I lied again (aren't I just the worst?), 'A Guided Tour' part 1 and 2 have been revised, as well, like the first six revised chapters, fused together into one chapter, chapter 4. This is the last time I'm combining two chapters to make one.
Also, all current/future chapters are/will (be) a minimum of 2000 words.
Something big happens at the end, just FYI, hope you guys like what happens. ; )
Chapter 15: Tesla Depths
Location: On route to PNR
"Did you know he has his own fan club? I tried to join but they wouldn't let me for some reason, something about being overly talkative or something like that. Too bad for them, cause I'm Kane's biggest fan by far. Maybe I should make my own club or something, I'd get you two to join and you could help recruit members and such. Oh I have an idea! Lets change the name of the team to 'Team Kane'! It'd be a lot easier then starting a club from scratch I think. I wonder if he's as handsome as he is in the pictures I have of him, I have a lot of pictures by the way, ones from magazines and newspapers that have interviewed him. What if he's even hotter in real life? That would be so awesome. Hey guys, did you know that Kane collected stamps? Supposedly he has hundreds of them. Think he'd believe me if I told him I also collect stamps? Maybe having something in common would make him want to date me! I wonder where he would take me if we went on a date? Would he take me to dinner? Maybe a movie? Or maybe we'll just hang out at his house. He has a big house by the way, huge, third largest home in the wasteland, and he's all alone in it to, well if you don't count his servants that is. Wait a sec, if we got married then they would be my servants too! I've never had servants before, I wonder what its like? Would they do anything I'd ask? That would be awesome. But not as awesome as Kane of course. Did I mention..."
"RITA! SHUT UP!" Said both Lloyd and Isaac at the same time.
"... What?"
---
Location: PNR radio tower
What was supposed to be a short trip felt like the longest, not five minutes after leaving the Brotherhood HQ, Rita began to talk and talk endlessly, everything about Kane, or getting married to Kane, or what it would be like being married to Kane.
Isaac, despite Rita's endless fan-girl rant, was still in a hurry to get to PNR. Was he in a hurry to be somewhere? Was he too, a huge fan of Kane? Was it just the fact this was his first official mission as a member of Team Valiant? Lloyd couldn't tell, and because of Rita, really didn't blame him if he was in a hurry.
Finally, Lloyd, as well as Rita and Isaac, saw the tower. The building wasn't as big as Lloyd figured it'd be, the building itself was only about twice the size as their room back at the brotherhood. Out of the top sprouted a large metal mesh of poles, this was obviously the device that sent the radio signal out.
"I can't believe I'm finally here... Wow!"
Much to Lloyd and Isaacs delight, finally arriving at PNR made Rita near speechless, no longer talking about Kane at all.
Instead, she screamed very loudly, and sprinted faster then Lloyd or Isaac ever imagined she could run all the way to PNR.
"Well." Said Lloyd. "Better follow her."
"Do we have to?"
"Unfortunately, yes, yes we do."
Lloyd and Isaac both sighed, wishing they had gotten a different mission.
---
The inside of PNR was extremely hot, not surprising since it sits in the sun all day. Lloyd and Isaac looked around the first room, but Rita, as well as their mission giver Kane, were no where in sight.
"Listen miss, I understand your excitement believe me..."
The sound came from the other room, Lloyd and Isaac rushed over and found both Rita and the arcanine Kane inside. Rita was standing on top of Kane.
"... You really need to get off, I can't sign you any autographs if your on top of me like this."
From what Lloyd and Isaac guess, she had jumped him as soon as she saw him.
"Yes... I..."
She sounded like she was ready to explode from excitement, her voice was so full of joy.
"I can't believe I'm meeting you... In person! This is... AHHHH!"
"Yeah, I get that a lot, it's the price of fame." Said Kane.
Lloyd and Isaac already didn't like him, he talked like he was the center of the universe.
"So... I can assume you're the ones the Brotherhood sent to help with my little problem?"
Lloyd decided to speak, Isaac probably didn't want to anymore then him, and Rita probably couldn't say anything needing to be said.
"Yeah we are, the Brotherhood sent us. We're Team Valiant, my name is Lloyd, the Piplup is Isaac, and you've already met Rita."
"Yes, I have. Now lets get down to business..." Kane jumped up onto a nearby couch and sat before he continued. "Right behind this place is a small mystery dungeon, inside is the generator that powers the radio station. I need you guys to go down there, while I stay up here, communicating with you over the radio, so I can tell you when the power has returned. The generator is finicky, and you can't tell if the power is back on from down there. Pretty simple job if I say so myself."
"Wait a sec." Said Lloyd. "Why don't you go down yourself and have us tell you when the powers back on? You should know more about the generator then us."
"The thing about that is, I don't want to, and its your job. You don't like it you can go back and send someone else to help me."
Lloyd was about to respond, but Rita ran over and pushed him over. "Hahaha, don't mind him Kane, he says really stupid stuff sometimes. Of course we'll do this for you!"
"Hmm, thanks dear, Rita was it? I'll make sure to have an autograph for you when you get back, along with the reward I promised."
"Oh wow! Guys, come on lets go! NOW!"
Lloyd and Isaac didn't want to mess with Rita, her tone was clear, she wasn't going to ask twice without something bad happening to either of them. Lloyd and Isaac obediently left.
"Bye Kane! I'll make sure to work extra hard for you!" Rita gave one last admiring look at Kane and followed after them.
Kane laughed to himself, "I Still got it. The lady's love me, as always."
---
"So Rita, what's this mystery dungeon called?"
"One sec..." She pulled out her map. "Tesla Depths, full of low level electric types. Its pretty small, only 8 floors, with the last floor being where the generator should be."
"Water and electric?" Said Isaac. "That's an odd combination of wild pokemon."
"Well, it doesn't matter, lets just get this mission over with." Said Lloyd.
"Lets hurry, I want that autograph right now!"
---
Location: Tesla Depths, 1st Floor
Tesla depths was definitely the strangest mystery dungeon they've been in so far. The floor wasn't a plain old stone path like the others, it was a metal catwalk, suspended over pools of electrified water. Nobody could think of what purpose the water had, or why it was electrified like it was.
"This place is weird." Said Rita. She peered through the holes in the metal walkway, watching sparks jump out of the water like fish.
"Yeah, that's an understatement, I've never seen anything like this before." Said Isaac.
"Perhaps this place was built by humans?" Suggested Lloyd. "We've seen lots of buildings left over from when they were alive."
"Perhaps." Said Isaac. "I had read once that humans had a lot of different ways of creating power, many methods used the elements, including water."
"Well, lets not waste time pondering it here." Said Lloyd. "Maybe we'll figure it out on the way. Come on."
Lloyd motioned for everyone to follow him, which they did, and preceded down the first hallway, into a large room. Inside was two pokemon, a Pachirisu, and...
"Isn't that the Squirtle from before?" Asked Lloyd.
Indeed it was, the green shelled Squirtle that helped them find and get through Glacier Tunnel. He was currently battling the Pachirisu all by himself.
The Pachirisu charged up an electric attack, much like Lloyd always does when he is about to use one. When it unleashed the electricity at Squirtle, he rolled forward, right underneath the bolt of electricity, and delivered one of his devastating mega punch attacks before it even knew its target had dodged the attack. The Pachirisu fall back, fainted from the powerful blow.
Squirtle noticed the three of them for the first time, he didn't recognize them right away, so was still in a battle ready stance. But a moment later saw who they were and dropped his guard.
"Well, well, if it isn't you two again. And who's this with you?" He said, referring to Isaac.
"My name is Isaac, I joined the team in Pipton."
"Pleasure to meet you. What are you guys doing here anyways?"
"That guy Kane." Lloyd began. "He wants us to turn his generator back on."
"Hmm, well I wish you luck with that. I must be going now, I didn't find anything here."
"Your leaving already?" Asked Rita.
"There are still many places I need to go. Don't worry, we'll see each other in the future, I promise."
Squirtle pulled an orb out of his shell.
"By the way you guys, be careful on the 7th floor, the entire floor is electrified. Good luck."
whispered into it, activating its power. In a flash of light, he was gone.
"Who was that guy?" Asked Isaac.
"Someone I met awhile ago, first time I met him he helped me find the town that had the hospital I was searching for so I could help Lloyd. The second time was right before we met you, in Glacier Tunnel, he once again helped us find the place, he also came with most of the way down."
"You have no idea who he is? No name?"
"Nope." Replied Lloyd.
"Doesn't really matter though." Said Rita. "We trust him enough, he hasn't given us any reason to doubt him yet. What I'm worried about is what he said just before he left, if the entire floor is electrified, how are we going to cross?"
"We'll figure that out when we get there." Said Lloyd. "For now we have six other floors of wild pokemon to worry about."
"He's right, don't worry about that Rita. If we can't get across, we'll get Lloyd to carry us over or something."
"Like I can lift the both of you across!"
"... I meant one at a time Lloyd."
"Oh."
---
Location: Tesla Depths, 5th Floor
They had encountered quite a few problems on the 5th floor of the mystery dungeon. As soon as they got down, they were attacked by four pokemon at once. The pokemon were a voltorb, an electrode, and two magnimite.
The voltorb was easy enough to handle, Rita managed to take it our with a single razor leaf before it had the chance to attack. But things started to go wrong when Isaac tried to fight the electrode, he tried to take it out with a bubble attack, but most of his attack had missed, only doing partial damage. While near Rita, Lloyd and Isaac, the electrode used its explosion attack, sacrificing itself to deal severe damage to everyone, with the two magnimite still left to deal with.
"We're in trouble." Said Lloyd, who while was the least damaged of the three of them, was still in pretty poor shape.
"Oh, really?" Rita was still moving too, but Lloyd could tell it wouldn't take much for her to be knocked out.
Isaac had fainted as soon as the explosion went off, he wasn't in any immediate danger, no cuts or anything, but he still needed to be protected until they could heal him, which was a difficult task when they had to protect him against two wild pokemon at once.
The first of the magnimite charged up, readying an electric attack. Rita quickly used her razor leaf attack before it could finish charging. Her attack hit it, but it didn't stop, it aimed in her direction an unleashed the electricity, she managed to launch one more razor leaf before the shock reached her. Both attacks hit, magnimite couldn't handle the attack and fell out of the air, unconscious, Rita on the other hand was still awake, but she was so badly hurt she couldn't stand straight.
"Rita, get out of here, us one of our escape orbs, take Isaac out and rest, I can handle the rest of this place."
"No Lloyd, that's crazy! Your too hurt to..."
"Just do it Rita! I'll be fine, just leave the rest of the supplies here and I'll be fine."
The second magnimite attacked, flying towards Lloyd to tackle him, but Lloyd was quicker, he jumped over the magnimite and slammed him down with his tail, the last wild pokemon had finally been defeated.
"See? No worries."
Lloyd could tell Rita didn't want to go without him, but both of them knew if they were going to finish this mystery dungeon any time soon, Lloyd had to keep going.
"Ok, I'll go with Isaac up to the surface and wait for you... Good luck."
"Yeah... thanks."
She dropped the bag containing there supplies for the trip, taking out the escape orb.
"There's still one left in there, so if you get in trouble, use it. We can always do this mission tomorrow or something."
"Ok... I will."
She went over to Isaac and whispered into the orb. In a flash of light, both of them disappeared, leaving Lloyd alone in the mystery dungeon.
Or at least, he thought he was alone.
---
Location: Tesla Depths, 6th Floor
Before moving on, Lloyd popped an oran berry into his mouth, chewed and swallowed it. He felt the effects near instantly, making his whole body feel like new again.
This won't be so bad. He thought to himself. Only one floor left that has wild pokemon on it, and I have plenty of oran berries, as well as an escape orb.
The 6th floor was much darker then the first five floors, the only light came from the occasional spark coming out of the water below the catwalks. Lloyd decided to try the trick he learned going down the stairs to the database room, which he decided to call 'Spark Light'.
He went down the long dark hallways, his paw an inch away from the wall, producing the spark light. The whole place suddenly got really creepy, not a sound could be heard in the darkness except for the occasional drip of water and pop of electricity. He felt like he was in some kind of mad scientists lab, and that one of his creations would suddenly jump out to scare him.
Just then, something tiny whipped right by Lloyd, not stopping at all to attack or anything. Lloyd was more bewildered then frightened. Whatever it was it was half his size, and really fast. When it passed he was once again alone in the darkness.
What on earth was that? Was it a pokemon?
Again, the thing ran by, passing him from the other side this time, once again he didn't see it in detail.
"Who's there?" Lloyd said, trying to sound as tough and brave as he could.
A third time it passed, this time Lloyd was ready for it, he looked right at it as it whizzed by. It didn't look like any pokemon he'd ever seen before, it just looked like a ball of light, like a tiny candle flying in the air, but without the candle.
Lloyd decided to follow it, it was obviously trying to get his attention, and he didn't think it would hurt to follow it.
The ball of light moved down the hall quickly, Lloyd had to run to catch up, when it turned around a corner, it did so without slowing down, always taking Lloyd by surprise. When the ball of light stopped, he was in a room he'd never been in before, inside was the stairs down.
So the ball of light WAS helping me... But why?
"Hey, why did you..." But by the time Lloyd could say anything, the ball of light disappeared, just like how the light from a candle would disappear if you blew out the flame.
"This is really weird."
Despite the weirdness, he had no choice but to continue. Whether the light was leading him safely though the halls, or it was leading him to a trap, Lloyd was about to find out.
---
Location: Tesla Depths, 7th Floor
The 7th floor wasn't much a floor at all. The only thing here was a single long hallway that lead to a staircase going up again.
What's the point of this place?
He took two steps forward, about to step on the catwalk when he heard a voice in his head.
"Stop! Don't go any further!"
Lloyd thought he was imagining things, but the voice was so clear.
"Who are you? What's going on?"
"Don't worry about who I am, just listen to what I have to say."
"Why should I?"
"Because if you don't, you won't be able to continue."
Lloyd didn't like it, he didn't trust the voice at all.
"Fine, what do you want?"
"Remember the Squirtles words, the entire floor from here to the far end is electrified. Even an electric type pokemon like you wouldn't be able to survive long."
"So what do I do?"
"Simple, go as fast as you can. Don't let the pain get you down, keep going with all your strength."
"Why should I do this? Why shouldn't I turn back now, or use my escape orb? I can get someone stronger to do this mission, someone who can handle this."
"You're the only one Lloyd, your special, nobody else would last more then a few seconds. Think of this as a test, a test with a reward at the end."
"A... test?"
But the voice was gone, only his own thoughts remained in his head.
"Who could that voice have been? And me, special? I must be going crazy..."
He forgot about his 'conversation', and looked at the supposed electrified floor. It didn't look like it was electrified at all, unlike the water below the catwalks in the upper levels, there were no sparks jumping and popping up, there was no sound suggesting it was electrified. From what Lloyd could tell, the catwalk was completely harmless.
He stepped forward, and instantly he fell backwards. He had just been shocked worse then he thought was possible.
"Ok, so it is electrified then..."
Lloyd didn't think he could possibly go so far walking on this floor. The second he put his foot on it, it felt like he got trampled by a Rapidash or something.
There's no way I can do this.
But despite these thoughts, despite the pain from the shock, he went forward to try again. He couldn't tell what was driving him to continue, the mission wasn't particularly important, was it him being stubborn? Was he trying to prove himself somehow?
All these thoughts disappeared when he took his first step across the catwalk.
His entire body was in agony, the electricity going through every part of him. He felt like his body suddenly caught fire, every part of him burning. This was nowhere near what he produced when he charged up a thunder shock or thunder bolt, comparing the sensations was like comparing a rock to a mountain.
He didn't yell out, all he did was growl as the pain continued. Walking steadily towards where he needed to go.
He didn't think at all, he didn't say anything, all he did was keep walking, trying to suppress the pain as much as he could. When he looked forward he saw he had made it only half way, still quite a distance to go.
"There is a great power in you."
It was the same voice from before.
"The only way you can learn to use it, is to call on it. One day you'll need this power, and you'll thank me."
"What do you mean? WHAT!?" He yelled out, but the voice was gone again.
Lloyd dropped down to his hands and knees, the floor still painfully shocking him. He knew he couldn't stop, he knew he had to keep going. He tried to stand back up again, but his legs wouldn't listen, he couldn't stand at all. He began to crawl forward, still on his hands and knees, still feeling the pain of the electricity.
Suddenly, he felt a weird sensation in his body, like he was somehow changing. His body felt like it was absorbing the electricity like a sponge, all the pain started to go away as the new feeling grew stronger. He felt like he did when he ate an oran berry, the feeling of power filled him, the pain getting less and less a problem.
The pain was all gone now, even though he was still being shocked. It was like he had somehow grown immune to the electricity.
No longer crippled from the pain, he stood up. When he did so, something didn't feel right, he felt... taller?
He walked the rest of the way, moving along as if nothing was happening. One final step, and he was off the electrified catwalk., now standing on the stairs up that he'd thought he'd never in a million years reach.
"Whoa... what happened?" he said to himself, his voice sounded oddly deep.
He stretched his body, everything all feeling all stiff, as though he'd just gotten out of bed after a long rest.
The feeling of being taller wasn't his imagination, it was like he was walking on stilts. Not only that, but his body felt heavier, and he felt much more powerful. He looked at himself, and saw that his feet, his paws, his tail, all looked different, they all changed slightly in shape, size and color.
"This is your power Lloyd, this is the power you will call on when you need it most. You will definitely need it in the future. In other words, your welcome."
Out of nowhere, the strange ball of light appeared. Lloyd touched it, but his hand went right through. It changed shape in front of him, no longer a ball of light, but now a mirror.
Lloyd looked at his reflection, and saw he had change much more then he thought. His body was no longer just yellow, but he was now orange and black. His tail was much longer, his cheeks no longer red, but now yellow.
Lloyd remembered seeing something similar, way back when they had fought Zar in Havok City. Somehow, the incredible pain he felt walking across the electrified floor caused him to change, he had evolved.
"Wow, this is so awesome!"
Celebrating his new power, he unleashed a thunder bolt attack in all directions, one much more powerful then he could produce as a pikachu.
What was my evolution called again... Raichu? Yeah that's it...
Lloyd didn't know how it happened, didn't know how the electrified floor managed to evolve him. But he didn't care, he didn't think it necessary to question something so great.
"Ha, wait till Isaac and Rita see me now!"