When he snuck his way down to the Phanpy, it was lying on the floor before him, gasping for breath from laughter. It gave off weak rasps of breathing with tears in its eyes before turning to Larry.

“Hey, you know you don’t need to do that weird sneaky walk, right?” It said while wiping its teary eyes with its trunk.

“Hm? Why do you think so? I thought that Ursaring would’ve ripped me to shreds for sure.” Larry asked, but the Phanpy started snickering again.

“Pfft, why would she? My dad talks to her all the time you know? She’s lovely, just don’t touch her cubs and you’d be fine.”

Larry was flabbergasted, “W-What? What about ‘it’s hunt or be hunted’?!”

“What’s that?” The Phanpy asked dumbly, tilting its head to the side curiously.

“Hunt or be hunted, y’know? Weak herbivore Pokémon are forced to hide away from large Predator Pokémon so they don’t get killed? You either hunt other Pokémon for food or are hunted by a stronger Pokémon for food.”

The Phanpy looked at him in shock, “Pokémon for food?! I’ve never eaten another Pokémon! I only eat the Berries outside. My dad told me that’s how it’s supposed to be!”

Larry finally had a moment of clarity, ‘I see, this is probably a really young Phanpy who’s still being coddled by his parents. And with the environment down here in the funnel being so filled with wild Pokémon they have started to befriend one another instead of simply killing each other.’

‘Then why were they so hostile towards Dwebbles mom when she came through?’ Larry asked himself.

An idea came to Larry, ‘Wait, every Pokémon I’ve seen up until now is native to Kanto or Jotho, except for Dwebble. Dwebble are from Unova!’

This raised more questions for Larry to answer, ‘What were Dwebble doing here then anyway? Who could’ve brought them here?’

He was ripped out of his musings by Phanpy looking at him with a shocked expression, “W-Wait, h-have you eaten other Pokémon?!”

“Of course not! My species only eats rock!” Larry answered with a shocked expression.

Phanpy sighed in relief, “Hah, good. I couldn’t handle that, that sounds so gross. I think the Graveler further up the funnel also eat lots of rocks, dad told me so some time ago. Just sucks that they’re so rude!”

The realization gave Larry a plan, ‘If it really isn’t hunt or be hunted down here, maybe I can talk to his father and find out more about the environment down here and best case, I can let myself relax here for a few days. I’ve been having too much danger in my life.’

“Really, your dad told you so?”

“Yeah, but you are right that not everyone is as nice as Ursaring. The Graveler living higher up, they always wanna fight, but dad always beats them!” The Phanpy proudly declared.

The Phanpy's father was probably the Donphan Larry had seen before, “Your dad seems nice, is he around right now? The names Larry, by the way, I’m a Larvitar if you’ve never seen one.” So Larry did his best to befriend the Phanpy.

“Oh, nice to meet you, Larry!” Phanpy reached out his trunk and shook Larry's hand with it, “No, I never met a Larvitar. My dad told me about names before, who gave you yours?” it asked as they started walking.

“I gave it myself, actually,” Larry said proudly, “I’ve been trying to get out of this cave, came all the way down from the third floor.”

The Phanpy glanced back at him while leading him to his dad, “Really? That sounds like a tough walk, my dad has been down in the first level before. He told me it was too boring for him, so he came back up here.”

‘Boring, huh? Good to know for my own health.’ Larry thought to himself before speaking, “Huh, is that so? What about you?”

“Me?”

“Ever thought about going somewhere?” Larry asked.

The Phanpy scratched his head for a second before answering, “I don’t think so, I like this place. I can hang out with my dad up here after all!”

RROOOAAAR

A roar reached them, Phanpy looked around quizzically for a second, but Larry felt himself stiffen involuntarily.

“Wonder what has them up in such a tizzy, huh?” Phanpy jokingly said to Larry.

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“Y-Yeah...” Larry dodged, ‘I’ve heard that roar before, that's the second time, let's just hope it stays far away.’

...

The two of them kept walking for a short while and came up to a large hole in the wall of the funnel, before Larry could answer, the Phanpy spoke again, “We’re here! Daaad!” It ran forwards into the hole, and Larry quickly followed after him.

When he got inside, he almost fell back onto his butt, as he stared up at the gigantic Donphan sitting in front of him, it stared down at him with a steely gaze as the Phanpy droned on about Larry next to him.

“…said he was sneaking down all the way from the third level, can you believe it? The way he snuck around Ursaring and the Teddiursa was way too funny! You should’ve seen him!”

He slapped his father’s side a few times for emphasis while regaling him with pretty much everything Larry had told him up to this point. The Donphan though, just kept his eyes trained on Larry, his gaze boring into him.

‘Maybe…this was the wrong choice?’ Larry thought to himself as he saw his life pass him by.

When Phanpy was done and silence finally reigned once more, the Donphan gave off a puff of air before speaking, “What’s a Larvitar like you doing all the way down here?”

Larry swallowed hard, he couldn’t sweat, but it felt like he was, “I’m, uh, I’m trying to get out of this cave and leave into the wilderness outside.” The Donphan stared him down, and Larry thought that this might be the end of his adventure.

The Donphan gave off another puff of air before turning back to his kid, “You sure have come far, little Larvitar. I just hope that your family stays at the top of the mountain, they are overprotective of their young, after all.”

This gave Larry pause, ‘I’ve never even met any family...’ He still couldn’t sweat, but now he really felt his stomach drop, ‘Is... Is that bad?’

He raised his arm and the Donphan looked back to him, urging him to talk.

“U-Um, I’ve, uh, I’ve never met any of my family. Is-, Is that a bad thing?” Larry said while shrinking into himself.

Donphan stared at him quizzically, “What do you mean? Wasn’t your mother present when you were born?”

“I, uh-, I hatched underground and when I dug myself up, there was nobody there. S-So, I’ve just been exploring. S-Should my mom have been there?”

Before Donphan could react, Phanpy ran up to Larry and hugged him close to itself using its trunk, almost crushing Larry in a hug, “You never met your dad or mom?! That’s so sad! Dad, are you hearing this?!”

This didn’t seem to be the answer Donphan expected as it finally sat up, “You have never met any part of your family?”

Larry flinched back, shielding himself, “N-No I haven’t! Should I have?”

The Donphan gave off another puff of air, before answering, “You should have, how else would your mother know what happened to you? Tyranitar are some of the most maternal Pokémon in the caverns, with Ursaring right behind them.”

“R-Really?”

It sat up and walked up to Larry, “A female Tyranitar almost destroyed the entire plateau in anger last year because she lost her child to a group of humans.”

“I saw it with my own eyes as everything around the Tyranitar was destroyed in her rage, I know she calmed down eventually, but I do not know what happened to her child...” The Donphan said while staring him down grimly.

The explanation made Larry swallow hard, ‘Humans taking a Tyranitars child? Was it normal trainers or a group of poachers? Maybe Team Rocket?’

He shook his head, ‘It doesn’t matter, what matters is I now know that my mother, a wild Tyranitar somewhere up here in Mt. Silver is going mad right now looking for me, all because I ran away from the place I hatched.’

Again, Larry felt he should really be sweating right about now, “U-Um, wha-”

ROOOAAAARR

Another roar reached them, echoing through the entire funnel like a bomb blast. Larry shivered, as Phanpy and Donphan both stared at the ceiling, where wisps of dust were shaken free by the sheer power of the roar.

Suddenly, it all clicked together for Larry, and he found himself beginning to shiver, he stared at Donphan in shock.

“That’s my mom?!”

The Donphan lowered his head and closed its eyes before nodding grimly.

...

‘I mean, I knew that Tyranitar were strong, but who takes PokeDex at face value?’ Phanpy had managed to calm Larry down, but mentally he still couldn’t quite believe it, ‘My mom in this world is willing to bring down an entire mountain in sheer rage because I didn’t stay where she wanted me to...’

Larry couldn’t help but sigh as he sat in the Donphan hideout, he had a mad family member back at the top of Mt. Silver waiting for him. He didn’t want to go back up Mt. Silver just to calm down his mom and then just go back down again, if she would even let him.

“I don’t want to, but I gotta, right?”

Donphan gave Larry a hard look, “I understand that you might not want to cut your adventure short, but a rampaging Tyranitar is something none of the inhabitants of this cavern want to deal with. You should count yourself lucky, if you were to get in the Tyranitars way, nothing but a heartfelt reunion between mother and child would take place.”

Phanpy chimed in as well, “Yeah Larry, family is important! I love my dad!” He leaned in a bit closer to his father, “What's there to say your mom won’t be just as great? Maybe she’ll even make you want to stay in the cavern!”

Larry was conflicted, “I-I think it would be worth a try... But it took me so long to get down here! I don’t want to waste all that effort.”

He wasn’t as convinced as he made it sound, Larry didn’t have the best familial relations in his last life and in this one, his mom and dad had the literal word ‘Tyrant’ in their name, so he wasn’t exactly vying to meet them.

Another puff escaped the Donphan and Larry flinched back, “I think you won’t have to worry about that as much.”

“What do you mean by that?” Larry asked.

Donphan gave off another, more sarcastic puff of air, “Well, I think your family might be making its way down the mountain to look for you if you don’t come up to them. At least that's what happened last year with the Tyranitar and how I got my experience of the event.”

Larry tried to swallow, but it only resulted in a comical gulp.

‘So, it's basically walk up there and save every Pokémon in Mt. Silver from a walking natural disaster or wait down here and destroy Mt. Silver in the process...’

He tried to form an opinion on the matter, “T-That...sucks...”