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Chapter 28: Echo Cavern
Lloyd, Isaac and Regal had no trouble locating the cave, it was so close to the school they could still hear the ambient noise that came from the square.
"I wonder why they call it echo cavern?" Asked Isaac.
"I wonder why they call it echo cavern wonder why they call it echo cavern call it echo cavern echo cavern cavern..." The cave responded.
"Well that's gonna get annoying." Said Regal, his tiny Caterpie voice not loud enough to cause an echo.
"Lets hurry." Whispered Lloyd. "I'm worried about Rita and that other girl, we should get back as soon as possible."
Regal and Isaac nodded.
---
Lloyd, Isaac and Regal walked through the rocky cave, each footstep belonging to Lloyd or Isaac clapped loudly, Regal once again was silent compared to the others, his suction-cup feet making no sound as he crawled along.
"Have either of you ever fought a psychic pokemon before?" Asked Isaac. The cave repeated his words several times.
"Me and Rita fought a ghost type, that's probably pretty similar. I'm more worried about this monster that was rumored to be here."
"I thought that was just a joke pulled by this student?" Asked Regal.
"I'm pretty sure he was using the rumor to pull this prank, I doubt they would make such a big a deal as to call us down if this monster was just made up recently."
"So that means there could be some bloodthirsty beast hiding somewhere, ready to attack us when we least expect?" Isaac tried to hide the fear in his voice, the cave repeated his words loud enough to make the emotion obvious.
"Listen." Said Lloyd. "I'm not saying we should panic, lets just be cautious, keep our eyes open and try not to attract to much attention."
Ironically, the words "attract too much attention." echoed loud and repeatedly. The replicated voice was followed by the sounds of growling, there was wild pokemon nearby and they knew where the team was.
"Umm... Whoops."
From the two adjoining hallways came two pokemon, an Abra and a Ralts. While not the most powerful of their type, everyone knew that they were still powerful.
"Ok, time for a plan. Umm..." Lloyd looked around, trying to figure out the best course of action. "Regal and Isaac, you guys go after the Abra, I'll take on the Ralts, you come help me when the Abra's beaten."
"Got it." Said Isaac, Regal only nodded.
They all ran towards their given opponent, but stopped half way when Regal sudden found himself floating in the air.
"Ahhhh, help!" He cried out to Isaac, who was standing next to him. Isaac grabbed him and tried to pull him down. The Ralts lifted his hand up, and Regal did the same, rising towards the ceiling with Isaac holding on to him.
Lloyd sighed, then ran towards the Ralts. Just before it noticed Lloyd, Lloyd charged up and unleashed a thunderbolt in its direction. The Ralts couldn't dodge within the tight quarters of the hallway, and was unable to avoid the incoming attack. The electricity hit the Ralts, shocked it, and it tumbled forward, fainted.
Unfortunately, Regal, as well as the clinging Isaac, were all the way to the ceiling when Lloyd attacked the Ralts. Isaac landed on the ground on his butt, while Regal landed on Isaac, making Isaac faceplant into the ground.
The Abra extended his arm out towards Regal, like Ralts had done before, and levitated Regal. Instead of raising him into the air though, he forced Regal to straighten out his whole body, and like a missile, launched him speedily towards Lloyd.
Lloyd sidestepped Regal and grabbed him by the tail, he barely managed to stop Regal from pulling him with him and managed to stop Regal completely.
"Oh, thank you so much Lloyd, I..." But before Regal could finish, Lloyd swung Regal around in a three hundred and sixty degree arc, then threw him with all his strength at the Abra.
Regal yelled the entire distance, flying at the Abra so quickly it was unable to stop him with another psychic attack. Much like the Abra tried to do to Lloyd, it was hit hard by a flying head butt from Regal. Regal bounce off the Abras head, landing somewhat gracfully a foot in front of it, and the Abra fell in the opposite direction, knocked out from the sudden blow.
"Whew, that was close." Said Lloyd. "Good job everyone!"
"Yes, yes. But next time, can we not use me as a weapon?" Said Regal, shaking some dist of of him.
Lloyd laughed.
"Hey..." Started Isaac. "Did either of you hear that?"
"Hear what?" They both asked.
"Just listen..."
They did hear something, it was more growling. The growling sounded like it came from many wild pokemon, and they were fairly close by.
"This isn't good!" Said Regal, his voice full of panic. "What will we do Lloyd?"
Lloyd didn't respond.
"Lloyd?!"
"Huh? What?"
"Stop day dreaming, we gotta get out of here!" Yelled Isaac.
The growls sounded again, much closer and coming from all sides.
"But we gotta find that student!" Said Lloyd, pointing in the direction of the hallway they originally planned to go through to get father in the cave.
"Do we have an escape orb?" Asked Isaac.
Lloyd quickly looked through the bag, he pulled out one of the orbs. "Got one right here. So, we'll keep going and if things go wrong, all signal you all to come close and we'll get outta here."
"Got it." Said both Regal and Isaac.
---
Bursts of fire and clusters of razor sharp leaves flew in every direction. Rita and Sakura fought much like they had the last time, relying heavily on ranged moves over anything physical, only now their aim was far more accurate, and they dodge much more swiftly.
Sakura shot a flamethrower right towards Rita, but Rita dodged it by leaping straight at Sakura. In mid-air Rita launched three consecutive razor leaf attacks. Rita expected the attack to hit, but Sakura duplicated her disappearing trick that she used in the square. At the last second Sakura redirected her flamethrower downwards, engulfing and hiding her in a small pillar of fire. Ritas razor leaf went right through the flame, landing on the other side then turning to ash.
Sakura appeared out of nowhere beside Rita and attacked again, Rita dodged again but wasn't able to counter attack in mid-air like before.
How is she disappearing like that? She's no psychic, she can't teleport!
"So Rita, do you like that little vanishing act of mine?" Sakura laughed. "My teacher taught it to me personally. You could have learned stuff like that too if you weren't so thick headed and joined with me!"
"Grr, I'll show you!"
This move has got to be an illusion or something...
Rita decided to test the effectiveness of Sakura's disappearing, Rita launched dozens of her leaves in every direction around where Sakura was, then fired a final razor leaf right at Sakura.
As Rita expected, Sakura burned the ground around her in preparation, the fire engulfed her once again just as the storm of leaves reached the area she stood. Each and every razor leaf either bounce off the rocky wall, or burned up within the pillar of fire.
"Face it Rita." Said Sakura, who was now behind Rita. "You can't beat me, my natural fighting ability and education is too much for you!"
Oh, I'll find a way Sakura, I promise you that!
---
Lloyd, Isaac and Regal ran through a long, straight tunnel. They all heard the growls and footsteps of approaching pokemon behind them.
Another Abra jumped out from a small crevice in the wall, Lloyd sped up and tackled it before it could use any of its dangerous psychic attacks. It flew into the wall and slumped down to the ground, not even slowing down Lloyd as he led the others to what they all hoped would be safety.
Light filled the room thanks to a hole in the ceiling, the remains of it piled just below creating a small rocky pile in the exact center of the room. On top of that pile was a Growlithe, jumping up and down trying to get through the hole and escape.
"Are you the student from the school?" Lloyd yelled as soon as he stopped.
"Yeah, I am, who are you?"
"My names Lloyd, my team is from the Brotherhood and we're here to help you!"
The Growlithe was about to say something, but suddenly the right side wall exploded out and spilled across the floor. On the other side was an Alakazam, and dozens of other psychic pokemon. The Alakazam had just blown a hole in the wall using what must have been a very powerful attack.
"Ahhh! I'm out of here!" Yelled the Growlithe, he leapt off the pile of rocks, past Team Valiant and ran down the hall they had just came from.
The Alakazam pointed a finger at Team Valiant and shot a large purple beam, a Psybeam, right towards them, barely missing Isaac.
Without a word, the three of them turned and ran after the Growlithe. The wild pokemon ran after them, flooding the tunnel behind Team Valiant.
Everyone turned at the corner, Isaac was ahead, with Regal close behind. Lloyd hadn't noticed how tired he was until the chase began, the electric attacks he used on the wild pokemon they encountered earlier used up a lot of his energy.
They came to another corner, Isaac and Regal whipped right by, not looking back. But Lloyd stumbled and tripped just before reaching the corner. Isaac and Regal, not noticing Lloyd's fall, kept running without him, not knowing he was gone.
Lloyd rolled over onto his back and looked behind him, the wild pokemon were only twenty feet away and were closing fast.
Lloyd closed his eyes and shielded his face with his arm. Suddenly he got a weird feeling all over his body, at first he thought it was one of the psychic attacks trying to levitate him. But then he realized the sensation was familiar, something he felt before. He opened his eyes and saw his paw was different, bigger and orange and black, instead of yellow.
He was a Raichu again.
He got up and flexed his arms. "Haha, finally! I missed being evolved!"
He saw the wild pokemon coming at him still, not five feet away. He jumped over them, watching them stop and look up at him in awe, then showered them all with a powerful blast of thunder bolt. At least a dozen of them were hit, and all of them were knocked out, collapsing to the ground.
Before landing, he extended his foot and kicked another Ralts, sending it flying into a group of his allies. When Lloyd landed, he looked around him and saw the wild pokemon were afraid of him, they never expected Lloyd, once an easy target, to get so powerful so quick.
Several of the wild pokemon turned tail and ran, while the others just sat down and defended themselves, shaking with fear.
"What's wrong guys?" Asked Lloyd, amused by their sudden change in attitude. "Afraid of a fair fight?" Lloyd didn't know whether or not they understood him, but once they heard his loud, deep voice the remaining few joined their fleeing comrades, leaving Lloyd alone in the caverns hall.
Lloyd looked at his paws, his feet, his long tail, and sighed. "I wish I could just stay like this..." Lloyd balled his paws into fists. "I'm so much more powerful, I feel like I could take on the world!"
Suddenly, as if possessed, his own fist came at him and punched him in the nose.
"Ow! What the...?" Lloyd looked around, the Alakazam from before was here, hand raised, ready to use his powers.
Lloyds fist came at him again, Lloyd tilted his head and dodged it. "Stop doing that!" He yelled. But the Alakazam wasn't about to listen to him. With another subtle hand gesture, Lloyds feet both shot out in separate directions, forcing him to fall over on his face.
Lloyd pushed himself up and spat out some dirt, he didn't want to get controlled again so he shot out a thunder bolt at the Alakazam before it could do anything.
The Alakazam just stood there, and just before the electricity hit him, he waved his hand again. The thunder bolt changed direction, and was sent harmlessly down into the ground, sending a small amount of dirt flying in every direction.
Lloyd tried again, but the same thing happened, the Alakazam swatted the electricity away before it got to him, this time sending it into the wall, cause a small sized hole and another shower of dirt.
Lloyd suddenly got an idea. He fired the thunder bolt upwards, towards the ceiling that was right between the both of them. The Alakazam looked confused but did nothing. The dust from the ceiling fell, making both pokemon unable to see the other.
Lloyd ran forward and leapt towards Alakazam just as he reached the dust cloud. Alakazam wasn't expecting the sudden attack and didn't have time to use his psychic attacks. Lloyd leapt onto Alakazam and floored him, then followed up by unleashing his thunder bolt straight down.
Alakazam looked forward, raised his arm slowly, then let it drop back down, it's head tilted and eyes closed, Alakazam was out for the count.
"Lloyd?!" Said a voice.
It was Isaac. He was coming his way.
Oh, NOW you notice I'm gone.
"I'm over here!" Lloyd called back.
Lloyd was happy to finally be able to leave. He stepped off of Alakazam, but stopped when he felt yet another strange sensation.
"Hello Lloyd, miss me?"
It was Shadows voice.
Shadow? What do you want?
"Well, I figured out a solution to my little problem... A loophole.
Loophole? What do you...
Suddenly Lloyd was in a great amount of pain, he got down on his hands and knees. He tried to yell but he couldn't make even the slightest sound out of his mouth.
"It seems my prediction was correct, what ever that annoying glowing ball did to you to prevent me from controlling you, doesn't seem to work on you while you evolved. Now I can have my fun again! Isn't this great news?"
No... Shadow... Please...
"It's too bad you called your friends over, you just made killing them so much easier!" Shadow laughed within Lloyds mind.
Lloyd saw as the black fog that covered shadow slowly began to appear. Lloyd didn't have much time before he lost control. He tried to yell to Isaac and Regal to get away, to just run and leave him, but nothing came out.
Lloyd fell forward, and his vision quickly faded to black, the last thing he heard before he was completely taken over was the approaching footsteps of Isaac and Regal.