"i dunno if they're raiding this, to be honest. it didn't seem interesting so i didn't pry much about it. i sent a pokemon down here before for a pokejob though! he's seen some shit from what it looked like."

there's no reason to mask his words this time. telling people he only listens to things that may be useful or interesting to him would usually get people to judge him. on hindsight, he should have been doing that all along since he doesn't really care much of people's opinion on him.

"if we're not allowed, then we can just use my elite four status to make up some bullshit. i'm starting to like this job, believe it or not."

he takes out his flashlight, turns it on, and peers over to the darkness. it's musky, sandy and dank, as what would expect from any unoccupied building that's been around for a while. there's probably traps too, but someone would've most likely sprung them by now.

"i'm going in then," he says as he delves deeper to the entry stairway.

"what? no, of course not. that thing was way too dangerous for my tastes."

compared to rescuing the commissioner directly from the grasps of aan ultra beast, jumping through a wormhole with a destination he's not certain of, fighting aliens to death and such, a trip to a cave with a regirock doesn't seem as risky as it would sound. kyle convinces himself that it's not like he had a choice on the former events.

"am i really the type of person you'd think who'd volunteer for those kinds of things?"

the stairs suddenly stop. a hole separates two ends of it. one of them is a deep drop judging from the way the light doesn't reach the end when kyle flashes his light on the bottom.

"ahead or down?" he asks mateo.

kyle's hand pulls mateo and jumps into the hole, dropping his hold as soon as they're free falling in the air.

"we're doing exciting."

he whistles as he falls down, bringing the aerodactyl that has been waiting outside within the ruins. it swoops in from the corridor and straight to the source of the sound, snatching kyle up with its talons by his shoulders.

kyle looks over to mateo, expecting his charizard to do the same. it's still the same pokemon he trained, he supposed, so it should still be trained enough to react in a moment's notice to save its trainer.

"let's just take one souvenir, how about that?" he tells mateo as he descends down, the drop only dimly lit by the charizard's flame.

the aerodactyl drops kyle a feet away from the ground. a cloud of dust unsettled when he lands. a cough or two aside, it was relatively quiet on the bottom floor.

he snickers at mateo's reaction. he would have taken this version of mateo before way back earlier before he's gotten used to the craziness of every day hoenn life.

"you believe in those?" he scoffs, still amused. "then again, i can't blame you after all the things we experienced."

he walks ahead and directs his flashlight ahead. being too near on the entrance meant there wouldn't be anything exciting since kyle assumed most of it were taken away by archeologists, but it doesn't mean that they can't take souvenirs.

walking over, he squats down and takes a few pieces of the crumbled wall-- ones with engravings in them. they probably won't need it, right? from his position, he turns around and casually tosses one to mateo.

"just blame me if you get a tentacruel baby," he teases.