The time had finally come, Larry could feel himself get hyped up, he was going to finally fight something. He wasn’t going to struggle like he had before, figuring out how his body worked because he was jumped during his adventure down the mountain. Larry was going to actually go out there and search for a worthy foe and let himself get attacked by them.

He walked into a side cavern, it was filled with the same oppressive darkness which had enveloped him for his entire second life until now. It felt somewhat comforting at this point, Larvitars eyesight allowed for far better sight in the dark than any human. The darkness which would have been all-encompassing for a human had been muted, like walking through a dark cinema.

The darkest corners were still completely incomprehensible to him and especially the distance was still completely dark, but Larry would count himself lucky that he definitely wouldn’t be ambushed by anything.

‘This is kind of nerve-wracking…’ Instead of hiding and sneaking around the cavern as he had been before, he actually just walked straight through the open walkway in the middle of the cave. It felt liberating to not be beholden to anything because he actually knew how to hold his now.

Larry still wasn’t sure he’d be able to hold off something like an adult Pokemon or even something like a juvenile, but he was confident enough in his ability to Screech that nothing could touch him right now, ‘Just come out and try and bite me, I’ll turn into the loudest squeaky toy you’ve ever met!’

A sound behind Larry made him flinch and whirl around when his eyes met the large googly eyes of the insect he’d just met though they both flinched back.

“Woah!” Larry whirled away a few steps on instinct as he yelled out, the Bug-Type had been far too close for comfort.

“Eek! Don’t hurt!” The little Paras screeched out in a high-pitched voice.

He almost complied due to the years of human social etiquette drilled into his very soul, but before the little Paras could even hit him with a cheeky one-liner its claws suddenly lit up with light-green energy and bore down on him as it squeezed its eyes shut in an inexperienced panic.

The attack fell in the spot he’d just been in and would have certainly left a bruise on his rock-hard skin, but this Paras certainly was no expert in fighting. ‘A perfect training partner!’ Larry thought to himself.

Larry's core responded and he began by creating some distance between himself and the Paras, he began by stirring up the sandstorm around him, and as the Paras eerily crawled closer it suddenly had to stop its advance due to the crazy amount of dust and sand stirring wildly around Larry.

Its presence was still felt by Larry as he continued to stir the sandstorm, “You sure aren’t as innocent as you make yourself out to be.” Larry commented over the noise of the sandstorm.

Slinking back into itself, the Parry yelled in an annoyed voice “Come out here and don’t fight like a coward! You!” The little Paras stood at the edge of the sandstorm with its claws protectively raised.

“Sure thing!” Larry complied by slowly stopping to stir the storm, as it slowly dissipated the Paras's eyes scanned the depths of the storm like a hawk, looking for the enemy.

As the sand finally fell to the ground, nothing appeared inside it, only a single mound of dirt stood in the middle, and before the Paras could even let out a question Larry shot out of the ground next to it and bit into its side with a well-charged Bite.

‘Got you!’ Larry celebrated to himself as he sunk his teeth into the Paras, the poor Pokemon’s exoskeleton buckled under the stress and cracks spiderwebbed its side as it squeaked out in pain.

Before he could celebrate too long though, a metallic and sticky liquid began to coat his mouth. Larry immediately bounced back and began coughing, “Hack! Hack! Pfft! What the hell?!” He tried to spit out the offending liquid coating the inside of his mouth, but it was stuck all over and Larry could hardly breathe.

The Paras for its part finally got back onto its feet, even if one side of its entire body looked to have accidentally fallen into a hydraulic press. Red Blood, with small spores inside of it, dripped liberally from its side, yet it didn’t seem to mind as much as it probably should.

It huffed to itself, clearly not well, “Huff…Huff…Got you…” The bug-type slowly approached Larry, charging another attack using its claws.

‘Ack…Did I just get poisoned?!’ Larry was still fighting the poison inside his mouth, he was still standing, so it probably wasn’t anything paralyzing, but it seemed that the Paras line could inflict poison when hit directly.

‘Damn! I didn’t even think of that!’ The Paras slashed across Larry's chest and he was pushed back onto the ground. Larry pulled on the TE in his core and felt the TE respond, the Bug-TE left from the Paras attack was absorbed and enhanced.

An attack was ready before the Bug-Type could react and Larry socked it across the face with a Payback. The poor thing was lifted off of the ground by the strength of the attack and flew back behind the stone it had hidden behind, completely knocked out.

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‘Huh? That was different…’ Even Larry was shocked by the strength of the attack as he looked in surprise at his fist, it still glowed with a menacing Dark-Energy. His musings were interrupted by another painful coughing fit though, it didn’t help that the ground he’d coughed onto now had dark specks of blood on it.

“Koff! I-I still need to get myself healed up!” Larry hurriedly got up and made his way over to where his mom was sleeping, he hurriedly woke her up and explained how he got poisoned to her. His mother's reaction was far less panicked than any other parents who just heard that their kid had been poisoned though.

“Mrrmn…Just eat some dirt.” His mom turned around blearily before falling to sleep, not even caring about Larry's circumstances.

Larry quickly shoveled heaps of dirt into his mouth before he realized what his mother had meant. The dry dirt absorbed the sticky liquid inside his mouth and he could then simply destroy the poison deep in his gut with whatever crazy solution he had down there to be able to digest dirt and rocks.

The dirt also seemed to help by simply satiating him, as Pokemon seemed to heal most superficial injuries in less than a day with some rest.

When Larry finally found that his mouth was free of the sticky blood of a Paras he had beaten he laid down next to his mom and cozied himself up a little nap to recuperate. “Phew, that was an easy fight, but I certainly wasn’t expecting poison,” Larry muttered to himself.

He went over the fight he’d just had in his mind. ‘That Paras…’

Larry’s instincts gave him a thought, a terribly intrusive one at that, to go back there and eat his kill. He quickly dismissed the notion entirely though, ‘No, Pokemon are too smart to eat, and I can get by by simply eating dirt. I’ll stick to that. Also, why would I eat something poisonous?’

Larry loved the thrill of that fight, but he wasn’t fighting for survival right now. He was fighting for his entertainment and personal training. The start of the fight, even though the Paras had surprised him, still went off far better than he could’ve imagined he managed to confuse and trick the Paras before getting a really good hit in.

The only problem with his strategy was that it seemed that Paras were poisonous to touch, which certainly put a wrench into his fighting strategy. When he got poisoned all strategy left his mind and he panicked and let himself get hit. Larry was lucky that he had a move that could salvage the situation with Payback, but something felt off about it to Larry.

‘That fight was still far too quick for my liking. I know I’m powerful, but Payback was never that strong during training…’ Larry mused to himself. Was it like the hysterical strength in humans? No, his mother hadn’t mentioned him not using his full strength, so he hadn’t been his full strength before.

His mind went back to the stat sheets of Wiki Sites and official guidebooks he had. He knew that Tyranitar had the ability Sand Stream, allowing them to conjure sandstorms at will. Unfortunately, though, he didn’t remember what ability Larvitar and Pupitar had, he only knew that they weren’t Sand Stream.

‘Maybe it's something that powers me up when I get a status condition?’ Larry mused to himself, ‘What was it called again? Ugh, I don’t remember!’ The exact ability name still escaped Larry, he was a Pokemon nerd, but it had been a few years since his last Pokemon adventure, to say the least. One’s entry into the workforce had that effect on people sadly.

His eyelids slowly fluttered shut to the loud breaths of his mother and the droning noises of the cavern, he’d ask her tomorrow. The occasional scuttle in the distance and rhythmic sounds of water droplets falling off of stalactites slowly brought Larry to sleep.

…

“I see…” His mother nodded absentmindedly. They were walking once again and Larry had explained what had happened during his fight after she went to sleep. She seemed proud of him for winning the fight, even if she had pointed out that with her training regiment, she would have been amazed if Larry had lost.

“I still don’t know why that Payback was so strong though! The Paras poisoned me and suddenly my hits got stronger!” Larry animatedly told his mother. It had kept him up last night and he was still mad that he couldn’t remember what ability Larvitar had. His mother though seemed only partially interested in his musings, as she only kept her eyes on the path upfront.

His mom let the thought stew, before just shrugging and looking down at Larry, “You got poisoned and got stronger, that's Gutsy. Nothing more.”

Larry's eyes shot open and his mind finally made the connection, ‘THAT’S IT! THE ABILITY WAS CALLED GUTS!’ He wanted to yell it out in celebration, but he knew his mom probably had no idea about multiverse theory, so he kept his excitement to himself.

Larry had made his way down this way before and slowly but surely the route was unraveling itself before him, he noticed landmarks of the cavern he’d snuck past before and he realized just how quickly they were making progress. To Larry, his entire journey down to the second level had taken a significant amount of time, but it seemed that with his mother he’d make his way down to the second level in just a few days.

It seemed the pros of being the biggest and baddest thing in the cave system paid off, as the inhabitants of the cave system he’d so frequently had to sneak around or heard making their way around him before were nowhere to be found now.

He’d been lucky before that a Larvitar posed a big enough threat that not many Pokemon living on the third level wanted to contend with them, only leaving small fry like the Wooper or straight-up crazies like the Misdreavus to try and get a piece of him. With his mother around though, the caves whose soundscape consisted of so many hurried footprints just out of sight before, were suddenly deathly quiet, except for the heavy and earth-trembling footfalls of a gigantic Tyranitar to listen to.

As they made their way further down, a hole in the wall stood out to Larry, he couldn’t place his but he told his mom to wait up for a second.

When he finally looked inside the hole though, he realized where he’d seen it before as a large and clear watering hole stood out in front of him. He still remembered the annoying group Wooper who had tried to mess with him here.

His mother lowered her head and peeked into the small cavern, she would’ve had to crawl to properly fit in there.

“Anything in there?” she yelled into the hole.

“No! Just a bunch of wa-” Before Larry could answer back, a head began to rise from the small pond of water. It had the same carefree and mirthful smile on its face as the Wooper but was significantly larger.

Worst of all, when it spotted Larry, its carefree smile didn’t look particularly happy anymore.