Labyrinth (Yellow)

So, it had come back to this. Standing at the entrance to the dark, wet caverns tinted an odd shade of pale blue. The shadow of the man blocked out most of the light that was let in from the entrance, but what was left sparkled with a resplendence that could bring romantic men to their knees.

Hiker Anthony was not a very romantic man. He walked forward slowly, and he could feel the slickness of moist rock under his shoes. This had been the very place he'd avoided earlier, steered clear of so full-heartedly as to ascent the very walls of the cavern and clear a path through the forest above. He had unknowingly carved the path for Angel Heights that day, and was begrudgingly never given any credit.

He didn't really mind that much, but he liked to pretend he did. Hiker Anthony was an odd man in that sort of way.

Also odd to Anthony was how at one point he had chosen a path specifically with the intention of going somewhere that no one had gone before, and now the path he'd made was more popularly used, and the dark unpleasant caves were entirely deserted nearly all of the time. For some reason this made the rugged mountain man unhappy. What was once his alone he now had to share with the world.

This may have been the whole reason he went to this place to begin. Almost as if he were claiming what was once theirs in the way they had claimed what was his.

If any of these internal struggles were taking place, Hiker Anthony was undoubtably totally unaware. He walked along, with his usual odd smile and hum-drum attitude, thinking almost nothing except the occasional "Don't trip on that rock." and "Whoa, that was slick!"

Really all he was there for was to understand the caves better. They really were quite the work of nature, and Anthony was aware of this. The way the caves twist and turn and web together in such a way is something to be marveled at. The color alone piqued Anthony's interest. (Not to the point of falling to his knees, mind you.) Though he did remember seeing similar things in a small cave above the main layer.

His lantern set the whole cave aglow, and the color grew more vibrant. He was doing something he felt would be needed if anyone were to go through this cave again. Mapping it out. Geodude and Machop were helping him out, though they didn't really know what they were doing. They were just happy to stretch the legs. Or.... arms.... Geodude floats, okay?

Yellow walked tiredly through the caverns. She couldn't see much at all, as the farther she got from the entrance the darker it got. All of a sudden a idea hit her. Ratty knew a fire type move. Maybe he could act as a lantern. Yellow reached into her backpack, pulling out Peesk amd Ratty's pokeballs. Conveying her ideas to them with her thoughts, they understood her idea clearly. Letting them out, Peesk used string shot to make a torch shaped bundle of the special string he made. Laying it on the ground, Ratty lit up in flames using flame wheel and lit the makeshift torch on fire. A stick lay against the wall and Yellow put the bundle on it, so she could hold the torch.

Walking through, Yellow realized the tunnels were a labyrinth, with so many twists and turns she might get lost. Her mind quickly flitted back and forth on ways to get out. She decided to take out Golosk, and have him put rocks at intersections to show they'd been there. So never the same way twice.

As she walked, another light came at the intersection Yellow was close to. "Hello" she said quietly to the man walking towards her, though with all the silence in the tunnels it sounded more like a shout. "What are you doing in the tunnels?" she said curiously, as no one came through the tunnels really.

Hiker Anthony was startled at first. What else would you be when you were in a dead silent cave and suddenly greeted by the voice of a little girl? Hiker Anthony had watched enough scary movies in his day (approximately three) to know that the ghosts of little girls were all the rage in places like this. He picked up his lantern quickly, took his ax off of his belt, and turned.

He looked at the girl for the longest time. Just stared. Examining. After a few minutes he deduced that she wasn't the slightest bit transparent, and decided to let the whole "ghost girl" thing drop.

"What am I doing here? What are you doing all the way out in these caves alone? You could get lost!" Anthony realized that he was starting to sound like a concerned parent, and dropped that part of his thought as well. "Anyway, I'm mapping this place out. Somethin' I don't feel anyone's done quite properly." His voice had a hint of a southern accent, which is odd, because he'd never been to anywhere that such an accent was popular.

He was quite curious as to why a little girl would be out in such a dark, confusing cave. Especially at this time of day!

...

To be honest, Hiker Anthony had no Idea what time it was. It was pitch black in the caves without the light of his lantern, and now the girls torch, and he could've been in here for hours now.

"Would you happen to know what time it is, little girl? I mean, is it still daylight out?" He then took off his bag and got out some doughnuts. "One way or another I'm hungry. You want one?"

"Yeah, it's still daylight out. I got in herre like an hour ago and it was before noon." The fact he called her little girl was lured out of her head as he brought out doughnuts. Yellow's mouth watered at the sight. Food was tasty to her, most time at least. Once she even ate Chuchu's food. She walked over to him and accepted a doughnut, and started nibbling on it like a little kid.

After finishing it, Yellow reached over from where she was sitting to grab another doughnut. While doing so, she remembered he had called her a little girl. "For your brain, I'm 22. Not a little girl" she said, and reached the doughnut. Nibbling on it like a little kid again, she finished it. Yellow reached for another, though not knowing what the man would think about her hungriness.

For the second time, Hiker Anthony stood there for the longest time, just looking. This.... this was not a grown woman. No.

It just wasn't possible. Look at her. She was so... tiny. But then Anthony was a large man, and by comparison she might have been average sized. Besides, it didn't matter, little kids were always doing all sorts of crazy things anyway. He decided not to bring it up again.

"Well, how old you are really don't matter. What I wanna know is what you're doin' out here. I can't think of a reason anyone but me would really want to be in this crazy place."

He grabbed another doughnut as well, and started off with a large bite. Quite the opposite of the little lady sitting across from him. Anthony folded up his map slowly, figuring he could work on it some later.

"I'm here because I'm bored, frankly" Yellow said, exasperated. "I know, I'm small so I look younger" she said, and started to munch her doughnuts. She stood up and walked over to him, and sat down next to him.

Yellow peeked at the map. It was folded up, so she opened t up to look. It was very messy, and half done, though it was obvious he was making an effort, so Yellow started to compliement him. "Nice map. Gonna finish it and make t available to the public?" she asked politely. Soon she had finished her donut. But she didn't feel like getting another, so just sat there, waiting for the other man. "By the way, what's your name? Mine's Yellow."

It was rare for a stranger to take interest in any actual work Anthony was doing. Sure, from time to time people would be shocked at how he climbed mountains and would say that it was "cool" or something like that, but really there is nothing very interesting about making a map. This being said, Hiker Anthony was pleasantly surprised to have someone taking an interest in his work. Not totally overwhelmed or anything, but he had a grin on his face.

"I'm Anthony," he said, "but this map really is a pain. It's like this cave was designed to confuse people." Hiker Anthony actually felt this way. The layout of these caves was something close to hellish, and his map wasn't turning out nearly as well as his usual. It was actually pretty disheartening to the ol' guy.

Luckily, Hiker Anthony was not one mountain man that would give up just because things were starting to look down. He jumped up suddenly. "You wanna come help me with it?"

Yellow's eyes widened as he asked her to help. No one ever asked her to help with anything, and it was boring not really doing anything. "Sure." When she said that, Yellow relaxed, knowing that she had something to do. Her first thought afterwards was to start helping. "Well, I have a Golem that is helping me, and I have a Raticate that knows Flame Wheel and can help light up things" Yellow said.

Yellow doubted that the map would be finished with every twist and turn of the cavern, but didn't mention that to Anthony so as to not lower his spirits. Maybe they would, maybe not. Life was like that a lot. A spinning of a wheel that determined everything. "Right, so where do you want to start? I had Golosk mark where I've been with big rocks, so it'll be easy to find where that way I've been."

"Hmmm... Where to start..." Hiker Anthony mumbled to himself in a moment of thought. "There." He pointed to a very solid wall, free of blemishes or any sort of hole. "I don't like this hole, I think I'm going to get rid of it.

After another short pause, Anthony attained a large hammer from his bag, and smashed a large hole in the wall with relative ease. Afterwards, he motioned towards the girl with a crayon color for a name. "It would've been hell to map out all these curves. This route'll be way quicker. Why don't ya'll pick this stuff up while I move on?"

By this point, there was probably a 6'x6' hole in a wall of 7" thick rock. To Anthony this was nothing special, just a day in the life, to others he could understand how it might be terrifying. Of course, he wasn't thinking about it at the moment.