"Hard Knocks"
Cobalt tossed and turned in his sleep until he opened his eyes. He looked over and saw that Mauve was not in her bed.
He slumped out of bed and made his way to the bathroom, until,
"AH! GET OUT!" Mauve screamed, throwing her towel at Cobalt's face after he had accidently seen something he should not have. She slammed the door in his face, causing him to fall to the floor.
The two sat at opposite sides of the booth in the Pokémon Center's cafeteria. Obviously, still feeling awkward since what had happened earlier that morning.
"So..." Cobalt said, as the first words rolled out since this morning, "I...uh...have written up some more stuff in my journal."
Mauve barely looked up,
"Yeah...that's cool."
The awkward silence came crawling back in, until it was Cobalt who broke it again,
"Look, I said I was sorry! How was I supposed to know you just got out of the shower?!" Cobalt whispered.
"Because, whenever you see a closed bathroom door, you knock!"
"You should have heard me coming in or getting close to the door!"
"I was drying my hair; it gets kinda hard listening with a towel on your head! Arceus, you probably saw everything!"
Cobalt didn't answer, but instead began to look as if he was lost.
"Oh!" Mauve squealed before she kicked him from under the table.
"Ah, damn it!"
"Well I'm glad the thought of my naked body is turning you on, pervert! What next, are you going to start feeling me up in my sleep?"
"I didn't know how to respond to that, alright? Look, we're overreacting about this; it was a simple mistake, and we're behind it. Can we move on, please?"
Mauve crossed her arms,
"Fine."
Once again there was a tremor under the ground; this one much smaller than the last.
"What's with all of these recent earthquakes?" Cobalt asked.
"It's not really weird here. You said they get earthquakes all the time."
"I told you yesterday-"
"I know, I know, you felt something in the Force or something."
"It's probably the mines again." a new voice said.
Cobalt and Mauve both turned to see Nurse Joy standing there.
"What 'mines'?" Cobalt asked.
"Well to collect all of the jewlery and precious metals in our town, we have to drill for them, and sometimes, they have to go pretty far down."
"Okay, that bit was obvious."
"But recently, we've been having a bit of trouble with the process. The equipment has been shutting down and disappearing for unknown reasons, tunnels have collapsed, and even our own miners are beginning to quit because they're too afraid to go down there!"
"Hmmm." Cobalt thought to himself.
"I'll leave you two alone now. Enjoy your date."
"I'm/She's not his/my girlfriend!"
Rolling her eyes, Mauve noticed Cobalt in another one of his deep, trance-like thoughts.
"Whatcha thinking about?"
"I wonder."
"What?"
"I wonder if the disturbances at the mines are what's causing these random tremors."
"I'm beginning to wonder if I should have you tested for paranoia."
"Already got it. But! What's leading me to the next part of my theory is if it's NOT the miners."
"Not the miners?"
"Think of it this way, Mauve: where are they mining?"
"Underground."
"And where would you suppose a Ground-type Pokémon might live?"
"...Underground..."
Cobalt then made the gesture people use there arms with to show that two things are equal to each other.
"So that means..."
"It means that those miners are breaking and entering. And the Pokémon down there aren't taking it too kindly."
Deep beneath the earth, and we are talking, REALLY far down there, in a large open cavern, lived a colony of Camerupt and Numel. All were spread out, making their nests near pits of magma.
One such Numel, a tiny little thing, was chasing after other Numels his age in an attempt to play with them. As soon as he was able to catch up, however, they turned on him, and pushed him aside, embarrassed by how small he was; thinking that he'd be too weak to battle.
And so he sadly walked back to his nest. He hated not having any friends, and desperately wanted them. Maybe if he went up to the surface, he could make some. He'd never been to the surface before, but he knew it was said to be a strange and wonderful place. So that's where he would go.
He snuck past the guard Camerupt, who like the others, were called to the higher levels to cause another earthquake along with the colony's allies.
The higher he went up, the colder it began to get. He started slowing down, but knew he had to keep going. He pushed himself, harder and harder until finally, sunlight could be seen through the entrance to the mine, placed in the middle of a field. He collapsed.
Once getting directions to where all of the trouble began occurring, Cobalt and Mauve took the bike to investigate in a nearby field.
There were remains of police tape, shredded lab equipment, tables, and fire. Wait, fire?
"How is there fire in the site of an earthquake?" Mauve asked.
"Gas leak? No, there shouldn't be any all the way out here, it's too remote. Think, think, think-wait...oh...oh no..."
"What?"
"Strong earthquakes coming from under the ground, and fire. This means-"
Cobalt immediately whipped out his book and searched until he found the right page,
"The Numb Pokémon. These creatures are very dull-witted. Their bodies carry two thousand, two hundred Fahrenheit degree magma, which when cooled, makes them slower and heavier. They can move impressive loads of up to two hundred and twenty pounds, serving as an aid for humankind in the Old Age.
The Eruption Pokémon. With eighteen thousand degree molten rock coursing though this Pokémon's body, it's power has greatly increased since evolution. It carries an actual volcano within, and will not hesitate to release what's inside."
"Meaning?"
"Numel and Camerupt."
Cobalt then heard a soft groaning noise not too far away. He looked through the tall grass and found that laying in a spot of burned grass was a small Numel.
He was just a little guy, probably still young. He was also very cold, but was sweating profusely; he may have had a fever.
"What is it?" Mauve asked coming closer.
Cobalt got back up to his feet and turned,
"It's a Numel, and a small one. I think he might have a fever. We have to get him back to the Pokémon Center."
After rummaging through his bag, and fishing out another Pokéball, Cobalt turned back to the small Fire-type, who took one half-shut-eyed look at the ball and began to look frightened. The poor thing had no idea what was going on.
"Look, I don't want to hurt you little guy, but you're not looking good. You'll be safe in here, I promise."
The Numel must have understood as he weakly reached his paw up as Cobalt lowered the ball to his level, tapped the central button, and getting sucked inside.
Stuffing the ball into his pocket, he began walking back to the bike as he passed Mauve,
"Come on, we have to get back to town."
Mauve understood, and quickly followed.
Cobalt sat patiently with Chūsei, and Ōhi playing around in the waiting room with Whiskers and Taills as Mauve was on her phone.
He looked on his PokéGear to see if he had any recent messages, but there were none. He thought of calling Selena, but was not sure this was the right time. Maybe later.
Just then, the Nurse came out with a Chansey pushing the table with the still unconscious Numel on top; he even had a little paper wristband on.
Cobalt got up as soon as he heard footsteps, Mauve saw this and shut her phone off.
"How is he?" Cobalt asked the pink-haired Nurse.
"Numel is stable, but it was suffering from a terrible fever. He may have been out of his home environment for too long. He's just resting now."
"Probably came up from the mines. Mauve and I were just there investigating to see if we could help when we found him."
"It's a good thing that you did, or else I don't think he would have lasted on his own. He's so small. He may have been the runt of the litter."
"That's so sad." Mauve commented.
"I've read about that sort of thing." Cobalt said, his tone held a bit of rage in it as he looked down at Numel, "It's not just Numel, it's almost every species of Pokémon out there. Small, so they're not treated equally; nothing gets me more than an innocent Pokémon being mistreated, just because there not as fit as everyone else."
"It's a tragedy, I know. I've seen it before believe it or not." the Nurse said, "So is this your Numel?"
"Uh...I guess so. I caught him because it'd be easier to carry him to the Center, but I guess if he wants, I can take him along. It'd be fun."
"I would hope, Numel are normally very friendly around here."
"But, then why are they tearing up the ground from under our feet? That doesn't sound friendly to me." Mauve asked.
"Miner equipment." Cobalt replied sourly.
"I'm sorry, I forgot!"
"Which is why we're going to fix it."
"We what?!"
"You heard me just fine."
"You two can't be serious! It's dangerous down there, and if there are angry Numel and Camerupt-"
"We'll be fine. We're a couple of expierenced Trainers. My father was Kado Miyashiro, the old Champion of the Tayiō no Shima. I'm his son, Cobalt. I think that we can handle ourselves."
Mauve's eyes widened at what Cobalt just said. Was he lying, or was he serious? Nurse Joy still looked unsure, but agreed to let the two go, but not without telling them to be careful.
She released Numel, later renamed, Kazan, from the care of the Center to Cobalt, who also took the medical steroids that Kazan would need to take twice a day in order to keep his metabolism normal; that way it would help him gain weight, making him healthier.
They made there way back to the site of the attack, and found the hole the miners/scientists, whichever they were, were drilling. Of course, looking down below, they could see how far down it was, and realized how dangerous it would be to go spelunking.
Mauve started looking at Cobalt funny.
"What?" He asked once he had noticed.
"How come you never said your were the son of THE Kado Miyashiro?"
"I didn't really think it would be that big of a deal-"
"Are you kidding me?! That's huge!"
"I guess, but right now, we have more important things to look at."
Mauve looked again at the hole, and started to pace around as Cobalt stayed, and observed,
"So...what? We don't have any sort of hiking equipment to help us down, no Flying-types strong enough to-OH MY ARCEUS, COBALT!"
Cobalt jumped.
(To be continued...)