With Magby's help, the metal wall got easily melted, slowly. It got smaller over time and I made sure to tell him to use a light, torch-like fire that was enough to melt the metal but not make it so that the resulting molten slag would start to come down on us. From height alone, the wall is pretty large, around 10 feet tall or so if I were to go by the consensus that anything flat in front of me was metal.

Something like that dropping down on us because we melted too much of the bottom was something that I did not plan to happen and so, careful burning it is. I patted Magby on the head, watching with slight fascination as the molten slag slowly dripped downwards, "imagine if an entire wall of that comes down on us eh buddy?" I said, putting out my fearful thoughts while giving him a grin. He scoffed, and I backed off, "alright, alright, do your work."

And he did, melting the wall slowly and efficiently until there was a decent-sized hole in front of me. Being a Fire Type, the pokemon wasn't at all bothered by the heat of the molten metal so I asked him to scoop it out for me and he gladly did so and, after a while of doing just that, two small mounds of cooled metal slag sat on his sides, making him look rather small when right next to them.

After looking at the thickness of the metal mounds, I frowned, "how thick is that wall bud?" I asked, walking over,

Even though he had melted a large portion of the wall, the fact that he had to account for my size was something that slowed him down by quite a bit.

Looking inside, I saw that he had already dug a considerable size into the wall; around 4 feet or so in depth, "this is one thick metal wall..." I mused, "what do you think is inside?" Magby shrugged, "I guess so right?"

More time passed and soon, light managed to get seen. And it wasn't the soft orange glow made by the molten slag either, no, it was actual light from fluorescent sources. Magby stopped working when he saw that and turned to me, "that's progress," he called out his name and pumped his hand, "right! after this we're gonna have to both heal and feed you so that we're ready for whatever is on the other side,"

He grinned at that.

...

"okay, this is not what I expected the other side to look like," I thought out loud as I eyed the empty metal room we found ourselves in. There wasn't anything here at all, some devices were placed around the floor but I don't think they were important because whoever owned the place just left them sitting there collecting dust. I walked over to one of them and checked; "huh, I guess this is a..."

I looked at the rows upon rows of stats in front of me, there were names, signs of poke dollars right next to large numbers as well as dates. I didn't know what they were supposed to be but after looking around the square... computer? I guess? I saw a USB stick and decided to take it at my leisure.

"Mag?"

I faced Magby, "I don't know?" I shrugged and he frowned, "I mean, I thought it was something that I should've done," I elaborated further, "don't look at me like that, it's not stealing."

He rolled his eyes but let me be, continuing to walk forwards to check out the rest of the facility, "how do you even know about stealing by the way?" I ran over to him after I gave the computer a kick, I nodded in satisfaction when the thing's built-in screen (like, seriously, built in- the monitor was directly attached to the square body,) blacked out, "do other Pokemon steal from each other?"

Magby looked at me as if to say; uh, yeah? What else?

"huh, I didn't know that," he nodded briefly before pointing at something in the distance and I followed his gaze, only to tilt my head when I saw an empty vat, "what is that?" I looked at the confused Magby, he looked back, jerking his head towards the device and glaring at me,

"Magby!" - was his way of saying that he should be the one asking questions.

"well I know that it's a Vat of sorts," I walked over to the massive glass device, big enough to fit a small child, "but I don't really know what for?" the only thing that I could remember that even comes close to this thing was the one that Mewtwo was born in but I was sure that he was born in Cinnabar Island and not in Union Cave...

I tapped the glass, making a loud clinking sound, "has Canon derailed?" I asked out loud, I'm pretty sure that's not the case right? I haven't personally done anything to do that,

"well kid," I flinched when a third, clearly human voice entered my ears and I turned around to come face to face with a Rocket Grunt, Pokeball already in hand, "whatever this Canon is, I can definitely say to you that the thing in front of you, is not, in fact, delayed," he smiled, "but I can't say the same for your life,"

Red light danced around the room, reflected by the sheen of the metal walls, and a Weezing was in front of me moments after. I took a step back, "like him?" the man grinned as he met his pokemon's eyes, "he can't say the same to you," he added, repeating his prior phrase.

Then, like a joke that had been played all over again, I heard a trainer command their Pokemon to attack another trainer for the second time and I felt my blood run cold as I processed what I just heard-

"Toxic! Aim it at the human!" My vision slowed as my eyes widened, at the same time, I watched the Weezing in front of me create a globule of purple liquid in its now open mouth,

It fired, and the projectile slowly moved through the air, directly going for me.

Magby took the ball of toxic just as it was about to hit.

The world went back to normal speed and I unconsciously took a step back, my heart pounding wildly in my chest. I looked up and met my opponent's eyes, unlike his cliche words earlier, there wasn't a single thing but malice present in them.

I looked over to Magby, "Smokescreen!"

With a loud puff, dark clouds seeped out of Magby's mouth, slowly spreading across the entire room. I glared at the Grunt as the smoke started to thicken, he simply smiled and said, "here, let me help you, Smoke Screen."

Weezing joined in with Magby in using Smokescreen and the room got dark, the smoke obscuring the view of everyone. I didn't know where Magby was but a shout to tell him to hold his own should've been good enough since he was wild until an hour ago. Meanwhile, I decided to use two more repels for the upcoming fight.

If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

Freezing up was something that I'd never thought I'd do ever since I got my pokemon but there I was, unmoving to the point that I had to let...

'Magby take in a toxic...' I cursed myself internally while glossing over that small fact. I basically left my pokemon alone to fight off a fully evolved on his own while under the effect of Toxic.

Covering my mouth with extra clothing, I thought that I had no time to waste as I started moving forward. I had the basic rough outlines of where everyone was earlier and judging by the fact that I don't feel hot, Magby was probably conserving himself as much as he could. Then that means it's up to me to take down the Grunt.

With that in mind, I started searching the place for him, slowly moving whilst trying to feel out anything that's out of place in all this smoke. I couldn't, of course, because one's senses become dull when they're inside a smokescreen but that didn't stop me from guessing where the Grunt was and from what I knew of the little time that I got to know him, then there's a large chance that he's trying to cloud poison gas on the smoke, mixing the two and making them nigh unrecognizable from each other.

I could though, and I started moving away from the scent when the faint smell of poison entered my nose, I was a bit reistant to it, given that I've been exposed to Grimer's poison gas so many times now. But that also means that based off of myself; I knew for a fact that the Rocket Grunt is most likely also resistant if not outright immune since he carried a Weezing around.

But, even then, I don't think that he's actually planning on standing near his pokemon (the trainer would have to be insane,) so where does that leave him?

'somewhere close to the Weezing's right,' I thought quickly as my feet started moving.

Seconds later, I felt resistance by bumping into something, or someone, if the hands grabbing my shirt were anything to go by.

I found the Grunt and after a bit of indecision, I lifted my hand for a hit whilst regretting that I only prepared for Pokemon and didn't include people as I smacked the bottle of repel to the place where I assumed the Grunt's face was.

I felt impact as the bottle shattered and sprayed the Repel inside as well as spreading sharpened glass around. The sound of splashing water mixed with the Grunt's yell in pain made me wince.

"FUCK!" the Grunt cursed and I heard the sound of a Pokeball popping open, "Wing Attack on the smoke! NOW!" was what he yelled afterward.

The smoke cleared, revealing a crouching Magby, a smug Weezing, and a flustered Zubat. The Rocket Grunt was still rubbing his eyes, failing miserably when his hands would suddenly twitch in pain as they grazed against the shards of the glass embedded in his skin. Repel wasn't irritating against humans but when poured over wounds? Then even humans won't be able to ignore the irritating properties of the pesticide-like liquid.

The Grunt yelled miserably and I tried to get a kick to his knee when I suddenly felt weightless-

I was on the ground before I could even blink with a headache building up.

I puked out my latest meal and got up, all the while glaring at the Weezing that was chuckling in mirth whilst looking at my misery.

"Magby, Ember," my glare didn't leave the pokemon's frame as orange flames lit up its entire left side. I took out a Repel bottle, "EMBER AGAIN!" I yelled, charging at it.

Back when I was still a kid in my old life, I heard a method that people used to disturb their enemies, and even though - I think - it didn't have any psychological name, people on the internet agreed to call it Hellshriek.

And to be blunt, I had no real experience when it comes to that sort of thing other than reading about women acting like crazy people by screaming and bawling to get the creeps that approached them during the night to get turned off, I did, however, find it interesting enough to at least learn a few things about psychology.

What I did manage to learn was nothing but the bare basics but sometimes? That's more than enough because one of these was something related to reflexes as well as the reaction they have whenever people get into a high adrenaline state, they would usually react in two ways; one was the common freeze response and the other, flight.

There was a third one, and that was fight but what's important is that we humans were mainly prey animals and so, we preferred to run away rather than fight; that's why most people that got into fights would try to de-escalate it by bumping into each other, they don't actually plan on fighting, they're just there to make sure that their egos aren't hurt and when the adrenaline dies down, they would back down.

And that doesn't just apply to humans either because other than a rare few animals, such as Polar Bears (an animal that lives in an environment that has little to no food and so, whenever they encounter something worth eating, they would gladly attack hence why they're willing to attack humans and because of that, Polar Bears are one of the few animals feared by humans.) Wolverines(same as Polar Bears, except, these guys hunt them.) and God forbid, Honey Badgers; The fight response is nearly non-existent unless one's life is threatened and I think, I really, genuinely do-

That, that sort of psychology applies to Pokemon as well.

So what would happen if, let's say, a Pokemon pumped with adrenaline would suddenly get pushed to act out in two different ways, and both of those ways involved it getting attacked?

Let's say that the Pokemon is strong and the two others around it are weaker than it, so, subconsciously, it would take them as weak and of course, would defend itself since it knew it could win.

But, what if it just got attacked, and is currently feeling pain, and what if it saw that someone it considered as above it got incapacitated by one of the attackers?

Subconsciously, the pokemon would defend itself but even then, would it know who to pick?

So that begs the question: between the two attackers, who would the pokemon pick to defend itself against?

Well, the answer would be the one that incapacitated someone that the pokemon considers as its trainer and so- "FOLLOW IT UP WITH MEGA PUNCH!" - the yells I was doing was probably useless because I was not only larger than Magby physically, which makes me slightly more threatening when it comes to its eyes, I was also holding something that most Pokemon associate as something bad.

The Repel was thrown Weezing's way, preventing him from reacting to Magby and as fire struck its side, the Repel hit because it got distracted by the Ember and now that it's irritated, it couldn't react to the Mega Punch and Magby was able to cleanly hit the Weezing, making him falter on the sky by a little bit.

I ran away and reached into my backpack for another Repel but my hand was stopped halfway through, because of the sound of something cracking, I quickly found out that my wrist was grabbed rather violently.

I watched Rocket Grunt twisted my arm, forcing me to move in the way he wants and even as I did, he still pulled violently enough that my arm got dislocated.

I hissed and heaved. "Magby Embe-" I was punched in the face before I could finish but my pokemon understood well enough what to do and an Ember was aimed at the Grunt. He smiled when it was taken by his Zubat for him, it fainted and he put the pokemon back in its ball, "I gotta be honest with ya kid, I didn't know what I was expecting but by the Duo, you're a tough one ain't ya?"

He chuckled, coughing lightly. A command from his Weezing got my Magby to finally collapse and with no more Pokemon, he grabbed my un-broken hand by the wrist and pulled, "so, tell me, what do you think's gonna happen to you now?"

I wanted to answer but the sound of something tearing distracted everyone in the room and when we turned to look, we saw literal space distort and an unconscious Electabuzz fell face-first into one of the devices in the room, shattering it before turning into the white motes of light that signified a pokemon's evolution.

"OI!" the grunt yelled at the evolutionary light in rage then at the spacial tear in disbelief, "the hell's going on?!" he turned to his Weezing, who simply shook their heads. "THEN ATTACK IT!" he pointed at the evolving Electabuzz.

And they did, offering up a Tackle to gouge out the evolving enemy and as they got near, a large hand with yellow and black fur arching with electricity grabbed it and seconds later, a fist came for the Weezing and the pokemon promptly exploded like a balloon introduced to the beauty of electricity.