Originally he was here to deliver something, but that had been done—and god, if there was one route he detested taking it was this one. The Fiery Path.

The interior of the place was so hot it was a miracle it wasn’t adjoined to the rest of the pyroclastic interior of Mount Chimney—well, that was a vastly gross understatement. He didn’t know what had drawn him in, and so he decided to park his motorbike outside and look inside.

He’d been looking for a Litwick for a long time now with absolutely no luck, and nothing else to show for it. He wondered if he was going to be able to find something in the place today.

Immediately he regretted his decision less than thirty steps in. Stripping down his jacket, he quickly tied it to his waist and then fished out a towel, quickly wiping away the sweat that was starting to pour from him in buckets. Why was this place so Arceus-forsaken hot?!

Not to mention the heat haze made things really bad. He didn’t realize that his hair was wilting down from its spiked appearance as he ventured further inside.

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Buckets of sweat continued to pour down Lars’s arms and face, which forced him to wring the towel that he’d been using to wipe himself down for the past five minutes to get it dry. Ugh, he really hated going through this place. Well, it was either this place or the ‘Great’ Desert, but he’d forgotten his desert goggles at home.

Shaking his bangs out of his eyes, he’d gotten lost in the haze of steam, and barely registered the voice that had cut through the gloom he was wandering in. The one thing that clicked in his head was the fact that he heard the name “Litwick” and he did a 180-turn so fast he almost crashed into the floating illumination.

“Oh… you’re bad news!” he coughed, quickly backpedaling and pulling out one of his two Pokéballs and sending out the companion within. A loud roar shook the cave, and he had to back away even more as he saw his Gyarados, Kali, unfurl herself from the beam of red light.

Ah, shit! He thought, sweating even more as the dual-type quickly Intimidated the Litwick, who was about to fire off a Shadow Ball. Wasting no time, the Gyarados roared loudly, before baring her fangs and sinking them down in a powerful Crunching gesture.

Flinching for a few moments, Lars could only watch in silence as the Litwick yelped as the Gyarados’s attack connected, before it reared back once more, spitting out the Litwick before quickly engulfing it with a powerful Waterfall attack. While it was no Hydro Pump, the water was more than enough to splash all over the place, drenching not only Lars, but the other man as well.

“Sorry!” he called over the torrent of water, watching as the Litwick’s fire went out—the cue for him to throw an empty Pokéball at the damned thing that almost killed him.

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“Which is why I said sorry,” he called out through the suddenly thick fog that had risen up in the wake of the Waterfall drenching the entire place and cooling down the Fiery Path somewhat. Of course, the water that had colled down the place had agitated some more residents of the area, and then there it was.

He thought he saw a Typhlosion, but that was already under the capable hands of whoever he’d accidentally drenched, and so turned his attention to the weird-ass looking monkey that was headed his way, clearly not pleased with how the proceedings were being handled. A sudden Flame Burst came hurtling towards his Gyarados’s direction.

Lars didn’t even have to tell Kali to move, because another powerful surge of Waterfall was already coming from the dual-type’s direction, serving to drench the entire area once more—and then call up another wall of Arceus-damned fog as they drove the Simisear away back into hiding.

Well, the better for him to make his getaway from! Hopefully his accidental companion didn’t notice as another powerful blast of Waterfall shook the area, drenching practically everywhere they stood before Lars recalled the Gyarados and hightailed it out of the area as fast as he could.

He’d already been drenched twice and he didn’t want to repeat the experience. Ugh.