For an underground temple, the place was surprisingly open.

The halls were large and cavernous, with strange paintings and Unown filling the space along the walls. The paintings themselves were quite a sight to behold as well, they were very life-like, near one-for-one depictions of recognizable Pokémon, and detailed people. He’d have spent more time admiring them if not for the danger he still felt witnessing Cyrus’s attack.

Sirius wasn’t being much help right now either.

“The hell’s wrong with you man?” He hissed, pulling his brother away from bumping into a pillar, “You’re spacing out.”

“Sorry…” Sirius mumbled back, “I just can’t…what is this?”

Felis frowned, chewing his lip as he pulled his brother away from another pillar. It had been like this since the attack. He’d called it a strange “feeling”, whatever the fuck that meant.

“Describe it to me.” Felis said as they walked under the crystalized sky.

“How can I?” His brother answered, “If I asked you to describe a color that does not exist within our color spectrum, could you do it?”

“Dude. Chill with the philosophy shit.”

“I can’t describe what I’m feeling Pran, because I don’t think what I’m feeling can be felt by humans. And I…I can feel my mind trying to grasp this feeling, the…idea. But it can’t, and it won’t stop.”

“Damn.” Felis breathed, before nudging his shoulder, “You’re okay though, right? No more head pain?”

“No…no. There aren’t enough right now for that.”

“Cool, that makes sense. Alright I’m gonna need you to do one thing for me bro.”

“Hm?” For the first time since they’d entered the temple proper, Sirius focused his attention onto him.

“Try to not look like you’re tripping balls.” Felis grinned, “You’re scaring Valor.”

The Pokémon in question chirped, brown eyes open wide as he stared at his trainer.

“Sorry about that buddy,” Sirius grinned, before his focus began to drift away once more.

“Hey!” Hazel called from up ahead, “You guys catching up?”

“Yeah, hold on!” Felis shouted. For better or for worse, they’d managed to link up with Hazel, Emily, Remi, and about half a dozen others on their route. Rations, bags, and signal boosters were still carried, a lot more than necessary thanks to Sirius’s worry, but after the initial ambush he doubted anyone would complain. Remi was currently tracing their path, the rest of them quietly chatting and staring at the murals as they continued to walk.

“Is he okay?” Ems asked, worriedly glancing at Sirius.

“So long as we don’t encounter another ambush like that, we should be ok.”

“I noticed that.” Hazel mumbled, slowing down the four’s pace so that they were behind the others, “You called the attack before it happened, how?”

Ahh, shit. He knew this would come up eventually. Felis glanced towards his brother, looking for confirmation, though Sirius was too spaced out to read his usual cues, so he looked at Valor instead. The Pokémon seemed to consider it for a moment, before giving a slight nod.

“I can tell you guys, but promise to keep it a secret.” Felis sighed, before dropping his voice, “This sounds stupid, but my brother's got Psychic powers. He can sort of…feel emotions emitting from Pokémon. It’s how he warned me of the attack before it happened.”

“It’s like…language I can almost understand.” Sirius breathed, brows furrowing in annoyance “But there’s always something that just doesn’t fit.”

Felis, of course, didn’t reveal his own. This would be a good test of loyalty, he decided, if they revealed Arun’s ability to others then he’d know they’d be unable to handle secrets. If they kept it under wraps, maybe Felis could tell them a little more.

“Oh lucky!” Ems said, “That’s very useful to have!”

“You sure you don’t want it revealed?” asked Hazel, “It could get you some priority treatment on certain things.”

“We’ll consider it, but right now we’re just looking to figure this out. Is it normal here?”

“A little rare, but not unheard of.” Ems replied, waving her hand in front of her face to brush away a stray Unown, “You’ll find some people able to move things with their minds, the stronger ones can teleport, but that’s mostly rumor.”

Psychics. He remembered abusing the VS.seeker against one of them to train up a Murkrow. So they actually had powers here, huh?

“You should look into getting a Psychic type for Sirius.” Hazel said, pulling him out of his thoughts.

“How come?”

“For some, they unlock hidden psychic potential, seeing ghosts and the like. But for those already with, it’s a great way to train them. They embody the “concept” of psychic itself, so it’s kind of like stat-enhancer all the time.”

Oh boy. Guess he knew what was next on the list of Pokémon for both of them. That did leave him with another question though.

“How do you know all this stuff man?”

Ems and Hazel exchanged a glance between each other, before he grinned, “That’s a secret.”

Felis made to complain, but was interrupted when Remi suddenly called out “We’re reaching the second chamber! Get your Pokémon ready, opposition is to be expected.”

Aken floated down from the roof at the callout, taking his place by Felis’s shoulder.

“More Unown?” He asked, his automatically moving to scratch Aken underneath the chin.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

“Probably, but you don’t have to worry much about these ones.”

“Makes sense.” Felis agreed, “They seem kind of…I don’t know.”

“Stupid?” Hazel suggested.

“No thoughts, head empty?” Ems countered.

“Yea, the second one seems good.”

“Hah.” She smirked, before grabbing a “F” that was just…lying there on the floor. “Honestly it’s a good way to describe them. Alone, they don’t really possess any sort of consciousness, look.” She demonstrated her point by tapping the Unown against the wall. It didn’t appear to react or feel any sort of discomfort. “It’s only when they’re together do they start to piece together some sort of sentient thought.”

“But that ambush…” Hazel sighed, “That wasn’t normal, what could make them act like that?”

You Do Not Belong Here

“I mean, is any of this normal?” Felis countered, trying to get them to stop thinking about the Unown, “Look where we are, look at this place!”

“Hah. Good point. Em, you might want to get rid of that Unown, the gate’s coming up.”

“Sure.” She agreed, before snapping the Unown in half.

“Damn.” Felis said, raising an eyebrow at her.

“Hrng.” Sirius grumbled, before spacing out again.

Emily shrugged her shoulders, tossing the broken Unown away as it dissipated into purple flecks of light, “Revenge.”

The entrance to the second chamber came up abruptly. The ceiling had suddenly come down to a more reasonable level, to about three grown adults stacked atop one another. It was a total tonal shift however, from ancient, archaic walls, and runic glyphs to glowing symbols, machinery and display sensors. Parts of the wall stuck out to about half an average person’s height, where a device–similar to the holographic display Charon had used–lie fixed and inert.

“Huh…” Felis mumbled, as he wiped dust off a metal wall instead of the rocky ones he’d seen for the past hour and a half.

“Ah, shit.” Remi cursed, as his Croagunk prodded the gilded steel gate. “This one’s dead. We’ll have to backtrack, ASAP.”

“Woah hold on,” Felis protested, “Let’s look around a little bit first.”

“Won’t matter, it’s in the report.” Remi emphasized by shaking the paper in his hand, “Entrances are all dead, we can only move forward with the ones that are broken open. We’ll have to backtrack.”

“What if there’s something here?” He countered, “Maybe something important and we just happened to miss it. Look at this room, look at the dust on the floor and the footprints. Nobody else has been here before, that’s an opportunity, Remi.”

“...he makes a good point, boss.” One of the Grunts said.

Remi stared for a few moments, glancing between him and the gate, before giving a slight nod. “5 minutes. Let’s get looking.”

Felis shot Remi a smile, before immediately striding towards the gate. What was probably once polished white steel with gilded patterns dancing across was now a rusted, grimy thing. It was circular in shape, though there weren’t any handles or locks he could see, which meant the gate itself had to have been automatic at one point. He wondered if there was a backup for that, some sort of manual device they could use in case power had gone out. There had to have been, right? Technology wasn’t foolproof.

“Felis.” Sirius called, and he turned to see his brother wiping away the grime from one of the pale blue letters, “Look at this.”

Speaking of, how the hell did the letters have grime in the first place? The area was stale, there wasn’t any plant matter or water he could see, so where did the material come from?

“What’s u-oh shit.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Anything good?” Emily asked, seeing the two of them focusing on the letters.

“Latin.” Was all Sirius said.

Respirare, Deos Novos

“You know this language?” She asked, her eyes wide.

“Felis does.”

“Dude, barely. And keep it a secret.”

“What? You were showing off constantly whenever you had the chance back in uni.”

“Well…yeah but I took it in first year. Only memorized a few sentences.”

“That’s stupid.” Sirius deadpanned, “That course must have been at least 700, why would you do that?”

“I mean…just, because you know?”

“Not really.” Em said, egging him on. “Because…?”

Felis let out a sigh, looking away so the two wouldn’t see the red on his face, “I only took it to impress astrology girls…”

“Oh my Arceus.” Em snickered, bringing a hand to her mouth.

“$700…for that?” His brother whispered.

“Dude, I didn’t know how to talk to girls back then!” He defended. He was fresh out of highschool! Had zero confidence! Had no idea what he was doing, or why he was doing it! What was he supposed to talk about? Pokémon?

“Just…give it a try.” Sirius sighed, “It's three words, there’s gotta be something you can remember.”

“Yeah, yeah, just give me a minute.”

Respirare…that was wind right? Wait, no. Ventus was wind, he knew that from watching Bakugan though. Why did he think it was wind…? Respirare…respirate…respiration! Breathing! Breathe? Deos was easy, that was just god or a deity. But Nova…

“Nova…nova…where did I hear that before?”

He squeezed his eyes shut as he cycled through memories. Nova…nova…was it something he’d ever said in class? The briefest of images flashed by, but nothing he could hold onto. Damn, this was frustrating.

And then it hit.

Capilli tui sicut aurum messis novae

He even remembered the girl he’d said that too. She had red hair though, and her Latin was a lot better than his, so she got offended at that.

Still, novae! Novos! New!

“Breathing, gods that are new?” Felis asked.

“That sounds stupid.” Emily replied.

“Yeah…hold on. Words are layered differently so…Breathe, new gods?”

At once, all the machinery in the chamber blipped to life. Blue, black, pink and gold flashed atop different display screens, the Grunts unfortunate enough to have been inspecting the once inert devices stumbling back at the sudden flashes of light.

Something whirred underneath the words, and Felis instinctively moved his body to cover whatever was coming out of it as all of them suddenly turned their attention towards them.

“How?” Remi asked, more in wonder at the sudden change of the room.

“I don’t know,” Felis lied, “But is that really what we should be focusing on right now?”

“Look at the screens.” Sirius pointed to the one in blue, “There’s something written.”

Remi chewed his lip, clearly ready to complain, but Emily stepped in, “Oh wow. I don’t think the report mentioned anything like this. This is brand new.”

The Grunt manager’s eyes widened at that, “Cameras! Now!” He barked, “Record it all!”

“Thanks.” Felis whispered.

Emily replied with a wink, joining the other Grunts who’d brought out their camera gear and began snapping photos.

Felis instead turned back to whatever had come out from the words, with Sirius immediately blocking him from view from the others with his larger frame. It appeared that despite his…fogged self, some actions were still automatic to him.

“Well look at that…” He mumbled. It was a scanner, a biometric one at that. A screen that emitted soft blue text read ‘Welcome to Spatium, Divine one! Please place your hand against the reader.’

Felis glanced up and around the room. Nobody was really looking at him yet, though Ems kept shooting him looks that either meant “hurry up before Remi notices you’re not helping” or “Wow Felis, you're so handsome and smart, did you do something with your hair today?”. He liked to imagine it was the second, but he moved to place his hand down on the device anyways.

Only for Sirius to grab his arm first.

“I’ll do it.” His brother said.

“We don’t have time for this.” Felis hissed back, “It’s literally a hand scan thing.”

“You don’t know what it does.”

“For the love of–listen, you know I love you, right?”

Sirius blinked, “Uh, yeah?”

“And?”

“Love you too dude, where are you going with this?”

“Great.” Felis cheered “So you’ll forgive me for this, then.”

He put his other hand on the scanner.

Sirius cursed, but Felis chose to ignore that at the moment, his eyes drawn to the screen as it read out: ‘Welcome, guest user Pranav. Access granted by Admin E̶̶R̶ R̶ o̶̶ r̶̶

“Access granted by?” He said, eyes wide. Before he could process what he was reading though, the whole of the chamber whirred to life, dead power lines began to glow with pink energy, spidering out along the floor and towards the door. They didn’t stop there, instead drawing crisscrossing patterns all across the front of the sealed gate. It was the same design as Palkia’s shoulder plate, but wasn’t this supposed to be the Dialga chamber?

Felis supposed that didn’t matter, machinery whirred and hydraulics hissed, before the gate finally opened. This was it, exploration! Ruins! Secrets!

And then an alarm blared.

“REPEL PROTOCOL IS STILL IN EFFECT.” A robotic voice blared, “PLEASE STAND BY WHILE HAZARDS ARE REMOVED.”

“...What?” Remi asked, “What does that mea–”

Past the open gate, two statues of faceless priests stood, their folded arms suddenly clicking into full fucking machineguns.

“Oh…” Felis said. “Oh shit.”

The guns fired.