CHAPTER 75

The others had left to get ready. I did the same, but there was still something to be done. With a flash of red, I released my entire team.

“Listen up,” I said, wasting no time. “Cecilia’s gone. She left to a very dangerous place.”

Togetic let out a sad chirp, staring at me with worried eyes, and Elekid tapped my leg to comfort me. Tangela didn’t seem to understand that much, but he still wrapped a vine around my ankle. Frillish just stared, and he seemingly knew what I was going to say next. He disapproved.

“She escaped toward Mount Coronet, that huge mountain in the distance we always see, and she intends to die there. We will not let her. The entire group’s going to save her.”

“Fri!” He protested.

“I won’t argue with you!” I exclaimed, causing Frillish to flinch. “I’m… sorry,” I said, grabbing his tentacle. “I know you’re worried about me. About all of us. We’re family. But… I love her. I can’t let her die.”

Togetic held on to Frillish’s hand to reassure him, but he still looked more worried than I’d ever seen him.

“I’m sorry for being selfish and putting you all in danger,” I apologized. “This is selfish of me to ask, but I need you all on my side.”

Elekid gave me a fierce nod, letting me know he was ready for anything.

“Thank you, hon.”

Tangela blinked twice and wiped away my tears with his vines.

“Angel… thank you.”

Togetic let go of Frillish, flew to me and put her forehead against mine, letting out a soothing cry. I rubbed her cheek.

“Princess…” I sobbed.

Frillish floated to my side and placed a tentacle on my shoulder, apologizing with a whisper.

“You’re fine, buddy,” I sniffled. “Someone’s got to be the one to think clearly in the team, and it’s always been you.”

I looked at my team one last time. My partners. My family.

“I love you all,” I said before recalling them.

—

It barely took five minutes for all of us to get ready. I adjusted the strap of my backpack on my heavy winter coat as we rode down the elevator in silence. We were all determined to save Cece. We had our caving supplies, and enough food for weeks, and all of our Pokemon had been hurriedly informed. I had grabbed some of her things before leaving, like her Poketch. There was nothing left to be said. We were going to get to the cave, find her, and bring her back by any means necessary. The ground outside was covered in snow now, a sign that winter was almost there. It would be even colder in Mount Coronet.

Louis held up his hand, and a limousine drove up to the hotel’s entrance.

“I called my driver. Get in,” he simply said.

We all climbed into the spacious car, and I felt relief that we wouldn’t have to waste time walking to route 211.

“Where to, Mr. Bianchi?” The old man asked.

“Route 211. Drive as fast as you can,” he answered. “I’ll pay off any speeding ticket.”

“Very well,” The driver said, flooring the gas pedal and propelling me back into my seat. He started driving like a madman, skirting around cars, but his skill at the wheel was good enough to avoid getting into any accidents.

“We should call the rangers while we still have reception,” Justin said. “Tell them that Cece walked into Mount Coronet and to send a search party. I’m sure they will if we tell them our last names.”

“Then they’ll stop us from getting in,” Emi said. “They’ll say it’s too dangerous.”

“Can we time our call to get there before them?” Denzel asked.

“No, the closest outpost to Mount Coronet is twenty minutes into route 211, and they’ll probably just send their fliers to try to rescue her as fast as possible before she gets too deep into the cave.”

“Maybe that would be the wisest choice,” Justin said more quietly. “They’d get there the fastest. Every minute counts—”

“No. Absolutely not. We need to be there for Cece,” I immediately cut in. “She isn’t in the right state of mind. She might attack them, and she’ll only come back if it’s us. No rangers.”

Justin reluctantly nodded.

“Wait,” Louis said, lifting a finger. “Edward can warn them.”

“Your driver? Oh, oh, yes, he can!” Emilia exclaimed. “Just have him wait… how long does it take to get to Mount Coronet from route 211? Grace, you’re familiar with the route.”

“A day,” I said. “But Cece’s alone and not carrying anything, and she’s alone so she’ll probably make it in way less time.”

“Edward, you heard us,” Louis said. “Call the rangers and tell them that we’re all stranded in Mount Coronet… thirty hours from now. And not a word to anyone else about this.”

“Of course, Mr. Bianchi.”

It felt so frustrating to think that Cece was just what, an hour and a half in front of us, and there was nothing we could do about it. If we sent our fliers ahead of us, she would just attack them, and without human direction, I had no doubt they would lose.

“We need a plan,” I continued. “Like in Eterna Forest. What kind of Pokemon are in Mount Coronet?”

“I know about it since I was doing research on the wildlife there since we were supposed to pass through it soon,” Denzel said. “We can assume the normal cave Pokemon will be there. Geodude, Zubat, Nosepass…” Denzel trailed off. “But the deeper we get, the tougher opponents we’ll encounter.”

“We can handle it together,” Pauline spoke up, her eyes still red. “I will not die before ripping Amy a new one, and I want Cece to be there to see it.”

Denzel nodded. “Then you have Graveler, Golbat, Boldore, Onix… there’s even old reports of a Golem being seen there years ago. Just… think of the worst rock types you can imagine, and they’ll be there, and only our strongest attacks will work against those. There are also some non-rock types to worry about. Bronzor, Machoke, Chingling colonies—”

“So we’ll have to face everything on the face of the earth,” Pauline said. “Fine.”

“I don’t really know how to handle them, but I’ll try my best to study up in the car,” Denzel sighed. “There’s another major problem. Most of the cave is completely pitch black. Since it’s been abandoned for years, there are no gas lights to guide us.”

“We have flashlights for that,” I said. “And batteries. Plus, Frillish can see in the dark, so he can guide us.”

“I know, but still, I thought it would be best to warn you,” he said. “Then, there’s the cold. It’s a well-studied phenomenon that I don’t know the first thing about, but it gets ridiculously cold in there, and there’s no wood to light fires. You’ll need to keep Charmeleon, Growlithe, and Vulpix out to warm us up when we aren’t moving.”

Pauline, Justin, and Louis all agreed.

“The dark will make keeping too many of our Pokemon out very difficult,” Emilia sighed. Her fingers were trembling so much that she had to bring her hands together to stop herself.

“No choice,” I said dryly. “We need everything that we have against rock types, and your psychics to stop any attacks and sense nearby danger. Gothorita can do that now, right?” I asked Pauline.

“It’s rough, but she can, yes.”

“The mountain has other effects… like hampering some Pokemon’s senses if they aren’t used to being there, and other nonexplainable things… scientists chalk it up to the strong magnetic field, but they aren’t sure,” Denzel interrupted.

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“Fuck this shit,” I spat. “We’ll manage with just Frillish,” I said.

There was a pause, as we began to realize we would most likely only be able to rely on Frillish’s eyesight in the dark to warn us from any danger.

“The rest can stay in their Pokeballs, at least at the start,” I continued. “If things get too rough, we’ll need to release everyone. This is just as dangerous as Eterna Forest, and it might get worse depending on how deep we get.”

“Alright,” Louis nodded. “Should we have a formation, then?”

“I don’t know, I think we should just stick close together and have Gothorita in the front, and Beldum in the back, on our left and right,” I said. “That way, they can stop attacks from all around us.

“The dark will certainly make it harder to keep up formation either way,” Justin nodded. “We should also have a headcount system,” he said. We all looked at him confusedly. “Every five minutes, we confirm that we’re all still there. It’s easy to get lost in the darkness, flashlight or not.”

“Okay,” I said. “That’s smart. What else?”

“Let’s help Denzel with his information gathering,” Emilia said. “We all have phones, and six pairs of eyes are faster than one.”

——

Our trip through route 211 was uneventful and quick, but we were all exhausted. None of us had slept, and it was easy to see on our faces. I stared up at Mount Coronet, whose slopes were towering over us. I couldn’t see the summit. It just kept going, on and on, seemingly forever, as if someone had pinched the earth and pulled it up, and my vision started to swim. I shook my head, and my eyes settled on the opening to the cave. It was tall and looming, the inside of it completely pitch black as if light couldn’t penetrate into the cave. The low, menacing sound of wind blowing through the entrance rattled me. There was a torn-down, abandoned ranger outpost at its side, and the entrance had been littered with ‘KEEP OUT’ and ‘DANGER OF INJURY OR DEATH’ signs. Cece had gone in there hours prior, all alone. I clenched at my pants.

I could only hope she was safe.

I felt someone clap my shoulder.

“We’ll find her,” Denzel said in a reassuring tone.

“I know. We have to,” I said. “And then we’ll drag her back to Eterna, and we’ll all look back on this as a bad dream.”

It took a few minutes to prepare ourselves to head inside of the cave. I only released Frillish for now, who looked at me with his eyes full of worry.

“I know, bud,” I said. “But we have to do this.”

Denzel released Budew, who let out her familiar screech. Emilia released Beldum, whose eye dimmed when he stared at us. He was probably blaming us for Emilia going into a dangerous cave. Pauline let out Gothorita, who smugly brushed the hairlike appendages on its head away. Justin released Sandile, who lazily sunk half of his body into the ground. Louis released Prinplup, and the penguin honked worriedly when he saw that we were at the cave’s entrance.

We all huddled close together and hesitantly stepped into the cave. My heart started to race with anxiety as we turned our flashlights, and we truly learned how little it actually illuminated. Still, it was the only source of illumination in this dark and unknown world known as Mount Coronet that dominated Sinnoh’s skies. My breath only came in short gasps as I felt a tightness in my chest I couldn’t simply brush off and push past, and I could only manage to take deep breaths in between the little huffs of cold air I was getting in an attempt to calm myself down. Every rustle, every creak of the cave walls, every time I bumped into one of my friends, and the distant cries of wild Pokemon made me jump in place as if I had been jolted by electricity. The cave wasn’t just dark. Darkness itself clung around me like it had a physical form and shape. It was as if I was being enclosed and suffocated by the lack of light.

Still, I could only push on, no matter how terrified I got. Emilia yelped as one of our flashlights found a field of unconscious Zubat. It was an entire colony.

“Think Cece did this?” Pauline whispered.

“It could have been a wild Pokemon,” Justin said.

“No,” Denzel interjected. “A Zubat colony would only attack what they think they can beat. I bet they thought she’d be an easy mark.”

I nodded, feeling some relief. We couldn’t be one hundred percent sure, but at least we were going the right way—

“Fri!” Frillish yelled. We pointed our flashlights at him, and saw that he was pointing one of his tentacles toward our two o’ clock.

“Holy fucking shit!” Denzel hissed.

His panicking made us swerve our flashlight toward his own, and I took a step back when I saw what was happening. Huge, bulging arms wider than my entire torso, an elongated, reptilian face with a bloodstained mouth, and it didn’t have the usual belt humans placed on it. A huge Machoke was grabbing the Zubat on the ground, crushing them like eggs in its hands and then eating them. The fighting type hissed and shielded its eyes when the light reached it, and it immediately ran forward, crushing Zubat under its feet in the process.

“Shit, shit, shit, fuck!” I yelled. “Frillish, Bubblebeam!”

Pauline and Emilia yelled, and our Psychics immediately sprang into action, holding the fighting type in place as the stream of Bubbles hit it right in the face. Budew and Prinplup also threw out attacks of their own, but it was Sandile who saved us. Even though Machoke was a fighting type, the Pokemon broke out of its psychic restraints, but the ground below it liquefied, causing it to sink. I grabbed Togetic’s Pokeball and released her.

“Princess, emergency. Thunder Wave and Sweet Kiss the Machoke!” I said, pointing at the struggling fighting type.

She nodded, sending a cage of electricity that wrapped around the Machoke before confusing it with Sweet Kiss. It was completely stuck now, and if it somehow managed to push through, freeing itself from the Sand Tomb and pushing past the paralysis and confusion, we still had our psychics to work with. I breathed a sigh of relief— my first breath since we had seen the wild Pokemon appear in the darkness.

“We should knock it out, just to be safe,” Louis sighed.

The Machoke let out a stuttery hiss of protest, and we slowly whittled it down until it was unconscious.

“Good job, princess,” I said, recalling her. “And thank you, Frillish. Without you to warn us, we would have been screwed.”

The water type nodded, but his eyes were observing our surroundings. I stared at Machoke’s arms and gulped. If it got its hands on any of us, it could have torn all of us in half like twigs, especially without the belt that restrained their physical power.

“So did Machoke do that to the Zubat—” Emilia started.

“No,” I said. “A single Machoke wouldn’t have taken down that many Zubat. They would have run far before that. It was still Cece.”

“Agreed,” Denzel said. “Let’s get a move on. All the yelling probably alerted a lot of wild Pokemon to come here.”

We agreed and hurried along. Throughout the cave, we would find evidence that Cece had definitely gone through there. Scenes of battles with rocks charred by Dragon Breath knocked out wild Pokemon all over the place. She was going on a rampage, even having knocked out a group of two Graveler, who were no doubt more powerful than the one she had faced when fighting Roark all those months ago. The good thing about that, however, was that she had seemingly scared off a lot of the wild Pokemon, so we were making great ground. Plus, we had also surprisingly improved since Eterna Forest, although this wasn’t even considered deep into the mountain. Apparently, you could keep going deeper for weeks, and the Pokemon would progressively get worse. Now we just had to hope Cece would be slow enough for us to catch up to her. We had to be faster. Faster. Faster—

“Fri!” Frillish yelled again. This time, however, I could tell he wasn’t warning about a wild Pokemon.

I angled my flashlight downward and saw a giant lake whose surface was incredibly clear. I could see Barboach swimming under the water’s surface, nestled closely against the muddy ground. It was a large body of water, but it wasn’t deep at all. If we stepped in it, it would only get up to my waist, and I was the shortest in the group.

Justin angled his flashlight toward the end of the lake.

“We can cross that,” he said. “Saves us a lot of time.”

We all ran our flashlights throughout the lake’s surface to make sure there wasn’t any hidden passage where a dangerous water type could be hiding.

“Sure,” I nodded. “And it isn’t deep enough for anything threatening to hide in. Let’s go.”

The Barboach fled as I tentatively placed a foot into the frigid water and flinched. I probably wouldn’t feel my leg after crossing this thing. I could almost feel it in my bones. We all carefully waded through the water, carrying our non-water type Pokemon in our arms, and we made it about halfway through when the ground began to shake.

I felt mud snake its way along my ankles. I was stuck.

“Cash! Whiscash!” I heard to my left.

A Whiscash yelled out angrily as it peeked out of the water’s surface. The water wasn’t deep enough for it to even swim in comfortably, but apparently, it had still made it its home. I swore internally, and Frillish wasted no time, immediately sending out a Poison Sting into the Pokemon’s hide.

“Now, Hex it!” I ordered. Frillish’s eyes shone brightly and the ground type cried out in pain as smoke started emanating from its body.

“Gothorita, Psybeam!” Pauline said, holding the psychic type out as far as she could. The multicolored psychic energy hit Whiscash as well.

Prinplup hit the water type with a Bubblebeam, and it began to thrash around the lake, making the ground shake.

“That’s an Earthquake!” Denzel yelled as Budew screamed out a Bullet Seed from his arms. “Damn it!”

Rocks far above us, creased into the cave’s ceiling and began to fall into the water. I fell backward due to the Earthquake, and mud started to worm around my waist.

“Sandile, free us from Whiscash’s trap!” Justin yelled.

The ground type snapped his jaw shut and finally broke us free. We ran out of the lake, barely avoiding getting crushed by stones. I crawled out of the water on all fours and dry heaved. One of them— one of them had landed right beside me. I almost died.

“Arceus…” Emilia cried. “This is madness.”

“I’m sorry,” I breathed out and wiped my mouth and eyes. You are fine. Pull yourself together and cry later. “It was my call. W—we should have tried to find a way ar—around it. I just wanted to get to Cece as fast as possible, and it b—blinded my judgment.”

“Then I sh—share some of the responsibility as well,” Justin said, shivering from the cold.

I wiped sweat and water from my forehead. “Th—these wetsuits aren’t worth sh—shit. We need to dry our clothes and sleep,” Denzel sighed. “It fucking hurts, b—but it’s the most sensible thing to do. If we get some shut-eye— even two hours— we’ll think more clearly. We’re all exhausted.”

I wanted to protest, but I knew deep down he was right. I could barely walk straight, and I was starting to get a headache.

“We’ll d—die of hypothermia if we don’t at least d—dry ourselves,” Justin said, stammering his words because of the cold. “Get your fire types out to dry our clothes faster and keep ourselves warm.”

“Frillish, keep watch, p—please,” I said. He nodded and let out a determined sound.

We all quickly dried ourselves with towels and changed our clothes, which had gotten wet from falling into the water due to Whiscash’s Earthquake. I stepped into a sleeping bag and huddled around our fire types, who were all sitting on top of our wet clothes. Charmeleon’s tail was our main source of heat, but Vulpix and Growlithe’s naturally high body heat helped as well. Louis had volunteered to keep first watch along with Frillish, and he would wake all of us up in two hours and a half.

“If I start screaming, wake me up immediately,” I warned.

Louis nodded. He had decided to take the brunt of the exhaustion, but the next time we slept, he’d be able to rest for longer. We couldn’t afford to rest for long. Cece was probably still moving ahead, and rangers would be on our tail very soon.