Chương 106: Chapter 102

Steelix was one of the most dangerous species of Pokémon my team ever encountered. Not only were they aggressive and territorial, but they actively sought out battles just to test themselves. Most of the wild Steelix here were veterans of hundreds of tough fights for survival, and the wild Onix all strived to be like them. I would have preferred my team fight a dozen Onix than a pair of Steelix. There was a certain strength that came from size.

Not only did a Steelix carry much more force behind its attack than an Onix, but a Steelix's body was also significantly sturdier than the already tough Onix. Every movement carried literal tons of weight behind it, and their heads were capable of being swung around just as well as their tails. Whenever a Steelix chose to challenge my party to a fight, the resulting battle was slow and tedious. Each decision had to be weighed carefully to not bring my Pokémon in range of the Steelix's iron-tough head.

There were a couple of near misses against Ninetales and Whimsicott, and Dedenne wasn't even able to assist. The repeated battles against these tough foes meant my team's first forays into the third area were met with harsh resistance, forcing us to turn around to rest in the significantly safer second area. At the end of the fourth week of training, I returned to the Pokémon Center and sent Dedenne and Whimsicott back in exchange for Azumarill and Carbink.

Carbink would be great for withstanding powerful hits, and Azumarill was a powerhouse that could fight back against anything that came our way. I briefly considered bringing Florges as well, but, honestly, her time with Sophie, Professor Sycamore's assistant, was far more valuable. Sophie was an expert in healing Pokémon, and Florges was learning a lot from her. It wasn't every day that a Professor's assistant went out of her way to request the continued assistance of a Pokémon.

With Azumarill on the team and Carbink as support, our group was able to get a bit deeper. Azumarill struggled at a few points, but her raw strength was able to better handle the Steelix's tough bodies, and Carbink could easily defend against them as well. With Azumarill here, Mawile also started to push herself a bit more and became better and better at taking hits from the aggressive wild Pokémon. The next issue we had to deal with once we managed to get a handle on the wild Steelix were the swarms of Golbat.

Zubat swarms were a common sight in most caves, but when it came to areas that contained tougher and more aggressive Pokémon, many of them were forced to put more effort into survival, which translated into more of them turning into Golbats. Here, with the frequent presence of Steelix challenging practically everything around them, the usually asleep swarms of bats stayed active for longer and acted more aggressively to ward intruders from their territories.

They even employed some basic strategy by having smaller groups of their unevolved forms act as scouts and guards along the edges of their areas. Most of the time, we strove to avoid these swarms simply because fighting large numbers of weaker opponents wasn't our goal, but there were still times we accidentally gained a swarm's attention. Ninetales's Blizzard was a big help in warding them off, and Altaria's aerial maneuvers helped distract the bats from the rest of us.

Altaria was forced to rely on his single target attacks like Ice Beam and Dragon Pulse to fight them, as screaming with Uproar and Hyper Voice tended to attract even more Pokémon towards our position. We learned that the hard way. Despite the constant, high effort battles we fought, we were able to push deeper and deeper. Initially, we mostly did short, day-long forays to rest on the surface at night, but as the days passed, we decided to give camping in the caves themselves a shot.

The interior of deep Iron Island felt completely unnatural. I'd been in caves before that mostly consisted of twisting tunnels, and I'd been in Reflection Cave, which was a world of its own, but this place was so much more. The initial reaches only consisted of a few tight corridors that led downwards, but those quickly stretched out into large open caverns that broke up the tunnels.

Massive, spacious rooms would disappear into the darkness of the far distance, filled with towering pillars of stones and piles of rubble from the wild Pokémon battles causing damage here. Many of them were the locations of wild Pokémon constantly trying to defend their territory, which meant we would be caught up in fights as we passed through. Thankfully, few of them were actually significantly tougher than the rest. When it came to lighting, we relied mostly on electric lanterns.

The small amount of light they produced let Ninetales and Mawile see far into the dark as both were cave-bound species, whereas most of the other members of my team were given small lights to carry or hang on their neck. The light might have made our group a bit more obvious, but, at the same time, it was much safer for us to move around where we could see and not open ourselves up to attacks from Sableye.

Speaking of, while less Sableye went after us in the light, there were still a few of them that tried to go after Carbink specifically. Their gemstone body was most likely far too appetizing for them to resist. However, Carbink proved that they could handle themselves by warding off any of the Ghost Types with a quick Dazzling Gleam. The attack might not have been that powerful, but the unexpected flash of light would always scare them off.

The fact that Fairy Type moves were the only moves that were super effective against the Sableye probably helped Carbink's defense as well. I think the most notable battle we experienced wasn't against a Steelix, but against a wild Metang. When it came to the Beldum line's presence in the cave, we had encountered a small handful of them, but never any that actually attacked.

Most of them were more skittish than anything else, choosing to flee at the sight of our light and hide behind some of the hanging stalactites. We only ever saw the occasional flash of blue before the Metang attacked. The Metang was no Metagross, but it had the power to back up its presence. It fought like a Pokémon that had years of experience in battles, although it still fought with a certain lack of efficiency that would have marked it as a trained Pokémon.

The Metang attacked with both arms at once, harrowing and harassing opponents with flight and claws all while using the darkness to make responding to it that much more difficult. I had Carbink work to fight it off since their dense body would help them handle the Metang's attacks. That, and their developing moves needed practice. The battle was an extended one where Carbink had weak attacks but the defenses to stall. As a Steel Type, Metang had a Type advantage over Carbink, but they didn't let that get to them.

Metal Claws slashed Reflects, and Carbink held themself in place with Light Screen when Confusions tried to grab them. Carbink's Rock Type moves did little damage, but, slowly, they wore it down. Metang was persistent, and, despite Carbink's best attempts, I was forced to call them back before they sustained too many injuries. A different Pokémon needed to be sent in. Azumarill wanted to fight, but I held her back in favor of letting someone else gain practice.

That someone ended up being Ninetales, who needed to continue to work on her defense against physical-focused opponents like Metang. Upon dashing forward, a small snowstorm appeared around Ninetales, but this time, her ability created soft, fluffy snow, rather than the usual conjuration of hard ice. It swirled around her form as the weather took effect, creating a cushion between her and any attacks coming her way. This change in her ability was a reflection of a trend I heard of from an unfamiliar region.

It was a way to repurpose hail as snow, causing the weather to lose its slow chip damage over time, but now increase an Ice Type's resistance to attacks. I had Ninetales start training to use her ability in this modified way after stumbling upon an article about it online, and the change in benefit luckily perfectly fit her improving fighting style as well. The best part is, she didn't lose her ability to hide within it. If anything, the snow made it even easier.

Ninetales wasn't hiding, though, choosing to let the snow move around her rather than just moving within it. Metang rushed forward in the air to try to use a four times effective Metal Claw, but the attack was caught by a solid halo of shimmering lights and softened even further by the snow. With Metang temporarily caught off guard, Ninetales used this moment to unleash an attack of her own.

Ice Beam didn't deal much damage, but she was able to frost over parts of Metang's body with repeated uses of it as the fight went on, making it clear that Steel Type would freeze if it continued its path. Weakened from Carbink and freezing over from Ninetales, the wild Metang soon realized that the fight wouldn't go its way. After a pause to consider, it quickly turned and rushed away, disappearing into the darkness and leaving us alone. Azumarill then turned around and punched a Sableye trying to sneak up on us.

The Ghost Type was knocked back, and it scurried off. This training was already showing its results. It was in the middle of the sixth week that we came upon a curious sight. As far as I could tell, it looked like a smooth fragment of something metallic yet biological. If I had to guess, it was some kind of carapace. I leaned forward to pick it up. It was heavy and metallic in nature. For sure, it was something from a Steel Type.

"I'm not sure what this is," I said to my team.

"In the light it's clearly part of some kind of gray shell, but I can't think of any underground Steel Types native to Sinnoh that are also bugs. Forretress, maybe? But don't those live in trees?" I shot my team a glance only to see that most of them looked unsure. It wasn't like they had every species of Pokémon memorized like I did, but I at least talked about a lot of species in the past to let them recognize others more easily.

A good chunk of my free time was spent just idly talking about various species, strategies, and miscellaneous topics to give my Pokémon more information to work with when needed. My Pokémon didn't make any signs as if they knew, and I had only a scant few different ideas in mind about what this piece of shell might have meant. None of them made sense to me with what I knew, however. Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings. We pushed on.

We trudged through stone tunnels and massive rooms, traveling past battling Pokémon and fighting some ourselves. One Steelix made itself known, but it had already sustained injuries from a previous battle and Carbink's rock-solid defenses made it feel like fighting us wasn't worth it. Paths that went down would sometimes go up, and paths that went up sometimes went down.

We passed by several different entrances that led back to the surface through the dozens of tunnels and caves criss-crossed underneath Iron Island, but, over time, we located paths that led deeper. The passive temperature of the caves were hotter than I expected, but nothing too uncomfortable. Ninetales was a little unhappy with the temperature, but she could at least control the environment around her to make it a bit cooler. That is, when Altaria didn't get annoyed and cancel the effect with his own ability.

In the lower depths, I started to see more and more of those same metallic fragments that had caused me confusion before. They were both flattened and curved, and there were a few pieces that even looked like shoddy helmets between them. All were clearly discarded fragments of a shell. The sheer number of them implied whatever Pokémon they were from were present in large numbers, which didn't help to add to my already large stress from staying underground for so long. Then, we got an answer.

Ahead of us, in one of the smaller connecting tunnels, a section of the wall broke open to reveal what looked to be a large ant. Its body was covered in that same metallic gray carapace we had seen so many times along the way, and, right in front of its lidded, red compound eyes was a massive set of pincers that could easily chew through steel. This Pokémon wasn't one I ever expected to see in Sinnoh. It was one of the few Bug and Steel Type Pokémon, a Durant, a species normally native to Unova.

It walked a few feet forward with a few other members of its species following it from behind. The sound of numerous skittering footsteps came out from behind it, which made it clear that there were plenty more behind it. I took a step back. Azumarill took a step forward. The lead Durant turned to face us and narrowed its eyes.

"I'm not sure we can handle a swarm," I commented. We didn't have time to plan before that Durant charged. The ones behind it continued to follow, changing from simply traveling in a line to moving as a wave towards our position. A new tunnel opened up in the wall above it, then another, and another. More Durant emerged, and soon, dozens of them poured out to climb along the walls, ceiling, and floor in a wave that threatened to completely overtake us. Azumarill paused. I took another step back.

"Wide ranged moves only! Look to stop the flood! Mawile, take point. Azumarill, you assist. Everyone else, block the tunnel!" I had to quickly rush my orders. I only managed to say "Wide ranged" before the Durant reached us. Ninetales was the first to unleash an attack by sending an Ice Beam forward. A chunk of ice was formed at its impact point, but the metal ants just charged through it and broke it apart.

Azumarill, seeing there would be little slowdown in the approaching army, stepped in next to Mawile and set up an Aqua Ring to prepare herself for the fight. Mawile stood at the front and spoke rapid insults to direct the swarm her way with Taunt. The Durant were an even tougher threat considering their Steel Type moves made them super effective against everyone but her and Azumarill. In response, several of the lead Durant swarmed over towards her and led the swarm in their direction.

The Steel Types bit their bodies and bashed their heads, but Azumarill was an expert at bouncing around with Splash, and Mawile was able to use Iron Defense to prevent most of the damage. Ponyta hung back to send out a few green pulses their way to heal them with Heal Pulse, though the ranged version of the move was less effective than if he had moved in to touch them with his horn. Meanwhile, Carbink conjured Reflects and Light Screens to hold the ants back and prevent them from moving forward.

As they bunched up in corners, Altaria breathed out gouts of four times effective flames. It seemed as though this chokepoint-based strategy was working, but then I heard a scratching sound. To my horror, the walls broke open behind us as a second swarm came our way.

"Both sides! They're coming from both sides!" I yelled. Azumaril leapt back with Aqua Jet and Carbink strained themself to create screens on both sides. A small snowstorm picked up as Ninetales's Aurora Veil filled in the gaps, although it was only slightly lightening the load on Carbink. The numbers involved in this tunnel were far more than I expected, and with us fighting two sides at once, my Pokémon were beginning to struggle.

In response, I held up my arm to Mega Evolve Mawile and was about to call out for her to prepare myself when I paused. There was still a huge number of Durant left. Far too many, in fact. If I were to Mega Evolve Mawile here, we would just end up tiring ourselves out before significantly pushing them back. I took a deep breath to stop myself before I could think of what that outcome might mean for us.

"Ralts," I said, turning to the Pokémon in question.

"How difficult do you think it would be to get us out?" Ralts hadn't been able to contribute much to the fight, only catching individuals that slipped by and throwing them back with Confusion. It was an important role, but those that slipped by were rare in the wake of the sheer numbers Azumarill and Mawile were fighting off. At my question, Ralts glanced around at all of my team members.

Ralts, like Ponyta, rarely showed signs of extreme emotion with the uncommon exception of him taking joy in battle like Azumarill. Now, though, he looked scared. I was asking him to bring us out with Teleport. We hadn't practiced it much, and he was coming to the same conclusion I was. He wouldn't be able to take everyone at once. I started to bark orders to fix that.

"Azumarill, Mawile, go full defense! Ninetales, spam Calm Mind! Altaria, ready yourself for Power Swap and maintain your fire! I need you to keep them back as I return everyone else." In the face of such overwhelming and constant numbers, my Pokémon were already getting tired and several of them had sustained injuries. Ponyta's Heal Pulse was helping with that, but there was only so much he could do. A Durant suddenly crashed against Carbink's Reflect next to me as it tried to use Iron Head.

Carbink shook with strain from keeping up their barriers for so long.

"Ninetales, are you ready?" I yelled. She yipped back an affirmation. I shouted for Altaria to go for it. He used his TM Move, Power Swap, to "steal" the benefits from Ninetales's multiple uses of Calm Mind to boost himself to an extreme level, and then immediately let loose an absolute flood of flame. I returned Ninetales to let her rest. In the tight space of this tunnel, the flames sucked in the oxygen and heated things up to an extreme level.

The Durant, whose Type combination made them vulnerable to hot temperatures, became sluggish from the effect of the environment, and the walls began to melt under the power of Altaria's Flamethrower. The effects weren't one sided, however, as I started finding it difficult to breathe. My Pokémon slowed down as well. With the assault weakened, I began to return the members of my team. Carbink made sure to fill the gaps they left with new uses of Reflect and Light Screen.

Azumarill went first, disappearing after pushing back several of the ants past a line of molten rock. Mawile, too, disappeared, but she dug into the ground with Stone Edge to leave a chunk of rock to block off the position she was just recalled from. Ponyta gave one last Heal Pulse to Carbink with a touch of his horn, and then Altaria vanished as his flames petered out. With Carbink's barriers just barely holding, the Durant swarm stopped and chattered at us suspiciously.

I ducked down to try to avoid the toxic fumes the molten rock was undoubtedly giving off and pulled Carbink in close. Carbink's screens wavered as a single Durant stepped forward. One of its antennas tried to tap the psychic barrier, only to find that Carbink no longer had the energy to maintain their impermeable state. Our escape was now or never.

"Do it, Ralts!" I yelled. I grabbed Carbink's Great Ball to return them in the same moment I reached down to tap Ralts's outstretched hand. As the Durant all charged forward, Carbink was recalled into their ball, and Ralts and I disappeared with the Teleport. The Durant likely crashed together in the spot we had disappeared from, but since we were gone, I was unable to tell. Ralts and I reappeared in a cavern we had passed through quite some time ago as I leaned into the wall and vomited.

Ralts had never teleported more than just himself before, and my team started to slowly release themselves as I found myself unable to. I was suffering from extreme nausea from the effects of the Teleport, but Ponyta was at least able to lessen my conditions with another use of his Heal Pulse. Most of my Pokémon collapsed on the ground, wounded and exhausted, but we had made it. Somehow, we escaped that damned Durant swarm. My team and I lingered no further in the third area of Iron Island.

After that harrowing experience, staying underground in such a tight space frequently made me short of breath, and I was prone to snapping my head towards the slightest of sounds. My Pokémon had spent a long time fighting against tough opponents down here, so much so that they definitely earned an extended break. It'd been over a month of straight training, so I figured we were due some time at the Pokémon Center. Sure, it wasn't what I had planned initially, but everyone just wanted to rest.

Altaria helped bring us off the mountain once we found an exit to the cave, taking us towards the west coast. We returned to the small mining town within less than an hour, whereupon I checked everyone in at the Pokémon Center and rented a room in one of the free houses as soon as I could. After they were returned to me with a clean bill of health, most of my team immediately fell asleep in nests made out of the provided blankets. With them asleep, I went to the kitchen to cook everyone a good meal. I was no chef.

My meals were simple and didn't carry a lot of flavor. However, the simple task of performing repeated actions to cook for so many Pokémon at once let me drift off and zone out in thought. How are we supposed to go deeper if an entire Durant hive is waiting for us in the depths? The only sound in the kitchen was that of sizzling synthetic meats and berries as I absentmindedly prepared more ingredients.

My bottles of vitamins for my team were set on the counter to apply at the end, and after checking on them, my gaze drifted out the nearby window that overlooked the ocean. I might have splurged a bit to get one of the nicer houses. We needed a break. The meal I made consisted of a generic stew that would feed everyone alongside a few breaded Pokémon food pellets with ingredients chosen for each of my Pokémon individually.

It was difficult to get them in the proper shape, so they ended up looking more like vague tan lumps than actual pellets. The smells woke up my team, and they handily chowed down as I sat back and watched them enjoy the food. We were all seated on the floor of the room since none of them liked eating at a table. I just ate from a can, myself. I had bought far more food than we needed for these months on Iron Island and was too tired to bother making an entire other meal for myself.

I watched Ralts slowly nibble on one of the lumps I made. He paused when he noticed me staring.

"Thank you, by the way," I said earnestly.

"You saved everyone." The lower, visible part of his eyes flicked down to stare at his meal. Ninetales barked a happy, grateful bark with her mouth still full of food. Most of my other Pokémon also made noises of complimentary appreciation, with Azumarill even walking over and slapping him on his back. Ralts turned his head to her, shocked. Their rivalry had been tumultuous at best, and this was the most positive Azumarill had ever been towards him. Slowly, Ralts returned to eating.

I didn't miss the small smile that appeared on his face as he did. I had a solution in mind, and that solution involved asking for help.

"You want my advice?" Gavel asked, a bit surprised.

"Yes. You're a Steel Type expert from Unova. Surely you have an idea of how to get past a Durant hive." Gavel hummed almost a bit arrogantly and seemed amused that I would even ask in the first place. I had managed to catch him during a day he was taking a break in the Pokémon Center not long after I started my own.

"Well, you did give me a heads up about the Conference, so I might as well give you the advice you want," he said, both of us knowing he would have helped me anyway.

"Essentially, Durant are only a threat if you're caught in one of their swarms, otherwise they're pretty easy to handle since their fighting style tends to lead to a lot of misses. Normally I'd advise to stay the heck away from a place with so many Durant, but if you need to reach deeper in the caves, there's not really a choice for you." Gavel then leaned forward in his seat on the couch to better emphasize what he was about to say next.

"Wherever Durant go, Heatmor follow. They're Durant's natural predator, and it's likely that the Durant know to avoid them. Either you need to pass through the Heatmor's territory, which would pose a risk but would be much safer than passing through a Durant hive, or you need to recruit Heatmor to ward off any Durant you encounter. Either way, a Heatmor's presence would be invaluable to wherever your end goal will be." He paused for a moment before continuing.

"And don't make the mistake of not securing a path back up. The Heatmor might lead you down, but they might not wait for you to return. More trainers get lost in caves than any other location each year, especially since most devices can't contact the surface that far underground."

"That's a terrifying thought," I mumbled.

"Thanks, Gavel. I'll see what I can do to follow your advice." He nodded knowingly and returned to his important business of leaning back in his spot and watching the television hanging on the wall above him. A recording of a tournament in Johto was playing right now, and, funnily enough, Wally was one of the competitors. That wasn't something I planned to watch right now, however.

Gavel had told me a way my team and I could get down to the lower levels, and if we needed to get there for our last test, I needed to make plans. There were just over two weeks left in our planned training session on Iron Island. Following Gavel's strategy, I doubted my team would be able to make their way all the way down more than once. We were tired, and a month straight of training meant great gains but a lot of exhaustion at the same time.

Since this would be the last venture, it was time to gather up the best suited Pokémon to prepare for one last trip that would last until the end.