"Rune you will be taking care of most of the battles since the strongest thing here should at most be slightly stronger than you." I say seriously "Char!" he voices his understanding. I didn't even need to tell Vulcan it's role as the only one left was guarding myself and Tank since we couldn't battle a pokemon directly. Tank less because of it's level and more from it's species limiting it to two rather useless moves in this cave and me because despite being super human I was sub Pokémon still.-

With that settled we headed into the cave confidently only to meet up with a man in hiking gear. "Good afternoon! You should know that the rest of the levels of the cave are very dark , Here this TM will let you navigate it with ease." the man says while handing over a TM with a friendly smile. "Why did you just hand out a TM of all things to a complete stranger?" I asked confused. "Ah , well it's not a very popular move due to how limited it's use is and since I can afford to give them away I figured why not help out anyone who enters the cave?" The man says with a bright smile.-

"That's ... nice I guess?" I say not really sure how to deal with that answer. Such selflessness is so rare that it's practically myth on earth and even here where most people are pretty nice they aren't usually going out of their way to help others for nothing. Hell it isn't even for nothing but LESS than nothing as the man loses money by giving out TMs for free. I was uncomfortable with this and immediately left that area after thanking the man. The cave on this level was a plain brown and rocky and I was pretty sure the rest would be the same.-

I went down the ladder leading to the next level while my pokemon dropped to it through the hole since it wasn't very deep , maybe like ten feet total. To a pokemon that was nothing and they waited for me at the bottom of the ladder. The second level was quite dark like the man said but my glowing crystals did their job and lit up my surroundings well enough. To my surprise Runes tail also served as a bright source of light like a torch that increased visibility substantially.-

That was also how I noticed the fat looking pokemon with yellow skin and large black boxing glove looking hands nearby. It was a Makuhita which was a fairly common fighting type pokemon and had the typing's bad habit as well , it wanted to fight. Fighting type pokemon were famous for their strangely aggressive yet friendly baseline attitudes where despite being very friendly they were also all battle junkies. Most fighting type species mating habits actually involved battle so it should be pretty clear how big battles were to them.-

This particular Makuhita was only level twenty so Rune didn't have any trouble at all winning against it. He basically just paralyzed it before wailing on it with ranged attacks. Once that was over with we started to head into the cave properly and I couldn't help but curse myself for forgetting a rather crucial fact about Sableye as a species , they LOVED bright or shiny things. As a result we were being watched by a lot of the pokemon from the shadows. To be more specific they were eyeing the crystals on my waist with keen interest. Like most ghost type pokemon however they were fairly timid and didn't directly try and snatch them from me.-

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Instead Rune got a continuous back-to-back challenge from each and every one of the pesky pokemon. None of them seemed to want to kill us or anything like that so while it was annoying we also didn't take lethal action either. I got excited however when one particular member of the species came out of the darkness to fight Rune. This one had a different appearance than all the others as it was lankier with longer thicker legs and claws , ridges down it's back and two red horns growing from it's head. The color scheme was also different as it was white with ruby eyes.-

Observing it I grinned widely and felt a desire to have it on my team as the system confirmed my suspicion , this was an ancient variant. Ancient variants were rather unique amongst the various variations as it had properties from a few of the other variant types. For example the color was different from normal , the body shape was different and depending on the species the typing could also be different. In this case though the typing was the same as usual as it was ghost and dark type.-

This particular Sableye had keen eye as it's ability and was only level fifteen so I felt like it should be young enough that i don't need to worry about it having bad habits I need to correct yet. "Join my team and I will make you just as powerful as any of these pokemon." I said seriously. The Sableye cocked it's head to the side at a uncomfortable to look at angle before speaking. "Sa! Sab! Sableye!" it spoke with a whiny echoing voice like a woman speaking underwater.-

Tank translated for me and I roughly understood that this pokemon had no interest in joining me but that it did want my crystals still. I could only sigh at this but had Rune defeat it like the rest since I wasn't going to just hand over what was mine for now good reason. There was no point in trying to capture the thing either as all that will likely accomplish would be to create animosity and disobedience in it. I will admit that I was rather let down by this decision from the pokemon since I was planning to get a ghost type for my team and this would be perfect.-

Eventually though we managed to get through the throng of challengers and reach the chamber that Steven was in. When I saw it I finally understood why there were Sableye on this island at all as there were various small pieces of gemstones in the walls of the cavern Steven was in and that species eats gems. Steven was a well dressed man a few years older than me with short well taken care of silver hair and he was looking at the gems in the walls with a magnifying glass carefully.-

"Hmm?" he hummed in surprise as he heard us walk into the room and turned around to look at me and my team. "Well that is certainly not something you see everyday." he said with genuine intrigue. "Your Pupitar is a beautiful specimen and I love the how the purple and grey blend together at the edges of these stripes here." Steven said with a wide smile as he closely looks Gaia over. 'Well he certainly lives up to his reputation as a rock hound.' I thought with a chuckle.