CHAPTER 50

“This place gives me the creeps,” Pauline said, hugging herself tightly. “Is it colder in here?”

“Don’t be so paranoid,” Louis answered, as he looked at a defunct painting of what looked to be the Prism Tower in Kalos. “We’ll be out in a few hours.”

It had been a few minutes since the fight with the Dustox, and Louis, Pauline, and I were exploring the foyer of the mansion. Looking past all the destruction, the room was absolutely massive and completely symmetrical. Two large sets of staircases opposite each other led to an upper floor, and past those stairs was another huge double door. We didn’t want to go too far, however, so we decided against going past the foyer and into other rooms. Who knew what kind of wild Pokemon found refuge here?

“The man who owned this place had an excellent taste in art, I must say,” Louis said, looking at a beautiful, unlit chandelier hanging overhead. “A shame what happened to the place. I wonder why it was abandoned.”

“Well, maybe they realized that living here was suicidal, and they left,” Pauline said. She was clearly more unsettled by the place than we were and was probably only with us to talk and think about something else. “Good decision if you ask me.”

Louis traced his fingers across the dusty walls before wiping his hand on his pants. “Why take nothing, though? The number of things in this foyer alone must be worth millions, and that’s not even counting the other rooms.

“Trying to carry all of that out of this forest might have been more trouble than they could afford,” I muttered.

We finally reached the massive doors behind the stairs and stopped dead in our tracks.

“We should turn back,” I said.

“You’ve been getting better at having good ideas,” Pauline jabbed.

“Sheesh, thanks,” I said irritatedly.

We turned away, but Elekid held my leg and began to stir. He was extremely agitated, yelling and pulling me toward the room.

I crouched and looked at him. “What is it? What’s the problem?”

“Elekid!” He yelled with his face full of anguish.

I frowned. This was unlike him. Pauline and Louis were already leaving toward where the others were. The only time Elekid had ever been like this was… before the attack on the power plant in Floaroma, and he had explicitly told me that he had known there was a problem. I gulped as sweat began to accumulate on my palms.

“Kid! Kid!”

I took a breath. Team Galactic couldn’t be there, it was impossible.

“A—are there bad guys in there?” I whispered with a shaky voice. “Like the ones you see on T.V. sometimes?”

He shook his head. I sighed in relief as the feeling of utter terror that had started enveloping me evaporated from my body.

“Ele!”

“Alright big guy, let’s see what your problem is.”

I sneaked up to the doors and slowly opened them, and a slew of Zubat flew out of the damp, dark room, causing me to scream.

“Fuck…” I sighed. In front of me stood a giant dining room with a table so long and so many fancy, cushioned chairs it was almost comical. Elekid strode into the room. “Wait up!” I told him after he reluctantly stopped.

Pauline and Louis rushed back toward me after hearing me scream, followed by the others— even Emilia.

“What’s going on?” Denzel said, worryingly tapping my shoulder.

“Nothing… just some Zubat living in here, and some problem with Elekid. He’s obsessed with this room.”

Elekid carefully walked into the dining room, making sure not to make any noise. I carefully followed, wanting to see where he would bring us. He stopped when reaching one of the chairs at the edge of the table.

“What… what is it?” Cece asked.

“Alright, I think we need to leave, something— something is wrong.” Pauline panicked.

“Fine,” I said. I had wanted to find out more about what Elekid’s problem was, but—

Suddenly, we heard a voice throughout the room, but it wasn’t in a specific area. It was speaking to us from everywhere at once, and it was… it was undiscernible. It bordered on our language, but it was also impossible to understand, like a word on the tip of my tongue. Old lights, whether they were electric or candles, lit up all at once and started to flicker. The old cutlery and the plates on the table started to rattle and shake. I slowly edged back, bumping into Denzel and Cecilia, who were watching the spectacle with terrifying awe.

“Let’s leave!” Emilia screamed.

That broke us out of our spell, and we rushed toward the doors, but they slammed shut right as we were about to exit. The voice was getting louder.

“Fuck!” Denzel swore. “Louis, help me pull!”

Louis nodded, and they each got on one side of the doors and pulled as hard as they could. They wouldn’t budge. We were stuck in here.

“Beldum, ram into it!” Emilia screeched.

The steel type let out an alien-like grinding sound and flew at the door, but it wasn’t breaking.

“What kind of fucked up shit is this?!” Pauline screamed. “I’m not about to die hours away from the Arceus damned exit!”

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

I turned back toward the dining room with trembling legs and watched as one of the lights stopped flickering, grew larger and larger, and began to take shape. But as it morphed into something else, it, along with the other lights, also became darker, more sinister, basking the room in a cold, purple light. I leaned against the wall and then collapsed, covering my ears as I could only watch helplessly. The light finally took form as the voice reached its crescendo. It was made out of different shades of ragged, purple cloth that became more transparent the longer I looked. Three shiny red gems adorned its ‘clothing’ shining bright along with its yellow and red eyes. Its head didn’t end, instead forming into a witch’s hat. The Pokemon floated up and stared at us.

I heard someone’s Pokedex speak with a familiar robotic voice. Mismagius, the magic Pokemon. Its cries sound like incantations. Those hearing it are tormented by— by— by—

I heard Emilia yell as the Pokedex screen glitched out, flickering on and off for a few seconds before finally turning off.

“We have to fight,” Denzel said, recalling Eevee and releasing Budew. “Normal type attacks won’t work against this one,”

“What did you say?!” Justin yelled. The voice was too loud, he hadn’t heard him.

“We fight!” Denzel yelled out, louder this time. “Budew, we’re fighting a ghost. Bullet Seed it!”

A series of seeds flew toward the ghost type, who screeched out, either in pain or outrage. We all ordered our Pokemon to attack, but suddenly, the Mismagius disappeared into thin air, as if it had never been there. The voice— or the incantation, according to the Pokedex— was also gone, and the lights had gone back to normal.

I took a few breaths to calm myself, but I struggled to. Seeing this reminded me too much of Mars’ Dusknoir, and I just couldn’t keep myself from freaking out. Cecilia was also unusually shaken, but she helped me up and held my hand gently.

That’s right, I thought. I have my friends with me this time.

“Let’s not spend another second in here,” Pauline said. “It can come back at any time.”

We all agreed and hurried back to the entrance. Emilia would have to struggle, but we were only a few hours away, or maybe a day away at worse, so it hopefully wouldn’t be too bad.

“Uh… what in the world?” Justin said.

“No… this can’t be happening,” Pauline cried out, bringing her hands to her face.

I frowned and walked in front of the group, and my eyes widened at what I saw. The windows and the exit door no longer led to Eterna forest. They instead led to another mansion, and then another, and another. It kept going… forever. The sight of it was utterly disturbing, forcing me to look away. It was like two mirrors facing each other, bouncing the light off of each other forever.

Louis ran to the kicked-in door and hesitantly walked through. I winced, expecting something to happen, but he was completely fine.

“We’re stuck. That ghost fucked us,” Denzel said in a defeated tone.

“When you say stuck, you don’t mean forever, do you?” Justin cautioned.

“I don’t know. We don’t know anything,” He replied.

“Why the fuck did you open that door,” Pauline yelled, aggressively jamming her finger at me. I grimaced, expecting the dressing down of a lifetime, and I couldn’t even blame her. It was my fault. I had been too focused on figuring out what was wrong with Elekid and underestimated the danger this mansion could have posed.

“Ugh,” She groaned. “I don’t even have the energy to be mad at you anymore, I’m just… I just want to get out. All this time, I’ve been strong. Strong like mommy would tell me to be, but I just can’t. We were so close, Grace.”

“I’m sorry,” I said weakly, staring at the ground.

I felt an arm wrap around my shoulder. “We’ve all fucked up in different ways during our trip through the forest,” Denzel said. “We’ll make it out, I promise you.”

Cecilia nodded. “I certainly am no better, making you lot fight a Scyther.”

“It’s kind of my fault, too,” Emilia muttered. “I mean, my leg was the entire reason we had to rest here.”

“No, don’t blame yourself,” I hurriedly said.

“And my performance during the first few days left a lot to be desired,” Louis chimed in. “And you brought back the group together when we needed it the most. Let’s let bygones be bygones and focus on getting out of here,” He continued.

I wanted to cry. I had judged these people so harshly before, but now here they were, supporting me. I sniffled and wiped my eyes before standing straighter.

“Alright, let’s make a plan.”

The first thing we tried was breaking out through the side of the mansion. Beldum could easily ram through the half-rotten walls with Take Down. Unfortunately, we quickly learned that the ‘mirroring’ of the mansion not only applied to the doors and windows but to the walls as well. The hole in the roof seemed to still be there, but above it was what looked to be some kind of floor, meaning it also lead to another version of the mansion, but Cecilia sent her Fletchling to check it out anyway and confirmed it. Lastly, we considered digging our way out with Growlithe’s Dig. Beldum again rammed through the floor, expecting to find dirt, but he opened a gaping hole that was at least a fifty feet drop, and we quickly realized that there was no getting out through conventional means. After hastily covering the hole with a wooden we tore off the floor, we went back to strategizing.

“If I had to guess,” I said. “I’d say we have to defeat the ghost or kill it for it to release us. It’d only be dead for a few weeks, but that would be enough for us to escape.”

“So we have to find it then,” Cecilia said, before looking toward the entrance. “But it could be in… any of these mansions.”

“It could be,” I said grimly.

“Come on, that wouldn’t make any sense,” Denzel interjected. “It didn’t attack us, it trapped us in here. A powerful ghost type like Mismagius could have done a number on us. I think this is a test of some sort.”

“A test?” Emilia frowned. “When Justin scanned it with his Pokedex, we couldn’t hear the full description, but I looked at the screen and read it. I— I didn’t think it was important, but… it said it creates hallucinations because— because it loves to torment people.”

“So this is just a hallucination, then?” Cece said. “Can we wake ourselves up somehow?”

“Wouldn’t count on it, but it doesn’t hurt to try anything,” I said. “But if it’s tormenting us, at least we can agree that it won’t kill us like Denzel said. Still… there must be a way to beat it.”

Pauline lifted her head. She was still in low spirits, but we all understood. She had stayed strong the entire time and was finally at her limit. “How about we start looking for that fucking ghost, then? Search this mansion first, and then the next.”

“And then the next…” Justin sighed. “We’ll starve. How much food do we have left?”

“Enough for a few weeks, but time could be meaningless in here,” Cecilia said. “This is an illusion, and It’s been… two hours since we’ve been trapped here, give or take. I feel the exact same as I was. I’d normally be getting hungry around this time, and as you know, I live a very scheduled life.”

“That’d be great,” Denzel said. “But we can’t guarantee it until more time has passed.”

Pauline frowned for a few seconds and then perked up. “Guys, think about it. There’s no way there are actually an infinite amount of mansions, right? I mean, the amount of power that would require would be insane… like, only Legendaries from old stories you’d read could do something like that.”

“I agree,” Cece nodded. “But still, it probably could create enough to strand us in here for days or weeks.”

“Then what?” Emilia asked with fear in her eyes.

“Grace and Pauline are right,” Cece sighed. “We need to look for Mismagius, and then we need to defeat it in battle.”