Zac ducked, dodged, and fought dirty as the Kartana chased him around the abandoned barn. He thew hay in its no-eyes, hid behind chest-high walls, invoked the 5th amendment, and screamed at Petal to call someone called 'Donny Big' who worked at Blockbuster.

"JUST GET HIM ON THE LINE!" Zac screamed, as Kartana mowed through a length of wood like a guinea pig through a celery stalk. "HE KNOWS WHAT TO DO!"

"What's a line?!" Petal asked frantically, her voice full of high-pitched worry and a desperate want to save the life of her best and only friend.

She looked around for a line. A fishing line? No dice, they were in a barn and there wasn't so much as a wet well nearby. A punch line? No, that usually came at the end of the conversation and not usually in her internal narration. How about a conga line? With only her, Buzzster, and Kartana here and no Donny in sight it was a long shot. But she would do anything to help him.

As Petal tried to drum up support for a conga line, the battle between Zac and Kartana became increasingly one-sided. In the same way that the Earth is one-sided. In the same way that the fight between Gorge Foreman and Cyber Muhammed Ali was one-sided. In the same way that a game of rock-paper is one-sided.

One of them fought with sleight of hand and no discernible morals, and other fought with a friction-less body made of tessellating steel blades.

"Nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law;" Buzzster recited, as he threw himself into a horse trough to escape the whirl of furious slashes. The trough was empty, and he slid a few meters before the bottom gave out and he dropped through onto the dirty hay floor. He army crawled under the trough before rolling to freedom and sprinting for the nearest ladder up to the hay loft. "Nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation!"

Shroomish was no liberal. He was up here with Zac in the hay pile, and the two came face to face in a moment of shared shock. Buzzster was the first to recover. "Sorry to muscle in on your sunning spot, Mr. Perlman."

Shroomish frowned.

"Now I don't wanna impose, and by the way I loved you in Hellboy, but I need a bit of help. Waddaya say?"

Shroomish frowned.

"Okay, I get it, but trust me what's good for the goose is good for the gander, and take a gander at the bloody goose that's trying to cook me," Zac said, as he reached out to grip the Shroomish with one hand.

Zac shrugged off the hay like a bear shedding a coat of snow, and he pointed the handheld Shroomish down at their shared attacker. "See that guy?"

Shroomish wriggled in Zac's grip.

"Me too buddy, but we're bound by blood at this point. Get 'em Hellboy!" Buzzster yelled, and he squeezed Shroomish with both hands, sending out a spray of poison spores.

The poison attack had no visible effect on Kartana, who was a steel type and thus completely immune.

"Oh yeah? Well try this?" Zac said, as he adjusted his grip and squeezed Shroomish again, this time firing a stun spore.

This time Kartana's grass typing protected it, and the spores were gently shed from its body like water off a well-oiled duck.

"Or this!"

Leech Seed tangled Kartana, only to be instantly shed, since grass types are immune to Leech Seed.

"Wait a sec," Buzzster said, stowing Shroomish under one arm so that he could use both hands to tap at his UI menu. He navigated slowly into settings and turned 'Battle Mode' off 'Realistic' , past 'Standard', and all the way up to 'Cinematic'. "There we go, that should make things much easier."

As Zac exited the menu Kartana was waiting in melee range. Buzzster leaped backwards with fright, avoiding the incoming attack like a grasshopper jumping away from an oncoming lawnmower. "Bloody sneaking up on me!" he shouted. "Shame on you!"

With the UI changes, Buzzster's previous attacks started to take effect. Kartana was slowed to a crawl as paralyzing spores and draining seedlings took root. Sickly purple poison numbers started to tick up as the toxins wore away at Kartana's health.

Zac grinned as the tides of battle shifted in his favor, revealing the dry bay of success before that's always visible right before the tsunami of profit. "Ready Hellboy? It's time to send this guy back to Staples."

Shroomish frowned.

Kartana batted Shroomish away and advanced on Zac. gleaming blade arms held wide.

Now defenseless, Buzzster backed up, hands held open-palmed towards Kartana in defensive post. "Now listen," he said, stepping over chunks of metal and spilled nails. "We've had some good times together, haven't we?"

Zac tried to pull up the memories of his times with Kartana. There were exactly two instances they had interacted: the blink-and-you'll-miss-it instant where he accidentally caught the Ultra Beast in Ostellia, and this moment in the barn. He frowned. "Well, I guess not. That's my mistake, I must have been thinking of another guy."

Zartana advanced faster.

"But wait!" he said, putting on his most winning smile. "That just means there's more chance for us to grow close! Maybe even to develop a bond powerful enough to conquer this upcoming Poke-lympics!"

Zac backed up further, reaching into his pocket before Kartana could violently refuse his offer of friendship. "Listen, I know we're had our share of quarrels," Buzzster tried to think of specific moments, and his mind provided the exact same two situations. "Like right now! But honestly, I have something that I think will change your mind."

Zac pulled out his wallet. "See this?" He chuckled. "Let's just say this baby is full of all kinds of special little treats for my friends. Including my old pal Alexander." He gave Kartana a wink, before tripping on spilled paint and tossing his wallet halfway across the barn. "Ahh!" he yelled, though by some extraordinary stroke of luck his wallet had caught Kartana's attention.

The Ultra Beast flew across the barn and inspected the fallen wallet.

"PETAL! NOW!" Buzzster yelled.

Petal bit through the last strands of rope that held the barrel up in the rafters. The rope snapped, and the massive barrel of dry cow feed plummeted to the ground with gravitational force. It smacked Kartana out of the air before hitting the ground in an explosive shower of grain and wooden chunks.

Zac laughed, coughed as the air filled with barley dust, and then laughed again. Buzzster nodded slowly as he looked at the barn floor now covered in paint, broken farm equipment, nails, and now a slowly collapsing pile of homicidal grain. "Well Petal, it's about time we hit the road."

"What! But what about Kartana! You should return it! And I thought you bonded with the Shroomish!"

"Oh! Well, sure. I guess we could take him along." Buzzster returned his bladed frenemy and caught the frowning Shroomish. "Nice! You know where we've gotta go now?" he asked Petal.

She looked at his sliced and battered body. "To the...to the Poke Center?"

"For what?"

"...healing?"

Zac tossed the idea around in his head like a Shroomish. "You know what Petal? You're right. Let's go get some healing." He picked up Petal, put her on his shoulder, and the pair immediately got lost in the deep woods.