Beyond the Adventure - A Pokémon Story

Chapter 10: Dangerous Territory pt2

                Darius peeks out the bathroom door, then pushes it open.  He points in the opposite direction as the guard and Exeggcute went.  “We should take the other staircase,” he says.  We nod and follow him to the stairs.  He pushes the door open, listens for a moment, then walks through, with Jess, Jaws, and myself right behind him.  We climb the stairs cautiously, listening for the ruckus Exeggcute was making, and also for the other guard.  On the fifth floor, we hear the sound of Exeggcute bouncing through the hallway towards the stairwell.  We duck into the shadows and watch as Exeggcute bursts through the door, bouncing up the steps, tossing the radio to each other.  The guard quickly follows and bounces up the steps after them.

                “Damn you little…” the guard growls.  “Gimme back my radio!”

                We slip through the door behind him before it closes.  I hear the pounding footsteps of a very disgruntled guard fade upwards into the building.  I realize we are only on the fifth floor, which looks like they develop tools and battle aids for trainers and their Pokémon.  We cross the hall to the opposite flight of stairs, check for signs of either guard, then continue up.  Once we get to the eighth floor, Darius peeks through the door.  He motions us through.  He guides us towards the lab door.  As we turn a corner, he suddenly stops us.

                “What the…?” he whispers.

                I peek around the corner.  Laying on the floor, near the lab doors, is one of the security guards.  He remains still, not moving.  We look around, seeing and hearing nothing, so we creep closer.  As we get closer to the guard, we begin to hear an odd sound… snoring?  It sounds like the guard is sleeping!  I have heard of guards sleeping on duty before, but this is an odd place.

                “Wow, your Exeggcute must have used Hypnosis on this guy,” Darius says.

                “Well, where is he?” I ask.  “And the other guard?”

                “I don’t know,” Darius says.  “So we’ll need to be careful.”

                “EXEGGCUTE!” shouts a loud obnoxious voice.  We jump as Exeggcute leaps out of an air duct, raining eggs on us poor unsuspecting folks.  One lands in Darius’ lap, spits the guard’s radio out, and laughs.

                “Ew!  Get off me!” Darius says, pushing the egg away.  The egg spits his tongue at him and joins the rest that have piled onto me and Jess.

                “Well, that was weird, but good job, guys,” I say.  “Let’s get into this lab.”

                “Go ahead,” Jess says.  “I’ll take care of this guard.”

                “Exeggcute, keep watch for the other guard,” I say.  “Jaws, watch this guard and let us know if he looks like he’s going to wake up.”  Jaws nods with acknowledgement, but Exeggcute seems to ignore me, seemingly talking among themselves.  I look at Jaws, and he nods again, understanding my silent order to keep them in line.  They have to be the ones to react to the other guard in order to maintain the illusion that it is just a single Pokémon loose in the building.

                Darius swipes the keycard across the badge reader and the doors spring open.  We slip through, while Jess pulls the guard inside.  Darius drops the radio on the guard’s chest and we look around.  Inside is just how I remember it, though we are on the more technical side.  While the front is geared more towards tourists, this back side has all the research and development equipment.  Not knowing where to begin, I decide the bookshelves will be a good place.  Jess goes toward the vials of unknown substances, and Darius heads toward the shelves with strange-looking devices.  I shift through the various titles, looking for anything remotely interesting.  At last, I find one titled “Evolution Research” and pull it off the shelf.  I flip through the pages and see all sorts of pictures of what look like evolutions of known species, once thought to be unable to evolve further.  One looks like an evolution of Electabuzz.  They call it “Electivire”, yellow and black like Electabuzz, but bigger, wider, and with what looks like two tails.  The data entry reads “We have managed to successfully replicate the energy collected from Mt. Coronet, known as Origin Waves, and administered it to many different species.  Many species resisted the energy with no effect, while some simply passed.  Our first real success was an Electabuzz.  It seemed to thrive on the Origin Waves, absorbing them into its body, and grew into what Sinnoh refers to as Electivire.  While this was a success, the subject exhibited many mutations that resulted in a slow death.  It would appear that Electabuzz requires a specific wavelength to successfully evolve and survive.  With the help of a device created by our lead scientist, Charon, we have managed to identify that wavelength.  Now we can mass produce the Electirizer and sell them to trainers.”