Pokeumans: Chapter 33

Pokeumans: Chapter 33

Chapter 33

Andy and his friends descended down the stairs. It grew dark soon, and as they travelled lower underground it got colder, and the soil surrounding them became more damp. They kept going down until Andy foot fell through the air and onto flat ground under the anticipation of a new step, which caught Andy off guard.

It was very dark and Andy could see squat. He widened his eyes for light and started pawing against the walls.

“Andy, what are you doing?”

“I don’t know, maybe we’re supposed to turn here.”

After Andy went around the wall, he found out that they were in some sort of small box, one that could probably fit the four friends, but Bonnie would have had to wait at the stairs. Andy began wondering about how they solve the problem. He knew the gear was here somewhere, he just knew it!

Then Andy placed a paw under his chin and began to think. Could they have already entered the escape room? Was this one of their first puzzles? He began to think about what was going on. He observed the aura and saw the trail going right through one of the walls. Andy charged an Aura Sphere and fired it at the wall. When the dust settles, the wall was still intact and still standing.

Okay, that won’t work, what am I supposed to do know?

Andy walked over to the wall and gave it a push. The wall opened towards the darkness of the hall newly discovered. Andy felt incredibly dumb knowing that the answer to getting inside was as simple as just opening the door.

“Now remember everyone,” he turned back to his friends, trying to look as though he had been trying to make a point all along and not look like a fool, “some of these puzzles have simple solutions. You just need to make sure you don’t over complicate things.”

“How did you know that would work?”

“I remember going into an escape room building that disguised the Women’s restroom as part of the wall.”

“Um…why were you paying attention to that particular room?”

“I saw my Mom disappearing into the wall out of the corner of my eye and I eventually found out where and how she went.”

They went inside the room and looked around. It was dark and nobody could see anything. As they traversed around the room, Andy began questioning the door they went through.

Andy remembered how the basics of a physical escape room worked. You’d have to interact with objects and solve clues and puzzles. You could ask for hints, but there are some limitations for how many you can ask for depending on the company running the building. Of course, you can’t do any of that without the room starting, which requires the door to lock and the timer to start.

Soon, the door slammed shut behind the group and Andy heard some very heavy mechanisms sealing the door shut. The room suddenly lit up, and Andy could see some sort of power enveloping the room.

“Ladies, Gentlemen, and those who aren’t either, welcome to my escape room!” A voice played over unseen speakers. “In this escape room, you must solve the room within 60 minutes before you die of the poisonous gas that’ll be released into the room when the timer begins! Don’t get cocky if you’re immune to poison, this gas is extra strong, so no matter what items you bring, abilities you have, or even your typing, if the time reads 0, you die! Game over!”

Andy had done a lot of escape rooms almost similar to this one; you get locked in, you’re put in a scenario to get into character and you escape with some stake given to help give you a little incentive. Most were that you’d be caught by someone or something, but others involved “death” as penalty for not finishing the room in time. Of course, it was all fake but did a wonderful job adding to the stress level, except this time Andy wasn’t sure if the penalty the voice described as real or not. Whoever was doing this room really wouldn’t kill them, would they? Then again, all the other guardians looked like they were trying to decimate Andy and his friends rather than just fight.

Andy decided to just assume that what the voice said was actually going to happen. It was a better strategy that assuming nothing would happen.

“Now then, the rules are that you can’t break anything, I have constant supervision so you can’t do anything funny. Don’t try anything that you couldn’t do in an ordinary escape room; I’ve released psychic waves that disable any moves, abilities and electronics, rendering them completely useless! Teleportation is also a bust, so don’t waste your power on that.” To experiment, Andy tried to use Aura Sphere. Sure enough, he felt no power going for his paws. Not even the humanizing ring would work; they had about as much of a biological and technical advantage as the average human Joe.

Andy heard a mechanical humming sound and saw a screen being lowered down. When it reached the lowest it could go, a 60:00 appeared on the screen.

“You’ve got an hour! If you need help ring me up, but do not call me for just anything! Go!”

59:59, 59:58, 59:57, the clock started ticking. Andy looked back and saw his friends. They were darting their eyes side to side in an awkward manner, almost like they were lost.

“Okay, let’s see here…” Andy took a step back to fully analyze the room. There was a desk on the other side of the room, and on it a computer monitor and multiple keyboards for all kinds of hand types of various Pokémon. There were shelves on the wall, crates off to the side, and lots of pictures hanging on the walls. “First things first; pull off everything not attached to the walls and see what’s behind them.”

After about a minute, every box and picture were in the center of the room. There were some clues and answer keys were behind the pictures. Some of the bottles, however, were glued to some of the shelves and couldn’t be moved.

Andy picked up a tiny little box with a lock on it. The scenario wasn’t too unfamiliar, they’d just have to find the key. But where it was is always the question. Josh noticed a string in the picture frame and pulled it out to reveal a magnet on the end. They kept searching around over and over and still didn’t find the key.

“Hey, you need a hint?”

“Sure.”

“You guys noticed a small hole in the desk?”

Now that it was pointed out, Andy did see a hole in the leg of the desk. The hole was small enough that the magnet Josh found could fit in. Due to the fact the hole is a clue in this room, there must have been a reason for it.

“Guys, there’s a hole in the desk. We should use the magnet to check it out!”

“Bet isn’t the desk metal?”

“Uh…oh yeah, you’re right. Who has a stable arm?”

“I do!” Claire said. She took the magnet and made towards the desk.

“Oh, look!” Bonnie said, “There’s a box locked with a sliding puzzle.”

“Ugh, I hate those!”

“No problem, I’m actually pretty good at it. Just give me a sec…” Bonnie began work as Andy followed Claire. She had her hands held out and had the string sliding through her fingers. If she were too fast the magnet would stick to the leg, too slow and nothing would get done. She got the string doing until Andy heard a faint clink! and the string stopped moving. She began slowly pulling the key up until a little shiny object was drawn out.

Andy grabbed the key before the magnet was let go and travelled down the leg, the string sticking out somewhat of the hole. It was a key the size of the lock. Andy inserted the key and the box opened to have a magnifying glass inside.

“What’ll we use this for?”

“Dunno. Lets keep it handy for now.” He placed the glass on the table and continued the puzzle.

“Got it!” Bonnie yelled, “I got the box open!” Inside the box was a strange object that had sticky little suction cups on it. It had a giant lock on it that needed a key.

“…What?” It looked like a cartoonishly large red box. “I don’t know what to say about this…”

“Guess it was a red herring then, huh?” Bonnie said as she placed the lock back into the box and began closing it.

No! Lets just keep it for now until we find a use for it.”

While they were talking, West went over towards the computer. “Woah! This screen is trippy!” He was right; Andy could only describe it as an inverted rainbow all over the computer. West began patting down the screen. “T-They took off one of the screen layers!”

Andy couldn’t see the screen, but he could tell that the computer was asking for a password for the profile selected. Andy tried moving the mouse, but nothing was responding.

“Anyone got a code, or a word?”

“Let me check…” Andy went back to the pile and investigated everything they had. No clues, no writing, and the only big thing behind one of the pictures was a safe.

“Wait a minute…” Andy said, “This picture looks familiar…” Andy saw a Google picture, but the word Google was digitalized, just like in the Pokextinction base. He flipped the picture upside down and saw the familiar code, 319009.

“Try 319009!” Andy heard clicking and the hitting of an enter button.

“Nope, that’s not it.” Andy took another look at the picture. 319009…what could I use this for? He looked back at the safe and walked over to it. He punched in the number and heard a click that accepted the number. He opened the vault and found inside a piece of paper. He took the paper and read it.

#*9900*?

He asked West to put it in but again it got rejected. He put the code in an accessible place and left it alone. He dug around the place and found a black box locked with a six digit number. He tried 319009 and it clicked open. Inside there was a plastic card that read ‘Hummus’

“Try Hummus!”

“Uh…yep! There we go…but it didn’t fix the screen! Wait a minute…the magnifying glass! Where is it…yes, I can see the screen regularly now!”

“What’s on it?”

“It says ‘Boxes are good for anything with the right key.’”

“Bonnie, where’s the red box?” Andy took the box and attached it onto the wall. It stuck on perfectly.

“What do we use the other code for?”

Andy took the code and walked over to the computer. For some unexplained reason, he entered the code in on the computer again. The code #*9900* was familiar to Andy; it’s the code that can be entered on Android phones to get into files and settings only available to manufacturers of the device.

As soon as he entered the code, the room darkened and Andy heard a vaporizing sound, along with things tumbling and glass breaking. He turned around to see what happened, and the middle of the floor disappeared. When he looked inside, the things they piled into the middle were spilled about, and the pictures were shattered with glass all over. A ladder appeared on one of the sides.

Josh immediately jumped down and landed on the floor, and dashed out of view. After a few moments, Josh reappeared and lobbed a large red key.

“Find something for it, quickly!” Andy leaped over the pit to the box and stuck the key in it. The wall began to dematerialize as Andy saw a doorway into a hallway.

“Josh, hurry and get here!” Andy heard a thud as Josh leaped back up to the surface.

Andy ran into the hall and saw a glowing platform on it.

“Guys, come here, I think this is the way out!”

Andy decided to check and see by leaping on the platform himself. He felt a whoosh as he was teleported. After the lightshow stopped, Andy was floating.

What the-? Andy had a hard time adjusting himself to this alien environment. It was cold, and he was aimlessly floating in an empty space. As he righted himself, he noticed lots of metals, panels, switches and gauges around the place. He moved himself to turn around and found a large sphere in front of him. As Andy kept looking, he soon realized that he was looking at Earth! Now with all the information he needed, he could tell for a certainty that he was not just in a new location,

He was in space!

Andy had always wanted to experience Zero gravity and to see the sights outside the sky, and now he was doing things his classmates could only dream of doing.

Andy quickly got out of the way as the rest of his friends made it to the space station. Claire, West, Josh, and Bonnie all made it. They were just as amazed as he was.

“Wow! D-did we win the escape room?”

“I think so. I can’t think of anywhere else to escape to.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Andy saw a large chunk of rock rapidly moving towards them. Andy did a double take as the asteroid stopped right in front of them and slowly broke apart. As the rocks parted, a small reddish-black triangle appeared. Unlike the surrounding rock which tumbled aimlessly, the triangle was perfectly still.

The triangle quickly dashed to one side, and then to another in a sort of pattern. Then, it stopped dead in the middle. Odd tentacles began coming out of the triangle. Soon the triangle shattered and before them was Deoxys in all its glory. It slowly maneuvered around the side of the ship. Andy soon heard a passage open and a vacuum sound before it stopped.

Deoxys approached the place where they were. It looked menacing, like it was giving them a death glare. After some time, Deoxys just warped its tentacles into human-like hands and arms and started clapping.

“Good job! You won with nine minutes left! You put in the code wrong twice, and that took away twenty minutes of your time, if you were wondering.”

“Oh no, do we have to battle you now?”

“Nope. I don’t really believe in fighting to show your strength with the gears. I need to know that the persons involved are smart enough to not only discover the escape room, but also what they’re doing. If I just gave it to the meathead who happened to be stronger than me, half the world would’ve been frozen already.”

“Where are we?”

“You’re in the International Space Station, or the ISS.” At this, West gave an audible gasp.

“Wait, we’re here?! That…that’s amazing!”

“You know this place?”

“Yes! You can use the Street View on Google Maps to get inside from Earth, but I’ve never thought of actually coming here! May I have a look around?”

“Later. Right now, I need to get you ready. To spare you from exposition that’s too long, I hid the Time Gear up here, built the escape room to test the people who need it, and made the ISS my kind of home when I’m not travelling among the cosmos.”

“That is a very good explanation, but what about the poisonous gas?”

“That? Oh yeah, I was serious about the whole gas thing. You didn’t inhale enough to be lethal, but there’s still a good amount in your system. It might be a good idea to wait up here for it to get out of your system. Meanwhile, y’all want a tour of the station?”

“Yes, please!” West said.

***

“And now we’re back to where we started! Cool, huh?” Andy couldn’t keep his amazement in. These truly were sights to behold, and they were spectacular. “How are you guys feeling?”

“Pretty good, the poison is probably gone now.”

“Great! Let me show you the Gear.” They travelled down a long hallway until they got to a wall. Though previously ignored by Deoxys, it pulled a box from the wall and flipped a switch. The nearby shelfs rotated around until it showed the Time Gear in its place. Andy walked up to it and safely extracted it.

When he took off his backpack and opened the case for the gears, Andy saw the gears. Now with the new 8th gear, all the slots were filled. It gave Andy some form of nostalgia that he had never felt before. Each gear was telling him a different story: their first battle with a legendary, meeting Jack and Sheila, fighting together with Sasha, defeating his nightmares with Nephi, meeting Kyree at Maldives and reuniting with his friends, and finally solving an escape room together.

Andy hadn’t noticed it, but Josh, Claire and West were looking over his shoulder at the case. Andy didn’t need to read their aura to know that they were feeling the same thing he was. It made Andy feel sad a little; an adventure unlike any other now had the ending within sight. He solemnly closed the case and replaced it within his backpack.

“Is this the treasure you were looking for?” Bonnie asked.

“Yep, we’ve got them all now…”

“Where will you go now? Don’t you have parents or family to go to?”

“We don’t have them anymore. We’re so radically different from them it became a safety issue.” Bonnie looked shocked at what she just heard.

“Orphans?”

“Not biologically, but I guess we are basically that now.”

“Well, where did you come from?”

“We came from a Pokeuman base, where there are people like us.”

“Woah. Where’s that?”

“Well, if you go to the Salt Lake to Black Rock, there’s a little rock you turn to open the passage way and get into it. Just go down the stairs, down the hallway, and into the elevator and you’ll be there!”

“Mind if I come with you? I don’t have anywhere else to go…”

“Well, sure! I don’t think Xander, our headmaster, will have a problem with that. You could even be a teacher there, too!”

“It’s part school, too? Hm, I always wanted to be a teacher! Sure, I’ll come with.”

“Great.” Josh said. “But our car blew up and we have nowhere else to go. Mind if we use your teleportation?”

“Yes, I don’t mind.”

Deoxys nodded. “Well, it looks like you’re ready. I’m going to teleport you back to the escape room. The door out should be open for you. Come together now…”

The all huddled in a circle. Deoxys waved its tentacles around. Andy felt like he was rapidly spinning around until all the whooshing stopped. When he looked up, Andy saw that the room was lit, and the power preventing them from using abilities or machinery was gone. The door out was open, and they all left. Andy closed the door behind him, and not shortly after that heard the clicking of the lights being turned off.

“Alright, we’ve got them all. Let’s…let’s go home.” Josh said. Andy could hear that he was sad too, which went against his character of being the tough and violent one. They descended up the stairs and into the fresh air.

Andy jumped when he suddenly heard a laugh. The laugh was familiar to Andy, and it was only a second too late to realize it belonged to Vincent. The gray Lucario almost literally jumped out of nowhere.

“Well, now you tell me everything!” He laughed again. “Now I know where the gears are, and the juiciest info on where you all live!!!” Andy’s heart sunk.

What?!

“Oh man, looks like the Batman Gambit worked after all! Now thanks to her,” he said, pointing at Bonnie, “my spy, I now know exactly what to do with you all!”

“A spy?!” Josh shouted. He immediately bore his claws at Bonnie.

“What! No, I’m not a spy, I swear!”

“Of course you are!” Vincent grabbed at Bonnie and lifted her hair. Underneath it was a small recording device.

Oh sh...shucks!

Bonnie looked behind and when she saw the device, her eyes widened in horror.

“No! I didn’t know that was there, I swear!”

“That rhymes!” Vincent laughed. “You don’t need to play the innocent anymore! I remember, you showed up for a meeting and we briefed you. We set a stage to get them to rescue you, and being the ‘heroric heroes of heroic heroicness’, they saved you!” Vincent laughed as he went over the details. “Now your job is complete! Excellent work! I’m sure Rufus would be glad! He may even refer you to-” Vincent suddenly stopped looking so cheerful. His face suddenly spotted a look of intense anger and frustration, adding a growl to go along with it. “…Mr. X.” But as suddenly as his face changed, he went back to being so cheerful. “Unless…no,” Vincent said, “You can’t have actually developed feelings for them, have you? Oh no, this simply won’t do.”

“Bonnie, a spy?” Andy said. He never felt so betrayed, but then again he felt that Bonnie was telling the truth. His mind says yes, she’s a spy, but something inside him, maybe his heart or his aura sensors, were telling him that her statements were genuine. Which one is the right one to listen to?”

Bonnie seemed saddened at the fact that all of them seemed to doubt her. She suddenly broke free of Vincent’s grasp and quickly embraced him. Though, this wasn’t like a hug as Bonnie gave them, but it was more of putting him in a head lock.

“Run children! Run to the base and warn everyone!” She said as she and Vincent suddenly teleported away.

Heart thumping at what just happened, Andy just quickly slid on his ring and ran for it. He could hear his friends doing the same. They didn’t care if they had a car or even a scooter, they dashed away to get to the base as fast as they could.

Next: Here
Author
Aura Knight
Posted on
Rating
5.00 star(s) 3 ratings

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Latest Comments

I need more!!!!!!!!!!
Good chapter! Keep it up!
Aren't you supposed to put a link to the next chapter at the end?

On another topic, this is amazing! I wish I had your motivation.
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