Work Text:
Zhang Zhehan cycled as fast as he could.
In the basket between his handlebars, a small bundle, wrapped in bloodied blankets, lay completely still.
Zhehan pedaled for all he was worth. It was a long uphill road back to the nearest town. Clinging tight to his shoulder was his best friend, his companion, his Pokémon, Pikachu. He could feel Pikachu’s gaze on the bundle of blankets, and he could sense his best friend’s anger.
Friendly battles between trainers, even ones that grew heated, they didn’t leave Pokémon like this. Zhehan didn’t want to think about what might have caused something so awful, but it was all he could think about, save the burning in his legs as he cycled harder up the hill.
~
Zhehan burst through the doors of the Pokémon Center, Pikachu at his heels. Pushing past the line at reception, he reached the front desk, clutching the bundle protectively.
“It’s an emergency—” he tried to explain, as a displeased looking Machoke in a nurse’s uniform approached him.
Pikachu loudly agreed with him.
“Sir, I’m sorry but you need to line up like everyone else—”
Nurse Joy’s expression changed when she saw the state of the Pokémon in Zhehan’s arms.
“I—follow me. Quickly.”
Zhehan and Pikachu followed Nurse Joy and the Nurse-Machoke further into the Pokémon Center until they reached a small surgery room. There was a strong smell of disinfectant in the air and Zhehan saw Pikachu’s nose twitch.
A Chancey entered the room wearing a surgical mask and holding a tray of metal tools.
“Please.”
Nurse Joy held her arms out to take the bundle from Zhehan. Instinctively he held onto the Pokémon tighter, but then he passed it over to her.
“Please wait outside,” Nurse Joy said, as she took the Pokémon over to the operating table. “Machoke will show you out.”
“Pikachu!” Pikachu protested, the sentiment being exactly how Zhehan felt. He didn’t want to wait outside.
“This Pokémon is nearly dead,” Nurse Joy said, not turning back to look at either of them. “I need you to wait outside.”
Machoke stepped between Nurse Joy and Zhehan, with an expression that suggested it wouldn’t take no for an answer.
~
Zhehan wasn’t sure when he drifted off to sleep, but he woke up in the Pokémon Center’s waiting room, with the warm presence of Pikachu asleep in his lap.
There was a TV on the wall, playing the news. Zhehan wasn’t really paying attention to it until he saw a headline about Pokémon mysteriously disappearing in lots of the local towns, along with several Pokémon trainers who had been reported missing by friends or family.
“Machoke.”
Zhehan looked to the side and saw the Machoke in the nurse uniform standing in the door.
Pikachu’s ears and tail twitched at the same time and he woke up with a big yawn and a stretch. Out of habit, Zhehan tickled Pikachu’s exposed tummy, earning a sharp zap of electricity into his fingers and an indignant squeak from Pikachu.
“Sir, we’ve managed to save your Pokémon’s life,” Nurse Joy said, appearing next to Machoke. “But—”
“But we’ve got some questions for you,” came another, sterner voice. A woman with blue hair and wearing a police uniform approached Zhehan. “I’m Officer Jenny, with the local police. What happened to your Pokémon to leave it in such a state?”
“It’s not mine,” Zhehan said, looking from Nurse Joy to Officer Jenny. “Pikachu and I were cycling from the previous town over—we stopped for a bit and Pikachu heard a weird sound so we went to investigate and we found it like that.”
Officer Jenny frowned. “Where was this?”
“I don’t know, near the forest by the abandoned powerplant, I think…”
Zhehan looked down at Pikachu. “Do you remember?”
“Pikachu,” Pikachu answered.
“Fine.” Officer Jenny exchanged a glance with Nurse Joy and then stepped back. “I’ve got to go, but let me know once that Pokémon recovers enough for an interview. We need to find out what—or who—did that to it.”
“Can I go and see it?” Zhehan asked, turning to Nurse Joy. “Please?”
Nurse Joy turned to Machoke. “That should be okay, shouldn’t it?”
“Machoke.”
Zhehan picked Pikachu up and carried him as they followed Machoke and Nurse Joy into a room with several beds. All the other beds were empty, but there was one by the window, where a small Eevee was sleeping. One of its ears was bandaged, and it was covered in stitches and bruises, the white fur on the end of its tail was tinged pink from all the blood.
“We tried to get the worst of the blood out of its fur but…” Nurse Joy broke off and sighed, looking down at the Eevee. “I’m not sure what state it will be in when it wakes up.”
“Pikachu…” Pikachu murmured sadly.
Zhehan could only agree.
~
After a few hours of sitting with the injured Pokémon, Zhehan decided it would be good for Pikachu—and probably himself—to stretch their legs and perhaps go and get a coffee from the Pokémon Center’s cafe.
As he came back into the Pokémon’s room, coffee cup in hand, he saw the Eevee’s nose twitch and for a moment he thought it might wake up. But it didn’t move again.
Zhehan sighed and took a seat next to its bed. On the other side of the bed, Pikachu jumped onto a table and accidentally stepped onto a TV remote. The television on the far side of the room came on, still showing the news program that had been on earlier.
Pikachu squeaked in frustration at the remote and went to press the power button.
“Wait, Pikachu, I want to watch this,” Zhehan said, looking up at the screen. “What if this Eevee is connected to some of these missing trainers or Pokémon?”
Pikachu sighed and pushed the remote further away, but didn’t turn the television off.
“Pokémon Trainer Gong Jun has been reported missing by friends and family. Anyone who has any information on the whereabouts of Gong Jun is asked to contact Officer Jenny immediately.”
The news programme had several blurry pictures of the missing trainer on the screen.
He was very handsome, Zhehan’s mind supplied, even though nobody had asked.
“Eevee?”
Zhehan jumped and spilled coffee over himself. “Oh fu—”
“—kachu!”
The injured Eevee stared up at the television screen in front of them. The moment the pictures disappeared, it suddenly seemed to realize that Zhehan and Pikachu were there.
Before Zhehan or Pikachu could say anything, Eevee leapt out of bed and scampered out of the room.
Pikachu and Zhehan stared at each other. Then they sprinted after Eevee.
“Wait! Eevee!”
“Pikachu!”
Zhehan’s clothes were stained with coffee and he knew he must look deranged, chasing a bandaged Eevee through the Pokémon Center, but despite its injuries, it was way faster than it had any right to be.
As Zhehan sprinted for the Pokémon Center doors, Pikachu running ahead of him, he could see Eevee disappearing into the distance down the road.
“Pikachu!” Pikachu exclaimed, and Zhehan looked to the left, to see his bicycle, still resting against the wall of the Pokémon Center.
~
Despite cycling as fast as he could, Zhehan still wasn’t able to catch up with Eevee. Even with all its injuries, it was still faster than any Pokémon he’d ever seen.
“That Eevee must have had two Jolteons as parents,” he muttered, as he pedaled his bike back up the hill.
“Pikachu,” Pikachu agreed.
To the side of them was a large forest, and Zhehan wondered if Eevee would have gone there to hide.
“I think we should search here,” he said, stopping his bike and climbing off. Pikachu jumped from his shoulder and sniffed the air.
“I think we need some more help to search, Pikachu,” Zhehan said, reaching for the Pokéballs at his waist.
“Dratini, Cyndaquil, Turtwig, come on out and help.”
The three Pokémon appeared, chirping at him and each other.
“We need to find that Eevee,” Zhehan told them. “But don’t go too far, okay?”
The Pokémon nodded, and their little group split up in different directions.
~
“Any luck, anyone?” Zhehan called out, though he was starting to lose hope.
Each Pokémon called back in response, confirming they hadn’t found Eevee.
Zhehan sighed. “Okay, everyone, come back here, I don’t think we’re finding Eevee today.”
After a few seconds, Turtwig emerged from a nearby bush, looking tired. They had been searching for several hours.
Cyndaquil appeared next, and flopped down onto the ground in front of Zhehan with a loud sigh.
“Yeah, I know, but at least we tried our best,” he said, sitting down to pet Cyndaquil on the head.
Dratini came back and lay down next to Cyndaquil, closing its eyes in exhaustion.
They all waited for a short while longer, until Zhehan realized Pikachu hadn’t come back.
“Pikachu?”
The other Pokémon raised their heads, looking around.
“Did anyone see Pikachu recently?”
Everyone looked at each other, and shook their heads.
A sinking sensation came over Zhehan.
“Perhaps…perhaps he just wandered off and didn’t realize,” he suggested, as Dratini climbed into his lap.
“Dratini,” it said, looking up at him.
Zhehan sighed. Dratini was right. It wasn’t like Pikachu to wander off on his own without letting them know.
“Or maybe he found Eevee?”
“Turtwig!”
“Yes, I know!” Zhehan replied, exasperated. “What do we do, then?”
Cyndaquil grabbed Zhehan’s t-shirt and pulled on it. “Cyandaquil!”
Zhehan looked to where Cyndaquil was gesturing. Further up the hill, through the woods, there was the abandoned powerplant.
~
There was something deeply ominous about the abandoned powerplant. When he was younger, Zhehan had heard many rumors of why the powerplant shut down. Some said it had been used for terrible experiments on Pokémon, others said it was terrible experiments on people. Some said it was both.
Of course, the more reasonable, official explanation, was that with the switch to green energy, the powerplant wasn’t needed anymore.
Still.
Zhehan shivered as he looked up at the soot-black chimneys, reaching up into the sky like clawing fingers. Around him, Cyndaquil, Turtwig and Dratini huddled close to his feet.
Ahead of them, a twig snapped loudly.
Zhehan motioned to his Pokémon to stay quiet, as he crept forward, carefully minding tree branches out of his way.
A few meters away, the injured Eevee was standing, staring up at the powerplant. It was trembling, and Zhehan could see some of its injuries looked as though they had gotten worse.
“Eevee?” Zhehan spoke gently.
The Pokémon jumped, startled, and Zhehan could tell it was about to bolt again.
“Wait! Have you seen my Pikachu? He’s gone missing.”
Eevee paused, and looked down at the three Pokémon by Zhehan’s feet.
“Are you hurt?” Zhehan asked, reaching for a potion from his belt. “This might help?”
Eevee flinched, but relaxed when it saw the potion. Slowly and carefully, Zhehan moved closer, and then sprayed some of the potion onto Eevee’s wounds. Zhehan knew that potions stung, something that Pikachu always made sure he remembered. But this Eevee didn’t make a single noise of complaint. It kept its gaze fixed on the powerplant.
“Are you looking for your trainer?” Zhehan asked, once he had put the potion away.
Eevee looked at him. It hesitated for a moment, before turning to the powerplant and gesturing for Zhehan to follow it.
~
Eevee led Zhehan to a chain-link fence surrounding the powerplant. Signs were plastered all over the fence, saying DANGER and NO TRESPASSING.
It was supposed to be abandoned, but Zhehan saw several strangely dressed individuals skulking around the outside of the building. They looked like cultists, or something.
They were in black and purple hooded robes. Two were standing outside the entrance to the powerplant, and Zhehan guessed they must be the guards.
Behind the guards, walking into the powerplant, Zhehan spotted two more cultists carrying a stretcher with someone lying on it. Too small to be an adult. Were they carrying a child?
As Zhehan tried to get a closer look, the lights from the inside of the buildings shone on the stretcher, and he saw several Pokémon, including his Pikachu, lying unconscious as they were carried inside.
“Pika—ow!”
Eevee bit Zhehan’s hand.
“What are you doing—” Zhehan hissed. “You’re hurting me—”
Eevee let go and glared at him. Several more cultists followed behind his Pikachu, and Zhehan watched as they all disappeared into the building.
“They can’t be that tough,” Zhehan protested. But Eevee probably had a point that it wouldn’t be smart to charge in there and fight all of them at once.
“Eevee,” Eevee said, narrowing its eyes at the two guards on the door.
“Agreed,” Zhehan said, hand going to his PokéBalls. His Pokémon might be tired after all their searching earlier, but he knew they would fight their hardest to rescue Pikachu.
Eevee checked again to make sure there weren’t any other cultists coming, before it gestured to a hole in the chain-link fence. There was just enough space for Zhehan to squeeze through, and Eevee followed behind him.
They approached the entrance to the powerplant. Zhehan wondered whether there might be a back door that they could sneak through, instead of going in through the front door, but then one of the cultists spotted him.
“Hey! This place is off-limits, asshole—”
Eevee launched itself at the man, headbutting him hard in the stomach.
“Ow, what the fuck—”
“Go, Cyndaquil!” Zhehan commanded, deciding this was as close as they’d get to having the element of surprise. “Fire blast!”
The cultist wore a mixture of shock and anger on his face as he was hit by a burst of flames. Cyndaquil looked cute and harmless, but Zhehan had been training his Pokémon for the Gyms recently, and their looks were deceiving.
The other cultist stared at his companion, who was lying on the ground, groaning and covered in burns.
“Is the door locked?” Zhehan demanded, as Eevee growled at the man.
“I—” The cultist reached into his pocket and with shaking hands brought out a ring of strange looking keys.
“Throw them over here,” Zhehan told him. Waiting for the cultist to obey. When the man hesitated, Cyndaquil prepared to use fire blast again, and the man quickly hurled the keys towards them and started running away.
“Help! Hel—”
The cultist tripped over Zhehan’s Dratini, who had been waiting behind him. Without waiting for Zhehan’s orders, it used Twister, and sent the cultist spinning up into the air, before bringing him down in the forest several meters away.
There was a crunch as the man hit the ground, and then it went quiet.
“Come on,” Zhehan said, returning Dratini and Cyndaquil to their PokéBalls and reaching for the keys to unlock the door of the powerplant.
~
They crept through the powerplant, keeping to the shadows to avoid any more of the cultists.
Zhehan found one door that had a weird symbol on it. He tried several of the keys but none of them seemed to work.
A group of cultists suddenly came around the corner and Zhehan had no choice but to abandon the door. He rushed over to another one, further down the corridor and tried to open it. The first key caused the door to click open and he threw himself into the room, Eevee sprinting in behind him. He closed the door as quietly as he could and then locked it behind him.
Zhehan turned around and found himself in a small, dingy room. He groped around for the light switch until he finally found it.
The lights blinked on, and Zhehan saw a man, handcuffed to a radiator on the floor. He was covered in cuts and bruises, his bottom lip split open.
“Eevee!”
Eevee bounded over to the man, leaping into his arms.
“Oh shit.” Zhehan approached the man, peering at him. “You’re the hot missing trainer off the TV.”
The man looked up at Zhehan and frowned. “What?”
“I—I mean, uh, you’re the missing trainer. From the TV.”
“TV?”
Zhehan shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. What happened? This is your Eevee?”
“Y-yeah,” the man answered, looking down at Eevee and smiling. “I’m so glad you’re okay.”
Eevee nuzzled the man’s stomach as it made happy chirping noises.
“I was challenged to a friendly trainer battle,” the man said, frowning as he recollected it. “Or, at least, it was supposed to be friendly. But then the trainer sent out these awful, monstrous Pokémon. I don’t know what was wrong with them, they were stupidly strong, but they seemed to be in pain, too. I don’t know. When I told them I didn’t want to fight their Pokémon, they didn’t listen and attacked me. Eevee tried to save me and got hurt. They dragged me here and stole my other Pokémon. I—I need to go find them!”
“Well, hopefully these keys work on your handcuffs,” Zhehan said, crouching down to try the various keys. “What’s your name, again?”
“Gong Jun,” the man answered. He peered at Zhehan. “Are you…with the police?”
Zhehan snorted. “Do I look like Officer Jenny?”
Gong Jun’s ears went pink. “You don’t have to be Officer Jenny to be with the police.”
Zhehan smiled. “Well, I’m not. I’m just a trainer. You can call me Zhehan. I found your Eevee and took it to a Pokémon Center and then…well, these asshole cultists kidnapped my Pikachu. So I’m here to get him back.”
Gong Jun nodded. “Good to meet you, Zhehan. We’re on the same team, then.”
The key Zhehan tried clicked into place and Gong Jun’s cuffs sprang open. He met Gong Jun’s eye. “Let’s go find our Pokémon.”
~
“What do you think these cultists are doing in an abandoned powerplant?” Gong Jun whispered, as they crept through the dark corridors.
“Blood sacrifice, probably,” Zhehan muttered.
Gong Jun stopped walking. “What?”
Zhehan turned back to look at him. “I mean, how should I know?”
“Hey! Who are you?”
Zhehan and Gong Jun both looked up and saw two cultists further down the corridor.
“New recruits,” Zhehan answered quickly, wondering if they’d believe him. “Where do we get our uniform?”
“Nobody said anything about new recruits. And we don’t store uniforms here…”
Zhehan glanced at Gong Jun. Gong Jun nodded.
“Cyndaquil, flamethrower!”
“Eevee, use take down!”
The cultists went down easily. Zhehan went through their pockets and found some weird looking keys that were different to the ones he had.
“Gong Jun, help me drag them into that room over there.”
Gong Jun looked puzzled, but he did as Zhehan asked.
Once they were inside the room, Zhehan took his shirt off and started stripping the cultists of their clothes.
“Er, what are you doing?” Gong Jun asked, alarm in his voice.
“We need to borrow their uniforms, blend in better,” Zhehan said, glancing up at Gong Jun. He narrowed his eyes. “Close your mouth.”
“I—” Gong Jun blushed and turned away. “Their uniforms are charred.”
Zhehan threw some pants and a robe at Gong Jun, before he got changed into some himself.
Gong Jun had a point. Cyndaquil’s flamethrower attack had left the clothes black and curled at the edges in some places.
“If anyone asks, we can say we found some intruders but left them in a room. By the time anyone checks, we’ll be gone.”
“Hm,” Gong Jun said, looking down at his clothes and fidgeting. He was quite a bit taller than the cultist whose clothes he was now wearing. It looked like he was wearing a crop top.
Zhehan had to stifle a laugh. “It’s, um…flattering?”
“Shut up.”
Eevee suddenly perked up and rushed forward, sprinting over to another door. It turned around and looked up at Gong Jun.
“Eevee thinks the rest of my Pokémon are in there!” Gong Jun whispered, turning to Zhehan. “Do the keys work?”
Zhehan tried several keys without any luck. He could feel Eevee and Gong Jun both growing restless with every failed attempt.
Finally a key he tried worked and the lock clicked open. Gong Jun pushed into the room and stopped suddenly.
“What is it? Are they here?” Zhehan asked, pulling the key out of the lock and following Gong Jun into the room.
Zhehan stopped next to Gong Jun, both of them lost for words.
Inside the room were dozens of crates of PokéBalls, all full of Pokémon.
“What the…are these all stolen?”
Eevee raced up to a crate and started calling them over. Gong Jun followed it, and looked into the crate. “Oh, they’re here!”
He picked four PokéBalls out of the crate, looking at them closely. “At least they don’t seem to be hurt,” he said, sending Eevee a guilty glance.
“Pikachu isn’t here,” Zhehan said quietly, the anxious pit in his stomach growing worse. He was trying to stay calm, but the story Gong Jun had told him earlier about the monstrous Pokémon was making him more worried the longer Pikachu was missing.
Gong Jun looked at Zhehan. “What should we do with the rest?”
Zhehan looked at the boxes of PokéBalls. “We should release them. We can’t leave them here.”
Gong Jun frowned. “They must have trainers worried about them.”
“They have a better chance of finding them if we release them now,” Zhehan said, picking up a PokéBall with a Magikarp in it. “Well. Most of them.”
“It’ll take forever to release them!” Gong Jun protested. “Let’s go find your Pikachu first, at least—”
“You said yourself, those Pokémon you fought before were monstrous. What if we can’t defeat them?” Zhehan argued. He shook his head and picked up another PokéBall, holding a Ponyta. “We have to help them escape, just in case.”
Gong Jun frowned, but he didn’t argue any further. The two of them got to work releasing the Pokémon. Apart from the Magikarp that Zhehan picked up. He kept that one with him. He wasn’t stealing it, but it wasn’t like Magikarp could run away on its own, anyway.
~
Releasing the Pokémon hadn’t actually taken that long. The other Pokémon started to help, where they could, and soon the entire room was full of Pokémon.
“Get out of here, guys,” Zhehan told them. “Go find your trainers, go get help!”
Zhehan and Gong Jun left the room after that, checking the coast was clear before they continued on to find Pikachu. Zhehan glanced behind them before they turned the next corner and saw the enormous group of Pokémon filing out of the room. At least in such big numbers, they might stand a chance of escaping, even if they came up against some cultists.
“Why did they have so many stolen Pokémon in that room?” Gong Jun wondered out loud as they walked down the corridor. They hadn’t come across any other rooms since leaving the last one.
“Maybe they were going to sell them? Or…turn them into those monsters you saw?” Zhehan mused, not liking the implications of either.
“We’re definitely going to stop them,” Gong Jun said, his hand clenching into a fist at his side. “I won’t forgive them for what they did to Eevee. Or any other Pokémon.”
Zhehan nodded. “We’ll make them pay.”
~
“What kind of psycho builds a powerplant with nine floors and doesn’t also install an elevator?” Gong Jun complained, in between wheezing breaths. “This has to be an ADA violation.”
They’d been rushing from floor to floor to try and find Pikachu, without any luck so far.
“I don’t understand,” Zhehan said, after unlocking the final door on the ninth floor and not finding a single sign of Pikachu. “How can Pikachu have just vanished? I saw them take him. Fuck. What if they’ve gone somewhere else? Fuckfuckfuck—”
“Hey.” Gong Jun put a hand on Zhehan’s shoulder. “We’ll find him.”
“How? Where?”
Gong Jun frowned. “We’ve searched every floor, surely…wait!”
Zhehan stared at him. “What?”
“We’re in a powerplant!” Gong Jun exclaimed, grabbing Zhehan by the hand and dragging him towards the stairs. “Don’t you think it’s weird that we never saw a generator anywhere? How can a powerplant not have a generator?”
Zhehan let Gong Jun lead him down the stairs, but he didn’t really get what he was saying. “But we’ve searched every room?”
“We only went up,” Gong Jun countered, as the two of them jogged down the stairs. “We never looked for a staircase going down. This place must have a basement for the generator. That’s got to be where they’ve taken your Pikachu!”
Zhehan tightened his grasp on Gong Jun’s hand as the two of them sprinted down the stairs as fast as they could, Gong Jun’s Eevee at their heels.
~
They retraced their footsteps on the first floor, but didn't find anywhere that seemed to lead towards a basement level.
“Hey, you two!”
Zhehan and Gong Jun looked up.
“What are you doing out here? The boss told everyone to meet on the lower floor for the big ceremony.”
The cultist squinted at them, and for a moment Zhehan was worried he was about to realize he didn't recognise them.
“Why are you holding hands?” he asked, instead.
Zhehan and Gong Jun both looked down to where their hands were touching, and immediately they both let go as if they had been burned.
“I—I thought I was holding, uh, I thought that—”
“No workplace romance,” the cultist muttered. “Come with me.”
Zhehan and Gong Jun exchanged glances again, and followed behind the cultist. He led them to a room, and then, just like every stupid movie villain hideout, he pushed on a fake brick and suddenly a door appeared in the wall.
Just as the cultist was about to go inside, Zhehan smacked him hard on the back of the head and he fell to the ground with a grunt.
“Well, let's hope that was the only secret door, I guess,” Gong Jun said, as they stepped over his body.
Zhehan shrugged.
They made their way through a long, winding tunnel that grew increasingly claustrophobic until it opened up into a large cavern with an enormous generator in the middle.
All the other cultists were milling around, but there was a platform at the top, where someone in cultist robes, but with the stupidest hat Zhehan had ever seen, was standing.
“They definitely look like the leader,” Zhehan whispered to Gong Jun. “That hat screams pyramid scheme.”
“Zhehan, look!”
Gong Jun pointed to a bunch of transparent plastic crates that were lined up on some sort of platform, underneath a bizarre and alien looking contraption. In each crate was a Pokémon, and in the third one, Zhehan saw his Pikachu.
“Shit,” Zhehan cursed. “What the fuck are they going to do to my Pikachu?”
“I think we should just attack them,” Gong Jun said, and Eevee beside him growled in agreement.
“Hang on,” Zhehan protested, grabbing Gong Jun's arm. “Didn’t you lose last time you fought these guys?”
“I was on my own, then.” Gong Jun replied, meeting Zhehan's eyes, his gaze disarmingly soft. “Plus,” he added, his expression hardening as he reached for a discarded metal pipe on the floor. “Now we’re motivated by revenge, right, Eevee?”
Zhehan stared at Gong Jun as he started walking towards the cultists, metal pipe in one hand.
“Shit. He’s kind of nuts,” Zhehan muttered under his breath. He sighed and followed behind him, reaching for the PokéBalls at his waist. “And, as it turns out, I’m really, really, weirdly into that.”
“Hey dickheads!” Zhehan called out, as Gong Jun swung at one cultist with a metal pipe.
“What the—”
“Release the Pokémon!” Zhehan shouted up at the cultist leader who was glaring down at them.
Gong Jun, Eevee and his other Pokémon, that Zhehan now knew were a Vulpix, a Jigglypuff, a Poliwag and an Oddish, were working their way through the cultist grunts, taking each one down with relative ease.
“I see it was a mistake not to kill you,” the cult leader called back, scowling at Gong Jun. “I really did think your Eevee was dead, though.”
Zhehan released Cyndaquil, Turtwig and Dratini out of their PokéBalls so they could fight alongside Gong Jun’s Pokémon.
“You’re outnumbered this time,” Gong Jun shouted back. “You won't win, whatever it is you're trying to do.”
The cult leader smirked and pulled a lever beside them.
“Shit,” Zhehan said, as the generator started making weird noises and emitting smoke. “We need to get onto that platform.”
“What happened to your monsters from earlier?” Gong Jun shouted up, trying to distract the leader. “Did they run away from your ugly face?”
One of the crates up above them suddenly moved and Zhehan watched, horrified, as electricity started to flood into the crate. A Houndour next to Pikachu started to glow white until Zhehan had to shield his eyes and look away.
“They died,” the cult leader said, sounding undisturbed. “Most Pokémon can’t cope with the sudden power I grant them, so after a few hours their bodies shut down. That’s why I’m running experiments on all these Pokémon, so I can find some strong ones that don’t die so easily.”
“We have to destroy that generator!” Zhehan told Gong Jun urgently. “We have to save Pikachu and the others.”
Gong Jun nodded. “We’re going to have to fight that Houndour too, in a moment.”
The cult leader pulled another lever and a second crate with a Taurus inside started to glow.
“Shit—”
Zhehan looked up and saw his Pikachu, with his tiny yellow paws pressed up against the crate walls. He looked terrified.
Zhehan had never felt such anger before. He turned to the cult leader and without even having to give the order, Cyndaquil and Dratini both attacked her at once.
A fire blast and a twister combined, bigger than Zhehan had ever seen them manage, tore through the cavern, slamming into the wooden platform and sending the cult leader flying. The platform collapsed under her, but she climbed back up the metal railing, reaching for the third lever.
“Stop her!” Zhehan cried out. Turtwig’s razor leaf sent dozens of sharp leaves slicing through the air, forcing her back and away from the lever.
Zhehan breathed a sigh of relief until the Houndour from the crate suddenly landed on Turtwig, slamming his poor Pokémon to the ground. Turtwig fainted, but the Houndour wouldn’t let go of him.
“Hey!” Zhehan ran towards Turtwig but Gong Jun's Eevee was quicker, body slamming into Houndour so hard it stumbled and let go of Turtwig.
Zhehan scooped his Pokémon up into his arms and quickly returned it to its PokéBall.
“Cyndaquil, Dratini, don't let her touch that lever!”
Both Dratini and Cyndaquil chirped back in acknowledgment.
On the other side of the room, Gong Jun and his Pokémon were struggling against the Taurus. Eevee was somehow managing to hold off the Houndour on its own, but Zhehan could see with its injuries it was starting to tire.
Zhehan looked at the one remaining PokéBall he had with him. The Magikarp from earlier.
“I don't suppose you could evolve?” Zhehan asked it. From inside the PokéBall, Magikarp stared back at him with large, blank eyes.
“Zhehan!”
Zhehan looked over at Gong Jun, who was braced up against the wall with Houndour snapping furiously at him. Eevee was lying on the ground several meters away, its eyes closed.
“Shit—”
Zhehan sprinted over to Eevee, pulling a revive from his pocket to see if it would help. Eevee’s eyelids fluttered, but Zhehan could tell it wasn’t in a position to fight any longer.
There was a loud crash, and Zhehan saw Cyndaquil and Dratini both collapse in front of him. Several paces away, Taurus stared Zhehan down, its eyes glowing red as it prepared to charge.
As Taurus threw itself forward, Zhehan made a dive to the side, taking Eevee with him. Taurus’s horn caught his leg at the last moment and Zhehan lost control, feeling himself tumble into rubble. Magikarp’s PokéBall fell off Zhehan’s belt and landed on the ground.
With a flash of light, Magikarp emerged. It flopped around on the ground helplessly.
“Shit—”
Taurus spun around, its searing gaze set on Zhehan. It didn’t even notice Magikarp on the ground as it charged towards him again.
An enormous burst of white light flooded the room. Zhehan had to close his eyes and shield them with his hand, even as he heard Taurus’ hoof-beats thundering towards him.
There was an unfamiliar roar, followed by a crash, and then the light disappeared.
Zhehan looked up, and saw a giant blue shape in front of him, and Taurus fainted on the ground. Before his brain could catch up to what had happened, the blue shape moved, and Zhehan found himself face to face with a Gyrados.
“Zhehan!” Gong Jun yelled. “She’s going to reach the lever!”
Zhehan tore his gaze from Gyrados and saw the cultist leader, balancing between two charred wooden beams to reach the third lever.
Zhehan looked back at Gyrados. “Hit her with hydro-pump!” he said, pointing at the cultist leader.
Gyrados blinked at him.
“Gyrados, please!”
In the corner of Zhehan’s eye, he saw a yellow flash. He looked towards it, and saw a yellow Pokémon, moving so fast it was a blur. It raced up Gyrados’s back, hopping from each segment of its enormous body.
“Jolteon, use thunder!” Gong Jun yelled.
The yellow Pokémon called back, and Zhehan watched as lightning erupted from its body. The entire room filled with static energy, so much Zhehan’s teeth began to ache. A bolt of lightning hit the generator in the middle of the room and for a moment everything went silent.
The generator made a deep, rumbling sound. Zhehan could hear the cultist leader shrieking something but she was drowned out almost immediately by the generator creaking ominously.
Another lightning bolt hit the crate Pikachu was trapped inside. It split apart and Pikachu fell out, tumbling through the air towards the ground.
“Pikachu!” Zhehan tried to get past Gyrados but he knew he wouldn’t make it in time to catch him.
“I’ve got you!” Gong Jun, bleeding and covered in bite marks, his clothes half-shredded from Houndour, who was now lying fainted on the ground, rushed forwards to catch Pikachu in his arms.
The relief was short-lived, however, as the generator gave another awful roar. The entire room shook and trembled.
A metal beam came crashing down from the ceiling. It landed on Gyrados and slid off the side of it, hitting the ground with a deafening thud. Gyrados frowned and looked up at the ceiling, but it seemed miraculously to be unhurt.
“We need to get out of here!” Zhehan shouted, over the sound of the generator. The ground under them gave an almighty shudder as another ceiling beam crashed down.
Zhehan returned Dratini and Cyndaquil to their PokéBalls and waved Gong Jun over to the door.
“I didn’t know you had a Jolteon,” Zhehan said, as Gong Jun passed him Pikachu.
“I didn’t,” Gong Jun replied, as his Jolteon jumped into his arms. “I think Eevee evolved to help save your Pikachu.”
Before Zhehan could respond, another ceiling beam fell down in front of the door, only inches from where they stood.
Zhehan and Gong Jun jumped back and then looked at each other.
“How do we get out now?” Gong Jun asked, glancing around.
There was an explosion behind them as the generator caught fire.
“Shit—”
“We’re going to be buried here if we don’t get out,” Gong Jun said, kicking the metal beam that blocked the door. It didn’t move. Gong Jun swore and grasped his foot.
Behind them, Gyrados roared as more of the ceiling started to crumble around them.
“Gyrados, use hydro pump to break us out!” Zhehan cried, stumbling towards the giant Pokémon as debris clattered around them.
Zhehan wasn’t sure if Gyrados was finally listening to him, or it was just a coincidence, but it drew itself up and spat out a furious torrent of water into the ceiling, blasting the metal beams and brick out of the way.
“We can’t get up there!” Gong Jun shouted. “What do we do?”
Zhehan looked at Gyrados and then took Gong Jun’s hand and dragged him over the Pokémon. Gyrados roared, its eyes starting to glow.
“Hold on!” Zhehan yelled, grabbing hold of one of Gyrados’s fins. Pikachu was tucked under his arm, and he held onto Gong Jun with the other. The two of them clung to Gyrados’s fins as the Pokémon used waterfall to climb up the wall and up through the ceiling, out of the underground. They blasted through the powerplant wall, up and out into the surrounding forest.
As Zhehan and Gong Jun let go of Gyrados and tumbled off its back, the powerplant behind them gave another eerie groan. Plumes of black smoke billowed out of it, surrounding the entire area with an ominous haze.
Still holding hands, Zhehan and Gong Jun sat on the grass, watching as the powerplant started to tremble and then crumble, with loud explosions and licks of fire bursting out of the smoke. The ground started to shake as the powerplant was reduced to nothing but a smoking rubble.
“Do you think that cultist lady survived?” Gong Jun asked, turning to Zhehan.
Zhehan frowned. Probably not, he thought. “I hope not,” he said. “But I feel bad about those Pokémon… Taurus and Houndour. It wasn’t their fault. And Pikachu could have ended up like that.”
“Pikachu,” Pikachu replied, burying its face into Zhehan’s stomach.
Zhehan sighed and stroked his back. “I’m glad you’re safe.”
Gong Jun nodded. “Thank you,” he said, after a pause. “For saving Eev—I mean Jolteon, and for helping me. And we managed to save all those other Pokémon, at least.”
“Yeah. Well. Anyone else would have done the same.”
“That’s not—”
“Gyrados.”
Zhehan and Gong Jun jumped and turned around, to where Gyrados was now lying on the ground behind them like a giant worm. It seemed to be waiting for them.
“You’re on our side now, then?” Zhehan asked, gingerly reaching out to give it a head pat.
Gyrados blinked at him.
“Good luck with this one,” Gong Jun said. “I’ve heard Gyrados sometimes eat people.”
“Pika pika…” Pikachu said, looking at Gyrados warily.
Sirens started blaring in the distance, rapidly approaching. A few moments later, Officer Jenny appeared in her car, and a team of Growlithes jumped out.
“You’re under arrest!” Officer Jenny shouted, pointing at Zhehan and Gong Jun. “For criminal damage! And—and…maybe some other stuff!”
“Our Pokémon got kidnapped!” Gong Jun replied indignantly, standing up. Jolteon at his feet growled at the Police Pokémon and Officer Jenny.
“Pikachu!” Pikachu replied, jumping over to stand next to them.
“I have Pikachu-sized handcuffs in the car,” Officer Jenny warned.
“Pikachu,” Pikachu replied, folding its arms.
Zhehan sighed and stood up, going over and picking Pikachu up before he could get himself into more trouble. “We didn’t do anything! Besides rescue our stolen Pokémon. And set free a bunch of other stolen Pokémon.”
Officer Jenny frowned at them. “So you two are why I came across a group of fifty Pokémon wandering down the road an hour ago?”
“Maybe,” Zhehan answered.
Officer Jenny sighed. “What exactly happened here?”
Next to him, Zhehan felt Gong Jun’s hand slip into his, squeezing gently.
“It’s, uh, a long story,” Zhehan managed to say, squeezing Gong Jun’s hand back.
“Well, fortunately for you two, I don’t finish my shift until the morning,” Officer Jenny replied. “Get in the car.”
~
Back at the station, once Zhehan and Gong Jun explained what had happened, and Officer Jenny’s Growlithes found the remains of the cultists, and all the newly-freed Pokémon corroborated their story, they were eventually allowed to go, albeit after giving statements.
It was just after 6am by the time they were allowed to leave, with the sun just coming up over the skyline.
“Want to go and get breakfast somewhere?” Gong Jun asked, holding an exhausted Jolteon in his arms.
Zhehan nodded, grateful. After what they’d been through and how close he had come to losing Pikachu, he was glad to have some company to keep his mind off things.
“There’s actually somewhere nearby that does matcha flavored Treeko-shaped pancakes,” Gong Jun said, his arm nudging gently into Zhehan’s arm as they walked.
“Pikachu?” Pikachu asked, his tail twitching. He was clinging to Zhehan’s shoulder the way he usually did.
“Yeah, I think they have Pikachu-shaped ones too,” Gong Jun answered, his eyes twinkling as he met Zhehan’s gaze. “Although, I think they’re vanilla flavored…”
“It’s very kind of you to treat us,” Zhehan said, to which Pikachu agreed enthusiastically.
Gong Jun gave him a sideways glance, though he was still smiling. “I’m not sure I remember saying that.”
“You definitely did!”
“Pikachu!” Pikachu agreed.
Gong Jun sighed, defeated. They walked together a few more steps, and Zhehan cleared his throat.
“So, uh, once we’ve got breakfast, do you have any—I mean, you’re a trainer, right?”
“Mhm,” Gong Jun answered.
“Right. Cool. Same.”
Gong Jun laughed. “Yeah, I know.”
Zhehan laughed too. “Yeah, right, of course. Uh, so do you have any thoughts on where you’re headed to next? After breakfast, obviously.”
“Probably to the next town with a Pokémon Gym,” Gong Jun said with a shrug. “How about you?”
“Yeah, same, cool. I guess we might be headed in the same direction, then?”
Gong Jun laughed again. “I’d be happy to travel together for a while, if that’s what you’re asking.”
Zhehan had been trying to play it cool but he couldn’t stop the wide smile that spread across his face. “Oh, well, if you insist I don’t mind.”
Gong Jun nudged Zhehan with his shoulder. “Someone has to help you teach Gyrados not to eat people.”
Zhehan grinned. It would be good to have someone else to travel with, even if it was just until the next town.