Chapter Seventeen – Automatic

Corby and the other officers talked in whispers for awhile as they walked back through the sewers towards the other team, but Cheren couldn't focus on a word of it. He tried, figuring that whatever they had to say was probably important, but the words went in one ear and out the other, not even hitting his brain on the way out.

Instead, the only thing he could focus on was his conversation with Avani. What he told her had been the truth; he wanted to be angry at N. It was only natural for him, for humans, to want to pin the blame on someone. But he already knew that the Shadow Triad was at fault, and it wasn't as though N asked Hilda to go looking for him. Cheren had no reason to be angry with N.

Logically.

The fact remained that Hilda was in love with someone who wasn't Cheren, and that person was an indirect cause of her death.

Everything Cheren said, though, was true. Despite all of those irrational thoughts, and with his rational ones, he couldn't bring himself to hate the guy or even be angry with N. The poor kid wanted and tried to find Hilda. That was more than Cheren had done prior to this. And if Hilda loved N, then—damn it—that meant that he was worth something in this world. She put her faith in him, so it was the least Cheren could do to put his in, too.

All he ever wanted was for Hilda to be happy, and she would be happiest knowing that her friends were all happy, too.

Cheren just hoped that N was okay now. But where was he?

"Cheren. Cheren."

A hand smacked down on the boy's shoulder, and he flinched and hit the hand away in a knee-jerk reaction.

Everyone stopped dead in their tracks, and everything else froze around them, too. Shit, Cheren thought as every eye turned on him. He lowered his arm back to his side, curling his fingers—which, honestly, stung a little from the sheer force of his hit—into a fist. It wasn't as if he meant to smack away Corby's hand. Something just sort of… came over him.

"Sorry. I didn't mean to startle you," Corby began, as if he needed to apologize. "I'm still thinking that letting you tag along was a bad idea. You've obviously been under a great deal of stress here. You're practically sleepwalking at this point, kid. The only thing keeping you standing is adrenaline, and I'm not sure you have much left."

"I'm fine," Cheren snapped. Stop. He didn't mean for that to come off so harsh.

"Kid, you're not fine, and it's okay for you to admit that and let us help you. We're not the enemies here. It's our job to protect the people, and I honestly don't feel that I'm doing that by letting you stay here," Corby countered, and every word made Cheren grit his teeth harder. "You're a danger to yourself. We can handle it."

Maybe it was adrenaline keeping Cheren standing because his sudden panic made him feel a bit more lively. "No, you can't! You need me!"

But Corby ignored Cheren and turned to one of the other cops. "Blake. The ambulance with the girl has already left, but if you could get the gym leader here to the hospital…" He patted the cop's back a couple of times with a smile, but when he looked back at Cheren, that smile made a smooth transition to a grimace. "Make this easy for us."

When Blake stepped forward, Cheren took a step back. "I'm fine," he repeated once more.

They were already back at the fork in the path near the entrance of the inner radius. Cheren glanced over at the tunnel leading to the exit, knowing well what the right thing to do was. The police were here. He had told them everything he knew. So, really, what else could he do for them? They were trained to take down the bad guys. He wasn't.

And Corby was right. If Cheren was really being honest with himself, he wasn't fine at all. His mouth still tasted like vomit, and his head spun enough that unless he focused on what was right in front of him, he saw double. He was tired and hungry, but at the same time, he didn't want to sleep and certainly didn't have an appetite. Not to mention, his knee-jerk reaction to Corby touching him bothered him more than it should have.

Cheren didn't need to stay.

"Okay…" He sighed. "Arcanine, let's go."

Corby and his group started off before Blake and Cheren. The two stood in silence as the cops brushed past, vanishing into the tunnel the other team took. When they couldn't see the group anymore, Cheren finally turned around and sighed again. Life really wasn't fair, was it? But as long as they stopped the Shadow Triad…

"I can call for another ambulance if you can't walk," Blake offered.

"I've been walking this whole time." Why couldn't Cheren control his temper anymore? "Sorry… I can walk. Come on, Arcanine."

But they had barely walked three feet before a shiver crawled up his spine. Something didn't feel right… and something definitely didn't look right. Even with Blake's flashlight, there wasn't really enough light to see clearly. And the sewers had always been damp and cool.

It was the orange hue and the warmth on his back that threw him off. "Arcanine," he whispered, and the beast turned, too, "Fire Blast."

Arcanine's giant blast met the same form approaching them—and the force of the colliding powers exploded with a burst, enough to knock both Cheren and Blake off their feet. But soon, the flashlight was the only source of light again, and there was no more warmth, just the wet floor and cool, stagnant air.

"What the hell was that?"

Blake stood up and held out his hand to Cheren. "I'd wager a warning. Corby's used that trick before. He's trying to run us out of here fast. They must've met trouble already." Once Cheren was on his feet, the two glanced in the direction of the Fire Blast. "We best get out of here. They've got it handled."

The beginnings of a plan formulated in Cheren's already-crammed head. Yeah… he knew even before he agreed to go with Blake that this probably wasn't going to last. Even if the police didn't need Cheren, they also could use the help, right?

"Sorry again!"

Cheren pulled himself on Arcanine's back and nudged its sides. Arcanine sprinted, its muscles solid beneath its fur, and Cheren grabbed onto some tuffs of fur around its neck. "Come on, they went down that tunnel there! But stop if you see or hear any fighting, okay?"

The poor beast practically skidded to a stop just five hundred feet into the second tunnel. Its ears went up straight, and its fur stood on end. Cheren slid off Arcanine's back and scratched behind its ears. It didn't seem to get the fire-type's attention, however. It was focused straight ahead where Cheren could see the gathered light of the police's flashlights.

Cheren walked forward with light steps into a large room, but all was not calm. The other team, the one with Officer Mallory, wasn't here, but one of the Shadows was. He had three Pokémon attacking the officers, two Bisharp and an Absol, but the sheer number of officers made it clear who was at the advantage.

"Take 'em down!" the Shadow yelled.

For the first time in these tunnels, Cheren's heart was light in his chest. He watched as Corby pointed a finger at one of the Bisharp, and his own Arcanine sent a blast towards it. Two of the other officers were taking on the Absol, and the rest were attack any Pokémon they could. The battle couldn't possibly be won by the Shadow.

That was, of course, assuming he'd play fair.

Cheren saw a thought pass through the Shadow's face. His eyes went even darker, almost sad, as if any of the Shadow Triad could feel such an emotion. Glancing down at the floor, the man crossed his right hand over his heart, and Cheren could see the movement of the Shadow's lips behind the thin fabric over his mouth.

"What did he say?" Cheren muttered. "What is he doing?"

That sad expression was gone when the Shadow looked up again. His eyebrows furrowed, which only cast a dark shadow over his eyes. "Absol! Earthquake!"

Cheren's body reacted again without his mind's permission. He ran forward, holding his hands up over his head. "Stop!" he screamed, and every head turned towards him—every head, he saw, except for the one that mattered: the Absol. And he knew then that it was already too late to stop it. Too late to stop the Shadow.

It was said that Absol brought catastrophe, but maybe it would just be a light tremor. Maybe it wasn't bring chaos.

The tremor of the earthquake was light at first. The power of a Pokémon very rarely equated to a natural disaster of an earthquake, except in the case of legendaries and Pokémon with direct power over the environment. Unova also wasn't known for powerful earthquakes—anything it did have tended to be too weak to do much damage.

Absol's earthquake, however, would be the catastrophe that everyone expected when they saw one of the white terrors. The city above them could handle an earthquake—the buildings were designed to do so. But the sewers weren't built to be the epicenter of a massive quake. The concrete walls and ceilings didn't allow for shifting.

And the second that tremor grew to something more…

Cheren was knocked to the ground not from the force of the strengthening quake but from Arcanine jumping on his back. The Pokémon was not light—it was twice Cheren's weight—but it pressed itself over Cheren's body. He couldn't move, couldn't look up to see what everyone else was doing, but he still felt the vibrations of the floor.

Everything was muffled by Arcanine, but Cheren could hear the desperation in the low voices of the officers nearest to him, and when the walls and ceiling started cracking, he could hear that, too. Cheren tried to push himself out from under Arcanine, but there was no way he could even begin to move it.

The attack ceased after a few moments, and everyone in these sewers would be safe from any aftershocks, namely because there wouldn't be any—not from an earthquake caused by a Pokémon, anyway.

Arcanine scooted off Cheren's back, and he rose slowly and carefully to his feet to survey the damage. There was less light now—some of the flashlights had apparently been buried, which meant that… people had to have been buried, too.

From what Cheren could see, the damage wasn't wildly expansive. Several slabs of concrete had fallen from the ceiling, and one of the walls on the right-hand side collapsed entirely. But most of the structure of the room still remained—no part of the city was falling in on them, anyway, at least for now.

"Hello?" Cheren called, glancing around at the floor. Everyone uncovered shifted, moving their hands from their heads and rolling onto their backs.

"Cheren?" Corby's voice—but Cheren could see him.

The light around them flickered as everyone moved their flashlights and stood up. One finally fell on Cheren's face, and he held up a hand to shield his eyes. Corby approached his slowly with a limp in his step.

Cheren couldn't focus on Corby, though—he was all right. But where did the Shadow go? Where were his Pokémon?

There was movement before Cheren could see what it was, and he lowered his hand from over his eyes just as Corby pointed the flashlight away. But all that was audible, all that Cheren needed to hear to know, was Corby's gasps as a Bisharp ran its bladed arm through the man's back. And that was all that caused another knee-jerk reaction.

"Arcanine, get around it and use Flamethrower!"

The Bisharp barely moved, barely pulled its arm out of Corby, before Arcanine got the edge on it. Cheren grabbed Corby's arm and yanked him forward, and the cop fell down on his knees just as a wave of fire shot at the Bisharp behind him. The Bisharp fell backwards and didn't move anymore, which wasn't that far off from Corby.

"Ah, ah, Corby? Ah, um…" Cheren eased the officer onto his side, unsure what else he could do.

He was surrounded, shortly, by several other officers. All battling had ceased—the Bisharp that Arcanine defeated was done and out, and Cheren couldn't even see the other Bisharp or the Absol. And what about the Shadow? Where had he gone now? Or had he been crushed by the rubble?

"Move, kid."

One of the other police officers pushed Cheren out of the way, and he stumbled back to his feet and grabbed Corby's flashlight. There was nothing Cheren could do for him, anyway, and he had seen enough in his stay in these sewers that he didn't need to see anything else. But his heart ached a little bit all the same.

Cheren turned the flashlight on the fallen concrete slabs from the ceiling and ran it along the edges. And as he walked around, his heart continued to ache and to pound with every step. It was not until he saw a flash of white beneath the stone that suddenly all that aching stopped.

It was the Shadow beneath that slab… and he wasn't moving.

Never had Cheren thought that the sight of someone unconscious would bring him such relief, but as he turned around back towards Corby, he was smiling.

"We need to get him an ambulance. At this point we should just keep one waiting. What's the count on the other officers?" one of the policemen was asking as Cheren walked back over towards the group surrounding Corby.

"Three injured from the attack. We were lucky we were at the edge of the room—the slabs fell in towards the center. Any word on the Shadow?"

"He's there, under the ceiling slab," Cheren finally interjected.

The officer who spoke first raised his eyebrows at Cheren. "Weren't you supposed to go back with Blake? What are you doing here?"

"Yes, sir, he was." Officer Blake cleared his throat behind Cheren, who winced at the sound. "What's the location on Mallory's team? That's only one Shadow Triad member—Leader Cheren said there were three. We need a team to press on forward and some officers to take Corby and the three injured out to an ambulance."

"Mallory's position is currently unknown. We were ambushed here by that Shadow Triad man," the other officer noted. "It's likely that at least one other Shadow Triad member is with Mallory's team if this was a planned attack."

They were close, then. The Shadow Triad wouldn't leave N alone unless he was in that maintenance room or dead… at least, that was what Cheren assumed. They were always doting on "Lord N", even if it was all just a farce. So, that meant that N was either with Mallory's team with the Shadows, or Mallory's team hadn't made it to the Shadows yet. Probably.

But they were close. That was all that mattered.

"I'm going on. This isn't over yet," Cheren decided. "Who's coming?"

Author's Note: I'm, like, starting to panic here. I'm fairly certain (99% sure—there are only two chapters left!) this fic will be done before National Novel Writing Month begins… but November is coming, like, really quickly. I am excited, though, to get to writing my next novel, which is a nice feeling that I haven't had in awhile.

Anyway, this chapter gave me a bit of trouble, hence the slow update. Hopefully it's not apparent in my writing.

(Um, before anyone calls me out on it… Absol can't learn Earthquake. However, considering it's the "Disaster Pokémon", that seems pretty ridiculous to me. Forgive me for making a, er, creative change.)