Zac brushed himself off, looking between the worried faces of the grunts. They were the only two rockets still conscious, and Yucca crouched behind the pair, her tail rasping across the cave floor.     
    "I mean we could, or we could turn ya into the rangers. I'm kinda leaning towards the latter, how about you Zac?" Kazimir asked, and Yucca let out a hiss like breath escaping from a punctured lung. "Not the rangers!" said the smaller, male grunt. "Please, just let us go. I'm new, and I've got family in Lavaridge. They can't find out! Please, I don't want them to..." Behind him, Yucca rustled her tail, and the man bit his lip. He fell silent, and Zac noticed just how young he was. "We can't just let you go, mate. You were attacking local Pokemon, mining without a permit, and based on the stack of Pokeballs we found you've either been stealing from trainers or over-catching."
    "You can't hold us for long," said the other grunt. She had a sneer like a cornered Houndoom, and was straight-backed despite the beating. "We'll escape before you get us back to town." she said with a smug chuckle. She flexed against her bindings, loosening them a little. "Rope and chains are our bread and butter."
    "Sounds bad for your teeth," Zac said, tightening her ropes and adding another knot. He looked over to the smaller grunt, who had been silent since his outburst. "We're not letting ya go, but if you can help us out a bit then there might be a way outta this that doesn't end in a cell."
    The boy looked up, eyes hopeful. Zac held up an overdesigned device that Kaz had found on one of the unconscious rockets. It was big enough to require both hands, and had a wide, green screen that stretched between two handles. The screen showed a dull grid speckled with flashing lights and red crosses. "Tell us how this works and maybe we can work something out. Is it a radar? A tracker?"

   "Skywalker and Yucca make a good pair, I reckon," Zac said, as his Sceptile prowled behind the pair. Her tail leaves shook as she walked, sounding like a nest of dry rattlesnakes. 
    "Show me that radar mate, and let's see if we can make heads or tails of it." Zac looked at the item, and the blinking dot off to the South. "So there's a big bit of whatever off that way, and a whole bunch of interference on the way." Zac scratched his beard. "Yeah we've gotta go see what it is."
    As Kaz's suggestion, he put some snacks and Charja-Cola within reach of the prisoners. He didn't make any cliche warnings. The presence of Skywalker and Yucca said more than words could.
    The tunnel South branched almost immediately, and even following the blinking radar they were quickly lost. "Mate I think the walls are weird down here. They look almost melted. Not recently by any stretch. Check this out!" Zac said, pointing towards a warped layer of rock. "See the speckling and fusing on this bit? It's an impactite. You only get this from meteor strikes." Zac chuckled, realizing what he'd just said. "Where else would we see it, right?" 
    He squinted at something half-buried in the wall before brushed away a layer of loose rock. Underneath was a glittering shard the color of burnt caramel. Zac carefully removed it, admiring the luster. As he brought it close, the machine started whooping and whistling loudly. "Mate...I think this is the sort of thing they were after..."

Zac couldn't take his eyes off their find. Was it amber? It was certainly the right color, but it didn't look like a big glob of sap. Instead it looked like a crystalline shard. Just what was it? "I think taking it to a scientist is a great idea." They searched the tunnel a bit longer, but there was only the single piece to be found. 

They returned to the captured Rockets, who were munching on snacks under Yucca's merciless glare. "We got your thing working, so you've earned a bit of leniency," Zac said, though he made no move to undo the ropes. He knelt down next to them. "I'm enrolling you both in the Fallarbor Rangers. You need to learn respect for these caves, and they'll have you out here doing geological sampling and cleanup. Sound good?" The boy was silent, his eyes far away. The woman swore at him. "Well it's that or jail, so make up your mind before we get into town. Let's head back guys!"