The Pokémon are close to their goal, they overcame several challanges to get to the exit. But, can they overcome the final one or will the pressure cause them to lose it? Comments/reviews please.

Episode Thirty-Two: Rallying The Troops

Everyone went to move off again, while I had to snatch a quick breather before following them down the tunnel. The lights overhead flickered and, after a few seconds, went out completely, leaving everyone in darkness. Porygon suddenly started glowing a strange green light. I had no idea what else he was capable of, but so far he was impressive.

The glowing, plus my and the few other Charmander's tail flames, made decent enough lighting to navigate through the maze of tunnels that we were going through. But, even though there was no longer the fire chasing us, I still felt a sense of unease. We may have escape the flames but we were still underground and very much vunerable to a cavein. (As I proved)

It seemed as though my fears were shared by many, they were all listless and fidgeting. The slightest rumble would send them into a panic, which didn't help our position much. But, not suprisingly, Porygon was unfazed by all the talk of impending doom. (Although the term 'wall of fire' did get a small reaction out of him)

We moved on through the network of dark, deserted, silent tunnels. Our only hope of freedom, and survival, was somewhere ahead of us. There was no way back, it was now or never. However, never had a habit of catching up to us.

We had come across a crossroad. Porygon floated strait across onto the opposite path but the rest of us froze. I could see, from my place in the middle of the small crowd, that the floor we had to cross was made of wood. And all of us could hear the raging fire, that we had barely got away from last time, coming in our direction.

"Everyone over, fast! Water types on the outside. Move it!" Bulbasaur yelled out as he darted across the path and onto the safer stone one on the other side. The slower Pokémon went next, while a few water breathers stayed in the center of the gauntlet.

As part of the final group to undertake the crossing, I had to wait while the deadly fire (to the others) and the even more deadly smoke (to me) was heading towards us. It was still out of sight, but I knew it was still there and homing in on us. As the Pokémon infront of me raced across the gap, me and Hitmonchan shot off after them.

As we reached the center of the gap, I heard a Poliwag cry out a warning. I didn't need to look to realise that the fire had caught up with us. The water types all launched a massive volley of water, but it only managed to slow it down a little. I heard most of the water evaporating before it even reached the flames, the hissing making it sound like the fire itself was very pissed off at us.

I skidded to a halt and started pushing the rest of my charges along. The water volley was losing momentum, the Pokémon were not used to maintaining such an attack for any length of time and were having to take short breaks to regain their breath.

"Everyones over, move it!" I yelled at the water Pokémon, who all stopped blasting and ran for their lives while I gave them that little extra shove in the right direction. The same Poliwag that had shouted out the warning tripped up and fall over, so I grabbed it by the tail and dragged it the last few steps onto non-flammable land.

The floorboards behind me ignited as the fire shot past. A bit of it spilt over into our tunnel but we had kept running and were well out of range.

"Good thing I decided to take the shortcut," Porygon said as he kept moving with everyone else behind.

After a few more minutes of walking through the small tunnels, we found ourself in a large cave. Various glowing crystals lit the immence cavern... and the huge steel door that barricaded our way out.

"How are we supposed to open that?" Alpha asked as he hobbled towards it.

"It wasn't supposed to be shut in the first place and I can't open it because there is no electrisity anymore," Porygon sighed, with the first true emotion I had heard him use so far. Trust it to be dispair.

"So we can't escape? We're all doomed!" A pink puffball of a Pokémon cried out. Everyone started panicing and were about to decend into a howling mass when I stepped up.

"Look at you, I've seen better Humans. Fighting and screaming helps no one. So we cannot open it up automaticaly. Big whoop. You forget one importent little detail and that is this: We're Pokémon. If we put our minds to it than we can conquer anything. This is a machine and machines can be broken," I called as I grabbed onto a small notch in the door and began heaving it to the side.

"He has a point. Panicing and arguing doesn't get us anywhere," Hitmonchan said as he stepped up beside me, took hold of another small handle and began pulling along with me. The other Pokémon soon joined in, those without hands used their teeth and the ones that could fly took the holds further up. Slowly, but surely, we heard machinery began to strain on its own and the door began to move.