Chapter 17: The Old Well
A third badge. Lucas examined the glittering piece of lacquered metal in the bright sunlight before putting it inside his vest with the rest. Keeping his promise to Gizmo, the boy immediately went back to the Pokemon Center to switch out his Kadabra, Kazza, for his other Eevee, Donna. Lucas smiled as the two normal-types were reunited and thought about his next step. It was time to leave Hearthome City and move on. Though the time he had spent in the metropolis was short, it was extremely eventful, and he still had five more badges to win. The teen restocked his supplies, settled on a small gift for his mother, though he wasn't sure if he was ready to send it to her, and wandered around the city one more time. He called Professor Oak to inform him of his progress and headed back out to the open road.
Lucas started to enjoy traveling. The time with just him and his Pokemon let him sort out his thoughts and analyze his life. The surroundings were mostly quiet, and always beautiful. He still wasn't a fan of the whole sleeping-on-the-ground thing, but the benefits certainly outweighed any negativity. The teen began to wistfully wonder why he let John's life control his own so much, why he just hadn't left for a journey earlier when he first wanted to, to see all the wonders the world had to offer. So many wasted years in Cherrygrove City doing stupid things he didn't particularly enjoy, and months locked in a cell defending the foolish pride of his gang. The teen thought some more. If he had become a Trainer earlier he wouldn't have met and saved Gizmo. Lucas was not a believer in fate or destiny, he believed things happened because things happened. Chance. Dumb luck. Poor timing. But the more he thought about what would have happened if he didn't save Gizmo, the more he realized he really didn't regret as much of his life as he first thought.
Professor Oak was right: we get good at things we love, we don't love things because we are good at them. So what if he couldn't beat the Champion of Sinnoh, let alone the other three? For the first time for as long as he could remember, even after Ashley, Lucas was genuinely happy. No. He did have to win. He had to prove that he was better than John when it came to Training. As long as John was the bar for which the world would judge him, Lucas would always fall short, and all of John's actions would dictate Lucas' life. If he was going to keep the happiness he now had as he watched Gizmo and Donna chase each other, he'd have to fight for it.
Checking his Pokevice, Lucas figured out where the next Gym was. His two options were the Gym in Veilstone and the Gym in Pastoria City. Pastoria was south of Hearthome and Lucas was already heading east, and he would have to trudge through a swamp to get there. Veilstone it is. Based on this route however, it would probably take at least a week to walk there. While taking that long would be discouraging, what was his hurry? The longer it took him to get through the Sinnoh League, the more time it would be before he would have to deal with John again. At the teen boy fumed over the thought of his older brother again, a strange, haggard-looking man approached him. At first Lucas assumed that the guy was a Trainer, but his behavior soon suggested otherwise.
"The shadows are following me," he said, his eyes darting left and right. In his hands was a large, smooth rock, "I can't take the laughing anymore. And I don't want to lose anymore socks,"
This dude is a nutjob, Lucas thought to himself. Worried for their Trainer, both Eevees huddled around his legs, waiting to see what would happen, "Um, are you okay?"
"Here! Take it!" the man said urgently, shoving the rock he was holding into Luca's chest. The sudden action knocked the wind out of the boy slightly but before he could regain his composure or say anything, the man ran into the bushes.
"Did I get a 'weirdo magnet' tattoo when no one was looking?" Lucas commented to his Pokemon. Both Eevee perked their ears curiously. At first Lucas was just going to toss the rock to the ground, but when he examined it he noticed there was some carving to it that looked like a face. He wasn't sure why, but he found the item intersting and stuck it into his bag.
The rest of the afternoon and evening were fairly uneventful. Lucas battled a few Trainers and worked on leveling up Donna and Hotrod, checked on the egg he received from Ashley and made camp. At night he slept soundly, but had an odd dream about the rock in his bag talking to him. The next morning he started walking again and covering a lot of ground, eventually came across a well that was next to a stream.
"Well, that's kinds stupid," Lucas remarked, "Why would you build a well when there's running water no more than two feet away," Curious, he examined the misplaced structure and noticed the stones that it was built out of where the same color and texture as the rock he received from the crazy old man. Further inspecting the well, the teen noticed what seemed to be a hole that was the same size and shape as his stone, "No, it couldn't be, could it?"
Lucas took the item from his bag and started to place it back in the hole. A strange sound that he could barely hear seemed to be coming from inside his head. The hair on the back of his neck stood straight up as he reconsidered putting the missing stone back, "Hey, you!"
The teen dropped the rock and turned around. Just a few feet behind him was a girl, "Jesus! You just about gave me a heart attack! You shouldn't sneak up on people like that!"
"Listen you! I have been camped out at this well for two straight weeks, I am not about to have some random metal-head sneak in and catch my Pokemon! If you want to catch something, move on because this spot is mine!" The girl who had confronted Lucas seemed a little more than odd. She wasn't very tall but she was rail-thin with legs like a stork and a long face. Her nose was lightly large and rounded, but she wouldn't have been bad looking if her expression wasn't so sullen and her large lower lip enhanced by her dark purple lipstick. Her outfit seemed to suggest she couldn't make up her mind if she wanted to look Scene or Emo with her stripped socks, ripped skirt and heavy black eye makeup around her brown eyes, mismatched with a bright blue Sneasel tank-top over a lilac t-shirt. Her jet-black hair was impossibly teased and crowned with a large pink bow with a Pokeball in the center.
"What the hell are you talking about? What Pokemon?" Lucas snapped back now that he had regained his senses.
"Oh, don't play dumb with me. You're the fifth guy this week I've had to fight off. I'm warning you, if I have to beat you in a battle I will. So don't mess with me," the teen girl growled. Lucas still had no idea what this girl was rambling about, but he was liking her less and less with each second.
"Okay, girlie, obviously you need to switch hairsprays because the one you use now is killing too many braincells. I'm not playing dumb, in this situation I actually am dumb. I'm not trying to take anything, but if you want a battle, I'll be happy to give you one," the teen boy barked back, "Go! Sparky!"
"Go Snuggles!" the girl pulled a Pokeball from her purse and summoned out a Sneasel.
Lucas swore. A dark-type was the last thing he needed for his electric/ghost Pokemon. He would have to hope his opponent wouldn't be over-eager with dark-type moves, "Use Spark!"
"Night Slash!"
Dammit. So much for that plan. Sparky was knocked out in one hit. Lucas began to feel sorry for his happy-go-lucky little Pokemon. That had been the second time he had been instantly KO-ed in as many battles. Thankfully Sneasel was also part-ice, making Lucas' next choice Hotrod the Charmeleon. Though having a type advantage, the fire-type still had a difficult time beating his opponent.
Though her Sneasel had been defeated, the girl with the big hair didn't seem shaken, "Okay Theenie! Make Momma proud!"
The teen girl's next Pokemon was a Houndoom, a notoriously speedy and tough creature that was higher in level than any of Lucas' other monsters. Even at a disadvantage, the boy was not about the let his shrill opponent make a fool out of him. Franky was the next in battle. The round between the two was fierce but with the Gyrados not knowing any water moves, the Houndoom won. Things were going very badly for Lucas and it was his own fault. The girl might be irritating and moody, but there was no denying she was an extremely powerful Trainer. With Franky down, Lucas summoned Gizmo, his highest level Pokemon.
The girl didn't laugh at the summoned Eevee like many of his other opponents would. She considered it carefully and recalled her Houndoom. She pulled out a third Pokeball, "Go! Achilles!"
No. F#$ing. Way. This was the only thought that Lucas' terrified brain could squeak out. He wasn't scared for himself, though the Pokemon the girl summoned was so tall its blotted out the boy's view of the sun. All available fear was now for Gizmo, the beast's opponent, "You're kidding me. A Tyranitar? That thing is going to kill Gizmo!"
Tyranitar were massive, insanely powerful dark-and-ground Pokemon that could only be evolved at high level. He didn't pull out his Pokedex but he could guess that the girl's living tank was almost level ninety. He couldn't understand why the girl's other Pokemon were relatively low level, but this monstrosity was almost the strongest a Pokemon could get, "You know perfectly well Pokemon can't kill each other in a fight. It'd be illegal to have Pokemon Battles if they did. But if you want to forfeit to save your Pokemon, I'll let you. You won't even have to pay me a winner's fee, but you're going to have to move on from here,"
Lucas hated to lose. And he especially hated the idea of losing to this unpleasant girl. But she was showing his Pokemon mercy, and to keep fighting this futile battle for his own stubborn pride was not something he was willing to do to Gizmo. He didn't force Gizmo to fight his brother's Nidoking, and he wasn't going to force him to fight a beast belonging to a person, though immediately didn't like, also didn't know. "Okay fine, I forfeit. Though I can see how you were able to beat anyone who came by here. That Tyranitar is like bringing a nuke to a gun fight,"
"You're a good boy, Achilles," the girl said lovingly to her Pokemon before recalling it and switching back to her bad attitude towards Lucas, "Hey, I beat my opponents fair and square,"
"Legal, yes. Fair, my ass," Lucas replied as Gizmo ran back over to Donna.
"Point is I beat you. Now step off, Rooster Boy. I told you the Pokemon of the well is mine!" the girl snapped back.
"Rooster Boy?" the mohawk-bearing boy seethed, "Motley Crue called, they want their hair back! And as I told you before and for whatever reason you still don't believe me, I still don't know what the high hell you're talking about!"
The girl's dour expression changed slightly as it finally dawned on her the boy was telling her the truth, "So you really don't know, huh? All right, I'll tell you about it, but after I tell you, the Pokemon is still mine and if you try anything funny Achilles get a new chew toy, got it?" Lucas just rolled his eyes at her, "The locals around here say that this really isn't a well. Makes sense considering it's next to a river. And it makes no sense to dig a well for water when there is running water two feet away like this,"
"I got that part. I'm not stupid, you know!" Lucas snarled.
"Sure you're not," the girl said patronizingly, "So anyway, this isn't a well, it's a tomb. A cursed tomb. People around here say that weird things happen around here, especially at night. Strange shadows, creepy voices, real Amitville Horror stuff. People assume it's ghosts, but I read an article written by Professor Rowan, the leading expert of the Sinnoh Region, and he hypothesizes that it's really the ghost/dark Pokemon, Spiritomb. It's my ambition to start a dark-type gym, so I want to get every kind of dark-type I can find,"
"And so you've been camping out here for two weeks jumping out at random Trainers like some kind of demented prospector protecting a gold mine without one sign of anything being here," Lucas smirked, "And you call me dumb. I would have given up probably after the first two days,"
"That's because you're a loser. Listen, before I got here everyone from the next town up all said the same thing. Not some stupid tourist story, real X-files type stuff. Almost everyone has experienced something from this 'well'. I go back to the town every now and again and for the past two weeks everyone has noticed things have gone quiet. They're more weirded out by the quiet than the funky events. That means something was here. And since I'm the only Trainer around here, and I've made sure no one else has caught it, I know the Spiritomb is still here and I'm going to catch it!"
"You sure you didn't just scare it off?"
"Screw you,"
"You're not my type,"
"The Spiritomb has been in this area for hundreds of years. It's not going to get scared off just because a Trainer like me is poking around. Something else must have done it,"
Lucas glanced back at the carved rock that was still next to the well when a thought occurred to him, "Hey, was there a creepy old man around here recently? Talking to himself, wild eyes, looks like he'd probably bury your mangled corpse in the woods somewhere?"
"Yeah, actually, about two weeks ago he came around here mumbling something about socks. He was around the well, but he wasn't a Trainer so I didn't mess with him," the girl said thoughtfully. Lucas marched back over to the well and picked up the rock again, "Hey you prick! I beat you! That means you promised you wouldn't go after the Pokemon!"
"I didn't promise jack shit to you, I said I'm move on but I didn't say when. And I certainly didn't say anything about not catching the Pokemon. I'm trying to fill in my Pokedex so I'm going to try to catch any Pokemon I get the opportunity to, especially if it's rare. And my name is Lucas. If we're going to keep yelling at each other, we might as well have proper introductions," Lucas carefully placed the missing stone back into place. At first it resisted his movements, but then smoothly slide in and clicked into place. Then nothing happened. "Well, so much for that idea. See you around, Tommy Lee. And you might want to reconsider all that hairspray you use if you train a Houndoom. Don't want any nasty accidents of setting yourself on fire,"
"You're one to talk, you look like the lovechild of a chicken, someone who plays paintball, Sid Vicious and a hooked trout. And my name is Morgan, if we're suddenly going to be civilized," the girl sneered. Instead of Lucas leaving the two began to argue and hurl insults at each other over their appearances, their Pokemon and the integrity of their mothers' morality. Busy shouting at each other, they failed to notice that the old well began to glow. From the center of the small circle of stones a purple haze began to seep out and take a loose form. It wasn't until the desperate barking of Donna and Gizmo that the two Trainers turned to see what was happening.
Realizing what they were encountering, they shouted together, "The Spiritomb!"