Apocalypse: 1.10 Liftoff (Patreon)

Liftoff 1.10

April 2015

We found the frozen bodies in another room of the hospital alongside the remains of other animals. They hadn’t largely been eaten yet, not enough time for that, but they were still a gruesome sight. Much like the sandshrew, their chest cavities had been torn out and their internal organs pulled free. With this, we could fully dismiss team two as having been killed in action. Without a pokemon with Odor Sleuth or some other means of detecting the sneasel, the outcome was a foregone conclusion.

Of the twelve of us, Luke and Alex had injured arms, one by sandshrew and the other because of Rocket. Tom had his shoulder mangled by a sneasel and a myriad other shallower cuts from wrestling the thing like a reckless fool. Jarvis and I were largely unharmed so we joined the rest of the men in clearing the hospital of bodies.

Then came loading up the trucks. We couldn’t afford to leave anything behind so twelve men were divided into six, two per truck, to make up for team two’s absence. We took what we could, not just hospital supplies and medicine we recognized, but different metals, wires, and a generator and water purifier we thought someone might be able to get working. Even so, it wasn’t enough. We couldn’t clear even a fifth of the hospital so we’d have to return eventually.

“Shane, we’re about to head out,” Jarvis called. “What’re you doing?”

We were about to leave but I had an idea. “Say, the sandshrew came in and made a burrow in the basement, right? And the sneasel came to chase their prey, making them aggressive?”

“Yeah? What about it?”

“So the sandshrew should calm down now, right?”

“Nope. No way in hell, man. We’re not going to get James’ body back.”

“Not now, that’d be stupid,” I agreed. I stripped off my jacket, covered in blood, grime, sweat, and some of Rocket’s fur. I also fetched the weavile’s corpse and placed it atop the jacket, leaving it just outside their burrow.

“What’s that supposed to do?”

“Pokemon are smart,” I explained. “I figure they’ll be able to connect the dots.”

“You think they’ll come join your team or something?” Jarvis asked skeptically. “Even if they do, trust me, the boys won’t like that. They killed James.”

“I know. An ice type sandslash sounds pretty cool, but you’re right, recruiting one would be hard. But I still want them to know what we went through to take out the weavile. Maybe next time, we won’t have any trouble with them when we have to come back here.”

“You really think they’re that smart?”

“Definitely. I reckon Rocket’s smarter than most of you.”

“Asshole. Alright, funny guy, let’s get going.”

“Yeah, let’s.”

X

The trip back was uneventful, if awkward as hell. We traveled in the same formation, with Rocket and I stationed at the back of our little convoy and Scout perched up front to rest his injured wing. As we weren’t transporting any food, the trip didn’t see us fighting any pokemon.

Tom, Jarvis, and I had developed something of a reputation for badassery. Not only did we take on four pokemon, one of which was fully evolved, we walked away without a single death between us. There was respect in the way the other men saw us, respect I felt was undeserved.

The truth was, I seriously thought I’d die several times over during that fight. We barely scraped by, and that was with Rocket taking on the weavile. Hell, without his senses, just the initial Ice Shard would have drilled a neat hole in the back of my skull and that’d have been that. If anything, the encounter proved just how out of our weight class pokemon truly were. For us “rangers” to be competitive with the wildlife, we needed pokemon.

So that was what I told them when asked to regale them with our exploits. Jarvis agreed. He might be ex-army, but he wasn’t some reckless jarhead who knew could distinguish Crayola colors by flavor and thought himself immortal. Pokemon were fucking terrifying, plain and simple.

It wasn’t all undeserved hero worship. Luke and Alex, and a few others, looked at Rocket and I like we were one step away from becoming serial killers. Their eyes were full of fear and mistrust. Javier didn’t think they’d do anything, but I felt that I should keep an eye on them anyway. With how critical pokemon were to our survival, that sentiment could bite us all in the ass.

All told, of the eighteen men who rode into Truckee, six were dead and three were injured enough to be out of the fight for a while. It was a somber trip back.

X

We arrived and Tom, Luke, and Alex were sent off to see Dr. Lansdowne, one of two doctors we had currently in Carnelian Bay and the only one who refused to leave Truckee when people started going down the mountain. Prognosis wasn’t good: the doc said Tom and Alex shouldn’t go out ranging for a few months. As for Luke, the sandshrew did a number on his arm. Blunt force trauma turned the bone to so many splinters and it was debatable whether he’d ever regain full usage of the arm.

While they did that, I helped the boys unload and organize our haul. Work needed doing, no matter who got injured. The bodies of team two were lined up and covered respectfully. If they had families, I didn’t know. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know.

Hunter and Shane Adams, the two resident mechanics, came by to drive off with the trucks. They’d all been loaded down with gasoline and I made sure Shane, other Shane, knew to get the boat fuel to the lake. Vincent Jackson did say he’d need that to keep some of his ships running.

After that, Rocket and I made ourselves scarce. It felt too awkward, standing around with men I didn’t know, mourning men I couldn’t even remember the names of. Maybe it wasn’t a good idea, probably made me look standoffish, but then again, I didn’t want to stand there and keep reminding them that I had a pokemon pal and they didn’t. Rocket scared people, and for damn good reasons.

We, Tom, Rocket, and I, reconvened in a few hours with his daughter over a light supper of canned beans, fresh tomatoes, and a whole bulb of roasted garlic.

Sabrina brushed her dirty-blonde bangs out of her eyes and eyed the sneasel and sandshrew corpses with a worried frown. Though I’d left the dead weavile with one of my jackets for the living sandshrew to smell, I’d made sure to bring back one sandshrew corpse and one sneasel for proof, not that I thought she’d doubt her dad.

The rest of the sneasel?

Meat was meat. Rocket had a couple new chew toys. Maybe I’d see about a necklace of red plumes later too.

“So, what do you think?” I asked her.

She looked at me hesitantly. “I’m not sure. I took a few ecology courses in grad school, but I’m a vet, not an ecologist. I don’t have the background to draw conclusions. At best, I’d be making an educated guess.”

“That’s better than what anyone else can manage,” Tom grunted. He was shirtless, with his shoulder bandaged up after the trip to Dr. Lansdowne. He sat in the corner, nursing a glass of pilfered bourbon. “Tell us what you think.”

“Well… We know that pokemon are eating each other. They’re smart, but this proves that predator-prey dynamics still exist, even in absence of human need,” she said cautiously.

“We knew that already.”

“We guessed. This is the first time we’ve seen actual evidence of a predatory pokemon specifically hunting down a nest of prey pokemon. You said the sandshrew were inside the hospital basement, right?” She paused and we nodded as one. “Well, that would mean the sneasel pack had to go out of their way to search them out. I figured pokemon would prefer to go after easier prey, but…”

“But maybe they liked the challenge?” I added. “It seems fairly consistent that pokemon strive to evolve. Not all of them, but most try in their own way, right?”

“Maybe, or maybe the pack developed a complex culture. Back when we were rubbing sticks together for fire, humans bragged about who could bag the biggest game.”

I gestured to the sandshrew’s hardened hide. “You think sneasel were hunting sandshrew, not just for sustenance, but because it was a way to brag about their hunting prowess? Prove themselves to the pack?”

“Maybe. You know how sneasel evolve with Razor Claw? What if what was a vague reference in the game is a more concrete part of their life cycle now? A culture of competition, and maybe even intragroup duels to the death, might be part of how a sneasel evolves. Again, I’m just making guesses. Like you said, Shane, pokemon are smart, smart enough to develop an ego.”

“Alright, fine. Pokemon packs are like little tribes with their own cultures,” Tom grunted. “What can you tell us about the sneasel physically? That’s more your thing, right?”

Sabrina nodded and picked up the body, showing not a hint of squeamishness. She motioned for us to get closer and expertly peeled back an eyelid. “Yeah, veterinary science focuses more on animal anatomy, nutrition, and physiology than ecology for sure. You can learn a lot about a creature’s hunting behavior by their adaptations.

“Take this eye for example. See how it’s big and round? Nice, fat pupils that are bigger than they should be on an animal this size, right? This shows that they’re adapted for hunting in low light, owls or big cats. I can’t be sure because the body’s already undergone rigor mortis, but I’m pretty sure the pupils don’t contract into slits either.”

“And what’s that tell us? Don’t all weasels have snake eyes?”

“They’re not snake eyes, dad. Slitted pupils maximize depth perception while you’re close to the ground. Cats, foxes, and other small hunters all have them too. It might surprise you, but big cats do not have slitted pupils. And neither do sneasel, and I’d guess weavile.

“This tells me that even though they’re small, they don’t hunt near the ground normally. Shane, do you remember what their dex entries say about them?”

I nodded. Of course I did. Fighting them for my life had a way of jogging my memory. “They like to eat eggs. So I’m guessing they’d prey on young birds too if they can get them.”

“Right. They’re egg thieves. Meaning they primarily hunt along treetops. It explains why their claws are more hooked than straight, as if they’re primarily for clinging to trees and uneven surfaces and combat second. This is why I said the sneasel pack might have been intentionally seeking out the sandshrew. Unless they went out of their way to look, I can’t think of a reason they’d normally interact.”

“Watch the trees, especially at night. Is that what you’re saying?”

“Yeah, I guess I am. Big pupils like these are also an indication that they’re hypersensitive to light. Try blinding them; it might be useful.”

“Thank you, Sabrina,” Tom said. “We lost a lot of good men today.”

“Now we know better, dad. It wasn’t your fault.”

“It sure doesn’t feel that way sometimes. Thanks for your help. How’s Spade been?”

“He’s fine. The little guy is helping to dig a well closer to the trailers. Maybe then we won’t have to go all the way down to the lake for fresh water.”

“Yeah, that’d be nice.”

We talked a bit more about what it meant to find an ice type sandshrew, but her guess was as good as mine. So far, our hypotheses ranged from Earth becoming an entirely separate region and the pokemon somehow rapidly evolving to suit our biosphere to a Team Rocket experiment of some kind that somehow made its way to the Cascades.

In the end, all we knew was that, coupled with the pika-clone I killed in the gas station, it wasn’t an isolated incident.

X

May 2015

Things settled down over the next few weeks into something resembling a pattern. Carnelian Bay was the kind of small town I’d have loved to grow up in: The view couldn’t be beat, everyone knew each other, and there was a sense of community that was simply absent in the cities of Before.

Granted, that was largely because of necessity, and I feared the children would grow up to be idiots with the half-assed education we had going on, but the town couldn’t win at everything.

I’d built a bit of a reputation for myself, both as a ranger and a recluse. With Tom incapacitated, there wasn’t anyone going around trying to organize large scale expeditions, which meant I was more or less left to my own devices.

I quickly fell into a routine of sorts. Rocket and I would vanish into the woods for two or three days. There, we did our best to hunt, firstly for ourselves and secondly for the town. We typically came back with an elk and several hares and fowls, more than enough to square away my contribution to the town’s continued prosperity.

When we weren’t out hunting, we were training near the town walls. I made it a point to train near the designated farmland as much as possible. Not only did it get me a fair bit of goodwill from farmers as we could be relied on to respond to threats on a dime, we also got to know some of the grass types fairly well.

I was hoping that I could entice an oddish or skiddo to my side by showing that I could help a pokemon improve. Even if none of them joined my team, I wanted Rocket to spar with the grass types and be exposed to grass type energy. Seed Bomb was one of the most important coverage options for linoone after all.

I’d had no such luck so far, but I was optimistic. At the very least, the skiddo were far less skittish around the linoone now. Unfortunately, the oddish were primarily nocturnal and we only caught sight of them once in a while during the dawn and dusk hours.

Rocket improved a great deal. The injuries he sustained against the weavile recovered flawlessly with a little help from Sabrina. Or perhaps that was the natural pokemon vitality at work. Either way, though I wouldn’t have said he was ready for combat of that level again, he was up and hunting again in mere days. Over the weeks, he quickly returned to fighting shape.

This time, we worked on Dig. It wouldn’t have helped against the weavile, but I saw it as an invaluable mobility and ambush option when we were out in the wild. He began by practicing his accuracy, tracking the vibrations of footsteps until he could consistently snatch a rabbit or pheasant hopping about on the surface. Then he moved on to incorporating Liftoff into his ambush, making him that much faster.

I really wanted to get him started on better ranged options, maybe Swift as it was both homing and a normal type move, but I wasn’t sure where to start.

Unfortunately, our frequent disappearances painted me out to be some sort of hermit. Even when I was in town, I was often training with Rocket, not exactly socializing. I tried to make up for this by eating lunch at the canteen instead of in my trailer as often as possible, but it was a work in progress.

On the plus side, the days were warming up. The way Pat told it, we were slowly relying less on the grass type pokemon to speed up growth. Oh, they were and likely always would be critical, but as the farmers cultivated more land, built up more seed, and the plants got more sun, they were seeing bigger yields.

The town either air dried or smoked most of the food, meaning we had a bigger need for wood. They also expanded the cafeteria area, making a central food storage facility that had several dedicated organizers. Throw in the completion of the fish farming operation and things were looking up.

X

I leaned back against a tree trunk as I read by the fire. We were out in the wilds again, nestled in a little trough of dirt that Rocket dug for us. He was currently dozing with his head in my lap, sleeping off a food coma from the bull elk we killed. As the hunters, we got the choicest portions for ourselves and it wasn’t uncommon for us to turn our camps into a feast.

Though the cervids shed their antlers in February and March, they already boasted big bulbs covered in thick, plush velvet in May for me to easily tell them apart. The does, I tried to leave alone, as was proper.

“There are a grand total of four dungeons near the Lake Tahoe area,” I read aloud. It was a copy of the notes Sabrina had gathered so far.

According to her, Carnelian Bay knew of just four dungeons nearby: three found by the rangers, one by Vincent. That last one in particular worried her somewhat as  it was located entirely underwater. There was one at the base of the air traffic control tower, another near the Rubicon Trail trailhead south of the town, and a third near the Stampede Reservoir, which was the one I’d passed on my way from Sierraville.

I didn’t think there would be so many in such a small radius. A former ranger team had gone into the airport dungeon, only to never return. Based on news reports from before the collapse of other dungeons, what few examples we had, Sabrina guessed that it was a flying type dungeon of some sort, though what precisely the challenge was, was anyone’s guess. It could be that the dungeon refused to allow any form of retreat. Or it could be that the team misjudged the difficulty of the challenge, pressing on at the prospect of an unlocked aura only to be faced with hidden depths.

In the interest of preserving resources and manpower, no other attempts had been made to explore them since. Considering the way a single encounter with a sneasel pack killed six men, I didn’t think anyone else would be eager either.

X

June 2015

About two months after we’d moved to Carnelian Bay, Rocket and I came across something that shattered our isolationist routine.

The two of us were returning from a fruitful three-day hunt, dragging behind the carcass of a large, bull elk. I also had four and a half rabbits strapped to a paracord line by their little feet. We were headed to the Icebox, what the town started to call our central food storage, when we noticed a dozen people gathered around the warehouse, gawking like schoolchildren.

I saw Jarvis hanging back and headed over. “Hey, Jarvis. What’s going on?”

He looked at me, then down at Rocket. “Shane. You just coming back?”

“Yeah, had a good hunt. Why’s everybody standing around the Icebox?”

“Something broke into storage last night. It’s got people up in arms. Come on, I’ll show you.”

So saying, he shouldered his way past the crowd. As we got past the throng of bodies, I saw what he meant. From the outside, the warehouse didn’t look any different but inside, it was a mess.

Both the meat and vegetable storage had been broken into. There were a set of deep furrows carved into the concrete, as well as scattered food and plastic, as if something had wrestled with the plastic containers to crack and tear into them. It was clearly the work of a pokemon.

“Well, shit,” I groaned as we headed back to the front. “We know who did this?”

“Yeah, that fucking weasel you’ve got is suspect number one!” I heard. I turned to find Alex glaring at me. He still had his arm in bandages and so had been relegated to helping sort the food. Behind him were several more people, a few of them I recognized as butchers or town chefs here. None of them looked happy.

“What the hell are you on about? We were out hunting, genius. We weren’t even in town for the past few days.”

“Like hell you were. You probably came back at night to fuck us over. See those claws? What else could have done that? They’re even nice and low to the ground too.”

Rocket growled low beside me, making people step back nervously.

I slung the bag of meat I’d been carrying onto the ground. It fell with a dull thump and the drawstring came loose, dropping most of a bull elk we’d been lugging around. I pulled off the rope of rabbits and threw that on top as well. “Again. We were out hunting, dumbass. Meat just magically pops up out of nowhere, does it?”

“Enough of that,” Jarvis said, stepping between us before Rocket could use the idiot’s other arm as a chew toy too. “Shane’s right. He’s been hunting so you can cool it, Alex.”

“Well what else did it then?” someone else asked. “That linoone’s the only pokemon we have with claws like that.”

“You’re forgetting Spade the drilbur.”

“The what?”

I sighed. Pokemon might have been a globally popular franchise, but the fifth gen wasn’t exactly as well-known as the others. “Ground type. Mole. Big claws. Sabrina Swanson has him but I doubt it’s him either.”

“Well we’ve only got one suspect here.”

Austin McAllen, the mayor’s son, walked over with Sabrina. The two looked a bit out of breath and was sweating slightly despite the brisk morning air. “We can confirm Shane’s alibi. Rocket was my first guess too, no offense, so I ran off to check with the gate guards. Shane took Rocket with him three days ago.”

“Some offense taken,” I drawled sarcastically, “but at least you’re smart enough to check things out before pointing fingers.”

“Then what raided the food supplies?”

A heavyset woman pushed her way through to the front of the crowd. I recognized her as one of the people who regularly handed me small pouches of spices and herbs for Rocket in exchange for a fresh fowl or two. We hadn’t talked much, and I barely remembered her name, but she did teach me some more efficient ways to clean and portion venison.

She shot the accusing men a derisive look and tossed something onto the desk. It was a silvery steel, but not in any shape I recognized. It was bulbous and rounded, as though someone had cast a puddle with aluminum.

“You idiots don’t bother looking, do you? You saw the big gashes and didn’t look deeper,” she said. “Whatever raided the Icebox also did this. This used to be one of the meathooks in the smokehouse.”

Sabrina leaned over curiously. “Melted straight into a puddle, huh? Definitely not Rocket. Or Spade for that matter. So you boys can stop pointing fingers.”

“A poison type then,” Austin added. “I can’t think of a move besides something like Acid that would eat through stuff like this.”

“A poison type with sharp claws?”

“Maybe not like a mammal though. The gouges left behind don’t look like a pokemon with three claws per paw or something. Just one.”

This honestly pissed me off. It’s not like I’d been lazing around. The moment something happened, that fuckwit Alex decided to use it to settle a petty grudge. Even after the evidence exonerated Rocket, some of the people were looking at him like he was a thief. I took a deep breath and tried to be the bigger man. The best way to clear Rocket’s name would be to find the real culprit. Then I could happily tell Alex and his moronic friends to eat shit.

I considered what we knew. Singular claws, sharp, and maybe with some crushing force. They also had acid, or maybe fire that could melt a meathook into a pretty puddle.

“A skorupi,” I said. “Bug and poison dual type from Sinnoh.”

“Aren’t they more desert-dwellers?” Austin said.

“They’re found in southern SInnoh, the Great Marsh if I remember right.”

“Ah, yeah. That’s still too warm compared to here, surely. But otherwise, I could see it. Big claws, strong poison, probably eat whatever they can get their pincers on.”

“Might be a variant, like the sandshrew,” Sabrina said. “We thought sandshrew were desert-dwellers too, remember? Then you rangers ran into an ice type variant.”

Jarvis grunted. “Don’t remind me.”

“How about toxicroak? They’re poison types too, and don’t they have a single, sharp claw?”

“They do,” I said, “but amphibians don’t do well in the cold either, right? I mean, I guess we can say they might be variants too, but I don’t think that’s helpful.”

“Ehh, the Sierra-Nevadas are home to a type of frog actually. The yellow-legged frog, I think. I read about it. But you’re right for the most part. We should stick to the possibilities we know.”

A few more options were considered, only to be thrown out. Beedrill, because the gouges were along the ground and because we rangers would have spotted at least the hint of a hive. A grass type with both Acid and Razor Leaf, like oddish or gloom, because they didn’t need this kind of sustenance.

“It could be a nidorino or something,” Austin said. “Who said it has to be a claw? Singular gouges like this could be a horn instead. It’d explain the thrashing and the mess they left of the rest of the food.”

“Point. But by that logic, it doesn’t need to be a poison type either,” I pointed out. “Fire could melt steel just as easily as acid, right? And we might be more likely to see a fire type in the mountains than a poison type, especially since they can keep themselves warm.”

“Crap, you might be right.”

“We don’t know enough,” Sabrina said with a sigh. “We can guess that they came along the ground, or maybe beneath it, but that’s way too many possibilities.”

“So what do we do?” I asked.

“I can get dad to post Scout as a guard during the day, but he’s diurnal,” she said. She looked at some of the blank faces and sighed. “He sleeps at night.”

“How about Rocket then?” Jarvis said. “He’s got amazing senses. He could keep a lookout right?”

“And leave the weasel with the food? You’re fucking with me,” Alex said, feeling awfully brave since he knew Rocket wouldnt’ rip his face off right this moment. “Watch, I’m still saying he did it.”

“You’re a dumbass, Alex, shut up. So, Shane?”

I flipped Alex off. In the end, this was Rocket’s choice. I gave him a good scratch behind the ears. “Up to you, bud. If you want, we could just ditch and go out on another hunting trip for a week or two. If this shit keeps happening, they’ll know for sure we’re not the problem.”

“Come on, Shane,” Sabrina urged. “Rocket’s Odor Sleuth is incredible. We’d have a better shot at finding the real culprit if he helped.”

“Then stop treating Rocket like a thief. Shitty way to ask for help. ‘Clear his name?’ Fuck off with that shit; he’s clear.”

“I’m not saying he isn’t,” she said, shooting them a dirty glare. “It’s everybody’s food that’s on the line though.”

“Still up to Rocket.”

Rocket climbed up onto the table. He took a sniff of the metal and shook his head. “Lin.”

“Don’t know what that means, bud. Is that ‘I want nothing to do with this,’ or is that ‘I can’t smell anything suspicious?’” He tapped his foot twice. “Okay, fine, second one. Too many smells here. People, food, carcass processing next door…”

“We’d still rather have Rocket to sniff the culprit down if they show up again.”

“Fine, you in, bud?”

“Linoone,” he barked with a nod.

I sighed in disappointment. Truthfully, I was hoping he’d join me on a long hunting trip out of town, maybe let these idiots figure things out for themselves. Alas, pokemon. I could imagine his train of logic: Carnelian Bay was home now, which meant these people, no matter how stupid, were his people. I didn’t think he had pack instincts or anything of that nature, but he wanted to help.

Rocket was a better person than I.

“Fine, let’s go, Rocket. We’re done here.”

“Where are you going, mate?” Austin called.

“We’re going to look around town. We have a few suspects, right? I may as well check things out. It’ll be more productive than standing around here with my thumbs up my ass.”

“Ah, yeah. Good luck.”

“Yup.”

“Come back and check in with me if you find something,” Sabrina called. “I’ll go through what I know on my end too.”

I waved behind me as Rocket trotted along at my side. This whole thing left a bad taste in my mouth. I knew we weren’t the most social pair, but I’d thought Rocket and I had earned some measure of trust from the town. I did realize I was letting the vocal minority get to me, but I couldn’t help it. This shit reminded me of the reason I’d left Bend.

Grumbling, I headed out to check out my first lead. What Sabrina said about toxicroak made me wonder. I didn’t think it was likely, but crossing the possibility off the list would be good in itself. Maybe Rocket would be able to sniff something out near the lake shore with far fewer people and distractions.

Besides, Vincent and his buddies were always good for a chat. They always had a fresh fish or two for Rocket to snack on. And considering no one was bleeding out in the warehouse for talking shit, I thought he earned the treat.

Author’s Note

A couple short timeskips this chapter.

Towns are great, but you do have to take the dumbasses with the normal folk unfortunately. Sometimes, it means getting caught up in commitments you didn’t actually want.

Animal fact? The biggest scorpion in the world is the giant forest scorpion, which is a whopping nine inches long. However, despite how scary it looks, its venom is relatively weak because it has arguably evolved to crush prey with its superior size and weight rather than envenom it.

In fact, even the deadliest scorpion is not usually lethal to a healthy, adult human. The scorpion with the deadliest venom is the deathstalker, also known as the Palestine yellow scorpion (no points for guessing where it’s found).

And yes, if the “deathstalker” sounds familiar, that’s because RWBY copied the name.

Also, obligatory year-end feedback survey: https://forms.gle/6kkjjgHEz7AfartB8