“How long till’ we get there?” Valerie parroted back for what must’ve been the fifteenth time.

  “We should see it peek out above the trees soon…” Drew answered back, for the eighth time. The first seven times he’d responded, he had been honest, but his daughter's enthusiasm had gotten somewhat out of control at points. She’d asked about everything and anything regarding his job, he remembered telling her about his workplace before, but she’d seemingly not heard enough now that she was actually going there.

  “Okay…” She practically vibrated in her seat as they drove on the road leading through Route 28. They had already gone past the League Reception Gate and Valerie had tracked the building as they drove past with her head like a hawk. It reminded Drew of his journey and when he’d taken on the Elite Four, it had been so long ago now.

  He’d just eked out a win on his eighth badge, honestly, if it were his call he wouldn’t have given himself the badge, but he wasn’t going NOT to take it, was he? Drew had just barely made it through Victory Road, even his Ace Sandslash had met its match in the depths of the caves.

  And then when he got into his first match in the Indigo Plateau Conference, his first opponent swept through him like his Pokemon weren’t even there. The event had been a bit of a wake-up call for Drew. Another trainer might’ve taken a loss on such a grand stage more personally, bitterly trying to assure themselves of their skill and simply trying again. But he instead took the hard journey back home and became a ranger.

  Drew sighed, smiling wistfully in remembrance. In the distance, the top of the watchtower came into view as it just peeked over the treetops. The orange and black design of the tower stood out starkly against the dark green pines that populated the land around Mt. Silver. In the passenger seat, Valerie gave out a wistful and quiet “Woow!” in amazement.

  “What’s so amazing? It's just a small tower.” Drew asked with a childish grin,

  “You told me about the tower, but you never showed any pictures of it! It’s so cool! And way bigger than you told me!” She was jumping in her seat, whirling her head between her Dad and the tower.

  Internally, he was already fist-bumping himself at how adorable she was and how much his daughter already loved his work, but he played it cool: “It’s so-so. Once you sit in there for longer, it feels smaller…”

  “C’mon Dad, I can see you grinning!” She poked the side of his arm with a single finger.

  “Easy, I’m driving,” he deflected, “We’ll be on shift with Maxy, you’ll love her.”

  The truck's suspension jostled as it hopped from the dirt path onto the tarmac street built underneath the watchtower, and he parked his truck in the middle of the three parking spots that they had available.

  As he opened the door of his car, he released Sandslash out next to it, “Buddy, watch out for-”

  Valerie rushed past him and Sandslash and onto the treadplate staircase up the watchtower. “Dad, we’re going from the car to the tower; no Pokemon is gonna attack me.”

  “...Alright…” Drew acquiesced, “C’mon, Buddy.”

  …

  It was a bit after morning now, Drew sipped his coffee as he leaned on the railing that lined the outside of the watchtower. He heard the door open behind him.

  “Val is just such a sweetheart isn’t she?” Maxie swooned.

  “She sure is. You let her do the work in there alone?”

  Maxie lined up next to him on the railing with her own coffee. “Sure, why not? It's only been an hour or so, and she’s already working! What do you feed her so that she absorbs information like that? It took me like a week to check all the different forms we use!”

  Larry took another sip before answering, “She does complain about school a lot, maybe I’ve got a genius on my hands.”

  “Or an idiot,” She pointed at herself with a slight smile and scoffed.

  “Probably an idiot.”

  “Hey!”

  “Kidding, kidding.” Drew sighed.

  “But seriously,” Maxie continued, “I want someone here for the paperwork side of things, why not let her come here more often?”

  “Because she’d need to be hired by the rangers and she’s far too young for any position, even the apprenticeships.” Drew answered seriously, “And I don’t want to get in trouble with higher-ups if they find out. It's hard enough to keep her sitting still at home.”

  “Seesh,” Maxie sighed before leaning in to whisper more quietly, “and her mom still doesn’t want anything to do with her?”

  Drew frowned before whispering back, “I don’t want Val near her anyway.”

  “Then why not get her to a school or other kind of place to watch over her?” Maxie pressed, “You can’t let a young girl like her waste away on a couch in front of a TV.”

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  His brows creased and another sip of coffee flowed in before he rasped his throat, “You know I don’t like those places…”

  Her mother had left Valerie to him for however long after her birth, he had managed to confront her at times. But for the most part, she was living it up somewhere in a city in Kanto, while he lived near Mt. Silver as a ranger with their daughter. There was a community around here, they didn’t live in the sticks, the area surrounding the league reception and the routes it connects to had what would normally amount to a city built around it. It just wasn’t a city though, it was a community. No school, no shopping, and most amenities were provided by the league due to the reception to the Indigo Platue being there.

  “Oh sure, I know you like the ranger job, but you shouldn’t start fearing the city life just because your girlfriend lives there.” Maxie joked.

  “Don’t call her my girlfriend.” Drew bit out, “The last time I ever heard a lick of her was more than 9 months ago.”

  “The way you talk about her, she might as well be dead. I’m honestly surprised she still keeps in contact with you guys in any way.”

  “Whatever, this is tiring.” Drew turned and drank down the remains of his coffee before crushing the paper cup in his grip, “I’ll get back to work helping Val.”

  “Sure thing.” Maxie agreed with a catty smile, before following him back inside.

  …

  The sun was high in the sky by now. It had taken them all morning to get the paperwork sorted.

  “Oh, so those forms use the other number?” With furrowed brows, Valerie picked through the mess of paperwork on the table to fill out the form

  “I couldn’t tell you why either,” Maxie shook her head disappointingly, “Probably some ‘We’ve been doing it this way for centuries’ kind of mess. My boss once told me they still use deprecated names of some regions in some systems.”

  Valerie finally laid the last piece of paperwork on top of the stack and leaned back in her chair, sighing, “And you do this every day?”

  “Yup,” Drew answered back from across the room, “That's the life of working adults for you. Nothing fun about it.”

  “Man,” Valerie said disappointingly, “If this is it, then I’m kind of disappointed…”

  Maxie exchanged a look with Drew, and they rose from their seats simultaneously.

  “You’re in luck then,” Drew began, “The paperwork normally comes after, because it takes so long, but with you around we got through it in pretty much half a day.”

  “Huh?” Valerie muttered in confusion.

  “Drew kept it under wraps as a surprise, but we’re doing a census right now. That's what all the paperwork was for.” Maxie revealed.

  Both Drew and Maxie started preparing as they pulled a smaller-sized yet still oversized ranger outfit from a coathanger and pushed it into her arms, “You’re going to help us keep count of the Pokemon population for the rest of our shift.”

  “Really?!” Valerie shot up from her seat with a look of pure glee before turning to Drew with a pout, “Dad! You could’ve told me!”

  He only grinned back, “Sorry, it was supposed to be a surprise. I knew you’d love this.”

  She immediately slipped into the slightly oversized overall and zipped it up right in front of the two of them as she raved, “Getting to explore a Route without being a trainer and watching for wild Pokemon! This is so awesome!” After zipping up the overall, she ran over to her approaching father and smashed into him with a hug, “Thank you for taking me, Dad!”

  “Let’s go, guys! We don’t have all day!” Maxie called from the door.

  Drew quickly led his daughter outside to their Ranger truck. He released Sandslash into the back of the truck and placed his daughter in the middle seat between the two of them, and they began their drive.

  …

  A key turned, and the watchtower's door flew open again in the darkness of night. The three of them practically tumbled inside at the same time. Everyone scrambled to find a chair as they stumbled inside the dark watchtower. Light switches were flicked, and radios were turned on as they made themselves once again comfortable after a six-hour drive down Route 28, all the way right to the bottom of Mt. Silver and then back.

  Valerie took a final sip from a bottle she’d brought with her before reclining in her chair, “Wow…” she sighed in amazement before launching herself up in her chair in excitement, “We saw so many different Pokemon!”

  “So many Doduo…” Maxine said in more joking fearful reverance than anything else. The two had become fast friends sitting next to each other on the bench seat of their ranger truck. They surprisingly shared a lot of interests and Valerie's naturally cheery disposition made it easy for her to make friends.

  “Sure there were a lot of Doduo,” Valerie defended, “But that Rapidash with her Ponyta young was so graceful! I’ve never seen a Pokemon that looks so powerful!”

  “Yeah, but there were so many Doduo…” Drew repeated, “I know they form packs and trample a lot of stuff, but in the last years, they never came this close to the route. We might want to put that info together in a report to warn trainers.”

  Maxie waved him off, “Write it up, we do that after the census is complete.” She rose from her seat with her hands on her hips as she approached Valerie, “So? Did you have fun on the ‘Bring-Your-Kid-To-Work’ Day?”

  “Did I have fun?!” Valerie asked bewildered, “What the hell-”

  “Language!” Drew intersected.

  “-Heck do you think?!” She corrected, “This was amazing! I wanna be a ranger now!” Valerie asked her father, “Can I be a ranger, Dad?!”

  “You can be anything you want Val,” Drew announced with a proud smile on his face as he whipped around in his office chair in excitement, “And considering I managed it, I’d be amazed if my genius little girl couldn’t.”

  “Sure, Mister Eight-badge trainer,” Maxie rolled her eyes.

  “Vals a genius, Max,” Drew began, “As a trainer, she’d be world champ, as a ranger, she’d be one of the Top-Rangers, as a…”

  Both girls began to drown out the father's insane ramblings about his daughter's future accomplishments, before Valerie spoke over him, “This was amazing, Dad. I got to see so much I’ve never been able to. Can I come here again?”

  Drew stopped his ramblings and scratched his chin in contemplation, “Hmm, that might be hard before the next ‘Bring-Your-Kid-To-Work’ Day…”

  “C’mon Dad,” She turned up the charm, pulling at any semblance of Fairy-TE to imitate her best impression of Baby-Doll Eyes, “Pretty please?”

  Before the ‘Pretty please’ even left her mouth she already knew that she had won as Drew squinted his eyes in thought, “...This week probably won’t work anymore, but I’ll try and talk to the higher-ups about it…”

  “Yaay!” She hugged herself close to her dad in celebration.

  “That’ll be all for us two today, though, " Drew interjected. Freeing himself from his daughter's grasp, he turned to Maxie. I’m clocking out to bring Valerie home. When I’m coming back here tomorrow morning, Henry will be down here, right?”

  “Yup,” Maxie confirmed as she watched the two of them prepare to leave, “Have a good night Val!”

  “Goodnight!” She waved back as the two of them left for the night.