The room was cool and dry. Music was piped in, a mix of electronica and rock. The lights weren't off to begin with, no. Laurence would get a good look at the room: the lights with the indigo of an overripe blueberry, bouncing off white tiled surfaces. The room at the end of a cartoonishly long neon hallway.

He was met with a knowing smile from the gym leader, a shirtless man who was just twenty three. He wore black jeans, and a towel around his neck. The lights cut out as he started speaking, from the opposite side of the room, back against a tiled white wall.

"Oh! It's you again. From the beach, right? You're here at the Rustboro Gym. This city is a hub of industrial economy and human activity. The perfect place to showcase the Ghost type. The type that owes itself the most to human intervention." He said, looking to the taller man. The last lights either of them would see for the next half hour would be the flashes of red and white of pokeballs opening. Giona opened with Rotom.

Oh no.

Oh, holy shit!

Lars blinked as he remembered something that had happened—

“Shit,” was all he could say before seeing the—his attention wasn’t on the Rotom, however it was on the other man.

“Crap. Do you—do you remember what happened down at the beach? During the drinking portion of the party…?” he muttered.

Thank fuck the lights were mostly out; because otherwise Lars could feel his ears burning. Fumbling around his jacket, he found the Dusk Ball and sent out his Tyranitar first.

The moment the Tyranitar hit the ground, his ability (Sand Stream) kicked up a sandstorm.

---

Tyranitar caused a Sandstorm upon entry due to his ability, Sand Stream!

The memory of that party wasn't lost on him. Nonetheless, he remembered the party mostly for trying to make a pass at his dejected gay friend, and being intimidated by that Silph family. Neither of which was relevant at the time. Nobody remembered Fortree well enough to arrest him, and he'd hit it off well enough with someone knew.

Giona lacked that embarrassment. That moment of silence that was felt more than heard. He had his fair share of shameful moments, and decided to reassure the other man. To break the moment of silence. The sandstorm kicked up, leading Giona to blindfold himself with the towel, so none of the sand particles hit his eyes.

"Well, whatever happened, it doesn't bother me that much. I've quit drinking since then. Today marks... a month?" He said, thinking for a moment. The flash of light told him explicitly that Rotom couldn't win. That he was at a disadvantage. He then switched it out for Sableye, with a flash of light from the pokeball signalling this to Lars. This meant giving up a turn, letting Lars go first.

He can only wonder how one can stop drinking. It was—well, in his case he usually turned to the bottle when he got stressed out to all fuck; and that was after he discovered his other little vice of smoking.

Thankfully he wasn’t smoking cigarettes anymore, but a vape. Safer too, he guessed?

Anyway.

“I don’t know how some people have the willpower to quit cold turkey,” he remarked idly. “I tried before, but it didn’t work.”

The Sandstorm swirled, and now it was time to move.

“Rience, at the ready.”

An avalanche of rocks then manifested, before being flung in the approximate direction of the Sableye—a Rock Slide attack.

---

Tyranitar used Rock Slide!

The battle slowly ground to a start. The prospect of carrying on like this... Giona was close to just flat out surrendering, or banning Sandstorm and Hail. He tied a knot in the scarf he covered his face with, effectively blindfolding himself.

"In all truth... it’s easier than it used to be. Now, there’s all these sparkling waters and fermented teas out there." He said, thinking for a moment. The cascade of rocks and the lumbering quality of Tyrannitar, whose steps tumbled in his heart, told him it was unwise to remove Rotom from the field. He costs himself a turn again to switch out Sableye for Rotom.

“I wish there was something that could help me quit cold turkey with the smoking—sadly I don’t like gum so much, and the other alternatives are just—eh. Not strong enough. In the end I ended up grabbing an e-cigarette instead,” he said with a sigh.

So much for trying cold turkey.

He could never give up drinking, though—it was a part of him at this point.

He then watched as a red beam of light came out from somewhere, and he wondered—what was going to happen next?

“Chase after it, Rience,” he said next, hoping that his luck would continue as the Tyranitar lumbered forward in a Pursuit attack attempt. The darkness was really throwing him off in spades, and it was rather hard to see…

---

Tyranitar used Pursuit!

The battle slowly ground to a start. The prospect of carrying on like this... Giona was close to just flat out surrendering.

"...Have you tried patches? They put the nicotine in you intravenously. They come in three different sizes." He said, thinking for a moment. The Pursuit made its mark. Sableye was clipped for 2/3 of its health right away. With Rotom on the field again, it was time to capitalize on its speed advantage by using Electro Ball against Tyrannitar. dR||XlZo

“Yeah, I tried the medium-sized one… didn’t work, in fact it felt—really weird,” he hummed, cringing at the memory of trying those patches.

It felt like one of those medical patches, only weirder, and it made him crabby as hell afterward.

“I was out of it for a few hours, never again,” he shuddered as the flickering light of something soared and—lit up the area for a few moments? It soared close to the Tyranitar’s face though.

“Rience, don’t be so slow! Rock Slide!” he continued, before the Tyranitar squinted in the gloom and then released an avalanche of boulders—trying to spread it as far as he could.

---

Tyranitar used Rock Slide!

The battle slowly ground to a start. The prospect of carrying on like this... Giona was close to just flat out surrendering.

"...The dreams they give you are fucking awful! So you gotta take it off at night, and that's when I wanna have a cigarette the most! ...Start with a large?" He blurted out, forgetting about the battle right away. The Rock Slide barely missed. With Rotom on the field, it was time to capitalize on its speed advantage by using Electro Ball against Tyrannitar. C3DQ_R04

Lars snorted. So he wasn’t the only one who had to suffer the pain of the patches, after all.

“Not only are the dreams weird, yeah, they’re absolutely… how do I put this—fucked up?” he said, waving a hand in the darkness—even if he knew the other couldn’t see where he was, the brief illumination of the Electro Ball managed to land a solid hit and smacked the Tyranitar, who let out a painful, bellowing roar.

He fervently nodded at the other’s observation about the patches.

“They absolutely don’t help—it only makes the craving fucking worse, especially when you have the bigger-sized ones,” he agreed.

Over where the Tyranitar was currently trying to pick shit out in the dark, another pained roar came from the kaiju’s belly before lumbering forward, attempting to take a big, Crunching gesture in the dark—at the last approximate spot where he thought he saw the Rotom.

---

Tyranitar used Crunch!

The battle slowly ground to a start. Flickers of electricity lit up the near-pitch black room. Giona squinted as another Electro Ball came out, starting to regret the format he'd set up.

"...There's no way out then, unless you're separated from them for long enough to quit cold-turkey. But... I wouldn't wish that on anyone." He blurted out, forgetting about the battle right away. The Crunch barely missed. With Rotom on the field, it was time to capitalize on its speed advantage by using Thunder Wave against Tyrannitar. M9Bs5Z8L

He agreed with that statement.

“Definitely not going old turkey again. Learned that the hard way,” he nodded fervently.

The flash of electricity was the giveaway something had struck the Tyranitar, big slow lug that he was. Problem was that it was so danged dark he could only make out where the last approximate direction of the attack had come from, because other than that it was literally facing one of his two fears head-on (there was no way he was going to fight a spider in this darkness. Hell no) with a disadvantage.

“With Tyranitar, I noticed that some who own them tend to go off into the extremes when it comes to training their species,” he mused. “Literally taking advantage of the fact that he can be mistaken for a kaiju. But their species are also some of the most misunderstood around.”

Oh, don’t remind him of that one time he had to go on a mission to break apart a fight between two wizened Tyranitar—it was fucking bedlam, basically.

“Rience! Listen carefully,” was all he said in the direction of his Pokémon, who had roared out in surprise when the attack hit with surprising ferocity.

There was a disadvantage—upon evolving to Tyranitar, their species lost the one protection they had against Electric-type attacks—paralysis protection.

However, though, the Tyranitar then took to sniffing the air, before the sound of falling boulders announced the Rock Slide attack.

---

Tyranitar is Paralyzed! Tyranitar used Rock Slide!