Into the Dark - A Pokemon Isekai

It did, in fact, take much longer to explore the caves than I had thought it would. Besides the massive cavern, the initial layout of the cave could best be described as “labyrinthian,” with paths looping back into themselves or spiraling into dead ends. I had thought that finding the cave was going to be the most difficult part of this entire journey, not finding the Gible itself.

“I don’t know if this is worth it.” I told Venus miserably from my spot by our fire, two weeks after finding the cave and the battle with Rei.

We had relocated the camp closer to the hidden cave soon after finding it, so we only had a short walk to the entrance. I was a little afraid of drawing more attention to the opening, but I had barely seen anyone at all in the past few days, thanks to it being so far away from the major hiking trails.

After the dismal defeat of Venus by Rei’s Tyrogue, the other woman had continually pushed for more battles, and I ended up caving. We were battling almost every other day for these past two weeks, but she had to head to Eterna City. She mentioned needing to pick up some more supplies and a new bike as the date of her quadrathlon grew closer.

Rei had also been kind enough to extend an invitation for me to come and watch, and I was seriously considering going if I had the time. After her departure, I had been surprised to actually find myself missing the battles with Rei, and my Pokémon seemed to be feeling the same.

Venus looked up at me from her meal of Berries and fish, purring a question in response to what I said and pulling me out of my thoughts.

“Don’t get me wrong, I’ve been having the time of my life camping here,” I continued, shaking off my thoughts. “But I’m starting to wonder if we should go somewhere else. It’s been a month after all, and if we haven’t found a Gible yet… maybe it’s not in the cards for us.”

She purred thoughtfully around a mouthful of fish. Zetian was off gathering some Berries like she normally did for dinner. She insisted on delivering what she found to me before she ate, probably a hold-over from when she still had a hive to gather food for.

“It’s not like Gible are even my favorite Pokémon! I just know they’re incredibly powerful, and I was thinking that a Dragon would be useful against a lot of other Trainers or wild Pokémon.”

Venus butted her head against my leg, and I chuckled, scratching her behind the ears.

“Yes, you are my favorite Pokémon. Don’t worry, you could never be replaced.”

With that, she happily returned to her meal.

“It’s just, I want to see the world, you know? Maybe we’ve been spending too much time here when we could have been out, meeting new people and Pokémon. I mean, we’ve spent almost more time looking for a Gible than we have anything else. Dragons aren’t even my favorite type of Pokémon!”

I sighed, and stared into the flickering flames of the campfire as dusk began to creep over the horizon.

“That’s it.” I decided. “The league season starts on the first of September, but it’s already August and there’s a lot we should do before it starts. We’ll do one more day of searching tomorrow, and if we don’t find anything, we’ll leave.

“I don’t know where we’ll go afterwards,” I continued. “We should probably at least check in with Professor Rowan before we start tackling Gyms. Maybe talk to Roark a little bit too? He’s a Gym Leader, hopefully he can give us some tips.”

From what I’d read while doing research back at the laboratory, it didn’t matter which order you challenged the Gyms. All the Gym Leaders had different strength teams that they would use depending on how strong a challenger was and how many badges they had earned, so it wasn’t like the games at all.

Regardless of where I started though, I certainly wasn’t going to be facing Maylene in Veilstone City any time soon. Maylene ran a Fighting-type Gym, and while type matchups weren’t as crucial for victory as they were in the games, they were still important.

Venus, being a Normal-type Pokémon, was particularly weak to Fighting-types, and I wanted to shore up that weakness before challenging Maylene. Zetian did know Gust, and although she was fast compared to Venus, she couldn’t take a lot of hits. If there’s one thing Fighting-types did well, it was dish out hits fast and hard.

“Augh.” I said eloquently, shoveling some dirt onto the fire to put it out. “My head hurts from all this thinking, once Zetian gets back I’m going to bed.”

/^\

The ground shivered.

I looked at Venus, her brown eyes looking back up at me quizzically.

“You felt that, right?”

She nodded, and I looked up and down the tunnel, trying to figure out what was going on.

We had decided for the last day to check out one of the tunnels in the farthest corner of the massive cavern we had found. It was one of the strange tunnels, which had a triangular cut out in the roof.

It had taken me a while to figure out what they were, and I had only realized it once I had seen a veritable freight train of stone moving off in the distance one day. There had to be an Onix nest nearby, and they had carved out these tunnels. The cut-out section of rock helped to guide their head-fins, serving as rails for the massive creatures.

I had been much more careful about wandering the caves once I had figured that out.

Of course, because it was our last time in the tunnels, we had gotten hopelessly lost, and I had no idea where we currently were.

There were none of the glowing crystals that had illuminated the big cavern and the other naturally formed tunnels that we had explored, which was a little odd. Up until now in all of the other caverns and tunnels they had been set into the walls and ceiling. In fact, there had been some times where there had been so many of the crystals that I hadn’t even needed to use my flashlight.

This tunnel was even stranger however, being much wider than the rest of the Onix tunnels we’d seen, with strange silvery streaks on the walls.

The ground shivered again, this time with the faint sound of rocks grinding in the distance.

I shined the light down the tunnel in the direction of the sound. It only illuminated about twenty feet, everything beyond that was darkness, except for two pinpricks of red light.

“Are those getting bigger?” I asked, frowning and straining my eyes to get a better view.

The lights bobbed up and down slightly, and sure enough they did seem to be getting a little bit bigger every second.

“Hey Venus,” I called, and the Eevee bounded up to my side. “I don’t know what’s going on, but be on your guard, okay?”

She yipped a response, and I took a step forward, trying to see what was going on.

A grinding sound began to echo from the same direction, and I frowned. It sounded different than the noises an Onix made, and I struggled to put a name to why that was. As the red lights got closer, ice water ran down my spine as the source of the noise became visible.

I realized why this tunnel was broader than the others, and what that silvery substance on the walls had been - metal.

There was one pokemon that lived near Onix, that was broader than the big rock worms, and was coated in metal.

The Steelix howled as it got close enough to see us clearly and sped up, rage, hatred, and pain in its eyes.

Venus and I looked at each other and did the only sensible thing.

We turned and sprinted down the tunnel.

Of course our flight didn’t last long. The tunnel hadn’t been a straight shot to the main cavern, of course, and twisted and turned in all sorts of directions. It was a tangled Rattatas nest, and running didn’t help us out for very long.

Somehow we didn’t end up in the massive main cavern. I didn’t know how, we must have taken a wrong turn somewhere in the dark, but one wrong turn led to another and we ended up in the middle of a much smaller cave, with no other tunnels or exits.

A dead end.

The rumbling of stone announced the end of the line, and Venus and I turned to face the freight train of steel and anger that had followed us this far.

The speed training that we had done in order to learn Quick Attack was the only thing that saved us from getting completely splattered.

We both dived to the side as the Steelix burst into the cavern, slamming into the wall on the far side. Stones clattered to my feet from the ceiling, and I nearly tripped over them.

Once we were to the side and had a clear view of the massive Pokémon, I could see what had gotten it so upset. There, on the end of its tail, was a Gible. The young Dragon-type Pokémon was basically a massive mouth on a pair of stubby legs, but that mouth was currently clenched tightly onto the tip of the Steelix’s tail. What was worse for the Steelix however, was that the dragon’s teeth were apparently winning the fight against the metal skin of the larger Pokémon, and cracks were spiderwebbed across the last segment of the tail.

With some space to move around out of the smaller tunnels, the Steelix was able to swing its tail back and forth, building up speed and momentum to crack its tail like a whip, smashing the Gible into the wall with a gut-wrenching impact.

The Gible didn’t stand a chance and let go, dropping to the ground, clearly dazed.

Even with the pest removed from its tail, the Steelix was still enraged, and roared as it caught sight of Venus and I. Despite the fact that we hadn’t done anything to it, the massive Pokémon began coiling itself up for another strike.

My mind raced. There was no way out. Even if we could get by the Steelix, we were still lost in the maze. The pissed off Steelix most definitely knew the labyrinth of tunnels better than we did, and it was faster in this environment than we were. It was only because we had a head start that we had even made it this far.

Besides, we had finally found our quarry, and we might never see one again if we didn’t take this opportunity.

We had to fight.

I pulled out my other Pokéball, and released Zetian in a flash of light.

She had been kept away for the vast majority of time exploring the caves as she was deeply uncomfortable being so far underground, but when she saw the situation we were in, Zetian immediately buzzed in anger and moved to protect me.

“Venus!” I called. “Quick Attack! Zetian, use Gust!”

The pitifully small Eevee glowed with a faint light as she dashed forwards, smashing into the Steelix’s side.

I winced at the sound of the impact but the Steelix bellowed again, this time the anger was laced with pain.

The attack had done damage, but obviously wasn’t enough.

The blast of wind that emerged from Zetian’s small wings wasn’t much better. Steelix was a dual Steel- and Ground-type, and was naturally resistant to Bug- and Flying-types like Zetian. Her attacks would be like a papercut to the massive Pokémon. The only saving grace was that comparing the speeds of the two Pokémon was like comparing night and day, as Zetian was easily able to dodge most of her slower enemy’s attacks.

The Steelix roared and its tail whipped around again, and while it wasn’t able to catch Zetian thanks to her speed, Venus wasn’t quite so lucky.

Her whimper of pain sent daggers into my heart, and I bit back a cry of sympathy.

I started to run over to her, but Venus was already up on her feet, looking battered but determined.

Pride warred with concern, and at the expression on her face, I came to a stop.

Pokémon were so much stronger than any animal from my world. That blow would have turned any animal Venus’ size into roadkill, but she was clearly still able to battle. This was part of the world I was in now.

I had to trust her.

“Growl!”

Ears pinned back, Venus snarled, and the Steelix actually hesitated. When it next attacked, using its tail again, it was moving just a fraction slower, and its blow was that much lighter.

Another stone clattered to the ground, and I realized that I could see without the flashlight in my hand. I spared a quick glance towards the ceiling of the cave, noticing it was covered in stalactites and the glowing gems. One of which was a particularly large green stone, nearly the size of a pool table and glowing bright enough to light up the room on its own.

An idea started to form in my head, but I was forced to redirect my attention towards the fight still ongoing.

Venus had continued to use her Quick Attack while I had been distracted, and Zetian was still chipping away with Gust, but apparently the Steelix was reaching the end of its patience. During the scuffle it had managed to maneuver itself between Venus and myself, putting the bulk of its metallic body between us. The massive Pokémon roared, and smashed its tail into the ground. More stones clattered from the roof, including several of the crystals, and the Steelix’s tail slapped one of them right at Venus.

The Rock Throw hit Venus square on, and there was a sickening sound of breaking bone. Venus howled in pain, and the sound nearly broke my heart.

I looked around frantically for anything that I could do, but the Steelix was between me and her, and it loomed over the still form of my beloved partner. A flash of blue caught my eye, and I noticed the hunched form of the forgotten Gible, who was back to full consciousness but simply staring at the fight.

“Please!” I called, and the Pokémon jolted. “Please! Just… let me help her! If you can do anything…”

The Gible hesitated, and my heart dropped as it scampered away behind a boulder.

“No, no, no!” I cried as the Steelix began to drop its entire mass down on my best friend in the entire world.

Then the Gible popped back up as if it were launched from a trebuchet, and smashed both of its feet into the ground.

The entire cave shook, enough to throw the Steelix off-balance. It knocked me over too, but the Gible had bought me a precious few seconds with its attack, and I desperately crawled over to Venus, pulling out the Potion that I had gotten from Courtney at the Poké Mart, which seemed like a lifetime ago.

“Zetian!” I called, and one of the faces turned to look at me while the other two were focused on her enemy. “Keep it off of us for a second! I need to heal Venus!”

All three faces were set in grim determination, and she redoubled her attacks as I switched my attention to Venus. I wished I could have helped Zetian out more, but I had to put my faith in her ability to handle herself.

I knelt down in front of Venus, shielding her from the Steelix even though it meant turning my back on the Pokémon. The Gible huffed, seemingly satisfied, and sat back on its haunches to watch the battle continue to unfold, not bothering to continue the fight.

That didn’t stop me from twisting the nozzle of the Potion and pulling the small mass of brown fur into my lap.

“Oh little one.” I sobbed, tears welling up as she valiantly tried to struggle to her feet, favoring one obviously broken leg.

I sprayed the entire bottle of Potion onto her skin, and even though she whimpered from the sting of the medicine, there was an almost immediate reaction.

Venus’ leg didn’t magically set itself, but her breathing evened out, and she stopped trembling, managing to stand up straighter with a determined look in her eye.

A cry from the Steelix reminded me that there was still an incredibly angry Pokémon behind me, and I twisted to see Zetian going absolutely crazy, biting the massive beast and slashing at it with her Gusts, only just barely staying out of reach of her enemy’s attacks.

Risking another glance at the ceiling, a faint fire of hope kindled in my chest.

“Venus,” I said softly, and the Eevee, feeling far, far too small in my arms, looked up. “I think there’s a way to knock this thing out, but you gotta act fast, okay? You see that rock up there?”

I pointed to the glowing green crystal I had noticed earlier, now sticking a fraction of the way out of the ceiling, and Venus nodded.

“You gotta knock it down.”

Venus gave me an incredulous look.

“Trust me on this! You have to use Quick Attack, it’s the only way to do it in time. You gotta… you’ve got to run up the Steelix.”

Venus’ ears drooped for a second as she stared in horror at the other Pokémon as it thrashed around, trying to catch the wily Combee that was striking at it from the air.

“You can do it! Just think of it like the obstacle course! It’s body is rough, there’s plenty of footholds and if you go fast enough, you can jump right off of it! I believe in you Venus, this is the only way, okay?”

The Eevee paused, staring up at the Steelix with terrified eyes, then they gleamed with a mixture of anger and resolve. She reached up and licked my face, then quickly hopped out of my arms and began to run towards the Steelix.

“Zetian! Use Sweet Scent!”

The Combee didn’t bother to respond, but a glittering halo of powder started to drift out of the incredibly small hairs on her body. I could see the powder swirling into the Steelix’s mouth, and its red eyes started to dilate. After a tense few seconds and the it’s best efforts, the Sweet Scent started to take effect and its wild thrashing started to slow down.

Tracking Venus’ progress, I could tell it was incredibly painful for her to run with the broken leg, but she pushed through the pain.

The strategy wouldn’t have been possible without Zetian slowing down the Steelix and chipping away at its health, and I resolved to pamper the bee-like Pokémon at the first opportunity.

I had never seen such a beautiful sight as Venus began to shimmer with light as she climbed the writhing body of the snake-like Steel Pokémon.

She reached the top of the Steelix’s head and launched herself up at the ceiling, smashing into the crystal.

While she had been running I hadn’t been idle either; having gotten to my feet and hurdling over the Steelix’s tail, arms outstretched and ready to catch my falling Eevee.

Venus dropped into my waiting arms and I immediately threw us back down to the ground, covering her with my body. Zetian’s Poké Ball was fished out of my pocket, and I clicked the main button several times.

“Zetian, return!”

For an agonizingly long second, nothing happened as a beam of light brought Zetian back to safety. Then with a groan, the crystal, already loose from the Steelix’s repeated attacks against the walls of the cavern and Gible’s attack, finally broke free of its stone enclosure.

I didn’t see what happened, but the Steelix roaring in pain blended with the shattering crystal into a deafening cacophony of sound that echoed throughout the entire cave system.

When I finally worked up the courage to look up from my position covering Venus, the Steelix was laying on its side. It was clearly dazed, stirring every now and again, until with a final groan it closed its eyes and went limp.

Zetian’s ball rocked in my hand and I released her again, and she rocketed off to buzz around the Steelix’s head, all three faces furious. Thankfully she didn’t attack, doing nothing more than making sure that it was actually unconscious.

I sagged, exhausted, and looked down at the tiny form in my arms. Venus looked up at me, mewled quietly and licked my hand, then her eyes fluttered shut.

For a brief moment I panicked, worrying that the worst had just happened, but the steady rise and fall of her chest told me she was still alive, albeit unconscious from the battle.

Whispering words of love and encouragement to her, I recalled Venus to her Poké Ball as Zetian flew over to me, all three faces looking concerned.

“It’s okay.” I said, reaching up to pet the side of her vaguely triangular body. “You did so well, I’m so proud of you.”

I got to my feet, legs shaking a little bit as I started to come down off of the adrenaline high. A nervous laugh escaped me as I carefully edged away from the slumbering giant steel snake laying a few feet from me.

Shuddering one more time, my attention moved to the last figure in the cavern.

The Gible was looking highly unimpressed as it stared at the two of us, but I could see its eyes flicking over to the Steelix every few seconds. Whether it was scared or hungry, I couldn’t tell.

“Hey.” I said, and its black, shark-like eyes shot over to me with an intensity that was frightening.

“Thank you for helping out back there, I appreciate it.”

The Gible kept staring.

“I, uh, actually came down here to try and find one of your species.”

That actually got a reaction, and the small dragon shifted slightly.

“Would you like to come with us? To travel, become stronger, and see the world?”

Those flat black eyes stared at me, judging me. It looked at Zetian and made a strange growl-chip noise, which Zetian responded to by dancing a little drunkenly in mid-air.

The Gible regarded me again, looked back at the Steelix, and snorted. I couldn’t claim to be an expert in Pokémon language, not even close, but even I could hear the scorn in that sound.

It puffed out its chest and snarled, and I shook my head tiredly.

“We’re exhausted, and my Pokémon are hurt. We’re not going to fight you right now.”

The Gible eyed the two of us, then chittered a mocking laugh.

At that moment, I understood it completely. It had attacked the Steelix because it wanted a fight. It had watched us fight because we were entertaining. But if we weren’t going to battle the Gible ourselves, it didn’t want any part of us.

It thought we were weak, and despised that.

Turning on its heels, the Gible strode back into the darkness, disappearing from sight.

I fell to my knees. Weeks of searching, with so much time and energy put into trying to find a new party member. A life or death battle against a Steelix, something that we should not have gone up against with its strength and type advantages. We had survived, but our goal… the Gible… it had just walked out on us.

We weren’t strong enough for it.

We had failed.

No.

I had failed.