Disclaimer: Standard rules apply: I do not own any part of the Pokemon Franchise on any level and this story is written purely for the mutual enjoyment of the fan community.

Author's Note: I've decided to use the Japanese character names where applicable for Trainers and Coordinators alike. It just feels more like my style and if I mess up any of the Japanese names, be sure to note it in a review and it'll get corrected. (Pokemon will still be referred to by their English names for simplicity's sake. I simply don't want to look up as many as are slated to be in this story.)

Reviews and constructive criticism are more than welcome!

Prologue

In a nearly deserted building, a woman sits in her office which has no windows and the only lighting in the room is provided by her desk lamp and the glow of her computer monitor. If she thinks it an eerie setting, she gives no hint of her unease save the fact that her hands are clasped together and her posture is slightly tense.

To any outside observer, it is very clear that she is waiting for something to happen as she glances at the clock for the second time in less than a minute.

Her computer bleeps as a video transmission begins patching in and encrypting the data stream. A young man's face appears a few moments later, looking grim in the backglow of something that is golden-orange as shouting is heard from several directions on the other end.

"Give me the bad news Kensuke," she orders, straight to business.

"It ain't pretty Margaret," Kensuke replies as he shakes his head, glancing around again as if to make sure that he's appropriately safe to hold a conversation.

"Something a little more specific Ranger! I need to know where we stand!" She bit back.

"The fires are dying down now and the final stats tally up to some 300 acres of forest, meadows, and local riverbeds. Burned to a cinder and near-boiling respectively. We've confirmed some 25 witnesses, all but three of them we've managed to buy off and keep them quiet."

"And the last three?"

"One hardass country bumpkin, a young girl in the wrong place at the wrong time, and a Pokemon Researcher who was in the area on some kind of expedition; although we're still looking for a positive ID on the first two, I could be given three guesses as to who the third one is, but I'd only need one of 'em."

"Can he be bought?" Margaret asked, hoping for something simple.

"Not hardly, but I think he can be reasoned with and trusted with SOME of the truth. We don't need to tell him everything, but I'd spin it for certain and leave him to fill in the blanks on his own. I'll bet we could also do the same with the girl were it not for the fact that she was at ground zero at some point."

"GEEZ! Kensuke, how did THAT happen?!" Margaret rasped, her rage apparent.

"Like I said ma'am; wrong place at the wrong time. Hold on a second." Kensuke said as he was handed a datapad and began scrolling through it.

"Okay, we can scratch the girl off the list too. Turns out, she's one of ours. She's in the Logistics Department and looking for a Transfer to the Intelligence Division. I'd recommend approving the transfer and calling this some kind of 'initiation test' for her. If she's serious about working in the department, it could help to weed her out early. Either way, she might also conclude that it's meant to stay out of the public eye even if her Transfer doesn't pan out. I'll ask her what she was doing way out here, but I figure it won't matter all that much."

"Suggestion noted. Since the hardass is being himself, get someone from Intelligence down there and perform a memory wipe for the past 96 hours. If he's the only holdout, then everyone will consider him a radical extremist or a certified nut."

"But Ma'am, those kinds of things can be reversed, are you sure that's such a good idea?" Kensuke asked.

"Just DO IT. If he wants to be difficult, then that's FINE by me. I can be difficult right back. Now then, back to specifics. What's the condition of the combatants?"

Kensuke visibly turns away from the screen/camera and winces.

"Daichi's dead. The Kid's not."

Margaret simply waited, her hands steepling as she waited for Kensuke to gather his grit for what she was sure wouldn't be pleasant.

"Daichi has some broken bones, two of 'em are Chinese Scarabs," Kensuke began. Margaret had to wince at that, having a broken bone poke out through your own skin was never pleasant to even look at, let alone experience first hand.

"He's got multiple bruises, some contused organs, and he's been beheaded." Kensuke finished, looking green in the face.

Margaret's eyebrows flew up into her hairline. The Kid had never been this gruesome in his work before, but then Daichi had gone and essentially turned his back on both him and his teammates, not to mention the Ranger Corps on top of all that. Betrayal wasn't something The Kid tolerated in any capacity. You were either on his side or you weren't. If you happened to cross him, it was likely the last thing you'd ever do.

"The Kid says he'll take care of funeral arrangements; cremation and scattering. I ain't gonna argue with him."

"No objections here. I sure as hell wouldn't shell out for a coffin for that turncoat. At least this way he gets a decent burial. More than I would do for him," Margaret replied.

"How are the kid's teammates? Gret and Kendra?" Kensuke asked.

"Gret's got a moderate concussion, a broken leg, and a broken arm. Kendra's bruised all over with both shoulders dislocated and a few fractured vertebrae after she fell some twenty feet and landed on her back. The X-Rays are showing that both of them should be back on their feet in a month with casts and back up to a hundred percent within eight months," Margaret explained.

"... and The Kid has barely got anything on him other than some bruises and some blood loss along with extreme exhaustion. Although I think it should be noted that our field medics found evidence of recently regenerated parts of his body. It's a scary thought that this guy's taught his pokemon how to mend bones and knit flesh…" Kensuke thought aloud, the shock and awe present in his voice echoing Margaret's thoughts.

"What did you expect? Those two fought a running battle that lasted nearly 72 HOURS. They might be extraordinarily talented, but they're still only human. And while it may be disconcerting that his team can do such a thing, I'm sure it's helped him too many times to count. Did any of the boy's team sustain injury?"

"His pokemon? Nah, those four are all in one piece last I checked. Daichi's pokemon cleared out when the Kid cut him down. They're probably miles away by now. We didn't dare try to catch'em. Those guys were loyal to Daichi like you wouldn't believe."

"I know that Kensuke, I did get the reports from the Trainer Evaluators this year. If they become a problem, I'll let The Kid handle them. God knows he might be the only one who COULD..."

"Sorry ma'am. So what now? We've been at this for hours now."

"Finish the job you were given, I've got the media blackout in effect, and the paperwork's about to catch up in an hour or so. You'll have time to finish up. Just take your time and don't MISS ANYTHING," Margaret punctuated.

"Do you know where the boy is now?"

"Last I heard, he was on his way to visit his teammates and get himself checked out at HQ," Kensuke answered.

"I'll see if I can't catch him between the two and debrief him. Contact me again in six hours and give me another update Kensuke. Paransky out."

"Aye ma'am. In six hours then," Kensuke replied as Margaret terminated the connection and gathered a few files in her hand and powered down her computer terminal before leaving the room, heading towards the infirmary.

In another part of the complex, the infirmary trudges on through another shift as most of the recent action finally dies down now that all the injured have been tended to and are left to rest and recuperate.

At the Nurse's Station, three of the Gamma Shift nurses have just finished their first set of rounds and are updating charts, signing forms, and filing them away for the doctors to review during the Alpha Shift. Unlike most pokemon centers, this facility mostly treats humans, and as such, there isn't a Nurse Joy in sight.

The elevator suddenly dings at the end of the hallway, and the only male nurse of Gamma Shift spares a single glance towards the opening doors. He starts for a moment before dismissing the lone figure emerging from the elevator. He knows that this person is far from being a threat.

As the young man approaches the Nurse's Station however, the other two nurses, who haven't met the young man before, visibly freeze where they sit with eyes that have doubled in size.

The young man appears to have just walked out of a war zone. But he couldn't be any older than a teenager, at the absolute most. His army-green fatigues and his fully gloved hands are covered in what must be dried blood, mud, and scorch marks. His headband is in a similar state and it only just now occurs to the nurses that the young man is armed with a katana-style sword resting across his back, with the hilt behind his right shoulder.

He wears a vest as well as a hip rig and it is obvious that the weapons on his hips are a pair of tasers and that there is a combat knife strapped to the small of his back. He has four pokeballs on his belt that appear to be regulation size and shape, save for the fact that the half of them that is usually bright red is cobalt blue.

The young man only steps up to the counter and gazes around the station before reaching over the counter and snagging the clipboard detailing the rooming occupants. A quick glance at the chart and another at a map behind the station are all he needs as he gently sets the clipboard back where he found it and continues on without saying a word as the male nurse merely nods in acknowledgment as the young man passes him, which the young man reciprocates, their eyes never meeting.

The other two nurses finally manage to overcome their shock and turn to the male nurse for an explanation.

"Yes. That was exactly who you think it was," He replies before either of them can open their mouths as he continues what he was previously doing.

The two women merely stare at each other in wide-eyed wonderment, realizing that the young man they just met is now perhaps the single most infamous and dangerous person in the Ranger Corps.

Room 043G is like all the other rooms on Level Zero in the Ranger Corps Infirmary.

There are two beds, one television, one chair by each bed, and assorted medical equipment all arranged efficiently with a bathroom in the back corner. In this particular room are two of the more talented Rangers in the world, currently listed as in "Serious, but Stable" condition.

These two are members of a little-known faction of the Ranger Corps that is tasked with duties more urgent than more public-figure operatives who do very little to hide their identities as Rangers. Their duties most often call them into situations where wild pokemon cannot be found on a whim and as such, in addition to their capture stylus, they carry their own established teams of pokemon with them wherever they go. But that is another story.

The door to Room 043G opened slowly and silently, admitting the third and final member of their team, a young man more commonly known among the Corps simply as "The Kid", only because he didn't hand out his name regularly and his teammates, along with their leader Daichi, had more often referred to him by his nickname when on-assignment.

The young man's footfalls were whisper-quiet on the floor as he strode to the foot of his teammates' beds and picked up the charts that were hanging on the footboards. He'd had basic medic-training and as such, knew how to read a doctor's shorthand notes regarding his teammate's conditions. What he saw didn't surprise him all that much, so he merely laid the charts back where he'd found them and pulled one of the room's chairs against the far wall and sat down to catch a catnap while he waited for Gret and Kendra, his teammates, to wake up so he could tell them that their sensei was now dead, by his own hand no less.

After a few minutes, he gave up trying to catnap as he knew that the only way he was going to get any sleep was in his own bunk as he idly watched Gret and Kendra sleep peacefully. They were both hooked up to heart monitors, so he could tell at a glance that they were both deeply asleep unless Kendra was acting the part once more. He'd been fooled by her more than once in that arena.

The quick glance he'd had over their charts assured him that their injuries would mend with time, even if it would take longer than he was used to or would have allowed himself. But that was neither here nor there, and he was certain that his teammates would have lots of questions for him when they finally woke up with him in the room. The last time he'd seen them had been over two weeks ago, when he'd caught up to them as they were being whisked into a helicopter from the scene of their fight with Daichi.

He was still exhausted from the fight and the only reason he hadn't just gone to the barracks and sacked out had been because the Field Commander, Margaret Paransky, had insisted that he debrief her on the specifics of the fight quickly before details began fading. However, The Kid was nobody's fool and he knew what the woman was really after.

He and Daichi had sat and talked for nearly two hours before unleashing their opening attacks in plain view. Not a soul in the Ranger Corps had been brave enough to come close enough to record or document what their exchange had been about, and Paransky was no doubt trying to attach a 'why' to Daichi's sudden attitude change.

The truth was that their discussion had been about 'meaning-of-life' stuff. Daichi had been the closest thing he'd had to a father since Les and Sue had died after taking him in what seemed like a lifetime ago. Questions he'd never gotten to ask Les, he'd posed to Daichi in those two brief hours that he'd had with his former sensei, away from prying ears and as close to a father-son moment as they'd ever had in their decade-long tenure together. Nothing earth-shattering other than the fact that Daichi had finally snapped under the pressure of the job and decided to use his formidable skills to take whatever he wanted as payment for his many years of service to the Ranger Corps.

It had been enough for The Kid to swear an oath, then and there, not to repeat his sensei's mistake of getting caught up in the machine.

The door abruptly opened, glaringly loud in the silence of Gamma Shift. The Kid was too exhausted to react accordingly, and merely granted the person a brief glace through heavy eyelids. Paransky was here, and no doubt she wanted to get started with the debriefing.

"You made quite a mess out there young man," she began.

The Kid's only response was to shrug his shoulders and put a disarming look on his face that clearly said "It wasn't MY fault."

"Enough with the Silent Treatment boy, let's get this over with..." She grumbled as she took a yellow notepad and a pen out from her briefcase before sitting in the chair opposite him.

And so the young man in front of her began to recount his tale. From being called in off his current assignment to track down his former mentor from the area where he'd soundly defeated his teammates, to the ten day trek catching up with Daichi, to the encounter itself and most of his rationale for what he did during the fight. The entire story lasted almost two hours, in which time and Gret and Kendra also awoke and listened to the harrowing story of how Daichi Yamada had met his end.

"... and then before he even finished his sentence, I swung." The Kid finished, fingering his sword's hilt as he did so.

Everyone else in the room felt the blood drain from their faces.

"Why didn't you...?" Kendra asked, her words trailing off.

"Because there was nothing left to be said. We were stalling and he and I both knew it. He wasn't going to come back and I figured that he would ..." This time, it was the Kid's turn to trail off as he pinched the bridge of his nose as if fighting off a migraine. Given the circumstances, tears were the likelier candidate.

"I thought he'd see it coming and dodge. Next thing I knew, his torso was on the ground in front of me bleeding something fierce." The Kid explained.

"That'll be enough then." Paransky said as she packed her notepad back into her briefcase.

Gret had been resoundingly silent throughout the entire debriefing, looking ashamed of the fact that he couldn't match Daichi's skill when he'd had the chance, especially since he was both older and physically stronger than the Kid.

A knock on the door broke the tense silence between the four people.

"Come in?" The Kid called out uncertainly, confused as to who would be here so early in the morning when the nurses had left not twenty minutes ago after checking on Gret and Kendra.

Almost shyly, somehow expecting the atmosphere of the room, the door opened to reveal a young brunette woman with jade green eyes covered by a slim pair of eyeglasses. She wore the standard Ranger Logistics Department uniform, a conservative black skirt with the traditional Ranger jacket, only in black and gold colors rather than the Field Operative's red, white, and gold. The Kid recognized her immediately as the girl he'd saved during the battle with Daichi, way out in the middle of nowhere. He hadn't even had time to ask for her name.

"Ah, Miss Steinbech. I take it you were examined by the staff here?" Paransky asked.

"Yes ma'am." The young woman replied. Nervously wringing her hands together and then pushing her glasses up the bridge of her nose.

"Allow me to introduce Ms. Selena Steinbech. You two have met I believe." Margaret nodded in The Kid's direction.

"Am I interrupting something important?" The brunette asked.

"Not really, we were just finishing up here. Was there something you needed?" Paransky questioned in her typical cold fashion.

"No ma'am. I was just looking for..." She trailed off, nodding towards The Kid's direction. It seemed she too was in the dark about The Kid's name, not at all an uncommon occurrence when Gret and Kendra thought about it, eyeing the young woman with mild interest.

"Well, you've found him," Paransky continued.

A terse silence filled the room as four pairs of eyes rested on young Selena, no one ready nor eager to speak after The Kid had just finished explaining his end of things.

"We just finished our official debriefing on the situation regarding your rescue. Is there anything you'd like to say about the situation?" Paransky asked, her briefcase still open. Selena seemed grateful for the opening.

"No ma'am. I gave my statement in the field, so I just wanted to come by and thank him personally." Still uncertain of her position in the room and obviously wanting the situation to be a little more private, Selena merely shuffled her feet, waiting for someone else to call the meeting adjourned.

"If you ever want to make it in the Intelligence Division, you're going to have to be more decisive young lady," Paransky thought aloud with no regard for the girl's feelings. She hadn't intended to be callous, it was just a fact of life that the ID wasn't the easiest place to work, given the nature of the work those people did.

Selena's eyes teared up for but a moment before she turned and exited the room. To her credit, none of them heard the sob that she was obviously trying to conceal from them.

"God Bless It, Margaret..." The Kid sneered as he got up and moved to follow Selena. He'd been in a daze until he'd seen how Paransky's ice-cold manor had affected her. If there was one thing he couldn't stand, it was seeing pretty girls cry. Now he was going to have to rectify another problem that hadn't started out as his.

"I expect you in my office at the beginning of Alpha Shift young man!" Paransky explained as The Kid made his way out the door. She planned on giving him a leave of absence, but she wanted to make it official. She never was one to play favorites.

"Slave driver..." The Kid grumbled as he glanced at his watch and broke into a jog in order to catch up to Selena, who was already halfway to the elevator, her shoulders visibly slumped.

"Hey!" He called gently, catching up to her and holding onto her elbow as he did so.

She turned towards him, eyes downcast. She hastily sniffled, removed her glasses, and dragged her sleeve across her eyes before looking up and replacing her glasses, determined to at least put on a brave front.

"You shouldn't let her get to you like that. She does that to new recruits. Makes 'em feel like dirt to try and make them quit." He began.

"Well it's working... I just froze up out there..." Selena trailed off.

"Hey! None of that! You were never trained for something like that so I daresay that if anyone should be cut some slack in all of this, it's you. Before today, you'd never even seen a field operative like me or Daichi. It's pretty rare to run across us actually. "

Curiosity won out as the Kid decided to ask a question that had been in the back of his mind since he'd saved her. Daichi apparently had either wanted no witnesses or wanted to make an example of those who got in his way. And now that he thought about it, the young woman HAD stood in his way...

"First off, I thought it was pretty gutsy to stand up to him like you did. Not many people had the nerve to draw a weapon on Daichi Yamada; so as far as I'm concerned, you're about three steps ahead of most other Rangers," he explained.

The young woman's eye lit up briefly before she started trembling slightly again.

"I had no idea who he was. I'd always heard tales of the Great Daichi Yamada over the usual gossip channels, but I'd never actually seen a picture of him. He would have killed me, right?" She asked.

"I'm not sure anymore. I'd like to think he would have knocked you out, but with how he was acting near the end. I can't be certain. By the way, what WERE you doing out there? I thought that the entire area had been cordoned off?"

"Oh no, the way I heard it, the ID simply had an electronic surveillance net over him. Some Rangers were overhead on Fearows, but there wasn't a single person willing to come within a mile of him, let alone stand in his way, plus he was moving too fast to cordon off anything." Selena explained, now on more familiar ground. Crunching numbers and strategizing were her strong points, hence why she was something of a whiz-kid in Logistics and had hoped to make the transition to Intelligence.

"And to answer your other question, I was in the area conducting a survey on the local pokemon; species, population spread, growth trends, that sort of thing. I managed to grab my laptop and all my portable memory units, but all the physical workups and samples I took went up in smoke..." She trailed off, hoping to not offend the young man.

The Kid's eyes widened as he nervously scratched the back of his head, breaking into a cold sweat. He and the Logistics Department had never really gotten along, as Logistics also handled Damage-Control and regularly collaborated with the Finance Division. Whenever he broke something, they would inevitably track him down and lecture him till half their division was blue in the face. The last thing he wanted was to get on this young woman's bad side.

"Yeah, sorry about that, Drake was a little TOO enthusiastic during the fight. He gets that way from time to time..."

"Drake?" Selena asked, genuinely puzzled.

"The Charizard on my team." He replied, nervously grinning.

Selena's eyes widened slightly. She distinctly remembered seeing such a creature, but it hadn't appeared as a garden-variety Charizard. Charizards typically had shorter, stouter limbs and walked upright on two legs with a large abdomen and a long neck.

The Charizard she'd seen in the forest had been lean, almost wiry in appearance and was just at home on four legs as he was on two. Not to mention the fact that it was almost a time and a half as large as a regular Charizard, easily standing some eight or nine feet tall on two legs. Gone also was the large abdomen, and in its place was a longer, leaner frame with the arms being as equally muscled as its legs.

Perhaps the most startling aspect of this Charizard had been its attacks. Gone was the classic flamethrower and slash, and instead this Charizard used a variety of flame-based specialty attacks that each served a specific purpose. Most disturbing of all had been the fact that Selena felt certain that the strength of those specialty attacks was more than enough to maim or even kill an opponent.

All this information correlated in Selena's mind within a fraction of a second, leaving her stunned at some of the implications.

"You've spent a great deal of time training it, haven't you?" She asked.

"You mean Drake? Yeah, he and I have been together almost since the beginning." The Kid explained, looking confused for a second.

"Do you name all your pokemon?"

"Only the ones who make it onto the active roster, and let me tell you, getting on the active roster takes some doing." The Kid grinned as he turned and headed towards the elevator, wanting to at least grab a shower before he had to report in for Alpha Shift, which he noticed started in another two hours after glancing at his watch.

"Oh, NOW you're going to have to fill me in," Selena replied, smiling giddily.

"Oh REALLY?" The Kid asked, raising an eyebrow as the young woman trotted up beside him as he pushed the elevator call button. He suddenly felt uneasy.

"Seriously, you can't expect to drop me a line THAT cryptic and not ask questions."

Alarm bells primed inside his head in a mental 'yellow alert'. He knew as well as any member of their unit that the work they did wasn't for the weak of heart. It was time for a little intimidation of his own, maybe save this young lady a bit of heartbreak at the same time.

"Meddle not in the affairs of Dragons, for you are crunchy and good with ketchup." He retorted, making an attempt to grin darkly.

Selena smiled wickedly. Witty banter was a pastime she happened to enjoy. She mocked rolling up her sleeves as she launched her own salvo of dialogue.

"The beatings will continue until morale improves." She answered, looking him dead in the eye, calling his bluff.

To his credit, The Kid's shock registered on his face for only a brief moment. Surprisingly, the only thought that ran through his head at that moment was something along the lines of...

Oh, I LIKE her.

The elevator doors opened with a loud DING.

"Would you care to continue this discussion over coffee? I know a good 24-hour café right upstairs..." He trailed off.

Selena rolled her eyes. The 24-hour café on the second floor of HQ was a common meeting place for Rangers since they were technically open 24/7 and the people who worked the night shifts needed to eat too.

"I don't take coffee with strangers." She replied, moving into the elevator with a mischievously haughty look on her face.

The Kid had the decency to look a little embarrassed as he followed her lead and extended his hand to her.

"Stroud, Leonidas Stroud; pleased to make your acquaintance Ms. Steinbech."

"Call me Selena; the only people who still call me Ms. Steinbech are the housekeepers." If she found his name odd or old-fashioned, then she didn't show it.

"Then feel free to call me Leo; goes easier with Stroud."

"I'd have to agree. What were they thinking when they named you?" She asked in jest.

"I was named by the nurses on the ward of the hospital where I was born," he replied candidly, his voice revealing nothing.

Selena was taken aback. When her siblings had been born, she'd paid attention to the other babies in the maternity ward as well. The only time when nurses picked out a baby's name was when said baby was either orphaned or abandoned.

Selena cocked her head to the side and took in Leo's general appearance as the elevator arrived at their floor. He was certainly attractive, but looking into his eyes showed a person far older and mature than he appeared, despite the fact he was only a teenager like herself.

"I'll bet you have one hum-dinger of a story to tell. Hope you got the movie-rights for it," She chuckled.

Leo let out a short bark of genuine laughter.

"Tell me about it. You probably wouldn't believe half of it."

"Try me. I've got a pretty active imagination myself."

"Alright then, but I warned you." Leo grinned as they entered the café, ordered, and found a seat by one of the windows.

It was a small beginning, but a beginning nonetheless.

A/N: Welcome to the relaunch of Last Master! After finalizing my first term in Nursing School and finding a summer job, it's time to get back to writing whilst the getting is good.

My decision to re-launch the story stems largely from the fact that when I initially wrote it, the anime had yet to feature Haruka's reunion with Satoshi and Takeshi in Sinnoh, and because I wanted a better intro for the main character, Leo. The rest of the story will feature updated info based on the anime and pick up where the first prologue began and we'll see more and more of the backstory unfold as we go.

Bear with me, drop me a review when you can, and I hope this will prove a more enjoyable opening than I originally started with.