Chapter 24

In the morning, I was rather rudely awoken by my music player playing "Godsmack - Awake" as an alarm. The first yell of the song makes me jump and causes my heart to race as I am now wide awake. I take a glance around just in time to see Flannery pop her head into my tent. Our eyes meet and I notice her eyes flicker down quickly as the light from outside of the tent shines on me. She blushes slightly and quickly retreats back out of the tent.

"Ah-um. I see you are awake. I'll go wake up Bea." She tells me as I hear her footsteps walk away from my tent.

'I'm going to blame all this on Yuna… Arceus knows that it wasn't anything they would do. I wonder if she added a lucky pervert option on my system…' I sigh to myself internally. I quickly grab my clothes from my bag that is sitting on the snow in front of me and I put on a white bikini top with white shorts. The white should make it a bit easier for the girls to see me in the darkness of the cave.

I slip out of my tent with Skadi in my arms and stretch my muscles. After eating something and a bit of rest, I feel good as new. It's amazing what a night of rest will do for a body. Though I get a vague feeling that I might not be normal anymore but I shrug off that feeling. Normal is boring anyways.

I see Flannery entering Bea's tent so I pull out my cooking kit and start making a hearty breakfast of egg sandwiches on a bagel. The perfect meal to eat while traveling and can be cooked in a single pan. After only a few minutes, I had three bacon egg and cheese sandwiches made up, just in time for both Bea and Flannery to sit down and grab one each. I grab my sandwich while making sure to take out food for my pokemon to munch on after I let out Zephyr. Sadly, Zephyr cannot stay out of her pokeball currently due to how dark the passage is.

Once we finish breakfast, we pack up and start heading back into the darkness. Instead of everyone carrying a flashlight, we only have one out and Bea carries my lantern, giving the group a halo of light to work with. The journey is just as dull as yesterdays, so we chat quietly amongst ourselves as we walk.

As the monotony of our travel continues, I eventually feel the ground starting to slope downwards at a light angle. I look around and notice that the ceiling also seems to be sloping as well as whenI look straight ahead, I see the ceiling instead of the path. The slope down seems like it wants to go into the bowels of the earth with how long it is. 

Suddenly I snap my head to my left where I thought I saw movement a moment ago. I scan the area, but I only see small boulders strewn about the sides of the tunnel. I glance at Skadi and she looks to be alert as her ears move around constantly while listening for something. I tense up and speak up to my friends.

"I think we have company. Turn up the light and let out a pokemon." I say, just loud enough for them to hear. I hear the sound of a pokeball release as Bea releases one of her pokemon. The three of us get closer together in case we are targeted by an attack, that way we can cover for each other to move. 

We wait silently as we scan the area around us for a pokemon until suddenly a bone chilling howl started from in front of me. I couldn't tell where exactly it was coming from as the sound bounces around the cave. Shortly after that howl, more and more sound from around us as a small black dog-like pokemon comes out from a rock in front of me. 

"Shit, Houndours! Careful of the pack!" I call out before ordering Skadi to attack with an ice shard. The attack hits the pokemon but it just shrugs off the damage like it is nothing. It gives me an amused look as it fires off an Ember at Skadi who dodges it with a quick step out of the way. I call for a Disable which causes Skadi to glow white briefly as she sends out a small pulse of energy in front of her that hits the Houndour. 

The pokemon snarls at me and then Howls again before charging at Skadi with its mouth glowing with black energy. Skadi again dodges but the Houndour snaps at her tail as she moves away and scores a lucky hit. Skadi in return fires back a Powdered Snow which causes the pokemon to release her tail but again it attacks quickly. As the two of them battle, I take a quick look around and see Bea fighting two off with both of her Pokemon but Flannery seems to be having just as much of a problem as me. 

I look back at Skadi just in time to see her slam an Iron Tail into the face of the other pokemon, causing it to get knocked away. I watch Houndour shake off that damage as well with relative ease.

"Skadi, hit it with Moonblast." I command after thinking about the battle for a moment. Skadi's usual attacks don't seem to be doing much to the other pokemon, so I figured a different move type would work. A pink orb of energy shoots out of Skadi's mouth quickly and slams into the side of the Houndour. This attack actually causes it to yelp in pain and stagger away. It gives Skadi a vicious look before sending another Ember at her that she isn't able to dodge, causing her to yelp in pain. I order another Moonblast that hits the pokemon in the head and knocks it out of the fight.

I kneel down and check over Skadi for damage and while there are a number of knicks and scratches that are causing her beautiful fur to turn red, something that makes me rather mad at the other pokemon, there is no lasting damage done to her. A good bath with a bunch of grooming would fix this issue but for now I decide to check on everyone else. I see that Bea won handily without much issue, but Flannery was still fighting. 

Neither Flannery's Ponyta, nor the attacking Houndour were using fire attacks. I could see Ponyta's flame has some blue sparks from her ability. Flannery calls out for a double kick, in which uses her front legs to flip around and slams her rear hooves into the head of the Houndour, knocking it out. Flannery then takes out a pokeball and walks up to the pokemon tapping it on the forehead with the ball. A moment later, the Houndour is absorbed into the Pokeball which shakes twice before a click is heard and the pokeball no longer shakes. 

"New team member?" I ask her as I watch her store the pokeball on her belt.

"Yep, it had an awesome ability that almost directly countered me."

"I had the same issue. Nothing Skadi was doing was working until I tried a Moonblast."

"It was easy for me. Seems like my fighting pokemon are the right choice for here." Bea chimes in.

I give them both a smile. "Well at least we won! Now how about we move away before they wake up and want some more, or another pack appears." I say as I pick up Skadi and start using my water bottle to wash off the bulk of the blood on her. The others agree as Bea recalls her pokemon and we continue on our way into the depths of Mount Moon.