Hey everyone, got another update for you today. It looks like I might have to be on a weekly format for this after all, at least for a little while. I keep trying to sit down and write a chapter during the week and it just never happens.
That being said, I will definitely continue on with this one, as I've already got most of it planned out and I'm only getting more and more excited about it as I continue to iron out the details. I hope you all end up enjoying it as much as I am!
The late afternoon sun radiated a warm glow across the sky, having already begun its descent to the horizon by just the slightest bit. Although Ash and company had already made it most of the way to Shalour City before they ran into Korrina, one last obstacle still sat between them and their destination.
"Apparently, this place is called Reflecting Cave…" Clemont commented as the group, now with Korrina in tow, made their way into the cave's mouth. "I've heard of it before, but I've never actually been here myself."
"Yeah, that's right." Korrina confirmed, glancing over at him. "A lot of the walls here naturally reflect light, so it's like a giant cave of mirrors."
"The guide says that the walls have been known to confuse travelers passing through, and occasionally even Pokémon." Serena added, her eyes scanning the text in her guide before nervously shifting her glance to the walls around them. "I think we should be careful in here."
"Well, I don't see any mirrors yet, so I think we should be fine for a while – "Ash began, but trailed off as their path led them into a much larger chamber than the corridor they'd been in previously. The ceiling stretched at least two dozen feet above them, and the room spread out into an extremely large, open area that split off into numerous passages that all seemed to trail off in different directions. The walls and ceiling were covered with fragments of rock that appeared to them to be actual mirrors stuck inside the rocks making up the walls of the cave.
"You were saying?" Korrina chided, giggling as she grinned at his ignorance.
"Whoa…they're everywhere…!" Bonnie said, staring at the room before her in awe as a horde of Woobat flapped across the open air of the chamber.
"…Ehehe…" Ash chuckled nervously in spite of himself. "Maybe Serena's right. We don't wanna get lost in here…"
"There are so many different exits from here." Clemont said, readjusting his glasses as he examined the numerous tunnels that appeared to branch off from the room they were in. "How are we going to find the right one?"
"Oh, don't worry about that!" Korrina answered excitedly, running forward so that she was in front of the rest of them. "I've come through here a few times from both directions, so I know the layout of it pretty well. I can show you guys the way that leads out to Shalour City!"
"Oh, wow, really?" Ash replied, a touch of relief in his voice. "That'd be great!"
"Pika pika!" Pikachu added jovially.
A faint blush appeared on Korrina's face at Ash's words, and her grin grew even wider than it had been before. "Well, come on, then! We'd better get moving if we want to get to town before it gets dark."
Ash nodded and the two of them set off further into the chamber, with Korrina slightly in the lead.
"Wow! Korrina's really smart! And she's even a Gym Leader…I wonder if she could take of Clemont for me?" Bonnie mused, following closely behind Ash and Korrina.
Clemont was about to take off after her, but before he took more than a few steps he stopped, noticing something somber in the air. He turned and saw Serena standing there, a tiny frown present on her face. Her right fist was clasped over her chest as well.
"Serena…?" Clemont began slowly. "Is something wrong?"
"Huh?" Serena jumped, as if noticing Clemont for the first time. "Oh…yeah, I'm fine. Don't worry about it."
She took off past him, running to catch up with the others, who were now almost at the opposite end of the chamber. Clemont turned and watched her for a moment before sighing and following after them.
"Are we almost there?" Bonnie moaned.
"Yeah, we should be getting close." Korrina answered encouragingly. Some time had passed since they had entered the cave, and though they had managed to stay on track thanks to Korrina's directions, that hadn't stopped the strange mirrors placed all around the caves to give the group splitting headaches.
"Can't say I'm gonna miss this place too much." Ash commented, rubbing his temple. "If it weren't for Korrina, who knows how long it would've taken us to get out of here."
Korrina beamed at his compliment as the tunnel rounded another corner, putting them directly in front of another mirror panel. The odd thing about the reflections in the cave was that they always seemed to be in a place where they caught other mirror panels, and the reflections would continue infinitely. In addition, there was simply something off about the feeling it gave to look into the panels; it made your head fuzzy and almost seemed as if the mirrors were going to pull you inside of them.
"Aww, I'm sooo tired of this place!" Bonnie yelled angrily upon seeing the mirror around the corner.
"Na-na…" Dedenne agreed sadly. It curled up into a tight ball inside Bonnie's purse.
"To be honest, we're actually pretty lucky." Korrina said. "Usually I run into at least one group of confused and angry Pokémon that's been driven into a frenzy by the effects of the mirrors."
"Really?" Clemont replied inquisitively. "That does seem odd…now that I think about it, we haven't really seen that many Pokémon in here at all."
The group was silent for a moment as they pondered his words. Before any of them could continue the dialogue, however, they heard a peculiar sound from above them that sounded suspiciously like shifting rocks.
"What's that…?" Ash asked worriedly, all of them stopping to look up for the source of the noise. In the near-darkness, it was difficult for them to see the roof of the tunnel.
"You don't think…it's gonna cave in on us?!" Bonnie uttered hastily, growing more frightened by the second.
"No, it shouldn't…" Korrina answered, but there wasn't much assurance in her voice. "Actually, that sounds more like…"
Suddenly, an enormous blanket of what appeared to be large, armored seeds dropped down on top of them, causing Bonnie to scream and the rest of the group to rear back in shock.
"Wh-what are those?!" Bonnie cried.
"It's a nest of Ferroseed!" Korrina answered quickly. "I knew we were getting way too lucky!"
The mob of Ferroseed appeared extremely angry at the group for some reason, and, without giving any of them time to react, they began lobbing themselves forward in attack.
"Aaaah!" Ash cried, narrowly dodging a few of them as they launched themselves at his head. Clemont, and Serena performed a similar maneuver, and Bonnie even threw herself to the ground to protect herself. Korrina, meanwhile, activated the roller-skates in her shoes and evaded the attacks that way.
Ash then turned and faced the Ferroseed he had just dodged. "All right, Pikachu, use Thunderbolt!"
"Pikaaaa-chuuuuu!" Pikachu squealed, leaping up off Ash's shoulder and firing off its signature electric attack at the group of Pokémon. The bolt made contact with all of them, but they didn't even appear to notice the attack, shrugging it off without so much as a second thought before charging at the group again.
"Thunderbolt didn't work?!" Ash exclaimed in surprise before dodging the second wave of attacks.
"Ferroseed are grass and steel types, remember?" Clemont berated. "Pikachu electric attacks aren't even going to leave a scratch on them!"
"Oh, yeah…you're right…!" Ash grunted angrily, gritting his teeth in frustration.
"Come on, guys! We've got to make a run for it!" Korrina urged, looking back to the rest of them for a moment. At that same moment, however, the Ferroseed in front of her decided to attack again, using their Iron Head once again to charge at her, except that this time they aimed for her feet.
"Korrina, watch out!" Bonnie cried, pointing at the charging Ferroseed, but it was too late. Korrina turned and saw them just as they slammed into her skates, knocking her off her feet and destroying her roller skates in the process.
Korrina howled in pain as she was thrown back and to the ground.
"Korrina!" Ash exclaimed angrily.
Serena saw what happened as well, and knew that they had to fight back somehow if they wanted to get out of this situation safely. She reached into her pack and pulled out the one filled Poké Ball she had in her possession. "Fennekin, I choose you!"
"Fennnekin!" Fennekin growled, emerging in a flash of light onto the cave floor. Ash looked over at the two of them with a mix of wonder and surprise.
The Ferroseed surrounding them suddenly tensed up at the emergence of a pure fire-type into their midst. They didn't attack again for a few moments, merely grunting ambiguously as they stared down the group of trainers and Pokémon.
Serena used this time to think of a plan. "Fennekin can't win against all of them, even if it does have the advantage…especially if there are even more of them up on the ceiling…" Her eyes narrowed and she suddenly pivoted 180 degrees, pointing in the direction of the cave's exit. "Fennekin, use Flamethrower!"
Fennekin obeyed, turning around and spraying the path before them with a blast of fire, causing the entire group of Ferroseed that had been blocking the way to leap out of the way, leaving the path clear.
"Come on! Let's go!" Serena called, gesturing for the others to follow her as she and Fennekin quickly took off down the path toward the exit.
The others followed suit without any hesitation, with Ash taking Korrina on his back due to her injured feet. The Ferroseed took up the chase quickly, bounding along the walls and beginning to fire off sporadic Pin Missile shots at them.
"Pikachu, try to block them with Iron Tail!" Ash ordered, struggling to keep Korrina hoisted up on his shoulders.
"Pika!" Pikachu answered affirmatively, charging up its tail with energy and using it to parry any blasts that came near Ash or Korrina.
"Fennekin, keep hitting them with Flamethrower!" Serena called, to which Fennekin also obliged, continuing to spray fire at the mob of Pokémon chasing them that actually seemed to be growing larger.
"I don't get it!" Bonnie shouted in despair. "Why are they attacking us?!"
"I told you before, it's the mirrors!" Korrina answered. "Living in this cave causes the Pokémon here to get confused and angry sometimes and they just attack people out of nowhere!"
"Well, why don't they just go and live somewhere else?!" Bonnie squeaked.
"Hey, I think I see the exit!" Ash announced excitedly, pointing to a dim light shining from the end of the corridor.
"Yeah…just a little farther!" Clemont wheezed, barely managing to keep pace with the others.
Pikachu continued watching the Ferroseed nearest to Ash in anticipation of their next Pin Missile, but suddenly its ear perked up and it noticed them behaving oddly. It increased its speed and caught up to Fennekin near the front of their group, attempting to point out the oddity. Fennekin noticed as well.
"Hey, what's wrong, you guys?" Ash asked, looking down at Pikachu and Fennekin.
"Pika pika! Pikachu!" Pikachu explained urgently.
"Fennnekinnn!" Fennekin added.
"Fennekin, too? What's wrong?" Serena inquired, not quite understanding what her Pokémon was trying to say.
"Hey, you guys…" Korrina began slowly, noticing the same thing that Pikachu and Fennekin had. "I think we need to get out of here. Like, right now."
"What? What's wrong?!" Ash asked, getting the sense that something bad was about to happen.
"I think I get what the Pokémon are trying to say…" Korrina explained grimly. "The Ferroseed - They're getting ready to use Explosion!"
Everyone's jaw dropped when they heard her words, and glanced over to the Ferroseed to confirm her suspicion. They seemed to have stopped attacking, almost as if they were building up energy for something.
"But…if this many Pokémon use Explosion at the same time, and in this tight of a space…" Clemont deduced, slowly coming to the same dark conclusion that Pikachu and Fennekin had.
Almost as if on cue, the entire horde that had been chasing them stopped moving and began to shine a brilliant white at the same time, as if they were beginning to evolve.
"W-what if we don't make it out of here - ?!" Serena uttered, but Ash cut her off.
"We're gonna make it!" He answered defiantly.
They lowered their heads and sprinted with all of their might to the cave exit, and just as they passed through the warm and inviting passage leading to the outside, the few dozen Ferroseed lining the cave walls all suddenly let loose their Explosion attack in unison. A deafening boom filled the air as an enormous shockwave launched them out of the cave with all the force of a hurricane.
Now, when I first realized that I wanted to do something with Reflection Cave, my mind instantly jumped to the anime episode that featured it. I loved that depiction of it, and played around with doing some adaptation of that here. But I ultimately decided that it would've ended up being mostly a copy of that episode, only with Korrina thrown in, and I didn't want to do that. As close as I like to stick to the anime, I always try to avoid outright copying it, because that's not interesting. The only time I do that is with flashbacks to actual anime events, which I usually try to flesh out in the subtext anyway for whatever point I'm trying to get across by using them.
Anyway, all that is to say that I know my version of the Cave isn't as interesting as the one in the anime, but I hope you enjoyed it all the same. Please remember to read and review!