When it comes to caving, most of the current devices available to trainers are either outright useless, or they can serve something some random purpose that isn't even that great. The Pokewatch falls into the latter half of that description and even though it's great for checking the time, or seeing what kind of items are available in your backpack, it doesn't have any other use to the point that the Date isn't even visible anywhere on its screen.

It does have other functions, such as being able to see the health of a trainer and transferring that information to the nearest Ranger station, and with that knowledge in mind, I left the crystallized part of Union Cave knowing that my Dad probably knows that I'm healthy and alive.

I got out of the cavern with light steps, still wary, given that Union Cave was, well, a cave, but the spring in my step couldn't be mistaken. It probably could, if I were to be honest, since the flashlight in my hand was bobbing up and down slightly and pokemon might think that's me shivering from fear or something but that's basically here nor there. The way it shone around would probably annoy some random passing pokemon but I hope that the smell of Repel around me would prevent anything like that from happening and-

"Magby!"

- I fucking jinxed it. "why now?!" I yelled at the orange, duck-like pokemon in front of me, its mouth already alight with fire and ready to fire off an ember if I take another step. It glared at the flashlight in my hand with baleful eyes, "what?" I looked at my flashlight, "is there something wrong with this?"

Even with my ability warning me not to, I took a small step back, lightly- because it was one of the few safer options I could take. Well, that and taking out Grimer and sending out my ball of sludge to fight him but I didn't want to know what kind of reaction my pokemon would have to battling after he ate all of those crystals. Which, I just realized, were immune to the effect of the Mega-Stone so it's likely that he's going to get sick or even that he's sick right now.

Knowing that my Grimer is most likely out of the equation right now, I decided to take caution to the wind and threw my flashlight towards the Magby, who quickly spewed out the building flames in his mouth to go ahead and burn the handheld light source into molten plastic. I ran faster than I ever had when I saw that the Magby's attack caused our surroundings to light up in bright orange light and singe my skin even with the distance.

I ran and ran all the while behind me I could hear the little thing's cries. I ignored it all and pushed my legs to go even faster.

I thanked Whitney for pushing me to exercise when I knew I was safe and as I panted, I touched the part of my forearm that got burned,

"AH!" I pulled my hand away, dropped my bag to the ground, took out my first aid kit, and proceeded to administer the basic first aid that my Dad taught me. He said it was important, and the lesson wasn't skippable, and he was right.

He was right.

When I was done, the pain in my arm receded slightly and I heaved a sigh of relief all the while agonizing over the fact that I irritated a wild pokemon with mine being unavailable. It should avoid any encounter that I get into because the ember that Magby threw it... I shuddered.

That. Was. Hot.

"how the hell did that even work?" I rubbed the back of my head and winced when pain shot up my arm, "and why the hell did that Magby attack me?" I asked out loud in an attempt to take my mind off things and shuddering when I remembered the heat from that ember alone. Kurt's charmeleon didn't even hold a candle of power to that...

Deciding that it was better for me to save my last two flashlights in case of an emergency, or really, to not use any of those two unless I wanted to attract a Magby because my power told me that was the case earlier; I decided to take out my torching kit from my backpack and used lit one of the five torches I had available.

I have batteries and spare flashlights but using some of these didn't hurt- was my Dad's tip and I'm pretty sure that guy is right.

Torch in hand, I started walking back up north. Thanks to the size of Union Cave, the entrance back to Azalea town wasn't far from where I was by any stretch of the word and the path was more steep than anything else and when you add wild pokemon into the equation, then you have a rather big problem in your hands, and it's in the form of overwinding paths occupied by dangerous, magical creatures.

The Magby that I encountered earlier wouldn't have anything to a pack of Zubats, Geodude, Machoke, or even Dunsparces which were honestly the bigger problem that most trainers would encounter because powerful as Magbies were, they were alone and as weak the individual pokemon that make swarms are, they're deadly when they band together with others their species.

"humans are already bad enough," I murmured, trying to take my mind off my current situation by thinking about a few things, one of them being about a game that involves assassins starting revolutions.

Luckily though, I didn't need to encounter anything swarm related and instead, right in front of me was an Elekid with a painful glare visible inside its eyes. The two of us went into a staring contest until I realized that he was looking at the torch in my hand and then everything clicked-

The Magby earlier was attracted for the same reason this Elekid is here...

"because of my light source..." I forced back the word that I was about to shout at the pokemon and backed away slowly instead, I also cursed my ability for only telling me how to deal with them after only I realized what was the cause of their transgression to begin with. As I took a step backward, the Elekid went forwards and I stopped myself from running away right then and there when I saw the electricity arching across the plug-like protrusion on his head.

I took another step back and raised my hand in placation when I saw the electricity arching across the pokemon's plug-like head. "wait, wait," I said, mentally slapping myself for not trying this sooner, "I'm not here to attack you," the Elekid's eyes narrowed and he took a step forward, the yellow sparks on the top of his head started to get stronger visibly before turning into yellow lightning that made it's way over to me before I could even blink.

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Thanks to my nerves being fried; I didn't even have the capacity to feel weightless when I was thrown away by the attack. The torch that I had been holding dropped out of my hand the moment that I was attacked and I hoped that it was enough to make the Elekid leave.

I felt my back hit the ground and I landed twice for good measure. My right hand found solid ground a little while later and I managed to sit up, after rubbing my eyes, I looked around to see if anything dangerous happened and from the corner of my vision, I was able to see sparks of yellow light pierce through the darkness.

I gulped audibly and tried to scramble away but moving my hands each time felt like they were being pierced with thousands of needles. I heaved and gagged before puking my latest meal. The ribs looked like they weren't digested,

Thinking that the feeling of my arms as if I slept on them for hours would only get worse if the Elekid attacked me again, I pushed myself, got up, and wiped my mouth, gagging a little bit when I inhaled the smell of my own puke.

I started walking-

-And fell after only three steps.

Seeing the Elekid get closer, I pulled out my last resort; my hand gripped Grimer's Pokeball tightly and I pressed the button at the center, with a loud hiss and a flash of red light, my pokemon was released from his ball in the span of seconds.

Thankfully, he looked fine physically however, my ability was telling me that the way he looked at the yellow lightning surrounding Elekid wasn't healthy...

"HEY!" I yelled, snapping Grimer out of his daze, he met my eyes, "you need to beat him," I pointed at the Elekid in the distance, obscured in darkness, the only thing that I could see from him was a rough outline and the lightning.

For once, my pokemon looked unsure and his eyes darted between me and the Elekid. Seconds later, they settled in his opponent and he gave me a nod from the back, "great, attack him with the usual, use the darkness of the cave as much as possible."

He nodded and disappeared from his spot, melting into a dark ooze that didn't fall to the ground, instead, he melded with the darkness around him. Seconds later, the crackling electricity around the Elekid was snuffed out and darkness once again took over the surrounding area. I didn't need to see to know that Elekid was still conscious though so I issued another command, "Power-Up Punch again!"

I heard the sound of something being struck and the loud thud of something hitting the ground.

And then... nothing. There wasn't a single sound that came out of the Elekid, no crackling electricity, no whimpering, grunts. Nothing.

And then bright white light took over the darkness.

I strained my eyes, covered my face with my hand, then looked at the source of the sudden burst of light and from where the Elekid once lay, was a blob of luminosity that started to shift, going from something small, to something that was half my height. Then it started to morph, going from a small ball to a humanoid shape, gaining arms, then legs before growing two small rods with bulbs at their tips on either side of its head.

When the evolution was done, an Elecabuzz stood in place where the Elekid once lay. It glared at both me and Grimer, its eyes had the same feeling back when it was still an Elekid.

I moved before he could, "Grimer! Shadow Sneak and try to rake up as many Power-up Punches as you could!"

And my pokemon was off, striking Electabuzz with a red fist straight to the chest,

Which the pokemon took with little to no strain,

"Buzz," it said with a manic grin before punching Grimer and sending him flying.

My brain started to rack up and possibilities started to whirr. I grabbed a repel from my backpack and held it close, I didn't use it. Not yet.

"Grimer-" yellow lightning arched my way, hitting me square in the chest and sending me flying.

My head started to spin, and I was reminded of what happened back in the tunnels. That, gave me an idea, I looked at my pokemon, he was fighting the Electabuzz without any input from me and was doing well enough on his own, dishing out hits while taking a few thanks to harden, "Poison Gas!"

And then, just as suddenly, the battle came to a halt as Grimer stopped attacking, he hesitated and Electabuzz didn't waste time, sending out a thunderpunch that made Grimer's body erupt and when he formed back, his arms started to twitch.

The Paralyzed Grimer tried to punch again, his hand growing red but the Electabuzz caught it with relative ease and a manic grin that reached his ears, his hands glowed yellow and electricity was transffered to Grimer. When the attack was finished, my pokemon looked like he was starting to faint and so, I grabbed my repel and threw it directly at the Electabuzz's face, it almost hit the pokemon before he attacked it and broke the bottle, spraying what accounts as pokemon pepper spray directly to his face.

The Electabuzz cried and held out his face, Grimer met my eyes, "Poison Gas, NOW!" I yelled in command for once and Grimer finally nodded, releasing a puff of gas from his mouth that struck the coughing Electabuzz, who inhaled the gas the moment that it reached him.

The electric type gagged and opened up his teary eyes before glaring at Grimer followed by sending out a thunderbolt-

That did nothing other than travel around the poison gas around him, "HAH! now Power-up Punch to Bite!" my pokemon quickly followed my command, sending out a punch to the stomach that got the Electabuzz reeling quickly followed by a Bite that managed to cause blackened crystals to erupt out of Grimer's gums,

the crystals bit unto the skin of the Electabuzz, and when Grimer let go, they stayed there.

I ignored what they were for now and got out another command, "great! now Power-Up punc-"

With the gas around Electabuzz as well the effect of the repel gone, the pokemon was now free to attack again and that was what he did, sending out a Thunder Punch that struck Grimer down before grabbing him and throwing him somewhere into the darkness.

I heard the sound of splashing water somewhere and I sighed in relief, atleast Grimer was safe, somewhat.

The Electabuzz and I came to a standstill, merely staring at each other and waiting for the other one to make their move. I did so first and took out two repels from my backpack, I uncorked the first one and held the other one tightly with my right hand. My first trick wouldn't work again and I was sure the Electabuzz would just let the bottle fly off somewhere instead of attacking it but what if I just directly splashed him with the liquid?

"you know that you can just leave right?" I said, trying to negotiate again, I held back saying that he didn't have anything to gain from me and resorted to threats instead, "I still have other pokemon with me and I'm sure they can take you down," the Electabuzz simply scoffed and I held back a gulp. I swear, if these things can sense electric pulses then it knows that my heart is probably beating faster than it normally should, I held up the open repel bottle, "and if you don't want to then I'm really gonna have to play dirty,"

I saw lightning form at the top of his head and I threw the closed bottle followed by the open one, I then dodged to the side.

The sound of something shattering entered my ears as I grabbed another repel. Yellow light lit up the cave and I continued moving, lightning is fast, but from experience, I knew that the ones pokemon made weren't the "hits the target with less resistance type," - aka me, - and they can more or less be dodged.

And an Electabuzz that couldn't see their target was something that I can go against with relatively good chances right as long as they stay blind.

And using the repel in my hand, I got close to the Electric type and sprayed its face, making it hiss. I uncorked the bottle and splashed its face point blank for good measure.

Then I ran to find my pokemon.