Chapter 35

  Finally, the two arrived at the bottom of the giant funnel. A giant arching passageway stood before them, and as they walked into it, the environment darkened once again. Larry and his mother could still see completely fine. There was less light in the first layer than in the second, but nothing like the utter darkness of the third layer.

  They kept pace, Larry had had enough dilly-dallying by now, it sure was nice to hang out with friends and explore, but there was a part of him that just finally wanted to be out. The glimpses he’s gotten in the second layer sure didn’t help with that feeling.

  Larry hopped up to his mom and raised his arms with a slight pout, she looked at him confusedly for a second before Larry had to make his demands known, a single word was all he needed, “Up.”

  His injuries weren’t even dull aches anymore at this point and walking around was a completely acceptable arrangement, Larry didn’t need to be carried by his mom anymore. And yet, he’d been becoming spoiled.

  She scoffed with a grin on her face but acquiesced and picked him up, placing him on top of her shoulder. He would have liked to ride her like a young kid, sitting behind her head with both of his legs on her shoulder, but the spikes on her back simply got in the way. So his mom carried him either in her arms like a baby or on top of one of her arms, with them splayed out to the side like he was sitting on top of a tree branch.

  Anyone would have become spoiled with a mother like Larry’s, she genuinely seemed to love him and was so insanely powerful that Larry would be safe for a lifetime if he stayed with her. It brought back what Donphan had mentioned before, his mother had gone on a rampage last year when her child was stolen.

  ‘I’m not her first child…’ Larry felt weird saying so. Last time, he was an only child, so the thought of having brothers or sisters out there excited him. No, that wasn’t the correct word. He felt curious about the prospect, but also happy at the thought of actually having more family. He knew he shouldn’t prod, but he wanted to.

  ‘Maybe later…’ He just wasn’t good at this whole hard topics thing.

  The pathway finally split apart into the giant open space which was the first layer. Light shone into the layer through the multitude of cave exits on their right and pools of clear water shimmered throughout the cavern, Larry could even hear a waterfall in the distance.

  He craned his neck up, and up and up until he almost fell over backward. It turned out the ceiling of the cavern was extremely high up. Gigantic stalactites hung from the ceiling. The floor of the cavern itself was mostly downhill, with Larry able to see a variety of platforms jut out from the steep embankment leading to a giant cave exit, even taller than practically anything he had seen before at the far bottom. ‘That’s the exit!’ Larry thought excitedly.

  The place looked empty in comparison to the second Layer, but the noises he heard around himself told him otherwise. Scuttling to his left, rocks shaking to his right, and many more noises let him know that this layer was lived in, in comparison to the third layer it practically teeming with wild Pokemon around here. They were simply hiding away in their everyday life.

  His mother looked around curiously, evidently, she hadn’t been here before either, electing to stay in the third layer and the outside of the mountain for most of her life. While she quickly lost interest in the layer's inhabitants she seemed quite surprised at the amount of water this layer had.

  There had been minuscule pools of water on every layer, either snow from outside which had simply melted when inside the caverns, or humidity which had pooled up in certain areas. It seemed the source for most of that humidity had finally been found though, as the giant pools of water down here made for the perfect place for condensation to build up.

  The only question was how the water was condensing considering it was winter on the outside and almost no sunlight shone into the cavern.

  ‘Maybe it's got something to do with the cavern warming up?’ Larry mused to himself.

  “This place looks annoying…” His mom eyed the giant lakes of water with clear disdain, it seemed she wasn’t quite as big of a fan of water as Larry.

  Larry began to hop around his mother excitedly, “C’mon Mom, don’t be a downer! We’re almost out!” He pointed out to the multitude of cave exits, “I wanna see the outside down here!”

  “Alright, alright,” She lamented, quirking her head to their right. Her eyes fell on another hole in the stark cavern walls far, far away in the distance. Larry noticed her gaze staying on the hole and looked over as well.

  “What’s over there, Mom?” he asked as he looked. The darkness down here made it hard to make out much, but a slight bit of light shone out of the cavern hole even though it didn't lead outside. Supposedly, it led deeper into the cavern.

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  Its most defining feature was the hazy, almost distorted way the hole in the wall seemed to shimmer in the air. It was too far away to make out any details. He could barely see the hole in the wall anyway, so Larry couldn’t be sure.

  “It’s a hole in the wall…” his mother said unsurely. She raised and turned her head in every which way, but it didn’t seem to help. “It looks weird…”

  “Yeah, it does…” Larry agreed. To him, the hole in the wall looked like a mirage. In his first life, he had traveled in the summertime and seen the streets heat up and become hazy and unrecognizable, so he knew what to expect, but his mother had seemingly never seen heat haze before, considering she had lived on top of a mountain her entire life she was bound to not know when what she was looking at.

  Larry knew when he was looking at something fishy, so he tapped his mother's leg, “Think that it has anything to do with what Donphan was talking about? It looks far too weird to be too normal, we should go check it out!”

  His mother grimaced, she had agreed to keep an eye out for anything out of sorts back when they had made camp at Donphan's, but she certainly didn’t expect anything this weird to just suddenly show up. “Mmrgh…” She hemmed and hawed to herself, notching her head from one side to the other in clear deliberation, “The exits over there though…”

  “You promised…” Larry feigned disappointment and his mother's facade immediately cracked.

  “ALRIGHT!” She yelled out in annoyance, a small cloud of dust billowed from the ceiling around them and Larry hopped back in surprise. The noises of the cavern around them had stopped completely and Larry suddenly felt very vulnerable.

  “Sorry…” Both Larry and his mother said at the same time.

  “Let’s go,” Larry spoke up after the awkward silence as he led the way.

  …

  The air down here on the first layer seemed to have a mind of its own, it whipped up around the two of them, seemingly fighting against their advancement. As the two of them navigated the system of open grooves between the high walls of the layer, Larry felt more like he was scaling a mountain with how harsh the winds were around them.

  From the heightened vantage point they had entered from, they had had a perfect view of the maze-like grooves and canyons that peppered the layer. The previous layers had been completely straight, with the walkway on the third and the funnel on the second. Here on the first layer though, the challenges of the layer came by navigation itself and not any powerful Pokemon which would be inhabiting the place.

  “Eeny, Meeny, Miny, Moe…”

  “What are you doing?” His mother asked in an exasperated tone.

  “...Miny…Moe…” Larry's hand pointed to the right path, and he nodded thoughtfully, “Alright, we’re going this way.”

  She huffed at being ignored but followed regardless. The air down here was damp, and with the giant pools of water, it seemed the humidity was wild. Stalactites dripped around them, and the echoes of tens of different droplets could be heard around them dripping incessantly. The smell of damp earth and minerals seemed to coat the back of his throat down here. Larry quirked his head to the side and saw a panicked Wooper hop around into cover to hide away from the two of them.

  The two of them came upon multiple smaller pools of water and skirted around their outside, keeping a safe distance so as not to disturb any of the layer's inhabitants. Even if they had only seen weaker Pokemon, they were bound to meet the stronger members of the layer sooner or later.

  They stopped to take a break after some time and fuel back up on some rocks and stone, his mother whipped her tail into one of the walls nearby, smashing it into a variety of differently sized rocks. She crushed them some more by crushing them under her feet and handed a few to Larry.

  It tasted great, just as usual, but also surprisingly different. The rock down here was far softer, making the sweet umami flavors just hit differently, if before it was like rock candy, it now felt more like soft candy on his tongue. Larry smacked his tongue involuntarily at the taste, content to simply munch away. His mother didn’t seem as enthused about eating as he did, it seemed she didn’t eat for the taste, but the nutrients.

  He eyed his mom as she ate. Just as he was about to recommend a specific rock in the pile they had created, he saw his mother pick up two different rocks. She looked at them critically and took a bite out of one. As she ate, her eyes told him what word couldn't. She squinted and turned the stone over in her hand, inspecting it judgingly. She quirked her head from side to side as she nodded approvingly. She liked the taste, seemingly.

  ‘Is she taking my advice to heart and trying to taste her food more?’ Larry though, slightly moved.

  She swallowed and then bit into the stone in her other hand, her brows creased immediately and weighed the stone in her hand, repeatedly shifting the rock up and down as she practically stared a hole through it. Swallowing, she took another bite, her brow creased again and she pulled the piece of stone in closer to her face, inspecting it extremely carefully for something. Larry got far too curious.

  “What are you thinking about, mom?” Larry spoke.

  His mother jumped at his voice and looked between the rock and Larry slightly abashedly, “Mhm…This rock tastes…I don’t know…” She spoke with a sigh.

  Larry pointed at himself, “Let me have a taste, maybe I’ve tasted it before. This one here tastes weird too, you have a taste of it!”

  The two of them took turns tasting rock and soil, some tasted sweet-savory, others tasted spicy, but his mother seemed to have finally found her tastebuds as she took to nodding approvingly or quirking her head disapprovingly at the different kinds of rocks. It seemed his mother had a taste for a specific light grey kind of gravel which Larry had picked up from somewhere nearby.

  Larry himself still liked the dark black rocks they had found further up in the third layer, they had found some nearby too, so Larry had made himself a meal by mixing multiple different stones by breaking them off into plates. He stacked the plates on top of one another and held them in his stubby little arms like a giant rock hamburger.

  It was safe to say, they ate well tonight.