Snowpoint City was quiet as we packed up our hotel rooms and started out of town.

  It wasn’t the hush of a winter’s morning where the snow absorbed all of the sound, but instead the quiet of a city which had partied its heart out the night before, and was recovering from a massive hangover.

  A few people and Pokémon in heavy winter clothes and high-visibility vests were going around with trash bags and picking up all of the detritus that had been left behind.

  Unlike my memories of similar events back on Earth,there were relatively few bits of actual trash on the ground. Even when partying, the people of this world were more considerate when it came to disposing of their garbage.

  There was even a Garbodor in a neon-green vest who was happily separating out the trash from what could be recycled into something else, and the stuff that it could eat.

  Of course, I had a major problem with our exit from the city.

  “Why are we leaving so early?” I grumbled, clutching the thermos of coffee tighter in my gloved hands. “We could have waited a little bit longer.”

  “The sooner we get on the road, the sooner we can get to Veilstone City.” Ted said happily. “The early Taillow gets the worm, after all.”

  “Ugh, you sound like my father.” Kevin grumbled.

  There had been no actual decision made by the group to let him travel with us, but he was going in the same direction we were anyways, and none of us had a particular objection to his presence. How long he would be traveling with us was another question, and one I was sure that Kevin himself didn’t have an answer to.

  “Annoyingly though, he’s right.” The younger man continued. “Snowpoint City’s nice and all, but we can’t spend our entire time there. There’s still four or five Gym badges left to get if you want to go to the conference, and they’re not going to earn themselves.”

  But what if I don’t want to go to the conference? A small voice whispered in the back of my mind.

  That voice had been getting louder after last night, but I quieted it down.

  “Still, the trip to Veilstone will take a couple days at least. Longer if it snows. Surely another hour or two of rest won’t change anything.”

  “It might.” Lucas said, turning and almost slipping on a patch of ice. “You just mentioned that it might snow. If a storm does blow in, then the further we hike before then means that shorter we have to wait.”

  “I… don’t think it works like that.”

  “This is the life of a Trainer during the Conference season.” Ted said with a shrug. “It’s best just to accept it.”

  Lucas nodded eagerly.

  “Besides, even if it snows, it won’t be that bad. The Rangers have a bunch of cabins set up all along the paths to make sure that travellers who get caught in a storm have someplace safe to stay. What can go wrong?”

  /^\

  “What can go wrong?” I grumbled, holding Kōjin tighter to my body. “Why did you have to say that?”

  “How was I supposed to know things would get this bad! Besides, there should have been a cabin nearby!”

  “Can we please not squabble?” Ted said as he took a sip of his tea. “It’s too cold for this.”

  Kōjin looked up at me and panted happily, and I sighed.

  “Sorry.”

  “It’s okay.”

  “Has the snow stopped?” I asked Kevin, who was poking his head out of the top of the tent’s flap.

  He pulled his head in. “Nope. I think it’s gotten a little worse.”

  There was a chorus of groans and curses.

  The snow had started a day after we had left the city. It had been light at first, just a few snowflakes that added an ethereal quality to our trip, but as the day went on and the shadows lengthened it became obvious that it wasn’t just going to be a simple storm.

  Despite Lucas’ words, the cabins the Rangers used to stay warm were farther apart than expected, and there was no way we could make it to one before night fell.

  We had made camp early that night, setting up our tents to keep the snow away, and I made sure to sleep with Kōjin out to keep warm.

  The Hisuian Growlithe had been more than happy to keep the tent nice and toasty with his mere presence, even if Zetian was committed to staying in her Poké Ball.

  When we woke up the next morning, the snow was most of the way to my knees, and it was still coming down.

  As much as we tried to hurry, to stay ahead of the storm clouds that were getting darker and darker, the snow held us back. Even with Ted and his long legs leading the charge for the rest of us, it was still a challenge to push through the snow. Every step felt like it was taking three times the effort it should have.

  Even when we sent out our Fire-types to try and literally blaze a path, we still ended up moving slower than any of us would have liked.

  There had come a point where we had given up on making it to the cabin, and set up camp. We had figured out that Ted had the biggest tent out of all of us, and had cleared as large of an area as possible.

  After that was done, we had gathered a bunch of the poles from the other tents and stuck them all upright with bits of red cloth tied onto them. Kevin had actually sacrificed one of his shirts for the endeavor, which was pleasantly surprising.

  Then, we hunkered down and waited, using our Fire-type Pokémon to stay warm and a tiny gas stove to make some food.

  Between the four of us we all had enough food to keep us alive for a while, and if we needed water there was a surplus of it coming down all around us. All we had to do was wait for the Rangers to find us.

  It had been a day already, and tensions were beginning to get a little high as we all were crammed into such a small place with nothing to do.

  “Oh, it’s three o’clock already. Anybody have a signal?” Kevin asked, and we all reached for our phones.

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  In the beginning we had been constantly checking our phones, hoping for a signal so we could call the Rangers and hope for a rescue. Unfortunately, the heavy snowfall, mixed with Sinnoh’s already poor cell reception, meant that all of our phones were out of service.

  After a few hours of constant checking, we decided to give it a look once an hour, both to save our batteries and our sanities.

  “No.” I mumbled disappointed as the words NO SIGNAL appeared on my phone’s screen.

  “Nothing.”

  “Yes!” We all turned in excitement to Ted, who immediately deflated. “No. Sorry, I had it for a second but then it dropped again.”

  The mood in the tent plummeted again, especially after Kevin gave a sad “me neither.”

  “Okay.” I took a deep breath. “I know I’m new here, but how long do snowstorms last in Sinnoh?”

  “Wait, you’re not from Sinnoh?”

  “Now’s really not the time Kevin.”

  Lucas scratched his chin. “Uh, the last time I came up to Snowpoint it wasn’t this snowy. Maybe a couple days?”

  “Up to a week.” Kevin grumbled. “I got caught in a big storm last year, and had to stay in the hotel for six days while they worked on clearing the streets.”

  “Can we survive six days out here?”

  “Nope!”

  “Gee, thanks Kevin.”

  The young man looked at me, affronted. “I didn’t say anything.”

  I blinked. “You just said ‘nope’ to me.”

  “That wasn’t him.” The voice said, and we all jumped.

  “Who’s there?” Ted called.

  “Your friendly neighborhood Ranger. Mind opening the door?”

  We all hesitated, trying to make out any shapes through the walls of the tent, but I couldn’t see anything.

  “It’s cold out here!”

  I held Kōjin a little closer, making sure that his mouth was pointed towards the door - just in case.

  Lucas tentatively reached out, and unzipped the tent door.

  A head popped in through the opening, breath pluming in the cold. “Howdy there folks. Nice place you’ve got here, but it’s a rough neighborhood. Maybe you should think of moving?”

  The Ranger was approximately my age, maybe a little bit younger, and clad in an orange and dark blue winter parka and snow pants, complete with an orange knit hat.

  We all let out a breath of relief.

  “Ranger Mulligan, at your service.” He tapped the edge of his hat, which drew my attention to the Sinnoh Rangers emblem sewn onto it. “I saw your flags on my way through the storm.”

  “Thank you.” Ted said. “We got caught out in the snow before we realized how bad it was.”

  Mulligan nodded. “That’s been happening a lot recently. Blame the terrorists over in Hoenn, they really messed up the weather systems with their storms, and this blizzard caught everybody by surprise. Now, how about we get you all out of this place and into somewhere actually warm and dry?”

  “Yes please,” I said. “But can you take all of us at once?”

  “Yup! Let’s get your tent all packed away, and then we can get you to the cabin.”

  We all started to put away our stuff, and eventually stumbled out of the tent to see a massive Mamoswine waiting patiently outside.

  “Are we going on that?” Kevin asked as Ted and Lucas worked to fold up the tent.

  “Nope!” Mulligan pulled out a Poké Ball and recalled the Mamoswine. “She’s just how I help keep the paths clean.”

  He whipped out another Poké Ball, and with a flash of light and some sparkles from a couple of stickers, a Kadabra emerged.

  Mulligan smiled. “Okay folks, everybody hold hands.”

  We awkwardly held hands, with Mulligan and the Kadabra closing us into a circle.

  “To the Ranger Cabin.” Mulligan said, and my eyes widened.

  “Oh no.”

  Then time and space twisted, and we were gone.

  /^\

  “I hate this.” I said after spitting out the water I’d used to wash my mouth. “How come none of you get sick when you teleport?”

  “It affects everybody differently.” Ranger Mulligan said, and passed me a mug of hot chocolate. “Here, you need to warm up.”

  “Thanks.”

  The Ranger station near Eterna City was a nice, small cabin that was big enough for an office and a back room or two. Where Mulligan had taken us was palatial in comparison.

  It was two stories tall, and I could see a basement access as well. A large fireplace sat crackling and spitting merrily on the other end of the room, and I would have forgiven somebody if they thought it was a ski resort.

  “Are all Ranger cabins up here this nice?” Lucas asked, looking around in appreciation.

  “Ha! No, I wish. This used to be an old ski resort before the owners passed away, and the Rangers bought it from their estate.”

  Huh, I guess I called it.

  “Most cabins are pretty small, but we use this one as a base of operations during the winter. Especially for folks like you, who need a nice place to recover after getting caught out in a storm.”

  “How many cabins do you have up here?” Ted asked.

  Ranger Mulligan gave him a look. “That's an interesting accent. Are you from Hoenn?”

  Ted cocked his head. “Yeah?”

  “Nice! Me too! I was born in LaRousse!”

  “No kidding? Mauville for me!”

  “Hey! Nice!”

  The two instantly began to chatter about Hoenn, although occasionally flashes of sadness passed over Ted’s face.

  A door opened somewhere upstairs, and a woman in Ranger orange and dark blue came down the stairs.

  “Is he talking about Hoenn again?” She asked, and I nodded.

  “He’ll be like that forever then.” She sighed before introducing herself. “Ranger Sayla, at your service. I’m this one’s partner.”

  “Alina, nice to meet you. This is Lucas, Kevin, and over there is Ted.”

  “Pleased to meet you all. Although… I feel like your names are familiar for some reason.”

  I shrugged.

  “Anyways, what were you all talking about before they started chatting about Hoenn?”

  “How many cabins there are.” Kevin said, huddled under a blanket with Zee, his Crobat.

  “Ah, a good question. We have about fifty cabins, none as nice as this one of course, and probably a hundred shelters of various kinds.”

  “Wait, really? That’s so many!”

  “You’d think so, but it's a lot less than it seems. Those 150 shelters are spread out all across the northern tip of Sinnoh, and we’d like to have more. Every year we get a few poor souls who leave the trails and go missing, or get frozen because they annoyed one Froslass too many. We try to make sure that there’s always a shelter in range, but we’re understaffed and underfunded so…”

  Sayla shrugged. “What can you do?”

  I frowned. “You’re not the first Ranger to tell me that they’re understaffed. Is it really that bad?”

  “Sayla!” Mulligan called. “Don’t go slandering us again!”

  “I’m just telling the truth!” She shouted back, before lowering her voice again.

  “But in all honesty, it’s not great out here. The League tries to keep us funded, but there’s always something else that seems to need their attention, and we keep getting pushed down the priority list.”

  “That’s not right!” Kevin said, fire blazing in his eyes.

  “Yeah!” Lucas added. “We were always told that Rangers were the ones who kept people safe!”

  “And we do. Or we try. But the region is a big place. It may not seem this way, but Sinnoh is the second largest region in the Four Islands. We’re about the same size as Johto and Kanto added together, and if we were any larger you could throw Hoenn in there as well. Despite all of that, we have half as many Rangers than any other region.”

  “Wait, really?”

  “Really.”

  “I didn’t realize it was so bad…” I murmured.

  “Oh, I’m making it seem worse than it is.” Sayla sighed. “Its just frustrating sometimes. We’re currently working with the League to get us more funding but… it’s slow going.”

  She sighed again, even heavier this time.

  “Mulligan is right, I really shouldn’t be telling regular Trainers like you any of this…”

  Then her eyes lit up, and my heart dropped.

  “But wait a minute, you’re not regular Trainers, are you? I remember where I’ve heard your names! You’re the Lab Trainers who got trapped underground! You’ve got to tell me about that.”

  Lucas looked at me, but I just took a sip of hot chocolate and turned to look out the window.

  “You would not believe it.” He said, and even Kevin leaned in. “So there we were, rooting around in this cave, when all of a sudden the floor collapsed!”