As Tristan continued walking through the SS Libra, he noticed something out of the corner of his eye. To his loyal fox friend, he said, "I see something over there – let's go check it out!" He raised his arm to point in the general direction as he spoke.

The blond trainer and his vulpix walked in the direction that the boy had pointed toward earlier when the small fox pokemon suddenly dashed further ahead of her trainer. He quickly ran to catch up with his vulpix and realized what had caused her to run. The two of them had come across two items – something that looked like it was a rare candy in addition to an ultra ball. Tristan crouched down to pick up both of the items and subsequently placed them in his bag.

Once the items had been put away, the blond man stood back up and said to his starter, "Let's keep going, Vesta."

Barely a minute had passed since Tristan had picked up the rare candy and ultra ball, the blond trainer had run into an onix. Already having made an exception for the lunatone so he could eventually trade it away, Tristan decided it would be best to just battle this pokemon until it either fled on its own or was knocked out.

Now, Tristan knew that his squirtle needed training...but if he read Leviathan's pokedex records correctly, it currently had no water-type attacks, making it nearly useless against the rock-type pokemon at the moment. If he wanted to catch it as trade fodder, that would be one thing, but he just wanted the pokemon out of his way right now.

With his mind made up, Tristan sent out his trusty poliwag and immediately called out to him, "Hit it with water gun!" Kai, the poliwag, quickly shot out a stream of water to the snake-like rock pokemon. Due to the lack of speed for most rock-types, the onix was unable to dodge. However, it retaliated by attempting to tackle Tristan's poliwag. Luckily, however, the blond's onix was able to successfully evade the attack due to its greater speed. As the poliwag had no other damage-dealing moves just yet, Tristan ordered him, "Just keep using water gun, Kai!"]

The small tadpole pokemon, of course, did his best to abide by his trainer's words and was largely successful. There were a few occasions where he was unable to dodge the rock pokemon's tackles but it had been nearly impossible for the onix to dodge the poliwag's water guns – which ultimately resulted in the onix fainting out of exhaustion.

Satisfied with his poliwag's performance, Tristan recalled the tadpole pokemon so that he and his trusty vulpix, Vesta, could continue their exploration of the abandoned ship.

"Hey kid, battle me right now or give up everything you have!"

Tristan was startled the second that he heard those words. It wasn't even a legitimate battle request – it was just the other person threatening to take all of his stuff if he didn't battle. Well, that certainly wasn't going to happen if he had anything to say about it.

"Fine – just remember that you were the one who asked when you end up running back home to your mommy." Provoking the thug who had challenged him probably wasn't the smartest idea, but it would be the simplest way for Tristan to be sure that his opponent would make mistakes. The way that the guy was dressed combined with the way he acted? No real thug would need to go that far to intimidate their opponent – and they wouldn't be giving him a chance to escape, either.

It was a façade – that was something that Tristan was nearly 100% sure about. Confident that he could win, he sent out his squirtle as his 'opponent' sent out a rather weak-looking yanma. "Leviathan, start this off with tackle!" At the sound of his voice, the turtle pokemon charged toward the dragonfly-like yanma with as much strength as he could physically muster. In response, the bug-type pokemon was ordered to retaliate with its own tackle. The turtle and dragonfly pokemon traded tackles back and forth until the yanma was finally knocked out.

The supposed thug recalled the yanma before sending out a spinarak, which prompted Tristan to switch out his squirtle in exchange for his vulpix. Immediately after sending out his vulpix, he called out to her, "Start this off with ember!" The small green spider was badly hurt by the flames propelled toward it by his starter. The spinarak tried to retaliate by constricting the vulpix. The attack had hurt the vulpix slightly but responded with another ember. Tristan's opponent ordered the spinarak to attack with poison sting. In response, Tristan commanded his vulpix once again, "Vesta, finish it off with one more ember!" As Vesta's attack made contact with the spinarak, the green spider finally fainted out of exhaustion.

The thug switched out the fainted spinarak for a rather tough-looking seel. Despite the type disadvantage, Tristan allowed Vesta to remain in position for battle. Once his opponent's seel was in position for battle, Tristan called out an order to his vulpix, "Start off with tail whip and follow up with quick attack!" The small fox pokemon followed the blond's orders as soon as she had heard them come out of his mouth. The seel retaliated by hitting Tristan's vulpix with a headbutt. Tristan's vulpix immediately responded with another quick attack. The opponent's seel targeted the vulpix with icy wind. Vesta responded with another tail whip, followed by one more quick attack. Just when Tristan suspected the seel to perform another attack, it collapsed onto the ground.

Before his opponent had the chance to switch out his pokemon, Tristan commanded Vesta to come back to his side so that he could send out his poliwag, Kai. The numel that his opponent sent out to battle looked a bit stronger than his little tadpole pokemon. Tristan did his best to shrug off that fact, though, as he knew that focusing on that little detail would prevent him from concentrating.

Once both pokemon entered the battle field, Tristan called out to his poliwag, "Kai, blast that numel with water gun!" The tadpole pokemon was hit with a growl and tackle from the numel before it let out a somewhat weak stream of water in the fire-type pokemon's direction. Shortly afterward, Tristan commanded Kai, "Put it to sleep with hypnosis!" Unfortunately, for Tristan, the numel easily dodged the sleep-inducing attack before going for an ember. Tristan's poliwag had an easy time avoiding the small flames and followed by shooting out one last water gun.

The numel fainted out of exhaustion, and Tristan's opponent reluctantly handed over the blond trainer's winnings before stomping away.

Tristan knew that it was unlikely that Vesta and Kai would be able to have another battle without first getting some rest. As the blond trainer had already recalled his poliwag after his previous battle, he simply returned his loyal vulpix to her pokeball. After all, he didn't want to risk her fainting out of exhaustion. While he could always heal the tiny fox pokemon, Tristan would prefer to do that during tougher situations.

A few paces away from where he had been standing during the battle with that so-called thug were a pair of items. As his curiosity had been drawn out, Tristan quickly made his way over to where he had spotted them. In that location, the blond came across a dusk stone as well as a water stone. This was a rather convenient discovery for him as he knew that a water stone was a necessity to evolve his poliwag to its final stage.

After bagging the pair of items, Tristan quickly dashed back to where he had parked his hover bike and headed back toward his home in Phenac City for a quick rest.