It was an odd three days spent in that softly lit cavern. I didn’t have much to do besides look after Ladon and start bonding with him. Ladon, though seemed to be having a great time. When he hatched, he was only an inch below two feet tall. After just three days, he’d quickly grown to at least two feet and eight inches.

More than that, whenever he wasn’t begging for attention, he was bounding around wherever we were. I did get an excellent idea of his moves, though, so at least that was useful.

Tackle, while basic, turned out to be better than I thought. He managed to crack a boulder that came up to my chest using tackle, making me very thankful that he was with me. Bite was interesting to watch. His fangs would be covered in a wisping dark energy before he would bite down as hard as he could. Immediately after the physical bite, the dark energy would surge and wash over whatever he was biting.

It was the last two moves, though, that I found most interesting. Focus Energy was hard to tell the difference at first. If he held it long enough, though, I would just barely be able to make out a faint reddish-orange aura around him. Dragon Breath was relatively simple but surprisingly powerful. The purple flames that he could breathe out to around five meters would leave the stone floor a charred black if it hit directly.

What got me really excited was seeing the two moves in combination. By having Ladon use Focus Energy and then Dragon Breath, the flames reached almost ten meters and left faint heat waves rising off of the stone.

Towards the end of the third day, though, Ladon was starting to explore a little less and seemed almost bored of the surroundings, making me reassure him that we would be moving on.

Waking up the day after, I realized I actually hadn’t found any other exit. I tried to ignore the sinking feeling in my gut as I considered having to backtrack. Instead, I focused on quickly collapsing the tent and replacing everything I’d gotten out back into the bag.

Ladon followed me as I began to carefully make my way towards the cavern sides to look for another exit. Making my way around the rock outcroppings was surprisingly easy after all this time spent underground. When I finally spotted another way out of the cavern, I sighed quietly in relief. Patting Ladon’s head quickly, I started walking towards it only to freeze a few steps later.

One of the heaps of rocks near the exit had suddenly opened its eyes and was glaring at Ladon and me. I suppressed my nervousness as the Geodude used one of its stone arms to fling itself into the air where it hovered. I looked down at Ladon and took a deep breath before glaring back at the Geodude. No way in hell was I gonna let a Geodude stand between me and getting out of this mountain.

“Ladon, tackle it away and start building up Focus Energy.” Ladon let out a deep, rumbling growl before running forward as white energy appeared, signifying the Tackle. Ladon slammed heavily into the Geodude, sending it floating back a few meters before it let out an angry grinding sound and rushed back towards Ladon. It slammed its fist into Ladon with what I assumed was a tackle of its own, making Ladon grunt.

“Ladon, another tackle. Then full-powered Dragon Breath!”

Ladon roared at the Geodude before slamming into it again. As soon as it was floating a couple meters away, Ladon opened its mouth and let purple flames spill forth. I heard a sharp pained cry coming from the flames before they died down. The Geodude was scorched black and faltering but rushed back forward anyways.

“Tackle until it's down. If it tries keeping away, use Dragon Breath again,” I called out. Ladon roared again, his tackle hitting the Geodude at the same time it surged forward towards Ladon. This time, the Geodude went flying away. It slumped towards the floor, trying to use its arms to keep afloat before its eyes closed, and it collapsed to the ground.

For a moment, I stared at the unconscious Geodude before a grin spread across my face. I’d won my first pokémon battle! Sure, it was against a wild pokémon and with a King Deino, but I’d still won! I let out a whoop, drawing Ladon’s attention. As he looked at me curiously, I knelt down and scratched where his skull met his neck, a spot I’d learned made him rumble happily every time.

“You did it, Ladon!” He seemed slightly confused but also excited with me, “Good job! I just… Wow, that’s a rush….” I trailed off, still grinning. It took me a few minutes to calm down and stand back up. “Okay, okay. That was awesome, but now we should probably keep going.”

Ladon made that chirping sound I still hadn’t gotten used to hearing from the dragon-type. Shaking my head in amusement, I began walking down the tunnel ahead of us.

It didn’t take long for the monotone rock walls to blur together and for time to pass quickly once more. As we walked and picked out the paths that went farther down every time the tunnel split, I found my thoughts straying back towards the battle with the Geodude. Was there anything I could have done better?

I supposed that Bite might have worked better than Tackle, considering Ladon’s dark typing. But the thing I was worried about was if using the move helped protect his fangs from breaking, chipping, or even just dulling against the rocky pokémon. I eventually sighed and added it to the list of questions I needed to look up once we got out.

After hours of walking through the same tunnels, even Ladon’s excitement and eagerness to explore were waning. I was checking my pokégear for the time and to see if we should settle down for rest when we came around one of the sharper turns in the tunnel to see a section that was a good few meters wider than usual. It was a perfect place to set up for the night, with only one issue. A Meditite was sitting in a lotus position, meditating. I could only assume that it heard our footsteps as its eyes snapped open, glowing with dark pink energy, and I felt like slapping myself. Meditites were part psychic; of course it knew we were there!

Cursing softly to myself, I looked down at Ladon. He was looking at the Meditite with curiosity and slight eagerness. Looking back up, I let out a breath.

“Alright, Ladon, time to fight for our campsite, I guess….” My voice trailed off as I watched the Meditite flip backward into a handstand and then onto its feet, all from a lotus position. “Well, alright then. Ladon, charge with a Tackle, then Bite!”

The Meditite shifted into a fighting stance as Ladon charged forwards. It dodged to the side, making Ladon miss his Tackle. It was still getting its feet in position when Ladon’s head swung around and bit hard against its left arm. I watched carefully as the dark energy surged forth and made the Meditite wince before yanking back.

“Focus Energy. Use Bite to defend, and when you’re ready, Dragon Breath!”

The Meditite must have understood what I was saying as it instantly lept forward. Its leg swept out and collided with Ladon as he was starting Focus Energy. I cursed softly as Ladon let out a small pained cry from the Low Kick, upset that I had forgotten his weakness to fighting-type moves. The Meditite leaped backward and dodged the Bite that Ladon tried.

“Be ready to defend with Bite. If it stays away, just Dragon Breath!” I called out, trying to take into account that the Meditite seemed to understand me as well. I filed away the idea to come up with some way to call out moves without my opponent understanding for the future.

The Meditite cried out its name before leaping forward once more. It feinted a kick before punching Ladon with a Force Palm. Ladon managed to retaliate with a Bite this time, trading hits. I could see the faint red energy around Ladon as the Focus Energy built up.

“Tackle!” I commanded, causing Ladon to surge forward as the Meditite was still too close to dodge. I grinned as it was not only knocked back but used the momentum to back out of reach on its own. “Now, Dragon Breath!”

The red energy suddenly surged through Ladon’s veins towards his mouth before he unleashed the wave of purple fire. I watched the Meditite’s eyes widen before the draconic fire washed over it. When the fire died down, the Meditite was burned heavily and grimacing while holding one arm. Its eyes narrowed at us before it barked out its name one more time. I hesitated to call out another attack as I watched Ladon’s head quirk to the side.

I let out a breath as the Meditite turned around and started slowly walking away down the tunnel. “I guess we win then,” I said softly. Looking back to Ladon, I said, “Good job yet again, you’re doing wonderfully.”

He rumbled happily before padding over to get more attention. I laughed quietly even as I began setting up the camp for the night.

The next day passed in much the same way. Dull tunnels that could barely be distinguished from one another, if they even could be. What gave me a little hope was that we were slowly running into more pokémon. If what Nathan had told me was true, then we must be getting closer to the base of the mountain. Ladon wound up battling a Zubat and another Geodude that day. The Zubat flew off after a little bit, but the Geodude needed to be knocked out.

The day after that, I began to notice the change in the tunnel walls. It had been so subtle that I had barely seen it, but there was a slow increase in ores and metal exposed in the rock. There had always been the occasional flash of metal, but it was becoming more and more common as we kept going.

We traveled for another two days, watching as the presence of ore in the tunnel walls slowly grew more and more common. Due to me paying so much attention to it, I also noticed the occasional odd mark on the walls. It looked like three holes in the wall, set in a triangle. I couldn’t help but wonder if it was some trainer’s method of marking their path or something like that.

I was walking and trying not to zone out from the tunnel’s monotony when I slowed down, hearing faint, distant sounds from further in the tunnel. Looking down, I could see Ladon had heard it too. Though I didn’t have to look very far down, Ladon had grown another three inches in the past two days.

Feeling a little too curious for my own good, I started speeding up to a slow jog through the tunnel. Slowly I began to recognize the sounds as metal clashing and barely understandable cries of ‘Bronzor’. Finally, the source of the sound came into sight.

There were three Bronzor floating in the air, calling out their names as they fired off weak Confusions, not strong enough to do damage, just enough to push. And stuck between the three was a pokémon I was not expecting to see at all. At two feet long and half a foot across, there was a Beldum. Its eye was flicking between the three Bronzor around it as it glowed a faint silver color, making me guess that it was using Iron Defense or something similar.

Part of my mind told me to just ignore this and move on, and I didn’t need to get involved. But the other part of my mind saw how helpless the Beldum was between the Bronzor. What little I knew of Beldum was that despite having psychic typing, they didn’t get any actual capability with it until they evolved.

“Fuck, okay.” Ladon looked up at me, “We’re helping the Beldum. If I remember right, they’re resistant to everything you have except Bite, which they’re weak to.” I glanced back up to the trio of Bronzor that hadn’t quite noticed us yet. “Use Dragon Breath to distract them, and then use Bite to do as much as you can. Don’t hit the Beldum.”

Ladon growled quietly at the Bronzor before charging forward. The three floating bullies spun around in surprise at the sound, only to be met with a wave of purple flame. Before they could recover from the sudden attack, Ladon leaped forward with dark energy swirling around his fangs and bit hard on one of the Bronzor.

The Bronzor let out a sharp cry of pain before yanking away. I watched with a short laugh as the Beldum used the distraction to slam into one of its tormentors. Meanwhile, Ladon was biting down on another of the Bronzor, his dark typing making their initial reaction of Confusion harmless.

The three Bronzor didn’t seem to react fast enough to the sudden shift. The Beldum kept ramming into one of them, using the distraction to equal the odds. Ladon, on the other hand, repeatedly bit the other two every time they came too close. With their ability to fight back heavily limited and with Ladon doing decent damage to them with every hit, it didn’t take long for them to start levitating away quickly.

Eventually, the third Bronzor managed to break away from the vengeful Beldum and floated away as well. Seeing the battle finish, I walked over quickly. Ladon shoved his head against my hand, and I obligingly started scratching. Meanwhile, I was watching the Beldum that had floated away slightly at my approach and seemed to just be watching us.

“Hey,” I spoke softly, extending my other hand so it could see it was empty, “We’re not gonna hurt you. I’m a little confused about how you wound up down here, but it’s alright.”

Its ball head spun in its socket, gently floating from side to side. I got the feeling it was examining me. “You’re alright. We’re heading that way,” I gestured further down the tunnel, past the Beldum, “That alright?”

It spun in place again before it began floating past us and back down the way we came. I watched it go for a short while before turning forward again. “Okay, so that… happened. I guess.” Ladon bumped his head against my hip gently.

“Yeah, I guess we keep going.” Glancing back down the tunnel, I shook my head, “That was… odd….”