The tunnel swallowed the light behind me.
Each step took me deeper into darkness, the artificial sunlight from the terrarium fading until only the silver glow remained, pulsing ahead like a beacon calling me forward.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
Water echoed through the passages, each droplet amplified by stone walls that seemed to close in the further I descended.
The temperature dropped noticeably, and I pulled my jacket tighter, my breath misting in the cool air.
The tunnel wasn't linear. It branched off into a maze of passages that twisted in every direction. Some sloped upward while others dove deeper into the earth. Without the silver glow to guide me, I would've been hopelessly lost within minutes.
Screech!
Something shrieked in the distance with a high-pitched, furious cry. The sound of claws on stone followed, rapid and frantic.
Crash!
The unmistakable sound of impact echoed through the tunnels. A battle was happening somewhere in the labyrinth, and the sounds of Pokémon fighting carried through the passages with disturbing clarity.
I pressed myself against the tunnel wall, my heart hammering in my chest. This wasn't the safe, curated terrarium above.
'Remember, you don't have a Pokémon yet,' I thought to myself. 'You're just a squishy human body.'
I thought about Ash from the anime, the kid who could pick up Cosmoem like it weighed nothing, when canonically that thing was 999.9 kilograms. The kid who tanked Thunderbolts and Flamethrowers and kept getting up as if nothing happened.
But that was anime logic. This was Extreme Mode. I didn't know the rules yet, and I wasn't about to test my durability against who knows what Pokémon.
I moved carefully, following the silver glow as it intensified with each step. The passage widened, opening into what appeared to be a junction point where five tunnels converged. And there, in the center of the natural arena, I saw them.
Gible. Three of them.
Rough, stocky Dragon-types with massive jaws and shark-like fins. Their scales gleamed a healthy blue-gray under the faint bioluminescent moss clinging to the ceiling above.
And they were laughing.
Not human laughter, but that guttural, predatory sound that carnivores make when they've cornered prey.
They circled something small, taking turns lunging forward, snapping with those oversized jaws, driving whatever they were tormenting backward into the stone wall.
Dragon Rage erupted from one of their mouths.
The Gible exhaled a burst of blue-violet energy, not at full power, but enough to slam into their target and send it sprawling across the rocky ground.
That's when I saw it.
A fourth Gible.
It was smaller and more dull. Its scales weren't blue-gray, but washed out, almost entirely gray, as if someone had drained all the color from its body.
It pushed itself up on trembling legs, swaying from side to side, clearly exhausted.
And surrounding it, blazing so bright I had to squint, was a silver glow unlike anything I'd seen in the terrarium above.
'That's it. That's the one.'
The three bullies circled closer, and I tensed, ready to intervene, before stopping myself.
What was I going to do? Get myself killed? I didn't have a Pokémon yet. Gible were hostile by nature, ambush predators who attacked first and asked questions never.
If I stepped in now, they'd attack me too, and I had no way to defend myself.
So I stayed hidden in the shadows, watching, hating myself for it.
One of the bullies lunged again with jaws wide, aiming for the smaller Gible's fin. But at the last second, the weak one rolled aside, faster than it should've been able to move given its condition. The attacker's jaws snapped shut on empty air with an audible clack.
The other two Gible chittered at each other, clearly annoyed now. They'd been having fun, but their prey was getting harder to catch.
One more Dragon Rage shot forward. The small Gible tried to dodge, but its legs gave out beneath it. The attack caught it full-on, slamming it into the wall with a sickening thud that made me wince.
It didn't get up this time.
The three bullies stared at the motionless form for a moment, then lost interest entirely.
With dismissive snorts, they lumbered off down one of the side tunnels, their laughter echoing as they disappeared into darkness.
I waited. Counted to thirty. Made absolutely sure they were really gone before I dared to move.
Then I stepped out of the shadows.
The small Gible was still breathing, though each breath came out shallow and labored, rattling in its chest like something was broken inside.
Up close, it looked even worse than I'd thought. Dull scales covered in scratches and bite marks, one fin bent at an unnatural angle, and its entire body trembling with exhaustion.
But that silver glow surrounding it was almost blinding this close.
'How can something with this much potential look so broken?'
The Gible stirred, one eye cracking open just slightly. It saw me and flinched, trying to scramble backward even though it clearly didn't have the strength to move more than a few inches.
Then it stopped. Stared at me with that one half-open eye, amber in color but dull, lacking the fire I'd seen in the other Gible.
And I heard it.
Not words, exactly.
But thoughts.
Emotions.
A voice that resonated directly in my mind, carried by the Origin Tongue ability that Steve had granted me.
'Another human. Here to watch? Here to laugh at the defective one?'
My breath caught in my throat. "I can hear you."
The Gible's eye widened slightly, genuine surprise cutting through the exhaustion and pain. 'You can understand me?'
"Yeah, I can." I crouched down slowly, keeping my movements careful and non-threatening. "I'm not here to hurt you. I'm here to help you."
'Doesn't matter.' The Gible's mental voice was bitter, exhausted, and defeated. 'Even if you attacked me, I don't think I could stop you. I'm too weak.'
It tried to push itself up on trembling legs, failed, and slumped back against the stone with a soft thud. Its gaze drifted to the tunnel where the other Gible had disappeared, and I felt the wave of shame and self-hatred radiating from it.
'They're right, you know. I'm defective. Can't hunt properly. Can't fight worth anything. Can't even dig tunnels without collapsing from exhaustion. The researchers gave up on me months ago. Said I'd never evolve. Never be strong. Never be anything but a waste of space and resources.'
The Gible dragged itself toward a small burrow carved into the tunnel wall, just big enough for its body to fit inside.
Gible were burrowing Pokémon by nature, hiding in thermal pockets deep underground and ambushing prey from below. This one's instinct was to retreat, to hide, to give up and wait for the end.
'Might as well stay here. At least it's warm. At least I'm alone where no one can remind me how worthless I am.'
"Wait." My voice came out sharper than I intended, and the Gible paused at the entrance to its burrow without looking back.
I knelt beside it, and the silver glow pulsed brighter, so intense it almost hurt to look at it directly.
Prism Eye wasn't just showing me potential anymore. It was screaming at me that this Pokémon was something special, something incredible waiting to be unleashed.
"You're not defective," I said quietly but firmly. "You're just not finished yet. There's something inside you that nobody else can see, something that makes you more special than every other Gible in this entire facility."