The Pokémon that came charging toward them was massive: a deep blue turtle walking upright on two stocky legs, its joints segmented, each foot ending in three stubby toes. Its lower jaw was a pale yellow, and its ears came to triangular points.
Its torso was encased in a thick, heavy shell, brown on the back and pale yellow on the underside, with white edging running along the seam between them. From the front of the shell jutted two fearsome water cannons.
It was Blastoise, the Shellfish Pokémon.
"Blastoise!"
What Blastoise saw when it arrived was a stranger wearing an expression of pure contempt, while Slowpoke stood nearby sobbing its eyes out.
That was all it needed to see. Its blood boiled instantly.
There was no way it was going to stand by while some stranger bullied its beloved Slowpoke.
It planted its feet and sprinted forward at full speed.
Back at the shore, Caster was still crouching helplessly beside Slowpoke, who kept wiping its face and shedding one little pearl after another.
No matter what he said, the little guy would not stop crying.
This was a real problem.
"Oh, wait. Slowpoke, hold on. I've got something for you."
That was when Caster remembered the Energy Orb.
With a single thought, the Energy Orb drifted out from his fishing space, dissolving into soft threads of light that seeped directly into Slowpoke's body.
"Slow...?"
The moment it made contact, Slowpoke's whole body gave a sudden jolt.
Nourished by the Energy Orb, it began to grow in quick little bursts, a warm, tingling sensation spreading through every inch of it.
"Slowww..."
A look of pure bliss spread across Slowpoke's face without it even realizing.
It could feel itself getting stronger, fast.
Unfortunately, a single Energy Orb didn't hold much. The moment it ran dry, the sensation cut off just as abruptly as it had started.
"Slow... slow..."
Slowpoke blinked a few times after the feeling faded, then turned and pressed its big round head gently against Caster's arm.
This time, its eyes weren't vacant. They were full of want.
More. Give me more.
Caster laughed out loud.
People always assumed Slowpoke was slow in the head, and in fairness, its reaction time was awful. But it wasn't actually stupid.
He was also thinking about something else now. The sweet flavor that seeped from Slowpoke's tail had an almost irresistible pull on other Pokémon. In a fair fight, trying to catch anything out here would be a losing battle. But if he used Slowpoke's tail as bait to draw Pokémon in? That might actually work.
He was still turning the idea over in his head when the thundering footsteps finally arrived.
Caster looked up, saw the enormous, tank-like frame of Blastoise barreling toward him with murder in its eyes, and his expression shifted.
This thing was not here to talk.
He decided not to wait and find out what it had in mind. "Pikachu, Thunderwave!"
A thin bolt of electricity crackled between Pikachu's ears and shot forward.
"Blastoise!"
Seeing the attack coming, Blastoise's eyes narrowed. If it had any doubts before, they were gone now. This human was absolutely the bad guy. Its fury surged even higher.
Its thick limbs snapped into its shell in an instant, and the shell began spinning at high speed. The Thunderwave hit and scattered apart on contact.
Then, still airborne, Blastoise extended its limbs again. Its massive cannon barrels swung around and locked onto Caster and Pikachu.
Boom. Boom.
Two enormous jets of water erupted from the cannons. The recoil alone sent Blastoise skidding backward across the ground.
"Pika!"
Pikachu's eyes went wide. It leaped from Caster's shoulder and threw itself in front of him.
It could have dodged. At its speed, getting clear of those blasts would have been easy. But Caster was right behind it, and that changed everything. Taking the hit was the only option.
A translucent barrier of light materialized in front of them, absorbing both blasts.
The force was tremendous. By the time the water cleared, the Protect barrier was already cracked clean through.
"This Blastoise is actually that strong?"
Caster muttered under his breath. He could see right away that Pikachu wasn't going to cut it here, so he recalled it and threw out two Poké Balls at once, releasing Gyarados and Dratini.
The moment Gyarados's massive frame emerged, some of the tension in Caster's chest eased.
"Gyaooo!"
They were on a cape with open sea stretching out on all sides. Royal Authority of the Sea kicked in immediately, and Gyarados's stats began climbing across the board.
"Gyarados, Waterfall!"
"Gyaooo!"
With a thunderous roar, a wall of water surged up around Gyarados as it lunged forward, ferocity pouring off it in waves.
Blastoise was built like a tank, but next to Gyarados, it looked almost small.
Still, Gyarados's Waterfall didn't take it down.
Blastoise dropped into a low crouch and dug in. The force shoved it back a good ten meters, but it didn't go down. The moment Gyarados's momentum ran out, Blastoise surged forward and clamped both thick arms around it, locking it in place.
Then the twin cannons swung up and pressed directly against Gyarados's skull. A blinding white light began building inside the barrels, and a vortex of terrifying energy started to compress.
Caster recognized it immediately.
Hydro Cannon. The most powerful Water-type move in existence.
At this distance, pressed against Gyarados's head, even a full-power Protect wouldn't help. If that fired, Gyarados wasn't walking away clean.
He had no good options. But he wasn't about to let Blastoise walk away clean either.
He drew breath to give the order.
"Blastoise, that's enough."
The voice came from somewhere nearby, calm and unhurried.
Blastoise froze. The energy building in its cannons slowly faded.
Caster turned.
Standing roughly a hundred meters away, seemingly having materialized from nowhere, was an elderly man in a plain, weathered robe. His hair and beard were entirely white. His face was unreadable.
Behind him walked a massive toad-like Pokémon with an enormous flower blooming from its back. Above him, a broad-winged orange dragon circled slowly through the air.
Both Pokémon radiated power. Neither of them was looking at Caster or Gyarados with any warmth.
"Charizard. Venusaur."
Caster took a few careful steps back, his expression serious.
Three Pokémon, all of them extraordinary. If it came to a fight, his side would be in serious trouble.
But the old man had called Blastoise off at the last second. That meant he wasn't looking for blood. And that meant there was room to talk.
"Blastoise, tell me what happened."
The old man walked forward at a measured pace, his eyes on his Pokémon.
"Blastoise! Blastoise!"
Blastoise launched into it immediately, pointing straight at Caster as it laid out its version of events. The tone made the conclusion pretty clear: this human was the problem, and Slowpoke had been crying, and it had seen the whole thing with its own eyes.
It didn't take long for that version to fall apart.
"Slowww... slow..."
Slowpoke finally managed to get a word in.
The whole fight had exploded and ended so fast that Slowpoke, in typical Slowpoke fashion, had barely processed that it started. It was like a kid trying to interrupt two adults mid-argument and never quite finding the opening.
"Blastoise...?"
A bead of sweat rolled down the side of Blastoise's head as Slowpoke finished its account.
So the human had accidentally stepped on Slowpoke's tail, and had already apologized, and Slowpoke had already forgiven him.
The whole thing had been a misunderstanding.
"Blastoise..."
Its face went red. It trudged forward, scratched the back of its head, and offered Caster a clumsy but genuine apology.
The old man followed, his tone sincere. "I'm sorry about that. Blastoise jumped to conclusions, and that's what set all of this off."
He paused. "By way of making it right: if you have a Starter Pokémon on your team, I'll teach it a top-tier move. No charge."
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~ Push the story forward with your Power Stones