[You have detected an anomaly in the system shop. You have been given 10 free status points as a reward.]
"Daddy what just happened?"
"We can talk about that later son. First things first."
Suddenly a berry appeared in Green's hand and he ate it quickly. Emily tried to stop him but was a beat to slow. A faint glow came from under the bandages before fading away a few seconds later.
"Green what was that? What's going on?"
Emily had gotten used to hiding her System and played the part of being clueless perfectly. Green briefly explained the new items available and their effects to her. Emily frowned slightly before asking a question.
"But won't the nurses and doctors be surprised if your injuries disappear almost immediately?"
"No Em. Come on, I'm smarter than that. I only ate the lowest available healing berry so only the minor cuts will heal immediately everything else will just heal faster. I'll wait until I'm discharged before eating a better berry."
Emily paused a moment and then nodded.
"We can tell the nurses and doctor that you have always been a fast healer."
The three of them spent the next few hours talking when the lights flickered and the monitors in the room started blaring alarms. Nurses started running from one room to the next checking patients and silencing alarms until the hospitals backup generators kicked in. When a nurse stepped into Green's room he inquired about what happened.
"Excuse me but if you have a moment can I ask about what's happening?"
"Sorry I'm in the middle of checking all my patients I'll be back in just a few minutes."
After checking the monitors in Green's room she hurried back out, returning around 15 minutes later.
"Sorry for the wait. You're a Pokemon Ranger right?"
When Green nodded she let out a relieved sigh.
"None of us know what's happening. Power in the city is shutting off and back on again and we can't get ahold of anyone because of the power surges."
She went to the closet and picked up Green's phone and handed it to him.
"We would appreciate it if you could find out what's happening. I know you're injured but everyone is worried and you are the only one who might be able to get information quickly."
The nurse walked to the door and added.
"I have more patients to check on please call one of us if you get through."
After she left Emily and Green looked at each other before Green called Pokemon Ranger HQ. Calling the number reserved for personnel only his call was quickly answered.
"Name and ID."
"Green Grady 8675309."
"I have you listed as off duty due to injury squad captain Green."
"Yes I'm in the hospital and the power just went out. The nurses asked me to find out anything I could."
"Please hold."
Green pulled the phone from his ear and put it on speaker while he waited. Ten minutes later he was still on hold when the nurse walked in with a hopeful look on her face. Green shook his head and pointed at the phone.
"I've been on hold for ten minutes already. They are probably swamped trying to figure it out as well."
The nurse nodded and left.
"Green this is bad isn't it?"
"Yeah. A power surge that could affect Saffron City plus the fact that the Rangers can't even spare a minute to fill me in means it isn't just Saffron, the power issue is probably affecting everywhere."
Green got a thoughtful look on his face.
"A power problem this big is a really big deal....Jake."
Jake had been looking out the window watching the lights turn off and on laughing. When he heard his name he looked at his dad.
"Do you know anything about what's going on?"
"Huh?"
"The other Jake left you his memories right? Can you try to think hard. For me buddy?"
Jake squeezed his eyes shut as he tried to look at the memories deep in his head. A few minutes later his eyes snapped open.
"SO COOL! THERE ARE SO MANY POKEMON!"
Startled by his outburst both Emily and Green flinched.
"What did you see buddy?"
Jake shook his head.
"There's so much."
Green just beckoned Jake over and when he was close enough he leaned over and lifted Jake onto his lap with Emily's help.
"Jake this is really important. I need you to think. Why is there a power problem?"
Jake closed his eyes again after hearing his dad. He opened them a minute later shaking his head.
"The only thing I saw about power is that you can catch Zapdos in the ruins of a power plant near Rock Tunnel."
Green's eyes got wide.
"Did you say ruins of a power plant?"
Jake nodded with tears in his eyes thinking he wasn't able to help at all. Green hugged him tight not caring about the pain.
"You did great Jake. Good job buddy."
Still holding Jake, Green picked up his phone and hung up the call. Dialing a new number it was picked up almost immediately.
"Hey boss! I thought you were in the hospital?"
"I am. We are having some power issues here you know anything about it?"
"Power issues? No I've been out on patrol all day. With you in the hospital Blue and I were reassign to different units until you recover."
"Where are you now?"
"Somewhere above route 9. Why?"
"That's great! How fast could you get to the power plant over there?"
"Maybe an hour. Again Why?"
"Just a feeling. Can you check it out for me?"
"Sure thing boss. I'll call you back when I get there."
I hung up the call as the nurse came back in. Seeing me with the phone near my ear she looked happy but I just shook my head again.
"Ranger HQ wasn't responding so I called someone else to check something for me."
"May I ask what you thought of?"
Green thought quickly to come up with a believable excuse, when inspiration struck.
"The only thing that came to mind that would affect the power flow this much is the power plant on route 9. I called someone I know and he's headed there to check it out now, if I'm right he should be calling back in about an hour."
The nurse nodded.
"Thank you so much for helping even though you are injured."
"No problem. It's my job."
Jake squirmed to be let down so Emily picked him up and set his feet on the ground and he ran back over to the window to watch the light show some more.
"What do you think happened Green?"
"Well Jake is right. That power plant is located very close to the entrance to the domain that Zapdos made. It's the easiest place for people to find Zapdos for their Pokedex, but if you really piss one off it's also the easiest place to be swarmed by them."
Green took a sip of water from his cup before he continued.
"So most likely that's exactly what happened. Someone pissed off a Zapdos and the power plant ended up as collateral damage."
"So it's an easy fix right? I saw on the news the other day that there was a plan to decommission that plant soon anyway."
"Maybe. If the Zapdos have left, it should be as simple as flipping a couple of levers. If they are still hanging around it will be a fight to get to those levers."
They sat in silence for a while with Jake laughing occasionally to whatever funny thoughts were passing through his mind at any given moment. Green's phone rang thirty minutes early and he expected to hear the worst. Looking at the caller ID it was Red.
"Red. Your call is early did you get there faster than expected?"
"No boss. I'm still a good distance away but I can already see smoke. Should I inform HQ?"
"Yeah. Hang back a bit when you get close. Watch the sky's for Zapdos and if you see even one don't get any closer."
"You think someone did something stupid?"
"You have a different idea?"
"Nope. I trust your instincts. Talk to you later boss."
The line went dead and Green put his phone down.
"Hey Em go call that nurse over."
Emily nodded and left returning shortly with the nurse in tow.
"My hunch was right. Even a half hour flight away he could see smoke. Most likely there was an accident at the power plant. Have someone check your generators fuel supply because this could be a simple fix or it could take a few days to resolve."
"I will. Having something to tell people other than 'I don't know' will help calm people down. Again thank you."
The nurse left the room in a rush to inform the other staff what Green had said. She returned a few minutes later with a tray that had three bowls on it.
"There's not much we can do to thank you but the other staff and I agreed that ice cream was never a bad idea."
Hearing those magic words Jake's head whipped around and he yelled.
"ICE CREAM!"
Causing the three adults to laugh. Leaving the tray on the rolling table the nurse left the family of three to enjoy their treat.
"This is thanks to you Jake. You can think of it as a reward for your help."
Green ruffled Jake's hair as the boy dug in happily to his ice cream. An hour later Green's phone rang again and he saw it was Red again.
"What's up Red?"
"A lot boss. There were no Zapdos so HQ told me to move in and check it out."
"You ok?"
"Yeah, but the people here aren't. There are dozens of bodies here."
"Survivors?"
"A few but they won't last until help arrives. That and they are criminals so I'm not really inclined to help them."
"Red. Criminals or not if you don't help them it will eat at you. You're a good person, just make them comfortable and be there until they go."
"I knew you would say that."
"You only called because you needed that little push didn't you?"
"Yeah."
"How do you know they are criminals anyway?"
"Well the big, red, Rs on their matching uniforms doesn't scream innocent does it?"
"Team Rocket? Try and get some Intel from the survivors if you can."
"Will do. I already informed HQ about the situation here. Their sending engineers to shut the plant down properly. Should have everything resolved within 5-6 hours."
"Sounds good. Watch your back while your alone over there. You never know what those Team Rocket bastards will do."
"Copy that. Get better soon boss."
With that the call was disconnected and Green handed his phone to Emily so she could put it away. Sure enough, about six hours later power in the city stabilized and the hospital was able to shut the generators down.
"Now that the power issue had been taken care of I'm going to take Jake and do a bit of shopping. We'll come see you again tomorrow Green."
Emily leaned in and gave Green a kiss before they headed out for the evening. After they left Green's phone rang and he very carefully got up to answer it.
"Green here."
"Hahaha. Even in the hospital you still manage to help out."
"Commandant I wasn't expecting you to call."
"Why wouldn't I? You solved a problem that had me pulling my hair out. How did you know?"
Green was a bit uncomfortable receiving praise when it was Jake's memories that pointed him in the right direction.
"It was just a lucky guess sir."
"Lucky guess or not you really helped us out and have been awarded another commendation. It's already been noted in your personnel file. I just wanted to call and let you know myself."
"Thank you sir."
"No Green. Thank you. Get some rest and I'll see if I can free up some time in my schedule to see you before you head home."
"I look forward to it sir."
"Alright. Get some rest Green I have to take care of a mountain of paperwork caused by this whole mess. Bye."
Green hung up and rested his head on the pillow closing his eyes. 'I definitely need to get Jake a present or I'll feel guilty about all of this.'
** Oak's POV **
SMASH
A glass flew across the room and shattered against the wall.
"FUCK!"
Professor Oak was pacing across his office in a rage while the terrified man stood their shaking.
"Your telling me that not only did the plan to get Zapdos DNA fail but THAT bastard got credit for solving the resulting mess!"
"Y..yes s.sir."
"FUCK! Giovanni said he was sending his best! Get the fuck out of my office! Tell your boss he owes me an explanation!"
The man nearly sprinted from the office, the lab coat barely hiding his Team Rocket uniform underneath.
"Why is it always him?!"
Professor Oak continued pacing for a bit before his steps slowed and he came to a halt a faint memory from his mentor's lectures surfacing. Powering up his computer he opened the search engine and typed 'people with super human abilities'. He spent the next few hours scouring the internet reading every article that might have what he was looking for and finding nothing.
As he was about to end his fruitless search he decided to check one more article that he had ignored thinking thinking the title 'they walk among us' to be from some crackpot conspiracy theorist. As he read his smile faded and his gaze sharpened as he read from the beginning again and his smile returned as he finished the article. Pulling a book from his shelf he opened it to reveal a section cut out with a phone hidden inside. Turning it on he pressed '1' on the speed dial, when the call connected he spoke first.
"Giovanni I'm willing to put aside the fiasco your men caused at the power plant for now but I want your help with something."
"And what would that be?"
"I want all the information you have and all the information you can get from other organizations on the humans known as 'the blessed ones'."