Chapter 1: Layla
BestLizard
Junior Trainer
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Below
The world of Pokemon lives in a cruel underground world with no known escape.
The heroes of Team Surface dream to reach the surface and embrace its mythicized freedom, but such adventure ensnares them in a sinister conspiracy surrounding the humans before them. Can they cut through the mysteries and reach the surface, or will the savagery of their world consume them?
The world of Pokemon lives in a cruel underground world with no known escape.
The heroes of Team Surface dream to reach the surface and embrace its mythicized freedom, but such adventure ensnares them in a sinister conspiracy surrounding the humans before them. Can they cut through the mysteries and reach the surface, or will the savagery of their world consume them?
there's plenty of blood and some bruises but no gory guts. The most graphic violence is someone losing a hand. I do detail characters' suffering pain though, and their reactions may get uncomfortable for some people. There's also swearing.
I want to give thanks to my official beta readers TrueBrush (PMD Crux of the Self) and Makkuro Kiba (PMD A Keeper's Promise). I also want to give thanks to friends who read snippets or beta read specific chapters: GumPlum (PMD Free Fiction), Jusmove (PMD: R&D), PunninOtter, and HermitSpy (PMD Fallen Down)
Art by Dom
Chapter 1
Layla
Mark’s consciousness stirs.
He opens his eyes, but sees nothing as darkness drowns his vision. He tries to move his limbs, but they’re bound together by something that feels like rope. He squirms and struggles to loosen it, but a sharp pain wells up in his side. He bites his lip, lurches inward, and passes out.
…
He stirs again. The pain has reduced to a warm, dull glow. Taking care not to upset his injury, he wiggles his toes and fingers, then moves his limbs against the bonds.
They are still bound too well, and moreover, his body feels off - it's unfamiliar and small. He chalks it up to a trick of his mind; perhaps a drug circulating through his body.
Mark takes a deep breath - he knows he’s not going to get free, so the next best thing he can do is stay calm and get a bearing of his surroundings. He cranes his head around as much as he can - everything is too dark to see, save for a single orange glow above him. It’s faint and cuts off with a sharp edge - there is something in front of the light that he can’t make out, but that’s all he sees.
He uses his other senses. He sniffs and discerns two smells: a musty, earthly smell; and the smell of blood. His heart hammers as his imagination play out worst-case scenarios. He takes a sharp breath to push them out and focuses on using the last tool he has. He brushes his head against the floor; the ground is rough and rocky against his skin.
He must be in a cave. But why am I here? he thinks. He explores his mind, working out what he was doing last. He digs and digs through everything he knows, upturning facts and knowledge until he comes to a morbid realization - his memories are gone.
Not just of what he did last, but of anything - spending time with his family, laughing with friends, working hard and earning big. There's only information in his head like the various species of Pokemon and human anatomy. All he can say of himself is that he’s named Mark Llewellyn, a human adult.
“HELP!” he shouts, and seethes when the pain flares up again. There is no response.
“No… No… no… HELP ME! PLEASE HEEEELP!” Mark shouts, and flails and squirms against the rope. He gnashes his teeth and curls in as the soreness punctures him deep. He breathes and winces tight until finally, the agony passes.
It’s hopeless. The best he can do is bide his time instead and stop thinking about why he’s here and why he smells blood.
…
His head perks up when he hears a vague, distant racket. There is a new orange light projecting against the ceiling and its stalactites. It illuminates the rim of a large hole ahead of him, down the tunnel. There are muffled voices.
This is his chance.
“HEEEEEEELP!” he shouts, gnashing his teeth to ward off the torture. There’s dreadful silence. With both panic and pain invading him, he tenses his whole body and starts crying.
Not like this… Not like this… Not like this… In… Out… In… Out… He musters all his remaining strength and shouts help one last time. He’s overwhelmed by pain after this and screams until he’s out of breath. He holds himself as still as he can, and accepts he can’t push himself any further.
“Please don’t let me die here…” he whispers to no one.
A torch is thrown over the lip of the hole. One endlessly apprehensive moment passes and the head of a Sneasel pops up.
“You need heeeeelp?” she says in a cheeky tone.
She swings a leg over the ledge and pulls herself up onto the ground. A bag held by a strap stretches across her torso and over her shoulder. She picks up the torch and walks to him.
A figure behind Mark is illuminated when she’s close enough. It is a Gallade lying face-down, unmoving with blood pooling beneath him. A satchel lies above his head. It isn’t the corpse that terrifies Mark most though - it’s his own body.
It isn’t his own.
He expected to see the arms and legs he is familiar with. Instead, his body is short, shadowy, monstrous, and a splotch of a brown-red bruise that stretches across his flank beneath the rope.
“Ah!? What happened to me?!? What am I?” He says, moving to get a better look of himself. It makes him wince again.
“What do you mean? You’re a Sableye, and it looks like you fell from quite high. Heh, but you don’t have to worry, cause you got me. I am the best, and you bet my heart is even larger than my amazing talent.” she proclaims. Her claw holds her hip with pride and a smirk stretches across her face.
“Please help me…” Mark mutters.
“Yeah, yeah, don’t worry. I gotcha.”
She tosses the torch onto the ground and brings her sharp claws into the bindings. The pressure around his limbs loosens as she tears them with ease, although Mark hesitates to move his body once he’s free. He can’t upset his horrid injury any further.
The Sneasel then drops her bag in front of her and digs through it. While she searches, she asks “So, how did you end up like this? What the hell did you two do?”
Mark shakes his head. “I… don’t know. I can’t remember anything. I’m not even sure where I am.”
“Mmm… Must have hit your head pretty hard then. Here,” she says, pulling out a blue-tinted mushroom and holding it in front of his mouth.
Mark stretches his neck out and nibbles the fungus. Its texture is soft and its taste bitter, but he forces himself to swallow it anyways. Immediately, the warmth on his side ebbs and strength returns to him. It’s miraculous! He’s healed enough that he grabs the fungus from her and devours the rest on his own.
With it fully consumed, he sits up and looks down at his body. The ugly colours have left, leaving only his ghostly purple skin and gems embedded into his chest. He pats himself over to assure this body is real, which it is, no matter how much his mind urges otherwise. Then a large, beige mushroom falls into his lap.
“Eat this too, you’ll need your strength,” she says.
Mark nods, and starts eating it. It has a weak taste which reminds Mark of multivitamins. Meanwhile, the Sneasel heads over to the Gallade, ducking down to look at him. Mark cranes his neck to watch while snacking on this large mushroom. He then realizes just how badly he is starving, and wolfs down the rest. The mushroom is incredibly filling.
“Hmm, don’t think I can help your buddy though,” she says. She rolls his body over with the tip of her claws, exposing his front. It's just as grossly bruised like Mark was and he also has scratches over his skin, dried blood splotches everywhere, and the fur on his leg is scorched. His eyes are lifeless.
“Heehee… I’m going to take his stuff!” she says with an evil chuckle.
She picks up the Gallade's satchel and starts prodding through it. Her face is stunned.
“Woah, this guy knew what he was doing! This is gold! WAIT, WHAT?” She pulls out a small thumb drive from deep within it. She looks at it with amazement. Mark peers at it curiously.
A deep masculine voice reverberates from afar, saying “There. You see that orange light? She probably climbed up there. Deryl, Monica, fly up there!”
The Sneasel hastily packs up the Gallade’s bag and tosses the bag she was wearing onto Mark’s shoulders. Mark looks around, disoriented by his sudden new accessory perfectly landing on him.
“What’s going on?” Mark says, but the Sneasel runs up to him and forces him onto his feet. He wobbles and teeters wildly. She pulls his arm and he falls onto his front with a grunt.
“Hey! What’s wrong? We need to flee from them!” she says.
“I don’t know how to use my legs…”
She looks to the hole she climbed up from and then back to Mark. Stomps echoed from afar. She sighs, ducks down, and props him up. He throws his arm over her shoulders. This helps his balance, although his legs fumble when she starts running deeper into the cavern.
“Hey, thanks for everything…” Mark says.
“What? Praising me now? Ok, but my name’s Layla, so use that to shower me with worship, alright?” she says.
“Okay.”
Mark catches more of the cave they’re in while they flee. The stone is a grey-brown hue and stalactites hang sporadically from the ceiling. There aren’t any other features; not that he could see any that may be there, as the torch only illuminates an underwhelming radius around them - it barely reaches the ceiling of the tunnel. Everything is pitch black beyond that.
“Wait, here!” Layla says. She stops, almost forcing Mark to fall over again. She goes left and enters a tunnel cut into the side. It's only twice as tall as them, and unusually circular. There’s a set of perfectly-cut stairs leading down.
“THERE!” a deep feminine voice shouts far behind them.
Layla swears and plunges further in. Mark trips a few times on these stairs, but she catches him each time.
They enter a large cavern. Two humongous green, glowing mushrooms sprout in the far corners, reaching so high that their caps push against the ceiling. Smaller mushrooms decorate near their bases. There are many stalactites and stalagmites filling the space which casts ominous shadows by both the glowing fungi and their torches as well. Littering the walls are tunnels of various sizes.
“Damn,” Layla says. “You’ll have to memorize where we came from, ok?”
She runs across the cavern, weaving around the stone pillars until she reaches a small hole in a wall. He tries to keep a mental map of the path they’re taking, but moving his new legs takes too much mental energy and he’s lost when they enter the tunnel.
It's a winding corridor, but when they pop through the exit, they’re in another cavern with glowing teal mushrooms growing on the sides and even on the ceiling.
There are far fewer stalagmites on the ground and a lone Aron is exposed. It spots the pair and charges at them.
“Hey! We have no business with you!” she shouts, but it doesn’t stop. She sighs and lets go of Mark to run up and punt it away. It flies through the air and hits the stem of a mushroom, but it gets right back up once it hits the ground. She dashes up to it to slash its exposed underbelly.
Mark is alone. He teeters to his side. It feels like every time he shifts his weight, he’s directing his body where to fall over. In a desperate bid to get control, he bends his legs and hunches over. He’d thought this would be goofy, but instead, it's natural. He takes a step forward - yeah, this is how it's done, he thinks.
Layla returns, claws tipped red. The Aron is behind her lying unconscious and bleeding. She has an excited look on her face - probably adrenaline. She grabs his forearm.
“Think you got your legs working again?” she asks.
“Uh-” Mark says, looking down at his legs. Layla suddenly pulls his arm, forcing him to take a step forward - he catches himself.
“Oh good! Let’s go! And forget about remembering where we came from, this is a Mystery Dungeon,” she says, before running with his arm held in her claw. Mark nearly trips and flails his legs to keep up, but he does it.
She runs up to a hole in the ground; there’s a brilliant yellow mushroom at the bottom. She jumps in, still holding onto Mark, so he falls in as well.
He yells and bounces on the soft cap. It's tilted, so Mark starts slipping down it. He thrashes his arms and legs trying to sink his claw into the surface. It's no use; he slips all the way to the edge - and his feet find ground. He sighs. Above him, Layla’s sliding down it with a stupid grin.
“Don’t do that, please!” he shouts.
She only responds with a giggle, soon landing a few feet away from him. “Sorry Sableye, but that’s going to throw them off the trail by lots”
She begins to walk up to him, but Mark doesn’t even get this chance to relax as a shrill voice above him screams. A bug lands on Mark’s head. He shakes his whole body until he flings it off himself. The Nincada gets back onto his feet and bolts towards Mark.
As the Aron does so, a shadow stretches below Mark. He’s not sure how he’s doing it, but he feels like he’s projecting fear and malice towards the bug-type. Whatever is the case, a menacing, phantasmic claw reaches out from the depths of the shadow and fiercely swipes the bug. It falls over and faints. Mark exhales.
Layla pats his shoulder. “Hot stuff,” she says.
“Eh?” he asks, but she grabs his arm, pulling him along again. Once more he nearly trips, but the bent-knee trick is really helping him stay on his feet.
Layla enters another winding tunnel. The exit puts them high above a massive cavity. Large blue, green, and purple mushrooms sprout out from walls so incredibly far away that their luminescence doesn’t light the whole area. Mark can’t even see the floor - he even questions if they’re in a bottomless pit. There’s still a path to be made through here though: red mushrooms extend high up from the darkness, each successive cap descending.
“Sorry to do this again, but we can’t risk them catching up!” she says. Before Mark can process what she’s apologizing for, she jumps off with him. He yells and tumbles against the cap - it'd hurt him if its surface weren't so soft.
“Come on! I think we’re nearly at the end of this Mystery Dungeon!” she says, pulling him back up.
He follows Layla once more. Jumping down onto the next cap is less intense than the first, but he holds his breath each time either way. They repeat this, following the road of fungi down into the darkness. They approach the final mushroom - its glowing gap illuminates a tunnel entrance suspended in the side of the wall. However, there’s a wide gap between the final mushroom and the one they’re on.
“We’ll have to jump,” Layla says, offering an affirmative nod. Mark nods back.
The two back up. “We’ll start running and I’ll count down. When I say ‘jump’, we jump. Ok?” she says.
“Umm…” Mark murmurs, looking out to the distant platform. He clenches his fists and gives a shaky nod. “Yes. I’m ready.”
“Okay…” she says, and ramps her speed up into a full sprint. Mark puts all his focus into moving his legs, forcing them to hold him up despite the squishy, uneven surface. Layla counts down, and when they approach the ledge, she shouts “JUMP!”
They hurl themselves into the void and they feel weightless for what feels like an eternity. Mark yells, believing they’re going to miss, but they land right at the ledge. He grunts and scrambles his arms as fast as he can, finding purchase by digging his claws into the mushroom’s flesh- his feet are dangling over the edge.
He pulls his body onto the cap and pants. Layla crawls up beside him and giggles, which infects Mark with laughter of his own. Eventually, she gets back up and offers a hand. “Come on, I think we’re near safety.”
“Yeah,” Mark says, getting himself up. They both run to the opening and jump into it, leaving the void behind.
This newest tunnel extends downward in a straight line. It leads to a long cave with a dense field of stalactites and stalagmites. Its ceiling is the lowest of all the large rooms they have been through. Copious vivid red mushrooms line its walls, basking the tunnel in a menacing crimson hue.
Layla swerves through the complicated maze of spikes which just keeps going on. Mark wonders how far this “Mystery Dungeon” goes on for, but he gets his answer as they step into a clearing with a wide pit on the other side.
“I think this is the end,” she says, walking up to the pit and peering down. Its maw is about twenty meters wide and its walls are smooth with few footholds. There is a red light at the bottom. There are no other exits around them save for where they came from.
They both hear the deep voice from before. “This must be the end. We’ll trap them here.”
“Fuck! We took too long. Sableye, we’ll fight them!” she says.
Layla tosses her torch aside which clacks against the rough floor. She gets onto her knees and sets the satchel in front of her. She digs through it, sorting through different mushrooms and small spheres. “There will be a Gligar and a Flygon. I’ll take on the Flygon with the sleep and blast spores the Gallade had. You’ll need to distract the Gligar, ok?” she says. She pulls out a small golden-tinted spore, and cautiously slips it under her tongue.
“I don’t want to fight,” Mark says. He looks into the field of stone spires - the flickering of torchlight filters through the rocks.
“They’ll kill us. They aren’t nice and they’re out for revenge, so they won’t make things pretty,” she says. She organizes her satchel, with blue mushrooms, soft pink spores, and spores that Mark swears pulse orange and yellow arranged at the top. She swings the bag over her shoulders and forms a defensive stance.
The two pursuers finally make it through the rock field. The Gligar has a rigid stance, and he holds his torch low to the ground. His tongue hangs out. The Flygon beside him is many feet above Mark. She points her torch towards Mark.
“Who are you?” she says.
Mark opens his mouth only for Layla to answer. “He’s my friend! You’re outmatched by the both of us!”
The Flygon glances at her then back to Mark. “Do you have any business with her?”
Mark isn’t sure what to say, but Layla answers for him once more. “I saved his life on my way here. That’s business enough.”
“Sableye! Don’t throw your lot with her just because she saved you. She’s a thief and she killed one of us already. Stand by and we’ll bring you to safety afterwards.”
Mark is stunned silent.
“He was going to kill me! Sableye, these people have harmed and killed so many in the underground! They are not good people!” Layla shouts with conviction. She turns to look at him, shoulders drooping when she sees the hesitation in his body language.
“No, Mark, please… I need you. I don’t want to die now!” Layla says. The clear desperation in her eyes stings Mark, yet he can barely bring himself to breathe. He looks back at the Flygon, who gives her final warning:
“Sableye. Stand by, or we’ll have no choice but to assume you’re an accomplice and take you out as well. This is only between her and us.”
Mark’s chest is tense. He glances between the threatening face of the Flygon and the desperate plea in Layla’s eyes. He can’t decide.
“MOVE NOW!” the Flygon shouts.
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