Laborious Labyrinth ~ Part 2 of 7
A/N: OK...*brushes off* I'm up now, so let's get on with part 2, eh? Aheheh...
Lance laid sprawled out on the center of a hard stone floor with his brother to his right and his sister to his left. He moaned and sat up, finding Ash flopped at his feet, flat on his face. Lance stood and brushed off, searching around the premises. Kind of small, but not small enough to give him a heart attack. He looked up, finding the room to be pitch-black, save the light from a small window at the top of the tall room they landed in. He heard a rumble and watched the tunnel they'd fallen from slam shut and lock. He shuddered, as he saw no other way out. His brother and sister moaned and sat up, then Ash came to, all three pairs of eyes spiraling and spinning.
Lance carefully helped his sister stand, ignoring his brother and the kid, "Where are we?" Vic murmured, holding her head.
"I don't honestly know," Lance looked upward and side to side, "But that little tunnel there is where we fell in from."
"This is totally warped…" Victor snorted, crossing his arms and legs while sitting in the corner, "The least they could have done is trapped me somewhere with a girl or two."
"Now is not the time for your idiocy!" Vic thundered, leaning toward him.
His hair merely swished at his sister's shouting, "Nope. Not one girl here…"
Vic growled and whipped out a mallet, smashing her twin over the head with it, "One of these days, you little-"
"Stop fighting," Lance puffed, "I'd rather like to get out of here if you don't mind."
"Okie!" Vic obeyed her older brother with ease, hopping up beside him and smiling crazily.
Victor groaned about his sore head before noticing Ash scrambling around on his hands and knees, "Um…Ash-chan…What are you up to?"
"Looking for Pikachu!" he screeched, searching high and low, "Does anybody see him?!"
"I think I saw Misty with him just before we fell down here…" Vic put her right index finger up to her temple, "But I may be mistaken, or they may have gotten separated."
Ash sprawled out on his back, wailing helplessly as Lance snorted and searched around, "Is this some kind of sick joke, Sakaki?!" he roared, "Or are you afraid to let me out to find you?!"
With perfect timing to the word afraid, two lights lit on the opposite wall, revealing a door with a Marowak head-shaped handle. As these two lights came on, the tiny window above them slammed shut, leaving their facial features illuminated with eerie fiery light. Vic cowered up behind Lance, ducking under his cloak and shaking. Lance rolled his eyes and walked for the door, pulling his sister's cover away. She shrieked and followed quickly, holding his shoulders.
"That's more like it," Lance fumed, slowly turning the handle.
"Yeah!" Victor snorted, trying to sound important.
Ash sprang to his feet, flailing out behind the Ryujin trio just before the door slammed shut. They found themselves in a tall dome-shaped room. The floor was black marble with a central design Lance recognized from his studies of the Wandering Beasts when he was but a preteen in Blackthorn. It showed all seventeen Pokemon elements along with some decorative swirls and motifs. A lamp to their left flickered on with a hot red bulb, then another beside it lit with a blue bulb, then another with yellow, and another with green. This pattern continued along around the circular room, the quartet's eyes following each light that appeared. It came out to a total of twelve lights, three of each color, with the last green light flickering to life beside the first red one.
"OK…I vote to leave now," Ash trembled behind Victor.
"Shut your mouth, kid," Lance growled, scowling back on him.
Vic peeked around her brother's side, ignoring his verbal duel, "Ooh…That's a pretty floor," she grinned, then walked around and out to the center to examine it better.
The floor Vic was standing on started to slowly quake. Victor hopped out beside her and the floor started falling. Only the elemental pattern descended as the marbled ring remained stationary. Lance jumped down the two feet it had dropped, dragging the whimpering Ash Ketchum behind him. As it fell another ten/fifteen feet, the floor started spinning clockwise. The podium finally stopped dropping, but the spinning refused to cease. The wall around the podium twirled counter-clockwise, a series of cubbyholes indented at even spacing. They looked up, finding the level they'd been at too high to reach.
Ash's eyes spun as he attempted to watch one door, "Oh…This is really, really nauseating…"
"Stop that," Lance gave him a good whack in the back of the head, "Draco, I choose you! Get us up to that upper level!" he threw his Rage Ball out onto the floor.
The Poke'Ball hit the ground, everyone expecting the great and terrible Draco Dragonite to burst out and carry them up. They all stood there, watching the Poke'Ball, waiting. And waiting. And waiting.
"What goes?!" Lance freaked, retrieving his Poke'Ball and throwing it again, "Come on, Draco! Come out!"
Still the Pokemon did not emerge. Lance flopped to his knees, bawling uncontrollably. Vic patted his head as his wailing slowed and he merely sniffled.
"It appears little Mr. Sakaki has decided we can't use our Pokemon," Victor crossed his arms, looking amazingly stupid with his hair whipping about and his face dead still.
"How can you tell that?" Ash asked, fingering his cap in both hands.
"Pulses of ionizing radiation can cause electron-hole pairs, causing electronic devices to not work. That keeps Poke'Balls from opening. Hopefully, it'll just be temporary and not permanent," Victor grinned in satisfaction with himself, then slouched slightly, looking thoughtful, "At least…That's something like what Kudou told me…"
"Who?" Ash was now feeling extremely dense and could feel Lance glaring slightly at him from behind.
"Kudou is a Pokemon researcher," Vic steadied her sniveling brother as he leaned his head on her shoulder, staring sadly at his Poke'Ball, "He's friends with Morty, Eusine and Eevy, and came to Rainbow Metro to visit them once. Mostly to nag on Eusine that he's a father," she snickered evilly.
"Oh…OK…" Ash shrugged and put his hat on backwards, "So…What do we do?"
"In your case, growing a brain might help a bit," Lance grumbled, then looking slightly more composed, "I want out of here."
"You should be nicer to me, ya' know," Ash crossed his arms and grinned, sticking his nose in the air, "Or else Eevy will get angry. And you wouldn't like that, would you?"
Lance clenched his fists at his sides and turned a hot red, his ears an even brighter crimson, "Listen, you little twerp!" he latched onto Ash's collar and hoisted him up the extra foot to his face, "You mouth off one more time and I swear to God I'll-"
"Lance, let him go!" Vic grabbed her brother's wrists, "Put him down, Lance!"
"Chill out, man!" Victor tried to drag him back by his cloak, "He's just trying to sound tough! Eevy and Draco will both be fine!"
"I swear, kid," Lance lifted Ash higher, "You make one more snide remark, and I'll pull you limb from limb. No hesitation, no matter what Eevy thinks of you."
Ash was too petrified to move or offer a reply as Vic and Victor kept pulling their brother away, "Let him go!" Vic screeched, "This isn't helping our predicament at all!"
"Come on, Lance! If you want to get out of here and make sure Eevy and Draco are safe, let him go!" Victor started pulling harder.
Lance let go suddenly to pull forward on the neck of his cloak, but the spinning of the podium sent him tumbling back into his brother and sent his sister sailing. Ash dropped right to the floor and sprawled out as Vic tripped left, Victor right, and Lance straight back. Vic shrieked as she flew back into one of the cubbyholes on the wall, then sat up and watched her brothers do the same. Lance stumbled backwards, then spun to plant his face right on the back wall of one, and Victor rolled head-over-heels right into the box directly across from his twin. Ash started to sit up, ready to jump up and scramble away from Lance again, but saw that he didn't see any of the Ryujin trio. Anywhere. At all. His eyes nearly fell out as he looked up and saw the ceiling getting a lot closer than it had been. He flopped out flat again and held his hat down, prepared to get flattened on the roof, but he felt the podium jolt and found himself but ten or twelve feet from the top of the dome. He sighed heavily and flopped to his side.
"What happened? Where are you guys?" he called, peeking over the edge.
Lance, who had both hands over his eyes, slowly separated his index and middle fingers. He shot up straight, back against the wall, and nearly suffocated. Vic and Victor also looked around blankly. The floor had risen again and blocked them right inside the cubbyholes they'd fallen into. About three feet across and tall and about two feet deep, they were quite the tiny spot to try and fit the six foot nine Dragon Master in. And we all know how Lance feels about…
"Small space!" came the sudden shriek from below, reverberating about the dome-shaped roof, "Heeelp!"
Vic and Victor sweatdropped as their brother started flailing and kicking aimlessly, screaming at the top of his lungs. That tiny, cramped box he was stuck in was giving him a heart attack. Or at least that's what it felt like to him. It was small, it was dark, it was small, it was musty, it was small, it was quiet (excepting his shrieking), and it was extremely small. He stopped in mid-wail and pulled his knees to his chin, shaking and whining that he was going to die. Vic started feeling around the walls, searching for a switch or lever. She also noticed by doing this that the walls and the floor had both stopped spinning.
"Victor!" she called, "See if you can find a way out of these crazy things!"
"I have been!" he echoed back, "I can't see or feel anything except wall!"
Vic could now here Lance murmuring to himself, "I'm not going to die, just whither away," he was saying, "I never got to marry Eevy. Or kill Ash. But, hey. He's stuck too, so who really gives a flip and a half…"
"Instead of wallowing in your despair, you could be looking for a way out too," Victor puffed.
"Leave him alone. You know he's claustrophobic," Vic hissed back, "What are you doing up there, Ash?"
There was a slight pause before he answered, as he was hopping down off the podium and onto the floor beside the door they'd come in, "Looking for some way to drop this thing again. I don't see any kind of switches or levers or anything."
"I've gotta get out of here!" Lance suddenly burst, flipping out and kicking around again.
He kept swinging and squirming and yelling and blubbering…And Victor sweatdropped and Vic was starting to feel sorry for him. Ash was searching the premises above while the Ryujin searched below. As Lance fluttered, he kicked every wall, including the one in front. As he brought his foot around that way, the whole podium creaked and turned. He froze immediately and Ash jumped back as the podium moved. Lance reached down and found an opening on the lower section of the door. Telling himself that he had to do something not to spazz again, he hooked his foot in it and pushed with all his might. The podium started moving along, spinning with pure foot-power.
"Who's doing what?" Victor leaned away from the outside wall as it moved.
"It's me!" Lance called, pushing along, "On the bottom of the outer wall. Put your foot in the grooves and push!"
Vic started kicking the wall around as her brother did, "What good is this doing us?" she partially snorted.
"Hold up!" Victor shouted over, "There's something on this wall here…" he leaned up to the wall, a panel suddenly shooting upward and opening another cubbyhole in the base of the podium, "AH! Oh…It's a motion sensor and a door."
Lance and Vic shot back as doors in front of them did the same, "Ahh! Space!" Lance cried and hopped into it.
Little did he know…His door slapped shut behind him and he began to wail again. The floor shook and started going up again as Vic and V lunged into the doors in front of them and watched the doors crash shut behind them. Ash backed up to the wall as the podium raised higher and higher, then stopped. Three metal doors shot open and the Ryujin trio toppled out onto the floor.
Lance stood and brushed off, slightly shivering, "That…Was satanic," he heaved slightly.
"Lance!" Vic shot to her feet and scrambled around to him, jumping at him, "You're OK!"
"Yes. I'm fine," he pried her off as Victor stumbled around to them drunkenly, "You all right?"
"Fine…Just a tad queasy," Victor muttered.
They looked up toward the top of the podium as a metallic grinding sound aroused their attention. The podium spun slightly and lowered to foot-level, then turning to stop in the exact same position it had been when they'd first walked in. All four trainers stared blankly.
"Well…" Ash tilted his left eyebrow up and right down again, "That was fun."
Lance glared slightly, "I'll make a deal with you, kid. If we get out of here alive, I'll wait until after I'm through with Sakaki to kill you."
"Be nice," Vic advised, "We still have to figure out what's going on with this freakish room…"
"Hmm…" Victor examined the walls closely, "Well, there are no other doors here…"
"I am not going down into that spinning hell-hole again," Lance informed him plainly with a cross of his arms.
"Come on, man! I want to get out of here!" Victor freaked.
"Nothin' doin'," Lance shook his head.
"Please, Lance?" Vic put on Jell-O puppy-dog eyes and pleaded with her older brother, "Pretty please? For me?"
Lance started sweating profusely, gnawing his bottom lip, "N-N-No!" he shook his head and spun away, "Do not let the sad-eyed thing get to you…Do not let the sad-eyed thing get to you…"
Ash got a sudden spark of genius (Wow! Really?!) and grinned smugly at Lance from his side, "Go back down there or I'll tell Eevy you were screaming like a girl."
Lance appeared unfazed, "So what?" he thought, "Eevy knows I'm claustrophobic. And she knows I scream like a four-year-old girl…No matter how pathetic that may seem…"
But, then Ash played a trump card, "And I'll tell her you were mean to me."
Lance's eyes went wide and he twitched, remembering what Eevy had done to the enormous Buson, "Erm…Point, set, match, Ashura Ketchum. You little brat…" he murmured to himself and stepped slowly onto the design.
Ash grinned in satisfaction with himself and hopped down beside Lance as the podium again began pirouetting. Lance scowled lowly at Ash, evil, but sadistically pleasing, thoughts of leaving the kid trapped in the "spinning hell-hole" invading his previously grief-stricken mind. But, alas, if he left Ash trapped, harmed him in any way, or even looked at him funny, the little snot would go running to Eevy. She had all those mallets and paper fans and gongs and God knows what else hidden in that armament she called her bedroom closet. Plus she had those incredibly fast punches and kicks, along with that arsenal of Eevolutions that didn't like him anywhere near their Mistress. In short; she'd rip his face off, if not something else. The number of times he'd had to grab a shield; usually a pillow from a nearby couch…But by God; her heals hurt! So, in light of the fact that his beloved would try and kill him, he decided to be a happy-camper for the kid.
Sorta.
"How's about you knock your brain into gear or something, kid?" Lance pounded down on the top of Ash's head with his knuckles, "Or were you overloaded by thinking up that incredibly original- -not- -plan to get me down here?"
"Can't you be any nicer to me?" Ash asked with a smirk, "I mean, it's not my fault you're a chicken."
"I'm gonna give you such a smack," Lance snorted, raising a hand.
"Would you two break it up?!" Victor boomed, startling even Lance, "If you want out of here, stop your arguing!"
"All right, all right!" Lance waved both hands at Victor, "I get the drift! Geez, little bro. You really can be quite the demanding little boy, can't you?"
Victor turned slightly cross, "I'm not the one who's afraid of girls and closets…" he puffed while turning around.
"No, you just try to get girls in closets," he smirked evilly.
Victor shot up straight, ready to retort with mention of the time his older brother had gotten stuck in a closet with Eevy, but his sister pushed in, "All right, enough of that. Instead of snorting at each other, you could be figuring a way out of here."
"Meh," both brothers raised their right hand to one another and stomped off to opposite ends of the podium; that they'd learned from their sister.
"So…" Ash looked nervously between the Ryujin trio, "What now?"
Lance grumbled and rocked his jaw, "I suppose we try and get out of here, eh?" he puffed with a pointed look, "Maybe if we each get in a box…"
"Yeah! Like connect four!" Vic smirked and shrieked at her older brother, "You're such a genius!"
Ash's eyes began to roll, but when he caught sight of the six foot nine Dragon Master glaring at him, his eyes shot off in the opposite direction, "Yeah, OK. So, what?"
Lance stomped up beside him, "I'm willing to do this, kid, so if you mess this up, I'll hurt you. Eevy or no," he snatched Ash's wrist, "Watch for a box…" he waited and suddenly bounded forward, "And jump!"
"WAH!" Ash squeaked helplessly as Lance threw him forward, sending him into one of the cubbyholes.
Lance tightly closed his eyes as he heard his brother and sister yell, "Bomb's away!" and lunge for their own boxes. He rolled his eyes, though they were still closed, and felt the spinning stop. He then heard the central podium lock in place. He slowly and carefully opened one eye.
"Oh, I do not believe it," Victor snorted as the podium spun slightly and the sound of a metal door shooting open was heard, "Get in the stupid box and let's…Try again…"
Lance, though slightly shaken, crawled into the opposite box as it started moving upward. All four stumbled out beside the door they'd come in and the podium dropped again. Once more, they piled onto the central design and once more, they descended into the "spinning hell-hole". They tried again, this time all beside each other as a line of four. Again, they wound up kicking the podium around and springing out. Next they tried at even doors, then two beside two, then three across from one…And none of these worked. On about the seventh try, Vic stumbled around to her older brother and flopped against him.
"I can't take it anymore. I feel sick. And I'm tired. And hungry," she groaned, squeezing his waist, "Nighty-night."
"Wake up!" Lance suddenly shook her awake, "Don't fall asleep, Vic! Stay awake!" he stomped out into the center of the podium, dragging her with him as the still wobbling Ash and Victor followed, "I want out of this screwed-up excuse for a carnival attraction!" he stomped his right foot as hard as he could.
His boot pounded the floor so hard that the podium creaked. Everyone looked down as Lance pulled his foot away from the center ring he'd taken his fury out on. From the center were four thick, curving lines, and each one led to one of the four major elements. Each line lit up and started glowing with a swirling liquid of either yellow, red, green or blue. At the end of the red line, a bright red flame glowed; for the blue, a teardrop; for the green, a diamond; for the yellow, three swirling lines. Each of the four trainers looked at a different element, then all four looked at each other, blinked a few times, and shrugged.
"Well…That was…Interesting," Ash nodded slowly, "But doesn't this mean we've been doing it wrong the whole time?"
Vic let out one long, wailing scream while Victor drooped, "Guess so…"
"Hmm…" Lance crossed his arms, "Perhaps the whole four-box theory isn't totally inaccurate after all."
"Do you have a plan, Lance?" Vic asked, buzzing around him.
Lance widened his left eye at her and narrowed his right, causing her to shrink back a bit, "The four major elements are fire, wind, water, and earth. And I just noticed that above the doors," he pointed, "Are symbols matching the pattern of the graph on the floor."
"Oh yeah. I didn't see that either," Ash scratched the top of his head, "Heh…Go figure."
"Really. How could an observant little guy like you possibly have missed that?" Victor teased as Ash huffed.
"Anyway…" Lance cleared his throat, "Perhaps if we match the elements to the doors? And…From the look of this floor…" he looked down, "I'd say we have a pretty good idea which elements to shoot for."
"I call fire!" Vic shrieked, throwing her arm up and jumping up and down.
"No way! I call fire!" her twin snapped, growling at her.
"I called it first!" she barked back, raising a fist as Victor did.
"You can both shut up," Lance ordered, "Vic can take fire, since she did call it first, baby bro," he grinned as Victor glared evilly at him, "You can take water, since that's what I'm telling you to take. I'll take Earth, since it's my Prophetic element. And seeing as how Ashura here is such a little airhead, he can take wind."
Both Ash and Victor scowled lowly at Lance as he traipsed over beside Vic, "I'll make a deal with you this time," Victor whispered to Ash, "If all four of us get out of here alive, I'll help you kill him."
"Is everybody ready?" Lance looked over his shoulder at V and Ash and to his side at Vic.
"You bet!" Vic cheered.
"All set!" V nodded.
"Uh…Yeah," Ash murmured.
"OK. On three. One…Two…" Lance covered his eyes, "Three!"
All three Ryujin sprang on cue, but the only Ketchum hesitated. He started to jump, but jerked back for a moment. As he started to spring for it, the podium whirled back up, causing him to crash into the wall face-first. He rolled backwards and whined helplessly, trying to ignore the fact that Lance was screaming unrepeatable comments from his cubbyhole below. Vic and V grumbled something Ash couldn't make out, and was partially glad he couldn't.
"I'd suggest somehow running right about now, kid!" Lance gnarled, the podium spinning a bit, "Because as soon as I get up there, I'm gonna mangle you into a soccer ball!"
"Oh no, oh no, oh no!" Ash scrambled about, screeching frantically, "AHH!" he backed up to the wall as the podium started sliding upward.
"There you are!" Lance thundered, storming around from Ash's left, "I'm gonna wring your scrawny little neck and burn that goofy cap a' yours! Comere!"
"HELP!" Ash took off, flying out onto the podium with Lance directly behind, "NO! Stay away! WAH!"
Lance grabbed his collar from behind and spun him around, hoisting him up with one arm and aiming his free fist right for his nose, "Don't scream too loud, huh? Don't wanna upset Vic."
"BWAH?! NO! Please!" Ash waved his hands side to side in front of him, "Please don't kill me! Spare me! Spare me!" he crossed his arms in front of his face, "Wait! Wait, please!"
"What? A final request?" he grinned evilly, "Make it quick."
"No! Not a request! But you need four people to get out of here, right? And if you waist me now, how will you get out of here?" he pleaded, whimpering slightly every now and again.
"Ouch…Good point," Victor murmured from behind.
"Erm…" Lance's face tweaked a bit, "Fine. But once we're out of here…" he released Ash's collar, sending him flying to the floor, "We're getting it this time, got it?!" he gnarled.
"Uh huh…" the other three nodded quickly.
"On three," Victor swallowed as they took their positions, "One."
"Two," Vic closed her eyes.
"Two and a half?" Ash squeaked.
"Three, you little twerp!" Lance snorted and flew forward.
Ash lunged forward, planting his face on the back wall of his box, Victor and Victoria bounced along and slid on their knees into theirs and Lance took a flying leap for it. The sound of grinding metal caused their eyes to open, finding that each box was pitch black. Lance was about to begin wailing when the podium started spinning. They watched carefully as the central platform twisted and dropped at the same time. The floor slowly descended another ten or twelve feet, clanking to a stop. All four trainers peeked out, slowly looking over the edge. Vic screeched giddily and pointed down toward the wall below.
"Look!" she squealed, "A door!" she flew out of her box and landed on her feet, careening toward it.
"Hurrah!" Victor followed quickly, "We did it!"
"Enough of this spinning hell-hole!" Lance lunged down as well, springing toward his siblings.
"Hey! Wait for me!" Ash cried, dangling from the bottom edge of his box, "Woah!" he slipped and fell to the hard floor, landing firmly on his rear, "Wait up!" he scrambled to his feet, grabbed his cap off the floor, and flew to their side.
Lance carefully turned the doorknob and glanced in silently, "Seems OK," he wandered in to a room the size of the one they'd been in just after falling from the tunnel.
Vic, Victor and Ash followed close behind, "Wonder what we do now," Ash looked quietly around the room.
Just as everyone was about to start searching for any ways out, the lights flicked off, leaving them in the pitch blackness, "Oh, come on…" Victor grumbled.
"What was that?" Ash asked quietly, "Did anybody else hear that?"
"Hear what?" Lance asked, "Ouch! Wall…"
"I didn't hear anything," Vic whispered.
"Me neither," Victor agreed.
"Sounded like…A door…Or something…" Ash put his hand on the wall.
Victor backed up slowly to the wall, accidentally hitting Ash, "Oh! I'm sorry!"
"My hat!" he whined, his cap flipping right off his head, "Where'd it go?!"
His hat went soaring through the air, flying down in front of him, "I didn't hear it hit the floor," Vic murmured, "Did somebody catch it?"
"Not me," the other three answered together.
There was a sudden flop from far below, "Was…That it?" Victor shivered.
"But it sounded so far away," Ash shook.
"Ah, it probably landed somewhere across the room," Lance shrugged, walking forward to find it, "Probably noth-AHHH!"
"Lance?!" Vic shrieked, "Where'd you go?! Where is he?!"
"OW!" came his echo of pain, "That hurt…"
"What hap-AH!"
"Where are-EEH!"
"How come you're-WAH!"
Just after all four of his captives had fallen through the open center of the floor, Giovanni motioned to Bonnie and Clyde to close the gap again. And to focus in on another room…
*^~^*Part 2: End*^~^*
A/N: Yes, I am evil. Isn't it obvious? Heh...Anyway, I really have no comments, except that I actually might get to stay home and watch "Pocket Monsters Advance Generation" next weekend. *looks around* Please, oh please, oh pleeeaaase! *falls over again* [Usagi: Oh brother. -_-]
*^~^*Pro_V*^~^*
.:O=Usagi-chan=O:.
-=O~The Other Pokemon~O=-
Next: Special Edition: Laborious Labyrinth: Part 3 of 7.
TAA Pokemon Of The Month: March 2003: The Tree Gecko Pokemon Jupitol