Façade

Maybe the reasons were different. The waterfall was forbidden because it was dangerous. The mountains were forbidden because it was mining territory. The volcano was really hot. This house was forbidden because it was sentimental. But there was something that connected the other two to one another, and I'd bet my pokéballs this house was the same somehow. I just needed to find the entrance.

"What are you doing?" Drew caught me knocking around on the walls and kicking hard on the floors. He appeared to be much more upset than he was a moment ago when I left him to his research. Maybe he was a little peeved to find me imposing on the ground he just explained to me was sacred to the people of Stannum Village. Or maybe he had a wedgie and was taking it out on me.

"Um… You don't happen to know if there are any secret passages in this place, do you?"

"What in the world would possess you to believe there are secret passages here?"

I paused. "Your tone sounds rhetorical. You don't really expect me to answer that question, do you?"

"I expect you to respect the wishes of the villagers and leave these premises quietly and without trying to destroy anything."

"I'm not trying to destroy anything. I'm trying to find the underground temple I feel pretty certain is buried here. Why else would they choose this specific house to preserve and forbid access?"

Maybe I sounded like a rambling lunatic because Drew's voice reeked of exasperation. "Because the Hydrogen Emperor was born here!"

"Exactly why they would hide it here! He's the one who rose up against the legendary pokémon, right? What better place to seal away one of them than in his very own home!"

"What are you talking about?"

"The Creation Pokémon! The ones in that story you were telling me. They're real, and they've been sealed away in temples all over the region. Each one so far has been pretty well hidden, often by rules about the area being forbidden. No one back home knew exactly why—at least not the real reason—but we all knew we weren't supposed to go near the waterfall. That's where Clendine was hidden in the Undine Temple." I kept checking the floor the whole time I spoke. There had to be some kind of inconsistency to mark the passage to another hidden temple. A panel in the wall or a trap door? Maybe if I moved a book on the bookcase. Every bookcase was already on the floor in splinters, though. Maybe just twist a candle on the wall?

"You mean Clendine the Mermaid Pokémon." He probably intended that as a question but it sounded more of a statement. "You're saying you actually saw that legendary pokémon?"

"Saw it? I battled it!" Let him stew on that one for a while. Granted it wasn't my finest moment in my short career as a trainer. Clendine pretty much kicked the butts of my pokémon and me in one fell swoop without even breaking a sweat.

"Hello!" While searching the floor, I spotted a knot in the wood that was pitch-black. Maybe not unusual until you compare it with the other knots in the floor, all of which looked whiter—the color of the house's foundation. Whatever the trigger was, this knot was the location of the secret tunnel.

"Go with me here. If you were going to build a hidden temple underneath your house, what kind of trigger would you use to hide it? Actually, I want to know where you would put the trigger if you were the Hydrogen Emperor and you were trying to build a hidden temple under your house."

It's possible I baffled Drew a little bit with all that. He furrowed his brow and ran his fingers through his hair. "I don't know, Gus. Why are you so sure there's even a tunnel down there?"

"I can see it right here." To emphasize my point, I stuck my finger through the tiny space in the knot. Drew was a genius! I could feel a release switch down there! One little twitch of the knuckle was all it took to pop three connected planks from the floor and reveal a tiny chute with metal rungs running down the side. The black hole in the floor smelled stale and dusty, and the air actually tasted a lot like a book cover. My throat tickled until I loosed one of those noises right between a cough and a sneeze. To Drew, I asked, "You want to go first?"

Drew was flabbergasted by the sight before him. The taste of the air was probably the only thing keeping his jaw from dropping. "I had no idea this was here. Where does it go?"

"Your research into this area didn't turn up any stories about legendary pokémon?"

"No. This is new."

"Welp! Best way to see what's what is to go down there!" I swung over the planks and grabbed onto the rungs of the tunnel. Despite my eagerness to see find out what ancient puzzles were hidden beneath the village, I clung tightly to the wall. I descended very slowly, extra careful to find the next rung before I lowered myself at all.

"Are you sure it's safe?" Drew called to me.

Not even a little bit. "Of course it is! I just, uh…" I looked down into the absolute darkness that looked like it was swallowing my feet. The longer I stared, the more alive the shadows seemed to be. Every nightmare I ever had about monsters in the dark started to come back to me. "How far down do you think this goes?" It was a bad time to ask questions because turning to look into the darkness was just enough for me to lose my grip.

Time seemed to freeze the second I stopped touching the wall. Nothing touched my body except the stale air, smothering me and thrusting me forward toward the inevitable crash at the bottom of the black abyss. It was impossible to tell exactly how far I fell. And I don't actually remember reaching into my satchel for a pokéball, but I do remember the hum of the electromagnetic energy forming into one of my allies well below me. Of course, my heart may have stopped briefly when I realized there was a twenty-five percent chance of being a pancake on Elly's steel backside. It would be no different from hitting the ground directly.

I hit the ground with a distinct slurping sound as I hit something squishy. It felt like a liquid that changed shapes around me and just about swallowed me up. I emerged from the squishy goop and gasped for air—stale, bitter air, but nourishing nonetheless.

"Thanks for catching me, Siggy." His sudsy arm reached up and patted me on the head. "I'm sorry I hit you so hard when I fell." He responded with sputtering noises and the sounds of popping bubbles. That sounded like an accepted apology. Or he was drowning. But I assume he was happy.

"Scar blew away!" Drew's voice sounded so far from me. And like he was speaking another language.

"What happened to your scar?"

"What?" There was a brief pause as Drew tried to process my question. He decided to ignore it. "Never mind. I guess you are okay."

"I can't see anything. At all, I mean. There's not even a light from the tunnel." I began feeling around and found the wall very close. And one ill-timed reach caused me to knock my forehead on the lowest rungs of the ladder. So there was a way back up, at least. "Make sure you take it slow and don't look down. That's how I lost my grip."

"I'm not coming down there," he shouted back to me. "I'm going to alert the village councilors about this and get a team together. Can you climb back up?"

"Um… I can't really tell. There's no light down here."

"Well, just stay put and you won't get hurt. I promise to be back very soon with some help. Will you be okay until then?"

You mean all by myself with my pokémon in a forgotten underground temple located within a village that forbids the existence of pokémon? "I'll be okay. Just hurry back." Or don't. I planned to wander the temple, anyway. Now that Drew was completely out of sight, I could pull Siggy back into his pokéball and call out Reggie instead.

The instant my immolion hit the floor, his flames gave me light. His body was sleek and warm as it had always been, but since his evolution, he weighed an extra two hundred pounds, and now he was twice as tall as I was, measuring from his back feet to his forehead. His mane trimmed into a thin, thick line from his forehead between his ears and down to his shoulders, but that was all. It didn't wrap around his head and neck the way a luxray's mane does. The thick fur on his tail lit brightly like fire, but without dancing and flickering through the air—maybe more like a light bulb. The muscles in his body rippled like liquid steel and were especially pronounced in the soft light of his tail.

It also hadn't been obvious how chilly it was so deep underground until I felt Reggie's warmth. Fire-types usually give off a lot of natural body heat. It felt good to keep him close. Unfortunately, even with his light, I couldn't see much farther than a few steps in front of or behind me.

"What do you think, Reg?" In reply, my immolion yawned, his tongue tossing a few bright embers into the air. "Oh, sure. You try to act all calm and cool about it." He turned to look at me with those big, wide eyes and that curious head tilt that suggested he thought it was a good time to feed him. I tossed him a piece of dried meat and watched him snatch it from the air and consume it in a single gulp. "Let's go."

In only six steps, the cement tunnel disappeared and turned into a rocky cave. The cave was turning out to be a common theme among these temples. This one wasn't as hot as where the Fire Temple had been, nor was it as cold as that cave was after Salamorder returned to its pokéball. The temperature was somewhere in between. It was actually fairly comfortable. My light jacket and shorts were a perfect combination to keep me feeling just fine.

So why did I have goose bumps all over my body?

The cave opened into a wide area. All of Reggie's light just seemed to vanish. You know how they say other sense compensate when you lose your vision? Well, my sense of touch went crazy, standing the hair on my neck and arms on end and hinting that an ursaring or some other cave-dwelling creature was about to bare down on me. The Elder always said I had an overactive imagination. This was a terrible situation for it.

"You don't smell anything living, do you?" Reggie was no bloodhound, but I suspected he'd know if we were in danger. Still unfortunate that he wouldn't tell me if we were. "Maybe I need to catch a sensory-type pokémon if I'm going to continue all this cave-diving.

"Actually…" Sigilyph was a psychic-type. Maybe that would be good enough! And as difficult as it could be to keep an eye on two pokémon at once, Sigilyph never listened to me anyway. But as long as he was helpful! I popped open his pokéball and immediately lost sight of my flying pokémon in the darkness of the cave.

"Sigilyph? Where'd you go?" Even though I couldn't see him, I could still almost feel his presence. He didn't flap his wings when he moved, but rather he floated as if carrying himself through telekinesis. Never was that eerier than in total darkness. "Can you tell if there's anything or anyone nearby?" Slowly, Sigilyph floated close enough to Reggie's flame for me to see his three, creepy eyes staring at me. Somehow I got the impression that he was trying to be creepy, and that there was little to be worried about in this darkness.

Whenever lost in a maze, find a wall and follow it. Eventually you'll end up at the exit, unless you're chased by an exploding golem. I learned that at the Mineral Gym. But this place wasn't the same. There were no walls to follow. Not twelve steps out of the tunnel I couldn't even find the walls that brought me here. And I still couldn't see a thing!

"I'm not at all nervous about this. Are you, Reggie?" He just kept walking like he hadn't a care in the world. "Good. 'Cause there's nothing to be nervous about. Definitely nothing at all. But if you felt like finding some kind of wall, I wouldn't complain about it." Too bad Reggie was more likely to follow my lead than to point the way for me. If only I could see a little better. Reggie was a fire-type and had produced massive amounts of fire in battle, but that wasn't the type of fire I needed here. It wasn't safe. What if he ended up blasting a group of wild pokémon, or even another person wandering the cave? If he turned the flames upward, maybe they'd eat through the ceiling—or maybe the ceiling was really low and the flames would just curve back down at us. What if we just happen to end up in a narrow dead end and all that fire consumes the oxygen, suffocating me?

"Up is best, maybe," I decided. I reached up to search for a ceiling, but I couldn't feel one. I stretched, wondering if my fingertips would just barely scrape it. A little hop, but still nothing. A slightly bigger hop this time, but my outstretched fingers still felt no ceiling. This time, I gave it a full squat and leap. My fingers still found nothing above me, but at least no one could see the way my legs buckled when I hit the floor. My butt ended up absorbing most of the collision with the cave floor. Fortunately I had a bit of a cushion there.

"Good thing I avoided doing squats all these years," I told Reggie as I rubbed my sore spot. The important point was that I couldn't feel anything above me. It seemed like I was out in the open. "Alright, Reg. I want you to try to light the cave up just a little bit, okay? I don't want a full Flamethrower. Low power. Just look straight up and give me an Ember attack." He at least recognized some of those words because he looked straight up and blasted a pillar of fire from his mouth. I panicked and covered my head—you know, because my arms can protect me from fire!—but then I took the time to notice that he controlled the fire just like I asked. He spewed only a small stream that lingered gently in the air before dissipating a few meters overhead.

Unfortunately, the fire didn't show me much. The darkness seemed to swallow the light immediately. But it didn't absorb all sound.

"I didn't expect you to find this place." I knew that voice.

"Elliott?"

"Go straight ahead. Keep following the sound of my voice." Her voice got a little loud with each step. If the volume didn't change, I corrected my course to find her. "It's real easy to get turned around in here. I must have walked twenty laps around this empty space before I finally found where to go."

"At least you got your cardio in for the day. Why are you here?"

"Seriously, you're going to ask a stupid question like that? I'm here for the exact same reason you are. We both know there's no better place to hide a legendary pokémon than in a village that forbids the use or ownership of pokémon. Who here would disturb it?" I actually hadn't thought of it like that, but she made a good point.

"Do you just want it to make money again?"

"Not this time," said Elliott. "I'm getting back to my roots in pokémon battling. This time, it's for the same old reasons as normal: A legendary pokémon would help me grow stronger, and this is a really good training opportunity for my pokémon. My jowrie you battled already is still young, but Slash should be ready to take on anything." No one could say she was lacking in confidence. For a moment, I worried what she would do to me and my pokémon if I tried to capture this legendary creature for myself.

Or maybe I should let her try to take down whatever's in there first. It's a legendary pokémon! What chance did she have of success? But if she managed to wear it down even a little bit, that might make it easier for me.

No, that's a stupid idea. Reggie and Siggy weren't up for that. Drew said all the Creation Pokémon fought routinely, which suggests they're all about equal strength. Salamorder was too much for Blade, Lauren, and me together, plus Elliott's two henchmen. If we tried to fight another legendary pokémon with anything less than our teamwork, we were in for a big loss.

Now that I resolved that mental dilemma, I could ask a more important question: "Have you been down here the whole time?"

"What whole time? You mean since I saw you at the stadium?"

"Yeah. How did you know this place was here?"

"I wasn't wasting my life as the mayor of Argentum City. That's what I was doing to make money and spend a little while in the lap of luxury, but a lot of that money went into researching the locations of the eight legendary pokémon of this region. There are ten cultures in the region that date back almost a thousand years, and three of those were already established long before then. Eight of the towns have a hidden temple in them."

"How do you know there's only one temple per town?"

Elliot shook her head. "I don't have hard evidence that there's only one legendary pokémon per town, but it makes the most sense. After all, the stories tell that each pokémon had the power to destroy a city and that they constantly fought one another. I think after they were sealed, different cultures settled around each of them in order to have a guardian god in case another town attacked. But a thousand years later, just about everyone has forgotten they're there. The best place to start looking is anywhere that has forbidden or limited access."

"Wow. That's almost exactly how I figured it out."

Voice laden with sarcasm, she said, "We're two peas in a pod."

Noting her apparent annoyance, I asked, "So… Why are we just standing here?"

"I'm not sure how to proceed."

"What do you mean?"

"I see your fire pokémon evolved since we last met. That's good. Have him spread some flames around. Unless you have a pokémon that knows Flash."

"Nope. Reggie? Look up and give us another Ember attack."

"No," said Elliott. "Look straight ahead and give it all you've got."

Reggie listened to my command as soon as I gave it. He released a small stream over his head and provided us with a little light. It wasn't enough light to make anything in front of us visible. "Okay, Reg." Pointing, I said, "Give me a full Flamethrower attack that way." This time, Reggie blasted a powerful cloud of fire and smoke straight ahead. The heat was enough to melt a rock, and the light was bright enough for me to see every strand of hair on Elliott's head.

But everything in front of us was just black. The light of the fire went nowhere.

"That's not the worst part." Elliott kicked a rock forward. It slid audibly forward for a moment before the distinct sound disappeared. Pretty obviously, the rock fell over the side of some kind of ledge. "It's like that all the way across."

"What? You mean we're standing in front of an abyss?"

"Yeah. I guess I'm lucky you came along with that Sigilyph right there. In order to fly across this abyss, we need a pokémon that can use telekinesis to carry us. My sialiary can't fly in this stupid cave. There's not a single thermal in here, and carrying me would wear her out instantly."

Her solution was logical, but it didn't make sense to me. "If the abyss was established by people who hated and feared pokémon but wanted to keep the legendary one close in case they were ever attacked, then why could it only be crossed by a certain kind of pokémon?"

"Who knows? People suck at planning things out in advance."

"Maybe. Reggie? Give me another Flamethrower." He spewed a stream of fire into the abyss where it was promptly swallowed up by the darkness. "Do it again. Aim a little lower this time." Reggie threw another billowing flame before us. Again, the darkness consumed the light without revealing much, but for a fraction of a second, I thought I saw the flicker of a shadow.

Elliott frowned at me. "What are you doing? Nothing's changed. You're just wasting oxygen by lighting all that fire."

"One more time, Reggie. Aim straight for the pit this time."

"Why are you shooting for the pit? What do you see?"

Reggie answered that question for her. When he blew the fire straight into the ground, it didn't go straight down like the rock did. It turned and blew forward—parting the shadows just a bit as if he had turned a fan on in a dark fog.

Elliott was awestruck. "Well I'll be. There is a floor. It's hidden by the extreme darkness down here. How long can he keep that up? We don't want to make a misstep because of the mist."

"If he scales back to an Ember attack, Reggie can probably go for a while." I looked to my immolion and offered him a Leppa berry from the random pokémon foods I brought from Argentum City. "Walk softly, but point your Ember attack straight at the ground and lead us across the pit, okay?" Whether it was his keen senses or just his memory of what he saw when his fire coated the ground, Reggie tapped the ground in front of him very lightly as he stepped into the pit. He breathed a deep breath and began spewing a slow, steady stream of fire a few centimeters in front of his paws. As long as the fire bent along the ground, Reggie continued to follow it. But if the fire continued and fell off into the abyss, Reggie stopped abruptly and changed direction.

"We've been walking for a long time," Elliott commented at one point. She tucked her scrafty back into its pokéball and tried to stay close to me while Sigilyph hovered nearby. It would have been easy to lose one another considering how quickly the darkness swallowed all light. That's why we had little choice but to follow Reggie along the long and winding path. It definitely felt like we walked a half mile back and forth for the ultimate reward of only twenty meters from where we started, but eventually we reached solid ground again. The ground began reflecting Reggie's light—proof that we had finished with the shadowy mist.

"There's a relief," I admitted.

Elliott walked past me and pointed to a heavy, iron sconce in front of us. "Hey! Have Reggie light that torch." With a word from me, Reggie lit up the coals resting inside the sconce and filled the room with dancing light. It made visible a second sconce on the other side of the room, which he proceeded to set alight as well. With both torches lit, I saw the room hosted a massive door the size of an entire wall. It had the same locking mechanism as all the other doors I'd seen, complete with two hundred holes and fifty pegs available for placement.

"Holy cow," I uttered.

"I get the feeling this is what we're looking for," Elliott commented. She must have recognized it as the same type of door she saw in the Fire Temple. "But geez! Look at all these pegs! It'll take us forever to figure out which holes to use."

This wasn't my first hidden temple, and it wasn't my first giant door, either. I had kept my eyes peeled for something significant—some shape that would symbolize this temple. In the other cities, the symbol had been adapted over a thousand years as the logo for the pokémon gym. But Stannum Village didn't have one. They hated pokémon. There was one thing they did love, though.

"The stadium." I mentally recalled the circular logo I saw on the scoreboard. If I really focused, that logo resembled the shape of the platform we traversed to cross the pit of darkness. That must have been the answer! I grabbed pegs and began placing them. It helped to think of the symbol as concentric circles—two pegs on the innermost circle, eight pegs circling the next layer, eighteen pegs each in the next two, and then four pegs outside all others. When I set the last peg, I heard the distinct sound of metal shifting. The door was unlocked!

Aghast, Elliott asked, "How did you do that?"

"Same way as you, I think."

"You did not just spend months down here on trial-and-error. You figured out the key."

"The answer was right there." I pointed back into the pit, eliciting a baffled look from Elliott.

"Whatever. Thanks for cutting my time down here dramatically. Let's go find out what kind of pokémon is hidden in here." She pressed into the door, but she quickly stopped. Her expression was like she had forgotten how stuck those doors could get after a thousand years of disuse. "Slash, use Focus Punch." That scrafty of hers hobbled in front of the door and closed his eyes for a moment. Slowly, his arms drifted to his side. He was completely silent and still until suddenly his arm burst forward with explosive force and pushed the door slightly off the frame. I was tempted to make a comment about a championship pokémon doing so little, but I remembered how heavy those doors were.

"Thanks for the help, children." It was Ray's voice from the Perioble Marshals service. He stepped into the light, making his white cowboy hat shine brighter than any other article of clothing down there. His brown duster didn't reflect the light as well.

Suddenly it occurred to me that people keep sneaking up on me. That was something I needed to work on.

"You again!" Understandably, Elliott became tense. She braced herself for a fight. "Why would you let me go and then chase me down here?"

Marshal Ray smirked. "Because you came down here."

I realized right at that moment what Ray really wanted. "You were never really after Elliott because of her crimes, were you? You just knew she could find Salamorder. And now you want another legendary pokémon."

"You're actually more perceptive than I expected you to be, Gus," Ray admitted to me. "I guess there's a little something behind that goofy kid act of yours. The Marshals service is collecting legendary pokémon on behalf of the Elite Four. I chose to follow the two of you because each of you has a real knack for locating them. We knew the Shade Temple was here somewhere, but no one thought to look underneath the Hydrogen Emperor's childhood home. You're doing your civic duty once again if you stand aside and allow me to claim Tempereye."

This was a terrible feeling. Part of me knew the best place for the legendary pokémon to be was in the hands of the Elite Four. They protected the region and enforced the laws of society. When there were people like that Burton guy out there taking legendary pokémon for personal use, a central law enforcement division was necessary to keep the ecosystem from getting out of hand.

But this was the second time! I already gave up one legendary pokémon to the Marshals. Wasn't that enough? I didn't know anything about Tempereye, but wasn't it about time I got to keep one of the Creation Pokémon? Even Brooke had one!

"I know what you're both thinking," Ray said. He was using that soft-spoken, condescending voice the Marshals liked to use anytime they're talking to someone who's about to do something stupid. "I can see it in my Miracle Eye, or whatever that drivel is gypsies claim to give them future sight. It will be much less painful for everyone if you just stand down peaceably and let me take whatever's in there back to Bohrium Tower with me."

Elliott wasn't interested. "What are you gonna do? You think shooting Slash with a tranquilizer will work twice? He's already seen your movements now, and he's quite quick. You'll never be able to hit him."

"I suspect that's the truth," said Ray with a nod. "But I will also warn you that being a part of the Marshals service and training myself with a firearm doesn't mean I can't hold my own in a battle."

That comment tickled Elliott. "A pokémon battle? You're nuts! Slash here was on my team when I took on the Unova Elite Four! They are hardly pushovers, and you think some random Marshal can take him on?"

When he nodded, his hat hid his eyes from view. "I do."

"You're welcome to try it, then. What do you think, Slash?" She finally turned to look at her scrafty, who seemed agitated. He was fidgety and constantly shifting his gait as he began pacing short circles. Something was bugging him.

Curious of the answer and feeling a little left out, I asked, "How did you sneak pokémon past the guards?"

"The same way Charlotte Ellie did. All it took was a little distraction."

"A distraction? Like what?"

The Marshal nodded toward Elliott. "You remember those henchmen she had? The ones too dumb to boil water without a recipe? I'm sure if you check the jail cell in town, you'll find two of those poor saps counting the days and banging their drink cups between the bars."

The look on Elliott's face was almost like a confession. "You just threw away two of your friends like that?"

"Employees," she clarified. "And they'll be out soon enough with nothing more than a slap on the wrist. So you're telling me there's someone else in jail with them so that you could sneak in?"

"That's neither here nor there. What's important is this: This is your last warning to stand down. What's it gonna be?" His gaze was intense. That would be enough to make me fold any hand in Poker I had. If I had ever seen him with a pokémon, I would have been terrified of that look. But as it was, I just thought he was bluffing.

Elliott daftly challenged him. "Bring it."

"Fine. Psychic!"

Who was he talking to? Did he have a pokémon still hidden in the shadows of the room?

Suddenly Slash flew across the room and slammed into the wall. The cave was so old and sturdy compared with the relative mass of a scrafty that the poor pokémon felt the full brunt of the collision. I followed the trail of psychic energy in the air to its source…

"Sigilyph?!"

Marshal Ray began to chuckle. "His name is Chakana."

Thanks go to BNVshark and Kurono-Angel for adding Drew and Elliott, respectively, to this story.

I apologize for the delay in updating. Life got a lot busier recently, and now I'm about to work on a really big project, so I won't be as good about regular updates as I once was. But do not doubt that I am still committed to this story I have to tell. It may take time between them, but there will be steady updates. Next time, Gus has a decision to make: Does he trust the man with the badge who works for the Elite Four, or does he fight back and claim the legendary Tempereye as his own? At least now he knows why his strongest pokémon won't listen to his commands!