Entering the Caves POST CLOSED

After a good night's rest, Lowell enters the caves connecting Pewter City to Cerulean City. He makes his way carefully among the rocks, keeping an eye out for Pokemon or trainers.

You find the trip so far very quiet. You feel a shiver go up your spine. Almost as if someone was watching you. You continue along the caves quicker. At one point you stop. The hairs on your neck prickling.

Lowell releases Wartortle from his Pokeball to help keep watch. he moves slowly forward.

A loud thud causes you to flinch. You hear faintly curses coming from behind you. "You idoit! You blew or cover!" You overhear. You turn around. Seeing to men in black uniforms, each with a giant red R on the front.

Team Rocket, like Saroya said. Lowell thinks. He releases Minun from his Pokeball. "Wartortle, use Water Gun on these guys, and Minun, you hit 'em after that with Thunder!" Lowell says, planning to knock out or at least daze the Rocket grunts.

The attacks work knocking the grunts out. Yet your feeling is still building. You here shots from behind you. Large nets come strait at you. It was a trap. You shut your eyes waiting for the nets to fall. Till loud cutting sounds are heard. Opening your eyes a large Luxray stands infront of you. The pokemon looks over at the other two Rocket members who shot the net. They quickly run away. "Didn't think I'd see you so soon Lowell! Pretty low of team Rocket to trap yah like that!" Saroya appers by Luxrays side. "Nice job on the other grunts by the way."

"Thanks. What do they want with these caves anyway?" Lowell dusts himself off and returns Minun to his Pokeball.

"Don't know. Apparently there's some hot springs here, they probably want to use it as an energy scorse" Saroya has Luxray return to his pokeball. "We should travel together for the rest of the trip. Team Rocket finds it fun to outnumber people." Saroya pulls out another pokeball. Letting out her Ninetails "Might as well get out a pokemon in case."

"Yeah. I'm trying to get to the part of the caves near Cerulean quickly. I've been in those a few times over the past couple years." Lowell says, starting to walk forward.

saroya nodds walking along with him. Ond hand around Ninetails scruf, the other in her pocket. You continue for awhile till Saroya stops you. "Someones coming..." Saroya pulls you behind a rock as five grunts walk by. "I swear I heard footsteps..." One of the grunts say. "Lowell get ready..."

"Right." Lowell whispers, barely audible. He makes sure Wartortle is ready too, and that all of his Pokeballs will be easy to activate.

"I heard Saroya's here." One of the grunts speak up nerviously. "You know what the other say about her, and with the boss to, he hates her as well." Another scoffs. "Why would Saroya be here? She's to busy with Team Magma, probabliy replacing all there pokemon with water types."

Saroya looks back at you. "I'll explain later." When the people finally leave Saroya and you continue on the long walk.

Lowell keeps an eye out for Rock-type Pokemon to capture. His team needs to be well-rounded. He also looks for familiar landmarks that would signal they were nearing Cerulean City, but none so far.

Saroya sighs. "Man my nerves are all jumpy for some reasson."

"All the Team Rocket grunts around is kind of spooky. But a lot of them are morons anyway." Lowell says. "Do you know how far it is to Cerulean?"

"It'll take us about another 5 hours, it's a long walk and then we have Rocket members who may be morons but take up alot of time." Saroya snickers. "Calling Team Rocket morons may be overestimating them."

"Uh-huh." Lowell keeps an eye out for Rock Pokemon and Rocket members, but is othwerwise pretty bored.

You continue walking, its pretty boring walk. Untill the ground almost seems to tear out from under you. "Damn! Its a pitehole!" Saroya yells out. But insteed of hitting ground you look down and pale. You stay ten stories high slowly falling toward a large body of water. Saroya curses She didn't have a flying pokemon with her. "Keep your legs strait when you hit the water!" Saroya yells.

"Will we even make it to the water? My God, I hope terminal velocity won't kill us!" Lowell yells over the rush of wind as they plummet downwards.

"Same!" Saroya yells. Thankfully both you and Saroya hit the water, finding it very warm. Saroya swims to the surface. "So these are the hot springs..." She looks up and wistles. "We fell that far down?" Both of you swim back to shore. "Man how will we get out of here?"

"No clue. If there aren't any underwater caves, I think we're trapped...Unless you have a Pokemon that can carry us up the walls." Lowell says, slightly depressed.

Saroya sighs. "I think we could climb up....Nah we would never make it. She looks around. "And I don't have any escape ropes, guess we'll be stuck her awhile..." Saroya takes out a small Poke'Nav. "Damn no signal." She puts the item back. "Wait, How strong is Minun?"

"Moderately, I suppose. We upgraded Thunderbolt to Thunder a bit ago, so he's improving."

"Hmm, I wonder you think he could bast the hole up there bigger?" Saroya points to the now small looking hole above your heads.

"Probably a bit bigger, I'll have him try it." Lowell releases Minun from his Pokeball. "We're in a bit of a fix here, Minun. Try using Thunder to widen that hole up there!" Lowell tells him.

Minun lets out a large blast of thunder. Hitting the rim of the hole widdening it abit. You signal for it to let loss another thunder. Making it bigger again. "That'll do. Now Lowell what makes hot springs?" Saroya turned to him grinning.

"Rivers of magma underground heat deposits of water, which causes them to become hot, right?" Lowell says.

"Yep correct, so what if we where to dig deep enough under water to have the magma resurface, and have a certine rare pokemon that can control magma?"

"That's a good idea. Which Pokemon?" Lowell asks, not able to figure out exactly which PokemoN Saroya was referring to.

"Well 2 years ago I found an egg in a volcano, That egg held this guy..." Saroya held out another pokeball. "Go Heatran!!" Saroya lets out the large spider/fire pokemon. You can literally see magma travel through his veins. "This pokemon here can control magma. Its also known to be pretty rare. This guy will be our ticket out of here.

"Sounds good." Lowell says. "I think it'll work."

"Great!" Saroya says happily. "Now we need a water pokemon to dig to the magma." Saroya grinned. "You know what that means."

"Right. Wartortle, try and dig to the magma. I can get Poliwag to help you if you need it." Lowell says. Wartortle jumps into the water, and starts digging downwards...

"Hey I don't want to miss ourt on this to. Go Blastoise! Help Wartortle dig underground!" Saroya lets the large pokemon out. It jumps into the water to join Wartortle. "Hmm. Can't wait for your Wartortle to evole into a Blastoise. It'll probably be better then mine." Saroya sits down. "Nothing more to do but wait."

"Right. With this delay, we probably won't make it to Cerulean by nightfall...Too bad. I wanted to face the Gym Leader today." Lowell says with a sigh.

"Yeah can't be helped though." Saroya pulls out a bit of flint and steel, slowly starting a fire. She sets it up to hold a small tea pot she has, filling it with hot water she dumbs a pack of ramen inside. "Want some? Might as well have dinner while we're here."

"Sounds good." Lowell says. He checks the progress of Wartortle and Blastoise; they've cleared a good amount of rock so far.

A few minutes later the ramen is ready, Saroya pores you and herself a bowl. "Looks like in another 10 minutes they'll be done."

"That's good. Hopefully we'll be back on track within the next half-hour." Lowell says between bites.

Soon both of you are finished. After abit of silence a large blast is heard and steam begins to raise from the water. "They did it!" Saroya yells. Soon both wartortle and Blastoise come back from the spring. "Perfect now Heatran bend the magma to the surface!" The fire pokemon has the magman slowly rise almost like in fountines. "Now Blastoise cool of the magma!!"

Lowell stands back, and Wartortle slides into his shell so stray magma won't scorch him.

Soon large pillars of pure rock apper from the heat forming a staircase up to the giant hole. "Perfect both of you, return." Saroya puts her pokemon back. "Alright then Lowell lets go!" Saroya jumps onto the first pillar then the next with you following.

Lowell makes sure not to miss any steps as he reaches twenty feet, because falling wouldn't be very enjoyable. He has returned Wartortle to his Pokeball so he doesn't have to make the climb himself.

Finally both of you climb out of the hole. "Hehe. where finally out. saroya grinns and helps you out. "Now we can finally-" "I knew it it! Some trainers are here! See I told you! and one of them is Saroya!" Both of you turn around and pale a good 20 Team rocket members are behind you each with pokeballs drawn. "Lowell...Now would be a good time to RUN!!"

"Good idea!" Lowell starts running quickly, trying to dodge behind rocks to lose them.

"Man most of the time they're the ones who are running not the other way around!" saroya jumps to the side avoiding a large net. "Not nets to! That's all we need! I'm not in the mood to have a chat with your boss!" saroya yells over her head. They respond with running faster. "Oh man! Run fast Lowell!"

"Dangit, my stamina is poor to begin with..." Lowell pants. He's still able to keep slightly ahead of the Rocket grunts.

"Damn! Can't you leave us alone!" Saroya yells over her shoulder. Once again they speed up. "Crud" Saroya slows down to Lowells pace. She grabbed him by the arm and throwing him ahead of her. You land on your feet and keep running. "Go LuxRay!" Saroya throws her pokeball forward and the large lion pokemon appers infront of her. "Use Thunder to seal this part of the cave so they can't get us!" Saroya yells.

Luxray does just that, shotting up a bolt of thunder while running causing rocks to fall and seal the passage Team rocket on the other side of the wall. "Alright that'll stop them."

Lowell catches his breath. "Ow, my throat is sore now..." He gulps in another breath. "But the running got us closer to Cerulean City, so that's a plus. How long until they're able to get through that wall of rocks?"

Saroya looks at the wall. "It'll take awhill to get through, but they could easily move around it by taking another passage." Saroya sighed. "But there to dumb to do that." Saroya walks abit ahead. "We still should keep moving though."