Chapter 14: Pokémon Rising Volt

It's been a day since Mankey declined to go on the journey and arrived at the Pokémon Center to stay the night.

After waking up in the morning and healing his Pokémon, he asked Nurse Joy, "Nurse Joy, why are there barely any trainers? I haven't seen much today. with Nurse Joy replying, "Well, I heard a rumor lately that people have been disappearing lately, and also one other thing before I forget, it's rumored people have seen Absol sticking around Mt. Moon, which is weird that one is here in Kanto; they're usually found in the Hoenn region."

After hearing all this from Nurse Joy, Troy was now deciding whether to go to Mt. Moon. After hearing about Absol, he brought up his phone, went into the Pokedex app, and looked for Absol to see what information came up.

"Absol the disaster Pokémon. Because of this Pokémon's ability to detect danger, people mistook Absol as a bringer of doom."

Troy, done using the pokedex app, was getting ready to enter Mt. Moon even though he knew the risk and was already warning people of the danger that's there. Just as he was getting his Pokémon back from Nurse Joy, Nurse Joy had something to say: "Mr. Troy I want you to be careful and return if anything bad happens. Also, about your budew, it might need to get a checkup at a bigger Pokémon center."

Now that he had to worry about Budew's health, he didn't want to waste time. Nurse Joy, surprised by this, told Troy, "Don't worry, it will be alright. All it needs is a checkup, but if you want to hurry, then go through Mt. Moon to get to Cerulean City, as that's the closest poke center near us."

With Troy now more determined to go through Mt. Moon, even with all the rumors, nothing was going to get in his way!

After leaving the Poke center to get to Cerulean City, Troy headed straight to the entrance of Mt. Moon. Entering the cave was not dark like it would be, but something sparkling gave the cave a light source so people would be able to see in it.

Troy grabs his phone from his pocket to see which way he has to go. "So, it says to go straight, then look for the manhole to go down, but which hole do I go down to? Screw it, let's just take the left one."

Going down the hole and walking for 5 minutes, Troy found it suspicious that there were no Pokémon showing up, and it was even more concerning than the Viridian Forest incident, where there were still Pokémon hanging around, but here there are no zubat, geodude, paras, or even clefairy. Troy had thought "Something doesn't feel right. It's not like the last incident; this feels more dangerous, so I think I should head back and just go to Pewter City Pokémon Center. Just as Troy was about to finish his sentence, he heard a scream of help: "HELP."

Hearing where the voice came from, Troy started to run and see what it was: a light source brighter than it was on the top floor. Once Troy could assume where the voice was, he started to look around until he heard banging sounds looking around the corner. Troy couldn't believe it. "The missing trainers are all here. What seems to be mining? But what shocked him even more were Pokémon, which seemed to be Clefairy's carrying whatever the trainers mined.

Just as Troy was about to get up and shout to see if they're okay, but before he could shout, a hand grabbed his mouth and said, "Are you trying to get us all killed?" "Mhmhmhmhm," the mysterious voice said. "Just calm down. I'm not your enemy. What you're seeing down there are people and Pokémon who have been hypnotized, and the one responsible for all this is some grunt with the malamar, which is the reason all these trainers and Pokémon are under its power." Finally taking his hand off Troy's mouth, Troy suddenly turns around, only to see a person he has never recognized. Straight away, Troy asked, "Who are you, and how do you know so much about what's going on here?" The man gave a smug face. "Ha, kid, the name is Detective Looker, and after hearing the rumors about trainers going missing while I was in the area, I was hoping to find the culprit behind all these disappearances, and it seems the target I'm after is responsible for all this."

Hearing all this from Looker, Troy had to take it all in to process it. Finally understanding the situation, Troy said to Looker, "So what's the plan to stop all this?" Looker was thinking whether it was a good job for a kid to help, and Troy knew what Looker was going to say: "Don't think of me as a kid; I'm a trainer now, so I know the risk that would happen to me."

After hearing all this, Looker finally remembered what being a trainer is all about and how dangerous it is. Finally acknowledging this, they both started to come up with a plan.