On one night after Eliana's personal training had finished, Sabrina was walking the girl and her Pokémon to their room.
Sabrina was silent for a moment, a long, drawn-out silence that was more unnerving than any argument she could've made. Eliana waited with baited breath to see her response.
As they finally reached the room, Sabrina simply shook her head and opened the door. Eliana with her Pokémon following close behind her walked in and the clicked shut behind them. Eliana looked at the closed door with a twitch of her lips, It seems that Sabrina is becoming more lenient, normally I would've been punished for talking back so much.
Eliana walked to her bed and flopped down on it, That means it's time to test how she'll react once I try to escape.
Eliana whistled once to call her Pokémon towards her,
Kirlia looked confused at that, he pointed out that he thought his trainer liked this place, why would she want to leave?
All three of her Pokémon crowded around her with their excitement growing by the second.
Raichu sent to her with confusion, the door was locked and Alakazam was watching to make sure Kirlia didn't teleport then out.
Kirlia's orange eyes shimmered as he focused, he had never tried teleporting something so small before. The lock was simple though, a standard electromagnetic lock. He placed a small white hand on the door and reached out with his mind. The lock was warm, vibrating with a low, steady hum. He could feel the tiny gears and wires inside it, the delicate circuitry that controlled its movement. It was a simple matter to pluck them out, to dissolve the metal and plastic into its base components and reassemble them a few feet away.
There was a soft click, and the lock slid open. Raichu's cheeks sparked with excitement, and Staryu's gem glowed with a bright, triumphant light. Kirlia looked back at his trainer with a smug smirk. See, I'm awesome aren't I?
She cracked the door open and peered out into the empty, silent hallway. The lights were dim, casting long, eerie shadows on the polished floor. The air was cool and still, heavy with the scent of old paper and psychic residue. Before they stepped out Eliana put a layer of energy over them. Alakazam would still be able to see it but he wouldn't know it was them. Eliana had been learning all kinds of useful things from Sabrina, this little trick was just one of them.
She could feel the faint, lingering presence of the other students, a ghostly chorus of varied minds. On one side a few had managed to fall asleep, their minds a mess of deadlines and such. These had to be the few successful students. Others' minds were a blur of panic or just plain insane thoughts. Eliana thought to herself, I guess that's what happens when you aren't a good psychic. Sabrina doesn't like weaklings
She slipped out of the room, her Pokémon following close behind. They moved with a practiced silence, their footfalls making no sound on the gleaming floors. Raichu was floating on her tail, her sparking subdued for once. Kirlia's movements were fluid and graceful, a dancer in the moonlight. Staryu floated a few inches above the ground, its gem a soft, pulsing star in the darkness.
They crept down the hallway, their senses on high alert. Eliana could feel Alakazam's mind, a distant, focused point of awareness on the other side of the gym. He was monitoring the main arena, his attention fixed on the empty space where they had spent their day. Occasionally his focus brushed over to the residential wing. He didn't seem to find anything out of place because he went back to mediating.
Eliana snickered, motioning to her Pokémon to follow her. She wanted to explore the depths of the gym, the basement Sabrina had forbade her from going in. So that's where they would be heading to tonight.
The residential wing gave way to a service corridor, the air growing colder and tasting of metal and dust. The polished floors were replaced by rough concrete, and the dim lighting became sparse, throwing the hall into pockets of near-total darkness. A long, shadowed staircase was the only thing to greet the group as they progressed farther along the hall. This was the entrance to the forgotten underbelly of the gym, a place of conduits and pipes, of things the public was never meant to see.
Eliana felt a thrum of ancient power beneath her feet, a deep, resonant hum that seemed to originate from the very bedrock of the city. It was an older, more primal, form of psychic energy, a current of raw energy that made her teeth ache. She could sense Alakazam's mind like a lighthouse on a distant shore, a beacon of order and discipline. Down here, in the guts of the building, that order felt like a flimsy construct laid over something wild and untamed.
At the end of the corridor was a heavy steel door, unlike the others. It had no handle, no lock, just a single, seamless plate of metal. A psychic lock and it was strong one, obviously a piece of Sabrina's work. There's no way she'd let something like this remain down here otherwise.
Eliana placed a hand on it, feeling the intricate web of energy woven through the steel. It was a masterpiece of psychic engineering, a complex, multi-layered defense system. For their own door, Kirlia was the one to break it, however Eliana didn't want something to happen to him from trying to open this door. She was the one who wanted to see what was inside, so she'd be the one to open it.