Normally, murders were something that the Rangers in general stayed out of, considering that each location had their own personal police forces—however this was something that he decided to investigate seeing as he was the closest available figure of authority in the area.

At the scene of the… crime, he could only sigh. He then heard some of the bystanders exclaiming that the possible culprit was still nearby and could potentially be cornered.

Okay, time to make some noise here, literally, he thought with a hint of a smirk as he reached for the gloves he wore whenever he rode Air Metagross. The hulking silver beast appeared and with a single knock, the Metagross quickly folded its legs in and used both Magnet Rise, before boosting its speed with Agility.

“After that figure!” he said as the crowd cleared the way and he hung on for dear life as the Metagross sped up and began to gain on the figure.

One could never question the extent of a Metagross’s memory—especially against Pokémon that had earned its ire. While those were few and far between, Lars knew that Ro had started reacting strangely the moment they’d started chasing the fleeing figure down.

“Oh, so he thinks he can outsmart me through an alleyway, then?” he remarked softly, plucking a containment unit out at random and sending its occupant out. He had a one in five chance of getting this right, and let out a sigh of relief when he saw Nami, his Altaria, appear.

Another flash of red light announced the appearance of his Gallade, Gareth, hitting the ground running quite literally. Quickly shuffling around as best as he could, he changed mounts from the Metagross to his Altaria as she hovered as close as she could to take his weight, before giving the fluffy cloud bird a neck rub.

“Safeguard us all,” he said as the Gallade took a leap and landed on the Metagross’s back, swapping out for Lars in this instance. “Gareth, take a look in the future—stay with Ro, okay? I have… ideas.”

With that the Metagross split off from the other ‘half’ of the party, Lars quickly directing the Altaria to fly up higher while the Metagross came across a small area. Clearly it was too small, but the Gallade had—noticed something through the use of Future Sight.

It made his blood run cold.

There he was, that human!

Down on the ground, the Gallade had seen something while in its ‘trance’—and the grating noise from the Metagross was enough to snap it out of its trance before quickly looking skyward. How fast and how far could he ‘transmit’ messages into his human’s mind?

The Metagross then flashed a menacing glare at the other Pokémon that had gathered—specifically on the Kingdra. Using a Telekinesis on the Kingdra just in case it attempted something stupid, a blast of telekinetic energy attempted to lift it upward, before the Gallade leapt from the Metagross’s back and attempted a Psycho Cut on the offending dragon.

Back in the air, Lars was cruising along for a few moments before realizing that there was something in his mind’s eye. While it wasn’t as strong as Lynette’s capability to send images to him, the few fragmented flashes were enough for him to look down—and see the incoming attack!

“Climb! Strafe forward if you have to!” he shouted as the cold wind began catching up to them. Shit, I should really find someone who can teach her Agility! He thought as the Altaria let out a screeching noise before pelting forward with a sudden burst of speed from a surprise Aerial Ace maneuver.

So there’s more Pokémon? Crap, shame that Lynette can’t Teleport… guess I’ll have to fix that later… but for now… he thought as he rummaged through his pockets and prepared to send out the Gardevoir in case things got hairy for them up in the air.

The strafe forward paid off, however it came with a price—there was another attack headed their way! Realizing that he could counter this one at the very least, he pointed downward with his other hand.

“Nami, counter that with your own Ice Beam,” he said quietly as the Altaria spin around in mid-air with him hanging on. Seeing the arctic beam of energy headed their way, the Altaria countered this with one of their own, which caused them to move downward as she sustained her own Ice Beam and maneuvered to what they guessed was the opposite side of the alleyway.

Down on the ground, though… things were getting hairy.

The Gallade was met mid-air with a sudden loud blast of noise, the Psycho Cut getting interrupted. At the same time, the Telekinetic attempt was thrown off, and the Metagross gave the offending party of Pokémon its best ‘are you kidding me’ look.

Right as the Gallade hit the ground, he then used Protect as a shield to stave off the incoming Heat Wave, and this time the Metagross took aim—slightly higher, noticing that there was a Golbat now fluttering above them.

The silver beast takes aim and fires off a blast of rainbow-colored Psychic energy at the Golbat, its targets having changed priority now.

Not those flames again.

When two opposing forces of the same element collide, they would cancel each other out.

Thankfully the Altaria’s mid-air strafing maneuver had gotten them close enough to the ground for him to take a chance and leap down the last few feet before landing on the ground. While the resulting jolt made him freeze for a few moments, he then got up and recalled the Altaria before the Blizzard came close enough to impacting them.

At the same time, the Gallade had backed off, before dashing backwards and leaping back atop the Metagross. Would this work, he hoped?

Holding on as best as he could, the Gallade then used Teleport once he had regained his position—but then there was the problem of the flames to deal with.

“Ah, fuck!” he exclaimed, quickly fishing out a Dive Ball and sending out his Swampert, Ryujin. “Put out those flames!” he called as the expanding fire ball grew larger. Wasting no time, the Swampert took a deep breath and released a powerful Hydro Pump blast in an attempt to extinguish the flames.

Concurrently, the Metagross / Gallade duo appeared behind Lars before the Metagross fired off another Telekinetic blast of energy, an attempt to deflect the Blizzard. At the same time, the Gardevoir made her belated appearance, using Psychic as well to deflect the incoming blast of cold towards the flames that the Swmpert was attempting to put out.

Time for some rudimentary damage control.

Shit.