Willow couldn’t see anything. She wasn’t sure why, but she could guess. The hard rough ground she was sitting on and the jagged wall scraping her back really didn’t leave much to the imagination.
She was in a cave.
Why? How?
No clue.
What felt like a few minutes ago she was dozing off in a school bus on the way to the next destination of their trip. Now she’s here.
Luckily her backpack is with her, with all the food, water, snacks and random things she stuffed it full of, so at least she wouldn’t stave. Yay.
After fumbling about in the dark for a bit, she managed to find the bulky flashlight she brought along. Turning it on, she started rummaging through the bag to find something to drink but paused when she found her phone. It looked different, not cracked or any minor changes, it looked more like a flip phone now with rounded tips, yet it still had the same cover her old phone had, a stylized drawing of the eveelutions from Pokemon.
Weirded out, she searched her bag to see if anything else changed. After finding her wallet and checking inside she was shocked to see her ID and bus card had changed too. Her bus card had an image of a purple and cream coloured cat with the words “LiepardWay Bus Card” next to it, and her ID….It was a Trainer Card. It had all the correct information, name, sex, birthdate, and had the same photo….But it was supposedly issued by the “Unova League” and had eight empty slots at the bottom.
By now Willow was in shock, surely this is all just a dream? This couldn’t be real. She had been trying not to panic this entire time but this was too much, nevermind being lost in some random cave somehow, she’s lost in some cave in a whole different world than hers. That’s impossible, she must’ve just eaten something weird and is now hallucinating, there’s no other expla-
Something nudged her foot, startling her and causing her to drop the bulky flashlight, which spooked whatever it was that touched her and illuminated it.
In front of her was a small quadrupedal creature with a round body and head that looked to be made of metal with a gray armored belly, its blue eyes shone in the light as it stared at her curiously.
In front of her was an Aron. In front of her was a Pokemon. She wasn’t on Earth anymore.
As she blankly stared at the Aron and tried to process this new information, it turned it’s eyes to the flashlight she had dropped next to it, waddling towards it on stubby legs and trying to nibble it.
The imminent loss of her light source snapped Willow back to reality, yanking it away from the small pokemon and noticing that it had been successful in nibbling a bit of metal off the edge of the flashlight.
The Aron’s eyes tracked the flashlight as Willow held it out of reach, following it as she moved it in the air.
“You can’t have it, I need it”
It felt silly scolding it like this but Willow was surprised to see it actually deflate in disappointment, understanding what she said. She got an idea after seeing that it actually understood what she said.
“Umm…do you happen to know a way out of here?”
It stared at her blankly for a bit and tilted its head towards the flashlight.
“I can’t give you that but I can give you something else that’s tasty if you lead me” It instantly perked up after hearing that, and started waddling away as Willow scrambled to follow it.
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They walked through the cave for a while, going through tight tunnels and wide open areas, Willow dimmed the light to the point where she could barely see when they went through those. Who knows what could see her as an easy meal.
The Aron suddenly stopped as they were walking up a sloped path, and Willow hurriedly dimmed her light and pointed it downwards to not be noticed. The reason for stopping became clear as a trio of round rocks with feet hobbled into view. Each was about the size of her new friend.
As the trio strolled on by in an orderly line, Willow felt the ground shake as something massive approached. Aron instantly pressed itself to the ground to not be seen and Willow turned off her light and laid flat on the ground.
The shaking grew closer and closer as the thing responsible came into view. Willow couldn’t see it since she had turned off the light, but she could see the faintly glowing orange crystals attached to it. The massive pokemon was easily 7 feet tall and its lumbering steps shook her to the core. They waited until the sound of its stomps was well away before daring to get up and resume their journey.
Willow didn’t know how long they kept moving, the walls looked different now, less smooth dark stone and more rock mixed with a bit of dirt. She felt dead tired, her weak body not used to so much strain. As they shambled through another narrow passageway, something struck out of the rocky wall behind them, scattering rocks and stones as it emerged.
A chunky boulder with four arms fell out of the new hole in the wall and it did not seem happy to see the two of them. It used two of its arms to each lift a stone from the pile of rubble it made and poised itself to lob them towards Willow and the Aron who were already scrambling to get away from it.
“Gra-” It grunted as it hoisted its arms high in the tight space and hurled them toward the fleeing duo with a cry “-veler!”
One of the chunks of rock missed and impacted the wall, breaking off into smaller chunks. The other however, managed to slightly clip Willow’s hip, causing her to cry out in pain and for her mad dash to turn into a pained stumble. Willow kept going, however, adrenaline fueling her as she scrambled to follow the Aron still running away.The Graveler seemed satisfied to just scare them off, and watched them scramble away from its territory.
Willow and the Aron kept up their sprint until they reached a wide empty room. A dead end. This fact seemed to shock the Aron though, it ran to the opposite side of the room and started nudging the wall, softly hissing as it did so. The wall that looked to be made of large rocks and stone and loose dirt. A feeling of dread started creeping in as Willow realized what’s going on.
“Is that where the way out was?” Willow could only blankly stare as the Aron nodded and hung it’s head low. She was trapped. What now? Even if there were other exits she could barely walk anymore.
She collapsed on the ground, her legs unable to support her own weight anymore. The Aron shuffled over and sat down next to her as she started desperately rummaging through her backpack, hoping there was a magical solution hidden in there. Numbly, she flipped open her transformed phone and looked for any kind of emergency call function, eventually finding something that let her broadcast an SOS signal. She clicked it, the screen flashing with the words ‘SIGNAL SENT’, she felt like a moron for not considering this earlier.
She had no energy left for anything else. Closing her eyes for a moment had her promptly falling asleep.
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When Willow awoke, it was to the sound of metal grinding on stone. She tried to sit up, wincing at the pain in her hip, her already frail body not helping her withstand the pain, and blearily checked her surroundings.
The Aron was still standing by her, it seemed to be guarding her from something, if it’s aggressive hissing and posture was anything to go by. Normally she would’ve panicked, but was too exhausted for that at the moment.
Craning her head to see past the metal lizard, she saw what had it acting defensive. A small metallic red and black humanoid figure was there, it had a blade in place of each hand and more on its chest and forehead. It looked roughed up, its right hand/blade was chipped and it was breathing heavily. This didn’t seem to be caused by my protective little friend, either, since it didn’t have any marks of a fight, so it’s likely this little guy was beaten up earlier and came here to rest, but got defensive when it saw us?
As she sat up, the little Pawniard backed away and the Aron calmed down. The Pawniard still had it’s guard up but Aron seemed content to just keep an eye on it.
“Thanks for keeping me safe buddy, here’s what I promised you earlier” she said as she pulled out a silver coloured bracelet from her backpack. It was one she had gotten a long time ago and kept with her, hoping to find a good time to wear it, but she was too shy to accessorize. The Aron happily munched on the bracelet as Willow turned to look at the other pokemon in the cave. Weren’t Pawniard supposed to be in packs? What happened to this one?
While thinking about Pawniard’s situation, her stomach rumbled and she realized that she hasn’t eaten in a day. Taking a wrapped sandwich from her bag, she noticed the Pawniard eyeing it, though it quickly looked away when it noticed her looking at it.
“You hungry?” The Pawniard only responded with a cautious look. Sighing, she took a piece of the sandwich and tossed it to it. It skewered it mid-air and quickly ate the whole thing. Meanwhile Aron looked offended.
“What are you doing here, anyways? Did you get separated from your group? Speaking of, why were you all alone Aron?” Aron just sheepishly looked away while the Pawniard hesitantly shook it’s head and pointed to the collapsed entrance.
“Oh, you wanted to leave?” the Pawniard slowly nodded. Willow saw an opportunity, and took it. “Well there’ll be people coming here to open the path, hopefully soon, wanna come with me then?” The Pawniard thought for a bit and once again nodded slowly. Willow felt something bump her leg and looked down to see Aron looking up at her.
“Do you want to come too?” Aron eagerly nodded in response. “Alright then, what do you guys about getting names?” Pawniard nodded seriously while Aron seemed ecstatic at the idea.
“Okay, how about-Wait! Are both of you male?” Pawniard nodded while Aron shook her head. “Ah well there goes the first option, hmm. How about Gale for Pawniard, like a furious wind that cuts down anything in it’s path! And Terra for Aron, like the immovable earth!” Pawniard seemed to like his new name, sitting up straighter in pride. Aron didn’t seem to like hers however and made sure to voice her displeasure.
“You don’t like it? Then umm how about Empress?” Another shake of the head. “Gaia?” Another no. “Chandi?” Nope. “Then uhh…what about…Shelly..?” Miraculously, she liked the simple name. “Shelly it is then.”
“Nice to meet you, Gale, Shelly. I’m Willow”