CHAPTER 24: INTO THE LAB

Miobach Badlands, near the entrance to Cavernous Canyon mystery dungeon, August 10th

The quartet of pokemon that composed Team Seekers traversed a narrow pathway between two towering sandstone cliffs. To two of them, this felt fairly familiar looking despite the fact that they had never been there before. The cliff walls had a variety of colors to them, and Ryan recognized it as looking like a national park he had been to with his uncle as humans.

Soon, they arrived at the entrance of the Cavernous Canyon mystery dungeon that they would need to explore to get to the laboratory. The entrance to the dungeon was shrouded in fog, as all dungeons on this continent were, but it was still confusing to Ryan because the air was so dry.

I guess mystery dungeons are just built different, he thought. Well, not built, but… never mind.

Near the entrance was a storage box. Ryan took out his PSB from his bag, curious to see if anything would happen if he stored it in the box. So, he deposited it, but nothing interesting happened.

“Not sure why you thought that would do anything,” Lena said, an eyebrow raised, “but… we’re here.”

“I hope that our trip through there is thoroughly straightforward,” Ryan said as he pulled out his PSB, as well as some pure and reviver seeds, from the storage box. “The sooner we can learn about Martin and Kori’s situation, the better, so I’d like to make it through as quickly as possible.”

The others nodded in agreement, and after eating part of a watermelon that they found in their storage, headed into the opening of the cave. Little did they know that a very angry land shark was watching over them as they entered its territory.

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Cavernous Canyon mystery dungeon

The rocky walls on the inside of the mystery dungeon were just as colorful as the cliff faces that were on the outside. It was fairly dark inside, but fortunately, Ben thought ahead and brought along a stick with a bundle of cloth attached to one end. He used an ember attack to light it and get a better view of their surroundings.

“You know,” Ben said, voice echoing as the quartet traversed the tunnels, “I’ve decided that I’m finally ready to evolve into torracat. I feel it’s been quite a while overdue, so I left my everstone in storage before we left.”

Ryan stopped walking and looked back at the litten. “And you’re telling us because…”

“…because, if we get into a big fight and I suddenly evolve, saving the fight for us, I wanted you to know that it wasn’t just out of nowhere.”

The glaceon continued walking. Fortunately, this part of the tunnel was wide enough that he could stay side by side with Ben, so he wouldn’t have to crane his head backwards. “Are you sure that’s such a good idea? I didn’t instantly gain strength when I evolved, I passed out and didn’t even know about my change until I woke up. If the going gets tough, all of us would be out of sorts; evolving during a battle would probably tire you out further, screwing all four of us over.”

Ben shook his head. “Have you considered that maybe, you didn’t pass out because you evolved, but because, oh, I don’t know, a zorua slammed you back first into a rock? It’ll be fine! Besides, there’s no guarantee that I’ll even evolve during a battle anyways, so don’t worry about it!”

The ice fox grunted, and the quartet then continued quietly through the dungeon.

Cavernous Canyon is a mystery dungeon that travelers ascend, twenty-four floors to be exact. Aside from the occasional maractus, cacturne, and rabsca, it is primarily inhabited by ground types, with gible and silicobra being particularly common finds. That would be bad news for Ben, but fortunately for him, Ryan’s ice beam, as well as Lena’s ice shard, can make quick work of them, and he himself can take the cacti pokemon.

After twenty-three floors and many attacks by wild pokemon, the team had been significantly weakened. They debated amongst themselves about whether they should take a break or not.

“On one hand,” Ryan huffed, “we’re very close to the end. But at the same time, there may also be some unforeseen threat we have to take care of before we are able to head through.”

Lena sluggishly nodded in agreement. “Yeah… I think we should definitely prepare ourselves just in case… besides, if we’re not in our best shape, even if nothing ambushes us, we might overlook something while we’re in the lab…”

With that, each of the quartet ingested a sitrus berry, and Ryan and Lena both chased their berry down with half of a canteen’s worth of water. Due to ice being the frozen state of water, it is especially important for ice types to stay hydrated, with extra importance if it’s either extremely hot or the air is simply very dry, the latter being the case for this cave. After that, they finally ascended the stairs to the last floor of the dungeon.

Like with the previous dungeons that the team had traversed, this one ended in one large room. The only difference is that unlike those other dungeons that had a waypoint that would lead either back to the entrance or to another exit, in the back of the room there was a tunnel that ended in a bright spot.

“Ah!” Ben said, pleasantly surprised. “It’s the end!”

“Yep,” Ryan affirmed. “If what I was t- er, what I assume is correct then the lab should be just outside.” He suddenly felt slightly nervous due to his near slip-up. Fortunately for him, the others didn’t seem to notice.

“The best part is that we can just walk right through like nothing!” Terry added as they crossed the room for the tunnel on the other side. “What a relief! I was worried we would have to fight some-“

Before the pachirisu could finish his sentence, the ground began to rumble beneath their feet, causing the quartet to nearly lose their balance.

You just had to jinx it, didn’t you? Ryan thought, then calling out, “everyone, jump off to a side, any side, just don’t stay in this spot!”

Each of the members of Team Seekers jumped in a different direction just before a giant land shark using dig spiraled out of the ground in the middle of a dig attack. It snorted angrily at the intruders.

“Garchomp,” Ryan explained shakily, mainly to Terry, eyes going wide in fear, ears falling and tail tucking between his legs. “That’s not good for us, not by a long shot. Lena and I may have the type advantage, but that’s all any of us have over it. It moves superfast and hits super hard. And, this one seems to be a feral, so there’s no reasoning with it.” The glaceon sighed sadly, on the verge of tears. “In other words, we are w-way in over our heads.”

Lena, who had ended up next to him, gently smacked his snout. “No way I’m letting you carry on with this this defeatist attitude,” she said, irritated. “We can absolutely do this.” She gestured toward the currently unmoving dragon that was focused on a cowering Terry. “Look, it’s distracted. If you charge up an ice beam while it isn’t looking, you’ll be able to get a hit in, and possibly freeze it.”

Ryan shook off his fear and nodded. “Right.” He then opened his maw and began charging an ice beam, hoping that it wouldn’t notice and charge him. Soon, he fired the icy blue beam, striking the garchomp right in the back just as it determined Terry not to be a threat and turned to attack Ben instead. It roared, bending back in pain.

“Great shot!” Lena congratulated, clapping before preparing to send an ice shard its way.

The garchomp was very angry now. If it were smart, it would have set up a sandstorm to gradually wear down its opponents, but it was too blinded by rage to do so, and it dashed right at Ryan at an unfathomable speed, pinning him to the ground underfoot. Fortunately for Ryan, it was only hard enough to keep him from moving, and it wasn’t causing any significant pain. Unfortunately, that also meant that he was useless in the fight, and he sighed with disappointment.

However, before too long, the land shark shrieked, lifting its foot off of Ryan and allowing him to get up. He hadn’t seen it, but Lena had managed to get her ice shard off right in the garchomp’s eye. It placed its claws over top of the injured eye to protect it from further damage, providing an opening for additional attack.

An outraged Terry also leapt off of Ben’s head to launch an acrobatics attack directly at the dragon’s face before it could react. Ben, too, leapt into the air and unleashed possibly the most intense flame charge he had ever performed directed right at its skull in a fury. Pokemon are very resilient creatures, so their attacks wouldn’t cause any lasting damage. However, it still was not good for the garchomp to endure such extreme punishment, and it crumpled to the ground limply before long.

Ben finally landed back on the ground, watching as, near the downed dragon, Lena tended to Ryan’s relatively minor back injuries. He stroked his icy companion on the back of his head and neck. “We did it, Ryan,” he said solemnly, “we won.”

“We sure did, Ben,” Ryan whispered back.

Just then, Ben started to feel different.

“Well,” Lena told a concerned Terry, “He seems like he’ll be just fine with some sitrus juice rubbed onto his back. The injuries were pretty minor.”

Terry sighed with relief. He then turned to Ben to reassure him, but then noticed that Ben was beginning to glow.

“Eh, Benny, are you feeling alright?” he asked.

Ben cocked an eyebrow. “Yeah, why?” he answered before the light enveloped him completely. The others watched as Ben’s silhouette, completely obscured in the light before him, grew larger. Before long, the light had faded, leaving behind the appearance of a larger cat with beefier forepaws and stripes that were more orange than before.

“Well, well, well,” Lena said, claws on her hips, “can’t say I’m surprised after an assault like you pulled off, Ben, but… congratulations!”

After looking over himself, the newly evolved torracat rose up in the air in celebration.

“Yeah, uh, this is great and all…” Ryan said, rising to his feet, “but we really shouldn’t stay in here for too much longer; that garchomp won’t stay down forever, and I don’t want to be here when it wakes up.”

With that, the quartet began to head down the tunnel, with Ben rushing well ahead of the rest.

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Miobach Badlands, Abandoned Silph Co R&D Lab

The tunnel in question opened out onto the top of one of the sandstone cliffs famous to this part of the continent. When the quartet came onto the top of the cliff, they found that the sun was beginning to set, as they expected it would given how long the dungeon was. Luckily for them, they didn’t have much further to go, as not far in front of them was the laboratory they were seeking out. Nearby was a sign, but it was illegible due to the passage of time, though the imprint of a logo depicting two top halves of pokeballs arranged in the shape of an S could barely be made out.

The laboratory itself was fairly nondescript, although it stood out among the colorful sandstone with exterior walls of stainless steel that none of the four pokemon dared to touch. There were also mirrored glass windows, many of which had been shattered out, especially on the lowest of the three floors. Off to the side of the building was a giant metal tank that had been ruptured by what seemed to be a pokemon.

After registering the coordinates to their badges so that they could warp back to this lab if need be, the quartet headed for one of the windows, climbing in carefully so as not to accidentally cut their paws on glass shards. Once they were all in, they took a look around before realizing it was too dark inside to see very well. Ben lit his torch again so that they could look around; Ryan, too, took a lantern in his maw. This room, though, was just a hallway that had many doorways lining it. A short distance down was an alcove containing a button that had a subtle red glow to it. The torracat headed back there, beckoning his teammates to wait. Lifting his torch to the sign above, he found a sign that was in English.

“Oh, right,” Ben thought aloud, “I never learned to read the human language.” He then called behind him, “Ryan! Can you come read this for me?”

The glaceon walked over, careful to not burn himself with his lantern, then setting it down on the cold tile floor and craning his head upward.

“It says… ‘in case of blackout, press the button for backup power,'” Ryan read aloud. “Ah, I knew there would be some kind of backup power source. That’s good.”

Ben just stood there, and the icy fox began swishing his tail impatiently.

“Well, what are you waiting for? Press the button!”

The torracat nodded, leaning himself against the wall as Ryan said. Fluorescent lights came on in the ceiling as the HVAC system roared to life. One by one, the computers in each of the offices played their startup chimes as they all came onto login screens. Knowing that they would need a password, each of the pokemon looked in the drawers of each desk in each individual office, hoping that one of the employees who formerly worked there was a forgetful soul who wrote theirs down.

“Ah ha!” Terry called. “I found one!”

The other three pokemon ran to the office Terry was in, that being room 41. The pachirisu was standing on the desk, holding a slip of paper with a jumble of random characters written on it, with ‘password to station 41’ scrawled across the top.

“Well, that was easier than I expected,” Ryan said, leaping onto the chair, carefully typing the password, and logging in.

The base screen for the desktop had a basic Silph Co. wallpaper. The only three icons were the recycle bin, a web browser that neither Ryan or Terry recognized, and a folder labeled ‘Video Diary’. Terry moved the mouse to the icon and clicked it, opening a window that displayed over one hundred video files spanning several years. Each file had a title pertaining to what it was about, as well as a date the file was last saved. The earliest file had a date of 10-4-2066 and the latest, 6-22-2074.

Huh, that later date is exactly 50 years after the date I ended up in this world, Ryan mused. Though, that would mean it’s not 2024 in this world, wouldn’t it? Hmm, this is kind of confusing.

He shook the thought out of his head for now, hoping to find what he was looking for. To his chagrin, none of the video titles mentioned anything about interdimensional travel. However, the titles of the last couple of videos did catch his eye.

‘I Found A Way to Stop All Wars’ and ‘I May Have Brought on the End of Humanity’? Ryan thought. Those titles sound more like clickbait than a serious video diary that a scientist would make. Although, they could just have a sense of humor. I do wonder if they’ll give an explanation on what happened to the humans who stayed on Earth instead of going with the IEF… probably if the second title is anything to go by…

The glaceon beckoned Ben and Lena to come stand on either side of the desk chair where Ryan was seated. Terry was sitting on the desk next to the mouse. As the pachirisu clicked on the first of the two videos, dated 6-15-2074, the quartet began to focus intently on the contents of the screen.