My little Ranger - Shadows of Almia

by Jade Inkwell

voicemail and the missing stylers

Heart,

Thank you for writing!

Reading about outdoor class was really exciting!

Oh, and we are going to move out there! We're looking for a house now!

Silver wing

Rythmi and I were talking, waiting for class to begin.

"Everypony, your attention please." Ms. April said, we all looked up. "Do you remember that Mantine Crawford went to rescue during our outdoor class. The ranger union took it in and nursed it back to health. This morning, the mantine was safely returned to the sea."

"Yay!" We cheered

"Now that we're all feeling good about that news, let's get our lesson started. Today, as Scheduled, the topic is the team work between rangers and operators." Ms. April said, using her magic she wrote on the board. "If there is no trust between Ranger and Operator, it's disastrous. Even a simple mission could become impossible to manage. Rangers go where there are no roads to guide them. It's the job of the operators to light the way for Rangers where no roads exist." Ms. April looked at everypony. "Of course, that doesn't littererally mean hold a flashlight for Rangers in the field. Operators support Rangers in other ways, like recharging their stylers. Not only that, Operators provide Rangers with information and advice. The operators reach out to Rangers all over from the Unions operation room. Does anypony know what they call that communication system?"

"Yes, it's called voicemail!" Rythmi answered, I smiled.

"Correct, however, Your school styler is not fitted with the voicemail feature." Ms. April held up two red stylers with her magic. "But look here. I have two stylers with the voicemail feature turned on. We were able to borrow them specially from the Ranger union. Principal Lamont, who was there on business, had to ask for them himself. We'll use them today to demonstrate the field operator s of Rangers. Let's start with Rythmi as the operator and Keith doing the Ranger part." I looked at the empty seat between me and Shield.

"Ms. April, Keith isn't here yet." Rythmi said

"Oh, you're right...Did Keith sleep in? That's not like him though." Ms. April sighed "Well, fine, we'll get Heart to do the Ranger part." She gave us the stylers.

"Oh wow! I can communicate using this!" Rythmi grinned "Hello, can you hear me? This is Rythmi. come in, Ranger!"

"I can her you, I'm right here." I said

"Well, then, we should get farther apart and try again." Rythmi told me

"Right." Holding the styler in my hoof, I flew towards the door, but Mr. Kincaid came in.

"Hey, no running in the classroom either!" I landed glarinbg at him. "Ah, Ms. April, I'm awfully sorry to disrupt your class." Mr. Kincaid said "There is a small matter about which I would like to speak to Keith."

"Oh, well...Keith is running late today. It's not like him, but..." began

"Late you say...you see, we have a problem on our hooves. We had a number of Stylers stored in the staff room. Had, I say. Now the entire lot of them have disappeared." Mr. Kincaid explained "I've already confirmed the innocence of all my students regarding this. But that boy Keith is uncharacteristically absent from this class, you say...perhaps it's taking him time to find a place to 'stash' all those stole stylers."

"Hey!" I snorted angerily, my wings flared open, Rythmi basically jumped off her chair.

"Mr. Kincaid! Keith is a prankster, but he's no thief!" She said

"Oh, do be still! He runs in the hallways, he sneaks into the basement where he's not permitted... It's only natural that he should be viewed with suspicion." Kincaid glared

"Mr. Kincaid. Isn't this what you preach? It's wrong to cast suspicion on others without proof?" Ms. April asked "May I have a little time? I will go as look for Keith and your missing stylers."

"We'll help!"The rest of the class got up too, Mr. Kincaid looked around, then he and Ms. April left followed by our fellow classmates, including Shield.

"Heart! Let's scour the school houses from top to bottom. We have to prove Keith's innocent. If anything comes up, voicemail, okay?" Rythmi said

"Okay." I nodded, Rythmi left first, I took to the air and flew from the classroom, over the students and up stairs. I landed, no Keith in sight up here..Suddenly the stylers voicemail went off.

'Voicemail,voicemail. This is Rythmi on ground floor." I heard Rythmi 'Please come down to the front door. And hurry!'

"Roger!" I said, and took off down stairs. I hoovered beside Rythmi who had been talking to Janice.

"I was getting set to feed the Bidoof in the school hard when I found a styler." Janice said "Did either of you drop yours by any chance?"

"Nope." I shook my head

"Oh, you'be got yours on..." Janice did

"Heart, we should go look in the school yard." Rythmi suggested."Thanks for the clue Janice." We raced outside. "Oh, hey! Look at that!" There was a styler on the grass. "Isn't that one of the stylers that went missing from the staff room?"

"Looks that way." I picked it up.

"There could be more on the ground!" Rythmi smiled "Let's look around!" I flew higher to get a better look, sure enough...

"Over here!" I landed by another styler, Rythmi trotted over as I picked it up.

"Wait...I heard voices...let's go check." We went down stairs. There was Keith and a sneaky looking stallion. "Keith! What are you doing out here? And who is that Stallion?" Rythmi asked, we went to Keith's side.

"That guy's a stinking thief! He came creeping out of the staff room, so I called out at him?" Keith looked at us. "Then, bam, he was off and galloping away."

"Three on one's not fair." The stallion said "I'm scramming. Adiós!" He galloped into tree, 4 stylers fell from his grip, and a slakoth landed on his head. "AhAh!Been,Waahh. I can't see! It's heavy! It hurts!It stinks! Heeelp!" Keith picked up the stylers with his magic.

"Wahahahahaha! A slakoth fell out of the tree! It serves you right. That's what you get for being a thief." Keith laughed

"Please, I won't do it again!" The stallion begged "Heelpp!"

"Let's go." Keith turned to us "Who cares about a thief like that?"

"What are you saying?" Rythmi asked "Its the Rangers job to help ponies in trouble." Rythmi turned to me. "Heart, please! Capture that Slakoth,"

"With Pleasure!" I pulled out my styler, aiming, I released the capture disk.I had to capture it! I brought my styler around, a silver line began to circle, the disk returned to me, and the Slakoth was Captured.. I then released it, it left happily.

"whew...ash...fweh...saved at last... thank you for saving me." The stallion said, Ms. April trotted down the stairs.

"What's going on here?" She asked "You disappeared as well, so we were looking for you."

"Sorry, Ms. April..." I said

"Oh, here's Keith. And the stylers too!" Ms. April said

"Ms. April, this Stallion is the thief who took the stylers." Rythmi told her.

"Yeah, why did you steal our stylers? Do you know how important they are to us?" Keith asked the thief.

"I...I'm sorry...I've always had this dream of becoming a Ranger. But I grew up without doing anything about it...I had so many other dreams that I wanted to follow...but I could never decide what I really wanted to do with my life. But the one dream I could never give up was being a Ranger." The thief explained "I thought, maybe, if I had a styler, then I could do something about it, but..."

"What are you saying? Please don't make me angry here! It doesn't matter how old you are. Even an adult can join our Ranger school!" Ms. April said " With enough effort, even you can become a ranger. If you have a dream yo can't let go of, it's up to you to make it real." The thief went up to her

"I...teacher lady...I also got bewitched when I saw all the stylers sitting there...I was only hoping to be one, but I ended up scooping up the whole lot of them..." He said

"Just like the way it is with you and your dreams." Ms. April smiled kindly "You're greedy, aren't you? You should go home and really think about what you want to do. Why not think about how you could become a Ranger properly."

"I'll do that..." He sighed, the looked shocked "W-w-wait a second! G-go home?! You'll just let me go home? Without any punishment or anything? T-teacher lady...I can't believe it..." He sniffled, Keith looked annoyed, I placed my wing over him, He looked at me. I smiled, causing him to smile back, cheering up. The stallion left, we left, we went to the staff room, where Ms. April explained what happened, how they got the styler back and the thief took off.

"Ah, so that took place in my absence." Principal Lamont said, after hearing our story. "Well, though the thief got away, I'm quite relieved no one was hurt. Recovering the stylers was a bonus." Mr. Kincaid muttered under his breath.

"I must say, I was impressed by Rythmi's belief in her friend. That could be the most essential quality for an operator." Ms. April smiled

"Ehehe..." Rythmi blushed, Ms. April looked at me.

"Heart, your teamwork with Rythmi, and your capture were outstanding." She smiled "I could tell right away from the big smile on the Slakoth's face."

"Thanks ." I smiled, pleased. Ms. April then turned to Keith.

"Keith. You're much to reckless. You must rely on your colleagues more. There is only so much a ranger can do all alone. I think one day, you will be faced with a situation that makes you accept that. That said...there's no denying you did a good deed..." Ms. April said, she frown slightly. "Are you paying attention?" Keith was grumbling under his breath, he stopped and turned to us.

"Rythmi, listen up." Keith said, Rythmi looked at him. "Hey, you understand don't you? The rotten way I feel about this..."

"There's not much we can do..." I said to myself, I shifted my wings slightly. Keith continued.

"But, hey Rythmi... you believed in me and stood up for me, That made me really happy."

"Like the thief today, Perhaps there are shadows always lurking in all of our hearts." Principal Lamont said "What's important is to never give into that darkness in our hearts. It is written in the books of our library...In the Almia region, there is a ancient word : Vatonage."

"Vatonage?" I asked

"It means 'to reawaken the light that has been submerged in darkness. Vatonage...Today, you all shined with the brilliance of gems." Principal Lamont smiled "May you never loose that shine...Oh, my. I have rambled on. I believe it is time ponies returned to their classes.

"Yes, sir." We smiled and headed to our classroom.