Author's Note: I'm so, so, so, so, so sorry it took so long to update last time! Do you wanna hear the whole story? I bet you probably don't, but I'm feeling really frustrated about it and I need to vent. So at the start of this summer, I had chapters 1-7 done, and I updated them gradually over the month of August while I was at my grandparent's house. But during the summer, I was experiencing writer's block, so I couldn't update past chapter 7. Then I went home and my parents have this thing about letting me use their computers for the internet unless it's homework. They are afraid I'll ruin their computers or put a virus on it… x rolls eyes x So they got me a USB port that gave me internet on my computer, but one day it wasn't receiving the signal properly, so my dad thought it was broken, even though I knew it wasn't, so there was no way for me to get on the internet and update even if I had finished chapter 8. I had gotten a nook over the summer, which has internet on it but I can't update my stories on it. Don't get me wrong, I love this website, but it is frustrating that I can't just write my chapter while I'm on the website; I have to download it onto DocX, so I couldn't update even when a certain author who goes by the name of Mammondaughter inspired me to finish chapter 8 and write chapter 9! Sorry about my ranting, I'm finished now. So unless you really care, you can just skip this part…
Author's note 2: So I finished chapter 9, and now on to chapter 10! Wow, I can't believe how quickly I finished chapter 9 after finishing chapter 8! Must be a record for me … Anyways, thanks for all my reviews! It makes me smile and feel all fuzzy inside. Plus it makes me write faster. *hint hint* Oh! I almost forgot the disclaimer… it seems pretty stupid that we actually have to put a disclaimer, because of course it's not mine, this is a FANFICTION website, but whatever. All standard disclaimers apply. I do not own pokémon.
Chapter 10: The Dark World
Everything was black for a minute, and then my surroundings cleared and I saw that I was standing on the top of a hill overlooking a black sea. I heard a gasp beside me, and I turned to look at Grovyle, who was looking the other way. I spun around to look at whatever had made him gasp, and I too gasped. Whatever I had thought of the dark world that we lived in, it was nothing compared to the wreckage that lay before me.
There were ruins dotting the plain below the hill that we were standing upon. Many of the ruins were still smoking, even though I could tell that whatever had happened here had happened long ago, judging by the weeds that grew over everything. But the darkness had affected the plants as well. The weeds that grew were evil-looking, with sharp spines and dark, nasty colors. I saw that the few trees that still grew were twisted and completely black, as if they were in a suspended state of rotting, and the smoke coming from the ruins laid a foul fog over everything.
I shook my head in disbelief. As much as I hated the perpetual darkness of our world, this world was worse, way worse. But what I had told Espeon was true: we had no choice in the matter. If we didn't try, Ninetales would die, and be stuck here for all eternity. At that thought, my shocked paralysis broke, and I spoke to Grovyle.
"Staring at this won't help Ninetales. If anything, this sight should make us all the more determined to find his spirit and return it to his body, so he doesn't have to stay here. Come on, Grovyle!" I said when he still didn't move. He shook his head and looked over at me.
"Sorry. I –I can't believe this. And to imagine that I thought the world we lived in was dark." He said, echoing my own thoughts.
"Well, the difference is that we can cure our world's darkness. There's nothing we can do here but find Ninetales and return with him." I replied briskly, and started down the hill. "We'd better get going. We only have … 39 hours and 56 minutes before we have to leave," I said, checking the monitor, which I had set to count down until we had to leave. Grovyle nodded and hurried after me, neither of us looking back.
"I wonder if we came in at the same place that Ninetales did. If not, then we are just wandering blind. Who knows how big this world is. We could be here for days and not find him." Grovyle said, but I shook my head.
"Espeon said that since we would enter the dark world at the same place as Ninetales that we would come out at the same place. I can't imagine that he would go towards those ruins, and Espeon also said that the dark world is not very big. If we hurry and stay on track, we should catch up to him. Well, maybe. He does have a two-hour head start on us. We'll have to hurry." I replied, and sped up. Grovyle, obviously thinking along the same lines as me, ran forward and leapt into a tree, scanning the area.
I halted beside the tree, and after a few minutes, he hopped down and said, "It looks like a straight path from here for quite a ways; as long as Ninetales didn't leave the path we should run into him at some point." I nodded, and we kept going.
After going for a while in silence, I became uncomfortable. I wanted to talk, keep our minds off the horrible things in this world, but I couldn't think of anything to talk about. Eventually I asked about his family. "Grovyle, what happened to your family? Have you always been alone?" He remained silent so long that I thought I had offended him, and I was about to apologize when he started talking.
"I never knew my mother; she left before I hatched, but my father raised me; until he was caught by Dusknoir that is." He said bitterly. I gasped.
"Grovyle, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said anything, forget it." I said, but Grovyle shook his head.
"No, it's ok. It was a long time ago, when I was still a Treecko. Luckily, Ninetales and Vulpix found me and brought me to base. When I evolved, I vowed to one, avenge my father's death, and two, solve the planet's paralysis, since I knew that my father had always wanted to do so. In my mind, I think I'm making it up to him for being so useless in the fight against Dusknoir. I was still little then, and I tried to hide behind my dad. But then Dusknoir cut him down, and I ran in front of him, trying to protect him. Dusknoir just laughed at me and punched me away. I hit a tree and fell unconscious, but not before I saw my dad give his last breath." He said. I felt terrible for asking him to relive all that, and I told him so.
"There's no need. I'm over it. I just can't wait to avenge my father. One day I will avenge him, and Dusknoir will regret that he ever met me. But enough about me, what about you? How did you meet Dusknoir?" He asked. I guess I opened myself up for that one. My face fell, and I turned my head away, staring into the distance. I didn't want to admit how easily he had deceived me, and I didn't want to admit how much I had trusted him; how much I had liked him. But Grovyle had told me what I wanted to know, reliving horrible memories, and I felt that I owed it to him to tell the truth.
So I told him everything, from the moment Dusknoir had knocked on the door to Dialga's words to me inside the Deep Chasm dungeon. "And then I ran up several floors, where I ran into Gengar. You pretty much know the rest." I finished. I had even told him about my visions, which Dialga had referred to as 'the Dimensional Scream.' Grovyle was silent for a while.
"I feel like such a fool; Dusknoir tricked me so easily. It just doesn't make sense to me; usually I am very cautious about who I trust. But Dusknoir just broke through that barrier like it was nothing. Come to think of it, so did you. What do pokémon have that humans don't; that makes you so believable?" I asked. Grovyle smiled for a minute before answering.
"I think it has something to do with the fact that we always show our true emotions, even Dusknoir. I'm sure he really felt all that he showed to you. But the darkness in our world … it has affected our very souls; you know this. I doubt even Dusknoir himself knows his true feelings for anything. The darkness overrides anything that we feel; everything we see, hear, feel; it goes through the darkness first. So we are affected more than humans, because humans have always hidden emotion. You humans rely more on intellectual knowledge than instinctual feelings. Pokémon are the exact opposite. You can't ask a pokémon to be anything different than what they are." Grovyle replied.
"I see. I guess humans' perspective of pokémon is warped then. So what you're saying is … I can't ask a legendary pokémon such as Cresselia, who heals and gives light, to destroy and make things dark." I said. Grovyle nodded.
"Exactly. You can't ask Rayquaza to live on the ground, just as you can't ask Groudon to live in the sky. It goes against their very natures." We fell silent. We had gone quite a ways, and I checked the monitor.
"We have 35 hours and 26 minutes left." I announced, and Grovyle nodded.
"I'm worried about Ninetales. Even if we do get his spirit back in time, he'll never be the same. I mean, look at this terrible place. I doubt any of us will be the same after experiencing this." Grovyle said after a while. I looked at him sympathetically.
"I know, but what choice have we got? If there is still a chance we can save him, I'm not giving up." I replied. "Look, Grovyle! There's a cave." I pointed at the jagged opening ahead.
We paused a minute before going in, checking the inside of the cave. I saw nothing suspicious, and I walked cautiously inside. When nothing attacked me, I looked back at Grovyle.
"I think we're ok. Come on!" I called, and he walked in after me. I was still looking back at him when I hit something soft. Freezing in place, I looked in front of me, but it was just a big spider web. "Eww." I said, and tried to pull back, but I was stuck. "Grovyle, watch out!" I shouted, and I heard Grovyle come to a stop. "There's a big spider web here, and I'm stuck to it!" I said frantically. I struggled to free myself, but the more I pulled, the more tangled I got. "Ugh! Grovyle, can you use leaf blade or something and get me free?" I asked disgustedly.
"Sure. Just hold still." I heard him say, but before he could do anything, a huge Ariados came out of nowhere and jumped on top of me. I screamed, trying to get out from under the huge spider pokémon, but I was stuck to the web and it was way too big in any case.
"Intruders in my place! All intruders must die!" It hissed, clicking its pinchers. It worked quickly, wrapping me up in a cocoon of silk. I struggled, but the silk was strong and sticky. I heard Grovyle shout at the Ariados.
"Get away from her!" The Ariados hissed angrily; the weight on me fell off, and there were the sounds of fighting. I heard the Ariados screeching in pain, and then there was silence. "Haley? Are you alright?" I heard Grovyle asking.
"Yes, just get me out of here!" I snapped, angrier with myself than Grovyle. I heard the sound of ripping silk, and then Grovyle appeared before my face, slashing at my bonds with a razor sharp blade made of leaves. After a minute, I was standing in the cave, wiping the rest of the silk off me. I was grumbling to myself.
"Why is it that every time I enter a cave when you're with me I get attacked viciously and am unable to help?" I said. Grovyle was watching me amusedly.
"You aren't very careful." He said simply and I growled at him. He just laughed and turned to the rest of the spider web, tearing it up into little scraps of silk. I looked beyond him to the corpse of the Ariados. It was lying on its side, legs curled against its body, looking pathetic.
"Humph. Come on, before something else happens." I said, and Grovyle nodded. We hurried through the cave, and came out on another hillside. Off in the distance, I could see a flash of orange. "Look Grovyle!" I shouted, and pointed. Sure enough, it was Ninetales, walking along unhurriedly.
"Ninetales!" Grovyle called loudly. The far-off figure stopped, and turned to look at us. After a shocked pause, it started bounding toward us. "Come on!" Grovyle said excitedly, and raced toward Ninetales. I bit my lip, wondering what my reception would be. The last time I saw Ninetales, he had been snarling at me, angry beyond belief. I followed behind Grovyle slowly; uneasily.
When Ninetales got close enough to see me, he stopped with an unreadable expression on his face. I followed after Grovyle, even though every part of me was screaming for me to back away from the fox pokémon. Grovyle stopped in front of Ninetales, and I paused a few feet away, giving them some space.
"Why is she here?" Ninetales asked; his expression and his voice emotionless. He seemed to be reserving his emotions until he got the whole story. Grovyle glanced between me and Ninetales, realizing the tension between us.
"Ninetales, it's alright. I –I was tricked by Dusknoir." He forced the words out, and I could tell how much this cost him to say.
"What do you mean?" Ninetales snapped. Grovyle looked straight into Ninetales' eyes, and replied seriously,
"Haley is on our side. When Dusknoir attacked our base, again, she defended the base and drove away many of the Sableye single-handedly. We stood together, and Dusknoir had to leave. She was responsible for our presence here. She was the one who figured out what was wrong with you. Now, because of her, we can take you home, and she is also the reason you have a home to go to. She didn't betray me; it was all a trick that Dusknoir made up." Ninetales looked between us.
"But… What about the presence of…" He trailed off, but both of us knew what he was talking about.
"Like I tried to tell you before, I was forced into a decision that I didn't want. That presence… was always there anyway! Don't you know that he sees everything anyway? When you mention his name, his attention is caught, and he looks your way! It's just that his presence is so much more prominent when I'm around because of an oath I didn't even know that I took!" I said angrily.
Ninetales stared at me. He seemed to be contemplating our words. "Fine. I'll assume that you aren't a traitor until proven otherwise, but I'll be watching you closely." I bowed my head.
"I guess that's all I can ask." I said. Grovyle looked relieved that the discussion was over.
"Well, we found Ninetales. How do we get back?" He asked me. I brought out my little monitor and punched a couple buttons, and in the next second, everything had gone white. I closed my eyes, and when I opened them again, Grovyle, Ninetales, and I were standing in Ninetales office. Espeon beamed from the doorway.
"You did it!" She exclaimed, and did a backflip. The gem on her forehead glowed, and a telepathic message went through the PIT headquarters. "They're back! Ninetales is safe! Everything is OK!" There was a rumble as all the members of the PIT came rushing to Ninetales' office. They let out a huge roar of glee when they saw us. I grinned at Grovyle, and he smiled back at me, no tension between us.
Author's Note: How did you like it? This chapter was one of my shorter ones. Sorry about that, the end of this took forever to get out. I wanted to give Haley and Grovyle a break this chapter. Everything is so hard on them, and the rest of the story isn't easy on them either! But I knew that if I made it too easy, it wouldn't be realistic. So of course Ninetales had to be that way, and I've always had dreams about being trapped in a spider's web, so that's where the Ariados came from. So… on with the random fact!
Random Fact # 8: This random fact is about Dusknoir again. It's something of a secret that I don't think he'll appreciate me telling you, so don't tell him! He is actually scared of the Dark World. Technically speaking, he is supposed to be comfortable in the Dark World, since he is a ghost-type pokémon. And his species of pokémon are actually supposed to drag people's spirits into the Dark World! So it's kind of a pride thing for him. He is ashamed of it, but he can't help it, so there was actually no chance of Dusknoir going after Haley or Grovyle, in case you were wondering. And Sableye can't go into the Dark World, just send spirits there.