At first glance, Route 30 much resembled Route 29 before it, though the slightly hillier area had its trees more dispersed in clusters, with the rest being more open, grassy terrain. The road here was more defined and actually paved over in some areas, which was nice. Most importantly, there seemed to be less trainers as well, but I had learned my lesson from before, and so had my guard up at all times. I decided that I would change my strategy and travel off-road to risk wild encounters over trainer battles if need be. With the experience he had gained over the last day, I felt that Sunny was better prepared to deal with wild Pokémon than he had been before, but I wasn't at all confident in his aptitude against better-trained opponents.

I was obligated to deal with wild encounters anyway. The route seemed to have an endless amount of high ledges surrounded by thick groves of tall grass. The ledges would always be too steep for me to climb up, so I had to cut through the grass to continue on. It was like that every time I happened upon a ledge - as if the entire geography of the area was purposefully designed to annoy me specifically.

Route 30 was a linear region bordered by hills on either side, and a rocky tunnel system to the north. I feared that this would have the effect of tunneling all of the trainers in the area into a narrow strip of navigable land, but I got halfway through the area rather briskly without encountering any trainers I couldn't easily duck away from. But the wild Pokémon were a different story. Caterpie, Weedle, Pidgey, Rattata. They were everywhere. With every other step in the tall grass, it felt like I was stepping on a tail or being brushed up against by a hairy bug. It was unnerving, and I'd always have to send Sunny out to get rid of them. A Tackle or two would usually scare them off, at the very least. The heat and humidity certainly didn't help either. I couldn't tell whether it would've been worse to get my legs cut and brushed up against by wearing shorts, but in my jeans, I probably sweated away a pint just venturing through the dense overgrowth of wild grass.

I passed a single house early on. It stood out to me as peculiar, but I kept on at it regardless. After fighting my way through some more brush, I emerged into a flatter, wider clearing of sorts. There were no major patches of grass nearby, and the trees were spread farther apart. On one hand, I was relieved to come across some less challenging terrain, but my feelings of respite quickly gave way to worries of my visibility to other trainers. I stayed attentive to my surroundings, and slowly continued on, but my typical luck came into play when, while following the road northward, I chanced upon a few trainers, obvious by their apparel, blocking my path, and seemingly caught up in some argument amongst themselves. I stood there as they seemed to ignore my presence. Two of the trainers, a boy and girl in their mid teens, stood together on one side of the road, and they appeared to be angry. The girl had her arms crossed and both had skeptical looks on their face. They didn't stop to gaze away from the figure across from them, who was eccentrically shouting. Unlike the other two, he seemed a few years older - closer to my age - and wasn't dressed in the sporty fashion by which younger trainers were often identified. Instead, he wore a heavy-looking, dark trenchcoat and thick, khaki cargo pants, which seemed like a crazy outfit choice for the summer heat.

The guy in the coat was quite obviously frustrated, flailing his arms and stomping around in place. By the befuddled looks on the two trainers' faces, it looked like they were just as confused as I was.

"No, you can't beat me, because I already proved, SCIENTIFICALLY, why my Pokémon are superior, and would win in a battle 98.75% of the time, with a one-percent margin of error!" The guy in the coat was ranting his face off. He looked like his head was going to explode.

The two on the receiving end looked like they were at their wit's end with the situation, but the boy spoke up. "Look, dude, we're not going to battle you until you grab a friend or something, because we only have one Pokémon each. We battle together, doubles only. We're not going to one-on-one you when you already said you've got more than like, three Pokémon!"

"I'm not asking for a battle!" the guy shouted back. "I want you to acknowledge my proof! I would battle you, but you're obviously too afraid to fight my bugs!"

The teen duo were visibly frustrated beyond relief at this point, and they facepalmed hard. They looked at each other, completely confused as to how to respond to the cyclical argument. Almost as if in desperation, they finally noticed me, standing a few yards away. It took an uncomfortably long time before the coated fellow also caught wind of my presence, but when he turned to look, he instantly pointed his finger at me, a devilish smirk decorating his face. I could see from there that he wore fingerless gloves, so he was sporting something more typical of trainer fashion after all.

"YOU!" he shouted, awkwardly and stiffly walking up to me in an almost goose-stepping fashion. It was sort of like how I had seen Luther walk, except highly unnatural and without the commanding presence. He stopped in front of me, hands at his sides and head tilted down, as if he were talking to my shoes. "You! Battle with me! Join me in an alliance against these ignorant fools who dare to question the superiority of my rationale!" He didn't meet eyes with me once until the last word, and I was at a complete loss of words myself. I didn't know what to feel. I wasn't sure whether to laugh at how ridiculous the whole situation seemed, or to run for my life away from this madman. But, put on the spot, I had to say something.

"I, uh..." I glanced over at the teen duo again, and they were as clueless as I was. They both shrugged and shook their heads.

The odd fellow finally looked straight at me, grabbing onto my collar and holding me in a tight grip. My personal space invaded, I wasn't sure how to react. "Didn't you hear me?" his voice screamed, teeth clenched and neck tensed. "We have to put an end to their foolishness! Will you join me?"

I glanced back at the duo, then back at the crazy guy practically threatening me. I couldn't tell if he was even technically looking me in the eye yet. Behind the bangs of his messy, blonde, feather duster of a hairstyle, I could barely make out his eyes through the blinding shine of his eyeglasses, which seemed to reflect every ounce of light from the midday sun.

"If I...battle with you...will you stop harassing me?"

As if he had both clearly heard me and hadn't heard me at all, he released his grip and giddily ran back to face the two teenaged trainers. "Alright then!" he shouted obnoxiously, giving me the feeling he wasn't replying to my question. "Let's DO THIS!" He emphatically gestured for me to come to his side, so I quickly ran over.

"Wait, so do the winners split the money?" I pondered loudly. "What if one team has more Pokémon than-" Too late for questions. I was cut off.

"Double battle! Let's GOOOO!" The spectacled jacketeer pushed his glasses up and pulled a Poké Ball from a large pocket on the side of his coat. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed it had a unique pattern: black with green highlights. I wondered how many types of Poké Ball designs there were. I'd only known the basic, Great, and Ultra varieties, plus Sunny's green ball design and this new one. Was his custom?

I was snapped back to reality when my battle partner sent out his Pokémon. He had mentioned something about bugs earlier, and the Pokémon he chose seemed to line up with that. A rather ugly insectoid creature formed before us. Its orange skin was bumpy and segmented, and it appeared to have a hard carapace. It stood on four legs, with two clawed appendages at its front. Most oddly, it had what appeared to be two mushrooms sprouting from its back, and as a whole, it looked highly unnatural.

The coat-clad fellow wasted no time to hesitate. "Go, my beloved Yuggoth! Show these fools the utility of your despicable abilities!"

The orange thingamajig seemed to barely notice what was going on.

The girl standing across from me crossed her arms again, smirking. "A Paras, huh? That's your big threat? This'll be easy! Good thing I chose Cyndaquil as my starter!" With that, she drew and tossed her Poké Ball. The familiar fiery starter Pokémon materialized before her, and it seemed pumped and ready for battle.

"Good choice, Kat, but now it's my turn!" her partner shouted. "Alright, Totodile, let's go!" A small, blue, reptilian creature, also a starter Pokémon common in the region, appeared.

I was dumbstruck, looking in awe at all of the Pokémon before me. I'd never seen anything like it. Again, though, I was brought back to reality by my partner.

"Psst! Send out your Pokémon!" he hissed.

"Oh, r-right." I looked back at the Cyndaquil. It blew a ring of smoke as if to taunt me. "Yeah, about that. You see, I know about double battles, but I don't really know how they work. I'm not even really a trainer, so-"

"It doesn't matter!" he shouted.

"I don't know, man. All I have is another Bug type, and that Cyndaquil is dangerous. See, I'm trying to keep my Pokémon from getting hurt, and..."

"JUST DO IT!" he screamed at me, confusing our opponents. "I've got it handled! Just send it out! Let me see your beautiful insect protégé!"

I was disturbed and taken aback at his explosive response, but I did as he said. The sooner the battle ended, the sooner I could get away from the creep. "Uh, okay. Come out, Sunny!"

"Ba! Ledy!" Sunny appeared from his ball as sunshiney as ever.

"Ahaha! Oh, wow! Another Bug type!" the girl, Kat, shouted. "You know, maybe I actually could have solo'd this guy by myself!"

My partner was unfazed, appearing completely confident that his victory was inevitable. In fact, the gloating from the other side only seemed to stoke the flames of his ego. "You say that now, but in a matter of minutes you'll be cowering in fear before my swarm and begging for the mercy of your very pathetic lives, just as you were about to do before we started this battle!"

...Honestly, it was like I was in some really surreal Saturday morning cartoon.

"Hmph!" was the only response he got to that claim. "We'll see about that! Let's start this! Cyndaquil, use Ember!" The fiery Pokémon began to build up a flame in its mouth.

"Ahahahahahaha! Pathetic! It's no use, try as you might!" my partner gloated, seemingly deriving some sort of sick pleasure from the fact that his Bug-type Pokémon was liable to be burned to a crisp. "Yuggoth! Spore!"

The orange Pokémon responded, shooting out a burst of spores from the mushrooms on its back like artillery fire. Before the Cyndaquil could even unleash its attack, the spores made contact, and it...fell asleep? I was awestruck.

My partner chortled like a cartoon supervillain. "Let's see how you like that!" He turned to me, face seamlessly changing from maniacally giddy to intensely serious. "Attack it."

"What?"

"Attack it!" The craziness was already back.

"Okay!" I had no idea what I was doing, but I did it anyway. "Sunny, use Tackle!" And Sunny did. It didn't look like it hurt much, but it did manage to knock the dozing Cyndaquil onto its side, where it continued to sleep.

"A cheap trick, but not enough to overpower our combination!" our male opponent shouted. "Totodile, use Water Gun! Hit that weak little Ledyba!"

"Hey!" I shouted, offended, as the gushing stream of water collided with Sunny. I flinched at the sight, but found that Sunny hardly seemed affected.

"Haha! You'd dare use an indirect attack against a Ledyba?" my partner roared. "Have you no idea that Ledyba's special defense is its best quality? Fool!"

I certainly hadn't known, so I was beginning to feel like a fool myself. I didn't even know what a 'special defense' was.

"Just do what I say and we'll win. Don't attack yet," my partner said to me, finally lowering his voice to a normal decibel for once. It didn't last long. "Ready, Yuggoth!"

The Paras braced itself, knowing exactly what to do next. I was completely lost, though. With the Cyndaquil still asleep, the boy across from us ordered another attack from his Totodile. "Fine, we're going physical! Use Scratch on the Ledyba, now!"

Uh-oh. Now I was even more scared of Sunny taking a beating. He was frail, and even though he took the previous hit, I wasn't certain he'd still be as well after another.

"Rage Powder!" I heard my partner command. And right on cue, Yuggoth released another cloud of spores, these even smaller and with a sickly green hue. They stopped the advancing Totodile in its tracks, coating the creature completely. Immediately, it began sneezing and scratching at itself.

My partner was locked into a horrific grin, enjoying every microsecond of his carefully laid-out plan. "Hahahaha! The irritating, infectious spores of Rage Powder are relentless! Now come and attack my Yuggoth, pawn!" Was that his actual strategy? I was flabbergasted.

Almost as if following my partner's orders, the Totodile changed direction and darted away from Sunny to attack Yuggoth instead. The Scratch attack landed, and I winced as the Paras took damage. However, the Bug type seemed less affected by the attack than did the attacker, as within a few mere moments of making contact, the Totodile became sickly and appeared feverish.

"Use Supersonic on the Totodile," my partner hinted my way. He was clearly planning things lightyears ahead of my pea brain.

"Super-what-now?" I asked, confused out of my mind.

"Urrr...Supersonic!" he shouted while trying to keep his eyes on the battle, raising eyebrows from the other side of the field again. "Your Ledyba should know Supersonic! Its overall tone and hue imply standard health and development. It indicates its strength has surpassed the basic level of growth necessary for it to learn the move. Now use it!" What was this guy on about?

Come to think of it, the move did sound familiar. I realized I must've read about it in my research. Doing as I was told, I got Sunny's attention. "Alright Sunny, I want you to use...Supersonic!" Lo and behold, the Ledyba instinctively used an attack I didn't even know it had the ability to perform. Beating its wings at a rapid pace, it delivered a migraine-inducing screech I had to cover my ears just to endure. My partner, on the other hand, seemed to be revelling in the sound.

Sure enough, he confirmed my observation. "Music to my ears!" Turning to me, he pointed at the Totodile. "Now look!"

The Water-type Pokémon looked to be in terrible shape. It appeared sickly, woozy, and stricken by an awful headache.

Angrily, its trainer gave a command while his partner begged her Cyndaquil to wake up. "Totodile, Scratch again!" The Pokémon paused in place, as if to process the thought, and then scratched itself in the face. "No! Dammit!" its trainer cried. "Screw you, Four-Eyes!"

Instead of roaring with laughter, my partner only snickered with a fanged smile. "Now you see the demonic torture of my bug-spawn! Your Cyndaquil is asleep and your Totodile is poisoned and disoriented! The afflictions you've allowed them to sustain will be your downfall! There is no escape! I've scientifically calculated this match to be a sure victory for us!" I was in shock, mouth agape. Exchanging glances with my opponents across the field, it was apparent to them that I was as overwhelmed as they were.

"Time to end it!" my partner shouted. "Partner trainer, attack the Cyndaquil! It should be waking up in approximately fifty seconds! Yuggoth, Scratch that Cyndaquil as well!"

Barely thinking about it, I commanded Sunny to use Tackle.

"Yes! As expected," my partner smugly blurted out. "A critical hit!" With our two attacks, the Cyndaquil cried out in defeat just as it woke up, and its trainer returned it to its Poké Ball.

"Dangit Totodile, snap out of it!" our remaining opponent demanded. "Use Scratch!" Once again, it hit itself. Our two Pokémon once again went in to attack it. The Totodile was still standing after our hits, but it gave one final cry before coughing and falling over, being returned to its trainer. After that, there was no doubt in my mind that whatever had resulted from that Totodile using Scratch that first time, it had just won us that battle. Poisoned? By sheer contact? I was astounded. I wouldn't have even assumed Paras was poisonous.

Our opponents paid us our prize money and immediately fled, the girl in particular almost in tears. They handed the money to me, refusing to even look my partner in the eye, though I'm not sure if he would have even done the same, in spite of all of his pride. As I started dividing the payout evenly, assuming that was the logical way to go about it, I asked if he'd want the whole cut, since I didn't consider myself a trainer anyway, and I really hadn't contributed much to our victory. Surprisingly, he let me have the whole share.

"Take it, whatever," he said, finally using a placid voice. He was staring at the ground. Hey, that worked for me. More potions to buy.

As I pocketed the cash, I just stood there, awkwardly, as he stood there in front of me, also very awkwardly.

"So..." I started, "that was some...interesting stuff there." Genuinely curious over what I had just seen, I questioned him about it. "I mean, wow. I can't even begin to wrap my head around that. How did you pull that off? I mean...you destroyed those guys without them leaving a scratch!"

The guy in the coat made no eye contact as he muttered a non-sequitur of a response. "My Paras needs to be stronger. Paras is a really interesting Pokémon. It's beautiful, really. My goal is to evolve it soon, and that battle brought Yuggoth very close to his perfected form. It's taking a while, though. Not many people want to battle me. But we're very close. And when we get there, everyone will see the power of my bugs!"

I was pretty creeped out at that point, and I noticed that what he said about needing battles to strengthen his Paras contradicted his earlier claim that he wasn't looking for a battle. And what kind of creature could something like that Paras evolve into? It was odd enough already, and certainly came off as plenty powerful as it was.

My question hadn't really been answered - let alone acknowledged - so I tried asking again, but phrasing it differently. "Yeah, but I mean, that battle strategy. How did you know what to do? I mean, did you know those guys, or was it just dumb luck, or-"

He cut me off, and began speaking in faster, more seamless sentences. "I saw your bug when you sent it out. It was a Ledyba, I'd guess a young one. I knew you were low-level when I saw you, but I didn't need you to win. I just needed you so I could battle. I did like seeing your bug in battle, though." And then, silence. He never once looked up at me.

I gave up on trying to have a normal conversation at that point. As I was about to bid my unorthodox acquaintance farewell, he suddenly decided to speak a bit more normally. Well, mostly. "My name's Marcus," he said, with an upward inflection and sudden end, like he had planned to say a longer sentence than that. He looked up at me with his illuminated spectacles, through the feats of his matted hair. "What's your name?"

I was actually a little dumbstruck from the unexpectedness of the question. "Oh, I'm...Jason."

He responded on point. "Hi, Jason. My name's Marcus. I like Bug Pokémon. And other Pokémon that are all around beautifully grotesque. They're really strong, you know, Bug Pokémon. They evolve early, so they get strong earlier than other Pokémon. Not that I'm impatient of course. I'm very patient. I've been working on my bug project for years. I can't tell you more about it, though." He stopped immediately after the last syllable, looking groundward again. The manner in which he ended his train of thought suggested to me that he had simply run out of things to say, rather than having said something he didn't mean to.

"Goodbye then," he said, suddenly, turning and walking southward in that same odd gait, facing the ground the whole way, or at least until he was out of sight.

Stunned from the whole strange affair, I simply stood alone with my thoughts. That guy was...eccentric. He definitely had his sights set on some sort of goal, though, even if it was one I couldn't begin to understand. In a way, I supposed, that sort of passionate eccentricity didn't really deviate from the usual playbook for trainers. Even if it was enough to frustrate those double-battlers.

I reached into my pocket and clenched Sunny's Poké Ball in my hand. I wondered if I had just dropped the metaphorical ball in not just handing him over to Marcus. Odd as he was, he did seem to know a lot about Bug-type Pokémon, so maybe he would've been the perfect caretaker for him. It sure would have saved me a lot of time to end my quest right then and there, but I eventually ended up convincing myself that my conscience wouldn't have allowed me to do it, anyway. Sunny's needs came before my own, but Gramps' trust trumped everything.

Besides, that guy was obviously at least a little bit crazy.

As I stood there, clutching the Poké Ball, I could barely bring myself to move, let alone look away from the direction Marcus had gone away in, for a good few minutes. I'd caught myself in a paralyzing net of what-ifs and hypotheticals. Finally, an on-shore breeze blew into my face, briefly relieving me of the simmering sun, and gently urging me onward. I turned around to continue north, and went on walking, but couldn't shrug the thought that, given the insanity of what I'd just fallen into, I should have just made things easier on myself and stayed home.