It was another day in Rebirth's Cave. Liu, Aeon, and Echo were helping Team Rebirth sort through several item piles in the cave, organizing them as best they could. It had also been almost a year since Liu's unfortunate incident with Team Double T. In the first weeks after, she had been incredibly suspicious of anyone and everyone who approached her. She seemed to be watching other pokemon, as if trying to see something that no one else could see. Often times, the pokemon in the cave could almost feel her staring at them, and many made an effort to simply avoid Liu altogether.

After several months, Liu had settled down a bit, but when confronted, she refused to speak about what had happened at all, and often got angry and distrusting of those who asked, including Aeon and Echo, much to their dismay. It became clear that, whatever had happened, it had left a deep mental scar, and Liu wasn't going to discuss it any time soon. And so, life went on, many of the pokemon in the cave forgetting about it, save Aeon and Echo. But they never brought it up when Liu was around.

In the present, fall, then winter, had come and gone, leading to Team Oddity doing spring cleaning along with everyone else. "Berries... potions... evolution stones..." Aeon muttered to himself, making a mental catalogue. "Hey, how did you guys end up with these, anyway? Potions are human-made, aren't they?" He called out loud.

Absol's voice responded from somewhere in the back of the cave. "We don't know, really! A lot of this stuff just... washes up here, or new pokemon who arrive at the cave drop it off. The trash we throw out, but if there's anything useful, we keep it. Just keep the human stuff separate — that'll be its own task for another day."

Aeon grunted and tossed a potion into a different pile. "It'd be nice to find some poké in here, but I doubt it has much use these days... relics of the past, I guess." His gaze shifted to another pile, this one piled high with berries of varying kinds. "Hey, Liu?"

Liu poked her head out from behind a pile to the left. "Yeah? What?" She responded.

"Where did Ninetales want the berries again?" Aeon scratched his head.

Liu rolled her eyes. "Back of the cave, second from the right. And you're supposed to sort them by color, remember?"

"Yeah, yeah." Aeon waved her off. She muttered something under her breath and disappeared again. As he looked around at the rest of the cave, and the work that was yet to come, he grumbled in frustration. "Jeez. I know they're letting us live here, so we should help out, but all this mess? Really?"

"Come on, Aeon! It's not that bad!" Echo called from a few feet away, engrossed in sorting a pile of other healing items, like revives and burn cures. "I mean, it's kind of satisfying to see everything having its own place, don't you think?"

"Not really." Aeon mumbled. "As long as you can get to the stuff, it doesn't matter to me."

"What?" Echo responded. "I couldn't hear you."

Louder, Aeon yelled "Nothing! Just agreeing with you!" He shook his head in annoyance, and picked up another potion. "The sooner we're done with this, the better."

---

As night began to fall, Ninetales called out to the cave "Alright, everyone! I think we've done the best we can do for today! Let's take a break and get ready for bed." Sighs of relief and cheers sounded through the cave. Everyone dispersed from their piles and was left to their own devices. 

Aeon went to his bed in Team Oddity's area, and laid out on his back, stretching out. "Ahhh, man. Glad that's over."

"It's not OVER, Aeon. It's just on hold." Liu's voice sounded from above him. As Aeon opened his eyes, he saw her standing above him, her paws on her hips and a look of exasperation on her face. "We're going to have to do it again tomorrow."

He grinned and shut his eyes again. "That's tomorrow's problem. We're not there yet, so quit worryin' about it."

Liu gave an annoyed sigh and shook her head. "You're such an idiot." She floated over and sat on her own bed. After a few moments, a look of discomfort crossed her face and she moved the straw around for several minutes. Finally she let out a growl. "Ugh! This stuff is impossible! How can you people sleep on this?!"

"I think it's pretty soft, actually." Echo plodded over, circling a few times before laying down in his own bed. "It could be worse."

"It could also be better!" Liu exclaimed, kicking at the straw, as if trying to beat it into submission. "You have long, thick fur, blue-eyes, so anything and everything feels soft to you. And Aeon just has no standards."

Aeon chuckled, putting his paws behind his head. "You don't rough it very often, do you? You gotta make do with what you have. This is all we have, and I'm making do. It's a heck of a lot nicer than some of the places I've stayed in. My standards aren't low, yours are just too high. Not all of us just get to sleep in a magical fairy bubble."

Liu sputtered in disbelief. "Magic fairy bubble?! What, you think it's made of Rapidash dreams and Beautifly scales?" Echo let out a quiet snort and Liu turned to glare at him. "It's a regular, pink, psychic bubble. It's not magic and it's NOT made of fairy dust."

"Yeah, whatever." Aeon yawned. "You can pull up your bubble-bed whenever you want, but the rest of us have to sleep on this. And it wouldn't be so bad if you tried it more often. You might even get used to it."

Liu was about to respond, but Delphox announced from the center of the cave "It's lights out! Good night everyone, and get some decent sleep! Tomorrow we must keep at it!" With that, she waved her paw, and all the torches in the cave extinguished themselves.

Liu rolled her eyes and simply put her paws close together, creating a small, pink bubble in between them. She closed her eyes, and the bubble slowly grew to about four times Liu's size. She floated inside it, and began spouting pink fog from her paws, until it was impossible to see into.

Aeon and Echo watched, then glanced at each other. Aeon rolled his eyes, and then rolled over himself. "Night, Echo."

Echo put his head on his paws. "G'night, Aeon. Sleep well."

---

As morning broke, Echo was the first member of Team Oddity to wake. Aeon was sprawled out on his back, mouth ajar in a contented smile. Echo looked over to Liu's bubble, but as usual, the only thing he could see was a faint blue glow through the fog. He looked around, and saw Ninetales awake. Echo stretched, and then padded over to Ninetales, about to greet her. Then he saw her worried expression. As he watched, Absol and Delphox emerged from one of the tunnels near the back of the cave. Like Ninetales, their faces were downcast.

"No good, Ninetales." Absol spoke first, her tone quiet so as not to wake anyone. "We still can't get it to stop. And we can't get any closer without some kind of hearing protection. Even if we had some, there's no guarantee we'd be able to do anything about it once we got there."

"We still don't know where it's coming from?" Ninetales asked in a concerned tone. "If we don't do something soon, it won't matter how many rocks we put in the way..."

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

"Um, excuse me..." Echo spoke up. "Are you guys worried about something?"

Ninetales turned and tried her best for a smile. "Good morning, Echo. It's nothing too major, but we've been trying to put a stop to... a disturbance within the tunnels."

Echo tilted his head. "Disturbance? Like what?"

Team Rebirth exchanged glances, then Absol responded "It's... well, it's a lullaby, to put it frankly."

Echo stared at them blankly. "A... lullaby?"

Delphox nodded. "A lullaby. I know it may sound a bit strange, but it's a real problem. Deep within the tunnels, there's a haunting, yet peaceful tune that only occurs during the day. Before we did something about it, the melody would waft out into the cave proper, inexplicably putting anyone who heard it to sleep."

Echo was nervous now. "Well, what did you do to stop it?"

Ninetales sighed. "At the moment, we've blocked the tunnel it's coming from off with a boulder. But I don't think it matters; the melody gets stronger by the day, and without a better plan, we may not be able to stop it. We could get things done during nightfall, but none of us are nocturnal, and it isn't fair anyway to try and work while the others are sleeping."

"Sorry for eavesdropping, but... I did hear you don't know where it's coming from. But then, you managed to block it off with a boulder?" Echo asked, confused.

"Well, that's the other problem. We don't know exactly where it's coming from. We've tried several times to follow it, but none of us can get very far without starting to feel drowsy. We only put a boulder in front of the area where that starts to happen. But it blocks off a huge section of the tunnel system, and some of those tunnels are important." Absol explained. "If we don't find a different way soon, we may have to bring the boulder closer to the main cave, which would block off even more tunnels. And even then, eventually, the melody would get loud enough to break through anyway." Absol shook her head. "It's a real dilemma, that's for sure."

"I might be able to help with that." A voice sounded from behind them. They all turned to see Aeon there, grinning. "Sorry. I didn't mean to overhear."

"Aeon! I didn't know you were awake." Echo replied.

"Meh, only for a few minutes so far. But, I might have a solution. ...Well, a partial solution." Aeon stated begrudgingly. "Without knowing where the source is, and with it getting louder every day, it's still temporary. We would need to find some way to track it."

Ninetales cocked her head. "Go on."

Aeon's grin returned. "Well, here's the thing. I've got item stashes like this all around the region. I don't remember where they all are by now, but I know where one is, that might have just what you're looking for — earplugs."

"Earplugs?" Echo repeated, not understanding.

"They're little foamy things humans use to block out sound. You put 'em in your ears." Aeon explained. "Hearing protection, basically." Aeon's smile faded, and his face grew somber. "But, like I said. It's a temporary solution. Unless you guys have a way to stop it, this'll only buy you some time."

Team Rebirth's faces fell. "That's... unfortunate." Delphox sighed. "We don't even know what it is, or Arceus forbid, a who. And we've tried finding any unusual scent trails, but for some reason, there's no trails leading to, or from the area where the sound is, save our own footprints. It's like no one's ever been there at all."

Echo thought for a moment. Then, he said "Have you tried other methods?"

Absol turned to him. "What do you mean?"

"Well, I mean, there's the five senses, sure. Hearing and sight, smell. But sometimes those don't help very much. There's other ways to track something, or someone." Echo responded. "For example, any kind of unusual energy signatures; some pokemon can sense those. There's also, um..." Echo paused. "Aura reading... as well."

"Aura reading?" Aeon asked quizzically.

"Y-yeah. So like, every living thing has this kinda... color, to it. Like, it's a really specific energy, type thing? You can tell a lot about a pokemon just from their aura. How healthy they are, what they're feeling, but more importantly, they leave behind an aura trail whenever they go somewhere. And it takes a long, long, time for that to fade; their leftover aura isn't going anywhere." Echo clarified.

"Hm. That does sound promising, but we don't have any pokemon with such an ability in this cafe, as far as I am aware." Delphox said thoughtfully. Echo's eyes widened and he laughed nervously. "Oh well! That's a shame, I guess you guys will have to think of something else. Sorry, I shouldn't have even brought it up, my bad!"

Aeon stared hard at Echo. "That aside, how do YOU know about it? From what it sounds like, that's something that only psychic-types should be able to pick up on."

"I-I, uh... well, I just..." Echo stammered. It seemed as if he was searching for excuses. But apparently, he couldn't find any, because after a time, he sighed. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to hide it from you guys, but actually... I can read auras." Before anyone could respond, he rushed on "I never tell anyone about it, because if they knew, they'd probably look at me and think I was weird or dangerous or... I dunno. Now that you guys know, you probably hate me too."

For a time, everyone was silent. Then, another voice spoke from behind them. "Why would we hate you?" 

Echo turned to see Liu floating there, her arms crossed. "Liu! Oh, uh... good morning—"

"Don't give me any of that." Liu snapped. "I asked you a question. Why would we hate you just because you can see auras or whatever? You're already a shiny Eevee, and you've got eyes that are bluer than anyone else I've ever seen. If we didn't hate you for that stuff, why would we hate you for this?"

Echo was taken aback. "Well, I mean... I-... I just thought—"

"Thought what, that a color changing Mew and black-and-white Furret would judge you for your looks?" Aeon joked. "Nah. We're in this together, Echo, same as always." Echo beamed with admiration, a smile cracking across his face as his tail wagged furiously. Aeon chuckled, then continued "But more to the point, that ability of yours is going to come in real handy. If you guys give me a few minutes, I can go get some hearing protection and we can go look for you guys."

Delphox blinked. "You? As in, Team Oddity? There's no way we'd let you go in and try and do something this dangerous."

Aeon's smile faded slightly. "I'm sorry?"

Delphox realized she may have sounded harsh, and hurriedly said "What I mean is, we appreciate the offer, but we know these tunnels better than anyone; it'd be safer for us to do it ourselves."

"Safer, sure." Aeon stated. "But are we, or are we not, an exploration team?"

Absol spoke up. "That's not—"

"Not what?" He turned to her. "Exploration teams explore, don't they? You've had your chance to explore the caves. It's not fair to hog it all to yourselves. And it's not a mystery dungeon, so the layout is always gonna be the same. If we don't come back, you can just come look for us."

Team Rebirth looked at each other. Then, Ninetales sighed. "I suppose nothing we say will stop you. Alright, we'll allow it, but if you're not back in two hours or less, we're coming ourselves. Why is this so important to you, though?"

"Do you even need to ask?" Aeon replied. "You guys took us in and gave us food and a place to stay. This is the least we can do."

"I really hate to admit it, but Aeon's right. We haven't done much to repay the favor other than help keep things clean around here." Liu grumbled. "And if we're dead-set on this exploration team thing, we're gonna need to get the experience somehow."

Echo looked at the two of them, then at Team Rebirth. "I mean, if they're gonna go, I have to come anyway to find the source. I'm no good in a fight though, so I need Aeon and Liu to keep me safe."

"But if we're not with you, how are you supposed to move the boulder?" Absol asked.

"Leave that to me." Liu gave a rare smile. "I can use almost any move, so I'll just shove it out of the way."

"Well... if you're all sure about this." Delphox shook her head. "We do appreciate it. Really. Go get your hearing protection and meet us back here. Then we'll send you in."

"Gotcha." Aeon nodded, before running off to the outside of the cave. Liu and Echo watched him go, and Liu said "His speed really is something else, that's for sure. Come on, Echo. Let's go see if there's anything in the cave we might need to take with us."

"Right!" Echo nodded, and they started going through the piles.

Ninetails sighed, and gave Absol and Delphox a pointed look. "I do hope they know what they're getting themselves into..."