“Shit! Kasai! Protect!” A voice commanded from behind them before shouting. “POKEMON RANGERS! FREEZE!”

An Arcanine leapt into the circle of ponies, scattering them as a mystic barrier appeared around him and absorbed all three ‘attacks’ into its surface. Hearing that someone had the unruly Porygon-Z's attacks handled, Vincent turned around and 'felt' another mind in the same direction the Arcanine had come from. Reaching out with a tendril of power, he 'spoke' to the mind.

Pokemon rangers? Never heard of you. But I will try to help. Bit, calm down! No need for violence!

The Porygon-Z ticked a few times before letting out a dinging noise and hovering near Vincent. “Un-Un-Understood, master Vincent. Staaaaandby mode initiated.”

The Ninetails smiled before beginning to bark out orders in a language the ponies could understand. Vincent was puzzled, he hadn't set up any communications links with them... “Okay everyone, nothing to see here, please leave this portion of the casino on order of the Las Pegasus guard.”

The ponies grumbled but slowly moved off, and Sam shifted his attention between the two 'authorities' from Earth that had somehow followed them. “So...now that we’re nowhere near the ‘good doctor’, we meet authorities? Great. Just great.”

Sam, you still haven’t explained. Just who are the Pokemon Rangers? Vincent was confused, the Scyther hadn't explained much about how the outside world actually functioned. He merely said that once they got there, right after the authorities were found and directed to father's lab, they'd have a lot of fun together to make up for the time in the lab.

“I can answer that,” the Ninetails said with a small smile as she stepped forward, keeping her posture as nonthreatening as possible, which didn't fool the Scyther for a moment. “The Pokemon Rangers are, or rather were I suppose, an organization devoted to helping find and stop Pokemon abuse in all it’s forms. I’m Ranger Abby and this is my mate, Ranger Kasai.”

Silence reigned for a minute, but anyone who looked at the Abra would notice one thing. He was shaking for some reason. Inside his head, Vincent's past welled up within him, all the things he'd been forced to see...or take part of...

"A pity," Doctor Nurem said, while looking at the now-limp form of a Gyrados that had lightning rods sticking out of its back. "It would appear grafting a new type to a specimen is not as easy as that."

His gaze then turned to a fishtank holding a Magikarp. "Or perhaps I need to try earlier in its evolution line..."

"Interesting results, wouldn't you say so, subject thirty-seven? Even without wings, a Charizard is still technically of the Flying type, or else the electrical security system wouldn't have been as effective as it was..."

The still-smoking form of the wingless Charizard lay on the floor, and the doctor continued his speech. "On another note, it seems the security system is still a touch too high. Send a note to subject sixteen, tell him to recalibrate it to non-lethal levels..."

"How curious, it still became a Porygon-2, but it is behaving even more erratically than a Porygon-Z would. I will have to run it through a variety of tests to see where its power lies. But make another Dubious Up-Grade in the meantime, assistant..."

The Porygon-2 looked up to the young boy on the other side of the glass and managed to croak out a single sentence. Or more accurately, a few words. "H-H-Help meeeee, plEASE..."

“Are you okay kid?” Kasai asked the Abra, his eyes widening in concern. Sam was worried as well, the last time he'd failed to respond to stimuli had been the last casino, or more accurately, what happened after... “Do you need an aspirin?”

...Where were you? With those words, the Abra jumped off the Scyther’s head and floated an inch off the floor. When my father cut Lucy open and altered her skeleton so much that she might NEVER get her marks of adulthood and made me WATCH, where were you? The Abra’s arms were glowing an eerie blue at that statement.

Abby was silent for a moment, and Sam shuddered. During the time in the lab, Vincent had gotten like this sometimes, and usually he wasn't able to do much. Human body and all. But now that he was an Abra...The Ninetails started trying to defuse the situation. “We were looking for you, Vincent, your mother informed us of your kidnapping and we’ve had teams looking for you your entire life. I’m sorry that we didn’t get to you in time but-”

He cut her off. When he strapped Sam to a table and prepared a cocktail of drugs to see what would happen to a bug-type's exoskeleton and put my damn hand on the plunger and made me push it, where were you?! Now the Abra’s legs were glowing blue and he was hovering a good half-foot off the floor.

Abby and Kasai began to back away, neither stupid enough to remain too close, though really, they probably knew from experience that backing up a foot wouldn't do anything to protect them from the Psychic Pokemon’s powers. Sam was starting to get worried. This was bad, this was very, very bad. Even in the lab, he'd not been like this!

“We weren’t there,” Abby said, not apologizing, but stating facts. “We were looking, but we weren’t there when you needed us.”

“Understatement of the century,” Sam muttered. “I was the only one who knew there was an outside world out of the three of us.” Those were interesting and good memories for the others, though slightly sad for him. They were always smiling and going oooh and aaah at the idea of so many wonders outside of the walls. And he vowed after a session where he explained about the wonders humans used to live comfortably that he'd make sure they got to see them one day.

The Abra hadn’t finished. When he subjected me to tests and experiments and injections every day of my life and stopped giving me anesthetic for it...when I kept getting headaches and heard voices in my head...when what little staff he had also thought of me as a freak just because I could understand Pokemon because of HIS EXPERIMENTS, WHERE THE BLOODY HELL WERE YOU?!

At this, the entire Abra’s form was coated in that blue aura and he’d done something Abra weren’t known for doing: He opened his eyes, which were now glowing white. The feedback snapped the communication links instantly, but he was still up, still angry, and now hovering a good foot off the ground.

“Kasai... get ready to Protect again,” Abby muttered to the Arcanine. “And then, see if you can get an opening to Crunch, it’s a Dark Type move so it might snap him out of this.”

“Right,” Kasai said, lowering his body.

The Porygon-Z looked at the Arcanine and its eyes flashed. “Would-would-would not adviiiiise that. Master Vincent has fif-fif-fifteen years of RAGE to work ooooooout...and as my new masTER, I must now de-de-defend him…” Thus saying, the Porygon-Z took up place next to the angry Abra.

“Right... I did not think we’d need backup for this,” Abby grunted as the pair began to slowly retreat, never taking their eyes from the suddenly-hostile and tense situation.

“Get Axel and come back?” Kasai grunted in reply.

Just...Go...AWAY! I dealt with him for FIFTEEN YEARS without you, I don’t need you NOW! The Abra pointed his arms at the pair of fire types, and the sensation of something terrible about to happen increased. At that moment, within the Abra's hat, the spoons were jarred loose. Both the normal...and Twisted one, amplifying the outburst to come.

“Run!” Abby barked, turning tail, Kasai right beside her. They didn’t make it very far.

A wave of blue erupted from the Abra, knocking over every slot machine and hurling it five feet away from their resting place, bowling Abby and Kasai over. A yell erupted from the blackjack tables, and the minotaur and Riolu came running in the opposite direction.

Iron Will looked across the table to the pony who he was competing against for a rather large pot. The minotaur narrowed his eyes at the pony, then looked at his cards. Lucy glanced at the equine, and words filtered into Iron Will's head. Ten and a five.

The minotaur looked at his cards again, which were two nines. He hummed for a moment, then tossed five bits on the pile. "Iron Will calls," he rumbled, and the pony grimaced. The stallion looked at the pile of bits in the center, then at his cards, and then at the pile of bits in front of him. He hummed as well before tossing five bits in. "Call," he said, and the dealer nodded. Both parties flipped their cards over, and Iron Will smiled before helping himself to the pot.

Just then, the minotaur felt the connection in his head snap with a scream of rage, and he jolted a bit before looking at the Riolu. "Something happened," he muttered, before sweeping all the bits into his sack and rushing towards the slots. It was where the other two had been headed not too long ago, after all...

“What did you two do?!” Lucy barked at them. The sunhat she was wearing utterly failed to defuse the situation.

“Nothing!” the Ninetails barked back, dodging a slot machine as it slammed into the ground where she’d been only a second earlier as the Abra’s power swirled through the room, picking up all sorts of things and sending them spinning chaotically around the room.

“Fuck, he’s going to kill someone!” the Arcanine added, a chair slamming into his side and getting a yelp of pain out of him as he stumbled to the side. “Ow!”

“Iron Will does not know what to do, little fighter! And Iron Will cannot understand you anymore! Any ideas are welcome!” The minotaur was panicking; he was strong and tough, but the power of the psychic was apparently not to be underestimated.

Lucy looked to the minotaur and grumbled before looking at the pair of fire-types. “Vincent either opened his eyes, snapped the connections, and caused himself a lot of pain, or something set him off. Which one is it?” Either way, a lot of power was being fed into his abilities, and he would need to be stopped somehow. Of course, the third option was that the Twisted Spoon was in use, but Vincent had already said his mind about that, so it was highly unlikely...

“We didn’t mean to set him off,” the Ninetails explained rapidly, dodging a blackjack table. “We just said that we were Rangers and he started screaming in our heads about all the awful things that had happened to him.”

At that, the Riolu blinked, looked to the both of them, and snarled. “And well he should have. Where were you?! We’ve had a terrible life, and you show up when we’re trying to make a better one...yeah, that was going to happen.” It was only thanks to Sam talking to her during the times when they were allowed to interact that she knew what the Rangers were, and she didn't have a lot of love for them.

“Look, we can discuss the failings of the Rangers, and there were many, believe me, I know, later,” the Arcanine shouted before he unleashed a jet of flame and reduced a chair to cinders. “But at the moment I’m more concerned about your friend over there leveling the building and killing everyone!”

Lucy thought for a moment. “I think I can get him to stop. He always listened to me before…” Every time he'd fallen into silence while staring at nothing, a kind word, a soft touch, or even just the Riolu being there had snapped him out of his introspection sessions.

With that, the Riolu tugged on Iron Will’s arm and led the minotaur into the heart of the chaos, calling out along the way. “Vincent! Vincent, I’m coming in, and I’m bringing Iron Will with me!”

With that, the storm lessened a bit, before dying down entirely. Lucy? Lucy, are you okay? I didn’t hurt you, did I?

The minotaur and the Riolu made their way to the center of the storm, to see Sam, Vincent, and a Porygon-Z standing in the middle, unharmed for the most part. "Yeah, we're fine Vincent...but who's this?"

Sam blinked and looked at the Porygon-Z before looking back at Lucy. "Surely you remember Bit?"

Lucy blinked as well before rushing up to the Porygon-Z and hugging it gently. "Oh Bit...It's so good to see you..."

"It is good-good-good to seeeeeee you as WELL, sub-sub-subject thirty-FIVE."

Lucy smiled and chuckled a bit. "Oh Bit, you never change..." Just then, she heard the sounds of the Rangers approaching, and she turned to Vincent, a plan forming in her mind.

“Vincent, there’s more than one way to get away from them. Why don’t you try that move?”

...You’re right… The Abra looked at the Rangers, an expression of rage on his face still. If I see you two again, it’ll be too soon. Sam, Bit, Iron, Lucy, form up, let’s try this.

The Ninetails and Arcanine looked panicked, and the Ninetails tried to talk Vincent out of Lucy's plan. “Stop, we just need to talk with y-”

The five of them had no intentions of staying, the starting foursome had discussed how to do this once, should they need to and get the chance. Sam laid a claw on one shoulder, while Iron Will laid a hand on the other. The Porygon-Z grabbed a hold of the Abra from behind once he saw what was happening, and Lucy hugged the Abra’s front, the only spot left for her to cling to him. And I REALLY don’t want to see or hear from you again. Not now, not EVER. Hell, I’d rather Arceus damn me himself than I end up talking to any authorities from there ever again. Goodbye. TELEPORT!

Arceus blinked and looked at the ceiling, which caused Mew a bit of concern. She hovered in front of her father’s face and waved her tail back and forth. Dad? You okay?

Arceus blinked again and looked at his daughter. Oh, sorry, yes, I’m fine. I just had the strangest sensation of wanting to banish a fox to the Shadow Real- I mean, Distortion World…

The five blinked out of existence in a flash of light, leaving the Rangers in the middle of a wrecked casino floor, alone. In another part of the city, the fivesome appeared in Iron Will's apartment, stumbling a bit and slightly queasy, but hardly any worse for wear. It was probably only due to the heat of the moment that Vincent had managed to pull the move off in the first place, much less land them all in the room. Those of them that had stomachs took a moment to settle them.

Except, of course, for Vincent, who blacked out once again. Sam and Lucy sighed and shared one sentence in Pokespeak. "Oh, not again..."

Author's Notes:

A crossover chapter with A New World, A New Ranger. Seeing as we're both in Las Pegasus, it'd be rude to not acknowledge each other's stories...