The team moved without hesitation, splitting tasks efficiently: canvas tents erected, waterproof mats laid, dry wood gathered from the cave's recesses.
The Cyclizar took up positions at the cave entrance, heads low, ears tracking every sound. In Area Zero, at this depth, any noise from outside warranted immediate attention.
Lucien did not help with the camp. He walked to the cave's edge and rested one hand against a Tera Crystal, roughly half his height, its surface cold and smooth.
The light it held was iridescent, shifting as his perspective shifted, like the most beautiful thing that had also never once considered whether it was being observed. He had noticed Ars quietly collecting crystal fragments throughout the day. Outside, they would be worth considerable money.
He looked out into the darkness beyond the cave. The scattered Tera Crystals across the area below glowed like misplaced stars, each one radiating a power that was not warm.
Area Zero. Terapagos. Somewhere further down than any of them had yet gone.
The Paradox Pokémon had grown stronger as they descended. That trajectory would continue. For him, it was not a concern. For Ars and the team, it was a different calculation.
"Lord Lucien, the fire is ready," Ars said from behind him. "It gets cold here at night."
A small bonfire crackled near the center of the cave, its light more reassuring than practically necessary. The team settled around it and ate their rations in quiet, no one raising their voice, the sounds of chewing and the fire filling the space.
After a day of constant alertness and careful navigation, everyone's nerves were wound tight, and sitting still did not fully release that. Eyes kept moving to the cave entrance.
"Captain, how far are we from the treasure?" a young team member asked, keeping his voice down.
Ars studied the topographical map. "According to the markings, we're in the central section of Area Zero. Below us is territory no previous team has documented. The treasure, if it exists, is likely further down." He looked toward the darkness outside.
"That area is more dangerous than anything we've passed through today. We have no records to go on. We will be working from our own observations."
Complex expressions around the fire: anticipation, fear, and the particular unease of people who have committed to something and are now close enough to see clearly what it actually involves.
Lucien listened without speaking.
The treasure they were looking for did not exist, not in the form they imagined. The true secrets of the Great Crater of Paldea were the Paradox Pokémon themselves, the Terastal phenomenon, and the ancient Pokémon sleeping at the deepest level: Terapagos. He said none of this. He simply rested his hand on Volcarona beside him.
Then Volcarona went alert.
The vibration reached the floor before the sound did. Heavy footsteps, each one sending a tremor through the cave, small stones falling from the ceiling. Then the sound itself arrived: vast, low, the aura preceding it carrying a weight of dominance that was qualitatively different from everything they had encountered that day.
Everyone in the cave was on their feet.
"Earthquake?"
"No," Ars said, face going pale. "A Pokémon. Much stronger than anything we've seen."
The Cyclizar raised their heads and roared in warning. A moment later, a massive shadow blocked the cave entrance, cutting off the Tera Crystal light from outside entirely.
Great Tusk. But not the one they had passed at the upper levels. This one was several times larger, its purple-scaled body filling the entrance, its presence saturating the cave with pressure.
The dominant specimen of Area Zero, from the deep of its territory, and clearly angered by the intrusion. Red eyes swept across the group. A roar came out of it that made the bonfire stagger.
Ars and the others were pushed back by the aura alone.
"We're done," Ars said, voice shaking. "We can't stop that."
He was right. Cyclizar, Flutter Mane, none of what they had with them was remotely sufficient. Great Tusk stepped forward, each footfall a minor seismic event, its intention entirely clear.
Lucien stood up. He moved in front of the group, unhurried.
"Leave it to me."
He threw the Poké Ball.
Kyurem emerged in white light that filled every corner of the cave instantly. The temperature dropped, immediate and complete, and Kyurem's ice-blue form came to rest between the group and Great Tusk, its presence radiating outward in a cold that had nothing to do with temperature and everything to do with what Kyurem actually was.
Great Tusk stopped.
For the first time, something showed in its red eyes that was not aggression. Kyurem looked at it with the patient disinterest of something that had existed far longer than this cave had, and waited.
"Kyurem," Lucien said. "Freeze Shock. Leave it alive."
Kyurem's body condensed lightning and ice together and released the combination in a contained, directed burst. It hit Great Tusk with enough force to stop all of its considerable momentum and hold it in place, every circuit of resistance overwhelmed, life intact by a careful margin.
Great Tusk made a sound it had probably never made before and collapsed.
Ars and the others stared at Kyurem from where they had backed against the cave wall, too stunned to speak. The Pokémon that had come within moments of ending all of them had been put down with a single move.
Ars looked at Lucien behind Kyurem, and felt the full weight of how completely he had misread the situation from the beginning.
This was not a powerful Trainer who had been useful company. This was something else entirely, operating at a level that had no common measure with anything Ars had encountered in his life.
Lucien glanced at Great Tusk, and Kyurem let out a Dragon Roar. Great Tusk scrambled upright and fled into the dark. The sound of its footsteps faded quickly.
Lucien returned to the fire and looked at the team.
"Ars."
Ars straightened instinctively at the change in tone. "Lord Lucien?"
"Leave in the morning. This place is beyond what you can safely navigate further in. Take the Tera Crystal fragments you have collected. Outside, they will fetch a substantial price. That is your treasure from this expedition."
Ars was quiet. He had known it since the Great Tusk appeared, really. Their safe passage this far had been entirely because of the man beside them. Without him, they would not have survived the night.
"We'll leave at first light," Ars said.
The others said nothing. Their eyes moved to Lucien and stayed there, full of the particular awe that comes not from achievement but from suddenly understanding what you are actually standing next to.
No one mentioned the treasure again.
Kyurem settled beside Lucien and closed its eyes. The fire burned steadily. No Paradox Pokémon came anywhere near the cave's vicinity for the rest of the night.
In the morning, Ars and the team gathered their things and prepared to depart. The Tera Crystal fragments alone made the expedition worthwhile, a collection that would be valuable enough to satisfy the purpose they had come for.
"Are you not coming with us, Lord Lucien?" Ars asked.
"I have something to attend to first," Lucien said.
"Then please be careful." Ars hesitated, then continued: "We won't forget what you did for us. If you ever need anything in the Royal City, find me there."
Lucien nodded. "Travel safely."
The group began to turn, and Lucien stopped them.
"Wait."
He released Hoopa from its Poké Ball and asked it to open a ring to the surface camp. The golden light expanded, and through it, the outside world was clearly visible.
The expedition team stared at the portal in collective silence.
Hoopa caught their expressions and grinned with obvious satisfaction.
Ars did not take long to decide. The portal would save them considerable time and danger on the return. He thanked Lucien, and one by one the team stepped through.
Lucien watched the last of them disappear, then turned back toward the depths.
In this era, the Zero Lab had not been built yet, and there was no elevator leading to the Area Zero Underdepths. For any ordinary person, reaching that level would require excavation with the help of Ground-type Pokémon. But Lucien had Hoopa.
"Hoopa, there is a space below this one. Can you open a passage to it?"
Hoopa tilted its round body, waved its short arms, and released a golden ring. Spatial power moved within it, and the air in front of them split open into a portal that led downward into something that had not been accessible from any direction above.
No light came from it. But through it, a dense, ancient Tera energy poured outward, concentrated to a degree that made the air feel different just standing near the opening. Pure, heavy, having existed in that space for hundreds of millions of years without interruption.
Kyurem opened its eyes and looked at the portal, a ripple moving through the ice-blue of its pupils.
Hoopa spun with pride and pointed at the opening. "Hoopa found it! The space below. We can go straight in!"
Lucien nodded. He recalled Kyurem into its Poké Ball, left only Hoopa with him, and stepped through.
The spatial energy wrapped around him completely for one weightless moment. Then solid ground under his feet.
He looked up.
No sky. No sense of the surface existing above. In every direction, Tera Crystals filled the space in formations that dwarfed anything in Area Zero above, their light so dense and consistent that the Underdepths were as bright as noon on the surface, without any single visible source.
Ancient energy veins crossed the space in slow, visible pulses, running through the rock and crystal like the circulation of something living, each pulse releasing a wave of Tera energy that made the air itself feel charged.
The concentration here was hundreds of times greater than the level above. Any Pokémon that came here would Terastalize spontaneously, without a Tera Orb, simply from existing in the space.
And at the center of it all, on a platform of pure crystallized Tera energy, something small and gem-like lay still.
Lucien went quiet.
Terapagos.
The ancient Pokémon of the Paldea Region, believed to have gone extinct approximately two million years ago due to tectonic changes, widely considered the original source of the Terastal phenomenon.