As usual, the caverns of Mt. Silver were an uncomfortable maze of winding hallways and stony walls. Everywhere one looked, the only thing staring back at them was either darkness or some variation of rock. It was nothing short of a miracle that his mother had enough of a sense of direction to know her way around. Granted, they’d been walking for quite a long time now and the drab stone walls hadn’t changed a bit, so Larry wouldn’t have known if they’d gotten lost if he’d tried.

His mom smashed a clawed hand into the wall she was walking along and carved out pieces of the stone along it. She looked at them with an appraising eye before handing them to Larry, who was sitting on her shoulder in a relaxed manner.

“Oh, thanks!” Larry took the stones his mom had clawed out with a generous nod and chowed down, biting into it like an apple. The rock itself was heavy with flavor, feeling like a starchy potato in his mouth, but as he bit into it, its flavor completely changed. The starchy heaviness gave way to a sharp bite that crawled its way down his throat like someone had only seasoned the inside of the rock, but with the heaviest amount of pepper one could find. Larry almost coughed at the sudden sharpness but held it in with a loud gulp.

Larry looked at the piece of stone with shock, finding the inside to be pitch black instead of the dull gray expected of stone. All other pebbles and stones he’d eaten dug through before had similar umami tastes to each other, savory-sweet goodness that melted on his tongue, so why was this one different?

‘Maybe the Tyranitar line and other Pokemon who eat soil can still eat different types of soil and taste different things?’ Larry mused to himself. It would make sense, and give those Pokemon reasons to seek out multiple types of soil to get all their nutrients. The more Larry thought about it, the more it made sense to him, but it was also confusing, because how was Larry supposed to know which types of stone and soil tasted like?

‘What even is this supposed to be? Coal? Something else? Volcanic rock maybe? But Mt. Silver wasn’t a volcano, maybe it was millions of years ago?’ He fell deeper into his thoughts as he took more absentminded bites of the rock while looking at it with an inquisitive look. The sharp bite of the stone was a nice change of taste, even the most delicious food in the world will get boring if eaten too often and the difference from his normal meals was nice. It felt like he was eating a bag of peanuts with paprika flavoring.

“Mmfm…” Larry quickly swallowed the bite he’d been eating before turning to his mom, “You know what kind of rock this is? It tastes great, so I wanted to know.”

His mom turned to her kid and looked at the rock for a solid ten seconds before she finally looked Larry in the eyes while quirking her head to the side, “There are different kinds?”

“What?!” Larry balked at his mother's question. “How can you ask that? Here,” He pressed a piece of the stone into his mother's face until she opened her mouth and took a bite. She chewed on the pieces of stone thoroughly, taking in the whole taste.

“So?” Larry asked impatiently.

His mom swallowed and spoke up firmly, “Tastes like stone.”

“You just don’t get it,” Crossing his arms, Larry turned away with an overly acted pout, “your tastebuds must’ve gone bad by becoming stronger.”

She only smiled at Larry's antics, clearly not taking their altercation very seriously, “Maybe.”

…

The circumference of the cavern they’d been walking down was slowly widening, the roof was slowly rising from just barely being tall enough for his mother to walk down to a comfortable height. Larry would count himself lucky not to be claustrophobic, he was still growing tired of the caverns he’d been born into, but to a point, they also felt like home. He did still want to get out of the metaphorical house though.

Browns over greys, pitch-black darkness, and that uncomfortable temperature are not cold, but not warm. ‘I cannot WAIT to get out of here,’ Larry thought to himself with a slight sigh, ‘and who knows, maybe Mom will have a change of mind and I’ll be able to live outside with her.’

He thought about a life in the forest around Mt. Silver, maybe by a stream, they’d find one of those berry trees and eat something other than dirt and soil because he wouldn’t want to chow down on some Pokemon. Maybe make some actual friends outside, other Pokemon must be friendly if they don’t have to fight over scarce resources like the ones up here.

Finally, their cavern was intersected by another and as Larry looked up and down the other cavern, he realized where they were. He was about to speak up, but his mother was quicker, “We’re back on the walkway.”

“Yeah, we are. Let’s keep going down to the second level.” His mother only nodded in response and continued on their way.

…

As they made their way down the walkway, Larry once again had his mom lower him onto the floor so he could try and walk a bit more. His legs hurt if he walked for too long, but he felt they were far closer to the second level than before and he didn’t want to be babied for too long. A shame in his mother's eyes, considering Larry was in actuality still only a few weeks or so old.

While taking a rest in another outcropping his mother had made, Larry was chowing down on some of the stone his mother had destroyed. His attention was taken by her, as she spoke up suddenly, “How’d you get so good at speaking so quickly anyway?”

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

Larry quickly feigned ignorance, “Not sure, shouldn’t you be able to tell me?” trying to get more information on Larvitar by making his mother talk.

“Hmm…” She took her time to gather her thoughts.

“I don’t know much,” His mother began, “but Larvitar normally don’t walk much on the ground,” She continued as she looked around the cavern, “they stay underground, eating soil anytime they can.”

“From what I know, they only go aboveground occasionally. That’s why it surprised me how active you were.” She turned back to Larry, staring a hole through him.

Larry was sweating in his nonexistent boots and looked around the cave frantically for an answer, “Uhh…Uhm…T-”

His mother grinned at him, before patting him on the head with one of her short arms, “Guess you’re just that gifted. I know you’re different, I’m a lucky mother.”

“Y-yeah, haha…” Larry almost sighed in relief, ‘I think I’ll still keep the whole reincarnation thing under wraps…’

“So…” His curiosity had been piqued, “What other stuff do you know about Larvitars?”

She stared up at the ceiling for a moment, simply continuing to pat him on his head, Larry obliged and leaned into her arm affectionately, “Larvitar are strong, but they’re pretty weak.”

With her arm still on his head, he looked up at his mom with a confused look, “That doesn’t make sense, Mom.”

“No, it does. Compared to other non-evolved Pokemon, you’re strong.” She pointed out, “But a single Larvitar is pretty weak.”

Larry hummed at her opinion, he was inclined to agree, even if it barely made sense. He just barely won against a Misdreavus when he’d fought, and his fights against the Wooper were also fairly close, simply due to the Type Disadvantage.

Before he could verbally agree, his mother spoke up again, “The bad part is, once you evolve, you become stronger, but again, weaker.”

“I do?”

“Yeah.” His mom answered simply, speeding up her head pats.

‘Oh c’mon, don’t stop talking now!’ Larry cried out in his mind, ‘This was the first time mom had managed to hold a conversation, and then she just stopped it like that?!’

“You mind telling me why?” Larry probed.

Her petting stopped briefly, but continued, “I’ll tell you when you’ll need it. You won’t take long to evolve, I know it.”

“Alright!” Larry acquiesced.

…

Excitement slowly rose, because Larry could remember the part of the walkway they’d reached and he knew they were getting very, very close to the second level. He knew what he had to look for, a sheer drop down onto the spiral walkway that goes down to the second level, with a perfect view over the entire second level.

As they rounded another corner in the walkway, he spotted another thing, a giant stalactite hung down from the ceiling, stopping just short of the floor, and underneath it, a small muddy puddle had built up.

Larry approached the puddle, it all felt like it had just been yesterday when he sucked up the entire puddle and loved the taste until he realized what he’d just done. He prodded the puddle with one of his arms, as it seemed to have filled back up, Larry licked his arm curiously.

The rich and earthy taste filled his mouth and Larry felt like he’d drank one of those protein drinks bodybuilders suck down between sets or like he’d just thrown multiple vitamin tablets into a glass of water and then let the horridly healthy mixture go flat before taking a sip.

Before he even noticed, he had crouched down and began to greedily suck at the puddle like it was some sort of soft drink, ‘Damn! Who the hell decided that dirt water is the tastiest thing on the entire planet?’

His mom slowly approached, “What are you doing?”

Larry had to wrestle himself away from the puddle to answer, “Oh, this stuff tastes great Mom.” He made space for his mom, before continuing to suckle on the puddle like some sort of bottom feeder.

She bent down with a curious look and took a lap of the drink onto her tongue like a cat, she turned her head curiously seemingly evaluating the taste quite seriously.

“This sucks.”

His head almost plunged into the drink in shock, Larry shot up with a loud, “WHAT?!”

“This is the best thing I’ve ever tasted! How can you say that this sucks?!” Larry almost felt a little offended at his mom's food opinions.

“It’s just dirty water…” His mother pointed out, in a meeker tone this time.

“Mmrrgh…” Larry wanted to rebuke her, but she was completely correct.

He deflated as slowly lowered his head to the puddle again, “Guess we can agree to disagree…”

His mother seemed content to keep silent and Larry once again was occupied with drinking his dirty water puddle.

…

Refreshed by dirty brown water, Larry and his mom continued on their way until they finally found the place they’d been looking for.

“I think we’re here,” Larry said as he saw a hole in the lower side of the wall, he approached and peered over the edge. His mother followed suit and the two of them saw the gigantic open expanse of the second level spread out before them.

A single flat walkway descended the entire funnel-shaped cavern of the second level in a spiral, taking multiple winding turns down the cavern. Holes dotted the edges of the flat walkway occasionally and harsh cones of daylight were scattered into the darkness of the cave by them, unlike the darkness of the third layer, you didn’t need any sort of night vision to be able to traverse the second level.

In the dim lighting from up here, Larry could see a wide variety of Pokemon lounging about in the second layer, a Golduck relaxed in a pool of water, floating around in it with its arms splayed out. A large Machoke relaxed against the cavern wall with its legs placed on top of a boulder.

A dull bang sounded out and a large Onix broke through a sheer wall on the side of the walkway, it crawled along the almost vertical wall before disappearing into the wall again with another loud bang.

Next to one of the large cave exits, washed over by a harsh cone of light, laid a lounging Ursaring with her cubs crawling all over her energetically. She seemed to be talking to a huge Donpahn, who was shadowed by a small Phanpy.

“I know those guys down there!” In his excitement, Larry pointed at them energetically as he turned back to his mom.

His mom looked down at them with clear interest and a slight bit of confusion, “They don’t fight down there?”

“No! They’re all friendly neighbors!”