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An exercise in irony.

That’s what this was!

It was an exercise in irony!

The first thing he’d spotted this time was a cute-looking—wait a second. He already had one of these!

And it was the bigger form, too!

The Amaura took notice of him and blinked once, twice—a few times. He started back at the dinosaur in return, before waving it away.

“Go. I know you have parents somewhere.”

He didn’t want to upset the balance, and so it would remain that way.

Deeper he went into the reaches of Shoal Cave, to search.

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skipping Amaura

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To continue on today’s lesson on the subject of irony…

A scuffling noise caught his attention. Looking around, he wondered where it had come from. The nearby place was deserted… well, it was as deserted as it would get.

At least, until he looked down.

“Wait a second, didn’t I see one of your just a few days—“ he began as he saw the younger version of the aggressive Donphan… uhoh.

What if this was the child of the one he’d captured recently? He couldn’t tell. Yikes.

Thankfully, though, the Phanpy let out a snuffling noise before rolling away and bumping into two Donphan not too far away, having found something it was holding in its mouth. Was it a truffle?

Either way, Lars skated around the happy family and continued his search deeper into another untouched corridor.

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skipping Phanpy

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Lars was so busy walking he almost tripped over something in the cave—wait a second, what?

Thankfully he had half a mind to catch his balance before he unceremoniously kissed the frozen ground. Somewhere, in the deepest recesses of his mind, a snarky voice cackled.

“Oh shut it,” he grumbled to nobody in particular, before noticing that what he’d tripped on was setting off his PokéGear. Quickly silencing it, the notification alerted him that this was one of the Pokémon he didn’t have yet, so—

Maybe it was a good thing he’d come all the way out here after all?!

“Whoa, uh… sorry there,” he apologized, holding his hands out to what he recognized as a Cloyster. Weren’t these mostly found underwater? Then again, the alert notifying him that it was an Ice-type suggested not all Cloyster liked being in the water.

“Are… are you lonely?” he continued, hands still held out in the universal ‘don’t hit me’ pose. The dual-type was still looking at him, confused. He was about to approach when a sudden shrieking noise caught him off-guard!

“Whoa! Hey! I already said I wasn’t going to hurt you!” he backpedaled, hands still stretched out. “Look, just—just trust me on this, okay?!”

Crouching down so that they were at each other’s eye level, he then slowly, very slowly lowered his hands onto the frozen ground for a few moments, before pulling them up. At this point, this was nothing new to him—however the Cloyster’s beady little eyes followed each little movement, watching as a new spike made of ice rose along with his hands.

Of course, another shrieking noise ripped through the silence, but he gritted his teeth.

“Easy, easy… I don’t mean to harm you at all. Just—please, look,” he continued as he attempted to shift the form of the ice around—okay this was a lot harder than it looked. He could easily conjure it up, but shaping it was another thing entirely.

Even so, the effort was there.

“See? Same thing… like you. Sorry if I scared you,” he added on once he was done. While the end result didn’t look much like a highly-detailed sculpture made of ice, the thought was there—and the Cloyster slowly approached him.

“Easy does it,” he continued, watching, waiting as the dual-type continued to approach him. He’d already slipped his hand out with a waiting Pokéball, and once one of the spikes was close enough, the Cloyster prodded it, allowing itself to be sucked into the beam of red light.

…how long would he have to wait as he watched the shaking Pokéball in his hand, though?

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catching Cloyster!