The Path of Destiny
Chapter 56 - Stonedust City's Underworld
Damian’s eyes widened as he stared at the pokégear in shock. His hand shaking, he rapidly jammed the buttons over and over, hoping it would somehow bring the signal back and allow him to contact his friend, or the police, or anyone. However, the signal remained dead; no information was going to leave his pokégear as long as he was in these subterranean passages, and his only way out was blocked by an unmovable door with an enemy just behind it.
“Oh no…oh no, no, no…this can’t be happening!” Damian gasped, collapsing partway against the wall as strength left his legs. Nightshade ran over to steady him, and Snowcrystal opened the backpack wider so she could poke her head out and give the trainer a tentative lick on his face. Damian, however, didn’t seem to notice. “They’re gonna kill me…they’re gonna kill me!”
“Damian…Damian, listen to me,” Nightshade began, gripping Damian’s tattered vest in his claws. However, he realized immediately afterward that, while Arien was in his poké ball, there was no way for the human to understand him. He also knew that if Damian was seen walking with two powerful pokémon, it could start to look suspicious.
It became clear to Nightshade that Damian was totally out of his element. He was used to dealing with threats he would come across while in his travels in the wilderness. Down underground beneath the city, he wouldn’t be able to use his usual methods to escape. Nightshade knew he had to help Damian calm down so he could think more clearly and focus on the situation.
Damian sunk to his knees, his breathing quickening as he stared blankly ahead. Unfortunately, he had neglected to remember Snowcrystal, still hiding in the backpack, and the growlithe was pushed against the wall as he leaned back. “What am I going to do, Nightshade?” he cried, looking at the heracross with panicked eyes. “Maybe I could…Arien…Arien could find a way out! Or find Blazefang! No, no…too many pokémon here…he wouldn’t be able to find him…and, and they’ve got psychics on their side so one alakazam won’t break through their defenses and they’re probably-”
Nightshade grabbed Damian’s arm, holding him still as he tapped the poké ball on the trainer’s belt that contained Arien. Damian stared at him in confusion for several moments before he realized Nightshade wanted to speak with him. Shakily, he picked up Arien’s poké ball and released the alakazam.
“Arien,” Nightshade began as soon as the psychic type had formed, “do you think you could teleport us out of here?”
“I’m not sure…” the alakazam replied. “Something’s not right…” He glanced around, seemingly looking at thin air, and Nightshade saw nothing when he followed his gaze, wondering if whatever Arien was sensing was really something he could see at all. “But I’ll try.”
Giving the message to Damian through their psychic link, the alakazam reached out and grabbed the trainer’s hand, then Nightshade’s claws. Both Damian and the heracross could feel Arien’s psychic move begin to take effect, but before they were transported, it suddenly died down, leaving them both feeling as if nothing had happened.
“It’s no good,” Arien muttered. “They’ve done something to this place…whether it’s other psychic pokémon or something else, I can’t use teleport.”
“So…we really are trapped?” Snowcrystal asked, peering from the backpack at the alakazam.
“Try to blend in and find another way out,” the alakazam replied, ignoring her. He turned to Damian, looking as if he were communicating with him again. Snowcrystal watched as the trainer shakily reached out with the poké ball and returned him.
“What was that for?” Snowcrystal asked Nightshade. “Arien could have stayed out and helped us!”
“It would look suspicious if he had two powerful pokémon out at once,” Nightshade replied. “It would look like he was using us as bodyguards. And we don’t know who else is going to come through here.” He glanced uneasily toward the door.
Damian’s moment of calm suddenly broke, and he began to pace back and forth rapidly, his eyes darting from side to side. “What’ll happen if we don’t pass as gamblers? Er…I mean, that I won’t…heracross don’t gamble…you know what I mean… But if they catch us, we could-” He backed up to the wall again, slowly sliding down to a sitting position.
Before Damian could continue with his ramble, Nightshade reached forward and gently gripped the boy’s shoulders, stopping the rocking motion he was beginning to make. The heracross’s eyes were worried as he stared into the trainer’s. “Damian, please try to focus,” he said. “We can do this.” He hoped his meaning would get across despite the lack of a translator.
Unfortunately, the meaning seemed to be lost on Damian as the trainer let out a small whimper and placed his hands against the sides of his head before suddenly jumping to his feet, which startled both Nightshade and Snowcrystal. “We’re trapped! What do we do…we can’t go back! We’ve gotta…we’ve gotta think of something…act the part, yes. We’ve…oh no, how are we gonna get out of here?”
In a panic, he flung his arms around Nightshade, pulling the bug type closer to him as he clenched his eyes tightly closed. Nightshade looked a little surprised, and Snowcrystal rapidly tried to think of something they could do to help Damian, realizing that although he had been very confident when they had first met in the wilderness, she knew that he didn’t know how to handle things when his plans went wrong. She wondered if there was something she could do, but before she came to a conclusion, the boy’s eyes snapped open. He backed away from Nightshade, extending his hands out toward him as if he were pretending to be disgusted. “No, no, I’m in an underground crime ring of pokémon abusers…can’t show affection…” he mused to himself. A moment later, he collapsed to the floor again, sobbing, “They’re going to kill me!”
Nightshade was beginning to think that Arien should have been left out of his poké ball a little bit longer. The heracross moved closer to Damian, butting him lightly with his horn to get his attention. When the terrified trainer looked at him, Nightshade made a mock-fighting movement, as if he was pretending to ram invisible enemies with his horn. He turned to Damian again, making a protective stance and giving him a confident nod. He gave a short statement of encouragement, which to Damian merely sounded like “Herra-croh!” but this time, the meaning got through to him.
“Okay,” he began, stepping forward. “I just gotta act natural, and if anything goes wrong, I’ve got a powerful pokémon on my side, right? Right…” Still filled with obvious fear, he took a few more tentative steps forward, eyeing the dark tunnel ahead.
Nightshade stayed by his side, also looking into the gloom. The lighting was so poor that it was hard to see which direction the tunnel turned at its end. He was glad that, at least, the other trainers who had walked ahead of them seemed too far away to have heard any of Damian’s outbursts, and since there was no activity from behind the door, it was probably soundproof. That made sense, as this was a place that was meant to be hidden.
“Nightshade?” Damian asked in a frightened voice, prompting the heracross to turn to him. “If…anything goes wrong and it’s too much for you to handle, I’ll catch you and Snowcrystal. They can’t hurt you if you’re transported to the PC system.” His expression changed from one of small confidence to one of barely-concealed horror. “Unless their psychic pokémon have barriers to prevent that…” he added uncertainly.
Further conversation was made impossible as the door behind them suddenly opened, and two trainers – the one from earlier who had stayed behind, and a second they didn’t recognize – walked through. Damian, without thinking, started to move toward the open doorway, but was stopped by the unfamiliar trainer. Damian realized as soon as his escape was cut off that this trainer was far bigger and stronger than he was, and likely had strong pokémon to match.
“What are you thinking?” the trainer growled at him, shoving him back. “The store’s closed; you can’t go back that way. Get moving!” Damian winced as he heard the door closing behind them, sealing them inside.
“Max, calm down,” the first trainer stated, his voice still sounding as slurred as Damian had remembered it from when he’d first heard him speak. “He’s probably just running from someone he owes money to. He’s not doing any harm.”
The larger trainer, Max, reeked of alcohol even stronger than his friend did, and Damian found himself backing even further away as the man’s eyes bored into him. “I don’t trust him…he’s shifty looking,” Max grunted.
Beside him, Damian noticed Nightshade tense up. Though he still appeared – to the other trainers at least – relaxed and aloof, Damian could tell that he was prepared to fight at a moment’s notice. He edged a bit closer to the heracross, hoping the other two men wouldn’t notice.
“Oh, come on!” shouted the first trainer, an impatient whine to his voice. “They’re already starting, let’s just go.”
“He’s-”
“Look at ‘is heracross! Does that look like a trainer who can skillfully command a pokémon?” He pointed a finger at Nightshade, or more accurately, a bit off to his left, swaying a little on his feet.
“Lots of people here have hurt pokémon,” Max growled.
The other trainer only laughed. “You think he’s been in an arena fight? You’ve gotta be kidding me! A pathetic trainer like him wouldn’t end up with a pokémon walking out of a fight looking as good as this one does.”
The trainer jabbed his finger at Nightshade, and Damian suddenly wondered what pokémon who survived the arena usually came out looking like. He edged even closer to Nightshade.
“He’s just another crummy trainer,” the more easygoing of the two men continued. “Now come on, let’s go.”
“All right,” Max agreed, and Damian nearly sighed with relief as the two walked toward the hallway. “…But he goes first. I don’t like him waiting around here.”
Damian realized that Max was staring right at him again, gesturing for him to walk down the tunnel ahead of them. The last thing he wanted to do was walk with those two at his back, but he realized that he had no choice. Max already found him suspicious, and he couldn’t risk giving himself away until they at least found another escape route. Nodding numbly, he walked into the gloom with Nightshade trailing behind him.
They walked down the narrow hallway, the dim, pulsating lights above them giving the place a chilling, uneasy feel to it. Damian repeatedly told himself that Nightshade was right behind him, and Snowcrystal would definitely be useful in a pinch, as she had an element of surprise that the two other trainers were unaware of.
They carried on down the passage, and both Snowcrystal and Nightshade could pick up the sound of shouting...no, cheering…from somewhere down below. And then came the smells…the smells of death and decay, of blood and smoke. It made each of them want to gag, but Nightshade strode on confidently in spite of it, and Snowcrystal covered her nose with her paws, trying not to make sudden movements that could alert the other trainers to her presence.
They passed many doors, but each of them were closed. The trainers made no indication that they were to enter any of the doors, so they were sure they were meant to keep following the hallway. And then, when it seemed like the hallway would never end, they came upon a dingy-looking elevator.
The machine looked rickety and unsteady, little more than a metal platform surrounded by beams. However, Damian only hesitated momentarily before he remembered he had to act like this was something he had done many times before. Reluctantly, he stepped onto the structure.
It was surprisingly stable, and didn’t even rattle as he and Nightshade stepped onto it, followed by the two trainers. He watched Max press a button on a panel at one end of the elevator, and the metal beneath their feet shuddered and began to descend.
The ride was oddly smooth, and they passed several floors, most of which looked empty. One only seemed to contain what looked like the remains of a massive storeroom. More rooms passed by and the elevator came to a halt on the bottom floor. Damian wasn’t sure how far underground they were, and he had a feeling this wasn’t the deepest part of the place.
They stepped off the elevator and into another hallway. Damian glanced over his shoulder as he heard the elevator shudder again, and saw it rising upward of its own accord, waiting for whoever would use it next. He turned around, noticing that Max was still eyeing him suspiciously. Trying hard not to appear nervous, he carried on.
The hallway was much shorter than the previous one, and soon, they stepped into a much brighter area. Damian realized he was looking at a massive room at least three stories tall, with various doors edged around one side of its interior. There were metal walkways on the upper floors, doors ringing those stories as well. There was a large square booth in an area situated away from the doors, where several trainers and powerful-looking pokémon were waiting. Damian assumed it was a betting booth.
However, his attention was quickly drawn back to the sets of doors that went three stories up. He could hear pokémon cries behind them…pokémon who were not fighting, but merely scared or hurt or angry. For whatever reason, some of the trainers were keeping their pokémon behind those doors. His heart raced; that was where he needed to go.
“Well, come on!” a voice called, but when Damian turned, it was merely Max’s friend addressing the more irritable trainer.
Damian wondered if he should ask him what the pokémon were doing in those rooms. Yet he was afraid that if he did, he would be revealing that he didn’t know something that might very well be common knowledge to everyone else with access to the fighting ring. In the end, he decided to keep his mouth shut.
Knowing that the trainers at the booth had a clear view of the entire room, and he couldn’t sneak off to find the pokémon behind the doors that way, he was left with little choice but to follow the two drunken trainers into a hallway situated in a wall opposite where the doors were. The hallway was much larger and wider than the others he’d been through. As they walked through it and reached another, far larger elevator platform, the sounds of hundreds of voices reached their ears.
They boarded the elevator and it lowered, passing a dark wall of concrete at least a few stories high before Damian and the others suddenly found themselves standing above a truly massive room, putting even the previous one to shame. Staring at it, Damian, Nightshade, and Snowcrystal could feel nothing but a surreal sense of horror.
Rings of stands almost as big as the ones he’d seen for Pokémon League battlefields, and towering nearly as high as the massive room itself, circled the entire room, and in the center of them, was the arena. The elevator was too high up for them to get a good look at what was happening below, but Damian could see that the arena was surrounded by blindingly bright stadium lights, and massive television screens were set up, hanging from the center and every corner of the ceiling. Damian didn’t give them more than a glance, as from his position on the elevator, he couldn’t see the screens on the ones closest to him, and his attention was drawn more to the people in the stands.
There were hundreds of trainers. The stands were absolutely packed, and both Damian and the pokémon could now see all too clearly that the “big name” fighters like Master were certainly a big deal. As they were lowered closer to the ground, which was more like a small upper ‘floor’ from which they could walk down into the stands, the noise of the cheering audience became deafeningly loud. Damian was nearly knocked off his feet as the elevator came to a stop, having been so focused on the arena stands that he hadn’t noticed they had reached the floor of the upper walkway. He quickly made his way over to the nearest sets of stairs, wondering if he could quickly get a seat and then pretend to slip away while the other trainers were too focused on the battle.
As he moved downward, he made a point not to look at what was in the arena. He could see that Nightshade was doing the same. Neither of them wanted to know what was happening to whatever pokémon were locked in battle below them.
Snowcrystal had a much more limited view, only able to see through the gap in the backpack’s zipper. However, she could see enough to know that Damian was going to have a hard time finding a seat; every single space on the benches seemed to be taken up by a trainer.
Suddenly she felt herself and the backpack be knocked against Damian’s back, and realized that Max had pushed Damian forward by shoving him in the back. Damian stumbled, but managed to regain his footing, and Snowcrystal gritted her teeth, reminding herself to move only very carefully, so no one could tell she was inside.
“Hey, look at this!” the less hostile of the two trainers that had been tailing them cried. “Someone left us front row seats!”
Snowcrystal peered through the backpack’s opening, and luckily Damian, sensing that she was trying to get a look, thought to turn his body enough to give her a view. The trainer was pointing to a group of seats very close to the edge of the arena itself. It was still far below them, but even from a distance she could see the other two trainers, who had questioned Damian when he’d come near the secret entrance, waiting beside the bench. They were saving more spots at the front, and Snowcrystal had to wonder how they’d managed to get them.
“Yeah, why don’t you sit with us?” Max’s taunting, drunken voice reached them, and he gave Damian a barely-concealed glare. “Then you can see a real pokémon battle up close. You can pay us back later.”
“Uh, well, uh…sure,” Damian mumbled, his voice barely heard over the sound of the crowd.
Snowcrystal had the sinking feeling that these trainers were going to demand a very large amount of money from him later in exchange for the seat, which would cause trouble when he wasn’t able to pay it. She wished Damian had thought it out more before answering. She reminded herself, however, that they planned to sneak away and find out where Master and his pokémon were before the trainers would get a chance to try to take money from Damian.
“Oh, what’s wrong with your heracross, little boy?” a jeering, condescending voice sounded from beside them. Damian nearly stopped walking as a rather mean-looking woman with a well-groomed delcatty by her side gave him a fake pitying look. “Did it get hurt? And are you sure you’re in the right place? You look a little lost,” she continued, imitating the sound of a concerned adult having found a lone child. A moment later, she burst into raucous laughter at the sight of Damian’s shocked face.
Damian quickly turned away, and though Snowcrystal couldn’t see his face, she could sense that he was scared. Nightshade could tell, too, and as he looked up at Damian, he noticed the boy’s eyes darting from side to side, finally noticing that it wasn’t just that one woman staring at him; many of the trainers in the stands on either side of the stairs were as well.
“I don’t think I’m fooling anyone who’s not drunk,” Damian whispered, only loud enough for the two pokémon to hear.
Snowcrystal was worried. Damian may have passed for a gambling trainer – albeit an odd one – at the department store, but here, she knew that his fear and uncertainty was probably plastered all over his face. The other trainers could sense something was up.
Nevertheless, Damian walked until he came to the bottom rows of the stands, the two trainers who were friends with Max and his pal having saved a section of the bench right by the stairs for them.
Luckily, Damian was allowed to let them go first and sit on the very edge, giving him a quick route to the stairs whenever the moment to escape should arise. Snowcrystal didn’t think it would be easy. To get out, they would have to walk back up past all those suspicious and cruel-looking trainers.
Nightshade stood in the stairway by Damian’s seat as the trainer slung his backpack around to his shoulder in order to more comfortably sit. Unfortunately, this gave Snowcrystal a view of what was lying below them, and suddenly none of them could avoid looking into the arena any longer.
Two trainers were standing on raised platforms above the arena itself, which lay in a huge, oval-shaped pit in the center of the room. Two pokémon could be seen near the middle of the pit. The first was a kabutops. It was standing almost in the direct center of the arena, where a poké ball shape had been drawn in black lines, as if in some sort of sick mockery of the Pokémon League stadiums Snowcrystal had seen in books in the library. The kabutops was covered in wounds she knew would rarely, if ever, occur in even the most serious of League battles. One of its scythes had been broken off at the halfway point, and she was so close to the arena, she could see the pokémon flinching in pain even without looking at the television screens overhead, which she could now tell were showing all the grisly details of the battle.
Or, more accurately, the battle’s aftermath.
The other pokémon was a heracross that was lying in a pool of its own blood. Its body was nearly severed in two, its lower half attached only by thick strands of flesh. The pokémon’s claws weakly scrabbled in the sticky red liquid, unable to cry out due to its mouth being filled with blood. The kabutops merely stood back, still awaiting a command from its trainer that didn’t seem to be coming as both humans watched the heracross in its death throes.
Damian couldn’t help letting out a horrified cry, which he luckily managed to stifle quickly. From what Snowcrystal could see of him, he looked frozen, as still as a statue and unable to turn away, his face etched in shock and horror.
Feeling just as horrified and utterly sick, Snowcrystal turned away from the sight, pushing her head against the backpack’s zipper until it opened wider so she had more room to look in other directions. She looked at Nightshade, who was staring at the heracross’s human, and flinched in surprise. This was the first time she had ever seen Nightshade look murderous.
After what felt like an eternity, Snowcrystal heard rousing cheers from the audience, and she glanced at the arena again to see the heracross go completely limp. There were also many shouts of anger, and several trainers threw cans or trash into the lower stands in fury. Snowcrystal remembered with utter revulsion that the humans had been betting on these battles, hoping a certain pokémon would die so that they could get a payoff.
An announcer’s voice rang out from several points on the ceiling above, and suddenly all the television screens showed the kabutops’s triumphant trainer. The man’s hands were in the air as he joined in the cheering, not even glancing at his wounded pokémon below. Three poké ball symbols flashed beneath his image on the screen, showing a kabutops, a victreebel, and a hitmontop within them. The hitmontop’s shape, unlike the others, was shown in black and white, and a large red X covered it. Snowcrystal realized that this had to mean that the pokémon had lost. This trainer’s pokémon had died, yet he was celebrating his victory as if it hardly mattered in comparison to the win. Snowcrystal wondered how any amount of money could make a human act this way. She turned away from the screen as it then showed an image of the heracross’s severed body, some brightly colored words racing along the top of the screen.
Snowcrystal turned her attention to the real trainer of the kabutops, a small figure standing on a platform instead of a giant image on a screen, who reached out and returned his pokémon to its poké ball. Afterwards, the ball was placed in a machine on the platform that was just the right height for the trainer to easily reach with his hand. Snowcrystal was close enough to see a poké ball sized indentation on its small surface, and sure enough, the trainer placed the ball right in that spot. Electricity seemed to jump over the poké ball before it vanished.
And she saw, for a split second, a holographic screen pop up in front of the machine, and the image of a cage-like structure, then the kabutops being released inside that structure, flashed across it. She was sure that if she was further back in the stands, she wouldn’t have been able to see it. Though almost as soon as it had appeared, it was gone. The trainer, who had been staring right at the screen when it happened, seemed nonplussed.
“What was that for?” Snowcrystal whispered to Nightshade, who looked as if he’d noticed the same thing.
Nightshade spoke lowly, his head lowered close to the backpack. “Those pokémon cries we heard from behind those doors? I think that’s where all the contestants’ pokémon are held during the battles. To prevent cheating, I imagine.”
“But why put them in cages? Why not leave them in their poké balls?” Snowcrystal whispered back, glad that the noise of the crowd would prevent any of the other spectators’ pokémon from hearing them.
“Part of it’s probably so that they can be treated for injuries,” Nightshade replied. “But what I think the main reason is…” He paused, watching as the kabutops’s trainer proudly walked down from the platform, and his opponent made a stiff, less enthusiastic descent from his. “I think it’s so the people running this thing can see everything. The pokémon is in their sight before and after the battle, so the trainers can’t try anything funny, or leave any item in the poké ball that could give them an unfair advantage. This would also give them a chance to check each pokémon physically, to see if the trainers used any…illegal means to strengthen them.”
“So Blazefang and Thunder are somewhere in that room?”
“I think they are,” Nightshade replied. He and Snowcrystal glanced to Damian, noting that he seemed to have come to the same realization after seeing the screen. He looked like he wanted to make a break for it right then and there, and Snowcrystal didn’t blame him; after all, they had no idea how long it would be before it was Master’s turn to battle. Nightshade continued, “That would mean they’re only in their poké balls for a few seconds – to and from the arena – and the rest of the time they’re waiting around in a cage.”
“We’ve got to get there now,” she whispered.
“I know,” Nightshade replied, with a worried tone to his voice that she was not used to hearing. “But it won’t be that simple. The cage area has got to be crawling with human and pokémon guards working for the ones who run the arena. These battlers aren’t stupid; if they’re entrusting their pokémon to this system, it has to be extremely secure.”
“…Right,” Snowcrystal said in a whimper. She suddenly realized just how impossible their task seemed; she didn’t have any idea how they would even get near the cages. She wasn’t even sure the police officers and pokémon she had seen in the city streets would have stood a chance against something like this.
Snowcrystal felt the backpack being lifted up, and caught the gruesome glimpse of a conkeldurr dragging the heracross’s body off the arena floor and into an opening that had appeared on the far end of the pit. She could see nothing but darkness in it, and as the conkeldurr disappeared with the heracross, she imagined the bodies of brutally killed pokémon, carelessly thrown in a heap after their defeats as if they were garbage. She didn’t imagine their meat would even be fed to other pokémon; it was a completely pointless death that stripped the pokémon of any dignity after they had passed away.
She braced herself as the backpack was slung over Damian’s back, and he stood up, much to the protest of the people sitting behind him. Damian, unable to hide the terror in his voice, stuttered “I…I-I’m, going to g-get…something…” as an excuse before stepping onto the stairs.
As he began to walk, shakily, up the stairs, ignoring the stares of the other trainers, Snowcrystal heard the announcer voice again. The first was for a trainer named Gregory Terroe, and a very thin man stepped up to the platform where the heracross’s trainer had been, his image flashing across the television screens with three poké balls – with no image of the pokémon inside them this time – appearing beneath the words she thought were probably his name. Several seconds afterward, a second name was announced.
“Nathaniel Mausk!”
Another trainer stepped up to the opposite platform. This one was also tall, but looked more muscular than thin, and was wearing clothes that she could tell by human standards were very nice. Snowcrystal only got a glance at the figure as Damian tried to scramble up the stairs, and it was only when that second trainer’s image flashed across the television screens that she saw him clearly. And her blood ran cold.
It was Master.
Nightshade had obviously seen as well, because he reached out and gripped Damian’s arm in his claws, nearly knocking him off his feet as the boy tried to step forward.
“Nightshade, wha-” He broke off, having whirled around to look at the heracross only to catch sight of the television screens. “Oh no…”
“What are we going to do?” Snowcrystal whispered to Nightshade, who merely looked back at her with an equally terrified expression. She couldn’t get a good look at the arena anymore; Damian seemed like he’d frozen solid.
“Hey, sit down!” a voice yelled, and before Snowcrystal could try to look at whoever had shouted, she and Damian were roughly shoved.
This time, Damian lost his footing and tumbled down the stairs near where they had been sitting before. A few pokémon in the stands hissed or growled at them as Damian crashed to the ground, and the trainers around them didn’t seem pleased either. Nightshade rushed over to Damian, helping him back on his feet. Looking up, they could see that the first round of the battle was about to commence.
“I have an idea,” Damian gasped as Nightshade led him back to the seat, wary of the attention they were attracting from the other viewers. He lowered his voice so only the heracross and growlithe could hear. “If he sends Blazefang out into the arena…I’ll let Scytheclaw out…he’s the fastest pokémon…he can jump down there, get him, and get out. And then we’ll…” He trailed off. “…Think of something to do when everyone sees us stealing a pokémon...”
Snowcrystal turned toward Master, or Nathanial Mausk, realizing that if he planned to use Blazefang, any hope they had of stopping him was already gone. All they could do now was hope that they could somehow rescue Blazefang – and get out of there in one piece – before he could use Shadowflare. She realized with a sinking feeling that Damian wouldn’t even be able to capture the houndour before he had a chance to use the attack; he belonged to Mausk now, and therefore already had a poké ball. Whatever happened, she knew that they couldn’t afford to leave their place so close to the arena itself; it was their only hope of getting to Blazefang in time.
With the sound of a loud, blaring horn, the two warring trainers sent out their pokémon. Snowcrystal gave a sharp intake of breath as the light from Master’s poké ball formed into the shape of a pokémon, but to her relief, it wasn’t Blazefang. It was a green, serpent-like pokémon she recognized as a serperior. The grass type was so covered in scars, it reminded her greatly of Thunder. She remembered how much the scyther hated being around most other pokémon, and suddenly wondered if any of the longer scars on the serperior’s body had been caused by Thunder herself.
The serperior slid anxiously around its half of the arena. As the cameras zoomed in on it, showing its image on the screens above, Snowcrystal could see the crazed look in his eyes. A look that reminded her all too well of how Thunder had looked when she’d attacked Nightshade.
The other trainer’s pokémon was a poliwrath. The water type looked less agitated than the serperior, and stood, almost completely unmoving, while he waited for the battle to start.
“Not exactly a fair matchup,” one of the trainers in the crowd near them chuckled. “Mausk is going to wipe the floor with this guy!”
Snowcrystal glanced to the poliwrath’s trainer, who looked visibly worried, glancing into the arena and at the machine on his platform as if he didn’t want to look straight at Mausk. She had a feeling that it was more than just the type disadvantage that had him so nervous.
“If the opponent is not much of a threat, he may not send Blazefang out,” Nightshade whispered to her, but she could sense a tone of immense worry in his voice, and she could tell it wasn’t just for Blazefang.
The sound of a second horn, even louder this time, signaled the start of the battle. Snowcrystal found herself unable to look away as the serperior launched itself toward the poliwrath with agility impressive even for one of its species. The end of its tail lit up in a bright glow, something Snowcrystal recognized as a leaf blade attack. She noticed that Master hadn’t even needed to shout out a command.
Before the poliwrath could react, the leaf blade connected with a force Snowcrystal was sure would kill a lesser pokémon. She winced and looked away a sickening slicing sound met her ears, followed by the splatter of blood.
She opened her eyes, her gaze turning almost involuntarily back to the battlefield, suddenly wishing she could close up the backpack further. The poliwrath was on its feet, and had managed to grab the serperior by its neck and lower body. The grass pokémon thrashed, and a flurry of leaves appeared around both of them, prompting cries of agony from the poliwrath. Still, it did not let go, and Snowcrystal watched as the froglike pokémon delivered a crushing brick break attack to the serperior’s back.
She was sure it would have broken the serperior’s spine had it not twisted its body in just the right way when the attack hit. Dazed, the snakelike pokémon slumped to the ground, and the poliwrath gripped its neck, delivering a powerful punch to the grass pokémon’s face as it tried to strike with another leaf blade. Before the poliwrath could deal much damage, long vines appeared from the serperior’s neck, wrapping around the frog pokémon and holding it still.
The other trainer seemed to realize how much trouble he was in, but still managed to call out, “Poliwrath, surf! Now!”
A wave of water tore the serperior from its grip, sending it crashing toward the opposite wall of the arena. Snowcrystal had never seen the move surf in action, so she didn’t have much to compare it to, but something about that massive wave looked far more dangerous and wild than what she’d imagined the attack to be. It hit the opposing wall with a deafening crash, loud enough to make her want to cover her ears. Water shot up the sides of the pit, but as soon as it reached the level of the floor above, it continued upward in an odd, restricted movement. It was then that she saw faint flickers in the air around the wave, and it hit her.
There was a force field.
‘Of course there is a force field,’ she told herself frantically. ‘How could they not have one?’ She knew the pokémon could jump out of the arena and go on a rampage if they were not contained, and she knew that stray attacks from these brutal fighters would be disastrous to anyone sitting too close.
The water cascaded downward almost as powerfully as it had risen up. For a moment, the whole arena was nothing but a gigantic, writhing mass of water, more choppy and wild than any river Snowcrystal had ever seen. Then, gradually, the water level began to lower, as if it was being drained out.
As soon as the two pokémon appeared, she could see that the serperior looked horribly beat up. It was thrashing, writhing in the water as it made its way to the surface, hissing in fury. She could see a distinctive kink in its tail as it moved with the water toward the poliwrath; it had obviously been broken when it smashed against the wall. There was also a large, bleeding spot on the grass type’s head, but the pokémon was undeterred, and shot toward the poliwrath, its body still moving in a graceful motion despite its injuries and the water surging around it.
The poliwrath met the grass type with some sort of powerful fighting move, slamming the serperior through the water and into the ground. Snowcrystal could have sworn she saw blood float to the top of the water as the pokémon’s skull met the hard floor of the arena. The poliwrath punched again, and the serperior writhed, its slashing tail trying to find its enemy. However, with its injury, it was unable to land an accurate hit. After a third punch, its movements started to slow, and the poliwrath continued to hold its head underwater. Snowcrystal could hear shocked gasps from around her; it seemed like Master’s pokémon was the one who was losing.
Then, the serperior burst from the water with a strength that shocked Snowcrystal, her friends, and the rest of the audience. Snowcrystal wanted to look away, but found her eyes fixed on the scene as the snakelike pokémon wrapped its body around the poliwrath, squeezing so tightly that the water type could hardly move. Snowcrystal got glimpses of some sort of grass type attack assaulting the poliwrath, and she shut her eyes, not wanting to see what was making the pokémon cry out in agony.
Beside her and Damian, Nightshade looked away as well. He did not want to look upon the pokémon who were suffering or their cruel trainers. Instead, he focused on the machine beside Nathaniel. That machine teleported poké balls to the place where the pokémon were being held, where both Blazefang and Thunder probably were at that very moment. If he could get to it, perhaps placing one of Damian’s poké balls into it while under the guise of a pokémon who had snapped and was going on some sort of rampage, then perhaps they would have a chance. Such an idea was incredibly risky, far more risky than anything he would normally consider doing, but with what was on the line…
He was interrupted by a shocked gasp from several of the nearby audience members. Instinctively, he jerked his head toward the scene of the battle. The water had completely drained from the arena, leaving the floor and the two pokémon completely exposed. The poliwrath, still partially entwined in the serperior’s coils, stood over a twitching and defeated grass type.
Even the poliwrath looked surprised, and Nightshade could tell that the pokémon was barely standing. Its blue skin was shredded by the grass type attacks, blood smeared all over its body. It looked to him that, if the pokémon did not get help immediately, it would die.
However, no one made a move to retrieve the poliwrath while the serperior still lived. Now, he could see what was wrong. The snakelike pokémon’s neck was bent at an unnatural angle. Its coils slipped from the poliwrath’s body. It was completely defenseless now. From the look on the poliwrath’s face, Nightshade suspected that the injury had been an accident – a fluke – and that the water pokémon had thrashed around and broken the serperior’s neck either against the wall or with its own weight. As Nightshade caught a glimpse of a television screen out of the corner of his eye, he could see that Mausk looked livid beneath the calm, collected mood he was trying to portray. From the shouts and talking in the audience around him, Nightshade guessed that Mausk did not usually lose.
“Dynamic punch,” the poliwrath’s trainer instructed.
The frog pokémon delivered a well-aimed punch to the serperior’s skull, and with a sickening crunch that could be heard by all who were close to the arena’s edge, the serpent pokémon went still.
Snowcrystal poked her head out of the backpack as the painful cries of the wounded poliwrath faded away and the pokémon was returned to its poké ball. Nightshade normally would have been worried about the growlithe drawing attention, but in the midst of the crowd, no one seemed to notice her. He realized there would be little use for an element of surprise here; there was no way they could fight so many trainers.
“Nightshade, what do we do if he sends Blazefang out? We can’t get to where they’re holding the pokémon in time!”
“I don’t think we have many options,” he replied grimly. “I don’t think any pokémon could break through that force field…” He suddenly trailed off, his eyes lighting up. “But we could find a way to shut it down.” He looked up toward the ceiling. “Someone’s probably controlling it either from up there, or down beneath in a lower room,” he whispered.
Snowcrystal tried not to look at the conkeldurr dragging the serperior into the dark opening that appeared in the wall as she replied, “How would we get there without anyone seeing?”
“I’m not sure…” Nightshade said grimly. “First we have to find out where the controls would be. Look around, see if you notice anything.”
Snowcrystal nodded, and as she and Nightshade began to carefully examine their surroundings, she noticed that Damian looked confused and conflicted as well, and wished there was a way to communicate with him that wouldn’t make him look suspicious by releasing another pokémon.
She scanned the huge room, knowing that at any moment, the trainers would begin their second round. Most of the upper reaches of the room were too dark, locked in shadow beyond the blinding stadium lights, and she couldn’t make out if there was any sort of platform up there. That part of the ceiling was higher up than the place where the elevator had dropped into the room; they wouldn’t have seen anything even if they had been looking at it from up there. She wondered just how they were going to find something, especially if the arena’s controls were in a place below the arena or in another room entirely.
Both the pokémon and Damian were interrupted in their desperate race to find a plan of action as the two trainers above the arena readied their second poké balls. Snowcrystal tensed up, afraid that she would see a houndour form from Mausk’s, a houndour that would be forced to use an attack that could obliterate the arena and the audience with it. She suddenly wished that Damian would flee, but the trainer remained frozen, and she knew that if Blazefang did appear, then they would need to risk everything to get him out of the arena.
Then, the poké balls were thrown. The one belonging to the trainer facing Mausk was the first to hit the ground, and a furious-looking, massive tauros appeared. And then, out of Mausk’s, came a scyther…a thin, scarred scyther, and there was no mistaking who it was.
“Thunder…” Snowcrystal breathed, leaning forward out of the backpack. She could see that Nightshade had a similar reaction, his expression as fearful and horrified as she imagined her own was. They had both realized upon the instant she was released, that they were going to either watch their former friend die, or watch her brutally kill another pokémon for humans’ entertainment.
As soon as she was released, Thunder darted around her side of the arena, her scythes slashing at the walls as if in frustration or anger. Her gaze darted to the tauros on the other side, which looked even more enraged, but remained still, pawing at the ground instead of running. Now that Snowcrystal got a good look at it, the beast was positively terrifying; it was covered in enough scars to rival Thunder herself, and it was bigger than the tauros she’d occasionally seen with trainers in Stonedust City. The look in its eyes was mad…desperate. It was in pain, and it wanted – no, needed – to kill.
Thunder’s burst of energy didn’t last long. After a couple of seconds, she came to a halt, pacing back and forth in a tiny patch of the arena floor. Though Snowcrystal and Nightshade could see the look on her face fairly well from their distance, they couldn’t imagine what she was thinking.
As they looked, however, Nightshade noticed something. “Thunder’s not wearing a collar,” he whispered. “Not like Master’s nidoking was. Of course she can’t wear it in battle…the nidoking’s exploded when it was hit with the attack.”
Snowcrystal suddenly realized that the serperior hadn’t worn a collar either; none of Mausk’s battling pokémon would have one on during the tournament. She could see the light of hope in Nightshade’s eyes; if Thunder was missing her collar, there was a chance they could get her out safely once she was teleported back to where the pokémon were being held. That is, if she won the battle.
Snowcrystal couldn’t focus on trying to find a way to disable the arena’s force field. There had been nothing to see, anyway; there was no way the humans would have the controls out in plain sight. And at the moment, she and her friends seemed unable to do anything but watch.
Now she would have to see what Thunder’s life had really been like.
To be continued…
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