The Rickety Elevator was supposedly quite safe and rated for absolutely ridiculous amounts of weight. It rattled and shook as it went up and down, and even stopped at seemingly random times, making the journey down even a single level a harrowing experience. The explanation was something about archetypal resonance, where an elevator that behaved in such a nerve wracking manner was somehow important to summon Pokegirls. The purpose of The Stacks was to bring in Pokegirls before they could rampage destructively, not to be pleasant for visitors. It certainly
wasn't
pleasant for visitors. Damian, Annie, and Cathy had come for business, not for pleasure; but the flickering lights, variable speed, and metallic rattling of the elevator was still unnerving. When it stopped for real and the doors eventually opened, the elevator had come to rest about half a hand's breadth below the ground level of the basement they were traveling to. The one called
the Basement
. "Watch your step." Damian said wryly.
Beatrice didn't watch her step or particularly need to because she was able to hover with her wings. Hinako found it as easy to walk on walls and ceilings as floors, and had no problem navigating the gap. The Rabbit women were all presented with a bit of a tripping hazard, but they looked carefully at the ledge and hopped over into the Basement. The portion of the Basement they were headed to was The Wine Cellar, which was supposedly the nicest part of it. Damian had never been to the other areas, but with names like the Ash Heap and the Tool Shed, his expectations were low enough that he didn't imagine they would disappoint. Annie and Cathy followed him because he'd already familiarized himself with the layout, not because he'd actually been to the Basement level before. Enya and Marina followed Annie and Cathy because they were enslaved Pokegirls who loved and obeyed their mistresses.
Light in The Basement was provided by a mixture of lights that all sputtered, dangled, and sometimes even made noise. They passed from the flickering light pool cast by a dusty and failing fluorescent tube to the searchlight thrown by an incandescent bulb dangling from a wire. Most of the lights in Pocket Monster University were highly efficient LEDs or magitech creations such as glow orbs and eternal flames. But in the Stacks, the lights were chosen for ambiance rather than efficiency. And the aesthetic they were going for was mostly "things you'd see in a low budget horror movie." For whatever reason, that created the kind of archetypal resonance that brought in urban and battle-oriented Pokegirls. It was a bit of a walk through the basement, and the ground was dirty enough that it crunched underfoot when it didn't splash or squelch.
The door to the Wine Cellar looked completely out of place in the shabby and decrepit Basement. It was stained oak, and it looked expensive. It probably was expensive. Behind it was an area that was much cleaner, sinister in a completely different way. It was dim, cool, and there were rows of shelves that had sconces that held bottles. It wasn't just wine and liquor that was held in that section, some of the bottles contained alchemical solutions. "We have to be really careful in this part. Some of those bottles are really expensive, and if we break them we'll be paying it off for a long time." It was an admonition that they all took to heart, because Damian, Annie, and Cathy were all attending PMU on scholarship. Maybe a legacy student like Rini or Cleo could afford to go wild in the Wine Cellar, but
you break it, you buy it
was quite a threat to the trainers actually present.
When all seven of them had entered, they heard a scratchy piece of music start up from deeper in the cellar. It was accompanied by the static and pops of music played off a vinyl record that had seen better days, a form of sound quality that had all but disappeared from everyday life before Damian was even born. The song being played was sad, and sung in French, a relic of a time before Damian's parents had been born. The walls were decorated with art. Paintings of people with stern expressions and Pokegirls in various states of undress. Statues in marble and bronze, a row of heads patterned after faces that must have been well-known at one time. Annie was looking at a bottle's label in shock when Damian noticed that the statues weren't evenly spaced. A quick check of the Pokedex confirmed his suspicions. One of those things was not like the other, one of those things just didn't belong. One bust of a young woman was
actually
a young woman. A Level 8 Rock Doll Girl. Damian recognized it from Bestiary class as a Busteon, which was a kind of Geodame.
Blessed with chiseled features, mountainous boobs, and rock hard abs, the Busteon had pebblish nipples but no arms to speak of. Her shoulders ended with just a few centimeters of stump. That didn't stop her from being dangerous, because as a Doll she didn't need to stand up in a balanced fashion. It meant she was able to perform high kicks and headbutts with no care at all for where her center of mass might be. She might not have arms or a tail to balance her wild movements, but the invisible strings that supported and propelled Doll Pokegirls were plenty for her to perform flying kicks launched with nothing but pure aggression. It was like she was a jack knife, and both legs were her blades. Those feet were deadly, as either of them landing would leave a stone bruise. End over end the Pokegirl flipped, beginning her rollout and becoming increasingly dangerous as her feet clicked and clacked faster and faster.
Marina was the obvious Pokegirl to face off in single combat. Her water magic was especially suited to washing away Pokegirls drawing power from earth and stone. "I can't! I'll break all the bottles!" The well-endowed water wabbit wailed wetly. A fair objection, and one that paralyzed Enya's fire magic even more. The Aqua Rabbit was rewarded for her conscientiousness with a heavy kick to the belly. It was painful, and the feet were gaining velocity like a stone rolling downhill. The next one would hurt twice more, the one after that could be deadly.
As stone legs came up to half-moon pose and then lord of the dance pose and then all the way back around into an ax kick like someone had spun the handle on a foosball table, Damian barreled in himself. He grabbed her firm breast in one hand and her firm butt in the other and pushed his arms passed each other. His throw sent her head first into the floor, and it was super effective. Fortunately she had a hard head, and the cracking sound was made by the hardwood flooring rather than her skull. The Pokegirl tried to rise, and Damian threw her back down on the floor with a heavy thud. It was super effective.
Seeing an opportunity, the twins shouted. "Grab her legs! The legs!" It wasn't a clear set of orders, but Enya and Marina hopped to it anyway. Soon the Rock Doll had her right leg pinned in a leg lock, the white stone foot rubbing against Enya's bicycle shorts, and her left leg was gripped by a less muscly set of arms, the foot partially lost in Marina's jiggling cleavage. Cathy experimented by shocking the exposed pussy, but was disappointed that it had no effect. She looked to Damian and gulped, suddenly realizing how few options she would have had to subdue the feral Pokegirl if his fighting aura wasn't available.
"Beatrice! Hinako! Hold down these shoulders!" The two bug women complied immediately, each one putting their hands on one of the Busteon's shoulders. Lacking any real arms, the Pokegirl had no leverage in her upper body to get out of the pin. Damian slapped the ground next to her ear. Once. Twice. Three times. "Ding. Ding Ding." He said with a cruel finality. "You've been pinned. Now you're going to be fucked." Some of the fight drained from her eyes, replaced by despair as the truth of his words sunk into her. But despite her predicament, she maintained stony silence.
