Verto: Hello, guys! Verto here! Sorry about the longer wait. Raven was slacking.
Raven: What?! No I wasn't! I was working on a second fanfiction! An Ace Attorney one!
Verto: Do you know how many of your followers actually care about your to-be-released Ace Attorney fanfiction?
Raven: Not many.
Verto: And you spent quite a while just playing Steam games.
Raven: There was a sale!
Verto: And watching videos.
Raven: I plead the fifth… anyway, how many reviews do we have this time?
Verto: Six different reviewers.
Raven: Wait… SIX?! Awesome! Let's get started!
Verto: Some dude named WesternFail…
Raven: Oh hi, Western! Thanks for the review! I'm glad you ended up liking my story!
Verto: Brightclaw237, yes, the pokémon act like team Plasma, minus the "total hypocrite" part.
Raven: AZalmega, thanks for the tips on the dialogue and wordings. Those and actions scenes are very difficult for me. I'm a lot better at conceptualizing things and creating characters, though this is fun and I think I'm getting better. And don't worry, I like honest reviews! I still have a lot to improve on, and I need some help to know what that is! As for romance… Uh… Amicus is not in any way supposed to be a romance. She's more of the little naïve sister type.
Verto: Hah. Hello Anna-Matronic. Raven actually does re-read her chapters! She's just really bad at it!
Raven: Shut up, Verto! Anyway, glad you liked that chapter!
Raven: Shieldlinger001, that isn't nit picking. That's pointing out typos. I have a very difficult time noticing my typos when editing, so my apologies. As for Absol, I'm yet to have a good chance to explore the character I have set up for him, though he does have one.
Verto: We have a Guest this time.
Raven: Oh! The first person to review my story! Heh… heh…
Verto: Kept going for almost a year? Hah!
Raven: Shut up, Verto!
Verto: She actually went a solid five months without uploading past chapter three! Something about not being good at handling school's stress. Anyway, she won't be quitting again, so don't worry. I won't let her.
Raven: Longer A/N this time, but without further ado, chapter start!
Chapter 12
Danny's POV
The first thing that went through Danny's head was "I feel weird." He was sore all over, but "all over" was what felt weird. He blearily opened his eyes. It was dark, but he could see perfectly fine. There was no discernable light source, yet the grey figures of his friends were still completely visible. The darkness kept him from seeing any colors, though. They appeared to be in a large cavern, though there was no discernable exit. There was a pool of water at one side, which Hannah was in. She appeared to be in her normal form, with her head on her crossed arms outside the pool.
He couldn't clearly remember how they had gotten there. He recalled fighting some pokémon, but being overwhelmed, then seeing Rachael and Absol being carried away. He felt a sharp pang of terror at this recollection. She was captured? Was she okay? He would need to figure out where she was! He needed to figure out where he was first, though."
Danny tried to stand up. The keyword was tried. His shape felt completely… broken. He tried to move his head, which was the only part of him that didn't feel quite as horribly off. It felt strange, but he was able to lift it up a bit. He was on his side, with his legs and arms sticking straight out in front of him. Strangely, his legs felt no strain from this weird position.
The realization didn't have a big "Oh my gosh" moment most people in the stories seemed to have. It started out as a suspicion, and over the next minute, he became more and more sure his transformation into a Zorua had completed. He didn't think "Oh no!" He thought a mere "Oh…"
His friends were still asleep. He thought he should try to walk. It took several seconds, but he was able to sweep his legs under him to where he was on his stomach. Slowly, he was able to stand up onto all fours. At this point, it had felt like getting on to hands and knees.
Things became difficult when it came to moving them. The legs moved like two elbows instead of a shoulder and elbow. The issue was, they didn't do what he told them to do very well. He tried to move his front leg up slightly. It jolted up, then back down. He tried to move it up more prominently, but it moved more forward, and up a bit further than he meant to. He tested all his limbs. None of them moved in quite the way he wanted them to.
He tried to walk, but his legs continued to move incorrectly. They went too far, not far enough, or back and forth aggravatingly. He continued trying to walk, but his legs continued to move in a horribly sporadic fashion. It wasn't like the actual movement of them was incorrect. It was more so like whenever he tried to move them, an invisible hand grabbed on and jerked them back and forth.
He tried to move them faster; to see if it would be easier that way. He started running. He was clumsy, but that was due to a lack of coordination. He was able to move his legs the proper amount when running, but had a harder time controlling them when moving slowly. Balance was still a general issue though. He would need to practice moving as a quadruped. The actual coordination of which leg to move became surprisingly easy after a few minutes. He was running around in a large circle, getting used to his new form for the next few minutes. He still had several clumsy missteps though, and for some reason, whenever he tried to walk, the strange jerking returned.
Danny shook his head. Maybe he would get better as time went on. Nevertheless, he couldn't shake the feeling something was seriously wrong.
Several minutes of practice later, Danny was sick of waiting for his friends to wake up. They needed to start searching for Rachael and Absol. He ran over to Michael, and nudged him with his paw. Michael began to stir, then stopped once more. Danny rolled his eyes, and nudged him harder. Michael rolled over.
"Oh come on! Wake up!" After charging his energy the way Ditto taught him; Danny forced some dark type energy to his paws. Unlike most element energy, dark type energy was stubborn, thick, and rigid, needing to be forced in the direction desired, rather than guided. It made dark types tire easily compared to most pokémon, but their attacks would be much stronger due to the more volatile energy. Michael, on the other hand, would be mostly protected by his fighting type energy he had been starting to build up since the transformation started.
Danny forced the energy to his paws, and slammed the ground, sending dark type energy to spread like a wave in a small radius around his them, passing over Michael. He shuddered as black sparks flew off him.
Michael gasped, jolting upwards and illuminating his paw with an orange force palm. The orange flame around his hand bringing a dim light to the rest of the cave, allowing for Danny to make out some dull colors. He glared at Danny.
"Hey, I won't dark pulse you if you wake up when I nudge you. Let this be a lesson! Can you wake up Ditto?" Michael shoved Danny with one of his paws, turning him to face Ditto. Danny still hadn't gotten used to seeing paws on Michael, who still looked more human than pokémon. Michael groggily stood up and stumbled over to Hannah, still asleep in the water. Dang, Danny would need to wake Ditto up himself. Danny trotted over to Ditto, who was currently in the form of an, er, shiny ditto.
Danny began to charge up his dark pulse.
"Don't even think about it, kid." Ditto snapped, his eyes still closed. "If you hit me, I'll blast you out of this cave, no portals allowed." Danny froze, and tried to gingerly set his paws down, only for one of his legs to be jerked backward and the other one forward. Danny hit the ground of the cave with his face, his paws unleashing a weak dark pulse, sending stabs of pain through his body. He let out a yelp of pain.
"Thank you for only barely hitting me with that. How did you hit yourself with that anyway?" Ditto asked snappishly, now in the form of a Clefairy.
"Hey, I went from biped to quadruped in a few hours, what do you expect me to do?"
"It's still incredible you managed to do that."
"Shush."
"Whatever. Let's get going. Is Hannah awake?"
"Kinda sort of…" came her groggy voice from the other side of the cavern.
"Well anyway, we'll need to find Rachael and Absol. Honestly I never expected this to happen…" Ditto admitted. Danny was about to respond, but was interrupted.
"AAAAAGH!" Came Hannah's sudden, desperate shout from the other side of the cavern, her voice bouncing off the walls. She hurried out of the water, and ran past Michael, trying to distance herself from whatever was in there. Danny and Ditto hurried over to her.
"What's wrong, Hannah?" Danny asked frantically.
"E-Eelektrik!" She started shaking. Danny didn't need Michael's emotion sensing powers to hear her fear. Danny narrowed his eyes. Sparks started zipping from the water, though they didn't seem to be very dangerous compared to regular electric attacks.
Eelektrik rocketed out of the water, sending water all throughout the cavern. "Oh, good, you brats are awake." Eelektrik levitated a few feet away from a very cautious Michael.
"What are you doing here?" Ditto demanded angrily, transforming into an Pangoro, towering over Eelektrik threateningly.
"I found you guys here a couple days ago. You must have been beat up badly if you only just woke up. Whatever, it made it easier for me to find you again. I came here sending a message from Rachael."
Danny glared at Eelektrik. "Really now?" He asked suspiciously. "Where is she?"
"She's in the flying type habitat in the mountain. It's a few hours' climb from the base of the mountain. She knew you wouldn't trust me, though."
"She's pretty on the mark with that!" Ditto snapped.
"She said, and I quote, 'Birdbrain needs Kitsune Boy's help." Eelektrik tried to not look hopeful. Danny remembered a conversation he and Rachael had what seemed like ages ago. Kitsune Boy…
"I… uh… well… I believe you…" Danny admitted. "But what exactly do you want with us?"
"I'll help you guys however you want, but in exchange, Rachael agreed to help me get home."
"Do you know where Absol is?" Ditto asked, trying to hide worry.
"Well if that Rachael kid was in the Flying Zone, I would bet Absol is in the Dark, Ghost, and Psychic Zone. That place isn't quite as… lax as places like the Flying Zone, though, so he's probably still there. I can get Rachael and bring her back to you guys, and we can meet up in the Normal and Fighting Zone. Deal?"
"Hang on, I'm following you if you're doing that!" Ditto demanded, stepping forward menacingly.
"Yes, because they'll be able to find and navigate Elemental Mountain, get into the right zone, and not get caught? Good luck with that. All of us go to the Flying Zone? Poor Absol. Just the Zorua kid? Well that's a good dark-type wasted. Just the humans? Because I can hide the human weirdos.
"I- uh… fine! Get the kid, and bring her to the Normal Fighting Zone!" Ditto conceded, glaring at the wall begrudgingly. "We'll help you reach the electric zone. That's where you're from right?"
"Yup. I'm gonna go fetch the brat and bring her there. Any chance I can get one of those wormholes?" Ditto rolled his eyes.
"You guys ready to go? Get over here please so I can stay conscious for the whole day." Ditto started glowing white as his form shrunk and distorted into that of the mythical pokémon Hoopa.
"E-Eelektrik… here you go…" Ditto muttered, pulling one of the rings off his horns. He threw it, as it grew in size, filling with a purple luminescent haze. Eelektrik hurried through the ring, vanishing quickly. Ditto threw the other ring outwards as the other one flew back to his horn.
"H-Hurry please!" He shouted, his voice strained. The purple ring was a foot off the ground. Hannah was the first to go through, followed by Michael. Danny ran forward and jumped through quickly, unable to merely step in due to being a total two feet tall.
His surroundings changed suddenly. One second they were in a dark, damp, cave. The next they were at the summit of the mountain. Ditto, still in the form of a Hoopa, appeared from the ring as well. Mid-air, he morphed into that of a Murkrow, falling to the ground, panting.
"A-alright… I wasn't like that for too long… I still have enough energy to maintain consciousness and this form… What's our plan?" He asked, still splayed out on the ground.
"Well… somehow Michael and I need to stay hidden but still make it up to the right zone…"
"Ugh! This wasn't supposed to be this difficult!" Ditto shouted, frustrated. The pokémon here weren't this… violent! Sure, we at the village aren't big on humans, but we don't perform coordinated attacks to try and 'neutralize' them! And why hasn't Snowfire done anything to stop it? This... just… I don't know…" Ditto ranted, putting his Murkrow wings over his face.
"When was the last time anyone actually contacted this place from your village?" Hannah asked worriedly.
"Uh… I think it was… a decade ago? We never had any sort of crisis like this one that gave us a reason to poke our head in." He admitted, his head still down.
Hannah covered her face with her hand, groaning. "No wonder," she muttered. "The pokémon abuse didn't get bad until about eight years ago. They've become more… prone to negative reactions since then."
"Oh, Arceus, you're right! We assumed all would be dandy since humans couldn't even reach the mountain… we never thought about the abused pokémon that could get in! Word must have spread like wildfire since it happened! I'm an idiot! It's all my fault!"
Danny shuffled his paws uncomfortably, unsure of how to handle his upset friend. "Hey, no worries. We knew it would be dangerous, just not this dangerous. There was no way for you guys to know. It's no skin off our backs." Danny comforted awkwardly, staring up the mountain.
The summit resembled an ordinary mountain, with brown and grey boulders stacked and piled firmly together. After roughly fifty feet, the terrain changed to be more natural, despite what one would expect. There were several plateaus covering the mountain at varying heights. Some of them went to nearly the top of the mountain. The only one with a visible environment was the lowest one down, which had many vines growing off of it, with some small waterfalls pouring into the large lake.
Further up the mountain, the coloration of the mountain continued to shift. That's not to say it was common, for each terrain took up a large part of the mountain, which had a diameter that must be miles. Ditto used his wing to point up to a particularly high area, with bright brown rocks, though that was the most Danny could make out.
"That's where I sent Eelektrik. He should hopefully be searching for Rachael there. The zone we're going to is on the other side of the mountain, which we can get to through the Rock and Ground Zone and the Fairy Zone." He explained, seeming to have made a full emotional recovery. He used his talons to etch a tiny map into the ground Danny paid no attention to as he trotted over to the waterside, taking the time to stare at his reflection through the rippling water.
He looked like a Zorua, but also like himself, in a sense. All physical traits pointed to the dark type fox, but his fur had ubiquitous blonde strands dotting it, much like his hair color as a human. His eyes were blue, much like both a Zorua's and his as a human, but the color was more blended in shades. The blue was mostly a bright, vibrant color except for the darker starburst coming from the pupil.
"Danny? Are you paying attention?" Hannah asked humorously. Danny turned his head to face her. She was crossing her arms with a smirk. Danny sighed; he could feel his ears loping again.
"Fine. I'll pay attention… maybe… from here on." He tried to turn around, but his right foreleg was jerked forward while his left blackleg jerked backward as well, causing him to trip, sending him splashing into the water. He let out a yelp. He tried to keep his head above the deep water, but his new form made it awkward. He flailed for an instant, before he felt something clasp the collar of fur around his neck, lifting him up.
It was Hannah, who was staring at him, concerned. He would've blushed if he could. His legs dangled below him and she held him with one hand above the water while he continued to drip dry.
"H-how did that happen?" She asked, surprised.
"I'm just clumsy. Don't worry about it." He assured her. "Now can you put me down, please?" She smiled evilly.
"Beg, boy!" She demanded. Danny's eyes widened.
"You're going to drop me in the water again if I don't, aren't you?" He asked, looking at the water below him in trepidation.
"Yup!" She cheerfully replied. Danny rolled his eyes, and attempted to move his paws in the typical puppy "beg" gesture. One paw jerked downward while the other jerked to the side wildly. Hannah looked concerned.
"Are you sure you're alright?" She bit her lip nervously, setting Danny on the ground gingerly. It was odd seeing her tower over him like that.
"Yup! Never better! Now let's go!" Danny demanded all-to-cheerfully. He was stopped in his tracks with Michael sticking his leg in front of Danny's path. With a deadpan expression, he gestured to himself, then Hannah.
"Oh… right…" Danny muttered, embarrassed. "How are we going to get around the whole human issue?"
Ditto smirked as much as a Murkrow form would allow him. "You're the Zorua."
"But… I thought a Zorua could only use illusions on themselves, not their environment," He recited, trying to make sure he remembered what Ditto had told him.
"Well they can, it's just… tiring to do it for long," he explained. "Just force the dark type energy through the tip of your tail, to who you want to cast the illusion on, all while focusing what the illusion should be," he continued, seeming to grow less and less confident in the probability of success.
"Alright then. Michael… You get a… um… Mighteyena! And Hannah, you get… uh… a Kirlia! Okay! Let's hope I don't screw this up!" Danny searched for the supposed reservoir of energy that should be in his tail. It took a second, but he noticed his tail felt… strong. It felt different from the dark type energy he could feel flow through him, but still of that nature. He focused his attention on Hannah, picturing a Kirlia in her place. He willed the energy there as he felt it literally drain from him. All at once, Hannah's appearance changed. She looked exactly like a Kirlia. Danny wobbled slightly, before righting himself.
"Woah… Nice job… this is odd. It feels like driving a robot suit or something rather than controlling a body… its odd…"
"Yeah, anything that touches the illusion will feel real, but any damage caused on others by it will fade away when out of range of the illusion. Also, you still have those Milotic antennae. They're pretty much your lifeline to your real body. Mess with those, the illusion is rejected." Ditto recited robotically, as though he had it memorized.
"Wait… what? What if they were… cut off or something?" Hannah asked nervously, gracefully shifting from leg to leg like a normal Kirlia.
"Well… You would pretty much fuse with the illusion magic… permanently." Hannah's pupils shrunk.
"Alright! The antennae stay!" Michael next!" She continued to shuffle nervously.
"Alright! Let's… do this! Woo!" Danny repeated the process with Michael, a Mighteyena suddenly taking Michael's place. The only thing not resembling that of a Mighteyena was two Riolu feelers hanging behind his ears.
"Wow, Danny. I'm impressed. Again." Hannah remarked, staring at the shocked Michael.
"Calm yourself. Danny, are you okay?" Ditto asked worriedly, watching the stumbling Danny.
"H-huh? Yeah! Never better! Lead the way, Ditto!" He put on a brave face and false bravado, and started trotting in Ditto's direction. Ditto reluctantly began a slow flight around the base of the mountain.
"I ringed us pretty close to the entrance, so keep calm and walk on." Ditto explained. He was right. It only took about ten minutes of walking for a gaping tunnel entrance to be visible. It looked like what you would expect an ordinary cave entrance to look like, with boulders supporting the walls; dragonfire lamps also aligned the inside of the tunnel, creating an ominous walkway.
"Fear us, Magus…" Danny muttered, almost incoherently. He felt like he had gotten hit by a bus, gone three days without sleeping, then had to run a marathon. Walking would lead to the odd spasmodic twitches, so he had to trot, which exhausted him quickly. The tunnel wasn't very long. It was a trek, though, due to the strain on Danny.
He hid his sheer exhaustion fairly well behind a peppy trot and forced happiness. Michael didn't seem to be noticing anything. Each leg felt like lifting a twenty-pound weight with a pinkie. He kept going, though.
The end of the tunnel opened up into a large cavern that looked pretty ordinary. It was large, with brown, rugged walls. There were grooves in the walls where dragonfire burned, lighting the whole room up in an eerie blue glow. The room was massive, with many tunnels of varying sizes aligning the floor and walls. There were a few dozen pokémon in the room of varying types, but the majority being rock and ground types such as Trapinch or Geodude.
"While rock types can be found in what is known as the Steel Rock zone, so many hung out in the Ground Zone they added rock to the name." Ditto explained quietly as they traveled. None of the pokémon seemed to pay much attention to them, aside from a few odd glances at Hannah's antennae and Michael's Riolu feelers. They may have dismissed it as some deformity in the pokémon itself. It's not like having antennae would lead someone to say "They must be humans!"
The walk was uneventful. It took maybe half an hour to make the half mile walk to the other side of the cavern. "Okay," Ditto started. "When we reach the Dark zone, don't ask questions. I'll lead the entire thing. We'll need to find Absol, but if I were to guess, I'd say he is still in confinement.
"Confinement?" Hannah quietly asked, still elegantly prancing along the pathway.
"Yeah. I've heard of the Dark Zone from a few of the traveling pokémon that have come from the mountain. They aren't very common, but we've had a few. Anyway, they're far stricter and untrusting. He's probably in some sort of cell."
"Ah… okay… So how do we find him?"
"By finding the cells." He supplied quickly
"And how is that done?" she seemed skeptical.
"Luck." Hannah face-palmed.
"So basically we have no plan whatsoever?"
"Hah. No. You just won't like it." He continued forward merrily.
"That had better not mean what I think it does."
"What'll you do if it does?" He asked sarcastically.
"Can't you at least transform into something else stronger than a Murkrow?" Hannah's voice was shaky and frightful.
The rocks slowly gained a purple tint as they walked through the tunnel, and little indentures caved in the walls gave out light. Despite not being able to see that high, Danny assumed it was dragonfire. He kept trotting, but it was getting more and more difficult.
Suddenly, he was filled with a searing pain. He felt like he was being burned alive while inhaling smoke. He let out a yelp, and collapsed.
"Crap! Michael! Grab him!" He fuzzily heard Ditto command, with his voice still hushed. He felt himself being draped over Michael's illusion. Huh… they must be physical in the sense that they could be touched… Danny focused all of his energy on maintaining the illusions as they ran. It still hurt incredibly just maintaining the illusions, but doing it while he was burning was more difficult than anything he had ever done. He felt his limbs go numb.
Time was completely irrelevant as they continued running. He had no idea how long he'd been doing it. All at once, the pain stopped, but the exhaustion remained. He stayed still, unable to move any further without losing focus on maintaining the illusions.
"What is this? Who are you?" Danny heard an emotionless voice command, though he wasn't facing the direction of the voice.
"Greetings. We are here to help this little one. We found him outside the mountain." Ditto supplied, just as emotionlessly.
"Really now?" The voice seemed skeptical. "I've never seen you three in my life. We shall tend to the child later. You must confront the chief before that! Ask no questions and follow me!" Danny blearily was able to watch his surroundings.
It was dreary. The entire area was a cavern with grey rocks darker than storm clouds. Many leafless trees with twisted blue bark aligned the pathways. They seemed to be more decorative than anything. On the branches of the trees, as though hung there by a string, were purple orbs levitating mid-air. Ingrained in the walls were a few small doorways. Thanks to Danny's superb vision, he could see a few dark type pokémon in the rooms, but aside from a few clay pots, there was nothing else visible in there.
Many psychic and ghost type pokémon were visible in the large caverns, but not in any of the rooms, though Danny could see many of them phasing in and out of walls. Dim sunlight barely lit the cavern. Ahead of him Danny could see another door opening that Danny guessed led to a plateau, though no pokémon seemed to be entering or exiting that way, currently. Any pokémon in the room were glaring at the suspiciously.
Everyone followed whoever their unkind guide was obediently. Danny felt slightly better than he did a few minutes ago. He no longer felt as though he was burning, though he was still completely exhausted and had to work incredibly hard to retain the illusions.
Danny felt Michael tense up as the fur on Danny's neck pokémon outward like a dandelion. Something resembling purple lightning shocks continuously jolted between two odd, pointed stones. They resembled the bars of a cage, for there were pokémon remaining motionless behind them. The pokémon one would expect to see in this Zone were calm, anxious, and anything in between, while some pokémon from other zones were also in some of the cages Danny could see. Perhaps this was their prison for any misbehaving pokémon, as it were.
Then Danny noticed Absol. While they had passed a few of them, no Absol seemed to pay Danny any mind, and nothing struck him as familiar about them. But as they walked, Danny could just see, and strangely enough, smell something familiar about the Absol they were passing. He was staring intently at them, and he nodded ever so slightly to Danny as Michael walked tensely by the cage.
Then they were led to what Danny assumed was a cage. The pokémon leading them was actually an Espeon, who stood dutifully, gesturing with their tail for them to go through a small opening in the electric bars.
That was when things went crazy. Where a Murkrow once was, now stood a Lucario. Michael abruptly sprang forward, knocking Danny off, right into one of the electric bars. Alarmed cries rang out as Michael and Hannah suddenly emerged as the semi-humans they were.
The Espeon lunged at them without a second thought. Michael lit his fist in an orange energy, punching the Espeon backward mid-air. Ditto, as a Lucario, shot an aura sphere to some of the strange stones on the top of Absol's cell. A bright explosion lit the cavern, attracting even more attention.
Absol sprang out of the cage, grabbing the barely conscious Danny with his mouth and throwing him onto his back. They started running. Ditto kept away any dark-type pokémon with homing Aura spheres as they attempted to stop the intruders. Whenever any psychic or ghost type pokémon appeared, Absol warded them off with dark pulses from both his paws and mouth.
Despite the numerous fearful pokémon in the cavern, only a few seemed to try and confront them as they ran. A blue Bisharp was one of the pokémon that decided to confront them. The gauntlets on his arms had long, glowing spikes protruding from them. Ditto tried to keep his distance from the melee attack, launching a powerful aura sphere quickly.
Rather than getting hit, the Bisharp held up his glowing gauntlet to block it. The Aura sphere was completely absorbed by it, turning it a bright orange. The Bisharp then charged towards Absol, who leaped over the Bisharp, landing by sending a dark pulse through the ground, throwing the Bisharp off balance.
Ditto ran closer to the Bisharp, a large, glowing, bone shaped staff appearing in his hands. Ditto jabbed at Bisharp with it, who jumped to the side, retaliating with his orange gauntlet, swiping it along Ditto's shoulder. Ditto grunted as the wound started to bleed. Michael let out a cry as an Alakazam hit him in the back with a powerful pysbeam.
Absol, after handing Danny to Hannah to hold, ran to assist Michael, throwing another dark pulse into the ground while Michael used his force palm to keep the Alakazam occupied. Ditto charged up another aura sphere, this time a larger and slower one. Bisharp held up his white gauntlet to absorb it, digging his feet into the ground to prevent momentum from throwing him back. He let out a sharp shout of pain as ditto landed a direct force palm to his back.
The Bisharp collapsed under the power of the super effective attack, while Michael and Absol had incapacitated the Alakazam long enough to keep running. They reached the doorway that led to open air.
It was a complete dead end. The plateau was large, but it was a complete drop-off, with water being far below. Danny felt Hannah's grip around him tighten.
"Guys, jump. Keep your legs straight and together. Pokémon are more resistant, so we'll be alright." Hannah's voice was level, making what she said sound oddly rational. Michael looked terrified, while Ditto laughed.
"Hah! Insane! I love it!" Yet there was a certain edge to his voice. "I'm still beyond exhausted though, so I can't change out of this form."
"It's fine. I'll figure it out." Several pokémon were backing them to the cliff edge. Hannah turned around, still clutching Danny, and leapt off the cliff edge. Danny felt himself falling for a few long seconds. Danny noticed Hannah glowing the bright blue she did before transforming.
Pain radiated through him as water flew up his nose, choking him. The last thing he felt before losing consciousness was being pulled further under the water.