CHAPTER 76

“It’s time.”

I jolted awake when I felt Louis pat my shoulder through my sleeping bag and struggled to open my eyes. How had it been two hours and a half already? It felt like I barely slept at all, but I still stood up immediately and put on my clothes. At least sleeping so little hadn’t given my nightmares enough time to start up again. Louis woke up all the others too, and we all hurried and got ready as fast as we could.

“Did you have any trouble?” Justin asked Louis. “Any attacks?”

“There was a pack of Aron that walked by led by a Lairon, but they didn’t strike,” Louis said before yawning. “Aside from that, nothing apart from the usual terrifying Pokemon cries all around us.”

I grabbed a bottle of water from my backpack and coughed. My throat was killing me, my nose was clogged, and I was so cold.

“I—” I started, before coughing. “I think I’m sick.”

I pointed my flashlight at Emilia and saw her pale.

“Can you keep going?” Pauline asked.

Denzel started approaching me, but I held out my hand.

“Stop! You might get sick—” I coughed again. “Sick too. Let’s go, we’ve wasted enough time, just don’t stay close to me.”

Justin frowned. “We could have one of us bring you back or wait for the rangers—”

“I said no. I’ll see this through.”

We began marching again, although this time, I kept some distance from the group. Beldum hovered above me to protect me in case a Pokemon suddenly attacked. Frillish was reluctantly still ahead of the group. He wanted to stick by me since I was sick, but we needed him ahead to spot threats before we got to them. Denzel was now carrying Eevee on his shoulder, since his hearing would still be of use, but something about the mountain screwed with Growlithe’s sense of smell, and the fire type couldn’t adequately warn us as he had done in Eterna Forest.

The deeper we got, the more wrong everything felt. Mount Coronet was known to have some strange effects, such as the cold temperatures, but some of it was entirely alien, like hampering human senses or Pokemon who weren’t used to the mountain. And it apparently got worse the deeper someone got, and there was an area around the summit that was the same as well. Strange visions, time dilation, shifting terrain— it was terrifying. Luckily, to go truly deep into Mount Coronet, one would have to be actively trying to be. Really good trainers used to routinely go through where we were to get to Snowpoint or Celestic, which means we wouldn’t feel the truly bad effects of the cave.

Still, I couldn’t help but worry for Cece.

Frillish yelled and stopped us, pointing his tentacle toward the cave’s ceiling. We pointed our flashlights up, and about two hundred feet above us, a colony of sleeping Zubat larger than the first was anchored on the ceiling, along with a few Golbat that I managed to see, causing my legs to shake. We immediately all pointed our lights back down. The Zubat line was extremely sensitive to light, and it wouldn’t do us any good to provoke them.

You’re fine, I thought. You’re fine. You’ve grown past this.

I stifled my coughs as best I could, and we carefully made it past the colony. The next five hours were utterly exhausting. We were being attacked left and right. Most of the Pokemon could be dealt with quite easily, but there were a few close calls. A Graveler’s Rock Throw was barely stopped in time by Gothorita, who saved Louis from being crushed, after which we battered it with our water and grass type attacks, and it angrily fled. A Chingling colony that dropped the temperature dangerously low and that screamed so loudly I felt like my eardrums would burst, and that forced us to flee, making my growing headache ten times worse. Still, we knew we were on Cece’s trail, since we were still following the unconscious Pokemon she had left behind.

But the worse was yet to come.

“Rhyyyyy!”

The stone wall we were walking next to exploded, and a scream bellowed out to our left. I fell to the ground, dropping my flashlight as Beldum smoothly hovered in front of me and used Confusion to protect me from the flying debris. I fumbled at the ground, grabbing my flashlight with trembling hands, and I began to crawl backward.

“Grace! Are you alright?!” I heard Louis yell.

“I’m— I’m fine,” I stammered. I felt the ground shake and pointed my flashlight forward.

A Rhydon was standing right above me with its fist raised. It brought down its massive arm and I shrieked, but I felt my body tense up and float in the air. Beldum picked me up with Confusion and narrowly saved my life. Frillish yelled and threw out a Water Pulse at the huge rock type. Denzel ordered Budew to attack before running toward me and pulling me back to safety. Beldum used the opportunity to hover back toward Emi, clearly ready to protect her.

“A—A—Ar—” I stammered.

“You’re okay,” he breathed out. “I’ve got you.”

Rhydon slowly picked up its fist from the ground and stared us down. Budew’s Bullet Seed and Frillish’s Water Pulse had done nothing to Rhydon. Pauline and Emilia ordered our psychics to restrain the rock type, but the attack didn’t even have an effect. Rhydon lowered its head and began running toward them at speeds that shouldn’t have been possible for a Pokemon this large. Pauline began to run away but sprinted back when she saw that Emilia was frozen in place and pushed her out of the way. I screamed and closed my eyes, expecting her to be skewered and trampled by the unstoppable rock type, but Sandile liquified the ground below it, slowing it enough for Beldum to stand in between the two and stop the attack. He was still knocked away, however, and flew into a nearby boulder.

“Don’t freeze!” Pauline shouted at her best friend. “Grace, get your fucking Togetic out!”

My hands shook as I grabbed princess’ Pokeball. She was the only one that could use status effect moves from a distance. Our only hope. Rhydon slammed his foot against the liquified ground, and jagged rocks ripped themselves from the ground before flying toward us. There were too many—

Frillish appeared in front of me, but Rhydon’s aim was thrown off after Beldum let out a grinding sound and hit it with Flash Cannon, illuminating the entire cave. Still, Louis screamed and clenched at his face, having been grazed. I released Togetic after another round of attacks on Rhydon tore me away from my stupor.

“Sweet Kiss!”

“Toge!”

A pink heart flew toward Rhydon and—

The rock type hit it away with its fist like it was nothing.

“What… what,” I said in disbelief.

I felt Denzel grab at my arm again. “Fuck it, we’re running!”

“It’ll catch up!” Louis said, still clutching at the right side of his face.

“We don’t have a choice! Pick up the Pokemon that are too slow!” Denzel said as we began running. Rhydon was close on our tail. “Justin, have Sandile liquefy the ground behind us!”

“That’s too much, he can’t use Sand Tomb in such a large area—”

“Fucking try!” Pauline said.

Sandile created another Sand Tomb behind us, slowing Rhydon slightly.

“Togetic, Ancient Power,” I breathed out. “Create obstacles behind us.”

She nodded and lifted up rocks in between us and the Rhydon, but the rock type simply tore through them like butter and used them to send that same ranged attack. This time, our psychic types were ready and barely managed to divert them away, along with Togetic’s help using Extrasensory. Denzel also had Budew drop a trail of Stun Spore behind us, which the rock type breathed in. We were slowly gaining ground, but after ten minutes of running, we were starting to get tired, and Rhydon wasn’t.

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I felt so sick I wanted to throw up. I was even starting to hallucinate voices—

Voices.

Lights, along with voices! They were faint, but they were unmistakably real. I began to feel a glimmer of hope.

“...die, do it somewhere else, not in front of me.”

“Then stop following me! Let me be!”

“Nah, I’m good—”

“Whoever the fuck you are, we need help, there’s a fucking Rhydon coming!” Pauline yelled.

Another thirty seconds and we were there. Cece was bleeding from her forehead, but she was alive. I took a few deep breaths and approached her, touching her face to make sure she was real. Chase Karlson stood beside her with his entire team out of their Pokeballs. I was too relieved and out of it to even bother asking myself why he was there.

Cece shook her head. “No, no! What are you doing here?! Do you not know how dangerous—”

“Shut up!” I yelled. “I don’t want any lectures from you! Never do this again, you hear me! We’re taking you back!”

“You’re going to get scolded later,” Pauline smiled, hugging Cece as the ground began to shake. “But there’s a giant, angry Rhydon coming right for us, so I’d like it if we could focus on that first.”

“Stand far away from rocks,” Louis said. “It can control them at will and impale you with their fragments. Our psychics and Togetic will be enough to stop them if they have time to react—”

Rhydon stepped around the corner and let out an infuriated yell, but Sandile immediately used Sand Tomb under its feet again.

“String Shot it,” Chase immediately said before recalling Houndour and Zangoose.

Charjabug screeched and spat out strands of strings that wrapped around Rhydon, but the rock type just tore them apart.

“Ri, you’re up.”

“Dragon Breath, Water Pulse,” Cece ordered.

Deino and Slowpoke let out their attacks, which slightly slowed the ground type, and we ordered all of our Pokemon to attack as well. Bullet Seed, Psybeam, Bubblebeam, Flash Cannon, we threw everything we had at it and more, and it was finally dealing some damage. Meanwhile, Riolu ran up to the rock type and nimbly climbed onto its back, growing a bone out of his hand and jamming it in between one of the Rhydon’s armor plates. Finally, the rock type felt real pain, and it desperately tried to get Riolu off of itself, but its arms were too short. Rhydon threw itself backwards, escaping from the Sand Tomb and hoping to crush Riolu with its weight, but the fighting type just climbed onto its head and used Force Palm right into both of its eyes.

That seemed to be enough for the rock type, and it finally started to flee, slamming its body into walls and boulders since it was blind. Riolu jumped off of its body and returned to Chase.

Emilia collapsed to the ground. “Thank Arceus…” she cried. “I thought we were done for.”

“Cecilia,” Louis said. “We’ve come to rescue you. Don’t throw your life away.”

The girl averted her gaze.

“Why did you… it would have been so much easier if none of you were here,” She said. “I wanted to go on my own terms.”

“Don’t you fucking dare,” Pauline hissed. “Deep inside of yourself, you want to live. You wouldn’t have told us where you were going otherwise. It was a cry for help, and we came.”

Cece teared up. “They’ve threatened me in such a horrible way,” she sobbed. “I can’t.”

“You can. The minute we get back to the city, I’ll call my dad and call off the marriage,” Louis said.

“No!” Cece screamed. “Absolutely not, you don’t know the lengths—”

“It is my choice, and I’ll live with it,” he said.

I grabbed Cece’s hand. “Please. I can’t lose you. We can’t go on pretending nothing happened if you die. It’ll destroy us. We’re all on your side. All of us will help you against whatever it is that they threatened you with.”

“You can’t help.”

“Stop saying that!” I said, clenching her hand tighter. I started to cough again. “We can certainly try, at least! Never give up until you’ve tried!”

“Can you at least tell us why you can’t tell us?” Denzel asked.

Cecilia shook her head, and he sighed.

“Either way, we’re dragging you back home whether you want to or not. We can get you to speak with someone— I can ask Amanda! She’s great at what she does, and everything you tell her is secret.”

“It would be best to wait twenty to thirty minutes for Rhydon to be far enough,” Justin said. “We have time. Maybe the rangers will even get here too, they’ll no doubt be faster than we will be..”

I nodded, but kept looking into Cece’s eyes. “Will you at least come back without a fight?” I asked.

“I don’t… fine. If that’s what convinces everyone to get back to safety, I will,” she sighed.

“Thank you,” I said, feeling a weight lift off my shoulders. Even though she wasn’t coming because of her own will to live, she was coming home. It was a step.

“Why is he here?” Louis asked, pointing at Chase.

“Why does it matter?” Chase retorted. “I don’t like being with you either, you rich asshole.”

“I did not even imply disliking you being here. More people means more Pokemon to get Cecilia back to safety,” Louis answered.

“I… I met him a few hours into the cave. He was training his Charjabug here, but then he wouldn’t stop following me and helping me when I didn’t want him to,” Cece spat.

“Meh,” Chase shrugged. “You were bleeding, I thought you’d need the help, but then you started asking me to let you die, so I figured I’d stick around,” he said.

“So you… saved her?” I asked.

“Not really. We were just walking in the same direction,” he said. “I heard that Charjabug needed a place with a strong magnetic field to evolve, but that was a dud. Apparently, it only gets strong enough deeper and higher up in the mountain, and I can’t get there yet, so I came here for no reason.”

We all grouped up around Chase and genuinely thanked him for saving our friend, which seemingly took him by surprise. We all sat on the ground, and I started to tend to Cece’s wound. She had a large lesion on her head, causing blood to seep down on her forehead. Pauline and Emilia tended to our Pokemon with all of our potions, including Chase’s, and got most of them back in their balls so they could rest. Meanwhile, Justin helped with Louis’ injury. His was a deep cut on his cheek going right across his ear. That looked like that would scar.

“What did this to you?” I asked Cece as I cleaned the wound with water.

“I don’t even know,” she slowly said. “I hadn’t even noticed until that boy brought it up.”

“Arceus…” I muttered.

“Grace,” she said quietly. “Did you read the letter?”

“We all did,” I said as I wrapped a bandage around her head. “It was beautiful— it— it made all of us cry. Even Pauline.”

“Really?” She raised her eyebrows. “I thought you would all hate me after what I said. What I thought about all of you when we first met… me tricking Louis…”

“Of course not. We love you. Nothing you could say could ever make us hate you,” I started. “Louis said he was calling off the marriage, but you should know he didn’t even hesitate. He knows it would hurt you too much. We’re all on your side now. Do you understand that, Cece? You are loved. You aren’t alone. We’re your family.”

“Did you… could you read the parts I scratched out?”

“At the end of the letter? No.”

“Alright,” she said, sighing. “Thank you for bandaging me.”

I pulled her up and hugged her again for good measure. “That’s still okay, right?” I asked.

“What do you mean?”

“My sexuality…” I awkwardly said.

“Oh! Oh, of course. You can do it as much as you want—”

A roar that was much too close for comfort echoed through the cave. It shook me to my core, and I felt my body tense. We pointed our flashlights toward the noise, and I noticed two things.

First, there was a Larvitar that was running in our direction. Second, there was a Tyranitar and a Rhyperior fighting twenty feet away from the Larvitar. Rhyperior extended its arm and threw out rocks from its palms, barely chipping at Tyranitar’s armor. The rock type’s forehead started to glow, and it retaliated by ramming it into Rhyperior’s shoulder.

“We need to run!” Denzel screamed.

We all hurried to grab our bags and supplies, but the fighting was getting too close, and we opted to abandon a large part of our things instead. Still, Rhyperior yelled with a booming voice, and rocks that we could barely avoid thanks to our psychics began to fall all around us, and they were making our escape slow.

Tyranitar was seemingly on its last ropes. Large parts of its armor were missing, revealing exposed flesh, and it looked back at the Larvitar before letting out a loud, guttural cry. The ground shook akin to an Earthquake, but this time, it cracked and opened up, splitting us and Larvitar apart from the two huge rock types. I tried to run faster, but I was sick and already tired from our escape against Rhydon. I couldn’t… I couldn’t keep going.

Denzel and Cece were the first back for me. The others tried to come back, but they were told to keep running. I could barely hear what was going on. The ground was still shaking and creating a horrible sound. The wild Pokemon were screaming, my ears were ringing, my head was pounding—

I fell. I fell into the dark chasm that Tyranitar had opened up, and so did Denzel, Chase, and Cecilia.