CYOA 2 – To The Victor Go The Spoils – Chapter 6: Cave Adventures (Patreon)

Previously: After getting his first badge, Hanzo finds himself surprised by a sudden heavy rain. He flees into the mouth of a cave where he meets Lúcio and becomes, surprisingly enough, friends.

warnings/content: ear injury

-----------

Hanzo has been a lone wolf all his life. He loves Genji, of course, but he’s never been too eager to spend any time with him or anybody else. He likes his own company the most. He doesn’t annoy himself most of the time.

That being said, he is surprised at how easy it is to travel with Lúcio through the dark cave system of Mt. Moon. Every now and then he will suddenly remember a story that he will tell Hanzo with the ease of someone who is used to captivating an audience, but for the most part he remains blessedly silent, listening for Pokémon – just like Hanzo.

The caves are well mapped out and most life keeps off the beaten tracks, unfortunately. A lot of the warm orange lamps have blown out, leaving them in almost complete darkness if they both weren’t equipped with flashlights.

Neither has a Pokémon out to accompany them, except for Politoed who keeps half-walking half-hopping behind them. It is producing a melodious soft croak with every step, giving a nice backdrop to when they are not talking.

After their fight and the subsequent treatment by Lúcio’s weird rods, Hanzo would have thought that the air between them would be staticky or weird… but Lúcio doesn’t mention it again or even just alludes to it, so Hanzo starts to relax as well.

It is a good companionship for now, and if he is being honest, he is grateful that he doesn’t have to make his way through Mt. Moon alone. He is not really good with darkness like this. It reminds him too much of his father’s Corviknight…

Lúcio’s arm suddenly thrusts out, keeping Hanzo from taking another step. He holds his breath, eyes immediately flicking around the cone of light given off by his flashlight, then toward Lúcio.

“What?” he asks with sharper a tone than he had meant for.

Lúcio shakes his head hard enough to make a few of his dreadlocks bounce. He puts a finger to his mouth to shush Hanzo. Even Politoed has gone completely quiet as it sits a few feet behind them and watches them, happy and pretty unperturbed as a whole.

Lúcio tilts his head, obviously listening to something. Hanzo closes his eyes, trying to focus his hearing as well. The caves are almost eerily quiet. Every now and then high above them they had been able to hear the soft flutter of wings, but even those are absent in the complete emptiness they find themselves in.

Actively focusing on the darkness around them and the quiet that comes with it is… freaky. Hanzo can feel his hand inching toward his belt and the ball with the stylized flame engraved on it. Ponyta’s bright blue flame would light their way beautifully – though it would also scare off any potential Pokémon they would like to catch.

Then in the darkness, he finally hears it: a soft whimpering sound, almost like a baby. The hair along his arms stands on end. He opens his eyes again and looks toward Lúcio, wanting to ask what he thought this sound was… but Lúcio is not paying attention to him. Instead, his brow furrowed, he slowly turns on his heels, seemingly trying to locate the direction from which the soft, eery sounds were coming.

It’s useless, of course. Sound in the caves is bouncing off of the walls, making anything feel claustrophobically close and very far away at the same time. Hanzo wants to tell him as much, but Lúcio once again is quicker, his hand shooting out yet again, this time to point to where his flashlight is illuminating the area where a few rocks are lying close to the roughly hewn cave wall.

“There!”

Hanzo can see it. There is a bit of pink fur visible just behind the edge of one of the larger rocks where a Pokémon is obviously hiding. He stands back, watching with a frown as Lúcio carefully makes his way over to the whimpering creature.

He is not quite sure what triggers the change; whether it had felt the vibration of Lúcio’s feet carefully hitting the dusty ground, or finally seen the light flickering on the wall behind it – the whimpers cut off abruptly and are replaced not a split second later by a siren-like alarm so loud that it takes Hanzo’s brain a second or two to parse the information that this is, in fact, sound.

And it is splitting his head apart.

Their flashlights clutter to the floor as both of them immediately squat down, arms covering their heads while the siren blares around them, bouncing off the walls of the cave and multiplying itself. In the corner of his teary eyes Hanzo can tell that a few Zubat are falling from the ceiling and hitting the ground disoriented.

In front of him, Lúcio somehow manages to stop clutching his head, pulling his headphones over his ears. Hanzo has no idea if they can even hope to filter out some of the immense noise, but Lúcio does start to crawl the last few steps toward the Pokémon behind the rock.

The ache of Hanzo’s head is… indescribable. As a child he once made a bet with Genji who could dive deeper. He remembers the splitting headache that had suddenly come with the deep waters for someone not knowing how to deal with it. This, though… this is so much worse. It feels like if this noise keeps up for just a bit longer, his head will split into two, or his eyes will pop out of their sockets.

In front of him, the light of the flashlights that had fallen to the floor lets him see how Lúcio is reaching behind the rock with shaking fingers.

And suddenly… silence.

Blessed… silence. In the absence of the inhuman noise, even silence seems too loud. It rings inside his head. He feels nauseous enough that he has to curl up and focus on his breathing and on not losing his lunch.

His ears hurt…

It’s a coincidence that he looks up just as Lúcio approaches him. He has no idea what he looks like, but the other trainer looks worried. In his arms is the weirdest Pokémon Hanzo has yet seen; pink and yellow and with basically nonexistent eyes. Lúcio has put a headband that he had been wearing today around the Pokémon’s head, pinning its ears down to its sides. It doesn’t make a single sound… as far as Hanzo can tell. Everything is spinning.

“Hey Hanzo… can you hear me?”

Relief washes over him when he can, in fact, hear Lúcio’s worried words. They sound a bit dull, as if listening to him through water. But it’s there. He nods, mouth dry, and needs to sit down for a moment while Lúcio comes closer to squat down in front of him and inspect him with a critical look.

He reaches out and touches the right side of Hanzo’s jaw. When he pulls back, he shows Hanzo the blood on his fingertips.

“Looks like this guy ruptured one of your eardrums… but don’t worry. We’ll spray some super potion on a gauze and put it in your ear. That should do the trick. Let’s rest for a bit, alright?”

He’s talking slowly, probably because he can see how Hanzo is just staring at his fingertips, trying to wrap his head around what he just said and make a decision whether he should panic or not.

“Here. Hold this for a moment.” Lúcio unceremoniously puts the Pokémon in Hanzo’s lap. He is surprised to find that its fur is soft. Up close he had been unsure whether it even was fur; it had just looked like an ugly pink… thing. It doesn’t make a peep now, staying still as a statue while Lúcio moves around to clean Hanzo up and give him medical care after offering him a bottle of water.

The cool liquid helps pull him out of his shocked daze. His head still hurts but he feels less like vomiting now as he stares down at the Pokémon.

“What is this? I have never seen anything like it…”

“Really? They’re pretty common in caves, as far as I know. It’s a Whismur. A baby one at that, if you ask me.”

Lúcio could be right with that assessment. The Pokémon seems somewhat off in its proportions, despite Hanzo never having seen one in the first place. It gives off the vibe of a newly hatched Pokémon.

“It looks so… unimpressive,” he mutters. Lúcio offers him a gauze that looks a little blue-ish from the super potion that it is soaked with. He carefully takes it and pushes it into his right ear canal while Lúcio sits down across from him and takes the Pokémon back to inspect it from all sides while it just stays put like a stuffed animal and lets everything happen to it.

“Yeah, they’re tiny but they pack a real punch when they start to cry. I guess it’s too young to really direct the sound yet so… this happened.” He softly sets it down on his lap and reaches to a box of treats that he had taken with himself. Politoed is also suddenly there, reaching out with a free-fingered hand and demanding snacks that Lúcio gives without arguing.

“Hey there, little guy. You hungry?” He offers Whismur a treat which it takes after a second of hesitation. Hanzo is a bit weirded out by just how huge the small Pokémon’s mouth becomes but watches with interest while he makes sure to keep the gauze deep in his aching ear. The effects of the healing potion are already washing over him, though. While it is clearly meant to treat Pokémon, it does have some good healing capabilities for human scratches as well.

“I read in a magazine that you could shut them up if you pinned their ears down for some reason. I’m glad that it worked out. I dunno what we’d have done if it didn’t.”

Hanzo doesn’t know either. Staring at the little Pokémon coming out of its own shock and eating the treats, he starts to realize that his journey is a lot more dangerous than he really had thought. Of course in theory he knew to be always cautious, but what would have happened if Lúcio hadn’t known about this little trick? The Whismur would have just kept screaming until his head had popped like a ripe melon.

The thought is honestly sobering.

Doesn’t keep him from getting excited over it, though. The super potion makes him feel better; maybe a bit more than he should feel. He’s not sure what it does to the human body but he’s sure he should stay put and not go wandering off, no matter how much his body now tells him that that is a perfectly good idea.

Instead, he puts his energy into talking with Lúcio about the Whismur that is now a lot more relaxed after having eaten and determined that it is not going to get killed by any of them.

After half an hour or so, the Zubat that had fallen to the ground are also starting to get back up again. Lúcio seems to take this as a cue to slowly remove his headband from around Whismur’s head.

Hanzo tenses when it immediately lifts its ears up. It remains blessedly quiet, though.

“So… what are you going to do with it?” he asks after Lúcio has put the headband back onto his own head. “It’s a baby. You’ll have to train it a lot before it’s going to be useful.”

“Hmn yeah. Kinda like Ponyta.”

Lúcio looks down. When Hanzo follows his gaze he is surprised to find that he has Ponyta’s Pokéball in his hands, slowly moving it from left to right and warming his palms against the warm shell of the capture device. He hadn’t even realized that he had taken it off of his belt.

“Yes. You do have other Pokémon already, though. They should be able to help you with the training process.”

Lúcio nods, his face relaxed and happy looking.

“True! I guess I’ll keep it. I think It’s cool to get raise one from really really small, you know? And those babies can become super powerful once they start evolving.” He pats Whismur’s head, one thumb lightly rubbing against the hole that the Pokémon has at the base of each ear. Hanzo can hear a faint whistling sound coming from them whenever Whismur breathes out.

It’s eerie… but he feels like Lúcio is making the right decision as he takes out an unused Pokéball and gently boops it against Whismur’s forehead. There is not even a struggle as it slips into its new home. It stays inside as if it had always belonged to Lúcio.

Half an hour after that, they decide to continue their trek through Mt. Moon. Hanzo just hopes that things will settle down from here on out.

.o.

There are a few Pokémon that cross their path as they make their way through Mt. Moon, but none of them really piques Hanzo’s interest. They are nervous, skittish little creatures that he doesn’t think will amount to much even if he were to try and tame them.

The longer they walk, the more sour his mood becomes. Lúcio must be able to tell because he gets more quiet during the latter half, trying to give Hanzo space as they walk.

After a good while, the sound of water dripping in the distance that had been accompanying them for the most part of their journey, becomes stronger and faster until it is a continuous running sound. Even a bit later, Lúcio suddenly grabs his arm and points into the darkness of the cave.

Peering into the direction with his flashlight reveals a small stream that has joined them on their trek, running parallel to the path that others have walked before them. After a moment of deliberation, Hanzo pulls Magikarp’s ball off his belt to let him free in the little stream. The flash of light from the summon is so bright that both he and Lúcio curse softly under their breaths, rubbing their eyes.

It takes a lot longer than he would have anticipated to get his eyes adjusted to the darkness of the caves once more. By the time he can see, he can tell that Politoed has made his way over to Magikarp. They seem to be communicating with each other in some way.

When Lúcio and he start walking once more, Magikarp swims along the little stream with Politoed hopping over it every once in a while.

Eventually the walls left and right suddenly open up into a large cavernous cave. As they move their flashlights about, they can see a huge lake stretching out in front of them. The glistening dark water looks eerie… it makes Hanzo immediately think of what could lurk in its depths. He shudders.

“We should call it a day for now. It is late,” he murmurs after they have stood there staring for a while. It is cooler in this large cavern that it has been in the relatively small tunnels they had been in earlier. The water is probably mostly to blame for that.

Lúcio hums in agreement so they make a little camp. Neither of them can get a fire going, so they eat by the light of one of their flashlights, sitting close to each other to share warmth.

It makes Hanzo remember vividly what they had done just a day ago. Lúcio hadn’t made any comment on it since then, but it does make him get a bit antsy. He wonders if Lúcio would lean into it if he were to reach out and start touching him. He doesn’t, and neither does Lúcio… but he still wonders.

“Maybe there isn’t anything to catch for me down here,” he muses after they are done eating and Lúcio has pulled out Whismur’s Pokéball to idly roll it back and forth in his hands.

“Could be. Not every type is for every trainer. I’m usually not good with the rock types for example. I don’t vibe well with their natures and mannerisms. Most of ‘em have pretty bad hearin’ too or don’t have any ears at all.”

Hanzo hums thoughtfully. “Is that so? I had never thought of it much… I suppose that makes it difficult to train them.”

Lúcio shrugs one shoulder. “Not if you know how to deal with it. I know a guy with an Onyx and what he does to communicate with it is shift his foot against the ground or tap his heel on it, you know? Stuff like that. They’re so damn sensitive to vibration that they’ll understand you better than if you were to call orders at ‘em.” He pauses there and Hanzo turns to see how it is suddenly working in his head as he seems to have had an epiphany right then and there. “You know… now that I say it, maybe I should look into getting a rock type. Maybe I could train it with the vibration from my speakers…”

Hanzo’s brows lift. “Would that even be possible?”

“I mean… it should? Man, wouldn’t that be awesome? I’d just be turning dials and change the base and rhythm and the Pokémon could follow suit… isn’t that an awesome idea??”

It… kind of is. Hanzo listens to him speculate on how that would work, fascinated by the insight into other trainers’ methods and struggles, though he can’t help but feel a little jealous. He doesn’t think he’d have the imagination to even consider something like what Lúcio is doing right now.

He’s never had a lot of fantasy.

.o.

Hanzo and Lúcio sleep close side by side to keep the warmth close as they make their one and only rest in Mt. Moon. Lúcio estimates that they should be out of the cave systems by tomorrow afternoon and Hanzo thinks that that should be true.

He’s left Magikarp out in the water of the silent black lake so it would be able to swim properly, yet is thanked this boon by an icy cold squirt of water right in his face somewhere in the small hours of the morning.

He jerks up, gasping silently, his body immediately blaring all alarms at him while part of him is weirdly impressed by how precise Magikarp has squirted the small bit of water from a considerable distance.

He can see its white mouth gaping at him over the edge of the lake, heart pumping a mile a minute. As he angrily wipes his face dry with his sleeve, he suddenly hears a sound; soft and rustling, coming from Lúcio’s other side. Could it be…?

Slowly turning his head while fishing for his flashlight, Hanzo can see a dark contour wiggling next to his sleeping travel companion. When he is sure that he is not just seeing things, he takes a hold of Ponyta’s Pokéball just in case.

Clicking the flashlight on reveals… a Pokémon burrowed up to its hips in Lúcio’s backpack. According to the sounds of crinkling and ripping Hanzo can hear, it has long since teared its way into the Pokémon snacks that Lúcio has been carrying around with him.

The brown butt and curved tail looks familiar in the light, though he doesn’t take the time to process it as he claps in his hands and makes a short shout that echoes off the walls of the huge cave they’re in.

Lúcio is up in a flash, as is Politoed who had been… Hanzo doesn’t know where. It just is suddenly there, dancing at the edge of his peripheral without a care in the world as usual.

As Lúcio tries to figure out what the hell just happened, Magikarp squirts another very distinct jet of water that hits the Pokémon’s butt. It just wiggles its tail and keeps going deeper into the backpack.

Hanzo is up now, jumping over Lúcio and grabbing the hindlegs of the Pokémon. It doesn’t react… at all until it suddenly is lifted and the bag neatly slides off its front and down to the ground.

Wriggling from its hind legs and yipping in dismay, Hanzo finds himself holding on to a Rockruff. His heart immediately sinks. It’s not that he doesn’t like them… he likes dog Pokémon exceptionally well – it’s just that… Genji…

He shakes his head. Slowly squatting down, he carefully sits the Rockruff down while Lúcio, now properly awake, reaches over and grabs its by its scruff so it wouldn’t run away; though it doesn’t make any moves to. It doesn’t look particularly scared as it sits there and looks at the both of them with its tongue lolling out in a goofy grin.

“What the Hell…,” he mutters. He pushes his flashlight into Lúcio’s hand so he can properly see as he reaches out for the Pokémon and carefully pushes his fingers into its sides. It’s fur is thick and fluffy, though it is starting to develop some serious matting here and there. The belly he finds is seriously well rounded.

It’s tail, the longer he touches it, starts to wag harder and harder.

“Dude…”

“Yes. I think this is somebody’s Pokémon.”

Hanzo twists, looking around as if there suddenly would be new trainers… but now, it is still just Lúcio and him. They hadn’t met anybody in Mt. Moon since they had camped in the mouth of the cave a day ago.

Lúcio, figuring that Rockruff wouldn’t run, lets go of him. It immediately turns around and starts to lick at Hanzo’s fingers. He twists his face a little but lets it be.

“Did you run away?” he asks it without, obviously, anticipating a reply. “Or were you abandoned? Couldn’t have been too long ago… he’s still in fairly good shape.”

Lúcio lets him be and think for a moment while going through his backpack to assess the damage. He sighs softly but does not complain. Either the damage isn’t as bad as Hanzo would have thought, or he figures that complaining won’t get him his Pokétreats back anyway.

“Gotta go shopping in the next city. I should make a turn for Saffron City when we’re out of the cave. Sorry, buddy…”

Hanzo can feel his heart sink a little despite himself. Lúcio and he had made tentative plans to both go to the small settlement right outside of Mt. Moon and both fight for the badge there.

“Yes. No problem.” He keeps looking at the Rockruff that is still wagging its tail despite its snout full of crumbs.

“What a little trouble maker. I suppose I will keep you with me for a while… See about finding your trainer…”

Next time: It’s goodbye for Lúcio and Hanzo, but every new city also means new acquaintances… and an opportunity at a badge.