Julianna cautiously made her way down to the dining hall.
From what Rinto said she expected a few people.
She did not expect the dining hall to be nearly full.
"Julianna over here" Nashi waived over from one of the tables.
"Yeesh I didn't think when he texted that he meant this many people" Julianna sighed.
"Guess he knows a lot of people" Cherry surmised.
"Julianna you made it!" Rinto said waltzing over to their table.
"Florian couldn't make it?"
"No, he said he didn't feel like going out"
"Ahh understandable" Rinto looked back and forth like he was hiding something "Say do any of you know how to drive?"
"I do" Nashi raised his hand.
"Why the hell would we drive anywhere and where would you even get a car?" Julianna asked.
"Not cars a bus the academy has one for field trips" he replied.
Julianna gulped nervously. What exactly was Rinto planning?
"Anyway big thank you to Nashi I'll show you to it I got keys to the whole school"
Julianna wanted to leave.
Whatever Rinto was planning this didn't sound like a good idea.
But at the same time, she didn't want to just leave, if her friends were potentially getting into a dangerous situation she didn't want to just leave them.
And she couldn't lie she was more than a little curious about what Rinto was planning.
…
Julianna couldn't figure out where they were going.
The bus ride was rather awkward. Although Nashi had a little bit of experience driving back in Johto it was still hard for him to maneuver a bus down a steep road.
Julianna was almost nodding off when the bus came to a stop.
"Alright, we're here!" Rinto announced excitedly.
Julianna got out and she realized where they were.
"The Great Crater of Paldea. No public access beyond this point violaters we'll be arrested"
"What the hell Rinto you brought us to The Great Crater are you crazy!" Julianna yelled.
"Relax you think I don't know what I'm doing" Rinto smirked leading them to the entrance.
Rinto flipped a switch and the gates opened, allowing them to walk inside.
"How were you able to open that?" Someone asked.
"Pays to have a sister in the elite 4" Rinto replied.
"Did you bribe you're way in here?" Julianna asked in alarm.
"No, no I just borrowed her keys"
"You stole your sister's keys to break in here!"
"Relax Julianna you make it sound worse than it is"
"How am I supposed to make it sound good then"
"Quite I hear something!" Cherry hissed.
At the edge of a large open field, a flock of Talonflame took off.
"You afraid of some birds?"
Rinto led them further across a field into the crater.
A part of Julianna wanted to turn back, sit this out, and wait because she knew something bad was bound to happen and that stupid smirk would be wiped off Rinto's face.
But another part of her wanted to stay. A part of it was because of her friends, she couldn't leave them to deal with whatever went wrong. But another, bigger part of her was also curious.
This was the first time she had seen The Great Crater from the inside and it was a pretty amazing place.
Beyond the very fresh and clean environments untouched by the outside world the walls were lined with gigantic crystals casting a faint purple glow over the landscape.
It made the whole crater seem alien.
And unwelcoming.
It made her feel like they didn't belong and that they should leave.
Strange noises rang out from deeper in the cavern.
"What was that?" someone asked in alarm.
"It's probably nothing" Rinto reassured.
Another cry rang out from the darkness.
It sounded like a Hydreigon but with something off about it.
"Is a Hydreigon nothing to you!" Julianna snapped.
"Don't worry about it Gallade can handle it"
Everyone else sent out their Pokémon although everyone here was still new trainers so if anything attacked Rintos Gallade was their only line of defense.
Julianna eyed the darkness looking to Quaxly then to Nashi and Cherry and then back to the darkness.
The strange Hydreigon roared again but was cut off by something.
The pink glow of a fairy attack illuminated the darkness.
Everyone tensed up their Pokémon cowering in against each other.
Except for Quaxly, he wanted to show up everyone and happily stood beside Gallade.
"Jair get back here!" Julianna tried but Quaxly wasn't listening.
There was a new cry coming from the darkness.
To Julianna, it sounded like a speech. It was complete gibberish and garbled nonsense but there was a distinct pattern that conveyed it was some sort of speech.
A pair of piercing pink eyes stuck out from the darkness.
Everyone started screaming and ordering their Pokémon to attack.
People were running around in every direction trying to make their way back to the gate.
Julianna was knocked over by another student and in the chaos she was able to see their attacker in full view.
It was a Pokémon like none she had ever seen. It looked like Gallade and Gardevoir mixed together but shorter than either. It was metallic chrome in color with a few pink accents.
It dodged a Psyco Cut from Rinto's Gallade with ease only to bump into Quaxly's Aqua Jet, but it reacted like it wasn't even hit.
Deciding that this wasn't worth its time the strange Pokémon bolted away reaching the open gate in a few paces.
Before anyone else had seen it the Pokémon was gone into the night, with no evidence that it was even there.
Julianna quickly returned Jair to his Pokeball and sprinted back to the gates she didn't want to risk running into anything else.
Rinto closed the gate once everyone was out.
Julianna could see something was up with him.
His eyes were looking past here where the Pokémon had run off.
"Iron Valiant it's real I saw it" he repeated like a mantra.
Everyone was looking at him expecting him to give them commands.
"We don't speak a word of this" Julianna decided to speak up for him "As far as we're all concerned this never happened understood?"
"Understood" everyone replied in unison.
"Good now everyone get on the bus and let's get back to the academy"
Julianna looked back at Rinto who was still looking into the distance.
What was this Iron Valiant and why was it so important to him?
End Credit Song The Moss Cosmo Sheldrake
The first Gym battle is coming in the next chapter then the story should hopefully pick up.