[attr="class","wildtemp"]

The first thing he encountered was—

Well, then!

Was today going to be as full of ironies as the last time? He hoped not.

With a bit of a snort, Lars watched as the Sneasel skated around the icy walls using its claws to climb higher and higher and act like some weird-ass lizard that was attempting to look for something.

“Huh, wonder what it’s looking for,” he mused as he watched the small Pokémon disappear into the darkness. He already had a Weavile, so it didn’t make sense for him to have duplicates…

What?

He wanted to keep his own Pokémon ‘armada’ at a nice, manageable number! What was wrong with that?

[attr="class","wildtemp"]

The next thing that came waltzing past him was something—okay, this one he was pretty certain he didn’t have!

The only problem here was that it was bringing along with it a fine dusting of snow, which made him chuckle for a few moments.

Well, at least it’s not hurting anything… or anyone, he thought as he watched it saunter by—before making an about-face turn and then catching sight of him.

Right then and there he was met with a Hydro Pump to the face. It very nearly knocked him into the wall behind him.

“Wow, rude, what the hell!” he exclaimed as he was knocked over backwards and landed with an unceremonious crash on the ground. “I didn’t even do anything!”

The Castform was coming in for a Tackle attack, and he had mere moments to roll out of the way before it smacked into the cave wall behind him. Ooh, not so smart now are we?!

“Hey, cut that out! I’m not here to hurt you!” he called out as he stood up and tried to reason with the Castform. Seeing as it was stuck in the cave wall, he sighed before pinching the bridge of his nose.

“Oy,” was all he could say before he helped pull the Castform out gently, freeing it from its frozen prison with a popping noise.

“You’re clearly an airhead, if you didn’t move any more I’d be worried you’d get stuck there.”

And of course he didn’t have his gloves on, again. He was literally holding the Castform by the ‘plumes’ of snow and for some strange reason the Pokémon was giggling like hell.

“What? Is it because I’m cold to the touch?” he asked, another confused look crossing his face before the giggling noise grew louder. “Okay, okay, I get it. I’ve got cold hands. What gives?”

Another ‘friendly’ blast of water to the face from the Castform.

“What?” he went on, waiting for any kind of clue from the strange Pokémon what it wanted. Instead, the Castform began to make it snow around them.

“Haha, real funny,” he trailed off, looking at the snow falling around them. “I’m not even bothered by it.”

Oh, boy, were we going into terrible pun territory now? Hope not!