Now this was the life.

While he’d taken to puffing some smoke trails out of the pipe he had, nothing beat the sheer contentment he felt right then and there as he watched the white trails of smoke drift off lazily as he looked up at the clear afternoon sky and took another deep breath.

Ahh, that hit the spot, he thought, a lazy sort of grin crossing his face for the briefest of moments—at least until a familiar voice shook him out of his reverie. Had he really spaced out that long?

Looking back down, he saw a familiar head of blonde hair, accompanied with the sound of...was that rattling?

“I mean, who wouldn’t be? ‘Specially not after the way Suijin fought with her. Why is she so agitated, though?” he began with a grin on his face as he took the pipe out of his mouth and blew some smoke in the opposite direction. “I take she’s been treating you well?” he asked a few moments later, inquiring about the general health of the Zangoose companion that he’d given to Leon as additional companion.

Looks like someone has beef. And surprisingly it’s not among the members of my team. Wow, he thought to himself a few moments later as he finished off the last of the vanilla-scented smoke he was exhaling. Who knew he’d spaced out that long waiting for Leon to get here?

“So, ready for more shenanigans?”

[attr="class","Vgentempbox"]

[attr="class","Vgentempbox"]

Without much warning, the two were suddenly bombarded with ghosts. Leon felt his skin crawl, hoping that something did come out to grab his fucking ankle like last time he was out here. "I really hate this route. Why did I agree to meet on this route??"

His mumbles were controlled as he watched Lars pick his battle. That left him with a Drifloon. Last time he saw one of these, it tried to carry him off into the sky. Leon groaned as he tossed out Taft's Pokeball, moving to keep a good distance between himself and the balloon dual type.

Upon seeing the Drifloon, Taft puffed out his chest as if already victorious. The hair on the back of his neck bristled and he moved his tail back and forth with excitement. Why was he excited? Because this Drifloon was gonna be toast and he was gonna actually protect his trainer this time around. He'd definitely failed last time they were at this route with that lab assistant.

"Careful, it looks a little tougher than the other one." Leon already noticed that it was beginning to STOCKPILE energy from around itself. "Don't let her get too much energy, or she'll spit it up and you'll regret it!"

Taft gave a cry of obedience before bouncing around the field. Since it was getting heavier with the more energy it took in, Taft was able to BITE down on one of the tassel-feet of the dual type, yanking his head down to pull her to the ground. She continued to take in energy, STOCKPILEing once again. Taft relocated his BITE, chomping down on her cloud of a hat and pulling at it. Actually, it was a brilliant chew toy.

She deflated a bit, the poor thing before she SPIT UP her stored energy onto the offending Eevee. The more she thought about it, the more she figured she probably should have used Swallow instead. However, now that she was floating away, the Eevee would leave her alone. So. Win-win.

Taft let out a triumphant cry as he watched his trainer come closer, enjoying the victory pets he got. About that time, a bright shining light came from where Lars was battling. Leon shielded his eyes from the light, moving his hands over Taft's face to cover his eyes. Once it was gone, Leon glared over.

"Maybe a little warning next time?" Leon didn't have cool shades.

“Whoops. Sorry ‘bout that,” Lars began, sheepish chuckle escaping his lips as he then rummaged around in his pocket to see if he had a second pair of shades. Sadly, he only had the one pair (that was currently perched atop his spiky mess of hair) with him at the moment. “At least you didn’t get carried away by those things. Freaky-ass…” he muttered, rubbing his arms down—for some reason the fine hairs decided to stand up at that.

Just as he was about to crack another remark in Leon’s direction, two more Pokémon charged in their direction—and the one that caught Lars’ attention was the Kirlia. Eyebrows going up, he then looked at Kaiju, who was busy snacking on a fallen Berry it had found lying around in the dirt. “Kaiju, what the hell. You’re about to get—“ he began, before the Kirlia decided to blast the Joltik with a Psychic attack.

A loud squeal of surprise caught the dual-type off-guard, forcing it to let go of the half-eaten Berry it had found. Grumbling, it then made a skittering noise in Lars’ direction, who then pointed at it. “You can get back to that later! Take care of that one first, but don’t drive it away! I’m going to catch it!” he continued, resisting the urge to roll his eyes in the Joltik’s direction. Wasting no time, the dual-type then released a jolt of electricity, launching Thunder Wave at the Kirlia, who’d retaliated with a Magical Leaf storm.

Oh, I hate that attack. Love it when I use it, but absolutely despise it when I’m on the receiving end of it… he thought to himself as the Joltik began to get smacked around by the storm of leaves. The Kirlia had vanished, however—where had it gone?! It had used Teleport to disappear from sight; only to re-emerge a few moments later and chucking another rainbow-colored chunk of Psychic energy at the Joltik. Another loud squeal of surprise caught the dual-type off-guard, and Lars could only smack his palm to his forehead, before slowly dragging it down.

“Kaiju, don’t get intimidated! You know what? Use your Electroweb attack and trap it as best as you can! It teleporting out of the way will prove to be a huge problem!” he added sometime later; watching as the dual-type then sprang into action, spitting out a wad of electrified silk at the incoming Kirlia, who’d began to conjure up another rainbow-colored chunk of energy to toss at the Joltik. Before it could move forward, the sudden electric shock that had snared its legs caused it to fall forward, face hitting the dirt.

Not a nice way to deal with it, but we have to do what we have to… he continued to himself in the back of his mind as the Kirlia then used its Disarming Voice to catch the Joltik off-guard once again. “Kaiju! Get your head back in the game!” he hollered a few moments later, this time actually rolling his eyes behind the hand that he’d slapped to his eyes out of sheer frustration. “You’re getting destroyed out there!” he added.

The Joltik then flipped itself over, before preparing the electricity in its system. Lars could smell the ozone radiating off the dual-type, and he then turned over to Leon and shouted, “Cover your eyes!” moments before the Joltik released its Discharge attack; catching the Kirlia right as it was about to Teleport out of the battlefield and sneak up again on the dual-type from behind.

A powerful flash of electricity went off in the clearing; and while Lars had his eyes covered, the stench of ozone was more pronounced than ever—he didn’t know that the Joltik was getting extremely frustrated at that point. Before he could help with Kaiju’s frazzled nerve, a second explosion of Discharge ripped through the clearing—and this time Lars was unprepared for the sheer flash of electricity that exploded in the area.

“Oh, fuck. Bright, too bright!” he grumbled, unable to blink away the glare that had imprinted on his eyeballs. Once the flash had receded, the Kirlia was still on the ground—but for some reason it couldn’t Teleport away anymore. Not content with how its opponent was on the ground, the Joltik then ran towards it, spitting out another Electroweb and beginning to wrap up the Kirlia’s legs in electrified silk; the better to keep the other Pokémon restrained without getting away.

A third Electroweb ensured that the Kirlia wasn’t going anywhere, and before the Joltik could release a third Discharge of electricity at it, a red beam of light suddenly sucked up said Kirlia into the depths of a Pokéball, before it fell right in front of the dual-type, shaking…