Underground Adventures /// Episode #1

[Jo]

Joshua, the boy with teal hair and a black hoodie, grabbed his Explorer Kit and flung it dangerously onto his back.

"I'm going outside to find a spot to start digging!" Joshua smiled, and burst through the doors of the Contest Hall.

"That idiot..." Daniel mumbled under his breathe. "You can't just dig anywhere."

Joshua thundered down the polished marble steps to the Contest Hall. Grinning, as he reached the pavement, he grabbed the pickaxe from his bag and started chipping away at the sidewalk happily. Jake walked out of the hall next.

"Hey Jake!" Joshua laughed, waving, then returning to dig wildly.

"Erm, I don't think you can do that," Jake told Joshua, reaching the bottom from the flight of stairs.

"Hm?" Joshua hummed, continuing to flail wildly at the tarmac ground. Onlookers stared at Joshua in confusment.

"Joshua!" Nicola called, rushing down the stepcase. "You don't dig up here! You acess the Underground from a Pokemon centre!" Joshua broke into a sweat.

"Wh-what?! Nobody told me that!" Joshua cried in denial.

"Wouldn't common sense dictate we wouldn't be able to reach the Underground even if we dug all day?" Daniel sighed, resting a hand on Joshua's shoulder. "Pack your stuff, we're heading back to the Pokemon Centre." Joshua nodded, and slightly embarresed, threw his pickaxe idley back into his kit. Nicola and Jake crossed the street, and as soon as Joshua slung the kit back onto his shoulder, he and Daniel followed suit.

It didn't take long to reach the building with the red roof - it was the brightest in the city, after all. Daniel pushed the bright red doors open, and the familiar "Welcome!" issued from the help desk. Sure enough, a brand new esculator to the Underground had been released earlier that day. Joshua crammed past Daniel and stood infront of the elevator. It went down pretty far so Joshua could not see the enterance just yet.

"Come on, guys! The Underground awaits!" Joshua hollered, taking his first step onto the slowly descending esculator and disappearing out of sight.

"Wooo~!"

[Jake]

Jake stared as Joshua ran outside. "Might as well go follow him."  He said and jumped so the explorers kit wouldn't sag. Angel and Absol smiled. He walked outside and found Joshua picking away at the sidewalk. "Hey Jake!" He said, and continued to dig.

"Erm, I don't think you can do that." Jake informed

"Hm?" Joshua hummed and and pieces of sidewalk flew everywhere.

"Joshua!" Nicola called, rushing down the stepcase. "You don't dig up here! You acess the Underground from a Pokemon centre!" Joshua's eyes widened.

Jake laughed and followed the group to the Pokemon Center. "Welcome!" Nurse Joy greeted. Josh saw Daniel walking to the escalator and shoved him out of the way and walked down. Absol didn't like the escalator. Jake returned Absol and when he got to the bottom let Absol out. He patted Angel and looked around. "Wow..."

[Dani~]

Daniel opened the Pokemon Centre doors and saw that a new escalator had opened up for the public who has the explorer kits with them.

He was about to go down when Josh shoved past him and took the first step down the escalator.

"Hmph." He said under his breath and started go down it with Togetic flying circles around him.

When he got to the bottom of it, he stared in awe at his surroundings. "Wow."

[Nicola]

Nicola followed everyone else down the escalator, Bolt and Crystal taking the step behind. The moving stairs slowly lowered them to the level of the tunnels Underground, and everyone was in awe in amazement of it.

"Wow..." Nicola chorused with Jake and Dan.

The tunnel before them stretched on as far as they could see, with small lanterns lining the passage, little duos of light that went on until they were simply tiny specks in the distance. Nicola supposed that the enormity of the tunnels was only natural, if they were supposed to be under multiple regions. She wondered how they were able to dig so far, this long tunnel plus all the ones branching off to the sides, which were no doubt as grand as this one. It was simply astounding.

Nicola's amazed thinking was disrupted by a tug at her shirt. The scientist glanced down at Crystal, who was looking up at her with a highly uneasy expression.

<I don't like the looks of this place. It seems too... stuffy. And it's under the ground...> the Riolu pleaded quietly, shivering to punctuate how much she wasn't looking forward to it.

The girl blinked. The last thing she had expected Crystal to be afraid of was the prospect of going Underground, mostly because of her withdrawn nature.

"You want to go in your Pokeball, then?"

Crystal nodded, and Nicola pulled the Riolu's Pokeball from the belt around her waist, the red beam of light taking Crystal back into her Pokeball for a rest, and a refuge from the tunnels. The scientist looked down at her Shinx.

"Do you want to go in your Pokeball, too?"

<No way! I totally want to stay out here with you and explore all these tunnels! It's going to be an adventure!>

Nicola knew how Bolt was about adventures and, grinning, watched him walk quickly around in a circle, sniffing excitedly at the air. She turned to the rest of the group.

"So, d'you guys want to stick with this really long tunnel here, or explore the tunnels that fork away from it on the sides?"

[Jo]

"So, d'you guys want to stick with this really long tunnel here, or explore the tunnels that fork away from it on the sides?"

Joshua just really, really wanted to start digging. He began to pull out the one pickaxe from his kit.

"There's no point in moving - let's just stick here. If we need help, we're close to the Pokemon Center, aren't we?"

Without waiting for the party to discuss things, Joshua hurried up to a wall and began chipping away with ease at the surface.

[Jake]

Jake grinned as Joshua ran off and started digging. Jake pulled out his pickaxe, twirled it, and walked up to the wall. He begain digging into it, with Absol helping him and Angel trying to scoop out dirt with her tail.

"This is going to  be fun." He said, and continued to dig, Absol barked in agreement. He looked back at the group. "Have fun digging!" Jake said excidedly to them and continued to dig.

[Nicola]

Nicola grinned at the others' enthusiasm to get going at digging in the tunnels.

"I guess I'll give it a go, too!" the scientist suggested, pulling out her own pickaxe and heading a couple feet away to start digging at the walls herself.

<Treasure, treasure!> Bolt cheered, following after her in his usual peppy manner whenever an adventure was involved.

The two soon returned, Nicola pulling her Size 20 Red Sphere out of her Explorer Kit.

"Hey everyone, look at what I found!" she exclaimed, proudly holding the gem up for them to look at.

<But of course you wouldn't have found it if not for me!> Bolt added.

Nicola grinned and thanked him for his immense help, still holding up the sphere to admire it in the light of the torches.

[Jo]

"Awesomesauce find, Nicola!" Joshua proudly revealed his jewel - a size seventeen pale blue sphere. It was admirably paler and slightly smaller than Nicola's sphere, so he didn't unveil it for long.

"Couldn't of done it without me, though," Tails added, smiling and licking Joshua's ankle.

"H-Hey! You were asleep the whole time!" Joshua cried, although let Tails continue to mew his ankle. It felt pleasant.

Then Tails abruptly stopped. Infact, she bent down low to the ground and began to growl, pacing towards... Bolt.

[Dani~]

"Ok. It's my turn to dig! Let's go Togetic!" Daniel turned to his Pokemon and then walked over to a wall.

'Ok!' Togetic replied and followed. 'How about that wall?' He asked.

"Yeah. I'm bound to find something good there!" He said while grabbing the pickaxe.

[Nicola]

"M'kay, you have fun, Dan," Nicola responded, waving him off to his section of the wall.

She turned back to watch the others when she noticed an uncomfortable tension building up between Tails and Bolt. Bolt appeared not to have noticed it until Tails began growling and pacing towards him. The jolly Sphinx blinked a couple times at the Umbreon, whose face had darkened considerably. He loved a challenge, but dislike from a friend was far from enjoyable. He ceased his hyper jumping around at Nicola's feet to gaze at Tails curiously, checking behind him to check and make sure that it was he Tails was growling at.

<What is it?> he asked, befuddled. <Do I have something in my jaws...?>

[Dani~]

Daniel and Togetic got back to the group, treasure in hand.

"Hey guys! Look what I found!" He said happily, without knowing that Tails was growling at Bolt.
"Uhh, guys?" He asked, still unaware of what was going on.
'Umm, I think it's something to do with that.' Togetic said and pointed at the two Pokemon.
"Oh. I wonder what's up with Tails."

[Jo]

Tails barked viciously and began bearing her studded silver fangs. She stalked the, rather confused electrical feline, with malicious intent.

"Tails, what--" Joshua craned his neck around to see his Umbreon narrow her red eyes at Bolt. "--is the matter..?" the trainer ended rather precariously.

<Kyuu...> Tails warned. <Get that... cat away...>

"Oh! I see... This is no excuse for being so hostile to a friends pokemon, still." Joshua lectured, pulling his foor infront of Tails and barring her from walking towards Bolt. "It seems that, Nicola, Umbreon being a vixen and Bolt being a feline... ahaha! Looks like a cat-dog age old rivalry..."

Joshua let Nicola ponder on this. "Besides," he mentioned, twirling around to see Dan. "What did you... Amber? Sweet!"

[Nicola]

Bolt, rather offended yet still intimidated by Tails' remark, scampered up Nicola's back to perch on her head, staying there even when Joshua blocked Tails' way. The scientist gave a small laugh before turning to see Dan return from his dig with a piece of Amber. Nicola was impressed at the glowing orange stone; if she had been the one to dig up something like that, she certainly wouldn't trade it for anything until she could do some proper tests and experiments to try and resurrect the fossilized Pokemon, and then she'd have an extinct species and could learn all kinds of things about it-- but, of course, Nicola was getting ahead of herself, the Amber was Dan's property, not hers. She noted to herself to try to come Underground more often on her adventure.

Wait...! Her adventure!

"Sorry, guys, but judging by the length of the road I took from Pallet to here, divided by the amount of time it took, minus the amount of breaks I took, factoring in the amount that I wandered off the path as well as my varying speeds and patterns of walking, not to mention-- er, well, what I mean is that if I'm going to make any headway towards Pewter City today, I've got to start towards there right now. It was really great hanging out with you guys! Maybe we ought to do it again some time."

Tucking her glittering gem back into her bag, Nicola got on the escalator back into the Pokemon Center, waving and calling farewells to everyone before reaching the ground floor. Nicola nodded to Nurse Joy as she passed, and walked out through the glass doors back into Viridian City.

[Jo]

Tails' low, reverberating growls subsided as Nicola left, Bolt still perched atop her head. Joshua looked up from his Umbreon, over to the scientist who was now ascending the elevator out of the chasm.

"Uh, yeah! See you some time soon!" Joshua kept on waving Nicola goodbye. He kept on waving even though the scientist didn't turn around to acknowledge him; he kept on waving until the scientist dissapeared from view. Joshua felt a panging urge in his chest to run after her, as if he'd lost a best friend. Down-hearted, the trainer turned back to his friends.

It seemed Jake was nowhere to be found - judging by his nature, he had probably scampered off to the forest or somewhere. That suited Joshua just fine - one less loss to deal with.

"So, Daniel..." Joshua spoke. "Next stop, Viridian Forest?"

[Dani~]

Daniel turned towards Josh who was waving to Nicola's back untill she vanished.

"So, Daniel..." Joshua spoke. "Next stop, Viridian Forest?"

"Uhh, sure. Let's go!" Daniel replied and started walking to the exit.