Chapter Text
“I haven’t seen any signs of stray Pokemon yet, have you?” Ingo’s loud voice bounced off the curved stone walls of the Multiline tunnel. Emmet was on the opposite side of the tunnel, messing with the electric lantern he was carrying.
“Yes I have, I found her clinging to my lantern because she was hungry.” Emmet said and presented a Joltik in the palm of his hand with a flourish. She was busy rubbing her fuzzy head against Emmet’s glove, likely feeding off the static generated from it.
“Adorable, but I doubt that she’s the Pokemon passengers have reported seeing on their commute. You are far too small, little lady.” Ingo gave her a small smile and gently petted her head with his thumb. A spark from her fuzz zapped him, he quickly pulled back to shake the jolt of pain out of his hand.
“She’s strong too! You should battle with me if we find anything down here, since I had to leave the rest of my team in the healing station. You can battle on the Multilines later too. Do you want to?” He asked. The Joltik squeaked in agreement, she then crawled under his sleeve and buried herself in one of his coat pockets.
“You can’t keep winning with Joltiks on the battle trains, Emmet. It’s starting to lower the overall morale of our challengers.” Ingo jokingly replied. He caught sight of objects on the ground reflecting from Emmet’s lantern, he knelt down to pick up a few...Star Pieces and Nuggets?
“These are rather rare items for a wild Pokémon to just be carrying around.” He said mostly to himself, pocketing the items for later.
“There’s a lot of them too, I’ve already picked up a bunch of them.” Emmet said and flashed a few Star Pieces of his own. “At least we won’t have to worry about buying lunch for the next few months.” he smiled.
“If we won’t have to use them to fund repairs for the tunnels that is. This is the 3rd tunnel that has sustained structural damages and has reports of passengers seeing large and destructive Pokemon. The City will want to close down the station to launch a proper investigation if these incidents worsen or continue.” Ingo sighed, he wouldn’t be looking forward to meetings with some of the more rude city officials.
“All that red tape will disrrrupt our schedule.” Emmet lidded his eyes, he then put an arm in front of Ingo to stop him and pointed to a spot by the rails. “Ingo, look!” He said. The concrete beside the rails had long and thin cracks stretching from the tracks all the way to the wall.
“This would qualify as significant structural damage, we’ll need to close down the line for repairs. They appear to be fresh, this must have been from the Pokemon passengers have reported seeing earlier today. I don’t believe it was caused by a move though.” Ingo said, reaching a hand down to brush the fissures.
“The Pokemon that was here has to have been verrry heavy, it's likely a steel or rock type. We need to be careful.” Emmet said, Ingo nodded in acknowledgment and kept a hand hovering over his Pokeballs.
“Let us hope that it’s still nearby, best to capture it now before it becomes agitated and destroys the tunnel further.” Ingo stated, standing back up as they continued to walk down the tunnel.
It was eerily quiet and still, the sounds of their footsteps were muffled. Emmet could hear the reason why after a few minutes, a light constant buzz emanated in the space around them. A similar buzzing drone could be heard from the blue floating crystals in Chargestone cave. Usually it was because of the strong electromagnetic field. But this one doesn’t feel the same as the one in Chargestone, the magnetic field there constantly made him feel like his clothes were full of static.
This one was making it harder for him to breathe.
“Ingo, there’s an energy field here, kind of like the ones in Chargestone cavern. Can you feel it too?” Emmet asked and raised his lantern, it was flickering from the disturbance around them.
“Yes, but it certainly doesn’t feel like a magnetic field. The air is colder and heavier, more ethereal, a similar effect happens whenever I come into contact with Chandelure’s flames. It’s ghost-type energy, and a surplus of it as well. But what could be causing it? Not even flocks of Ghost-type Pokemon could accomplish something like this…” Ingo idly waved a hand in the air.
Emmet’s lantern suddenly fizzled out as the energy in the air began to charge, sparks and small bolts of lightning flashed and crackled near the top of the tunnel. A dreadful thundering noise rang out from the ceiling and violet mist phased in, trapping them and a section of the tunnel that spanned 20 yards in either direction in a chilled purple bubble of ghostly energy.
“Emmet, we need to exit this car now!” Ingo shouted over the sound of the rushing energy and static, pointing in the direction of where they came from. Emmet nodded and they started to run through the tunnel. Pokemon cries reverberated through the growing static as they ran.
Star Pieces and Colored Shards appeared on the floor of the tunnel. Then Pokemon began to teleport into the space, some of them letting out cries before being whisked away again. Others remained for a little longer, they had to dodge by some Pokemon large enough to almost reach the ceiling of the tunnel. Having to stop for a second while an Onix flashed rapidly flashed in and then out.
The Onix was hiding a large Sylveon with bright red eyes a few feet ahead of them. It cried out so violently that the sound reverberated through them. It then flared the ends of its sparkling ribbons and glowed white in the dark tunnel.
Ingo stilled and stepped in front of Emmet before the Sylveon cried out again and the tunnel was filled with blinding light.
Emmet had automatically shut his eyes and ducked behind Ingo when the attack began, only opening them when the attack ended and the world behind his eyelids was dark again. Ingo was hunched over in front of him, his head in his hands and breathing heavily. The Sylveon ahead was already trying to charge up another Dazzling Gleam.
“Come on Ingo, we need to move now!” Emmet said. Ingo only let out a pained groan in response and scrubbed his eyes with his sleeve. A pop echoed next to them and revealed an enraged Chandelure, her fires flared and she screeched at the Sylveon.
“Fire Blast Chandelure! Then Shadow ball! Distract it while I get Ingo to safety!” Emmet called out. Chandelure’s arms spun, her flames growing as she shot a giant blast of fire at the Sylveon. It fully turned its attention onto her while Emmet slung one of Ingo’s arms over his shoulder to rush him away from the battle.
“Chandelure…I need to help her.” Ingo ground out from Emmet’s shoulder.
Emmet heard the cry of the Sylveon being defeated behind them and smiled.
“It’s okay, she’s already won the battle. She should be on route to us now.” He reassured, speeding up their pace to the edge of the energy field. They were nearly there.
Chandelure screeched again in panic. Emmet looked back and saw that Chandelure had been cornered by multiple angry Pokemon. Ingo managed to recover enough to look around and saw her too. He quickly removed his arm from around Emmet’s shoulder to pull her Pokeball off his belt. He pressed the center button and held it out in her direction.
“Chandelure, return!” He called out, the red laser of the ball shot across the tunnel and safely enveloped her in red light before a red-eyed Ursaring could crunch her. The group of Pokemon then set their furious sights onto the twins. A Carnivine shot off an energy ball while the Ursaring charged towards them.
Emmet managed to pull them out of the way of the energy ball, but didn’t move fast enough to avoid the Ursaring. It stopped seven feet away from them and started to glow orange as it gathered power. The concrete below its feet cracked and the ground began to rumble and then shake in small warning quakes.
Ingo grabbed onto Emmet’s shoulder to keep his balance, his other hand was covering his eyes again. He leaned onto Emmet when more warning quakes shook the ground more intensely.
Emmet only had a few seconds to make a decision before the full Earthquake was unleashed.
The only way they could make it to the edge of the energy field was to run for it.
Ingo’s injured and too disoriented to run without Emmet’s help. He also wouldn’t be able to tank an Earthquake attack either.
Neither of them would make it to safety fast enough if Emmet tried to run while supporting Ingo.
Ingo was in far more danger than Emmet right now, he could get him to safety first if he-
The Ursaring roared and he needed to act now. Planting his feet and using his full weight, Emmet roughly shoved Ingo away and towards the wall of energy in front of them.
“Emmet! What are you doing?” Ingo shouted out in surprise.
“You need to get behind the yellow line now, Ingo!” Emmet shouted back.
Ingo stumbled and fell through the edge of the energy field, hopefully landing safely on the other side.
Emmet tried to follow after him as the ground started to convulse violently. It was much, much stronger than any of Haxorus or Excadrill’s Earthquakes. The concrete under him split into massive fissures, he immediately lost his balance and fell to his knees. The lantern he was carrying rolled across the ground and through the wall of purple to join Ingo.
He attempted to get up when light flooded his vision and was hit with a wave of vertigo. The floor then gave out from underneath him and he was met with rushing air. The Ursaring roared behind him but was suddenly cut off, leaving him to fall in silence. A dragon-type Pokemon cried out somewhere in the distance.
He kept falling, and falling, and falling until he was met with dirt and grass below him. He shakily lifted himself up to look around, his vision was too blurred to see anything more than colors and sunlight around him.
A dot of lavender was moving above the tall grasses, it stilled for a second and then rushed over to him. A person was now anxiously staring at him. They were talking, but Emmet couldn’t process anything they were saying.
He tried to stand up but the person in front of him put their hands on his shoulders to stop him. Another wave of disorientation crashed over him, sending him back onto the ground as his mind went blank and he blacked out.