CHAPTER 3

Our overlapping voices snapped us out of any confusion.

"W-What are you doing here?" Stein spluttered. He looked a little funny trying to talk while the rest of his body was frozen, but neither of us laughed in this situation.

"I could ask the same of you," I shot back. Now that I knew I was dealing with a human rather than a wild Pokemon, my racing heartbeat began to fall back into a slower tempo. "No offense, but you're the last person I ever expected to see outside of city limits."

He really was. Stein was known around school for keeping his head down, never interacting with anyone else, and generally being off in his own world. I'd never taken him for the rule-breaking type.

Stein's face flushed with embarrassment as he cleared his throat.

"I have my reasons," he replied evasively. I watched as he tried wiggling his feet. A huge sigh of relief left him when he realized that yes, Bell's Mean Look was already wearing off. He flexed his fingers experimentally while staring at me, this time with eyes the size of saucers. "Are you one of those Ability Holders?"

I had to give myself a mental pat on the back for not flinching or betraying any visible emotion on my face. Had he heard me and Bell talking? I only had one option here, and that was to refute and play dumb.

"If you mean a Blessed Child, then no."

What Stein had referenced — an Ability Holder — was a term used in a previous era to describe a human born with supernatural abilities. Very rare, and no one knew why or how they came to be. They were different from psychics or Aura users and generally had powers related to Pokemon. There wasn't really a lot of information on them in the city's library, but we had living proof among the Euria Church clergy. One of their bishops was an Ability Holder fast rising in the ranks, a young man who'd awakened with the power to heal minor Pokemon injuries. The Church called him a Blessed Child of Arceus. They claimed the power of Ability Holders was granted by the Original One Himself and that it signaled He forgave mankind for their past sins. The truly devoted were rewarded for their faith.

They were way off the mark.

I could say that in full confidence because I was pretty sure I was one of those Ability Holders, and I definitely did not blindly worship Arceus like the vast majority of the city.

Evidently, Stein didn't either from the way he snorted. "I'll stick to calling them Ability Holders, thanks. And don't play dumb with me! I know you know what Ability Holders are. I always see you at the library whenever I visit. You've probably read every record in there like I have."

"So?" I shrugged my shoulders. "Wouldn't change my answer. I just told you I'm not one of them."

Stein gaped at me. "I heard you talking to that Zubat!"

"Yeah, and that was me interpreting body language and tone of voice really well. I'm good with Pokemon. You know that, too, from practical assessments at school."

"Dude. I literally heard you talking, and it sounded like you understood everything Zubat said. That was way too complex of a conversation to be gleaned from body language or sound alone. Like, how could you even know there were Rhydon tracks nearby without Zubat explicitly telling you—" Stein stopped mid-sentence. He slapped a hand over his mouth, but it was too late.

I leveled an unimpressed stare at him. Bell helpfully added a displeased screech of her own.

"So you were spying on us," I said dryly. "Eavesdropping."

"No!" he blurted out in a muffled voice. "I mean… okay, maybe I was. But I was on my way back to the city and you were blocking the path! Plus, I was here before you probably."

"Doing what?"

"You first," he insisted. "Look, I'm not going to report you to the guards or anything. We're both not supposed to be here. How about we take turns answering questions?"

That didn't sound like a terrible idea. It was true that we both had dirt on the other now, so unless we wanted to go down together and face the ire of the city authorities, I felt reassured that Stein wouldn't tattle on me.

While I was mulling over my decision, Stein let out some odd noise of frustration. "Ugh, okay, I'll go first if that makes you feel better. I was studying some of the wild Pokemon around here."

"What for?" I asked, genuinely surprised. "Everything about the common ones got drilled into our heads at school. You can even find records of the more uncommon species at the library."

"It's not the same," Stein countered. "I don't want to just be told things, I want to see them for myself and make my own observations. Maybe even discover something new. Collect knowledge, all that jazz. It's fun." That sounded more like the nerdy image of him I had from school. He raised a hand before I could say anything else. "Nope, my turn now. Same question from before. Are you an Ability Holder? I promise I won't tell anyone."

What followed next was a silent stare-off as I gauged whether or not to trust him. Well… Stein was already being honest with me, so that counted for something. I was admittedly pretty curious about him, too.

"Yeah—" I finally said, but I got cut off by an excited whoop from Stein.

"Legendaries, I KNEW IT!" he exclaimed. He fumbled for a pen from his pocket and pulled out the notebook I always saw him carry around. Words spilled out of his mouth while he flipped it open. "What's your ability? Is it understanding any Pokemon? How does it work? How long have you had it?"

That was a lot more than one question, but I humored him. My brows scrunched as I tried to recall memories. "No idea. I just know I've been able to talk to any wild Zubat since I was six or seven. Tried talking to other Pokemon around town like Geodude and Leavanny, but I couldn't understand them— Hey!" I stopped abruptly, staring at the boy across from me. His pen moved rapidly across blank pages. "Don't write anything about me in there! What if someone finds your book and reads it?"

"Relax, I'm keeping it vague. Your name's not gonna be written anywhere," Stein assured with a casual wave of his hand. His tongue stuck out from a corner of his mouth as he wrote. The rest of his words were halted by intermittent pauses of deep concentration. "I have… a really good memory… so the book's more of a formality… than anything else. Anyway, is your ability instant? Or do you need to spend time with a Pokemon?"

"I… Okay, whatever. It's pretty much instant nowadays. Used to take me at least a day or two to understand fragments before they turned into full-on sentences."

"I see, I see…" Stein made humming sounds under his breath as he continued jotting down notes. "I wonder why it's only limited to Zubat? It's so fascinating—"

Now it was my turn to put my foot down, or in this case, by holding up my hand.

"Enough about me." I squinted my eyes at the metallic Pokemon floating lazily around his head. It had almost plummeted to the ground from Bell's Mean Look earlier. Almost. "That's a Magnemite, isn't it? You can't find those around here. I don't think you have permission to own a Pokemon either. Whose is it?"

"Astute observation," Stein praised. He snapped his book shut with a sage nod of his head. "You're right. He's not mine but my grandpa's. I, uh, borrow Neon sometimes."

I regarded the Magnemite, or Neon as he seemed to be called, with renewed interest. He must have been a Pokemon from the previous era then, one brought down to the underground by the earliest survivors and inherited by Stein's grandpa.

Everybody knew who Stein's grandpa was. Anthony Colson had been a leading member of the city's Research Department in his prime. He had helped figure out a way to make Pokeballs with resources down here and had a bunch of other inventions attached to his name.

Unfortunately, he was also now known as Crazy Anthony. The loss of his son and daughter-in-law during a disease outbreak years ago had taken a severe toll on his emotional and mental wellbeing. He wasn't in the right state of mind to work anymore.

My eyes now drifted from Neon to the floating sheet of rock Stein still stood on.

"How are you doing that?" I asked. My mind whirled with possible explanations and theories. "Making the rock float, I mean. Are you a psychic or something?"

"As cool as that would be, no—"

"Oh," I interrupted, a figurative light bulb going off in my head. My lips curled in a triumphant grin. "I think I've got it. It's not you doing that… it's your Magnemite, isn't it? With Magnet Rise."

The surprise that flashed across Stein's face only added to the self-satisfaction I felt. Looked like I hit the nail on the head. His mouth parted in the shape of a wide o.

"Y-You're right," he stammered. "Neon's not much of a fighter, but he's really good at manipulating electricity and magnetism. I didn't want wild Pokemon tracking vibrations from my feet, so I thought this would be a better way to traverse the caves. Plus, uh, it was the only way for me to get here in the first place. Can't jump that far—"

He stopped suddenly to stare at me with newfound realization.

"Wait. How did YOU get here then? We did use the same entrance, right?"

"The one hidden behind the salon?"

Stein snapped his fingers together. "That one, yup! No way your Zubat carried you."

"Duh." I almost rolled my eyes. "Bell's too small for that."

"So you—"

"—jumped, yes," I finished for him. He gave me an incredulous look, one that I carelessly shrugged off. "It's not that far. I've done it dozens of times before."

"You're insane," Stein decided right then and there. He furiously nodded his head up and down. "This isn't my first time in the caves either. It's a wonder we kept missing each other until now… I guess that brings us all the way back to the million-dollar question. What are you doing here?"

"Mapping the caves. Training," I rattled off nonchalantly. Bell took a break from flying to land on my shoulder, so I scratched a spot in between her ears I knew she liked. Soft squeaks of content entered my ear. "I finally got permission to catch and own Pokemon, so I wanted to bring Bell back to the city with me. I met her in here last year."

"'Mapping the caves?'" Stein echoed with no small amount of confusion. His brows scrunched together. "What's the point? Everybody knows already that you got scouted by the Belright Guards. I don't think they'd let a kid patrol that far into the tunnels. Even if they did, they'd give you a map first."

"Right," I said slowly, "but it wouldn't be a complete one. Just a map of the near vicinity. My goal is to find the entrance to the surface."

"Why? It's not like you want to explore the surface, right?"

I flashed a confident smile and replied, "I do."

Loud peals of laughter filled the tunnels as Stein threw his head back with closed eyes. "Wow, Orion, that's a good one! I didn't know you were a jokester! You're always so serious in school."

That laughter soon died in Stein's throat when he saw my expression hadn't changed. A loud and audible gulp then echoed off the walls.

"Oh. You weren't kidding," he realized out loud in a strangled whisper. "Okay, you're actually insane. Don't you know how dangerous the surface is?!"

I knew. Oh, I definitely knew.

The surface was not necessarily a taboo topic in Belona, but it was certainly one that people avoided talking about. Both City Hall and the Euria Church constantly hammered it into our heads that the surface was a dangerous place full of death. Miasma — that which contaminated the air from past collisions of godly power — lingered in the atmosphere. If that didn't already scare people enough, then you had a whole city full of people who didn't want to leave in the first place. They preferred the security and safety of the underground over a world full of terrible unknowns.

To top things off, there was a certain incident that occurred eleven years ago. City Hall administration wanted to check if the surface was liveable was not, so the best Belright Guards escorted a small group of volunteers all the way up to the outside world's entrance. The volunteers were supposed to explore the surroundings, then return after twenty-four hours and report their discoveries.

They never came back.

After that, City Hall dropped all notions of exploration. They reinforced their unspoken rule about avoiding the surface. The incident also gave the Euria Church more ammo and supported their idea that Arceus was possibly still punishing humanity for their sins. In their opinion, the underground was the best place to be.

I didn't agree with them.

"I mean, just think about it!" Stein's voice snapped me out of my thoughts. He stared at me as if I'd grown a second head and waved his hands around. "You could get eaten by a predator Pokemon! And— And the air's not safe! You could die from miasma—"

"Miasma levels on the surface have gone down," I interrupted.

"How would you know that?" Stein demanded.

In response, I made a small 'o' shape with my hand.

"Tracked down and bribed one of the guards who was there back then with alcohol. He's retired now, and he blabbed a whole lot after getting drunk," I revealed with a smirk. I'd had to shell out a pretty penny to buy a single bottle in the city's black market. "Apparently, one of the volunteers relayed through the door that the air was fine to breathe."

"So then what happened to them?"

"Dunno. Killed by wild Pokemon probably? They heard a bunch of screaming from the volunteers on the other side of the door later."

Stein's face went as pale as a sheet.

"A-Alright, well, my point still stands," he finally stammered after a moment of silence. "It's dangerous out there! I don't understand why you'd want to go outside when you can live a long and safe life here."

I'd never talked about this with anyone else before, not even mom before she passed away. Stein's reaction was how any normal, sane person would react to the words I was spewing. Why leave when we had everything we needed here? Why risk your life to see the world?

I suddenly remembered mom's last words to me again.

Live as long as you can and be happy.

I couldn't follow the second part of that request, not in Belona at least. I didn't belong here.

"But is that really living?" I questioned.

"What?" Stein stared at me.

"Holing away in the underground. Sleeping, eating, working, and doing it all over again until the day you die. A repetitive, tiring cycle. To me, that's not living," I elaborated.

"It's comfortable—"

"It's stifling," I said over Stein, and I didn't give him a chance to continue. "This isn't living. It's simply surviving within a prison we've built for ourselves because we're too afraid to want more."

"Calling Belona a prison is a stretch, don't you think?" Stein argued weakly.

I scoffed out loud. "Is it, though? We've locked ourselves down here. Our entire 'world' consists of a single city built in an underground chasm. Nothing else."

I closed my eyes. Behind my eyelids, colors bloomed as a place so very different from the underground came to life. It was a world I'd never seen before and yet one I could perfectly envision.

"Imagine a world that stretches on forever," I said. I wasn't speaking any louder, but my voice somehow seemed to carry further in the cave. "No matter where you look, no matter where you run— color fills your vision. There aren't any boundaries or people stopping you. It's bright and beautiful. It's real."

I could see it already in my mind's eye.

"Verdant greenery underneath your feet. Wind that blows across your cheeks. Glittering seas that stretch across the earth. The sun, a light so dazzling that it blinds. Mountains so big they disappear into the clouds, and the sky…"

My heart beat a little faster in my chest. I reached out subconsciously with a hand.

"It's wide. Really wide and impossibly blue. Just looking at it makes you believe anything is possible."

I finally opened my eyes.

The outside world was gone and replaced once more with the dull, rocky interior of the tunnels, but it still existed inside my mind. I still saw myself standing under an endless expanse of blue.

Gray eyes shone brightly as they stared into Stein's.

"I want to see that kind of world with my own eyes," I told him, lips curling ever upwards into a grin. "I don't want to stay underground and be forgotten. I want to go where no one else dares to and pave a path of my own. Experience lots of different things."

This whole time, Stein had quietly listened to me. Now he raised a single question.

"Even if it kills you?" he challenged.

My gaze did not waver.

"I don't plan on dying. I'm gonna leave the underground someday, explore the surface, become the strongest trainer, and live a long and exciting life. In the future, people will read about me in history textbooks. And, well…"

I raised a fist in front of my face.

"Even if I did die early, I wouldn't regret a thing," I declared firmly. "Because I'd be proud I chased my dream. I would have felt free. Alive."

A big claim from a ten-year-old. Most people feared death.

But what I feared more than death was living a life with no meaning at all.

Silence returned to the cave as Stein stared at me for the longest time without blinking. Perhaps he was re-evaluating why he bothered asking me so many questions in the first place. I prepared myself for incoming derogatory remarks or the like.

Eventually, he slowly shook his head from side to side.

"I think out of everyone in Belona, you might just be the most insane person of all," Stein informed me. Couldn't refute that. The incredulity in his voice was hard to miss, but there was something else there. An underlying admiration. "But… I might be crazier for thinking you'll actually achieve everything you say you will."

Now that took me by surprise.

"Really?"

Stein chuckled. "Yeah. I mean… it's you. Orion Hadley. The confident, cool guy at school and youngest ever recruit for the Belright Guards. You have that, uh, how do I put it… star quality? You just seem like you'll go far no matter what you do in life."

I rubbed the back of my neck and hoped I didn't look as awkward as I felt. It was a little more embarrassing than I expected to hear how I was perceived by other people.

"That's technically not wrong," I said after clearing my throat. "I was named after a constellation after all. Suppose you could call it constellation quality then."

Stein stared at me, then laughed so hard that he nearly fell off his floating rock.

"You're… You're funnier than you look, Orion," he finally wheezed out. He had to take a few moments to stabilize himself before he was fit to speak again. "Also…"

Anything he said next came out in an indistinguishable mumble, so I had to ask him to speak up.

Stein avoided eye contact with me. "I'm sorry for how I acted earlier. It's a nice dream you have. Crazy, but nice."

Not the most eloquent apology slash compliment, but I still appreciated it. He didn't mock my lofty ambitions. Stein was probably the first and last person I'd ever reveal my dream to in Belona. To be honest… I thought it would remain a secret for the rest of my life underground. I didn't have any friends in Belona or people I could trust.

My chest felt a bit lighter now that someone else knew.

"No worries. Just, uh, promise you won't rat me out to City Hall or the Church."

"Ha! Sure, as long as you promise the same."

Seeing as neither of us were keen on getting into trouble, it was a done deal.

Author's Note: Thank you for your support!