As a reminder, you can find MORE of this on my SubStar (dot adult slash KajaWilder), it's posted up past chapter 60 there... And if you guys haven't seen an update in at least a week, please let me know! I have a busy life, and I get distracted and forget things. This story (and PTaL) are supposed to be updated WEEKLY from now until they're both caught up with each other (like I was doing with FwB until this weekend).
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Chap. 46: Appearance of a Mighty Foe
It was dark. She was warm, almost too warm, and wet. No, not just wet... underwater. In fluid... drowning!
Adisa's eyes opened at once, to be confronted with darkness. Not total, no, but there was so little light visible she could see only the lights themselves. A dim orange-red ring around her feet illuminated just an inch or so of the flat, smooth surface, marred only by the cable fixtures that kept her from floating upward, just like the ones on her wrist fixed to the sides of the tube.
The tube!
She was back in that infernal, terrible tube! Adisa thrashed and recoiled, her body jerking and spasming despite herself, despite knowing it would do no good. The cables, the restraints, were too strong. And she couldn't pull the mask off her face, couldn't risk drowning, it was all that was letting her breathe, even though it hurt to have it in her trachea, and-
A voice.
His voice. A voice she knew.
Not the one she remembered hearing. Morley Vaan, for all her growing concerns about him, would have been a reassuring presence, just like he had been in the waking world.
Adisa Chuke knew she was dreaming, but that did not matter. The tank mattered. Her being trapped inside it mattered. She had to get out!
There were other lights, too, if only faint ones. A soft glow some ways off silhouetted a broad-shouldered, tall man, just enough for her half-panicked eyes to make him out. "Invader," the man said again, this time more clearly. "Invader."
Invader. She was the invader. How Adisa knew he was referring to her, she didn't know. But she knew he was. Were others even present in the room, the larger room her tube rested in, to speak to, or listen? She didn't know, it was all dark. Only the light behind the man, from a console perhaps, though its position didn't match where she remembered it being in the facility- the bordello- she had woken inside. She needed more details, more information.
Not just this huge, imposing shape rumbling, "Invader, Invader," over and over.
She had to get out.
His arm moved, and she could just see, as it touched the faint light from the tube as it touched the glass, a metallic gray circle. The end of a gun, aimed at her stomach. "Invader," he rumbled.
"I'm not!" she wanted to scream. Tried to scream, even, past the tube and the mask. "I'm just an engineer!"
Even though no words came out, the man seemed to smirk invisibly in the darkness, "Invader."
This time, he didn't simply repeat the word. He said it once, with finality. Purpose. After a moment's pause, he continued, too. "You are an Invader, Adisa Chuke. Invader from another world, sent to claim and destroy ours, just as you destroyed your own. To wipe out our people, as you are so close to wiping out your own. To wipe out our world, everything. You are a parasite, and an invasive species. Even a slowly moving invading force."
"I'm not!" she wanted to rail.
A nose, just the hint of one, square and a bit larger but not overly so, entered the light, along with the glistening of two black eyes that were still invisible, but reflected the tank's glow softly. "You are. Even if you don't know it. Well, you can rest assured, Invader, that you will fail. Your people doomed yourselves. We are not to blame, and will not suffer your people's fate. I will not allow it. So choose, Invader. Choose now. Serve me. Serve us. Become one of us, in truth, or be labelled the Invader you are by more than just myself. You cannot save your world... but you can help save ours from your kind. Are you an Invader, Adisa Chuke? Or are you a Savior? Choose."
There was a flash as the momentarily forgotten muzzle flashed, and the tube shattered. Along with it, Adisa's body.
Then she was gone, no longer in the tube.
Instead, she was sitting up in the now-familiar tent she shared with her Pokémon. "Chop...?"
"N- No, I'm alright," Adisa told her Starter, "Just a nightmare. That's all. You can go back to sleep."
On her other side, the red shining eyes of her Houndour blinked twice. "Dou...?"
"Yes, I'm sure," she chuckled, and laid back down before reaching out to scratch under the oddly cuddly Dark-type Pokémon's chin.
Houndour rumbled happily, taking the scratches in repayment for being woken up from his own sleep, then rested his head on her bare belly.
Lower down, between her legs, Vulpix had curled, and the Fox's tongue moved against her thigh delightfully for a moment. "Vu?"
She was quite familiar with that particular tone and call, after the last few weeks. "Sure, little one," Adisa smiled, and spread her legs a little wider, "You can have another snack. It'll help me get back to sleep, anyway."
She sighed, the nightmare momentarily forgotten in the bliss her team brought her.
"I don't get it," Alex grumbled again, Sappy held in his tired arms, "She's been crying for hours, and we're still lost. But no one else is upset. Aren't Pokémon supposed to be happy when they evolve?"
"Maybe," Elle replied with a shrug, distracted as she peered around the cavern they found themselves in. It was the third, fourth, or fifth in the last two hours. Alex himself had lost track, largely because he had been so focused on trying to figure out what his newly-evolved Pokémon was upset about. As an Oddish, she had always been cheerful, upbeat, and happy, and fierce, even in a tough fight. Despite being by far Alex's smallest Pokémon, she was a little powerhouse who had proven herself again and again. Even against her normal predators, like Weedle and Caterpie, she put up a good battle with her combination of status attacks and Mega Drain. If anything, she was even better at those moves than Gobbler, who was more of a physical attacker.
That Pokémon was getting a good workout in the cave. Elle kept both Gobbler and Squirt out, the latter on her shoulder with his stubby tail wrapped part of the way around her neck for stability, while the Grass/Poison-type practiced walking on its new leaf-hands-feet, or whatever they were. A good portion of what they had fought were Zubat, but another majority were low-level Geodude, and a few rare Diglett. The former, Squirt or Shooter took care of with ease thanks to the Ice moves they had trained up for earning Elle her Skybound Badge. The latter, their two Grass-types were having a field day with. It wasn't exactly the same as taking on a Rock-type Gym, but Alex felt the sheer number of the quintessential Rock/Ground Pokémon they were fighting through was good training all the same.
They might have to switch up tactics or teams soon, as Elle's pair were starting to flag and Shooter wasn't much better. But Sappy was fine... as far as energy went, at least. The Gloom didn't seem to want anything to do with fighting any more, though. Instead, she only wept and wept, drooling a strangely sweet goop down his side along with her tears.
The chamber, like the last several they had been in, was lit partially by the flashlights they had purchased for cave attempts, and partially by the bright light of their Pokégear. Somehow, the watch-like devices that connected to their 'dexes contained a power source that was much smaller and lighter than the actual flashlight batteries, but produced more lumens without seeming to drain at all. Surtr and Kole had been providing light earlier, but both had seemed to grow tired after a while, so they were currently trotting along behind Alex, their lights muted to help them recharge.
"Hey, Alex?"
"Yeah?" He looked up to see his companion a dozen feet or so further ahead, and hurried to catch back up. He had slowed down a lot in the last couple of hours as he dwelled on his Pokémon's upset, but it hadn't been helping at all.
When he reached the petite blonde, Elle was staring upward at an angle. She pointed in the direction of her 'gear's light with the flashlight. "What's that?"
Tracing the light was easy, but it still took him a few seconds to spot what her sharp eyes had. "That's... a power cable, I think."
"It's big, if it is," she replied, "That's a long way up there, but it looks like it's about two feet across, wouldn't you say?"
"About that, yeah. We know they used to mine down here, it's probably an old line from back then."
Elle nodded again. "Yeah... I hear it humming, though."
Alex grunted. "Really?"
She nodded, "I've always been kind of sensitive to that sort of sound. Powerful electronics can actually give me headaches after a while, but most computers are insulated these days. That line's shielded from predators, but it doesn't hide the current vibrating."
"So it's live?"
"I think so. I'm not climbing up there to touch it," she chuckled, "Just something I noticed. It was the hum that got me looking. Now that I know what it is, I guess we can keep going. The mines all shut down, right?"
"That's what the guide says," he replied, "said they shut the mines down more than a hundred and fifty years ago when they realized the kind of damage it was doing to the delicate ecosystem. Now it's part of the traditional League Challenge journey... even if most Trainers don't go this way."
"On foot, 'neath the lands of the Moon," Elle quoted a small part of the ditty about Mount Moon that the guide had mentioned. "Yeah... well, we're doing that part I guess. Whatever, it's probably nothing. Let's go."
More tunnels, more caverns. Hours passed, and eventually Sappy fell asleep. Alex kept carrying her despite his own arms growing tired with her greater weight, because she kept sniffling like a child who had cried themselves to sleep. Down, down some more, past a few veins of gold-shining pyrite, quartz, and even some silver that Alex had actually set down Sappy for. He had spent about twenty minutes prying a couple of fistfulls of the metal out for souvenirs. Sappy had woken during that time and started wailing, which prompted a small flurry of more Zubats attacking them, but Elle was able to direct their combined teams well enough to drive them away before Alex finished and picked up the sobbing Gloom again. "Come on, girl. What's wrong? I don't understand," he tried for the dozenth time.
"Gloo- GlooOOOOooh!" she wailed.
"I give up..."
Not long after, when Sappy's crying had settled to sniffles though she was still awake now, the downward path ended in a beautiful room. Or at least, it had been, once, Alex thought.
It still was, in most ways, but the construction-style lift on the far end, the running lights handing from the ceiling or poles, and the fenced-in area around a strange, steaming pool.
"What the...? There's people all the way down here?"
"We're down here," Elle laughed, sounding tired, "but I know what you mean. Come on, let's go check it out."
They didn't see any actual humans, though a few Pokémon they had seen too many of already skittered around in the shadows, avoiding their lights even more than the stationary ones. What they found honestly confused both of them. "A... Bath?"
"That's what the sign says," Alex replied to Elle's question, sounding just as lost as she was. It was a short list of rules:
Do Not Try to Swim to the Bottom.
Do Not Try to collapse the Pool.
Enjoy the Bath for no more than ONE HOUR. You will start to cook.
A Healthy Rocket is a Happy Rocket. Enjoy this fine amenity provided by Team Rocket for your allotted time, then return to work recharged and ready for more!
Note: Sexual fluids left in the pool are your responsibility to clean. Don't leave them for the next person to use it. I'm looking at you, ROGER and SUSANNA.
-Operative Daniels
"Uh... huh."
Both shared a look that was, if anything, even more confused than before. Still, "Hot springs?"
A few moments later, they were on the other side of the cordoned area. There were signs that people and Pokémon had been using the place for relaxation and rest of multiple types for a long time. There was a mattress old and worn enough to have mostly disintegrate against one far corner, now the home to several deep-dwelling insects and Pokémon. Closer to the pool itself, which was about fifteen by ten feet, roughly ovoid as it nestled against what Alex though of as the 'north' side of the huge cavern, a few beds had been set up with dusty but functional sheets and pillows, with thin, foil-covered safety blankets for warmth. There was a stove, a water purifier that was not connected at all to the spring, but seemed to have a storage tank that needed filling instead. And a condom dispenser, one with a size for humans, and some for Pokémon.
"... Interesting..."
Alex swallowed. He had to agree. The pool itself was more interesting than finding signs of regular human habitation, though. He could smell it, now that he was closer. The familiar, sulfurous odor of a genuine natural hot-spring. The walls and floor near the pool were a rainbow of colors, too, deposits of varying weights had left rings and waves of orange, yellow, ochre, violet, greens, and blues descending down into untold depths. The pool was mostly a vertical line, wavering only slightly, for who knew how long. If one of them drowned, they'd never find the body. But at the same time, there were showers provided beyond the beds... and it looked enticing. "Up for a swim, Elle...?"
"I sure as fuck am," he heard her say, and turned to notice her pulling her shirt over her head. "It looks amazing! Last one in's a rotten Exeggutor!"
"Ow, hot!" she screamed a moment later after having dived in head-first and resurfaced, "hot, hot, hot!"
"It is a hot spring, dummy," Alex laughed, and walked in more sedately. Like her, he hadn't left anything on. In moments, the Pokémon they had out joined them, even Sappy, though she avoided looking at anyone. Kole and Surtr both seemed to enjoy the heat a great deal even if it was water, while Squirt and Shooter were soon zooming around far below their feet, exploring the minerals and new depths with more energy than Alex would have expected, given how much work they had done to get to this point.
Soon, the two humans' play had quieted, and Elle let herself bob on the surface, her hair drifting around her in a golden halo, while Alex used a hand on the mineral-covered side of the pool to hold himself more or less still while he watched her.
He swallowed. "Elle?"
Lazily, she turned toward him. "Yeah?"
"Come suck my cock."
At first, a flicker of annoyance and anger flashed past her face, then she grinned. "Oh, you finally did it, huh? Sorry to disappoint... but we aren't fucking. I'm still sore. This water's amazing, though. I feel like I'll be fine tomorrow."
"I didn't ask to fuck," he reminded her, "I asked you to suck me off."
With a twist of her hands, the girl's body vanished beneath the water as she spun, then smoothly swam toward the edge. "Oh? And what are you gonna do about it if I say no? No offense, stud... I would love to. But I don't want that watery taste in my mouth, you know? I bet it tastes like rotten eggs, too."
Alex grimaced as he looked down through the water at his cloudy erection. "Fuck, didn't think about that."
"I do, however, have a solution," the girl purred as she swam next to him and pressed her body against his. "First, a test... kiss me, lover."
He did, their lips came together gently, then with increasing passion, until his tongue touched hers. His hands circled Elle's narrow waist, as his tongue danced further, circling her tender, pink lips...
And he hurled her away, sputtering, "Fuck, that's nasty!"
Elle laughed as she landed on her back in the water, and came up dripping again. "That's what you wanted me to taste on your dick, dummy!"
Alex ignored her, furiously wiping his mouth dry with hands that weren't any better. "Fuck, that's disgusting!"
Once he was able to ignore the foul taste, Elle was back against him, "No more kissing until after the shower, then... but I know a good way to get you off that isn't sex or a blowjob, since you're horny. Lean against the wall there."
Glad to be back on-task, he listened and obeyed, but with more hesitation than before. Her trick, while funny enough in hindsight, had tasted truly odious and he wasn't in the mood to repeat it. "Sometimes, I think your Nature is just too Mischievous," he grumbled.
"Aww, did the big bad man taste sulfur on my lips? Well, I'll make it better," she purred, and pressed herself against his side. Again, his arm circled her waist, his hand coming up under her arm to cup one petite, perky tit. Meanwhile, her hand circled his shaft, and she gave him a few slow pumps that quickly brought him to full hardness again.
"I... alright, this is nice," he admitted after a few seconds. "You can do this."
"This?" Elle asked, feigning confusion, "This isn't how I'm getting you off, Alex. Oh, Shooter! Come here, sweetie..."
Alex gaped. She smiled up at him as the Remoraid left his play behind to swim up to them. "Don't worry, baby, he's for me," she laughed at Alex's look of horror. "Those teeth can't bite my clit, but I imagine they'd do a number on your wonderful cock. Shooter, why don't you nibble my pussy lips, hmm...?"
He hadn't even thought about it, but Elle was apparently more open to all sorts of ideas he hadn't ever even considered. The Pokémon obeyed her suggestion quickly though, darting around to nibble and nip at the tender flesh between his girl's legs as she lifted one knee to give him more room. "And in the meantime... Squirt? Come have a treat, baby girl..."
The Horsea, who had followed her friend (and lover? Mate?) to see what he was doing, seemed to smile with both her small eyes and the tip of her snout as she bobbed along the surface to Alex. Then she gave him an almost coy, one-eyed look, before sinking down. Not just into the water, but with her snout on his shaft. "Oh, uh... okay. This is ne... oh, shit."
He had been given a blowjob by the Horsea before. Her snout was long, deep, and stretched alarmingly to get his girth inside, but Squirt seemed to enjoy the sensation a great deal, if her eyes rolling back in her head as her tail jerked back and forth to move her along his cock told Alex anything at all.
"Let me help you, baby," Elle whispered, then reached down, not for him, but for her Pokémon. With her hand around the Horsea's body, she pushed, and pulled, yanking Squirt up and down his shaft faster than she could manage herself.
"Oh, fuck, Elle... she's so tight."
"Tighter than my pussy?" the girl asked.
"Almost," he laughed, the hand on her breast giving her a squeeze, "but not quite. Fuck, it's good, though..."
"Which feels better, her or Gobbler?"
"Haven't- ugh- haven't had Gobbler since she Evolved," Alex reminded her, "but so far...? About the same. It's tighter with Squirt, but almost too tight. Her mouth moves differently. With Gobbler it's mostly just the lips, but that's amazing. The- the goo makes it more sensitive for a while after. Squirt's just really tight and smooth, like a... fuck... onahole, or something."
"She is your onahole," Elle reminded him, "your personal fuck-toy. You can shove this dick in her whenever you want, she loves it. Doesn't she?"
The last part was directed down into the water. Alex groaned again as the Horsea tried to speak around his cock, and the vibrations sent a powerful wave of pleasure through his body. "See? Gobbler loves it, too. I bet Lingus would- or will. Because you're gonna fuck that thing silly at least once, you got me? And I will. After today, Alex. Use me. Fuck me. Cum in my pussy, or my mouth, all you want. After a couple more Badges, you can have my ass too. Use me all... you... want. Cum all over me. In private, in public... I don't care."
"Fuck, Elle..."
"Aww, is the hot talk getting you off faster? Is Squirt making you cum? Give it to her," Elle urged him, "I'm not far off myself... but I don't think I'm going to cum from just Squirt. I want you to cum though, Alex. Cum in this little blue slut's tight snout. Fill her belly up with human cum."
"I... I... fuck!"
He had even tried to hold back, but Elle's dirty talk combined with the tight hole was just too much, and Alex let several hard jets blast into Squirt's body before Elle pulled her away. Then she turned to kiss him again, just briefly with no tongue, "Hope that was good."
"It was amazing," he laughed, "but are you sure...?"
"I'll be fine for a bit," Elle answered, "once we've showered you can go down on me, or something. Or one of the Pokémon... maybe Lingus would be happy to."
"Fuck," he chuckled, "she really does have a good tongue."
"Her pussy's really tight too," Elle told him as she climbed from the pool, "your fingers know that. Come on, let's get showered. I'm horny now, too."
She was in the tube again. Not the same tube, not the one she had been raised in, but the one that Robin had dreamed of. The same one the woman she had just spoken to that day for the first time dreamed of. Dreamed of, every single night since her false body had first come to this world. Dreamed of several times a night now that her real body was here. It would be complicated, but possible, to morph herself out of the restraints, but she did not.
Robin DeVerl wanted to know who the man was.
The big man Adisa Chuke had just dreamed about. But he did not show his face, until he shot her. Just the tip of the square-bottomed, strong nose, and the barrel of the gun. Why did Adisa fear being shot? The tube was more reasonable. Robin didn't fear them, but she hated them after spending her whole life in one. She wasn't supposed to know, of course, but she did.
Part of her mind had always known.
But the dream ended after the violence, as casual as it had been.
Again, and again, she replayed it in her own mind, the talent of lucid dreaming she had developed over years of living in a virtual world twenty four hour a day coming in useful again and again. But the dream always ended there, and whatever fragile connection Adisa's psyche had formed with her own was... tenuous, at best. Adisa was the one that had done it, Robin was sure of that. She was no Psychic herself, but Robin's own talents lay toward Fairy and Normal, and she was at least somewhat familiar with powers beyond what almost any human could manage. That, even without being able to change her body. She recognized a latent Psychic, at least.
But why did she fear the gun?
She didn't even fear the man, as imposing and threatening as he had wanted to be, as his words had painted him. Invader, hah. He was right, of course, they were invaders. They were going to win, too. That mysterious figure could do nothing to stop them, the goal and plan were all-but secure already.
So why did Adisa fear the firearm? It was just a basic, .357 caliber weapon. A heavy handgun, yes, but not worthy of such...
The world shifted. Twisted. Malformed, in a way almost like her own body could do given time and effort.
Twisted sideways, in a chaotic maelstrom of motion that swirled left, right, up, and inside out for a few moments, leaving Robin's mind dizzy even as she dreamed in Adisa Chuke's head.
"Ah. Another interloper. Hello, Robin DeVerl. Specimen RDV. It is interesting to meet you... and in such a place."
"Ah... Who- Who're you?" Robin asked aloud, her body strangely unmutable and stationary in the swirling sea of Adisa's dreamscape.
"One moment... I am already stretched thin these days." The world suddenly stopped. For only a moment, everything was still, mid-swirl, a discordant, Escher-esque mess. Then it moved. Toward? Away? Robin couldn't tell, only that there was a pulse of something else, and she was in her own mind again.
"Um..."
She was normally confident, and hated how timid she suddenly sounded in her own mind. Robin did not like being unsure, and her skills had (she could acknowledge) left her with a slight sense of cocksure ability. She had handled more than anyone else, so wasn't it only right that she be confident?
This situation, whatever it was, ripped that away from her. "Who- Who are you? What are you?"
"The second is a more relevant question, Robin DeVerl, Specimen RDV," the voice thrummed through her psyche, "And one you will learn the answer to in time. Not today, however. I am far too busy. There are so many timelines, so many things to keep track of, even I am overwhelmed sometimes. Know this, however: You are foretold. What you said to Adisa Chuke on the day you met her was me saying it through you. You understand?"
"I... no? I thought I said it," Robin frowned, "Though... why would I? I didn't know who she was."
"Exactly. Know this, Robin DeVerl, Specimen RDV, you are mine. She is mine. Your people are mine. You serve my purpose."
"I serve Humanity," Robin protested, "My mission is to ensure my world's people are-"
The voice cut her off mid-word, throbbing through her whole being, "We are of the same purpose, Robin DeVerl, Specimen RDV. Know this. Understand it. Your mission was given to you by the company you know of as GameFreak, the one who raised you. They have done so due to my design, and for my purpose. Everything you know, everything you have been taught, is due to my design. Everything you are."
While the voice was dripping with power and authority in her mind, that was the first word Robin felt the being, whatever it was, had actually emphasized. "I... I don't understand," she said aloud once more. It was strange, having a conversation with her dream-mouth, and an entity she could not see, hear, feel, taste, or touch, but that seemed to encompass her entire being and more, yet spoke inside her without effort.
"I am the reason the first human from your world came to this one two and a half centuries before. I bridged the gap that was broken. I am the reason people of your world know mine exists. I am the iety, every shade, every color in an infinite rainbow of possibility. Arceus knows as well as any or all how much possibility, how much potential, lies in your kind, Robin DeVerl, Specimen RDV. But you are still only the first of many true Combinants. I have forged a connection with you, now. Your mind is open to me. Know this, Robin DeVerl, Specimen RDV: Your Purpose is my Purpose. You think to save your world, your people, your Humanity. They are already lost. The man you heard in Adisa Chuke's dream was wrong, yet not fully. Humanity is doomed, on your world. But it lives on here... and not only in Combinants. You will be a future branch, coming full-circle to the root of life, the root of time, the root of space. Arceus knows this. Arceus itself will not stop me, for our purposes are aligned. However, still, hope remains. Know this, Robin DeVerl, Specimen RDV: Your world is lost, but what is lost can be found again, and there are many others besides. You seek to save a lost world, while I seek to save thousands. We are one. We are untold. We are unfathomable by human or Combinant mind... for now. We are coming.
"Know this, Robin DeVerl, Specimen RDV: We. Are. Coming. And when we arrive, the foundations of the universe will shake, and all that has been sowed by the false and untrue will crumble and tumble and fall to the never-ending void, just as all false truths must, that actual Truth can be known. This is one such Truth: You are not Invaders. You are Prodigals."
The last thing Robin saw was a pair of great, ovoid, featureless eyes shining with radiant cerulean blue, glowing like lanterns in the endless void of dark.
Only, there was not just one pair, were there?
She looked at only one. Perceived only one, with the eyes of her mind.
But behind that one, there was another, and another, and another, branching wide, far, and fast, into untold possibility and infinite expanse of everything.
Robin DeVerl, Specimen RDV, quickly passed from mere dream (influenced by a mighty Psychic or not) into a short-term coma under the sheer weight of the magnitude of eyes she saw behind that one, glowing pair.
