Life in the Hidden Valley Estate was quite leisurely. After a lovely lunch of dishes made using mountain vegetables, mushrooms, and Berries, Melanie told everyone to explore the property at their own leisure and that she would bring them out on a tour of the Berry farm tomorrow.

Their rooms were all on the third floor which was largely reserved for guests. The second floor was where all the staff lived. Nina ended up sharing a room with Nancy, with Bobby getting a room of his own. Kumiko shared with her daughter, Tiffany, while Ali and Misty asked for a room in the corner, far removed from the others for reasons that Nina chose to put out of mind.

Bobby immediately jumped to Melanie, asking all sorts of questions and wanting to see the refinery where they further processed and bottled the Shuckle juice, as well as the other cellar where they kept all their vintages.

Nina, on the other hand, went outside to interact with the lost Pokemon. Most of them were really friendly, having formerly been domesticated. Though some stayed away from her, probably due to some prior unresolved trauma.

The two Bulbasaurs on the estate were especially curious as they ran up to her, Tini and Espy. They ended up playing tag with them all afternoon. Although Espy was less enthusiastic, so Nina motivated her by telling her to treat it as Quick Attack practice.

Right now, Espy could only trigger the move by focusing on a specific target, which more often than not, is the opponent that she’s trying to hit. “See if you can’t cut off the Bulbasaurs by intercepting their front instead of hitting them directly. Try to concentrate on a point on the ground or conjure up an imaginary target in the empty space. Whatever helps you get in the zone,” urged Nina.

In Tini’s case, Nina had him practice his usual air swimming exercise. Air swimming refers to how some Water pokemon were able to ‘swim’ out of water. It’s a skill that only trained Pokemon could do since they often needed to battle out of water.

The way it works is for the Pokemon to harness the Water Type Energy in the air to surround their body, allowing them to float slightly and move around in the air like they were swimming underwater. It’s not a perfect solution. Water Pokemon were slower out of water and it took a lot of stamina and concentration to maintain. It also could not be considered flying since the lack of buoyancy meant they couldn’t get too high.

For Tini though, it was a lot easier, since he was able to move fine on land to begin with. The end result was that he could combine slithering with swimming to give him a boost in speed. Though his endurance still needed a bit more work.

That night they all sat around a fire, roasting marshmallows and listening to Ali regale them with tall tales of his travels. To his side was Misty, who was propped up against him with a wine glass in hand.

Ever since their arrival in the brewery, it really seemed as if there was never a moment where Misty was without a drink in hand. Nina was surprised that the woman was still lucid at all, given how sloshed she was.

“You know, being here in these woods really reminds me of that one time I stumbled upon an abandoned ruin in Johto,” began the adventurer. “I was still a young teen at the time, trying to conquer my second Gym Circuit. But in my foolishness, I attempted a teleport at a time when my Kirlia was exhausted from battle.”

Ali chuckled. “At this time, I was going through a phase where I thought teleportation was superior to flying due to how much more efficient it was. They don’t make you get a license to use Teleport, because if you mess up, you’re only going to get yourself killed. But they really should, in my opinion.

“Midway through the Teleport, Kirlia ran out of gas and deposited us in the middle of nowhere. There weren't really any signifying landmarks I could follow, only a long abandoned shrine nearby.

“In hindsight, I probably should have sent out an SOS signal right away, but I was young and stupid at the time. Instead, I was enamored by the shrine and the ruins. Which, as it turns out, wasn't really anything special. It was mostly just rotten wood, mold, Spinarak webs and so on.”

By this point, Ali blew at his marshmallow to cool it down and sandwiched it between two graham crackers and chocolate, passing it to Misty with a kiss before continuing to roast another marshmallow.

“But then, for whatever reason, I thought I would just camp there for the night and wait for Kirlia to recover before porting out again the next day,” continued Ali.

“Not the best idea I’ve ever had.” He laughed. “But I was young, foolish and fearless. Don’t do what I did, kids. Standard protocol with teleportation incidents is to call for help immediately. You never know what might be lurking around the corner. The place you wound up at might have even been right in the territory of an Alpha.

“That said, hindsight is 20/20 and I was glad that I stayed for the night. Because something interesting did occur,” Ali paused for dramatic effect as he took a sip of his Shuckle juice. “That night, as I retired into my tent and fell asleep, I was woken up by the sound of voices all around me…”

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Right then, there was a snap, crackle and pop as kindling burned in the fire, causing Tiffany to jolt up in alarm. Despite the girl’s reverence for Sabrina, she had little tolerance for ghosts and the paranormal. Or perhaps it’s because she believes in it so wholeheartedly that she gets so immersed.

“And so I roused my groggy, sleep deprived body and got out of the tent,” continued Ali. “Again, bad choice. If you hear any strange noise around your tent, make sure to take some precautions before showing yourself. You never know what might be stalking you,” he warned.

“Anyways, imagine my surprise when I got out and saw that a whole damned village had just magically appeared all around me when I was sleeping. Had to slap myself a few times to make sure that I wasn’t still asleep.”

Ali described an ethereal scene of ancient wooden huts and people in tribal tattoos and crude hemp clothing walking about during the night like it was daytime. “And I almost would have thought the sun had risen as well with how bright it was.” There was a certain dim glow surrounding the mysterious people and buildings that had just materialized out of thin air.

“So I did what made sense at the time, which was to try and call out to these people and figure out what’s up.” To his surprise however, none of the folks he went up to bothered to heed his call. In fact, they all acted as if they couldn’t hear him or he wasn’t there.

“When I finally had enough of being ignored, I reached out to grab hold of someone… only to find myself phasing through them like water.”

Tiffany once again shuddered, rubbing her shoulders at the sudden chill that took hold of her.

“Surprisingly though, when I tried to do the same with the Pokemon. I was at least able to get some reaction.” The Pokemon would shudder just like Tiffany did but also frantically look around as if they had sensed something.

Hearing that little detail, Tiffany paled and tried looking around in a panic as well. Kumiko who was sitting beside her could barely hold back her snickers.

“I was really flummoxed at the time. Were these ghosts from the past? Had I died and turned into a spirit? Or was I still dreaming?” Said Ali as he took another sip from his glass. “So I did what any reckless young teen would do and set out to investigate.

“The language that these people speak sounded familiar yet foreign. I could tell that it was ancient Kantonian as opposed to the common we now speak. But unlike Nina, I wasn’t particularly studious during my day and had no idea what they were yapping about.”

Ali said that he tried going into the villagers’ homes which was a simple enough affair since he could walk through walls at the time. He described seeing a rustic and barebones interior, consisting of jars, bedrolls and a basic hearth right in the middle of the hut. “Nothing too interesting, but I did see a whole bunch of Unown script painted in the interior.”

“What about the shrine?” Asked Bobby, only to receive a smirk from Ali.

“Of course I checked the shrine, though I intentionally left it until the end. If there was anything fishy going on, it’s bound to be where the shrine was,” he said.

“So I did exactly that. After looking around the village and coming away from it with jack all to show, I turned my head towards the shrine at the back of the village.” He once again paused for dramatic effect and even took the time to make himself another s’more which he happily took a bite of.

Nina rolled her eyes and took a dainty bite of her own s’more. She was wary of eating too much sugar after a whole day of drinking Shuckle juice. Unlike Tiffany, she was indifferent to Ali’s story, as fascinating as it was. Mainly because she knew how horrible the man was when it came to telling horror stories. And also partly because she had an idea of what happened to her uncle when he was younger.

“But just as I was thinking about heading over to the shrine, I started hearing the voice of a child laughing in my ear.”

Tiffany yelped out loud, after Kumiko decided to sneakily poke her daughter in the back.

“I looked around,” continued Ali. “Thinking that maybe someone was able to perceive me. But for the life of me I couldn’t find the source of the laughter. However, just as I was about to give up and decided to move on, it happened again, and again, and again…

“I ran every time, hoping to catch the source of the voice before it disappeared. But no matter how frantically I ran, how thoroughly I searched, nothing could be found aside from the same ghostly villagers that continue to ignore me.” Ali sighed as he thought back to the struggles of his youth.

“And so I gave up. No matter how loud the laughter became, or even when I felt a light pat on my shoulder, I kept my eyes focused on the shrine and kept walking.” He paused again to take another sip of his juice. Nina rolled her eyes once more, fully anticipating another twist to come.

“But just as I was about to reach the threshold of the spirit gate, I was blinded by a flash of light and was knocked out, only to be woken up in the morning by a Spearow pecking at me. I got up and found myself in front of the dilapidated shrine once more, the village and its inhabitants nowhere to be seen.”

Silence descended upon the campsite as Ali wrapped up his story.

After Tiffany got over her jitters, she began shooting random questions at Ali. Asking stuff along the lines of what did it feel like to touch ghosts, was he cursed by dead children after his experience etcetera. Basically the typical sort of stuff one would expect from a nutbag obsessed with mysticism.

Bobby asked more practical questions like was Ali’s tent still around when he came to? Was anything missing? Why didn’t he think to call out his Pokemon when he was in his dream? What did these villagers eat and so on.

“You’re unnaturally quiet, Nina. Wouldn’t you be full of questions by now?” Asked Ali to his niece.

“Hmm? Oh, sorry I was just thinking. You said this was in Johto. Do you remember which forest it was that you got lost in?”

Nina was considering the implications of another ancient shrine decorated with Unown letters. The common language of this world was similar to English, but they used a different script than what she was used to — a script that she had to learn when she first arrived in this world, which really helped to sell the fact that she was little more than a toddler.

“So it could be that I’m the only person in the world who is able to recognise Unown as just stylized English alphabets…”

“You want to go and see for yourself huh? As expected of my adventurous niece.” Ali gave a knowing smirk to the girl. “Well, there’s no harm in telling you. As it turned out, I was actually fairly close to civilization. The forest is called Ilex Forests, and it’s just a stone’s throw away from Azalea town and Route 34. I probably could have walked my way back if I actually bothered to have my Pokemon scout around.” The man laughed out boisterously at his younger self’s blunder.

Nina nodded. “So I was right. It was Celebi’s shrine, and Uncle Ali likely experienced some sort of temporal anomaly.” She was also willing to bet that the laughter Ali heard was actually Celebi playing pranks on him.

“Wait! This place is real?!” Bobby exclaimed. The boy had obviously thought that Ali was just making stuff up to scare them. Little did he know, this world was a lot more magical than he might think.