Callan came from the other side, looking at eahc and every single on of the trees slathered in honey as he approached Lars with a casual wave. Another day in the life of a ranger. "So glad I had to climb a volcano to clean honey from trees." Callan snorted, smelling the nicotine from Lars' vape. "Shit, now I'm gonna smoke as well." Callan unfurled a pack brand of Torkoal's and lit it up.

"I think..." He paused, "They tried to replicate the Sinnoh pokemon catching method... only these aren't the right trees. These are just... normal ass trees." And he had used WAY too much honey. The amount was only a film's brushing of honey, whoever this sociopath was, he had slathered the entire trunk. "I counted... 20 of them. With any luck, we'll be done by sundown." He heaved a sigh under his breath. "I'm thinking we use some psychic Pokemon to hoover up the honey and put it in a toxic waste bin. How about you?"

Laurence Anderson

He snorted at Callan’s greeting.

“This actually is a favor a friend of mine called in, since they’re busy with something down at the Sanctuary over there,” he gestured with a random hand gesture pointing at the outskirts of the city.

“Unfortunately… since this is honey, and there are certain Pokémon species that are attracted to sweet stuff like this, we are most definitely going to run into angry Pokémon while cleaning up. Better have another Pokémon ready just in case we get attacked or something.”

Reaching into his pockets, he pulled out a Heavy Ball and a Safari Ball—and in two flashes of light, his Metagross and Gardevoir appeared.

“Removing the honey with Telekinesis or Psychic is our best option at the moment, I’ll agree.”

---

okay, who started slathering honey all over these trees?!

Callan stretched and twisted his upper body to get ready for the mindless task of cleaning trees slathered in honey. A satisfying pop released from his spine and he grunted. "At this point, I hope so, it'd make this a lot more exciting." He smiled, not that he was an adrenaline junkie, but the thought of repeating one action over the course of the morning and afternoon did not entice the man.

"Come out, Rondo." He called out, as he unclipped his belt and released his Kadabra onto the open grass. The Kadabra bowed, silently, floating into the air, eager to battle... and then it sensed the intentions of both Lars and Callan, and sighed inwardly. "Sorry buddy." An apologetic smile formed on Callan's lips. "If it helps, think of it as training for endurance." And with that, the Kadabra gave a look of disbelieving acceptance, and moved to begin peeling layers of honey away from the trees.

Callan pulled out his pack and unfurled a portable waste bin. Rangers always found debris and dirt and garbage everywhere they went, a waste bin that allowed them to store trash into a micro form was something that could be provided if requested. He placed it down onto the ground, pressed the button, and watched it expand from a small, palm sized pod, into a barrel the size of a wine cask. "This should store most of it." He said, turning to Lars.

The shining silver beast already knew what was going to happen even before the Kadabra made its appearance, and a singular grating noise escaped the Metagross. But whatever, they were here and they had a job to do.

Since the Kadabra had taken some of the trees, the Metagross folded his legs in and floated off to cover another section of the city, using his Telekinetic bursts of energy to peel off the sticky, pungent honey away from the trees without damaging them and levitating the noxious semi-liquid into the container that awaited them.

“Ah, convenience,” Lars remarked with a smirk, as the Gardevoir went off to another closer section, using her own Psychic powers to remove the honey that had been carelessly slathered onto the older trees that were scattered around the city.

“Just imagine the chaos if the honey was left here. Some of the trees are older than the city itself,” he continued idly, gesturing to one particular gigantic behemoth that was basically growing at the city center.

Of course, this wasn’t going to be down and done all too easy…

---

okay, who started slathering honey all over these trees?!

[attr="class","missionBG"]

Holy shit. "Wait... the honey slather method actually works." Callan stood, dumbfounded, as he approached a new tree with a Heracross happily slurping down the honey that wasall over the tree. "A good Pokemon too... I'm going for it." Callan readied a Pokeball, slowly, and carefully, adjusting himself tothe Heracross' backside.

Drawing out an Ultra Ball from his pocket, the trainer launched it at the Heracross striking it square between the folds of its wings behind its head. Hoepfully that'd be enough for the critical capture, otherwise they'd have to do battle. "Lars, looks like I found a few Pokemon from the trees." He sucked in a breath, "Looks like whoever is slathering these trees actually found a way to capture Pokemon. THough... not sure if we should actually designate an area for them to be able to do this."

Laurence Anderson

The Gardevoir had since then made several return trips, dropping in globs of ‘honey’ that had bits and pieces of tree bark mixed in. He wondered what was taking Ro so long to get back—probably trying to clear out all of those trees that he could in one singular go and return at the end, maybe.

His attention, however, was drawn to what Callan had pointed out—

“What in the absolute fuck?” he muttered, watching as the other moved around, sneaking towards the Heracross’s backside in an attempt to catch the dual-type off-guard with a single throw.

“Back strike, too. Sneaky. Wonder if that’s going to work out,” he remarked as the Ultra Ball (from what he could see from this distance) was flung.

As for the actual method itself becoming a thing in the Hoenn reigon? Well…

“Don’t they like, have some specific kind of trees where they do that?” he mused at the thought of people literally drenching trees all over with honey.

“Who knows if we got lucky this instance…”

---

okay, who started slathering honey all over these trees?!

"Thanks man." He smiled, he was fairly proud of his throwing technique after all. He had discovered that tidbit after ranging for a while. "Sinnoh technique, I've been using a lot of them since I was younger. I hope it catches up around the world, most people just lob it straight at the Pokemon after hitting it low. When you can do the same thing with a little finesse and some careful planning." Maybe a well made bait as well.

But that wasn't what he wanted to say, he shared Lars' surprise as well. "Yeah... definitely. If that Heracross had flown to this tree that would make sense, it's definitely a wild Pokemon. They don't typically live in these types." Callan did a double take to check the tree to refresh his memory. Maybe it was his own understanding that was limited, but no... outside of the standard bug types, this was just an ordinary tree. How on earth? "You think we should host up some signs, saying not to slather honey on trees near the city?"

Laurence Anderson

“I gotta check again with one of the other Rangers who came from Sinnoh, gonna confirm the honey-spreading thing all over the trees, because I think they mentioned once or twice that they did that on specific trees or something,” he remarked, watching as his Gardevoir returned with some more honey.

But where, o where, was his Metagross?

Sometime later…

The shining silver beast returned, levitating a rather large collection of contaminated honey. With a single whistle, Lars pointed discreetly at the collection ‘casket’ and down went the honey the behemoth had managed to get off and out of the trees.

“Yeah this honey ain’t usable anymore, who knows how long this has been out here,” he continued with another sigh.

At the suggestion, he nodded.

“That sounds reasonable. I can contact my friend here too, get the word spread out—they pay more attention when he does the important stuff around here. Cause he’s the Gym Leader an’ shit,” he added with a laugh.

“Let’s get packing and get the paperwork done with so we can knock off afterward.”

---

okay, who started slathering honey all over these trees?!

Callan nodded in response. On his side, his Kadabra levitated a vat full of honey on their end, accounting the tree with the Heracross as well, that concluded the clean up. It took less time than expected too.

"Oh, Alexei?" He replied, "He helped make me chocolate once. Great guy. I was thinking of challenging him at the gym." Callan replied, maybe he'd do that after this mission. Regardless, what he needed to do right now was handle the waste. Pressing the waste containiner's switch, the item turned into a small, grenade-sized item, much easier to handle that way, before taking out his report sheet and starting his field assessment.

Laurence Anderson