Fearow touched down in the clearing in front of Mt. Silver’s cave entrance. This time around Valerie had been lucky enough to be given a large coverall which had kept her warm. The sun had long since set, the flight over to Mt. Silver taking two to three hours and the winter season not sparing them the daylight required. Next to Maxie and Valerie's Fearow, two more large birds touched down, releasing two more rangers from their saddles in total.

  “Sorry for making you work into the night…” Valerie spoke bashfully as she shucked off the large riding goggles and riding scarf, “If I remembered how long this would take, I would’ve done this in the morning.”

  “Aw, don’t even sweat it. We’re used to working long hours, right guys?” Maxine spoke offhandedly as she undid her Fearows saddle to give it some space to breathe.

  “Yeah, don’t worry Val!” Nicholas, one of the two rangers flexed an arm.

  The last ranger, Arin, huffed out a laugh, “Better than desk work!”

  “Agreed!” The other two rangers replied in unison.

  Everyone released their Pokemon with a cacophony of loud CLACKS! Larry's ball released him and he breathed in the fresh mountainside air, as he shivered at the cold winter air, ‘I never got this far outside back when I was here…’ Next to Larry, Arins Graveler was revealed from the red light of the Pokeball, it looked at him inquisitively before scoffing out an question in caveman-speak, “What you look at?”

  “Nothing! Nice to meet you, my names Larry!” Larry quickly pivoted, wanting to stay in the Pokemon's good graces. The Graveler didn’t seem to care much though, simply returning its gaze to the cave in front of them. Two more Pokemon materialized on his right, Nicholas' Lairon gave a spirited cry of its name, which to Larry sounded more like a simple “Let’s go!” While Maxies Arcanine gave off a few quick barks to the effect of, “Here we go!”

  When Lairon caught sight of Larry staring, it nodded its head courteously, Larry returned the favor and nodded back in turn. Arcanaine seemed far too excited to take notice of the other Pokemon nearby, already trotting in place on its front paws excitedly. The rangers quickly briefed their Pokemon on what was happening as they readied themselves for the cave exploration.

  “Ok, guys!” Maxie announced, “Let’s find out what happened here! You stay in the back Valerie!”

  “Alright.” The three rangers boxed his trainer in, keeping Lairon and Graveler to the sides, with Maxie’s Arcanine’s sensitive ears and nose manning the front.

  Maxie looked at Larry, “You also go up front, Larvitar. This is home turf for you and we’re gonna need someone to lead us.”

  He readily agreed, stepping up front. Larry wasn’t entirely sure if he could find his way around Mt. Silver, since he’d mostly been following his mom as they went down, but the cave system also wasn’t as much of a literal labyrinth as it had been in the games.

  The group entered the cave and all light immediately seemed to leave. The cave air was more humid and muskier than he remembered, smelling more like an indoor pool in disrepair. Larry's eyes slowly began to adjust and he began to see into the distance of the darkness, actually beginning to make out the shape of the cave he’d been in just a few days ago. From the bottom, the impossibly high ceilings of the cave looked even taller. One thing stood out to Larry almost immediately, that there weren’t the same amount of stalactites on the ceiling as before.

  The sight had amazed him last time, with some of them being so large they must’ve been dripping for thousands of years to get to their size. Now though, many were broken off and Larry noted the rubble piling on the uphill of the first layer had increased.

  “Alright, everyone turn on those headlamps!” One of the rangers announced and all the darkness in front of them was immediately vanquished. Only problem was, Larry was fighting to keep his eyes open at the harsh light of their headlamps.

  “Larvitar, do you think you can find your way back to where you and your mom were split up?” Valerie spoke from their formation.

  In the distance, he could make out waterfalls, further away than he’d remembered. He saw a large arching passageway on a tiny plateau, big enough for multiple Onix to pass through at the same time, ‘Hmm, I think this is where it goes up the second layer…’ Looking back, Larry stared at the cave entrance they’d come through, which was even more gigantic in comparison, ‘No time for dilly-dallying, let's find Mom!’

  Larry looked through his memories, to the view he remembered from their trek downwards. If he could triangulate where Moltres lair and the pool of water they’d been forced to cross beforehand were, then they’d be golden.

  ‘I know it's to the left from here because it was to the right when we came from above…’

  “Somewhere around there…” He pointed in the general direction, for now, unsure of the actual location.

  Maxie nodded back, “Let’s go in that direction then, you tell us if you remember something and we’re close, alright?”

  Nodding back, they went on their merry way, to find Larry's mom.

  …

  “So I told him, ‘Where’s Pizza gonna get a job now?!’ and then the guy hung up on my ass!“

  The rangers excitedly told each other stories around an electric cave lamp as they relaxed. They’d walked the winding walkways of Mt. Silver for around three hours into the nighttime before the depressing darkness of the cave had become too much for them and they’d opted to go to bed for the night.

  The trek had been mostly uneventful, with most wild Pokemon already having fled and or reloacting in lieu of the fight which had gone down. Another fact which was easily noticeable to Larry was that the temperature was far colder than before, ‘So it actually was Moltres that was heating up Mt. Silver…’ It was still warmer on the inside than the outside of Mt. Silver, but Larry was certainly happy they had an Arcanine in their party.

  Moltres being the source of the heat was a logical conclusion, but also quite worrying for his mother's prospects. It meant that a single legendary Pokemon had enough heat output to act as a literal space heater for the entirety of a mountain's cave system. Larry remembered how strangely warm it was on the third level when he was first reborn, it put into perspective just how incredibly powerful Moltres must’ve been for it to be able to put out that much heat passively while hibernating.

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  ‘I just gotta hope…’ Larry put the thought away for now, he’d find out soon enough what had gone down in the end.

  Instead, he looked back to their impromptu campsite, an outcropping in the corner of a long, winding walkway. It was shouldered on both sides by inclined hills, which they weren’t keen to climb up. They’d been forced to run from multiple rockslides from the sides by now, luckily managing to escape by simply hastening their pace. Graveler and Lairon had reinforced the rock on the shoulder around their camp with Rock and Ground-TE to stop any rock slides as they slept.

  Their Pokemon kept watch in a half-circle around the campsite, while the humans kept to themselves behind them, eating rations and making smalltalk.

  Valerie for her part was stuck to her phone, still cramming through the data she’d gotten on Larry from the Pokecenter. She’d made it her mission to become a good trainer and was studying his stat and move sheet. It hadn't been obvious to Larry back then, but apparently that healing machine he'd been healed with also analyzed him and gave out a detailed data sheet for the nurses and trainers to look at, ‘Guess that clears up how the trainers know so much about their Pokemon in-game. I wonder what my nature is?’

  Arcanine, Lairon, and Graveler talked to each other further away, exchanging short grunts as Larry overheard their conversation.

  “Rocks.” Graveler began.

  “Too hard, can’t eat those,” Acanine answered stoically.

  “Iron,” Lairon responded.

  “Too hard, can’t eat that either,” Arcanine answered again.

  They turned to Larry, expecting him to prompt Arcanine with something, “Uhh, Berries?”

  “Oh! I love those!” Arcanines tail began swishing from side to side enthusiastically, “You’re good at that game!”

  “Um, what kind of a game is this anyway?”

  Lairon spoke up first, “You talk about foods you like to eat and the other one responds if they also like it.”

  “Is it that exciting?” Larry was slightly amazed by what constituted a game to the trained Pokemon, “Don’t Graveler and Lairon only eat rocks and metals? How would Arcanine be able to eat those?”

  “Me was thinking that too!” Graveler began, slapping the floor in an ‘Aha!’ motion.

  “Good catch, Larvitar! Didn’t think of that!” Arcanine responded happily, “You’re pretty smart!”

  “I guess so…” Larry turned back inwards with a revelation, ‘Maybe all the battle-ready trained Pokemon are all meatheads? Because they don’t sound that thoughtful.’

  “Let’s go again!” Lairon began, “Metals!”

  “Can’t eat those, too hard.” Arcanine responded with a nod, “Pokechow!”

  “Me like Pokechow!” Graveler began in that same caveman tone, “Crunchy pebbles taste good!”

  “Ohh, I like it too!” Lairon responded with an excited swish of its metallic tail, “Metal Pokechow is great!”

  “Me like stone Pokechow!” Graveler cut in.

  “Ugh…” It was going to be a long night for Larry.

  …

  Everyone had retired for the night and the humans of the group had opted for sleeping bags on the cold stone floor. In end, Larry had managed to introduce himself to the ranger Pokemon and make friends with them, they were nice, even if they were meatheads. The Pokemon relaxed next to their trainers with Graveler and Arin taking the first shift as they slept.

  Valerie and Larry were stuffed in the middle of the rangers as they snored away and even Larry was beginning to feel exhausted from his day, it had been quite eventful. From having his first real, sanctioned Pokemon fight to meeting the family of his new trainer and now finally being back in Mt. Silver, and making his way back to his mom.

  “My legs hurt so bad…” Valerie silently complained next to him. Just thirty minutes into their trek, the girl had confessed to being a couch-potato who stayed indoors most days. By the first hour, she had fought for every breath and looked like a zombie every time he’d caught sight of her fighting for her life behind him, ‘Yet she’s still here now. I guess she’s really committed…’

  “You excited to see her again?” Valerie whispered out of her sleeping bag, Larry lying down next to her. The girl was dead-tired, looking more like a maggot with her entire body packed into the sleeping bag's warm interior. The only thing looking back at him from the sleeping bag was her face, Larry nodded back to her query, ‘Very excited.’

  She yawned at him, “How do you think she’ll react to you being caught by a human?”

  ‘Oh, oh no!’ The thought hadn’t even occurred to Larry, ‘That's right! She hates humans doesn’t she?’ His mother had explicitly told him that once he was on the outside he should strive never to be caught and on every occasion humans had been mentioned, shown such hate and vitriol that even Larry was surprised.

  “That bad, huh?” Valerie could already read his face, “Don’t worry, everything should go well if you just tell her. She loves you, doesn’t she? So she’ll understand”

  ‘Well, I can’t do much more…’ He nodded back weakly, unsure of what he would even say once they met, ‘I just hope she won't kill anyone…’

  Valerie fought with the zipper on her sleeping bag before simply giving up and forcing her hands out underneath her chin, “You want a hug? You look like you need one.”

  The notion of being comforted by someone technically younger than him still embarrassed Larry, but his newborn body had other ideas. He scooched over and into his trainer's sleeping bag with a slight apology, “Sorry…”

  Even if she stunk of sweat, he snuggled closer to Valerie. Luckily they had the last shift, so they could sleep the longest.

  …

  The closer the group got to where the fight had gone down, the more destruction they came upon. Giant cracks in the walkway they were forced to hop over, precarious boulders, stalactites which looked to be on the verge of breaking hanging just above their heads like various Swords of Damocles. The other thing they found was a lot of dead water-type Pokemon, corpses of Pokemon idly floating in the water, boiled to death in the fight before they could make it to cooler waters.

  In other places, there were sudden wet divots or small indents in the earth, with giant cracks at their bottom. Clear evidence of places where there was once a body of water which had simply been pulled underground by his mothers earthquaking attacks.

  “All this destruction…” Valerie was awestruck at the amount of destruction she saw.

  Maxie simply patted her on the shoulder, “Means we’re getting closer to where they fought, so it's a good thing.”

  They kept up their pace, at one point Larry spotted a Magmar on the other side of a large body of water, trying to grab a slow-cooked Magikarp off the water surface. He stopped to look at the Pokemon, ‘So those Magmar are still around…’

  The Magmar looked up and their eyes met, it looked between its fish and him on the other side of the underground lake before dropping the fish and pointing at him as it looked behind. Suddenly, two more Magmar came to the water's edge, and looked at their group curiously as they mimed to one another, their voices too far away to be heard.

  “Ah damn, that's a lotta Magmar,” A ranger piped up behind him with narrowed eyes, straining his eyes to see through the darkness.

  “They won’t become a problem, will they?” Valerie asked uncomfortably.

  The Magmar disappeared, leaving the body of water with their fish in hand. Maxie turned them away from the lake, urging them to continue walking, “We’ll just have to wait and see…”