Chapter Seven

It didn't take long for Julian to form a simple vine ladder down to the prison pit, but it took considerably longer for him to make it strong enough to bear Titan's weight. (Whatever else they were, Rhyperior were certainly not lightweights.) Before he did so, though, he sent Gothielle and Fiona down to try to catch Jessie and Darkat before they could get away.

Or, rather, before Darkat and Woobat could get away carrying Jessie, who was thankfully unconscious. Darkat rolled her eyes. Of all the humans to break out of a prison pit with, why did it have to be a woman who grew her hair like a comet tail and spoke in terrible poetry? Shedoesn'tbelonginTeamRocket, the Purrloin thought to herself as she tried to lug Jessie's ankles to safety while Woobat supported the rest of Jessie by holding her hair in its teeth. Shebelongsineitheranasylumoracheapcircus.Iamgenuinelyembarrassedeventobetouchingherfootwear.

Darkat tended to think things like this to herself, using long words in English just to remind herself that she COULD speak, which was almost a miracle in itself. Almost. For most people in Unova that she'd met, though, it had only marked her as a freak, like some sort of Missingno such as, for instance, a Pokemorph, which was a controversial type of creature to even exist with Team Plasma running around.

Darkat wasn't a Pokemorph. Not exactly, anyway. Her father had been a Shinx Pokemorph, and her mother had been a regular Purrloin. Don't ask how that worked. Actually, Pokemon reproduced by overlapping portions of their respective auras to form an egg, so it wasn't as bad as it sounded. A lot healthier than human reproduction, and to most Pokemon, much less gag-inducing. Imaginecarryingyoureggsinyourabdomenforninemonths!It just didn't bear thinking about, especially when you considered multiple births.

Funnythethingsthatrunthroughyourmindwhenyou'rerunningforyourlife, thought Darkat. HereIam,luggingacomatosehumannutjobthroughadarkandwindingtunnel,beingpursuedby...

No one?

It occurred to her that if anyone had been really serious about catching them, they'd have arrived by then. Two rather smallish Pokemon lugging a fully grown human through a dark underground tunnel couldn't move very fast, yet Darkat heard nothing. Even Woobat hadn't sensed any pursuers.

So what were Fiona and the Gothielle doing?

Answer: Beingafraid.Beingveryafraid. Because unlike Darkat and her crew, they knew exactly what the trio was about to run into. Gothielle had seen it; yet another amazing feat from a creature that saw what few others could see. She saw a creature of pure darkness, spawned from an error of judgment and living only for vengeance on those who had wronged it. She saw a raging monster as if from the depths of Hell itself, waiting in a tortured slumber for some brave fool to dare challenge it – and perish. What she saw was the Primal Banette.


While Gothielle was seeing all this, James was completely lost in the Between, where every tree looked the same and every pool of water just like the next. Panicking, James felt as if he had been running for hours, yet he couldn't tell if he was running away from something or running to it. He was hopelessly trapped, trapped from the inside in his own despair, certain that behind every tree branch lurked a sinister being out for his blood. (This was completely unsupported by any evidence whatsoever, as no one seemed to have been IN the Between – besides the myriad Celebi – for ages; and if they had, they certainly hadn't shown any trace of it.) And oddly enough, although James had been trying to escape his Celebi captor, now he only wished for her to return for him, just so he wouldn't be alone.

Worst of all, he was starving. None of the trees bore edible fruit (or any fruit at all, for that matter), and there were no berry bushes or other consumables in sight. The pools provided fresh water for drinking, but there were no fish to catch in them; not that James was really fond of sushi, but at this point, he was famished enough to try anything. Even the grass itself looked tempting, and to a Grass-type trainer, that only showed how desperate he was.

I'mlosingmymindhere! he thought desperately. "Help!" James yelled into the forest. "Help me! Somebody help me! Please! I'm going to die out here!"

And then a pair of humongous red eyes appeared in the shadows, causing James to jump a mile and scream like a baby, hitting his head on a tree branch and nearly knocking himself unconscious.

Fortunately, the humongous red eyes belonged to a not-so-proportionally-humongous friend of his that really, truly couldn't help it if it looked an awful lot like a sinister being emerging from the shadows to leech out his life force, as if there had been much left for it to leech out anyways. "Maask!" said the familiar ghost Pokemon. "Yamaaask!"

James was overjoyed, if a little dizzy. "I thought I'd never see you again!"

"Yaaa-Maaaask!

It was motioning for James to follow it. With nowhere left to turn, James eagerly followed, tripping over his own feet in disorientation while hoping against hope that his Pokemon would somehow lead him out of this nightmare and back to his teammates.

And even when Yamask led him right back to the suspicious-looking doorway set in the unnaturally large tree, James only slightly hesitated before he walked right in. Mightaswelldiehereasanywhereelse, he thought resignedly. Of course, the last time he went into what looked like a giant tree, he'd been eaten by a defense pod and almost perished. But even if it was eat or be eaten, he wasn't about to turn down any chance to do the former, not in his current state. Even if the mysterious message carved above the doorway still said what looked like the runic equivalent of WelcometoHell. Not that he could tell at that moment, since in his current state, he could barely see the letters.

The pathway led down what seemed to be a flight of stairs (in a tree? Curiouser and curiouser) until it reached a closed door with a golden light streaming from the crack underneath it. Even in his near-delirium, James had the feeling that something very strange was waiting for him on the other side, but at the moment, he didn't care if it was dark or benign, just so long as it ended this charade of notknowing what the heck was going on here.

Taking a deep breath and trying to quiet his pounding heart, his throbbing head, and his growling stomach, James opened the door.

What he saw completely snapped him back into coherency.

Author's Note: Looks like he's taking what's behind door no. 3... heh heh heh. What lurks within the great tree? And what the hey is Primal Banette, anyway? Must be pretty vicious if Gothielle and Fiona are risking Titan's wrath to avoid it...

Anyway, I edited the James section of this chapter shortly after watching the Applebuck Season episode of Friendship is Magic, since Applejack's situation with being overworked seemed much like how James was feeling in this situation, and I realized that I could get a lot of humor out of it, even though I'm sure James doesn't think it's funny at all. Excuse me while I dodge Yamask's Night Shade attack. *ducks*