(Author's Note: I'm retconning the name "Lucy" to "Lucia".)

"This Aipom is offering me a mission. He just wants me to be on lookout while he does… something?" Mark tells Andy. Mark glances at the Aipom; he's forcing a frown on his face while his tail waves in careless arcs.

"You said he only needs to know you're off with me. No more! It's none of his business! Let's go," Bali says to Mark. The tail-hand around his torch tightens.

Andy takes a deep breath. "Hey, I only care if you pay him-"

"Of course! I will!" Bali shouts defensively.

Andy sighs."...and that I know where he's going so I can tell Layla." He cringes anticipating more of Bali's attitude.

"We're going to-" Mark starts.

"-Nowhere!" Bali interjects. He gets ignored.

"T-to the farms? Is that on the map?" Mark asks apprehensively. Suddenly, the Aipom sticks the torch in his face. Mark yelps and steps back, feeling the heat of the flame. The Aipom keeps it close even while the Sableye keeps stepping away.

"Do you want this job or not?" Bali threatens.

There's a rustling sound as Andy throws a map on the floor between them. The two stop to look at it. Andy continues speaking, being delicate: "He doesn't know his way around. He needs to meet up with Layla after he's done because she's providing housing for him. I just want to make sure he comes back safely. Is that ok?"

There's a pause, then Bali rolls his eyes as he gets the torch out of Marks' face. Bali's disappointed, but he no longer sounds hostile. "We'll be back before everyone goes to sleep. I won't abandon him. Ugh…" He slips a hand into his bag and tosses Andy a small pouch of coins. Andy's eyebrow raises, but he picks it up.

"If anybody else asks, you don't say anything, ok? You also keep details to 'Layla' a minimum" Bali asks.

Andy nods. "Ok. Enjoy your first job, Mark. Give the map to Myla when you're done" Andy says with disinterest. He yawns, walks off, and forgets to even say goodbye. Bali waits impatiently for him to get out of sight.

"Old people are so annoying. They order you around and hide secrets and make everything complicated and ugh. I'm going to pay only half when we're done and the rest in two days to make sure he doesn't rat me out, ok? But let's go, I'm hungry," Bali says.

Bali starts walking to a random pair of huts. Mark tries to see where Andy has gone, but he's disappeared already. He makes a soft sigh and picks up the scroll, and begins stuffing it into his bag. He's finding it's not going in easily, so he shuffles things around, slips it carefully in some free space, but it's still not fitting. He glances over to Bali - he's already past the huts! "HEY WAIT!" he shouts, holding the scroll under his arm instead and rushing over. He'll fit it in his bag while walking.

The two clear the edge of town, walking into the giant mushroom thicket. Mark didn't have time to get a good look at these when he first entered town, so he takes his time to examine each one that passes into his torchlight's range. The surface of their stems are hard and lumpy, and while he can barely see the cap far above them, he thinks they're light green.

His foot then hits something painfully hard while his head is craning upwards. "Aaaaa!" Mark yelps, dropping his torch and bending over to grab his foot - he has kicked a stem stump. And not being used to his body that well yet, he loses balance and falls over onto his side. Then his torch rolls away and everything becomes black. His mind races to when he first woke up in total darkness and panic enters his body.

"WAIT, NO!" he shouts, scrambling onto his feet and ignoring the intense pain in his toe. That burning sensation flares up again as the same foot hits something else he couldn't see, and he falls over once more, shouting in pain.

"HELP ME, BALI!" he shouts. I'm panicking, he thinks. I need to stay calm, Bali's here, there's no danger. Breath… Breath…

"Something's up with you," a childish voice says. Mark opens his eyes; the area around him is lit once more. Bali is standing above him, holding his torch along with his own held in his tail. "You keep falling behind".

Mark gets himself up and brushes the dirt he got on his shadowy body off. "Sorry. I lost my memory a few days ago. I've never seen these mushrooms before…"

Bali looks at a tree mushroom beside them. "Well, they're tree mushrooms. …How about I hold onto this, so you stop getting distracted, ok?" Bali says. Without letting Mark answer, he turns around and walks off. "Please. I want to get this over with. Don't fall behind".

Mark walks up behind him and stays close. His eyes are more focused on the ground than the sky now.

It feels like an hour, but eventually, Mark can tell they're at the edge of the forest. The ground is uneven with many boulders of different shapes and sizes littered between the different stems, and there's a general upward slope. The mushrooms here are bent, even a few lurching over at a right angle, and they are all larger than the ones closer to town.

Bali is gracefully jumping across the many large rocks, but Mark needs to take his time to climb over them with his stumpy limbs. The Aipom is clearly unhappy, tapping his foot impatiently each time there's a new obstacle, but he waits without complaining. Mark's learning the nuances of controlling his body and its balance very fast.

Mark hauls him over the ledge of one more large boulder, and then he can see the ground plateauing on the other side. It is an unusual field though - many tall, thin stones are wedged into the ground, pointing straight up. And although their contours are rough, their topsides are arched. Many of them are arranged side-by-side in short, straight lines.

"Hey, is this a graveyard?" Mark asks. He hops off the boulder, wobbling when he lands.

"A what? Nah. these are just human ruins," Bali says, hoping ahead again. "Nothing special."

"Oh… Well, can I at least see what's, uh… what's writ-... What's drawn on these ruins?" Mark asks.

The Aipom walks about three rows in before turning fully around. "Fine," he says and raises his torch up to the front of a headstone. Mark hurries up and reads the writing on its front. "Axelia Drivas" it reads. There are also the numbers "10/2/2176" underneath it. He recognizes it as a date - but is it a date of birth, or a date of death? Does Layla even know what these are?

"Hey Mark, please. There's plenty of time to check this place out on the way back," Bali yammers impatiently. With that, he turns around and continues walking to the opposite end, almost leaving Mark in the dark again. "Yes! Sorry! You're right," he says, trying to catch up to him once more. He notices some graves have more space in front of their headstone than others, and some of them don't have the space to fit a human body. He estimates there are somewhere between 50 to 100 graves.

Many boulders line the edge where the ground meets the wall. The Aipom walks along them carefully, holding both torches close to them until he finds the one he is looking for. "This tunnel's a secret too. Merka's people don't know about this, and so there's not many patrollers on the other side." Bali says, and he pushes it aside. It reveals a crawl space big enough for pokemon their size.

Bali tosses Mark his torch, which he fumbles until it drops. Bali's already slipping into the small hole when he picks it up. Mark ducks down to look down into it. It's cramped with soft dirt and many rocks, some sharp, but he'll have to suck it up. He gets onto his fours and crawls behind Bali.

Mark struggles to move around this tunnel. It's clunky to hold his torch in his hand while crawling, while also making sure he doesn't singe Bali's rear. The flame in front of him also blocks his view most of the time. As they get deeper in, the tunnel's slopes get steep, further complicating movement. Even further in, wiry roots of what Mark assumes to be mushroom stems poke through the walls and ceiling, forcing the two to crawl over or under them.

Crawling like this isn't easy for Bali either, who doesn't get far ahead of him. After a long while, Bali speaks up out of the blue. "Sorry I've been getting impatient with you. I haven't eaten in three days and it's been making me grouchy. I am glad I have a partner for this."

"What? Oh no, it's fine," Mark says. "This is my first mission, I'm still getting used to things."

"Well, you're awfully lucky this is your first mission. You're getting paid a lot for how little you'll be doing," Bali says smugly. Immediately after he comes to a stop. There's a hole above him covered by another boulder. He pushes against it with his arms and shoulders, and it's pushed aside to reveal an exit.

Bali jumps out. Mark grabs the ledge and heaves himself out of the hole they were in, dragging himself to an entirely new place. There are the same mushroom trees from below but they are incredibly more packed and dense, twisting and bending in more than one spot, and their caps overlap and obscure the ceiling entirely. Buoying everywhere in the air are numerous small flickers of yellow lights. Mark's guess is that they're spores. They're too dim and sparse to illuminate the area, but they gave him a sense of the open area he could walk around.

Mark's not given much more time to examine the area as Bali moves on as soon as brushes dirt off himself. Despite the convoluted web of shroom stems, the Aipom takes a short winding path until he reaches a young, short mushroom which is being squished by the overgrown mushrooms beside it. Bali crawls under its cap, and Mark joins too.

Bali pokes his head out the other end, looking left and right. "It's clear. Stay as quiet as you can" he whispers.

He and Mark crawl out into an impossibly straight, narrow path that stretches far outside the reach of their torches. There are tree mushrooms lining both sides of the walkway, with gaps rarely large enough for himself to likely squeeze through. Bali keeps his head low and walks quietly. Mark mimics, although this footing is hard on his balance.

They come to a four-way junction, and Bali takes a left. It becomes obvious to mark that the corridors here are man-made, and that Bali has the route memorized. After another corner, Mark notices webs four times as tall as he is stretching from some stems to others, with lots of iron shards planted in them and glowing spores trapped. It must be fencing. His curious mind tempts him with feeling the web, but after one more corner, Mark sees the skeletal head of a pokemon still trapped in one. Eugh Mark thinks, shivering.

Soon they come to a stop by a particularly large mushroom tree. It's not properly planted into the ground, so some of its thin roots are exposed at its base. They stop here.

"Ok, here's the plan. You wait here, I'll go into one of the farms and do what I need to. If you see any of Merka's people, just holler. Anything like 'hey', 'run' - I don't care what, just make sure I hear it and that you don't use my name. After that, run. If I get what I want I'll find you in Scrap Town later. I don't think anyone will come but I can't afford to gamble anymore after last time" he whispers.

"How would I know if they're 'Merka's people'?"

Bali stops to think about this one. "...If you see anyone, just holler. And by that I mean, yell when you see their torch. They will have already seen your torch afterall". Mark nods. Bali nods back in acknowledgment, then quickly slips under the mushroom without much fanfare.

And now Mark is alone. Alone for the first time since waking up, he realizes. He looks all around him - there's no strong source of light up and down the road other than his own torch. Bali's own torch barely filters through the trees. He takes a deep breath, sits down, and looks above.

A gap between the many caps above him lets him peak through to the ceiling far away. Many orange stars glitter above much like the stars of the cave below, but these are smaller, dimmer, and more numerous. They feel further away. He studies the many sizes and patterns they form, trying to find meaning in them.

But the gap's width didn't show enough stars for his curiosity to be sated. Instead, Mark wonders what's on the other side of the fence. He brings his torch close to the web. The web's two layers and buried spikes create cacophonous shadows on the other side, but he works out the shape of mushrooms lined neatly in rows. After making out their colour and texture, he realizes they are the same mushrooms Layla has given him before. They keep calling these areas farms, what should I have expected?

Mark sighs. His gut tells him his new monkey friend is stealing food. He looks down at a pebble on the ground and kicks it as his thoughts swarm.

I can't stay on my high horse, this isn't the surface. It's not easy for these people… he argues to himself. His conscience isn't convinced.

…I promised him I'll do this, Mark thinks. He is putting his trust in me and depending on me. I'll just be more careful with what missions I'll pick next time.

This thought makes him feel comfortable again. It is true, it was his naivety that stopped him from questioning Bali when he first offered the mission. The uncomfortableness of the situation reminds Mark of when he chose to stand up for Layla yesterday. He holds his claws up - the blood is still there, although it has faded in colour and some dirt covers it instead.

He sees an orange glow in the corner of his eye. Defensively, he holds his torch in its direction and gets into a fighting stance. The light is far away though. No, there is something I'm supposed to do. Just call Bali, right? It's that it? What happens after? Is this person really going to be dangerous? He thinks. Mark keeps hesitating, the whole situation feeling unreal.

The figure from afar shouts to him with a menacing voice "Hey! Don't move and I'll keep this simple." Their torchlight hurries towards him.

His heart pounds. No, I can't hesitate. Mark thinks. He takes a deep breath and shouts "AAAAAAAAAA!", praying it's loud enough for Bali to catch.

His mission is complete, now all there is to do is to run. He turns around and books it, afraid to find out why people around here are such a big issue. He learns why anyways - a bolt of lighting passes to his right, flashing the entire mushroom forest around him for a moment while its boom makes his ears ring.

His heart pumps harder and his flight instincts take over. All thought shuts down; he forgoes keeping track of where he's going and thinks only to mix up what turns he takes. Left, right, getting lost now is the lesser concern. But no matter how hard he tries to shake his pursuer off, the electric-type is faster than what his short legs can manage.

"Die in the damn dirt! I'll fucking tear off those arms myself!" The pursuer shouts behind him. He then shoots another charge beam, which narrowly flies over Mark's head and causes his ears to ring even louder. In its brief flash, he sees a Sneasel far ahead of him, running towards him. He can't tell if it's Layla or someone else, but in his desperation, he gambles on the former. He runs straight to her.

This is a mistake, as the pursuer is free to line up his next attack. The next bolt hits Mark in his leg. A burning sensation surges where it hits him he falls straight to the ground. He reaches down to hold his leg as he feels the burning pain digs into his leg, and he screams. He looks back - it is a Mareep chasing him, his wool crackling with lightning as he runs up to him.

Mark projects a phantasmic claw swipe to the Mareep's underbelly, but he shrugs off its slice. The electric-type is now above him and he immediately pummels Mark's body with his hoof. Mark braces with his arms up, but it's no use. The sheep slips their hard hooves right past them, delivering fierce blows all over his chest and sides.

The overwhelming pain weakens his guard, and the Mareep takes advantage of this by striking his temple. The blow's strong enough to push Mark close to passing out, but right before the hoof pounds him one more time, he sees a Sneasel tackle the sheep. He can hear the two fight off in the distance. He sees and hears one more electric move, and then he passes out.

Mark stirs. His thoughts are hazy but as soon as his consciousness clicks, he remembers being in a bad situation and bolts right up. He holds his arms in front of himself and gets ready to scream, but a claw grabs his mouth before he shouts. He struggles, trying to shake the hand off.

"You're safe, silly" the voice beside him says, soothingly. "But you can't scream, or more will find us, ok?~"

His adrenaline eventually recedes. While panting, he looks around cautiously: they are on top of a mushroom cap, which is teal and soft. In front of him, the canopy of the same forest stretched out in front of him - the mushrooms that grew taller than others had their stems and cap undersides tinted by yellow spores. The ceiling is perfectly clear, with an incredible expanse of faux stars decorating the sky.

Far away in the "sky", Mark sees an eerie green glow, and in its lower right corner, a dimmer purple glow. Far on the other side of the "horizon", Mark can also a strong red-orange glow that illuminates the mouth of a cave. And to his side, Layla sits calm and collected with a smile. Mark nods to her, and she takes her claw off his mouth. Both their torches and bags were resting beside her hip.

"What- what happened?" he asks. He looks around more, but he notices no more features in the dark expanse. The glowing masses far away were no substitutes for a sun or moon.

"Ahh, you got beat up pretty bad by one of Merka's patrollers. You were barely hanging on. But I was in the area when I heard you scream the first time, so I dashingly came in and saved you because I'm your hero~. Fed you an oran berry too, because I'm that wonderful," she says, with a lot of pride in her voice.

Mark looks down at his chest. He can remember how violent the poundings were, yet there isn't a mark or bruise anywhere, like he was never touched. The only exception is that his right foreleg has a bandage wrapped around it.

He then feels Layla's shoulder lean against his own. He looks at her. "Hey sorry I forgot to warn you about Merka and Lucia's people. Should I explain now?" she says with a wink.

Mark shuffles away from her lean. He sheepishly rubs the back of his neck. "Uh, yeah… Who was that Mareep?"

"Ok. Uhh…" Layla says, thinking for a bit. "Look there" she points to the horizon in the direction of the green glow. "There's a giant cliff there. If you were to climb it and go to the far back-" she points a little further up, to the left "-you'd reach Canal City. There's a city guild that made the rules for everyone for the longest time, and controlled all the farms.

"And over here-" Layla points straight to the red-orange glow "- is the entrance to the magma caves. In the back is another town. A Tyranitar there once went 'ThEy ArEn'T sHaRiNg ThE fOoD' and formed the People's Guild, and decided to take control of some farms instead of the City Guild. They'd 'protect the farmers from the city', but the farms are forced to give their food to them instead. They were very successful, and Merka is the current guildmaster."

She points back to the cliff. "The guildmaster of the City Guild kind of did nothing while the People's Guild just took their stuff, and soon the city started having less food. So someone named Lucia went 'fucking bullshit' and OVERTHREW THE CITY GUILD and went 'ThEy WoN't TaKe OuR fOoD, wE'rE a CiTy Of LaW' and now she's been sending people to fight over these farms and forcibly 'protect them from Merka' and force them to share the food with only them.

"Merka mostly has the farms right above the Lower Caves. Where we are right now. But Lucia's slowly been taking back many farms, and the guild somehow keeps finding reasons to show up around here. Worse is that they're even more violent than Merka's guild.

"Anyways," she starts patting his back, "That Mareep was probably one of Merka's guild members, and they assumed you were stealing. And honestly, even if they were wrong, I would have done the same thing. So… avoid them, ok? Even if you take one on in a fight and win, it will make a larger target out of you. Also, convincing them you're not stealing is way worse: they'll assume you're one of Lucia's people or vice versa, and they hate the other. And don't bother acting like you're a farmer either, they'll know. Farmers can't leave their plots.

"And they all hate Scrap Town because we won't pick a side. Even though our town can't help being better than the both of them, y'know?"

Mark nods to all of this.

"Yeah, heehee. And both sides have been more aggressive to each other and disputes are more frequent. It's been making food harder to come by and therefore more expensive and dangerous… Anyways, how are you feeling, Mark?" she asks.

"Huh?" he responds. He looks down at his body. He pats it to make sure it really is healed. What are these oran mushrooms? "I feel fine. Why?" he asks, looking at her.

"Ahhhh I've been doing some thinking. There's something I want to say…" she says. She takes a breath and looks to her feet, where she brushes one foot over the other. Mark gives her all the time she needs to collect her thoughts.

She eventually stirs and looks at him with a serious expression. "I regret wanting to drop that torch. They might find and kill us, burn our house, whatever. I used to be the kind of person who believed you can't kill people or harm them more than necessary for self-defense. But I guess I stopped. People don't really respect or care, they just think you're a fool for doing it, and showing mercy just hurts and… I'm afraid of dying, I guess. So I gave up." She looks down in front of her. Her foot rubs into the cap. There's astounding silence, just the crackling of their torches can be heard

Eventually, Layla continues. "You defending them reminded me about who I used to be. But, I'm not sure if I'm wrong. Like, is it wrong to survive? Because that's what it takes. … Andy once was going to douse someone's torch, but I stopped him, much like how you did. Those people I saved ended up burning our houses down, thinking we're criminals who were going to harm Canal City. Andy doesn't resent me but being nice almost hurt someone else and who knows what they did to other people. Did I really make the world better?

"But… Would anybody be hurting each other if there was enough food?" she asks. She sighs and digs her heel into a mushroom cap.

"I thought over everything and I think the real problem is that we're all stuck underground. We just wanted to eat then, so we broke the city's laws. They get fed based on how many problems they fix."

She takes a deep breath and swiftly turns her body and picks up Mark's claw with both her hands. She stares at him dead in the eyes.

"Let's find the surface together! Not to find your memories, but so we can save everyone! We can stop all this misery together, I know how much space the surface has. And you're the only one who can help me! Nobody else can find the surface because nobody else can read human script, that must be the missing key. And we'll fund ourselves by taking on missions that help others, as many as we can. So please Mark! Will you join me? This is the only way we can help everyone!"

Mark's hands are being squeezed by her. It's a lot being dropped on him, and he's overwhelmed by the desperation pervading her voice and expression. In the short time he's been here, everything he witnessed is bleak or cynical. He knows deep down Layla's right, but should he rush into this?

She has just saved him, and she's been so helpful getting him adjusted to this world. But he knows he can't just commit to people because they are kind to him, even if he cares for them. Plus, it was his naivety that caused problems. He needs to use his brain more no matter how hard his heart tugs the other way.

What makes his mind up is when he notices her eyes. He sees in them a deep, terrifying fear that she'll never escape things far worse than he's experienced. Seeing that pain hurt him. He can't stand by and let such hopelessness exist. He'd never forgive himself.

He takes a deep breath, and he lifts his free claw to place it on top of Layla's own claws. "I'll help you".

Layla immediately lunges into Mark, wrapping her arms around him under his shoulder and pulling him in tight. "Thank you so much!" she nearly shouts, ignoring her earlier warning about sound. She pushes him to the ground and even begins rolling with him, disorienting Mark so much. Tears form in her eyes.

"We'll be the best team ever! Everybody far and wide will tremble at our names while Merka and Lucia shudder in fear if they dare hear we're in town. They'll be at our mercy while we'll be the new champions that guide everyone to a new era. They'll build statues of us! We'll be the best people IN HISTORY and it'll all be thanks to you!"

Eventually she stops rolling; Mark is on his back. She props herself up - her eyes are still tearful. "We need a team name. You get to pick since you said 'yes'. How do you feel about Team 'The Best'? It's an amazing name, and very accurate."

The heaviness of the situation weighed on him on top of Layla literally being on top of him. Mark's overwhelmed and yet to pile even more on top, he's not used to pretty girls holding him so tightly. This is the worst time to fret about this and that only makes him more nervous and anxious. He chokes on his words. "Uh… Uhh… Team Surface sounds fine…"

"Hey, is that a blush? You like how cute I am, don't you?"

"Wh-"

Layla grins and presses her forehead against his own. Mark tries to bury the back of his head into the cap as much as he can while he pulls the corners of his lips into a nervous smile. She's giggly.

"My charm is pretty powerful, isn't it? Don't worry Mark, when the time comes, you'll be part of my army of cute boyfriends and girlfriends~. I'll love you and you'll love me lots" she winks, before she loses herself laughing. She wipes the tears from her eyes.

He can't remember ever asking anyone out or being asked out, and he doesn't need his memories to know nobody ever tried to make him a boyfriend soldier. But he doesn't want to ruin her fun, especially after how vulnerable she just made herself.

Plus, he thinks about what she just said, and he turns his head. He knows he's red through and through, especially with how pretty she is. His cheek gets pinched by her claw. "Yeah, that's what I thought. I'm never going to let you forget I'm the best girl in the underground and you get to be around me. You're never going to stop crushing on me~ Heehee, should have warned you beforehand I'm a mean tease~"

She eventually pulls herself off of him. Mark chuckles; he's nervous but he also realizes he's having fun as well. He likes this energy, although he doesn't want to think about if he does actually like her that way - there's already way too many things going on. Feelings feel like a lesser priority right now.

She offers a hand. He takes it, and Layla pulls him up. "Ok, phew. First thing tomorrow, we'll go to where I think that Gallade's key goes. Actually, no - how about we find a mission instead and help somebody. Wouldn't that be a better way to kick off this team, eh?"

Mark smiles and nods. Yeah, he likes that idea.

"Alright. Pick up your torch and bag, and we'll head out. Although before you do - are you sure you want to keep the name 'Team Surface'? That's such a lame name, I don't care I came up with it".

Mark rubs the back of his neck, realizing the nonsense he signed up for.

(Author's Note, part 2: Apparently explaining lapses in chapter uploads in author notes is a common thing, so I might as well explain the sparse upload schedule: I'm a slow writer. I don't think I'll get much faster, although a goal of mine would be to upload a chapter a month.

By the way, I plan to rewrite chapter 1 after I publish chapter 5. Once I do, I'll publish this story on Ao3 as well. I'll edit chapters 2 and 3 for continuity's sake as well, especially since I've changed Lucy's name to Lucia.

I plan to minimize having author notes as much as I can.)