Meeting Andrew

"Why would we do that?"

"Butterfree said that there are more powerful Pokémon as we move to the center of the island. So, there are also higher possibilities that the Pokémon at the center of the island are above king rank. What if this Pokémon is a Charizard? Would you really want to risk it?" said Axel.

Hearing his explanation, everyone started to think. They could not rule out this possibility. This cave had been suspicious since they entered. If there were so many valuable eggs, then why were they not guarded?

"Axel is right. We should not touch these eggs right now. If there are no such powerful Charizards on the island, we could just come back later to get these eggs," said Rome.

Charizard was a powerful Pokémon, so having one with black potential was a huge thing for any trainers. So, they were tempted at first but they let it go for now.

Axel's Charizard didn't care about the eggs. It was feeling very blissful right now. The heat in the cave was something that it enjoyed. It was not feeling any burn like the other 2 Pokémon. This cave must have been made by Charizards themselves.

"We should now move towards the center of the island. The leader would catch up to us," said Rome.

All of them started to move. The Pokémon now were much stronger. There were more pseudo-king rank Pokémon than elemental ranks now.

###

Two days went by, and today the leader was going to meet them within an hour. They were just a day away from the center of the island. Axel could see the iconic volcanic mountain. The mountain looked small before, but now it was humongous.

They could not even imagine how tall it really was.

"Rome, I can see that the leader is coming here. He would reach in 2 minutes," said Amanda, looking at the GPS device.

"Let's wait here for a while," said Rome.

Just after a couple of minutes, they could see a bird-type creature flying towards them. The Pokémon was Dragonite.

On top of the Dragonite was a person. Yes, he was Andrew.

This was the first time he had seen Dragonite for real. Even though it was a dragon-type Pokémon, it didn't have the arrogance of a Charizard. Make no mistake, it was a powerful Pokémon on its own.

"Rome, give me the report," said Andrew.

"Yes, Brigadier general…." Rome started to tell all the things that they had experienced, including the mysterious cave.

"You did well. The other team also found a similar cave, but instead of Charizard, it was a cave for Darmanitan. Unfortunately, they were not lucky like you. There were 5 Darmanitans guarding them. Sigh…"

All of them could see that Andrew's face was filled with sadness.

"What happened?" asked Axel.

"Those Darmanitans were very powerful. All of them were in pseudo-king rank. Two of our team members perished, and the rest of them had some grievous injuries. They were able to return to the base," said Andrew.

Everyone felt a cold wind pass through them. It could have been them, but they were somehow lucky, and no one was guarding the cave this time.

"Sir, how are they right now?" asked Rome.

"They are being treated, and they would be okay. Right now, we just need to finish this mission and return home."

"Sir, can we not just call for more backup? I feel that the Pokémon at the center would be more powerful than king rank Pokémon," said Axel.

"No, we cannot. Until we verify that there are such Pokémon, we could not call anyone. We will reach there in a day. I feel that we would be able to solve the mystery of the cave if we reach there. Let's continue," said Andrew.

Now with Andrew, who had king rank Pokémon, they were moving smoothly. They did encounter multiple Pokémon, but none of them were a threat with Andrew as backup.

All of them were pseudo-king rank.

As they were closer to the center of the island, the power levels of the Pokémon increased, and after a long journey, they finally reached the mountain.

"Guys, let's take a break here for tonight. We will start to move early in the morning," said Andrew. Andrew had become the de facto leader of the team since he had the most powerful Pokémon in the ranks.

The night was peaceful. Since they were near the center of the island, the volcanic mountain, they had to face many wild Pokémon. These wild Pokémon were very strong. Even though all of them were pseudo-king rank, they were very powerful.

The heat had increased to a level where no fire-type Pokémon could handle it. Pseudo-king rank Pokémon were handling it barely, but Axel knew that when they climbed up the mountain, they would also not be able to handle it.

This had created a huge problem for the team.

Among the 5 of them, they only had 3 fire-type Pokémon, and Andrew had one, Magmar. So, they would only have 4 Pokémon who could fight. One of them was just an elemental rank Pokémon.

Andrew's strongest Pokémon was Golbat. It was the only king rank Pokémon on his team. Now, it could not participate in the battle when they climb the mountain. So, this was going to be very hard.

"I have been on multiple expeditions, but this is the first time for me too. Such a harsh environment," said Andrew in anger.

"So, should we drop this? And call for backup?"

"No, we are not. We are so close to this. We have already lost 2 team members. I am not going to let their sacrifice be in vain. We are going up. If it becomes impossible, we would come down," declared Andrew.

They were now going to do this risky mission. No one knew what would happen to them. Axel took a deep breath to ready himself.