Chasing Dreams

Chapter 13: Close Your Eyes

"Alright, Charizard, use Flamethrower!"

"Swampert! Hydro Pump!"

"Go, Vikavolt, Zap Cannon!"

"Primarina, use Sparkling Aria!"

In the hall leading toward the Blue Orb, there was chaos. Brock, Kiawe, Lana, and Sophocles were just running as they were allowed and attacking any grunt and their Pokémon who stood in their way. There were simply too many of them to have to stop every time they got blocked. They made an effort to force their path forward in spite of all the Sigma grunt interference.

After a while, the amount of grunts began to lessen, until they were left out of breath but with little to no disturbances left. However, it felt like they had been moving forward for a long while, with nothing but a hall that seemed to go on forever; at least, that's how it felt to them. The hall being homogeneously colored should have made it easy to find any rooms or other openings, but they hadn't seen anything like that thus far.

"You know, guys..." Kiawe said, panting slightly. "I've seen just about enough blue for one day!"

"Where the heck is this orb?? It's got to be around here somewhere, right?" Sophocles, on the other hand, was very much out of breath.

"Guys, look!" Brock pointed ahead. "There's a fork in the road!"

Up ahead, they could see that Brock was right; the hall split up into two separate paths. Avoiding the knocked out Sigma grunts on the floor, they moved ahead and looked into both halls in an attempt to figure out which way they should go. While the left path seemed to continue straight forward and hug the edge of the base, like the hall they'd been through thus far, the right path seemed to take a strange path through the middle of the base, perhaps connecting the blue hall with the red hall. However, the path leading straight forward seemed to curve off not too far ahead, perhaps signalling that they had reached the opposite end of the structure from where they'd started.

"Well, at least we're not really being chased around anymore..." Lana said, letting out a deep breath.

"That doesn't mean we can afford to stand around, though." Brock spoke up. "I think we just go on straight and take the left path."

"I'm inclined to agree." Sophocles said, still panting.

"But, hold on! Shouldn't at least look and see what's around this other corner?" Kiawe spoke up before they could start running.

"I... guess...?" Brock was puzzled by Kiawe's outburst. "Sure?"

Without hesitation, Kiawe took off down the hall on the right, quickly finding a corner. Just in front of him, the wall on his right opened up into a huge room, but was present again about fifty feet ahead of him. The wall on the opposite side of this giant room was read; the whole room was split in color directly down the middle, with the half he stood on being blue, and the other half colored red. He heard a lot of voices coming from this room, around the corner, so he quietly poked his head out to see what was going on.

It was the mess hall. About a hundred or so Team Sigma grunts were sat down, blatantly ignoring the alarm that had gone just several minutes prior, and enjoying a nice meal. Kiawe raised his eyebrows in shock; the place actually looked really nice. He couldn't help but look around a bit, though trying to remain inconspicuous. He gasped as he noticed a Malasada shop, but quickly put his hand over his mouth, retreating back to whence he came.

Kiawe quickly met up with his comrades, and spoke quickly, his eyes shining in excitement. "So it looks like it connects this hall to the red hall. They also had a huge dining hall with a Malasada shop!"