“Simple,” he remarked as he was currently pulling a drag on his vape.

Lars just so happened to be around the area. Unfortunately, though, he wasn’t on active duty (it was his day off, whoops) and so he was literally dressed down and was packing his motorbike with him.

Yeah…

“You bring out two Pokémon that has distinct forms when it comes to their gender,” he mused.

“If and when we walk by the damned thing, wherever it is, the Ditto will try to transform into one of the two forms at once, or maybe even turn into both at the same time. It’s the best I can think of at this time…”

And probably the most plausible he could come up with, too. This was nuts, really.

“I was thinking of Cacnea for an example. You know how the female version has a bigger diamond-marking pattern on its front, while the males have evenly-sized diamond markings? Something like that.”

The theory was sound enough but, "Damn... we gotta scour that much huh?" No one ever said being a Ranger was ever a glamorous job. "Alright, that sounds good enough, you don't happen to have a Cacnea on you, do you?" He paused, "Or maybe a Nidoran might be an easier choice... but then again, they do sometimes appear in cities. Cacna on the other hand definitely aren't common here."

While ruminating on the ideas however, a flicker of light sputters in the corner of the street, as a young redheaded woman in her twenties quickly leaves the premises.

Laurence Anderson

“I have a Cacturne, and then I also have a Gyarados… problem here being those Pokémon are like, way too big to be dropped casually right here,” he said with a snort as he realized what the problem was going to be like.

“In case you see anything suspicious, keep your eyes peeled. Another way to tell there’s a Ditto around is the, and I quote this from my friend, ‘the derpiest-ass looking face you can ever find’. You do know what Ditto normally look like, right?”

And then there was also the option of trying to make them laugh, but—how in the hell did one make a Ditto laugh? Unless someone threw out a Mime Jr. that knew the move Tickle, then they were pretty much fucked either way.

“There’s another way but it’s incredibly ridiculous, now that I think about it. We need something that knows the move Tickle and try to make the Ditto laugh. But what the hell does a Ditto laughing sound like?”

That could potentially work, but Callan had perhaps an idea that might be easier to do. "How about this..." Callan began, as he laid his masterwork into fruition. He lit a cigarette, for dramatic effect. "We could yell HONK at people really loud, and then see if they turn into a pink blob." Without attempting to see if it was an actually plausible solution, Callan snuck up behind an unsuspecting old man, close enough that he could feel his breath on his neck.

"HONK." He screamed, with the voice on a thousand suns.



The old man yelped in response and ran away. "Shit." Callan replied, "I don't know what came over me..." But regardless, it was clear that the plan wouldn't work, unless the idea was to traumatize an old man. "Let's try the Tickle thing... we can try to tickle people into becoming Ditto." Except he didn't have any Pokemon, so he'd have to do it with his own two hands. Such was the price of duty.

Laurence Anderson

He wondered what the other man had come up with, but he definitely wasn’t expecting it to be something like—

Lars then burst into a peal of laughter the moment Callan yelled the loudest “HONK” he could muster up. Instead the other had ended up scaring the poor old man, who’d literally bolted for the hills.

He’d almost lost his hold on the vape, and let out a couple of vapor clouds due to laughing so hard.

“Well, the best option we have is the Tickle strategy, so let’s go for it.”

Now the problem here was—

Where the hell were they going to start looking?

“Thank fuck, though, I have exactly one Pokémon that knows Tickle… but don’t laugh, though. Give me like, five minutes.”

And off he bolted towards the nearby Pokémon Center.

It took him three and a half minutes to return with a singular Pokéball, before he’d revealed what he had in mind.

“…yeah, I know,” he remarked as a Tangela of all things popped out from the beam of red light, “…but it’s the only shot we got.”



As if to emphasize the… sheer weirdness of all this, a couple of sentient vines from the Tangela’s body then emerged, looking like weird ‘feelers’.

“Yeah. Fucking hell. Tentacle jokes.”

Callan grimaced visibly. "This is a crazy plan," he spoke, but why not? The Tangela wandered alongside the rangers across the streets, seemingly innocuous, unfazed by people passing by.

Then a twitch. Tangela's feelers extended outwards, focusing on a man in a slate grey trenchcoat. If this goes tits up, it was gonna be the rangers on the line. "Alright, Tickle..." Callan spoke, as the vines wreathed underneath the man's armpits, a muted yelp turned into uncontrollable squeaks of "D-dididdiitto!" before it reverted into its pink shape on the ground, much to the dismay of oncoming passengers.

Callan couldn't believe it worked. "Tangela, stun sp--!" Before the words could be uttered, the Ditto's movements were immediate, transforming itself into a gargantuan Gyarados, floating in the air. It appeared as though someone was fishing for a Magikarp. "Shit." He exclaimed, "Everyone out, clear the area!" He extended a pokeball out into his palm as the Tangela fleed back in the direction of its own Pokeball.

Laurence Anderson

“Forgot to warn you,” he said idly as the hare-brained, fucking insane idea actually fucking worked and one of the passers-by suddenly morphed into the shape of a pink troublemaker…

“…my Tangela doesn’t know Stun Spore, but has Poison Powder instead.”

How were they supposed to know that this fucking weird-ass shit was actually going to swing their way?! Now that the culprit had been exposed, it was time to—

“Che cazzo,” he grumbled as the Ditto then transformed into a Gyarados of all things…

“Fine, we do this the hard way, then. Everybody steer clear of the area!” he shouted as he raised his voice, ushering along the last of the surprised passers-by so they could wrangle the little fucker in peace.

The Tangela then stared up at the not!Gyarados, before Lars whistled sharply her way.

“Ancient Power.”

For if there was one thing that Gyarados were hilariously weak to, it was, surprisingly, Rock-type attacks.

A series of boulders were then sent flying towards the not!Gyarados, before…

“Well, what the fuck do you know,” he said with a smirk as the Tangela began glowing weirdly. Apparently the Ancient Power had raised all of the Tangela’s stats at once just after that attack, so there was that.

Ancient Power raised up Tangela's stats, stones floated in the air, clowing with the energy of the tangled growth as the Gyarados roared. Callan sent out his own Pokemon, Bowie, his Toxtricity, to handle the problem.

The pointed stones fired forwards, belted the Dittorados as it empowered the Tangela's strength, Ditto screamed in its fish voice. But it wouldn't have much more time in that form, as Callan followed up Lars' attack with one of his own. "Bowie, Overdrive!" The Redmaned Toxtricity leaped onto the pavement as if it were readying for a rock show, its stubby fingers running the legnths of its vocal chords, as it generated electricity into its body, and an ear piercing, heartbreaking, domecrushing arpeggio of untold proportions ripped through the street and into the air like a shockwave, coursing all 15,000 volts of electricity through sound into the quadruple weak transformed state, sizzling the Ditto down to size.

They had stopped it for now. As he returned his Toxtricity, he moved down to administer a revive to the now calmed Pink Pokemon. Still, he harbored doubts. "Should we return it back to its owner?" He pursed his lips, as he felt some degree of sympathy for it, he only wanted to get away. "Maybe we should run a background check, I don't feel comfortable handing him straight back just like that."

Laurence Anderson

Thankfully his Tangela wasn’t going to be alone—and then Callan’s Pokémon cut an impressive figure as—wait a second, why was it glowing strangely? What the hell?

The Overdrive was enough to subdue the stubborn not!Gyarados and reduce it back into its original form. Thank hell that crisis was over.

“To be fair, I’ll authorize the background check… because who the hell leaves something like this,” he gestured to the pink blob, “…unsupervised? Especially when they’re known to be mischievous little shits?”

See: what happened just now.

“Also, I’ve been meaning to ask you about your Toxtricity—since when did they glow red? I thought those only came in blue and yellow,” he hummed quietly as he fished out his phone and called in for the retrieval team to come and get the Ditto—but to bring it back to the Headquarters first over at Lilycove so they could do the suggested background check.