Larry's eyes shot open in realization at the sight of the Quagsire, but before he could even begin to act a giant blob of water shot out at him. The water hit Larry before he could even register anything, the sheer momentum of the liquid ball of water hitting his stomach took Larry off of his feet and threw him back into the side of the small cavern. His eyes unfocused as his head hit the back of the cavern wall and he slid down onto the floor in a heap.

‘Woah… That hurt!’ Larry complained to himself in shock at the damage, he had fought valiantly in the practice with his mom but this hurt differently. He shook his head to clear himself up and quickly rose from the ground, the Quagsire in the middle of the small pond of water was still looking at him with an irritated expression.

The basin was familiar after all, ‘This must be the mom of those brats from the last time I was here.’ Larry thought. His stomach hurt, that hit probably drew blood, but he couldn’t keep an eye off of the Quagsire to check. The two of them stood in a standoff, Larry didn’t know if attacking was a wise option and he needed to stay ready if the Quagsire attacked.

If he turned around and ran he’d probably get attacked again and digging wasn’t a surefire thing either, Larry had never dug around bodies of water and he didn’t even know how a Rock-Type handled water in the first place.

He saw the Water-Types neck bulge and knew something was coming, so he dodged out of the way. The shot rang out and grazed past Larry's side, he winced in pain at the hit as he ran around the small basin.

While running he picked up a stray rock and imbued it with TE before launching it at the Quagsires head as a Rock Throw. Unfortunately for him though, the Pokémon simply shot the piece of dirt out of the air like a clay pigeon.

Stopping at the other side of the basin, Larry hashed out his options again, only to finally realize it was all or nothing. The only way to win this was to flee, he wouldn't be able to win every fight.

Just as he was about to hash out some sort of escape plan, he heard his mom speak in the distance, “Just a bunch of?” The Quagsires head spun to the hole the voice reverberated from before falling back onto him in shock, its scowl deepened and Larry could see the Pokemon's already rotten mood sour even more.

‘Uh oh, Momma Quagsire probably doesn’t want her watering hole to be remodeled by a Tyranitar.’ Larry realized.

Larry realized what he had to do and he met the Quagsires eyes while he yelled back, “No, just a bunch of water! I’ll take a quick drink!” The Quagsires head finally shot completely out of the water in surprise.

His mother quickly answered back noncommittally, “Hmm, ok…” Before her steps could be heard leaving in the distance.

An eerie silence descended on the small cavern, the Quagsire looked at Larry with different eyes this time. It squinted its eyes in confusion and spoke for the first time in a whisper, “Why protect this place?”

The question seemed obvious and Larry lowered his voice and turned back to the Quagsire with a smile, “If I can avoid a fight, why shouldn’t I?” The Quagsires stare bore through him and Larry quickly added on, “...And I probably wouldn’t have won the fight…”

Quagsire held the stare for a few more seconds, before scoffing, “You wouldn't have. Leave. We do not want you here.”

No fond memories came to Larry when he thought about this place, but he still didn't feel like destroying a wild Pokémon Habitat simply because they had wronged him.

He might've been jumped every time he'd visited this basin, but Pokémon in the third layer weren't peaceful like the ones on the second layer, they simply assumed anyone approaching them was here to hurt them.

Quagsire herself probably had never even had a chance to talk with another Pokémon before, considering her first move was to simply attack.

Larry wanted to change that, at least this once.

“I know you probably don't trust me, but…” Larry began in a whisper, “...would you allow me to spar with you?”

“Sparring?” The Quagsire asked with a quirk of its head.

“Sparring, a training fight, my mom would be really happy if I got some experience against a type I'm against,” Larry spoke with a slight smile on his face.

The Quagsire took in his words before scoffing once again, “Why would I do that? To help my enemy seems idiotic. Leave, or I’ll be forced to make you” It finished in a low voice, with an angry stare.

‘Guess it isn’t that easy…’ Larry thought to himself before speaking up, “Yeah, I’ll get out of he-”

But before Larry could finish a second head sprung up from the basin, then a third and a fourth.

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The three Woopers who had annoyed him in the past shot up, the first one quickly began to yell indignantly at the Quagsire, “Mom! Come on! Let me fight him!”

“Yeah! We’d beat his butt!” The second one chimed in.

The third one nodded in agreement before also adding his own comment, “Yeah, we would!”

Both Quagsire and Larry hunched over in surprise at the sudden noise of three annoying children. Quagsire quickly scooped her three kids into her arms to cover their mouths and silence them, both of them looked at the exit hole in panic.

“Mmmph!”

“Mrrgh!”

“Hmmrgh!”

He walked over to the exit and quickly peeked out, seeing his mother lying down in an outcropping further down in the distance, far enough away to not hear a thing. She was napping once again, and nobody seemed to care for the noises of annoyed children murmuring into the Quagsire's chest.

‘Phew, close call,’ Larry thought.

“My mom is away, you can speak,” Larry said as he turned back.

The Quagsire sighed to herself, before speaking up in a whisper once more, her kids continued to thrash in her grip, “Haah, these kids…”

‘This entire situation is a mess…’ Larry thought to himself.

Larry could see with his own mother that parenting wasn’t as easy as it’s made out to be, even less so if you’re a Pokemon. It felt awkward trying to keep calm around a mother trying to corral all her children in front of him, so Larry tried his luck.

“Umm, if it calms them down, how about letting them have that spar if they want to? I’d be happy to.” He said innocently with his hands behind his back.

She looked down at her children who were still fighting against her grip and trying to free themselves. Another sigh escaped her and she gave Larry another hard stare, he almost wilted under her stare, but she spoke up again after a solid ten seconds.

“I can see your point, but how can I trust you? If I let my children fight you, what's to say you won’t hurt them?” She reasoned.

“I accidentally stumbled into your home and was just about to leave peacefully when you attacked me. I let you attack me, only defending myself sparingly and then helped you by distracting my mother. She isn’t even around anymore to defend me, if you were to attack me, making this a really dangerous situation for me.” Larry reasoned as she slowly shrunk under his assault.

“But…it’s dangerous. Isn’t it?” She said more weakly this time.

“It’s far more safe than actually fighting and it will give your kids the experience they need when they leave the nest, won’t it?” Larry countered, “They seem willing and I am as well. The only thing we need is your consent, so please. Will you let me spar against them?” He spoke with his best attempt at puppy-dog eyes.

The Quagsire groaned, before she finally released her Wooper children from her grip, “Fine, but only one fight for everyone, understood?”

…

A Wooper stood opposite of him on land, it was about half his height, and to their side stood both the Quagsire and the Woopers siblings. Quagsire still had her hands full trying to keep her Wooper calm and collected as both of them were ecstatic.

“Oh, my brothers gonna kick your butt!” One Wooper hollered over from the side.

“Yeah! He’ll beat you up!” The other one added on.

Both of them jumped around their mother as she tried her best to keep them from hopping into their impromptu battling stage. The stage itself wasn’t much to look at, the basin of water used up most of the ground, so the two of them had a truly miniscule stage in comparison to the ones Larry remembered from the anime or games.

Larry calmed his nerves and spoke up, “Alright, I’ll throw this stone in between us and the match will begin when it hits the ground, ok?”

The Wooper jumped around impatiently on its side of the field, “Yes! Yes, let’s fight!”

“Alright…” Larry threw the stone hip up, forgetting the low ceilings that hindered his mother from setting foot in here were. The stone bounced off of the roof of the cave and finally came down with a dull…

Thud…

Wooper immediately jumped into action, water began dripping from the corners of its mouth as it charged up a Water Gun. But Larry wasn’t idle either, he began to move, running ahead in the tiny arena they’d made. The Woopers Water Gun was too quick though and shot out before Larry could reach the other side.

Larry had planned to use Dig in situations like these, but unfortunately, that wasn’t an option here. Quickly spinning to the side during his run, Larry grazed the flying blob of water on his right arm with a wince. The hit wasn’t as dangerous as the bloody spot on his stomach Quagsire had made, but Larry felt Water-TE on his arm and could feel his rocky skin begin to soak it up and soften.

His opponent was already charging up another water gun, but Larry was already on his side of the arena. So he pulled back his right arm and charged up a punch using Payback, the Water-TE was pulled into his fist and melted into the Dark-TE the attack needed, adding to the attack.

The attack flew into the cheek of the Woopers face and the attack the Pokemon had been preparing was released in a spew of water. Its smaller size threw the Wooper to the side and crashed hard face-first into the corner of their arena.

His crowd seemed to enjoy the action, as the Wooper siblings quickly changed allegiances.

“Ooh! He just dodged while running, he’s done for!” One said while hopping around his mother.

“Wooh! Go Larvitar!” The other one cheered as it excitedly tugged at his mother.

Their sibling quickly raised himself off the dusty ground and looked over to his siblings with a sour expression.

Larry approached once again, but he seemed to have kicked the hornet's nest. The Wooper suddenly charged its attack far quicker than before, it began gurgling up another Water Gun and shot it at Larry.

He tried to twirl out of the way again, only to be hit by the Water Gun square in the face. The hit staggered him and he stumbled awkwardly before saving himself from falling by going onto all fours.

Checking up front, he saw his opponent charge another attack, this one taking far more time to accumulate in its mouth. In return, Larry began charging up a sandstorm while he stood back up to hide himself from the coming attack.

Inside his mind though, Larry was ecstatic. The spar had been everything he wanted and more, ‘This is what I needed!’ He excitedly thought to himself as the battle continued.