Some might understand that Pokemon Diamond and Pearl, let alone Platinum, may be outdated. Hey, don't worry, Sapphire was and may still be my all-time favourite. Enjoy the read! If this is your first time reading this, I encourage you to read 'Christmas This Year'.
Merry Christmas!
Chapter two: No Sense of Direction
Consequently, Mars was forced to restart her barely-started journey from the western half of the Sinnoh region, with her journey starting from the boundaries of Eterna City. Adjusting her bag straps to ease the weight on her shoulders, she prepared to approach Mount Coronet again.
After a hasty lunch in Eterna City, Mars ran off to the entrance of the iconic mountain. Upon reaching the entrance, she gazed up at the sight of the mountain. To be honest, it looked a lot bigger from where she stood as opposed to the view from Hearthome City.
Her motivation and frustration suddenly had shards of fear jabbed into it.
"Wonderful," Mars grumbled as she walked into the cave entrance. "What could I do if I get lost? At least I've got supplies."
A sight of near-pitch black darkness greeted Mars' eyes, only to be thankfully and dimly illuminated by many shards of reflective stones embedded in the cave walls. Aware of a chasm-like slope in front of her, Mars carefully began her descent.
Dangerous, she thought. I can't imagines how people actually get through here. Even my former Team Galactic guys went through here nonetheless.
Climbing down rock by rock, Mars felt her feet finally hit solid and flat, rocky, ground.
What worried Mars most was the amount of time the climbing took. The dark surroundings proved nothing useful to her climbing, so she would have to climb blind. But some of her friends in Floaroma Town claimed it was better to do climbing blindfolded. Alas, if it was nightfall by the time she made it through…
"Huh? What is it, Purugly?" the red-haired Trainer, Mars, raised an eyebrow at her Pokémon (who, amazingly, freely jumped out of its Poké Ball). The latter made an obvious movement pointing at Mars' bag.
"Oh, right, I do have a flashlight!" she said as if a lightbulb had lit up and flashed directly above her head, where the light shined! Now with her feet firmly planted on the ground, she put her bag in front of her, put an arm in it, and clawed for the hand-sized flashlight she absentmindedly purchased in Hearthome City. How could this be absentminded?!
Now the flashlight, an inch wide in diameter, was in her hand. Mars turned it on with a press and click of a button. If an inch-wide flashlight was only an inch wide, it would only give her limited light. However, at least she would have some means of light nonetheless.
How wrong she was.
The light, a bright, solid, white beam, burst out of its container and illuminated just about every light stone in the area where Mars was standing in. Even the stones not in the light's path were at the very least reflecting some of the light's brilliance. It certainly made all the difference. Mars could see a lot more than she asked for!
"Oh, Purugly, thanks," Mars patted her tiger cat-Pokémon on the head. "Now we're finally getting somewhere, aren't we?"
Purugly could only happily purr.
The duo then began to travel forward. Before they did, though, Mars flashed a light upward to see where she had actually climbed from.
"We're pretty deep down," she stated. "There's no telling if we'll make it out of here by nightfall. Honestly, though, I hope it's not nightfall yet!"
No turning back? Maybe not. But that would mean Mars would have spent an entire day doing nothing, except wasting time looking for a road through Mount Coronet!
At least, as Mars was soon to know as she walked, there was some proof that Trainers really did venture through here. A series of manufactured stairs lay at the end of the tunnel. Machine and laser-cut steps, as Mars analysed.
With her Purugly's strength, they pushed fallen boulders away and broke rocks in their path to speed up progress. When that was over with, they walked down the stairs, each obstacle rolling and bouncing off the steps and ended up with a thundering sound (a rumble) that rebounded off the walls and shook the cave.
Swinging her flashlight forward (in this case, downward), Mars could finally see the bottom of the stairs, and many more light stone shards embedded in the walls guiding the way ahead. Puruguly, like Mars, didn't need to be reminded that they were underground. Despite possible events or outcomes, Mars wasn't scared nonetheless. She had travelled to the summit before, after all.
But travelling to Snowpoint City?! Her former Team Galactic colleague Jupiter had travelled there before, let alone crossing the route through Mount Coronet. Sometimes, once in a while, Mars would always question why she ever wanted to tackle the mission her former crime boss Cyrus had assigned her at Lake Verity. Was it because of the warmer climate? Or was it because of the bitter cold? Either way, it all pointed to the fact that it was cold.
No wonder Mars wanted to take on Lake Verity in the first place.
Deep within Mount Coronet, where temperatures began to drop, Mars stopped for a well-deserved break and shared some food with Purugly from her bag, whilst finally extracting that jacket of hers and putting it on over her red sweater and black dress. Purugly, meanwhile, helped herself to a couple of apples from Mars' bag as Mars was busy.
Mars then twisted and opened a bottle of fresh water, and within moments she had downed a quarter of the bottle before realising how thirsty she was. Although she had travelled only a somewhat long distance, the closing space and simulated feeling of being underground somehow made her throat dry (for the most part, Mars noticed, due to the concealed stuffy air).
"It sure feels like a long road," she said to Purugly, who went on to munch on the apples. Watching Purugly eat, Mars reached into her bag to grab an apple to eat also. For only a few moments, Mars could rest a bit. At least the underground lake provided a rich source of light to guide the way ahead, surprisingly.
When their break was over with, Mars discarded the remains of her apple for Purugly to finish. She screwed the cap on the water bottle tight, packed it, and securely zipped her black jacket on. It was hard to breathe, yes, and it only became a little demanding with the temperature decrease.
The duo cautiously walked onward, past the lake by their side, to approach a fairly large hole in the wall. Judging by the size of the hole and the direction it was going in, the Pokémon Trainer guessed it was at least infrequently used by travellers. By the time Mars had passed through, she realised the other side was so dark that she had to stop to take her flashlight once more to examine the area.
"Oh. My. Gosh."
The sight was disheartening to see; right to the point of intimidation.
Mars found herself standing at the bottom of a very high and steep slope, sort of like a miniature mountain within the mountain. Actually, it was really close to being at the bottom of a canyon, where Mars felt she had fallen into a crevasse.
Unfortunately, progress was never going to happen unless she moved. Reluctantly, the Pokémon Trainer walked forward to find a way ahead. If all was well, she wouldn't have to make the climb. That is, the climb up and out of the canyon.
Mars hit a dead end of piled boulders. With the amount of rocks and massive obstacles sticking together such that it formed a barricade, it would take a miracle to get all of these cleared. Wonderful. Now where else could Mars go? The only option was to search for more options by the use of her flashlight. There were steep walls surrounding her sides, which she deduced were too steep to climb, with a barricade-like obstruction in front and the original path where she came from earlier.
Looking to her right, there was also a blind corner.
"Whoa. Didn't see that," she said, half-surprised.
Using the light stones, Mars analysed that behind the corner was another steep slope, but was nevertheless not so tightly angled in comparison to the intimidating cliff-like walls from behind and beside her before.
"Hmm… I think I'd better check where I'm going…" Mars decided, thinking and under the impression she might have made a mistake not unlike before. As a result, Mars glanced at her watch (a sort of all-purpose watch, called a Pokétch, complete with programs and apps like calculators, digital and analog clocks, maps, dowsing machines, etc.).
She sighed when she gazed at her compass app.
"No wonder the climbing looks bad from here," she told Purugly. "We're going south, which in turn goes to the summit and away from Snowpoint. We have to turn around."
Let's find out where Mars is heading next...