Chapter 33: The Mega Aftermath Pt. 2
(Not a very long note this time, want to spend more time typing up the content this time around. I saw a review asking for a lemon and to be honest, I just don't have any ability/experience writing anything of the sort as well as this being a rated T story. Maybe someday I'll think about writing it as a side story/chapter but not anytime soon. With that being said, hope you enjoy the chapter.)
General
Lisia was here for a multitude of reasons that were reminisced upon earlier.
For now, the reality was that she was here and Red had absolutely no idea why.
Too bad he didn't have time to explain his cluelessness before the mood had gone sour.
"Red, is there any reason our friend Lisia is here in Kalos?" Blue started the assault.
"Red, it's a coincidence that Lisia is here right?" Yellow followed up in a sickly sweet tone.
"Red, I don't remember Lisia being part of our plan for the defending the Tower of Mastery." Platina honed in on Red with a scrutinizing voice.
"I'm not sure why everyone is piling on and talking this way… but really, I'm surprised to see again so soon Lisia!" Sapphire finished the barrage of commentary with a greeting towards Lisia's way.
While Red could handle almost any Pokemon battle scenario on the fly, the current scenario at hand was too overwhelming for him to come up with a proper answer in time.
And … unfortunately no real solace came from the side of the newcomers.
"Hey Red! I came all the way here to see you again." Lisia said with a happy smile and without missing a beat she followed up by preemptively answering the question of why she was here "Korrina let me know that y'all were having trouble with Team Neo again so I headed out here with her as soon as possible. Luckily, it looks like my help wasn't needed this time around but I'm down to help investigate the attack."
It was true that Lisia was here at least partially in order to help the Team Neo attack, the part that mostly stuck for the group was the fact that she had lead with the line "I came all the way here to see you again."
Blue tsk'ed aloud while thinking to herself, "I thought Lisia wasn't interested in Red too, is the number of rivals ever going to run out?"
This was a shared sentiment for some particular individuals in the room, but openly these thoughts were suppressed.
In place of those jealous thoughts, there was a blanket of tension that was almost palpable.
Too bad this particular hazard couldn't be cleansed by a defog or rapid spin, Red could only awkwardly smile and panic about what to do.
Luckily for Red, at least Mei had some mercy for him, despite her personal feeling on the matter, she was acutely aware that criminal organizations didn't always treat those who got in their crosshairs in the most humane manner.
"Some of the overseers were potentially displaced when Team Neo infiltrated, we're not sure where they are but I think it's likely that they're still in the building." Mei said with some authority.
Naturally, everyone was impressed with Mei's quick assessment and Yellow spoke up first and asked "How do you know so much about how Team Neo thinks?"
Mei gave a mysterious look for a moment before answering "I've had my fair share of experiences with criminal organizations, they tend to act in fairly predictable ways. I will say, it's very unlikely that they'd hurt the overseers or kidnap them. They tend to be only interested in using pokemon for their own gain."
Red thought back to all the actions of criminal organizations in the past, for the most part whether it was Team Rocket, Team Aqua/Magma, or Team Neo, rarely were there any actions like murder, kidnapping or anything that would severely harm humans.
"It's strange to think that there's any code of ethics amongst these organizations, but when I think about it, I guess for the most part they don't try to do anything too severe to anything but pokemon." Red remarked bemusedly.
"Still, that doesn't excuse their actions, Pokemon are our friends and family just like humans are." Red said confidently and was greeted with affirmations.
Seems like I was preaching to the choir Red thought to himself contentedly.
The tension dropped considerably when the focus of the conversation went back to the serious topic of finding the missing overseers.
Lisia was slightly aware that she was part of the reason for the tension in the room, thankfully the tension had died down from Mei's insight.
That was, until Lisia asked "So what were y'all discussing before Korrina and I got here?"
And just like that, the chaos resumed.
Before the argument could start again with renewed vigor, Mei quickly cut in with an idea.
"How about we make sure every pair has a strong trainer and/or mega user? Then we should be able to handle any kind of potential threat that we meet." Mei proposed.
This seemed like a pretty solid idea and Platina and Blue nodded in approval first, but before they could put themselves up for it, Mei had latched herself behind Red and conveniently proclaimed herself as the weakest trainer there so naturally she should be paired up with Red.
Yellow, the other trainer who could potentially feign weakness was a bit too shy to cause conflict at this point so she didn't speak up to contest Mei's claim.
Blue, Platina, Sapphire, Crys, and even White & Serena could not really claim to be on the same level so they had to take the L on this one.
The pairs ended up being Yellow & Platina, Red & Mei, White & Sapphire, Lisia & Korrina, Blue & Crys.
They descended down the stairs towards the underground rooms and then split up when they had reached the bottom of the staircase.
Red & Mei headed towards the colosseum that Red had his recent "trial" in.
Although it was only a few hours ago, Red felt that the colosseum felt weird when there wasn't a huge group of enemy trainers trying to beat him up.
The lights were off in the arena and Red couldn't easily figure out how to get the lights on. Pika lit up his cheeks to provide some light and Mei sent out her Chandelure to provide some light.
While they clearly could not light up the whole arena, there was still a decent amount of light emanating from the two pokemon that they could explore the edge of the arena systematically.
However, for reason's Red couldn't completely comprehend, Mei still stuck quite closely to him during their search.
He was going to tell her that it would probably be more efficient to split up, but he realized that she might be afraid of the dark or ambushes so it was probably still better that they stuck closer together during this time.
From Mei's POV, she was feeling increasingly nervous from multiples sources.
In reality one of the sources of nerves, was the fact that she was a bit scared of the dark from all the times she had spent in dark caves waiting for trainers to come by when she was on Team Plasma.
The other source was the fact that she had gone beyond her typical comfort zone to put herself in a pair with Red.
She was originally ecstatic about her plan succeeding, but as she descended the stairs with him and then eventually split off from the others, she realized that it meant this was the first time since she was alone with him when he saved her on the S.S. Anne.
This was certainly one of those cases of "I didn't think I would get this far" for Mei.
She had spent the better part of the last 15 minutes half searching around diligently, and half fidgeting behind Red.
At first she had stuck close to enjoy the sense of security and put the ball in Red's court to react.
Unfortunately, Red seemed to take her clinging to him as an okay thing and remained focused on the mission at hand.
This left Mei as the embarrassed one in the pair and she tried her best to focus on the task as well.
Although the arena was not in a normal state, Saur's earlier rampage actually made the search in the area easier.
Normally, there was the minor chance that something could be hidden under a false floor (false floors were pretty common in gyms as some gym leaders enjoyed the theatrics of entering the field from underneath instead of walking in).
In this case, the frenzy plant gambit from earlier had torn up the center part of the colosseum and in the parts it hadn't directly destroyed, the sand had been displaced enough that Red and Mei were fairly sure there weren't any special hidden mechanisms.
This left the exit tunnels as the only potential places to hide an unlucky overseer.
With Red's guidance, the pair entered the tunnel that he remembered seeing the alleged trial trainers enter from.
Chandelure and Pika's light sources looked slightly eerie in the long and dark corridor, Unconsciously, Mei got just a bit closer to Red as she held onto his sleeve.
This pleasant moment for Mei wouldn't last too long as they noticed a light towards the end of thee corridor. As they reached the end of the corridor they entered a smaller circular room which linked to other passageways and doors.
Mei was slightly disappointed that this area was well lit because it meant less of an excuse to stick close, but she snapped out of it quickly when she remembered that it wasn't certain that the overseer was safe, or even how long they had been trapped for.
"For now, let's try the doors. If they don't work or can't be opened, we can try searching through the corridors." Mei suggested while Red was still pondering on the next move.
"Sounds like a plan, make sure to be on your guard though. If the overseer(s) are being kept here, then this might be the most dangerous place." Red warned with caution developed from tons of past run-ins with criminal organizations.
Mei nodded in agreement and the two went to open the nearest door.
To their surprise, the first door opened with ease and when they looked inside… they found an empty lounge room with a TV with a Nintendo Switch hooked up, coffee table, and soda fountain.
"Well this isn't it, it'd be nice to have a nice little gaming break with everyone when we get the overseers to safety." Red remarked as some of tension that had been building up from the door opening had deflated at the sight of such a harmless room.
"I'd be down for some Mario Kart!" Mei said happily in agreement to that idea.
If one was watching closely, they would have noticed an almost imperceptible shudder from Red as he had flashbacks of the kind of salt that Blue had when they had played Mario Kart throughout the years.
Outwardly, Red just nodded in acknowledgment to Mei's statement and then he lead them outside the room to the next door.
This time, the door had a keypad and a bright red light on the bottom.
The pair suspected that the door was locked but Red tried it anyway just in case.
As expected, the door was about as shut down as the Team Neo Grunts that had challenged Red in the faux trial from earlier.
"I assume something important must be in here for it to still be locked, maybe Team Neo locked it? Or perhaps someone hid here to avoid the attack?" Red mused aloud.
Mei followed up by asking "With that in mind, do we have any ideas on the passcode? I'm not sure there are any iconic four digit numbers associated with the tower."
Red didn't have any clues either and just dejectedly said "Let's try 1234…?"
Red was glad that the whole team wasn't here right now because clearly that wasn't his brightest moment (nor was it his dullest one surprisingly).
Mei didn't judge him for it and took the liberty to type in the numbers and hit the big enter button.
… After what seemed like an eternity,
nothing happened.
"Welp, what should we do now?" Red had apparently already given up on guessing numbers at this point.
Before Mei could say anything though, a distinct *click sound came from the direction of the door.
The previously vibrant red light emanating from the keypad had suddenly changed to a decidedly kinder looking green light.
Red looked at Mei and apprehensively he reached for the door handle … and the door opened easily.
(Alright that's it for this chapter, sorry it took so long to get out. I tried writing multiple times and found it hard to get into a good flow like I have in previous chapters. Unsure what the reason for it is but most people who have written a story before probably understand what this kind of writer's block feels like. At the end of the day there isn't really a good excuse but I'll do what I can to continue pumping out chapters at a somewhat consistent pace. Anywho, Nakiri Ayame is having a collab with Kanata and Marine tomorrow morning so I'll be looking forward to catching that. See y'all in the next one!)