Chapter 21: Shed Some Light


Nothing but silence followed the end of Bristle's monologue. She would have feared that Rex was gone if she couldn't still hear his shallow breaths. But who knew if he was even aware enough to respond anymore.

After a horrible minute, he spoke up. She tensed as he spoke, bracing for the judgement.

"So let me clear something up..." he muttered. "You came from an egg?"

There was a very awkward pause.

"What?" she whispered.

"You're like... a plant. And you came from an egg. Like a bird, or a reptile, or something... That doesn't make any sense," he mumbled with a weak laugh.

"Helioptile, please. Please just stay focused a bit longer... I- I need to understand this. Just... just tell me what I did wrong, okay?" Bristle pleaded desperately.

Rex sighed, his feeble laughter fading. "Rex," he stated, "Just call me Rex. It's not even my name, but it's the closest thing I have. I don't want to hear 'Helioptile' any more..."

"Okay. 'Rex'. You said I don't get it. I need to get it." She made no attempt to hide the terror behind her voice any more.

He paused. "So how exactly did we go from that to 'Guildmaster' Bristle?"

"Things didn't really improve from there," she whimpered. "Eventually my parents got deployed out to Tranquil Knoll to watch the area for a while. I didn't want to lose my last chances to learn from my mother, so I went with them.

"Things were… different there. I'd do the simplest jobs and they'd act like it was something amazing. My parents were busy, so there were no Jade Crest members to outshine me, and…"

She sank her face into her knees. "I just finally felt useful."

"When they went back, I didn't want to go with them. I'd been a failure at the Crest, but I'd been what everyone needed in Tranquil Knoll. At least, I was for a while," she muttered.

"But as things went on, nothing really changed. I kept up my training, but I had no one to train with anymore, and the jobs were all easy. So easy that I just… stopped thinking. Why put the effort into jobs like that?

"That was what I thought, at least. But then I'd start messing them up. And then I'd get frustrated, and mess up even more because why was I messing these easy jobs up? A few people started just sending requests to the Crest for help on the big stuff, and soon almost everyone was doing that.

"I guess I thought the guild was an answer to that. If I could get some people under me, and form a guild right here, why would anyone go to the Jade Crest? Saw how well that turned out…"

She fell silent again. There was a scraping sound as Rex seemed to pull himself upright beside her. Trying to keep himself awake a bit longer. It was clear from his voice how little energy he had left. He wouldn't be lucid for more than a couple of hours at most.

"I'm sorry you grew up like that," he offered genuinely. "But at the end of the day, you chose what to do with all of that baggage. And you chose poorly. Let me finish this story from my perspective, alright?"

Though he couldn't see it, Bristle nodded hesitantly, uncertain where he was going with this.

"I woke up alone, lost, and afraid. You were the first person I met. And you treated me like trash," he started, his meek voice carrying an accusing tone.

There was a faint scrape as she rubbed her buds together anxiously. "I... I thought you were a rival delver. I had ruined my reputation in town so much by that point, I- I thought if I lost the job to you, that..." She let it trail off, feeling her own justification quiver in her mind.

"You were worried I might be better than you, so you put me down? That's just pathetic. Insecure."

Bristle cringed lower with each word.

"But forget that- it doesn't matter. What matters is that when you realized I wasn't a rival, you still kept being an ass to me! I was anxious and confused, and not only did you do the bare minimum to help, you made it worse!"

"I... you were asking insane questions!" she protested. "I.. I didn't..."

"You're still justifying yourself!" Rex growled, spending more of his fleeting energy than he should have. "You said you want to understand this, but you're still refusing to shut up and listen!"

Bristle slumped meekly against the wall and let out her breath. "Fine..."

"And those 'stupid questions'?" Rex chuckled bitterly. "Big reveal, Bristle: I'm not from this world. I was a human, and thanks to Strife, I got roped into this shit. So no, they weren't stupid questions- I was trying to understand what the hell was going on and why I was a bloody lizard all of a sudden."

Her racing thoughts stopped entirely for a moment. That was not at all where she had expected this conversation to go. Under any other circumstance she would have rolled her eyes and assumed this was some kind of grift. But no one would tell a lie like that, alone in their final hours.

She'd never believed humans were real, despite Lore's many assertions. Thorn tended to be skeptical of stories and superstitions, and she'd inherited her mother's opinions. Normally this would spawn a hundred more questions, but now none of them seemed to matter anymore.

"That's... that's why you came to me... You had literally nothing and no one else," she muttered in a deflated voice.

"Bingo." His voice made it clear he took no joy in shattering her pride further. "I thought I could use you for meals, shelter, and information. And for a few days, it did work. But let's continue the story- we'll get to that.

"After I joined you, we went off on our little trip, your stupid 'test' went to shit, and then we met Team Pride. It was hard to gauge your relationship at first. But from what you've told me it sounds like you guys used to be pretty close," he said, the simple statement carrying an accusation.

"We were... coworkers," she muttered. "But I guess I was closer with them than anyone else."

"You were friends," he asserted. "And in a way, you still are. You know they care about you, right?"

She sighed. "They did, yeah. Until I messed everything up."

To her surprise, she felt his claw touch against her arm a few times, scouting in the dark before clasping weakly at her shoulder.

"Bristle, they still do. They were worried about you, asking questions. Even when we first ran into them in Flak Grotto, Ego was trying to warn you that you were in over your head."

"That's just it," she groaned. "We used to be... friends, I guess. But ever since I started messing everything up, it's just... disappointment. Or outright jeers. And they're right... Look at where I've gotten myself."

That claw on her shoulder grasped just a bit tighter. "Bristle, Ego isn't exactly the most tactful, but he's not trying to jeer at you. Most of the examples you gave me of how everyone in the Crest supposedly looked down on you just seemed... normal. Like they cared about you."

She instinctually pulled herself away from his grasp. "Funny. No one 'cared' about me before I fell," she muttered.

She heard his claw settle back to his own lap. "Exactly the point. You lived on a pedestal. And the second you became 'normal', you didn't know how to live with it. I think I got it right before. The feral with a job thing. You never learned to interact with people on their level."

Bristle squirmed a bit at being called a feral. There was no point protesting against the dying Helioptile- or rather, dying human. And insults aside, he wasn't wrong. She never really had gotten to talk much to Pokémon outside of her parents and select group of caretakers. Even after she'd gone off on her own, she kept to herself outside of business.

She never really understood people, beyond serving their needs as a delver. They led such different lives to her. And when all she was ever met with was idolization or jeering... she'd always made a point of keeping her distance.

"Anyways, point being, I watched you pick a fight with the people trying to get you to slow down. Your recruiting runs continued to fail hilariously, we headed back, and miraculously you found someone willing to give you the benefit of the doubt. Even if it was just for Galvantula's own interest. And then you immediately threw that away. And me, too."

"I... I thought if she stuck around a while... she'd come to like it with us. I was afraid she'd leave if you didn't play along," Bristle offered weakly. Even she sounded unconvinced of the point.

"I don't care. It's not your job to tell anyone else what they want. You saw how that worked out. But hold onto that thought. You didn't just piss her off- you pissed me off too. Because you couldn't see past getting what you wanted for five minutes to consider the long-term consequences. You nearly killed me earlier- Yesterday? Two days ago? However long it's been... You nearly killed me because you don't think of anything past whatever your immediate fixation is."

Rex fell silent a moment, as if inviting her to protest. But the only sound in return was a soft dripping of tears. She had no retaliation at this point. Their current situation was proof enough of that.

"So after this I enjoyed a few days of peace from being used and abused. And we got forced back together to get info out of the kid." He paused. "And oh boy did I watch your ugliest with him.

"I shouldn't need to explain to you that once you've reached the point of sucker punching children you're pretty much the bad guy by default. But even before that you took every opportunity to abuse him you could. Constant insults, constant threats..."

"I- he was a criminal! He nearly burned everything! I- I thought..." Bristle whimpered and let the sentence trail off. It wasn't a defense any more- it was a question.

"He was a kid!" Rex growled, anger burning away at his dwindling life again. "A stupid kid that got used! And guess what? Do you know why we followed you here in the first place? Do you know why I'm going to die? Because that stupid, stupid kid was worried about you! He was afraid you were going to get hurt while you had your temper tantrum alone and wanted to make sure you were okay. And what did we get for it? More abuse!"

Amid her own crying she heard him stand up for the first time in hours. She could sense him towering over her, no regard left for how little of his life force remained.

"Here we get to the point, Bristle," he hissed. "You want to know what went wrong? Here it is: you have zero self-awareness.

"Team Pride, your friends, told you to slow down. You hurt one of the most amiable people I've ever met so badly that they webbed you to a wall. You drove off the only person willing to play along with your stupid guild. You even had the victim of your abuse telling you they were worried about you.

"And yet, at no point did you ever consider listening to the things people told you, did you? At no point did you ever stop to think that maybe you didn't have it all figured out, and that there was a reason everyone you met either ran away or told you that you needed help? Fine, you had a shitty childhood, or whatever. But you've had every opportunity since to improve yourself, and you've scorned it every time!"

There was thud as he collapsed limply against the wall next to her. But she could barely process that amongst her own sobbing.

They had hated her, hadn't they? They were- they were all trying to help her? Had she really been so deluded this whole time? Had everything been a lie?

The torrent of thoughts froze in place at that.

Of course it had. She knew it had all been a lie. If everything she'd ever been told wasn't a lie, she wouldn't have ended up here. So it had to be true. She'd been building up to a fate like this all along, too blind to see it.

With that epiphany, her sobbing stopped. She sniffled and tried to sit up straight. Suppressing the quiver in her voice, she muttered. "Thank you."

There was nothing but his shallow breaths for a few moments, before he mumbled, "Any time."

She folded her arms, lying her buds across her lap as best as she could. Who knew how long it would be before she couldn't move any more. It was best to start getting into a dignified position now.

"I guess it's too late to say I'm sorry..." she said lowly. "For... all of it."

"It's never too late to say sorry. But it's sure as hell too late for it to mean anything," he muttered, his voice a bit slurred.

She shut her eyes and nodded lightly, accepting that. A long silence followed, Bristle unable to stop herself from tracking Rex's gradually slowing breath. She was worried that haunting statement might be his final words.

But she accepted that too.


That silence continued for hours. Bristle wasn't sure if she was waiting for Rex's breath to finally stop, and just get her isolation over with, or if the thought terrified her too much. But from his complete silence, he didn't seem to be lucid anymore.

She had made her peace. There was an odd sense of relief in accepting that everything that had happened to her was her own. The denial was a weight she'd been bearing on her back for a lifetime and now it had finally been lifted. Just in time to die.

She could feel her buds wilting already. The petals were flimsy and fragile, and her roots shrieked out for water. Her whole body was lethargic, and she could hardly control her vines.

But there was one other oddity that she wasn't quite prepared for. A flickering in her vision. She couldn't see anything, but it was like the faintest light kept pooling into her eyes. Hallucinations were not a symptom of sunlight deprivation she'd heard of before.

The effect continued to grow stronger and stronger. The faintest bit of a phantom, warm light flooding her vision. But she could hardly complain. It was painless, and it gave her something to focus on rather past the heavy atmosphere of dread. As it grew stronger, she could even make out the lines of stone on the cavern walls, ever so slightly.

That gave her pause, as something in the back of her yelled out to her. She could see the walls?

She suddenly dragged herself upright. Hallucinatory light couldn't show her anything.

Her eyes drifted over to where the light seemed brightest. It was filtering down the hall, its source unseen in the distance. But the light was also shifting- something was moving.

She tried to let out a cry for help. Even though it was probably a feral, the situation couldn't exactly get worse. But her voice was too hoarse to even let out a yell.

Bristle shot an eye towards Rex, able to just barely make out his silhouette for the first time in days. She couldn't see him breathing, but she could hear it ever so faintly now.

She had accepted death hours ago, but now all of her determination was flooding back at once. Drawing in all the air she could, she let out a single desperate cry for help. Her voice echoed through the caves as she burst into a coughing fit, keeling over onto the floor.

But the cry worked. The light was approaching now. Fast. A minute later, a crackling glow engulfed the tunnel. From a conjoining cave, their savior emerged.

After nearly two days... And after everything she had done... the kid had come back for them. Ashen bounded towards them, his fur cloaked in live flames like a spirit of destruction.

Bristle recoiled and shielded her eyes as real light hit them. Ashen skidded to a stop in front of them and gasped. And as soon as Bristle could open her eyes, it was obvious why. Rex looked like a corpse. Collapsed into a mangled position, his breath was barely visible, and his face and stomach were still pure black and blue from the beating he'd received.

Then she nearly shrieked as she looked down at herself. Her buds were far more wilted than she'd ever imagined, more brown than red or blue at this point. Her stomach and legs were lined with cuts, and she imagined her face looked nearly as bad as Rex's.

She shook off her shock and turned to Ashen, who was still lost in his. "Light! He needs light, now!"

After a confused gape, the Flareon nodded and got as close to Rex as he could. Bristle knelt down beside him, peeking every vine out of her bud, one by one, just to find two that she could still move properly. Feebly, she dragged each frill open in turn to bathe in the light.

Instinctually Rex let out a low moan, his tail shuddering at the sudden energy. His eyes slowly creaked open. "Ashen?" he muttered. His frills stretched as wide as they could.

"Don't waste any energy," Bristle instructed. He looked confused, but he relented and laid silent against the wall, taking in the light. Bristle turned to Ashen, as he dutifully served as a living campfire. "What happened to you? Have you been trapped down here too?"

He nodded his head sadly, on the verge of tears. "Yes. I tried to find you guys again after we... got split up. But everything went dark all of a sudden. I- I was going to use the escape orb then, but it didn't work. I smashed it and it didn't do anything." He hung his head low.

Bristle let out a low whimper. She'd dragged him into this death sentence too, after all he'd wanted was to help. He was visibly shaking, and his fur was puffed out anxiously. Dehydration was likely the only thing keeping him from crying at finding them.

"What have you been eating and drinking?" she asked, turning her head to hide her eyes puffing up again.

"I haven't."

Expecting that answer, she pulled her bag open with one of her remaining good vines and weakly placed the remaining apple in front of him. "Here, eat this"

"Aren't you guys hungry too?" He eyed it hesitantly. The desperation in his face revealed how much he wanted it.

"Just eat it, kid. You've gone longer without than us," she insisted, still refusing to meet his face.

She knew she had to say something. She just had no idea how. She thought she'd never get the chance to apologize. Never get the chance to fix what she'd done. But now...

Dying was inconceivable now, even though it had been an inevitability just a few minutes ago. With Ashen's help, Rex might be mobile again. She had a chance to fix this. And if there was ever a mistake in her life she had to fix, it was this one. Ashen didn't deserve this fate.

Maybe she was destined to fail after all. But if she was- if she did fail- it would only be after she burnt everything she had left on trying to save them.

Bristle collapsed against the wall beside Rex again. He'd kept quiet, but his eyes were tracking them now with awareness. Non-solar light supposedly wasn't as good for him, but it seemed to be enough to survive.

She sighed. Rex was a distraction. She didn't think she was ever going to get this opportunity. Putting it off was stupid.

"You know," Bristle started, eyeing the floor, "You'd make a great delver. For real, I mean."

Ashen paused his ravenous munching on the apple to give her a surprised look. She finally forced herself to meet it, revealing her puffy eyes and distraught face.

"One of the hardest parts of the job is that sometimes you have to help people who don't really deserve it."

He froze entirely with an alarmed expression. As if he knew what she meant, but didn't dare accept the interpretation.

"I'm- I'm sorry. I'm really, really sorry," she finally blurted it out. "You were right. I'm... I'm not okay. But- I know that's not your fault, alright? I- I blamed you to avoid blaming myself."

She wanted to look away, but she forced herself to keep staring at him. Watching his gaze, for resentment or for forgiveness. But instead of either of those, Ashen looked wounded.

"You're... you're apologizing to me?" he asked in disbelief. His eyes puffed up again. "This is- this is all my fault!" he cried out. "I-I spoke with Strife the other night! He told me you were going to die here! I could have warned you! I could have stopped this! But I just protected myself. Don't apologize to me!"

"Shut up," Rex growled. The two turned in surprise to see him sitting upright, still looking awful, but animate once more. He glared angrily at Ashen.

"I have been through too much shit today to watch you self-flagellate more. All three of us know full well that she'd have ignored you and come here no matter what you'd told her. Your hands are clean." He cast Bristle a glare, challenging her to deny it.

But her shoulders and head just sank. "He's right, Flareon. Even if you had warned me, I wouldn't have listened. This isn't your fault."

Ashen stepped back uneasily. "B-but I lied to you..."

Rex sighed and pulled himself slowly to his feet. "Listen. I'm able to move again, and frankly, as tempting as just dying is, I feel a bit less comfortable with it when the kid I was supposed to watch is with me. We need to find a way out of here.

"Long story short, you lied to us, she hit you, I tried to use you as bait... We can tally off the sins until we all drop dead down here. I think we're well past pretending any of us are friends. So for the time being, let's at least be allies, alright?" He looked directly at Bristle.

She nodded solemnly. "I at least owe you that."

"Alright. What's our plan? We could continue following the left wall, or we could try to use our intuitions now that we have a light source."

At this point, Bristle just wanted to walk. Anywhere. She hadn't thought she ever would, so she barely cared where. Following their intuitions was tempting.

"Following the wall is more reliable," she admitted, "since if there's an exit, it should take us there eventually. But who knows how deep this system runs? If it starts leading us downwards again, are we going to go the whole way back down and risk never coming up again?

Rex bobbed his head pensively. "Yeah. It didn't do much for us before. Now that we're able to see, doing this intuitively is tempting..." His eyes drifted over to Ashen. "You didn't happen to find anything that might be useful along your way, did you? Any strange breezes, unexpected light, running water?"

Surprisingly, Ashen froze up entirely at the question, an uncomfortable look on his face.

"N-nothing like that, no. But I- I did find something. I'm not sure it will help us get out but... I think you might want to see it, Helioptile," he answered with a quiver in his voice.

"What is it?" Rex tilted his head curiously.

"I-I'm not sure... I have one idea, but I think it's kinda stupid and- it's not that far away. I think I remember the way. Maybe I- I can just show you it?" the Flareon practically pleaded.

Rex sighed. "Time and energy are limited resources here. But if it's that close, let's just make this quick." He gestured for Ashen to lead the way.

In spite of their collapsing bodies, wandering the caves was a very different experience with Ashen's help. Light meant that every slight dip in the floor wasn't a tripping hazard. And now they could see how complex the system they were trapped within truly was.

In the dark, their prison had been nothing but one wall and a rough floor. What existed beyond that wall's reach was irrelevant- a vacuous black space. But now they could see every cavernous space, and every claustrophobic chasm they crawled through. The vastness of this lifeless space was not reassuring.

With surprising confidence, Ashen led them through a series of turns down tight corridors and through small gaps between the stone formations that they would have never found in the dark.

"It's... it's coming up now," Ashen muttered with clear dread in his voice.

The glow of the fire passed over a shadow lying collapsed against the wall of the cave, slowly illuminating its features in the orange light. Bristle squinted at it curiously, trying to make out the details.

It was the corpse of something- or at least it didn't appear to be moving. It was a bit familiar, but she'd never seen this species before. She turned to comment as much to find Rex frozen so still that his heart might have stopped, eyes locked on the body in raw disbelief.

He stuttered several times trying to form a complete thought. Finally he managed to mutter it out, deadpan in awe.

"That's a human corpse."


Compelled forward in a trance, Rex clambered up to the figure's head, staring deep into its eyes.

He was lanky, with greasy black hair that was curly and unkempt. Stubble that wasn't quite a beard but suggested he hadn't shaved in a few days. Long pants, hiking boots, and a bulging backpack still around his shoulders.

Rex searched his face desperately for some trace of familiarity. At first, there was nothing there. But the longer he stared straight into that face, the more he had the sense he'd seen it before. In another life.

But no matter how much he stared or how desperately he tried to assign any memory to that recognition, nothing came to him.

"I'm sorry, what?" Bristle called from behind him, still guardedly watching from a distance.

He ignored her and began checking the body more thoroughly. As soon as he placed a claw on their hand to feel for a pulse, his eyes lit up. They felt warm. Excitedly, he pinched a claw down to feel for a pulse.

There was none.

Rex stumbled backwards nervously. Warm skin, but no pulse. No visible signs of injury. They didn't look emaciated like they had starved or dehydrated. There was no decay.

Was this recent? Had something killed them without leaving any sign of injury whatsoever?

His heart raced.

"We- we should go," he stuttered, turning back to his allies. Then something else tugged at his mind.

"Why? What's going on?" Bristle practically pleaded for him to answer her. At Rex's sudden fear, Ashen had all but turned to jello, and looked in full agreement with leaving as fast as possible.

Cursing, Rex stuffed down his fear a moment and stepped back over to the body. He clambered over it and ripped open the enormous backpack.

A treasure trove waited inside. He grabbed everything he could fit and stuffed it into his own bag. Jerky and crackers- snacks he hadn't even realized he'd missed. An enormous water bottle. A first-aid kit. A compass. A flashlight. He pulled out a pocket knife- alarmingly large to him at this size, and eagerly stowed it away.

One more item drew his eye. A map. He snatched it up and unfurled it to examine the topography. He had no idea where it was a map of, but a quick glance at the labels confirmed it: it was from his world. In spite of his curiosity, he stashed it away for later.

"Okay, now let's go," he instructed his very confused allies. He cast the body one final, nervous glance before hopping off of them and skittering back to his allies. "This probably just saved our lives. Whoever this was, they were kitted out for a long hike. That whole bag was full of survival supplies."

His bag was bulging with useful items now, but he wanted to gain some distance from the eerie corpse before they stopped to appreciate them. He didn't want to find out what had left it like this.

Bristle and Ashen followed Rex, the former whining desperately for him to tell her what was going on. It wasn't until they'd gained a healthy distance that he stopped to answer her.

"That body was still warm, but he had no pulse," Rex informed her, relaxing against the wall to examine his haul. He winced a bit as his bruises pressed against the cold stone, but he'd grown accustomed to them. "I don't want to find out what killed him. As much as I would like to know why or how he was here," he scowled.

Bristle sat down next to him, trying to steal a peek at the human supplies as she spoke. "I've heard of something like that before. The mysterious force undoes any injuries accrued within a dungeon. Like rewinding time on peoples' bodies. But it can't undo death. So when someone dies in a dungeon, a lot of the time their body is found wound back, with no evidence what killed them. It's... a problem, for tracking killers."

Rex paused to chug from the enormous water jug and think. The water was cool, but not cold. Consistent temperature with the cave. He shook his head.

"Yeah but the dungeon disappeared hours- days, ago? I have no idea how long we've been in this hell. Point being, his skin should be cold if that happened."

"Do humans, like- " Bristle cut the question off and shot a glance at Ashen, to see if he'd noticed. Luckily the kid's entire attention was lost in a longing stare at Rex's water bottle. She sighed. "Maybe humans stay warm longer? I don't know."

Rex finished drinking and screwed the cap back on tight. He rolled the bottle over to Ashen, who attempted to pick it up before staring confused at the lid. With a sigh and a facepalm, Rex got up to open it again for him.

"Either way, it's not helping us get out of here," Rex said as he poured water into Ashen's desperate mouth. "I got some food and water from that pack, as well as a compass and a flashlight. If we're smart with the rations, we can probably last a few days on that front. But I have to imagine bonfire over here is burning a lot of energy, and if that light goes out..." he shuddered. He screwed the water cap tight, leaving Ashen looking disappointed, and returned to his bag. "Let's pray this flashlight works."

"Flashlight?" Bristle asked, peering closely as he held the rod up. "Is that some sort of human delving device?"

"I- That is a weirdly accurate description, actually. If this thing still works, it should..." With the flick of a switch, a bright column of light shot from the flashlight, illuminating the cave wall far bright than Ashen ever could. "Aha!"

"Huh. It's like a directional luminous orb," Bristle noted, inspecting the device, impressed.

Rex pointed it all around, getting a good look at the caves. It was the first time they could see off in the distance to appreciate the scale of the system around them. The rounded, curving walls and ceilings of the natural cavern would have been tremendously cool, were it for the fear they'd become a tomb.

He flicked it off. "Unfortunately, I have no idea how much power it actually has. We should save it for when the kid is tired."

But when he turned back around to Bristle, she seemed excited. "No, wait! Do that again!"

Rex complied, pointing the light back where he had before. Bristle stumbled over her half-withered roots as she moved to examine a series of small perforations in the cave wall where the light hit.

"These aren't natural. Something dug them, probably feral," she explained, crouching down to look into one. "They're going upwards. They might lead up to the surface!"

Rex shuddered with sudden claustrophobia as he stuck his face in one. "I doubt even I could fit into one of these. You almost certainly can't, and the kid... forget it." He pulled back from the hole with a scowl. Even if he could fit, he would sooner die from light deprivation than risk dying stuck in a tiny crawlspace, unable to move.

"I know that, but they give us a hint which way the surface is," she explained, slipping a vine around the flashlight. Begrudgingly, he let her take it and she shined it around looking around for any paths from their current cavern which ran in that direction.

Rex dug out the compass. "That's a good thought. They're going... east. Which makes sense, because we were on the... " He pulled out Leafeon's map next and checked, "Northeastern side of the mountain. Are you sure that's what these are though? Can some Pokémon really dig through solid rock like this?"

"Yes. There's a few species that could make holes like this. I had some tracking and survival lessons back when... well, you know. These aren't natural."

"How deep do ferals generally burrow? Does this mean we're close?" he asked optimistically.

"I don't know," she admitted with a nervous fidget, "I honestly haven't used a lot of that stuff in a long time. I don't remember it all. And who knows if these caves are back to exactly how they were before the dungeon mixed them up?"

Rex sighed. "Well, it's better than nothing. Keep going east and upwards. Pray we don't run into a dead end pocket." He stuffed the supplies back into his bag. "It's the best thing we can do, anyways."

Ashen was quiet as usual, but listening dutifully, and nervously scratching away at the stone with his paw. Bristle gave him a concerned glance as they started moving again, picking out the easternmost path they could find.

"How are you holding up? Are you able to keep your flames up, or do we need to switch to the... flashlight for a bit?" she asked.

He shook his head. "No... the fire clings to my fur. But it doesn't actually burn it... I only have to refresh it every once in a while."

Bristle's gaze lingered on him doubtfully for a few more moments before directing ahead again.

"The flashlight also won't provide us any warmth," Rex noted, leaning in towards their walking campfire and stretching his frills wide.

On that note, Ashen puffed a bit of extra fire into his fur.


The next few hours were nothing like the prior day had been for Ashen. Wandering through the darkness, hungry, alone, and afraid. Haunting these sprawling caves, accompanied only by that voice in his head reminding him constantly that it was all his fault. That he'd dragged himself into this, despite being warned. That he could have prevented it.

He'd nearly just laid down and died by the end. Maybe he deserved to. But luckily, he was a coward. His fear had overpowered his guilt, and the screaming of his body.

Now he wasn't alone, he wasn't quite as hungry, and he wasn't as afraid. Between his light, Helioptile's newly gathered supplies, and Roselia's eye for the tracks of burrowing Pokémon, it truly felt like they were making progress, gradually ascending towards the surface.

But that guilt still clung to him. Maybe Roselia was right- maybe she wouldn't have listened to him. But he still did nothing.

The way things had worked out seemed to do the trick though. Whatever sinister thing he had seen in her face the days before had passed. Instead, she kept stealing guilty glances towards him when she thought he couldn't see.

In spite of the dire circumstances, he dared to think the atmosphere between his chaperones was actually less heavy than usual. Survival had become a unifying goal. All bickering, or even idle chatter, had been replaced by discussion of it.

"I'm afraid to know the answer, but did this place actually have exits before it was a mystery dungeon?" Rex asked as they walked.

"I don't have encyclopedic knowledge of every cave on Trespis," Bristle groaned. "I didn't exactly care until it was a mystery dungeon."

"With your weird knowledge of mole-holes, excuse me if I'd mistaken you for a cave enthusiast."

"They're... they're just holes in the wall. It's nothing weird if you know what to look for. Speaking of, there's more here. Shine the flashlight into them, I want to see which way they go," she directed him over to examine another set of burrows in the cavern wall.

Ashen stepped back, taking the moment of break from being their light to check out the tunnel around them. The convenience of carrying light in his fur was one of the few benefits he'd found to his evolution. That and staying warm- he hadn't even realized it was cold down here until he'd noticed how eager Rex and Bristle were to huddle around him.

He inspected the uneven walls under his glow, wondering if they held any hints of their distance from the world above. He didn't know a thing about rocks, or caves. But they were supposed to be different when you got deeper or something, right?

As he stared at the wall intently, his ear twitched. Then he heard it. The tiny patter of stone rolling against the floor.

His head instinctively snapped to the right, tracking the sound. But he was only staring into darkness beyond the range of his light. He stole a glance back to confirm he was the only one who had heard it.

It was likely his imagination, but still... Ever so slowly, he crept towards the sound, lighting down the tunnel, inch by inch. There were no sounds of anything approaching or running away as he drew closer. And then...

A face shot out of the darkness, straight towards him. Ashen yelped and tripped backwards, wincing in anticipation of an attack.

But when he dared open an eye, the creature was hovering over him, grinning wide.

"Ah, did Hoopa surprise the kid?" the imp snickered.

Rex and Bristle rushed over to Ashen as soon as he'd cried, looking ready to put up a pitiful fight in spite of their poor condition. But they relaxed when they saw their assailant.

"You!" Rex growled.

"Yes, Hoopa!" he cried excitedly, throwing his small hands up in the air. "Hoopa has been looking for you two for so long now! Thought you would be deeper..." he muttered.

Bristle stepped in front of her allies. "Hoopa. You're the one who hired me to come find you, right?" She glared at him suspiciously, still on guard. "You said you know what happened in Solemn Meadow?"

Rex's eyes instantly sharpened on the imp, while Ashen winced. He had just started letting himself believe that no one would find him out. Was this total stranger bluffing, or did he know somehow?

"Yes, Hoopa is. And yes, Hoopa does," he nodded. "Hoopa is sorry he took so long... Had to flee and lose the crazy puppet before Hoopa could come back for you. Crazy is tracking Hoopa, somehow." He shuddered.

Now it was Rex's turn to storm up to him. Still bruised and groggy, he stood up tall, getting a bit too close. "What do you know? And how do you know anything, for that matter? Who is chasing you, and is she going to come back?" He demanded in short order.

Hoopa continued floating there with an amused smile, not even flinching at the Helioptile in his face. "Okay, okay, Hoopa will share all! But hm... Hoopa doesn't think this is time..." His bemused expression soured for the first time to look Rex over skeptically. "You get aid and rest first, yes?"

Bristle's eyes widened. "Wait, you said you came back for us? Do you know a way out of here?"

Hoopa's grin stretched eerily wide. "Hoopa makes Hoopa's own exits."

Hoopa clasped his hands together, a tiny mote of golden light forming between them. Dragging them apart, that mote expanded in two dimensions, forming a radiant ring of gold. Light poured out of it, illuminating the entire cavern around them. Rex stood up on his toes and spread his frills wide, letting out a loud moan as sunlight washed over him.

Ashen gasped as he stared through the ring at an entirely different space behind it. Green grass, pouring daylight, rows of mighty trees, and neat little homes tucked away beneath them. He was staring into Solemn Meadow.

"W-what?!" Bristle stuttered in disbelief. But Rex had already pulled himself through, stepping straight across the seamless border in space to bathe in the euphoria of natural light.

"Supa-doopa-Hoopa-ring!" Hoopa cheered with a big smile, drifting backwards through the ring himself.

It was at this point that the terrifying thought of the portal closing and leaving him behind crept into Ashen's mind. With a single bound he leapt through it. Bristle followed close behind, looking haunted by the same fear.

Rex had collapsed on the ground, limbs outstretched in the grass with a blissful expression. Even Bristle's anxiousness seemed to be melting away under the sunlight. In spite of their relief, in the brightness, it was far more clear just how bad of a condition they were both in.

"What in the- " A Scyther gaped at the baffling set of visitors who had manifested in the center of town.

Rex and Bristle were still too stunned taking in the sunlight to acknowledge him. Grimacing, Ashen took things into his own grasp.

"Scyther, where is Eldegoss?" he asked hurriedly.

Scyther paused a moment, before the recognition clicked in his eyes. "Oh. You're Eevee. She's home, far as I know." His attention immediately returned to the badly wounded delvers. "What exactly is going on here?"

"I have no idea," he muttered before turning back to Rex and Bristle. "You guys need to go see Eldegoss. You look- " he cut himself off and flinched. He motioned for them to follow him. "Come on."

Bristle had to drag Rex upright against his weak protests, but the two followed him to Eldegoss's cabin. Ashen shouted in, and she poked her head out a moment later.

"Afternoon, Flareon, what can I- " She froze mid-sentence as she looked past him. "By the stars..." she whispered. "Get them in here, now. Let me go fetch an extra bed."

Ashen nodded and stepped aside as she pushed past him, hurriedly hovering over towards one of her neighbors. He guided the two into the small cabin, without much inside beyond a bed, a small cubby of food and supplies, and an unlit lantern. He bit gently on Rex's arm and tugged him over to lie on the bed. Rex complied, but only after dragging the bed to lie directly in the sun's rays through the window.

A minute later, Eldegoss returned with Servine in tow, dragging her own bed into the healer's cabin. Servine inspected the injured delvers with evident curiosity behind her concern, but had the graces to not question them and left to let Eldegoss work. Ashen had the sense that rumors of this would be circling the town within hours.

As soon as Bristle was resting as well, Eldegoss set to work with her healing spores, grimacing all the while.

"This is a mix of untreated, serious wounds, and evident sunlight deprivation on Rosalia. What in the world happened to them?" she inquired of Ashen as she worked. The disbelief in her voice told him she was asking as much out of curiosity as medical necessity.

"I-I don't actually know," he admitted. "We all got lost in a cave. There was no light, and we were down there for a long time. But they were already beaten up like that when I found them..."

"We were attacked," Bristle spoke up. She looked relieved as the healing spores continued slowly dissolving into her. "In the dungeon. But then- " She paused and fidgeted a bit before continuing. "We went straight from the dungeon into the caves. So our injuries weren't wound back. We didn't have much to eat or drink for a long time, and no light. So we were only really getting worse."

Eldegoss nodded. But then she glared at Bristle. "Hush now. Lay down and rest. There's not really a lot I can do. With my spores, both of your wounds should heal up quicker. But with how long you've been letting them sink in, it may take a few days to fully heal. And nothing but time, as well as proper hydration and sunlight, can fix your withering."

Bristle sighed and nodded, lying back down. "Understood."

"And you." She turned to Ashen. "You're not looking great yourself. But you look more like you need a nap and a good meal than anything else. Your parents have been a bit worried, you know. They weren't expecting you to be out for a few days."

Ashen winced. Of course not... It was just supposed to be a day trip. Because he'd stuck his nose where it hadn't belonged, he'd hurt his family again.

"Right. I'll... I'll go home for now," he shot a glance at Bristle for approval.

The look he received in return was the guiltiest one he'd ever seen outside of a mirror. "Yes. Go home, kid. And just... forget all of this, okay? I'm sorry," she whispered.

He gulped but didn't dare argue the point. He offered his thanks to Eldegoss for looking after them, and slinked out of her hut and up the road towards his home.

He'd nearly died because of all of this. He'd spent two days alone in the dark. He'd terrified his family. All because he hadn't listened... If Hoopa hadn't found them, would they have made it out on their own?

It was only then that it occurred to him: where had Hoopa gone?


Eldegoss quickly finished applying her spores and demanded the two rest in silence. And after all they'd been through, Rex shut his frills and didn't struggle to quickly fall asleep in the sunlight.

But eventually consciousness crept back upon him, letting him sleep no more despite his desperate attempts, and he wrenched an eye open. Moonlight was flooding the room where the sun's rays had once shined. Eldegoss appeared to have left them alone. Sitting up, he realized Bristle was awake too, buds wrapped around her knees as she stared blankly into space.

"Can't sleep anymore either?" she asked in a whisper.

He nodded.

"I just... it feels unreal. I wasn't expecting there to be anything else." She continued staring off into space.

"You almost sound disappointed," he said jokingly. But he quickly realized there was little humor in the moment.

"I- I've been thinking a lot, about what happened down there. I mean- what we talked about, and..." She turned to look at him, but the instant she met his eyes her gaze dipped down to the floor. "I don't want to forget it," she squeaked.

"It felt so relieving at the time to hear it all. Like the weight of constantly feeling lost was lifted from my shoulders. But now that I'm going to keep going... now I have to actually clean up the whole mess I made."

Rex almost resented how touched he was by it. After the way she'd treated him, right up until she was desperate, she didn't deserve any sympathy from him. But after having thought her a lost cause, hearing such a candid admission of weakness stirred him.

"It won't be easy, but things will probably finally get better if you do," he offered with a faint smile.

Bristle nodded, reassuring herself. "Right. I just... I'm not sure what to do next. I need to figure this all out."

Rex stood up and stretched. He could see his stomach, and doubtlessly his face, were still badly bruised. But that Pokémon regeneration was working fast, and with a few more treatments from Eldegoss he'd hopefully be mostly better in a day or two.

"Well, in spite of how you've treated them, you somehow still have people who care about you. They want to help you, so why not let them?"

Bristle huddled herself tighter. "Yeah. Right," she muttered lowly.

They waited in silence for a bit as Rex peered out the window. In the dark of night, he had nowhere to go and nothing to do until morning. Realizing it, he leaned against the sill and got comfortable.

"What about you?" she perked up again to ask him. "I believe what you told me. I guess you're trying to get home then? To your... world?"

The question gave Rex pause. The answer seemed like an obvious yes, but for the first time he realized he'd never been thinking about getting home. He wanted to track down Strife- but that was just for answers. What happened after that had always been a black box.

"I don't know," he confessed, staring up at a familiar moon in the sky. "Probably? But I can't even remember my life before. Maybe it was terrible. I just don't like not knowing anything. I want to remember, and to know what happened to me."

He shuddered. He'd nearly died without knowing his own past. His own name.

"Hoopa, the one who brought us back here, left the request for Flak Hollows. He said he had information about what happened a few days ago. I tried to go alone so you wouldn't know, and so I could get away from you," Bristle admitted quietly. "But you have more stakes in all of this than I do."

Rex just sighed. "It's fine. Let's just agree to wipe the tally board of sins clear, alright? No matter who's at fault, I think it's fairly clear our fighting hasn't resulted in a single good thing."

He scowled a bit as the voice from his dream-memory echoed through his head, sounding more smug than it had in reality- "there's no value in making enemies".

"...Thank you," she whispered. "Hopefully Hoopa knows something that will be useful to you. If not, you should go ask the Jade Crest for help."

That caught his attention.

"Don't you kinda hate them?" He caught her eye.

"I'm... still not comfortable with what happened, no. But they're probably the best equipped group in Trespis to pursue something like this. And the Lorekeeper will trip over his own tails to help you if he hears you were a human. They can hunt Strife down for you, while you get some rest."

'Get some rest'? He hated that.

That was his first thought, and it completely baffled him. He'd nearly died. Yet, while he was looking forward to getting a few days of rest and safety, his first reaction to the thought of weeks or months holed up in the Crest, waiting for someone to solve all of his problems, was disgust.

"I don't want that," he growled, angry at his own absurd emotions.

"You... don't want help?" She looked at him hesitantly.

"I don't want to sit back and just wait for things to happen," he corrected. "I don't want to sit around until my days to start blending together, while I just hope for problems to solve themselves. I don't remember my own real name, Bristle. How long before I lose it?"

Bristle paused, looking at him, surprised. "Well- you could join them properly and delve, I guess? I don't know if they'd let you go after Strife personally as a rookie. But it could keep you... entertained? Active?"- she said it hesitantly, unclear what he was upset about- "Until they find him."

Rex just sighed again and continued staring out into the woods. "Are you still going to go after him?"

Bristle squirmed at the question, staring back down at her own knees. "I don't know. I need to think about what I'm going to do next. There's also Faith to worry about..."

Rex turned and looked her dead in the eyes. She tried to look away, but he kept glaring until she slowly looked back. "Do not tell me you are about to chase after her."

Bristle flinched and looked away again. "Like I said, I don't know what I'm going to do! But I promise I'm not going to chase right after her. I just... I wonder if the Crest knows about her? I passed my parents by on the way to Flak Hollows, and they were talking about dungeons disappearing."

"I hope you're serious. If you chase after her, she will kill you. Even three on one, that wasn't a fight. It was a mauling."

Bristle nodded silently. But then she gave him a hesitant look. "What about you? Strife created a dungeon, and Faith destroyed one. And she was chasing after Hoopa... What if she's involved in all of this? Involved with you?"

Rex felt his body tense up. "I'm not going to chase after her directly. But if I need to, I'll... I'll find some way to work around her." He jerked his head aside to avoid seeing her response to his hypocrisy. "None of this matters until we hear what Hoopa has to say, anyways. And I want to know what Strife told the kid, too."

"Leave Flareon out of this," Bristle said with a disappointed tone. "We've done enough to him already."

"That's priceless, coming from you," Rex snorted. She winced in response. "But relax, I'm just going to ask him for a recap of what Strife said. Nothing more, and then he's free to live his life."

Bristle looked at him skeptically, but then laid back down with a heavy sigh. Her eyes stared deeply into the ceiling, and she had nothing else to add.

Following her lead, Rex collapsed down on his own bed and stared at nothingness in silence. Too refreshed to sleep, one thing was still haunting his mind after everything.

The body.

Such a terrifying, tantalizing piece of evidence, plopped right in front of him at a time and a place where he couldn't explore it. That still-pristine face haunted him. Lifeless without a single trace of death.

It was bizarre to see a human body after so long. An odd reminder of how he was now small, and scaled, and had a tail. A fact he had all but forgotten. Now he knew how to curl that tail comfortably around him at night. He knew how to open and close his frills, and the most comfortable levels of charge to maintain. He didn't flinch much at his small size against many Pokémon.

How long had it been? Just a few weeks, and this had already become normalcy. He was a lizard, giant morphing labyrinths ravaged the landscapes, and his neighbors could probably shoot fire or something. That was just life now.

It was madness to think that a life at the Jade Crest, waiting for Strife's capture, sounded boring to him. That something so insane could become mundane so quickly.

At the reminder of that body, Rex stole his bag back from Eldegoss's supplies. He pulled the map out and unfurled it in the moonlight, earning a curious look from Bristle.

It was a modern topographical map, crossing over a canyon and the woods surrounding it. Squinting to see the scale, Rex could map it to dozens of miles in either direction. Probably a hundred different trails sprawled across it, twisting throughout nearly every corner. At the top, a clear label, "Discova National Park".

Rex wracked his brain for a few minutes. He knew that name. Why did he know that name still? Had he heard it after his memories were sealed? The map was clearly from his world, so why...

His eyes widened as he finally remembered. His dream, the night before he'd left Bristle behind. He and Amy had been... doing something about a Roznell guy, in "Discova".

A chill ran over him as he made the connection. There was something about a tracking signal vanishing. Had he found Roznell? Was that what happened to humans who ended up here without a Pokémon's body?

His shudder intensified when he remembered the body was still warm. Roznell had definitely vanished some time before Rex had woken up here. It was even worse to think that he might have somehow survived for weeks and perished right before Rex found him, in a cruel twist of fate.

Feeling uneasy, Rex stuffed the map back in his bag and returned to staring at the ceiling. He regretted taking a look, as a deep unease now pervaded this quiet time.

He didn't have too long to dwell on it though. Before too long, his musing was interrupted by moonlight suddenly spilling throughout the room. He looked over, expecting to see Eldegoss entering through the doorway- but instead was met by a mountainous landscape, a cool breeze blowing through where the wall should have been.

Before his brain could process what was happening, Hoopa flew into the room, and the portal shut, revealing the cabin wall still intact behind it.

"Good morning!" Hoopa waved and smiled energetically.

Bristle pushed herself upright, eyes still groggy. "There's a door, you know," she groaned.

Hoopa snickered. "Hoopa made his own."

"Where did you go?" Rex asked tentatively. "You vanished after we got here."

Hoopa swished his cheek pensively. "Hoopa is... laying low. That's why Hoopa asked you for help!" He smiled at Bristle. "Big guild might have... eyes. But you- too small for spies!" He chuckled at his own rhyme.

Rex glared at him. He had no energy left for games. "You promised us answers. We got rest, and we got aid. So I want to know what you know about the incident, and what you know about Faith."

Hoopa tilted his head. "Faith? You mean the crazy Pokémon?"

Bristle nodded. "Yes, the one who was hunting you. Why is she hunting you? What happened to her?"

Hoopa leaned on his side while still hovering in the air. "Very well! Hoopa will tell the tale of how he escaped the realm of Eternatus!"