We gathered up the bags and lanterns and followed Jordan and Sudowoodo through the corridor that led out of the cavern, the one in the back that wasn’t blocked. The trip through the caves seemed much the same as before – glaring Pokemon, pools of water, etcetera – but it was less unsettling now that we had another trainer there to support us.

There was one major difference compared to our previous progress through the caves. Whenever Jordan and Sudowoodo saw a Pokemon that was acting a little aggressive, they didn’t run away; then ran towards the creature and attacked. Jordan told me it was all a part of their training and waved off Isaac’s concerns by saying that wild majū who fainted at the end of a battle always woke up again after an hour or two. Besides, most of their battles didn’t lead to the opponent fainting. Usually the wild creature ran away when it was clear they weren’t going to win.

I thought about copying Jordan and getting into practice battles, but Drowzee still looked a little worn-down, even though he’d been pepped up by the berries he’d eaten. So we held back and watched instead, even when the wild Pokemon looked like something Drowzee might have a chance of defeating.

“So,” Jordan asked after he and Sudowoodo successfully scared a Raticate off down a side tunnel, “what are three people and an under-leveled majū doing down here in the caves, anyway?”

“Gathering materials for a project,” Isaac said. “Unfortunately, I seem to have forgotten where a certain stone deposit we need is located.”

Jordan raised his eyebrows. “Stone is easy,” he pointed out. “It’s all over these caves.”

“This is a special kind of stone,” I added. “It glows with a weird kind of energy and is really smooth.”

“It’s a tumblestone,” Florence chimed in.

“Tumbled stone,” Isaac corrected. “Here, I have a sample.” He dug one of the sample stones out of his bag and showed it to Jordan. The stone’s muted glow looked more natural in the dim light of the caves, like it belonged there.

The trainer eyed the sample for a moment, then nodded. “I’ve seen that before. There’s a pocket of the caves that has a whole bunch of them a few tunnels away.”

“Wait – that is perfect!” Isaac exclaimed, probably louder than was entirely wise. “We could gather the stones we need and still return home in time.”

“That works for me,” Jordan replied with a casual smile. He had us turn around and go backwards for a few minutes; then we turned to walk down one of the side tunnels that ran next to a narrow strip of water.

After we’d walked forward a little while, Sudowoodo stopped and shook his branch-limbs briskly. Jordan nodded and pointed across the room. “Right over there – that’s your tumblestone, correct?”

“Tumbled stone,” Isaac said, though he was starting to sound weary. He peered across the room, then brightened. “Yes, I recognize this room now! This is where I found the stones the first time.”

Jordan smiled in his easy way. “Good! You go ahead and collect your stones. We’ll wait here for you.”

Isaac looked over at him with a puzzled expression. “You aren’t coming with us?”

Jordan just pointed at the cavern floor in front of us. I leaned to the side to look around him and was surprised to see that the floor smoothly dropped off into another pool of water that divided the rock we were currently standing on from the stone on the other side of the room.

“Water. Of course,” Isaac said with a sigh. Then he sat down and started unlacing his boots. “Monroe, Florence, are you coming?”

I did my fair share of grumbling, but in the end I also took off my sneakers and socks and stored them in my bag for safekeeping. Then I rolled up my jeans as far as I could and carefully stepped into the water, holding my lantern up high so it wouldn’t get wet.

We were lucky – the pool of water was shallow, only reaching up to my knees, and the ground beneath the water was smooth. It was hard to see into the water, but since it was so shallow I wasn’t too worried about anything lurking under the surface. I waded out a bit further and motioned for Drowzee to follow me; he didn’t seem too enthused about the idea, but eventually he waded into the pond.

We had been walking out into the water for only a minute or two and were already halfway across when I felt the first nibbling around my ankles. For a moment I stood still and tried to peer down into the water. It was useless; the light from the lantern just reflected off of the surface, I couldn’t see further into it at all.

When the nibbling returned, I gritted my teeth and plunged my free hand into the water. I felt smooth scales under my fingers for half a second before the fish slipped away. I didn’t have to wonder what it could have been for long – the Pokemon splashed up onto the surface with an angry “Deen!” a few seconds later.

“Uhh, hi,” I told the wild Goldeen, trying to edge away from it in the water as subtly as possible. “We’re just passing through, so if you don’t mind…”

The Pokemon gurgled and thrashed its tail back and forth in the water, sending a fine spray up into the air. Then it lowered its head, and the horn on its forehead gleamed in the lantern light.

I screeched and jumped out of the way as the Goldeen rushed me, barely managing to stay on my feet. “Drowzee, use Disable!” I called back to my starter as I started wading as quickly as I could after Isaac. The older man glanced back at me, saw the Goldeen (who had smoothly turned itself around to face me again), and picked up his own pace.

A blue ring shot out of the air behind me and passed through the Goldeen; it splashed to a stop, looking confused. Then the fish shook its head and, I swear, glared at me, which is a really odd expression to see on a fish. Drowzee splashed up next to me around then, panting as he looked between me and the other Pokemon, and I turned to look at him.

“Now try Pound,” I told him, “but run back over to me before –”

We were interrupted by a giant ring of water that smacked into the two of us and sent us both down into the pool. For a moment I couldn’t see anything – the world was just dark water and cold stone. Then I sat up so my head was above water, took a deep breath, and sent my own glare right back at the Goldeen, who was currently bubbling in a smug way. (My glare was probably less effective than the Goldeen’s had been since my glasses were streaked with water.)

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Drowzee stood up next to me and shook water out of his ears with a few indignant mutters. I was about to tell him to go attack the annoying fish when Florence waded in between us and the Pokemon and shook her head vigorously.

“I think they are done,” she told us quietly, sneaking a glance back at where the Goldeen was floating with its eyes and horn above the water. “Retreat while you still can.”

“It attacked us first,” I grumbled in response, but Florence just grabbed me by the arm and pulled me up from the water, then started pushing me towards the opposite shore. Drowzee looked back and forth between us and the Goldeen, then snorted and followed us away.

At first I kept glancing over my shoulder, because I was sure the Goldeen would attack again, but it seemed like Florence was right as the Pokemon just watched us wade away. After a little while I had to focus entirely on where I was placing my feet; wading had been hard before, and it was even more difficult now that I was soaking wet from head to toe and my lantern had been doused.

Florence didn’t elaborate until we safely made it to the other side of the pool. Once we had all dragged ourselves out of the water, she sighed and gave me a pointed look. “You trespassed on their territory; of course the fish attacked. The best thing to do in that scenario is show that you are leaving as quickly as possible.” She made a face. “I had to learn that lesson several times over the past few years.”

“I told it we were only walking through,” I pointed out, but Florence just shot me a flat look and shook her head. I huffed indignantly, took a minute to wipe off my glasses on the edge of my jacket (it didn’t help), then turned to see what Isaac was doing. He had knelt down by a jumbled mess of rocks that glowed faintly in the darkness and was writing furiously in his notebook.

“This should be the correct kind of stone,” he called back to us as we joined him. “I think we can primarily focus on collecting the pebbles and smaller stones, but I will start work on digging out this larger chunk as well.” He pulled a small hand-shovel out of his bag and started digging around the base of the large rock right away, not even sparing a glance for Florence or myself.

I looked at Florence, who shrugged and then knelt down to start scooping pebbles into her bag. I sighed and took a moment to empty my bag and ring the water out of it before I joined her. My shoes and socks were horribly wet; I stared at them mournfully before I stuck them back into the sack with my water bottle and the few tools I had brought along.

The glowing stones were surprisingly lightweight, much easier to pick up in handfuls and move into my bag than I had expected. That was good, because we would need to lug the bags full of rocks back to Azalea once we were done. I focused on the stones as I picked them up, observing how the strange light seemed to move around inside them when I moved my head from side to side.

These stones had to be related to the energy forms of Pokemon in some way. Would they react to a Pokemon even when they weren’t set up in an apricorn or another container yet? I picked up one of the larger stones and turned to Drowzee to see if he was willing to experiment.

But just as I opened my mouth to call out to my Pokemon, a large shape burst out of the water right next to where I was gathering stones.

For a moment I simply stared at the stocky blue and purple figure. Then I groaned and sat back, resting the palms of my hands on the ground. “Not again,” I muttered under my breath.

I probably should have freaked out and yelled at Drowzee to attack the lumbering figure that I belatedly recognized was a Quagsire, but honestly, I was getting tired of being attacked by crazy wild Pokemon. And Quagsire were known to be fairly carefree Pokemon (or at least they had seemed that way on TV), so I figured I could talk this one down if I tried.

“Hey, Quagsire!” I called out, waving my arms to get its attention. I ignored Florence as she turned to look at me in a horrified way. “You can calm down! We’re just borrowing some of these stones, we won’t stay for very long.”

And at first, it seemed to work. The Quagsire tilted its head to the side and gazed at me with a puzzled expression.

Then it spat a ball of mud right at me.

I was too surprised to dodge; instead, I took the mud right in the chest and fell over from the impact. It hurt much more than I would have expected, and some of it had splattered up into my face as well, which left dark streaks on my glasses and across my mouth.

I sat back up only to see that the wild Pokemon was now charging towards me, shouting “Quaaag!” as it went. I shrieked and rolled to the side the way that Smith had taught me and the Quagsire slammed down next to me, grunting as it hit the ground. I took the extra moment that the miss had gained me to get up and look around wildly; Isaac had backed off and was sheltering behind a pile of rocks by the wall, Florence was shouting at me about how could I be so stupid or something along those lines as she grabbed a fistful of pebbles, and Drowzee was running over to join me.

Jordan’s voice echoed over the water and caught my attention as the Quagsire got back up on its feet. “You can handle this, Monroe and Drowzee!” he called out cheerfully. “Use your attacks!”

“We only have one real attack!” I yelled back. Drowzee had reached me by that point, but I had to push him to the side so the two of us could avoid a Water Gun that the Quagsire had just spat at us.

“What?” Jordan sounded more concerned now. “Partner, can you reach it with Rock Throw?”

I heard Sudowoodo cry out “Do!” in reply, shortly followed by the sound of a splash out in the water. I gritted my teeth; Jordan and Sudowoodo weren’t going to be much help if they were stuck on the other side of the pool.

“Try Hypnosis,” I suggested to Drowzee while gripping his shoulder and drawing the two of us back away from the water. Drowzee nodded and waved his hands, sending the usual blue light off towards Quagsire. For a moment the bulky blue Pokemon wavered back and forth, its eyes fluttering sleepily.

Then something strange happened. The Quagsire leaned a bit further to the side, touched the large glowing stone Isaac had examined before with its tail, and then transitioned into its energy form, just like that. I stood still and watched as Quagsire’s light ricocheted through the large stone, casting off sparks as it hit sharp edges.

“Huh,” I said out loud, too fascinated to do the smart thing and back away. It looked like tumbled stones in the wild had weird effects on Pokemon too.

Everyone else in the cavern had also fallen silent; all eyes were on the light that tumbled through the stone, bouncing off of the facets and edges. At least, everyone watched the light until it bounced out of the stone and reformed into a very angry Quagsire standing just a few inches away from Drowzee and me.

The wild Pokemon roared and whirled around, slamming its tail into me so that I flew backwards. I yelped as I hit the ground and skidded over the glowing pebbles that littered the floor, rolling until I finally stopped near the water’s edge. When I looked up, feeling somewhat dizzy and very sore, I could see that the Quagsire wasn’t done – it was now lumbering towards me.

“Drowzee, try Disa–” I yelled before being cut off by another Water Gun that the Quagsire spat right in my face. I sputtered and fell down again, covering my face to shield it from the water.

I heard the Quagsire’s roar and the thudding of its footsteps, and I instinctively curled up into a ball and covered my head. The wild Pokemon was fixated on attacking me for some reason, even though Florence had just thrown a handful of tiny pebbles at its back, so all I could do to defend myself was make myself a smaller target and try to stay on dry land instead of falling into the water again. As the thundering drew nearer I winced and curled up tighter, waiting for the first impact.

Then the thundering stopped, and a low moaning took its place. I looked up and was shocked by what I saw.

The Quagsire had stopped its run just a few feet away from where I laid on the ground. It had its eyes scrunched closed tight, its flipper-paws covered its head, and its whole body was surrounded by a soft purple glow. And further back, by the glowing stones, Drowzee was standing with his eyes glowing a bright white and the same soft purple glow surrounding his body, paws outstretched to point at Quagsire.

I was soaking wet, covered in mud, my elbow smarted from where I had hit in on the ground earlier, and I was aching from numerous new bruises all over my body. Despite all of that, I still found myself grinning from ear to ear.

Drowzee had finally learned Confusion.