Pokémar Episode VI, Search and Rescue

Rescuing the Rescuer

Time seemed to slow as his footing crumbled beneath him. His brain was working in overdrive to find something to save himself as the entire cliff face tumbled around him. His eyes settled on something below him. Something to grab onto. Driven solely by his survival instinct he reached out and took hold.

The impact knocked the wind out of him, but he managed to grab on and avoid falling any further. The landslide rushed past him, leaving him moderately unscathed. Finally things began to slow down. Jack took stock of his situation. The thing he grabbed onto was an exposed tree root dangling over the deep chasm below. For now he was safe so long as he kept his grip.

"Jack!" Cyn's voice screamed from above. "Jack, are you still alive?! Say something!"

"Still here!" He shouted back. "Mind lending a hand?"

He spotted Cyn's head peering over the edge of the cliff face above him.

"You're too far down to reach. Hang tight! I think I have an idea." Cyn disappeared from view before reemerging a minute or two later. "Okay. Here's the plan. Caterpie is going to string shot you and we're going to use that to pull you up."

"You're sure about this?" Caterpie asked. "He's pretty big. I don't know if I can carry him up by myself."

"If I climb while you lift it shouldn't be that bad." Jackson said. "But make sure Cyn has got a solid grip on you."

"Butterfree can help too. She's well enough to walk." Cyn added. "Tell us when you're ready."

"No time like the present." A few seconds later a thick, sticky strand of silk splat against his chest with a wet plap and began to pull him upwards. He used the new aid to pull himself up onto the root and up onto the chasm wall. Finding handholds, he grabbed hold and began to scale the wall, a nerve wracking experience; even with the string shot safety net.

Slowly Jack climbed higher and higher, doing his best not to look below him. Little by little he ascended the precarious wall, nearly losing his footing a few times. But eventually, finally, he grabbed the edge of the ravine and pulled himself up to safety. Relief and exhaustion took hold as he lay on the ground, breathing heavily.

"That was not pleasant..." He muttered quietly before sitting upright. "We should probably get as far away from this fissure as possible."

"Gladly." The Butterfree said as she picked up her son. Her wings were torn and plastered with adhesive bandages. Jack wondered idly what it's like to lose the ability to fly. "Thank you two so much. I don't want to imagine what would've happened if you weren't there."

"I wasn't about to abandon a pokemon in need. Especially with everything that's been happening lately." Cyn's statement prompted a thought from Jack. What was it the voice said before he arrived? 'Pokemar needs you?' Assuming that this world is named Pokemar, he might have been brought here to resolve something. But then why choose him? Perhaps the answers lay in the gaps in his memory.

His mind returned to the present. First things first, he needed to get a foothold in this world. A place to stay, a job. His eyes drifted to the Caterpie in his mother's arms. He looked exhausted, sure, but also grateful. And a little starstruck. He looks at Jack as if he's looking at a brave hero. It feels... good. Maybe he could do this kind of thing for a living? Maybe, maybe not. It'd be dangerous work, no doubt.

"Yeah. Things have been rough, haven't they? I had thought Tiny Woods was still safe..."

"No one can blame you for that. We should hurry home before we get caught up in another aftershock."

"Of course. You two take care now." Butterfree turned and walked away. Catperie watched them as they went, eyes still gleaming in wonder.

"So, Jack." Cyn said, turning towards him as they too left the fissure behind. "I had thought that you claiming to be a human was because you got concussed or something. But after what you did, I don't think I can claim that anymore. You were too coordinated to have taken that bad of a hit."

"I promise you what I said is true. The last thing I remember was waking up during the quake. Everything else is just... missing."

"Amnesia, eh?"

"Yeah. For now though I need a place to stay. And a job."

"You know... I have an idea. I'm going to make you an offer."

"I'm listening."

"You and I become a Rescue Team and you get a place to sleep. You got muscle, and I know field medicine. And after what we just did, I think we have the capacity to do some good. I've been trying to get a team together for a while but no one I've talked to has been able to handle it. We could help each other."

"Rescue Team?"

"Yeah. We'd get funding from the Search and Rescue Association, SARA, to go out and rescue pokemon in need."

"You mentioned 'everything that's been happening lately' before. Is that what prompted all this?"

"No, Rescue Teams have been around for ages. They just became more important. In the past few years there's been a rise in the frequency of natural disasters. It started slow, just a couple severe storms, a landslide here or there, dangerous, but not out of the ordinary. But then they got worse. Nowadays there seems to be a major disaster every week."

Disasters growing worse... Was that what he was brought here to fix? How the heck was he expected to fix something like that? He was just a human, not a miracle worker.

"How bad do you think it will get?" He asked.

"I... try not to think about that... Short answer is nobody knows. Most of us are hoping that it dies down at some point. Maybe it's a cyclical thing that Pokemar goes through. But in the meantime, we could be of great help to those in need. So how about it? Are we teammates?"

Jack pondered. A job is one of the things he needed, after all. And Cyn was offering a place to stay as well. His only hangup was the danger. Would aiding pokemon in peril be worth the risk of dying himself?

It didn't take longer than a second for him to answer that question.

"I'm in." He said, reaching out and shaking his new partner's hand. "So I'll be staying at your place then?"

"I don't have the room for someone else, unfortunately. But I do have a plan. I have a favor or two I could call in..."