ARC 3, CHAPTER 2

Stella followed the footprints left by the pokémon that attacked them intently. With any luck, she’d find out where it came from, and figure out what to do from there. Zari and Larei once again found themselves trailing behind her, with some degree of worry. They knew it probably was a good idea to investigate this anomaly, but is this the way to do it? There was no way they could talk Stella out of it, though.

It did get results, though. The trail led to a hole. That had to be where it came from, but where does it go? Was this a mystery dungeon? It sure wasn’t familiar to anyone in the team.

“A-Are you sure about this, Stella?” Zari asked after a moment of pondering.

“I don’t know about this,” Larei said. “This seems sketchy… but is it too sketchy?”

“That just gives me another reason to find out what’s going on.” Stella answered. “You saw how aggressive that thing was… I don’t want anyone else to run into something like it. We have to get to the bottom of this.”

Zari let out a small huff. “Okay… but let’s be careful… please.”

In they went, down a staircase of sorts into a large cavern. It looked nothing out of the ordinary at first, but after going a little bit further, they noticed the walls lined with metal. Soon enough, they came across a large, metal door.

“What is this place…” Stella mumbled as she looked around the strange environment. It wasn’t natural for sure, but it also didn’t look abandoned either. What could this place possibly be?

“Oh, hey there,” came a voice that wasn’t with them before. “Damn, didn’t expect you to find out what we’re doing already.”

The team knew this voice well enough at this point, and swerving around to it, they were met with the voice’s expected owner. Umbra was there, and he was just sitting casually, seemingly relaxing. But next to him was a new face: an Incineroar.

“T-Team X…” Larei whispered as Zari froze up at the sight of Umbra. Umbra, however, seemed to ignore both the exclamation, and Zari’s reaction, as he turned to his companion.

“I thought you said you had guard duty under control.”

“I did sir, I did! I didn’t hear no one comin!” the Incineroar rebutted in a somewhat dumb witted voice.

Umbra just sighed. “Newbies, I swear to god… Whatever, I suppose I should deal with you parasites now.”

“Umbra, what’s going on?” Stella asked, crossed. “What are you up to this time?”

“Hmm, actually…” Umbra said, putting a paw to his chin. “That’s a good idea, thanks for reminding me!”

“Huh?”

“Take a look for yourself at what we’re making!” Umbra explained as he got up and pushed a button on the wall. After a moment, the Dreamsavers heard a creaking behind them. They turned to the noise, and they saw that the door was opening.

“We recently found an old excavation site in our base, and in it, some old technology that picked up Boss’s interest. So, we’ve decided to have some fun with the new power we have from it!” As the door fully opened, the Dreamsavers could faintly notice things in the dark doorway. They couldn’t quite make it out, but it felt like a thousand stares into their souls.

“With these new minions, we’ll be unstoppable! And there’s nothing you can do about it either. Not that that matters, you’ll be dead soon anyways! And I don’t even have to get up! Win-Win for me!” At that moment, a dozen different pokémon poured out of the doorway. These pokémon were unidentifiable to the team, but they could tell that they had no intentions to let them live.

“Run,” Stella said immediately. Without a second thought, the team barreled away from the mob before them, and they gave chase not a moment later.

Knowing they had a climb ahead of them, Stella knew she needed to slow down the mob. She had an idea to do so.

“ZARI!” Stella shouted. When Zari turned to her, she saw Stella already shooting an Ice Beam to freeze the ground behind them. Zari immediately caught on, and took action. She slid in to where Stella once stood, and created a Reflect wall. Immediately after, Larei ran to her, and grabbed her by the braid to escape. She squeaked at the sudden exchange, but didn’t complain beyond that. As expected, the mob of seemingly braindead pokémon slid on the ice, and soon after, they all crashed into the Reflect wall. The mob was now a pile of stunned mons, and the Dreamsavers were able to escape without harm.

Umbra and his companion looked on in dead silence for a moment. “Dey got away,” the Incineroar said to him after a moment.

“YOU THINK?!” Umbra snapped at him, then huffed angrily. He turned to the doorway, seemingly aiming to go inside, but paused at what he saw. There was one pokémon from the mob that didn’t give chase to the Dreamsavers. It was brown in color, had a flat head, and had scythes for arms. On its back was what appeared to be a white backpack.

“Hey, what are you doing?” Umbra snapped at it, getting its attention. “Get back inside for your training!”

The pokémon nodded before turning to go back in. Umbra couldn’t help but notice that its walking seemed… odd. Well, that hardly mattered right now.

The Dreamsavers were long away by now, and nothing had followed them. With that moment of peace, they took that moment to catch their breath. But after that, the realization of how serious this was hit them.

“Th-That was close…” Zari said after calming down a bit.

“Yeah, but… now what?” Stella asked.

“What do you mean?”

“Guys, you saw what Team X had in there,” Stella said. “They could destroy this entire region with those… those things. We need to-”

“Stella, no.” Larei budded in. “Not again.”

“Huh?” Stella turned to the Greninja with a worried expression.

“Let’s face it Stella, we can’t take on all of those pokémon. Especially if they have more of them. We’re not strong enough.”

“But we have to!” Stella rose her voice a little bit. “We’re the only ones who know about this! If this gets out of hand, we’re all doomed. We have to do something!”

“Stella, there are stronger rescue teams here-”

“And have any of them been able to stop Team X?”

“Well what makes you think we can?!” Now Larei was getting louder. “We’re just three people! There’s no way we’ll be able to take them all on!”

“G-Guys… please stop…” Zari meekly whispered, but it fell on deaf ears.

“But we can stop them!” Stella exclaimed. “We just have to, or else-”

“I’m NOT getting myself killed just so you can be a hero!”

“This isn’t ABOUT being a hero, Larei! Everyone’s in danger, and we need to help!”

“We don’t have to do SQUAT.”

“Yes we do!”

“EVERYONE STOP!!!” Zari suddenly screamed at the top of her lungs. Her sudden outburst made Stella and Larei fall dead silent. Zari panted for a moment, as she’s never screamed that loudly before.

“Please… Please don’t fight,” she said, with clear sadness in her voice and eyes. A long silence followed, as Stella and Larei both looked towards the ground. They were ashamed.

“Guys… I know we need to stop this, but… but what can we do? Really?” Zari asked them in a calm tone. And both of them knew she was right. But no response came for a minute or two.

“Y-You’re right,” Stella whispered. She closed her eyes for a bit, thinking to herself. “I-I’m sorry…” Stella took a deep breath, then she turned around and walked away.

Zari and Larei exchanged worried glances at each other, but then they nodded as they came to the same conclusion. Stella needed a moment to herself.