An Age of Valour
by the Lady of the Mists
Chapter Thirty-three: Inside the Islands
As she walked with Umbreon, Jesse, and Jennie, Lydia shoved her hands into her pockets, watching the sun rise higher and higher into the sky, bearing down on them as they began to explore the Whirl Islands. "I cannot believe this," Jennie complained as she kicked a rock into the ocean, annoyed. "We've been walking around here for a couple of hours now and I haven't seen a single Pokémon besides Magicarp."
"Well, maybe we're just looking in the wrong place," Jesse offered, trying to cheer his sister up. "Maybe we should look in the caves there." He jerked his hand towards the dark caves that inhabited the islands. Lydia frowned at her best friend, shaking her head.
"I'm marvelling at the wrongness of that idea," Lydia told him. "Remember all that trouble we had in Union Cave? And with Alicia hovering around here somewhere, I'm not exactly too inclined to be heading back into a cave while she's here."
"What, you want her to ruin every fun that you have?" Jesse asked sarcastically. "You remember fun, Lydia? The thing where you occasionally smile a lot?"
Lydia felt the sides of her mouth tug and she shook her head, smiling towards her best friends. "Yeah, going into a dark cave is your idea of fun, Jess, not mine."
"Oh, come on!" Jennie whined as she started heading into the cave without waiting to see if they were going to follow her. Jesse followed his sister enthusiastically while Lydia reluctantly headed after them. "We didn't come all this way just to hang around and watch the sun set."
"That could be fun," Lydia observed as she climbed through the cave with her friends, Umbreon right at her feet as the cave darkened around them while they headed down the tunnel. "Jess, I don't suppose you remembered to get some batteries for your flashlight while we were in Olivine, did you?"
"Of course I did, what do you take me for?" If she could see him, then she was sure that he would be scowling at her. "Jen, hold up for a second."
"Hold up? I can't see anything, what are we waiting for?" Jennie's voice drifted towards them from ahead and sounded annoyed and irritated. "Come on, I want to find some ice Pokémon."
"How are you planning on doing that if we can't even see them?" Lydia inquired as light suddenly exploded in her eyes and she shrieked, stumbling away from it. "Jesse, you don't need to blind me!"
The light moved away from her and she uncovered her eyes, only to be met with spots on her eyes, along with a rueful Jesse. "Sorry," he apologised as she walked back towards them. He flashed the flashlight ahead of them, further through the cave, and the trio began climbing further down to find whatever they were going to come across.
"Hey, do you guys hear water?" Lydia asked suddenly, her sharp ears coming into contact with the sound of rushing water.
"No," Jennie answered while Jesse stopped, listening.
"Yeah, I hear it," he told her. "Jennie, listen."
Jennie paused for a minute, listening carefully. "Oh," she said, smiling innocently. "Okay, now I hear it." Lydia shook her head as she and Umbreon took the lead, heading through the tunnel until they came across an entire lake underneath the island. "Whoa, look at that!" Jennie squealed as she pointed ahead of them.
"It's a bunch of baby Seel," Lydia observed as she shoved her hands into her pockets. Jennie nodded, her eyes gleaming as she pulled out a Pokéball to release one of her Pokémon. "Hold on, Jen. We're gonna find some more, don't capture one of those."
"Why?" Jennie demanded, rounding on her and looking highly upset. "That's what we came here for, remember?"
"I know, but those are just babies," Lydia pointed out, nodding to them. "See, there's their mother climbing up now. They still have plenty of growing up to do before they'll be ready to do any battling or anything. Come on, we're bound to find some more further in."
Jennie made a face. "Oh, all right," she grumbled. "But you owe me one." She replaced the Pokéball as she headed further down the steps and began walking along the waterfront, her green eyes searching everywhere for any Pokémon wandering around. "Hey, guys, look there!" she exclaimed, sounding alarmed this time.
Lydia looked up ahead and ran when she saw the Cloyster leaning on its side rather painfully. Jennie beat her to the Pokémon and squatted down on her knees to see how badly it was hurt. "It's okay, you're okay," she crooned gently as she dug into her bag for some supplies. "Don't worry, we're going to take care of you."
As she worked her newly acquired breeder skills on Cloyster, Lydia moved closer to take a look at the wounds. Her eyes narrowed as she saw the injured inflicted on it. They were recent, she immediately noticed, and Cloyster wasn't portraying the usual signs that she'd witnessed when dealing with an abused Pokémon. After being with Umbreon and Cyndaquil for this long, plus the behaviour of Jesse's Scyther, she didn't think that Cloyster had been abused by his trainer. No, he had been hurt by something within the caves.
"Something attacked him," Lydia said slowly as she slowly stood up, her eyes searching the cavern. "And if I had to take a guess, then I would say that there's something happening here than just a mere attack. You guys stay here, I'm gonna go see if I can find out what's going on."
"No way are you going alone, not if somebody's attacking Pokémon around here," Jesse interjected. "No way."
"Jess, somebody has to stay here and help Jennie with Cloyster," Lydia argued. "Besides, if I run into trouble, I can get a message to you without alerting anybody, remember?"
Jesse paused, his face growing paler as he remembered Lydia's abnormal abilities. "Can you do that?"
Lydia paused, giving him an innocent smile. "I am pretty sure that I will be able to do that," she admitted. Jesse gave her a scornful look and she made a face. "Okay, I've only ever tried it with Hayden, but I'm sure that it will work if I concentrate enough."
"You're sure," Jesse repeated disbelieving.
"Okay, well, pretty sure, anyway," Lydia sighed. "Look, Jess, I can take care of myself. I am big girl now."
"Uh-huh." Jesse rolled his eyes as she walked away with Umbreon to try and find whatever had attacked Cloyster, casting out her psyche to find them. But she had the feeling that whoever or whatever they were, they weren't going to be hard to find.
And she wasn't wrong.
As she found a group of Kingler under attack by a certain blonde trainer, she reached down and touched a growling Umbreon. "Easy, boy," she murmured, trying to calm him as she took a step towards Alicia, who stiffened the moment that she neared her. "Why is it that whenever you're around, trouble is sure to follow?"
"Well, I wouldn't have to have trouble with you if you would just stop getting in my way," Alicia taunted as she glared at Lydia. "Where'd your little friends go, anyway?"
"Taking care of an injured Cloyster," Lydia said flatly. "Your work, I presume?" Alicia's smirk was enough to confirm what she had originally suspected from the beginning. "Gosh, what did your parents do to you as a child to make you grow up to be such a cold, heartless trainer?"
Alicia's teeth barred at the mention of her parents. "Flareon, flame thrower!" she ordered and the fire Pokémon obeyed. Lydia was quick to retaliate as she threw Chinchou's Pokéball.
"Water gun!" she called and the water/electric Pokémon fired a jet of water towards the fire, making an explosion through the chamber. Lydia shook her head as water came down, soaking both girls. "Wow, did I actually touch a nerve there, Knightly?"
"Shut up about my parents," the blonde trainer growled.
Lydia stared at her and for the first time, she actually saw a glimmer of humanity spark through Alicia. A shiver travelled through her and she took a step towards her carefully. "What happened to them, Alicia?" she asked slowly. "What happened to your mom and dad?"
"Nothing happened to them and I am really failing to see how my parents are any of your business!" Alicia snarled at her. "I'm not the one whose mother hated her so much that she died just to get away from her!"
For a second, Lydia actually considered telling her the truth about what had happened to her mother, but decided against it. Alicia wasn't her friend; she was the enemy. And telling her that kind of information would only put her at a disadvantage somewhere down the line.
"You can believe what you want," Lydia told her softly. "And forgive me if I actually thought that there might be some human buried deep inside of you. Guess I was wrong. But I'm not going to let you hurt these Pokémon. They deserve a better trainer than the likes of you."
Unknown to Alicia, Umbreon had darted away from Lydia's side and was helping the Kingler get away. Once they were safely away from Alicia, he had returned to her side, growling towards the blonde trainer. Alicia's eyes narrowed as she realised what had happened.
"You're going to pay for that one, Talon," she snarled towards the brunette trainer. "You're going down."
"Might be," Lydia admitted, tossing her hair behind her back. "You might actually beat me one day, but uh . . . here's the thing. If I'm going down, I'm taking you with me." Alicia's blue eyes went wide at that statement just as a boy around Alicia's age appeared.
"Agent Knightly?" he asked. Lydia rolled her eyes, amused by the fact that they called each other agents, as though they were in some kind of spy organisation or something. Alicia growled at him when he called her that, looking like she wanted to strangle him.
"Did nobody explain to the new agents what secret identities means?" she wondered aloud. Lydia shook her head as the boy gulped and back away, afraid of Alicia. "What is it?"
"There was a little problem with the weapon that you had us use," he stammered. "It caused some kind of explosion and then well . . ."
"What happened to the Seel I sent you to capture?" Alicia hissed at him and Lydia's blood froze as she remembered the Seel that they'd found when they first arrived in the cave and the blood drained from her face, staring towards Alicia in horror.
The boy gulped and looked down. Fear rose through Lydia and she recalled Chinchou quickly, gesturing towards Umbreon, who raced towards his trainer as they ran through the caves quickly. She prayed against all hope that they would be able to get there in time, that the boy's reaction wasn't what she thought it was.
But when she got to the place where the Seel had been, in a more direct route than where Jennie and Jesse still were, she found the place nearly demolished, with the exit blocked. Umbreon gave a howl of anguish when he saw the baby Seel, their mother, and a few other Pokémon lying bloodied and bruised and dead from the remains of a destructive machine that lay destroyed a few feet away.
Lydia gave a cry of horror as she dropped to her knees, shaking her head in protest. How could someone have done this? she thought as Umbreon climbed into her lap, burying his head into her shoulder and she wrapped her arms around him, each of them trying to comfort the other one when she heard a small whimper from the wreckage. Raising her head, she looked around towards the rubble.
Lydia scrambled to her feet as she heard the noise, searching for the source of it, trying to get a good hearing while Umbreon sniffed the air, having heard the noise as well. He gave a bark as he buried his nose through a pile of debris and she hurried towards where he had pointed to.
Not wanting to hurt any living creature that might be underneath it, Lydia pressed her fingers to her temples, plunging into the depths of her power as her blue eyes blazed, gently lifting the debris away from the injured Pokémon and away from harm.
She gasped in surprise as she found a weak and injured baby Seel underneath the wreckage. Her brown eyes frantically stared around her as Lydia moved closer to the Seel, slowly moving her hands towards her. "It's all right, I'm not gonna hurt you," she assured the Pokémon. Umbreon began talking to the baby Seel in Pokémon language, telling her that it was all right.
When the Seel seemed to be reassured, Lydia gently lifted the Seel in her arms, cradling her gently as she cast out her psyche, trying to search for any more survivors. Only when she was sure that there were no more living Pokémon, she carried Seel away in her arms, heading to find Jesse and Jennie and get out of here.