Xavier shut the door quietly behind them.
"Let's hope Seirei keeps everyone distracted for some time still." He eyed the hallway with its many doors. "Because we're going to need it."
"There are multiple floors." Yun said in horror.
"I'm guessing we're going to have to look in the lower levels, these must be the cabins."
"Let's go then, we don't want to be caught dead in this hallway, there's nowhere to hide here." She said nervously while starting to move towards the other side of the hallway. He agreed with her readily, and they quickly made their way to a junction that housed two elevators and a staircase.
The two kids looked at each other.
"Stairs?"
"Stairs."
While they ran down the first flight, Xavier spoke up. "Should we go all the way down and make our way back up?"
Yun shook her head, already out of breath. "No, what if they're on this floor or the next? We don't have a lot of time, the sooner we find your Pokémon the better."
That at least, he agreed with.
The next floor looked similar to the previous one, except the doors were closer together so the cabins were likely smaller. They ignored this floor as well and made their way onto the next one with haste.
They stepped into a cafetaria and did a quick sweep of the floor. It seemed to be mostly for recreational purposes. There was a movie theater, a game room and what looked like a small library. It wasn't long before they moved on and went down another floor.
"This is... interesting."
They entered what was mostly a clean open space with white tables and racks filled with glass work, a few computers were placed here and there. Some of the equipment seemed almost familiar to Yun and she tried to recall where she had seen such things before.
"It's almost like a laboratory or something." Xavier commented.
"Yeah, you're right." Suddenly she understood why it seemed so familiar. "They have some of this stuff in the Sandgem research facility."
"I thought so, that looks like a DNA sequencer."
He pointed at a machine that, by all means, looked like a fancy printer and Yun had to wonder how he knew that but decided there were more pressing things to worry about. "So, they do Pokémon research in here? What for, and why use stolen Pokémon?"
Xavier's face paled. "Because whatever research they're conducting in here is probably illegal or highly immoral." Likely it was both, he didn't say but the look in his eyes spoke for him.
"Let's keep looking." Yun whispered.
Xavier opened his mouth to reply but froze before he said anything. Her breath stalled when she followed his gaze and found a man in a white coat making his way over to one of the desk. Without looking away she reached for the door and quietly pushed Xavier back into the hallway, following him out as quickly as she dared.
"Crap." Xavier mouthed without sound.
Her heart was hammering in her throat and her hand trembled as she gestured towards the stairs. Halfway down the next floor she dared to speak again, albeit as silent as possible. "There are still people here." Despite her best efforts the horror she felt leaked through in her voice.
Looking a bit pale, her former classmate nodded. "Makes sense, that lab had no windows so some people likely don't know about the commotion outside. Getting everybody out was probably too good to hope for."
"What do we do?"
The shock of encountering someone and almost being noticed melted from his features as determination set in. "We'll just have to be extra careful now. Let's keep going."
Yun didn't feel quite so confident anymore but she tried to focus on the comforting weight of Reign on her back as they made their way down another flight of stairs.
"Bingo."
The next floor was clearly meant for storage, with boxes lined up in the hallways. Nummers were painted at the top of the walls, bellow them were gated storage units, some of them were still opened, others were closed.
"If I had to store a number of stolen Pokéballs, it would be in here." Xavier said with a certainty.
Looking at the many units going down the hallway, that split off at the end, Yun could only mumble. "There is a lot of space here, I guess."
"Should we split up?" He asked.
That was literally the last thing she wanted to do. The thought of roaming these poorly lit hallways on her own terrified her, but time was running out and she wanted to prolong this excursion even less, so she nodded.
He went left so she went right, trying every gate she came across. Most of them were unlocked and, weirdly, seemed to contain mostly personal belongings. Stuff like sofas, chairs, crockery and even framed pictures, not the mention the endless amount of boxes. A lot of them were labeled with words like 'kitchen, bedroom, office,' so Yun didn't bother opening them. The longer she roamed those empty halls the more she started to suspect this wasn't the place were one would store stolen Pokémon, instead it looked like a storage intended for people who were planning to spend a long time overseas.
The last hall she reached was shorter and the units had iron gates, giving them an appearance not unlike prison cells. Checking them went faster than before now that she didn't have to open the gates to see what was behind them. Only, She did have to use her trusty flashlight because they were so poorly lit. At the end of the hall the light was broken, casting the final two units in total darkness.
She told herself she imagined the low whine coming from that corner, it was just her scaredy cat brain playing trick on her. Peering into the first cell confirmed it was mostly empty, safe for some cleaning supplies.
The last one was actually empty, at least that was her first and second impression. Something was off though, both her instinct and the way Reign pinched his legs into her shirt the moment she had moved to the last cell, told her that. A third look revealed that one of the corners stayed dark even is she pointed her flashlight at it. Suddenly curious, she moved closer and pushed her flashlight between the bars.
"Dear Arceus." She whispered in horror.
It looked much worse than when she first encountered it. Large patches of fur were missing, fresh wounds bleeding sluggishly and the creature was thinner now. It's skin appearing stretched over it's ribs as it's chest rose with shallow breaths. However it was still unmistakably the dark Pokémon that had attacked her just a few months ago. The torn off lip and mangled arm unchanged from their last encounter.
When one of it's red eyes opened to squint at her she had to suppress a scream trying to claw it's way out of her throat. However, the growl it released at her was so weak it barely reached her ears and the creature simply closed it's eye again, defeated. For a brief, terribly moment, she felt sorry for the thing, then she firmly reminded herself that it had wanted her dead not so long ago and it would have succeeded too if Chihiro hadn't found her. 'Serves you right' she thought, but couldn't quite bring herself to say aloud.
There was, however, a burning question running through her mind. Why was it here, in this dark, forgotten corner on a boat belonging to what she suspected was a criminal organisation? Did they capture it, something that the rangers tracking it for months continuously failed to do, or did it belong to them?
With no answer forthcoming as she stood there, she decided she had other, more pressing matters to mind. She turned around, only looking over her shoulder once, and started moving back towards the beginning, hoping that Xavier had more luck on his end.
She was halfway down the next hallway when a rattling noise startled her. It sounded not unlike claws running along the iron bars of the gates. With her heart drumming loudly in her chest, she turned around.
"H-hello." Her voice barely even carried to her own ears. "Anybody there."
There was nothing to be seen behind her. Now her mind really was playing tricks on her. A box fell and spilled it's contents right by her feet, evoking a startled yelp from her as she jumped back.
That must have been the wind, in a boat... with no windows in sight. Her erratic breath sounded deafening in her own ears. Suddenly a long cyan tail twisted around her and she calmed down minutely.
"Seirei?" She asked hesitantly, her heart still pounding in her ears.
The dragon appeared, his body barely fitting in the narrow hallway, it's grin -and it was definitely a grin- right in her face.
A relieved laugh escaped her. "Boo, bad dragon. You really scared me there... though I guess that was the whole point."
He crooned delightedly at her but otherwise didn't seem to have malicious intent.
Then something dawned at her. "Wait if you're here... then who is distracting the crew?"
Her heart sank when a loud sound pierced through the room and sure enough, not a minute later, the boat startled in motion.
"Oh no." Now she could only hope that Xavier's psychic had an impressive grasp on teleportation and could get them out from the middle of the ocean... if they managed to find him at all. Grappling with her rising panic, she shook her head. Find Xavier first, figure it out later.
Sidestepping the dragon's long tail, she dashed down the hall. When she looked over her shoulder, Seirei had disappeared again.
She didn't allow herself to dwell on it and continued running to the staircase. Xavier was already there, with stiff shoulders and an awkward smile when he saw her. "I think we took too long. Found anything?" There was a smidge of hope in his tone.
"No kidding." She sighed and resisted the urge to question him about his psychic's abilities, then shook her head. "Seirei is here somewhere but other than him, no Pokémon to be found." Besides a wanted, murderous dark creature, she didn't add.
He nodded. "Figures, nothing can keep his interest for long," Then he shrugged. "let's just... keep searching."
A buzzing noise greeted them when they made their way back towards the staircase and it took her a few seconds to realize where it was coming from.
The elevators were moving now, and Yun figured that as more time passed and the people scattered from the deck to the rest of the boat, they would have a harder time getting around unseen. They shared a look of understanding and walked down the stairs more carefully now, trying not to make a sound.
Yun nearly bumped into Xavier when he stopped mid stride.
"What is it?"
"I think I know where they are keeping the Pokémon." He turned to look at her. "Back at the third floor, the lab, there was a PC."
"Are you sure? Wouldn't that be risky?" She was fairly certain law enforcers could track the storage system.
Shaking his head, he explained. "Not if they have their own network, it's not impossible, I've seen it before. Besides, if they do Pokémon research up there, it wouldn't make sense to keep the Pokémon so far away." He gestured down the stairs to emphasis his point. And no matter how much she wanted to deny it, he had a point.
"Crap."
They made their way back up, not saying a word to each other. The whole time, Yun kept envisioning running into somebody, with no place to hide there, but as if by some miracle they made it back without being seen.
"What's the plan?" She asked, heart beating wildly as the stood in front of the door leading to the floored lab.
"Same as before," Her former classmate answered, "get in, get my Pokémon, and get out before they even noticed us."
While he said that he pushed the door open just a crack and peered through. Voices sounded from behind it. "-don't know where the damn thing came from. First that blood sucking hyena and now a dragon of all things-" The conversation trailed off in the distance.
"Now is our chance, let's go."
There was a cowardly part of her that wanted to suggest she should stay back as a look out. But the part of her that felt responsible for guiding him here swallowed back any protest she may have raised and so she simply nodded.
Slowly, they crept forward and Xavier led them to an office to the side with a glass door. Sure enough, Yun recognized what had to be a PC with a surface that allowed the depositing and withdrawing of Pokéballs. They entered the the office in total silence and Xavier booted up the machine before she could even blink.
"Damn, there's more than seven hundred Pokémon in here." He sounded awed as he filtered through the list.
The machine made enough noise to make Yun cringe as one by one her friend recovered his stolen Pokémon. She recognized the ultra ball with relief.
"Great, we can get out of here now." She whispered carefully.
"Do you think these have all been stolen?" There was a hard tone in his voice and she knew what he was thinking.
"As terrible as this is, there's no way we can carry that many Pokéballs with us." She reasoned.
Instead of agreeing with her, he shrugged off his backpack and started rummaging though it, looking for something.
"Ikeda... let's leave." She nervously looked around, feeling very exposed from behind the glass door.
Ignoring her plea, he flashed her a triumphant grin when he pulled out a USB stick. "I knew I had it with me." He said, satisfied, as he plugged it in.
"What is it?" She asked, taking a step closer.
"My storage system." He replied offhandedly. "Or well, connection to my storage system, to be more accurate."
Having once looked at the price for a subscription to hold an extra ten Pokémon, and having then decided she would never be able to have more than six, she had to ask. "Can you even store that many Pokémon?"
"Sure, I have unlimited box space."
Of course he did.
"It might take a while to transfer all of them though."
Of course it would.
Yun once again glanced around nervously as Xavier started the process of sending all stolen Pokémon to his storage system. While they were uploading, he looked around and grabbed a nearby laptop.
"What are you doing?" She whispered harshly.
"I swear I've heard the name cipher before, I just can't remember where."
When the laptop needed a password to be accessed, he gave up and moved around the desk to rummage through some drawers. Yun looked back to the PC and saw the transferring went faster than she would have guessed. Pokémon were rapidly vanishing from the screen, no doubt to resurface in one of Xavier's boxes.
Turning back to Xavier, she was in a perfect position to witness the blood drain from his face and change from intensely focused into an expression that could only be described as a -scared for your life- kind of horrified.
A hand grabbed the back of her neck and a metallic click rung in her ear.
"Don't move."
AN: Sorry to leave you guys on a cliffhanger. On a bright note, the next chapter is almost halfway so you can expect the regular update next week.