Larry and his mom both stood in front of the giant wall of ice, apparently, it had once been his mother's home. Unfortunately for her, it seemed the outside world wasn’t as kind as the inside.

The entire opening which she’d made her home was covered completely by a thick sheet of ice and snow. It looked like someone opened the front door to a house that had been snowed in, except that the entire entrance was iced over instead of simply being snowed in.

His mom inspected the ice carefully, touching it and meekly scratching into it with her claws. The temperature near these entrances was freezing cold and Larry once again wanted to just return back into the depths of the mountain to escape it.

‘I wonder what this place looked like when Mom lived here, there's nothing around here, does that mean her entire hideout is inside the ice right now?’

The ice seemed unmovable and his mom shook her head at the situation and simply sat down next to the giant ice wall.

“Um, Mom?” Larry carefully asked, “I know this is supposed to be your home, but it doesn’t seem comfortable to live here anymore. I’m freezing cold! Do you mind us moving somewhere else, at least until this ice melts?”

A scoff escaped his mom as she turned her head to the side and crossed her arms, “I could destroy this wall of ice with a single move.”

“I know Mom, you’re really strong!” Larry didn’t know what his mom was trying to get at, “So why not destroy it?”

She once again eyed the wall before turning her head back like a picky child, “It’d probably destroy more than the wall, and I like this place.” Raising herself, she began to walk, “Let's find a warmer place to settle down, at least in the meantime.”

...

The cavern edges were colder this far up on the mountain, even on the second level Pokémon had to rely on the interior cavern to not freeze to death, so Larry was unsure if Pokémon even lived on the peak of Mt. Silver.

‘Why are the caves of Mt. Silver warmer anyway? Shouldn’t caves always have the temperature of their surroundings?’ Larry absentmindedly thought to himself as he trudged along behind his mother.

It might’ve been the warmer air from the bottom of Mt. Silver rising through the cave and heating the inside, but Mt. Silver wasn’t in a particularly warm region, was it? Then what is heating the inside of the cave?

‘I also still need to get back to move training, this whole mess with my mom has really thrown me off course, hasn’t it?’ His mind wandered back to something else as he thought about how to broach the subject to his mother, she wouldn’t mind him trying to get stronger, would she?

“Mom? Once we find a place to settle down, do you mind teaching me a bit? I learned some moves on my own, but I think I could learn much more if you taught me!”

When the word teaching escaped Larry, his mother stopped dead in her tracks and turned to him with a clear smile on her face, and by the time Larry had concluded his sentence his mom was already looking at him expectantly.

“Sure, I can teach you some things!” His mom nodded enthusiastically. She slowed down to walk beside Larry instead of in front of him, “There is so much I can teach you about, we could...”

Larry silently prayed for his health, his mom was a battle junkie who wasn’t that good at communication or mothering, but it seemed she had a soft spot for training. She promptly began regaling him with all kinds of things, from training regimens to eating habits.

‘With other Pokémon like her, who needs a trainer...’ Larry thought to himself begrudgingly, he knew training, at least in the standards of Pokémon required a lot of blood, sweat, and tears. Fighting for one's life against other Pokémon is after all the quickest way to level up.

He felt himself almost nod off while walking as his usually distant and quiet mother just didn’t stop talking about the various ways to strengthen one's skin against other Pokémon's fangs and claws. The topic also never seemed to run out, as she jumped from real stories that happened to her to apparent rumors she heard years ago to even more outlandish things.

What Larry did learn from listening to her though, was surprising. She wasn’t the only Tyranitar, no, there are entire groups of them living out in the wilderness beyond Mt. Silver, far away from the human population of the world.

Now there were no Tyranitar communities or Tyranitar bread shops out in the wild, but it seemed that if two Tyranitar met it didn’t always end in a fight. Some were respectful, some had seen each other before and others even fell in love. Most differentiated themselves and others by region, his mother was called the Mountain Tyranitar for example.

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It seemed his father was another Tyranitar she had befriended on her journeys away from Mt. Silver, although she didn’t go too deep into the topic during her teaching-fueled ramblings. Larry did want her to elaborate, but he couldn’t find the right timing to cut her off and ask, so he filed it in the back of his mind to ask sometime later.

During their journey to find a new place, Larry thought his nonexistent ears might fall off, luckily for him they found a suitable place to settle down, a large outcropping of stone, which looked to be empty of any other Pokémon. It made for a good enough hideout away from any larger open areas of the cavern that Pokémon might frequent.

As he meandered inside, his mom spoke up once more, “I want to see what you can do, show me.”

“What do you mean?”

"I want to see what you learned during your adventure,” his mother shifted her footing, and a vicious grin appeared on her face, “let’s have a spar.”

Larry felt himself begin to sweat as he looked for a way out, “Umm, don’t you still feel winded after that rampage you went on? Maybe another nap would do you good first?”

His mom checked herself once over casually, “Don’t worry, I feel healthy.”

‘Noo! I don’t to get my butt kicked by my own mom!’ Larry cried internally.

“W-What about food?! You must be hungry, right? When was the last time you ate something?” He tried to wriggle his way out.

“Food tastes best after some exercise.” She casually mentioned as she readied herself.

“W-What if I hurt you?! I couldn’t live with myself if I did something to you!” Larry cried out as his mom approached.

Her grin spread out further and Larry felt as if a demon was bearing down on him, “Oh, don’t worry. There is no chance that any of your attacks could hurt me.”

Larry's shoulders slumped and he resigned himself to his fate, he already heard her countdown as she lowered herself to the ground.

...

“Three!”

“Two!”

“One!”

“Begin!”

His mom charged at him, he saw her rampage before and knew this wasn’t her full speed. As she charged him with a leisurely Tackle, to him though, it felt like he might become Roadkill. The attack was still almost too fast for Larry to track and if he hadn’t used Dig to dodge the attack, it could’ve ended badly.

Once underground, Larry immediately shot back up and used his Ground-TE-empowered claws to slash at his mom's underbelly, unfortunately, the attack glanced off harmlessly, just as she had promised.

“Nice effort!” His mom commended, as she turned around slowly, “Try dodging this!” All around her feet, Dark-TE began flowing outwards like ink in a tidal wave, it floated into the air and quickly flooded the area around his mom with volatile amounts of TE.

‘Damn, is that Dark Pulse?!’ Larry immediately recognized the move, but he didn’t even begin to know how to counter it. He tried to dodge back, but the tidal wave of TE was far too quick. Instead, Larry began charging a Payback as the tidal wave of TE impacted him.

A part of the volatile TE began to soak into his body and Larry closed his eyes in anticipation, but the pain was still immeasurable. Larry immediately felt fear and pain assault him, his mind spiraled into a bout of dark depression as the wave passed by him. When the wave finally passed over him, he felt himself flinch back and the Type-Energies he’d so preciously saved for his next attack slipped out of his grasp. ‘Goddamn flinches!’ He cursed to himself mentally.

He didn’t have time to wait though, as when opened his eyes again and looked back up his mother was already charging at him again with another attack. Her razor-sharp Dark-TE-filled fangs were already rushing at him and Larry almost stumbled off his feet as he dodged to the side.

His mom didn’t let up though, as another Bite soon followed, and Larry found himself in a dance of dodges around his mother. The fourth bite finally connected as his mother wrapped her jaw around his stomach and lifted him into the air.

Larry hadn’t been hit by many attacks in his life, and he wasn’t much of a fighter in his last one either. The amount of hits he’d taken this time around made him want to pass out, as both his mind and body cried out in pain, but he persisted.

Charging up his own Bite, Larry bit down on his mother's face, right between her eyes. A growl escaped his mother, as she held him up high, they stared each other down as Larry put every ounce of strength he had into the bite, yet her rock-hard skin didn’t give in. She reared her head back and released her grip, tossing Larry through their new hideout as hard as possible.

‘Oh, crap!’ Larry braced himself as he impacted the wall of the hideout, he felt all the air escape his lungs as he bounded off the wall and landed flat on his stomach on the hideout floor. He quickly got his feet under him, but as he looked up his mom was already charging at him once again.

‘Let me catch a goddamn break!’ He cried out mentally.

Rock-TE shot out of his feet and a large, empowered stone grew out of the ground beside him. He picked it up and immediately launched it at his charging mom, before once again charging up a Payback.

The rock exploded as it hit his mother, but only seemed to slow her down marginally. The glinting white-silver of Normal-TE coated his mother's form as she slowly charged, a Tackle probably. Larry braced for the hit and was rocketed back into the wall he’d just hit as his mom impacted him. When he impacted the second time though, the hit was far weaker, probably due to his resistance to Normal-Type Moves.

Dark-TE inside him came to life as Payback unleased itself, he kicked off the wall and landed gracefully on the ground. His arms coated themselves in Dark-TE and he charged at his mom, who was still righting herself from her Tackle.

When his mother saw Larry, she tried to dodge to the side, but Larry simply jumped after her, her large size made it difficult to dodge. He reeled back his arm mid-flight and hit his mother squarely in the chest, the Dark-TE shot out of his body, through his arm, and into his mother.

His mother growled again before scowling down at her chest as she raised her arm to rub at it. Her gaze turned back to Larry, “Good hit, you sure learned some moves,” before her scowl morphed back into a grin, “Let’s see how long you can keep it up!”

She raised her foot and stomped it back down into the ground with a roar, suddenly a Rock-Te-empowered boulder began to drip out of the ceiling like water droplets.

“T-That isn’t fair!” Larry finally yelled out in panic as he jumped from side to side, dodging gigantic boulders from all directions. It would be a long training session.