“I’m boreeed.” Lucas moaned as we walked down the tunnel.

“Well.” I said primly. “You should have thought of that before we started walking.”

“But how was I supposed to know it would be nothing but stupid, boring tunnels with nothing interesting in them?”

“We did tell you that it would be like this.” Ted said.

“Yeah, but, like, there’s nothing here!”

“When I was in the Wayward Cave it was almost excruciatingly boring.” I said. “I mean, it was exciting at first, but after the first week or so of going into the same kind of caves and tunnels, the whole thing loses its appeal.”

Ted nodded sagely, his features shadowed in the dim light of our flashlights.

“Most of the time? Caves are nothing more than stone walls. Not exactly the most interesting thing in the world.”

I joined him in nodding, while Lucas scowled and kicked a loose rock a little bit further down the tunnel.

“How long have we even been walking?”

“Check your phone.” Ted suggested with a light chuckle, earning a few grumbles from Lucas.

Lucas was a good kid, but at the end of the day, he was still a kid, and he was apparently bad at keeping his phone charged. The Rotom in the phone could power it for brief periods, but without an external power source, eventually the Rotom would need to conserve its own power as well.

Unfortunately, considering we were deep within a cave, none of our solar powered chargers would work as well. Our flashlights were in better shape, considering they had a little hand crank to charge the batteries, but I wasn’t sure how long they would last.

I sighed and pulled out my own phone to check the time, which had a significantly longer battery life considering it didn’t need to host a Rotom.

“It’s been a day and a bit since we left the cave-in.” I said.

Despite my best efforts, the other two were convinced that we would be okay with leaving the site of the cave in since there seemed to be a constant flow of fresh air from deeper in the tunnels. I had left a note for the Rangers on a page I had torn out from my notebook, telling them that we were okay and had decided to continue to investigate the caves.

After that, it had been a long day of walking with absolutely nothing to show for it, beyond miles of identical tunnels. When possible we made sure to take the south-facing tunnel, hoping to end up close to Oreburgh City.

If the worst happened, we marked down all of the tunnels with some chalk that Ted had in his pack, so we could return the same way to an exit we knew existed.

“I know that.” Lucas continued to grumble. “But what about, like, since we left this morning?”

I sighed. “Lucas, it’s been fifteen minutes.”

He groaned melodramatically.

“When will something happen?”

I sighed again. “Lucas, if we’re lucky, nothing will happen. We’ll just keep walking for probably a couple days, find the tunnels that lead out of here, and then tell Ranger Kimura in Oreburgh about everything that happened.”

“But like, what about the Steelix and all the cool adventures that you went on? Will I get something like that?”

“I don’t know.” I said, resisting the urge to throw my hands up in the air.

We’d had this conversation almost ten times by now, and I was trying my very best not to get too annoyed at Lucas. I was pretty sure that at least some part of his constant moaning was a way to bluster past any anxiety he may have been feeling about the whole situation, which was fair.

It was easy to think going into a bunch of tunnels was fun to begin with, but after the initial excitement faded, it was easy to see everything that could go wrong.

Lucas grumbled a little more, then fell into silence again. We’d exhausted most of the major conversation topics the day before, and without any external stimuli it was hard to come up with things to talk about.

We walked for another couple hours or so, with absolutely nothing to show for it. Time and distance lost all meaning in the endlessly-similar tunnels, and to be fair to Lucas, it was easy to get discouraged about the lack of obvious progress we were making.

“Hey guys?” Lucas said, and I tried to hold back an annoyed groan as he gestured up the tunnel. “What’s that over there?”

I looked to where he was pointing, only to see the tunnel stretching out before us.

“Lucas, I swear if this is some prank or something to make the time go by, I will-”

“No, seriously!”

“Wait,” Ted said, peering down the tunnel. “I think I see it too.”

We stopped, each of us straining our eyes to see what was going on.

After a few seconds, I started to see what they were talking about. The effect was so subtle at first I wasn’t even sure that I was seeing anything at all, but there was an incredibly dim glow from further down in the tunnel.

“Light’s off.” Ted said, and we all turned off our flashlights.

Slowly, carefully, I reached down to my belt, pulling off Venus’ Poké Ball. Zetian wouldn’t be good in the small tunnel, and while Kōjin could probably use some practice battling, I didn’t quite trust his control over his flames yet.

I turned my head, hearing Ted and Lucas pull their own Poké Balls out in preparation.

“No fire.” I whispered, and Lucas swapped his Ball out for another one - Hardy.

Starting fires in enclosed areas was an awful idea. Even if we didn’t get burned, it was entirely possible that Kōjin could burn off some of the oxygen in the tunnel, or worse - possibly ignite any gas that might be lingering underground.

A single methane pocket could turn all of us into a pile of ashes, and nobody would ever know what had happened to us.

We’d gotten lucky the day before, with the campfire by the entrance. I hadn’t even thought about it until Lucas had already set it up, but there must have been some holes in the collapsed tunnel above us that had let the smoke out.

This is a stupid idea. I thought, as the three of us exchanged nods and started to creep forwards, Poké Balls held at the ready. We’re all going to die.

The light slowly intensified as we grew closer, our feet softly scuffing on the hard-packed dirt of the tunnel floor.

I tried to run through all of the Pokémon that could possibly be glowing in my mind, but gave up pretty quickly. There were just too many options. I sincerely hoped that they weren’t Morelulls or Shiinotics, those things creeped me out.

It might not even be a Pokémon, there were plenty of stones and gems that glowed, spread all across the world in various caves, it could be one of those.

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We crept slowly closer to the dim light, until shapes started to be made more clear. There were two- no, three, small figures that were milling around a particular spot in the wall, which ruled out the possibility of glowing gems. Thankfully, they were also much too small to be Shiinotics.

It wasn’t until we were about fifty yards away that I was able to make them out clearly. The light that they were emitting was incredibly dim, but we had spent enough time down in the caves without any sunlight to make it seem brighter than it actually was.

As we came into view, I started to relax, despite the otherwise tense situation. The shapes were small, about a foot tall, pink, and relatively round.

I almost felt like laughing, considering how nervous I had been.

“They’re Cleffa!” I whispered, and Lucas chuckled.

Ted didn’t, however, and I could practically hear his frown.

“What are they doing down here?” He said. “Cleffa don’t normally live this deep underground.”

“The cave-in?” I offered. “They like mountains, maybe they were caught up in the mudslides, and when they were trying to get back to Coronet, they got stuck due to the cave-in?”

“Wouldn’t that mean that the path up ahead is blocked off then?” Lucas said, and my heart sank slightly.

“I don’t know.” I said, trying to rally all of our spirits. “But we won’t know until we get closer.”

Stepping forwards, I carefully edged past my other two companions to approach the Cleffa. They noticed me when I was about twenty yards away, looks of panic spreading across their tiny faces.

“It’s okay!” I said, putting Venus’ Ball back onto my belt and holding my hands up. “We’re not here to hurt you.”

One of the Cleffa put itself in front of the other two with a mixed expression of fear and resolve.

“Easy there,” Ted said, stepping up himself.

The lead Cleffa seemed to tremble as it stared up at a creature six times its size, until Ted kneeled down, bringing him closer to the brave Pokémon.

“Like my friend said, we’re not here to hurt you.”

He slowly reached into a pocket before bringing out a square cube of compressed food - a Pokéblock. Ted was from Hoenn after all, and while Sinnoh preferred its Poffins, Ted had brought his Pokéblock machine with him. He’d tried sharing some with Lucas and I’s Pokémon, but they preferred the baked Poffins.

The Cleffa, however, had likely never had a Poffin before, and I could see its eyes widen dramatically as it sniffed the block of food.

Remarkably, it took a step back, looking at its two compatriots before facing down Ted once again.

He let out an impressed huff, and brought out two more Pokéblocks, setting them down in front of the other two Cleffa.

They didn’t have the same fortitude as the first one, and they jumped at the treats, scarfing them down quickly.

The protecting Cleffa hesitated for a few seconds longer, but its own hunger took over, and it quickly picked up the Pokéblock to start gnawing on it.

“Oh, Arceus.” Lucas said, and we both turned to see him poking at the wall the Cleffa had been looking at.

The lead Cleffa made a distressed sound of alarm, and tried to move forwards to stop him, but it was too late. Lucas pulled out several large stones, some of them larger than my head, and I had to wonder how strong the kid actually was.

Then I saw what he had seen, and my heart plummeted.

A Clefairy was partially buried, covered by enough stones that I hadn’t even noticed that it was a Pokémon at first. The poor thing looked awful, and I feared for a minute that it had died when the stones had collapsed.

Then its chest moved ever-so-slightly as it took a breath, and some pebbles tumbled off of the pile of rocks.

Tears began to form in Lucas’ eyes as he started pulling the stones off with more fervor.

“This is my fault.” He said, a mixture of sadness and anger in his voice. “If I hadn’t gone after that Plate, if I hadn’t caused the cave to collapse…”

“You couldn’t have known this would happen.” I said, trying to reassure him, but Lucas ignored me.

He kept digging at the buried Pokémon, shoulders shaking occasionally.

I didn’t say anything else, instead moving to Lucas’ side to help shift some of the rocks

“It’s okay.” I heard Ted say to the assembled Cleffa. “We’ll make this right.”

/^\

It didn’t take that long to free the Clefairy, all things considered. The Cleffa had struggled with the task, but that was because they were so small, and even the prodigious strength afforded to many Pokémon wasn’t able to help move the large stones.

With Lucas’ resolve, however, we were able to excavate the buried Pokémon and get it set up on a blanket.

We pooled our Potions and Berries together, trying to figure out what would be the best way to save the Clefairy. Potions were the next best thing to magic, as far as I was concerned, but even they had their limits - at least, the ones we were able to afford did.

Still, we were able to get enough healing items together to get the Clefairy looking relatively healthy again, although it was still unconscious. It wasn’t until Lucas brought out his final item that we were able to actually wake up the Clefairy.

For a long time I had wondered how Revives actually worked, and to my surprise, they were essentially smelling salts.

He pulled out the spiky medicine and crushed it in his palm, right underneath the Clefairy’s face.

Immediately a noxious scent filled the tunnel, and while Ted, Lucas, and I all wrinkled our noses in disgust, the three Cleffa basically started rolling around, trying to block their noses.

The bold Cleffa even tried jumping at Lucas to get his hand away from the Clefairy, but Ted easily caught the little one and put it back on the ground.

It glared up at Ted, at least until the Clefairy startled awake.

The much larger pink Pokémon jumped to its feet before swaying in place, obviously still a bit woozy from everything that had happened. It looked at us in confusion, before stumbling to put itself between us and the Cleffa.

“It’s okay.” Ted said, for what felt like the millionth time. “We’re not here to hurt you.”

“It’s my fault.” Lucas said, eyes downcast.

He had perked up a little bit as we had healed the Clefairy, but the guilt he was carrying was obvious.

The Clefairy looked at him strangely, and I wasn’t sure if it didn’t understand what he was saying, or couldn’t figure out how he had caused a partial cave-in.

Instead it simply reached out and patted Lucas on the arm, then turned to take care of the Cleffa it was protecting.

“Shouldn’t it be, I dunno, more suspicious?” I whispered to Ted.

“Fairy-type.” He responded. “They’re good at sensing people’s emotions and intentions. It was probably just defending the Cleffa on instinct when it first woke up, then realized we weren’t a threat.”

I hummed, interested. I wondered how that worked exactly, considering a lot of Pokemon had mentions of reading emotions in their Pokédex entries, like Hatterene or Blissey, there was even a meme about them. Was it related to Psychic-types, and their ability to sense emotions? Hatterene and Gardevoir were famous dual Fairy/Psychic-types, but Blissey was a Normal-type.

Sylveon was a pure Fairy-type, but they had the ability to feel people’s emotions if they touched them with one of their ribbons. Was it similar to Clefairy?

I shook off my musings as the Clefairy finished checking over its charges and turned back to us.

It nodded, then tried to shepard the Cleffa past us, heading towards the tunnel we had just come from.

“That way’s closed.” Lucas said as they tried to edge around him. “The cave-in collapsed the exit on top of us.”

The Clefairy paused, brows furrowed. It eyed Lucas consideringly, then looked down the empty path. The Clefairy sighed, and motioned for the Cleffa to walk ahead of it. The little pink Pokémon milled about in confusion as the Clefairy tried to get them to go in the opposite direction, the way that we were going.

They were having difficulty in figuring out what to do, unable to understand why they had to turn back around so the Clefairy sighed again, picked up one of the Cleffa, and waddled over to me.

The taller Pokémon stared into my eyes for an uncomfortable second, and I could feel some kind of pressure building in my forehead.

Then it reached out and pushed the Cleffa into my chest, forcing me to hold onto it.

“Wha-”

The Clefairy repeated the process for Lucas and Ted, giving each of us a Cleffa. Ted got the brave one, who had tried to stand between us and the other Cleffa, and it gave an indignant squeak as it was shoved into Ted’s arms.

When we each had a squirming Cleffa, the Clefairy huffed, and motioned us to go in front of it, down the path.

“Uh,” I said eloquently as I stared down at the pink form blinking up at me. “Are you sure about this?”

The Clefairy huffed again, nodding, and motioned even more adamantly for us to start walking.

We all shared confused looks, especially as Ted’s Cleffa tried to gnaw ineffectually at his arms.

“How did we get roped into this?” I asked as the Clefairy came up behind Lucas, bodily pushing him to start walking.

Ted simply shrugged, and started down the path, struggling a little bit as the Cleffa somehow ended up upside down in his grasp.

The Clefairy walked up, and motioned for Ted to kneel down. It then looked at the ornery Cleffa, and bonked it on the head.

The Cleffa stared at the Clefairy, dazed, but that seemed to do the trick and it settled down.

My head was swimming. It seemed like the past several minutes had sped by, and I had no idea what had just happened.

It almost felt a little bit like I was drunk, one minute we had been kneeling down, helping a Clefairy, and the next I had a snoozing Cleffa in my arms. I tried to think why this had all happened, but nothing really came up, besides the fact that I wanted to help the Fairy-types get out of the caves.

Then there was a pushing at the back of my thighs and I sighed, looking back at the Clefairy who was urging me to get moving.

“Okay?” I said, and the Clefairy looked up at me before nodding in approval and setting off down the tunnel.

“I guess this is what we’re doing now.”