Chapter 2- Many Meetings
The giant doors slammed open with a thud. The two girls ran inside to get out of the rain, though Shade didn't complain about it as much as Tamora did. As soon as they were inside, the doors automatically closed shut, resulting in a loud creeeak and THUD echoing about the entrance hall.
"Well, that sure sucked," Tamora grumbled, inspecting her bag. "Rain, thunder, and a big door. I can't believe this! My stuff is all wet! And my hair!"
Shade did some grumbling herself. Would this girl just shut up?
"Sure doesn't look like it's going to get better either. No one's welcomed us, no one cares that we're soaking wet, probably no one knows we're even here yet! What kind of service is this? They're the ones who invited us! Just where are we supposed to go- h-hey, wait! Where are you going?"
Shade had had enough. Since no one was going to show them where to go, she'd just have to find a way herself. And hopefully, in such a big place like this, she could somehow lose that annoying blond.
With Tamora tagging along, the girl went from room to room, looking for any sign of life. The place was virtually deserted from the looks of it, and the total lack of noise further seemed to prove that there was no one there. On the way, the two encountered several flights of stairs leading to the upper floors. In these cases, Shade let out her ghost Pokemon to go explore, while the Trainers continued searching the first floor.
"Oh, this is just hopeless!" Tamora wailed, after they had opened a door to find yet another uninhabited room. "I wish I'd stayed home." Her eye caught something. A dusty mirror sat in a corner of the room, the only piece of furniture in the whole space. "Well, at least that's one good thing today," she sighed, and began to fix her hair in front of the mirror.
Shade glanced at her own reflection. Her black hair was dripping over her face like running ink, making her skin seem paler. All in all, she looked like a corpse back from the dead. Shade smiled.
"Haunt haunt!"
"Aaaaaaaagghh!"
Spooked, Shade's Haunter, chose that moment to jump out through the mirror, scaring Tamora to no end. As she sat shaking on the floor, the other girl flashed her Pokemon a quick thumbs-up then asked, "So did you find anything?"
"Haunt haunterhaun!" Spooked nodded, and pointed upwards.
"Good. Phantom!" Shade called. The Gengar promptly appeared, his grin a little less wider than usual. To think he was beaten, and by an amateur Haunter at that!
Spooked snickered slyly as she watched the other ghost Pokemon get returned to his Pokeball. Take that, Phantom!
----------------
It took the strength of both girls to push the large doors open. They were on the second floor in a spacious hall, trying to get into the room that Spooked had led them.
"What's.with.this.place.and.big.doors!?" Tamora gasped.
Suddenly the doors opened from within and they were sent sprawling onto the floor.
"Hey, two more girls!" said a brown-haired young man, the one who had pulled open the doors. Turning to the inside of the room, he went on, "That makes seven now."
"Seven.what?" Tamora groaned.
"Seven contestants. If one more person shows up, it would make an even eight," answered a dark-skinned boy in a blue cap, not even looking up from his laptop.
The girls stood up. They were now in what looked like a vast lounge, complete with couches, chairs, coffee table and a chandelier. There were four other people in the room besides themselves: an energetic red-haired girl with a blue hair band was sitting on one of the old couches, and beside her sat another girl with her brown hair tied up in a ponytail. An old but dangerous looking old man with gray hair was staring out into the storm through the long windows on the far side of the lounge. The dark- skinned boy had his laptop set on the table and was squatting on the thick carpet beside it, busy clicking away at whatever was on his screen. Standing next to them, the brown-haired young man shut the doors and courteously motioned them to sit down.
"My name is Trey," he smiled. "Who may you be?"
Shade sauntered over to a chair with Spooked floating along beside her. "Shade," she murmured quietly. She wasn't very interested in guys (or any kind of people, for that matter).
Tamora, on the other hand, forgot all about her wet clothing and dived headfirst into Flirt Mode. "Tamora! Tamora Kay, but you can call me Tammy if you want, all my boyfriends have, well, not that you're my boyfriend, but you are a boy, and now that we both know each other that makes us friends, right?" She said all this with one breath, and paused for a second to breathe. "So you're a Pokemon Trainer, right? Of course you are! Why else would you be here? I bet you're really strong, not like me. I started out pretty late for my age, but that's because I first wanted to be a model, but then I decided that I shouldn't waste my looks on something so unflattering and decided to become a Pokemon Trainer and my Pokemon are just so cute! What kind of Pokemon do you have?" Deep breath.
Trey, who was by now regretting that he'd ever asked, cleared his throat and replied, "Well, actually I'm not a Pokemon Trainer, I'm a Gym Leader."
"Wow! Then you must be really strong!" Tamora squealed.
"Uh.yeah. Anyway, wouldn't you like to meet everyone else first?"
"Oh, sure! Would you introduce me? Not that I really want to get too close to anyone in case I might have to battle them, this is a tournament after all, right?"
"Y-yeah.right."
Lyddie, the girl with the ponytail, saw how bewildered her friend was from the Tamora's barrage of words and decided to help out. "My name is Lyddie, Trey's friend. Nice to meet you, Tammy," she said cheerfully.
"And I'm Kate Windslow. Hi!" the redhead waved from her seat on the couch.
"Brian over here!" the boy at the laptop called out distractedly.
"And who's that over there?" Tamora pointed at the old man, who still hadn't turned around or spoken a word.
"Hiroshi Kendo," Trey whispered, with a disapproving tone in his voice. "He used to be a Gym Leader about twelve years ago, but was kicked out of the Pokemon League after he was caught cheating in his matches. Now he owns an unofficial gym somewhere in the Ilex Forest. It's surprising how anyone could invite someone like that to a tournament."
"Hmm, now that you mention it, I wonder why I was invited." Tammy mused. "I've never been in any tournaments before, and I haven't been battling much these days."
"That's what Trey and I've been wondering too," Lyddie added. "Even though I'm a Breeder and he's a Gym Leader we were both invited. It's kind of weird."
"Not really," said Brian, still focused on his laptop. "I've been to these kinds of tournaments before. Though most people would pick the best Trainers they can find, some are just too lazy to go through all that work. So they just type in random ID numbers into the Pokemon League database and invite whoever pops up. See?" He held up his laptop so everyone could see. On the screen was a list of Trainer's names with their statistics shown underneath. "It's as simple as that. And its normally cheap people like that who only invite a small number of Trainers to their tournament. I'm thinking the number for this one is eight, so we only need one more person to show up."
"Well, I guess that explains it." Trey said, impressed. "But there's still another mystery: who invited us in the first place?"
"Come to think of it, I haven't seen anyone here all day," said Kate with a shudder. "And I was the first one to arrive."
"B-but someone must be here, right?" Tamora stammered. "What kind of idiot would invite people and not show up? It doesn't make sense!"
There was a hushed silence in the room as each Trainer thought it over in their heads. For a while the howling wind and thunder was all that could be heard in the castle.
Shade smiled. She seemed to be doing that a lot more often since she arrived.
WHAM!
Everyone (except for Shade, who wasn't easily scared) jumped as the big doors suddenly slammed open with great force. Into the lounge strode two fearsome Rhydon. Their scales were black in color and they were dragging something between them: a young man, who was struggling and literally screaming his head off.
"Let me go! I said I didn't want to come! You can't do this to people! I said LET ME GO!!"
The Rhydon let him go. Dropping him like a sack of potatoes, the mighty Pokemon then turned back around and out into the hall, the doors slamming closed after them.
Once again the room became quiet, except this time it was more of a shocked silence as the Trainers stared at the newcomer.
"W-well, I guess that makes eight." Brian muttered.
The new Trainer had spikey blue hair that would certainly have looked intimidating if it weren't for the fact that it was completely drenched. He blinked up at the others and said, "Who're you?"
"Who are you?" Kate shot back.
Spotting the girls, the young man swiftly picked himself up from the floor and exclaimed, "Kyle Smith, Pokemon Collector! If I'm guessing correctly, you are the other Trainers invited to this ridiculous tournament, and I am sorry to inform you that I will not be staying for long. Goodbye!"
With that he flung open the doors and charged out, only to be dragged back in again by the Rhydon, who then made their exit the same way they did before.
"Fools! You can't keep me here!" Kyle shouted, banging on the doors. "I'll find a way out! Just wait and see!"
"Excuse me," Trey interrupted, "but were you brought here against your will?"
Kyle gave up on the doors and slouched over to a chair. "Yeah," he frowned. "I got an invitation a couple weeks back and trashed it right away; Pokemon Collectors like me are too busy to take part in some little challenge. Then today, while I was about to catch a Chansey- that's right, a Chansey! -these creepy kids show up and the next thing I know, I end up here with you guys."
"Creepy kids?"
"Yeah. See, they're right over there."
They turned to where he pointed, and jumped.
Standing in the middle of the room as if they had been there the whole time were two small children. They were obviously twins, one a boy and the other a girl. They both wore gray old-fashioned clothes with plain gray shoes. In fact, everything about them was gray. Pale skin, grayish hair, grayish eyes.those eyes most of all were what made them look so unusual; dull and lifeless, with none of the sparkle that should be in the eyes of ones so young.
"Welcome to Silvermoor Manor, we apologize for keeping you waiting," they said silently. Even their voices were dull! Though they spoke at the same time, it seemed as if there were only one, quiet voice speaking to them.
"Finally!" growled Tamora, regaining her frustration. "Now that we know that someone actually lives here, can we go to bed? I need to change out of these wet clothes!"
The Trainers leaned forward so they can hear as the children answered, "We will show you your rooms later in the evening. First let us explain to you the rules for this tournament."
"Hold on, who's running this place?" Brian asked skeptically. "Don't tell me you were the ones who invited us!"
"Our Master is the one who owns this castle; he was the one who chose you for this challenge."
"And just who is this 'Master'?"
"He is the strongest being in this world. The Master has no name and remains cloaked in mystery for all who see him."
Brian blinked. "Oooookaaaay.And that makes you?"
"We are the Master's hands."
"I am the right--" the little girl said,
"And I am the left," the little boy finished.
Brian asked no more questions, too dumbfounded to speak.
Kyle threw up his hands. "Is this some kind of joke!?"
"This is no joke!" the children snarled, their gray eyes momentarily flickering with a red light. Startled, Kyle took a step back.
The children calmed down, and continued. "You have been invited to the most challenging tournament of your lives. There are three rounds in this tournament, all of which will take place in the arena within this castle. This arena will test your Pokemon's strength as well as your skills as a Trainer and has six different battlefields. It is called the Dungeon."
"Doesn't sound very encouraging, does it?" Kate whispered to Lyddie.
"The rules are this: Only three Pokemon are allowed except in the third round. Trainers will accompany their Pokemon in battle. It is a loss once all of a Trainer's Pokemon are unable to fight or the Trainer can no longer stay in battle. There will be no forfeits. Everything goes. No outside assistance is allowed. Also, each battlefield will have its own individual rules. The Master will be judging each battle and will withdraw the use of Special Attacks if a rule is broken."
"Special Attacks?" Lyddie asked.
"The moment you stepped into this castle, an additional attack was randomly given to each fully evolved Pokemon above level thirty."
The Trainers all took out their Pokedex's, with the exception of Brian, who just looked up his online Pokedex on his laptop.
"Spirit Charm? Levitation Beam? Grenade Drop? I've never heard of any of these," Kate declared.
"These Special Attacks were created by the Master and could only be used within the Dungeon. Special Attacks can only be used twice within one battle, so using them wisely will be another challenge in this tournament. When a Trainer loses, their Pokemon's Special Attacks are then transferred to the winner's Pokemon to add to their arsenal of fighting abilities."
"Wait a minute! My Pokemon don't have any Special Attacks!" Tamora complained.
"That's probably because none of your Pokemon are above level thirty or fully evolved." Trey offered, peeking over her shoulder at her Pokedex. He turned to the children. "Am I right?"
"That is correct."
"But that's not fair!" Tamora whined.
"These are the rules."
Lyddie closed her Pokedex and looked up. "So.who battles first?"
"That will be decided in the morning. There will be one day of rest between each battle, which you may spend anywhere in the castle, but not outside. All rooms are free for you to explore, except for the north tower, which is off limits for all Trainers and Pokemon. You may spend your day training in the Dungeon if you wish, but no battles with other Trainers are allowed without the Master watching over them."
"So you expect us to stay locked up in this stuffy old castle for the whole time?" groaned Tamora.
"Yes, that is correct."
"And what do we get if we win?" Brian asked, eyebrow raised.
"That will be a surprise."
"A surprise? What kind of--"
The children glared at Brian, and he shut his mouth.
"That will be enough questions. More will be discussed tomorrow. Now we will lead you to your rooms."
"The female Trainers will come with me--" the girl began,
"And the male Trainers will come with me," the boy finished.
The Trainers divided up and went off in different directions, following their young guides. The boys went down the opposite end of the hall. Soon they were out of sight in the darkness, and all that could be heard were Trey's murmurs about "child labor."
The little girl lead the girls down the hall with a candlestick in her hand lighting the way. Shade stayed right behind her with Spooked still floating in the air beside her. Tamora, Lyddie and Kate hung behind, talking with hushed voices.
"What's with that girl with the black hair?" Kate wondered. "She's almost as unfriendly as the old guy."
"Beats me," said Tamora. "She's barely said a word the whole time, and when she did say something, it was to her creepy ghost Pokemon."
"Weird. Anyway, what do you think of the guys?"
"That Brian kid, I think he's too much of a know-it-all. Definitely not my type."
"Yeah. And he's so obsessed with that laptop!"
"I thought he was nice," said Lyddie.
"What do you think of Trey, Tammy?"
"He's cute, but too uptight. Did you see the way he was acting all professional back there?"
"Well, he does represent the Pokemon League." Lyddie remarked.
Kate grinned. "Oh really? And what do you think of him? Are you two boyfriend and girlfriend or something?"
Lyddie blushed and stammered, "N-no! He's just the Gym Leader in my hometown, that's all."
"Hmm, that Kyle is cute too." Tamora said. "I always thought Pokemon Collectors were geeks, but that guy is pretty hot."
"GRAAAAAAARRRR!!"
The girls' giggles were suddenly cut short as a horrendous roar sounded in their ears. While they ran about in circles screaming, Shade gave Spooked a satisfied wink. Those girls would have no peace of mind as long as she was around.
The giant doors slammed open with a thud. The two girls ran inside to get out of the rain, though Shade didn't complain about it as much as Tamora did. As soon as they were inside, the doors automatically closed shut, resulting in a loud creeeak and THUD echoing about the entrance hall.
"Well, that sure sucked," Tamora grumbled, inspecting her bag. "Rain, thunder, and a big door. I can't believe this! My stuff is all wet! And my hair!"
Shade did some grumbling herself. Would this girl just shut up?
"Sure doesn't look like it's going to get better either. No one's welcomed us, no one cares that we're soaking wet, probably no one knows we're even here yet! What kind of service is this? They're the ones who invited us! Just where are we supposed to go- h-hey, wait! Where are you going?"
Shade had had enough. Since no one was going to show them where to go, she'd just have to find a way herself. And hopefully, in such a big place like this, she could somehow lose that annoying blond.
With Tamora tagging along, the girl went from room to room, looking for any sign of life. The place was virtually deserted from the looks of it, and the total lack of noise further seemed to prove that there was no one there. On the way, the two encountered several flights of stairs leading to the upper floors. In these cases, Shade let out her ghost Pokemon to go explore, while the Trainers continued searching the first floor.
"Oh, this is just hopeless!" Tamora wailed, after they had opened a door to find yet another uninhabited room. "I wish I'd stayed home." Her eye caught something. A dusty mirror sat in a corner of the room, the only piece of furniture in the whole space. "Well, at least that's one good thing today," she sighed, and began to fix her hair in front of the mirror.
Shade glanced at her own reflection. Her black hair was dripping over her face like running ink, making her skin seem paler. All in all, she looked like a corpse back from the dead. Shade smiled.
"Haunt haunt!"
"Aaaaaaaagghh!"
Spooked, Shade's Haunter, chose that moment to jump out through the mirror, scaring Tamora to no end. As she sat shaking on the floor, the other girl flashed her Pokemon a quick thumbs-up then asked, "So did you find anything?"
"Haunt haunterhaun!" Spooked nodded, and pointed upwards.
"Good. Phantom!" Shade called. The Gengar promptly appeared, his grin a little less wider than usual. To think he was beaten, and by an amateur Haunter at that!
Spooked snickered slyly as she watched the other ghost Pokemon get returned to his Pokeball. Take that, Phantom!
----------------
It took the strength of both girls to push the large doors open. They were on the second floor in a spacious hall, trying to get into the room that Spooked had led them.
"What's.with.this.place.and.big.doors!?" Tamora gasped.
Suddenly the doors opened from within and they were sent sprawling onto the floor.
"Hey, two more girls!" said a brown-haired young man, the one who had pulled open the doors. Turning to the inside of the room, he went on, "That makes seven now."
"Seven.what?" Tamora groaned.
"Seven contestants. If one more person shows up, it would make an even eight," answered a dark-skinned boy in a blue cap, not even looking up from his laptop.
The girls stood up. They were now in what looked like a vast lounge, complete with couches, chairs, coffee table and a chandelier. There were four other people in the room besides themselves: an energetic red-haired girl with a blue hair band was sitting on one of the old couches, and beside her sat another girl with her brown hair tied up in a ponytail. An old but dangerous looking old man with gray hair was staring out into the storm through the long windows on the far side of the lounge. The dark- skinned boy had his laptop set on the table and was squatting on the thick carpet beside it, busy clicking away at whatever was on his screen. Standing next to them, the brown-haired young man shut the doors and courteously motioned them to sit down.
"My name is Trey," he smiled. "Who may you be?"
Shade sauntered over to a chair with Spooked floating along beside her. "Shade," she murmured quietly. She wasn't very interested in guys (or any kind of people, for that matter).
Tamora, on the other hand, forgot all about her wet clothing and dived headfirst into Flirt Mode. "Tamora! Tamora Kay, but you can call me Tammy if you want, all my boyfriends have, well, not that you're my boyfriend, but you are a boy, and now that we both know each other that makes us friends, right?" She said all this with one breath, and paused for a second to breathe. "So you're a Pokemon Trainer, right? Of course you are! Why else would you be here? I bet you're really strong, not like me. I started out pretty late for my age, but that's because I first wanted to be a model, but then I decided that I shouldn't waste my looks on something so unflattering and decided to become a Pokemon Trainer and my Pokemon are just so cute! What kind of Pokemon do you have?" Deep breath.
Trey, who was by now regretting that he'd ever asked, cleared his throat and replied, "Well, actually I'm not a Pokemon Trainer, I'm a Gym Leader."
"Wow! Then you must be really strong!" Tamora squealed.
"Uh.yeah. Anyway, wouldn't you like to meet everyone else first?"
"Oh, sure! Would you introduce me? Not that I really want to get too close to anyone in case I might have to battle them, this is a tournament after all, right?"
"Y-yeah.right."
Lyddie, the girl with the ponytail, saw how bewildered her friend was from the Tamora's barrage of words and decided to help out. "My name is Lyddie, Trey's friend. Nice to meet you, Tammy," she said cheerfully.
"And I'm Kate Windslow. Hi!" the redhead waved from her seat on the couch.
"Brian over here!" the boy at the laptop called out distractedly.
"And who's that over there?" Tamora pointed at the old man, who still hadn't turned around or spoken a word.
"Hiroshi Kendo," Trey whispered, with a disapproving tone in his voice. "He used to be a Gym Leader about twelve years ago, but was kicked out of the Pokemon League after he was caught cheating in his matches. Now he owns an unofficial gym somewhere in the Ilex Forest. It's surprising how anyone could invite someone like that to a tournament."
"Hmm, now that you mention it, I wonder why I was invited." Tammy mused. "I've never been in any tournaments before, and I haven't been battling much these days."
"That's what Trey and I've been wondering too," Lyddie added. "Even though I'm a Breeder and he's a Gym Leader we were both invited. It's kind of weird."
"Not really," said Brian, still focused on his laptop. "I've been to these kinds of tournaments before. Though most people would pick the best Trainers they can find, some are just too lazy to go through all that work. So they just type in random ID numbers into the Pokemon League database and invite whoever pops up. See?" He held up his laptop so everyone could see. On the screen was a list of Trainer's names with their statistics shown underneath. "It's as simple as that. And its normally cheap people like that who only invite a small number of Trainers to their tournament. I'm thinking the number for this one is eight, so we only need one more person to show up."
"Well, I guess that explains it." Trey said, impressed. "But there's still another mystery: who invited us in the first place?"
"Come to think of it, I haven't seen anyone here all day," said Kate with a shudder. "And I was the first one to arrive."
"B-but someone must be here, right?" Tamora stammered. "What kind of idiot would invite people and not show up? It doesn't make sense!"
There was a hushed silence in the room as each Trainer thought it over in their heads. For a while the howling wind and thunder was all that could be heard in the castle.
Shade smiled. She seemed to be doing that a lot more often since she arrived.
WHAM!
Everyone (except for Shade, who wasn't easily scared) jumped as the big doors suddenly slammed open with great force. Into the lounge strode two fearsome Rhydon. Their scales were black in color and they were dragging something between them: a young man, who was struggling and literally screaming his head off.
"Let me go! I said I didn't want to come! You can't do this to people! I said LET ME GO!!"
The Rhydon let him go. Dropping him like a sack of potatoes, the mighty Pokemon then turned back around and out into the hall, the doors slamming closed after them.
Once again the room became quiet, except this time it was more of a shocked silence as the Trainers stared at the newcomer.
"W-well, I guess that makes eight." Brian muttered.
The new Trainer had spikey blue hair that would certainly have looked intimidating if it weren't for the fact that it was completely drenched. He blinked up at the others and said, "Who're you?"
"Who are you?" Kate shot back.
Spotting the girls, the young man swiftly picked himself up from the floor and exclaimed, "Kyle Smith, Pokemon Collector! If I'm guessing correctly, you are the other Trainers invited to this ridiculous tournament, and I am sorry to inform you that I will not be staying for long. Goodbye!"
With that he flung open the doors and charged out, only to be dragged back in again by the Rhydon, who then made their exit the same way they did before.
"Fools! You can't keep me here!" Kyle shouted, banging on the doors. "I'll find a way out! Just wait and see!"
"Excuse me," Trey interrupted, "but were you brought here against your will?"
Kyle gave up on the doors and slouched over to a chair. "Yeah," he frowned. "I got an invitation a couple weeks back and trashed it right away; Pokemon Collectors like me are too busy to take part in some little challenge. Then today, while I was about to catch a Chansey- that's right, a Chansey! -these creepy kids show up and the next thing I know, I end up here with you guys."
"Creepy kids?"
"Yeah. See, they're right over there."
They turned to where he pointed, and jumped.
Standing in the middle of the room as if they had been there the whole time were two small children. They were obviously twins, one a boy and the other a girl. They both wore gray old-fashioned clothes with plain gray shoes. In fact, everything about them was gray. Pale skin, grayish hair, grayish eyes.those eyes most of all were what made them look so unusual; dull and lifeless, with none of the sparkle that should be in the eyes of ones so young.
"Welcome to Silvermoor Manor, we apologize for keeping you waiting," they said silently. Even their voices were dull! Though they spoke at the same time, it seemed as if there were only one, quiet voice speaking to them.
"Finally!" growled Tamora, regaining her frustration. "Now that we know that someone actually lives here, can we go to bed? I need to change out of these wet clothes!"
The Trainers leaned forward so they can hear as the children answered, "We will show you your rooms later in the evening. First let us explain to you the rules for this tournament."
"Hold on, who's running this place?" Brian asked skeptically. "Don't tell me you were the ones who invited us!"
"Our Master is the one who owns this castle; he was the one who chose you for this challenge."
"And just who is this 'Master'?"
"He is the strongest being in this world. The Master has no name and remains cloaked in mystery for all who see him."
Brian blinked. "Oooookaaaay.And that makes you?"
"We are the Master's hands."
"I am the right--" the little girl said,
"And I am the left," the little boy finished.
Brian asked no more questions, too dumbfounded to speak.
Kyle threw up his hands. "Is this some kind of joke!?"
"This is no joke!" the children snarled, their gray eyes momentarily flickering with a red light. Startled, Kyle took a step back.
The children calmed down, and continued. "You have been invited to the most challenging tournament of your lives. There are three rounds in this tournament, all of which will take place in the arena within this castle. This arena will test your Pokemon's strength as well as your skills as a Trainer and has six different battlefields. It is called the Dungeon."
"Doesn't sound very encouraging, does it?" Kate whispered to Lyddie.
"The rules are this: Only three Pokemon are allowed except in the third round. Trainers will accompany their Pokemon in battle. It is a loss once all of a Trainer's Pokemon are unable to fight or the Trainer can no longer stay in battle. There will be no forfeits. Everything goes. No outside assistance is allowed. Also, each battlefield will have its own individual rules. The Master will be judging each battle and will withdraw the use of Special Attacks if a rule is broken."
"Special Attacks?" Lyddie asked.
"The moment you stepped into this castle, an additional attack was randomly given to each fully evolved Pokemon above level thirty."
The Trainers all took out their Pokedex's, with the exception of Brian, who just looked up his online Pokedex on his laptop.
"Spirit Charm? Levitation Beam? Grenade Drop? I've never heard of any of these," Kate declared.
"These Special Attacks were created by the Master and could only be used within the Dungeon. Special Attacks can only be used twice within one battle, so using them wisely will be another challenge in this tournament. When a Trainer loses, their Pokemon's Special Attacks are then transferred to the winner's Pokemon to add to their arsenal of fighting abilities."
"Wait a minute! My Pokemon don't have any Special Attacks!" Tamora complained.
"That's probably because none of your Pokemon are above level thirty or fully evolved." Trey offered, peeking over her shoulder at her Pokedex. He turned to the children. "Am I right?"
"That is correct."
"But that's not fair!" Tamora whined.
"These are the rules."
Lyddie closed her Pokedex and looked up. "So.who battles first?"
"That will be decided in the morning. There will be one day of rest between each battle, which you may spend anywhere in the castle, but not outside. All rooms are free for you to explore, except for the north tower, which is off limits for all Trainers and Pokemon. You may spend your day training in the Dungeon if you wish, but no battles with other Trainers are allowed without the Master watching over them."
"So you expect us to stay locked up in this stuffy old castle for the whole time?" groaned Tamora.
"Yes, that is correct."
"And what do we get if we win?" Brian asked, eyebrow raised.
"That will be a surprise."
"A surprise? What kind of--"
The children glared at Brian, and he shut his mouth.
"That will be enough questions. More will be discussed tomorrow. Now we will lead you to your rooms."
"The female Trainers will come with me--" the girl began,
"And the male Trainers will come with me," the boy finished.
The Trainers divided up and went off in different directions, following their young guides. The boys went down the opposite end of the hall. Soon they were out of sight in the darkness, and all that could be heard were Trey's murmurs about "child labor."
The little girl lead the girls down the hall with a candlestick in her hand lighting the way. Shade stayed right behind her with Spooked still floating in the air beside her. Tamora, Lyddie and Kate hung behind, talking with hushed voices.
"What's with that girl with the black hair?" Kate wondered. "She's almost as unfriendly as the old guy."
"Beats me," said Tamora. "She's barely said a word the whole time, and when she did say something, it was to her creepy ghost Pokemon."
"Weird. Anyway, what do you think of the guys?"
"That Brian kid, I think he's too much of a know-it-all. Definitely not my type."
"Yeah. And he's so obsessed with that laptop!"
"I thought he was nice," said Lyddie.
"What do you think of Trey, Tammy?"
"He's cute, but too uptight. Did you see the way he was acting all professional back there?"
"Well, he does represent the Pokemon League." Lyddie remarked.
Kate grinned. "Oh really? And what do you think of him? Are you two boyfriend and girlfriend or something?"
Lyddie blushed and stammered, "N-no! He's just the Gym Leader in my hometown, that's all."
"Hmm, that Kyle is cute too." Tamora said. "I always thought Pokemon Collectors were geeks, but that guy is pretty hot."
"GRAAAAAAARRRR!!"
The girls' giggles were suddenly cut short as a horrendous roar sounded in their ears. While they ran about in circles screaming, Shade gave Spooked a satisfied wink. Those girls would have no peace of mind as long as she was around.