We walked into the woods and kept going until we couldn’t see the cave anymore. The forest canopy was so thick that the bright mid-afternoon sun barely filtered through the thickly woven leaves and branches above us.

It didn’t take us long to find a nice spot to rest in a small clearing with a large flat mossy stone in the middle. There weren’t any Pokemon around besides a few assorted bird Pokemon curiously observing us from the trees. I guess humans wouldn’t be a common sight this deep in the wilds.

Setting my bag down, I groaned with relief as I plopped down onto the rock.

Winnie went to work picking out what he wanted to eat from my bag. I took out some bread and ham to munch on as I contemplated what to do with Gabite.

On one hand, I could just wait until I got to a Pokemon center and let them handle the healing, on the other hand, Winnie wasn’t strong enough to deal with any powerful and territorial wild Pokemon, and I didn’t have the energy or stamina to be constantly fleeing for my life either. Thirty miles was a long way to go on foot.

Having a Gabite that can trade blows with a Hydreigon on my side would be great, but there was the problem of even getting the dragon to listen to me. Well, even if it didn’t want to join my team, maybe I could convince it to at least help us get to Humilau safely. I kinda did save its life from Hydreigon.

A few more minutes of deliberation and another piece of bread later, I made my decision.

Winnie curiously watched from as I pulled out the medicine that I’d need to get Gabite back to fighting condition.

“A full restore… Revive or max revive? Definitely Sitrus berries, maybe some Moomoo milk too? Can dragons even drink milk, I’ll stick with the full restore.”

“zorua?” He questioned, mouth still half full of Pecha berry.

I gestured to the medicine, “Gabite was badly hurt by Hydreigon, so I wanna heal it up. I’d like to have a bit more backup if we encounter another aggressive Pokemon.”

“zor?” Winnie said with a bit of sass as he gave me a dubious look and then shrugged before taking another bite out of his pecha berry.

I put a hand on my hip, “What? I have a plan for if Gabite isn’t friendly.”

“zorua zor.” Winnie waved a paw at me to continue what I was doing.

Lastly, I picked out a shiny stone from the Other Items pocket. Many Pokedex entries mentioned that Gabite would become docile if given a shiny object, aka, Gabite liked shinies a LOT. Sooooo it was a bribe and/or distraction just in case Gabite became belligerent.

With preparations complete, I pressed the button on the ultra ball, releasing Gabite with a *pop*!

The landshark appeared in a flash of red light. It was still unconscious and covered in injuries. At least I won’t have to wrestle it into letting me heal it.

I grabbed the full restores and got to work applying the potions on Gabite’s wounds. It was still kind of miraculous to me how effective this stuff was.

Deep gashes that were still leaking blood slowly closed up and new scales began growing to replace lost ones. The nasty burns and frostbite Gabite had gotten from Hydreigon’s Tri-Attack healed too and the damaged scales fell out as new ones grew in their place

As I worked I noticed there was no notch in Gabite’s back fin. Gabite’s a female then. I’m pretty sure a normal Gabite is around 4 feet tall, but this gal is at least two feet taller than that. Maybe she’s close to evolving.

I went to retrieve a max revive from the medicine pile to wake the dragon, but Gabite began to stir, letting out a confused groan as she came to.

Swapping the revive for a Sitrus berry, I stood back and let Gabite come to and get her bearings. Though I kept a tight hold on the Ultra ball just in case.

The landshark dragon slowly got up, her eyes landed on me and narrowed. I smiled and waved at her, “Hello Gabite! You were in a pretty rough spot there with Hydreigon so I bailed you out–”

A loud growl from Gabite interrupted my introduction as the dragon examined herself and then roared into the sky. A large flock of Pidove burst out from the forest flew away. The dragon was upset about something, though I couldn’t for the life of me figure it out.

Winnie and I exchanged a glance, the little fox harumphing as if to say, “ i told you so” before he jumped off of his rock and ran over, placing himself in between me and the landshark. All the while Gabite began shooting ridiculously big Dragon Pulses into the air, paying us no mind as she went on a rampage.

I dropped to the ground to avoid a Dragon Pulse that slammed into the tree just above me and disintegrated most of it. Winnie barely dodged another Dragon Pulse aimed at him and threw a few rocks at Gabite using his Extrasensory.

Scrambling away from the wreckage, I realized Gabite’s Ultra ball was no longer in my hands, I had dropped it somewhere among the tree roots when I dodged the Dragon Pulse.

Thinking fast, I hurriedly took out the shiny stone and threw it at the dragon, hitting her squarely on the nose. The landshark let out a cry of outrage and looked down at the thing that hit her in the face. Please work.

Gabite paused and her eyes widened as she saw the shiny stone. Yes!

Seizing the moment of calm, I quickly crawled back over to where I’d dropped the the Ultra ball and dug around the wreckage of the tree. The ball wasn’t there, I could’ve sworn I’d dropped it there.

I looked back up at Gabite. She had calmed down enough and was talking with Winnie, the shiny stone was in Gabite’s claws. That was fast. Ahh, the magic of shiny rocks.

Halting my search for the Ultra ball, I got up and cautiously approached the two. “Hey guys, is everything alright?”

Winnie nodded. Gabite huffed and turned her attention back to the shiny stone. Seeing that Gabite wasn’t in a super good mood, I decided to just give her some time by herself.

“Here, have a Sitrus berry. I’m gonna keep looking for the ultra ball.” I put the berry down next to Gabite before returning to the destroyed tree to search.

Well, that was what I was going to do. I turned back around when I heard a commotion coming from where my bag was.

My bag was floating in the air with Winnie biting to one of it’s straps, trying to keep it from flying away.

I just stared as the bag jerked upwards a few times before a small blue rectangular object flew out and the bag dropped back onto the ground, landing straight onto Winnie.

My Rotom phone came to life and a derpy face appeared on it’s screen, smiling like the grinch before zooming away into the woods.

A floating Ultra ball followed it.

Ghosts. Ghosts? “Wait, those bastards stole my phone! And the ultra ball!” I hurriedly grabbed my bag and gestured for Gabite and Winnie to follow, “Come on we need to my stuff back!”

Winnie darted to the front as I began jogging through the forest, barely keeping the two dirty little thieves in sight.

After all that exercise from the caves and Distortion world, I could barely keep a fast walking pace, it was like I’d just run a marathon and had to run another one right after.

A thick chilling fog slowly began to rise up as we pursued the two ghosts, who had made sure to stay just close enough so that they could be seen but far enough to not reached by any long ranged moves.

Dark shadows moved at the edges of my vision and indecipherable voices giggled and whispered all around us. I didn’t like where this was going, but without the map from the phone I wouldn’t be able to find my way to a city, and long term wilderness survival was not a skill that I possessed.

Not to mention where the hell the ghosts were leading us, but I had a good idea considering all the disturbing ghost type Pokedex entries of ghosts killing people or sucking out their life energy.

Follow the suspicious ghost in hopes of getting my phone back and possibly get trapped in a haunted forest forever, or ditch the phone, get lost in the normal forest and die to nature. Wow I have so many choices!

I stumbled to a stop as the ghosts flew straight into a literal wall of dense fog. “Like hell I’m going in there!” I shouted at the ghosts, “Give me my stuff back, I’ll trade for them!”

Winnie barked into the fog as well, but the only response we got was silence.

And then we were in the fog. I don’t know how else to explain it but, one moment we were right outside it, the next, the fog had instantly expanded and I could barely see my own hands in front of my face.

“Winnie, Gabite, you guys still here?” The two confirmed their presence with a short yip from Winnie and a growl from Gabite.

A light flickered to life at eye level in front of me, it was my phone. Without another thought, I grabbed it.

“GAH!” I dropped the phone as it zapped me and stayed floating in the air in front of me.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

The Pokedex app booted up and the phone’s mechanical voice began to speak,

“Trevenant, the Elder Tree Pokemon.Using its roots as a nervous system, it controls the trees in the forest. It will trap people who harm the forest, so they can never leave.”

“Is that a threat?” I asked the my possessed phone. A smug dopey face appeared on the phone screen and it blew a raspberry at me before zooming backwards into the mist before I could grab it again.

“Stupid ghosts and their tricks.” I grumbled. Prankster and possibly murderous ghosts were the last thing I wanted to deal with after nearly getting mauled to death by an angry Hydreigon less than a hour ago.

“Zorua rua.” Winnie said in agreement.

“What do we do now?” Blindly wandering around in this dense fog was probably the only option left. We didn’t have long to consider any alternative options.

The air shifted, like a pressure shift, and my ears popped. A giant gray hand appeared out of the mist, followed by the rest of the ghost’s body. Dark gray arms and a round torso with gold markings and a conical head with a red orb in the center and a long frill-like collar.

I could hear Winnie growling and Gabite snarl at the newcomer.

Dusknoir casually regarded us for a few seconds before bowing and waving it’s hand through the air. The fog swirled like a cyclone, the strong winds blowing my hair into my face as the fog cleared out a large circle around us. Dusknoir sank into the ground and the pressure that came with it abated.

On on other side of the clearing from us, there was a colossal half dead looking tree. The creaking of hollowed wood and soft giggles echoed through the forest, and I felt countless unseen eyes staring as us. Shadows shifted just behind the curtain of the fog surrounding the clearing.

A red orb flickered to life in the biggest hollow of the tree and the entire thing shifted as if it was getting into a more comfortable position. Dusknoir reappeared near the Trevenant like, hands folded behind it’s back in a classy manner.

The Great Deku tree?! Oh wait, this isn’t Zelda.

“Greetings visitors. I am the lord of this forest.”

Trevenant’s voice was like the deep creaking of wood and dead tree branches rattling spoke, and powerful enough to reverberate through the entire place, I could literally feel the sound waves vibrating through my body.

“Hi?” I smiled weakly and waved a hand.

Winnie yipped a much more enthusiastic response, pointing at me and Gabite, introducing us to the ancient ghost.

“Hmm. A child of the Alabaster Icelands. How is the Elder doing nowadays?” Trevenant asked Winnie. We exchanged confused looks and Winnie replied, “zorua.”

“That is good. I apologize for the two denizens of the forest who have been troubling you.” Trevenant rumbled, waving a branch at the shadows in the fog. “Your items will be returned. Dusknoir, go fetch the two troublemakers.”

The giant gray ghost nodded and floated into the ground shortly before reappearing with a little dark blue-purple rag thing was floating just behind it. My phone was floating on the other side of Dusknoir, though it had no other ghosts visibly near it.

Shuppet bashfully took the ultra ball from Dusknoir and handed it back to me. I thanked it for giving the ultra ball back. The Shuppet stopped in it’s tracks, silent, face expressionless and staring.

Then it split it’s face open with a ridiculously wide grin and shrieked with laughter as it flew backwards into the mist like someone in a horror movie being dragged away by a monster.

My phone took Shuppet’s little act as a cue for it’s turn to mess with me and flew straight for my head. I ducked and narrowly avoided being beaned in the face. Instead, I was hit in the back of the head as the phone boomeranged back and clattered to the ground in front of me with a troll face on the screen.

“Thanks a lot you punk.” I growled at the possessed phone as I snatched it up. The Rotom who’d been inhabiting it notably did not exit the phone.

“If you’re staying in my phone you’d better stop being a little punk, or else you’ll be evicted.”

Rotom’s response was a Croagunk styled pepe laugh emoji and a thumbs up. I rolled my eyes. At least it got the message.

Trevenant let out a chattering, woody laugh and spoke again, “Do not mind them. Please take good care of Rotom.”

The giant tree’s eye then shifted down again to look at Winnie, “I cannot let a child of an old friend leave without any gifts, I insist. Tell me what you would like, perhaps a battle item since you are going into the world of humans?”

Winnie’s eyes widened and he scrunched up his mouth as he thought for a few seconds before answering.

Trevenant grinned, and the two spoke in what I’d called Pokespeak. Again, no idea what they were saying. Gabite was listening too and looked rather surprised during one point of the conversation.

Finally, Winnie and Trevenant seemed to come to an agreement. The ghost tree looked at Gabite and murmured something. Gabite took a few steps back from me.

“Uhh, what’s going on?” A swirl of what looked like ghost type energy formed around me in a mini cyclone. It was fucking cold, like I’d been dipped in the waters of Antarctica with no cold protection.

The swirl of ghost type energy thickened and blocked out the view of everything else, and the freezing wind it conjured up battered at my hair and clothes. The previously cryptic echoing voices of ghosts slowly became more and more understandable.

“It’s the new one!” “Hi, hello.” “Are we allowed to snatch her bag?” “I’m huuunnngry..”

So this is how I die. Again. I knew I shouldn’t have followed the ghosts. Who in their right mind follows dubious ghosts who are clearing leading them somewhere? I clearly do.

The twister of ghostly energy quickly died down. I was alive and unharmed. Well, maybe I had frostbite. I checked my hands. They were a bit pale but not frostbitten.

“What happened?” I asked.

“i asked trevenant to help you be able to understand me.” That was a new voice. I looked down as my feet where Winnie was sitting.

“Wait.” I crouched down. “I can understand you.”

“Yep.”

I looked back at Gabite, “Then what about her? Gabite can you say something?”

The landshark rolled her eyes, “Gabite. Gab gabite.”

“I can’t understand what she’s saying but I can understand you only? Wait, how is that possible?”

“i dunno, something related to curses?” Winnie replied. “trevenant said he’d only be able to make it so you can understand ghosts.”

I raised an eyebrow. “A curse? What do you mean a curse? Uh, mister Trevenant?”

Trevenant didn’t answer, the red orb in his body was gone. Dusknoir floated in front of the giant tree and answered for the lord of the forest, “The lord is asleep. Do not fret. I will step in for him for the time being.”

“For your question, what the lord did was place a curse on you that made you capable of understanding our kind. Ghosts are quite skilled with curses and there are those who can create curses that act more as blessings. I hope that answers your question well enough.”

“Yeah, it did. Thanks Dusknoir.”

Winnie pawed at my leg. “azalea! let’s go! i wanna get to the city as fast as possible! trevenant told me about the yummy foods that have in cities!”

“Alright, settle down my man. You ready to go Gabite?” The dragon stoically nodded.

Winnie jumped onto my shoulder, “yep, let’s get outta here!”

We all looked at Dusknoir, who waved a hand at the surrounding fog, making it swirl around us and obscuring everything but us from view.

“Good luck on you journey.” The ghost’s voice echoed before the fog abruptly dissipated.

The sun had long set. The chattering and rustling movements of nocturnal Pokemon accompanied the singing of crickets.

There was no hint of any fog, in fact the sky was clear enough to see every star int he sky, and we were in an area of the woods were the trees were much less densely packed.

“Did we spend the entire day in there?” I muttered to myself. “It looks a bit too late to be traveling, lets set up camp here for the night and get going tomorrow morning.”

Winnie and Gabite voiced their agreement and I got started trying to make a fire. Gabite could see much better in the dark so she was able to gather some tinder, and Winnie’s Will-o-wisp helped light the campfire once I’d set it up.

I took out the sausages and roasted them by the fire on some decently straight sticks because I didn’t have any cooking or camping stuff.

While we were waiting by the fire for the food to cook, I decided to settle a few things on my mind.

I cleared my throat, “Ahem. Umm. So, Gabite. What do you think about joining my team? If you don’t want to that’s fine too, I can release you here. I just wanted to make sure you were fine with that, you seemed pretty upset after you recovered.”

Gabite just stared at me with no reaction, so I continued,

“But I can help you get a lot stronger, you’ll get to fight strong opponents and get lots of good food and I’ll make sure you’re in the best health you could possibly be.”

The purple dragon tilted his head. It was pretty hard to tell how she felt due to how unexpressive dragon types are, their faces just weren’t built to have facial expressions.

“So, what do you think?”

Gabite continued to stare at me for a minute before rumbling and nodding. She was a lot more mellow than I expected a member of the Garchomp line would be. Gabite turned to Winnie and said something, and Winnie nodded.

“she wants you to know that she wasn’t upset about being caught, she was upset at not evolving during her fight with Hydreigon.”

“Oooohhh, okay. Yeah, I can definitely do something about that, you’ll get to fight plenty of tough opponents without having to risk your life.”

I picked up the sausage sticks and handed one to her and one to Winnie, “Welcome to the team– Oh! You should get a nickname too!”

“Winnie, you have any ideas?” The fox Pokemon swallowed a mouthful of meat before speaking, “What bout Purple? Cause she’s purple. Or Grumpy. Cause she’s a grumpy dragon.”

Gabite shot Winnie a sharp look at the latter suggestion and growled.

I slightly furrowed my brow as I brainstormed for some good names, “Umm, good dragon names. Saphira? You’re not blue though, Glaedr–no that the name of a gold dragon. Sahara? Because the Garchomp line is usually found in deserts.”

Gabite just stared at me while she munched on her food. She didn’t seem too opinionated on what I called her, and gave me the equivalent of shrug with another tilt of her head. “I guess I’ll go with my own choice, Sahara. Do you like that name?” Gabite blinked and let out a short grunt.

I sighed, “I’ll stick with Sahara for now, let me know if you don’t like it okay? We can pick something you like better if that’s the case.”

I ate sausage before switching to the other thing I wanted to address. I asked Winnie if he wanted a Pokeball.

“They’re basically like transportable homes for a Pokemon because there are places where they’re not allowed or are too big to go to. They also prevent other trainers from catching you.”

“ehh, i’m not interested. i can just jump in your shadow if need be.” And as to demonstrate, Winnie dipped his entire paw into one of the shadows.

“That’s cool, point taken.” Is that Shadow Sneak?

I finished the sausages and threw the stick into the fire. Actually, I don’t know what moves they have yet.

As if on cue, my phone flew out of my pocket. Rotom booted up the Pokedex app and scanned Winnie and Sahara.

The Pokedex’s signature robotic voice began to speak:

“Zorua, the tricky fox Pokemon. To protect themselves from danger, they hide their true identities by transforming into people and Pokémon. Apparently, it often transforms into a silent child.

Type: Dark

Abilities: Illusion

Sex: Male

Known moves: Detect, Agility, Torment, Will-o-Wisp, Scratch, Shadow Sneak, Extrasensory, Hex”

“Gabite, the cave Pokemon. It loves sparkly things. It seeks treasures in caves and hoards the loot in its nest. Its scales can be ground into a powder and used as raw materials for traditional medicine.

Type: Dragon-Ground

Abilities: Sand Veil, Rough Skin

Sex: Female

Known Moves: Scary Face, Metal Claw, Dragon Rush, Bite, Slash, Dragon Claw, Dragon Tail, Dig, Rock Tomb, Twister, Dragon Pulse, Sand Tomb”

“Weird, the Pokedex doesn’t know about Hisuan Zorua? Winnie is a Normal-Ghost type.” The picture that was displayed by the Pokedex was also a picture of a non Hisuan Zorua, the usually dark type ones.

I grabbed my phone from the air and looked through the Pokedex app, the Pokedex information currently on the app was for Paldea, which made sense cause the phone was technically from Paldea. Also there was no internet, so there was no way I could call for someone to come out and help get us back to the city.

Yawning, I began prepping for sleep and took out some of the bigger clothes from my bag to use as blankets for the three of us. Sahara was already asleep, curled up by the fire.

Winnie trotted over to my side as I got comfy on a patch of grass. I was more than ready to go to sleepland.

Too bad someone had other plans. It was too quiet. I wasn’t sure when, but all the rustling sounds of smaller Pokemon in the underbrush had stopped. The forest was holding it’s breath.

“Urghhhh… Please don’t tell me it’s another threat.” I groaned. Winnie had woken Sahara up. and they both sniffed the air.

“az, sahara says it’s another dragon.” That woke me up.

“Is it Hydreigon?” I asked. Sahara shrugged and got up, head still sniffing the air.

Then we all heard the flapping of wings, and a massive dragon-like shape flew overhead and before slowly circled downwards into our little camp.

By then I had packed up all our stuff and was ready to book it. Sahara was growling like a hellhound, she was ready for round two. Yeah, nope.

“We’re not fighting her Sahara.” The landshark ignored me and began readying a Dragon Pulse, so I returned her to her Ultra Ball and said to it, “Sahara, I know you’re gonna be mad, but we’re not going to start a fight unless we’re attacked first.”

Hydreigon had already landed and was floating just above out campfire, patiently waiting for us to get our shit together.

“i don’t think she’s here for a fight az.” Winnie said. Yeah, if Hydreigon wanted to fight, she could've incinerated us with a long ranged Hyper Beam instead of coming into camp.

“Hey Hydreigon, what’s your business here?” I called out to the massive dragon.

Hydreigon rumbled something in response. Her middle head reached around to her back and grabbed something. She floated forward and dropped a little dark lump in front of me. That lump moved and got up. It was a Deino. Baby number three, it still had an area on it’s neck of newly grown scales that wasn’t fully healed.

“What did she say?” I asked. Number three had waddled over to me and was nibbling on my pant leg.

“she said that her kid wanted to join us.” Winnie replied, he looked as surprised as I was.

“That’s it?” Hydreigon didn’t even answer, the dragon rumbled something else and floated back up into the sky and away.

“Wait, she just dumped her kid on some rando?!” I had moved to trying to stop Deino from ripping my pant leg apart.

“she also said that the kid was too weak and she didn’t want him, and she knew that humans liked having her kind in their families.”

“That’s harsh.” I commented, not that I minded getting another pseudo-legendary. At least Deino didn’t seem to mind the fact that its mom abandoned him, it seemed quite happy to be with us. Kind of like a young puppy exploring a new and exciting place for the first time.

I pushed Deino off of my leg and pulled out a Pokedoll from my bag for it to play with. Then I pulled out a Dusk Ball and tapped it on Deino’s head, sucking it in with a red flash.

The ball only shook once before it ding-ed to notify a successful capture. Then I shoved the dusk ball into my coat pocket with Gabite’s ultra ball.

I would deal with this all later. I needed sleep. Now.

Hopefully tomorrow would be less hectic.