maybe papa isn't too happy she's here, but saskia is buzzing with excitement. a ranger mission? with her papa? protecting the town they love? it checks every single box on her list, despite his worry; they gear up and talk strategy for the field (and he has to ask her once or twice if she's listening) but then they're ready and they're there and her smile just

falls. 

the devastation is awful. kirin gets a little too spooked as they move closer and without anything protective on her hooves, saskia thinks it's best to recall her. so she replaces her with oleg instead.

the little alien decides quite promptly to teleport himself on top of sasky's shoulders. she would have hoisted him up there anyway so she doesn't mind. 

"i don't yet," she says sadly, adding it to a running mental checklist of things she needs to do. said checklist is pointless because whatever is mentally written on it is then completely forgotten five minutes later. by sasky, anyway. oleg remembers and will be sure to attempt to remind her in about a week with little headaches (not that that will help her actually remember what she'd forgotten). 

"but oleg will help - i'm sure!"

they walk carefully through the forest and once, sasky stops to stoop down. she graces a gloved hand against a toxin-imbibed root and frowns. oleg beeps a melancholy tone. 

"do you think the grimer and muk are acting like this because of everything that's going on? Greyson Connors and i found a tera crystal around here a couple weeks ago..."

Nikolaj Volosenkov

☉

"yeah!" she says brightly and tells him about answering the call to action on kirin's back and how kirin almost ran over someone and wouldn't ya know? that someone was greyson. her smile strains though and she laughs a little nervously when she admits she accidentally broke the crystal instead of scavenging it. 

"he's good, i think! he seemed kinda stressed. he told me he was gonna help me train maugrim, but he's been really busy, i think. did you know he's one of the elite four now?"

and here she is, trying to keep her balance because oleg has started mimicking the sounds of a plane and has his arms stretched out over her head, intent on driving her around like his own personal aircraft. 

Nikolaj Volosenkov

☉

ambition. does that mean she doesn't have ambition, if she hasn't been able to reach the heights he has? and so quickly? no, no - she can't be too hard on herself. she's learned so much and she could be on her own if she wanted to. she's just...still figuring things out. 

trees are creaking. one of them fells right in front of them and rolls down the slope. a couple of the grimer just slowly crawl over it and eat it through. she looks in dismay at the toxic pollution. papa asks her what to do and she furrows her brows. 

it's just so weird. oldale's pride and joy is its wildlife and stretches of it are protected by the rangers. streams are kept clean, its forests free of trash. these grimer shouldn't have even been able to spawn, nevermind coalesce like this. 

and why here? fluctuating in one grimy mass like this?

"we gotta take it slow. it's not normal. look how many there are!" she says in hurried, hushed whispers. "oleg, see if you can get closer to the cluster. but be careful." 

he beep-boops and teleports up into the trees above them. and then blips two trees down, going lower and lower with his short little hops, until he's right above them. while looking on, though, the mass starts writhing. the grimer all groan in unison and start rolling over each other in waves; a humongous muk emerges from the center.



it moans up at the tree and reaches towards the little alien. "oleg!" he beeps spastically and then steadies himself with one little arm against the tree. the lights on his face flash in unison and a psybeam blasts a small hole straight through the center of the muk.

the mass shudders at once and turns away from oleg, towards the source of noise: right where sasky and nikolaj stand.

Nikolaj Volosenkov

☉

"oleg, come back!" and thankfully, he listens. he's not strong enough to teleport all the way over to them, worn from what he's already done, but he flits through the trees and then leaps from the last one, landing heavily in saskia's arms. she oomphs as she circles her arms around him and watches papa's magnezone unleash a powerful wave of electricity. 

they mass doesn't seem to like that very much. 

oh!

she reaches for another pokeball at her belt as he starts moving them away from the crawling sludge. her gastrodon emerges beside them and shakes its head, the sides of its slug-like body rippling when it senses the danger around them. 

"i have an idea! look! gastrodon, use rain dance on all those grimer." the armored slug turns and does just that, summoning a torrent of rain to fall below them. the slope gets slippery and those that had recovered from their paralysis lose traction, moaning as the fresh rain weakens their grimy bodies.

and now they're perfectly vulnerable to another discharge from papa's magnezone. 

Nikolaj Volosenkov

☉

gastrodon's little dance does incredible work. oleg wriggles in her arms, clearly wanting to play in the rain, but he at least has the self-preservation to realize that it's probably not a good idea. nevertheless, saskia promises she'll let him do it next time.

she completely lights up when papa compliments her; her smile is electric. the superpowered discharge fans out over the grimer and the muk and finally the moans die down. the mass slumps all at once. their unique forms become more pronounced. 

in their triumph, she barely has time to throw up her arms in defense when the muk makes one last attempt to hurt them. gastrodon's pinkish body takes on a discolored purple and it trills in displeasure at her side.

she shrugs off her pack and goes rooting around. she wouldn't be much of a ranger if she didn't bring proper supplies on the field! after discarding a couple of burn heals, she finally finds two antidotes. better to be on the safe side. 

"can you help me, papa?" she asks as she holds out one of the antidotes to him. 

Nikolaj Volosenkov

☉

gastrodon makes some appreciative slug noises as the poison is rendered ineffective. saskia shakes out the rest of the medicine and then drops the empty canister into her bag, holding it out for nikolaj to do the same. it wouldn't be very rangerly of them to leave their trash lying around. 

oleg is more than happy to follow those orders. he beeps excitedly and raises a stubby hand. the lights on his forehead blaze as he focuses hard and the balls at the bottom of the slope start to wobble. unfortunately for them, he'd already used much of his strength bouncing around with teleport, so the balls fall back down to the ground. 

"it's okay, o. we'll go get them together." saskia doesn't exactly take the slope at a run, but it's close enough. together, she and oleg manage to gather the balls and shove them in her backpack. before they go back up, sasky pauses. something dark purple, tinged with green, glitters on the ground.

hmmm. she picks it up and turns it over in her hands and, panting by the time she trudges back up the slope, holds it out to nikolaj with a frown. 

"i think it's a poison tera crystal. maybe that's why they were so strong? and acting so...weird?" but why is it here? and what does this mean for the outskirts of their town?

Nikolaj Volosenkov

☉