Chapter 12: Drainage

The basement was just as musty as Ruby remembered, coming into full sense as she followed Mallku down the stairs, which creaked under her small stubs. She glanced around the room for a few seconds until her eyes pinpointed two figures in the middle of the room, Victini and Heatran. The fire types engaged in conversation, giving mixed and confused looks as they glanced towards the entrance. They didn’t seem awfully happy to see her following, Ruby figured.

She skipped a few steps ahead, walking timidly behind Mallku in an effort to not look intruding. Her bag flapped against her side as she moved, the weight of the small items feeling twice as much of a burden with the eyes focusing on her.

Mallku stopped in front of them, signaling Ruby to do the same behind him. “We’ll be going once everyone gets down here” he mumbled. The dark type looked between them both, trying to read their expressions. “Long trip ahead of us, better leave as early as we can.”

Heatran rose a brow in suspicion. “Are we packed?”

“We are” Victini interrupted. “I told you at breakfast.”

“You didn’t tell me shit.”

So this is what the other two are like Ruby sighed to herself.

Victini rolled their eyes at Heatran. “Anyways… we were discussing a bit about our trip, and we figured that we might need a bit more… firepower, if I do say so myself.”

Heatran snorted, unamused. “How long did it take you to make that pun?”

“Enough for you to shut up.”

Mallku groaned. “Just let Vic talk.”

“Exactly” Victini mocked. “Pun aside, we were thinking we might need more than the twenty or so we have here. We’ll need back-up in case Arceus has the audacity to send his goons after us.”

“Back-up?”

Victini grinned, a hint of malicious intent creeping into his smile. “Here’s the gist; we weren’t the first ones to be banished from the Hall of Origin. Giratina was the one who started the trail, followed by Darkrai and Hoopa, the last two before us. We just so happened to think that we might be able to get them on our side, considering our similar experiences.”

Ruby flinched. Making an alliance with Giratina!?

“Not bad of an idea” Mallku huffed. He raised a claw to his chin. “Sounds a bit rough though. It’s not far from our original path, is it?”

“It’s not!” Heatran barked. “We have the locations on where to recruit them. We’ll loot the Griseous Ruins to get Giratina and then meet Hoopa and Darkrai halfway to Coronet.”

Victini nodded. “Do you like it?”

Mallku fell to a sigh. “Ahuh. Anyways, how are these situations gonna work? And how did you… know their locations in the first place?”

Heatran shuffled back two steps, giving Victini a bit more room to talk. “Knowing Darkrai and Hoopa, they probably haven’t moved from their area in the last few hundred years. Even without having seen them in such a long while… we’ll be fine. And Giratina? The bastard hasn’t moved out of their spot even if they wanted to.”

The Weavile rolled his eyes. “And if Darkrai and Hoopa attack us in response…?”

Victini scowled. “Hey! We have this all thought out. They won’t attack us, not when they realize the value in our force. They’ll see the opportunity, and they’ll help us take down Arceus faster and safer than without them.” The psychic scoffed. “What are they even going to get out of attacking us?”

“If you’re so insistent about all this, can we at least run it through with Jirachi later?”

“Fine.”

“I need Jirachi’s opinion before I do anything too risky. Also… I have to ask…” He looked Victini dead in the eyes. “Why couldn’t we have recruited someone more intelligent or trained to make an alliance with, like, I dunno, Keldeo or Manaphy? Maybe Meloetta has some guidance or something that could be valuable.”

Heatran laughed at that. “Keldeo is too busy being a goody-goody with the mortals down in their little baby jungle. Plus, the little shit would tell Arceus right away if they found out what we were planning. Manaphy’s too hard to reach. Meloetta isn’t worth the time.”

“We don’t have many straws to pull here” Victini added. “We need to pull the ones we can get.”

Ruby watched them curiously. She wanted to contribute but was unsure what to say. I wonder what Darkrai and Hoopa are like, if Victini and Heatran are like this…

“You know what happened the first time” Heatran murmured, leaning in. “We can’t let that happen twice. The sacrifice isn’t worth it.”

Mallku rose a brow. “First time?”

“They were going to get what they deserved” Victini hissed, looking away with balled fists. “We managed to get really close to winning, but then they sent out Dialga and Palkia and made them fight us instead. It wasn’t fair!”

Heatran snorted. “Exactly why we have this campaign. If they don’t want to play fair, we won’t play fair either.”

“Exactly.”

Mallku frowned. “We’ll move this discussion to a different day. Right now… we need to get moving.” He averted his gaze towards the exit leading upstairs, watching as several mons shuffled in. “The earlier the better.”

Heatran and Victini motioned elsewhere, leaving the other two by themselves.

“One more thing to worry about” the Weavile whispered to himself.

Ruby took a step forward, puzzled. “Hm?”

“Nothing.”

A light tap on the back averted Ruby’s attention, causing her to spin around and lock eyes with Tori, who pressed close to her petals. The fairy backed up and smiled as Ruby sighed in response.

“Still talking to that guy?” she bantered. “Would’ve thought you’d gone looking for me instead.”

“Sorry I-“ Ruby glanced behind her and found Mallku gone. “…Of course.”

Tori frowned. “Why are you so obsessed with talking to him?”

Ruby flinched. Obsessed!?

She backed up a little, recoiling away. “I-I didn’t think it came off that way-“

“Well, it sure did” Tori interrupted. She gripped her own bag a bit tighter, leaning a little closer toward her. “You’re not going to throw us away, are you? Wanting to hang out with everyone else but the ones you came with.”

Right as Ruby tried to mov farther away, Mallku’s voice caught both of them off guard. She darted her eyes away from Tori and bolted in a random direction, pushing past Alice, and stopping against the far wall of the basement to take a breath. A few seconds later she looked back to see if Tori was still watching, and regretfully recoiled away when their eyes locked.

That went awful.

Ruby winced. As the sound of footsteps drowned out her thoughts, she moved her gaze upwards and caught notice of the majority of the crew slowly shuffling out, through an exit she didn’t see before. Alice floated in front of her, waiting, watching the grass type with curious but concerned eyes. A cotton-fabric backpack floated next to her, sizeable enough to fit her head inside.

“Are you alright?” the Chimecho asked.

“Y-yeah” Ruby mumbled, strolling forward to join her.

Alice smiled. A soft, warm, and honest smile like the one she had when they first met. “Okay.”

Not pressing further. A breath of fresh air.

They followed the trail of the mons before them, moving through a large tunnel that was hidden by the freezer previously, which was now pushed aside. The passage sloped downward through an unlit tunnel, and Ruby felt herself uneasy as she trailed through the dark with Alice floating close by. A few seconds later the tunnel led into a sewer passageway with torches against the brick walls, a steel grille covering the floor as murky water flowed beneath it, flowing the same direction as where they were heading.

Ruby glanced back and sighed with relief that Alice was still at her side.

“I wonder where Mallku is taking us” the Chimecho pondered.

Ruby nodded. “Looks like we’re leaving through the sewers. Sh-shouldn’t be surprising knowing that we can’t afford to be seen.”

Ari brushed past them, reminding the two that they needed to keep going. They followed the line quietly, moving through the underground sewers to a place that Ruby was unsure of. She hadn’t heard much about where they were exactly going, but she knew they were leaving Blubluk.

She tried to remember as much as she could from the discussion before, replaying the conversation in her head. Giratina… Plan… Arceus… Coronet… Fight…

Fight.

It hadn’t quite occurred to her until now that Mallku was serious about fighting.

Fighting… what? He couldn’t have been serious about fighting legendary pokémon, could he?

And a bigger question, why an ordinary mon like herself? She had no experience with actual combat, she didn’t have a reason to be dealing with business outside of her realm.

…Or maybe Proteus was right.

She didn’t have a reason. She didn’t have any purpose in any of this.

Neither she nor anyone else around her were valuable pieces in any of this. She had no skillset or intelligence that would be worth saving for in the grand scheme of what was to come. If worse came to worse, she would be dead in an instant.

At least, that’s what she thought.

Anxiously, Ruby glanced over her shoulder but relaxed when she found that Alice wasn’t looking. Her facial expression alluded to some sort of dissociation, with her tiny arms flat against her body and the yellow windchime atop her head only making a soft note or two as she drifted. The Chimecho’s presence was soothing, and Ruby wondered how much that had to do with the bell.

“Alice?”

The psychic snapped out of her trance and spun her pupils around the tunnel, until they eventually found Ruby, the source of the voice, and softened. “Y-Yeah?”
Ruby locked eyes with her. “Do you ever… worry you’re going nowhere? L-Like, in a metaphorical sense?”

Alice returned with a look of concern. “Why do you ask?”

Maybe the worst question she could have responded with.

Regardless, Ruby pressed on.

“I… know I tend to feel that way quite often.” The Cherrim sighed, turning her attention to the murky water below them, a sickly blueish green that reminded her of the first few days when she moved to the city. She could remember the putrid sensation of smelling it for the first time, and the laugh that came from her aunt’s reaction. “It just comes natural nowadays to be honest. Like… I’m swimming at the bottom of the ocean with no sense of direction, and I don’t know where I’m going, or where I want to go, because it’s too deep.”

Alice nodded. “I understand.”

“Thanks” Ruby mumbled. It had been a while since she had been able to vent to another mon so freely, especially since she knew how awkward it was around Tori and her aunt, having to listen to the same story so often. “Do you ever… feel that way?”

A few seconds of pause followed, until Alice finally came up with a suitable answer. “Not usually, but I have a few times.”

“What do you usually do to cope with it?”

Ruby hoped it wasn’t too hard of a question. She was asking a lot from her already, she knew that Alice might have a hard time catching up with her.

“What does… cope mean?”

Not the answer she was expecting.

Ruby sighed. “Uhm… it means when you h-have a problem, so you try to do stuff to deal with it, like playing with friends. Usually, you use it when you’re talking about special stuff like depression, or anxiety, I think.”

Alice gasped in surprise, her bell making a small ringing noise. “Oh! Okay. Uhm… sometimes when I feel lost, I like trying to talk to other pokémon. Sometimes I’ll read, or I’ll try practicing my psychic powers for fun.”

Huh?

“But… isn’t that’s just avoidance? Y-You don’t help with a problem if you ignore it, right?”

“Avoidance?” Alice repeated. She tilted her head a little in confusion. “How so?”

Ruby felt herself in a losing battle, trying to put thoughts into words, only for them to spit back out like trying to a key in the wrong slot. She took a moment to focus on her speech, coming up with a response shortly after.

“Like… you know you have a problem, bu-but you’re not doing anything to help it. You know you feel like you’re going nowhere in life, but you’re not doing anything to figure out how to stop it or find your belonging. Like… you’re just repeating the cycle and n-not helping yourself.”

The concerned look returned, much to Ruby’s dissatisfaction. “You… seem to know a lot about that.”

Ruby winced. Phrased it wrong. Big mistake.

“I’m really sorry” she blurted. “I didn’t think it came out that way. Sometimes I let my emotions drown out my words, and I say things without meaning it-“

Alice paused for a few seconds, until finally nodding. Understanding. Non-judgmental.

“It’s okay. Life is hard, don’t beat yourself up about it. We all have struggles, and sometimes it helps to speak out. And, what you said…” The psychic smiled; big, happy, warm, familiar. “Yeah. Sometimes I… feel like I don’t know where I’m going. But then you find others going the same direction, and… you realize you’re not alone. B-before I moved to Blubluk, I had a teacher who taught me everything. She helped me find the courage to do things I love and help people at the same time, and n-not feel lost in it all.”

Ruby opened her mouth to speak, but then closed it abruptly. She really had nothing to say to that.

”Realize you’re not alone.”

“Thanks” she mumbled. “Your words mean a lot.”

Alice returned with a grin. “Of course! I’m always here if you want to talk.”

“Y-Yeah.”

The both of them went back to silence shortly afterwards, carrying on through the tunnel passageways as they followed the rest of the mons ahead of them. Neither Alice nor Ruby said a word or attempted to, with their gazes fixated on either the grille floor or the walls, or the mons farther forward.

The sound of the rushing sewer water below them had completely overtaken any form of sound within the tunnels, challenged only by Mai and Liz’s whispers and giggles farther ahead. Ruby tried to listen in but struggled. Even her own thoughts felt hard to hear with the stimuli from her surroundings blocking them out.

Eventually, after what felt like nearly hours of travelling endlessly through the sewers, the line came to a stop, and all whispers died down to a hush. Ruby jolted awake in confusion, glancing between Alice and Ari, the one closest ahead of them, to see what had caused it.

“Why did we stop?”

Alice stiffened. “Unsure.”

“Do you think some pokémon found us?”

A moment later, the line continued its movement, though Ruby felt unnerved when she spied a small corner of light far ahead, at the end of the tunnel.

Thoughts racing, she leaned forward and called out to Ari. “Are we almost out of the sewers?”

The Roaring Moon turned around and squinted. “Yup. Had to stop so Mallku could check if was safe.”

Alice nodded, followed by a smile. “Makes sense.”

Ari rolled his eyes, and the movement continued onward, until they reached the end of the tunnel. Ruby was promptly embraced in moonlight as she stepped off the steel grille and onto soft dirt, feeling her stubs in the short grass close by.

She looked behind her and found that they were no longer in Blubluk. They had left through a sewer tunnel that connected to the waste deposits miles out in the outskirts, in the middle of a large grassy plain with a river not far away, which snaked around the city like a Seviper coiling around a Dedenne prey, trees dotted along the water. The grey buildings behind them looked slightly smaller with the distance between, blocking out most of the view of the city behind it.

Alice floated close to her and shared the awe. “We’re really traveling. This is amazing.”

Ruby perked up a smile. “Yeah…”

Both of their shocked gazes were drawn away as a snap from behind caught their attention. They turned around and were promptly met by Louis the Slowking, shooting them an unsatisfied frown after watching them get distracted by the scenery.

“We must keep going. Wander not, must you get lost behind.”

Louis shuffled back to the line with discomfort. Alice and Ruby gave each other guilty smiles as they followed him, still taking moments to look back at the city in all its glory as they went.

We really are traveling.

~

The plains looked endless from the convoy’s perspective, stretching beyond the reach of the horizon with more flat, grassy fields behind it, with even more situated further on. Alas, when Ruby tried to squint to see what lay ahead, she found herself groaning in frustration afterwards, unable to see any farther due to the flat terrain and lack of hills.

The continent was much larger than expected, really. All of the maps she had seen through school and childhood made things like this look quick to cross, though even those could not truly describe the size they had to travel.

Through the night, silence became even more commonplace than in the sewers, aside from a few whispers. The plains rolled over all the same, with a lack of any difference in the fields the more they pressed forward. Few trees, few lakes, few rivers, and little-to-no signs of society, or buildings for that matter.

Ruby looked farther ahead of the line, and quickly darted her eyes back when she saw Tori and Gabi chatting with Andesine.

I’ll talk with Tori in the morning she sighed to herself. I’ve messed up too much tonight already.

Noticing her exhausted expression, Alice turned towards Ruby and offered a smile.

“How’s it going?” the psychic chimed.

“Fine. Just tired.”

The Chimecho nodded. “Y-Yeah, I guess that’s what a different sleep schedule can do to you. I’m sure Mallku will let us sleep until noon, h-hopefully.”

“But won’t we be seen if we leave again during the day?” Ruby mumbled.

Before Alice could reply, the line quickly halted to a stop again. Ruby and Alice looked at each other confusedly, until Victini moved out of the way so everyone could see them.

“We’re taking a stop for the night” the psychic announced. “Mallku’s about to collapse, we need all energy we can to make it through tomorrow. Bring up your tents and rest for now, we’ll set back out by mid-afternoon.”

Amazing timing.

Victini shuffled away, and at once, the line split up. Multiple pokémon set their bags down in the middle of the field, and Alice quickly jumped into a state of panic.

“I didn’t know we were supposed to bring tents-”

Ruby sighed, gripping the satchel thrown over her side. “Maybe Tori and Gabi will let you sleep in ours. C’mon, let’s go ask.”

The two of them pushed through the now-campground, finding the other girls elsewhere, not too far away. Tori gave Ruby an irritated glare when she saw her, making the Cherrim wince. Gabi meanwhile gave a weak wave, expression lacking much emotion.

“Hey Rubes” the Reuniclus greeted.

Ruby stiffened. “H-Hi Gabi…”

Alice floated forward, joining the conversation. “Hello! We had a uhm.. question if you don’t mind.”

“Go ahead.” Gabi lifted her bag with a wave of psychic energy, taking out and unfolding tent poles from inside. “Hell, why not help us while you’re at it.”

Alice let out a shaky breath. “We were… wondering if you’d let me sleep in uh… your tent, since I didn’t pack mine, because I didn’t know I had to…”

Gabi spared a glance to Tori. “We fine with that?”

The Whimsicott sighed and nodded her head affirmatively, mouth closed shut and eyes avoidant.

Relief washed over Alice. “Thanks so much.”

“No problem. Always happy to help.”

Gabi sent up the tent poles into the air, placing them in a cone shape, with one in the center and four leaning against it in diagonal lines. Alice used her own psychic energy to lift the large wool cloth out of Gabi’s bag, draping it over the poles. With the tent finally held up, Ruby squirmed forward to secure the rods, assuring they wouldn’t fall down during the morning.

“Looks great, don’t it Tores?”

Tori rolled her eyes.

“Whatever” Gabi scoffed. “If you want to be a brat, that’s your problem. Right now, I’m pooped.”

The Reuniclus nabbed a blanket out of her bag before departing under the cover of the tent near immediately, taking most of the space inside as she leaned down to sleep. Tori gave Ruby a side-eye as she followed inside.

Alice leaned down to whisper. “Is she mad?”

Ruby sighed. “Looks like it.”

Let’s hope things go better tomorrow.