Wow, we had some very interesting pairings, it's very nice to see such a broad spectrum. The two I really liked was Neville/Luna and Danny /Sam (Danny Phantom). I just love those two pairings and they were just so perfect.

Now I would just like to say, that despite a few people hating on the story, (Though I can totally understand the Evolutionist haters, I hated him too, and I'm glad I got him out of my head and he won't return, at least he better not.) I'm glad I wrote it and I'm glad that people enjoyed reading it.

I do not own Harry Potter. I just own the Rangers.

The day had started just like any other at Ranger Headquarters, with the inhabitants milling about like a giant ant hill. Rangers came from and went out on missions across the globe, headed to breakfast, or lunch, or dinner at the Last Chance Diner (all varying on what time their particular day started). Rangers headed to the Solo Job Board to earn a bit more of specialized experience, or feel a bit of accomplished feeling that they could see an instant bit of gratification for the job that they do.

But despite all the bustling Rangers going in and out of different rooms and corridors, there was a set cluster of Rangers that did the same thing every morning without fail. Longsword would get up at five o'clock in the morning, drink a quick cup of coffee in his quarters and then go down to the Sparring room to meet a few of his old training buddies and spar for and hour and half. They had been friends since their rookie days and that had not changed for years, though...their numbers had dwindled down to only four left of their small circle out of six.

After the sparring was done, they would hit the showers and then go to Last Chance Diner for a hearty breakfast. Till they had to report to their respective Lieutenants, or in Longsword's case, Captain, they would sit and talk about anything new or interesting that had happened in the field.

"And then, if you can believe it, the silly fool decided to jump from the top of the bloody bridge into the Thames!" said one of the Rangers with a long scar done the middle of his face.

"With all those gold coins in his pockets?" said another Ranger with a monocle in his eye. "Fool must have sunk like a rock!"

"Oh he's lucky we got to him alright...and we didn't even get to keep him. Turns out Dr. Nicodemus said he wasn't mentally capable of understanding what he did wrong. Had to hand him off to Glacier." said the Ranger with the scar.

"Aye, I can buy that, I mean...those coins were heavy and jumping into the river, even the dumbest criminal wouldn't jump into the water with those in his pockets, not unless he wanted to go to Davy Jones' locker with the coins." said another Ranger with a curled mustache.

"Rudimentary criminals are not known for their intelligence." said another Ranger with curly black hair. "How about you Longsword, anything interesting happen to you lot lately?"

Longsword nearly choked on his coffee, but recovered. "No...nothing of any merit, Discor." He really didn't want to tell them about the last few missions he had gone on with his battalion.

"Come on now, we all promised we weren't going to hold anything back at breakfast, we heard that your Captain, Yin-Yang took some jobs off the Captain's Board, something interesting must have happened." said the Ranger with the scar. "Something always does."

Longsword sighed heavily and covered his eyes with one of his hands. "It's embarrassing."

"We won't judge..." said the mustache wearing Ranger.

Longsword looked skeptically at his friends and sighed once more. "Out of the two missions we've all gone on together since the start of summer...we've all be held captive at least once."

The others stared at Longsword and were silent for a moment, but then they all broke out in gales of laughter.

"Shut up." said Longsword sourly.

"You were the best one out of training squad! How do you get held captive?" said the Ranger with the scar.

"They were quick, quicker than I had even possibly imagined, I couldn't even track their movements." said Longsword honestly. "Quit laughing!"

"We're not laughing at you old boy, we're just...stunned that someone could one over on you!" said his friend removing his monocle and wiping away his tears of mirth.

"We've all been there, we've had to take missions from the Captain board as well, granted...we've never been captured..." said the mustache wearing Ranger.

Longsword shook his head.

"Well gents, as much of a high note this breakfast has ended on." said the Discor as he looked at his pocket watch. "It's time to go meet our superiors and get ready for the day's missions."

"I hope we've got a somewhat easy day today, I'm still feeling the sprained wrist from last week." said the Ranger with the scars.

"Honestly Raggar, you need to see Doc...he'd set your wrist alright." said the monocle wearing Ranger.

"I'll do that, the moment you tell him about you sneaking out from under him and seeing a younger Healer about your ulcer, Tux." said Raggar sharply.

"I'll pass." said the Ranger quickly.

"I thought so." said Raggar.

They raised a toast to the members of their original squad that were no longer with them with their cups of coffee, and then embraced each other, not sure if they all would see each other again for their tomorrow sparring and breakfast.

Longsword sighed heavily as he walked on towards the quarters of his Captain. Out of the remaining four of them, he had excelled through the complex ranks of the Rangers farther and faster than the rest of them. In all aspects, he could have had them reprimanded for laughing at him, but a pact signed by all of them when they were lowly rookies stated that no matter if one of them became Chief, they would always meet for breakfast and speak candidly with each other.

Unfortunately for him, it didn't stop them from taking the mickey out of him whenever he managed to louse something up, not that it happened all that often, unfortunately, he couldn't say that when they did something wrong, he didn't do the same thing to them. They were the only Rangers in the entire organization that he could let his guard down and speak freely.

He arrived at the Captain's door just as said Captain was closing the door behind himself, dressed all in black and carrying his staff in hand.

"Good morning sir." said Longsword bowing low. "Did you sleep well?"

"As well as can be expected I suppose. How about you?" asked Captain Yin-Yang plainly.

"Just fine sir." said Longsword.

"That's good, because we're going to have a very long day today." said Captain Yin-Yang as he strode down the corridor.

After they had met up with the rest of the Rangers. Captain Yin-Yang took out a sheet of paper, "I did have something else planned for the day, but this just came down the wire this morning..."

"Is it better or worse than what you had originally in mind?" asked Ctenizidae.

"Honestly, much worse." said the Captain with a frown.

"Wonderful." muttered Ctenizidae.

"We were going to help a few wizards in the Himalayas with their capture of a rogue Yeti, but with this new situation, we'll have to take a pass on that and defer that to a Lieutenant. We get to go and recapture a menagerie of magical creatures." said Captain Yin-Yang.

"Recapture?" asked Cosmo. "Did the Aurors have it under control at one point?"

"That would have been a better situation. They were part of an illegal traveling zoo, wizards and witches would pay to see these creatures in a confined environment and for a few hundred galleons, they could harvest a few of the more rare magical ingredients for potion making." said Longsword reading from the brief in his hand.

"To avoid a trafficking charge by the normal enforcements, he set them all loose." said Captain Yin.

"That idiot, now he's could be slammed with even worse charges than trafficking!" said Force looking thunderstruck.

"He already is, one of those creatures that was set loose was a nundu." said Captain Yin somberly. "And it's already been sighted near several businesses and several citizens have already been either stricken with illness, or killed. It was finally sent into the Forest of Dean, so that it's away from people. While we've got it away from innocent people, we need to get on the move right now. But like I said, there's a menagerie loose, so while the nundu is the worse one, there's more than just that. I've got you paired off so you'll handle your own list of creatures, that way you'll be able to have backup, just in case. I have a few of the other lieutenants and their crews roping off a two-mile radius of each creature so that they don't get out and attack anyone else."

Longsword handed out the different pieces of paper.

"Ctenizidae and Cosmo, I want you two to handle the six grindylows, two kelpies and the two baby Swedish Short Snouts." said Captain Yin. "Force and Hunger, you two are going to handle the five red caps, an augrey, an erumpent and the chimera."

"Not asking for much are you?" said Force.

"I think the girls will have enough problems with those dragons, oh Cosmo, you may want to leave any jewelry behind, just in case they're in their treasure hoarding stage, don't want them to rip your arms off. Longsword and I will take care of the basilisk, nundu, lethifold, and the Crumple-Horned Snorkack." said Captain Yin.

The Rangers stared. "They...how did a common wizard manage to see a one of those Snorkacks, let alone capture one? They're supposed to be invisible for most of their lives!" said Hunter in shock.

"Seems The Quibbler's editior Xenophilius Lovegood stumbled on a way to see them. Sprectrespecs he called them, you get a free pair with every issue purchased." said Longsword. "The wizard running the show didn't even get to showcase the animal once, Aurors were on him just before the first show."

"You mean that paper that calls Fudge a goblin killer, that bakes 'em in pies? That Quibbler?" said Cosmo stunned.

"I love that paper! It's fun to read, but those things really work?" said Ctenizidae.

"Seems so..." said Force shaking his head.

"So do we capture them alive?" asked Hunter looking down at his list.

"If you can manage it, without causing the people any harm, I would prefer it. But if it's about to attack, anyone, then you take it out. Use your judgment, as...lacking as it has been lately..." The Rangers flinched slightly. "That however shouldn't come to pass, as Longsword and I will be handling the more deadly creatures." said the Captain somberly.

"Now, go to the Supply Room and check out whatever you want and have Angus charge it to me, I want us fully prepared and out in less than twenty minutes."

Hours later, Longsword and Captain Yin-Yang had finished the delicate field dressing of the large basilisk, removing the eyes, poison sack and the liver with great care. Being the two top active Rangers gave them enough skill and power to take out a fairly young basilisk, a vicious lethifold and a very pregnant snorkack.

"What's that last thing we have to go after?" asked Yang.

"A nundu sir." said Longsword wrapping the eye up carefully. "According to the map, it's thankfully a mile or so away. It was a lucky thing that while we were fighting the leithfold you saw it and threw the button beacon on at it's fur."

"Indeed, we don't need that nundu smelling fresh kill and taking us off guard, and it was a good throw." said Yin standing up. "Put a beacon on the remains, we can still salvage the meat, ought to make some decent traveling jerky."

"Yes sir." said Longsword taking out a small button like object and placing it carefully on the snake's scales.

Beacon: When a Ranger makes a kill of an animal and it's of a magical nature, a beacon is placed on the creature and it becomes invisible and intangible, unless one has the right glasses or goggles and wears the proper gloves to remove the beacon.

Beacons only work on magical creatures, when a Ranger kills a normal creature, the meat is harvested immediately and given to local food banks or homeless shelters.

They fled the area of the fresh kill and made their way towards the nundu's location. The rest of their battalion had already made it out of their restricted areas with their own captures and were keeping back, the less people to get underfoot in regards to a Nundu, the better.

They stopped just on the other side of a small river, inspecting the flora...or what was left of the flora. The grasses, flowers and even the trees were withered and dying; the cause of it, was the creature that belonged to the paw prints on the ground.

"Sir, the creature is in the nearby area." said Longsword quietly as he focused on the paw print and the fresh trail it left behind.

Suddenly a panther like roar came from behind and Longsword felt himself being yanked away from where he stood. He turned to see and his face was gripped with horror, the nundu had his captain's arms clamped firmly in it's teeth and was thrashing him around like a rag doll.

Captain Yin-Yang was trying to pry the creature's jaws open with his hand, his staff lying on the ground a few feet away. Longsword grabbed his two blades and sliced at the nundu's neck. His blade, goblin wrought, could only embed itself partially in the beast's neck, but it was enough to make the beast remove it's jaws from the Captain's arms and turn on Longsword.

He had to get the beast away from his now injured Captain. It seemed it was going to take more than one slice to the neck to bring this creature down. He retreated slightly drawing the beast in close.

"Oi! Get up, we need to get over there before he ends up killing himself!" came Yang's voice.

Yin was in a fog of pain, a horrible gut wrenching pain. Despite having a sac especially designed for poison, a nundu's venom was in a league all of it's own and was quickly sending acidic poison down to the sac, breaking down the Ranger made organ so it can flood the rest of the body.

A nundu's poison change with every single kill they made and creature they feasted on, resulting it in being virtually impossible for anyone, Ranger or otherwise, to be immune to it's bite. Even a Ranger specializing in poison, one Lieutenant Serum, considered it a great personal challenge to develop anitbodies to counter act any nundu's venom.

"Yang, you'll have to go help him." said Yin weakly.

"I can't leave you, you need me to make sure it doesn't..."

"Don't worry about me lying here, you need to go and make sure that that thing doesn't eat anything else before we can get it's tongue out." said Yin.

"Tongue?" said Yang with curious disgust.

"That's where it's anti-venom is at, but it'll be almost useless unless we get it before it has a chance to change it naturally." gasped Yin as a surge of pain flashed through his arm and into his chest. "Get going, before both Longsword and I are both bitten!"

Meanwhile, Longsword was ducking through trees and through bushes, taking quick shots at the nundu's neck. He had to behead the creature soon and get back to the Captain with the antidote quickly. As strong as the Captain was, surely he would be able to stave off the poison for fifteen minutes or more, but as...small as he was, it may be already too late.

His Captain...he couldn't die, he'd never...never forgive himself.

He shouldn't have been focusing on his guilt, and more on the surrounding area. He stumbled over a particularly large rock and with the weight of his body falling further than his knee he felt and heard the sickening crack of his now fractured kneecap.

The nundu was on him in an instant, teeth bared and prepared to bite into the man's chest. Longsword held out one of his hands and a sword to keep the beast's venomous teeth away from his body. The blade was caught in the nundu's fangs, and his free hand was on the shoulder of the venomous cat's body. The disease ridden breath wafted into his face and instantly, made him feel weak...but he had to get the creature off him, broken kneecap or no, he had to get that blasted tongue out of the cat's mouth, but he couldn't get the blade out of the animal's canine teeth.

But Longsword's strength gave out and the nundu lunged for the man's throat. Longsword closed his eyes, waiting for it to strike.

It was silent, he didn't hear anything, or feel anything. He opened his eyes and saw the special form of Captain Yang standing over him, a frown on his face.

"You alright?" said Captain Yang.

"I...the...nundu..." said Longsword thickly. He felt his neck and there was no tear of flesh, no warm blood pouring from his neck, he was uninjured. Then he looked around and noticed they were back in the clearing where the nundu first struck them.

"Dead, you fainted...and Yin's recovering right now. It's a good thing that I got to it before it decided to bite you. I thought getting captured was bad enough, but breaking your leg? Bloke, you are slipping." said Yang shaking his head.

Longsword sat up and leaned against the rock he sat in front of, he gazed down at his leg and saw that it was in a magical splint and healing as he sat there. He looked over at the form of his commander, who was sitting against a tree, head down and his eyes closed.

"He's just fine, just resting..." said Yang following his gaze. "It was really close, ain't going to lie. Nundu...those sacs aren't made for that beast."

"Thank you..." said Longsword.

Yang turned to look at him.

"I...You and I don't...often speak or interact...I...thank you for saving me..." said Longsword looking down. "I know that we are all...not what you personally look for in Rangers. I know that you have such high standards for subordinates...but...we all try to do our best for you, the both of you."

Yang looked down at him, sighed and sat on the ground beside him.

"You know...we both had to agree on who we were going to get for our battalion, We went through several dozen Rangers that the both of us thought were good enough." said Yang.

Longsword looked at Yang, with a curious glance at him.

"You were the first one we agreed on. No arguing about good points and bad, we both agreed immediately." said Yang looking determinedly over to Yin's form. "He looked at your file before hand and had a post-it on there that said, 'No matter what, fight to get him' and I thought you looked really cool, loved the swords you wave about."

Longsword blinked.

"In fact, with everyone in the battalion, we didn't argue about them much." said Yang softly. He continued to look at the other half of himself. "We...we may be younger than you guys, but...we are proud of you. You guys...when you're on form, you're amazing, you beat the rest of those other Rangers easily. Those other Rangers, about ninety percent of time I just want to shove their faces through a glass window, they're so worthless."

"But when you guys decided to go do what you did to Lockhart...you had us worried there. We weren't sure where you guys were going with all that...but we needed to stop you..." said Yang. "If we hadn't of swept it under the rug the way we did, we'd have to...dismiss you lot, and I don't think we would be able to trust the new squad that we'd have to find."

Longsword looked down in shame. "We are sorry, we didn't think that far ahead it seems."

"Well, you all should have learned by now...to think ahead and some other things." said Yang somberly. "We've got an unfair advantage, four eyes as opposed to you only having two, and two minds instead of one..."

They sat in silence until Yin awoke and they made their way back to the base camp where the rest of them sat, leaning on each other as Yang hovered overhead. A new respect for Captain Yang in Longsword's heart.

"Oi, you're little cakes are going to get cold!"

Longsword, Cosmo, Force, Hunter and Ctenizidae all sat up quickly and looked at their Captains.

They had separated and were looking at them over their own food. Dr. Nicodemus had told them to practice separating so that they could do it without causing any harm to each other and so far...they could do it with little effort.

"You'd better eat those lava cakes before Yang does, he's already eaten his and just about snatched mine." said Yin with a smile.

After Captain Yin-Yang said good night to the rest of his company, he went to his quarters. Instead of the normal solitude that greeted him, the room was full of people and a giant tank with six merpeople inside. If any of the other Ranger's in his battalion had seen them, they all would have leaped into the air and prepared themselves for a fight to the death.

Almost all of them, save one, were apprehended by Yin-Yang's battalion that very week and supposedly sent to Hell's Garden. Now, they were all standing in his lounge, sipping wine and eating from a large tray of biscuits.

"Thank you all for doing what you did." said Captain Yin-Yang. "Sorry we couldn't play with your yeti, Bioman, we had an emergency that needed my attention."

"It's alright, we sent a few Sergeants to go handle her...they learned a few things." said Bioman, a tall, tanned man wearing bright green clothes. "And Frosty got to play hide and seek for a while, she loves that game."

"Do you think they suspect that it was all planned, your battalion?" asked one of the mermen in large tank speaking into a underwater microphone.

"Cosmo realized that every mission was tailored to one of them in particular, but no...they didn't know it was faked." said Yang hovering overhead. "I want to know how we managed Cosmo's mission, that seems like a shot in the dark and hope we hit our mark."

"Anything sparkly...she's drawn to it...good work with those worms by the way...they all alright?" asked Yin.

"They're just fine, the Maine DNR received the lab reports that the worms weren't dead, just in a sort of chemical stasis, even made it so that their systems clear out the toxins in about a week, with the help of a little liquid protein." said the man that Cosmo hunted down. "Bioman sent with Ctenizidae the protein when she went, didn't even realize it was all planned. Also, we sent the 'Worm Hunters' or whatever they're called, restitution checks for loss of income."

"Did Force get new sunglasses yet? Never saw a man that pissed off of losing shades before." said another man with a smile. "I really thought he was going to kill me there for a moment."

"He's still picking out the frames he wants." said Yang rolling his eyes. "And Hunter is finally using tech, though we're only up to a...what was that again? A really, really old computer, and he's broken two of them already."

"What did Longsword learn?" asked Bioman curiously. "I know he was supposed to dig himself out from an avalanche that he himself was supposed to cause."

"Pretty much the same lesson, that his actions can really hurt others, and you have to make your decisions carefully, yet quickly." said Yin. "Though, he had already learned that with that Basilisk almost sinking his fangs into him. And the nundu attack was completely unscripted...the whole damn mission was."

"We all need to master being able to think on your feet and make the right decisions, with all the power we've got, we can get quite complacent at times." said one of the tanned skinned "criminals" in the back and the rest of them all nodded.

One by one, all the "criminals" pressed a distinct part of their body, causing them to change their looks drastically, and apparently back to their original selves.

"So when do you go back to school?" asked one of the mermen who was now a mermaid.

"September, but hopefully I can go on a few more missions before we get called back to Shady Oak." said Yin. "We just heard that a werewolf is going to be the new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, and I need to train against a few of them in case something goes horribly wrong."

"Yeah, best be prepared...oh, speaking of which, I heard that one of the new rookies ready to be auctioned off this weekend is a werewolf, even has a Ranger name already picked out." said Bioman.

"What's that?" asked Yin and Yang together.

"Nightstrike."

Thanks for reading, please review.

Yes, that's right, this story is now completed...but with what I had just done, that means this is going to be a series.

Meaning, the sequel to this will be listed on the poll on my profile page. So if you want the sequel to come reasonably soon, you'll have to pummel that vote button.

I hope you enjoyed the story, thanks for joining me on this very interesting ride.

Lady Celestial Star