Pokemon Fan Fiction ❯ Fear the Quintet ❯ The Stone Shrine ( Chapter 10 )

In which a lot of things happen and not much of it makes sense.

*

Kitty looked around her at every boy she was stuck with in the cave. Being the only girl in their little group of friends, she was probably the only one who knew each and every one of their little secrets. It felt good. She was a nosy little thing, and deny it as they might, everyone needs someone to vent to. And there she was. All the time. Fiddle dee dee.

It wasn't often, however, that she got the chance to interact with another member of her sex whose opinion she found herself, perplexing as it was, immediately valuing.

“So,” she said, sidling up to Cordelia as they made their way through the caves. She had found herself alone, as all of the boys had skilfully buggered off ahead, presumably to bitch about Giselle without the presence of someone who would no doubt tell them off for it, and Kitty had therefore been left behind

“Hmm?” Cordelia glanced up at her.

“What's so great about Umbra?” she asked casually.

“What's so great about Umbra?” Cordelia cried. “What on earth do you mean?” She flung her hands up. “Nothing is great about Umbra! They are vicious, disgusting, revolting and sickening!”

“Oh,” Kitty said cleverly. “I see.” The truth was, of course, that she did not see. “So why have you, like, dedicated your life to them?”

This proved to be exactly the wrong thing to say, and Cordelia made a loud noise that Kitty had not previously known possible for humans to make.

“I need to get my friend's Abra back,” she explained. “I really, really need to get it back.”

“Fair enough,” Kitty said. “And how are you going to do that?”

“Infiltrate it and crush them,” Cordelia growled, punching the palm of her hand. One of her Houndoom howled in glee at this display of violence. Kitty glanced at both of them.

“How strong are your pokemon?”

Cordelia's eyes lit up and darkened at the same time - very weird - and she smirked. “I'm pretty sure you'll find out one day,” she said.

“And you're going to use them to take down the entire Umbra corporation?”

She smiled. “Yeah.”

There was a long pause and Kitty sighed. “How much longer are we going to be in this cave?”

Cordelia shrugged. “It's a couple of miles long, I guess. A few hours?”

Kitty's eyes widened. “Seriously?”

“Yeah, why?”

How the hell was she going to get through this? “So…” she said dully. “What have you learnt about them from that one?” She motioned towards Giselle who was striding along in an unnatural bobbing loping way that made Kitty feel seasick.

Cordelia's eyes lit up. “Well I've found out something they want,” she said excitedly. “Something they want more than anything!”

Kitty nodded. “That's useful, I suppose. It'll help you track them. What is it?”

Cordelia turned around and her eyes locked onto Kitty's, which made her feel just a smidgeon uncomfortable. “Morbidark.”

It was as if all the light in the cave was sucked out just for a moment. Kitty could feel her heart beating in her ears. Could they be one more step closer to saving the Earth? “W-Why?”

“Apparently,” Cordelia said, her voice hushed and eager, “he has very slight mind-controlling powers.”

Kitty's eyes widened. “Seriously?”

She nodded rapidly. “Yeah, all of them do, but the other four only can when they're all together. Morbidark can do it all by himself. Have you never heard this before?”

“No,” Kitty said. “We're kind of… foreign…” she admitted. “So go on.”

“Well, it's very limited. It can kind of pull people about like they're on strings, right? Some older legends refer to him as the Marionette.”

“Ooh,” Kitty said quietly. “Cool.”

With newfound interest in the work of Umbra, Kitty left Cordelia's side to go to speak to Giselle. Cordelia didn't seem to mind in the least. In fact, she looked rather relieved at being alone again.

“So…” Kitty began. Giselle's filmy eyes slid over and regarded her. She smiled, her cheeks sucked in at the back as if she were attempting to create dimples. It wasn't working. “What do you know about Morbidark?”

It was as if a light had switched on in her head. “Oh,” she said, her voice far too high-pitched for her froglike gullet. “Everything!”

“Oh,” Kitty said. “Say if it managed to… you know… slip into a different dimension…” she said carefully. Giselle's eyes widened dramatically and she slowed, only for a second, and then carried on as usual. “What would you do?”

“How…” Giselle whispered, then shook her head slowly. She leant over so that she was closer to Kitty and whispered, “how do you know about that?”

Kitty felt a sudden inexplicable urge to explain everything to this vile woman, and so she did. When it was all out of her, from her father's bunny machine to realising where they were after speaking to Rowan, she felt miles better. It was as if a pressure that had been building inside of her was suddenly released.

Giselle had been listening quietly the entire time, and when Kitty had finished the faintest trace of a smile outlined her dimly lit face. “Interesting.”

And then, suddenly, completely without warning, every light source in the cave went out and they were all shrouded in total impenetrable darkness. Kitty squeaked and ran forwards, bumping head-on into someone tall and warm.

“Aahhh,” they cried.

“Matt?”

“What the hell just happened?” he asked. She could feel him swinging wildly around.

“Kitty?” someone else said to her left.

“Scott!” she called out, feeling her way towards him. They latched onto each other and stayed as still as possible. Kitty screamed as some kind cold stone pokemon brushed past her leg.

“Are we all ok?” Scott called.

“Yeah,” everyone answered as one.

“What happened?”

“Does anyone have a light?”

“How long is this gonna last?”

“Was it, like, a powercut?”

“Actually, come to think of it, where was all the light coming from before?”

“That's true-“

Kitty and Scott attempted to move forwards, tapping the ground with their toes before stepping onto it. She couldn't see the nose on the end of her face, and it was a largely unnerving experience.

There was a huge smack and she screamed as somebody barrelled into her and Scott, tossing them to the floor. The enormous mystery figure appeared to slow down and stop.

“I am terribly sorry!” he stammered. Kitty recognised the voice as Herbert's; the man that Charlie had battled at the entrance of the cave. “There appears to have been another blackout.”

“It's ok,” she said weakly, managing to pick herself up with some help from Scott.

“I have a First Aid kit somewhere in my pack… one moment…”

“We're fine,” Cordelia snapped harshly from the depths of the darkness. “Move along please.”

With some muttering, Herbert seemed to move away on command.

“That guy is so useless,” Matthew commented as soon as he appeared to be out of earshot.

“I wouldn't say that,” Saxen said quietly. Kitty looked at him, even though she couldn't see him, and was surprised to see a little flash of light illuminating his smiling face. “He had a lantern.”

“A Lanturn?” Charlie asked.

“Yeah, a lantern.”

“No he didn't! I just fought him.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“I said-“

“Look, everybody shut up. We have a way to see now. Let's keep moving. I really don't like this cave,” Kitty said loudly. Everyone shut up. “It stinks of salt and death.”

“It doesn't smell that bad,” Giselle squeaked. Kitty looked over to her and suddenly missed the minute or so where she couldn't see. The light had cast blobby black shadows around her disproportionate face. Why was this woman so ridiculously hideous? It wasn't something she could put her finger on.

Kitty went to walk next to Saxen. It was the logical thing to do, as he provided the only source of light.

“You shouldn't have done that,” she hissed at him. He looked at her like she had threatened to punch him and his eyes jerked quickly back to the floor. She sighed.

Suddenly, from somewhere behind them, there was a gargling scream. Kitty whipped around but she could see no further than around a metre ahead of her. Saxen raised the lantern and they both looked around wildly but saw nothing. Something touched her arm and she yelped, but it was only Scott.

“That was Adam,” he said. She could see the flickering concern on his face. She grabbed his arm and ran towards the source of the noise. Saxen and the light following closely behind, but in a heartbeat all of the light faded once again.

Kitty froze. All the breath caught in her throat. She could feel her pulse thrumming against her neck and she didn't know why, but she couldn't bring herself to make any noise at all.

Adam made more noises in fear just ahead of her. He whimpered and moaned and she heard rocks being disturbed, as if he was scrabbling around on his hands and knees.

Then, she heard it.

It was faint at first, but it grew louder. Scott's grip on her arm was starting to pinch, but she hardly noticed.

Something large and inhuman was breathing loudly right in front of them. That must have been what had frightened Adam. Bit by bit, light particles began to draw themselves over to illuminate what the creature was.

“Arrr,” the creature said, the noise coming breathily from the depths of its stomach and forcing itself between huge teeth.

Kitty opened her mouth slightly, sucked in a tiny breath, and then closed it again. Adam hiccupped in fear.

“Arrrr.”

They were agitating the creature - whatever it was. They were disturbing it. They had no light to leave with. They couldn't see a single thing. Was it this monster that had sucked away the light?

Just then, a slavering snarl erupted from its jaws and Adam yelled out. He couldn't take it anymore. His sobs echoed loudly in the cave all around them. Kitty clenched her fists. She couldn't even go to him. She didn't know where he was. His terror seemed to anger the thing, and a devastating growl ripped from its throat.

The light, stolen from every source in the cave, now danced, finally, around the creature in a hazy blue smog.

There was a faint dripping noise and a ripple of light spilled across the floor, lapping at Kitty's feet. The source of light came from the middle of some kind of lake, only just visible now, but it was still impossible to see just exactly what the thing was. A faint rumbling growl shivered through them all, reverberating around the cave and causing the lake water to swell even more. The reflected light danced on the cavern walls. It would have been beautiful if it hadn't been so terrifying.

Scott spoke, slashing through the near-silence so that everyone else winced. “Dakota,” he said. “Light up.”

The Cyndaquil complied. The light from its small back moved across the lake almost visibly, cutting through the thick blue fog. For a moment it seemed as though the creature would be revealed, but as soon as the light reached it, it leapt. It bounded with refined grace over the tops of their heads and landed noiselessly behind them. Every breath was clearly audible now.

Nobody dared turn around.

“What is it?” Kitty whispered, having found her voice.

The deep, gargling, throaty growl started up again, drowning out her voice. A lone paw stepped into the ring of light surrounding the poor Cyndaquil. It was glowing in a sickly, unreal way, and seemed to be shredded ever so slightly, but not in a painful way. "Arrrr," it snarled, face twisted into an expression of deep, deep anger.

She turned.

It was an Arcanine. It was translucent, like classily fogged glass on bathroom windows. It was a pale shade of nothing, but that didn't make it any less real-looking. With a sharp intake of breath, she turned to look at the boys. They all looked as scared as she felt. So much for men being stronger. She couldn't stop shaking.

But she knew being afraid wouldn't help anything.

“Rocky,” she said, but little noise came out. She cleared her throat and tried again. Her Eevee's ears twitched in readiness. The ghostlike creature was angry. This much was obvious. She didn't know what Adam had done to upset it, but it can't have been good. With every breath she could hear rattling snarls, and ectoplasmic saliva dripped off of its fangs, disappearing millimetres from the ground. “Tackle.”

The tiny foxlike pokemon bunched his muscles together and galloped forwards, bracing himself for impact and slamming headfirst into…

Nothing?

He opened his eyes, blinked, and looked around. Had he not run far enough?

Kitty's jaw dropped open, along with everyone else's. Rocky had run straight through the thing.

Did that mean it didn't exist?

It opened its mouth and a torrent of lilac flame poured out, licking Rocky's fur. He curled his tail around his legs, crawling back to Kitty on his belly. His ears were scraping the floor, but it didn't look as if the attack hurt at all. Kitty was confused.

“Loki,” Charlie said hoarsely. “Try a Water Gun.” The Totodile, revived from its earlier fight, evidently oblivious to the terror his trainer faced, opened its blue mouth and a violent explosion of water burst forth. The Arcanine jumped and skittered backwards.

“It's not used to being attacked,” Cordelia said quickly. “Special attacks only, like on a ghost,” she said. She was giving orders. Kitty was useless here. She picked up Rocky and stepped back.

“Loki, Fisher, Water Gun,” Charlie said obediently.

“Orion, Moon, Flamethrower.” Cordelia's two Houndoom sprang up and unleashed their own attacks.

“Sparky, Thundershock,” Fred said.

“Oddish, Budew, Absorb.” Orange flashes lit up the cave briefly as more and more pokemon appeared, already ready to go. A flurry of attacks shot forward and struck the ghost thing in the face. It made loud roaring noises, which then turned into moans, which finally subsided into whimpers. The Arcanine shook itself off and fled.

It chose, instead of the perhaps more popular option of going around, to go through its obstacles, which consisted of Kitty, Scott, Saxen and Adam. They stood there, stunned and shaking while the Arcanine vanished into the lake. And then the lake vanished as well, dissolving into the cave floor.

“Guys?” Matthew said shakily, after a moment of silence. “Are we ok?”

Kitty shook her head, and then shivered violently. “That was weird.”

“Way weird,” Scott agreed. Saxen dropped the lantern on the floor with a clatter and, after clicked his neck, shuddered and took a deep breath.

“Adam?” Kitty said gently. He took a deep breath, held it at the top, then forced it out again with a cough. She wrapped her arms around him briefly, navigating through the dark.

“I can't see a bloody thing!” Cordelia yelled.

“Are we going to talk about what that was?” Kitty yelled to them all.

“It was an Arcanine,” one of the boys informed her.

“Thank you,” she said irritably. “It was not a normal one.”

“Well duhhh,” another one said.

“It took attacks but couldn't use them,” Kitty pressed.

“It was probably another failed Umbra experiment,” Giselle said, as if it were a throwaway comment, but before Kitty could open her mouth to ask more questions, the lights appeared to have come back on as if somebody had flicked a switch.

“Oh, thank God,” Kitty groaned. Scott put his hand around her shoulders, glancing at Giselle as he did so. She had been staring at him a lot. He didn't like it.

“Oh, holy crap on a biscuit,” Matthew suddenly cried.

It appeared in the midst of the commotion he had opted to cling for dear life onto a handy nearby boulder, but when the lights came on, the boulder had realised and wasn't all too happy.

“Goooooool,” it announced, yanking chunks of rock out from the cave walls and flinging them wildly about.

“I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry!” Matthew shrieked. Kitty rolled her eyes, then ducked madly to avoid a rock.

“Um, Kitty?”

Kitty turned from her crouching duck to face Scott who looked at her with concern. She smiled.

“I think something's wrong with Dakota.”

She crawled over to look at him. He was sitting, quivering on the floor with two paws placed over his nose. She squealed and reached out to him, but a large stone fist pounded her fingers to the floor and she screamed. The same stone fist smashed itself deep into Dakota's face and Scott cried out, unsure who to tend to first.

“Wow,” Matthew said under his breath. “Mine.” He pulled out a pokeball from his pocket and chucked it at the rampaging Golem, which was quickly sucked in. It shook a few times. Kitty stared at it wide-eyed. Had that beast just been caught in a pokeball without being weakened?

Nope. It popped out again and, looking around at them all, turned on its heel and fled.

Anger coursed through Kitty's veins. How dare it crush her hand and just skip away? She got to her feet and, her left hand cradled in her right, sprinted after it.

“Oh, go, Kitty!” Matthew cheered. “And Scott!” She turned around to see Scott gaining on her, anger in his eyes too. He was holding his bleeding Cyndaquil.

“He was scared!” he yelled to the fleeing Golem. “He was terrified and you hurt him!” He sped up and Kitty struggled to keep up, as did the rest of their party. Rocky galloped along at her heels.

“It's going in there,” Kitty said, trying to ignore the pain in her hand. The Golem had swerved and run into a smaller opening that she probably would not have noticed otherwise. She followed, squeezing painfully through the long tunnel that had been made, evidently, by pokemon and for pokemon. Luckily, they weren't all that huge, and with much swearing and torn skin, they all made it through to the other side.

“I'll get it,” Matthew promised nobody. “I'm gonna catch it. I don't care.”

When Kitty - the first of the group - made it through and burst out the other end, she flattened herself against the stone wall and gasped. The others squeezed out shortly afterwards and stood there, open-mouthed and staring right into the centre as well.

“What is that?” Kitty hissed, quite unnerved. Scott shook his head slowly.

“It's a shrine,” Cordelia said slowly. “It looks like a shrine.”

“But it's so crude,” Charlie commented. “Was it made by the pokemon?”

In the centre of the huge hollowed out cavern stood an enormous pile of stones. It was, as Charlie had said, rather crude, but it was obvious that it was an Arcanine. Kitty swallowed.

“Why do you think the cave pokemon worship the Arcanine ghost?”

“Isn't it obvious?” Cordelia asked, looking at them all. “The Arcanine stops trainers from getting too close to this cavern, and stops them from being caught. This is their home, after all. They have the right to be safe here.”

“Wow, I never thought of it like that,” Kitty said, a little guiltily. “But I've never caught a pokemon before, actually.”

“Good for you,” Cordelia said simply. Kitty wondered if she was being sarcastic or not.

“Actually,” Kitty said, looking at Rocky on the floor chewing his paw. “I don't know if I want to capture any. If this is how they feel about it.”

“Do you ever get the feeling we're being watched?” Matthew said suddenly. Kitty looked around. All of the rocks in the cavern had eyes. Geodudes, Graveler and Golem. Onix, a few Steelix, some Zubat, and one or two Staryu and Shellder in the shallow rock pools. They were all watching them motionlessly.

“Are they afraid we'll attack or capture them?” Kitty whispered.

“I think so,” Cordelia said. “I think we should leave them in peace before something goes horribly wr-“

“YES!”

Kitty span around to see the source of the cry of victory. Matthew was standing, holding up a pokeball and grinning. She smacked her forehead with the palm of her hand and groaned.

Immediately, every pokemon in the cave moved as one. It turned out there were maybe three times as many as Kitty had thought at first. Rock pokemon were well camouflaged by rocks.

“Ok, run,” Kitty said, panicking. Cordelia and Giselle were already halfway back to the tiny opening, but swarms of Golem and Steelix had arrived to block the exit, growling and snarling and making scary rock noises.

“Are they going to kill us?” Adam whimpered. Kitty put her arm around his waist.

“No, they're going to kill Matthew,” she told him. But she wasn't entirely convinced that he was their only target. “Matt, release it.”

“No way! I caught it fairly. They're just bad losers.”

“Jesus, Matt, let it go or we'll all get killed to death,” Kitty said, voice wobbling.

“No,” he whined, clutching his pokeball close to his chest. “I want it.”

“Matt, for the love of all that is purple…” Kitty pleaded.

Just then, the light was sucked out of the cavern once more, and every particle of light moved instead to create - was it actually made of light? - a picture of an enormous blue Arcanine who raised his head and let out an unearthly mournful howl. Matthew went deathly pale but still did not hand over the pokeball.

Straight away, all of the cave creatures backed off and stood around their shrine once more.

Then the Arcanine did something unexpected.

It bowed to them all.

Kitty made a tiny noise that nobody heard.

“Um-“ one of the boys said. Then they watched in awe as all of the rock pokemon bowed in unison.

“What the hell?” Kitty whispered.

“The Arcanine respects us,” Cordelia whispered back, looking equally bewildered. “I think they're saying that your friend can keep the Geodude.”

“Awesome,” Matt said simply. “Let's get out of this creepy cave.”

“Do you not understand the enormity of this entire situation?” Kitty hissed, grabbing him by the collar. “And what could have happened to us all?” He twisted around to look at her.

“I understand that I caught a Geodude,” he said slowly back. She growled and released him, and he scrambled back through the pathway to the other side.

“Your friends have spunk,” Giselle said merrily to her once they were all out the other side.

“Excuse me?”

“They're very brave.”

“Ohh.” Kitty looked at them all, and a smile couldn't help but spread onto her face. “Yeah, they are.”

“So,” she carried on fluidly. “Which one do you think would like to take me out sometime?”

Kitty wrinkled her nose without meaning to. “I don't know,” she said finally. “I really don't.” Then smiled to hide the bitchiness. “Ask!”

“That's not really my style,” Giselle said simply, then cast her eye around the group once more. Her gaze lingered on Scott. “Who would you say was the most intelligent?”

“Scott,” Kitty said quickly.

“The strongest?”

Kitty thought for a moment. “Scott.”

“The most talkative?”

“Matt.”

“The most-“

“I heard that!” Suddenly Matthew was bearing down on them.

“What?” Kitty cried. “You are talkative!”

“Not that,” he said, waving his hand around. “You said Scott was stronger than me!”

Kitty paused, unsure what his point was. “I did. I did say that.”

Scott laughed hard. “I think she would know.”

“I am so much stronger than him, though! I can't actually believe you would say that.” Matt was practically spinning around in circles in disbelief. “I could beat him up so easily.” He paused. “Actually, he has the advantage because of his freakish tallitude.”

“My what, now?”

“You're too tall. It's weird,” Matthew replied. Scott raised an eyebrow.

“You are ridiculously tall,” Kitty agreed. “But so is Fred.”

“See, if I had normal friends I would be the tallest one,” Matthew said sadly. “But I hang around with weirdoes.”

“Just for that,” Scott said, “I'm going to beat you up.”

A flicker of fear appeared behind Matthew's eyes. Scott laughed again. “Pokemon battle. One on one.”

“Guys!” Kitty screamed. “Shut up! We need to get out of this cave!”

Just then there was a slight rumbling, which slowly grew louder and louder. Kitty literally gulped.

“Oh, nice going, big mouth.” Matthew rolled his eyes. “You just about caused a cave-in.”

“Look, it's the exit!” Cordelia cried. They all ran for it and burst out into the open air as one, panting and groaning, as a few pebbles rained from the ceiling of the cave.

They looked at each other embarrassedly. “Hey, they could have knocked us out, easy,” Charlie said. They all nodded.

“Way to go, Kitty,” Matthew said. She stuck her tongue out at him.

“How the hell did we get through that cave so quickly?” Cordelia said suddenly. “We had at least another hour's walk, I'm sure.”

“We went back through a different tunnel,” Giselle replied. “Didn't you all notice how much easier it was to get through the second time? We accidentally took a shortcut.”

“Oh,” Kitty said. “I thought I'd just lost a few pounds from all the fear.”

“That's not how it works,” Cordelia told her. Kitty hung her head. “Well, we're off. Was nice to travel with you guys,” she said. Kitty noticed an air of dishonesty in that sentence. “I'm sure I'll see you all again.” She smiled a little. “The town is down there and then around there.” She pointed. “Good luck, guys!”

“Can I battle you again?” Charlie called out wistfully.

“No… you're far too pathetic,” Cordelia sighed, turning and walking off.

“Well,” Giselle said. “I'm sure we'll all meet again.” She winked and followed Cordelia away. Kitty shuddered violently, unable to hold it in any longer.

“That woman creeped me out so bad,” she said. The others nodded.

“Ugly as hell,” Matthew pointed out. The others all nodded even harder.

“I mean aside from that!” Kitty said disapprovingly. “She kept going on about how sexy you all were.” She sighed. “Obviously deranged.”

“Heyyy,” Matthew said, looking quite hurt. Kitty snorted.

“Come on, guys.”

“Hey, look!” Fred called out. “I didn't realise where we were!”

They all looked, and then their mouths opened.

“A beach,” Kitty said. “A pretty beach. Let's go, come on.”

But they were already ripping off their shoes and socks and shirts and running to the water.

Actually, Kitty thought, it really was quite hot… She trudged down the beach, which wasn't sandy or even pebbly, but paved with flat black rocks. She picked on up. Smooth and perfect and beautifully jet black. She inspected it, like it, and pocketed it, then trudged some more to join Scott, who had removed his shirt and was lying on his back with his eyes shut.

“We need to keep moving,” she told him, hating that she had to be the one to spoil all their fun. She hoped that by the end of this all that she wouldn't be hated by them all.

“Nah, let's have a break,” Scott said, squinting up at her. “Come here.” He opened his arms out for her and she gladly filled the slot, nuzzling his chest.

“Fine,” she said sleepily. Maybe for now she would just enjoy herself.