okay so if this is the first new chapter update you've gotten, all previous chapters have been replaced by now. (if you have not been following this story since like 2012 ur good to go have fun)
for everyone else, let's rock ever onwards
hah i went with the gameverse usage of escape ropes, which objectively make no sense in the real world but sssssssh otherwise the timespan of their trek would have been ridiculous and steven has no pokemon that use teleport.
Nothing reaches up and drags Steven down. In fact, nothing physical happens at all. The shadows simply continue to exists, though whatever part of Steven's head that is still functional notices that he can't see his Bronzor anymore. The light has faded to where the ground is just barely visible, and his hands tighten into fists. He's nervous, unspeakably so, and cannot tell why. Something announces its presence in a hesitant touch to his thought process, and Steven can neither move nor explain how he knows something is there.
'please leave', it tells him. ' please leave i cannot help you'.
Now there is no light, the Bronzor is gone entirely, and when Steven jerks his head upward, he can tell something is standing before him in the darkness. There is a faint glow from it, an icy colour that's hardly visible but not at all similar to the usual hallucinated dots when one is engulfed in cave darkness. The thing standing before him shakes its head (another thing Steven knows but does not know how. It just is).
i am so sorry.
Steven reaches a hand up for the thing in the shadows. "It's okay."
He gets the sense of some strong regret that does not belong to him before the feeling of being near someone slowly fades away. Steven opens his eyes (when did he close them) to notice that he's still where he was, though the light from his Bronzor is back to normal, and the aforementioned Pokemon is nudging his shoulder with a few worried chimes. "It's alright," Steven says softly, reaching up to pat the Pokemon. It only seems marginally comforted, and still floats back and forth in nervous little loops. Steven gets the feeling that he is forgetting something.
He glances over and curses under his breath when he sees Riley slumped against the cave wall, curled in on himself and quite clearly either asleep or unconscious.
Riley is hanging over the chasm, trying his best to scramble back onto the rock for a secure hold, but he gets nothing. Steven is there but his Pokemon are not, and Riley's silent calls for help are answered only with a shake of the head. His companion turns and walks away, leaving Riley to drop. This time the journey through the void is not endless, there are only a few minutes of blackness before he hits the ground.
Riley does not hit it gently, and the pain from where he slammed his shoulder in the ground prevents him from trying to look around. It hurts, it feels like he might have dislocated it. Riley grits his teeth and presses on the joint with his other hand. Ow. Son of a bitch.
As far as he can tell, he's lying in a shallow puddle, and it's not exactly pleasant to have muddy water try and get in his mouth. He sits up, after a fair amount of effort, shakes his head to get rid of spare muddy droplets, and looks around. He is not in a place he's ever seen before. It's a large clearing in the middle of a shadowy forest. The ground is just dirt where he is, in a large circle lacking trees. Riley looks down at himself. The suit is back, the one that makes him feel as if he's headed to a funeral. He's covered in mud splatter, but he appears unharmed. Or at least, not bleeding, as the pain from his shoulder reminds him. Riley sighs, and the fact that his exhale made noise surprises him. He never makes noise. He speaks, just a test run of his throat, and is surprised when there's an audible mumble. Unusual. He stands, the action slightly more difficult when even moving his right arm send waves of pain down from his shoulder, and looks around. There's a clearing in the forest surrounding him, one appearing like a path. Riley walks toward it in the faint hopes that it will let him leave. He dislikes this place, calm as it may be. Admittedly, it's not the worst place to land, he just feels as if he doesn't belong here. As he approaches the opening, he can tell that there's people and Pokemon there. Byron and Lucario, at the very least, those he recognizes instantly. The others come into focus as he walks up. Roark, that Steel girl from Olivine who he's met a few times, Dawn, Lucas. All assorted people he's met and gotten along with at some point in his life. Some of their Pokemon and some of his mill around, though none of the group seems to notice he stands just at the entrance to the forest path, he can tell that they're milling about discussing something, though he cannot tell what. Byron, at least, is yelling about something, and seems the most agitated of the bunch. Riley cannot hear them, though, and that bothers him. He tries to walk over to them, but finds that there's some sort of barrier that keeps him stuck in the clearing. He presses his palms against it (as much as his shoulder tries to protest, this is an urgent matter), concentrating his aura in his hands and trying to force his way through. It does nothing. Riley's brows furrow and he drops his hands. "Hey!"
His shout also gets no attention, but he tries agains anyways. There's a minute of silence where Riley just watches, expression distraught, as his Lucario looks up from the group and finally acknowledges him. She tilts her head at her trainer and barks noiselessly. Dawn tries to pat her, but the Pokemon swats her hand off and turns away, shouldering her way through the group to the indistinct people standing at the fringes. All the others Riley can see, and those who are too in shadow to define seem to give up as well, turning and walking away.
No. No, no no no nononono.
They can't leave him here. They can't. He doesn't want to stay. No matter how loudly Riley yells and whose attention he tries to get, no one turns back. No one can hear him at all, except himself. Eventually he's forced to give up, and he slumps against the invisible barrier, breathing ragged.
Why does that have to happen to him.
What did he do.
Meanwhile, Steven panics. Nothing is waking Riley up. He's absolutely out like a light, no matter what Steven tries. Riley talks occasionally, muted but distressed murmurs, and that does nothing to make Steven worry any less.
Nope, to hell with this. They're leaving. Executive decision. They've got escape ropes, Steven and Riley both made sure of that. But sadly for Steven, escape ropes can only take the two of them back to the elevator, the one they used to get down here in the first place. Steven grumbles. And Riley still doesn't seem to be keen on waking up, as much as Steven jostles him around and occasionally talks (mostly nonsense or stream of consciousness) to him. What a pain. He drags Riley onto the steel platform and holds him up as he flips the switch to move them up. Thankfully, that hasn't broken. There's the little good things, though it hardly makes Steven feel any better. Once they get to the top, he can feel more comfortable calling out his Metagross. Steven thanks his Bronzor for its assistance in the cave system and sends it back to its pokeball. Metagross' turn.
"Hold still, okay? I need a favour. Can you carry him? We need to get out of here." Metagross agrees. With effort and compliance from his Pokemon, Steven hoists Riley on top of the Metagross. Steven hops off and walks next to Metagross, leading it out. He walks quickly, and what few trainers that bother to say hello to him and otherwise try to start a conversation are met only by terse monosyllables and a wave goodbye. They make much quicker time out of the cave than in, but Riley still hasn't stirred by the time they return to the cabin.
Riley gets dragged back off the Metagross on his doorstep, as the Pokemon is too large to bring inside, and Steven does his best (mostly failing) to carry Riley back inside with proper decorum. He gets plopped against a couch.
Steven crouches in front of the prone trainer, staring and twisting a ring anxiously. Riley's at least stopped mumbling, but he's unsure if that's good or bad. Motion directs Steven's eye to the few pokeballs on Riley's belt, one of which is twitching. He watches, and a few seconds later it bursts open, Lucario standing in the aftermath of the red light. She brushes nonexistent dust off her armfur and barks at Steven in a professional sounding manner.
It's not often that he sees Pokemon force their own way out of their pokeballs, but he also can't say he's surprised. Extenuating circumstance and all that. Lucario gestures for him to back away and Steven obliges, taking a few steps backwards. Lucario chuffs with obvious irritation at Riley's prone form. She holds out a palm, and in a blink there's a swirling blue mass of aura around her hand.
She barks again, firmly this time.
"Hey, wait-!" Steven tries to step forward, but he gets halfway through before the bauble of aura is slung at Riley, catching him in the side and sending the trainer flying a few feet to land in a slump a couple feet away. Lucario crosses her arms with a more muted bark, ears once more pricked in Riley's direction.
Riley stirs, clutching his arms around himself.
Steven breaks out of his surprise and runs over, grabbing Riley's shirt and hauling him into somewhat of a standing position.
"Riley!"