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The first thing he encountered the moment he set foot in the cave was… a Wooper.

What the hell?

Blinking, he wondered if the thing had gotten lost. Well, the one thing he could hand to the Safari Zone was that they were now adapting the area to match what was appearing in the ‘wild’ at the time.

Shrugging, he took a different path and went deeper into the zone, wondering if he’d be able to find something that would be worth the trip.

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It was a good thing he’d gone past the Wooper, because the next thing he encountered immediately caught his eye and—he couldn’t stop staring at the hypnotic way it was bouncing all around on its two stubby little feet.

“What are you?” he remarked quietly, checking his PokéGear to see if there was any information on it in the system. To his surprise, there was—albeit not as much as he would’ve wanted.

“Well, then… Ice-type, right—“ he breathed out when suddenly, from out of nowhere, the frost-colored Pokémon released a blast of flames that made him yelp and scramble backwards.

“How the fuck are you breathing fire if you’re made of ice?!” he said out of surprise as the funny-colored Darumaka took another breath and released another Flame Wheel attack right on the spot he was standing at a few moments ago.

“Alright, fine, have it your way, then,” and with that he fished around in his pocket until he found the one he was looking for. Popping it to full size, a Lucario unfolded himself from the burst of red light and immediately barked at the strange Darumaka.

“Snipe it, Alpha,” was all he said before the Lucario sprang into action, avoiding yet another Flame Wheel with an application of Extreme Speed to close the distance. Once he was close enough, a resounding Brick Break move shattered the silence, sending the Darumaka with the frost-colored coat squealing as it flew through the air and smacked on the cave wall.

A sudden Avalanche shook the cramped area, but the Lucario was ready—aiming a well-timed Aura Sphere in order to smack it closer to where Lars was waiting, Safari Ball on-hand.

“You’ve been naughty,” was all he mentioned before dropping the Safari Ball on the Darumaka’s head.

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Thankfully the strange Darumaka had conceded the moment it had been sucked up into the beam of red light. Picking it up once it stopped shaking, he continued his expedition deeper into the cavern area.

Now, normally, this would be around the point where Lars would start feeling cold, but hilariously? It was just nothing to him at this point. Looking around surreptitiously to make sure nobody else was treading the same path he was, he absently let his right hand trail along the cavern walls—before realizing that he still had those pesky gloves on.

“Eh, what’s there to wreck,” he shrugged as he pulled it off casually without batting an eye. Now that his right hand was free and exposed, he let it run against the cavern wall, unknowingly frosting the damned place over. He was pretty sure nobody was around…

Well, that was, nobody human anyway.

It didn’t take too long for him to eventually hear some—there was something following him! Turning around on the spot, Lars and the Lucario fixed their attention on the… weird… thing that was plodding after them, chasing after the two mostly because it had spotted ice trailing from the human’s fingertips.

Alpha gave him a questioning look, before he shook his head. “No, don’t fight it—I think I know why it followed us,” and with that he crouched down to get a better look at the… weird… thing that had the strangest body but the littlest arms and face growing out of it.

“Gee, what happened to you?” he asked the…strange one, who proceeded to waddle over at the sight of the frost seemingly growing out of his fingertips. “Really?” was all he could add a few moments later as the strange… Pokémon began to lick at the frost.

“Ow, hey, sharp tongue, but asides from that…” he remarked a few moments later, before chuckling as the Pokémon continued to catch the forming ice. The Lucario could only blink and shake his head at what Lars was doing, because wasn’t this kind of… flexing at this point?

Somewhere, though, Lars knew that the deity that had sided with him was rumbling with some kind of… satisfaction, so to speak. Grow the ice army more.

After what felt like an eternity of the strange Pokémon amusing itself with the ‘dripping ice’ from his fingertips, the Lucario nudged him with a paw.

“What? You sure?” he asked, before the Lucario nodded.

Pulling out another Safari Ball, Lars held it out for the strange Pokémon to take. It was up to them if they wanted to follow him…

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The next thing he encountered was—well, to be fair he already had Javert, and that was good enough for him.

Blinking at the sight of the weird antlion Pokémon, he chuckled. “Oh, good grief, thank fuck I encountered Javert as a Vibrava and not a Trapinch. That head looks awfully heavy,” he remarked quietly as he watched a Trapinch scuttle around, trying to keep its head upright before falling over.

“Oh, come on,” he added a few moments later as he walked over before helping the Trapinch get up.

“Go on, shoo now,” he added, shushing the Trapinch away before continuing deeper into the caves.

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pass on Trapinch!

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The deeper he went, the more… concerning things became.

The ice was getting thicker, sure—but it wasn’t the normal ice that would coalesce and form around Shoal Cave. It was… artificial. Like there was something completely off about the strangeness of the ice that had gathered around the area.

Either way…

He saw that there was only one way down—and he followed that path. His breath began to manifest in puffy clouds the deeper he went, and he wondered if there was an end to the place—of course there had to be, it was impossible that there was another Articuno out there watching the world… right?

A few moments later his field of vision was obscured by something falling very nearly on top of him. Lars jumped backwards a bit, yelping.

“What the hell?”

Looking down at the impact crater on the covered ground, he saw that there was something… moving. A few moments later a small head poked up from underneath the snow, softest pair of… holy shit what was that supposed to be?!

“What are you supposed to be?” he asked, crouching down and picking up the Snom without warning. Normally, the Pokémon would’ve attacked him on sight, but seeing as how the strange… chimera-like thing he’d captured earlier hadn’t reacted with hostility his way, maybe this was going to be the same?

The little, fat Snom clicked its… fluffy? Pincers? Whatever they were called—and then made the grumbliest noise it could muster.

“What?” he blinked, asking it nonchalantly what was going on—before right then and there it had the same reaction as the Arctozolt from earlier—it was attempting to nibble his fingers!

“Okay, uh, I’m not food, but sure…” he said, sighing. He wondered what the deity of ice would think at the insanity that was going on at the moment. Either way, if it calmed the Pokémon down then he was absolutely fine with this shit.

Eventually, he brought out a Safari Ball and tapped it on the Snom’s shell, once the Pokémon was certain it wasn’t going to be eaten…

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catching Snom!

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After the strange bug had been sucked into the red light of the Safari Ball, Lars continued into the heart of the cave. He wondered if there was an exit to the cave, considering that the ice was getting thicker and thicker the deeper he went.

…even if it was artificial ice.

Lars wasn’t watching where he was going, therefore he had almost tripped over a Pokémon that had nearly set upon him with an Icy wind had he not caught himself at the last second.

“Holy shit, you keep appearing from out of nowhere…” he remarked, before noticing that there was something more than a little off with the Bergmite’s… eyes.

Holy shit, did it just—sparkle?!

“Whoa, whoa, hey—wait a minute!” he yelped, because right then and there the Bergmite decided it would be fun to freeze Lars with a point-blank Blizzard. Wait, point-blank?

What the fuck?!

The human could only chuckle at what was happening.

“Go ahead and try, little one,” he mused, this unreadable smirk passing on his face for the briefest of moments before the Bergmite blinked—shouldn’t that have frozen or permanently given someone hypothermia outright?!

“It’s not going to work on me,” Lars continued, and with that he flexed his fingers and calmly placed them on both sides of the weirdly-colored Bergmite’s body. When he tried to lift the Ice-type up, though, he had to stop after a bit because holy shit it was heavy!

“Okay, you got me there. But anyway. That was not nice, you know,” he said in the Bergmite’s direction, shaking his head. “Surprised I’m not frozen yet?”

The Ice-type squealed and tried to flee, but Lars was intent on doing this the whole day. “Nope, you’ve been bad—and I’ll be teaching you a thing or two…” he trailed off ominously, before watching the Bergmite panic and tried to blow another Icy Wind in his face.

Laughing for the briefest moments, he pulled out the last Safari Ball, and tapped the weirdly-colored Bergmite’s horn.

“…and misbehaving Pokémon have to be taught a lesson!”

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catching shiny Bergmite!