Eevee jumped out of my arms but walked at my side, looking up now and again with a panting smile. I wondered if it wasn't actually just some kind of normal dog. Luckily, it seemed to like me, so if I found any other Poké Balls, I could save it to catch something else.
The hallway seemed to meander until we reached a turn that stopped at another door. There was nothing special about it, and Hector was just able to open it. On the other side was another hallway, but it was decorated with the familiar tables and picture frames from the other parts of the mansion. Closing the door behind us, I heard a light click but didn't care enough to investigate it. I figured it was the door locking so we couldn't turn back.
"So, how do you two know each other?" Noanne asked, running out in front of us so she could walk backwards and chat. She was chewing her gum more sluggishly, probably because it'd already lost all its flavor. "Were you part of other groups that got slaughtered and then had to band together to survive?" Her eyes seemed to light as she made up her story about us. Hector laughed uncomfortably.
"No. We knew each other before coming here."
"Oh," she said, sounding disappointed. "So, you ran into each other here or came together?"
"We planned it," I said. She nodded her head knowingly. I had a strong feeling she was going to ask if we were dating.
"That's boring, but okay," she sighed dejectedly. I wasn't sure why that was a disappointing answer. "My sisters didn't want to bring me, but my mom made them. They'd planned to come with their boyfriends instead, but I didn't want to be stuck with my mom all weekend, so I casually mentioned how much I would love to see The League. Worked like a charm."
"You don't get along with your mom?" Hector asked.
"Oh, no. She's fine. She's a therapist and loves to ask me all these questions about how I'm feeling and what I'm thinking about. It's bearable when there's three of us, but one-on-one, it might as well be considered torture. And according to my mom, I'm so much more 'aware' at my age than my sisters ever were so she worries about me more, I guess. Thinks I need to be introduced to the realities of the world at a more gradual pace—her words, not mine. Well…, it might just be me now after all."
"I'm sure your sisters are fine. They're probably looking for you," I said. Noanne forced a smile and then turned her back on us.
"…You're just saying that, but, like I said, they probably didn't make it." We continued in silence until we reached a set of steps leading up to the next level. It opened out into a large chamber, similar to the one we'd escaped from next to the dining room. The walls were covered with pictures of the Regi legendaries, standing in front of modern-day buildings like hospitals and train stations. Oddly, they didn't seem out of place. Along the walls were long tables covered in white cloths. There were water dispensers and plain sugar cookies sitting out, and the three of us rushed over to inspect them. The food appeared to be untouched, but Hector sampled one before giving us the all-clear. We instantly devoured everything on the tray. Next to the water dispenser was a stack of plastic cups. Again, Hector sampled it first, and then we each filled up a cup and greedily gulped it down until it was all gone. I saved a cookie for Eevee and a bit of water, which it consumed happily.
"Damn, I didn't realize how hungry and thirsty I was until seeing all that food laid out," I said. We'd sauntered over to a ring of couches in the center of the room and collapsed onto them. It would've been nice to just knock out, but I imagined another trainer coming upon on us and murdering us without so much as a conversation. I bolted right up and looked around the rest of the room. A large door loomed ahead of us, across from where we'd come up the stairs. It was the only other way out of the room. Otherwise, there was nothing else of note. Eevee was resting on my lap, so I looked over at the others—Hector's eyes were closed, and he was rubbing his temples. Noanne was face down on the couch, probably unconscious. "Should we let her sleep for a little bit?" Hector opened his eyes and looked over at her.
"I'm not asleep!" she called. Then she rolled over and had a Poké Ball in her hand. "I was digging around in the cushions and found this! See? Told ya I was good at this!" Hector and I laughed. "One of you can have it—other people will target you first if you have more Pokémon than me." She beamed with the innocence of a child and the devilishness of a seedy lawyer. I was truly confounded by her.
"Thanks…," Hector said and reached over to grab the ball. He looked at me and raised his eyebrows.
"Take it. Eevee is technically my third and apparently doesn't need a ball to obey me. Actually, I'm really thinking it's just someone's dog that got lost in here," I said and started petting Eevee. I might have believed myself had it not been for the iconic white collar of fur and the long rabbit-like ears of the creature. It stared into my eyes attentively and tried to lick my face. "Actually, maybe check to see if it has a Pokémon in it already. Hector sighed before getting back on his feet. He pressed the button, causing the ball to open. Nothing came out. Then he closed the ball, put it into his bag, and adjusted his watch on his wrist.
"It's just past midnight."
"Why does that matter?" Noanne asked as she hopped off the couch.
"Do you remember what time the park is supposed to close? I feel like someone said it was 1AM—maybe 2—but it could be that everything will lock down after that so we might not be able to get out of the park, even if we get to the Indigo Room." Noanne considered this.
"I think the creepy voice on the announcement would've said something about that if the time was something to worry about," she reasoned. "But I guess I'd rather get out of here sooner than later." She headed toward the door, and we followed.
"Doesn't seem to be anything special about it," Hector mumbled as he examined the door. He twisted the knob and pushed the door open. We peeked into the other room before stepping inside. When nothing popped out at us, we stepped through the doorway. I half expected the door to shut behind us on its own, but when it didn't, I decided to close it anyway in case there was something hiding in the other room waiting to ambush us.
On the other end of the room was a large purple gate. It was made of some kind of shiny metal and seemed out of place in the room, as though someone had made the room the way it was and replaced one wall with the gate at the last moment. As we approached it, I saw three key holes inside three painted circles—two red and one blue. Lines from the circles connected in the center of the gate where a purple button was affixed. To our left and right were separate paths.
"Uh oh—we need keys?" Noanne gasped. We stepped up to the gate to get a closer look. It was sturdy and cool to the touch. I pressed the button, but nothing happened.
"Hey! Don't…touch that," Hector called out after I'd already pushed the button.
"Sorry, I couldn't help it."
"You probably have to put all the keys in and then push the button," Noanne said.
"This gate, though… I think it leads to the real Indigo Room. This must be the way out!" I shouted excitedly. Hector smiled but seemed to be trying to hide his optimism.
"We won't know for sure until we find those keys. I guess it is a good thing we brought you along," Hector said to Noanne. She laughed nervously and took a step back.
"What? How am I supposed to search this whole place for three tiny keys?" she said and waved her hands defensively.
"Wait, look at these keyholes, though—they're pretty big. …Oh! Actually," I whispered and knelt down to open my backpack. Eevee was panting excitedly as it tried to jump into my bag. I pulled out the blue metal key we'd found in the freezer office.
"Shit! I forgot we found that. See if the size is a match before putting it in the keyhole." The others crowded around me as I held up the key to the hole. It was a fit.
"Look at that—now you only have to search this whole place for two keys," Hector said playfully and patted Noanne on the shoulder.
"Yeah, yeah…," she mumbled and swatted his hand away. Suddenly, Eevee started growling, making all of us whirl around to see a woman with long brown hair, a white leather jacket, and dark jeans approach us from the path on the right. She flashed a devious grin before throwing out a Poké Ball, unleashing what looked like a shriveled skull with five blood red petals attached to it like a crown. Some sort of pit in the middle of the petals was pulsating, like a mouth ready to swallow something whole.
The lights flashed red and signaled the locking down of the room. The halls leading out of the large chamber became blocked off as metal grates crashed down with a loud clang. Hector shouted, looking up and pointing at a cage falling toward us. He pushed me back against the indigo wall, and Noanne jumped out of the way at the last moment before the cage trapped Hector and me inside. Noanne had jumped away to the other side. I screamed for Noanne to move as the Vileplume lobbed a ball of sludge at her. Noanne, heeding my warning, rolled to the side and deftly tossed out her first Pokémon.
"So ya wanna play dirty, huh?" I heard Noanne say under her breath as she landed in a crouching position. Hector and I looked at each other but didn't say anything, probably wondering the same thing—who was Noanne?
"TWO POKÉMON DETECTED. PARTICIPANTS LOCKED IN— FIGHT TO THE DEATH! BATTLE COMMENCE," the robotic voice from before boomed.
The light from Noanne's Poké Ball transformed into a tall triangular shape. From behind, it was difficult to tell much, but the Pokémon appeared to be wearing some sort of black dress that got wider toward the bottom. Its arms stuck out like broom handles painted black to match its dress, and on its head was a giant obnoxious bow of some sort. Whatever it had for hands seemed to be covered in white gloves. I stepped up to the bars to get a closer look and realized the bow was a hip bone that had been painted black. The creature seemed to sway from side to side, as if dancing along to imaginary music.
"Gothitelle, use Future Sight!" Noanne called. Gothitelle raised its stick-like arms and started shaking as a strange light surrounded it. The light then faded when its arms fell back to its sides.
"This battle will be over before your attack even happens, little girl! You should've let one of your friends handle this one—Vileplume, Petal Dance!" The creature wobbled around on the ground as its petals flapped, making a wet, slapping sound. From the pit atop its head, hundreds of red leaves shot out across the room. Whatever the leaves touched melted as if acid had been poured on it. Hector pulled me away from the bars and tried to cover me. Luckily, no leaves reached us and had only partially melted some of the bars on the cage. The damage was not significant enough to break free, though.
We looked out to see if Noanne was all right, and some of the leaves appeared frozen in the air around her and Gothitelle, who was glowing a dark purple.
"Amateur," Noanne scoffed as the leaves were hurled right back at the woman and Vileplume. Vileplume was disintegrated by the counterstrike, and the woman tried to avoid the attack, but was too slow to jump out of the way. Several of the leaves clung to her arms and legs and ate away at her flesh. She cried out in pain as she tossed out another Poké Ball.
"How did she do that?" I gasped in astonishment.
"Confusion, obviously," Noanne said and chuckled, slightly turning her head to look at me. She winked before turning her attention back on the new Pokémon in front of her, a sextet of rotting skulls partially covered in strange metal armor. Each member of Falinks seemed to follow the skull in front of it as they assembled into a line. Noanne stifled a yawn with the back of her hand. "This was too easy—did you even try?" Noanne called out at the woman.
"I'm not done with you yet, you little bi—" Suddenly, an explosion of light formed around Falinks, causing the cage to rattle fiercely. Hector moved to cover me again, and when the shaking stopped, we looked out to see that Falinks was gone. The woman had been blasted farther back in the room, and Noanne and Gothitelle slowly approached her.
As the woman struggled to recover from the attack, she frantically tried to scoot back as she waved a hand at Noanne.
"You won, you won! Y-You don't have to kill me! See?" the woman screeched and pulled out a knife. She slowly pulled the blade across her palm and held up her hand, as if trying to show it to someone.
"VICTOR DETERMINED." And with that, the metal bars all began to lift. We rushed to Noanne's side.
"Noanne, you did it. You can stop now," I said and grabbed her arm. She shook free of me, though.
"Please, don't kill me." The woman was practically sobbing. "Here—you can take this if you promise not to kill me. You'll probably need it to get through that door." She pulled a red key from pants pocket and gripped it in her bloody hand.
"Where did you get this?" I asked. Between sobs, she managed to squeak out her answer.
"That hallway I just came from. It leads to a forest area. I was traveling with a larger group, but they got taken out in a fight with some other trainers. We'd just found the key when we got ambushed. I only managed to escape because I led the attacking trainers through a part of the forest that had a bunch of traps. There were holes in the ground covered up with fake grass. They screamed when they fell, but it sounded like they didn't fall that far. I could still hear them shouting at me, but that stopped after a while." I looked at Hector. The people we'd seen in the freezer had come from the level above.
"How did you know cutting your hand would end the battle?" Hector demanded.
"There are cameras everywhere, but I don't think anyone's watching them from the other side. Maybe it's some computer program monitoring them. If they get a visual cue of blood after one team's Pokémon are all dead, the barriers are lifted. Please, just take the key, and you'll never see me again. Go on—take it!"
"Call your Pokémon back, Noanne. We're done here," Hector pleaded, turning his back on the woman and partially crouching to look Noanne in the eyes. Without warning, Noanne simply lifted her hand, and Gothitelle moved to gore the woman with the bones on its head. The woman made a squeaking sound and dropped the key before Gothitelle tossed her body to the side. Then Noanne called Gothitelle back.
"Noanne!" I screamed. "She was surrendering!"
"No, she wasn't. Look at her other hand—she switched to the grip of the knife and was about to throw it at Hector. Neither of you were paying attention 'cause you were yelling at me," Noanne said, turning to me and then Hector. The knife was positioned as Noanne said it was, but I wasn't quite convinced it meant the woman was going to attack us again. "And she rolled up and instantly attacked us without even trying to have a conversation! Do you really think a person like that would surrender so easily? Next, her story was so bogus! Her whole group died but she didn't? All the people attacking her fell down some hole? That's pretty convenient. And! And…that trick with the knife? She probably used it before to convince whoever she was fighting that she'd surrender and then turned around to kill them and steal their Pokémon—probably would've tried it again! Anyway, I just saved you from getting a knife lodged in your back, so you're welcome." Then she went to retrieve the key, wiping the blood dripping off it on the carpet before extending it to me. Wordlessly, I took the key and put it into my backpack. I could only look at Hector and shake my head. He seemed similarly stunned, but Noanne was already moving on. "Come on. If she came from over there," Noanne said, pointing to the path on the left, "this is the way to go." She pointed to the path on the right. Three paths, three keys. Hector fell to his knees and looked over at the woman's lifeless body and then around the room at the remains of her Pokémon splattered across the carpet and walls. Eevee whimpered and pawed at my leg, so I absentmindedly picked it up to try and calm it. Hector went to examine the dead body but didn't find anything. Then he picked up the knife and handed it to me.
"For protection. Just in case," he whispered. It was a knife from the dining hall.
"I don't…think I want it," I said, shaking my head.
"Come on—I'll feel better if you have it."
"Hurry-y-y u-u-up!" Noanne called in a sing-song-y voice from the other side of the room. She'd crossed her arms and was tapping her foot impatiently again.
"Fine, just toss it in my bag," I sighed.
"Are you sure you don't want it somewhere easier to—"
"Hector! Just…put it in my bag, please. It'll be fine." Hector silently opened my bag, dropped the knife inside, and closed it up again. Then he whispered to me,
"Watch out for Noanne. I thought she was just a little weird, but now I'm not so sure we can trust her." I didn't react, and then we started walking toward the other path. Eevee had stopped shaking in my arm, but a buzzing anxiety still rattled my chest. I had a sinking feeling that Noanne might kill one of us. Then I blacked out.