After discussing the heavy topics, the atmosphere changed drastically and everyone relaxed. Talks became amicable and Ursaring and Donphan discussed topics surrounding the second layer, like the temperature outside finally being at its worst for the year and the weather looking to finally be clearing up.

“The winter is behind us by now,” Ursaring said with a smile, “I cannot wait to go outside and explore again, the cold is really terrible this year.”

“I don’t like staying out for long. You’re lucky you’ve got that fur to keep you warm.” Donphan said jealously.

“Argh, you just get easily cold Donphan. When Phanpy went out with us he didn’t complain at all!” Ursaring urged Phanpy on to talk while pulling her children up to herself.

After listening for a bit, Larry found the courage to talk and told them various stories surrounding his descent, ascent, and eventual second descent down the mountain, while his mom mostly kept to herself only occasionally chiming in when Larry urged her to. The parents of the second layer seemed to take in the story consciously, commenting on how Larry managed to calm down his mother, their training, and their descent.

“It is great that you managed to get up to her so fast,” Ursaring mentioned, “I think if you walked back up you wouldn’t have made it in time.”

“No, definitely not” Larry shook his head, before abruptly changing topics, “By the way, that Crustle, have you seen her before?” Larry asked the two second-layer parents carefully, if his theories were correct they must’ve known something about her.

Ursaring nodded, “She came up here with a human a very long time ago now. I remember fighting against her as she, the human, and his other Pokemon scaled the second layer.”

“Do you know what happened to the human who brought her here?” Larry probed.

Ursaring shook her head, but Donphan answered in her stead, “Since their ascent, they haven’t been here again, I can’t say much more.”

“Good.” His mother said spitefully, her hatred of humans was still very much present.

‘Did they die, or was Crustle abandoned? Guess I won’t know…’ He whined to himself, only nodding in response.

His story continued, and the children in the audience listened with rapt attention as Larry told them about his fights on the third layer, his attempts at hunting, and getting jumped by a Paras. Everyone was excited to find out about the friendly encounter with Quagsire and her Wooper kids, they seemed surprised that she had acted civilized.

“Normally you’d be killed, that was nothing but dumb luck.” His mother mentioned far too nonchalantly and the others looked at Larry like he was crazy for doing what he did.

“It worked out though…” He argued back weakly only to get a stern stare back from his mom before recovering, “Anyway, you remember what happened after with that ghost?”

His mother's mood managed to sour even more during his recounting of what had happened with the Mismagius and the adults had to quickly shield their children's ears when his mother recounted what had happened after Larry fainted during his fight against the Mismagius. They didn’t cover their ears because of any gruesome details mind you, but because of the very colorful language his mother revealed every time the Mismagius was mentioned.

Everyone listened closely as he recounted how Golem and his posse of Gravelers seemed to challenge his mother to a battle only to explode themselves. They were surprised, Golem was known to the inhabitants of the second layer, occasionally passing through with his posse or alone. Nobody had properly befriended the Graveler and Golem, but they had talked to him and nobody expected him to take such drastic measures during a fight.

“That moron!” Ursaring growled out as she almost jumped up in indignation.

“I knew they were a wild bunch, but doing all that for a simple fight over dominance…” Donphan seemed to have had higher expectations of them.

“Does Explosion only hurt them?” Larry asked gullibly, he still wasn’t sure what had happened to the group after the Explosions went off and was hoping they hadn’t killed themselves using Explosion.

Donphan shook his head, “I’m unsure, but I’ve seen them use it before on occasion, so it's definitely used as some sort of last-ditch plan.”

“They can stay dead.” His mother spat venomously.

Sometime after storytime was finished, food was brought out. Some sort of berry Larry didn’t quite remember the name of was pushed in front of him and Larry's last experience eating one of these came back to the forefront of his mind, ‘Oh man, those look extra juicy…I’m gonna regret this…’

He very carefully placed it in his mouth and swallowed the berry whole in an attempt to not taste it. His entire body involuntarily shuddered when he felt it drop down into his stomach, the slight bit of taste he got onto his tongue made him wince at the sheer sweetness before he fought against himself not to make an ugly noise.

“Awgh…Tastes good.” Letting out a slight wince, Larry couldn’t help but think about when he got into the pantry when he was younger, ‘It tastes JUST like when I ate that spoonful of sugar when I was a kid, talk about too much of a good thing...’

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

The others seemed content with the taste, taking measured bites of the berries as they slowly ate them, even Phanpy held a berry gingerly in his trunk and bit off small pieces of it. The two Teddiursa looked the worst of the group as they chomped into their berries, the juice of the berries coated the fur around their mouths, making them look like a pair of savage beasts.

“What is that?” His mother looked at the thing curiously, never having eaten one before.

“Oh, they’re berries. They have a sweet taste!” Phanpy said with a grin on his face as he answered Larry's mother.

Her curiosity piqued, and she threw the berry into her giant maw before biting down on it. The second her tongue touched the berry her eyes opened wide, and she blew the thing out in a giant raspberry, “PPFFT! This is terrible!” She yelled looking at the remains of the berry which had been spat out into the middle of the room. Everybody tensed, terrified of the giant angry Pseudo-Legendary currently yelling around them indignantly.

“S-S-Sorry!” Phanpy immediately bowed down onto the ground in a panic.

“Calm down Mom!” Larry yelled as he grabbed at his mom, trying to control the situation, “I don’t think it's that tasty either, but they’re not that bad!”

She spittled a bit more, trying to get the taste out of her mouth, “Why’d you serve this?” she asked the group more confused than angry.

“Get up Phanpy, let me explain this.” Larry urged him.

“Berries grow on bushes outside,” Larry explained calmly, “They have different tastes, and a lot of Pokemon eat them, but I think the sweet ones are way too sweet for us.”

“I see, I always ate soil,” His mother said honestly as she picked up another one and looked at it curiously, “Never had these before.”

“We’re sorry to serve you something you can’t eat,” Donphan said apologetically. Phanpy chimed in as well, “Yeah, Larry! Please tell us if you don’t like something!”

“S-Sorry, I didn’t want to ruin the mood last time I came down here.” He said apologetically, “You were so nice, I didn’t want to seem rude.”

“Nonsense, we can quickly find some rocks you can eat, wait here.” Donphan and Phanpy stood up and made their way out into the cavern again.

“O-Oh, thanks!”

They were served some good soil and his mother practically ate them out of house and home, she probably could’ve if she wanted to. Their meeting continued with the right snacks and the heavier topics were forgotten as they kept talking about anything and everything that came to mind. His mother seemed a bit out of her depth trying to hold a conversation and still kept to herself, but she made a few attempts here and there.

Eventually, the younger children in the group including Larry resigned to Phanpy’s part of the cavern.

…

“Ta-da!” He showed him a bed of soft leaves probably collected from the outside which was laid out lavishly. Phanpy hopped onto the leaves and the two Teddiursa children followed after, squealing as one tickled the other, starting a play-fight.

Larry stood awkwardly nearby, gauging if he was allowed to lay down on the leaves, before Phanpy spoke up, “C’mon Larry, here!”

He was pulled closer to the group and felt the soft leaves underneath his feet, they weren’t anything grand, but it was the first time during his second life he got to feel anything plant-like. One of the two Teddiursas won their play-fight and the two calmed, only for Phanpy to join the fray, leaving Larry behind.

Larry felt like a child far too old who had been left in a mall play center for children. Phanpy and the Teddiursas were enjoying themselves heartily, wrestling in the pile of leaves, as Larry stood by awkwardly. It reminded him of autumn in his first life, raking leaves in his family's front garden and then watching as their family dog hopped into the collected pile, spreading it back out and forcing him to redo his work.

Just then he was thrown out of his reminiscing, as Phanpy yelled out, “Ahaha! Larry, help me!”

When Larry looked over to their play-fight, he saw Phanpy sprawled out on his back kicking his feet in the air defensively with one Teddiursa on each of its sides, tickling its stomach, ‘Aw, I’m going to have to help here, won’t I?

“C-Coming!” Larry answered awkwardly as he hopped over to the group.

“Hahaha! Get them off of me!” Phanpy cried out between laughs as he fought to keep the two bear cubs off of himself badly.

One of the Teddiursas split off and went into a standoff against Larry, “You wanna get tickled too?” It said as it wiggled its claws at Larry threateningly.

Larry couldn’t help but grin, as he readied himself, “You two will be the one tickled today!” he announced in a heroic tone.

He moved like the wind and shot forward, Teddiursa was far faster though, and lunged at him in retaliation. Before he was caught though, Larry bounded into the air and flipped over the bear cub's head in a dramatic jump, landing on his feet in a graceful landing.

His feet kept moving and Larry shot at the second Teddiursa, he grabbed it off of Phanpy and pulled him into a playful and soft slam onto the ground before he tickled underneath its arms and stomach as they wrestled on the ground.

“Phanpy, defend me!” He yelled out and Phanpy rose back up in front of him, standing in front of him defensively as the first Teddiursa finally recovered and launched itself at him.

“AHAHA! Stooop!” The Teddiursa in his grasp whined between laughs, “I give up! I give up!”

“Do not challenge your superior,” Larry announced in a far deeper, overly acted voice, “for he will tickle you to fainting!”

…

Their play-time had eventually mellowed out and Larry's participation had most definitely turned the tide this time around. The group had resigned onto Phanpy’s bed of leaves, they were all cuddling with each other and Larry felt slightly awkward laying near them.

“Usually it's a 2v1,” Phanpy said drowsily, “Thanks for making it a 2v2, Larry!”

“No problem…”

“Come over here, Larry.” One of the Teddiursas urged and pulled at Larry.

Larry was unceremoniously pulled into their snuggling pile. He felt slightly weird, snuggling up to the kids considering he was a 20-something adult in his mind. His opinion changed quickly though, as he felt at the Teddiursas devilishly soft fur with his arms, ‘I guess I’ll put up with this…’

With his child body slowly becoming drowsy he accepted a bit of awkwardness and drifted off to sleep next to the other Pokemon.

Tomorrow they’d finally make their way down to the first layer.