Nimbasa Arc: Trip to the Castle
On the other side of the gate, they found a paved road that ran straight for a few hundred meters and then disappeared under the sand of the desert resort that laid before them. Sand swirled through the air carried by winds. The excitement immediately faded from the two of them as they started moving and began their arduous journey through the desert. They kept their eyes tightly shut so that no grain of sand would find its way into their eyes.
After a while, Mari could make out a silhouette in the distance. "Hey, look! Over there. That looks like a bridge, doesn't it?",
"I'd say so..." Jacky nodded. "Does that mean we're almost there?",
"I hope so, and I also hope we haven't lost our way. Everything looks the same here and I have sand in my shoes... Huh?" She saw a path turn off to the left. "Where exactly does that go?",
"Should we go that way?" Jacky asked, perplexed.
"...I don't think so... wait a minute..." Mari pulled out a map and held it convulsively so the wind wouldn't snatch it out of her hands. "Um... No, we have to go straight on... The path there leads to an old castle in the middle of nowhere. We don't want to go there.",
"No, I'll be glad when we get out of here.",
"You're like me on that one." Mari folded the map back up and kept walking.
Soon, a building appeared in front of them. "That's Join Avenue!" Mari shouted. "We've arrived!",
"Finally..." Jacky spat out sand as she suddenly paused. "...Mh?",
"What's up?" Mari asked.
"Did you hear that too?",
"No, what?" Mari listened as well as she could, and then, she, too, heard the cry of a Pokémon. The sandstorm around them thickened as a figure approached. Or rather, flew toward them. "Watch out!" Mari shouted, ducking down.
"What is that? "Jacky asked as the Pokémon came into view. It had a long tail and long, green horns. "Raaaaaahhh!", it roared out.
"A Flygon, I think..." Mari replied. "And it appears pretty angry to me... Why?",
"Graaahh!" Flygon fired a Dragon Pulse at her and Mari rolled to the side. "Woah!", "What's gotten into it?" Jacky asked confused. "We didn't do anything, did we?",
"Maybe we violated its territory...?" Mari guessed and straightened up again. "Hey, it's okay, we won't hurt you!" The Pokémon landed on the ground and hissed menacingly. Jacky peeked past it and could see a small cave in the sand and a figure lying in it. "Look! There!" She pointed. "There's another Pokémon lying in that sand den over there! Flygon seems to be protecting it! But there's something wrong with it... Mari, we should take a closer look!", "Are you crazy? Then, this Flygon is just gonna beat the crap out of us!",
"Come on!"
Mari sighed and then extended a hand to Flygon. "Shht... Easy now. Easy. We're coming to help, okay? We'll help." The dragonfly sniffed her hand suspiciously and nudged it briefly, but then nodded. It rose back into the air and flew toward the den. Mari and Jacky followed it.
When they arrived at the wind-sheltered den, Jacky fell to her knees, groaning. "Whew...", "That's a Vibrava", Mari muttered as she eyed the Pokémon closer. "It seems to be sick.", "Hm... Nurse Joy told me about a recurring disease that's spreading among Pokémon in the desert. She said its a very strange sickness whose cause is gradually unknown... but that it has a cure. And that cure can be found in an old ruin here in the desert.",
"In the Relic Castle?" Mari asked, puzzled. "That's the only old ruin in the desert coming to mind...",
"Maybe, yes.",
"Ugh... Then, we'll have to go there after all... No one knows exactly how old this castle really is, but it is thought to have been here for several hundred, if not a thousand years. However, most of the castle was buried beneath the sand... Quite a lot of quicksand has formed there, if rumors are to be believed. In addition, it is said that there is something inside the castle, but no one has ever seen it. It is also said that the entrance to the palace is guarded by ancient statues. That's outright suicide to go there.",
"You don't have to go, but I'll definitely try.",
"You're really crazy..." Mari shook her head in bewilderment. "Alright. Before you go there alone, I'll commit suicide with you." She looked at Flygon. "We'll go, you keep watching Vibrava. We'll be back soon.",
"Rrrrrgh." Flygon nodded. Mari nodded to Jacky, "Let's go."
They left the den again and walked back to the desert path they had seen earlier. They were already afraid they wouldn't find it again, but luckily, Mari had the map of Unova almost memorized and they found the way. They struggled through the sand and soon reached an ancient tower sticking out of the ground. "That's it... the remains of Relic Castle", Mari said. "There is nothing left of the above ground area of the castle except this tower... We need to find the entrance to the lower areas." She narrowed her eyes and searched the area with her gaze. "We should split up. It's somewhere around here."
Jacky nodded. "All right..."
The two split up and searched the area around the old tower. "HERE!" Mari soon yelled over to her friend through the mighty winds. Jacky struggled through to her and found herself in front of a path that led underground. And around the hole in the ground were statues. Mari eyed them suspiciously. "There's something not quite... alright... about these things", she opined, "They don't look like normal statues...",
"Somehow, you're right..." Jacky got a queasy feeling in her stomach. "...Shall we go?"
Mari nodded and took a step forward, but she was thrown back the next moment and landed in the sand. "Waaah!",
"Huh?!" Jacky looked puzzled at her before she suddenly landed next to her just a few seconds later, coughing. "Ugh...! What the Torn World...?" She stood up and patted the sand off her pants when she noticed a light go out in the eyes of the statue in front of her. "Huh... That's weird...",
"Uhm... I don't think those are statues at all..." Mari whispered beside her as she got back to her feet. "These things look way too real for statues... You know what I mean?"
Jacky nodded. "Yeah... But... Waaaaaah!" The ground beneath them suddenly trembled as one of the statues lit up and roared loudly. Then, it suddenly changed. The blue color gave way to a dark red and flames suddenly blazed above the creature's eyes. "GROAAAAHHH!", "It's a Darmanitan!" Mari shouted in fright. "Watch out!" At that exact moment, the other three statues also glowed and three more Darmanitan reared up in front of them. "Holy Feebas, three more?!" She backed away as the four Pokémon stood in their way, grunting snorting.