TRACK THREE: CALL ME IF YOU GET LOST

When I opened my eyes again, I saw double for a few seconds. After getting my bearings, I was presumably inside the bag. It was bigger on the inside, with multiple piles of items – fruit & berries, silvery coins and trinkets, discs, devices I didn't recognise, and odd blue spheres dotted about an area around the size of a tent, the leathery walls bulging inwards and not letting much light through.

"Where am I?" I wondered.

"Poké bag", a robotic voice responded.

"This bag can hold 96 items, as well as feral pokémon! It works like a Poké Ball."

The sudden noise scared me, my heightened instincts caused me to jump.

"Who- who are you?"

"Pokédex: This nifty little guy can give you information about any Pokémon, move and item!"

I scampered towards the source of the noise. In my hand, I held a rectangular object, of which one face changed – flickering, flashing, lighting up in response to my thoughts. Could this device read my mind?

"So you're an en… encyclopedia?"

"…"

My brain buzzed with questions about my captors, this odd world, the amnesia. First, I went for "Who am I?" I imagined myself saying the words to this metallic rectangle, and it responded.

"Totodile: This little Pokémon uses its powerful jaws to bite everything that moves!"

I mentally shuddered, remembering the crunch of the flower thing. I distracted myself with "Who's my captor?"

"Sneasel: This cunning Pokémon uses its sharp claws to attack under cover of the night."

"But I was captured in the daytime!"

"…"

"You don't know much, do you?"

"Pokédex: This nifty little guy can give you information about any Pokémon, move and item!"

"What's a move?"

"Moves: This sets pokémon apart from humans! Pokémon use their moves for combat, when in battle with other pokémon."

"Pokémon regularly battle each other?"

"Pokémon battles: Wild pokémon compete ferociously by using their moves and dealing damage until their opponent faints."

So it was natural. What I had done wasn't some kind of heinous crime, but just something fairly normal and certainly instinctual.

"What do you mean, fainting?"

"Fainting: Pokémon battles are over once a Pokémon faints. Once a Pokémon has taken a lot of damage, it passes out. Trained Pokémon then return to their Poké Ball."

Relief washed over me like the lake I had found myself in earlier. Wave after wave of pure freedom from the guilt of having slain an innocent creature took its place. Pokémon battle each other regularly. They, we, don't die, but faint.

These moves. Apparently they could cause a Pokémon to faint. Could they cause other things? Perhaps this had been what robbed me of my memory!

"Is there a move that can cause amnesia?"

What followed was a long list of these 'moves', each just a name that told me absolutely nothing. I tried asking "What is Confusion?"

"Confusion: The victim is hit with a weak telekinetic force, and possibly confused."

"Wow, thanks for the detailed response."

"…"

I clearly wasn't going to get all too much information from this robotic 'Pokédex'. However, there was still one thing on my mind:

"Earlier, you mentioned a 'Poké Ball'. What's that?"

"Poké Ball: This ball stores wild Pokémon by shrinking them to a minute size. They become unusable if the Pokémon struggles and escapes!"

"So when Pokémon are shrunk down, they can't use moves?"

"…"

"Where do moves even come from, anyway? How come I can just… make water appear?"

"Aura Energy: A- a- a- a- aaa"

Suddenly, the Pokédex' robotic voice changed to what seemed to be a recorded message. The front side of the device, formerly just showing light, now flickered to an image of a creature I couldn't recognise talking to a camera.

"A new scientific theory holds true that Pokémon's life force is stored in a medium known as aura. This medium can store energy, the intensity of which varies based on lots of factors! Hunger, PP, movement, being stored in a poké ball. The relative distribution of this energy, however, is posited to be the pokémon's soul. Pokémon can then manipulate this aura and the energy stored within in order to use their moves. This would explain certain phenomena, namely the Poké Ball minimum size limit, the unknown mechanism of TMs and other such devices, examples abound. If you'd like, you can contact S. Beech, student at Solar City university for more information!" Then, after a few moments of silence, the creature on the recording muttered "It'd be nice to have an intelligent Pokémon, then we could know for sure…"

Every sentence confused me more, but the last comment truly perplexed me. Was I not-!

I felt something grab the scruff of my neck and I was tugged out of the bag. I saw my captors amidst the harsh light of the brilliant sun.

Squinting, I realised there was something standing in front of me; my eyes, still adjusting to the harsh light, only perceived a round shape.

"Pass the 'viser", said the sneasel from behind me. The other one seemingly obliged, placing a partially-eaten seed into the other hand of my original kidnapper. This other captor looked interesting: A reddish-brown fuzzball gazed at me, ears twitching in the breeze and striped tail swinging passively. It had a cross-shaped mark on its chest, short arms and beady eyes.

Noticing me looking at it, it started giggling.

"Awww, he's so cute, look at him!"

"Urgh nahhh, the paper said it'd be a feral. Fe-ruhl. Can ferals talk to the dex?", said my assailant.

"Girl, take a chill pill!", the other one responded. "What's your name, little guy?"

I wanted to respond, wanted to say my name. But unfortunately, I couldn't. After all, I didn't know.

I wanted to say: "I woke up this morning with amnesia." What came out was more along the lines of "a oh a i awi ui am-i-a."

A giggle sounded from behind me.

"Don't you have a name? Can we name you?"

The cross-marked creature came up with "We're team Dawn, so… haha, how does 'Horizon' sound?"

It sounded wonderful. It sounded so much better than nothing. I finally had something to hold on to, something to properly call my own.

My eyes teared up, I nodded as best as I could, still being held by the Sneasel.

"Don't cry, little guy!"

"Hey, look out! Those are crocodile tears."

"We are gonna steal your TM, though", the creature facing me admitted, retrieving an odd-looking seed from the bag I'd just been inside.

"Reaaaally sorry", said the Sneasel.

I tried to squirm and escape, but it was too late. The creature tossed the seed at me, it hit my snout and, in an instant, burst silently.

And then I was gone.

For the third time today, confused and alone, I opened my eyes to find myself in a place entirely unfamiliar to me.

I was inside a fairly narrow cave. The walls of the cave were comprised entirely of differently-coloured rocks – some grey, some reddish, some more green. I could perhaps make out three metres in this cave, though I couldn't see a light source anywhere. Holding my webbed, blue hand in front of my face, I could still make out the shape of my fingers.

My heart was racing, the terrible fear of being plunged back into the abyss of the unkown struck through my heart. I focused on my breathing and repeated to myself: My name is Horizon. I am a Totodile. I can defend myself.

Suddenly, I heard something coming from the tunnel behind me. I dashed over to the cave wall, trying to stay quiet. There, I stood and listened for an amount of time, I couldn't tell how long. For a while, the only thing I could hear was the soft

drip, drip, drip

of water off the cave walls.

Then, I heard voices.

"Lia, are you really sure about this?"

"I swear on my mother that we'll make it."

I called down the hall:

"Ey! Ay!"

Silence.

I tried again.

"Ayo?"

Still silence.

Then, all of a sudden, slow footsteps approached. There seemed to be four individuals on their way, but, from the footsteps, they sounded terrified.

Then, they came into vision. I was looking at two odd creatures: Both walked on four feet, both looked at me with a similar look on their faces, then back to each other.

The creature on the left had a round face covered in blue fur with various yellow markings. Its eyes were blonde yellow too – they looked like they were full of energy somehow. I could just about make out a tail in the dark shade of the cave.

The creature on the right was orange and had a more triangular face. Its eyes were like cloudy orbs more than seeing implements – I wondered for a few seconds if this creature was blind. It also had, sitting on top of its orange fur, a mop of brighter orange hair. Its back boasted a broad tail.

Both of these creatures lit up our surroundings slightly more than before. And both of these beings were looking at me with what looked like curiosity, not saying a word.

I guessed they were waiting for an introduction, but I didn't know how to introduce myself. Then I remembered I could still gesture. From the deepest reaches of my memory, I recalled a (superficial) way of saying hello without words. It'd have to do. I stretched out my hand. They both looked at each other quizzically. The orange one stepped forwards, balancing on its hind legs and grasping my palm. We shook.

The blue one said "hello, Totodile. How did you get here? What's your name?" slowly.

My name. My true name was obviously lost to the sands of time. No amount of puzzling would bring it back from the void of amnesia, at least not for now. My name was Horizon. And as for how I got here…

I shrugged, much to their dismay. They looked at each other, their expressions saying: "What do we do now?" Then, I had an idea. I turned my back on them to face the cave wall. I took some water and wrote on the cave wall: " A." The letters weren't perfect, but I thought they'd got the message across. Then, below that, I wrote " N"

The blue individual asked her orange companion: "What should we do now?"

And he responded: "Grab the explorer badge and send him home."

"What, and have them walk all the way to the nearest town?"

"There's not much else we can do!"

Would I be transported to yet another place I had never seen before? I shook my head, they couldn't do this to me!

The blue one, taken aback slightly, continued: "Well, there's one thing we could do."

"Lia, there's no way you mean-"

"Connor. Doctor Taylor is a world-renowned psychic-type. It's worth a shot!"

"What, and worsen our chances of getting in even more?"

"On the contrary! If we just directly say 'we're after the Discovery Belt', you think they'll let us in? We have to have a proper reason. Horizon, here, is our ticket!"

I sensed a presence in the cave behind the duo. Just behind the light they cast, I saw a clamshell-like creature preparing for an attack. An ambush! I dashed forwards and tensed my jaw, focusing my power, my aura, into firing a powerful shot of water at the assailant. Aggravated by the shot, it bashed its head against my chest, winding me. I followed up with a powerful scratch that shattered its shell into a million pieces, scattered across the dingy cave floor. Whatever was inside erupted into a small flash of light, then it all vanished as the plant had done before.

I turned back to my companions. They were standing some distance away from me, staring in a mixture of awe and horror. Had I been able to speak, I would have said: "Any further questions?" But I thought that the problem of allowing me to explore with the group had been resolved.

We started to make our way along the cave. I now noticed that my company had various items around their necks. Both wore neckerchiefs of different colours, with various pins attached. On the orange one's neck hung an object similar in appearance to the pokédex.

Lia asked: "So where are we right now, again?"

Connor glanced at the device hanging from his neck: "Well, the machine says 86-12. Clay Cave, or Conglomerate Cave, depends on where you're from."

"Oh yeah, my parents always called it Keep-out Cave!"

I looked over at her in a puzzled manner. While there were, no doubt, many dangerous pokémon about, it seemed odd to me that there'd be names for the caves. What also seemed odd was the fact that the duo had obviously come from outside. Why would anyone want to go to a place called Keep-out Cave? Were they also thieves, like the ones that'd bagged me, looking for poor abandoned souls along the route?

Suddenly, Connor's ears pricked up, his hackles rising and his tail straightening. "I can smell something. Coming from down there." He pointed towards the tunnel in front of us. "Best to turn left here."

I hadn't noticed, but there was another pathway on our left. I couldn't smell anything, but I considered it wise to trust this individual's judgement (and especially his nose). Turning down the pathway on our left, we came across an odd structure. It almost looked like a tree without leaves and with branches extending all the way down the trunk, but it was also white. This odd white marble sculpture looked very out-of place for a reason I couldn't exactly pin down.

I looked over to the duo.

"Every floor has one of these" remarked Lia.

"Staircases" added Connor.

Were we supposed to climb this?

As if answering my silent question, the two of them walked over to the 'tree' and hopped onto the first 'branch'. I quickly tried to follow suit, narrowly avoiding a fall. They then stepped over to the next one and I trailed behind. Around the 'staircase' we went in this manner, with me trying not to look down so as to not lose those apples I'd eaten.

The top of the tree was at an angle – the further we went up the marble trunk, the more it tilted. This made it harder to jump off and land on the branches, which were slightly slippery. But I followed in Lia and Connor's footsteps. They seemed confident enough for me to trust that they'd done this numerous times before. Perhaps I had, too.

The last tree-branch, the one at the very top, was very high up and very steep – so much so that it seemed impossible to access from the second-highest. The two of them had stopped, and were planning their next move before I arrived at their branch. As soon as I was directly behind them, Connor leapt towards the trunk, pushing his orange paws off the great marble wall and landing elegantly at the top, in the y-shape formed by the branch and the now almost-horizontal trunk. Lia followed in his tracks, performing the same leaping, twisting manoeuvre.

Lia quickly rummaged through her bag, removing a rope that she tied to and dropped down from the branch. Was I supposed to hold onto that? They were both looking at me expectantly, so I had to jump. I looked at my hands. Were these really capable of holding my body's weight? What if I fell?

But there was no other way forwards than jumping, so I'd have to do it. Without thinking. Alright, now or never. 3, 2, 1…!

I flew through the air, wind streaming by my ears. My fingertips reached the brown rope, but I knew I wouldn't be able to hold on after a fall of that distance. Suddenly, I heard Lia exclaim: "Shii-inx!"

My whole body violently jerked upwards, momentarily reversing the direction of my fall. I felt a flash of heat ripple across my body, but still managed to grab the rope and stabilise myself. The two quadrupeds then pulled me, bit by bit, up the marble trunk onto their branch.

"That's levitation! It's my favourite party trick.", the blue creature said, her fur standing on end slightly as something seemed to crackle between the hairs.

I didn't even question it, I was just glad I hadn't had to fall to the ground from such a tremendous height. She repacked the rope and the three of us headed towards the trunk, which was just about horizontal enough to climb up. Jumping onto it, however, it immediately seemed level with the floor we'd been on before. It looked like gravity was pulling us towards the trunk.

As we walked, the ground gradually turned from a marble white to a stony grey. As a matter of fact, after less than a minute, we were inside another cave – looking back, there was no marble structure in sight, never mind a hole in the ground. It was like we'd been inside this specific cave all the time without ever having gone up a 'staircase'.

I didn't know if any of this was normal. I wanted to find out. I wanted answers from these odd travellers. I stopped walking and Connor picked up on my confused demeanour instantly. "Lia, do you think you could possibly explain to, um, Horizon what we're doing here before we drag him through hell and back?"

She was taken aback at first, then laughed. "Ha! I totally forgot to explain anything, sorry!"

So we continued traversing the cave as Lia talked. "So I'm Lia and the vulpix is Connor." What was a vol-picks? Connor, again, picked up on my body language. "Wait, do you not know which species is which?" I nodded. "I'm a vulpix, she's a shinx. That creature you fought is called a shellder. You're a totodile. Not that way!"

Making a right turn, Lia continued. "So we're inside Keep-out Cave right now, a dangerous mystery dungeon." "Chasm", Connor interjected, "if you're gonna explain, at least use the right words." "My explanation, my rules. So Keep-out Cave is a secret entrance into the Yebo Hills. The Yebo Hills are a huge roadblock spanning the entire south quarter of the continent. We used to think they were impossible to traverse."

We came upon another 'staircase', this one also white, yet shaped like a tube with a sharp bend in it, making it head straight towards the ceiling. In front of it, however, was a creature with red, glowing eyes, a hard, brownish shell and six claws on the sides of its rotund body. "Kabuto", said Connor gingerly. It leapt from the ground, changing its shell's colour in mid-air to a metallic grey. I swatted it out of the air mid-flight and it scuttled off, seemingly not wanting to battle.

We entered the tube which, oddly enough, remained straight, no matter how far we walked. It gradually expanded to the width of the next cave and changed colour, again, to the brownish-grey of more stone. During this time, Lia explained: "Five years ago, some boffins found out that there were interesting objects to be found in the mystery dungeons. They sent a courageous team of explorers to go where no 'mon had been before. It was called Team Lightning. My sister, Summer, was the team leader."

So that was why she knew so much about these places. She'd been trying to follow in her sister's footsteps!

"They got all the way through, of course. And because of the great success of the exploration, every year, the whole continent sends its best explorers to traverse the Yebo Hills from north to south. Whoever gets there first wins the Discovery Belt award."

So these two were trying to win an award! That made everything make a bit more sense. Though I wondered whether the Sneasel and her friend had been trying to win it too – tough competition!

All in all, the pitch sounded interesting. Perhaps, after I'd been reunited with my family and friends, I'd consider adventuring and exploring like this.

While we kept going through the 'Dungeon', Lia told some stories of her sister's adventures. How Summer had wandered into the forest as a young shinx, managing to narrowly avoid having to battle wild pokémon and making it to the end without so much as a shortened hair.

Perhaps I thought, deep down, that she was just trying to distract me from the distress of having lost all my memories and of being lost in a place I didn't recognise. But as she continued on about her sister, the cave walls seemed less like they were closing in, trapping me, instead seeming more like a protective barrier keeping us safe together as a group.

Connor kept the direction, always pointing us away from any wild pokémon that may have been lurking in the shadows. He occasionally interjected, varying between a hushed, yet urgent "no, not that way!" and a joyous "last time you told that story, it only had five floors!" Thanks to his guidance, we managed to avoid any direct conflicts with the cave's many inhabitants, perhaps seeing the rare Kabuto scuttling across the floor. I knew, though, if it came down to it, I would most likely be able to win any battle with ease.

All in all, I had the feeling that my companions shared quite a bit of experience. They seemed adept at exploration and they were good company. After climbing a few more staircases, I was sure that we would be alright, that I would meet this 'Doctor Taylor' and finally be able to go home. I guessed my family would be missing me, wherever they were – most likely in the plain. I thought I'd have plenty to tell them.