The scream leads Yuze into a building that, for all its magnificence, looks rather abandoned. Beautiful archways, stained glass in a rainbow of colours, and all of the dust you can possibly imagine. A sneeze echoes through the emptiness, even if this is a computer-generated setting. Bless deep dive VR, huh? Although, then again, some would call that a curse more than a blessing.

Yuze himself doesn't seem to care much, his attention instead being drawn to finding the source of that terrible scream he had heard a moment ago.

"Hello?"

Nothing.

Nothing for a good two or three minutes.

And then, there it is again, the scream: even louder, and this time, threatening.

It makes sense that Pokémon might be hard to beat when first getting into the game, and so Yuze doesn't let it bother him. Once again, he offers no words of encouragement to Zmey; he simply lets the Pokémon fight while opening his UI.

I might need to do some upgrades soon. He thinks, but instead his attention turns to the global chat, searching for some sort of trade offer or request that might spark his interest.

When he gestures for the chat to vanish, the Pokémon aren't done yet.

Is it somehow getting worse? Is catching Pokémon supposed to be this hard? Yuze is not one to often blame himself when things go wrong, but logic dictates that there must be at least some degree of user error going on here. Is he supposed to encourage Zmey? Give him instructions? Ugh.

"Uh... You got this, Zmey." He offers, and as speculated, the Cyndaquil does look much more determined when attacking this time.

Okay, so, maybe he also needs to give instructions. He didn't expect it to be that way for low level, beginner battles, but perhaps Pokémon are coded to learn and develop as they spend more time fighting alongside their trainers. That makes sense, right? And, with that in mind, he should actually make an effort when it comes to helping Zmey.

Yuze takes a deep breath.

"Zmey. Fall back, then TACKLE. FLAME WHEEL as soon as you make contact." He instructs, watching how the Cyndaquil jumps back just in time to avoid the claws of the cat. Zmey then pushes himself forward, using all of his (insignificant) weight against his opponent.

It doesn't do the trick. Far from it, in fact.

The Purrloin jumps out of the way the moment it's touched by the flames, recoiling away from the heat and leaving poor Zmey to spin right into the nearest wall. Yuze sighs, trying to ignore how exasperating this battle is turning out to be. He's not good at that, though. Far from it. In fact, when looking at him, it's very clear that he thinks this is fucking annoying.

Zmey doesn't give up just yet, determined on beating this cat that has caused them so many problems.

"Zmey."

They keep their distance for now, the battle being put to a momentary pause. Both Purrloin and Cyndaquil his and growl, as if both threatening each other and daring each other to make the first move. Yuze does not care for it at all.

"Tackle it again."

One last tackle should do the trick, no?