After the excitement of the cavern, returning back to the monotony of the tunnels was jarring, albeit none of us were complaining. The trip to the southern wall of the cave took a little bit longer than it maybe should have - we made sure to give any suspicious pools of water a wide berth, but we didn’t spend long in the tunnels themselves before breaking off to make camp.

There was an alcove just off one of the larger south-bound tunnels that had the glowing gemstones growing out of its walls, and by mutual consensus we all stopped to take a break, especially considering Lucas and I still needed to address the damage done by the Tentacruel.

After getting settled in, Ted and Lucas started carefully cataloging everybody’s injuries and broke out their first aid kits. I’d only taken a single first aid class in college to get some extra credit for my mandatory biology class, and I’d read a couple more books at Professor Rowan’s lab, but my practical knowledge fell short compared to the two people who spent their lives around Pokemon.

“Despite how nasty it looks, most cases of poison can be naturally purged from the body before something becomes fatal.” Ted explained as he crushed some edible charcoal with a Pecha Berry to create a truly disgusting looking slurry.

Ted had stocked up on poison cures during our time in Eterna City, having vowed to never let another Pokéberry incident happen again.

I reluctantly had to admit that his evil witch-doctor concoction did make me feel better as it purged the remnants of the Tentacruel’s poison, even though it tasted absolutely atrocious.

After once again finding myself in awe of the efficacy of medicine in this world, we decided it best to get some rest, since we were all so exhausted. We’d settled on a system of sleeping in shifts last night, since none of us wanted to be caught unawares in the cave.

Once our own wounds were treated, we decided to let out the members of our teams to catch everyone up to speed and treat them as well.

“Have I ever told you how amazing you are?” I asked Zetian while carefully brushing some dust off of her exoskeleton. “I think I should keep a running tally of how much you saved my life, maybe we can have a reward when we hit a milestone like number ten or something…”

She preened, then reached down to gently pet one of her bees that had crawled out of her abdomen, looking for all the world like a benevolent dictator.

Sometimes I worried about her ego.

Kojin whuffed in confusion at my comment, as he had no frame of reference for what I was talking about. After all, he hadn’t been with us for most of our encounters so far.

Ted hummed in thought. “You know, I seem to have gotten in more trouble following you all around than I did on my old Journey back in Hoenn.”

He hesitated for a second. “Well, up to a certain point, anyways. It did get a little… hectic, towards the end there.”

Lucas just frowned and stared at the bowl of travel food we had doled out to everybody.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, nudging him with my elbow.

“Hm? Oh, nothing. It’s just…”

He shook his head. “Why did the Clefairy do that? Why bother messing with our minds?”

Ted and I both shared a concerned look. Lucas was a good kid, and smart as a whip, but at the end of the day, he was still just a kid.

I took a breath, letting it out slowly. “It was probably scared. Most people, Pokémon included, don’t do things out of intentional malice. They’re just scared about something, and they let it infect their thoughts. The Clefairy was probably scared that we would try to hurt it or the Cleffa, and it didn’t want to take that chance.”

“Fairies and Psychic-types tend to be that way.” Ted confirmed. “I would imagine the Clefairy would have been even more scared if it knew that there was a Tentacruel in that cave. Passing by it the first time would have been tough, but having to go back again so soon? I would be scared too.”

Lucas didn’t seem reassured. “I still feel like we should have done something more though. I would feel terrible if something had happened to those Pokémon and we could have done something to help them.”

“That’s a noble goal,” I said carefully. “But we have to look out for ourselves as well. It does nobody any good if we get ourselves hurt - or worse.”

“Keep in mind that the Clefairy didn’t ask us either. I might be feeling worse about leaving it to fend for itself if not for the fact that it tried to mind control us. It was acting in bad faith, and we can’t be expected to be paragons when the other party isn’t being honest with us.”

Lucas’ frown deepened at mine and Ted’s words, but he didn’t push the issue any further.

We sat in silence for a little while longer, before we settled down for the night.

/^\

“Switchback, with me.”

I slowly blinked the sleep out of my eyes as I heard the sound of claws quietly scrabbling along the stone floor. Venus, who didn’t seem to trust me by myself after what happened, stirred from where she was asleep on my chest.

“Muh?” I mumbled, trying to figure out what was going on.

Ted half-turned to face me, his face lit by the dim crystals on the wall. “We heard something down the tunnel from the way we came.”

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I was suddenly very awake, and I put my hand to the ground. Nothing was rumbling, and I hadn’t seen any evidence of metal streaks on the walls.

Probably not another Steelix then.

“What is it?”

“No idea, but if it wants to try to get the drop on us while we’re asleep, it better be ready for a fight.”

At Ted’s words, Switchback’s claws flashed with a metallic sheen before it expertly scrambled up the tunnel wall to literally get the drop on whatever was coming our way.

“Lucas!” I hissed.

The kid mumbled in his sleep, twisting around on his bedroll.

Carefully I worked my way out of my own pile of blankets, and crouched by Lucas’ side. I put one hand over his mouth, using the other to shake him awake.

The hand over his mouth was a good idea, because he jerked like he had been hit with a live wire, eyes frantically darting all around the cavern before they settled on me. I put my finger up to my mouth in the universal sign for “quiet,” then pulled my hands away.

“What are you doing? What’s going on?”

“Ted heard something.”

Lucas blinked up at me, obviously still mostly asleep.

“So?”

“He heard something moving towards us.”

“Oh. Oh!”

“So let’s be quiet, and figure out what’s going on, okay?”

He nodded quickly, extricating himself from the mess that was his bedroll.

Venus and Ted were standing at the entrance separating the rest of the tunnel from the small alcove we had set up in. Switchback was clinging to the roof above them, his claws buried deep into the stone to keep him from falling.

“Are we going out to meet it, or wait for it to come here?” Lucas asked in a whisper as we joined them.

Venus trotted over to me, rubbing her side against my leg, but she never took her eyes off of the tunnel.

Ted thought for a second. “Going out to meet it.” He eventually said.

“If it goes really badly, we can always run back here.”

Lucas and I both nodded, even though it was a fairly ridiculous sight. All three of us were wearing our pajamas, the full set that almost looked like a suit. Ted’s was mint green with vibrant orange Tranpinch all over them, Lucas had a dark blue set dotted with Poké Balls, and I had sprung for an off-white set with cartoon Eevees and its evolutions sprawled in different sleeping positions.

It had been a bit of a process to make sure we could all change in privacy, but the extra comfort of the nice flannel pajamas was well worth it.

Lucas hesitated for a second, then pulled out a Poké Ball, releasing Sunny. With the three of us all having a Pokémon out, we would hopefully be able to scare off whatever was coming.

With a shared nod, we started down the tunnel.

/^\

It wasn’t long until we found the source of the noise.

Ted had mentioned that it sounded like something was shuffling down the tunnel, and while that was mostly true, he had been slightly mistaken.

As it turned out, it was something sniffling down the corridor.

The three of us stared somewhat blankly at the crying Pokémon in front of us, and not for the first time I wondered how my life had gotten to this point.

It was the brave little Celffa who had tried to protect its family, back when it had seen us as threats. The tiny Pokémon was looking worse for wear, its pink skin marred with scrapes and bruises, and its left horn was chipped.

It had obviously been crying for a while, and when it finally saw us, it sat down on the ground and began crying even harder.

“This isn’t another trap, is it?” Lucas asked, peering down the tunnel to try and see if the Clefairy was anywhere around.

Ted had a deep frown on his face, an expression that matched the one I had. “I don’t think so.”

He carefully stepped forwards, kneeling down by the Cleffa. He still dwarfed it, but the little Pokémon looked up with a complicated mixture of feelings plainly visible. Maybe it was something having to do with its Fairy typing, broadcasting its emotions, but I felt like I could read what it was feeling like a book.

Fear, pain, sadness, betrayal, but also a strong sense of righteous anger.

“You tried arguing with the Clefairy, didn’t you.” Ted said.

It wasn’t really a question, but the Cleffa nodded all the same.

“Why?” Lucas asked.

“You might not have seen it, considering all of the poison, but this little one wasn’t very happy with the Clefairy.” I said quietly. “I don’t think it appreciated how it had tried to leave the other Cleffa behind.”

The Cleffa nodded, sniffling a little as it did so.

“So what happened? You tried to get in a fight about it?”

Another nod.

“And you lost.”

The Cleffa froze for a second, then broke down crying again.

Ted sighed, and picked up the Cleffa, holding it in his arms again. This time it didn’t try to bite him.

“You got kicked out of the group, huh?”

“That’s… that’s horrible!” Lucas said, eyes aflame with his own righteous anger. “That Clefairy isn’t just content with leaving its fellows behind, but it’ll actually kick them out!?”

“It’s a tough world out there.” Ted said quietly as he gently rocked the Cleffa.

The poor thing must have been exhausted, as it was already starting to fall asleep. I supposed it had been a very, very busy day for it, after all.

“The Clefairy probably thought it was a liability.” Ted continued. “If this little one wasn’t willing to follow its orders, then what good would it be?”

It was a horrible, cutthroat attitude, but one that made a grim kind of sense. A lot of the Pokémon world was amazing, but like my old world it could be as terrifying as it was beautiful.

Things were probably more raw and unfiltered down here in the caves, away from the steadying hand of the Pokémon League and the effects of people and Pokémon working together. It was more… primal, in a sense.

The Tentacruel was just one example of that. Who knew what else lay in wait in the dark? It was likely just as much for Cleffa's safety that they followed the orders as it was for the benefit of the Clefairy.

I could recognize that it made sense, but that didn’t mean that I had to like it, or even to agree with it. It was a horrific thing that the Clefairy had kicked out the Cleffa, and no amount of justification would stop me from feeling angry about it.

“So,” Lucas said, shuffling in place. “What happens now?”

Ted sighed.

“We go back to sleep.” He responded. “Wake up in the morning like normal, and see what the little one wants to do then. We’ll either let it go, take it with us, or maybe find a safe place for it to go its own way.”

I sighed. It was probably the best thing we could do at the moment, it wasn’t exactly as if we had a Pokémon Center or a Ranger Station we could bring the Cleffa to in order to make sure that it could be safely rehomed.

By this point, the tiny Pokémon was asleep in Ted’s arms, and he looked down on it with a smile tinged with sadness.

A smile of my own tugged at the corners of my mouth. Despite what Ted said about letting it go, I had the very strong feeling that the little Cleffa wouldn’t be going anywhere.