Ash's POV-
"Damn bushes and undergrowth." I muttered to myself while I trudged through the forest, making my way towards the mansion where Gladion was being held. I had hold of Lillies hand and was leading the way through the dense undergrowth, clearing a path for everyone in the group while I walked. Professor Kukui was following behind us as we made our way to the designated waiting spot. Meanwhile, the two Kahunas, Hala and Olivia, and officer Jenny were making there way towards the other side of the mansion.
I glanced over at Lillie and gave her hand a small squeeze before softly smiling at her. "Are you ready to get your brother back?" I asked.
Lillie looked around like she had just been shaken from a daze, before letting her gaze fall to me. She nodded and smiled back at me. "Yeah..I'm ready to get him back, and hopefully put a stop to my mom." She responded.
Kukui let out a cough while he followed behind us. "Lillie, do you have what I gave you this morning?" He asked her.
Lillie looked back at Professor Kukui and nodded. "Yeah I have it." She answered.
Kukui smiled and nodded in response. "Good, make sure to hold on to it no matter what." He told her.
Lillie smiled at Professor Kukui and nodded. "Of course." She responded.
The undergrowth and brush thinned out a bit as we came to the edge of the tree line, getting a good view of the mansion as we came to a stop. I kneeled down and let out low and quiet whistle as I let my gaze drift across the mansion.
"This place looks like a fortress, guards everywhere, search lights at the top of the house, guards manning said seach lights...this is gonna be a pain in the ass to get into." I whispered to Kukui and Lillie.
Kukui nodded and looked out across the front courtyard where quite a majority of the guards were located at. "That's what the distraction is for Ash." Kukui responded.
I nodded in response to what was said, and as if on cue, all hell broke loose at the front of the mansion. The ground shook as an explosion could be heard down on the other side of the masion. drawing the guards from our side of the mansion towards the large plum of smoke that started rising above the home.
"Well done guys. Now we can get in without getting destroyed by the guards." I thought to myself.
I waited until most of the guards had left their posts and ran towards the explosion. I glanced back at Lillie and Kukui and nodded my head towards the small group of guards that were left on our side of the mansion. "Alright, are the two of you ready for this?" I asked them.
Both Lillie and Kukui nodded in unison. I smiled at the two of them and took two of the pokeballs off of my belt and clicked them, enlarging them and throwing them up in the air. A bright light flashed in front of the three of us, and when it cleared, Infernape and Donphan were standing infront of us.
I studied the small group of guards for a minute, concocting a plan for how to dispatch them without letting them call for help. My gaze slowly made it's way to Donphan and Infernape as a small smirk formed on my lips. "Alright, Donphan use Rollout and take out as many of the guards as you can, Infernape, use Flamethrower on the guards that are left, make sure they can't call for help while we attack." I told the two of them.
Donphan and Infernape nodded and charged out of the cover of the tree line and started closing the distance between them and the guards.
Donphan jumped in the air and curled up into a wheel, immediately transitioning to Rollout once he hit the ground. Donphan rocketed across the open ground and barreled into the guards, knocking them over and tossing them aside like they were ragdolls.
Meanwhile, Infernape reared his head back and opened his mouth, before letting out a ferocious Flamethrower, burning the remaining guards and incapacitating them.
I took a close look around and made sure that there weren't anymore guards coming, before nodding to the others and leading the way towards the side of the mansion. "Awesome work guys." I said to the two of them.
I returned Donphan to his pokeball before pointing at the wall of the mansion. "Infernape, Flamethrower on the wall. We need a way inside." I told him.
Infernape let out a sound of approval before rearing his head back and letting out another Flamethrower, blasting a hole in the wall and allowing us a way inside.
A smile formed on my face as I looked over at Infernape and nodded in approval. "Good job buddy, now go ahead and take a rest, this isn't over yet, and I'm gonna need my heavy hitter later on in this fight." I said while returning Infernape to his pokeball.
I waited for the hole to cool down before crossing over it and entering the mansion. I took the lead and scanned the room that Infernape had burned a hole into, making sure that there was nobody waiting there for us as we walked in.
My gaze drifted back to Lillie after I had finished looking around the room. "Do you have any idea where they might be keeping Gladion at?" I whispered to her.
Lillie stared at me for a moment before shaking her head. "No not really...Other than that he's probably being held in the lowest floor of the house." She responded.
I nodded and started slowly approaching the door on the other side of the room. "Alright, then that means that we have to make our way down to the basement." I said before stopping in my tracks and turning back to look at her. "Your mom isn't the kind of person to have a secret evil bunker...is she?" I asked her.
"Please have her say no, I really don't want to deal with anymore secret evil bunker bullshit. I've had enough of that for one lifetime." I thought to myself while I waited for Lillies answer.
"No I don't..think so..though I'm actually not sure..she very well could have a secret bunker." She replied.
I sighed and nodded as I grabbed hold of the door knob, slowly twisting it and pulling it open, peering out into the hallway and listening for any sounds that might indicate someone was nearby.
I took a deep breath and slowly pulled the door open and creeped out into the hallway after a minute or so of waiting. I looked up and down along the hallway and made sure no one was coming, before looking back at Lillie once more.
"So which way do we have to go to get to the basement?" I asked her.
I noticed Lillie's eyes were darting from side to side, a look of growing distress and panic present in her eyes. I leaned in a bit closer to her whiled I grabbed her hand and gave it a soft squeeze. "Easy there Lills, I got you. No one is gonna hurt you." I whispered to her.
Lillie flinched as I took hold of her hand, her posture tensing up and becoming very rigid. A few moments passed before her gaze dropped down to meet my own, a soft smile forming on her lips as she relaxed a bit and nodded. "Thanks Ashy." She said, before slowly looking around the hallway that we were in.
"What happened Lills?" I asked her.
Lillie took a deep breath and sighed. "Just..memories of running through these halls in my attempts to escape my mother.." She replied.
"Well don't worry, I'm here to protect you, she isn't going to hurt you anymore." I told her.
Lillie smiled at me before nodding. "Thank you, now we're going to want to head down to the left of the corridor, and then at the end of the hallway we'll have to head right and keep going down." She told us.
She bit her lip in thought before continuing. "Though...the only problem is that the route will probably be heavily guarded because it will lead us right past the front entrance." She explained.
Kukui chimed in from the back as he glanced down towards the right of the hallway. "What about if we were to head towards the right? Where would that lead us?" He asked.
"That would lead us past the back entrance, which might be less guarded, but it will also take us longer to get around to the the staircase that leads to the basement." She explained.
"Crap." I muttered to myself as I looked back down at the left.
"As much as I want to take the long way around and play it safe, we don't know if we have the time to do that. The longer we take, the longer Lusamine has to perfect whatever the hell she might be planning. Though if we play it smart when going through the front, then we can take care of them easily." I told them while I reached down to my belt and grabbed two of the Pokeballs on there, a small smirk adorning my face as I spoke.
Lillie nodded, while Kukui had a thoughtful look on his face. "I don't like it, I have a feeling that we might be playing right into her hands." Kukui said.
I sighed and nodded. "That might be, but if it comes to that, then we'll just have to overcome it. now come on, I have an idea for how we can get through them relatively unscathed." I told them, while I clicked the buttons on the two pokeballs that I held and released the Pokemon inside. The hallway was filled with a bright light for a couple seconds, from the light, Sceptile and Greninja appeared.
I took the lead and started advancing down towards the end of the hallway. I stopped at the end of the hallway and pressed myself up against the wall, before peering around the corner.
Farther down the hallway, I could see a lot of people gathered in what I was assuming was the room by the main entrance, their Pokemon out and surrounding the front door.
"Hmm, some fire types, dark types, and a couple water types as well. Some flying types, are there too..that might complicate things a bit." I thought to myself.
I glanced back at Greninja and smiled. "Hey Greninja, think you can head down the hallway and Smokescreen all of them, then while you're hidden in the smoke, I want you to hit all of the flying types with Ice Beam." I said.
Greninja nodded, and without waiting, turned the corner and sprinted down the hallway.
"Alright, on one, we run down to the edge of the Smokescreen and then we duck into one of the rooms." I explained.
Kukui and Lillie both nodded in response. I gave the countdown, and then sprinted down the corridor. The disarray of the enemy was present by the shouts of confusion and questions for orders.
I glanced back at Sceptile and pointed into the Smokescreen. "Sceptile, use Grass knot, make sure they can't move while they're in there." I told him.
Sceptile nodded and ran off into the smoke as the three of us veered off and into one of the rooms. I stayed right inside the door frame and looked down into the smoke and shouted. "Greninja, come on back! Sceptile, use Earthquake!" I shouted to them.
Within moments, Greninja was back by my side, just as the ground started rumbling and shaking. "You two might wanna hold on to something." I said as I grabbed a hold of the door frame and held onto it tightly in an effort to keep myself upright.
A minute or so passed before the tremors finally came to a stop. I gave everyone a minute to get their bearings back before I left the safety of the door frame and started slowly advancing down the corridor, the smoke had finally started to clear, and the sight that had greeted me was a very welcomed one.
Most, if not all of the guards that had been in the area had been incapacitated in some way or another. Meanwhile Sceptile was standing in the middle of it all, a couple scrapes on him, but otherwise, he was unscathed.
I smiled and walked over to him and patted his head. "Nice job Sceptile, go ahead and get some rest for now." I said as I raised his pokeball and returned him to it.
I took a deep breath and relaxed for a moment before calling back down the hallway. "Alright, the room is clear!" I shouted to them.
A minute passed before Lillie and Kukui emerged from the room we hid in and made their way down the corridor to the room I was in. Kukui let out a low whistle as he surveyed the room and the damage I caused. "Damn..." Kukui muttered.
My gaze drifted around the room, taking a look at the possible paths we could take, before letting my gaze come to a rest on Lillie. "So which way do we need to go to get downstairs?" I asked her.
She looked around the room for a moment, before pointing down the hallway that was on the other side of the room. "If we head down that hallway, then the third door on the left should lead down to the basement." She replied.
I was about to respond when I heard shouts coming from the way we came. "Come on, I think they headed down this way!" They shouted.
"Crap, well we don't have time to stand around here and ponder. Lets get going." I grabbed Lillie's hand and started running across the room and down the corridor.
I spared a moment to glance back at our pursuers, and found that they were a lot closer than expected.
I heard one of the pursuers shout out a command as they chased us. "Cacnea, use Pin Missle!"
I looked back and grabbed Lillie as I shouted back to Kukui. "Get down!"
I used my forward momentum to bring Lillie down with me as I dove onto the ground. The hairs on the back of my head were practically parted as the Pin missile rocketed over head and exploded only a couple of feet in front of us.
I felt the heat and cold from an Ice Beam and a Flamethrower pass over head only a couple of seconds after the Pin missle, causing the hallway in front of us to vilolently expload, showering us in wooden shrapnel. I felt a couple of pieces graze me, but luckily I wasn't directly hit.
"Crap, I gotta take care of them quickly before they actually get a good hit on us." I thought to myself.
I turned on the pursuers and glared at them. "Greninja, use Hydro Pump and then block the hallway with Rock Tomb." I said.
Greninja nodded before pulling back one of his arms and thrusting it forward. A large pillar of water shot forward and slammed into the front of our pursuers, toppling them like dominos and knocking them back.
Greninja started to glow with a white aura, and soon boulders started dropping down into the corridor. Within a minute or so, the corridor was completely blocked.
"That oughta buy us a couple of minutes at the very least." I thought to myself.
I let out a sigh and walked back over to Lillie and kneeled down beside her. "Are you ok Lills?" I asked her.
Lillie sat up and nodded before slowly standing up and dusting herself off. "Yes I'm ok. thank you though Ashy." She smiled at me.
I smiled back at her and blushed a little. "You're welcome Lills." I responded.
"Oh I'm ok too, thanks for asking guys." Kukui said as he stood up from where he was sitting at.
I chuckled and nodded. "Sorry Professor." I said as I looked around and saw the third door that we were supposed to go through. Lucky it was free of any major debris and we were able to move the small stuff that was blocking it.
"Come on, we gotta get going." I said while my gaze made its way to the rock barrier. "I doubt that will hold them for very long." I continued.
I opened the door, and low and behold, there were stairs leading down to a lower level of the house.
I took a deep breath and started leading the way down the stairs. A couple of minutes had passed before I finally stepped onto the floor of the basement.
The basement was well lit and in the center of the room was a metal platform, with what looked like a control panel in the middle of it.
I let out a tired sigh as I realized what this meant. "Great, secret evil bunker...just what I wanted to deal with today." I muttered to myself.
I took a deep breath and started slowly approaching the metal platform. "Well, I guess the only choice we really have is to take the platform and go down." I said while I stepped onto the platform and walked over to the control console that sat in the middle of it.
My hands ran across the platform controls as I tried to see if there was something that might let me know how many floors there were. I waited till Lillie and Kukui were on the platform, before hitting one of the buttons on the control console. The platform shuddered a bit, and started slowly descending.
"And thus the descent into hell begins."
A/N
Hey everyone, I'm really sorry for the wait, the month of July was out to get me, I'm not even lying about that. That being said, I appreciate all of you being patient with me and my...Less than favorable and hectic update schedule.
As odd as it might sound, with college starting this coming september, I can actually start getting chapters out on a much more regular basis. At least that's going to be the plan.
Hopefully all of you enjoyed this chapter, and if you have any comments or questions, don't hesitate to post them.
And as always, I will see all of you in the next chapter.
-Pearlshipper332