"Don't worry Ygg, this is Jam's first battle! Isn't that right buddy!"

Jam looked confused as the other Pokemon took the field. He looked up at Big Bee, who gave him and excited thumbs-up.

"We can take 'em," Pan said eagerly. She bristled with poisonous barbs, and she eyed the fleshy parts of Azchops with anticipation.

Randy opened his mouth wide, and Jam blanched. So scary! What was he supposed to do? He opened his own mouth wide, pulling back his crimson gums to reveal a set of perfect, ivory fangs. His own Scary Face to match Randy's. Was this how you were supposed to start battles?

Mud splattered against his chest and neck, dripping to the sound in viscous chunks. Pan was taking cover behind him, using his bulk as a shield while she took aim through Jam's legs. "Stand still Jam! I've got them in my sights!" she said, and a spray of poisonous quills shot between Jam's chunky legs.

The barbs from Poison Sting landed all along the beach, making a scattered line of needles between the two groups of Pokemon. They stuck out of the sand like discarded metal straws, and some fell into a nearby tide pool. A Pyukumuku crawled out of the pool, its beady eyes glaring up at Jam, who was still grinning widely and covered in mud.

SPOILER: Click to show

{Freeform Prompts}
Careful - Jam the Groudon
- observe your environment carefully
- bide your time
- wait until you're in position
- carefully line up a precision shot
- anticipate a move before it hits
- take a hit on a non-essential part of your body
- find cover
- use a healing/draining move
- use a defense/sp.def-raising move
- use an evasion-raising move

Sneaky - Pan the Nidoran (f)
- use a teammate to cover your attack
- attempt to conceal yourself
- engage in distracting banter
- attack from behind your opponent
- try to blind your opponent
- fake an injury
- lay a trap
- create a distraction
- use a dark or poison-type move
- use an attack/sp.atk lowering move
- use a status-afflicting move

"Heh, you've fallen right into my trap!" said Pan from her hiding spot behind Jam. "Those weren't just Poison Stings I put on the beach. They were Toxic Spikes!" She laughed villainously as Groudon took a step forward and immediately sank into the sand. "Ah! My cover!" she cried, climbing up onto the head of the half-buried legendary. "Abandon ship!"

She leapt daintily off Jam's ridged head, and landed straight in another tidepool. She crouched down until she was only just peeking above the surface. The aquatic predator stalks her prey, she narrated, watching as Azchops rolled closer and closer to the field of poison spikes.

Jam was in trouble. Was this quicksand? Was he going to be buried alive in the burning hot beach? Somehow the idea didn't scare him, And neither did the idea of being trapped underground with the friendly crocodile. Maybe they could be friends!

He sunk completely beneath the sand and felt the silt close over his head. Then, the sand started to compact around him. It was like being stomped down in a trash can full of grit. Jam tensed his body, Bulking Up to resist the force pressing in from all sides.

SPOILER: Click to show

{Freeform Prompts}
Careful - Jam the Groudon
- observe your environment carefully
- bide your time
- wait until you're in position
- carefully line up a precision shot
- anticipate a move before it hits
- take a hit on a non-essential part of your body
- find cover
- use a healing/draining move
- use a defense/sp.def-raising move
- use an evasion-raising move

Sneaky - Pan the Nidoran (f)
- use a teammate to cover your attack
- attempt to conceal yourself
- engage in distracting banter
- attack from behind your opponent
- try to blind your opponent
- fake an injury
- lay a trap
- create a distraction
- use a dark or poison-type move
- use an attack/sp.atk lowering move
- use a status-afflicting move

"Pan! Hide!" Big Bee called, simultaneously offering his first real battling advice of the fight and completely breaking any cover Pan had left.

She jumped out of the tidal pool and shook off some baby Staryu that had stuck to her stomach. "Get off!" she said kicking them into a puddle nearby. She hoped the splash would distract her opponent.

That Azchops was a serious contender. A real tour de force. Her barbs hadn't slowed him down, and neither had her sharper, more dangerous barbs. What was there left to do?

"Hit him! Hit Azchops!" Big Bee called helpfully.

"I know!" she shouted back. Stupid trainer. it looked like she was on her own with this one. How did that old saying go? When the going gets tough, it is often most prudent to resort to brief acts of extreme physical violence- Sun Tzubat Well who was she to argue with the greats?

Nidoran sprinted down the beach, little legs skittering over the course sand, trying to avoid skidding and timing her steps so that she could perfectly collide with Azchops- THWACK! THWAK!

Stumpy leg met rubbery body as she hit Azchops with the solution to some of life's greatest problems: Double Kick.

Underground, Jam waited.

He bided his time, feeling the grind of sand and dirt against the rigid plates of his body. The pressure increased as Randy's Dig and Sand Tomb mashed at him. He felt jaws chomp at his behind, scratching his plated hide.

But he also felt the heat building inside him like an overstoked furnace. Magma welled at the seams of his body, spilling from his mouth as it was forced out by the crushing sands.

He couldn't see anything through the embrace of the sand, but there were only two results when tectonic pressure and heat of this magnitude met. Either they'd slowly create rare jewels like diamond and rubies or...

"Where are Randy and Jam?" Big Bee said, looking around the churning dunes. It was like that bit in the Mummy where the sands came alive. Crazy. But he was no Brendan Frasier and the movie reference didn't help him locate his lost boy. "Jam? You okay?!"

The sand boiled, bursting with bubbles of steam and sulfuric gas.

"Yggy we'd better step back," Bee said, putting out an arm to gently push back his lil sis. "I think there's some serious battling happening underground."

The sands turned orange, and then a deep, dangerous red. They stretched like strawberry taffy, falling in stretching, superheated strands as a plume of lava erupted from the beach!

SPOILER: Click to show

{Freeform Prompts}
Careful - Jam the Groudon
- observe your environment carefully
- bide your time
- wait until you're in position
- carefully line up a precision shot
- anticipate a move before it hits
- take a hit on a non-essential part of your body
- find cover
- use a healing/draining move
- use a defense/sp.def-raising move
- use an evasion-raising move

Sneaky - Pan the Nidoran (f)
- use a teammate to cover your attack
- attempt to conceal yourself
- engage in distracting banter
- attack from behind your opponent
- try to blind your opponent
- fake an injury
- lay a trap
- create a distraction
- use a dark or poison-type move
- use an attack/sp.atk lowering move
- use a status-afflicting move

Azchops hit Pan like an international flight hitting a small, poisonous toddler. Nidoran toppled end over end, leaving a deep trench in the beach sand and a trail of broken shells, shattered spikes, and displaced local fauna. She pushed herself up onto one knee and coughed, bringing up a shocking amount of sand. "Well play-" she winced, almost falling back onto the sand but catching herself at the last moment, "well played Azchops. You are truly a worthy opponent."

She stumbled forward a few steps, one stumpy leg curled across her stomach as if something inside was bruised or broken. "I guess we can call it a draw, huh?" she leaned on her injured leg and stumbled. "There's no need to keep fighting, right?" she asked, blinking her big, wet eyes at the dragon and shaking her tail weakly. "You wouldn't hit a lady would you? One that was already badly injured?" (Pan used Tail Whip)

"Powhoandwhatnow?" Big Bee asked, cocking his head at Yggy. "I'm all for geology, but you can't just make up words Yggyster!"

Meanwhile, underground, Jam carefully observed his surroundings. The crushing sand had turned to chunky, blocky lava, which was now undulating in an almost hypnotic way. He tilted his head, watching the show in the light of his body's own crimson glow. It was like being inside a lava lamp!

The movement of the lava around him grew stronger and stronger, and he felt himself being pressed on all sides. In - out - in - out. Like a set of burning lungs. It was feeling less and less like being in a lava lamp and more and more like being the red hot cork of a giant champagne bottle!

The lava around him expanded and compressed once more, and With an almighty POP! Jam shot out of the sand and high into the air.

"Whoa!" Big Bee said, watching his little guy with wide eyes. "I guess he could dunk!"

Jam landed in a cloud of sand and staggered to the side, slowly getting his footing. He stumbled left, then right, and then settling into and back and forth rhythm that had him stomping the sand like a sumo wrestler. Each step made the ground shake, rippling outwards as he sent shockwave after shockwave through the supple sand, rocking the beach with his Earth Power!

SPOILER: Click to show

{Freeform Prompts}
Careful - Jam the Groudon
- observe your environment carefully
- bide your time
- wait until you're in position
- carefully line up a precision shot
- anticipate a move before it hits
- take a hit on a non-essential part of your body
- find cover
- use a healing/draining move
- use a defense/sp.def-raising move
- use an evasion-raising move

Sneaky - Pan the Nidoran (f)
- use a teammate to cover your attack
- attempt to conceal yourself
- engage in distracting banter
- attack from behind your opponent
- try to blind your opponent
- fake an injury
- lay a trap
- create a distraction
- use a dark or poison-type move
- use an attack/sp.atk lowering move
- use a status-afflicting move

"July 1st," Bee responded instantly. It was a day ingrained in his mind. You never forget your first electric hot tub egg hatching explosion. "So like, a little under two weeks away. A volcano cake is a a great idea!" Bee agreed. "And we'll serve it on tectonic plates!" He could imagine all the party games now. Pin the leaf on the Chikorita. Hide and go Seaking. Basketball. It was going to be a riot!

Jam stomped across the wobbling sand towards his sleeping foe, like a tiny, bright-red Godzilla walking across gritty pudding to reach the buffet table. He lined up the perfect attack on his sleeping opponent, opened his mouth super wide, and took a lunging chomp at Randy.

Nidoran ran for her life. She skittered and sprinted across the hard-packed sand, stumbling through the tide pools as the Shadow Ball closed in on her. "No fair! Didn't you hear I'm a lady!?" she screamed. She dove to the side, but the inside-out chocolate cake of pain curved and crashed into her, detonating in a cloud of shadowy smoke. Pan shouted in pain, but quickly shut up as she realized it was an opportunity for subterfuge.

She smothered her coughs, and slunk across the sand, circling around the sound of Azchops' hyperbolic drill. "Oh I've got you now," she monologued, moments before stepping on a Mareanie. Strange poison coursed through her body, mixing with her own and forming a new, deadlier mixture, like when you combine Coke and Pepsi in one cup.

Her skin glowed with sickly blue light, and with stumbling gravitas Pan rose onto her back legs. The glow stopped. "Oh. Is that it? I was kind of expecting more."

"Whoa! Pan! You evolved!" Big Bee exclaimed. He brought up his UI and checked to see if she had learned any cool new moves. "Huh. No. Okay, well you can almost, no, you're actually further away from learning Toxic. Well what about Earth Power? Level seventy-one?! Sorry Pan, that may have been a straight-up downgrade. But when you evolve into Nidoqueen then you get access to..." he clicked through the UI. "Superpower. No Megahorn? Oh. That's Nidoking only. Same with Peck, for some reason. Okay, but you can use Ice Punch since I've got the TM, so you've got that to look forward to."

And with that pep talk Pan threw herself into the fray again. "No Megahorn?" she seethed, fists glowing with poisonous light. "That's fine. I don't need them to finish off this rubbery worm thing!" She lunged at Azchops, raking at his rubbery hide with her glowing, poisonous fists.

SPOILER: Click to show

{Freeform Prompts}
Careful - Jam the Groudon
- observe your environment carefully
- bide your time
- wait until you're in position
- carefully line up a precision shot
- anticipate a move before it hits
- take a hit on a non-essential part of your body
- find cover
- use a healing/draining move
- use a defense/sp.def-raising move
- use an evasion-raising move

Sneaky - Pan the Nidoran (f)
- use a teammate to cover your attack
- attempt to conceal yourself
- engage in distracting banter
- attack from behind your opponent
- try to blind your opponent
- fake an injury
- lay a trap
- create a distraction
- use a dark or poison-type move
- use an attack/sp.atk lowering move
- use a status-afflicting move

"The most amazing thing!" Bee echoed, and a single tear of joy sprouted in his eye like a fresh new dawn. There was truly nothing more glorious in this world or the next than seeing two Pokemon evolving simultaneously. The culmination of months of adventure, love, and growth. It was a blindingly beautiful event in its own right, and also a shining symbol for the universal truth that everyone could change for the better. Pokemon were just a bit showier about it.

"Whoa! And that must be the coolest thing in the world!" Big Bee said, tracking Azchops as the powerful Dunsparce skipped across the water like an inverted dolphin. "How is he doing that?" Whether it was simply a combination of natural body fat and high velocity or something more sinister, Bee had to find out his secret.

Meanwhile Pan had a question of her own as she hunkered behind a black chunk of beach rock. "Why is that bouncy idiot getting bigger?"

And then it hit her.

There was a brutal moment, right as the rubbery ball of inertia filled her vision and she gripped the stone harder, that she realized this was going to hurt. A lot. "This is going to hurt a lot," she thought briefly.

The collision shattered the rock like a rubber bullet hitting an apple, and Pan went tumbling along the beach in a cloud of chunky debris.

Pan has Fainted!

Jam wrestled with ワルヴィル. He was far stronger than he had been as a cheeky little Sandile, and as the brutal tail swings smacked at his stomach Jam's jaws slipped loose in a burst of scorching air. He gasped for air, blood boiling as he stared down his bipedal foe. Battle rage flowed through his body like magma veins, low and slow and unfathomably hot. He exhaled sulfur. His claws burnt the sands and he sunk into two inches of molten glass. Jets of volcanic steam ruptured the ground like holes stabbed from below by a giant fork. Flames spilled upwards as the earth sprayed its boiling blood across the battlefield.

Jam used Lava Plume

"Watch out Yggy!" Big Bee shouted, "Jam's trying to be the hottest thing in the world! He's going Krakatoa again! Or what was the one you said? Kilamanjaro? No that's the African one. Kilawea?" Burning glass splattered on the ground around them and Bee pulled Yggy towards a nearby dune. "Doesn't matter. Let's get out of here!"

SPOILER: Click to show

{Freeform Prompts}
Careful - Jam the Groudon
- observe your environment carefully
- bide your time
- wait until you're in position
- carefully line up a precision shot
- anticipate a move before it hits
- take a hit on a non-essential part of your body
- find cover
- use a healing/draining move
- use a defense/sp.def-raising move
- use an evasion-raising move

Sneaky - Pan the Nidoran (f)
- use a teammate to cover your attack
- attempt to conceal yourself
- engage in distracting banter
- attack from behind your opponent
- try to blind your opponent
- fake an injury
- lay a trap
- create a distraction
- use a dark or poison-type move
- use an attack/sp.atk lowering move
- use a status-afflicting move