After the Larvitar fled, silence settled over the area. Trying to console him, I gave Charm’s shoulder a gentle pat but the gesture was as useless as it was simple. There was no quick and easy fix to help my partner, wounded in his pride, I would have to take some time and effort to do so.

“Who was calling for help?” I asked Claire, focusing on the things that could be changed in the short term.

“Older guy, managed to break his leg. Come, I don’t think we need to guard this tightly,” She replied, nodding for me to follow back to the group. After a moment, I nodded in agreement, raising an eyebrow as I realised that Twiggy wouldn’t fit the narrow tunnel. Claire must have noticed the same thing, calling her partner back, before walking into the flickering light of Champ.

The next larger room looked quite similar to the previous ones, the ground covered in fine sand, rubbed off the walls by years of erosion, the only difference to the rest of the place was the middle-aged man sitting near a wall, looking pale and spreading the unpleasant smell of unwashed human. From the bloody bandage tightly wrapped around his leg, he had been wounded, likely to the point of being unable to walk. Lucas and Cliff stood next to him, apparently trying to figure out a way to get him out of here.

“Dani, meet Terrance, also known as the Underground Man,” Lucas introduced, making me raise an eyebrow at the grandiose introduction. Not even Cynthia, the Champion of the entire region, insisted to be introduced with her title, but this Terrance did?

“Pleasure,” he gave me a nod, his casual, even polite, behaviour weirding me out even further. From the smell of it, he had been sitting here for quite some time, hours or even days, but instead of trying to get out of here, he was making conversation. Not only that but now that I could look closer, I could easily see the dried sweat that covered his face and the occasional wince, whenever he moved even a little bit.

“Nice to meet you,” I looked at the other three, “How do we get him out?” I asked, bringing up the obvious point. None of us had a stretcher or anything to make one and the tunnels were too narrow for Gem or Twiggy to carry him comfortably.

“We need to fixate his leg, it’s broken. You got anything to help with that?” Cliff replied, looking concerned.

“Tentpoles, maybe?” I suggested, trying to gauge how possible it would be to use the thin poles as splints, and how durable they would be. Given the light-weight materials they were made of, it didn’t fill me with confidence, but there was little else in my pack. I doubted the cookware or eating utensils had the required length.

“Mh, could work.” Lucas nodded, already taking off his backpack.

“Thanks, guys,” Terrence nodded and this time, I noticed the exhaustion in his voice.

Together, it didn’t take too long to splint his leg to the best of our, quite limited, capabilities. Once that was done, we just had to get him back into the wider tunnels, where we could put him on Twiggy’s back. Twiggy had easily been able to carry Claire after she had been poisoned, so carrying the old man should work just fine. And if not, there was Gem who could carry him in the wider tunnels.

If not for the circumstances, the process of Terrance getting carried out by Lucas and Cliff would have been peak comedy. Sadly, while the shuffling motion with which they tried to carry him managed to move him, it wasn’t without cost. Each bump, each small shock and even just the simple movement itself was obviously painful, causing him to repeatedly yelp in pain. Looking closely from my position in the rear, I could see sweat pouring off his body, making me understand just how painful it had to be. Thus, there was nothing funny about it.

Compared to the brief ten to fifteen minutes we had needed to climb down and find him with Snuggles’ guidance, it took us almost an hour to get back to the surface, and yet, that time felt even longer. When we finally got there, Cliff and Lucas carefully set down Terrence, before the two of them collapsed, utterly exhausted. Claire and I quickly distributed some water to the three of them, in addition to some of the dried rations Cliff preferred. For once, not having to prepare anything was an actual advantage.

“Thanks, you guys,” Terrence repeated his earlier gratitude, looking at the sky, relief obvious on his face. Now, in the light of day, I could see him a lot better than in the flickering light from Champ and Charm, and was taken aback.

Most trainers had a certain look, a trainer’s tan, caused by the incredible amounts of sun exposure we got. Depending on the preferred style of clothing, there were more or less clean lines, separating the tanned parts from the covered parts and those tan lines were completely missing from him. His face was completely pale, his skin looking as if he had never been exposed to the sun before. Part of the lacking colour might have been from pain or exhaustion, but the paleness felt unnatural, even a little creepy.

“You’re welcome, and I think very lucky,” Lucas told him, getting a nod in response.

“I know, I’ve been down there since last night. After my partners got knocked out, I could only run and hope that I didn’t get crushed. Might have cut it a little too close this time,” he shrugged, sounding incredibly casual for the circumstances. Depending on what his partners were, he could easily die down there and yet, he didn’t sound concerned at all, as if he had merely stubbed his toe while going to the restroom at night.

“We can help you get back to Eterna City, if you’d like?” Claire suggested, getting a nod in response.

“That would be good, yes,” he agreed, while I felt a need to ask another question.

“Were you travelling alone?” I asked, just to make sure there wasn’t anyone else needing our help. I doubted he would have kept something like that quiet, but given his weird attitude, I wanted to ask.

“Yeah, got no companions,” he nodded, looking at me with a strange expression on his face, “Nobody wants to explore the Underground, too dangerous, they say.” he groused, the annoyance in his voice managing to cover up the pain.

“There’s so much down there, so many treasures and incredible Pokémon. But no, nobody wants to explore, so how could I find a partner?” he asked and at that very moment, I felt he was the posterchild for reasons not to explore the Underground.

“Can you tell us some more about it?” Cliff asked, sounding genuinely interested. Or maybe he simply wanted to distract the guy from his leg, which still had to hurt. Given how animated Terrence became, it might even have worked.

“Of course,” he exclaimed and for a moment, I thought he’d stand up any moment. “You must have heard that the Underground stretches across the entirety of Sinnoh, right?” he asked, before continuing on without a pause.

“There are dozens of different Pokémon species that only live down there, you can’t find them anywhere else. And then there are a wide variety of special minerals that you can find only Underground. If not for people like me, who tirelessly toil in the deepest places, many evolutions would be entirely unknown, because they need rare minerals to trigger.” he continued, barely slowing down.

“To say nothing of the study of Pokémon fossils, those are also dug up by us, for later study.” At that, I got curious and spoke up.

“How can a Pokémon leave a fossil? Aren’t fossils basically preserved bones? So how does that work with Pokémon?” I asked, remembering the visual of a Nincada fading away after Bree had destroyed it in Jubilife City.

“Pokémon are energy, yes? That’s why they can be bound in Pokéballs, you should know that, right`” he asked, apparently quite knowledgeable about the question.

“Those energies can influence certain stones and minerals. At low doses, they get absorbed into plants and later their fruits and berries, which is why those can help cure a Pokémon. But if they accumulate, or if a high amount of such energies occur at the same location, they form distinct clusters. Some, depending on the type that influenced them, turn into what we call evolutionary stones, which help a lot of Pokémon to reach an otherwise incredibly difficult evolution. They’d have to slowly absorb those energies from berries and the ground, but that can takes decades or even longer.” he explained, his leg apparently forgotten. How he did that, I had no idea, but he didn’t seem to be in pain any longer.

“And if things get really interesting, if only the energy of a single species formed a cluster, those can be processed to revive a Pokémon similar to that species. Or so they say, that’s still a new field of study, but there are some eggheads that go crazy over the idea.” he paused, looking at us conspiratorily, “And I know where some of those clusters are.”