Chapter 60: Mount Moon (II)

After getting a good night's sleep, Jan 22nd came. We left the Pokemon Center early in the morning after I made us breakfast. Lillie is already used to me making her meals but Serena is still getting used to it. I make sure to keep their nutrition balanced.

I'm always surprised they can eat my meals leaving their plates sparkling clean. Lillie's stomach is like a black hole. It's like she doesn't let any of that energy go to waste, consumes it all and the muscles she's been developing are a result of that.

The same can't be said for Serena, however. It seems she's worried about her current appearance, as she showed us some flab. Maybe I'm putting too much into her meals? Perhaps I ought to cut a bit out each time without making a noticeable difference.

We have only been on our journey for about half a month now. With all that walking behind us and what laid ahead, that itself is a huge undergoing, so this might just be a needless worry.

Never tell a girl she is fat or that she eats too much though. You'd definitely get a slap in the face for that, haha!

Jokes aside, three figures vanished into the darkness of the cave entrance of Mount Moon

By the way, it's not like we are going in completely blind here. Thanks to the Pokedex's map function, it is basically a high tech gps. It has most of Mount Moon and areas of interest already mapped out. Only this was open to the public though, of course there are still many hidden areas. There are several people who claimed they found that meteor crash site but it looks like they left it off the map, probably for a good reason too. There are normal devices for this too, but we can resort to the Pokedex as Trainers.

Click.

After inching our way into the main tunnel, we saw darkness all around. Every so often we would hear Pokemon chatter or make some noise, burrowing into the ground.

Three lights lit up the cave, and once we got a good view it was actually pretty wide.

"Shrew!", A voice suddenly resounded near us, which caused us to shine our flashlights over to the noise.

We only caught a glimpse of what appeared to be an armadillo-like creature digging a hole, hiding away from sight.

"Geodude.", This time, another voice echoed not too far away. Shining our lights to the left, we saw a few creatures made of stone, hugging the walls.

"This cave is quite spacious for Pokemon to roam free here. Sandshrew and Geodude?", Serena asked while looking throughout the cave. Way in the distance we could see light on the other end.

"This tunnel isn't that far at all. But looks can be deceiving. How long does the map say, Itsuki?"

"It's about a half day's walk give and take, we may need to descend further into the tunnels before reaching the other side.", 'That's how it was in the games anyway. In the anime, the group got distracted by a lone Clefairy, which eventually brought them to the crash site.

And on top of that there was no Seymour the Scientist to act as a guide. Well, I'm not a certain marimo head who tends to get lost at every other corner, haha! (A/N: Marimo means Algae, aka moss head)

"Is it possible to reach Cerulean City before the end of the day?", Lillie asked.

"Very possible should we encounter Clefairy rather quickly. We may need to start choosing random tunnels for that.", I answered. Serena and Lillie nodded their heads.

And like so we ventured in the tunnels of Mount Moon. The path would take a turn every so often. Tons of Sandshrew, Geodude, and Zubat would show up. A rare Graveler and Golbat as well. I bet if we would descend into the depths of Mount Moon, we could find Golem, Sandslash, and Crobat, which were their final evolutions.

In my mind I was debating whether to catch a Zubat. It was a very handy Pokemon early on which could use sound waves, basically echo location to search things for us where normal vision may not help. Moreover, Crobat was a pretty badass Pokemon, and Crobat was extremely fast.

I mulled over this thought for a couple hours as I saw Serena and Lillie happily chat away with each other. Even though we seemed casual tight now, we were still on constant alert.

Surprisingly after a few hours of walking, I felt we have gotten deeper into the caves, but there was no sign of Team Rocket at all. Well, the only ones who caused trouble here was that infamous trio, and I had no idea they were currently in the shadows hiding back in Viridian City. Perhaps Team Rocket is currently laying low for a while?

Well, in case anything did happen...I had my own way to get out of it. Battling isn't always the best solution. Reaching into one of my pockets, I spot checked what appeared to be a sewn badge of sorts. It was a gray badge sewn with a yellow symbol on it. Three diamond crystals held tightly by a two pronged spear.

The symbol of a Paradise Admin.

What, didn't expect me to receive such a treatment? At first I only worked at Paradise as an "intern" because I was too young a child back then. But I still rose the ranks as any worker would. As I grew older, Lusamine showed me the shadows of society, away from Lillie's eyes. She didn't want her daughter to get involved with that. And with me learning about that, it would do me better as her caretaker later on.

Everything regarding this went mostly fine, except for that one incident that sprung up which caused Lillie unable to touch Pokemon, let alone even approach them. But that would be a story for another time...

And as a result, well, I was given the position of an Admin in Aether Foundation. I'd rather not have Lillie or Serena know this part of me, because it's something I myself don't like, but I didn't turn the position down.

It secured me a spot inside the dark while I have my status as a Professor and Trainer in the light. Should Team Rocket ever try to harm us, well, let's just say they'll have to think twice on that.

But that's enough about me for now.

Seeing me stay quiet for a while, Lillie turned around.

"Itsuki, is everything alright?"

However, at this time, my ears perked up.

"Shush.", I signaled the two, and they immediately turned quiet.

Not too far away, we heard the sound of a Pokemon as if they were singing.

"Clefairy. Clefairy. Clefairy.", the voice said, appearing in our sight a Clefairy. It seemed to be holding a moon stone as it hopped happily in a certain direction while carrying it. I signaled the two and Lillie immediately smiled seeing Clefairy appear.

We made sure to hide ourselves until we no longer saw Clefairy. We then started to follow it which let us venture deeper into Mount Moon.

By the way, during this I let the two know I wanted to catch a Zubat, and we were able to find it pretty quickly. I had Zubat's data added into my Pokedex.

"Zubat, the bat Pokemon. Poison and Flying type. Zubat often live in caves and hate to fly around in daylight. They use ultrasonic waves that emits from their mouth to check their surroundings as Zubat does not have eyes to see. They like to form colonies."

Speaking of Mew, it followed us into Mount Moon. But Mew acted as if it had night vision and played around with many of the Pokemon in the tunnels, as if the darkness had no impact to it at all.

*

A bit more about Itsuki's stay in Alola.

In this fanfic, Aether Foundation isn't evil like other organizations are. They are known in the underworld though.

Don't forget to keep dropping those power stones! Let's reach back up over 500!