Lunick: the Pokémon Ranger hero who becomes his own partner

Lunick is the protagonist you play if you say you're a boy when you start Pokémon Ranger. He starts his service in Ringtown, in the Fiore region, with a Minun as his partner and a Capture Styler on his belt. What sets him apart comes down to a simple mechanic: when the player doesn't choose him, he doesn't disappear from the game — he becomes the Ranger who backs up the heroine in the field.

Contents

• A Protagonist Who Comes in Two Versions
• Rookie in Ringtown: A Chief, a Partner, a Capture Styler
• Jungle Relic: The Trap of the Fourth Trial
• The Eruption, Then the Assault on the Go-Rock Squad's Base
• Fiore Temple, Gordor and the Three Legendary Beasts
• The Ranger Net Missions
• Lunick at a Glance
• Frequently Asked Questions

A Protagonist Who Comes in Two Versions

The very first screen of Pokémon Ranger asks the player to state their gender. Answering "boy" puts Lunick in the lead role; answering "girl" gives the role to Solana, and the character left out stays in the game as a colleague.

This choice doesn't rewrite the story. The plot is exactly the same in both playthroughs: the only things that change are the hero's face and the identity of the Ranger who comes to lend a hand on certain missions.

The only real difference is the partner. Lunick starts out with a Minun, Solana with a Plusle — two twin species, one negative, the other positive, a perfect mirror of this pair of interchangeable heroes.

Rookie in Ringtown: A Chief, a Partner, a Capture Styler

Lunick reports for duty at the Ringtown Ranger Base, a small town surrounded by nature that the game likes to contrast with the much bigger Fall City. His direct superior is Spenser, whom everyone simply calls the Chief, and his assignment covers the Fiore region.

His early days follow the classic path of a rookie: a first mission to track down the Taillow of a local named Larry, then a patrol around town. Being a Ranger goes far beyond official missions — you also have to walk the streets, drop in on people and listen to what they have to say.

Spenser takes the opportunity to lay down the ground rules. Every Ranger is entitled to one partner Pokémon, as long as they share a real bond: the Pokémon isn't there to keep its Ranger company, it's there to help on the job. Minun fills that role for Lunick, in a corps that works like an extended family — the Chief, colleagues like Murph, and hardly any room to feel lonely.

Last comes the tool: the Capture Styler developed by Professor Hastings. It isn't just for capturing: it also works as a menu, a location finder and an information sheet, with the data on the Pokémon you're looking at shown on the top screen, and its Browser automatically logs every capture under a numbering system specific to Fiore's Rangers.

The Capture Styler also serves as a link to the partner. Every loop drawn around a Pokémon during a capture fills the Partner Gauge; once it's full, Poké Assist lets Minun unleash its power to make the next capture easier.

Jungle Relic: The Trap of the Fourth Trial

While patrolling Summerland's Olive Jungle, Lunick spots an old monument. Cameron, the leader of the local base, tells him it's the Jungle Relic, which comes with a legend: trials have been waiting for Rangers there for years, but the last one must never be completed, or disaster will follow.

The entrance lies at the top of a hill, behind a stone statue where a hidden switch reveals a staircase. The first three trials revolve around wind, water and destruction, each one closed off by a seal that only gives way once the raging creature has been calmed, and none of them lets you save even once. A statue of Entei watches over the corridors.

The fourth room, however, is rigged. Its explanatory plaque had been hammered to make the text unreadable, and a Charizard in obvious distress awaits the two Rangers, who had come "just to take a look." Capturing it to relieve its suffering amounts to completing the trial.

The musicians who had been hanging around the room immediately drop the act: they're members of the Go-Rock Squad, and the trap was their doing. They wanted the very disaster the legend foretold and let two naive Rangers do the work for them. In the process, the Entei statue vanished.

🔥 The fourth trial's Charizard has its own section: see the Charizard products.

The Eruption, Then the Assault on the Go-Rock Squad's Base

The tremor that follows fools no one: an underground volcano has just erupted, and lava has replaced the water in the ruins. Ranger Aria, who rushes to the scene, makes no secret of what she thinks of the two culprits' recklessness before trying to calm the Entei that has appeared deep in the passages herself.

The investigation into the Go-Rock Squad eventually leads to its base, where Lunick takes down the Quads one member after another — Tiffany, Clyde, Garret, Billy. The organization had stolen the professor's Super Styler, and its boss Gordor built himself a formidable Power Styler, a one-of-a-kind device reserved for his own use.

Good sports to the end, the defeated Quads trigger the building's self-destruct sequence and escape through a trapdoor, letting slip that their boss has holed up in Fiore Temple. Spenser is trapped inside, and Lunick has to call Cameron and Elita to the rescue; the journey then continues through Wintown and the Sekra Range, where a door marked with a flame opens thanks to the Charizard rescued at the Jungle Relic.

Fiore Temple, Gordor and the Three Legendary Beasts

The temple confronts visitors with one last lock: an inscription announces that the way will open once the chosen Pokémon have reached their sacred pedestals. You have to bring a Vaporeon, a Jolteon and a Flareon there, and they climb onto the pedestals of their own accord, as if summoned.

On the roof, Gordor shows off what his device can do, and the scene disgusts Lunick: stripping a Pokémon of its will is no longer a capture, but an act of pure violence. A Raikou and then a Suicune are freed from his control when the player captures them, with the Ranger cheering them on.

The ending turns the tables. Entei breaks free in turn and attacks Gordor, whom the two Rangers choose to save — one of the three great legendaries of the temple, turned against the man who had been tormenting it. Lunick then wants to chase down the fugitive; Spenser flatly refuses: arresting a human being isn't part of a Ranger's job.

The Ranger Net Missions

Once the case is closed, Ranger Net offers extra missions in which Lunick goes back to being the teammate. The tensest one involves a Deoxys that the Chief himself had failed to capture: tracked down to Krokka Tunnel, the Pokémon changes its mood along with its form, the Attack Forme signaling its aggression, the Speed Forme a first sign of calming down.

Force isn't the answer. You have to make the Deoxys understand that a capture isn't an attack, until it returns to its Normal Forme; once the bond is formed, the Rangers release it, and Lunick notes that it seemed to be thanking them.

Two other cases complete the picture: recovering a Manaphy Egg stolen by the Go-Rock Squad — Gordor, now unrecognizable, helps track it down himself before it's entrusted to a Trainer from Sinnoh — and a vacation in Summerland that gets cut short. Lunick ends up trapped by a rockslide, then face to face with a suffering Groudon, whose four gashes on the neck betray a fight with Kyogre.

Lunick at a Glance

Frequently Asked Questions

• Are Lunick and Solana the same character?
  No: they're the two possible protagonists of Pokémon Ranger, decided by the gender you choose at the start of the game. The one the player doesn't play as becomes a colleague who comes along on certain missions.
• Who is Lunick's partner Pokémon?
  A Minun, which is also his starter Pokémon. Solana, the other protagonist, has a Plusle.
• Why is the fourth trial of the Jungle Relic a problem?
  According to legend, completing the last trial brings disaster upon Fiore. The Go-Rock Squad manipulated the two Rangers into completing it for them, which triggered the eruption of an underground volcano.
• What is the Capture Styler used for in Pokémon Ranger?
  For capturing Pokémon, but also for opening the menu, locating the Ranger, looking up information on species and logging captures in the Browser, under a numbering system specific to the Ranger corps.
• Does Lunick appear anywhere other than the game?
  Yes, in comics: the Pokémon Ranger manga shows him alongside Solana with their Minun and Plusle, and he reappears as a figurine in Pokémon Ranger: The Comic – Shadows of Almia, at Kellyn's house, which Kate visits in the first chapter.

In short

Lunick sums up everything that makes the Ranger series unusual: no training and no Poké Balls, but a job, a chain of command and a tool that's as much for cataloging as for capturing. His main arc is about owning up to a mistake, from the fourth trial he was tricked into completing to the Entei he has to calm down himself. And his final initiative is saving his worst enemy from a rampaging Entei, before his Chief reminds him that arresting a man isn't a Ranger's job, which says a lot about how the Ranger's job is defined.