Cinnabar Island was… not what I thought it would be. "Is this it?"

We stood on the pier, the other passengers having moved on already. The volcano I expected rose up over the island. The town I expected to be around it… wasn't. There was a Pokemon Center nearby at the base of the volcano, a makeshift structure with a bunch of antennae and machines, and that was about it. There were a couple construction sites as well, but no other buildings.

No intact buildings, anyway. Up along the coast, the burned-out ruins of some large buildings were half-buried in cooled lava. "Now it is." I looked over to Mac, who was staring sadly at the dark surface covering the majority of the island.

"Oh," I flinched, "sorry. I didn't mean it like that."

"It's fine," he said, not taking his eyes off the ruined landscape of what had once been his home. "Buildings can be rebuilt. They knew it was coming, so there weren't any casualties. It's just…"

Janelle, in a surprising move, put a friendly hand on his shoulder. "You okay? I wouldn't have asked to come here if I'd known."

Mac closed his eyes and took a breath, then turned to her and shook his head with a smile. "Yeah. I haven't been back since we moved, so it was just a bit of a shock. Come on, let's get rooms at the Pokemon Center. I'll show you around tomorrow."
I wasn't sure if it was a joke, but followed him anyway.

"You're sure it's safe?" Janelle asked.

"Completely," said Mac, "Master Bruno was brought in to help renovate the new Gym on the Seafoam, and he brought some of the geologists up to the top to take measurements. As long as we don't jump in, we should be fine."
I scowled up at his back as we hiked up the stone incline. "I can't believe this is what you meant by 'showing us around,'" I said.

"I am!" he assured me with a grin. "The wreckage on the left here used to be the foundation of a major research facility. This was where they first revived fossil Pokemon!"

I glanced at the blackened cement, charred stone, and melted metal that was all that remained of such a significant place. I felt a pang of dismay at the loss, despite only learning about it a moment before. I tried to find a trace of it in Mac's expression as he played tour guide, but he was great at hiding his feelings. He might have even come to terms with things, like he'd said yesterday.

I looked around at the wreckage we passed. There wasn't much. Most of the buildings had either been melted or burned, with the remains covered by cooling lava, but particularly robust sections still poked up out of the black ground. Down the hill in the distance, near the northern shore, I saw a massive structure that, while burned out and ruined, still had a semblance of walls. It was surrounded by melted slag that might have once been a fence.

I pointed it out. "Mac, what was that?"

He looked over. "I'm pretty sure that was Pokemon Mansion. It was another lab once, but there was an incident a long time ago that left it a mess. The owner never rebuilt it, which left it a decent habitat for some local wild Pokemon. Master Bruno mentioned once that they suspect it was a Team Rocket operation that they left to use as a secret base," he paused for a moment, "I hope that the evacuation team managed to get them all."

We trudged forward a little in silence, all eyes on the wreckage.

"Maybe… maybe we can check on them? I mean, it's been a while, but..." Janelle asked.

We stopped. I wasn't sure what we would be able to do, years after the event. Regardless. "It couldn't hurt to check."

"Yeah," Mac agreed.

The ruin was, as expected, in ruins. Whatever the outer walls of the place had been made of had held up to the lava well enough, but where it had poured through the interior structure had collapsed in on itself. Upper floors, cracked and hanging down, rested on lower floors. There appeared to be a massive hole in the floor where lava had filled a basement, leaving the area beyond roughly intact. From our vantage point outside, I couldn't see any wild Pokemon within

"What kinds of Pokemon used to live here?" I asked. I was keeping one hand buried in Lucky's mane, but I could feel him straining to go explore. Vola sat primly on my other shoulder, tails idly drifting on my back.

"Hmm," Mac muttered as he considered. "I'm certain that the usual Pokemon that show up in cities, like Koffing and Grimer. Definitely some fire-types; Growlithe, Magmar, maybe some Kantonian Vulpix. If it's true about Team Rocket, there might be some Pokemon left from whatever they were doing."

He smirked at me, "Making sure there aren't any bugs?"

"No," I told him resolutely, putting my bag on the ground and digging around in it. "I just want to know what we're looking for. For instance," I said, pulling out a pillowcase I wasn't sure why I had, "I'd rather not breathe in Koffing or Grimer fumes."

He dropped the smirk in favor of a wide-eyed look, then said, "Fair point," before looking for something in his own bag, Janelle following suit.

I looked down at Lucky, He'd grown quite a bit; now would be as good a time as any to get used to being in a Pokeball. I jiggled his mane a little to get his attention, then showed it to him, "Lucky, I don't want you getting sick, okay? Can you go in your Pokeball for a little while?"

His tail drooped at the idea of not going exploring, so I quickly added, "If it's safe, I'll let you out again and you can look around."

Seemingly mollified, he touched his nose to the activator and was pulled inside. I attached it back to my belt and had just grabbed Vola's when I felt one of her tails twitch weirdly, and she yipped.

"Vola?" I asked. Had she already inhaled something? She spun, blasting the area behind me with frost. Around us, a cold wind whipped up.

I almost missed the faint giggle in the wind. As I watched, another of Vola's tails went taut, as if being pulled, and she nearly lost her balance. She spun back around, unleashing another Freeze-Dry, and I barely heard another giggle above me. Vola's head snapped upwards, and she wasted no time in leaping towards something. She must have missed, but she landed and continued forward toward the old building.

"Vola, wait!" I said, fingers fumbling for her ball in the cold. I finally got it, held it out and activated it-

Just as she dodged around a section of wall, and into the building.

What else could I do?

I ran in after her.