"And right when you least suspect it, here I am. The traveling photographer!" The balding man holding a large, polaroid looking camera shouted in an overenthusiastic manner. Where did he come from? Both Hamish and Crystal didn't know. They were just walking down this pier, turned to see Hamish's Magikarp flopping around and annoying Crystal's Mantine who was just trying to mind its own business. And when they turned back to the path after probably 1 second this man had suddenly appeared, acting as if he had been standing there for a while.

"WHAT THE BLOOMIN HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU TOSSER!?" Crystal shouted, angrily glaring at the smaller man.

"Woah woah woah. Calm down there miss. No need to get all angry. I just want to take pictures of you guys and your Pokemon."

"Photographers are expensive and I don't want to spend the money..." Hamish explained, recovering from the small shock.

"Oh don't you worry at all sir. I will take these pictures for free. Taking pictures of Pokemon and their happy trainers is my hobby, I do it for passion."

"Sounds like a bloomin weird hobby." Crystal commented.

"Don't kink sha- I mean hobby shame."

Both Cyrstal and Hamish sighed and attempted to walk forward. However the guy just stepped in front of them, blocking their path. "Alright fiiiiiiiiiine." Hamish said, deciding to just go with it instead of fighting this guy.


A few minutes later Hamish and Crystal now had 4 pretty decent looking polaroids. One of Hamish holding Chikorita whilst Phanpy stood at his feet, Mareep slept a few metres away and Magikarp flopped out of the water. The second one was of Crystal and all her Pokemon, with Skiploom and Misdreavus floating above either one of her shoulders and Mantine just sorta sitting in the water nearby. The final two photos were two copies of the same picture, one for Hamish and one for Crystal. The pictures themselves were of the two and all their Pokemon together, smiling wide at the camera as the photo was taken. This guy did have talent it seemed. What he was going to do with the pictures was... well Hamish didn't want to think about it but they were decent looking free pictures. Hamish usually hated photos of himself, his green tinged hair and weird completely black eyes seemed to be highlighted in photos. But for some reason he liked these pictures, mainly because the Pokemon drew a lot of the attention away from him.

"Union Cave huh. And this is the only way to get to Azalea Town from Violet City?" Hamish asked as said cave appeared in the distance.

"Yup yup. Unless you wanna go through Goldenrod and all that but apparently something weird has happened to that path. Plus we would kinda need to backtrack a lot for that. So Union Cave it is. Why?" Crystal asked.

"I don't know if I feel comfortable in a cave honestly."

"Weren't you a shut in until recently? So weren't you basically living in some sort of cave?"

"Okay, does Union Cave have air conditioning, a TV, a bathroom and a comfy bed for me to sleep in?"

"Unless they are new features added since I last went there, nah it doesn't."

"Then I won't like this cave." Hamish sighed, tucking his hands into his pocket and moved forward a little faster. It is like a band aid, you just need to rip that shit off and it will feel much better than ripping it off one little sticky bit at a time right? So if they could get through this cave quickly it would be fine right?


4 days later Hamish fell face first onto the soft grass of Route 33. It was a warm, early autumn day and he had missed this. The feeling of grass, wind blowing on his skin, the feeling of sunlight hitting and burning his somewhat sensitive skin. He would relish this sunburn, because that cave was awful. Full of Pokemon he didn't like that made loud noises and constantly tried to fight him like Onix, Geodude, Zubat and Sandshrew. It was dusty and dark and you never knew what time of day it was and despite it being a commonly used place there was nowhere to go. It was nightmarish. Granted thanks to those fights, along with the trainers he had fought in there and on the route leading up to it meant his Pokemon were now a lot stronger. So that is a positive at least. "I will never take you for granted again grass..." Hamish said, well he tried to anyway. Because his face was in the dirt it came out much more muffled. But that is what he meant to say.

"Are you just going to keep kissin that grass? Don't be a sook it was like 4 days."

"The worst 4 days of my life..." Hamish looked up at the sky, staring at the blue haired girl standing over him.

"Damn... you have had some sort of pampered life huh?"

A pampered life? If he has a pampered life he wouldn't have to spend so much time in a stupid cave.


"Slowpoke, the Dopey Pokemon. It lazes vacantly near the water. If something bites its tail it won't even notice for a whole day. The tail leaks a sweet sap and is pleasant to chew on, so their tails are considered a delicacy, although highly illegal." Hamish and Crystal were now in Azalea Town given it was only a brief walk away from the exit to Union Cave, and the first thing they were met with was a slowpoke, slowly putting one foot in front of the other as it walked around. However, this was not too strange. Pokemon were all over the other towns the two had been to. What was strange however was that the Pokedex's image and description for a Slowpoke, and this Slowpoke were at odds with one another. This Slowpoke they were looking at had a bunch of its tail removed. Hamish and Crystal looked around, and pretty soon saw at least half a dozen more of them, and every single one was missing their tails, or at least they were noticeably shorter than they should be. Granted none of them seemed to mind too much, but if anything that made it more horrifying. "What the shit?" Crystal loudly shouted.

"So wait, you are horrified at Pokemon that are completely disfigured but you spend tons of time around Hamish and don't find his disfigurements an issue huh? Hypocrite."

The horrified looking pair turned to the origin of the voice, where they saw a light skinned girl with brown hair, tied in two separate ponytails sticking out of a huge hat. It was Lyra. Hamish would usually bring up a retort, but his mind was busy focusing on the Slowpoke that had no tail. "What is happening with these Slowpoke?" His hands fiddled with the small bucket hat covering most of his green tinted hair, those lifeless eyes refusing to move from the small, slow pink Pokemon.

Lyra sighed, the smug smile on her face disappearing as she, for a rare moment in her life, started to act seriously. She walked on closer to the pair, and shook her head. "Yeah... you see there is a well nearby called the Slowpoke Well because... do I need to explain why it is called that? Anyway Team Rocket are currently camped down there, cutting off the tails of these poor Pokemon and selling them. This town is actually going above and beyond and taking care of these poor injured Slowpoke. That is why they are all around."

"Those... bastards..." The accent Crystal usually hid was coming out now that she was angry. Her teeth were gritting, her hand clenched. She was obviously the most visibly angry of the pair.

"Yeah... and the worst part is that cutting off those tails cripples these Pokemon. Slowpoke use their tails to fish for food, meaning without them they completely lose their ability to get food for themselves. And... in order to evolve into Slowbro, a Slowpoke needs to be bitten on the tail, so without a tail..." She trailed off.

"They can't evolve... meaning they become less valuable to a lot of trainers so it is less likely for them to be looked after despite needing it..." Hamish finished, his voice was even more drained of life than it usually was.

"Yeah... a lot of people in this town have taken it upon themselves to look after these Pokemon. But still... and the worst thing is it isn't like you can go down there and stop them yourselves. Cause they are a criminal gang and they are terrifying."

"Doesn't this town have a gym leader in it? Can't they do something about this?" Hamish asked.

"Spoken like a loser who has never met this place's gym leader. As if he would be bothered enough to do anything about this." Lyra replied.

"If the gym leader losers cared anyway Team Rocket wouldn't even be a thing in Johto anyway." Crystal added.

"Yeah... it sucks to think about... which is why I don't." Lyra suddenly put on a great big smile, before pointing right at Hamish. "Anyway, stop trying to distract me with those sad thoughts, just because you are sad doesn't mean making me think of other sad things will make me forget what I need to do with you."

"The... are you okay? Or have you finally gone off the deep end you psychopath?" Hamish's dead looking eyes turned to Lyra, glaring at her. How could she be so calm about this? Was she just used to it?

"You... me... Pokemon battle. Now." Lyra commanded. "It only occurred to me when I first saw you a few minutes ago that we have never actually had a Pokemon Battle before. And since I am so much faster at moving and better than you at this I am probably about to well and truly leave you in the dust so really this might be our only chance to. So, you game?"

Hamish's eye twitched a little. This girl had to be a schizophrenic or something. Going from being all sad to all... fired up in a split second. "Yeah... nah. I am not in the mood. Besides, I need to do something about these Slowpoke first. I can't just... waste time talking to garbage whilst Pokemon are being hurt like this." Hamish turned around and slowly walked away, and Crystal followed him. The two didn't know what they were going to do but they knew they had to do... something.

"Pidgey... Cheep cheep cheep cheep."

Hamish turned around, and there was Lyra, clapping her hands and doing a silly dance as she said every word. She was mocking him. But that isn't what was making Hamish infuriated. That cheap provocation was stupid that only someone full of pride would fall for. But Hamish wasn't that full of himself. What was annoying him was... well he pretty quickly vocalized it "That isn't how a Pidgey sounds or how it moves! What sort of Pidgeys do you hang around with?" Lyra knew Hamish too well, and he had already turned around and was walking up to Lyra, his hand at his belt trying to pull a Pokeball free.

"Oh come on seriously?" Crystal sounded exasperated, but with Hamish glaring at Lyra and Lyra smiling triumphantly, it seems that this was happening. "At least take it off the main bloody street!"

Both Hamish and Lyra looked at her, and then looked around. Slowpoke and people alike were gawking at them. They were causing a scene, and a pretty big one at that.


"Alright. So then, let me just talk... slowly... so... you... can... understand... the... rules... it... is... a... 4... versus... 4... Pokemon... Battle... and that's it." Lyra was speaking about as slow as the Slowpoke that were surrounding the two. It seems even in the humanless parks there were Slowpoke all around the place, who were watching the three with their dopey smiles. Did they know what was happening? Or were they just staring at the moving life forms?

"The Slowpoke seem to like you. I think you have found your intellectual equals with them." Hamish said, doing his best to mock his soon to be opponent back. He already had the Pokemon he was going to used all lined up. "Now then... are you ready?"

"Oh I am more than ready. Go Marill!"

"Go Magikarp!" Hamish and Lyra both shouted at the same time, throwing their respective Pokeballs at the ground together, releasing the two water types. Lyra's thinking was that she was going to try and 'bait out' Hamish's Chikorita, deal with his most experienced Pokemon nice and quickly. Hamish's strategy was 'well Magikarp won me my last battle and it is a good chance to sus out Lyra's strategy'. Hamish and Lyra both knew about 3 of their opponents Pokemon. but their recent acquisitions were still a mystery to one another.

"Oh crap... not Magikarp again..." Crystal rolled her eyes as she looked at the difference between the two Pokemon. The cute, ball looking Marill stood there, looking strong and proud. And Hamish's Magikarp was just flopping around. The look on Lyra's face was telling, a smug and satisfied smile. She had won this little toss up and she knew it.

"Marill, use Play Rough!" Lyra commanded. What happened next was brutal. And involved the circular blue coloured Pokemon rushing up to the flopping red fish, and proceeding to just hit it with its tail, legs and arms. Smashing and bashing the poor red fish. The small Pokemon was deceptively strong, mostly due to its ability of Huge Power, which doubled its physical attacking output. Due to this and Magikarp's lack of... well anything it didn't take long for Magikarp to be knocked unconscious, despite Hamish's cries for it to do things. It didn't even last a minute, and pretty quickly a depressed looking Hamish was returning his Magikarp back into its ball, looking and feeling depressed as hell. Why did he send it out? Poor Magikarp never stood a chance and it was all his fault. But now, he knew he had to win for his poor little Pokemon. "Are you going to send out another useless fish? Seriously if you are going to use Magikarp why bother wasting my time. Did you even beat Falkner if you own such a pathetic little fish?" Lyra taunted, crossing her arms and leaning back a little, making a pose like she had already won.

"Shut up. Go Mareep!" Hamish had swapped the tacky golden Pokeball of his for one of his two standard, regular ones. He threw the ball onto the ground as hard as he could, causing the ball to open up and reveal his fluffy, blue sheep Pokemon. It let out a loud "Reeeeeeeeeeeep" and let the ball on its tail glow brightly. Hamish had spent a fair bit with Mareep going through Union Cave, so he had a pretty good idea of its strengths and weaknesses now, at least he assumed so.

"That's... adorable!" Lyra cried out, scanning the Mareep with her Pokedex. "I want to hug it and pat it and call it George and spoil it... cuuuuute" Lyra smirked. Behind that smile and over the top reaction she was thinking and calculating. To her that Mareep didn't look that strong despite its cute looks. However it was electric type, meaning it had a type advantage. So having said that, she had to finish this as soon as possible. "Marill, show this cute little sheep we are serious, use Aqua Jet!" The Marill puffed up a little, growing in size as water began to surround the rotund Pokemon. It was surrounded by this flowing water, before it shot out almost like a bullet as fast as it possibly could.

"Mareep stay right where you are and be nice and fluffy for me will you?" Hamish asked. The small sheep that Lyra seemed to want to call George (despite it being a girl) let out a happy cry, shaking itself just a little, causing all of the wool on its body to rub against itself, building up static electricity that cause the little ball on the back of its tail to start glowing nice and brightly. Mareep didn't even try to move, so Marill hit it dead on centre, right on its woolly body. It collided as hard as it could, but when the attack was over it was obvious who was looking worse off now. Marill was covered in sparks, and seemed to be frozen in place.

Mareep took little damage due to the nature of this thick and large wool, which absorbed most of the strong force that Marill had behind it. Additionally due to the static energy buildup in its wool, contact with Mareep caused multiple small shocks of electricity to jump onto Marill, shocking it and causing it to suffer the status condition of paralysis. Marill was now going to struggle a lot with mobility, which was perfect for the slow moving Mareep.

"Alright, now before it can do anything else lets put that Marill out of commission with a Thunder Shock" Mareep responded to that instruct by shaking its fur, causing the light in its tail to once again glow brightly, before the electric build-up got too high to remain contained, and shot out of both Mareep's tail and wool into the paralyzed Marill. The rotund blue water type could do nothing as it was hit with an attack it was completely elementally weak to.

"Marill, use Aqua Jet... Water Gun... Rollout..." Lyra's cries were met with no real response. Marill was trapped, unable to move quickly due to its status and the electrical attack, unable to escape the volts of electricity that were hitting it. And just like what happened with Magikarp, Marill pretty quickly went down. Once the Pokemon collapsed Mareep stopped its attack, allowing Lyra to return her water type back to its Pokeball for now.

"Excellent job Mareep. You are amazing..." Well she was when she was awake anyway. Now both trainers had a Pokemon down and both seemed to be saving their starters for now. Both Lyra and Hamish had to play this carefully, because it was obvious this was going to be a close battle. Any slip up on behalf of either party could be costly.