Ash's POV-
I stared at the teleporter in the back of the room as an explosion erupted from one of its sides. The hair on the back of my neck stood on end as my eyes darted to Lillie and my Pokemon, each one of them looked exhausted and unable to get anywhere in a hurry. I knew that if the teleporter went up and we had to escape, we wouldn't be getting very far on foot.
My eyes darted back to Lusamine, only to find that she had a look of horror plastered on her face. The look alone caused a sinking feeling in my stomach, as I realized that things were about to get very dangerous.
My eye's darted back to the teleporter once again, and I found a figure coming towards us from the direction of the teleporter. It wasn't until they got closer, that I could make out who it was.
Professor Kukui quickly came to a stop in the middle of the field that Lusamine and I were using previously. Kukui's Braviary hovered in the middle of the field as Kukui looked from me, to Lusamine, and back again.
"Well that was honestly easier than I thought it would be." Kukui said with a hearty chuckle.
Even from here I could tell that he was proud of the job he had done with wrecking the teleporter. Though that pride from a job well done, was short lived as the ground began to rumble and violently shake.
The violent shaking caused my legs to buckle as I struggled to stay upright. I saw Lusamine being forced to do the same from across the field, while I watched her eyes snap to where Professor Kukui was.
"Do you realize what you've done? You've doomed us all you imbecile!" Lusamine shouted from where she was.
The ground rumbled once more as an explosion erupted from the side of the teleporter, this one being significantly larger than the first.
"Uh Professor, I think you may have done too good of a job." I said as my gaze darted from the teleporter, to Kukui.
Kukui winced a little as another explosion erupted from the side of the tower. "Yeah, I'm starting to realize that. We should probably get out of here now." Kukui responded, a sense of urgency present in his voice as he reached down and patted his Braviary on its side.
I didn't waste any time returning my Pokemon to their respective Pokeballs, before rushing over to where Lillie and Charizard where.
"Lills, we gotta go, like right now!" I told her, as I reached down and took hold of her hand and helped her to her feet.
My fingers quickly intertwined with her own as another explosion erupted from the teleporter, causing the ground to shake even more than the first time. While I could feel her hand shaking as I held it in my own. "Hey, it's okay Lills, we're gonna be okay." I told her, before giving her hand a reassuring squeeze.
Lillie looked up at me for a moment before slowly nodding, as she squeezed my hand back.
My gaze quickly turned to Charizard, finding that he was already leaning forward and waiting for us to get on his back.
I started leading her to Charizard's side so we could get on his back, when I felt her tug on my hand. "Wait Ash, what about my brother?" Lillie asked, a frantic tone present in her voice as she spoke.
My eye's darted to where Gladion was, he was still incapacitated on Lusamine's side of the field. "Crap that's right." I muttered to myself before looking over to Professor Kukui. "Professor, can you grab Gladion?" I shouted to him.
Kukui looked over to me and nodded, before his Braviary turned around and sped off towards Gladion.
A sigh of relief escaped my lips as I glanced back at Lillie and smiled at her. "The Professors got it, now let's get out of here before this whole place comes down on us." I told her.
We quickly climbed onto Charizard's back, as I started hearing a loud inscessant humming coming from the far side of the room. My eyes followed the direction that the noise was coming from, before finally coming to a rest at the top of the teleporter device.
From where I was, I could make out a dark orb in the middle of the teleporter. It looked like it was slowly growing in size with each passing moment.
'What the hell is that?' I thought to myself, as I continued to stare at it for a few moments.
As I watched it slowly get closer to the edges of the portal frame as it expanded, and watched as it began sucking in the portal frame itself. The ball left nothing behind as it started growing even faster than before.
My heart quickly sank as I realized what was happening. "Okay, we gotta leave, now!" I shouted to Kukui, while I pulled Lillie onto the back of Charizard. "Hang on tight Lills, we gotta make a quick exit!" I shouted to her.
She nodded and leaned into me, before wrapping her arms tightly around my midsection.
Once she was hanging on tightly, I leaned in and patted the side of Charizard's neck. "Alright buddy, we gotta get the hell out of here before that thing engulfs the whole building." I told him.
Charizard grunted in response, as he beat his wings and quickly lifted off the ground.
"Alright Charizard, let's get out of here." I said to him as we took to the air.
Charizard began circling the room, as he climbed higher and higher with each passing moment.
As he gained altitude, I spared a moment to look behind us, and was glad to find that Professor Kukui and Gladion were behind us. Though my heart sunk quickly afterwards, as I saw just how large the ball of energy had already gotten.
The teleporter itself had been almost completely consumed by the ball of energy itself and the side of the room that it was on was almost gone as well.
"Charizard, I hope you remember the way you came in, because we're not gonna have a lot of room for error here." I told him, while I tried to keep the sound of panic and worry out of my voice.
'Gotta stay calm buddy, the last thing you need is to freak Lillie out right now.' I thought to myself, before glancing back at Lillie.
I could tell she was terrified by how tightly she was holding onto me. "Don't worry Lills, we're gonna get out of here." I told her, while Charizard shot down the second floor corridor that he had initially come from.
While we flew down the corridor, we came across more a mob of people attempting to escape the building, and the death ball itself.
"Lills, close your eyes okay, I don't want you to get any rubble in them." I told her. Though In reality, I didn't want her to see just how cruel people can be when they're in a panicked rush like this. It was a rather unpleasant sight to see.
Lillie nodded and tightly closed her eyes, before hugging me a little tighter than before.
I didn't have a chance to say anything else as Charizard banked left and sped around the corner of an adjacent hallway. Only bleeding off a little bit of speed as he continued down the corridor.
From there he didn't go very far, before he banked right and sped down a different hallway entirely.
At the end of the corridor there was a hole in the wall, that led into something that I couldn't clearly make out. What was once a door was now melted slag that had fused to the frame of the doorway.
"Charizard is that our exit?" I asked him, while he sped towards the melted hole in the wall. Charizard nodded in response and continued speeding towards the hole in the wall, not giving me a chance to voice any concerns as we quickly approached the hole in the wall.
"Lillie, lean forward and duck!" I shouted to her as I leaned forward myself, and got my head down as close to Charizard's back as I could. Lillie quickly followed suit and brought her head down to my back as she ducked.
Only a few moments passed before Charizard shot through the opening, and came to a sudden stop in the air.
The momentary pause gave me a moment to look around and see that we were hovering in an empty elevator shaft. Kukui and his Braviary shot through the opening and quickly came to a stop beside us as I looked around and got my bearings.
I took a moment to look down the elevator shaft, and found that the ball of energy was at most a few levels below us. The ball was expanding at a much faster pace than it was before, and was soon trailing closely behind us.
"Alright bud, we gotta move." I told Charizard. He didn't take the time to respond as he started flying up towards the top of the elevator shaft, picking up speed as we tried to outrun the ball of energy.
As we got closer and closer to the concrete top of the elevator shaft, I realized we'd have to make our own way out of here. "Charizard, use Flamethrower on the roof of the elevator, we're going to burn our way out of here!" I shouted to him.
Charizard let out a roar as he opened his maw, and let loose a beam of fire. The flames quickly made contact with the roof of the elevator shaft, and started melting through the concrete at a rapid pace.
Within a matter of moments, the roof of the elevator shaft gave way to the wood of the mansion above. "Don't stop Charizard, we're blasting through everything in our way!" I told him.
The flames quickly blew through the wood and whatever else was in the way, as we burned a hole through to the top of the mansion.
The wood soon gave way to open sky, as Charizard and Kukui's Braviary shot through the opening and into the sky.
Charizard started to slow down as he began hovering in the sky, giving me a chance to look down at the mansion, and watch as it was quickly consumed by the ball of energy.
'Crap, is that thing ever going to stop growing?' I asked myself as I sat there and watched the ball continue growing, until it suddenly came to a stop.
"Wait, why'd it suddenly stop?" I asked in confusion.
"I-I'm not sure why, did it reach critical mass?" Lillie responded.
A response was on the tip of my tongue, but was cut off when the ball of energy suddenly heaved outward like a star expanding, before rapidly receding and returning to the point it originated from.
The ball left nothing behind as it receded further and further into the ground. Before finally stopping at the point where the teleporter once stood. Before anyone could react, the ball suddenly released all of the energy it had stored up and exploded.
The resulting explosion left a large crater where the mansion and underground lab had once been. The shockwave that accompanied the explosion almost knocked us out of sky, while the sound alone temporarily deafened me.
It took me a few minutes to get my hearing and my bearings back. Once I did I was able to take a look at the damage and see just how bad it was.
"Hey Charizard, why don't you set us down at near the edge of the crater?" I asked him, as I reached down and patted the side of his neck.
Charizard grunted and slowly desecended, before touching down on the edge of the crater.
I slowly got off of Charizard's back, before turning and helping Lillie off as well. Once we were off we slowly approached the edge of the crater together.
My eyes drifted across the desolate landscape where the mansion once stood, and down to where the underground lab used to be. Now there was nothing but a hole in the ground left.
Only a couple moments had passed, before I felt a couple fingers intertwin with my own while I stood there.
My gaze slowly shifted to Lillie, and what I found made my heart ache. I watched as tears slowly rolled down her face, while her shoulders began to shake and shudder as she started to cry.
Without another word, I turned to Lillie and wrapped my arms around her, pulling her into a tight hug. She quickly wrapped her arms around me as she buried her head in my chest and cried. Her shoulders shook even harder as she let everything out.
"It's okay Lills, let it all out. Everythings going to be okay from now on." I said as I slowly ran my hand through her hair and held her.
'Things can finally start getting back to normal again.' I thought to myself as I held her in my arms.
Hey everyone, I know it's been a really long time since I updated, and I have been promising to update this for a while. Life and classes have been kicking the crap out of me lately, so Its been hard to find time to actually write lately.
We're starting to reach the endgame now, so at most, there's probably a few more chapters of this book left. Make sure to check out some of the other books I'm currently writing as well, as I'll be updating some of those in the near future as well.
That being said, if any of you have comments or questions, don't hesitate to post them or ask me about them.
I hope you all enjoyed the chapter, and I'll see you all in the next one.
-pearlshipper332