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…
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Chapter 13: Raised Tensions
Oh no… Grovyle thought, looking up into the sky. Almost immediately he was tackled by a shiny celebi. She nuzzled her face against his happily. "My dear Grovyle! How I've missed you!"
Celine, Aiden, and Lizette would only stare on in confusion. How did Grovyle know this shiny celebi?
Silver didn't look the least bit surprised. Instead, he smiled with a shake of his head. "Celebi," he greeted warmly, "it's been a while."
She lifted her head and beamed upon seeing Silver. "Silver!"
She floated over to him and wrapped her arms around his neck. "Oh, it's been too long my friend! Whatever happened to you?"
"An unfortunate accident," he frowned. "We got ambushed on one of our missions. They got us real good."
She looked around. "Where are Anna and Vivi? I was hoping to see the cute little bundles of fur balls!"
Grovyle looked away sullenly. Celebi noticed this, her smile fading quickly. "My dear Grovyle? What happened?"
"Um," Celine said, raising her voice, "does anyone mind telling us what's going on here?"
Celebi tilted her head in fascination when she saw the braixen. She flew around her and examined her carefully. "So you're the new girl in town, eh?"
"Huh?"
The shiny celebi giggled as she floated back over to Silver and sat on his head contently. "A dear friend of mine, Zoroark, informed me that there was another human called down from above."
"You know Zoroark?!" all of team Cosmic shouted in unison.
She was surprised by this outburst, but nodded.
Grovyle went back into the base. Silver watched him and shook his head. Celebi frowned. "Is my visit that unpleasant?"
"No," he said, shaking his head. "He's just had it rough. It's probably best we take this conversation inside."
Aiden agreed. "Are you guys joining us?" he asked, looking over to Drexel and his team.
Drexel nodded. Aldous smiled, grabbed Lizette's hand and ran into the base. All the while the female feline blushed furiously. Fiona and Drexel followed in tow, with Aiden and Celine following closely behind.
They all entered the living room. Celebi was floating over the sleeping form of Kalista with a frown. Jaxon, meanwhile, was staring at the legendary pokémon with his mouth wide open and his eyes wide and unbelieving.
She placed her hand on Kalista's fur and closed her eyes.
"What's it doing?" Jaxon asked, quickly becoming defensive of his friend.
"She's probably trying to heal her," Silver answered. "Celebi, I don't think that'll work."
She shook her head and floated away guiltily. "Something is terribly wrong. I wonder if it has anything to do with those two towers and the strangeness I've been feeling."
"Towers?" Celine perked up.
The legendary pokémon nodded with a frown. "That's actually why I came here. What's been going on here has begun affecting the future, and not in a good way. It's almost like…" she paused, watching as the horror grew on Grovyle's face.
"No!" he shouted. "That's impossible! We prevented that!"
"I know you did," she replied, "but this is from a different problem. The Dark Army has grown, practically taking over the world. The earth tremors have destroyed almost all of the landmasses, and countless pokémon are lost each day because of the sleeping curse."
Drexel seemed alarmed by this. "Wait, are you telling us that we failed?"
Celebi shrugged. "More along the lines of not finding the places you were meant to go most likely. I'm not entirely sure. When things started changing, I had to come and investigate it.
"I'm telling you right now that's honestly not reassuring," Celine said.
"Didn't you mention something about towers earlier?" Fiona inquired, sneaking a glance towards her leader.
The legendary pokémon nodded grimly. "The towers of Geoma and Spirals, if I recall correctly. I don't remember much, but I do believe that one houses the balance of the world and the other houses the cycle of our dreams. If either of these are disturbed, then… well… you can see for yourself."
Everyone looked grim - especially Grovyle. He was scowling at the very thought of the future being changed and in a bad way. Besides Drexel and Celine, everyone was just looking at each other, waiting for someone to come up with a good idea.
Celebi watched the two hybrid pokémon. Both were staring off into space, their minds elsewhere. "Have either of you had the dream yet?"
"I…believe I did." Celine looked uncertain of herself. "But I don't remember much about it. I don't recall having a dream about towers or anything, but my friends told me that I was mumbling something about the towers."
"I remember seeing a tower," Drexel said. "And I remember seeing this…cracked orb."
Celebi looked between the two. It was troubling news to hear only one of them remembered having a dream about the towers. Her gaze settled on Drexel. "Did the tower have color to it do you remember?"
"Yes," he nodded. "Blue, red, and green."
"Water, fire, and earth," she murmured. "The Tower of Geoma." She looked uncertainly over to Celine. "And you say you don't remember anything?"
Celine lowered her gaze regretfully. It was evident that the fox-like pokémon was upset about it. Aiden stood in front of her defensively. "She has enough on her plate with dealing with the nightmares of the Dark Army."
Now the legendary pokémon was more than confused. How was it possible that one had the dream of the Tower of Geoma, but the other has no recollection of the Tower of Spirals? It made the tiny pokémons head hurt.
Celebi floated around Celine and then back over to Silver where she sat on his head. She shook her head dejectedly. "If you're handling the Dark Army and he's handling the Tower of Geoma, then who is handling the Tower of Spirals?"
Everyone was exchanging uncertain looks with each other. Seeing this made the small legendary pokémons heart sink. This wasn't good at all. If things kept going like this, then their dark future would become certain for sure!
"I don't think you're aware of this," Grovyle said, capturing her attention, "but three human turned pokémon were called. There's only two here with us now."
"Three?" Celebi looked amazed. "I've heard of there being two humans called down at once, but three? Where is this third one? Have you found him or her? Do you have-"
"Whoa, whoa, whoa," Grovyle said lifting his hands up to stop her. "One question at a time, Celebi. We're not sure of where this third one is. We've recently started searching. In fact, we had a plan."
He quirked his eyebrow in the direction of the male meowstic. He looked confused for a moment, but immediately realized what he was getting at.
He cleared his throat to gain everyone's attention. "I found a map with the location of Sparkling Grove, but it's far away from here. At best, it would be a four day trip."
"A four day trip?" Lizette grimaced.
He nodded sorrowfully. "We could go now, but…" He looked to his teammates. "We came to the conclusion that we should probably hold off of that exploration. We feel that it's our upmost priority to find this last human and combine forces."
Aiden folded his arms. Celine could tell, from the look on his face, that he was not fond of that idea. "But what about making ourselves stronger in the meantime?"
"It won't make a difference if we never find the other human," Drexel countered, mirroring the fighting/steel-types stance. "This isn't just a twosome job. We need the other one."
"And what good will it do us if we aren't strong enough to face off against the enemy?" he asked, narrowing his eyes.
Drexel sneered. "Don't worry, Rambo, you'll get your shot later. We need to focus our resources into finding that last human."
"Excuse me?" Aiden nearly yelled.
Celine and Fiona jumped in between the two. "That's enough!"
Aiden glared at Celine. "Move,"
She stared right back at him. She was giving him a look that told him to settle down, but he only narrowed his eyes further.
With a frown Celine pulled the stick from her tail and pointed it at him warningly. "Please don't make me fight you," she said, her tone sharp. "Being narrow minded about this won't help our case at all."
"Yes, please, calm down!" Lizette piped in, running over to the braixen's side.
An almost similar scene was taking place between Fiona, Drexel, and Aldous. Not much was being said physically, but they were talking through expressions and stances. Fiona was looking at her leader with pleading eyes, telling him to relax and calm down.
In turn he only eyed her, then Aiden, before turning away with a scowl. The floette let out a sigh, her shoulders slumping from relief.
But that moment of peace only lasted so long.
"Coward," Drexel grumbled under his breath.
"Your dead!" Aiden yelled, pouncing towards him.
Celine intervened and shoved him away before he could even reach Drexel. She growled at him warningly. "Aiden, I'm not kidding! Don't make me knock you out!"
"Drexel stop provoking him!" Aldous scolded, glaring at him disapprovingly.
While tension built up between the two males, everyone else who wasn't apart of the fight only watched in shock.
Celebi kept looking between the two pokémon, briefly wondering if this was normal.
Aiden growled, but didn't attack. Instead, he left the living room. Celine sighed, releasing the breath she hadn't known she held. Lizette looked up her worriedly, and then back to Aldous who frowned in her direction.
"Was it necessary to provoke him?" Celine asked, glaring at Drexel from the corner of her eyes.
"It's not my fault he wanted to jump the gun." Drexel folded his arms.
She didn't like his answer one bit. Her eyes narrowed as she spun around and stormed towards him. Fiona was about to intervene, but Lizette prevented her.
Upon reaching him, Celine slapped him as hard as she could. The force was enough to make him stumble back a few steps. He stared in her direction in disbelief. He took a moment to gather himself before glaring at her. "What the heck?"
She was unfazed by his glare. "You provoking things isn't helping the matter a single bit," she growled. "Why do you think he wants to help us grow stronger?"
"We're strong enough to handle whatever comes at us for now!"
"Are we?" she yelled back, her voice rising as her anger grew. "What if they send in someone who is stronger than all of us combined? We'll get knocked around before pokémon are either killed or kidnapped to be tortured! Is that what you want to put your team through? Do you seriously want to watch the enemy, as they're stomping on you, torture those you love right before you very own eyes? That's why Aiden is so eager to continue practicing! He doesn't want us to be overpowered! We wants us to be strong enough so that nothing can surprise us, or tear us down!"
Her outburst silenced the frogadier. He kept his glaring eyes locked on her. She didn't care. She stared back just as hard. He could grind his teeth and glare at her all he wanted, but she would remain unmoved.
Lizette approached her and placed a hand on her leg. The feline was so unused to seeing the fire-type angry like this. She's only seen her this angry once, and it was after she evolved. "Cel, calm down…"
The braixen could see Lizette's mildly frightened stare from the corner of her eyes. She took in a deep breath and released it, allowing her shoulders to slump as well.
"Sorry," she finally whispered, partially guilty for frightening her friend.
"No, we should be sorry," Aldous said, glaring at his leader unhappily. "Someone is just cranky because he didn't get much sleep. We knew he was agitated, but we didn't think he would snap at anyone."
What followed was silence. Nobody dared to make a move or even speak for fear that the aggression would be turned onto them.
Celebi looked around hopelessly. Just how long did everyone plan to waste time? Apparently she wasn't the only one thinking this. Jaxon was glaring at everyone. Eventually, he jumped out into the middle room.
"Silver, Grovyle," he said, grabbing the two pokémons attentions, "Are you ready?"
The two looked at each other, both wondering if the other knew what Jaxon was talking about. This reaction caused the mouse-like pokémon to frown.
He pointed to the door with his tail. "To begin our search," he answered as if it were the most logical answer. "The longer we sit here and argue, the longer it'll take to find the other human. Sitting here and doing nothing is getting nothing done."
He looked over to Celebi. "I'm going to assume that somewhere along the lines we wasted precious time – time we could have used to either get stronger, or find the other human. Right now we need to find the other human so we can make our forces as a whole stronger."
"That's right!" she beamed, floating over to him. "I'm sure all of you are strong enough to take the challenges that you will face at the two towers."
Lizette shook her head. "Not all of us."
"What do you mean?"
"Our team – Team Cosmic – doesn't appear to have a job at these towers you mentioned. Celine has been getting nightmares of the Dark Army. Not once has she mentioned seeing anything that Drexel has. She mumbled it, but she doesn't remember the dream. So I don't believe she has a job at these towers. How would you know who is allowed to enter those towers anyway?"
Celebi looked towards the window in a thoughtful manner. She clapped her hands together in a moment of realization.
"There was something I forgot to mention!" she exclaimed. "I couldn't enter either tower because I'm not one of the 'chosen.' And I bet that Drexel and this other human are those chosen as they're probably the only two who's had the dream surrounding these towers."
"All the more reason why we should go out and look for this other human," Jaxon said. "Plus, if we find them, then we could go to Sparkling Grove, get the stones, and then tread towards these towers."
Lizette and Celine looked at each other. Both knew that Aiden would want to spend his time practicing and training.
"Not all of us can go," Lizette said. "Not only do we know that Aiden would rather want to spend his time training, but it would look awfully suspicious if the enemy is watching us and noticed that all of us were walking around looking for something."
"And don't even make a snide comment," Celine warned, glaring at Drexel.
Lizette continued with her reasoning's. "Plus, the enemy is aware of us. They know that Team Cosmic is currently the only team who has a human leader. They don't know about Team Invincible yet. Also, I'm not sure if they are aware that members of Team PokéStars survived that ambush. Personally I don't think it matters either way if they found that they did, but they aren't aware of what happened to Kalista. To sum up what I'm saying: we need to be careful on how we approach this without gaining too much of the enemies' suspicion."
"So then what we do?" Jaxon asked.
She looked away, leaning against the palm of her hand as she thought. Her eyebrows knitted together. "It's probably best we stick to the same plan."
Pausing, she looked over to Celebi. "How long do you plan on staying?"
"I'm not sure, why?"
"You see, I have little to no experience in the battlefield," she rubbed her hands together nervously. "And the original plan was that while Aldous was out looking for information, Jaxon would go with Grovyle and Silver in search of the other human. I would stay behind and watch over Kalista. But if you plan on staying a while, then I can go out with my team and get a little more battle experience. That is, if you don't mind."
"I don't mind at all!" Celebi chirped happily. She flew over to Kalista and sat on top of the couch.
"What about us?" Fiona asked worriedly. "I understand if you don't want us to help anymore-"
"No, we need you." Lizette smiled reassuring. "Aiden and Drexel can work their problems later, but right now those problems shouldn't interfere with our mission. But Aiden does have a point. We should work on getting stronger so that if an enemy does happen pop up, we don't have worry about losing. It can't hurt to practice more."
Aldous nodded with a smile, fully agreeing with her plan. He tilted his head to the side. "It won't be too much of a burden on you, will it?" he asked Jaxon, Silver, and Grovyle.
"Of course not," Jaxon grinned. "I'll find the other human the same way I found you guys."
"Huh?" Now it was Celebi's turn to tilt her head in confusion. "How'd you find them out?"
"Long story," Grovyle cut in before Jaxon could say anything. "We'll tell you later. Let's get going."
"Yahoo!" Jaxon cheered as he zipped out of the house.
"Sheesh," Celine chuckled. "For someone who was depressed, he certainly seems to be jubilant."
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"Okay," Lizette said with a frown as she stared up at the large bulletin board. "What should we do today?"
"I'm not sure," Celine responded, folding her arms. "Maybe we should try for an easy mission today?"
"No way!" Lizette grinned up at her. "We totally need a strong mission."
Celine rolled her eyes. "Uh, no. We'll settle with a semi strong mission for today. How does that sound Aiden?"
She looked over to her partner and frowned. He was glaring off into the distant. Lizette sighed and shook her head, whispering, "He's still not over last night?"
After the incident last night, nobody heard from him. He locked himself in his room. Fiona apologized on numerous occasions for her leaders rude comments. Neither Celine nor Lizette blamed the flower-like pokémon. After all, it hadn't been her who provoked the fight.
It only made the situation worse when they were about to leave and Celine called out to Aiden to say goodbye. He never bothered to come out of his room. Celine heard Drexel grumbling something disrespectful under his breath as he was leaving. There was almost another fight right there and then, but Celine kept herself in check.
In fact, it was only when Jaxon and the others returned from their mission unsuccessfully that he bothered to come out of his room. He grumbled his hellos, entered the kitchen, grabbed his food and then sulked all the way back to his room where he proceeded to lock himself in.
Lizette and Celine tried to cheer up the fighting/steel-type canine, but he refused to even acknowledge their jokes and light humor. Eventually, the two gave up.
They attempted again earlier that morning, but he was still in his foul mood and didn't bother to say anything. His rotten attitude was starting to get on Lizette's nerves. Celine, on the other hand, wondered if he was mad at her for even pointing her weapon at him during last nights fight.
"Are you going to sulk all day?" Lizette asked.
"I'm not sulking," he grumbled.
"Yeah, okay. Keep telling yourself that," she said, rolling her eyes. "Are you even going to bother helping us with picking out a mission?"
"Whatever floats your boat," he answered, his tone hinting at his annoyance.
"Ugh! I give up on you!" Lizette yelled, exasperatedly tossing her hands up. The feline turned way from him and glared back up at the board.
Celine's ears flattened against her skull. "Aiden?"
He glared at her from the corner of her eyes. She flinched inwardly.
"I'm going home," he snapped, walking away from the pair before Celine could say anything. Her hand reached out for him, but paused midway.
Her eyes began to water as she watched him walk away. "L-liz?" she choked out.
Lizette looked at her. "You okay?"
"Did…Did I make a bad decision by pointing my weapon out at him…?"
"Of course not," she said softly. "He was about to pounce. You had no choice."
"I wish I could believe that," she whispered dejectedly, her shoulders slumping.
Lizette jumped onto the upset braixen's shoulders and rubbed her face against hers. "Are you up to doing a mission today?"
In all honesty, Celine wanted to say no. She didn't feel like fighting; not after the look she'd received from Aiden. But part of her knew that she had to keep practicing, otherwise she'd never be able to keep up with the enemy. After a moment, she nodded to her friend.
"Can we try for a semi easy job?" she asked.
Lizette nodded. "Of course!"
Yep, another moment to listen to the author's ramblings! :D
I'd thought I'd say something now in case I happen to forget, but I'll be going on vacation soon and I'll be away for about a week. I'll work on the story as much as I can while I'm up there, but unfortunately none of those completed chapters will make it up until I return home.
Thank you once again, November Red Angel, for the review! I'm glad that you're enjoying them! And yeah, I had the same reaction when I brought Celebi into the mix. She can be so clingy, but at the same time she is so adorable!
Anyway, enjoy the new chapter everyone!