Larry ran from stone to stone, his stubby legs working overtime as he panted frantically to keep himself hidden. If it's ‘hunt or be hunted’ Larry was feeling mighty hunted right about now, the Golduck in the pond in front of him turned over onto its back and Larry flinched back into the outcropping behind the stone he’d hidden behind.
The funnel had looked simple enough from above, large open banks of stone and rubble that one could slowly but surely walk down. Larry had thought this would be a cakewalk, simply mosey on down while keeping hidden near the cave wall.
Oh, how wrong he’d been.
The reality of the situation was far more perilous than he ever imagined, like playing one of those spy videogames with visual cones, but they extend everywhere. This level was just filled to the brim with wild Pokémon showing themselves off, it was teeming with different Pokémon down here. Even more unfortunately for Larry, it seemed in comparison to the third level that down here ‘might makes right’ was the going strategy.
Just some time ago, he’d been shimmying his way down the funnel's walkway stuck up against the wall because he’d spotted a Machoke relaxing in the middle of the walkway. It had been going well, the Machoke hadn’t even noticed him, until suddenly a giant Onix simply appeared outside one of the cavern walls, leaving a gaping hole open behind itself to collapse back into itself slowly.
The Onix rushed at a Machoke that had been strutting around openly on the cavern floor, rushing it down with wild abandonment. The Machoke instead of dying of a heart attack, like Larry almost had, simply punched the giant rock snake away. It looked like a goddamn parry move from a videogame, even just the winds the hit produced almost knocked Larry from his feet.
After the parry, both simply began duking it out right there in front of Larry, he’d felt his second life pass him by as the Onix appeared out of that wall and he didn’t even know what to do then. So, he’d stayed and watched the Machoke beat the ever-loving crap out of the giant Onix, he didn’t know how a humanoid Pokémon could do that. ‘I know Rocks weak to Fighting but an Onix is gigantic, I thought at least that would’ve been an even fight.’
The Machoke had used a multitude of fighting-type moves to do what any wannabe shonen protagonist would’ve done in its position and handily beat the Onix into submission. Afterward, it simply continued on its merry way after, leaving the fainted Onix to lie there.
‘Damn I’m lucky that I didn’t strut my stuff when I got down here...’
With the empty hallways of the third floor Larry had hoped for this to be more of the same, but it looked to be exactly the opposite. Larry had continued onto his way, sneaking around skillfully until he hit onto this Golduck in front of him, it yawned and Larry flinched once again. ‘If that weirdo notices me, I’m dead meat. Water is no good for any Rock-Type.’
An opportunity represented itself and Larry took it, running to the next rock just outside of the Golduck's vision. ‘...Safe...Hoo boy...’ His heart beat like a jackhammer in his chest, he checked around himself once more, and when he found no other Pokémon he kept sneaking, from one stone to the next until he came upon another roadblock.
A wall, or to be more precisely a cliff, just straight on the walkway, to his left a large hole led into the cavern wall. ‘Where do I go? I can’t climb that, maybe I can eat my way up?’ Larry charted out his options. He needed to go down, but he couldn’t drop himself down the funnel, so he took his chances and entered to hole instead. It led downward steeply, he could see that this cave was well used, it seemed Larry wasn’t alone, nobody else liked scaling cliffs either.
Unfortunately, there weren’t many stones around here to hide himself with, the few he found were quite small too. Larry decided to speed his way back onto the funnel, if he stayed here for too long, he’d just get spotted.
“Machoke is training, stay down here if you don’t want to get messed up! Bro!”
“I know Bro! Didn’t hear that just now, that was one of the Onix getting its beat down there!”
When he walked deeper inside thought, he started hearing voices.
He quickly hid back behind something again and kept his eyes peeled until he saw a group of lounging Gravelers who were sprawled out further down the walkway. They looked to be talking, but Larry didn’t even listen to their conversation over his own heartbeat, just beyond them he saw the only way further, another cavern walkway leading further down and back onto the funnel.
“Onix is stupid! He just dig around and eat all day! Stupid!”
“Yeah! Stupid! Haha!”
‘Just have to sneak past a group of these Graveler, couldn’t be easier, could it?’ Larry sarcastically thought to himself.
The Graveler were focused on each other, seemingly discussing something Larry didn’t particularly care about to listen into. He took his chances and skipped along the ground, open for anyone to see until he crawled back behind a stone on the other side of the cavern. One of the Gravelers turned and glanced at the place Larry had just been running across and Larry felt himself stiffen involuntarily at the sight of it.
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
It turned back shortly after and Larry sighed in relief dropping down onto his butt behind the stone, ‘Hooo... Baby. I hate this, I can’t wait for this to be over.’
Another opportunity presented itself and Larry used it, gunning straight for the exit leading downwards. He almost leaped down it when he finally made it and the Graveler seemed none the wiser behind him, laughing about something or another to themselves.
Larry immediately looked for another stone to hide behind and ran for it. Dark TE spilled into Larry's jaw, and he frantically bit down on the stone wall behind the stone, eating his way inside and then pulling a large rock in front of the entrance. He was in such a panic to make his little hideout he didn’t even stop to appreciate the taste, but once inside he started snacking on his hideout before simply taking a few tentative breaths to calm himself.
“Haa...Haa, what the hell am I doing?!” He admonished his own recklessness as he thought over his choices just a few minutes before. He had run around like he was fresh out of the shower and quickly needed to get a pair of boxers from his wardrobe, skipping from stone to stone like a maniac.
“I could’ve gotten caught and died like 9 times during that!” He smashed his tiny fist on a stray pebble next to him in anger at himself. ‘Alright Larry, next time you go out there, you’ll play smarter than before, that was stupid.’
He stood back up and started biting down on the wall behind him, ‘Before I keep going, I’ll get a bite to eat. I’m supposed to be watching random videos on the Internet not sneak around a giant cave system.’
A lightbulb went off inside his head as he bit down on the stone, ‘Maybe... It’s time to learn another move?’
...
Ground TE coursed through his mouth and arms and Larry bit down on the Ground below him. Larry disappeared into the ground and could feel himself cut through the stone like water, he ate a small stream and was able to push away the rest to the side using his Ground TE-empowered arms.
Larry swam back upwards and dug his way back out of the ground and into his hideout, the tunnel he’d dug slowly collapsed back into itself behind him and sealed up haphazardly below him. He realized that if he pushed more Ground TE into his arms that the hole he’d dug might’ve stayed open for longer.
‘Hell yeah! Dig was easier to learn than I expected, it only took a few hours. I’m still amazed how quickly I learned those other Dark-Type Moves before.’
He now had far more moves than any Pokémon in the games ever had before. Tackle, Bite, Pursuit, Payback, Rock Throw, and Dig were all at least useful moves, but he still wanted to learn some non-attacking Moves.
‘Maybe I’ll find some Pokémon later that might not be able to rip me to shreds if they simply saw me soon? Then I could try my hand at some new status moves.’ Larry thought to himself, he felt refreshed since he hadn’t particularly pushed himself while trying to learn Dig, but he still didn’t feel completely ready to tackle the funnel again.
Sighing to himself Larry pushed aside the stone and sneaked back outside, ‘I'll be fine...probably. I have Dig now, if anything sees me and tries to attack me, I’ll just dig myself to safety!’
The way down the cave soon connected back to the funnel and Larry continued his sneakery, he hopped from stone to stone, keeping himself obscured from most of the funnel's inhabitants. Before long he came up on another wild Pokémon, the giant Ursaring he’d seen when he first entered.
‘Let's try not to get mauled Larry, alright?’ He hyped himself up, the Ursaring had made its home near the highest cave exit, cold air streamed in from the opening and Larry saw the mother tend to her Teddiursa children as they all looked out over the funnel.
She seemed preoccupied, so Larry took the chance and skipped across the cave exit. He almost made it halfway before he heard a yell, “Ah! Mama, look! Little guy!”
Larry's heart beat out of his chest as his eyes met the Teddiursas, it had crawled onto its mother's shoulder and pointed at him with one of its paws. The Ursaring mother looked over her shoulder at the spot her kid had pointed at, only to find nothing.
“What did you see, my little Berry?” she asked as she picked her kid off her shoulder, “What did it look like? You said a little guy?”
Just a few steps out of range, Larry emerged from the ground behind a large boulder that had been rolled into the funnel cavern, he’d used Dig the second the Teddiursa saw him and just managed to escape before the Ursaring saw him, ‘Holy crap! I just did that on instinct! That was close!”
“It disappeared, hm?” The Ursaring mother cooed at her child, “Then it can’t be that bad. Are you sure you didn’t just imagine it? I know you love to play pranks.”
The Teddiursa giggled in delight, and his mother tickled him while laughing, “Yeah, you’re my little prankster, aren’t you?”
Larry sighed to himself, ‘Yeah, you go ahead and play with your kid some more. I’ll be making myself scarce really quick.’ He turned intending to continue his way down the funnel, only to notice a Phanpy staring at him from further down the funnel.
‘Oh no...’
Larry immediately saw its eyes jump from the Ursaring mother to him and back to her, it knew he was hiding from her. ‘It's too far away for it to fight, so what’ll it do? Tell on me?’ He thought frantically about what to do, before raising a hand to his mouth and giving off a quiet ‘shh’.
The Phanpy imitated the gesture using its trunk, it giggled to itself as it finished and made a motion to Larry for him to come closer. ‘Is this safe? Can I trust this Phanpy when I get to it or is it just going to try and eat me? Wait, Phanpy don’t eat meat, I think? Don't they eat Berries?’
He weighed the pros and cons in his mind, ‘You know what? I’ll give it a shot, maybe this Phanpy can give me some pointers on how to get down the funnel more easily.’
Making his way down to the Phanpy was going to take some time, Larry was using hiding spots behind stones and rock faces to not get spotted, but occasionally he checked on what the Phanpy was doing, it seemed to be looking at the way he went down the funnel and laughing to itself?
‘What's so funny down there? What else am I supposed to do?’