There were still pockets of fire going over at his area, but they weren’t as bad as earlier; thanks to his own Swampert summoning a dense pack of dark gray storm clouds to help douse the flames over where he was.

“Good fucking grief,” he grumbled as he emerged from his side of the forest, drenched to the bone.

“Whoever set that fire off is a fucking idiot,” he remarked as his Swampert, Ryujin ran past him to bring the storm clouds with her.

“Sorry, I’m just—setting off fires is just the absolute worst,” he added a few moments later. “Did you see anyone suspicious fleeing the scene from your end?

Callan couldn't blame him. "No, I get it." The fire, the heat, the inability to breathe, the corpses everywhere, they had stepped into hell itself and were trying to fight against nature. Kibble, Callan's Swampert, pressed its palms against the ground and fired a sleet of muddy liquid to cover the bushfires nearby.

The white haired trainer shook his head in response, wiping ash from his face as they spoke. "No, not from my side unfortunately. We can try to track him down though." Callan thought, while trying to put the fires out, they might be able to identify something anyway. Might as well keep an eye out. "Should we split up and look for tracks?"

The Rain Dance had gone on to another section of the forest, and he slicked his wet hair backwards before shaking his head.

“Suffocating smoke can and will contribute to more casualties, we have to put the fire out quickly,” he said with a sigh as he waved his hands around, attempting to dispel the smoke and the fog.

“Be careful,” he continued as he nodded and agreed to the plan, going off to follow his Swampert because there was no way in hell he was going to leave Ryujin alone.

"You as well." Callan responded, before moving in the direction of the opposite quadrant. Callan and his Swampert travelled across the section, coordinating with the rangers to put out as much of the fire as they could. Searching for a sign that there might be a poacher.

As the night continued, more and more of the fires began to die down across the distance, leaving ash and dust in its wake, in the distances, the bright orange glare of fires still existed behind a thick wall of grey gas, though it too was slowly diminishing, signalling that the rangers had almost done their job. Now was a good time to pick up the trail on his end.



As luck would have it, upon returning back towards the quadrant where Lars was, Callan spotted what seemed to be hemp rope underneath his feet. Looking above, a snapped branch, it was a classical snare trap made by poachers. He contacted the head ranger via his earpiece. "Lars, think I found something here, a snare trap under the ground. I'm guessing that the poacher made camp nearby." And with luck, might still be here. "What's the call?"

Laurence Anderson

Unfortunately, his own searching didn’t turn up any human interference—but found more patches that were still on fire, swiftly put out by the Swampert he was running with.

Just as they’d cleared out this patch of flames, the earpiece crackled.

“If you see anyone, bring them in, I’m headed your way!” he said, before whistling in Ryujin’s direction. The Swampert changed direction and charged onward, bringing the storm clouds along with her as they approached.

"Okay, I'll look around first, see you soon." Callan turned on his recording cam, which had been attached to his headset, so that in case something occurred the rangers knew exactly what happened. Callan began to track the location, scouting the nearby area for traps among the dead branches. While the ash made it difficult, he had found several man made traps, pitfalls that were identified by the markings by the trees carved in to indicate a trap, a common sign for poachers.

Taking out Lady from her Pokeball, she tracked the scent from the markings, checking for human body scent nearby, picking up a trail. "Lady's found something Lars, I'm gonna follow it."



The acute senses of his dog identified the smell of the poacher heading into a nearby cave. Outside, the thin film of dust definitely showed tracks of boots, recently made. They were still inside. Returning Lady to the ball, Callan began to move in careful not to set off any traps as he did so.



Callan was so silent that he managed to bypass any traps, making sure to mark them for Lars when he arrived by attaching bright orange sticky tape to the areas that had been booby trapped. Callan arrived at the cave's entrance, his Swampert stealthily moved behind him as it snuck towards the poacher and used a Supersonic point blank at him, causing him to scream. At that very moment, Callan slung out his top, lashing it around his feet and lassoing it tight. "You're under arrest." He growled, moving up towards him to dislodge his pokemon belt, then tying up his hands.

Callan sucked in a breath of air, exhaling fear. "Lars? I found him and restrained him. I'm in a cave northeast of where I was." He spoke, waiting for the head ranger to arrive.

Laurence Anderson

Shit, he then realized the other was probably alone—and that the rest of the back-up were still controlling the last pockets of fires that were still going around; while faint, he could still hear scattered crackling noises here and there.

As he covered more ground, there were markers appearing here and there scattered on the trees—the tape that they’d agreed on would be used to mark anything suspicious that may have been left nearby.

It was quiet—too quiet, and then the crackling noise came alive once more.

“How many are there, just the one? Have you checked if there’s anyone else with ‘em, any accomplices?” he continued as he changed direction and headed towards the aforementioned cave.

Eventually, Lars would arrive on the scene of the capture with back-up as well, having called the closest to his location at the time and watching as Callan walked out of the cave with their culprit.

“I’ll do you one better—tequila,” he said as the rest of the force moved in to bring the arrested man away.

“And I swear, there better not be any more forest fires. Shit’s wild enough as it is. But that’s how the wheel rolls,” he ended with a sigh as he pulled out his own vape and took a puff.

Damn, what a night.