“Dragonite! Dragon Pulse!” I called out, as the tunnels we were in lit up.

Pryce was mistaken, this place was no longer a peaceful tunnel with a few pokemon here and there.

Unfortunately for the pokemon here, we had a Champion, a very strong gym leader, a member of the Elite Four, and a Vicky!

“Dra!” She huffed as the hordes of Golbats flew away, more than a few of them laying on the ground dizzy.

“Blissey.” I called out turning behind me, and she just caught up. Having just finished taking care of the other group of pokemon we had pushed through earlier.

“Ice Beam!” Loreli called, and her Cloyster clacked as the energy shot out and hit a pool of water in the cave we were heading through.

“Was there something in there?” I asked, as I looked at her, and she smirked. Reaching up and adjusting her glasses.

Aura farm much?

“Indeed. The ice surface will keep the pokemon from wanting to cause any issues.”

“Acceptable, next time make it thinner. It’ll take too long to melt and could disrupt the habitats.” Pryce said, walking past her on his cane without even a glance, and I watched as Lorelei glared at his back.

Oooh. Ice Trainer conflict!

“Dragonite Air Slash.” I looked at Lance as his chonky boy flared his wings and cleared out more hiding Golbat and Zubat, sending them scurrying away from us shrieking angrily.

This was a rather interesting situation, four elite trainers walking through a fairly high level area. I was surprised we hadn't run into a Tyranitar or something yet. I’d seen some signs of them through the cave system we were traveling through. Ways parts of the wall had been bitten into, scratches along the floor, smaller than what an Onix would make, but wide enough for a Tyranitar tail.

I wouldn’t be surprised though if they recognized how powerful the pokemon intruding were, and decided they just didn’t want anything to do with us.

Either way we moved on, only getting stopped a few times as we followed Pryce’s directions deeper and deeper, we came across multiple caves, and I think most of them were fairly new. Pryce had described this cave as straight, but it wasn’t. Lots of large rooms, and spaces. Then finally we stopped…

“A Cave in?” I asked, looking at the rubble that slipped down from the roof.

“Seems so.” Lorelei muttered then looked at Pryce. “Is this the way?”

He didn’t actually respond, just looking at the cave grumpily.

It was.

“Anyone got any Rock, or Ground Types?” I asked, and Lance shook his head, as did Pryce. Wait. He didn’t have a Piloswine? I know his partner was gone, but he hadn’t trained any others?

“I do.” Lorelei said, and then… Released a Piloswine. The big hump of fur squealed happily and rubbed up against Lorelei affectionately. .

I could see Pryce grinding his teeth.

Oof. Ash really needed to hit Johto and fix that soon. I’d like Pryce to regain his love of pokemon before I handed over any sort of egg to the old man.

And then Lorelei called out.

“Dig!” and Piloswine looked over the rubble, and sort of shook himself.

“No good?” She asked, no doubt able to read her pokemon without issue.

But then a few moments later the pig shuffled over to the side, and started digging into the rock, creating a new path.

“Trouble.” Lance called out from the back and we all turned.

“Ah.” I said, feeling my mouth widening.

Tyranitar. A big one. And a squad of others. A family unit? Or maybe just a gathering to push out outsiders?

“Hmph. You will have to accept our presence. We mean you no harm.” Lance called out, and the massive older females eyes narrowed angrily

Fine.

“We’re through!”

I nodded at Lorelei’s call, but it wasn’t like we could leave with the Tyranitar at our backs.

And I had no intention of just walking away!

“I’ll accept your challenge!” I roared out, and the massive Tyranitar looked at me. Dragonite, already moving forward along with my approach.

“Tryan. TAR!” It roared, the shockwave actually putting pressure on me to back up.

Instead my mouth only grew wider!

“”Dragon… ITE!” Dragonite roared back, her muscles clenching and I could see the smaller two Tyranitar warily take a step back.

“Victoria. Be careful. I know that pokemon. She’s the queen of the Silver Mountains. She’s much more powerful than you think!”

“Good!” I called back.

And that was the signal. Tyranitar blasted out dark energy, as a Dark Pulse gathered.

“Dragon Pulse!” I called out, and the two beams of energy quickly gathered.

Dragonites was faster, and she shot it off despite charging later, but!

I flinched as Dragonite’s energy was pushed back. Slamming her back into the wall as the dark energy sliced through the rock around her as she juked to avoid some of the damage.

“Hah! You are strong! Dragon Rush!”

“Tyran!” The massive Tyranitar charged forward, and in a flash Dragonite was there, the two clashed, but again despite the speed of Dragonite, Tyranitar struck first.

Sucker punching Dragonite! The blow came basically from nowhere, but the punch was solid, and Dragonite took the blow with a groan, but then her wings beat.

And Tyranitar was lifted off the ground and blitzed through the air right between the other two Tyranitar as she was crashed into the wall far behind them in an explosion of smoke and shrapnel.

But I was frowning, Dragonite?

Finally the smoke erupted and Dragonite was flying back, her wings beating as she hit the ground, jumped back again and skidded.

She was breathing heavily…

Damn. That Tyranitar was strong.

“I wouldn’t fight that pokemon with anything but my strongest, and I’d still be wary. Be careful Victoria.” Lance commented seriously behind me. Although Pryce scoffed.

But I was frowning. This would be a problem. We couldn’t exactly open access to a potential Ice Rock if she was guarding the entrance!

The smoke cleared and she jolted herself out of the rock Dragonite had slammed her into with a jerk of her shoulder making it look casual.

Not that she wasn’t damaged. Dragonite was powerful after all.

The two big females glared, growling as they sized each other up. The tension was rising. But I held off on any orders.

Wild pokemon fought differently than a trainer battle. This was less about just constant non stop attacks now.

I needed to figure out a way of solving the problem that was set before me.

We needed passage, not just for us, but for everyone in the future!

If there was an Ice Rock. This might all be a waste of time.

“Tyranitar! We seek passage for humans through this tunnel. That’s all.” 𝚏𝕣𝕖𝚎𝚠𝚎𝚋𝚗𝐨𝐯𝕖𝕝.𝕔𝐨𝕞

“Tyran!” She growled practically shaking the entire cave just from the vibration in her chest.

That was a no.

So I felt my grin widen again. Fine.

I reached into my bag, and pulled it out.

“You think you have the power to refuse?” I asked, and the monster actually blinked looking away from Dragonite to stare right at me.

Her eyes narrowed, dark power wafting off here, like she was readying a Dark Pulse, and yet not.

She refused to allow us passage?

I clasped the Z-Ring around my wrist. I really didn’t want to reveal this in front of Lance, and Lorelei, I had planned on trying to keep the Z-Moves secret until I fought Lance…

Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

But what kind of Victory would that be? Surprising him with something he couldn’t properly plan for? Was that the kind of win I wanted?

No.

“Look closely, old people! You’re about to see the power of my friendship! Dragonite! Let’s show them our bond!”

“Old?” Lorelei said, outraged.

“Dra!”

“Prepare yourself Tyranitar! Go all out, or you’re going to get crushed!” I roared as my wrist started glowing brightly.

“Victoria?”

Wide power stance, the light flowed through me, rising up. The shift caused everyone to take notice, and Tyranitar’s eyes narrowed, her form shifting, she hunkered forward, mouth beginning to open.

Double punch. Securing the connection between us! Dragonite started hovering her body glowing along with me!

A yellow light echoed out, as Tyranitar started retaliating! Hyper Beam.

I felt my grin grow!

Dragon Maw! The pose gathered up the fiercvery strong gym leader, a member of the Elite Four, eness of the Dragon Power inside us!

And then.

“Devastating! Drake!” I roared, the white Z energy rushing from me, and into Dragonite, powering her up.

And then everything got washed away.

The Hyper Beam was launched having finished powering up, and it was a monstrous wave of power!

I realized that the others had reacted, releasing more pokemon and the shields of Protect shot out to stop the attack from passing through.

Lance had even included me behind one of his Dragonites Protect.

But it didn’t matter!

“Show them all!” I roared, as the yellow light washing out everything around us was suddenly gone as Purple flooded the cave.

The Hyper Beam stalled out, as a massive Drake was there, crashing into it. Splitting off streams of energy, and yet. Despite the incredible power of the Hyper Beam, despite the damage even those streams of power shooting around the cave gave off, it wasn’t enough.

I held the pose. But it was more like Dragonite and I were one! I could feel her pushing, feeling the energy building up.

And I felt the Hyper Beam, despite being generated by an absurdly powerful pokemon, get pushed back, more and more, until finally it just couldn’t even slow the power. And Tyranitar was swallowed up entirely by the rushing Drake.

The explosion of energy was thankfully focused. Dragonite kept the Drake from just shooting off through a wall, or exploding, instead wrapping the energy around Tyranitar and keeping the power contained.

And then it was over. The power faded, and Tyranitar hit the dirt, falling forward unable to withstand the attack.

Everyone was silent as Dragonite roared out her victory wings still flapping.

The other two Tyranitar looked shocked, shifting their eyes from their fallen, to Dragonite, to us.

All the while the tension increased.

“What… What was that?” Lorelei whispered, her voice oddly loud with how quiet everything was after Dragonites roar.

I ignored her, and stepped forward, instantly the two smaller Tyranitar moved stomping over and standing between me and the fallen.

I nodded, and reached for a pokeball, which earned me plenty of aggressive motions, but I ignored them and released Blissey.

“Bliss Blissey!” She called out as she appeared and despite the two Tyranitar she went to work walking over and when they got in her way, she just bent down and lifted one of them by their ankle and flipped it like the incredibly heavy Tyranitar was nothing.

The poor Tyranitar now facing the ceiling with no idea how that had happened looked rather shellshocked, and the other was so startled it couldn’t respond until after Blissey started releasing Healing Pulse.

Which caused it to relax.

Soon the Queen startled awake, with a groan that I recognized from days where my muscles hurt like heck.

She opened her eyes and saw a Goddess!

And then tried to Bite.

Which ended with Blissy socking the Queen into the rock, her head entirely crushed into the stone floor of the cave.

“Bliss. Blissey Bliss. Blissey.” She said with a sigh.

Complaining about pokemon making her create extra work? I think?

Something like that.

And then finally the Tyranitar stirred again, slowly pulling her head out of the rock and rising up, even as Blissey continued healing, as the Queen looked at her with a furious look, but she didn’t snap at her again.

Dragonite landed beside me, puffed up and happy.

“That was a great job, we synced really well that time.”

“Drag!”

“I guess all that training has been paying off.”

“Drag dragon.”

“Victoria.”

“Lance.” I said, turning to look at him. Then I blinked.

Lance didn’t have his normal stern emotionless look. That confident arrogance. No he was grinning like Bugsy when he found a bug.

Laughing, cause there was nothing else I could do, I shook my head. “I’ll tell you all about it later.” I decided, and he nodded, looking eager for that to come.

Then I looked back at the Queen…

I walked forward stepping right up to her. Blissey finished her healing with a happy call and then patted me on the head.

Tyranitar looked at me.

I looked at her.

“We’re going to travel through here a lot. Not just us, but maybe lots of humans in the future. If you can’t accept that, then we should build up some barriers to keep them away from you, but it’s going to happen.”

“Ty. Tyran.” She grunted, looking me over, and I could tell what she was thinking as her eyes dropped to my belt.

I felt my mouth twitch.

“Want to join my team?” I asked, and she looked down at me, her expression not shifting. Just glaring, hot and heavy, the threat she had might have scared me, if I wasn’t standing next to Blissey.

Then she just turned and walked away. Her two others scurrying after her, constantly sending looks back towards us. Only as she was about to move through another tunnel did she look back for a moment, before moving on.

“Shame. She’d have been a great addition to beat Lance up.” I said loud enough to be heard.

“I have my own methods for defeating Rock Types.”

“Yeah Flying Type specialists need to- Ow.” I looked up at Blissey who had dope slapped me.

Lance scoffed, but instead moved up to me. “I’ll put aside that move you used for a moment. If this cave is a Tyranitar nest, there is no way we can open it to the public.” He said with absolute confidence, and I nodded.

“She might leave now, but that’s a future issue. For the Pokemon League to figure out. For now we just need to verify if the Ice Rock is even here.”

“Okay so we’re all just going to ignore that?” Lorelei said, looking around Pryce was standing quietly by the freshly dug cave watching me with incredibly sharp eyes, but not saying anything further.

Lance turned.

“No, but this is hardly the place to have a discussion.” He said and then with a shift of his arm he sent his cape fluttering behind him as he walked past Lorelei and Pryce into the new tunnel Paloswine had made.

Shrugging I just followed after him, Blissey cheerfully skipping after me, and Dragonite puffed up and proud after her win fly past me into the tunnel.

“Seriously!? We’re just ignoring whatever that was!?” Lorelei yelled, but Pryce just turned and walked into the tunnel too, leaving Lorelei behind.

—--

“This should be it.” Pryce said as we finally found the sort of cave he’d described. An untouched nearly straight downward push and I noticed it as well. The cold got more biting, and Dragonite eventually floated back until I returned her.

Instead I was riding on top of Milotic as we floated down the tunnel, his body much more resistant against cold than his waifu.

The others continued on with their own pokemon, but I was the only one getting a ride.

Then the ground stopped going down, opening into a room. Lance nearly stumbled as we reached the bottom and I looked at him curiously as he tapped his boot on the floor…

Oh!

“It’s all ice.” I muttered, it actually looked like the room had a dip, but actually it had a fairly flat sheet of ice which caused him to stumble. The ice was almost perfectly clear. And there in the center of the room… There was a bit of light. Odd since we were relying on flashlights, or Pryce’s Jynx.

But as we spread out across the almost circular room. I saw the light wasn’t natural but actually being reflected from us.

There in the center of the room, was a mirror. Or at least it looked like that at first. As we all climbed into this new room. The light filled the room and let me see what I was actually looking at.

A jagged chunk of ice, so clear you could see straight through it, and yet it was there, coldly reflecting the light of Jynx and my flashlight filling the entire room with light.

“Well there you go.” Pryce said simply, and I looked at him with a glare before approaching.

This… Was this it? It certainly felt cold enough!

My breath was steaming as I approached, getting closer and closer, and the air grew more and more frigid, and as I raised a hand and waited for a moment…

The Moss Rock had given off a sense of life. An unforgettable aura.

This?

This felt completely different, and yet, it was definitely just as unique.

I felt my lips split into a grin despite the cold.

“I think it’s an Ice Rock. I think we found it!” I cheered, already struggling with my bag to grab my Camera! I needed pictures to show Professor Cerise! If this was real, the Eevee Evolution Lab would need all the data I could get.

“Well, good. That solves one problem then.” Pryce grumbled, making me look up. “I expect I’ll get the egg then?”

“Yes. This is worth it.” I said simply, I thought about making him pay for his attitude, but… Well if Ash helped out, in the next year it wouldn’t be an issue.

“It does feel odd.” Lance offered, having walked forward and reached out for the chunk of ice as well. “It’s certainly not just ice.”

“Bah. You’re imagining things.” Pryce grumbled, but I ignored him as Lorelei walked over and tested it as well.

“I can feel it. Ice, like a Glacier crashing!” I looked at her, at her statement… I guess she was an Ice Type, so maybe she had a better sense of it than me.

“Everyone come here.” I waved for them, as I realized what we needed to do. Jynx nodded, as I offered it to her, and so with a bit of struggle from Pryce we all lined up, and Jynx snapped a picture.

“That one will go into the history books.” I said confidently, and Pryce scoffed.

“All of us are already in the history books.”

I blinked but… Huh he was right. Elite Four. Gym Leader, Champion, and record breaker.

“Well we’ll be in it again!” Now we just had to solve all the problems that came with the location. How to get trainers here, young trainers as well potentially. How to keep anyone from damaging the ice rock. Team Rocket were still around.

But I guess I was the only one thinking about that sort of stuff.

“I need to get an Eevee.” Lorelei said, biting at her thumb, and Lance was looking at me.

I smirked.

Lance wanted information. Pryce wanted, and Egg, and Lorelei wanted a Glaceon. What did I want? Well… Honestly just to go somewhere warmer, it was really cold!