Foxfire: Part 2 - Flint

Miranda closed her eyes again and listened to the wind.

Doubt.

She had not wanted to admit it to herself. And, she supposed, there were good reasons for her not to. Not least among them was that, having come to this realization, her life within the military was forfeit. Oh, she could keep it a secret from most; her mind was a sanctum that few could breach, even practiced Psychic types. But she had never been able to hide herself from Enigma—not when Enigma really wanted to know something.

The inner circle had changed over the years, she knew. Miranda herself had only been part of it for two decades at the most, and given that her job had to do with intelligence and espionage, she had spent much of that time away from the capital. Pokémon rose and fell in the Master's estimation according to Enigma's sometimes-indecipherable ramblings. Sometimes they simply grew too old to continue being useful in upholding the facade. Sometimes the Resistance captured them. Occasionally they vanished into thin air. Very rarely did such Pokémon fall, the way Miranda stood to fall. To have reached the very top of Ambera's echelons of power, to have been let in on the grandest of secrets, and then to fall away due to doubt and mistrust...

A Pokémon in Miranda's position could not afford doubt and mistrust. She had been tasked with seeking out the Master's enemies, the subtle foes—the ones who hid their fangs behind their smiles. She had rooted out many rebels who had hidden their deeds for decades—rebels like Amos. Miranda's methods, her skills, her very nature made her valuable—but a liability, and not entirely irreplaceable. She herself had condemned would-be traitors for less.

Such Pokémon did not make it into the history texts. Perhaps there had been many such Pokémon, names and faces and species all forgotten under the influence of powerful psychic or mystical abilities. She could not honestly believe she would be the first. And if she returned to the capital as she was, even the smallest shred of doubt, the momentary question, when combined with the fact that she had shown mercy to Zona in his moment of weakness...

The wind shifted. Deep inside, something twinged, the extrasensory ability that she had relied upon for so long. Miranda's hackles raised. Beside her, she felt Gideon tense. She opened her eyes and turned to look at him.

He was watching her, and there was a strange look in his eye that Miranda couldn't quite place. But it disappeared under encroaching confusion and uncertainty as he looked toward the ruins of Willow Dun.

"Magister," he said slowly. "Did you feel that?"

The fur on her tails was standing on end. "I did."

The other two said nothing. Flash's head tilted in a questioning way.

Just as physical passage left signs to follow, so too did intangible passage, whether by Ghost or Watcher or simply a powerful Psychic presence. A residue that lingered in the mind like a scent lingered in the air. Of what, even Miranda could not be certain—but it was enough to set her on edge. Gideon, too—he'd dropped into a ready stance, one arm blade raised in front of himself.

"I do not think..." Miranda murmured slowly, "... that we are alone."

"Shall we withdraw, Magister?" Flash's head was whipping around as the Mienshao tried in vain to perceive what was causing the other two distress.

For a moment, she almost said yes. But then the feeling shifted again. No, more accurate to say that it changed. Until now it had been like a wave brushing against the cliff face of her mind. But now it felt directed, intentional, a pressure that was aimed directly at her. She growled, lowering herself further to the ground.

Unbidden, a voice rang clearly in her mind.

Ah...

After so long...

Too late, she tried to throw up her mental wards, attempting to shield herself, but it was too late. The thing was already inside her mind, and rather than break through, it simply dismantled her wards as though it were taking apart a device.

Your song on the wind...

Welcome home...

Miranda felt her legs give out beneath herself and she fell onto her side. There was a cry of distress that sounded as though it came from a long way away, but already the edges of her vision were fading to white.

And...

Somewhere, sometime...

She finds him for the first time. He is sleeping peacefully on top of a rocky hill near town. She knows this hill, because she's climbed it before. Atop this hill there sits a circle of stones. Her father told her that the hill is a place of power, though she isn't sure what that means. From the very top, she can just barely see the eastern seashore. The stranger is a Ninetales like her mother, but clearly older, stronger, more vibrant in a way she cannot describe.

She gently rests a paw on his shoulder and pushes, like she does when she wants to wake Mother up. "Mister?"

There is no response. She circles around him and tries from the other side. He is still breathing, and he is comfortably warm to the touch, but no matter how she pokes and prods, he does not move.

She goes to get her father. He is a Delphox, a wise Pokémon, a fox like her, but he walks on two legs. He carefully examines the stranger with his eyes and his paws, and also with his wand, which has a little fire at the tip and which gives him special powers to see things that others can't. He seems—surprised, almost scared of the stranger. But even so, he picks him up and carries him home.

The stranger sleeps for another two days. She and her mother take turns making sure he is fed and cared for. Sometimes her father comes in and looks at him some more, seeming troubled, but he never voices his concerns. He spends a lot of his time meditating at the place of power at the top of the hill, but it doesn't seem to help him.

On the third day, while it is her turn to watch him, he finally opens his eyes. He sits up with a gasp, and he does it so suddenly that it scares her. She hides behind the desk in the room, peeking out around the corner to see him.

"Hello?" he says, finally. He has a strange accent but he's perfectly understandable.

Eventually, she steps out from behind the desk. "Hello."

The stranger's head tilts a bit. His tails fan out behind him in the same way her mother's do when she's thinking hard about what to say. "Where am I?"

"Willow Dun," she replies obediently.

He repeats the name as if to himself.

She asks a question, since it's her turn. "What's your name?"

He watches her for a moment, and she can't help but feel he's as curious about her as she is about him. Finally, he says, "My name is Amos."

It isn't a name she's ever heard of before. It sounds strange and foreign. He asks, "And... who are you?"

She smiles, because even if his name is strange, he seems polite and nice. "My name is Melodia," she says. "But you can call me Melody if you want to."

Miranda jerked awake with a gasp. Her head throbbed, and it took her a moment before she could open her eyes.

She was not where she had been. She was surrounded by trees—no, she realized. By willows. A quick glance around as she pushed herself back to all fours revealed that she was now alone—she could see no sign of her retinue, and even the presence that had intruded into her mind seemed to have gone.

But she was not safe. She was surrounded now by a chilling and oppressive aura—one that she knew well. The sky above had been clear before she whited out, and though she had no way to know how long it had been, she knew she should have been able to see some sliver of sky peeking through the willow branches above. Instead the light seemed to come from nowhere, an ambient, unwavering and uncomfortably eternal illumination. If that weren't enough, the willows seemed to stretch on in her vision, farther than they ought to have, endless and uncertain.

She cursed to herself. A dungeon had taken Willow Dun.

How had she gotten here from all the way at the top of the hill? No, she decided. No point in worrying about it now. She had to find a way out.

Miranda took a deep breath, trying to center herself. She had been trained for this. The meandering and self-sustaining spatiotemporal weirdness inside mystery dungeons was, if not necessarily well understood, then at least documented and tested. Like untwisting a stubborn knot, if one knew the method and the art, one could unravel the singularity, collapse it into reality, force it to exist by the real world's rules again. She had done so before in the Ashwood Arbor. It was not easy, but it could be done.

Miranda closed her eyes and cast out her senses, looking for the telltale curves, the unnatural ripples and repetitions. Mystery dungeons were distortions in reality, reflecting what was there like a twisted sort of mirror. And while no dungeon was twisted in quite the same way, there was always a weak point, a center of the singularity, a bead of reality nestled in the heart of the weirdness. She reached for it, and Miranda

took a deep breath, trying to center herself. She had been trained for this. The meandering and self-sustaining spatiotemporal weirdness inside mystery dungeons was...

Wait. No, that wasn't right.

She let out a huff and tried again, trying a different method, focusing on a singular point. Observed, focused upon, it could not change; the rest of the weald could twist around it, and she could follow the ripples. There, she saw it: a trail of solid realness that led deeper, around. In the distance, her mind's eye could see it, a warm glow, like fire, burning bright against the dim strangeness of the dungeon. She reached out again, and—

Something brushed against her mind. No, she realized with a start. She had brushed against her own mind—followed her own psychic trail right back to where she herself sat.

"What in the world?" she murmured. No dungeon she had heard of worked like this. From a psychic perspective, everywhere led back on itself, a perfect and unblemished self-referential circle, spiraling up and down into itself forever.

Regardless, she admitted to herself, attempting to untie this knot would not work. But that did not mean there was no way out in the traditional method. If something like this had existed, surely by now it would have been found.

Unless, Miranda considered, there was no way out after all.

"Gideon?" she called, perking her ears up to listen. The noise might have attracted wild Pokémon, but Miranda couldn't bring herself to care. "Calder? Flash?"

No response. But her head turned when she heard a snapping branch in the distance. She stood and began padding in its direction. Immediately, she experienced another strangeness.

She knew where she was. Not in the sense of understanding the dungeon—but rather in the sense of where she might have been in town. She could see it clearly. She had just stepped onto the south seventh avenue, facing north; if the building had been there, she would have just stepped out of the Bibarel family's woodworking shop.

The mural of her mind unrolled before her. The shape of the town of Willow Dun burned in her mind's eye. She was near the southern edge of town, she knew. The hill she had been standing on had been overlooking the northern edge. There was a particular route she could take from here, a combination of alleyways and thoroughfares, that would lead her back out.

Except... her eyes could only see willows. No paths, no roads. Occasionally there were stone and brick remnants of structures, but none large enough to show any identifying marks. Her eyes saw one thing and her mind another, and yet—it made sense. The path out was as clear to her as day. She had only to walk it.

Empty. Abandoned. Forgotten. Yet she knew. "Who will speak for the dead?" she murmured. "Does anyone but me even remember you...?"

She walked across to the other side of the theoretical avenue to where she had heard the branch snap. The weald's floor was mostly bare; grass and moss poked up here and there. The trees overhead were old, or at least they had become old in the wake of the dungeon. But they grew healthily, reaching up toward a sky that wasn't there and dancing in a wind that wasn't really blowing.

She reached the edge of the theoretical road and stood before a theoretical wall. Her eyes saw only more trees, but she was nevertheless hesitant when she reached a paw forward through what should have been a wall.

The moment her paw touched the floor, things changed again. She felt herself quite literally jerk through—something, somewhere—and though the world around her did not visually change, she was struck with alarming certainty that she was now somewhere else entirely.

At the same moment, three Pokémon flashed into being before her. Her retinue—Gideon, Flash and Calder. As they materialized in front of her—or, more accurately, Miranda realized, she materialized in front of them—Gideon whirled on her, one arm blade surging with the dark power of a Night Slash. She ducked under it with a sharp growl, and he snapped back in realization.

"Magister Miranda!" Gideon crossed his arm blades. "Thank the gods."

Flash turned at the sound, and Miranda saw relief shine in her eyes as well. Before Miranda could stop her, the Mienshao was upon her. The hug was brief, but Miranda could feel Flash's wiry strength before she pulled back and bowed. Calder stood some distance away, wings spread, seeming a little slow on the uptake; but eventually he too relaxed.

"If you're done trying to take my head off," Miranda said sourly, glaring at her adjutant, who looked quietly guilty, "report, please."

"Ma'am." Gideon stood straight. "You collapsed, if you recall. As we attempted to tend to you, you vanished—it seemed to my eyes as though Teleporting. And though I could not sense specifically where you had gone, the Teleport seemed to head into the ruins of the village. So we headed in, and..." He gestured around himself. "It is as you see. It's a relief to see you well."

"How long have you been searching for me?"

"Not long, ma'am," Flash supplied, finally standing from her bow. "Not more than an hour at the most. We weren't sure if we'd find you again."

"Now that you have..." Calder grunted. "Mind conjuring us a way out? I hate forests."

Miranda shook her head. "No. I have already tried; every attempt to unravel the singularity has failed." When she saw Flash tense, she raised a paw. "Be calm. There is still a path out. Unfortunately, we will simply have to walk it ourselves."

Calder's beak clamped loudly and unhappily. Her adjutant looked confused. "Forgive me, Magister, but how do you know?"

"Because..."

Her mind whirled. She felt like she was screaming at herself, missing something obvious. Another Miranda, looking at her as though through glass.

She shook her head. "Because I have been here before." She turned and looked. From here, the wood looked strange and mystifying and she could not imagine the trail. And yet again, with that quiet certainty, she knew that, strictly speaking, she was in a building and the door was just there, and if she could get outside again, she could envision things properly. Miranda pointed. "There. Follow me exactly. If you deviate, I cannot guarantee your safety."

She walked, turned past a low-hanging willow branch, and stepped "outside." Again, the city appeared before her mind in its entirety, and, as she'd feared, they were now somewhere else. Sixth south street, by her estimation, and now facing west.

Her retinue appeared around her, as though out of thin air. Gideon shivered, examining himself. "Whatever that was, I didn't like it."

Calder let out an annoyed squawk. "I didn't feel anything. But if you think this is the way out, Magister, I'll follow."

Miranda began walking, keeping a slow pace. The others followed behind her. "Have you encountered any wild Pokémon?"

"No, ma'am." Flash was toddling along beside her. Several heads taller, she was likely able to see further—not that it would have availed her in a place like this. "Just us. It's been deathly quiet—just the sound of the wind."

"Quiet for you, perhaps," said Gideon. Miranda's ears swiveled in her direction. "Don't you hear it, Magister? The voice on the wind."

"I heard... something," Miranda murmured. "Before I collapsed. But since I awoke, it has been silent. Has it told you anything?"

This didn't seem to put him at ease. "There aren't... specific words. But I'm pretty sure we're still not alone, ma'am. And if I may speak frankly... I don't know if I like this sudden certainty."

She stopped, eyes narrowing slightly as she looked back at him. Gideon cleared his throat, crossing his arms behind his back. "I don't mean to imply you're willingly leading us into a trap, ma'am. Hardly. And I'm glad someone has a clue about the way out. But don't you think it's suspicious? This path of yours sounds precise."

She took a deep breath, rubbing at her forehead with a paw. How to explain it? "I know where I am, Gideon. I grew up in this town."

"What town, ma'am?" he asked desperately. "From where I'm standing, it's trees forever in every direction."

She fumbled for words. It was so easy, if he just accepted that she was right. She couldn't explain it. It didn't make sense—

Oh. Her ear pinned back and her eyes went wide. Oh no.

"Magister...?" Flash was tensing again.

Miranda furrowed her brow, then took a few steps forward. A particularly broad tree stood before her in what had been a thoroughfare. She could still imagine the myriad Pokémon going every which way in the crossroads mere feet away. "It thinks I belong," she said, voice suddenly weak.

"I don't understand," the Mienshao continued. But Gideon looked suddenly grave.

"Mystery dungeons," Miranda explained slowly, not at all sure she wanted to say the words herself, "are alive. Living things. And like living things, they take measures to defend themselves. Wild Pokémon live and die in dungeons without ever struggling for food or shelter—because the dungeon welcomes them, cares for them. It ensures they know where they are and provides for them."

She reached out and set a paw on the great tree in front of her. "Willow Dun was my home. I was born here, named here, raised here. I remember every step along its streets. Abandoned, it has been twisted into something with a will. Even now, it seems that it knows who I am. I know these paths because it allows me to. It opens wide its arms for me, and it says—"

Welcome home.

Everyone jumped at the noise. It was as though the wood itself had spoken, an impossibly deep sound that resolved into sense in Miranda's mind. She withdrew her paw from the trunk, stepping back with a low growl.

"Did you hear that?" Flash screeched, pivoting toward Calder, and then, "...What? Calder!?"

The Skarmory was gone. The space he had occupied was simply empty; in Miranda's second sight, the road was broad and open, and there was nowhere he could simply have gone to hide; even then, if he'd tried to take off, Skarmory did not fly silently.

"I—" Flash stammered. "I swear I only took my eyes off of him for one second!"

Miranda whirled, low to the ground, trying to cast her senses out again to find any sign of the missing soldier. His metallic carapace would block most of her senses, she knew, but she should at least have been able to sense a presence—yet there was nothing. Only herself and the two who remained, standing in the middle of what was, at one and the same time, a city street and an endless wood.

Hackles raised again, she stood tall and raised her head. Infusing her voice with psychic power, she barked out an order. "Return him to me!"

The forest swallowed the sound. For a moment there was no response—then Miranda felt the same pressure on her mind that she'd felt on the hill outside of town. She grit her teeth, but already the edges of her vision were fading to white.

And...

Somewhere, sometime...

Melody's father comes in to see the stranger as soon as he hears he's awake, of course.

They have a conversation in a low voice that she can't make out. Sometimes she does catch a word or two, but they're words she doesn't know, and it seems rude to pry.

The stranger joins Melody's family for dinner, which isn't anything special, but he seems surprised at just about everything, looking around their home as though he's never seen one before. But he's polite about answering questions when asked, at least as much as he can. Melody tries asking him about where he's from and why he was asleep on the hill, but Amos doesn't seem to know how to answer those questions, and her father gives her A Look so she knows to stop asking.

After dinner, Amos steps outside. The sun is setting and there's salt on the wind, and it looks like a storm may be blowing in, but even though he's a Fire-type, he doesn't seem to mind. He sits in the yard, and Melody and her father sit nearby, and he looks up at the stars like he's never seen them so clearly before.

He mutters something. Melody's ears perk up.

"Is this... truly a world without humans?"

Melody doesn't know what a human is, but when he says it, the word is laced with such pain and longing that she hurts too.

Her father jerks a little guiltily, looking up and around to make sure none of their neighbors are too close. He stands and moves over to the other fox. "Not... a world," he says, in a quieter voice, but Melody is still close enough to listen. "Just... a continent. Ambera is a place on this planet just the same as any other."

Amos seems troubled. "But—without humanity..."

Her father lightly rests a paw on the stranger's shoulder. "That's correct," he says. "There are no humans here. You told me that was what you asked for, wasn't it? When you were brought here?"

Amos doesn't say anything for a minute. Then, "...but how do you live like this?"

"Like what?" her father asks.

"In towns and cities. With culture and philosophy and... faith. Patterned after the very thing you cannot have. It seems so... lonely."

Her father's expression is a little strained as he stands straight with a sigh. "Lonely," he says placidly, though Melody can hear that he's getting a little upset. "Yes, well... we manage. The alternative is to descend into savagery."

Melody is getting sleepy, so she lays down on the grass nearby. But before she closes her eyes, she sees her father pull out his wand and stare into the flame burning gently at the tip. Before she nods off, she hears him direct one more question at the stranger; now he sounds hesitant and uncertain. "What... is it like, to live with humans?"

She can't make out the words, but she drifts off to the sound of the warmth and fondness in Amos' voice.

Miranda pushed herself back to her paws. Gideon was still crouched over her, expression tight with concern, but he relaxed when she stood again. For a mercy, she didn't seem to have gone anywhere this time.

"Magister, we have to leave. This place isn't safe!"

Miranda's breathing came hot and fast as she fought off the remnants of the headache. "Calder—"

"We can't worry about Calder!"

Miranda turned to attempt to calm the doubtless panicking Mienshao, but Flash too had vanished in the intervening time. "Both of them—"

"Mirandalys!"

Her head snapped back to the Gallade. Not once had he ever called her solely by her name. "We have to go. If whatever happened to them happens to you, I may never find you again." Tears crept into the corner of his eyes, his tone bordering on just this side of hysterical. "I can't bear that thought. I must see you safely out of this dungeon. Please."

It wasn't like he had much of a say in the matter, she thought to herself. She was the one with the way out. But the desperation—the panic—in his eyes made it difficult to vocalize that thought. Somehow, despite everything, he was frightened for her, not because of her.

"Whatever I did to earn such loyalty," she said solemnly, "I shall repay." She stepped past him and past the tree in the middle of the road. It took but a moment's concentration to find the path again. "Now—this way."

But she stopped before she'd made it three steps, looking over her shoulder at him. "To... ensure we do not separate," she offered. "Perhaps it is best that we stay in contact."

He stepped toward her gratefully, twisting an arm to rest the flat of one of his blades on her back. She nodded to him and set out again.

For a few minutes, only the sounds of their steps broke the silence. Eventually, though, his voice still slightly strained, Gideon spoke up again. "How long ago... did you live here, Magister?"

"Long enough ago that a mystery dungeon sprung up in the ruins," she replied carefully. "In my youth, times were... simpler. There were almost no dungeons, and the night was safe from specters."

(she has walked this street many times before; it is a bustling path out of town to the south; the roads are indented with wagon tracks and the prints of burden-bearing Pokémon bearing shipments from the quarry)

"There was no hint of a dungeon here when I was young," she said wistfully. She could almost feel the sunlight on her back, though overhead was only the gray blankness shining through the willow branches. "Though I suppose it is hardly the first town to suffer such things... nor will it be the last. Turn here."

She went wide around the corner so he did not step into one of the vanishing walls of the pseudo-city, and he followed obediently. In front of her, in her second sight, was an alley path leading back up toward the city's main street. From there, it would almost be a straight shot back out to reality.

But when she took the next step, things changed. The whole city twisted around her in her second sight, reconfiguring itself into a new orientation. In front of her now sat a brick wall—a wall that would doubtless shuffle the town again if touched. She cursed.

"What happened?" Gideon's voice was sharp.

She stepped back into what was now a T-crossing, trying to get her bearings. "The city structures, the walls—they are a kind of trap. Fate was kind enough to lead me to you before, but if the walls are touched, the whole city moves—and the path out with it. I need a moment to figure out where I am."

"But we didn't touch any walls, did we?"

"No." Her ears flicked. "The others—they must be elsewhere in the dungeon. Panicking and stumbling into walls. It may be that there is no way out, at least until they figure out to hold still."

"So what do we do now?"

"First, we do not panic," she said, trying to soothe the Gallade. "Sit. Take deep breaths. Meditate. The dungeon has not rejected me yet. By my measure..." She thought for a moment. "Actually... we are quite close to the center of town."

Gideon took her advice, sitting with his back against the trunk of a tree. Miranda laid nearby and drew a crude map on the dirt before herself, claw tracing through the web of tree roots as best it could. "We are here. Main street is here. We could go around through the residential district, or we could pass through the park here and end up on the north side."

"What was the park like?"

Miranda looked at Gideon, then up at the trees. "It was full of these—willow trees. The dungeon must have begun somewhere in one of the clusters of trees. Although, if that is the case..." She pondered briefly. "The town lay abandoned for centuries, yet in all our time in this dungeon we have yet to encounter any wild Pokémon—when such Pokémon have traditionally been drawn to places like this. Nor have my traditional methods allowed me an out. It is... possible we are dealing with a different sort of dungeon altogether, but..."

"I'd rather have not found one at all, if I were to be honest," Gideon said weakly.

"Yes," Miranda replied, tapping a paw on the ground. "I suppose that's fair. But nevertheless, here we are."

She watched him for a moment. He sat cross-legged, fidgeting slightly, keeping his blades flat against his knees. His head never sat still, constantly shifting, as though hoping to see something in the monotony of the weald.

"Is the voice still speaking to you?" Miranda asked finally.

"It's like a chorus," he said, rocking back and forth a bit. "But... unclear. Indecipherable. Are you sure you can't hear anything, Magister?"

For show, she perked up her ears. But there was nothing—either physical or mental. She shook her head. "Nothing. Truth be told, Gideon, I'd much rather you were listening to my voice, so: a question."

He glanced in her direction. "Yes?"

"What do you intend to do once we get back to the capital?"

"Report in," he said automatically. "And file paperwork. I'm sure you need to do the same, of course."

She smiled a slightly sour smile. "Really? Escape this mess, and your first desire is to go back to work?"

"Isn't yours?" he asked, and Miranda couldn't entirely tell if he was kidding. "I've always... preferred structure, Magister. That's why I enjoy working with you. We plan and we execute. Variables are considered and accounted for. Everything is neat. This?" He shakes his head. "I don't like this."

She gave a considerate hum. "I suppose that is fair."

"What about you, Magister? Assuming, you know, work's all said and done."

She pondered this for a moment, then opened her mouth.

A piercing cry cut through the stillness of the weald—unmistakably a cry of pain.