Weathering The Storm... (A Pokemon OC Story)

Chapter 76: Compromised...

"Ugh...my head..."

Lucas suddenly found himself on the floor, but not the vents as he had expected. He found himself in a small area, hidden behind a smoothened-out white wall, Ellie and Alex strewn uncomfortably to his side. There was also Gible, gnawing gently at Alex's arm, trying to wake him up. Lucas shuffled to the wall, resting his back against the wall while dragging Ellie and Alex out of sight of any prying eyes looking over the wall. He gently tried to shake Ellie awake first, while Gible tried to shake Alex awake. But, clearly, gentle wasn't working. So, Gible bit down hard on Alex's hand, suddenly jolting him awake.

"Ow, what the-", Alex suddenly stopped and took in his surroundings for a second, finding Lucas at his side and Gible still attached to his hand. He shook off the Dragon from his hand and looked at Ellie, who was still out cold. Lucas still just gently shook her, until she eventually started coughing sporadically. Little bits of poison gas began to seep out of her mouth as she finally awake, looking tired and groggy. Lucas smiled, but as the coughing fit got worse, he looked back at the vents. Then, he realized what had happened,

"You took in some of the poison gas, didn't you?", Lucas asked, and Ellie nodded, but shrugged it off,

"It is *cough* fine. It'll be okay."

"Are you sure? I don't want another Meteor Falls."

"Trust me, I'm *cough* okay.", Ellie responded, taking out a Pokeball and releasing Kirlia. "Scout out the area for any grunts, please."

Kirlia nodded and immediately teleported away, through the corridors, scouting out ahead. Lucas peaked around the wall, finding there were two corridors to the left and right. For an evil team, this place seemed rather modern and well-kept. Modern white cleaned-out walls stood around the place, with bright lights blaring down from above illuminating the path forwards. If they hadn't known better, they could've suggested it was just a normal building. Then, Kirlia zipped from the right corridor into the left in a flash. Then, a little over a minute later, it teleported into Ellie's lap, exhausted. Ellie rubbed its head gently and asked,

"Which do you think is the safest?"

Kirlia stuck up its arm, throwing it towards the left side.

"Is there still some grunts on that side, though?"

Kirlia nodded, sadly. Great, that made their job even more difficult. No matter where they went, they'd have to go into some sort of a fight. Ellie tapped her watch lightly, asking through the watch,

"Hello? Is *cough* anyone there?"

It produced nothing but radio silence. Even better. They had no way to contact Bolt now that they'd been found out through their watches. And, even worse, the weird woman had access to their location through the trackers in the watches. So, it was either be completely lost or be followed constantly by someone who absolutely wanted them six feet under. Lucas took initiative, and immediately took off the watch and smashed it to pieces, scattering the pieces of tech all across the floor. Alex did the same almost instantly after Lucas. Ellie took off her watch, inspecting it closely and asking,

"How are we gonna find our way around without the map on here?"

"We won't be able to if we get caught by the watches tracking us. Trust me, its better to leave them here, or destroy them."

"Alright, if you say so.", Ellie said, holding the watch in front of Kirlia who quickly crushed the watch with its psychic abilities, and then made the remaining mechanical organs disappear in a second. Lucas looked around the corner again for any sign of life, then the group slowly began to move to the left of the corridor. Ellie returned Kirlia and Alex returned Gible so they wouldn't make any extra noise. Only the very faint clattering of their feet against the floor. Entering through the corridor, it became clear that they had only seen a fraction of the place. It seemed more like a labyrinth of corridors and walls as they made their way further along, forced to make guesswork on where certain rooms would be. Left-Right-Left. Right-Left-Right. But, despite seeming like they had travelled a while, they never found any rooms. Only the blank corridors. And, it was even worse, when there seemed to be cameras everywhere, watching over them that had to be disabled. Which, was especially difficult when trying to be as discrete and sneaky as possible. Still, they managed. Whether through a sudden Sand Attack or just brunt force breaking the cameras, they made their way through. Then, finally, it seemed they had reached somewhere.