eyes widen. he points a finger at tam as he hears his conclusion from his mumbling. it makes things easier since he can verbalize his thoughts much better than him, who skirted around it in lieu of being direct.

"yes! that's it!"

he shifts on his seat until he returns to his previous position.

"training's cool and all, but i'm wondering if it's possible to get myself out there involved with what the region is currently facing. if there's more needed from me, i willing to show what else i can give."

time was a resource, and someone as giddy as jake wasn't going to let it go to waste.

as everyone said their goodbyes, jake did so as well.

he hasn't given much input, though it's not like he's in the position to do so, but at least he's learned much about the intricacies of the organization. it wasn't much, but it's what was to be expected in a humble region such as hoenn.

very nice. he would visit again. 10 out of 10 rating.

it's his first experience to be in a space-time distortion, and it's everything that he's read off from the internet.

eyes were wide as he finally gets clearance to act inside these zones without much worries from his bosses. he's proven he can deal with disasters inside without much problem, and that he can do stuff without looking like a dweeb now.

as he sets in, however, he finds more bewilderment than the phenomenon itself.

it's so nice to see that even civilians can hold their own without much trouble. the heads of the ranger association must care a lot for their people if they want them to be extra mindful that their people don't get hurt in an environment where even people that don't look like they have experience in the battlefield can hold their own.

the need for sightseeing eventually lands him a trip to ever grande, taking up a mission concerning wildlife near the city.

the best part is that how he managed to squeeze himself to an opportunity to do one with the captain. ollie's friendly demeanor makes it easy to do so.

"i think this is the place." he checks the gps to make sure that they got the right area. "how do you think about my driving skills? i practiced for it, hehe."

they did go with a motorboat. they didn't see much problem through the trip, but given the mission brief he has read before going, the problem lie underneath the surface of the water.

jake puts on the diving equipment as he continues small talk.

"anyways, what do you usually do for these kinds of things?" he asks. he's curious of how things were dealt around after all. "would the beat 'em up procedure work or is there usually a more delicate procedure?"

it's undeniable that he's new, but he also doesn't want to intrude on conventions that the ever grande rangers practice.

sneaking seems to be effective for the most part. it avoids needless conflict, and most importantly, they don't have to waste their potions healing their pokemon before they fight the reported aggressive wild pokemon.

"it's boss versus boss... who's going to win..."

jake starts to commentate like he's the narrator of some wildlife documentary he's been forced to watch as part of his ranger training. it was just homework and no one quizzed him about them afterwards, so he wonders if everyone actually did watched it til the end like he did.

his commentary stops when they finally reach an area where honey starts to aggressively spill out of everywhere. it's clear that they're near.

"you know, it's kinda nice that training takes you to something like this," he shares in a hushed tone. "i expected it to be tame all the way out."

from what it looks like, taking on the hive doesn't seem tame at all.

like the first time he was here, he takes up tam's office time. this time, he wasn't as nervous given the rapport he's built up with the captain.

the same sequence of events happen: jake knocks on the door, tam lets him in, he enters carefully and then gets greeted by his yamper, he's been told to take a seat, and then he lets gets distracted by all the art projects that decorate his room.

he manages to reel himself back in to the topic at hand.

"um, i know this is sudden, but..."

jake starts to stray away from direct eye contact. his palms sweat as he grasp his knees from his seat, unsure on how the protocol for these work.

"d-do you think we can expedite the training period? i've only been here for a while b-but i heard there was a shortage of personnel around the region and..."

he starts grasping at straws instead of going straight to the point.

maybe he can name his next pokemon giraffe and whale. these kids gives him inspiration.

...inspiration to beat up their pokemon, that is.

in an effort to style on these kids, jake uses the forbidden technique most pokemon trainers won't even think of using in a battle. "dodge it!"

it's the legendary move that none dare recreate.

the buizel jumps and gracefully dodges all the thunderbolt with little to no consequences. he stays up in the air for more than five seconds like he's capable of levitating, except he's not. it just opens him up to a good angle to snipe them off from above.

"swift!"

it's the counter for the forbidden move-- the never-miss moves like swift! in any case that they try to copy it, they'll fail since they're a bunch of scrubs, the stars will hit them.

it's like a meteor shower during the day. stars start to pelt the rats from above, their pointy edges hurting them so much because the move is just that good to not dodge.

he whips his head back up and recoils at the offer.

"um, it's fine. i can stay," he chuckles nervously. "i'll go check the area around for stragglers."

cause you never know if there's still a member of the aggressive combee colony around that just got lost or something.

he's had enough combee for the day. maybe he'll be able to stand them tomorrow, but certainly not now.

"you can go ahead," he assures tam with a smile. he looks at the jar of honey he has on hand and only then tightens its lid. "i'll take care of the clean up."

eventually, he's given relief.

he drops to his knees and pants, holding his head low as he recovers from exerting himself all of a sudden. "y-yeah," he answers in between breaths, raising a thumbs up. "i'm fine."

the next thing he knows, the captain has the situation under control for the most part. it's away from the rest of the citizens for now, at the very least.

next part of the job was to take one of them to be observed.

"i just capture one to send back to HQ, right?" he asks as he produces a pokeball. "then we send the rest back to the wild?"

he wonders if he remembers the rest of his assignment as he throws a pokeball at the clump.