Summary: Human turned Pokémon have suddenly started disappearing without explanation. Their teammates and loved ones are left to scramble about in worry and wonder as to where their missing friends may be. However, the arrival of Celine, a newly human turned Pokémon, suggests that the Pokémon world is in danger once again. As she sets out on her journey, she is blissfully unaware of the darkness that follows her and her team…
-x-x-x-x-
Chapter 12: Fighting In The Dark
"Wakey-wakey!" came Lizette's voice, startling Celine out of her sleep.
"Whozza dat?" Celine murmured groggily as she searched the room until her eyes landed on Lizette. Lizette was grinning eagerly with all her exploration gear on. "Whatcha doing?"
"It's time to get up!" Lizette pouted. "It's nearly the afternoon, and we have a mission!"
Upon hearing that it was the afternoon, Celine shot up. "It's the afternoon?!" she squealed, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes. "Why the heck didn't anyone wake me?"
"We tried," Lizette said. "You said something about needing to find two towers."
Celine stared at her. "Huh?"
"You don't remember?" Lizette was surprised, then the surprise vanished as a thoughtful expression appeared. "Oh, I see. You were sleep talking."
Lizette rambled away, but Celine didn't hear. She was too focused on what she had apparently mumbled. Two towers? She certainly didn't remember dreaming of any towers. She thought about disregarding it, but at the same time there was something nagging her about it in the back of her mind.
Her face scrunched up in worry. Was it something important? It bothered her that she couldn't figure that bit out. It must've been because she was usually a light sleeper and woke up with no problem, yet here Lizette was telling her the opposite!
Lizette must've noticed the worried look because she stopped talking. "Cel?"
"Huh?" Celine asked, startled out of her thoughts. "Did I miss something?"
"You were day dreaming. You alright?"
Celine shrugged. Physically she felt fine, but mentally… she just couldn't shake off what Lizette told her. "I don't remember anything about my dream. Not even about those towers I was supposedly searching for."
"No surprise there." Lizette shrugged. "Usually nobody remembers what they dreamt about after waking up."
"I do," Celine said flatly, all the memories of seeing the Dark Army coming back.
"Well, besides precognitions, I mean," Lizette corrected.
It still didn't ease the fox-like pokémon up a bit. Lizette gently slapped her on the back and gave her a reassuring smile. "Don't worry too much about it, okay? If it's really important you'll have another dream about it."
"Yeah, you're right," Celine murmured, finally giving in. With a stretch she asked, "So what's todays mission?"
Lizette jumped out of her bed and posed proudly. "Today we have two missions in a cave known as Illst Hollows. One is searching for a lost item, the other is bringing in a small-time criminal."
"Criminal?" Celine quirked an eyebrow - this was a new type of mission. "We're apprehending a criminal?"
She nodded and took out wanted poster from her bag. "He doesn't look that strong. Aiden said he'd have no chance against us. Searching for the item should be the real challenge."
"You act as if apprehending a criminal is normal," Celine noted, still uncomfortable with the idea.
"It is," Lizette said, lowering the wanted poster. "Rescue teams and even Exploration teams, but mostly Rescue teams, usually have a hand in capturing a criminal. And since there's so much chaos going on, the police force is having a difficult time keeping up. So they've enlisted help through the headquarters. I thought you knew that?"
"Well, I only assumed," she murmured. "Rescue teams would obviously rescue and obtain lost items while Exploration teams just…explore."
Lizette shook her head. "Nope."
Celine was not happy in the least. You'd think after yesterday's performance, he wouldn't have even thought about accepting a job like this. "So, where is Aiden and when are we going?"
"Aiden went to his hideout." Lizette rolled her eyes. "Said that he needed to 'focus on his aura training."
She only felt her eyebrow twitch angrily. Again, why did he accept this job?! She let out a wearily sigh. This was going to be one heck of a day…
-x-x-x-x-
Celine and Lizette quietly approached the clearing. It was the same one that Aiden usually went to relax or train. For Celine, it was the place they first met.
They saw him with his back to them. He was standing on one leg with his hands in front of him. His ears were extended, a usual sign that indicated that he was using his aura abilities to scan the area.
"Should I talk to him?" Lizette whispered. Celine shook her head.
"No, leave him be."
The pair sat quietly underneath the tree. Lizette was looking all around her, enjoying the scenery of the place. Celine watched Aiden while wondering when he was going to notice them being there.
What they didn't know was that he knew that they were there. He had picked up their aura signatures about 30 feet away. But he said nothing. He wanted to expand past that 30 feet radius.
After remaining in that position for a half an hour, he moved. Opening his eyes and releasing his focus, he turned to see the two females. Lizette was nodding off beside Celine. Celine, noticing that Aiden had come out of his focused state, smiled warmly.
"How are you?" he asked.
"I take it your asking about this morning?" she asked.
He nodded.
"I'm…fine," she said after a moment, "I'm just puzzled about why I don't remember a thing about saying or dreaming about towers. What about you?"
He shrugged. "I've extended my aura reading radius. I'm still confused on how that pokémon managed to evade my aura readings. I've been practicing every night and it's in top-notch condition."
"Don't over do it," she frowned. "Otherwise you'll make me worry more."
He chuckled and hugged her. "I'm fine, don't worry."
"I wish I wouldn't, but I can't help it," she countered with a smirk. That smirk soon faded as she pulled out the wanted poster from Lizette's bag. She could already see the guilty look Aiden was trying to hide. "Care to explain?"
"I thought it might be a nice change of pace," he admitted sheepishly.
She shook her head despondently. "Aiden…"
"What?"
"After yesterday," she reminded him, "do you really believe we can do that?"
"You handled a monster house just fine." He folded his arms, not seeing her point. "It wasn't that you were unused to it, it was more like you used too much power. The same went for me. We just need to be more resourceful of our strength, is all."
Her frown only deepened. He let out an audible breath and shook his head. "If I didn't feel we were ready, I wouldn't have picked this mission."
"And what about her?" Celine nodded towards Lizette. "She has hardly any battle experience. She may seem excited, but when she's in the actual fight she might freeze up again."
He gave her a deadpanned look. She scowled, giving him a look that told him not to give her that look. He shook his head again and stood up straight. "Then we'll keep an eye on her and stay by her."
Celine still didn't look convinced.
"This is why she needs to come with us," he stated, "so she can practice and get stronger. That way she won't feel so threatened."
"Your saying that like she'll get over it just like that. She's not a fighter like us, Aiden. She reads books and avoids fights. She's been afraid to do that for years, and she's just getting over her fear now."
"Then what do you want me to do? Revoke the mission?" he snapped.
She flinched. "I...I don't know!" She looked back at Lizette. "I just…don't want her to get hurt."
"She has us," he reassured. "She'll be fine. Plus, if she does freeze up I'll just give her a gentle reminder that she was excited for the mission and insisted on joining."
Celine raised an eyebrow at him. His use of 'gentle' was completely different than that of hers. But she didn't bother to continue the conversation. She'd warn him if he overstepped the boundaries.
"Are we ready?" Lizette murmured, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes.
"Yeah."
The cat-like pokémon wasted no time. She stretched, adjusted her bag, and jumped to her feet with a big grin on her face. Her eyes were sparkling with excitement as she examined her two teammates. "Let's go kick some criminal booty!"
-x-x-x-x-
The mission wasn't nearly as bad as Celine thought it would be. Illst Hollows was huge; its walls were encrusted with gems of various colors and shapes, and there were multiple passageways that often ended up as dead ends. It was beautiful, but it was especially beautiful whenever the light off of Lizette's lamp hit the gems. They would sparkle, making the cave all the more beautiful.
"Wonder why a criminal would want to hide here?" Lizette thought aloud.
"Maybe they wanted to experience the beauty of it before they were captured?" Celine suggested. She knew that if she were a criminal, this would be one of the last spots she would go.
"Beauty shouldn't be a criminals top priory." Aiden walked ahead of them, using his aura abilities to sense ahead of them. "If they were a real criminal, then they'd be more focused along the point of hiding really well."
Celine shrugged. "Well, at least the item wasn't hard to find."
"It wasn't even in that far," Lizette grumbled angrily. "I bet you that the owner dropped it when they got spooked and didn't have a spine to come back in for it. So they had us do it."
Celine found herself frowning. Would that mean that the second half of their mission would be difficult? She certainly hoped not. Not after yesterday.
She examined her teammates. Aiden was a terrific fighter who constantly pushed himself. He thought he wasn't strong, but in reality, he was probably the strongest of the team. As for Lizette, neither Aiden nor Celine could figure just exactly how strong the feline pokémon was. She already made it known she hardly ever fought. And then Celine thought of herself.
As far as she could tell, she was neither a great fighter nor a bad fighter. She was somewhere in the middle. She wasn't nearly as powerful as Aiden, but she was near his power levels. She would probably become stronger, but it would take a great deal of time and practice – something that she already planned for the next few weeks.
The more she thought about her team as a whole, the more confident she became. Aiden was right; they'd only exhausted themselves from using too much power yesterday. The enemies had been unbelievably stronger there, plus they'd come in herds. But here they only faced a single pokémon every now and then.
She smiled at the thought. They had nothing to worry about!
Almost immediately after thinking that, the cave began shaking violently. She heard Aiden and Lizette let out a small cry or a gasp of shock. During the tremors, Lizette had dropped their lamp, effectively snuffing out their light source. "Oh dang it!"
"Get low to the ground!" Celine ordered. "Don't worry so much about the light; just be more wary of the falling rocks!"
"Kekek," a sinister voice cackled, startling the three pokémon, "Instead of worrying about others, you should be more worried about yourself!"
Suddenly Celine felt sharp pains in her side and on her back. She let out a shrill cry as she was knocked down. She quickly grabbed the stick out of her tail and whipped it around, briefly catching a glimpse of the perpetrator: Gengar.
"Aiden! Lizette! Be careful, it's-" Celine felt something slam her against the cold, stone wall and tighten around her neck. She clawed at the hands and at the face of whoever was holding her hostage, but to no avail.
With a cry of her name, Aiden spun around and attacked the ghost-type pokémon. She fell to the ground, gently grabbing her own throat and coughing, eagerly sucking in the air to her deprived lungs.
Despite having the power to see the pokémons aura signature, Aiden was unable to capture the pokémon. He vanished from his sight, reappearing behind a confused Lizette. Feeling a pair of arms grabbing her, she shrieked. "H-help! Get off of me you… you…!"
Celine felt Aiden pull her up from the ground. She pushed him away. "Forget about me," she said, "help Lizette!"
She didn't need to tell Aiden twice. Using his aura abilities, he went after the gengar. After noticing that his punch phased through the pokémon, he realized just how ineffective his moves were. It was a ghost type pokémon!
The gengar, angry that Aiden attempted to hit him, tossed the feline aside and attacked him. Aiden was able to avoid each swipe easily, but found that most of his attacks weren't doing him any good. "He's a ghost type! I can't hit him!"
"Celine, light this place up!" Lizette shouted.
Following the meowstics instructions, Celine pulled out her stick and ignited it. Unfortunately, it hadn't lit up the room enough. Deciding that she needed more light, several bluish-white flames surrounded her. They expanded far enough for the trio to see whom they were up against.
Gengar didn't like that at all. Having found that his sneak attacks were easily read now, he aimed for Celine. But just as he was about to attack her, a shadowy blob narrowly missed him. From the corner of his eyes he noticed that Lizette was smirking with another shadow ball building up between her hands.
"That was just a warning shot," she informed him, her tone saying that she wasn't joking, "next time I won't miss. If you know what's good for you, you'll come with us quietly."
"That was a rather poor performance," he snickered.
"Well, when your disorientated," Celine defended, "things tend to get out of whack. Especially after an earthquake."
He rolled his eyes. "Even if you somehow managed to capture me, how do you plan on getting out?"
Aiden snarled. "What do you mean?"
Gengar chuckled. "Remember when you lot were commenting on how nice the place is? Well, it's also known for its cave-ins. Unless you have another way out, you're stuck in here!"
Lizette and Celine exchanged worried looks, but Aiden would have nothing of it. He stormed up, grabbed the pokémon, and brought him face-to-face. "Then why the heck did you come in here?"
"Because," the gengar chuckled, "I can phase right out!"
Without warning, the ghost-type pokémon vanished from Aiden's grasp and reappeared behind him, punching him. While Aiden attempted to re-obtain his balance, Gengar moved to attack Celine. However, she had predicated his next attack and dove out of the way just in time.
Lizette sighed and shook her head. "Should've listened," she murmured. The shadowy blob vanished and she closed her eyes, focusing on using her telekinesis to locate the pokémon and grab him.
He was in the middle of attacking Celine when he found himself lifted off the ground. Aiden and Celine both watched as he was slammed against the wall before being bombarded with shadow balls, creating a cloud of dust.
When the cloud of dust disappeared, Celine and Aiden gapped surprisingly at the unconscious form of Gengar. Celine shot the meowstic a stunned look. "Since when did you become a good fighter?"
"I'm not," she said shyly, "I… just read about fighting technics and followed them."
"And here I was worried about you," Aiden exhaled, rubbing the back of his head.
The cat-like pokémon smiled happily. "I told you guys that there was nothing to worry about. After my last experience, I started looking for books on how to fight effectively. I was determined to make sure that I would never repeat those mistakes again. I wanted to make you guys proud."
"I think it's safe to say you did more than make us proud," Celine smiled.
Aiden didn't look convinced and folded his arms. "One minute you have no idea how to fight, the next you're seemingly good at it?"
"I told you I applied what I learned from reading a book on how to fight!" Lizette huffed. "And since I'm a psychic-type pokémon, it's not like I have to worry about close combat. I'll leave that to you two. All I need to do is keep my distance and I can attack using my psychic powers!"
Celine put her hands on his shoulders. "Don't worry too much about it. We did what we came here to do."
"You're forgetting something," he grumbled, eying her from the corner of his eye. She looked puzzled. "How do we get out?"
"Why not use the badges?" Lizette suggested. "I read somewhere that there's a force inside the badge that allows one to teleport out of a mystery dungeon."
Aiden's ears fell as he gave a dumbfounded expression. "I knew that."
"I'm sure you did," Celine chuckled, grabbing the unconscious gengar and walked towards the feline pokémon. Once Aiden walked over the trio raised their team badge in the air, they felt an unseen force wrap around them. In the blink of an eye, the group appeared outside of the cave.
And it was just as gengar said – a pile of rocks blocked the entrance to Illst Hollows.
Lizette smirked at Aiden and folded her arms triumphantly. He grumbled and walked ahead. Celine and Lizette followed after him, but not without laughing at his grumpy expression.
-x-x-x-x-
"Well, that was an exciting day!" Lizette announced proudly in front of their base.
"It wasn't a bad day at all," Celine agreed whole-heartedly. "The only problem we really had was Gengar's attacks."
Aiden grumbled. "Next time Headquarters better give us a better description of the pokémon they send us to capture…"
Celine rolled her eyes with a smile.
"Lizzzzyyyy!" Aldous' cry echoed around the area. Lizette turned just in time to be pounced on. Aldous hugged her tightly with a big smile on his face. "I missed you~"
"G-get off!" Lizette hissed, shoving him off of her. She glared at him disapprovingly.
He just smiled, unaffected by her disapproving glare. Behind him were Drexel and Fiona, the latter waving and smiling at Aiden and Celine. Drexel crossed his arms and looked away, seemingly bored.
"What are you guys doing here?" Celine asked, baffled. "I thought that we-"
"We had to come," Aldous frowned. "I have some news that I think all of you need to hear."
Aiden and Celine exchanged looks. "News?"
"Oh," he murmured, lowering his gaze when he noticed that Grovyle and Silver were coming out of the base. "We also had a visitor. And she insisted that we take her to you guys."
"A visitor?" Grovyle inquired, having only heard part of the conversation.
Aldous nodded and groaned when a high-pitched squeal filled the air. Grovyle went rigid, instantly recognizing the voice.
"My sweet Grovyle!"