Within a dark cave in the side of a mountain, a lone Pokémon walked through a narrow passageway. That Pokémon, one that looked like sandy colored rocks walking along the gray rocks of the cave, looking around frantically for something. They eventually found it, a small golden ingot within the top of part of the wall. Their face lit up at the sight of it, and they hastened themselves onward.

It was only seconds later when they reached the room they were looking for. The room was fully gilded, and the shine from it was a light within the deep dark cave. Various treasures were also filled in the room: red jars with golden rings and jewels around it, golden furniture, silky purple carpets with gold trimming around it that looked comfortable and beautiful, and in the center, a red treasure chest filled with golden coins. The Pokémon's eyes lit up at the sight of everything in the room.

"So, this is it," he said with his deep voice. "The famous Gilded Room. The treasures here are said to be centuries old. And these treasures are mine! Woo! Early retirement and a life of luxury here I come!"

The Pokémon walked forward to pick up the treasures, but stopped as soon as a noise reached his ears.

"Halt!" two young voices, a male and a female, rang out.

"Wha…who's there?" the Pokémon asked.

"This area is reserved for the Expedition Society for an archeological investigation," the young female voice said. "This area needs to be preserved as an archeological relic. Turn back now."

"W-who's gonna stop me?" the Pokémon asked, starting to grow angry. "Show yourselves!"

"Heh, you'll regret asking that," the young female voice said confidently.

First a yellow mouse wearing a green stripped scarf jumped down, his lighting shaped tail wreathed in a silver coating. "The Luminescent Blade, Light," the young male voice said.

Next a yellow fox wearing a similar green scarf as her partner came from above, swirling fire around her when she landed on the ground. "The Fiery Spirit, Fennix," the young female voice said.

The duo pointed with their right paws at the golem. "You can't beat us; 'cause we'll just rise from ashes to fight again. We're the Expedition Society's main explorers, Team Rebirth!"

The golem took a step back out of surprise. "Wha…Team...Rebirth? Who…?" But, after a couple seconds of stuttering, the rock/ground-type eventually realized something, and when he did, he looked at the duo with anger. "Wait a minute, you're just a couple of kids! Scram! Go play somewhere else!"

"Couple of kids?" Fennix asked. "Oh come on! That totally sounded cool!"

Light just rolled his eyes. "Give it up, Fennix," he said. Looking at the golem, he said, "Regardless, we are members of the Expedition Society, and this place is still closed off. So sorry, but you're gonna have to leave now."

"Excuse me!" the golem yelled. "I ain't gonna let this random pikachu kid tell me what to do. How about the two of you skedaddle before I make you wish you did!"

"Heh, we're not afraid of you," Fennix said pridefully. "Bring it on!"

"Fine, but don't say I didn't warn you!" the golem announced.

He quickly ran towards the two kids, prepared to barrel over them. While he was running, Light's eyes glowed green and he kneeled down to place his left paw on the ground, green energy pouring to the floor. Suddenly, a small spot of grass grew under the golem's feet, tripping him. While he was tripping, Light wreathed his tail in silver again and slammed his tail into the golem's face, knocking him backwards while he was falling forwards.

Golem eventually got himself back up and looked at Light angrily this time. "Alright kid, the kid gloves come off now!" the golem said.

"Sure, sure," Light said in a board voice. "Just one more thing, first." He smiled. "Good-bye."

Light jumped into the air, doing a backflip, when a green light filled the golem's vision. The Solarbeam, shot straight from the mouth of Fennix, blew golem back like he was as light as paper. The force of the attack sent golem flying away from the Gilded Room and away from the treasure he was after.

Light wiped the dust off him and the sweat from the fur on his forehead after the battle. The golem was gone and, if Light had a guess, he probably wasn't coming back. So, Light relaxed his muscles for now, while there weren't any enemies around. Fennix on the other hand, was celebrating by bounding around and wagging her tail happily.

"Wow, that was so fun!" Fennix called out cheerfully. "No wonder boss Pokémon spend so much time at the end of dungeons. It's so much fun ambushing Pokémon at the end!"

"The Expedition Society are apparently great influences," Light snarked with a light-hearted chuckle.

"Oh come on, Light, you can't tell me that wasn't fun," Fennix said. "Admit it!"

Light just rolled his eyes. "Don't forget why we're here," Light said, changing the subject. "We need to keep Pokémon out until the Chief and Mawile get here."

"Yeah, I know," Fennix said. "It's strange, though. Didn't the Chief say that no one would come around?"

Before Light could even answer, they both heard a buzzing sound within their ears. Light and Fennix reached into their green scarves and got out a gray-blue hexagonal device with circular nubs at each of the six corners, minus the one at the bottom. The two pressed their Expedition Gadgets, and it started to glow, projecting a voice from the device.

"Light, Fennix, can you hear me?" the female voice asked.

"Loud and clear Dedenne," Light responded. "What's up?"

"Just checking in to see how you two are doing," Dedenne said. "You guys bored over there already? I kinda feel sorry you guys got the short end of the stick and were forced to wait there."

"Pfft, are you kidding?" Fennix asked. "We've been having a blast!"

"Uhh…?"

Light decided to fill Dedenne in on what happened in the past couple of minutes.

"So that golem called it the Gilded Room, huh?" Dedenne asked. "I'm glad you guys managed to beat it but this…isn't good. I thought we were the first to discover this place. But if it's a legend among explorers…"

"I'd guess having random bounty hunters coming in for loot while we're researching this place isn't exactly good, right?" Light asked.

"Mawile and the Chief should be able to handle pretty much everyone that comes, but we'd worry about accidently damaging the artifacts," Dedenne mused. "We might need to excavate the place and have Mawile examine them at base."

"Sounds like a lot of work," Fennix said.

"I'll be sending Bunnelby over as soon as he comes back," Dedenne said. "He's pretty good at doing this like that. We were going to have you guys come back as soon as the Chief and Mawile got there, but would you three mind waiting there until Bunnelby gets there as well? We're going to need as many paws as possible to get all treasures out of there for examination."

"We're gonna have to carry all of these artifacts out?!" Fennix asked.

"We'll be here," Light promised, ignoring his partner's outburst.

"Alright, good to know," Dedenne said, also ignoring Fennix. "I need to contact the Chief now. Dedenne, out!"

Their Expedition Devices lost their glow and Light placed his immediately back into his scarf. He stretched, letting out a small noise as he did so, before looking over at his partner. All it took was one look at her face for him to tell she was annoyed.

"Hey, it could be worse," Light said.

"Yeah, I know," Fennix admitted. "But this sounds like a lot of annoying work getting everything out of here and back to the base."

"Not all our work is going to be fun," Light mentioned. "You'd figure we're going to have tedious moments working for the society sometimes. Just think of it this way: at least the reward will be pretty good."

"Yeah, you're right," Fennix said. She looked towards the treasures behind them. "We can examine these artifacts, figure out why they're made, for what purpose, and advance our knowledge about the past. We can learn a whole bunch from these artifacts. I get that." Fennix faced Light. "What do you think we'll learn from these?"

"Hmm…" Light looked towards the treasures. "Well, from a glance you can tell the Pokémon like beautiful objects. This place looks really amazing and the objects here look really valuable. They must want whatever is beautiful regardless of the difficulty getting it or the cost. But I don't know…it seems like kinda a waste to keep them all horded up like that."

"There could be many reasons for why they horde these valuable objects here, actually," a voice from behind Team Rebirth said. Light and Fennix turned around to see Mawile and Ampharos walking into the Gilded Room, Ampharos looking as dizzy and out of it as usual when traveling anywhere.

"Chief Ampharos, Mawile, good to see you two," Fennix said as she saw them. "Glad to see you guys here quickly!"

"Yes, well as you can see, I made it here just fine," Ampharos said.

"So, how many times did you get lost?" Light asked.

"He ended up going the wrong way only once or twice," Mawile said. "Beyond that, we made it here without much incident, which is why we're ahead of schedule."

Light nodded. "Alright then. So what do you mean by the many reasons why they horde objects like this?" Light asked.

"To whoever created this room, having all these jewels and gold could be a sign of wealth or stature," Mawile explained. "Or these objects were a gift that was given to the previous owner of the room, increasing the value of these objects beyond the point where they would be willing to part with them. It's hard to say for sure right now, but it's fascinating thinking about why they would want to keep these hidden and safe."

"Kinda makes me feel bad for taking them, then," Fennix said.

"I can understand the feeling, my young friend," Ampharos said. "Thinking of that does make one feel guilty for taking these away. However, the original owner has likely passed away centuries ago and these objects are doing nothing sitting here, collecting dust. Instead, we can put them to good use in helping us understand society as it was around that time. In that way, we give the objects an extra purpose."

Ampharos nodded. "Of course, that's just my personal feelings on the subject. You are free to disagree with me."

"Better than letting some bounty hunter get their hands on it," Light said.

Fennix's face lit up with realization. "Oh, yeah, that's right! Did you guys here from Dedenne about…?"

"We did indeed," Mawile answered before Fennix finished. "We also heard that Bunnelby is on his way. While we're waiting for him, it's best we inspect the objects to determine how best to move them."

"How are we moving them anyways?" Light asked. "Are we like, burrowing under the guild or something?"

"That is correct," Mawile said. "We have a small tunnel underneath the Society building. Bunnelby usually keeps it covered for us when it's not in use, so no one accidently falls in, but we can transport and store the objects there temporarily

"Oh, really?" Fennix asked, her eyes glowing. "Cool! We have a secret passage under the building! That's amazing!"

"Glad to know after how long we've been in the Society," Light snarked.

"Well well well, I wonder why that was never mentioned until now," Ampharos asked.

Mawile explained. "We were busy with the turning to stone incidents at the time and had no use for it. This is the first time we've had a reason to use it since then. So, since we didn't use it, we didn't think of whether the two of you knew it existed or not."

Light waved a paw. "It's alright," he said. "We didn't really need to know it until now anyways."

"Alright then. Would you two terribly mind helping us inspect the place before Bunnelby gets here?" Ampharos asked.

"We're on it Chief," Light said with a nod.


After finishing excavating the place, and a long dinner, Light and Fennix were resting together in their crew room. Light was lying with his back on his straw building, paws behind his head, looking up towards the pinkish celling of his crew room. He could hear some rubbing and smelled some smoke to his right, prompting him to look in that direction. There he saw Fennix against the pink back wall, writing underneath the brown framed window in her red diary. She wrote with a small stick sticking out of her mouth that had a small concentrated fire burning to burn out the words of the page she was one. A part of Light found it kinda impressive that she was able to control the fire that well, and the other part remembered how worried he was that she would accidently burn down the building when he first saw her doing it. There was a highly flammable rope on the wall to her right and some guild rules to her left that she could hit if she weren't careful. Still, Fennix did that same routine every day and hadn't burned down anything yet, so Light let her be.

"So, writing about today in there?" Light asked.

"Mmm…mostly," she answered, still concentrated on her work. "Talking about what happened, how awesome Bunnelby was while excavating, all the treasures, things like that."

Light gave a contented sigh before going into his thoughts. I've always been curious as to what exactly you write in there. But, I figure if there's anything I need to know, you'd tell me. He chuckled. Not that I could sneak a peek anyways. We're always together, so it's hard to actually take a look without her noticing.

"Mawile should be examining those treasures right now," Light said. "Wonder what she's going to find out?"

"I hope we learn something cool!" Fennix mentioned. "Did you know that this building was made based on some of Mawile's findings? It's really awesome when you think about it! We're living in a piece of history!"

"Sure, sounds cool," Light said. "Anyways, when you're done writing in that, we should get some sleep. It's getting late and tomorrow's another day."

"Alright, just give me a couple," Fennix said.

Light closed his eyes, preparing to fall asleep. And, as the seconds ticked by and the only sound was the slight methodical sounds of the fire burning, Light felt himself losing consciousness quickly. Night…Fennix, Light thought as he finally felt himself starting to fall asleep.

"…Excuse me," a voice asked, loud enough so Light could hear it in his half-conscious state without being too loud. Still, it was enough that it aroused Light back up, so he opened his eyes to see who was calling to him.

The first thing he noticed when he opened his eyes was Fennix, stick still in her mouth and still smoking, looking over at the entrance. So, Light shifted his head around towards the other side to see Mawile was standing there at the entrance to their room, looking over the two of them. Light quickly shifted himself so that he was sitting up in his bed instead of lying down as he looked over his superior.

"Mawile," Light said. "What are you here for?"

"There's something I found among the artifacts we found today that I want the two of you to inspect for me, if you don't mind," Mawile explained.

"The two…of us?" Fennix asked.

Light looked over her for a few seconds before guessing what Mawile was exactly asking for. "Alright, I get why you want Fennix there, but why me?" Light asked.

"You're right, I do mostly need Fennix there," Mawile admitted. "However, I figure you'd want to know, just in case anyways."

"Wait…what's going on?" Fennix asked, still not getting it.

Light examined Mawile a couple of seconds before nodding. "Alright, show us," he said.

Mawile nodded before turning to leave, Light and Fennix following her. They took a right, walking towards the central meeting room. In there, the brown floor was usually adorned with the Expedition Society's symbol, a gear with a Pokémon symbol inside of it, but this time in the center of the circle was a hole that was dug up from below, where Mawile held the treasures. Mawile jumped down to the treasure room, Light and Fennix hopping down close behind her.

There they saw that, since they left, Mawile and Bunnelby made the hole below the floor into the exact shape and size of the Gilded Room, placing the treasures into positions similar to the ones they were in the room. They even made a hole to simulate the cave entrance that lead to the Gilded Room, despite Bunnelby closing off passage between the cave and the society so they couldn't be followed. The only differences were the ladder to get in, and that Mawile placed up a bunch of lanterns on the walls around the room to help her see better. Beyond that, it was exactly the same, down to the last detail. Light's mouth opened up in amazement at how well they recreated the room.

"Geez, you didn't spare a single detail, did you?" Light asked.

"Recreating the original room is just as important as having the objects in the first place," Mawile said. "There could be several reasons as to why each object is placed where it is, and discovering that reason could tell us a lot about their original owner. But that stuff is not why you're here."

Mawile walked over to one of the red jars and reached into it. Hidden within was a small gray tablet, a stark contrast to all the gold and jeweled objects within the room. "I noticed this object immediately and found it strange compared to the more valuable objects in the room," Mawile explained as she grabbed it and brought it back to Light and Fennix for them to examine. "Why would they leave something like this in an otherwise astatically beautiful room, especially hiding it when there are more valuable things to hide. But…after looking at it, I quickly figured out why it was here." Mawile placed it down in front of Light and Fennix to allow them a look at it. Light immediately knew what Mawile was talking about just from looking at.

"That's…the Ancient Footprint Runes, right?" Light asked.

Mawile nodded. "Yeah, exactly," he said. "So Fennix, if you would."

Fennix looked over the stone tablet for a few seconds, mumbling to herself as she did. Eventually her eyes widened in shock. "This…this can't be!" she yelled.

"'Can't be?'" Mawile asked.

"What is it, Fennix?" Light also asked.

"I-t's nothing, it's just…" Fennix looked over the words on the tablet one more time. "I just…don't understand…"

"Really?" Mawile asked. "I thought you said, despite the fact that you lost all memories of being Mew in coming back to this world, that you can still read the ancient script."

"T-that's not what I mean," Fennix said. "I mean…I can read what's written on here, but I'm not sure I believe it."

"How about you just tell us what it says?" Light asked, cutting to the chase.

Fennix paused for a moment. "It…it says: 'Thank you for all your help in the fight against Dark Matter. I won't be needing any of these treasures anymore, so you may keep them. I just have one thing to ask you." Fennix paused for a second before continuing. "A young fennekin will appear sometime in the future somewhere outside of that mountain we chose to seal the Luminous Water away in, generations from now. It should be in a forest somewhere outside the village that's being built there to protect the springs. I want you to ensure that the scarves are wrapped around her when she appears.'"

"W-wait, is it talking about?" Light asked, his eyes directed on the green scarf around Fennix's neck, a replica of the ones talked about in the tablet.

"I was always curious about that, actually," Mawile said. "According to the Chief, he learned that the Harmony Scarves were passed down through generations of a certain tribe. Therefore, the scarves likely didn't simply appear on you as Mew finished his reincarnation into Fennix. So how did you come to possess those scarves?"

Fennix looked to the floor, shaking her head as she did so. "I don't really know," Fennix admitted. "I lost all my memories of the past when I came back. So I don't know who Mew gave those treasures to, nor who he entrusted the Harmony Scarves to. All I know is what my pops said. He told me that he found the scarves already on me when he found me. I don't know anything else."

"Hmm…" Light mused. "I'm not really much help either. I haven't regained any of my memories from when I was a human either."

Not that I mind, Light admitted to himself. I'm perfectly fine with just being Light the Pikachu, partner to Fennix and part of the Expedition Society's Team Rebirth. I don't need to know who I was.

"Yes, I'm curious about this letter as well," Mawile said. "How did Mew know that the Pokémon they entrusted the scarves to would ensure the scarves reached you when they were needed? Several generations would have passed in between those events and now. We know for a fact that much about what went on back then has been lost to the sands of time, only to be recently uncovered. Yet the request was still accomplished somehow."

Light thought about things for a few seconds, his paw rubbing under his chin. "Hmm… we could ask Xerneas, I guess," Light said. "But…I'd rather not do that. At least, not yet. Besides, he'd be able to tell us who Mew entrusted the scarves to in the first place, but not who gave it to Fennix."

Besides, last time Xerneas gave Fennix memories…that happened, Light thought. And I'd rather not go through that again.

"I suppose that makes sense," Mawile said. "I'd keep that as a possibility, though."

"We will," Light lied, hoping in the depths of his heart that it wouldn't come to that. "But for now, I guess we'll just have to look elsewhere."

Fennix nodded. "Our next Expedition, then."

"I figured you guys would say that," Mawile said. "I'll clear it with the Chief for you guys. For now, I'd recommend you two get some sleep. Tomorrow you can begin your expedition."

Light bowed. "Thanks Mawile, we'll do that." Looking towards Fennix, Light nodded. "Let's head to our rooms and rest up then. Tomorrow, we'll head out."

"Yeah, on it," Fennix said.

The two of the walked the ladder out of the hole and back into the waiting room. Light lead them back to their room, where he immediately went to his bed back into the same position he was before Mawile interrupted. Fennix, on the other hand, stood up in her bed, looking at the pikachu as he closed his eyes.

"So…where are we gonna start, anyway?" Fennix asked before Light fell asleep. "Do you have a plan?"

"I've got a plan, actually," Light said. "You see, we're really stuck when you think about it. We could wait for Mawile to discover more about the place and its owner, but we don't even know if that will help us. That Pokémon could be long gone by now. Instead, I think it's best if we search the place Carracosta found you."

"The place my old pops found me?!" Fennix asked.

"It's just a feeling I've got, honestly," Light said. "Maybe if we find where you were born, we can find some clue as to how the scarves got there. It's an idea, anyways."

"Admit it, you just want an excuse to go back to Serene Village," Fennix teased.

"Maybe," Light admitted, "but it's still a thought, either way."

"Yeah, I get it," Fennix said. She finally lied down on her stomach in her bed and closed her eyes. "Alright then, tomorrow we'll go to Serene Village. We'll ask my Pops where he found me and we'll find out more. My past, your past, tomorrow we'll find out more about both. So let's do our best tomorrow."

"Yeah, we will," Light said with a smile.

Before he went to sleep, though, he had one last thought that took his smile away quickly. I just…hope that nothing happens because of this. According to Xerneas, Fennix was only able to come back in the first place because she grew different enough from Mew that she had her own soul. But…if Fennix learns more about her past life…could that be enough to…?

Light shook his head. No…I shouldn't think like this. Fennix would hate me for thinking like this. I'll just have to help her as best as I can…tomorrow.