True Magic
Disclaimer: I don't own Pokémon.
Chapter Eight
Cynthia, Lucas, and Dawn silently appeared behind a wall of rocks in Lake Valor. The sight that greeted them was disastrous.
The lake was gone, with only puddles lying behind. All sorts of life was strewed about carelessly. A cavern that had been hidden by water was now easily exposed.
"This is awful," breathed Dawn furiously. "I'll take this place. You two better get to the other lakes!"
Cynthia nodded. "We'll leave it to you." She and Lucas disappeared. Dawn pulled out her wand and slowly moved out of the shadows, sneaking forward and scouting out the surroundings.
In the trees surrounding Lake Verity, Cynthia and Lucas popped into existence. A few voices could be vaguely be heard coming from the shoreline.
"I'll leave this to you then," said Cynthia. "I'll head to Lake Acuity."
"Thanks for all your help," said Lucas. "Good luck!"
"You too." Cynthia disappeared, and Lucas advanced through the trees to get closer to the lake. As he did so, a voice he remembered from Valley Windworks rang out.
"You fools! Mesprit's obviously not on the surface! That's why we brought these two; they can use Dive and bring us to the depths where Mesprit will be. Come on, hurry up!"
Lucas made it just in time to see two Grunts conjure a bubble of air around themselves, two other Grunts, and Mars, the woman he had fought at Valley Windworks. In this bubble, the five members of Team Galactic slipped into the lake and out of sight.
"Uh oh," said Lucas, coming out of hiding. "How can I get underwater like them?"
Dawn glanced around a corner and whipper her head back. Three Grunts were standing a few feet away.
"Do you really think Azelf exists?" asked one. "This seems like a bunch of baloney to me."
"Sh!" hissed another. "Don't let the big boss hear. Just follow their orders. They've got it all worked out."
"What a plan," said the last one, shaking his head in admiration. "Blow up Lake Valor with a bomb. That worked out well. Ugh, I've got fish on my shoes."
They blew up Lake Valor? thought Dawn. That's just wrong. Get ready, you idiots!
Without warning, Dawn slid out of hiding and pointed her wand at the Grunts, casting an Ice Punch against them. A fist of energy materialized and punched through the Grunts, who screamed and were frozen solid. As she ran past the three, she threw another Aurora Beam at them to ensure that they would not be able to move. As she reached the bottom of the lake, she encountered no more opposition.
At the bottom of the lake, a cave entrance awaited her. A strange cry was coming from inside, along with a human's voice. She quickly slipped inside, and saw a man with blue-hair running around the cavern. His outfit was clearly one of Team Galactic. Something was flickering in and out of sight in the air, emitting stars towards the man occasionally as it flew around.
"Stupid creature!" cried the man, raising his hand and conjuring a shadowy sphere. He thrust his spell at the flickering thing, which swiftly moved aside and continued shooting stars.
"Stop!" yelled Dawn, conjuring and throwing a Whirlpool at the man. He raised his head, clearly startled at the interruption, before disappearing and reappearing behind Dawn, aiming to kick her. Dawn jumped forward and turned around, barely dodging the attack.
"Useless Grunts," said the man, keeping an eye on both Dawn and the flickering, which had come to a stop near Dawn. "You can't trust them to do anything at all."
"Who are you and what are you doing?" demanded Dawn, keeping her wand pointed at the man.
He laughed maliciously. "My name is Saturn. You must be the girl I've heard of from the others, the one that defeated Jupiter and Mars. As to what I'm doing, I see no reason to inform you of that."
Saturn kicked the ground and sent a ball of mud at Dawn, who hit it with a stream of water. The two spells both exploded. A burst of electricity flew through the dust towards Dawn. She quickly ran to the side and summoned a Water Pledge up from the ground. As it slid towards Saturn, the flickering took the chance to fly forward and send more stars at Saturn.
Suddenly, Saturn disappeared as he had earlier and reappeared behind the flickering, dealing a hefty kick to it. A sharp cry exploded in the cavern, and the flickering faded into existence. A blue, fairy-like creature came into view, and Saturn punched it into the ground with a Poison Jab. He pulled out a strange sphere and tapped the creature with it; the fairy was turned into light and absorbed into the ball.
"Thank you for your assistance," said Saturn, smirking as he backed away while facing Dawn. "I'll be leaving you in here. Good luck surviving."
"Hey!" yelled Dawn, jumping forward into an Aqua Jet spell. Water surrounded her body and she burst towards Saturn. "Let that blue thing go!"
"As if I would do that!" said Saturn, deflecting Dawn with a Shadow Ball and running out of the cave. "Have fun suffocating!" He punched the wall and rocks tumbled down to seal off the cavern.
"No!" cried Dawn, rolling out of her spell and running to slam her fists against the rocks that covered the exit. "You won't get away with this!"
But even as Dawn blasted spells against the rocks to escape, Saturn had already thawed the Grunts out and vanished from the Lake.
Lucas summoned his staff and raised walls of light around himself, forming a sealed box of shields. He slowly waded into the water, testing his makeshift diving gear. No water entered, so he gingerly continued and was soon completely submerged. The bubble holding the members of Team Galactic was slipping away, going deeper towards what appeared to be the center of the lake. With only the light of his shields, Lucas could only make out that the bubble was moving towards a large mass. He concentrated and moved his box of energy forward to follow the bubble.
Suddenly, the bubble split into two. One half of it continued in the original bubble's path, but the other half started moving backwards towards Lucas.
They must have noticed the light I'm making, realized Lucas, raising his staff and getting ready to fight. When the bubble had gotten close enough, he saw that it held three Grunts; one was using Dive and others were readying spells against Lucas. If I can take out the one using Dive, thought Lucas, that should deal with them all. Aiming carefully, Lucas sent a Psybeam streaming through the water, but it bounced off the Grunts' bubble.
The two Grunts who were free to attack did so, sending blasts of air and poison stingers at Lucas. The attacks reflected off of Lucas's shields, but left cracks, through which water began to drip. Lucas grit his teeth and focused, conjuring Psycho Cut. Blades of psychic power flew forward through the water, piercing through the bubble and pummeling the Grunts backwards.
Lucas took the chance and sped forward, re-sealing his shields and chasing down the other air bubble which had started to disappear into what appeared to a cavern. Casting quick glances around the area to make sure the Grunts were not chasing him, Lucas followed the bubble and indeed arrived at a cavern in the depths of the lake. Upon entering, there was no more water; some power was holding all of it out of the cave.
A Grunt was standing next to Mars. They immediately noticed Lucas, and Mars pushed the Grunt forward, commanding him to deal with Lucas while she executed the job. Lucas quickly threw a few flames at the Grunt, hoping to distract him, but was soon trading spells with what proved to be a tougher opponent than he had expected. As he fought, he kept an eye on Mars, who had approached a part of the cave and suddenly lashed out at thin air. A sharp cry pierced the air, and the area where Mars had hit began to flicker and move.
Mars followed her Slash Spell with a series of attacks, chasing down the flickering which flew around the cabin and conjured a spherical shield to block Mars' attacks. Lucas finally repulsed the Grunt with a barrage of psychic power, sending the Grunt flying into the wall. He ran after Mars, shooting bursts of fire at her from his staff. The woman turned around and sent slices of air at his attacks, neutralizing them.
"You again!" she said. "I caught a whole lot of trouble for the Valley Windworks incident! You're going down!" Mars sent out rays from her fingers that waved about in the air. Lucas tried to dodge them, but was hit by one. Immediately, the world became wobbly and he stumbled, trying not to fall, but he was hit by an Air Cutter Spell. Mars left Lucas to his confusion and turned to barrage the flickering with spells. A few made it past the shield that was being conjured, and a pink creature came into view before falling to the ground. Mars tapped it with one of the balls that Saturn had used, and the pink fairy was absorbed like the blue one.
Lucas, who had finally snapped out of his confusion, raised his staff again to conjure a Gravity Spell, but Mars ran forward and conjured a Hypnosis Spell right in front of him, putting him to sleep.
"Have fun trying to get out of this one," said Mars, cackling as she kicked Lucas's body out of the cavern and into the water. Under the induced sleep, Lucas simply floated in the water. Mars shook the Grunt awake, and he weakly conjured his Dive Spell again to resurface. The other Grunts, who had made it to the surface, stood up once Mars appeared above the water level. Tossing the ball that held the pink creature in one hand, Mars led the Grunts down the path leaving the lake.
Behind them, bubbles slowly appeared in the water from Lucas' breath as he slept underwater.
Dawn finally blasted a gap through the wall of rocks that had entombed her, and she clambered out of it. With no one to be seen, she sighed heavily. Cynthia suddenly flickered into existence next to her.
"I'll fill you in after we go get Lucas," said Cynthia before Dawn could open her mouth. "Let's go."
The two teleported to Lake Verity, but no one was there.
"Lucas?" called Dawn. "Where is he?"
"The water," said Cynthia, pointing at the bubbles. "Wait here."
The Champion Wizard raised her hand and scanned the water, finding Lucas in a few moments. Conjuring a net of aura underneath his body, she pulled him up to the surface and to the shore.
"Lucas!" cried Dawn, running forward and kneeling next to the young man's body. "What happened to him?"
"He's probably been put to sleep by a Hypnosis Spell. We need to get the water out of his lungs; we don't know how long he's been breathing underwater, but hopefully it hasn't been long since we saw air bubbles."
Dawn quickly put her hand on Lucas' chest and focused, linking herself with the water in his lungs and carefully pulling it up out of Lucas' mouth without damaging tissues. Cynthia watched this, internally surprised at the ease with which Dawn had extracted the water. Lucas began to cough, and he slowly woke up.
"What... what happened?" he said weakly, before he remembered what happened. "Mars!" he cried. "She got away with some animal or something!"
"I met another one of their Commanders named Saturn," said Dawn. "He got away with an animal too."
Cynthia sighed. "By the time I arrived at Lake Acuity, there was no one there, but I explored the cavern at the bottom of the lake and there were clear signs of spell usage. What color were the creatures you two saw?"
"I saw a pink one," said Lucas.
"Blue for me," said Dawn.
"So it looks like the myths might have been true after all," said Cynthia. "Or at the very least, the existence of the lake guardians is possible. If the myths are true, then Lucas must have seen Mesprit; Dawn would have seen Azelf. I suppose I missed seeing Uxie. They were even found in the lakes the myths said they would be in."
Dawn pulled the water out of Lucas' clothes as they stood up. Lucas nodded towards her in thanks as he said, "But why would Team Galactic want the lake guardians? What could those three beings do for them?"
Cynthia shook her head. "I'm not sure. Whatever they're planning can't be very good if they needed to capture mythological beings to achieve their goals. I'm not sure what to do next."
Dawn stomped her foot. The other two looked at her in surprise. "I know what to do," Dawn declared. With a fiery passion burning in her eyes, she said, "We go to Veilstone City and tear down whatever they're doing there!"
Cynthia laughed. "Yes, I suppose that is the best plan of action. I unfortunately may not be able to help you. I need to visit all of the towns and cities in the region to make sure nothing awry is going on there, which will take quite a bit of time. However, I will teleport you two to Solaceon City. Please make your way to Veilstone as fast as you can from there."
"Thanks for all your help, Cynthia," said Lucas. "We really appreciate it."
Cynthia slowly raised her hands and a circle of light slowly made its way around the trio.
A thought suddenly occurred to Lucas. "Wait, Dawn, did you give me mouth-to-mouth?"
"What? No!" shrieked Dawn, a heavy blush rising to her cheeks. "You pervert! Why would I do that?"
Cynthia simply laughed as her spell took effect, and the three wizards vanished from the shores of Lake Verity.