaned one of the Beedrill. Now they’re super angry and probably going to kill me. Happy now?”

Martin paused in confusion, but Red was done waiting, and ran into the forest. “You might want to get moving!” he called. Martin shook himself out of his stupor and hurriedly grabbed his equipment, dashing behind Red as countless Beedrill erupted from the clearing.

The two trainers ran for what felt like hours, but after a little while, the Beedrill began to disperse. Martin grinned, and said, “Hopefully that means they don’t consider us worth the trouble. If we keep running for a bit longer, we might be able to lose them.”

Martin’s observation appeared correct, as more and more of the Beedrill drifted away, returning to their hive. The two of them hid behind a tree, panting for breath while the last few Beedrill flew past. They sighed in relief, thinking they were safe, when they heard a rustle in the bushes behind them.

Red nearly stood up to see what it was, but paused, not wanting to alert the Beedrill to his location, if they were still around. Instead, he waited, and was entirely unsurprised when the now familiar tan-colored, furry body appeared from underneath a shrub.

“You again,” he growled. Martin looked at him curiously, but said nothing.

The two looked at each other for a while, their gazes filled with anger. Red slowly grabbed another pokéball from his pack, as the Mankey stood still and watched him.

Then, with lightning fast speed, he pressed the capture button and threw the ball at the Mankey. At point-blank range, he finally managed to hit his intended target, which went inside the ball with a whoosh.

It shook once.

It shook twice.

And then it clicked.

Red sighed, and picked the ball up. “Guess I’m stuck with you now,” he said, in a weary tone.

Martin, who had been watching the standoff play out, stood up, and said, “The Beedrill should be long gone by now, so we can start heading back to the main road. Thank you for your help- though there’s several questions I have that need answering.”

“Does it look like I’m in the mood?” Red asked him.

Martin wouldn’t relent, so eventually Red explained the events of the past few days to him- how he had fought Samuel, the Mankey had stolen his food, and he was forced to live off scraps for the better part of a week.

By the time he was done, the sun was beginning to fall behind the horizon, and they still hadn’t found their way back to the forest’s main path. So they camped out, and thanks to Martin, who had packed plenty of camping gear and reheatable food in one of Silph Co’s weightless, yet infinitely large, backpacks, Red was able to eat actual food for the first time in a while.

The next morning, Martin gave Red some onigiri for the road, along with an impressive payment of ₽500 for his assistance, and the two parted ways. After a few hours of uneventful traveling, Red finally escaped the clutches of the forest. He had to squint a bit as he adjusted to the unfiltered light, but once he was able to open his eyes, he could see, less than a mile away, the imposing stone buildings of Pewter City.

And he smiled.