Fic: 50 Definitions of a Pokemon Ranger
Title: 50 Definitions of a Pokemon Ranger
Fandom: Pokemon Ranger
Word Count: 2600
done for the sentences Danielle gave me.
1. lightning
Once upon a time, in a life that's no longer hers, Solana memorized the type charts -- Ground trumps Electric but can't touch Flying, which gets trumped by Electric -- and these days, she's shocking and Spenser has wings, but they've become the two most grounded people in Fiore.
2. stalker
"Don't look, little bro, but I think that Minun is following you."
3. love
"Oh finally," Lunick says, lowering his teacup into its saucer and missing, so busy is he watching Solana's retreating figure, "and I thought she'd never catch on;" Charizard reaches across the wrought iron table and pats his hand sympathetically.
4. birth
In that moment, the mistress's greatest wish came true; Gordor whooped in a most ungentlemanly manner and kissed his wife on her sweaty mouth, and the maid left them in the care of her Wartortle and ran out to tell the three small boys, "It's a girl!"
5. reincarnation
Gordor had no time for the stars, but Hasting's voice drew his eyes up like the pull of the moon, especially when he said things like, "If this planet is called New Earth, does that mean there's an old one?"
6. canary
He doesn't want to know what his face looked like since Solana laughed at him so, but she explained, "We put two male Chatots where they could see a female but couldn't see each other; that's why the Base is suddenly full of such music!" and he informs her that some of us like to think, and she goes, "since when?"
7. cloud
Spenser never asks whether or not she had her parent's permission to become a Ranger, and Solana never volunteers the information.
8. lining
There is a crash of thunder and suddenly there's a woman in the doorway, her hair plastered to her skull -- the perfect shade of blue -- and at the sight of Solana, Styler on her hip and Plusle dangling from her shoulder, she claps her hands to her lips, "Oh, don't you look so grown up!"
9. silk
The Mew visited Percy so many times after being captured and released in the Olive Jungle that he stopped being awed; he took the time to notice the exact shade of its eyes, the way it giggled as it somersaulted in midair above his desk, the texture of its fur underneath his fingers, how it studied him as much as he studied it; finally, he realized it was teaching him -- putting the "Pokemon" back in "Pokemon Ranger."
10. speed
It's taken him three years to get to Rank Three; she got to Rank Ten in two days, but at the slightest suggestion of romantic interest she balks and comes to a dead halt and Murph just smiles; if there's one thing he's good at, it's biding his time.
11. sword
People keep on mentioning how she was mentored by Spenser, like it should be listed on her card -- under age, birth date, sex, and favorite flavor of ice cream -- but he only taught her to capture a Taillow; the rest of it -- the Go-Rock Squad, the legendaries, saving Fiore with Plusle at her side -- that was her, self-taught, her own style, but there will always be that one shadow she'll never eclipse.
12. fighting
He might know this, but he believes actions speak louder than words and in that regard she has never failed him.
13. evil
After blowing up his base and his subsequent loss at the summit of Fiore Temple, Gordor never does talk to his children again; the family goes quietly and painfully supernova, and nobody notices.
14. stones
The day Solana almost breaks her oath to preserve and protect Pokemon is the day she meets Regirock.
15. auburn
Their firstborn has a head full of thick, navy curls; the second has an adorable forest green cowlick; the third -- for some reason neither of them can fathom, although Spenser watches Joel so closely for a month that the latter takes to sleeping with a baseball bat -- is blonde, and finally, after Solana goes into labor for the fourth time, Spenser has to admit they had better give up on getting the perfect shade of turquoise, as the baby is a carrot top.
16. jacket
Lunick steps out real quick to run down to the Pokemon Center in Fortree, and when he returns to his apartment, the neighbor's little girl is playing with her dolls on the living room floor, dressed in his old uniform; shorts bagging around her ankles and sleeves unbuttoned, and his heart might have broken (but only a little bit.)
17. earring
"I don't know," Tiffany goes, stopping to look at jewelry in a shop window; out of the corner of her eye, she sees Solana edging towards a stack of cages filled with underfed Skitty at the end of the avenue, vengeance in her eyes, "I sort of miss confetti flying every time I say my name."
18. scar
She almost got scissored in half by an angry Granbull once, and when he kisses the perfect jaw-shaped constellation on her stomach, she swats at him and tells him to stop, that's gross, and he doesn't tell her that he'd been there, watching these same wounds pump blood like a wellspring, and that he'd take these thin, white lines any day.
19. golden
Gordor still sees Capture Rings in his sleep, breaking on the back of his eyelids when he wakes up, grinding his teeth.
20. painting
"It's all very well done," Joel says politely, tilting his head back to survey the giant portrait that dominated the lobby of Hasting's laboratory, "but it really doesn't look a thing like us."
21. map
After the third disparaging inquiry after whether or not he could please do something useful, Murph is forced to admit that he has a birthmark on his left buttock that is a perfect floorplan for the Kanto-Johto Victory Road.
22. cactus
As nervous as Joel is about representing the entire Fiore region, he fights the hysterical urge to laugh at the disapproval on Cynthia's face and the carnal curiosity in Wallace's when Lance dismounts from his Dragonite, cape swirling around him and hair gelled to resemble the business end of a Cacturne and announcing loudly, "Sorry I'm late; I had to water my Berries."
23. chief
"I didn't do much, honest," goes Solana, a bit snappish after the third time she gets praised, "I just ran a couple loops around them while Gordor was monologuing himself to death."
24. drugs
"Hey," she says softly from the doorway, "The Vulpix just came out of surgery and I'm going to run and get an IV drip real quick; can you keep an eye on her?" and Lunick nods without saying a word, and when she's gone, he puts his hand in his pocket and turns the ring over between his fingers.
25. curls
In some other life, Solana is nothing more than a girl, hair cerulean in the sunlight and flowing behind her in ringlets, dashing across the street to make it to some dead-end job selling special edition magazines on Meowth grooming; she bumps shoulders with a strange, green-haired man, and he turns and apologizes, she says don't worry about it and moves on, because she sees nothing remarkable (how often do we not even see the road less traveled.)
26. rain
Murph winds up at the Weather Institute in Hoenn without being sure how, and meets a pretty girl named Tiffany who says she's tracking Kyogre by marking the areas that have the harshest downpours; he has no way of knowing who she is, and when he smiles at her, she smiles back, shy and curious.
27. murder
The file is placed on Spenser's dumbwaiter, the stamped letters of "homicide" fresh and new underneath the Hastings Detective Agency logo, but he isn't there to open it -- busy as he is with the newest recruit from Kentucky and her electric blue highlights -- and somewhere, a coroner is removing bits of Lunick -- called Luke by his friends and Icky by his little sister, but an autopsies don't care about that -- from a garbage bag.
28. postcard
She learns, fast, that things in Fiore aren't always going to be as exciting as her first few weeks were and she feels a little betrayed, like someone promised her a garden of Roselias and all she got were thorns.
29. ribbon
Elita suddenly finds herself needing to get married (as in, before nine months are up) and while her sisters knot the bodice of her wedding dress, they run through all possible grooms; Prima suggests Joel and Nobella suggests Spenser, and Elita scathingly informs them that Joel and Spenser are both as gay as a yellow submarine.
30. racing
Somewhere between getting shoved around the Dusk Factory and being whisked away to Summerland to ask Cameron about an Aquamole, Solana wonders, wistfully, what it must be like to have free will.
31. death
Lady's sister tried to get her to come home, but she stubbornly stayed put, going on and on about how she was sure Fall City wasn't safe until she saw Joel ride past on his Dodrio; her sister flinched with embarrassment at there being any familial connection between them, and said fine, stay there, she'd return for her skeleton!
32. mail
The thirty-second Leader of Ringtown is doing some terminal cleaning of his office, and finds a hidden compartment in his desk; he pulls out seven very, very old letters, written in slanted, earnest girl script in -- fancy that! -- ink of all crazy things and folded so many times from obvious readings and rereadings -- and with a shrug, he tosses them in with the trash.
33. flower
A single mountain daisy, pinned to her coat-hook every morning, and Elita smiles and wears it in her hair; the vibrant yellow doesn't really work with her purple, but the smile on Chris's face when he sees it makes it worth it.
34. dress
Aria makes her spin in place, bobby pins stuck between her teeth like a Sharpedo, and Solana blurts out the first thing that comes to mind, "I can't feel a breeze on my butt anymore!"
35. legs
Freddie's eyes were on way her thighs clenched through her leggings when she walked, at least until the Wintown Leader turned to him and snapped, "Let's get something straight; I'm not!"
36. skin
Technically, Aria is still married, as Joel arrived too late into the ceremony to stop that part, but he still regards it as the greatest thing he'd ever done, stealing her away from the altar with a "this is not you" and "Fall City is waiting" and his hand in hers, life flowing and ebbing between them like it was too large to be contained, like this was the end of their physical lives and the beginning of the ethereal.
37. warmth
They have sex on the tables in Wintown before the Base even wakes up; regardless, she manages to burn herself on a teapot and cusses softly; his chuckle is hoarse against her earlobe and says now isn’t she glad Ringtown keeps their tables clear.
38. age
A woman comes in Wintown every now and then, white hair tucked up under her hood; she greets all the Snorunt and goes to stand in front of the ruins of some old, decrepit Ranger Base, and the villagers say, well, isn't that sad?
39. anger
When the revolution reached Fiore, as all revolutions tend to, everyone expected the gentle, peace-loving Summerland Rangers to buckle first, but indeed, those who sleep the longest often wake up with a towering temper.
40. deception
Hastings thinks his veins might burst with the agony, because that's Gordor standing there at the end of the world, twisted with age and those dear little Rangers cowering at his feet, and he's going to destroy everything and Hastings knows it's all his fault -- he isn't sure how yet, but he'll take the blame; isn't that what friends do?
41. rage
With a thunderclap of feathers, her Leader appears in front of her, startling her so bad she doesn't immediately notice his face is red and his eyes are wild, but then he's yelling at her, and it isn't until, "I'm the only one in this Base allowed to risk his life," is torn from his throat like glass that her mind clicks, and she catches herself against him, and Spenser tastes like mortality (or maybe mortality tastes like Spenser.)
42. magic
"She's supposedly a goddess among Rangers," goes Lunick wistfully when inquired about the Leader of Wintown, "with hair that's continually waving around her face -- even when there's not a lick of wind, which is odd."
43. water
Her maroon hair tangled and sweaty, Rhonda upends her canteen over her mouth with no reward, Lunick shakes his to show her that he cannot help her, and without a word, Solana gives them the last of hers; he says thank you, Leader, and Solana blanches; behind them, Ringtown smolders into ashes.
44. clan
Trying to be helpful, Teresa tells them she once met a pack of Rangers while staying on an island off the coast of Sinnoh and perhaps they could ask them, but Aria waves her away, "Those aren't real Rangers; those are the nature-nut, environmentally-militant, lunatic version."
45. wind
"You think it's messy now," Joel observes dryly, and Spenser becomes abruptly fascinated with a fake flower display on the nearest table, "you should have seen his hair after we passed the Flygon challenge in the Jungle Relic."
46. match
In his old age, Cameron often complained to his children and grandchildren that the Rangers of Ringtown, Fall City, and Wintown were so busy being ... you know, Rangers, that they didn't have time for good wine -- much of which Cameron brewed himself after retirement -- or even romancing, and that's why they had to hunt in foreign lands for recruits.
47. glass
The eggshell was thin and clear like still waters and Solana remembers how warm it felt underneath her hands; the Trainer emails her pictures of Manaphy after it hatches, and it makes her palms tingle and her heart feel crystalline.
48. script
He fell way behind on the news from the Ranger Net, and when asked about it, he shrugged and mumbled something about his daughter changing the font and him being unable to either read it or change it back.
49. betrayal
"Don't be like your brother, Lunick," his parents tell him every day like religion, and Lunick seethes silently; he wasn't the one that broke their hearts by running off and becoming a Pokemon Ranger on some island far, far away (and frankly, he was beginning to think emulating Spenser's example might not be such a bad idea.)
50. leader
History doesn't remember them as anything more than a list of names, one or two occasionally as a footnote underneath a larger historical landmark (see Go-Rock Uprising, The) and it was the general consensus that they'd done all right until democracy and organized politics came to the Pokemon world, but history never remembers the people, the way they smiled or how they talked or how bright they made the lives of the Pokemon they protected, or even how beautiful they looked on their wedding days.
Fandom: Pokemon Ranger
Word Count: 2600
done for the sentences Danielle gave me.
1. lightning
Once upon a time, in a life that's no longer hers, Solana memorized the type charts -- Ground trumps Electric but can't touch Flying, which gets trumped by Electric -- and these days, she's shocking and Spenser has wings, but they've become the two most grounded people in Fiore.
2. stalker
"Don't look, little bro, but I think that Minun is following you."
3. love
"Oh finally," Lunick says, lowering his teacup into its saucer and missing, so busy is he watching Solana's retreating figure, "and I thought she'd never catch on;" Charizard reaches across the wrought iron table and pats his hand sympathetically.
4. birth
In that moment, the mistress's greatest wish came true; Gordor whooped in a most ungentlemanly manner and kissed his wife on her sweaty mouth, and the maid left them in the care of her Wartortle and ran out to tell the three small boys, "It's a girl!"
5. reincarnation
Gordor had no time for the stars, but Hasting's voice drew his eyes up like the pull of the moon, especially when he said things like, "If this planet is called New Earth, does that mean there's an old one?"
6. canary
He doesn't want to know what his face looked like since Solana laughed at him so, but she explained, "We put two male Chatots where they could see a female but couldn't see each other; that's why the Base is suddenly full of such music!" and he informs her that some of us like to think, and she goes, "since when?"
7. cloud
Spenser never asks whether or not she had her parent's permission to become a Ranger, and Solana never volunteers the information.
8. lining
There is a crash of thunder and suddenly there's a woman in the doorway, her hair plastered to her skull -- the perfect shade of blue -- and at the sight of Solana, Styler on her hip and Plusle dangling from her shoulder, she claps her hands to her lips, "Oh, don't you look so grown up!"
9. silk
The Mew visited Percy so many times after being captured and released in the Olive Jungle that he stopped being awed; he took the time to notice the exact shade of its eyes, the way it giggled as it somersaulted in midair above his desk, the texture of its fur underneath his fingers, how it studied him as much as he studied it; finally, he realized it was teaching him -- putting the "Pokemon" back in "Pokemon Ranger."
10. speed
It's taken him three years to get to Rank Three; she got to Rank Ten in two days, but at the slightest suggestion of romantic interest she balks and comes to a dead halt and Murph just smiles; if there's one thing he's good at, it's biding his time.
11. sword
People keep on mentioning how she was mentored by Spenser, like it should be listed on her card -- under age, birth date, sex, and favorite flavor of ice cream -- but he only taught her to capture a Taillow; the rest of it -- the Go-Rock Squad, the legendaries, saving Fiore with Plusle at her side -- that was her, self-taught, her own style, but there will always be that one shadow she'll never eclipse.
12. fighting
He might know this, but he believes actions speak louder than words and in that regard she has never failed him.
13. evil
After blowing up his base and his subsequent loss at the summit of Fiore Temple, Gordor never does talk to his children again; the family goes quietly and painfully supernova, and nobody notices.
14. stones
The day Solana almost breaks her oath to preserve and protect Pokemon is the day she meets Regirock.
15. auburn
Their firstborn has a head full of thick, navy curls; the second has an adorable forest green cowlick; the third -- for some reason neither of them can fathom, although Spenser watches Joel so closely for a month that the latter takes to sleeping with a baseball bat -- is blonde, and finally, after Solana goes into labor for the fourth time, Spenser has to admit they had better give up on getting the perfect shade of turquoise, as the baby is a carrot top.
16. jacket
Lunick steps out real quick to run down to the Pokemon Center in Fortree, and when he returns to his apartment, the neighbor's little girl is playing with her dolls on the living room floor, dressed in his old uniform; shorts bagging around her ankles and sleeves unbuttoned, and his heart might have broken (but only a little bit.)
17. earring
"I don't know," Tiffany goes, stopping to look at jewelry in a shop window; out of the corner of her eye, she sees Solana edging towards a stack of cages filled with underfed Skitty at the end of the avenue, vengeance in her eyes, "I sort of miss confetti flying every time I say my name."
18. scar
She almost got scissored in half by an angry Granbull once, and when he kisses the perfect jaw-shaped constellation on her stomach, she swats at him and tells him to stop, that's gross, and he doesn't tell her that he'd been there, watching these same wounds pump blood like a wellspring, and that he'd take these thin, white lines any day.
19. golden
Gordor still sees Capture Rings in his sleep, breaking on the back of his eyelids when he wakes up, grinding his teeth.
20. painting
"It's all very well done," Joel says politely, tilting his head back to survey the giant portrait that dominated the lobby of Hasting's laboratory, "but it really doesn't look a thing like us."
21. map
After the third disparaging inquiry after whether or not he could please do something useful, Murph is forced to admit that he has a birthmark on his left buttock that is a perfect floorplan for the Kanto-Johto Victory Road.
22. cactus
As nervous as Joel is about representing the entire Fiore region, he fights the hysterical urge to laugh at the disapproval on Cynthia's face and the carnal curiosity in Wallace's when Lance dismounts from his Dragonite, cape swirling around him and hair gelled to resemble the business end of a Cacturne and announcing loudly, "Sorry I'm late; I had to water my Berries."
23. chief
"I didn't do much, honest," goes Solana, a bit snappish after the third time she gets praised, "I just ran a couple loops around them while Gordor was monologuing himself to death."
24. drugs
"Hey," she says softly from the doorway, "The Vulpix just came out of surgery and I'm going to run and get an IV drip real quick; can you keep an eye on her?" and Lunick nods without saying a word, and when she's gone, he puts his hand in his pocket and turns the ring over between his fingers.
25. curls
In some other life, Solana is nothing more than a girl, hair cerulean in the sunlight and flowing behind her in ringlets, dashing across the street to make it to some dead-end job selling special edition magazines on Meowth grooming; she bumps shoulders with a strange, green-haired man, and he turns and apologizes, she says don't worry about it and moves on, because she sees nothing remarkable (how often do we not even see the road less traveled.)
26. rain
Murph winds up at the Weather Institute in Hoenn without being sure how, and meets a pretty girl named Tiffany who says she's tracking Kyogre by marking the areas that have the harshest downpours; he has no way of knowing who she is, and when he smiles at her, she smiles back, shy and curious.
27. murder
The file is placed on Spenser's dumbwaiter, the stamped letters of "homicide" fresh and new underneath the Hastings Detective Agency logo, but he isn't there to open it -- busy as he is with the newest recruit from Kentucky and her electric blue highlights -- and somewhere, a coroner is removing bits of Lunick -- called Luke by his friends and Icky by his little sister, but an autopsies don't care about that -- from a garbage bag.
28. postcard
She learns, fast, that things in Fiore aren't always going to be as exciting as her first few weeks were and she feels a little betrayed, like someone promised her a garden of Roselias and all she got were thorns.
29. ribbon
Elita suddenly finds herself needing to get married (as in, before nine months are up) and while her sisters knot the bodice of her wedding dress, they run through all possible grooms; Prima suggests Joel and Nobella suggests Spenser, and Elita scathingly informs them that Joel and Spenser are both as gay as a yellow submarine.
30. racing
Somewhere between getting shoved around the Dusk Factory and being whisked away to Summerland to ask Cameron about an Aquamole, Solana wonders, wistfully, what it must be like to have free will.
31. death
Lady's sister tried to get her to come home, but she stubbornly stayed put, going on and on about how she was sure Fall City wasn't safe until she saw Joel ride past on his Dodrio; her sister flinched with embarrassment at there being any familial connection between them, and said fine, stay there, she'd return for her skeleton!
32. mail
The thirty-second Leader of Ringtown is doing some terminal cleaning of his office, and finds a hidden compartment in his desk; he pulls out seven very, very old letters, written in slanted, earnest girl script in -- fancy that! -- ink of all crazy things and folded so many times from obvious readings and rereadings -- and with a shrug, he tosses them in with the trash.
33. flower
A single mountain daisy, pinned to her coat-hook every morning, and Elita smiles and wears it in her hair; the vibrant yellow doesn't really work with her purple, but the smile on Chris's face when he sees it makes it worth it.
34. dress
Aria makes her spin in place, bobby pins stuck between her teeth like a Sharpedo, and Solana blurts out the first thing that comes to mind, "I can't feel a breeze on my butt anymore!"
35. legs
Freddie's eyes were on way her thighs clenched through her leggings when she walked, at least until the Wintown Leader turned to him and snapped, "Let's get something straight; I'm not!"
36. skin
Technically, Aria is still married, as Joel arrived too late into the ceremony to stop that part, but he still regards it as the greatest thing he'd ever done, stealing her away from the altar with a "this is not you" and "Fall City is waiting" and his hand in hers, life flowing and ebbing between them like it was too large to be contained, like this was the end of their physical lives and the beginning of the ethereal.
37. warmth
They have sex on the tables in Wintown before the Base even wakes up; regardless, she manages to burn herself on a teapot and cusses softly; his chuckle is hoarse against her earlobe and says now isn’t she glad Ringtown keeps their tables clear.
38. age
A woman comes in Wintown every now and then, white hair tucked up under her hood; she greets all the Snorunt and goes to stand in front of the ruins of some old, decrepit Ranger Base, and the villagers say, well, isn't that sad?
39. anger
When the revolution reached Fiore, as all revolutions tend to, everyone expected the gentle, peace-loving Summerland Rangers to buckle first, but indeed, those who sleep the longest often wake up with a towering temper.
40. deception
Hastings thinks his veins might burst with the agony, because that's Gordor standing there at the end of the world, twisted with age and those dear little Rangers cowering at his feet, and he's going to destroy everything and Hastings knows it's all his fault -- he isn't sure how yet, but he'll take the blame; isn't that what friends do?
41. rage
With a thunderclap of feathers, her Leader appears in front of her, startling her so bad she doesn't immediately notice his face is red and his eyes are wild, but then he's yelling at her, and it isn't until, "I'm the only one in this Base allowed to risk his life," is torn from his throat like glass that her mind clicks, and she catches herself against him, and Spenser tastes like mortality (or maybe mortality tastes like Spenser.)
42. magic
"She's supposedly a goddess among Rangers," goes Lunick wistfully when inquired about the Leader of Wintown, "with hair that's continually waving around her face -- even when there's not a lick of wind, which is odd."
43. water
Her maroon hair tangled and sweaty, Rhonda upends her canteen over her mouth with no reward, Lunick shakes his to show her that he cannot help her, and without a word, Solana gives them the last of hers; he says thank you, Leader, and Solana blanches; behind them, Ringtown smolders into ashes.
44. clan
Trying to be helpful, Teresa tells them she once met a pack of Rangers while staying on an island off the coast of Sinnoh and perhaps they could ask them, but Aria waves her away, "Those aren't real Rangers; those are the nature-nut, environmentally-militant, lunatic version."
45. wind
"You think it's messy now," Joel observes dryly, and Spenser becomes abruptly fascinated with a fake flower display on the nearest table, "you should have seen his hair after we passed the Flygon challenge in the Jungle Relic."
46. match
In his old age, Cameron often complained to his children and grandchildren that the Rangers of Ringtown, Fall City, and Wintown were so busy being ... you know, Rangers, that they didn't have time for good wine -- much of which Cameron brewed himself after retirement -- or even romancing, and that's why they had to hunt in foreign lands for recruits.
47. glass
The eggshell was thin and clear like still waters and Solana remembers how warm it felt underneath her hands; the Trainer emails her pictures of Manaphy after it hatches, and it makes her palms tingle and her heart feel crystalline.
48. script
He fell way behind on the news from the Ranger Net, and when asked about it, he shrugged and mumbled something about his daughter changing the font and him being unable to either read it or change it back.
49. betrayal
"Don't be like your brother, Lunick," his parents tell him every day like religion, and Lunick seethes silently; he wasn't the one that broke their hearts by running off and becoming a Pokemon Ranger on some island far, far away (and frankly, he was beginning to think emulating Spenser's example might not be such a bad idea.)
50. leader
History doesn't remember them as anything more than a list of names, one or two occasionally as a footnote underneath a larger historical landmark (see Go-Rock Uprising, The) and it was the general consensus that they'd done all right until democracy and organized politics came to the Pokemon world, but history never remembers the people, the way they smiled or how they talked or how bright they made the lives of the Pokemon they protected, or even how beautiful they looked on their wedding days.