Throughout the night, all our eyes grew somewhat accustomed to the lack of light, but it was nowhere near total darkness, like it would be in a regular cave with no green-blue glowing mushrooms. Even so, I could tell that my night vision was a lot better than the others', barring Lola. Her red eyes practically glowed in the darkness— a fact I was sure she would relish in if I told her. It didn't matter much since she fell asleep pretty fast.

It was a long night, or at least if felt like it. It was one of those where you'd keep waking up, only to fall back asleep nigh instantly because you were barely awake in the first place. I'd had those a couple times after especially stressful study binges. This time in particular, it didn't help that waking up didn't convince me I wasn't dreaming.

The cave was quiet all night as far as I could tell, and without our chatter it stayed that way until the morning. Well, maybe until ten minutes before morning.

"Kieran, what am I again?"

"Litleo," he groaned. "Fire lion."

Kieran and I had ended up waking up first. It wasn't easy to find a comfortable sleeping position as a quadruped (even though Lola seemed to be faring well on her side), and I couldn't even imagine trying to when you suddenly couldn't shift between positions by yourself. Anyway, any time was good for a refresher, and I could use a briefing.

"... And Chloe?"

"Swablu."

"And-"

"Valérie's a Meditite, Gab's an Emolga, Lola's an Absol!" He snapped, and huffed.

He stood still in his corner, his eyes dead tired. Something finally clicked in my brain, and I remembered his species name from faraway Pokémon Red memories.

"Kakuna!" I beamed. "You're a Kakuna!"

"... Yes," he mumbled. "Reached far for that one?"

"I played Red when I was five. I know some stuff."

He responded, making a sound that someone would make while shrugging. You know, if they could shrug. It must've been his shorthand for the moment. After that, silence settled back in. Great. He was always the one who came to me for conversation during class, but now that there was absolutely nothing else to do, he was quiet?

"... which one's the one you evolve into?" I asked.

"Beedrill," Chloe whispered next to us. Apparently she'd woken up sometime during our non-conversation and hopped over. She looked tired but cheerful... which seemed consistent.

"Oh," I answered. "Which one is that again?"

"You can remember Kakuna, but not Beedrill," Kieran said. "The big bee. With the drills."

"Excuse me if my memories from ten years ago are faded", I retorted. "During that playthrough, I went for the butterfly anyway."

"Good choice, Butterfree's the better one," Chloe quipped, to Kieran's somewhat offended gasp.

They started bickering about stats, typing, and things that went way over my head. Eventually, I gave up on trying to follow the debate and decided to observe the dim light of the mushrooms.

Suddenly, a giant shadow pulled over the area. A voice from above me caught me off guard. "Are we going, already?"

I fell over when I tried to jump away, but still managed to swivel around in the direction of the surprise. What met me, of course, were those red eyes and smug grin that Lola bore. I just about died of frustration and embarrassment, my attention now strictly on the scaremonger Absol.

"Wow, two for two," she chuckled.

"Don't sneak up on me like that!"

"I wasn't trying to. It's just dark. I guess I blend in," she said, with— I swear to God— a mimic of a hair flip with her scythe. She didn't seem self-aware about it no matter how forced it looked. "Anyway, I'm hungry. Should we get some food?"

With Kieran and Chloe still absorbed into their argument, there was only one choice to pick. Still, Lola wasn't necessarily someone I wanted to hang out with alone.

"It's kind of dark out there."

"I can see fine."

"Neither of us carry berries back without putting them in our mouth."

"I can come along," said Gab.

Aaaaand now everyone's awake, I thought while glancing over to where we'd slept for the night. I did find Valérie still lying down close to the wall, so I wasn't correct.

With our designated Kakuna carrier still asleep, rendering us immobile as a complete group, the three of us left to get the Oran berries.

The path was dark, unsurprisingly. The twisting corridor didn't bother me all that much, since we hadn't found any other opening between our camp and the berries. None of the labyrinth's danger this morning; only a straight line in the darkness. Though there was some dim light coming from the walls, it was nothing compared to what the mushrooms had produced when we'd first appeared here. Better yet, that portal yesterday was the most light I'd ever seen in my life. Too bad we couldn't harness it or find the surface, both ways we could properly see where we were going. Come to think, though, Gab had practically turned into a living lamp before we all went to sleep. Said classmate was currently busy holding her hands in front of her. With her being a flying squirrel, her eyesight must've been worse than Lola and I's.

"Why don't you try lighting up again?" I asked her, hit with the realization that it could make our walk easier.

She started to mumble something in response, but Lola cut her off. "I see things the same in the dark as the day. We're fine."

Gab shrugged and sighed, before her quiet voice finally entered the conversation. "Well, you are a dark type. It would make sense that you have some kind of night vision."

"Uh, yeah. Cool power for a cool person," Lola laughed, before flashing a grin.

I rolled my eyes, deciding to look away from the Absol and Emolga. Silence fell again upon our trio, but we were getting close to the Oran berry bush. Making conversation honestly wasn't my priority. Throughout the stroll, I'd been walking just fine. The hardest part had been waking up and standing, but I was starting to get the hang of walking on all fours. I'd had some amount of practice, after all.

It was then that the reality of the situation hit me again at full force.

"Oh my god. Pokémon," I blurted out.

"I know," Gab sighed in relief. "This is so weird."

"Weird doesn't even cut it!", I laughed, any tension I'd felt dissipating. "Lola, you've been all nonchalant since landing, what's up with you?"

"Eh, I look cool. Whatever. Reflects my dark inside."

Well, someone seems to have spent a long time on Deviantart.

I snorted despite better judgment, but Lola seemed to ignore it. "Oh, hey, we're here."

Barely a couple feet away from the bush, the lights suddenly turned back on. I shut my eyes, and was sure Gab and Lola did too. Well, especially Lola, because she'd let out a pained cry. Her excellent night vision had been her downfall.

When my eyes had adjusted, I was greeted with the sight of Lola lying on the ground, dramatically reaching a paw toward Gab and I.

"Go on without me," she groaned.

"Get up," I said rolling my eyes. "Those berries aren't going to bring themselves back."

She sighed heavily and we went to work, picking out the berries, eating our share, and drinking from the puddle occasionally. Lola and I just grabbed what we could while piling up the rest on Gab. Her size interfered with the amount she could carry, but two small hands were better than none.

Our assembly line continued until yells echoed from down the hall.

"Is something going on?" I asked.

"No, I just think Valérie's awake," said Gab.

Our makeshift camp was mostly the same when we got back. Could we call it a camp if it was only made up of us while sleeping? Anyway, the only difference was, of course, that Valérie was awake. And boy, would that have usually been a difference. With that commanding of a presence, she was what anyone would look up to first, me included.

To my surprise, though, the Meditite's eyes were closed, her shoulders and chest going up and down with each breath. She was standing up, arms joined together. Not a peep came out of her anymore, except for the sound of inhaling and exhaling. This was as far from her previous method of dealing with being a Pokémon as it could be.

"There we go," Chloe chirped right next to her. It didn't take a bird expert to tell that her feathers were still ruffled from Valérie's freakout earlier. "Deep breaths."

Thank God for Chloe.

"Ugh, spare me," groaned Kieran, who'd just noticed us coming back. He was lying on his side, his back against the wall. "Took you long enough."

Valérie and Chloe looked up, as Gab dropped the Oran berries she'd brought into a neat pile. She'd put down four, one for each classmate who hadn't gotten to eat yet. She sat down and partook in a bite of hers, and I grabbed Kieran's and brought it over to him. He didn't seem too excited.

"Agh, gross, your drool's on it."

"Get over it," I replied, sitting down next to him. "I already had mine. Open up-"

I remembered, for the second time since finding Kieran as a Kakuna, that there was an odd design choice pertaining to that Pokémon. There was no visible mouth.

"Okay, you're gonna have to help me out here."

"What?" He asked.

"Where's your mouth? I mean, how did you eat yesterday—"

I realized something else.

"You didn't eat yesterday?!"

He squinted at me. "Nope, thanks for caring when that happened."

I was in full panic mode again, the fur on the back of my neck rising. I rolled the berry closer to his face. "Well, all the more important that you eat now, then!"

"Micheal, I feel fine!" He snapped. "Not the slightest bit hungry! I'm a cocoon, right? Whatever I've got going on inside, it's sorting itself out. Probably already got all the calories I need until Beedrill."

He huffed and closed his eyes, now opting out of the conversation. I awkwardly rolled the Oran berry back toward myself, unsure of what to do with it. Was Kieran really correct about not needing to eat? It was true that chrysalis and cocoons didn't need food while in that state, but then again, they weren't typically the size of a cat and always ready to talk someone's ear off during math class. Some butterflies didn't emerge out of their chrysalis for weeks. Could I count on that kind of a timeframe? I also had to consider the Pokémon angle, and all a fictional animal and universe had to entail. If a lion — like what I was currently— could survive off berries and no meat, did that mean that all nutrition laws went out the window to begin with? I knew I wouldn't find out the answer until we'd learn we'd gone with the wrong decision. And I couldn't help but think that Kieran also thought of all these things, to varying degrees of anxiety.

I spoke to him again. "You don't know where it is either, do you?"

"Nope, and I'd rather not think about it, thank you very much."

"Got it."

A few minutes later, we were ready to walk again, Lola finishing off the extra berry. I'd felt full after one, but she was the biggest one in the group, so a stronger appetite would be appropriate. With Valérie leading the charge, we left in the direction opposite the bush, Gab picking up the note.

The walk was quiet as we went through the long hallway. We hadn't taken any turns yet after maybe half an hour. I really thought we'd talk more, especially if this morning was any example, but any attempts to conversation lasted two minutes at best. Valérie in particular had gone from pale to steadfast with nothing in between, and a long time walking didn't help.

We did eventually reach the end of the path. What awaited us wasn't an exit, though. It was another chamber.

The instant we entered the room, my nostrils were assaulted by a foul, musty smell. I blamed it surprisingly quickly on the lion nose being better than my usual one. Lola and Gab's noses were scrunched up too, so I knew I wasn't the only one suffering. I was able to push the smell aside to focus on other things, but leaving the room went up on my list of priorities.

In the center of the room was a scarecrow-like dummy, with stray straw sticking out of a torn, tattered sheet. It looked in bad shape, but it was still stuck on a pole and strung up with sturdy-looking rope knots. Whoever had made it knew what they were doing, and even though it had clearly taken a beating, it was standing.

"Woah," I said.

"Wow, a ceiling," Kieran sighed sarcastically, Valérie quickly adjusting him so he could see the dummy.

"Kieran," she groaned. "Shut the salt trap."

He rolled his eyes. "I'd like to see you react to everyone in your class getting superpowers and you getting stuck as the Kakuna!"

"... Everyone in the class?" Gab asked, essentially voicing my concerns. We were only six teenagers here. We hadn't heard a peep from anyone other than us.

Where is everyone else?

I didn't get to ponder it much more because Chloe had flown to another note, this one laid next to the dummy, and then it was a mad scramble to get there as fast as we could. What can I say? We'd become about as starved for guidance as we were for adult supervision. Come to think of it, the two weren't that different.

'Practice your moves! :)' read the yellowing page. I'd expected another cryptic message, so I was surprised to end up somewhat not disappointed.

Obviously, this was some kind of training room. The dummy and the note made that clear. Our mysterious guide had planted berries, clues and training gear, but what they hadn't was answers.

"So, who's gonna hit it first?" Kieran asked.

"What?" I said, snapped out of my thoughts.

"We're Pokémon. We have moves. Who's gonna hit it first?"

After some nervous shuffling, Chloe hopped in the dummy's direction, went for a running start, and flew onto its 'shoulder'. Having herself positioned, she started aggressively pecking at it. It looked like head banging from my position, and I was unsure if it was effective on the dummy— let alone if it would deter an actual threat. The smell got worse, and my squinting eyes caught the sight of dust clouds coming out of the spot Chloe kept hitting. This thing— and the note— had been left unattended for a while.

"Aw, I bet it's super moldy," Lola laughed, batting air away from her nose with her paw.

We elected not to practice against this thing in a closed ventilation system, but not before Chloe had the mother of all coughing fits. With her being a bird, maybe she didn't have the best sense of smell anymore, but choking was easy with however small her lungs were now.

We started to move away, the unsaid agreement of moving along being fulfilled again.

"No more practice?" Asked Kieran, somewhat disappointed.

Valérie looked down to him.

"I can throw you at it," she suggested.

"Yeah, ok" Kieran sighed, closing his eyes. "Thanks. Next time, we go for 'Plan Projectile'."

We started making our wall down the hall again. "Wait. So what now?"

It was Lola who'd asked the question. She'd dropped her usual demeanour for a look that was somewhat honest. "What are we doing now? We walk some more?"

"Yeah," Valérie answered. "We need to find the right path."

"What's the use?" She asked.

"It's the only way to find the exit!" Chloe said.

Lola waited a while before shrugging. "Yeah, sure."

Something in her tone was ominous, as much as I hated to admit. This didn't faze Chloe, however. She excitedly flapped her wings, getting some small lift off the ground. She was definitely the fastest to adapt to being a Pokémon.

We started making our way through a path we hadn't before. How long did we walk this time? I didn't know. It was during this walk that I realized that we truly didn't have any way to measure time other than the lights going out. If they even were to go out again. And, to begin with, was that accurate to an actual day-night cycle? How many hours did we spend in that stupid cave? How many would we continue to?

We reached another fork in the road, this one simply leaving us with the choice of left and right. As Lola started to wander on the right side, she was quickly yelled at by Valérie.

"Woah! What do you think you're doing?"

Lola looked over her shoulder to face a not-so-happy Meditite. "Walking?"

"I meant: why would you pick that path? It's sloping down. There's no way that's the one to lead us to the surface."

"Wow, listen to Girl Scout over here."

"I wasn't in the Scouts," Valérie scoffed. "I just have common sense!"

"Uh, common sense would also consider that this one could totally end up going back up, idiot."

Valérie's following gasp was something to behold, and I remember wondering right then whether she'd gotten the last of the cave's oxygen all in one breath. She lowered her head, fuming.

Kieran, still carried by her, took that as a massive warning. His black eyes practically bulged out of his head. "Put me down now if you're gonna try anything."

She did not hear that as far as I knew, because she marched up to the Absol, the Kakuna still in her arms, and readied herself for the argument. As I looked around me, I just saw Gab sharing my helpless expression. Valérie and Lola were momentarily stopped by Chloe landing in-between them.

"Woah there! I'm sure we can talk everything out!" She pleaded. "Now's not the time to fight!"

"I don't know, maybe we're friggin' Pokémon for a reason," growled Valérie.

"And maybe we'll find out what that reason is later! Can't we just take a civil vote? If you two each want a different path, I'm sure we can sort this out without blows being dealt."

With that and Chloe's super effective puppy dog eyes (or Swablu eyes?), the situation had somehow been defused. There was just no getting angry at Chloe. While the tension was still there, it didn't feel like anyone was going to start throwing punches anytime soon. We just needed to handle the rest of the conversation delicately and not argue over cave logistics.

"I'm with Lola though. We're probably not even underground anyway!" Chloe laughed.

And there was the final nail in the coffin.

The bickering match's volume now grew to nuke proportions, even Gab throwing her two cents in. I could only watch from the sidelines, trying desperately to help Chloe play peacemaker. Lord, we needed at least the two of us. After dealing with frustration after frustration, maybe this outburst was our only outlet. If we didn't find any concrete explanation soon, this would keep going until we finally ran out of food and air.

On the wall opposing us, I noticed a thin line of discolouration. That part of the wall was subtly darker than the rest. I stared, mouth agape as I looked from side to side. The stripe ran across the entire wall as far as I could tell. Although faded, it looked artificial enough that someone had to have put it there. Like a trail.

"It looks like..." I mumbled, before yelling out: "Ink!"

I stumbled out of our spot, going in a random direction and keeping my eye on the wall stripe. The fight behind me grew quiet and I heard equally frantic scrambles going into the same direction. Something about the texture on that stripe screamed ink, and that rekindled some hope that there was someone else here. We needed someone to be there.

But again, we didn't reach them. I probably knew already that we wouldn't, but finding another dead end with a note planted on the ground was the mother of all letdowns.

I didn't need to say anything, or exchange looks with anyone. I only heard slow footsteps around me as I padded closer to the message. It was as worn as anything before, and I unfortunately saw that I'd been right about it being written in the same ink as the stripe.

'No need to fear; there is still one path I have not followed. I'll mark it as I go. This last task should appear at the end of the path, when I've seen everything there is to see here. It's tricky, but I have been in this kind of a place before. :)'

"We went the wrong way," I sighed. "This is the start of the line."

We'd reached the end of the path before. If all we had to do was reach another end... we'd just have to find where that was. Even if it meant running into that elusive cave monster.

I couldn't elaborate before the lights dimmed, leaving only a faint glow from the mushrooms. Suddenly, it was 'night' again. Gab started glowing seconds later.

"We walk again tomorrow?" I asked, turning back to the group. I received groans from all around.

We set camp, by which I mean that we individually decided what part of the rocky, dusty floor looked the comfiest, and laid down there. I think we deeply needed to sleep off some steam after something as simple as a fork in the road got us so intensely heated. They say never to go to bed angry, but I say I'd rather get some time away from anger rather than stew in it.

Valérie set Kieran next to me that night. I laid down on my side, paws splayed out in front of me. I'd learned from last night that that was the position that felt the least awkward. I'd slept on my back as a human, so it would still take a lot of getting used to.

Most of the camp was tired and quiet. But not my cocoon friend laying right next to my ear. It was a poorly calculated position on my part.

"Pssst, you think you know any fire moves?" Kieran whispered.

"No?" I answered. Even if I did, I didn't know how to access them. "Why?"

"Campfire," he responded.

I turned over to face him. "In a cave? No, man. We'd suffocate."

"Just a thought", he laughed, before muttering under his breath. "At least you can probably do something right now."

I only shrugged in response. What else was there to say? We'd been through a lot of surprises in two days.

I got more and more annoyed by the situation the more I thought about it. There was just too much going on; my senses were constantly overwhelmed, and I had to think without rest. I was plain exhausted, I would be in the morning, and I knew the others would be too. I sighed, and was drawn out from my stupor by a noise from the corner.

"Hey, turn the light off?" Whined Lola, her voice muffled by the ground. Gab rolled her eyes, and then all my surroundings faded away into darkness.