Chapter Two - The First Orb

The corridor echoed with the sound of footsteps as Ash, Rick, Misty, Pikachu and Ho-oh made their way threw the dark building, were they hoped to find two of the Orbs of Darkness.

Up ahead, Ash thought he heard a noise, like a sword slashing or something, and then a clank like metal hitting metal. He stopped and looked around, expecting to see axes coming out of the wall or something. There was silence. He shrugged and continued on until they came to a fork. One passage lead to the right, and another to the left. He turned to the others. "Any ideas what to do now?"

Misty looked from one to the other. "Maybe there's one orb in each passage"

Ho-oh looked from one passage to the other. "How about we split up?"

Rick looked at the others and they nodded. "Good idea" He looked at Ash. "You, Pikachu and Misty go one way, Ho-oh and I will go the other. How does that sound?"

Ash nodded and looked at the passages. "How do you feel about going to the left passage Misty?"

Misty nodded, but she looked a little worried. She hadn't been feeling very comfident sinch Ash had fallen down the spike trap.

The two groups said goodbye to eachother and made their way down the dark passages, torches lighting by themselves along the corridor as they walked.

Ash walked down the silent corridor, Misty close behind him. It was silent apart from their footsteps. Suddenly the sound that Ash had heard earlier came. A slash and a clank. Ash felt something grab his arm and tensed up. He looked down to see Misty clinging onto his arm. She must have got a fright when the sound came.

"What was that?" She said. Her voice was shakey.

"No idea, lets have a look" Ash began to walk forward.

Misty reluctantly followed, still clinging to his arm as though if she let go he would disappear.

Ash saw a room at the end of the corridor and quickened his pace. Pretty soon they came to the entrance to the room. They were standing on a rectangle of green marble floor at the edge of a blue room, the rest of the room was covered in water, like a pool. Ash looked around and noticed something at the oppisite side on the room. There was another rectangle of marble floor directly across from them, but it was mostly taken up by a black statue of an Articuno. When Ash looked closer he noticed something in a stand by the statue's feet. It was a red round ball, about the size of a Pokéball, with a black centre. It was one of the Orbs of Darkness.

Ash looked around the room. It didn'tlook to dangerous apart from the deep pool. He looked back at Misty. "I'm going over to try and get the Orb" He took a step forward and suddenly felt a sharpe pain in his arm. He jumped back and held his arm.

"Ash?" Misty walked up beside him. "Are you ok?"

Ash took his hand away from his shoulder. There was a thin gash lying horizontally across his arm and it was bleeding slightly. "What the?" He looked up and noticed something passing by him very quickly, making a slashing noise. Then hit the wall and there was a clank. When it shot out again he noticed it was a sharpe blade shooting across. He hated to think what would have happened if he had been a few steps farther. Well if he could get past that blade he'd be ok. He took a step forward, careful not to get to close to the blade. A burst of sound filled the room and Ash noticed that all along the surface of the water was covered by blades slicing from side to side apart from near the 'shrine' at the end. Looks like he was wrong about just passing one blade.

Pikachu lowered his ears and frowned.

Ash groaned and looked down. There were no blades in the water. He could swim under the blades and out the other side, get the Orb and come back. He stepped back and turned to Misty, taking Pikachu off his shoulder. "I'm going under"

"What?" Misty yelled. "Are you crazy? You don't know what's down there"

Ash ignored what she had just said and handed her Pikachu. "If I don't surface in five minutes, get out of here, you got it?"

"But..." Misty began, but before she could argue Ash took out a Pokéball, realeasing Totodile.

Ash walked to the right side of the marble floor were there were no blades and jumped in. He surfaced again and grabbed onto Totodile. "Let's go Totodile"

Totodile nodded and dove under the water.

Ash managed to take in some air before he was pulled under. It was pretty plain under water, a little dark and he couldn't see the bottom but thats it. He held on as Totodile swam through the water. Pretty soon Ash and Totodile surfaced at the other side. Ash took a deep breath and looked in front of him. The statue and the Orb were infront of him so he pushed himself out and grabbed the Orb. It was pretty light and very smooth. Ash shivered as he looked into the black centre, but he didn't know weither it was because he was cold or for some other reason. He looked behind him at Misty and Pikachu and grinned. "See? Piece o' cake"

Misty sighed. "Great, now get back here before something goes wrong"

Ash put the Orb into his bag before he jumped back into the water. He took a deep breath and dove under, holding onto Totodile. When he was around half way to the other side he felt the water around him go cold, unusually cold. He looked around him. He couldn't see anything except water, which was no surprize considering he was under water.

Suddenly, he felt something grab his ankle. He paniced a little and let go of Totodile. He looked down and saw something like a black tentacel reaching up from the darkness from the bottom of the pool. He shook his foot, trying to get it free, but the tentacle had a tight grip on him.

Totodile swam back to try and help his trainer, but another tentacle shot up and grabbed ahold of Totodile, trapping him.

Ash reached down to grab the tentalcle but two more appeared, one wrapped around his arm and the other around his neck, pulling him back.

Ash tried to break free, but he was unable to free himself. He couldn't hold his breath much longer and Totodile was the only one that could help him at that time, but he was tied up too.

He closed his eyes as he felt as though his lungs would explode. He couldn't hold it any longer, he let the air leave him.

Totodile paniced and tried frantically to free himself, but he couldn't.

Ash felt the darkness close in around him, and he stopped strugling to get free.

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To Be Continued

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MUHAHA! EVIL ISH ME! Lol, like it? Sorry it took so long, but with school and me sister also writing her stories it's not easy to get me story done. Well, hope for some reviews and see ya next time.
Bay Bay!
Bayleef
adorable_chickorita@hotmail.com