Chapter 23 - More Training
"Come on! Deep Coronet's just up ahead!" Misty looked back at the other figures running after her, a grin on the redhead's face.
"How far ahead?" Khrista asked as she and the others kept pace with the other teen's speed. The brown-haired girl, now clean of muddy water spots, was eager to get to the Elite Four HQ - if only to get more of the Pokemon Types under her belt.
"Not far," came Vapor's reply. The Water-Type was running between his Trainer and Glacier, his entire body rippling like he was underwater. "There's a split in the tunnel up ahead - there!"
The group came to a halt as they neared the intersection. Vapor almost bumped into Khrista by accident, but managed to regain his balance just in time as Glacier sat down.
Khrista looked back and forth between the two tunnels. "Okay...so, which way now?"
"The one on the right," Misty explained, motioning to the mentioned tunnel. "The Elite Four usually stay deep in the mountain, and only take the other one when they're going out to have a look around."
Khrista looked over at the tunnel to the left in surprise. "So that leads to the surface?"
"Yup." Misty started towards the right-side tunnel. "Come on - I bet a lot of people are going to want to meet you."
"Me?" Khrista pointed at herself while Vapor and Glacier started after the Water-Type Gym Leader. "Why me? I'm not famous."
"You think so?" Misty turned around abruptly and put her hands on her hips, holding the long, flowing blue jacket in place over her bright yellow T-shirt and jean shorts. "You're the last Avatar who came through and you have more power at your fingertips than White ever did! I think that gets you enough respect from the Trainers and Pokemon around here."
"More power than -"
"Come on." Misty came over and grabbed Khrista's wrist, then dragged the brown-haired teen across the cavern and towards the proper tunnel.
"What did you mean back there?" Khrista spluttered out after a couple minutes of this dragging.
"It's not much - just a rumor that a lot of people have been following up on," Misty replied without looking back at Khrista. "Something about her having been turned into a Pokemon at some point and gaining that Type's abilities. I didn't really pay any attention to it because she seemed like a regular Trainer the last time I saw her."
Khrista blinked in blank confusion. "Turned in a Pokemon? How does that make any sense?"
"I don't know, and I'm not planning on digging into it."
The two continued through the tunnel, soon arriving in a large cavern with a high ceiling. There were a couple figures standing by another tunnel exit leading out of the cavern, and it took Khrista a moment to recognize who they were.
"Is that Red and..." Khrista frowned for a moment, trying to remember the other boy's name.
"Black?" Misty asked, looking over at Khrista. When the blue-eyed girl nodded, Misty gave a nod, as well. "Yeah. Those two have been working together, since they were the first and last Champions that White ever really worked with. Come on - they were waiting for me to show up to help work with Water-Type Trainers."
Misty led Khrista and the two Pokemon towards the two teenage boys standing at the other tunnel entrance. Vapor and Glacier ran ahead of the two, alerting Red and Black of the approach of the newcomers.
Red turned his head, and Khrista could see the connection with Ash nearly immediately. Their hair had the same black, spiky style as it poked out from under the baseball cap on Red's head - even more wild than Ash's, in fact. There was a hint of humor in his red eyes, but he also looked tired and serious. The Pikachu sitting on Red's shoulder shared the look, although he had more of a knowing smirk than Red did.
Black, by contrast, was younger than Red by a year, maybe, and his black hair also poked out from under his red and white baseball cap. His dark eyes were strangely serious and held little to no humor at all.
"Uh...hi," Khrista stated, giving a nervous smile and equally nervous wave to the two teenagers. "I'm Khrista."
Black blinked in surprise. "Khrista? One of the kids the Lake Spirits have been going on about?" He frowned. "How did you get here?"
"Blame Joshua's Alakazam," Khrista stated quickly in reply, holding up her hands in order to fend off a possible verbal attack. "His Gengar told us to hightail it down here when they found out we were hiding up there."
"Hey, relax," Red stated, holding up a hand. "No need to get nervous. If you managed to get down here, all the better for us." He gave a grin, then held out his hand for Khrista to shake. "Name's Red, and that's Black." He motioned with his head towards the other boy standing nearby, who crossed his arms over his chest. "Don't mind him; he's been a killjoy for the past couple of weeks."
Khrista couldn't help but giggle as she shook Red's hand. "I could guess. He certainly looks like one."
Looking into Red's red eyes, though, caused her smile to fade. "Um...you look a lot like your brother."
The grin that was on Red's face vanished pretty quickly. "You've seen him."
Khrista nodded grimly. "Yeah. Chaos can tell you what happened if he and my team haven't already." Another thought crossed her mind then, and her smile reappeared, albeit much more devilish. "Although, he doesn't know about what Ash has been doing at night when everyone's all snug in their beds."
"What do you mean?" Misty asked, frowning suspiciously.
"Ever met Darkrai?"
"Darkrai?" Red blinked. "What's he got to do with all this?"
"Let's just say that Ash could give the Nightmare King a run for his money, depending on what the Galactics would say about his spirit appearing in their dreams at night."
"Wait - what?" Pika looked surprised. "How's that supposed to work?"
Khrista frowned as she tried to think back to what had happened when she had first interacted with the Ketchum boy. "He said he got some weird liberties because the Red Chain was supposed to work on Pokemon, not humans. So he gets to mess around with other people's heads whenever he wants to."
Khrista's frown deepened, and then she snapped her fingers before adding, "And, if he can build up enough emotional energy, he can yell stuff at whoever happens to be nearby."
The three Trainers and the Pokemon present stared at Khrista in surprise.
"And you know this how?" Black asked, frowning.
Khrista rubbed the back of her neck. "He...kinda popped in on me and told me about that stuff."
"You can't be serious," Misty stated.
Khrista scowled, then decided to quote something from a TV show she had kept up with until it was taken off the air a few years back. "Note serious face."
Khrista pointed to her scowl, then broke down and grinned. "He told me Darkrai's going to be bothering Cyrus, now, too, so who knows how mental that guy's going to get."
Vapor chuckled. "That's an interesting thought."
"I would've thought the guy is already mental," Glacier muttered.
"And why would the Lake Spirits have not told us about this?" Black demanded, his frown deepening. "They told us that there were three of you who weren't under Cyrus' control, but they didn't say anything about this."
Khrista blinked. "You guys know about Mist and my cousin?"
Red nodded. "They told us as soon as a team came over from the Underground and finally got to meet up with us. A lot's happened since then, though." He motioned for the others to follow him, and he ran into the tunnel entrance behind him. The others followed after the Kanto Champion.
"So, um..." Khrista looked over at Black, who happened to have chosen to run next to her as Misty went ahead.
Black glanced over at her. "What? Spit it out already."
"I'd a...heard that you ran into White in Unova."
"Ran into?" Black snorted. "I met her during the first Galactic fiasco in Sinnoh. Zekrom knew something was wrong and suggested we go check it out."
"Really?" Khrista blinked in surprise. "I didn't think -"
"I bet you didn't."
"Black, lighten up for once!" Red called back. "The kid probably doesn't know a lot of stuff, so take it easy on her."
Black opened his mouth in order to issue a retort, but the group exited the tunnel first and entered another cavern - one that was slightly more noisy than the previous one on account of there being more people and Pokemon.
"Whoa..." Khrista looked around, her neck craning as she looked up at the strange crystal that was jammed into the ceiling and releasing a bright light that only added to the torches. "This is incredible!"
Red chuckled. "You really think so? You should see the view from the top of Mt. Silver."
"Especially when it isn't snowing," Pika added meaningfully, giving his Trainer a pointed look. Red ignored it.
"Come on," Misty spoke up. "You said you wanted to meet up with at least one Pokemon of every Type, right?"
Khrista gave a nod, turning her attention to the Water-Type Gym Leader. "Yeah. I've gotta do a few things that I still have to learn, and a lot of that is in Types I haven't covered yet."
Red and Black exchanged glances.
"What are you talking about?" Black asked, raising an eyebrow.
Khrista blinked, then looked over at the two boys innocently. "You mean the Lake Spirits didn't tell you?" she asked somewhat cheekily, bouncing back and forth between the heels and balls of her feet.
Red shook his head, frowning. "What is it with you, Khrista?"
"If you're going to follow me around, you're going to find out pretty quickly. Is there a place where I can practice that there won't be many people around?"
"Uh...yeah, there are a lot of empty caves around here." Red motioned for Khrista to follow him, then started around the rock table in the middle of the room and towards one of the adjoining tunnels. Khrista started after him.
"We'll get some Pokemon together and meet you there!" Vapor called out after the pair.
"Thanks, Vapor!" Khrista called back, giving the Vaporeon a wave. Then she turned her full attention to following after Red.
"So, what was it like in there?" Red called back as he led Khrista through the tunnels.
"White everything," Khrista replied flatly. "And warp panels all over the place. I couldn't tell you up from down if I went back in there again. Or where I was in the building, even."
Pika let out what sounded like a whistle. "Sheesh, that sounds worse than when the Rockets redid everything in the Saffron Silph Co. building."
The trio soon arrived in another cavern that was large in both length and height, with two large crystals releasing light from the cave ceiling. Already in the chamber were a small number of Pokemon were gathered there.
Khrista's eyes sparkled with excitement. "Wow. This place looks like a great place to train!"
"That's what we thought when we pegged this place for our training grounds," Pika replied, grinning.
Khrista blinked in surprise. "Your training grounds? I didn't -"
"It's fine," Red replied, holding up a hand. "Just let me stick around and see what you can do, all right?"
"Uh...yeah, sure." Khrista gave a hesitant nod, then turned to look at the group of Pokemon. "Looks like Vapor beat us here. Maybe now..." The brown-haired teen started forward, the Kanto Champion following after her.
The Vaporeon looked up as his Trainer approached. His tail wagged in greeting. "Hey, Khrista! Looks like we beat you here!"
"You got that right," Khrista replied, laughing. She looked around the group of eight Pokemon, frowning slightly. "...These are all Eeveelutions."
Vapor nodded. "I figured it'd be a good idea to get you started with the basics, even though one of them is part of a Type species so small they only found out about them recently."
The Vaporeon nodded to a pink, Eevee-like Pokemon with ribbons flowing from a bow on her neck. The Eeveelution gave a nod in return.
Khrista blinked in surprise, then gave a nod. "All right, then. Guess I'd better choose a Type and get started."
Red gave her a confused look. "What?"
"Just watch." Khrista's gaze moved around the group of Eeveelutions, and she stopped when she connected with the brown eyes of the Leafeon that was standing nearby. Slowly, the dull red of her shirt started to shift color, becoming a forest green.
Red and the Pokemon present stared at Khrista in surprise.
"How - what -" the Leafeon stammered.
"All a part of who I am in this place," Khrista replied with a shrug. "Alak and Gangrene found out about it, so I'm kind of trying to learn how to use the different Types so that I can have a fighting chance." She got down on her knees in front of the Leafeon. "So, what's your name?"
The Leafeon looked a little surprised at the question. "Uh...my Trainer just called me Leaf."
"Leaf?" Khrista blinked. Something about it was familiar... She smiled. "Cool name. So you can teach me how to use Grass-Type abilities?"
Leaf smiled and nodded. "Sure. Let's start with something easy - for you...Absorb."
"Ok." Khrista gave a nod, then got to her feet and took a couple steps back. She glanced back at Red and his Pikachu. "You might want to get as far back as possible. Who knows what's going to happen when I start using unfamiliar Types."
Red and Pika exchanged glances, then the Kanto Champion moved back to the tunnel exit and leaned against a wall.
"All right." Leaf's ears twitched as she moved to sit down. "Let's start with you clearing your mind."
Spacial Break
"I didn't think that an Alakazam would have been able to break out so easily," Lien remarked from her perch on the cave's ceiling.
"Give a Pokemon enough willpower, and they can take on anything," Jewels replied calmly. He looked over at Lien and Merlin, who was sitting nearby. "You did talk to your chosen allies, right?"
Merlin nodded, as did the Mesprit.
"Alak appreciated my warning, it seems," the Uxie intoned. "What of you? Did you speak with Joshua?"
"Yeah. He's setting events up like a game of dominos. Won't be long before everything's ready to fall." Jewels grinned. "I'm surprised you didn't talk to him, Merlin. He seems more like your type."
"I'd considered it, but I knew that Alak needed me more than Joshua. He knows what he needs to do." Merlin nodded to the figures below them. "We had better leave them to work in peace. Come; the Professors will be preparing to start the meeting shortly."
The other two members of the Lake Spirit trio nodded, and the three disappeared in a bright flash of light.