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Vic Bronzeworth rolled his shoulder and wiped his brow, panting a little from his labor. His tan shirt was damp with sweat and clung tightly to his leanly muscled body, stone dust clinging to his brown beard. He looked over his shoulder at a woman behind him, her slim form hunched over one of the stone bricks he'd moved earlier. “Elena, what exactly am I looking for again?”
The woman straightened up, brushing an errant strand of brown hair from her pale face and streaking a line of stone dust across her temple, a notebook in her other hand. “I believe there is a temple in this area, from Pewter’s ancient past. I’m not sure what exactly they worshiped, but my research says it’s around here somewhere.” She flipped through the pages of her notebook for a moment as she continued talking. With her nose in the notebook and her rambling, she looked every inch the research professor she was.
Vic nodded after taking a swig from his canteen. “How old would you say these bricks are?”
“A thousand years? Maybe older.” Elena said. “Long before the first recorded kingdom here in Kanto, which means it would completely revolutionize the way we view Kantonian history!” A grin spread across the brunette’s face as an excited glint appeared in her hazel eyes. “Imagine, Vic, we could discover so much!”
Vic laughed and leaned against the wall beside him. “We definitely could- OH SHIT!” The wall gave way behind him, sending the lean man tumbling into a dark chamber. Elena let out a cry and released her Slowking.
“Oracle! Catch him with Psychic!” The large pink Pokémon gave a mournful groan and his crown flared with a pink light. Vic gave a startled shout as he floated back out of the hole, a small gash starting to bleed on his head and another one on his leg.
“Thanks, Oracle,” he said with a wince. “You can let me down now.” The Psychic-Type complied, setting him on the ground gently. “Elena, I think we need to revise that timeline.” He ripped a piece of his sleeve, specifically pre-torn for such occasions, and pressed it against the head wound with practiced ease. “Take a look.”
“Vic, you’re hurt,” the professor said, rushing over to him. He waved her off as he tied another strip of cloth around the wound on his leg.
“It’s nothing. Check the chamber, there’s something down there you
have
to see.”
Elena turned to peer down into the chamber. Oracle gently lifted her inside and used a Flash to light up the dark room. The circular chamber was made of similar bricks as the exterior Vic had been excavating earlier, easily a dozen meters across. In the center of the chamber was a black pedestal, almost five feet tall with a strange protrusion emerging from the top. The archaeologist immediately focused on the pedestal, moving carefully to it.
“What’d you find?” Vic questioned as he dropped into the chamber behind her. He made a similar beeline for the pedestal, moving at a faster but no less careful pace. His longer steps had him and Elena meeting at the pillar. She examined the black stone that comprised the cylinder, but Vic was much more interested in the protrusion. “What’s this thing now? It’s definitely not the same material as the pedestal, that’s for sure.”
“This stone is completely different from anything else we’ve seen here.” The brown-haired professor ran her hand over the smooth surface, pulling it back quickly. “It almost feels… wet?”
Vic looked down at her. “Wet?” He reached down and ran one finger across the stone, bringing it back up to his face. The finger was dripping with something red for a moment, then it was dry and clean after he blinked. “That’s… not normal.” He returned his attention to the protrusion. “But what’s this thing? It kind of looks like a sword hilt.” He gave it a testing pull, but it was firmly stuck in the stone.
Elena stood up to join him in examining it. “Fascinating. I agree, it’s a different material. But it’s also not made of anything normally used in weapon construction.” She examined it for a moment, running a fingertip across the crosshatching design. “It’s metallic, but not anything that I recognize.”
The tall man next to her frowned and grabbed the hilt a second time. He gave it another hard tug, this time exposing a sliver of bright steel where the hilt met the stone. The lean man saw a flash in the corner of his eye. Carefully honed instincts from years of living on the road and exploring forgotten ruins flared and the archaeologist tackled his friend to the ground. A ghostly blade clanged loudly against the exposed sliver of blade. A second blade was already in motion by the time Vic looked up from the ground. He shoved Elena away from him, taking the blade to his left arm in the process. The cut was long and deep, immediately bleeding profusely.
“Atlas, Throat Chop!” A Pokéball popped open from his belt, revealing a massive gray-skinned Pokémon with four muscular arms. He immediately locked eyes on a ghostly form standing beside the black pillar, translucent blade gauntlets on each arm and blades encircling its torso.
“MAAAA-Champ!” The massive Machamp launched himself at the ghost, one hand glowing with dark energy. His hand chopped across the neck of the apparition, ripping through it easily. “Champ!” The Fighting-Type struck a pose at the success, arms curled in a muscle pose.
“VIC!” Elena cried out, scrambling across the floor to the injured Vic. The man pulled himself to an upright position against the pedestal with a groan.
“I’m fine, it’s just a scratch,” he said, waving off her concern. “Just need to use a couple Potions, I’ll be fine.” The injured man fumbled at a white case on his belt for a moment, cursing. He pulled out a syringe from the case while the brunette pulled a roll of gauze from her own case to wrap the arm tightly. “Atlas, push that thing back into the pedestal. Let’s not take any more chances.”
“Ma.” The Superpower Pokémon gave a quick nod and grabbed the hilt with one giant hand, pushing it down to cover the blade in stone once again. Red runes flared to life around the temple, seeming to repeat themselves over and over. Elena looked at the writing as she continued wrapping her companion’s arm.
“
‘The Hero’s Blade must never again see the light of day, lest the one that was sealed be released.’
” She looked around at the repeating phrase. “Fascinating.”
“Yep, awesome,” Vic grunted and hissed in pain as she pulled one wrap of the bandage a little too tight. “Cipher, help us out, yeah?” He released another Pokémon at the same time he returned Machamp to his ball, this one a floating yellow-furred humanoid carrying a pair of metal spoons. It looked down at the injured trainer. “Let’s head back to the lab. Elena, you can recall Oracle or he can teleport back on his own.” The professor nodded and recalled her own Pokémon before the Alakazam touched them both, teleporting out of the chamber.
The air was still just after they left, sunlight filtering in through the broken wall for a moment until the bricks floated back into place. After a moment, the chamber was plunged back into darkness as the runes faded away to black.