I just told my mother that I'd add a congrats to Sarah Lacina for winning Survivor: Game Changers. Immediately, I realized my mistake. My brother was literally three feet away from me, meaning I spoiled the winner for him. I told him Culpepper won after that, but he's still going to be pissed.
I would LOVE it if you reviewed this chapter. It's the largest one yet at just a couple inches over 8,000 words, and there must be SOMETHING you can say about it. Because, if you can't, that's a big problem. There's plenty of action, emotion, and even humor in this chapter. It's got something for everyone, just like Canobie Lake Park. (For those of you who don't know, that's probably the best-known amusement park in all of New England).
As for the chapter title, you'll find out later. It was a pretty funny scene to write, and, if it makes you really hate a specific character, then come to my home and lynch me. I don't care. I'm just a cruel husk of a human being, writing fanfiction.
Answer: I quite like Billy Talent, as I am sure you have realized by now. Look up the songs "Surrender", "Fallen Leaves", and "Afraid Of Heights", and you'll see why I'm such a fan. In addition, I do like some songs by Little Mix.
Question: How would you describe yourself in one sentence?
Thank you to Zaravan for Garfield, also! A lot of Garfield's patterns of speaking come from the eccentric Zaravan, who often capitalizes nouns like Soldier or Conscript. There's something I find amusing, but also endearing (not in a romantic way) about that. In any case, enjoy the chapter!
GARFIELD'S POV
I walked along the avenue. I never thought that I'd meet so many nice people, but this was what happened to me on that fateful day.
Twenty years old, having just gotten out of college (with high honors, I might add, since I graduated at such a young age), and I was looking for something to do in Skylock , Maine. I'd gone on a backpacking trip up the Atlantic coast of the United States, looking for adventure. You could say that I'm one of those people who enjoys living on the edge. That would definitely be accurate.
Skylock was a small town in the middle of the Maine coast, overlooking the harbor, full of islands. Penobscot Bay was not too far from here, but I wasn't here for that.
Hmmm, I thought. Here's a bakery.
Indeed, there was a bakery at the end of the road, leading off into a harbor full of sailboats and lobster traps. I could almost taste the strawberry pastries that were strategically placed right at the entrance windows so as to make your mouth water as much as possible. I tried to ignore the hunger pangs that were visiting me right now, but it was no use. I was absolutely fixated on getting a pastry; I loved baked goods, although I tried to limit the amount I ate, because the more of them I ate, the more of them I wanted to eat. That was a vicious cycle right there.
I walked into the bakery and requested one strawberry pastry, along with an iced latte. I was one of those people who could not get by without my usual morning coffee. I might have sounded rude, but I didn't care. I needed the energy provided by that boost of caffeine.
As soon as I had been given my requested items, and I paid her, I saw that there was a broom and dustpan right next to the handle of the bathroom door. Clearly, someone had been in the process of beginning to clean the bakery, but had not yet gotten to it. I wasn't sure why they would not have just finished the job themselves, but I was not, as much as some people might have thought I would be, a cruel person. I was willing to help these people.
As long as I got something in return. I'm not the most altruistic person, I'll admit that.
"Hey" I said, turning to the old woman behind the counter.
"What is it?" she asked me, revealing perfectly white teeth. She looked pretty good for someone who had to be in her sixties or seventies at the very least.
"I'll sweep up the bakery, and I get my pastry for free. How does that sound?"
The old lady smiled. "Of course, you young fellow. I don't need the extra money".
I nodded, leaving my pastry bag on the counter along with my cup of coffee. I grabbed the broom and dustpan began sweeping the place up, noting every little piece of dust I could find; I didn't want to half-ass this job. I wanted to prove to this woman that I had earned getting the pastry for free.
After thirty minutes of sweeping, my arms and back didn't ache at all. This, despite the fact that I stood 6 feet, 8 inches tall. I supposed it was because of how much muscle was on my body, just how strong I was.
"That's good" the old woman said. "You may have your money back".
She refunded the $2.50 I'd paid for the pastry, as well as the $5 I'd paid for the coffee, and then I thanked her. She said, "No. Thank you. Thank you for cleaning the store".
"No problem" I said. "I'm going to be going now".
"Okay" the woman said. "You may come back whenever you like".
I walked out of the bakery, where I heard the sound of a slightly gruff voice yelling at me. It was yelling...
"Wake up, Garfield!"
I opened my eyes. As it turned out, it had been the Lucario who was yelling at me. His name was Samuel, I remembered. Samuel Cranmore.
"I'm up" I said, before he could dump a bucket full of cold water on me or something like that. I knew that I didn't need that in order to wake up.
"Today's the day" Eric said. "We're going to storm in there, kick some Team Rocket ass, and save Lucas London. That is the goal".
We all nodded. Kieran, Malcolm, and Michelle were all already up, and all I had to do was to put on my normal clothing and Kevlar armor over my boxer shorts. We weren't even going to get breakfast today, since not having anything in our stomachs would make it easier to run when we had to. And we would have to.
I headed into the bathroom to change. Once I was out of there, Kieran said, "Okay. Are you guys ready?"
Eric gave Kieran a dirty look. "I never said that you were the leader of this group".
Michelle spoke up next. "I don't see why we need to have an official leader! Let's just go there, and we'll have to play things by year. We'll need to see how well the place is defended, how many enemies there are...you get the idea. It's not going to be as simple as just having one leader and they make all of the decisions.
Samuel nodded. "Michelle is right. Let's just get there, and we're going to figure it out".
"I drove here" I said, and it was true. I had driven my Jeep all the way up from Florida in order to get to Maine, and I had driven to the Pokemon center they were staying at. How I knew that they were staying at this Pokemon center...well, even I didn't know that. Somehow, maybe even by way of Arceus himself, I had that knowledge. Something I'd ask the god of Pokemon once I met him.
"All right" Malcolm said. "We're driving to the fortress? I've never been in a car before!"
Man, that young Zorua was annoying. He'd kept me up half the night with his bouncing on the bed. Okay, maybe not half the night, since he stopped around ten or eleven in the evening, but it was hard to get to sleep, knowing just how exuberant he was. I got the feeling that he'd stop bouncing on his own bed and start bouncing on my bed. That might not have been supported by any hard evidence, but it was true. That was the mindset I had.
"Yes, we're driving there" Eric said. "I was going to take my own car, but let's go with Garfield. Can your Jeep hold…", he took a quick count of the people in the room, "...six people?"
"Yes, it can" I said. "I see that you have five Pokeballs...are you going to be using all of them in this battle?"
"Why not?" Eric asked. It was clearly a rhetorical question. Of course he was going to take all of the help he could get.
"Are you guys all ready?" Kieran asked. "Take anything you think you might need, and we'll get out of here. To the fortress we'll go".
The headquarters of Team Rocket was certainly magnificent.
A large castle with the letter R in bright red paint, probably a good quarter of a mile squared. It was clear to see that it was behind an enormous, twenty-foot wall. There was a gate in the middle, and a passcode lock on the other side. If someone could reach through there, it might be possible to punch in the passcode, but we had no idea what it was.
"Do you have a Psychic type, Eric?" I asked the older man. In response, he held out his green Pokeball.
Most Pokeballs were red, but they did come in many other colors, including blue, yellow, green, purple, black, orange, medium violet red, cyan, gold, and white, as well as the opportunity to make your own custom colors. While other colors besides red were sold, they were prohibitively expensive for many people.
"Yes, I do" Eric said. "Mesprit".
The Legendary Pokemon (I was shocked that Eric had a Legendary at all), came out of its Pokeball and began flying over towards the gate.
"What's the code?" I asked it.
Really, I didn't expect that to work. But, granted, I had never owned a Legendary Pokemon, or any Pokemon at all for that matter, myself, so I supposed that I had little basis for my lack of faith in Mesprit.
"The code is 522113" Mesprit said, flying over the wall. Really, why couldn't it have carried us in, if it was so easy for it to just fly over? Maybe it just wasn't strong enough.
Once Mesprit was on the other side of the wall, it punched in the code. As soon as it had finished, the gates opened, and alarms started wailing, louder than the sirens of an ambulance.
"WARNING! THE GATE HAS BEEN PENETRATED! SECURITY SEVERELY COMPROMISED!"
I was covering my ears, but Samuel was clearly trying hard not to pass out, since Lucario had extremely strong senses of hearing. I was tempted to leave, but we knew that Lucas was counting on us. It might be silly to risk losing our lives for the sake of saving one member of our group, but I was going to do it.
Of course, Kieran had told me what our group's goal was. If we managed to rescue Lucas, he would join us on a quest to find the origin of a mysterious necklace that had transformed him and Samuel into Pokemon. It sounded like an outlandish story, and Kieran's gaunt face and messy gray hair didn't make him look very trustworthy, but you could never judge a book by its cover.
Besides, the others stuck to the same story, so I figured, why not? Why not trust these people? After all, the very reason I had gone on the trip along the eastern coast of America was because I was looking for adventure. I was living on the edge, a la Chris McCandless.
"Let's run in!" I yelled. Our cover had been blown; we couldn't stay there. Luckily, the fortress was several miles from the town of Rocket, so it was likely that most of the citizens wouldn't hear it, or it was just another ambulance siren, taking someone to the hospital. Nothing out of the ordinary.
With that, we ran into the edge of the castle grounds. Inside, we had no idea what we would find.
MICHELLE'S POV
Normally, this isn't what I would be doing on your average Thursday morning. Normally, I'd be sitting in second-period math, doing some boring equations from the SMART board. However, this was not an average Thursday morning.
I was storming the fortress of Team Rocket's Maine branch, trying to save my elder brother, who had been kidnapped by Jessie and James. Lucas had been transformed into a Zoroark, and we were trying to find out the cause. If I survived the day, it would likely be something we would discuss for months, if not years, afterwards. If we didn't survive the day, then Lucas might not either.
"Here" Eric said to me once we were inside the fortress. He tossed me his blue Pokeball.
"This is Golem?" I asked him. I tried to remember what color Pokeball had been housing each of Eric's pocket monsters, but I wasn't a hundred percent certain.
"Yes" Eric told me. "I think that you can be trusted to wield one of my Pokemon. Golem's definitely going to be able to help with taking down some of Team Rocket's foot soldiers, and you know that they'll have those. They're practically known for them!"
"True" I said. "I accept Golem. Isn't that a great responsibility, though?"
The man eyed me suspiciously. "Are you saying that you're not trustworthy? Because if that's the case…".
"No, I wasn't saying that. I'm just saying, that's a lot of trust to put in someone you've only known for two days. Not even that".
Eric nodded. "I see. But I'm still going to let you use Golem. Just be careful with him, okay?"
I nodded. I was more than willing to be careful with Eric's Pokemon, and Golem really was kind of cute, if you ignored what he was no doubt capable of.
We had entered the fortress now. The entrance hall was about twenty feet tall and thirty feet wide, with mostly black paint on the walls and red windows that did not lead outside. Perhaps they were just there to intimidate, or to make it look like something you'd see in a Star Wars movie.
"We should split up, in order to look" Kieran said. He was keeping a good poker face, so, if he was lying, there was no good way to tell.
Garfield eyed the gray-haired man suspiciously. "Isn't this always how it goes wrong in the movies? The good guys split up, and then each individual group of them gets cut down by the enemy forces? Why should we do that here?"
"This isn't a movie, Garfield" Samuel said, staring at the largest member of our group. "I don't know why you think we shouldn't split up. Just two groups of three. Could I go with Michelle and Eric?"
Maybe it was just me, but when Samuel said my name, I thought I saw him blush a little. Did he...like me? As in, like like me? As in, have a crush on me?
Nah, it's nothing. Just your imagination. And even if it's not, we have something else to focus on right now. Don't dwell on whether or not Samuel Cranmore has a crush on you.
That voice inside my head might have been Arceus himself, or it might have been my own conscience. Either way, I took its advice, deciding on the best course of action.
"I don't think so, Samuel" I told him. "I'd rather go with Garfield and Kieran. Do you two guys have any problems with each other?"
Both young men looked in each other's direction. After nodding in unison, Garfield said, "We don't have a problem with that".
Well, that was a relief.
"That leaves Samuel, Malcolm, and me" Eric said. "Malcolm? You cool with that?"
I could tell that Malcolm, who hadn't spoken since we had breached the gates of the fortress, maybe even since we had left the Pokemon center, was very nervous. He likely had some degree of ADHD; even though I wasn't a psychologist, I could tell that much. The young Zorua was shivering in fear, staring up at me, looking as though he might start whimpering.
"It'll be fine, Malcolm" Samuel said. "I'll help protect you. Right, Eric?"
"Yeah" Eric said. "Come on, guys. We don't have a second to lose. Every second we waste here is another second they could find us, another second that Lucas might get killed. Let's go".
Eric, Malcolm, and Samuel took the path to the right of us as soon as we reached the end of the hallway. Kieran, Garfield, and myself took the path to the left. We didn't know if we would ever see each other again, and in what circumstances.
Almost immediately, we ran into a problem. It wasn't a major problem, not one that was likely to kill us imminently, but it was a problem nonetheless.
In front of us was a fast-moving river, about forty feet wide. Much too far to jump, and I wasn't much of a swimmer. I mean, I could swim in order to save my life, but I wasn't too fancy in terms of specific strokes, something that I had never understood to be a problem. After all, if you can swim well enough to save your own life, or somebody else's, shouldn't that be enough? Why should I need to learn all of these fancy techniques if the main purpose of swimming is just that, staying alive?
Oh, great. I don't need that earworm.
"How do we get across?" Garfield asked. "Do we know how deep it is?"
Truth be told, I wasn't sure I trusted Kieran not to push me in and let me drown if it would save himself. I might have sounded eager to join up with him and Garfield, but I had really only wanted two twenty-something men to help protect me. And yes, I know just how incredibly selfish that sounds, but it was true.
However, Kieran Mortimer was a man who had done nothing but hurt me the first time we'd met him. He'd set his army of Poison types on our house, which resulted in the death of my mother, and that had made us reluctant to align with him. Of course, once we learned that he was going to help us find some important information, we really did have no other option. And, now that Lucas had gotten himself into this mess, we had to help get him out of it. It was as simple as that. Kieran Mortimer might be our best avenue to doing that.
On the other hand, Garfield O'Shannon was a man I barely knew, who was probably twice my size. I stand 5 feet, 7 inches tall to my brother's 6'2", but this man was 6'8", which was quite something. I had been raised not to trust a stranger who was this large and ripped, and yet I was trusting Garfield. I supposed that this was the way the cookie crumbled.
"How do we get across this river?" Garfield asked.
"We could check to see how deep it is first" Kieran responded. Okay, now I knew that he was out to get me.
"Let's just try and swim" the large man said. With his muscles, it must have been very easy for him to say. I could tell that Kieran didn't particularly like the idea of swimming across; he appeared to be physically weak, or at least not nearly as strong as Garfield. What was going on with him, and why hadn't he told us?
"I'm not a great swimmer" I admitted.
"Me neither" Kieran said.
"Hold my hands, both of you" Garfield said. "Paddle with your feet, and we should get across. Just like a pair of skydivers in formation".
None of us had ever been skydiving, but we knew what he was talking about. I grabbed Garfield's right hand, while Kieran grabbed his left. Together, we pushed ourselves into the river.
Indeed, it was rushing quickly, and it was cold as well. The average temperature of the ocean water in Maine during the summer, probably minus a couple of degrees, and this was the temperature of the river.
In a formation much like we were making snow angels, we pushed ourselves across. Luckily, the river was shallow enough that my feet were usually able to touch the bottom, maybe four feet deep. As long as I held onto Garfield's arm, just like a little kid, I was able to keep myself anchored to the ground. If I fell, both men would fall with me. I couldn't allow that to happen.
Finally, we reached the other end. You know when you get into a cold body of water, be it a pool, lake, or the ocean, and you are cold at first but then get used to it, so that when you get out, you're cold once again?
This was like that feeling on steroids. I was shivering violently, feeling like I might never be warm again. At least we had made it across, though. We could deal with possible hypothermia later.
"Let's forge onward" Garfield said. "The more we get moving, the easier it will be to stay warm. That's what they always say, and I see why".
"That's true" Kieran said, although it was clear to see that his teeth were chattering. Clearly, he wanted a towel, or something else to dry off with.
Suddenly, there was a sound that was similar to a fan turning on...and it was a fan turning on, or rather a series of them. They were blowing air down towards us...warm air.
Within seconds, my wet clothing felt as though it had just been sitting on top of an activated furnace, or it had just come out of the dryer. It felt somewhat heavenly, almost. Not something that we could focus on at the moment, but still.
"That was convenient" I said, trying not to laugh.
LUCAS'S POV
I woke up again. I had no way of knowing how long I had been asleep, or unconscious, for, other than the bag right next to me.
No wonder I felt so lethargic. They were taking such a large amount of my blood, I wouldn't exactly be able to run the Boston Marathon anytime soon.
I'd never actually donated blood before, but I'd heard that they always told you to have a cookie and orange drink after you were done, in order to not pass out or something. For me, I didn't know what would be necessary.
My friends had still not come for me; I was beginning to become convinced that they never would. In fact, the more I thought about it, it had been silly for me to even imagine that they might. After all, for all I knew, this place was probably booby-trapped up the wazoo. There was no way that Kieran, Malcolm, Michelle, and Samuel would even be able to come close to saving me. Just none.
The way things were going, I would probably die this way, slowly drained of blood, my very life force, becoming just a husk of my former self. There was going to be a bloodless Zoroark carcass to dispose of once it was done.
I imagined the scene. My body, having been drained of all of its fluids, shutting down. I'd just be a corpse at that point. They'd probably put me in a wheelbarrow and take me to some collective incinerator, left to be burned to a crisp. But I'd be dead anyways, so why should I even care?
Despite this, I did care. For the most part, I'd never really cared what happened to my body when I died, but I did care when one of the options was getting dumped into an incinerator in the Maine fortress of Team Rocket. That thought was nauseating.
Literally, nauseating. I had to fight sick from rising in my throat. I was lying down, so I might choke on my vomit, which would lead to an even earlier death. That was not a way I wanted to go out.
I knew I was too weak to rise, what with my lack of blood. At least two pints had to have been drained, and I remembered from health class that three was enough to cause unconsciousness. At what point were Team Rocket going to admit that they weren't taking the blood for tests, and only doing it in order to hurt me?
Because, what with the amount they had already taken out, I got the feeling that it was at least partly the latter. Hopefully, they hadn't discovered the secret just yet.
I saw, on the floor, the purple flower. For whatever reason, neither Dr. Shives nor anyone else who might have come during the time I was out had made the decision to take that purple flower. This was a good thing, since I didn't want the information falling into their hands.
I tried to piece together the knowledge I had gotten from the flower. The knowledge that I had paid such a high price to acquire.
I imagined the scene if I was rescued. I would probably be brought to the hospital...where the doctors would take the flower, convinced that it was contaminated. Which, you know, is a reasonable thing to be worried about in a building with many severely ill patients.
Even though I wasn't strong enough to get up, I let my feet hang off the bed until they touched the ground. Then, I pulled myself up, still chained to the wall.
This was, as you could probably guess, a monumental mistake. As soon as I was on my feet, I felt like I was going to be off my feet within seconds. My head swam in a whirlpool, and I felt like I was on the deck of a ship in a storm. Needless to say, this was not a pleasant sensation.
I sat down before I could pass out, so as to get some blood back to my brain. I was still tethered to the line that was taking blood from my arm, which made this a little annoying.
You might be wondering: Lucas, why didn't you just pull the IV out? You wouldn't be constantly supplying that huge bag with your blood, and you wouldn't get sucked dry, right? So why didn't you?
The answer to that question was simple. If I removed the tube, blood would come out of the insertion point at a much faster rate than it currently was. This would only serve to accelerate my demise.
I couldn't fight my going back to sleep. It felt like I was being forced into the blackness, and I wasn't going to go gently. I tried to keep my eyes open for as long as possible, but, just like I was being put under for surgery, I lost.
Sinking into unconsciousness, my last thought was, I'm fucked.
SAMUEL'S POV
For the most part, we weren't encountering very many enemies. Things seemed to be going suspiciously well for us, to the point that we were almost expecting a horde of Meowth to come out of any door, at pretty much any time. It was more than possible, given that we were at Team Rocket's base of operations for the entire state of Maine.
Malcolm, despite having shown himself to be timid in the face of danger at the start of the day, was as energetic as ever now that we were actually in the depths of the fortress. He bounded along the hallways, as though he was a dog playing fetch. He also had a smile on his face, which looked oddly creepy on the young Zorua.
It might have also been just me, but it seemed that a dark red light was occasionally engulfing Malcolm. I wondered if this was the first signs of him getting ready to evolve into a Zoroark, but that was a ridiculous thought. After all, if we weren't fighting enemies too much, he also wouldn't level up too much...right?
As for Eric, he was a faster runner than we thought. A thirty-something man against a teenage Lucario and a ten-year-old Zorua was a closer match than you might expect. Even hauling all of his Pokeballs, it was possible for him to move at quite a high speed.
Eventually, breathing heavily, he said, "Guys, let's stop and read this map. This might provide an important clue to where Lucas is. We can't just run around like chickens with our heads cut off".
That might have been an extraordinarily cliche analogy, but it was true. Malcolm and I stopped next to the map, and I analyzed it, taking every intricacy of it into account.
The map was arranged with many very narrow black lines that I assumed were hallways. In addition, there was a yellow arrow pointing to a dot on one of the lines, which I could guess was where we were at the moment. Searching the map for our starting point, the entrance of the fortress, revealed that we had indeed come quite a long way from it. Even if we could manage to find Lucas (and maybe find a stretcher to carry him out on, should he be in a poor condition), there was no guarantee that we would be able to find our way out. Unless…
"Hey, Eric?" I asked the man.
"Yeah?" Eric said, not looking at me. He was still pretty fixated on the map.
"Can't Mesprit teleport us out of here, once we find Lucas?"
Eric scratched his small black beard, which was little more than peach fuzz. "I didn't think of that, but yes, I believe it can. We'll teleport back to the Pokemon center in Rocket, once we have found him. But, until we have retrieved Lucas London, we cannot, I repeat, cannot let our guards down. Who knows what is lying in wait for us once we get to his room?"
The truth was, none of us did. For all we knew, Lucas's cell door might be armed with poisonous spikes that would come out and stab us. Even though I'd recovered from my stab wound fully, the memory was still fresh in my mind. I did not, I repeat, did not wish to go through that again.
"Can we take the map off of the wall?" I asked Eric. "So that we can hold it as we run through?"
Eric shook his head. "I feel as though that might trigger another alarm, one that would cause something we don't need. We've gotten lucky so far, almost too lucky. You of all people, Samuel Cranmore, will know that I don't want to let our lucky streak end".
I supposed he was right. Still, I would have loved to hold it as we ran, so that we could check our progress.
"How much farther?" Malcolm asked, sounding like a little kid on a road trip. Well, if he was tired, he could have not volunteered for this mission in the first place and stayed behind at the Pokemon center. I could have pointed this out, but I didn't want to cause any more trouble.
"I don't think too much" I said. "I think that we're getting close".
"Sure as hell hope so" the young Zorua said. "Because my paws hurt, and I gotta pee...really bad".
Unfortunately, there were no bathrooms nearby that we knew of. I was hoping that Malcolm wouldn't have been guzzling water before we had left, but I knew that this was too much to hope for, given how high-energy he usually was.
"Just hold it in, or pee your pants if you have to" Eric said, sounding more militaristic than usual. Although I was better at keeping things as bubble thoughts, those were pretty much my thoughts exactly. Why couldn't the Zorua hold it in?
"You know that I'm not even wearing pants!" Malcolm wailed. "But okay, I'll try to hold it in".
With that bit of unnecessary information, we continued down the hallway, hoping that we would be able to find the way to Lucas's cell before Malcolm pissed all over the ground. Because, if the latter happened...it might have some unintended consequences.
KIERAN'S POV
For the most part, things were going all right for us. After crossing the river and continuing down the hallway, we came across yet another room. This one, however, was far more creepy.
It was about a hundred yards square, and the sight reminded me of the carbon freeze room from Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back. There was a walkway leading to a large, circular brown platform with neon orange lines leading from the edges to a pit in the middle. All of this was around a black hole.
"Where does this hole go, I wonder?" Michelle asked. "The center of the Earth?"
"No way" I said. "Think about this, Michelle. Would they really be able to dig all the way down there?"
Michelle held her arms up in surrender. "Hey, it was just a thought!"
Garfield shut us up fast, using his strong Irish accent. "Fellow Adventurers! Let us move onward, for there is no greater objective than saving our captured Companion!"
I would only later find out that Garfield O'Shannon frequently capitalized words when he wrote them down, as if Adventurer and Companion were specific military titles. I'd never been in the military; in fact, I would likely fail most of the health checks in order to get there. However, I knew enough about the subject in order to be sure of this.
For the most part, I was still unaware of Garfield's background. Was he from the military? He certainly seemed buff and harsh enough to be of that background. I'm not meaning to generalize here, but it's the truth.
"Where do we go now?" I asked. There seemed to be no way out other than the door on the other side of the room. The only problem was, the pit was at least thirty feet wide no matter where you went, so that you would need to build a bride to get across.
"Why not go back?" Michelle asked. "Surely there's a map somewhere around here. Or would Team Rocket have placed Lucas behind the most dangerous room in the building?"
"Is this even the most dangerous room in the building?" Garfield said. "There could be any number of rooms with traps, but I say we try to find a way across. First the river, and now this pit. When will we finally be free of making our way across things?"
We made our way down the hallway and onto the circular platform. From there, I scanned the area for possible routes to get across.
There was one crane machine in a corner of the circle, so maybe we could use it to lift each other across the pit...but then one of us would be left on this side of the divide. That was when I noticed the blue button on the other side.
"Michelle" I said. "Stand where I tell you".
I knew that the girl didn't like heights very much. She wasn't as acrophobic as her brother, but there was no way she was going to agree with my plan unless I deceived her.
Then again, create a little chaos- that was my modus operandi in life. Ever since I'd found out that my days in this world were numbered, I'd been determined to drag as many people as possible down with me. Was this the time?
No, I thought. If I don't help them rescue Lucas, they're not going to trust me anymore. I have to do this.
Michelle looked a little skeptical, but she went into the spot that I told her to. She stood there as I got into the crane.
"What are you doing?" she asked, sounding exasperated, as though she had run out of patience.
I pressed the button on the grabber arm, which proceeded to yank Michelle into the air. Her panties were visible, but only slightly.
Michelle was hoisted twenty feet above the platform, and she started screaming, trying to wriggle out of there. I tried not to cackle with glee. This was pretty funny.
"Are you crazy, Kieran?"
Maybe I was a little crazy, but that idea didn't faze me one bit. That claw had an iron grip on her, and I began moving the lever to the point that she was over above the other side.
I lowered her gently towards the ground, and, once she was on her hands and knees once again, I pressed the button that would release her.
Michelle was free once again, rubbing her lower back, the part that had been grabbed. I was initially worried that she would refuse to press the button, saying that she wasn't going to trust me anymore after I had deceived her on this.
Luckily, I did not need to worry about this. Michelle began walking, like a robot, over to the blue button, which she pressed gingerly.
Immediately, a bridge formed across the gap, making it possible to walk across easily.
"You're a Genius, Kieran" Garfield muttered.
SAMUEL'S POV
I began to slip. No surprise, since I was running right behind Malcolm. Wait...no surprise?
"Malcolm? Did you just piss all over the floor? I thought you could hold it!"
The young Zorua looked at me with an apologetic expression. "Sorry. Just had to let it fly, you know? At a certain point, you can't hold it anymore".
I supposed that was true, although I was going to have to be careful about running with Malcolm from here on out.
"Hey, look, it's a huge door!" Malcolm eventually blurted out.
Eric and I stopped in front of it.
Sure enough, Malcolm had been right. It was a huge door. Ornate and crafted with stars in seven different colors, looking very much like the Thousand-Year Door. The door must have stood twenty feet tall, and I got the feeling that it led somewhere important.
"Is that...writing there?" Eric asked. "My eyesight's not as keen as it used to be. I used to have eagle eyes. Samuel, can you see what that says?"
At first, I couldn't see what the man meant. Eventually, however, I did notice the small letters etched onto the crimson design of the door. It was tough to read even with my extremely keen eyes, but I was able to see that it read LUCAS LEONARD LONDON.
"That's too easy!" I cried. Eric and Malcolm looked at me funny.
"What's too easy?" Malcolm asked me. I could tell that he still looked embarrassed from having urinated all along the hallway, but I was willing to let it go, at least for now. Besides, I doubted Eric would care, either, once he realized what I thought I had just discovered.
"It says his name right on the door! Lucas Leonard London! Is there any way he's not behind this door?"
"You're right" Eric said. "Let's head in there!"
With that, I tried to open the door, but it was locked. Figures.
Just then, we saw another group of people entering from the right of the door. At first, I wouldn't let myself believe that they were our friends, but I soon realized that it was…
"Kieran, Michelle, and Garfield!" I exclaimed. "You made it!"
Michelle whispered something angrily in Kieran's ear that sounded suspiciously like, "Don't hoist me by my panties again!", but I couldn't be sure of it.
"In any case" Garfield said. "Our group of Adventurers has reached a common Goal. The Captive is behind the door, is he not?"
"How did you know?" I asked incredulously.
"I could guess, given that you stopped right in front of it" the young man replied.
"Let's try to kick this door down" Eric said. "It won't open like a normal door. Is there some magical seal to it?"
"If there's a magical seal", said Michelle, "then it'd be absolutely impossible to open. Right now, it doesn't seem that that is the case, either. We'll just have to figure out a way in, and then things are going to be easy. Eric, don't you have a Mesprit?"
The oldest member of our group nodded. "And it'll teleport us out as soon as we've got Lucas. It'll be easy to get out once we've found him. And there's one other thing I need to mention. The enemies might be coming after us soon, because-".
"I'll finish the sentence for him" I said, cutting Eric off. "Basically, Malcolm's bladder released itself as we were running down the hallway, making a trail of urine. They'll be coming upon us pretty soon".
"Which is why it's necessary that we get past this door first" Eric explained, giving me a dirty look for interrupting him. "Let's put as much force into it as possible. Maybe all six of us together can do it. Or...Mesprit?"
Eric pulled out his green Pokeball, releasing the pink Psychic type. Mesprit floated, three feet above the ground, looking slightly irritated at being forced out of its Pokeball.
"What do you ask of me?" it demanded. "You see, I was just taking a very nice nap, when you suddenly decide to make me do your bidding. What is it you wish me to accomplish for you?"
"Travel through the door, make it into the cell, and teleport Lucas London back out here. Then, teleport all of us to the Pokemon center. You got that?"
Mesprit nodded before snapping its fingers and going to the other side of the door.
We waited. And waited. Finally, we heard what sounded like guards coming down the hallway towards us. Had we been found as a result of the trail Malcolm had left, or was it as a result of the guards simply knowing where Lucas was being held?
Why isn't Mesprit coming back? I thought in frustration, kicking the door, which, in hindsight, was probably a dumb move, since it could only serve to alert the enemies to our presence even more. That was literally the only thing that could be achieved by it.
Eventually, Mesprit appeared on our side of the door once again.
"What's the problem?" Eric asked it.
"Lucas is too chained down to teleport over here" Mesprit stated, crossing its arms. "You will need to break down the door, and then we can get to Lucas. Someone can help get his cuffs off".
I decided to use a technique I had seen in action, but never actually used myself. I knew that it was possible to use aura to bolster your muscles if you were a Lucario, so I channelled all of the aura I could. With that, I yelled, "EVERYONE! POUND!"
We battered on the door with all of our might. Eventually, it did give way; it was evidently not enchanted. We ran through it, into a hallway with a much smaller door on the other side. It was two meters tall, like a normal door that you'd find in an elementary school. The amusing part, or the part that would at least have been amusing had this not been an extremely serious situation, was that Garfield actually had to duck in order to make his way through. On the other side, however, was not a pretty sight.
Lucas London was lying on a bed that looked less comfortable than your average hospital bed. He was connected to a tube that seemed, on first glance, to be an IV drip. However, it was draining blood from his body, a fact that became clear upon a closer look.
Really, it was heinous, what these people were doing to him. Lucas was unconscious, shackled to a bar above his head. I saw Michelle right next to me, fighting back tears at the sight of her brother. Really, I would be as well if it was my own brother.
And yet...I felt such a strong platonic bond with the teenage boy that it was hard for me not to feel anger at this sight. Lucas deserved to be treated much better than this. He was a good guy, and, while he might call himself a jerk with a heart of gold, I certainly didn't see the first half of that statement as being accurate. Lucas wasn't a jerk.
"If we can teleport him to the Pokemon center", Garfield said, "they can take care of any injuries there. I'm no medic, but can you sense his health at all, Samuel?"
I reached into Lucas's aura. "He seems to be low on blood volume, severely dehydrated and malnourished. This despite it only having been two days since he was kidnapped".
"We need to get him out of here" Eric said. "He'll only lose more blood once we get him out of those chains. They'll need to get cut away at the hospital".
Since Pokemon centers were essentially combinations of hospitals and hostels, the words "Pokemon center" and "hospital" could be used pretty much interchangeably. I didn't really read too much into that.
In any case, it didn't matter. I heard the sound of guards racing down the hallway. We were almost out of time to escape.
We all formed a circle with our hands. I grabbed the leg of the unconscious Lucas, so that we could get out of there.
"Three...two...one...teleport!"
The last thing I saw was a pair of Team Rocket grunts rushing into the room, looking to capture us. They looked both shocked and angry, but it didn't take long until we were out of the fortress, and the sight of their faces disintegrated into my memory.
You know, I used to be the go-to guy for toilet humor, but no more. I really hope I don't lose many readers over this, and I promise that future chapters will not feature this. It's a reminder of how much more mature I have become, both as a person and as a writer, over the last year.
Speaking of which, my one-year anniversary of joining this site is May 29, the scheduled day of my next update. Although I won't do the huge one-shot featuring some of my fans, I do want to commemorate it in some way. We'll see, though.
With that, the longest chapter has come to an end. Man, I haven't done an 8,000er in months, not since the days of Attack Of The Anglars. And that was a LONG time ago, considering that I finished that story over February vacation, in Alberta. I still remember that marathon session of writing...the cramps. Ah, yes, the cramps.
In any case, in addition to joining my Discord if you have not already, I hope you will rate and review, and hold out for the sixteenth chapter of...ZOROARK'S PENDANT!