The Rhyhorn attacked first. They weren't as strong as would be imagined, being made out of stone. Being a fire type, Quill didn't even have any trouble with them. The entire time, Rhyperior stood there, not helping his forces at all even when they asked for his assistance. He kept his eye on Aamira the entire time until the battle was over.

"I would say I'm impressed, but at this point lying wouldn't have much merit. I would expect no less from Team Sleuth and Team Sandstone." He said. "However, you still have one opponent remaining, do you not?"

Rhyperior raised his hand towards Aamira. She had seen how he could fire rocks from his hands at blinding speed and knew better than to underestimate him and his speed and strength. She formed and Aura Sphere between her hands and waited for him to make the first move. She knew his attacks were fast, but she was confident that hers could be faster. She could easily smash the rock he fired with one Aura Sphere and then hit him with a second one.

Rhyperior fired two rocks from his palms in quick succession. Aamira knew he was fast, but didn't know he could fire more than one rock at a time like this. She managed to destroy one with Aura Sphere, but the second hit her raised hands, sending a shock up her arms. It occurred to her that if he wanted to, he could have broken both of her arms just then.

"You're holding back…" Aamira observed.

Rhyperior laughed. "Realized that, did you? I'm not going to arrest you or do anything of the sort. You're free to go."

"Captain!" One of the barely conscious Rhyhorn shouted.

Rhyperior ignored him. "You just remember, Aamira Brighteyes, the next time we meet that I already managed to corner you once. Of course with their help you may have been able to force your way out, but you won't have their help the next time."

Rhyperior lowered his arm and suddenly vanished in a blinding flash of light. Something occurred to Aamira that she dreaded could be true. She ran over to the Rhyhorn who had spoken before.

"Why can't I sense your aura?" She asked.

The Rhyhorn, who had no doubt lost all trust in his Captain after being abandoned like this, spit out the white stone he had been hiding in his mouth. "He said that these would make it impossible for you to beat us. We didn't understand it, but it must have been what was hiding our aura from you. You weren't the ones who stole all of that stuff and attacked those people after all, were you? I'm sorry we followed Rhyperior in pursuit of you so blindly."

"Wait, back up." Aamira said. "What's this about attacking people?"

"You don't even know about that?" Rhyhorn asked. "Figures. We have been blind. Rhyperior must have planted the evidence in your room and made up rumors about you two attacking people. I don't understand why he did it. I'm so sorry…"

All of the other Rhyhorn were looking up at them with the same remorseful look. Aamira was suspicious at first but after a while she took some Oran Berries out of her bag and sat them on the ground. "Come eat these once we're out of sight. I don't trust you entirely yet."

"Are you sure you're alright?" Roy asked. "I still feel bad for tricking you two like that."

"Yea, my arms are just a little numb. I'm sure either of us would have done the same."

Quill nodded. "You're our friend, right? We probably would have even done the same if it was you we were trying to find."

"Thanks. I still feel kinda bad about it though." Roy said. "So should we continue to Sylva?"

The two of them nodded and followed him out of the valley. Around nightfall, they finally made their way out of the mountains. They decided to spend the night near the edge of the forest and woke up early the next morning to continue on their way. They reached Treetop Town first and it was evident right away that something was terribly wrong. Normally there were always people bustling about through the vine bridges and Treehouses and bird pokemon flying here and there. Now there was no one here and it was strangely quiet.

"Something feels wrong." Quill said. "I'm more sensitive to the aura in the forest, right? Well this doesn't feel like Sylva."

"It's not just because all of the people are gone?" Roy asked. "Where do you think everyone went?"

"Well there was that tribe that lives further in the forest that they were having trouble with, right?" Aamira asked. "So maybe something else happened involving them. If that's the case they'd probably all go to Vine City since that's where Noctowl lives."

"So we should just continue on…" Quill said uneasily. "It still seems weird though. It makes the fur on my back stand on end…"

"Something really does seem strange here…" Roy said. "It almost feels like something's happened to the forest itself."

"I hope Celebi's okay since he's the forest's guardian." Aamira said. "We should stop by Lake Harmony first just to make sure."

It was around noon when they reached Lake Harmony. Unsurprisingly, it was the only place in the forest that seemed normal to Quill. They noticed something shining in the middle of the lake and when they looked down into the water, they saw Celebi curled up near the bottom, glowing faintly in the same color as the Root of Time.

"Looks like he's alright, just in a trance of some sort." Aamira said. "We should check everyone else in the city."

At first they didn't see anyone around. Unfortunately, the first person they came across was Espeon. They found her in a house near the outside of the main square. She had her arms wrapped around her new egg as if trying to protect it and wasn't moving at all. Quill tried to wake her up by shaking her shoulder, but she felt almost as if she was made of stone.

Out in the main Square, the found a few of the shopkeepers and other people who had been going about their business that day huddled in fear in the center of the square, all in the same petrified state. At town hall they found Noctowl in a similar position. He was stationary in the air with his talons outstretched as if in mid-attack.

They moved on to the Academy where they found an even worse sight. Alakazam was collapsed on the ground, no doubt after having been knocked out by a strong enemy. All of the children in the academy were standing in front of him, holding hands, and trying to protect him from the attackers. They looked so fearless the way they were frozen there.

"What's happened here?" Quill asked as he forced back tears.

"I don't know." Aamira said. "It's nothing good though. I bet that tribe further in the forest has something to do with this. There could be a way to save everyone if we go to find them."

"I don't know where they live though" Quill said. "Kids are always told to stay out of the eastern part of the forest and we were never given a reason to go there. Everyone usually avoids it mainly out of habit. I don't even know what kind of pokemon make up the tribe."

"Uh… I hate to interrupt, but…" Roy pointed behind them. "Could it be one of them?"

Aamira and Quill turned around to see a Stantler with its face, antlers, and back covered in colorful war paint. She stared at them for a moment before coming a step closer. "You shouldn't be here! This forest has been reclaimed by the Stantler Tribe! Leave now or there will be trouble!"

"What do you mean by the forest being reclaimed?" Aamira asked. "What did you do to everyone here?"

"We did nothing." She said. "Though we would have if the sprite hadn't interfered. Celebi went to sleep in the heart of the lake and froze time for everyone in the forest. He was a fool if he thought that would work on us though. We are beings that exist outside the normal boundaries of time and space. We have allowed the citizens of Sylva to live here for hundreds of years under the condition that they would not invade our territory. I see that two of you have lived here previously. Would you know anything about this transgression?"

"Transgression?" Quill said. "We wouldn't know anything about that. We left some time before all of this trouble with your tribe and we hadn't heard anything of the trouble starting back up."

"This trouble you speak of never truly ended." Stantler said. "Your Dragonite asked us to investigate further into whether it was indeed someone living in Sylva who had intruded. We've done some more research as he asked and found that while the intruder was not naturally born here that they had been harbored here for quite some time. While it is true that this pokemon left the forest soon after the intrusion, we have discovered that this pokemon had stayed here for some time after and have concluded that they had not been exiled as we had hoped."

"So you know the pokemon who was behind the intrusion then?" Roy asked.

"I cannot say, but my father, the village elder, would know the second he saw them." Her ears perked up and she turned to look behind her. "Speaking of my father, it seems he's come to check on my progress of scouting this little village."

They nearly jumped when they saw the size of the Stantler that emerged from the trees. He was at least twice the size of his daughter and he looked ancient. The antlers on his head were huge and much more branched out than any other Stantler's. Old lichen and other mosses hung from his antlers. The orbs in the center of his antlers were much bigger proportionally than other Stantler as well. Staring at them made Aamira feel uncomfortable, as if they were drawing her into their centers, and yet she couldn't force herself to look away, or move at all for that matter.

The ancient Stantler bent his neck so he was at eye level with them, though none of them were capable of looking him in the eye. There seemed to be something moving behind those orbs, but they couldn't make out what it was.

Before any of them knew what was happening, they had collapsed on the ground without realizing. The elder stomped on the ground a few times and some more Stantler emerged from the trees. Though he had stepped away, all they could see were the orbs directly in front of their faces. They could just barely make out the other Stantler approaching, but soon they were aware of nothing else.

They woke up later that night, if waking up was the right word for it. They were in a village that they had never seen before that was filled with Stantler, all painted the same way the Elder's daughter had been. Some of them had feathers or some varying types of plants tied to their antlers, which, as far as they could tell, was used to tell a Stantler's ranking in their tribe.

Had they been asleep though? It was more like a trance if anything. Vague flashes of memory came back from events happening throughout the day, but they were too dazed to make any sense of any of it. It took them a while to realize they had been tied up near the center of the village for some reason. They were all sure they had never been to this forest before, and yet maybe they still thought that one of them was the intruder.

"Awake, I see." The Stantler they had met before approached them. "Welcome to Illusion Forest. I never would have suspected that one of you would be the intruder. You seemed nice enough at first."

"We've never intruded…" Quill managed to say. "What about you, Roy?"

Roy shook his head. "No, I've never been here. I've never gone any farther into the forest than Vine City before."

"You two we found to be the friends of the transgressor. Your friend here, the female Riolu, is the intruder."

"Who, me?" Aamira asked. "I've never been here either though. I haven't stayed in Sylva long enough to even bother exploring this far in before. Unless I was sleepwalking, I think there's been some kind of mistake."

"There is no mistake." Stantler said. "It was apparent by the scars on your arm. You got those from a being of our territory. Our territory extends much farther than this little area of the forest as you think it might."

Something occurred to Aamira then, but if it was true then she had no idea how they would get out of this mess. "A little over two years ago, I appeared near Celebi's lake with amnesia. I suppose it might be possible that I could have intruded somehow before then. If I did I'm really sorry and I don't know why I would have, but it won't happen again."

"Those who enter our territory are forever drawn to our territory. Those are my father's words that he has spoken for hundreds of years and they have never proven false. As for your claim, though we exist outside of time and space as you know it, we are extremely adept at perceiving time. The intrusion was over a year ago, but nowhere near the two year mark you have set for yourself."

"Aamira, the scars!" Quill said. "Remember? You appeared back at the lake with those scars even though you were supposed to have disappeared. Maybe you were in their territory somehow for those two months you vanished."

"Two months is a relative time frame. It was around this time that the intruder hid in our territory. It is you without a doubt."

"So if that's true, what do we have to do with this?" Roy asked.

"Another friend of yours has invaded on our territory recently. A Sandshrew with clouded eyes and claw-like scars on his back."

"My brother!" Roy shouted. "He's here? Where is he!"

"You do not listen well." Stantler observed. "Our territory extends much farther from here. Your brother is nowhere near our present location. To answer your question, many times in the past the friends and, more often, relatives of intruders tent to invade our space after one of them does."

"So what are you going to do with us then?" Aamira asked.

"I see the trance has kept you from observing our decision that we made a few hours ago. Intruders are not often much of a threat so long as they don't leave our territory afterwards."

"So you're just going to keep us tied up here?" Quill asked.

"No. This is only the physical plane of our territory. You and your friends will be sent to the farthest reaches of the Other part of our territory."

"Where is the other part of your territory?" Aamira asked.

"Don't you ever listen?" She asked impatiently. "It's in the Other part. I would have thought you would be able to figure it out on your own, but it won't matter for long. It's nearly midnight so my father will be sending you on your way momentarily."

What they had thought was a large hill at the back of the village was actually their elder curled up on the ground. He was masked so well by the fungi growing along his back and antlers that they weren't aware of his presence until he moved. That was one thing about the Stantler that Aamira didn't like. As if Rhyperior and the Rhyhorn weren't bad enough, she couldn't sense their aura either. It was different though, as if they didn't even exist. She guessed by the way Roy jumped when the elder Stantler moved that he felt the same way about this.

He stood up to his full height, his ancient bones creaking as he did so, and stepped over the fire at the center of the village to approach them. All of the other Stantler stopped what they were doing to watch.

He lowered his horns to them as if about to attack, though the moment he did they were transfixed by the orbs in their centers once again. Again, Aamira thought she saw something move behind the orbs and she felt a strong pulling sensation as if her mind was being drawn in. She got an overpowering urge as if someone was calling her from inside the orbs and for a moment she wanted nothing more than to join that person.

She had no idea how long she had been in a trance this time. She was only aware that the ropes binding her hands together were gone and that she was no longer in the Stantler village, or anywhere near Sylva for that matter. It was still night, but the stars weren't the same ones she was used to. It took her a while to realize that something was amiss. Quill and Roy were nowhere to be seen. Either the Stantler reconsidered their decision to send them as well, or all three of them had been separated.

"Are you okay…?" a timid voice asked from somewhere.

Aamira stood up and looked around. She was in a forest, but the leaves and grass had a strange, bluish tint to them and it didn't smell or feel anything like Sylva or the Illusion Forest.

"You're not one of those bad shadow pokemon, are you…?" A little Ralts poked its head out from behind a mossy stone to look at Aamira. "You don't look like one of them, but those scars are pretty scary."

Aamira looked down at her scars. If anything, they seemed even worse than before. She had given up on hiding them with a bandage after being isolated from other people for so long, but she still managed to forget they were there most of the time.

"Do you know anything about these scars?" Aamira asked. "Or where we are for that matter?"

"No I don't, but a lot of the shadow pokemon I've seen have scars kind of like those. You have dark energy too. I thought you might be one of them."

Aamira hadn't heard about shadow pokemon since she was in Atra. She looked up at the sky again and noticed that there were two moons like Atra supposedly had, but she noticed some light on the horizon and figured that whatever world she ended up in, this one must have a sun too.

"So how did you get here?" she asked.

Ralts shook his head. "I'm not sure. I was looking for a way back home to visit my mom and just ended up here somehow. Ever since I got here, pokemon have been attacking me left and right. It's nice to see a friendly face for once. Can we stay together? You seem like you'd be strong enough to fight off the stronger pokemon."

"Yea, why not." Aamira said.

She had no idea who this Ralts was or how old he was exactly, but she felt better having him around. At least this way she wasn't entirely alone in a world she didn't know. Ralts showed her some of the fruits that grew in this world, which tasted nothing like the ones she was used to. The most common was a weird brown fruit that looked almost like a potato both on the inside and outside but tasted really sweet. He didn't know what it was called, but was pretty sure it wasn't poisonous.

The next morning, Aamira was in for a surprise. As it turned out, that world didn't only have two moons and a sun; it had two moons and three suns that all seemed to rise at the same time. Ralts said that it wasn't necessarily the case and that it was only recently that the times for the suns to rise had started to synchronized. At noon they would nearly cross the paths of the others, but they didn't come quite that close. As far as Aamira could tell, it seemed like two of the suns were part of a binary star system like Desolo's suns and the third one was a much bigger star that both the two suns and this world revolved around together. She couldn't be sure though.

"As far as I know, this world isn't even round." Ralts said as they walked through the forest together. "Sometimes I can wander around for hours and somehow always end up back where I started. I've tried marking the path before and I keep ending up right back where I started without changing direction. There were times when I thought I was walking vertically up mountains. Or maybe the trees were just growing horizontally. It's all really strange."

"I guess horizontal trees could be possible because of the multiple suns." Aamira said. "Their roots might grow a certain way to keep them from falling."

"I don't know. They don't look any different from regular trees. I think that gravity is just different in certain places or something. This place is just really weird. I've been looking for a way to get home, but so far haven't found anything. Sometimes there will be a giant serpent dragon thing flying in the sky that just disappears, so there might be a way to get out through the sky."

"Yea, maybe…" Aamira said. "I came here through a place called Illusion Forest, so for a while I didn't think this place was even real. There's something about it that's sort of dreamlike. It does feel real though."

"Oh, that's another thing! Maybe you're not used to having dreams so you didn't notice or maybe it's just me, but I haven't had a single dream since coming here."

Aamira hadn't even noticed. She still had nightmares sometimes, but the previous night she hadn't had a single dream. Maybe that was only a one time occurrence, but everything about this world seemed strange. She wished she knew where Quill and Roy were, but they could be miles away for all she knew.

They were attacked several times throughout the day by pokemon who really did resemble shadow pokemon, though there seemed to be some differences too. For starters, they seemed to still have their own will, though they were violent and in no mood to talk. Almost like dungeon pokemon except typically stronger and smarter.

Aamira could barely keep up with all of the sudden attacks, but Ralts said that these pokemon weren't nearly as bad as one in particular that had been following him. Unfortunately, he didn't know what kind of pokemon it was. He shuddered when she asked him to describe what it looked like and only said that she'd know it when she saw it.

Ralts stopped and looked around in a panic. "It's here! That pokemon that was chasing me! It's here!"

Aamira could sense it too. A sudden wave of fear washed over her as if she was at that point trapped inside of one of her nightmares. It felt so strong that she half expected to wake up from a nightmare any second and be back in her bed in the Investigator's Brigade building. They would still be in Ignis and it would be the day after the finals. Espeon and her siblings would throw a huge party for them and they would watch the fireworks on the last day of the festival together. That had to be it. There was no way this fear was coming from something real.

A shadow appeared on the ground and a figure slowly rose out of it. Aamira nearly screamed in her panic. She had never been this badly affected by any pokemon before. There was something seriously wrong with this one. Its body was as dark as midnight and on its head was what seemed to be wisps of white smoke that moved slowly as if underwater. Its head was ringed by large spikes that resembled huge red teeth. The most terrifying thing of all where the familiar blue eyes.

Aamira didn't know how she couldn't have figured it out before. Ruko had even mentioned that in the legend she was said to carry around the villain's treasure. Her hand instinctively moved to the Nightmare Gem around her neck. It seemed so obvious now, why she had been having all of these nightmares. And yet until now she had never remembered this pokemon's name. No doubt, if this pokemon really was Honchkrow's boss, it had been able to manipulate her memory using the chain links stolen from Uxie so she couldn't remember its name, even though she remembered every other legendary pokemon up until this point.

"D-Darkrai…" she stammered.

Darkrai glanced at her for a moment then back to Ralts. Ralts screamed and Teleported away just as Darkrai attacked him with Dark Pulse, leaving Aamira alone with him. At first Darkrai moved forward as if in pursuit of the Ralts, but then apparently he changed his mind and turned back towards Aamira.

"You've returned." He spoke in the same inaudible voice as in her dreams. She still couldn't understand how she could understand him when he made no sound when he spoke. "To think you didn't abandon this world after all."

Aamira took a step back as Darkrai moved towards her. She was so terrified that it felt like she had no control over her own motions or her words. For the first time, she started to doubt whether she could do this. She remembered how Rhyperior had mentioned that she could have powered her way out of getting cornered, but only with her friends help. Maybe she hadn't been cornered by him again, but this was at least a few thousand times worse.

"Do not back away!" Darkrai moved towards her faster and reached out a hand, which she assumed was for another attack. Aamira was too petrified to move to her own defense. Luckily there was no reason to defend herself.

At the last minute, and Aura Sphere hit Darkrai in the back. He turned to stare at the pokemon who had attacked him. As soon as the eye contact was broken, Aamira felt the overwhelming fear lessen, though it was nowhere close to going away all together. When she saw who her rescuer was, however, it might as well have.

Standing in the shadows of the trees at the edge of the forest was Lucario. Aside from a small scratch on the right side of his face, he looked okay. Either he hadn't run into many enemies or he hadn't been free from the Aura Scepter for long. How he got out in the first place was a mystery, but Aamira wasn't going to complain.

Lucario stayed in the same position to prepare for another attack if Darkrai were to try anything. Darkrai lowered his head slightly and floated backwards into the shadows and disappeared. With the overwhelming sense of fear gone, Aamira fell to her knees and tried desperately to catch her breath.

"Are you alright, Aamira?" Lucario asked.

"I'm fine, why do you ask?"

At first Aamira wondered if she was still having trouble controlling her voice and had spoken without meaning to. She realized though that the voice hadn't come from her mouth, but from behind her. Aamira stood up and turned to come face to face with… herself.