Full Summary: Solana just learned that Lunick has been captured by an Almian criminal who goes by the name of Dr. Kipling. She has to travel to the faraway region to rescue him with Plusle's help. She learns that she and Lunick have much more in common than they would have thought, and that maybe, just maybe, they can solve the mystery of Altru's underground together.

Hidden Meanings

An 18-year-old Ranger wandered down the old, beaten path leading from Fall City to Ringtown, glancing around at all the scenery she'd missed while settling down in the city. Trees, grass, the smell of wood... Everything was so different between the two towns that she found herself wondering just how they coexisted in the same region - let alone how a city could be located next to such a dark tunnel.

A sudden rustling of leaves from outside caught her attention and Solana giggled as Plusle hopped around excitedly. It cried in happiness and skipped in ecstasy while alongside its Ranger, and even when it calmed down the tiniest bit it would get more energy and chatter joyfully.

The blue-haired girl laughed at her Pokemon. "Calm down. We're almost there."

Currently they were making their way to Ringtown to meet with Spenser because he finally had a mission for her to do. At first she was disappointed because she wouldn't have much time to spend with her family but once she thought about it she was pleased - she hadn't taken on a mission in quite some time. It'd been at least since she relocated with her family to Fall City that she'd taken on something of importance. Of course she'd gone through the Forest a few times to look for Larry's "precious" but other than that, there wasn't anything exciting, so she wanted to see what was planned for her.

As she trekked through the last pathways of the Krokka Tunnel with Plusle she heaved a huge sigh, relieved to have made it through without having to do too many captures. Sometimes, she decided, it was best to avoid all the Pokemon in the wild for a while.

She hopped over the hills leading out of the tunnel and began walking towards Ringtown, where she met up with Spenser. Plusle squealed with delight at the sight of the old friend but Solana could sense there was something wrong; she knew that look. Besides, why would he call her here if the mission was a happy one? She'd quickly outgrown petty tasks except for Larry's because apparently he really liked her.

The green-haired man's face was scrunched, his eyebrows lowered to make him look a little confused with a pinch of anger. With a simple nod of his head he turned around, muttered a "come on" and led her into the Lyra Forest.

He led her past the wild Pokemon, some of which stopped and stared at the disheveled Rangers, and around the bends and turns until they safely made it out. Solana could see the liveliness of Ringtown and though she knew Spenser was upset she couldn't help but crack a grin. This was the life she remembered.

Spenser opened the door to the base, allowing Solana to head in first, and closed it behind him, locking it from the inside. Solana glanced around the vast room, checking for differences that may have happened within the five months she was away. She spotted nothing out of the ordinary: just the regular Rangers, the Operator behind the desk, and, from what she could hear, the Dragonite that served as the bus and Spenser's Fearow. Nothing was missing.

But wait. Something was missing. Solana's heart sank a little bit as realization dawned on her; how could she not have noticed?

"Where's Lunick?"

Spenser turned around from his post at the door and stared at her. He bit his lip. "That's what I need to talk to you about." He walked up to his usual spot at the front of the base. Solana followed him, standing a few feet from him, watching his expression. By now the other Rangers had gone upstairs to attend to other business - Spenser had already relayed the story to them and they didn't really want to hear it again, especially not when it came to telling the most talented but stubborn Ranger in the base.

"So…I need you to do this mission for me." He cracked his knuckles, stalling. How could he put this delicately? Sure, it wasn't like it was easy news to break to a fiery person like Solana, but he had to somehow. After all, that's exactly what he called her there for. He sighed. "Solana…"

"Spenser," she broke in impatiently, putting a hand up but letting it fall after she was done talking. "I can handle it. Really."

"Fine." He braced himself. "Lunick has been captured."

"What?!"

Plusle whimpered and covered its ears, scrunching itself into a ball on the floor to hide from Solana's outburst as if she was angry at it.

Sure, Solana could totally handle it. Really. That's why she was hyperventilating right now and praying to Arceus that her friend wasn't dead and hoping that he was okay and worrying and thinking about what she was going to do to save him and what was going to happen to her and -

"Solana?" Spenser interrupted her raging thoughts.

She managed a small noise to acknowledge his presence, her mind still overridden.

"I know this has to be hard for you to grasp, but I really need you to focus right now, okay?"

Solana sighed, pulling together all the sanity she had left, and nodded. She closed her eyes, ready for her mission. It didn't take a genius to know it was about rescuing her dark blue-haired friend.

Spenser ran a hand through his green hair and sighed. "Do you remember all those times I used to tell you guys about the Ranger School I went to in the Almia region?" he asked, unsurely at first. He was torn. He'd already lost his second-best Ranger, and now he was going to lose his best. Luckily there wasn't anything going on in Fiore at the time; however, the same couldn't be said for its unfortunate neighboring region.

She nodded, remembering how entertaining it was hearing about his, Cameron's and Joel's childhood lives together at the school. Spenser and Joel would always bicker and Cameron would have to be the mediator to keep the peace between the two. "Yeah," she managed, smiling a little bit and noticing that Spenser had fixated his eyes on the ground at his feet.

"Well, I need you to go there in order to rescue Lunick."

"The Ranger School?"

He laughed. "No. Almia." He finally brought his head up to meet her eyes, a serious gleam in his own. "I've received word that he's been captured by someone in disguise. It's a man who goes by the name Doctor Kipling. We don't know anything else about him, though - it's all hearsay from Murph at the Altru Building."

Wait - did he say Murph? Solana knew Murph!

"Murph's working for Altru now?" she asked incredulously, momentarily forgetting everything besides her wandering thoughts of how her plump friend was doing.

"Yes, but now isn't the time to be thinking about his newfound job. I need you to bring Lunick back."

Solana nodded, disregarding everything except the task at hand. But there was still one problem: how would she get to Almia?

"You'll be taking Dragonite to get there," Spenser said, answering her unspoken question. "I don't want you to be too obvious, so I'm having him take you to Chicole Village, which is the smallest town in Almia. Murph says he knows a Ranger who lives there and he's an expert at what he does. Murph will meet you there. Oh, and there's just one more tiny thing." He glanced down at her.

When she met his gaze he spoke again.

"You'll be undercover, so you need a name change."

Her eyes grew bigger and wider and with another incredulous stare she gasped.

"I know, I know," he began, "but Joel, Cameron, and I have been talking about it. We decided on the name Auburn." He twiddled his thumbs, still a bit worried about sending his best Ranger out so abruptly. "It's still a little mysterious, just like Solana, and that was the only name that really stood out to us because we knew you'd hate everything else we came up with - if you don't hate this, too, that is." And it lets everyone you meet know you're just as fiery as your name, he added to himself, allowing a smile to form.

Solana gulped and nodded again. So even if she met up with Lunick, she'd be undercover and in disguise so she probably wouldn't even be able to tell him it was her. She sighed.

"Okay." And she awaited the rest, knowing there was more because of the look in his stern-but-caring eyes.

He turned around now, not wanting to see Solana's expression to what he next added.

"I want you to leave by tomorrow morning."

…

Shirts, shorts, skirts, pants, headbands, undergarments, hairbrush, toothbrush, hair ties, mixed in with a lunchbox consisting of nonperishable foods went into a brand new backpack. She'd be too easily recognized in her Ranger outfit with her old bag. It panged her to stow them away in her closet, though, as she had grown quite accustomed to them over the past year and a half she was working as a Ranger. It was just her normal attire. But now she wouldn't even be able to wear her usual ponytail. Sighing, she grabbed the hair ties from her pack and stuffed them into a dresser drawer. She yanked the ponytail holder out of her blue hair. Without its tamer her blue hair cascaded past her shoulders, halfway down her back. She looked at the reflection in the mirror, not believing it to be hers.

Solana wiped away the stray tears with the back of her hand. She couldn't think about it now. Right now, Spenser needed her. The Ranger Bases needed her.

Lunick needed her.

She felt a twinge of pain as she thought of him. What kind of person would kidnap a Ranger, anyway? Where was the sense in that? Why was Lunick in Almia, anyway? And why would Spenser send her and not some other ranger for this task? Did that mean that he favored her over the others? But she hadn't even been working nearly as long as the others had. It made her feel slightly better that he favored her, but she still wished she didn't have to go.

Sighing, she sat down on her bed, holding her face in her hands as she sifted through her thoughts. Why her? She didn't want to deal with all of this. Why couldn't she have been a Pokemon, like her Plusle? It was just napping in the corner of the room; Solana envied it for a moment.

A knock at the door snapped her out of her trance momentarily. Plusle perked up, too, but calmed down once it saw a familiar face. Solana's mother entered with a somber expression.

"So you're leaving now," she stated. She sat down next to her daughter, putting an arm around her shoulders. Her own brown hair was down as well but it wasn't quite the same length as Solana's, falling just below her shoulders. Solana leaned against her mother.

"I don't leave until morning," the blue-haired girl said. She wasn't quite sure how she felt about it. On one hand she and Lunick were good friends and good friends save each other from disasters such as this. But on the other hand she'd only spent five months with her family and she felt she needed more time. And she was an only child, so how did her mother feel about all this? Surely she couldn't be too thrilled…

"I'm sorry, Mom," she whispered, realizing this. She lifted her head and stared at her floor where the fat backpack lay. "I don't know how hard this is for you."

Her mother rubbed her back reassuringly.

"Well, sometimes life's funny like that. Take care of your responsibilities, though - we'll always have your back," she answered. "And we'll always support you, no matter what." After a moment she stood up and headed towards the door, looking back at Solana. "I'll leave you alone now, but you might want to talk to your father. We'll have a nice breakfast ready for you in the morning before you leave." She opened the door. "Goodnight, Solana."

Solana looked up. "Goodnight, Mom. Thanks."

Her mother nodded and smiled before closing the door behind her, leaving the Ranger to herself. She sighed. She didn't really want to talk to her father. They'd been... a little detached for quite some time and she didn't feel as if this was a moment to start the bonding. She groaned and lay back on her bed, exasperated.

In twelve hours she would be on her way to Almia. It would be a new life for her. New clothes, new hairstyle…new name. No, she told herself, shaking her head. It's not a new name, it's just a codename. Everything will be back to normal once all this is out of the way.

Naturally, she wasn't allowed to tell anybody anything. Her mother didn't know anything of what was going on besides Solana had another mission to do and it would take quite a while, so she probably wouldn't be able to return home anytime soon. She wasn't told her new name or where she was going, though, which had to have been scary for a parent.

In any case, though, more than likely nobody would even know it was Solana.

Not even Lunick would know.

A/N: Hi, there! First off, lemme thank you for reading my first Pokemon multichap fanfic :). I hope to keep this interesting while keeping it accurate so let me know if I'm missing anything (i.e. keeping IC, getting facts right, stuff like that). I haven't played the first Pokemon Ranger in a while but it is my favorite so I sort of know what I'm doing, anyway :). For those of you who really want a quick Rangershipping fic, sorry! You'll have to wait quite a few chapters before anything major happens. If I get a lot of feedback right away I'll make sure I update ASAP, but for right now I'm planning on updating about once, maybe twice, a week. I'm a junior in high school and as you may or may not know that's the busiest year, so don't hold me to my updating schedule. Oh, and tell me if I need to change the name. It sounds kind of generic to me so I might be changing it later. Okay...so the A/N that took up 1/5 of the chapter is done. Anyway, I hope you liked it! Please review to keep me motivated :D.

And also, [Edited 11/25/11] I edited a lot of stuff in here and am getting ready to post the second chapter. A lot of the dialog's changed but unless you're one of my original 25 viewers you won't tell the difference and even if you're one of the first it's not a lot to shake a stick at. I just made it make more sense(and I'll actually post the differences I made next chapter so you guys won't have to read through this AN again). THANKS FOR READING.

Edited again as of 10/10/14! Finally getting ready to post the newest chapter. Wonder if there's still anyone out there...

~CGA