Fire Beats Bug

If that poison sting lands, you know what happens next. It happened before in your fight against Baz. It doesn’t matter how strong Charmander is, he’ll slowly been worn down just by time itself.

“DODGE IT!”

You don’t know if it’s the urgency in your voice, or what, but Charmander leaps into action faster than you’ve seen him react to your commands before. He leaps to the side, and the Weedle goes charging past, completely whiffing its attack.

“Now, use ember!”

With impressive dexterity and energy, Charmander fires his little bolts of fire, which rain down on the pathetic little bug.

When the smoke clears, Weedle is conscious no more.

“Damnit. Metapod, go! Use string shot!” The Bug Catcher seems frustrated already.

“Counter with ember!” You yell.

The ember lands, but so does the string shot. Charmander is now standing on a rather sticky patch of dirt, but also the Metapod is defeated.

“Kakuna, your turn! String shot!”

“Ember!”

You wonder if you should feel cheap or not for just using the same move over and over again. Or perhaps its just this idiot’s fault for only collecting bug Pokemon.

Kakuna goes down just as quickly as the other two, but now Charmander is truly stuck - he can’t lift either feet. You feel extremely relieved that Weedle has already been and gone, since Charmander would have much less ability to dodge right now.

“Caterpie! Come out and use tackle!”

“One more ember, Charmander!”

The Bug Catcher was smart, and summoned the Caterpie to the side. This means that Charmander has to turn himself to aim the ember correctly, which seems to pose a challenge. The Caterpie is able to approach him and bash him in the side, sending Charmander to the ground, but also ripping him free of the String Shots.

“Char char CHAAAAR!” A fourth flurry of flames escapes his lips, and the **** Caterpie is quickly recalled.

The Bug Catcher raises his hands in frustration, communicating that he is out of Pokemon. You’ve won!!!

“WOOHOO! Go Charmander! Go team!”

“Thank the stars.” Belle says from down below, still stuck to the ground on her back. “But, um, I’m afraid there’s more.”

You look down to see that Belle is covered in Caterpies. They’re crawling all around and over her, expelling a bit more silk, making sure that her limbs are well and truly bound.

“I hate bugs…” She whines in a shaky voice.

“Whose are those?!” You ask, angry that someone was messing with your friend while you were distracted with your battle.

“Those would be ours.” A third voice says, from behind you.

You turn around, and find nine or ten more bug catchers standing there behind you, Pokeballs at the ready.