~~~ Chapter 25 - Chant To Make The Dream Real ~~~

None of our crew of Followers spoke as we ascended the legendary mountain. Instead, in our hearts we called our connection to the Caretakers of Dreams.

It was a relatively gray morning, the mountain covered in low clouds. Overall, the scenery was quite quiet, though the occasional drifloon hovered in the air. Our route had been traveled by about fifty people on foot a few days ago. We made our greater homages to Rai the last moonless night. Dreamless we were for three nights, all of us. Seeking warnings for dangers to come, no dreams is a lukewarm sign.

For the hike, I chose to take the lead, keeping a leash on Neo, my umbreon. Porter and Nash both followed behind, staring off in silence, two of their pokemon running around. Porter, with quite a few badges of his own, allowing him a few more pokemon in Sinnoh, had two more pokeballs on his belt, kept in reserve just in case.

We had been walking up the mountain trail since three AM, trekking the slow way into the mountain as one of the last follow-up grunts. The air in the mountain drifted in quiet, though I could hear the melodic chanting of mismagius and whistles of litwicks occasionally sounded. My pokedex said we were about an hour or so of walking out from the Galactic group’s base camp.

None of us had a large pokemon to fly on or any psychics to teleport in. Porter and Nash were natural Dims, and I wasn’t about to teleport in and let my clanmates do the hike in without me. Porter’s absol, Crest, was following along us, keeping a wide arc through the greenery and meadows. Looking for prey, Mar, Nash’s murkrow circled about in leisure.

The mountain’s ruins, their first floor, had been breached multiple times over the centuries. Never with so many dark-and-ghost trainers backing them, however. Sidney and Grimsley were even supposed to come help clear the first floors.

Ahead of us, Mar had swooped down into some grass emerging with a pokemon in its claws, landing on the branch of a tree further ahead in the trail. She held a shedinja under some pressure, the creature wiggling around, unable to slide its physical body into the other plane. She cracked through the creature’s armor with her beak, enjoying her snack.

The air already tasted of distortion— Nash’s fur was on end. No ghosts seemed to be nearby, though the drifloon were congregating in the air up above, many of them getting adventurous, being drawn in by their favorite food despite their predators on the mountain below. The hints of the mists of ghastly tugged in the periphery, the ground slowly shimmering under waves of distortion that spewed over them, like water from a break in a dam.

Crest would alert us before anything truly dangerous could get close. Every trainer that had been contracted was either some measure of dark or ghost specialist, if not both. I only had Neo, faithful umbreon though he was. Despite that, we had all passed Galactic’s exams, and the pay was surprisingly good.

We rounded the hill we were on, and I was greeted with the sight of two more drifloons in the distance, dots and specks in the sky, drawing near to the mountain’s flowing distortion spewing into the world, hungry for their otherworldly nectar. Should have held more pokemon. The prior traveling parties had either cleared them away, or the first breach pulled the bulk of them in. Mar, Nash’s murkrow, chose to leave the drifloon alone as we progressed in our journey.

I felt a tap on my shoulder. Nash held an open hand. The Great Rai did not see fit to call to him as he’d daywalked. He yawned. The short chanting melodies in the air grew thicker. Crest had disappeared. Close to the last bend, the three of us paused, waiting for the loyal absol to return.

I had already put on my gloves to handle his natural poison, but Neo’s yellow rings had begun to glow. His fur and tail and ears were taut at the intermittent calls of the mismagius. Crest returned, his fur dark from what could only have been a meal.

I waved my gloved hand in front of Porter’s slack face, his green eyes staring and unblinking. He did not respond. "Porter, wake up," I said. Our clannie didn’t respond, but the hair on his neck was poking and bristled. The signs of the Great Rai were clearly showing in our last daywalking member's face. When you were gifted the Rai's nightmares, even if you had half your mind piloting your body still, the cold sweats and flush face of fear were ever present signs on the bodies of those whose minds managed to connect to a trickle of the nightmare realm's prophecies. Nash was petting Mar, the murkrow lightly cooing.

"We’re about ten minutes from Galactic’s basecamp," I said, sighing. A few more drifloons dotted in the distance. I tapped Porter on the shoulder. His eyes looked around, refocusing as the light and blood re-entered his face. I spoke again, "Daywalking’s gotta be over, clannie. Sorry." Neo’s glow had softened as we rested on our feet.

"The Rai has responded," he said, taking a breath, his eyes still refocusing. I raised my eyebrows. "There will be great shame and loss if I go home," he said.

Nash spoke. "I didn’t get anything from the Rai. Nothing about me or Aiden for you, Porter?" He asked.

"Nothing about the team," Porter affirmed.

"The Great Rai has spoken to you," I said, raising my hands to the air to the Great Son of the Dark, joined by my mates. Darkrai’s sign being the pain of going home, I knew that was what we should not do. I said, "We are fortunate this day."

We quietly praised, proceeding to the camp, greeted by the sight of two trainers and some academics milling about camp, more than one typing on a laptop computer. More than one glanced at us and then away again. No one can stand to look upon the glory of The Dreamer’s chosen ones for long.

"You three are an hour late," said a woman with blue hair in the gray and black Galactic uniform. "They’re going to breach the second layer soon, and we needed you during the first." She had a yellow badge.

"I was told the rear-guard wouldn’t be needed for any breaching," Porter said.

The lady had bags in her eyes, motioning for us to come in. "Neither Sidney nor Grimsley showed up," she said. "Nor do the ranger's frontrunners accept contracts. The ghosts are already thick inside, and we can’t keep the doors open forever," she finished, raising her head up to the sky, watching the approaching packs of ghosts in the early morning air.

We went into the nearest changing ten, putting on our uniforms in silence, silent prayers to the Great Rai. The Rai never aided humans directly, the closer we had drawn to his realm, it seemed, the farther his physical presence from us. Thus, we respect his and the great Cress' mutual desires for physical isolation, and did not expect him to come to our aid here. Always, however, we were glad with what we were allowed to receive. Our outfits on, I reached down with my gloved hand, petting Neo, who was already glowing again, ears twitching this way and that way after each minor wave and murmur from within the distortion that we walked. Neo alone had gotten me six unovan gym badges. Porter had eight. Nash only had three, but Galactic wanted all available dark trainers that they could get. The contract had been worth leaving Unova for, that was how lucratively they had agreed to pay the three of us.

We three stepped out of the tent, our pokemon nearby, or in the case of Nash, on the leather perch of his shoulder. "Come here," the lady said, waving holding up a set of three packs. The tents shimmered, things in the camp silently, slightly shifted, like everything had been rotated by a couple degrees, some on the yaw, others on pitch, and others on roll axes. It was slight, but the distortion was shimmering, laying on thick as it infected the world. We approached our packs. "This one’s for Aiden," she said, handing me my brown bag. A pack of several drifloon were drifting low. Multiple attacks shot into the air, taking them down. "This one’s for Porter, and this other one’s for Nash. There’s enough food and water for each of you for 48 hours," she said.

She continued. "In your bag, Porter, there’s two mega stones on a necklace." I reeled, jaw agape at what she said. "We don’t know if umbreon or honchkrow can mega evolve, and since Nash’s bird is still a murkrow, we’re not allocating more. Oh, and before you ask—yes, they’re yours. So long as you do your job and come out alive, that is."

They had been willing to pay for two mega stones for Crest. She pulled out the stones, the reddish, almost copper sheen of the polished stones glowing with their uncharacteristic energy and warmth. In my heart, I praised the Great Rai and the Great Cress. She handed them to Porter, who almost dropped them, his eyes wide open.

"Put them around your absol’s neck. Now." She said, looking at her watch and sighing. "The second breach will have happened by the time you get to the entrance. Inside your bags are oxygen masks. They’re rated to keep you out of distortion poisoning for four hours. There are some first-aid kits, a couple potions, water and food in your bags, and there will be more than enough supplies and refills for you at the top." She took a breath, pausing as she recited statements she'd no doubt given multiple times in the last three days as the teams were hiking up the legendary mountain. Trainers had a much better time getting to the base, but archaeologists who hadn't bonded with their pokemon? The academics Cyrus had brought along… I figured they stood no chance anyone could do the hike in a day, like well-bonded trainers could. Though even here at the camp, the air was noticeably thinner than when we'd started our hike at ten thousand feet.

When none of us three had any questions from her pause, the lady continued: "When the fourth floor gets breached, that is when the thickest and most raw of the distortion will flow. You must put your masks on then, or you will succumb or begin to succumb to the sickness. Galactic group does not care if you're dim, psychic or a medium. No human has perfect immunity to distortion. Additionally, Galactic group cautions: do not attempt to dance with the gourgeist in order to avoid distortion sickness. That is a pokemon move, and this academic expedition is not equipped to deal with any potential negative effects from noncompliance. The entrance to the base of the inner mountains hosts a thirty-minute hike to the front entrance from here. There will be a pair of trainers at the front door. They’ll give you your orders and responsibilities. With the script complete, I bid you adieu and good luck. Try not to die. Or get possessed. Those will be the last waking dreams you'll ever have."

The six of us left the lady, who’s name we never learned. Porter had wrapped the necklace around Crest’s neck during her spiel. Further outside camp and away from the prying eyes and ears of those who could not understand our communion, it was with tears in our eyes in gratitude to the Great Rai, that we raised our hands. "Oh Great Rai," we chanted. "You heard the prayers of our hearts!" we said in unison, lowering our arms.

Truly, He guides us.

~~~

One reason we use the term synchronization, rather than "bond," is that the concept of a ‘bond’ with your pokemon has cultural implications—of being one pokemon and one trainer, some level of morality, and therefore "good." Multiple people can synchronize as a result of their relationship with the same pokemon. In terms of morality, trainers who commit unlawful or illegal acts—either against pokemon outside of their team, or to humans—are just as likely to achieve "synchronization" as any other trainer..

We performed a full review of pokemon abuse and synchronization. Though the data is limited, and gathering more would be wildly unethical, we were able to draw at least one clear conclusion: Those who do not spend time with, or cannot care for, their pokemon, do not synchronize.

~~~

Standing in the rolling, shimmering, and warping of the distortion, the three of us held our paper orders. It was seven A.M. and the summer sun was over the horizon, though covered by the increasing density of clouds. The front guard’s fox-like thievul gave us all a good sniff, marking us as members. "Ver here’s marking you, she can follow your scent through the thickest distortion if you get lost." The guard had said. "You three nuts’re—"

"The Rai’s powers are well known and established!" Nash interrupted. The guard just smiled, ignoring Nash’s objection.

"Y’all get search and rescue. Second layer was breached ten minutes ago, and the distortion’s already shuffling things around. Our ‘dexmap ain’t gonna be of any use once Layer Three’s breached." They pulled some papers out of their pockets. "These’re your paper orders. If you get lost or hit by a ghost’s mind whammies, read them!"

The guard glanced into the entrance, the melodic chanting inside was getting more intense. "Y'alls pokes know when they see and hear a ghost better than you do. So, if y'all come back out without your pokemon, we have orders to kill. Cyrus ain’t fuckin' around with possessed bitches."

I smirked. Nash and Porter wouldn’t have any issues with that. "Is that everything?" I asked, taking my papers and putting them into my pocket. Neo’s markings were glowing bright, even in the gray morning sun.

The guard nodded. "A high-powered thorns are comin’ in, aiming right for Cyrus’ side. Without Sidney or Grimsley to put them down, we’ve got fires on our ass to get to ascend to the top. This is our last push. Make sure to eat your nutri-bars, you won't know it, but the peaks' at 33,000 feet. There's a reason no one breaches this place or climbs to the top. And it ain't just the magnetic field fuckin' with the nosepass and magnezone."

At the second mention of both Sidney and Grimsley, I realized—those mega stones hadn’t been intended for Porter. I choked, filled with gratitude to the Rai. We crossed the border of the entrance, following a long line of yellow lights. Again, I led the way with Neo on his leash. The paper orders were simple. Comb the areas surrounding the breached floors, searching for those left behind and push them further in, or push them out. They were planning on breaching each layer as fast as they could. The three of us could play search and rescue for anyone cut off for not sticking with the main crews.

The walls were thick. Mount Coronet and the whole range had been carved out eons ago by teams of rhydon and ancient humans. Markings and etching, the old lettering remained, carved into the walls. The academics whom Cress had clearly sent had followed in order to document and capture these relics. Wires of soft yellow lights lined the inner halls, strung along the walls, the cool air of Mount Coronet bristled us as we followed the path to the first of the antechambers. I breathed a slight sigh of relief—someone had convinced a leader that they needed yellow lights to line the path.

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The air was thick and the walls vibrated with the chirp-like chanting. Double-award for those who found a set of ancient chains. It would be nice, as neither Porter nor I had been able to swing any sponsorships, despite our progress in the league. Being a follower of the Rai, we were persecuted at every step, so we took the scraps we could. There was a great reward available for those who found pieces of a particular set of rumored red chains. We were unworried.

The first ghost inside that we passed was a pack of yamask, drifting silently through the halls. These ancient walls managed to contain distortion for millennia. Even ghosts could only barely pass through and consume it. We did not have our pokemon attack the yamask, as they left us alone, drifting along. We entered the first antechamber. The room was large, tipping into a dome, the floor was angled, shifting slight, as if it had been sliced down the center and each side separately rolled along the zed axis. The lights were strung along the floor, shifting orange.

With the first layers open, Mount Coronet’s endless distortion was filling, rolling through the walls, like bubbles in flowing water through pipes. The light shifted, a litwick floating in from high above. Whatever spell this place, these monuments to the gods of creation, whatever spell they were under is broken each time the doors are opened. Dances and visions of orange flitted in our periphery. Neo’s yellow glows outshone the artificial yellow lights.

We stepped into the room. Charts of the layers had been collected with resonance imaging many years before. Though they returned a clear image, the distortion meant we could scarcely rely on that. This room was supposedly dedicated to Dialga. Mar eyed the litwick in the air. Not hungry, and not needing to protect, the murkrow simply watched it from her perch on Nash’s shoulder. In theory, the first floor was supposed to be the largest. In practice, it was the easiest to navigate. It had four total interconnected rooms, each connected to one another, their fourth halls leading up. Despite the mountainous labyrinthe ascending to seven layers, all the way to the top of Mt. Coronet, the chains were supposed to be on the third floor.

The halls on either side angled off into other rooms just like this one, though the maps had always shown them as flat. Porter, Nash, and I exchanged glances under the murmurs and shifting light. It was only a matter of time before we were attacked, but other than Neo’s fur bristling, our pokemon were mum. There was no need to attack.

We three stood in a triangle, raised our hands, and silently gave one more to the Great Rai. A pair of screams erupted off to the right, Crest twitching then bounding off down the hall. Dreams didn’t fulfill themselves. We ran down the hall, stomping to alert any passive ghosts to get out of the way. Porter shouted, and his absol howled back at us as we jogged down. The run took a good five minutes, even with the hallway shifting from angled up to a favorable down. The hallway grew wide, the screams turned to shouts and calls for help, a soft growing bright white bounced around the increasingly reflective hall.

"Turn off your flashlights! We’re coming!" Nash shouted as we rounded the bend, the light waving around. We entered Dialga’s antechamber, met with a pair of women in our same uniform, huddled together, shaking, shining their light, a pack of shuppet, banette, and mismagius dispersing as Crest jumped among them, tossing them about.

"Crest, Pulse!" Porter commanded his absol. "Neo, defend!"

I commanded, letting go of his leash as he hopped ahead to protect the two women. Crest had cut a path through them, Mar flapping its wings, dusting the mismagius, who immediately phased out, floating through the ground. This was a rescue, not a hunt.

"Give me your flashlight!" the fourteen-year-old murkrow owner said, practically ripping it out of the girl’s hands, clicking it off, the banettes dispersing.

"Th-Thank you!" one of the girls said. "W-We thought we were goners!"

"Yeah, you might have been," I said, "if it weren’t for the Great Rai." Their faces turned sour as they stood up. They can learn about the duo’s gifts later.

"Distortion check. Face away from each other and close your eyes." They did so without question, slight relief on their faces. "Hold out your thumbs." They did so. "Now, point your thumbs up. Point left. Now, point to your right. Up again. Now down." Not poisoned by the distortion.

"You’re clear," I said. Or at least, if they were, they were both giving the same answers. When the fourth layer’s breached, the lady who gave us our packs said that poisoning would begin to set in. That doesn’t mean it couldn’t set in before then. At that point, only regular doses of oxygen or straight-up inhaling squirts of potion would keep you alive before you flew with the ghosts.

"What happened to your pokemon?" I asked.

"They ran off down the other hall," she said, pointing at the one on the other side of the room. "We chased them, but they were gone with a flash of orange light, and we were stopped by that pack of banette and shuppet. When we ran the other way, we were stopped by the mismagius!" The room we were in was warped similarly as before, although three steel bowls hung from the ceiling, separated at uneven angles. The walls were angling in, the increasing distortion shifting them around.

"Where are your pokeballs?" Porter asked, while his absol, Crest, roamed the room.

"In here," the one girl said, pulling a pokeball out of her bag. I picked up Neo’s leash as he stood guard around us. No fighting was required for now.

"Let me see it," he demanded, holding out his hand as he approached. The girls stood up, handing it to him. He released the pokeball. A sneasel popped out, looking around, confused. The girls were aghast.

"Let me guess, you’re archaeology students, not trainers," he said, sighing as we began our walk back to the main hall, accompanied by the chorus of chants.

"What!?! It’s that obvious?" one girl wondered aloud.

"Yeah," we said, pretty much in unison. Our pace was swift. The hall had begun to shift in two, dark black showing in the gap. I stepped forward, snapping to where I was supposed to be. I glanced back. The hall behind us had rotated a perfect ninety degrees. Mists of ghastly filtered through, vibrating with the chorus of chants. The rest of the crew followed. The third floor had been breached rather swiftly.

Everyone took a moment before pausing. "Okay, sure. We’re archaeology students. Whatever. Riddle me this, know-it-alls. What’s the deal with the flashlights?" one asked, pulling out a sneasel from her own bag.

Nash just stared at them. "You don’t know?"

Porter spoke up. "Of course they don’t know, Nash. They’re academics, just like Cyrus is the businessman who gave them their flashlights. We’re lucky they didn’t try to string white LED’s all over the place." We proceeded, leading the girls back to the main antechamber. I was in the lead again, Neo’s light guiding us through the shifting halls.

"That color of white light, it agitates the ghosts. See how we’re walking through, passing yamask, ghastly, litwicks, and not even seeing anything like the banettes, even with our pokemon, which are predators?" he said. The chanting was getting louder, a dark mist passing through the walls in front of us. "We are walking through what is easily a kind of well of ambrosia for them right now. They gobble this stuff up—"

The girl piped up, interrupting him. "We know that. Just because we’re students doesn’t mean we didn’t know they wanted us because we had sneasels!" she said, her gold Galactic badge glinting from the reflections of Neo’s light.

"Sorry to interrupt your conversation and wild theorizing," I said, "but we are, in fact, on a mission here. Were there any other people left on this floor? Why were you two alone?"

"We were trying to find a place to use the bathroom. And no one’s left on the first floor," they said.

I smirked.

"Uh-huh," Porter said. "A pair of archaeology students off on their own in the middle of ancient ruins that only get opened up by some misguided hikers and divers once every thirty years or so… Trying to find a bathroom," he verbally ribbed them.

"Ah, let off it, Porter," I said, as we pulled into the initial antechamber. The lights that had been on the floor, evenly-spaced, followed a twisting wire along the ground. The angling of the walls had dramatically increased, but the door to our right had shifted closer by.

Trusting their witness, that they didn’t know of any others on the first layer wandering around, we led the girls and their two sneasels to ascend to the second. Porter’s absol followed us from the rear. Neo let loose a beam of black, pulsing a drifloon in our path, popping the purple ectoplasm in a single shot. No other ghosts reacted. The drifting of ghosts was becoming more frequent. We crossed into the second layer, giant metal, and rock doors, thousands of pounds slid open for the first time in a decade.

I looked at Porter and Nash and the two girls. "We’re combing these halls for people who got stranded or left behind. You can either head back down and leave the mountain or stay with us." The second and third layers were the most dangerous. Covered in traps and generally more confusing, even without the fourth layer opened, which was supposed to be one giant room, shaped like a concert hall, believed to be dedicated to the silent deer itself.

"Problem with that," Nash said, pointing down at the lights as they ended a few hundred feet down. "We don’t know the true path they took to the fourth layer. This direction only cuts off one of the four paths. And Cress help us if we can’t get through." The fifth, sixth, and seventh layers were just really long stairs with doors at each end. They did not open from the outside and were every bit as thick as every other door.

"So, I guess…we’ll have to stick with you three?" The girl asked with a hopeful look in her eyes. They probably were dead without us. If they stayed and fell asleep, there were enough ghosts that the only thing left of their minds would be the brain matter.

"Our job is to look for people who were left behind," I said. "And since you chose not to leave back through the entrance, you’ll have to stick with us." Several lampent floated in the hall, mixing with Neo’s yellow, into a sickly green light.

Porter spoke up, "The commanders breached the third floor, probably thirty minutes ago. We should be checking for distortion poisoning in thirty minutes."

"Agreed," I said, pulling up my watch, and setting up a timer. Drifloon floated down, phasing through the ceiling, pulling distortion in as it passed us. We walked through the hall. I considered having Porter take the two girls and combing the halls with Nash, but they didn’t show any gifts to give me confidence they wouldn’t wind up being pulled along until they joined the flights of ghosts that ate distortion.

Together, we jogged through the halls, our pokemon pushing a few ghosts out of the way, only a few actually accepting the challenge to fight, and all lost. Neo and Crest were both strong. Mar and the sneasels generally had the act of surprise by overwhelming with speed. Because of this, there was no need to be brutal. If we did turn it into a bloodbath, we would lose.

My watch went off. We performed our checks, pausing in a hallway that seemed as if it had been detached from the rest of the labyrinthe, black void on each side. No signs of distortion poisoning. No other stragglers on the floor, though it was tempting to follow the sounds of crying and moaning that erupted down the halls. We progressed, finding the glowsticks and markings of humans who’d traveled through these rooms, telling us they were further forward, ignoring the tempting allure of rooms dancing in gold light.

Banette silently slept in the halls, ignoring us as we passed through their territory, soaking up their ambrosia, fat off the distortion. And still more filtered in. There had to be thousand now, saturating this mountain. We paused to thank the Rai when Mar evolved into a honchkrow. Significantly larger, she carried us across large gaps, skipping rickety bridges.

The rooms had gone from warped and twisted or fractured and shifted in halves, just slightly shifted, slightly rotated. Wherever the distortion was coming from, the third layer hadn’t been the source. Either it was leaking out, or with the increasing congregation of insatiable ghosts, the distortion was reducing.

We found the path the forward crew had taken up, and we paused for a break and some water, feeding our pokemon. Our archaeologists took pictures of various markings, sigils, and carvings in the walls. No one had been left behind on this layer. Mount Coronet still rumbled, the humming of the elusive magi and dreaves chanting as they ran.

Clearing the second layer without only a few minor scuffles, we ascended to the third, following the signs of the large crew moving through. The ghosts were getting stronger and more agitated. More likely to fight back against their intruders—haunters, gengar, dusclops, dusknoir, drifblim, even a mimikyu and a phantump. We had to push at least three of each out of our way. But once we passed and they saw we were not on the hunt, they ignored us, returning to their roaming.

Another rumbling in the mountain, and there was an immediate wave of distortion, almost pushing us back. Under the shifting labyrinthe, we began to run again. We had no more time. "Set all your timers to thirty minutes!" I said. It would take hours for distortion poisoning to really set in. It would, therefore, be in our best interests to stall the use of the masks. We had been so close to catching up to the main crew, too.

"Hey, uh, is it just me, or are we not relying on Neo’s light anymore" Nash said.

"You’re right." One of the archaeology girls responded, a sneasel in her arms. I examined the room. The floor above was rumbling again.

"Yeah, you are," I said. Runes and lines on the walls were growing a soft white. We were surrounded on all sides by ghosts that we’d peacefully passed through, some others knocked aside. "Oh no," I said. "Run!"

The lines of white in the halls flashed once. We dashed forward, some ghosts lashed out. I had to pull Neo from attacking after being slapped by banette. Mar, now a honchkrow, flew forward, driving its talons, emanating black, as if soaked in dark energies, into a gengar that decided to block our way.

The white of the halls had died down, the rooms cracking and twisting and breaking and shifting and turning in the destabilizing distortion. We ran forward, it was the only thing I could think to do. Find the trap and disable its mechanism before we all die.

The walls flashed again. A lampent flung flames in all directions, not distinguishing between friend or foe, the disrupted chanting slamming into a cacophony of angry screams. Shuppet, disoriented, their phasing disrupted by the ancient’s evil traps. The mountain rumbled, and the walls flashed bright. The beeping on my hands continued to go. One of the girls screamed, a yamask grabbing its hair as it hung off her shoulders.

Her friend had tripped and fallen behind us, the other sneasel even evolving as it struggled to fight off the angry ghosts. My watch continued to beep, the walls flashed brighter again, this time holding for a few seconds. Some fell to the floor, their flight and phasing disrupted by the light, rolling around and knocking each other around. Porter’s absol ran with Neo and Mar, literally plowing our way free of the poor, angered souls.

A phantump let out a whip of a vine, tripping Nash. "Ugh!" he grunted. "Find out how to turn it off! I’ll catch up!"

I waved back to him, praying to Cress that the moon goddess would show us the path forward. We ran through the twitching, twisting, shattered halls. Porter and our three pokemon ran forward. Mar did not defend his owner. Had Darkrai spoken to her?

The light faded again, and we turned around another hall. Running sideways across bridges, passing rooms of dancing orange light, Porter was panting, we paused. He pulled out his mask, reminding me that I needed to do it as well. He threw out two pokeballs. Members of his team he kept in reserve.

"I can’t do it, Aiden." He said, handing me Crest’s pokeball. "I can’t leave the three of them behind." He ran back, leaving me with Mar, Crest, and Neo. I turned back, as the three pokemon blasted multiple ghosts, rushing forward breathing through the mask I’d just pulled out, not sure where to go, I trusted the three.

We ran up a hall, where the runes and etchings ended, the flashing faded. Yet still, we were pursued by the angry ghosts who were still lashing out at us. More than one poor ghost dropped to the floor, hit by a Dark Pulse, their body rapidly fading as our attacks became more frantic.

What felt like hours of running later, we paused in the thick of the distortion, in a room awash in a glow of purple and red. On the wall were three red crystals in a diamond pattern, an empty fourth slot below. A banette stood in front of me, Neo growling from the front of the room. I took a breath in my mask, noticing three dim red Chandelure floating through the wall. Despite the distortion, this room had kept its dimensions.

Multiple misdreavus floated in the air, shuppets rolled about. "Stay. Guard." I told Neo as the absol and honchkrow fended off the angry ghosts that chose to follow us. I held my hands up to the banette and stepped forward. The bottom crystal on the wall had broken. The floor above rumbled, the misdreavus’ chants giving the chilly mountain air a smooth feel.

The banette let me pass. I walked to the wall, reached up to the topmost crystal, pulled it off, and smashed it into the floor. Rumblings and clinking sounds echoed through the halls. I pulled the same for the other two, hopefully disabling whatever terrible ancient technology powered this system.

I turned back, and in front of me sat cross-legged, a boy, not nine years old. Sitting on the icy ground, chanting to himself, little shuppets moved with his hands, bathed in the chandelure’s light.