I ran at close to half my regular/unboosted top speed since we determined that around 200 km/h was the highest I could go without Phantump losing his ability to reliably guide the way. Yet, even if I was not going as fast as I could have, we still arrived at our destination within less than 2 hours which was a huge improvement compared to Phantump's personal assessment of a few days.
The little ghost certainly enjoyed the high-speed run since he giggled/laughed nearly the whole time, and his good mood infected everyone else, which was good since just running while avoiding trees could have been a bit boring without that. Good mood aside, I surveyed the area after Phantump said that we had arrived, but I couldn't see anything that looked like a cave.
Heck, there was not even a hill or a wall or anything like that that could serve as a cave entrance. Everything looks the same around this place, just trees, grass, and more trees as well as grass, with the occasional bush. I was not the only one checking out the area, and Thor/Raichu was just as confused as I was.
"{I see no cave, little prankster}," Thor finally said after failing to spot anything. The "Is this a practical joke?" was not voiced but definitely hinted at in his tone, and while Thor's concern was certainly valid, I honestly found it a bit funny that he called Phantump a little prankster considering that Phantump was close to 2 years older than him. Not that he knew that since I had not shared Phantump's age with the others.
"{Just because you can't see it, doesn't mean it's not here}," Phantump said while waving his forefinger in an admonishing manner. "{Also, I'm not little, I'm 14}," he followed up, which had Thor make the Pikachu face, or Raichu face in his case I guess. Thor threw me a look asking if Phantump was for real and I nodded in confirmation.
"{He's older than me?!}" Thor asked in disbelief, which had Phantump, Hades/Gengar, and Mothra/Butterfree laugh. "{Seems like I am. Come on call me big brother}," Phantump said before breaking out into laughter again. {Dream on}," Thor replied earning a pout from Phantump, before he turned to Hades. "{Why are you laughing? You've just turned 10, so you are the youngest here}," he admonished Hades, which cut off Hades' laughter and caused a gleam to appear in Phantump's eyes.
"{Oh, is that so}," Phantump hummed before turning to Hades. "{Come on call me big bro}," he said in a teasing manner before laughing, and this time Thor joined in as well while giving Hades a mocking look, obviously taking revenge. I could not help but chuckle while watching their antics/self-directed drama and Mothra was giggling as well. I could feel her amusement and that of the others as well, though Hades seemed ready to counter.
"{Sorry, but you're too weak for me to call you big bro}," he countered, aiming below the belt, his words cutting off Phantump's laughter while causing Thor to laugh even louder. "{I might consider it if you manage to surpass me, but I don't think you can do that, so let's stay casual}," he followed up, and I could have kissed Hades, because I felt a strong resolve/determination take root in Phantump at his words/provocation.
"{Hoo, that so}," Phantump whispered, though we all heard it, before raising his voice. "{I'll have you call me Big Bro someday. Mark my words}," he declared full of conviction and we all stopped laughing at his comments since that would have been very disrespectful toward his new conviction. "{We'll see. Let's see if you can keep that determination up when the boss man starts to train you}," Hades could not resist adding a little jab in his return.
Happy with the way things developed, I finally decided to intervene, so I turned to Phantump. "Where's the cave you mentioned? I can't see anything around here that would hint at a cave," I pretty much repeated what Thor said, just nicer. "{That's because the entrance is hidden}," Pahntump answered and I nodded. "Well, what are we waiting for? Lead the way," I followed up and Phantump motioned for us to follow him while he made his way toward one of the trees with a bunch of bushes growing around its base.
"{Here it is}," Phantump said while pointing toward a burrow at the roots of the tree, hidden by the bushes. The burrow entrance was roughly 1.5 meters in width and a meter in length. While that was not big enough for me to walk in, it was big enough for nearly anyone to crawl inside. I naturally did not plan to crawl, so I told Mothra to vacate my head for a moment before putting on a cap with a flashlight. I then made my way down the burrow in a Superman pose using my telekinesis to fly. Mothra directly settled on my back treating me like an air taxi, while the others followed along as well.
Just 10 or so meters later we reached a room that whoever dug the burrow obviously created. Thanks to the room being 2 meters high and roughly 20 m² in size, I was able to stand properly, so I did. "{The real entrance is here}," Phantump walked to one of the corners and pointed down as I was straightening my stance. We all walked over and peered down the hole in the ground.
It appeared that whoever dug this burrow coincidentally happened to break into an actual underground cave (system). Still, considering the fact that the burrow was vacated, they either didn't like that and left, or their discovery ended in a bad way. Regardless, I was confident that nothing would happen to us even if it was the latter, so I turned to Hades and told him to get inside my shadow before switching the flashlight hat for a proper flashlight that I levitated around me to keep my hands empty.
Once Mothra had settled on my head again, I jumped down the rabbit hole toward the underground wonderland. It took two seconds for the area around us to free up, indicating that we made it to an "open" space, though it was more of a wide tunnel. Another two seconds later I landed on the ground. My landing threw up a bit of dust but dust was not the only kind of cloud that appeared around me upon my landing.
It appeared that I/we had gotten ambushed since a yellow-purple cloud covered my position within mere moments of my arrival/landing. I reflexively held my breath, but I knew that was not enough since I could not allow the cloud to touch me, so I used my Aura to cover my body/skin and my psionic energy to keep the Poison-Stun cloud away from me. Mothra quickly followed up and flapped her wings to blow the dust and ambush clouds away.
Once the clouds were gone it became apparent who our ambushers were since the Paras and Parasect either chose to come out after releasing their poison and stun clouds or their hiding spots were chosen more out of convenience rather than how well hidden they were. Either way, I spotted 5 Paras as well as 1 Parasect, so I ordered Thor who had just fallen down the hole as well to shock them all. He released a Shock Wave before following up with a Thunderbolt aimed at the Parasect because unlike the Paras, who were only at the iron stage, the Parasect was at the silver stage, so it took more than a Shock Wave to immobilize it.
"You could have warmed us about the ambush," I chided Phantump who had come down together with Thor. "{They didn't attack me, so I did not think they would attack you}," he answered embarrassedly. "Could that maybe have been because they couldn't detect you?" I asked him blandly while looking at the roots that hung from the ceiling as well as the Luminous Moss as well as other greenery that seemed to grow within ten cave.
"Either way you should have told us about the presence of any Pokemon so that we could be prepared just in case," I made clear for the future before I began to properly check out our surroundings. I also turned off the flashlight and put it away for now since the Luminous Moss was doing a decent enough job of lightening up the place, even if the light they gave off had a greenish hue.
When I moved toward the area the Parasect came from, I saw a whole bunch of bones and shells, showing that this was definitely not the first ambush they performed. In fact, seeing how the carapaces also included Paras shells, and considering the strength disparity between the Parasect and Paras, I would wager that the Parasect even ate some of the Paras if too much time without any prey passed. I doubted they got to do much photosynthesis down here, so their having to eat other stuff to compensate was no surprise, but cannibalism was still a bit much.
I decided to follow the standard protocol here when finding aggressive Parasect and Paras, which was to decisively take them down. "Thor spike them, and Mothra, peel off those mushrooms once Thor is done sending them off," I ordered, and Thor nodded while Mothra simply said, "{ok}". Thor first went towards the Parasect. His tail first gleamed, showing that he was using Iron Tail, before it began to take on a yellow hue, showing that he was running electric energy through it as well, upgrading the Iron Tail to Ion Tail.
Once he was ready, he plunged his tail into Parasects head, nearly splitting the carapace in half before retracting his tail. He then moved on to the paras and repeated that process, while Mothra used Psychic to yank off the mushrooms from the now-deceased parasitized/zombified Pokemon. She levitated the mushrooms in front of me and I stored them in air-tight bags before placing them inside Utopia.
"Alright, in which direction should we go now?" I asked once I was done since the underpass we were in opened up in two directions. "{The place I found my cloak in is that way}," Phantump said while pointing towards our back, and I had to pull out my compass to determine what direction that was. It turned out to be northwest, so the opposite direction was heading toward the southeast.
"{Let's head in that direction}," Thor said pointing in the opposite direction of the one Phantump mentioned, and while one might think he did it to tease Phantump, I could feel that he was serious with his proposal since I felt no amusement when he spoke. Mothra and Hades spoke up in Thor's favor, so we ended up going in the southeast direction. For a few minutes, all we saw was Luminous Moss and some other cave foliage, along with the occasional Geodude.
It seemed that other Pokemon aside from Geodude avoided this part of the cave system since it took roughly 4 minutes before we saw something other than Geodude. The Diglett that poked its head out to check what caused the vibrations in the ground quickly went back under when it saw us. Still, its appearance heralded the arrival of more life since we came upon a pair of Sandshrew mingling around not long after seeing the Diglett.
The Sandshrew curled into balls and quickly rolled away when they noticed us, but that was fine since I had not been planning to bother with them anyway. Following that, we ended up coming across some more Geodude, Diglett, and Sandshrew, before we saw a relatively large net hanging from the ceiling of the tunnel. A pair of Spinarak was on that net, dealing with a Zubat that got caught in it. Another confirmation of the way things worked in the wild/nature.
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