Adventures Beyond!

Chapter 26: Crossroads

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Crystal Cave, Sinnoh

Dawn clenched her paws, wiping off a bit of dirt off of her face. In the darkness of the cave, she could barely see who was looking back at her, the one who nearly hit her with an attack.

"I won't ask you again..." The Pokémon spoke, "Who are you?"

"Typically, you're supposed to give your name first," Dawn looked back at him.

Suddenly, something swung at her face. The Buneary managed to avoid it by leaning back, but the object was swung once again to hit her legs.

The attack was successful, and knocked her down.

Dawn smiled to herself. She had a plan. When she could see the figure getting close, she used Thunderbolt in random directions to illuminate the cave's interior.

She looked forward, and could see a Marowak glaring back at her. Her gaze switched to the floor as she quickly got back up with a small hop.

The Marowak ran at her, entering her small field of vision.

"You wanna do this, weakling?" Dawn quickly put her paws up to her chin, bouncing from foot to foot, "C'mon then, show me what'cha got!"

The two went to attack, but were both pushed back by a weak paw.

"Stop..." A weak Aipom managed to push out as she looked over to the Marowak, "I... I..." She wasn't able to finish, however, as she collapsed back on the ground.

Both Dawn and the Marowak exchanged a glance before looking down at Leah.

Meanwhile, At the Pokémon Center...

"You need to sit down!" Leah chased after Oliver, who was quickly walking through the main lobby of the Pokémon Center.

Oliver ignored her orders as he approached the elevator in the back of the main lobby. He, in all honesty, never operated an elevator before, but knew he would need to work it out for his plan to work.

That is, if it had any possibility of working.

Suddenly, Lucy placed a firm paw on his shoulder, "I won't let you go. You're obviously in a lot of pain. You need to lie or sit down!"

Oliver looked back at her, "Ms. Lucy..."

"What?"

"I have to do this, it's bigger than just a little bit of pain..."

The Blissey went silent, her paw's grip slowly softening.

"Maybe it's a bit unnecessarily risky and hard..." The Oshawott let out a sigh before giving a shaky smile, "But nothing's too hard if you look deep enough."

Lucy allowed him to walk to the elevator's doors, where he stood for a while pressing a button.

"You press the down arrow if you want the elevator to come to the ground floor..."

"Oh!" Oliver, who's paw was firmly pressing the up arrow, moved his paw to press the down arrow.

The Oshawott walked inside of the elevator and stood there for a second looking at the buttons before pressing one, the door to the elevator soon closing in front of him.

Once they completely closed, Oliver slid down the back wall of the elevator, letting out a rasped sigh. He slowly put a paw over his stomach as he let out a faint groan. His body was screaming out, and he refused to listen.

As things went silent, all he could hear was the distant rumbling from the fight that was still continuing outside.

"If I can get to the top of the roof, then maybe the momentum could carry over and contribute to my attack power..." The Oshawott began to think, "That way, I won't have to worry about a launch from Sophie, I'll already have good speed."