Emilia fell twice trying to hop across the room to get to the portable pokemon storage device. The hard plastic floor was less forgiving than the packed dirt of the previous room, but the pain from the falls helped her head stay clear. Her thoughts were still a mess, moving like cold molasses through her head, but the pain helped her focus.
Her second fall sent a sharp spike of pain through her shoulder and instead of getting back up, she crawled across the floor like an Orthworm. The ropes around her hands, knees, and feet pulled at her bare skin, cutting and burning as she moved. She ignored it as best she could. It still hurt.
She inched her way up to the edge of the pokemon storage, worming her way into an upright position as she stared down at it. The container was a foot tall and deep, and about four wide. The lid of the unit was attached to the base with a series of steel clamps, latches that snapped in place to insure the storage would not accidentally open in any circumstances. It could hold over a hundred pokeballs if full, or more, if the unit had Silph Co storage technology.
The latches were a problem. Emilia twisted herself around so her back was pressed against the storage unit, but her fingers struggled to find the edge of the clasps. She eventually found one, digging her fingers under the lips of the latch and pulling for all her worth. It was almost impossible to get leverage from the angle she was forced to pull from, but eventually the latch opened with a thunk.
She collapsed against the storage unit, chest heaving in exhaustion from the effort of opening the clasp. One down, two to go. On this side of the box. She took a deep breath and shuffled to the side, fingers searching for another latch.
Five sweaty and curse-filled minutes later, she had three of the four sides unlocked. Now for the tricky part. The unit was up against the wall, and so were the latches keeping it closed. She hopped up to her feet and let her body fall against the cold metal of the room’s wall, taking a moment to rest. She leaned forward, ever so slowly, letting her balance shift as she bent at the waist, forcing her body into a deep, stiff bow. Her legs burned as the position forced her to stretch, and she fell forward, her head slamming against the top of the storage unit. She swore under her breath at the pain, but held her position. She shifted her head back and forth, attempting to wedge her head between the wall and the storage unit so she could push it away from the wall, allowing her to get access to the final three latches holding the unit shut. It was desperate, and if the box was too heavy the skin on her face would be torn to shreds, but-
The box shifted to the side with little effort, scraping on the ground and sending Emilia crashing to the floor as she lost purchase.
“Fuck,” she moaned. The box was so light she could have shoved it over with a simple kick of her foot. All that effort, wasted.
She lay on the floor for several minutes, letting the sharp pains running through her body fade into dull aches before she righted herself and got back to her escape. The final three latches clicked open with some effort and her fingers ached by the end of it, but the lid of the storage unit was now loose.
She fell back to the floor, sending another sharp pain into her shoulder, and rolled onto her back, pinning her arms beneath her. She used them as leverage to lift her feet from the ground, giving the edge of the storage unit’s lid a sharp kick.
She missed; her exhaustion and her precarious position threw off her aim, hitting the side of the until instead. Her kick tossed the light unit into the air, sending it crashing to the ground. The noise was tremendous. The lid of the unit bounced across the room, each impact with the floor or the walls sounding like a gong to her ears. Dozens of pokeballs spilled over the floor, rolling across the room.
Emilia froze as the top of the unit fell still and pokeballs came to a stop. She held her breath, the silence of the room deafening. No response. Nothing she could hear at least. She rolled onto her knees and elevated herself, looking over the pokeballs strewn throughout the room.
There were dozens, but she only needed to find one of hers. Five in thirty weren’t terrible odds, even if one pokeball did contain an egg. Not all the pokeballs were standard pokeballs either. There were a few friend balls and great balls mixed in with the rest. She comfortably ignored those.
With nothing else to go on, she inched her way over to the closest pokeball and flipped herself around, reaching with her bound hands to try and get a hold of a pokeball. Her fingers brushed the edge of it and it rolled out of reach. She swore and shifted, moving across the floor until several pressed against her hands. She grabbed, managing to hold one in each, and with the entire effort of her exhausted body, tossed them at the wall as best she could.
It was the most pathetic throw of her life, both balls barely moved a foot, bit it was enough. In twin bursts of light two pokemon appeared in the room. She flipped over to get a better look at them and groaned in frustration.
An Alolan Rattata and a Litten. Neither were hers. The pokemon looked around the room, obviously confused by their surroundings. They appeared to know each other at least, exchanging a few confused cries with each other. They likely both belonged to people from the village before being stolen by whoever had brainwashed them.
“Help,” Emilia pleaded. The Rattata made a chirping sound, and took a step back, tail springing into the air. He took several more steps back, not daring to move any close to Emilia. The Litten, on the other hand, regarded Emilia coolly.
“Please,” Emilia flipped around, showing her back, “Just my hands. Please.”
“Litten.” Litten purred. Emilia didn’t know what she was trying to tell her.
“Please,” Emilia said. She bent her back, extending her hands behind her as far as she could. Her finger bruised against something soft.
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Litten hissed and a sharp pain scored across her forearm. Emilia cried out ready to curse out the stupid pokemon but stopped as the bindings fell from her wrists.
Blood rushed back to her hands, sending spikes of pain into her fingers. She sobbed in relief, bringing her free hands to her face and wiping the tears from her eyes. Blood trickled down her arm from Litten’s scratch, but it was a sweet pain. She pushed herself off the ground, arms shaking from the effort. Deep marks from the ropes sent spikes of pain into her brain as she moved her arms again. They were already beginning to bruise and swell, but she could move her hands again. It was enough.
She reached down to her legs, finding the knots holding her and pulling them apart with a few tugs of her hands. The sensation of sharp needles pressing into her cascaded down her legs as the blood flow returned, but it was a relief. She sat up spreading her legs just to feel the sensation of doing so again. Collecting herself, she turned her attention back to the floor.
She reached forward and grabbed two more pokeballs and one of the doors to the room slid open. A woman in a long, white lab coat stood in the doorway. Her mouth popped open as she stared at Emilia. Emilia stared back from the floor, all but naked, a pokeball in each hand.
“Escape! Prisoner esc- AH! Ow! Stop! Stop!”
Emilia tossed the pokeballs at her, picking them up from the ground and flinging them at the scientist in a ceaseless wave. Light flashed as pokemon emerged from the balls one after another. It was so bright it was almost blinding, but Emilia didn’t look away. She couldn’t.
Vullaby appeared in a flash of light and Emilia’s heart jumped in her chest. “Vullaby, knock her out!” Emilia jabbed a finger at the woman who was cowering under the assault of pokeballs, “Use Knock Off!”
Vullaby squawked in confusion, but used Knock Off, waddling between an emerging Skitty and Bunnelby to smack the panicking scientist across the head with one of her wings. The scientist was tossed to the ground from the impact, landing in a heap on the floor. She did not get up.
Emilia scrambled to her feet and stuck her head out the door that the scientist walked through. The hall was long, straight and empty, lit by a long line of fluorescent bulbs. She sighed in relief and turned back to the room.
Around a dozen of the village’s pet pokemon gazed up at her, confusion uniform across their faces. Some, like the Skitty and the Litten, pretended not to care about the situation, while others, like the Alolan Rattata were obviously terrified.
Emilia took a deep breath and sighed, “Listen, everyone. I’m grabbing my pokemon and getting out of here. You can follow me if you want. We might even find your trainers along the way. But if you come with me you have to stay back. I know pokemon are supposed to fight, but you will just get in the way. Understand?”
Her response was a chorus of confused cries and chirps. She sighed again and went back to finding her remaining pokemon. She released all the other pokemon while she was at it. No point making it easier for anyone who came through here.
She found Omanyte, Charmeleon, Bagon, and her egg, and after a short but warm reunion, turned to look at the scientist. The woman was shorter than her, and thinner. Emilia glanced down at her own, near naked state and began taking off the woman’s clothes. The woman’s sweater was tight enough to be uncomfortable, but her lab coat was just fine. Emilia didn’t even try taking her pants. The scientist was wearing a pair of tight jeans and had none of Emilia’s curves. There was no way they would fit. The woman’s shoes looked similarly tiny. She did swipe the woman’s key card and ID however. They might come in handy.
“Oh, what the hell?” Emilia said, borrowing one of Cashe’s strange curses. The ID showed the scientist's face and name, but those didn’t grab her attention. Instead it was the clear symbol of a star and the words, ‘Team Starlight’.
“Bagon?” Bagon poked his head against the woman, baring his sharp fangs.
“No, we don’t do that. Even if they deserve it.” Emilia rolled her eyes, feeling slightly better at her pokemon’s antics. Dragons. They wanted to eat everything.
Now at least partially dressed, Emilia gave Charmeleon the lead and started down the corridor the woman came from. Her feet slapped against the plastic floors, sending echoes through the hallway. Behind her, Bagon, Vullaby, and Omanyte followed. Behind them a random assortment of the village’s pokemon. No one would be sneaking up behind her again.
The hall led past several empty labs, computers dark and lights out. The hallways turned and branched. One path led to an elevator, a dozen meters away. A possible escape, though its presence forced a question into her head. Where was she? Was she still under the village? And if so, how large were the tunnels? How long has Team Starlight been here?
The other path led to a security door. It was thick and broad, with a panel for a keycard attached to the frame of the door beside it. Emilia looked down at her keycard and back at the door. Why not?
She approached the door, swiping the card down the panel. Something chirped in her stolen lab coat, making her jump out of her skin, but the door hissed open. She stepped through, finding herself in a cavernous room.
The room was circular, shaped like a giant dome. She was on a catwalk platform that ran the circumference of the room. A set of stairs curved along the wall, leading to the floor below. On the same level as her, on the other side of the platform, several scientists sat behind a glass window, overlooking the room while they typed away at computers.
In the center of the room was an enormous, spherical machine. It was propped up on a platform, a series of computers surrounding it. It was all steel and chrome panels, cut into stranger shapes like a puzzle for the megalomaniacal. Lights blinked on its surface, and on the faces of the computers surrounding it. Thick tubes hung from the thing, attached at seemingly random points to the sphere’s surface. The tubes branched and led away from the machine, disappearing into the ceiling above it in a spider web of wires and cables.
Whatever it was, it hummed with energy, filling the air with a static field. It felt thick on the tongue like the air during a thunderstorm or in the area around the generator of a power plant. The machine buzzed, growing louder as energy surged through it. Soon, the air filled with a terrible whine. Emilia’s entire body vibrated as the thing powered up. She could taste iron on her tongue and something pulled at her teeth, hair, and nails. Energy washed over her and the whine grew to a roar, ringing in her ears.
Charmeleon cried out to her, but his voice was lost in the roar of the machine. She shut her eyes and forced her hands over her ears. The noise rose, the room began to shake. Something was happening something was-
The noise cut off with a descending whir of an engineering winding down. Emilia opened her eyes. The scientists in the room across from her were shaking their heads and pointing at the screens in front of them. Whatever they were doing, it was obviously a failure.
Emilia pulled herself to her feet, her head still ringing.
“Charmeleon,” her voice was tinny and distant. She pointed at the giant machine as its whine reduced to nothing. “Use Flamethrower.”
“Char.” Charmeleon’s eyes sparked with energy and a plume of fire rose in his mouth. It was scorching hot, the bloom of heat alone singing Emilia’s skin as he attacked. A torrent of flame crossed the open air of the room, striking the machine.
It exploded.
*****