Chapter 4: Basilica and Boogle
Daniel did not release the meditite for the rest of their foray away from camp. After the obligatory congratulations from Cal and making sure Drift was okay, they continued exploring. The rest of the day was much more easy going without the pressure of remaining alert in order to catch Daniel his second pokemon. As such, Daniel and Cal joked much of the time as they journeyed through the forest. The only other interesting part of the day was when they came across a wintry sawsbuck and deerling drinking from the river. The two deer pokemon scampered off quickly once Daniel and Cal approached the riverbank.
It wasn't until they returned to camp that afternoon that Daniel finally released his new pokemon. While Cal worked his team through some light drills, Daniel, with his starter beside him, let the meditite out of its ball. The humanoid pokemon immediately tried to teleport away only to be returned to the pokeball.
That was another modern miracle of the pokeball technology. Pokeballs had a setting that would return a pokemon once it left a certain radius from the ball. The technology was implemented specifically for new pokemon who would try to run or teleport away. Daniel wasn't sure how it worked in general, much less how it stopped teleportation, but he was happy it did.
It took another two times before the meditite did not try to escape. Instead it looked questioningly at Daniel. "Why do you entrap me, human?" Daniel jumped in surprise at the voice in his mind. The voice sounded like that of a frustrated woman.
He heard stories and read reports that psychic type pokemon were able to speak and understand human language almost immediately. He also knew of the reports that psychics could communicate telepathically. It was a completely different experience, though, to hear the pokemon speaking in his head.
"I want you to join my team. My name is Daniel, and this is Drift," Daniel spoke, gesturing to himself then to the sandshrew at his feet.
"You are not much of a 'team', human."
"We were enough of a team to beat you," he said, ignoring the refusal to use his name.
"You trapped me and not my brothers and sisters. The fight was not fair."
That was partially true. Daniel did have Cal's krokorok keep the meditite from teleporting away, but he felt like the fight itself was fair. He considered his response before asking, "So if you were to battle Drift again, would you accept that as a fair fight?"
Daniel could see the inner turmoil on the pokemon's face as it looked between Daniel and Drift. Finally, it said, "The ice shrew is more powerful than I."
"So you'll have no problem being part of the team then, right?" Daniel prodded.
"I will accept my role as vassal."
Daniel nodded in acceptance. It wasn't necessarily the enthusiasm he had hoped for, but at least the meditite wasn't going to put up a fight for the next couple weeks. "I can live with that for now. I hope you come to see us as a team and family though. What should I call you?"
"My name cannot be translated to your language. I will allow you to pose a suitable substitute."
Daniel thought for a minute, "What about Sasha?" It was the first name that popped into his head that sounded decent for the pokemon.
"That will suffice," the newly dubbed Sasha responded.
It was later that night after Cal had turned in that Daniel finally took the time to research the meditite line on his pokedex. He realized, somewhat ashamed, that he should have prioritized this research before releasing Sasha, but it wasn't something he could change.
Meditite, the Meditate Pokemon.
Meditite are a fighting and psychic type pokemon that are humanoid in appearance. Their bodies are mostly blue, though their heads are white. Originally discovered in the Hoenn region, this pokemon prefers to live in remote, quiet areas such as undeveloped mountains, in order to train peacefully.
Meditite train themselves through daily meditation and yoga. When forced to fight, meditite, and their evolution medicham, are surprisingly strong. Though they are not as physically strong as their pure fighting type counterparts, the machop line, it is believed that the meditite line is able to utilize their brain power to more efficiently use their muscles. It has been hypothesized that if a machamp were similarly able to do this, it would be the strongest pokemon discovered, surpassing pokemon such as slaking.
In order to better train their bodies, meditite fast for as long as they can. When they do eat, they eat only a single berry before fasting again for a longer period of time. This was discovered to be the key to their evolution by monks in Hoenn region centuries ago. Once a meditite can fast for a full lunar cycle and defeat an opponent afterwards, they will evolve into a medicham.
Daniel stuck his head out of his tent and looked at the meditite that seemed to be sleeping in a prayer pose. He idly wondered how long the pokemon could go without eating now. After a moment, he turned back in and let himself drift off to sleep.
The following weeks passed in much the same way the first week had gone, the only difference being that Daniel now split his attention between his two pokemon and his own drills. It helped that Sasha was already acclimated to a life of training, though she wasn't pleased when Daniel asked that she do strength training and running drills in addition to her regular yoga and meditation.
Daniel learned that the meditite could go three days without eating and that she preferred rawst berries over anything because the bitterness helped strengthen her constitution. Sasha had a rudimentary understanding of the move confusion and was starting to develop some fighting type techniques, but not enough to use in battle. Daniel had her split the evening training sessions between moving objects with confusion and learning from Bruno, Cal's machamp.
Drift, on the other hand, continued to progress with both metal claw and powder snow. The little shrew squeaked happily every time he managed to carve a rock in two with the steel type move. Daniel started working with him to develop defense curl, which would help raise his defense in battle, and ice ball which would serve as a basis for stronger ice type moves like icicle crash.
Daniel's personal development seemed to stall a few days after catching Sasha. He was running slower, unable to do as many push ups and pull ups, and was struggling to pick up rocks that felt light days before. When he brought the issue up to Cal, the older trainer suggested he take a couple days to rest and stretch before continuing. When that seemed to help, Daniel made sure to take a day to meditate and practice yoga with his meditite in order for his muscles to recuperate.
Despite going out to explore every few days, nothing truly interesting happened. They came back to camp once to find a herd of stantler in the clearing, though the herd quickly departed at the presence of the two trainers. Cal guessed that the lack of pokemon was because the pokemon living in the area were all naturally skittish and avoided the group as much as possible.
It wasn't until they took a trip to the mountains about a week before they planned to return to Snowpoint that they came across something interesting. They were walking along the base of the mountain about an hour away from camp, and just as they were wrapping around to the north face of the mountain, they saw it.
"Holy Heatran."
"No… It can't be real!"
Cal and Daniel spoke at the same time, both in shock. Before them, carved into the face of the mountain, was a giant temple. The structure rose over two hundred feet up the mountain with intricate columns and facades carved into the stone. One either side of the structure were openings with three golems, placed vertically up the side of the temple. Each golem was unique in design, though none less imposing than the others. At the base of the temple was a massive staircase leading to a cavernous opening.
"It's not possible," Daniel muttered. His knees gave out and fell to the snow.
"Danny, what is this?" Cal asked. Daniel just muttered to himself, unable to comprehend the temple before him. He heard Cal speaking, but the words weren't registering. "Daniel!" Cal finally yelled, shaking Daniel's shoulders violently.
"This… this is Regigigas' eternal prison," he finally said.
"Regi-what? Eternal prison? Heatran's ass, Danny. What the fuck are you talking about?"
Daniel swallowed past the lump in his throat before saying, "There's this cult in Snowpoint. It's small, and gets made fun of a lot. I've heard they're pretty sketchy. They call themselves Brotherhood of Titans. I never associated with them, but rumors spread, ya know? They believe there is this pokemon - Regigigas - who placed the continents by moving them with these giant ropes. Once he placed the continents, Regigigas created these six golems, or titans, in his image to govern the world, answering only to him."
Daniel's throat constricted a bit. He coughed a couple times to clear it before continuing, "Supposedly, for a time, mankind worshipped Regigigas and his governors. But eventually, they grew fearful of their ruler. They went to the golems and begged them to turn against Regigigas and imprison him for eternity. The golems did, locking him away, telling no one where the prison was. They said that Regigigas could only be released through the combined power of the six golems. So, mankind turned on the golems and imprisoned them in their own caves around the world, so they could never unite again to free their maker."
"Holy shit," Cal sputtered. Daniel choked out a laugh but didn't respond. "So you think this is the prison?"
"The cult believes it to be somewhere in the mountains north of Snowpoint, though there's no proof the legend is even real. They're small though and don't have the ability or resources to really fund an exploration," Daniel answered, "I guess we found the proof for them." He slowly stood, inspecting each of the carved golems. One was smooth, with rounded edges. The one above it looked like it was made from boulders stuck together. The next was completely straight and rigid, almost crystalline, though made of stone. On the other side, the bottom golem looked like a ball with a pair of jaws about to swallow it. The one above it looked like a spiky ball with lightning bolts shooting from either side. In the final opening, the golem was missing. In its place was a pile of rubble.
As if reading Daniel's mind, Cal queried, "I wonder what that last one is supposed to look like."
Not wanting to pass up the chance, the pair took multiple pictures of the temple, making sure to get pictures of themselves with it behind them. Finally Cal said, "Dude, you know we gotta check it out inside, right?"
"You're telling me you want to break into the prison of some legendary titan that could kill us with a thought?"
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Cal shot back quickly, "You're telling me that you want to be an explorer but you're too afraid to take this opportunity?"
Stumped and called out, Daniel relented. It was an exciting prospect, so it wasn't like he was going to put up too much of a fight. "Drift, Sasha, you guys up for it?"
The sandshrew gave a resolute nod, chirping excitedly. The meditite looked thoughtful before her melodic voice resounded in his head, "I do not believe this to be wise, but I shall follow as is my duty."
Decision made, Daniel positioned his pokedex to video the exploration from his breast pocket and the group made their way up the carved stone stairs and into the basilica. Once inside, Cal returned all his pokemon aside from Magneto and Bruno, his magneton and machamp. He ordered the magneton to use flash in order to traverse the dark building.
The inside of the temple was just as grand as the outside, with towering ceilings supported by massive stone columns. The walls were covered in carvings depicting a giant titan moving islands and ruling over the world. "This is amazing," Daniel whispered, too in awe to raise his voice any higher. His friend nodded in agreement.
They ventured deeper into the building, eventually finding a set of stairs going deeper into the ground. They followed the stairs down to the next floor where they continued back towards the front of the temple. They continued to move further into the earth for another three floors before being met with a dead end.
The wall before them was covered with round protrusions sticking out from the wall. The bumps were equally spaced in what appeared to be a grid-like pattern, though there were multiple places where some were missing. The walls lining the room were covered in weird hieroglyphs that were vaguely shaped like letters. There was no discernable pattern to the glyphs that Daniel could find. At the base of the dead end were six empty, massive pedestals with ornate carvings of the same letter-like hieroglyphs around them.
"If that legend is true," Daniel began softly, "Then I bet that Regigigas is behind that wall and the other golems need to be on those pedestals to release him."
"Human, it is not right for us to be in this place! We should depart immediately!" Sasha's voice was alarmed. Daniel and Cal ignored the meditite and moved towards different pedestals. As Daniel reached out to touch the pedestal, a loud noise shook the room, almost as if the mountain itself was groaning. Daniel caught himself on the platform and looked over at Cal. The two locked eyes before turning to race from the room, their pokemon following behind them.
Dust fell from the ceiling as they ran up through the temple. His lungs burned, though adrenaline spurred him onward. On the second floor, Daniel realized that Drift was no longer behind him. He skidded to a stop and whipped around. The sandshrew was stopped about a hundred yards back, staring at something. Daniel heard Cal yelling at him to keep running, but he ignored him and ran back to his starter.
In front of the sandshrew was a short hallway branching off from the main room. Daniel could see it open up into another room with a faint, blue light glowing from within. Entranced, Daniel made his way into the room to find a massive, baby blue stone slab. The face of the slab was rough, like sandpaper, though the edges seemed rounded and smooth. Engraved into the rough stone was: "When the universe was created, its shards became this Plate."
"Whoa," he breathed as he reached out to brush his fingers against the stone. As he did, the temperature dropped sharply and the stone slab dissolved like dust. "What the fuck?!" Daniel exclaimed, looking erratically between his hand and where the stone once stood. Drift grunted and chirped angrily along with him.
"Daniel, we must leave. Now!" Sasha's voice entered his mind once more, sounding further away than before. The use of his name tore him from his thoughts and he raced from the room.
"What the hell man?!" Cal yelled as he exited the temple ten minutes later, "You just disappeared on me! I thought you were a goner! Then the fucking temperature dropped like fifty degrees. Bruno passed out from it!"
"Drift found this other room," Daniel explained, going on to tell the older trainer about the plate, the inscription, and the sharp cold that came after he touched it.
"What the fuck did we get ourselves into?" Cal finally said after a few moments of silence.
"Yeah, I don't know. But we should get out of here. And Cal?"
"Yeah?"
"I don't think we should tell anyone about this. I think that cult in Snowpoint wants to release that thing," Daniel said as they started walking quickly away from the elaborate prison.
"Why the fuck would they want that?" Daniel didn't have an answer for his friend and they remained silent the rest of the way back to camp.
----------------------------------------
After the events of the prison, they didn't venture out from the camp beyond hunting. The mood was somber and tense and the two trainers went about training with a silent rigor. Daniel was scared after the experience. That fear was intensified by the knowledge that Cal, a much better trainer than him, was also terrified.
It all came to a head a couple nights later when Daniel finally broke the silence between them. "Cal, what are we supposed to do with this?" He didn't need to elaborate. He knew that Cal understood.
"I don't know, Danny," his friend sighed. "I'm scared just like you, but I don't think there's anything we can do. I mean, fuck, these are gods!" When Daniel didn't immediately respond, Cal continued, "We hear all these stories of legendaries growing up. Our whole culture revolves around them. But they've been absent for centuries. Nobody ever really thought that… "
"Yeah, I know what you mean," Daniel finally spoke up after a few moments of silence. "So what? We keep it to ourselves and hope nobody ever finds this place again?"
"I guess. I don't think that Champion Akai could even combat whatever that was. Hell, I doubt all the champions combined could. So I think that's our best bet. Forget about it and hope." Daniel nodded and let the matter rest.
The following days passed with less tension, though with the same intensity in their training. They had to increase the difficulty of Drift's obstacle course to keep challenging the sandshrew. Sasha even ran the course a couple times to test herself, though she quickly deemed it too easy. Considering the meditite was already a very flexible and mobile pokemon, Daniel wasn't surprised by the result. Sasha was able to consistently perform confusion, though her fighting techniques still needed work.
With the days growing shorter, Daniel knew their time away from the city was coming to an end. The end of summer meant that the snow would almost constantly fall and pokemon would either venture south or begin to hibernate. Daniel brought his observations up to Cal one afternoon and they planned to head back the next day.
That night, they were startled awake by a piercing screech. Daniel burst from his tent to find Cal doing the same with his dartrix, Nyra, acting disgruntled. The pair was just barely visible in the glow of the embers. The owl pokemon had been keeping watch at night as it was the least likely to fall asleep at night or be noticed by wild pokemon. "Something's wrong," Cal muttered as he looked around. Daniel nodded and made sure his pokemon were awake and alert.
"Human, I do not sense anything." Sasha told him. He relayed the information to the older trainer, though it did nothing to sooth his nerves.
Cal released the rest of his pokemon before ordering his magmortar, "Sozin, light it up." The hulking fire pokemon launched a pillar of flames into the air from its cannon-like hand. In the light of the fire, Daniel saw a dozen or more black pokemon with red feathers sprouting from their head. Behind them were a handful more with full headdresses.
"Shit. Sozin, Rook take the north. Bruno, Magneto, south. April, you're on Danny. Snapper, on me. Delta, Nyra try to pick them off from the sky!" Cal whipped out a large hunting knife as he called out orders to his team. There was a flurry of movement and the battle began.
The magmortar shot gouts of flame towards the wild weasels as the rhyhorn beside it battled those who got too close. The machamp and magneton employed a similar strategy on the opposite side of camp. Daniel didn't see what was happening with Cal, though he heard commotion coming from that direction.
Cal's azumarill, which was guarding him, used a combination of water and fairy type attacks, trying to keep the pokemon at bay. She was successful at first, though soon began to get overwhelmed by the sheer number of attacking pokemon. Daniel ordered Drift and Sasha to help the water bunny out. He pulled out his own hunting knife as his sandshrew slammed into a sneasel with a glowing metal claw.
Flashes of fire and the crackle of lightning illuminated the camp sporadically, leaving Daniel with the impression of fighting in a nightclub. Noises of battle filled the air, disorienting him just as much as the flashes of light.
In the light of a thunderbolt, Daniel saw his meditite go down to a sneasel's icy slash. He quickly pointed her pokeball in that general direction and returned her. Moments later, he saw a weavile flip Drift onto his back. Just as the feral pokemon was going to carve up his starter's soft stomach, Daniel dove forward and pulled the pokemon away.
Wrestling an evolved pokemon with razor sharp claws like a weavile was not something that Daniel ever thought he would do, or desired to do. Still, he pulled the dark type back in a headlock, away from his starter. The weavile lashed out, its icy claws shredding through Daniel's jacket and his arm, the wounds immediately freezing over. The cold seemed to extend all the way to his bones. With an exclamation of pain, Daniel stabbed the weasel pokemon with the hunting knife, feeling the blade poke his sternum through the pokemon's body. Warm liquid covered his hand and the smell of copper assaulted his senses.
"Drift!" He called out to his starter, throwing the now dead weavile to the ground. He heard his sandshrew give an acknowledging grunt before he was illuminated by another gout of flame. Daniel nearly sighed despite the battle at the sight of his starter slashing at a sneasel with metal claws, which were devastatingly effective. Beside him, April was pounding on two others with little trouble, though the azumarill was covered in cuts with ice crystals in them.
A sneasel broke away from April and ran at him with its claws extended. Daniel managed to kick the pokemon away before it was tackled by Drift. He heard some pained grunts from his sandshrew as the sneasel managed to catch his stomach. The fur stained red as blood seeped from the cut. Drift fought through the pain though, bashing the sneasel with a headbutt and the dark type fainted.
Taking a moment, Daniel looked around the camp. Cal's team seemed to be functioning well on their own, though there were many more wild pokemon than they originally saw. Turning to the opposite side of the camp, Daniel watched as a weavile snuck behind Cal and easily slashed through his calf. The older trainer gave a shout of pain as he fell to the ground.
Daniel yelled and took off towards his friend, tackling the weavile to the ground before it could slit Cal's throat. Alerted by the human shouts, both Cal's team and the wild pokemon gravitated to the pair. Ignoring the extra pokemon around him, Daniel stabbed the weavile once, twice, three times, before it lay still with blood and fur splattering the ground. As it did, he felt the weight of something land on his back and he was forced to the ground.
Sharp lines of icy pain lanced across his back and then the weight was suddenly gone. He felt a piece of wood being shoved into his mouth before he heard, "Magneto, now!" There was a bright light and a wave of electricity ran through him. His jaws locked tightly onto the piece of wood in his mouth as his body shook before everything went black.
----------------------------------------
Daniel woke in a hot embrace, though he only felt a thin t-shirt and pants on his body. He tried to move but found himself restricted by red and orange arms. "Easy there, Danny. You need the warmth right now." He looked to the left and saw Cal sitting on a stump with his right leg extended and wrapped in bandages.
"What?" his voice came out like a croak. His throat felt like a desert. A tugging on his pant leg had him looking down to find his sandshrew staring up at him with concern. The shrew's belly was still red, though it looked like the cut had mostly been healed. His icy shell had scrapes and chips on it from the dark type pokemons' attacks. At being noticed, Drift blew snowflakes at Daniel.
"You took quite a few hits from those weasels. Causes your core temp to drop. You have hypothermia. Sozin's keeping you warm for now." Daniel returned his attention to the older trainer.
"What happened?"
"We were attacked by a pack of sneasel and weavile. Pack? Group? What do you-"
"I think it's a boogle. A group of sneasel and weavile are called a boogle." Daniel interrupted.
"The fuck? Why would anyone call something that deadly and vicious a boogle?! It's not a fucking group of clowns!" Daniel just shrugged and his friend continued, "Anyways, they attacked. Loads of 'em. We were doing alright until I went down. I saw you tackle that weavile to save me, by the way, thanks for that. Well, after you saved me, the rest of them kinda converged on us. Wasn't enough room for my team to get 'em off us, so I had Magneto use discharge. We got caught in it, but with that many pokemon around, the damage was mitigated though you still passed out.
"My team is used to the paralysis from training, so they were able to fight it off and pull the weasels off us and take most of them out before they recovered. When the weavile and sneasel finally did recover, they fled. That was something like eight hours ago. You took the worst of it, I think. Haven't seen your meditite, but her pokeball isn't saying she's critical."
Daniel nodded, happy that his pokemon were okay, though he wasn't sure he really understood the rest of the story. "So what's the plan now?" He finally asked.
His friend shrugged. "I can't walk. Potions only do so much and we didn't get any blissey egg extract. So as soon as you're warm enough, Delta will fly you back to Snowpoint before coming back for me. She can't take us both, but it's only a couple hour flight for her, so I should be alright with my team til she gets back."
It took an hour for him to warm up, pack the camp, and harvest the valuable parts of the dead sneasel and weavile. Cal wasn't much help due to not being able to walk at all, though he ordered his team to help where they could. Nearly four hours after he regained consciousness, Daniel was left in front of the hospital by Cal's staraptor.
"How can I help you, young man?" The receptionist asked as he stumbled up to the desk.
"My friend and I were attacked by a group of weavile. Pretty sure I have hypothermia and multiple lacerations. My friend can't walk; his staraptor is flying him here now." The receptionist gave a frantic nod before hitting a few buttons at her computer. Within minutes, Daniel was wrapped in blankets and contemplating how crazy the last twenty-four hours had been.
----------------------------------------