Pokémon Chronicles - Web of Lies

by Eric566

Three years after the disbandment and defeat of Team Uncario, the members of Team Star find themselves thrust back into stardom after a succesful mission in dealing with an unexpected menace. However, the fall of the last of the Dark Eons and this new achievement has stirred new enemies from the ends of the world, and re-ignited the fires of an empire best forgotten. Sequel to AHR.

16. Chapter 12 - Gift from the Stars

Well hello hello! That took like… what? A month? Honestly I'm surprised myself. This chapter is much longer than usual as well. Not too much longer, but still enough. I feel I could've cut down some parts of it, but then I think I'd be paying it dearly later down the line. I have the next chapter already in the works too, maybe I can go back to something resembling a normal schedule for uploading? Who knows!

Now, onto the reviews, then the chapter!

TheOrangeLord: Hey, long time no see! Yeah, I know, a lot of people miss him, I do too… But his spirit still linger in the world, in more ways than one.

WesternFail: That it has my friend, that it has. Better late than never! And yes, Sam has finally been introduced, and how he interacts… well, I think you'll find out soon!

Hjof257: I was actually rather scared about that, that the chapter would come through as too boring or full of filler, but I'm glad to see that some people liked the fact that it was a lot more dialogue and character. And don't cha worry, perhaps I will make a reference to that (probably not).

#PatienceMyFriendSheIsComing

Now, let us delve right into the next chapter!

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Chapter 12

Gift from the Stars

Find the heavenborn gift from the stars

When morning came, Elly and company were all up and ready to go, having eaten and packed provisions for the trip ahead of them. They were to head west, and then south, down a peninsula that would take them to the more arid area of Unova, where the meteor had landed. It would've normally taken a day or two but they were provided with a carriage that would take them there much, much faster. They were predicted to be there by sunset, which all things considered, was a pretty good place, and was fantastic for the group, since not one of them had gotten much sleep the previous night.

"This is the last time I'm sharing a bedroom with you I swear, next time, it'll be the way it should've been: males in one room, females in the other."

"Oh come on, it wasn't that bad."

"Yes, yes it was THAT bad. I didn't expect for the beds to be so compact… How long have you gone without a shower?"

"Just like, a day, what's wrong?"

"A day?! And today makes it two I guess? Ugh, being in that carriage is going to be a nightmare…"

"Well, you don't exactly smell of pecha berries and flowers! Or… at least you don't completely smell of that." Nox sniffed himself. "Is it really that bad?"

"Nox…" The Eevee sighed, and shook her head. "Just don't worry about it, but please, at this point it's not just for me, or the others, but yourself as well: be mindful of your personal hygiene. You were the one that brought up that you wanted to change the way you interacted with girls before we left, remember?" He nodded, making her smile. "Well, here's your very first, very basic tip of advice: shower once a day, either when you go to bed, or when you wake up in the morning. It'll make it so people don't actively have to hold their breath."

"I mean… you're complaining a lot about me, but it's not like Eric's much better…"

"He's got longer and thicker fur!" She blushed for some reason, and before Nox could press the matter, Zed and Lucy met up with them. Seemed they hadn't slept a wink either. Lucy silently greeted them with a nod, whilst Zed came around with a silent 'Good morning' and left sulking. Whatever they'd been talking about in the morning hadn't come out the way he'd planned it, it seemed. After stashing away everyone in bags and into the carriage, the group got on, and set off, lead by two serious looking Zebstrikas, exchanging some short banter between themselves before their clients hopped in, and off they went.

Unfortunately, because of their early departure, they were unable to hear the news that the jail cell where Sam had been locked up the evening prior had been completely busted up, the bars bent out of shape, and the jailor knocked out cleanly before he strode out of the building during the switch between the day and night shift.

---

"Is it just me… or is Unova just as boring as Sinnoh?" Nox asked as he was looking out the window constantly, expecting there to be at least something interesting to look at. Unfortunately for everyone, himself included, there were mostly plains and trees to look at, though every so often there was the eventual mansion, but it was gone in the blink of an eye, they were moving quite fast, after all. "What's up with all these gaudy looking buildings though? Like, talk about overkill, some of these are insanely big and complicated looking."

"Nox… those are plantations. With Hoennian slaves."

"'scuse me what." He did a complete 180 and faced Elly, who was glancing at Zed and Lucy, sitting on opposite sides of the carriage. "Slaves? Like… seriously?"

"Yes, seriously." This time Lucy spoke up, with that now almost signature irritated tone. "Didn't you know that slavery is legal here in Unova? As if those poor bastards in Hoenn didn't already have it bad enough…"

"Wait, so, when did this happen?"

"A long time ago, Nox." Elly picked up where Lucy left off. "After the last war, Hoenn being the stage of another confrontation between Unova and Kanto, both started to set up spheres of influence there, and along with them, Johto too. Whilst Kanto opted to simply keep them in check and have it as a sort of "buffer" against Unova, both Johto and Unova took the opportunity to start pillaging and pilfering everything they could find. And that included the locals. Most of them, at least."

"Ain't the world just a fuckin' peachy place… This whole thing reminds me of somethin', you know? That fucked up guy that tried to stop us before we went down in the ruins under the desert. I'm starting to understand why they decided to ally themselves with those assholes. Most of us are just sitting here with our arms crossed and doing nothin' to make the world a better place." She looked out the window, and at a plantation going by. "Big fuckin' joke, that's what we all are, fucking useless…"

"Nobody's useless, Lucy!" Zed suddenly cut in, but that shout died halfway through his throat, and most came out as a mere whimper. The only reaction he got out of her was a twitch of her ear. "Even if other people say it, it's not true…" The air in the carriage grew somehow more uncomfortable than before, and Nox remained strangely silent from that point onward, staring at those manors with just a hint of contempt. The minutes went by, silenced returned to the carriage, but Elly was still bothered by Zed's reaction.

"Hey." She called him through a newly formed psychic link, the Zorua glancing at her, unaware she hadn't actually physically spoken. "Wanna talk about it?" The lack of her moving her lips told him what was going on.

"Talk about… no, don't worry, I'm fine…"

"Look Zed, I'm a psychic, but I don't need to use any powers to tell that something is very wrong between you and Lucy. She's been… off, ever since she came back from visiting her family."

"Wonder why…"

"Don't sass me like that." She glared at him, and the Zorua's eyes dropped again, making her feel guilty almost immediately. "This is all a very… touchy subject, for most of us at least. What happened there was a tragedy, and I'm not asking for her to move on almost immediately… but everytime I look at her I see myself back when I was at my most desperate… but worse. Way, way worse."

"We were younger back then, it was easier for us to do stupid things then, without thinking too much… She's strong though, I know that."

"And I know that too. Hell, she was probably stronger than I was back then. How many times did I try to jump off a cliff… it's embarrassing, in a way. So much to do and live for and I was just blinded by negativity in those moments."

"Still think that's because we were younger then…"

"And even so, what I'm seeing in her right now is reminding me of that… and I don't how to make sense of it. You know her better than I do. I'm concerned for her too, greatly. She's my best friend." A single long look straight into his eyes said everything else that needed to be said.

"She's… told me some stuff in private, Elly… and I don't want to betray that privacy. She's not ok, I know that, we know that, she knows that too. She's always pretty ambiguous about it too, but if I had to take a guess… it mostly has to do with how things… ended, with her father."

"That much I could guess. I'm sorry I'm asking you about this Zed, but I'm her friend, and I'm very worried for her and her mental state, because she's not ok, and it's paining me to see her like this. I want to do something for h-"

"I'm already doing all I can." He suddenly got defensive. "I'm trying my hardest to support her, but I can tell that it's not enough, but I don't want you to get in between Elly, because… she trusted me with this information, with what I know, and what happened, and I don't want to betray that trust."

"Not even to me? I care about her just as much as you do!"

There was a long silence between the two, but the Zorua shook his head. "Zed, please…"

"Elly, stop insisting, I'm not going to tell you! What you're asking is just too much, and I told you I feel I'd be betraying her trust!"

Elly closed her eyes, knowing he was right… but still, what could she have told him that he was so vehemently defending her? Why couldn't he trust her? It was too many worries that they eventually got the better of her. "My father wasn't a good man either. Hers didn't sound like father of the year material."She got silence from Zed for a bit, before he sighed. "It… isn't as much about her father, or her mother. It's complicated Elly. If she wants you to know, then she'll tell you eventually, but until then, I'm not going to talk about the rest of her family."

Elly fell silent after that, and didn't attempt to continue the conversation, she just… looked out the window, deep in thought and troubled over that last line: Lucy had never brought up her family with Elly outside of loose comments… but neither had Zed, or Serge, or Nox… And Jake didn't really have a family to begin with. The only one who had openly spoken and whose story was known to everyone else in the team was… her. She was overexposed compared to the others. She glanced at the other pokémon in the carriage with her, seeing them under a different light. Her teammates… and also complete strangers.

---

After taking a short nap, Elly found herself woken up by Lucy, who shook her as she got off the carriage, following Zed and Nox. Outside, they were standing on the edge of what seemed like desertic lands, grass withering and dying, becoming little spots of green that became less and less common as one went in, and only barren rock appeared to fill the horizon, with hills and more dried up grass and bushes littering the barren, worn road that extended beyond them. "Road's too rocky and dangerous for us to continue from this point onward. We will be heading back now." One of the Zebstrikas regretfully told them, having to leave mainly because of their other assignments. "Call the guild when you need to be taken back to the city, and be safe. The tribe that inhabits these lands doesn't take kindly to strangers."

"Tribe?"

"Yes, the Haleno tribe. Mostly steel, rock and ground types. Territorial, but they know the language, and if you explain the situation, I am sure you will be able to convince them to let you pass through." Elly thanked them for their services and advice, and with that, they turned around and headed back the way they came, the group turning to look at the badlands before them.

"Reminds me a bit of the savannah… except, you know, even more baren, if that's even possible." Lucy pointed out as she began walking, taking the lead and hissing from how hot the dirt path was. They could do nothing but grit their teeth and bear it before they got used to it however. At the very least, Nox didn't have any issues with it, as they began moving under the blistering sun.

"I mean, this entire place seems pretty boring as well… and here I thought it couldn't get worse. There's like, no forests in this region, and I've only seen a couple of rivers."

"Well, we are near the south-west peninsula, which is just a bit higher in latitude than Crimsand, and…"

"Yaaaawn." Was Nox's response to this tidbit that Elly thought was pretty interesting, since she thought he should know where they were geographically, and understand why the landscape was that way… But alas, it seemed she didn't know what he was like, or understood him, a sensation that was once again starting to bother her. "Like, I get it, but it doesn't make a half-desert landscape any less boring." He even tried to lessen the blow, but Elly was back to sulking, and made the Houndour confused, and feel slightly bad. Really, not a single pokémon in the group was feeling alright, mentally or physically, as they were either hungry in Nox's case, and hungry and about to get sunstroke in the case of Elly, Zed and Lucy, the three of them huffing and panting only thirty minutes into walking, and not a single sign of civilization, or anything that cast shade on the path they were walking.

"How long… does this go on?! Feels like we've been walking for hours… I'm frying over here…" She looked over to Nox. "Make yourself useful and get in front, and we'll stand in your shade!" Nox looked at her, confused, but did as he was told. "...actually, scratch that, definitely don't want to be staring at your ass… Zed, honey?"

"I… don't think I can do much, and transforming is going to be impossible if I can't concentrate… besides, if I become bigger, I might very well get a real bad heatstroke."

"Ugh, damn it… Elly?"

"Huh?"

"What do you mean 'huh?'?! You're the one leading us, at least try and come up with a solution, or we're all going to end up like those berries Nox burnt to a crisp last week!"

"Hey they weren't burnt, they were smoked!"

"I think you were the one who was 'smoked' that day, those berries looked as black, crispy and tiny as your brain! Like, they were seriously fucked."

"Well, they tasted good for me…"

"Because you're a fire type! You could be fed hot flaming garbage and you'd still gobble it up!"

"Hey cut it out, I haven't even opened my mouth today, and you're already getting this pissy with me?"

"She's getting pissy with everyone today Nox, just don't mind her…" Zed's remark was met with a snarl from Lucy, which normally would've made him shut up, but this time, he seemed he'd had enough with her attitude. "What? It's true, you've been doing nothing but jump down our throats these past few days!"

"Well, you're all getting on my nerves and being annoying!"

"The fuck?" Nox burst into the conversation. "The fuck are you talking about, we're annoying? You're getting up in our faces about bothering you when we ask if you need something or need help. It's like going through a fucking minefield with you!"

"Oh, so you're trying to tell me that you're not an annoying little shit that's always getting in the way? 'Oh, oh look at me, I'm fifteen but I still can't fucking cook some berries right for the life of me or my partners, nor can I listen to my boss when he tells me to stay back!' That kind of person is trying to tell me how I should behave, specially when I'm this pissed off?!"

"Oh excuse me if your daddy passed away when you called him a right piece of shit, which to be honest, is so often the case with everyone around you I'm starting to doubt he really deserved it." Nox barked back, making Lucy's fur crackle with electricity in pure rage. Seeing how things were escalating, Zed turned to face them, then face Elly, as if asking for help. The Eevee was looking at them too, in a mixture of impotence, fear and anger. Because she didn't know what to say, things were already so far gone and so twisted with Lucy that her attitude was getting to everyone, but Nox had the shortest fuse, and was about to blow up… and there she was, having absolutely no idea on what to do or say to calm everything down, and avoid hurting feelings or making everyone's anger fall right on her too.

"Nox, Lucy please cut it out, we are in the middle of a-"

"Fucking say that again, you asshole." She turned around on a dime, ignoring her mate's words and facing Nox. "Fucking say it again. Say it. SAY IT!"

"STOP IT RIGHT NOW!" Elly ended up screaming at the top of her lungs, almost cracking her voice because of the amount of stress going through her body right now. "I can't deal with all this pressure, and all this tension in the air right now! None of us can, or are helping the situation in any way, and we're just fueling the fire!" She said this whilst looking at Nox, who huffed and turned to look away. Then came Lucy's turn and… again, she had no idea what to say… so she said something she was afraid would backfire on her. "And you… Honestly, I don't even know what your deal is anymore. I get it, losing a family member like that is terrible, and the choices you took weren't the right ones, but you aren't the only one who's gone through it!"

"He died like, three days ago!"

"You were given an option on whether to come or not to come on this mission Lucy, and you said yes, so don't pull the sadness card on me, because you had your chance before we left and you didn't use it!" At this point, Lucy didn't have a remark, or could say something that would either make her look stupid, or downright insane. "So the fact that you're complaining so much, being such a massive bitch and a pain in the ass for everyone here because you can't deal with your personal issues is entirely on you!"

Lucy bit her lip and tried to stay quiet, but eventually she just couldn't keep it quiet. "Well, I'm doing my fucking job so I don't have to feel as much of a piece of shit for essentially killing my father!"

"Wha… Lucy, that's not true! I saw it with my own eyes, he was already dying, what you said wasn't wha-"

"The hell it wasn't!" Her eyes looked somewhat teary. "I know that bitch was the one who said it… but I can't help but agree at this point." Everyone fell silent after this remark, and Nox felt outright guilty for pushing the Shinx's boundaries with his words, sighing and walking ahead, muttering to himself as he went ahead. Zed hugged her, and tried to comfort her, as she shook in his hug, and Elly sighed, trying to think of ways to improve the situation or at least make it so they weren't as miserable. That's when she finally came up with a solution for the sun problem: she summoned her dark matter, and made like a little parasol above their heads, floating there and keeping them constantly in the shade, whilst Nox walked forward still, fuming and muttering to himself, but otherwise unbothered by the harsh sunlight. She at least got a smile from Zed and a devastated look from Lucy, earning the two of them a nod, and continuing onward, standing under the shade, as they seemed to talk to each other through their psychic link.

The group continued onward, walking through the barren road, not a soul in sight, and only the sun to keep on shining and attacking them, so much so that Nox eventually slowed down and sought shelter under the cover of Elly's dark matter, and while it helped against the sun, it did nothing to stop the heat. "This is horrible… At this rate, my dark matter is going to start bubbling above us."

"Wait… can that happen?" Nox innocently asked, and Elly's response was… a shrug.

"Never really held it out like this and for so long… but I'm going to take a guess and say no. Still, I can feel the heat on it, and it's as hot as a frying pan, so don't even try to touch it." At this point it was becoming yet another issue, as if the sun wasn't enough for them to deal with.

"Fuck me, this is horrible… Wait, over there!" Nox pointed forward excitedly, at what seemed to be two structures! They were tall, and in the distance, they looked somewhat like buildings! The group, excited, hastened their pace, but as they approached and the shapes became more defined, they realized that it was anything but civilization: two spires of rock, about ten meters tall each, stood before them, shapes and writing carved into them, and a rope of dried up twigs coiled together, from which hung two things: the first, were short and wide strips of tree bark with white rune like writings, and long strips of paper, some of it old and yellow, others new and white, but all of them with long strings of those same symbols.

"Looks like some sort of spire… or entrance." Elly commented, looking from a distance whilst Nox approached and looked around, poking his head through the curtain of papers, and moving through. "Look at those letters as well… I haven't seen them before, like some sort of local dialect."

"Might be just that. Looks like the tree bark spell out something, but the papers… they all end in the same letters." Zed got closer as well, Elly and Lucy approaching too, and looking at the curtain up close. "Nox, do you see anything on the other side?" There was no response. "Nox?" Again, no response, Zed frowning and looking at Elly and Zed, unsure of what was going on.

"Nox, are you there?" They heard nothing from the other side, and at this point, they moved through… and he was right there, looking around. "Nox!" The Houndour jumped out of his skin and bolted his head back to look at Elly's head, poking through the paper sheets, Lucy and Zed following through. "Answer when we call you!"

"What are you screaming at me for?! You literally just called me!"

"Nox, I called you three times in a row, and you didn't answer to any of them!"

"Huh… really?" He looked genuinely puzzled, which made them confused, since they'd thought he'd been messing with them. "Must've not heard it… anyways, look at this!" He pointed to the rock spires, specifically the shades that they projected, the perfect place to eat lunch, as he proposed it. The others found it hard to agree with him, as they'd been walking for a long time and were hungry, so some rest was appreciated by all of them. They sat down and got to chewing through their provisions, part of them at least, a hearty meal that'd revitalize them, followed by a short break, following the shade as the sun moved above them, sitting right besides the curtain of paper, Elly taking the time to look at it closer.

Zed was right, many of the paper strips ended in the same set of words, and there are signs that some had been there for many, many years. She couldn't hope to understand them, however, the writing was completely alien to her, even with her knowledge of languages from her extensive reading. "Must be some kind of local dialect…"

"If only Jake was here." Zed spoke from the ground, sitting right besides a resting Lucy and a snoring Nox. "He'd be having a field day with all of this." Elly smiled and nodded, the Sneasel would be enjoying all this…

"Bar the heat, of course." Nox's comment was true indeed, the Zorua chuckling.

"I think he'd pull through just for this kind of stuff." Lucy chimed in, and looked at her mate.. "What do you think it is?"

"It looks like some kind of gate. Like a sort of entrance to an area or region. Think the entrance to Treasure Town, even if its a bit far away from the town itself, you have an entrance of sorts to tell you that you are now entering the vicinity. And that's where you can find farmers and the like, and further in, the town itself. So I think this is something like that… but I don't get the papers."

"They look like Johtenian prayer slips." Elly looked at him, then back at the papers. "Like, I know it's difficult to see the relation… and kind of racist, but when I saw them for the first time that's the first thing that came to mind."

"Honestly, I can kind of see it. I don't know why a tribe in the middle of nowhere in Unova would have these kinds of prayer slips, but…" Since she was looking at the papers, she could see through the gaps when they swayed in the wind, and in one of these movements, she spotted a figure moving towards the "gate" they were resting at. They were utterly massive, moving at a slow, yet determined pace. "Hey, heads up, someone's coming." Zed straightened and elbowed both of the pokémon sitting besides him.

"Wh-wha… are we moving?" Elly motioned him to stay quiet, looking through the papers, and he got the gist of what was happening, snapping up and looking through as well. "Who the hell…"

"Might be one of those tribe members the Zebstrikas told us about… you think they could lead us?"

"Doubt it, they said they were territorial… if anything he might just be pissed off at us for trespassing into their lands or something like that. Let's keep it cool, and try to talk it out." They waited there, the sun making it difficult for them to tell just who or what they were until they were extremely close… which was when they recognized the figure as Sam, the Krokorok they'd met in Pontavicel. "What the…"

"What's he doing here?!" Nox's question was what hinged on all their heads, but Elly already had a bad feeling about this guy: not only had he followed them, but he also had one of those symbols on the back of his claw, and was one shady character.

"Get ready for a fight… I think this guy might be with the Pursuer and his posse." Just that was enough to kick everyone into high gear, scrambling and getting into position: Zed transforming into a Joltic and climbing up on the pillars and waiting for him there to pounce from above, Elly hiding behind the left pillar, and Nox and Lucy behind the right. They waited to hear his steps as he stomped towards them… but they never came, even when they honed their hearing, not a single sound was heard. They all stood around, waiting, and shuffled around, Nox glancing at Elly, the Eevee shrugging back and shaking her head, even herself was unsure of what was happening.

She peeked her head from behind the pillar and glanced at the curtain… and spotted Sam just standing there, looking at it, and saying something, as if he was muttering to himself, yet not making a single sound. It was certainly bizarre: he was talking, and quite obviously loudly, if the way he was gesturing and opening his mouth was any indication, just looking and glancing around, shifting to one side, and to another, swatting a hand at the papers. Elly hid as it parted, the Krokorok coming through. "...piece of shit, can't see anything past this garb-" His arm was then gripped by a water string, stretched outward and slammed to the ground, groaning and looking at Elly, as Zed come down, transformed into a Scyther a putting a sword arm to his throat, and Nox and Lucy coming out with electricity and fire ready to blast Sam, the Krokorok groaning and struggling briefly… before recognizing the group. "Oh, it's you lot. Was wondering where the fuck you were."

"We weren't. Honestly, we were expecting you to sit tightly in your cell under the guild decided on what to do with you, but breaking out was a pretty big mistake, now you're most likely a fugitive … Your second mistake was coming after us with hopes that we wouldn't be able to beat you to a pulp and then take you back for information on those bastards." Elly kept him there, whilst Zed kept that knife to his throat, making ground type hesitate and groan.

"Could harden my scales and get out… But I don't wanna fight ya, y'all are something special, and I get the feeling if I fight you lot I'm gonna get sent packing. Usually, I'd be all for that, but not today I'm not, no sir. Got bigger fish to fry than you small fry." His speaking manners were… odd, to say the least, but they all retained their composure… somewhat, Nox just blinking at looking at him confused.

"And we're supposed to believe this why? If you had other things to do then the last thing you'd do is follow the good guys to the ends of the region and into a desert. Like, you are not fooling us, asshole." Sam glared at the Shinx.

"Oh, you know, like, you're an asshole too, you like, total bitch. Is that what you speak like? Putting "like" in front of every sentence, you pissy bitch?"

"What did you just call me?!" This was starting to look like a repeat of the previous discussion… except that Sam really didn't give a rat's ass about Lucy.

"Yea, you heard me… you know what, don't need to pay attention to a dumb bitch like yourself…" He looked at Elly. "Ya look like you got some idea on how to lead a group, and basically their nanny, so Imma say again, that I ain't out to get any of you, or wanted to hurt you, or have a fucking clue who this group that you lot are fighting in the first. I jus' wanna find someone, and I got a feeling if I stick with you lot I'll come across 'em. So that's why I broke out, and chased after you."

"You speak as if we had to give in to your demands. As far as I can tell, you're not exactly in a bargaining position right now."

"Not right now, but I could be if you lot keep on being arseholes 'bout the whole thing. I wanna come along, and that's final, ya got that?" He didn't seem to understand the idea that they didn't trust him.

"God your skull is thick… We're not going t-" The Krokorok suddenly shifted his head down, dragging Zed a bit, and placed his ear against the floor. Just as he'd told them earlier, the scales on his neck were hardened, but during the motion Elly noticed how he held his breath, at least until Zed jumped off, reverting to his normal form. Before he could even respond or point out that the ground was shaking, the vibrations became enough for the group to notice, and several pokémon burst out of the ground: two Durants, an Aggron and massive Excadrill, followed shortly by a bulky Seismitoad, the ground lightly shaking as the goliath stomped around.

"Stop right where you are, strangers!" The Excadrill, large and intimidating, with white markings on his shoulders and his chest, like runes and curves, pointed his sharp claws at them, looking just about ready to pounce them and fight, whilst the members of Team Star all raised their paws as a sign of peace, knowing that these were the locals they'd been told about, given his strange accent and the fact that every single one of them was a steel type.

"Hold on, stop! We are not here to do you harm, we ar-"

"Stand down! You stand down, or we swear we shall show no mercy!" He cut his vowels short most of the time, very rough speaker, his voice booming as he stared Sam down, the Krokorok returning the glare. "Are you deaf?!"

"Nah, I'm hearin' ya, jus' don't feel like it."

"Why y-" He charged the Krokorok with those claws, moving unnaturally fast, aiming to clobber him over the head with those metallic claws… which bounced off with the sound of metal striking metal, sparks flying off as he was grabbed by the fur of his neck right afterwards, and Sam rose a fist, all in awe of those around him, closing each finger very slowly, and every scale on it… seemingly giving off a sheen, reflecting the light of the sun, hardening.

"My turn." The impact of the fist against his shoulder was so loud the soundwave shook the sand and made a cloud of it fly as he was hurled flying and spinning, roaring in pain as he tried to reangle himself, burying a claw into the ground and managing to stop his movement… about fifty feet away from them, clutching his chest and coughing profusely. Before things escalated further and that mountain of a Seismitoad struck, Elly stepped in between.

"Stop this already!" She turned to Sam. "You want to collaborate, then here's your first order: get on your fucking knees!"

"Wh-the fuck?! Now you're telling me that you wanna work together?! Now?!"

"Why are you so fucking slow, just do what she says, you moron!" Lucy had stepped away, stressed out, with Nox swearing and telling Sam to do what Elly was saying.

"Hey, shut up you b-"

"Samuel, just do it already, you'll ruin everything!" The Eevee still kept her paws raised, and the Krokorok, after debating it for a bit, and seeing the ground and steel types before them stopping their advance, did so as well, kneeling down with his hands up. "... if you haven't already that is." The pokémon around them looked very much unhappy, inspecting the group, their eyes laying on the Eevee herself, who returned their glares. They muttered between them in a strange language, and their whispers turned into shouts as the Excadrill approached, responding to their shouts, limping towards the group, glaring at Sam.

"You punch hard, stranger. Remind me to return the favour at a later date… as for you." He looked down at the Eevee. "Blue eyes…" He motioned to the Aggron, who moved behind Elly, and before she could react, forced her left paw down roughly, bending her body down and making her yelp as she was pinned down. "And the mark. Just like the Champion and the elder foretold." She was let go, her fur a mess now, huffing as she returned his stare.

"Are you done? Can we speak now?"

"You may, Stranger. But now this: you, you and your friends, are not welcome in these lands." He pointed to the back of her paw. "None who bear that accursed mark may cross these lands again, no matter their purpose or the virtue in their hearts. If you still pursue your quest here, then it shall be up to the elder to decide." Elly didn't answer straight away, weighing his words and their implications. She didn't want to spend too much discussing what it was he meant with that, and instead opted for the safest bet.

"My name is Elizabeth Star, and I am the co-leader of Team Star." That got no reaction from them, as she already expected. "We come here on the behalf of the Exploration Team Federation, more specifically called to the site by the Pontavicel Guild, who wished to send someone to investigate the meteorite that landed just a few days ago in your lands, and asses the damage." Her words earned her some muttering, and a scowl from the Excadrill, his arms crossed over his chest, huffing and coughing still, but bearing it with a grin all the same. "We come here in peace, and purely for research purposes. If you may let us-"

"You shall be taken to the elder, then." He cut her off, enjoying the look on her face. "I was clear, was I not? About sending you to the elder should you require anything other than us scorting you out of the badlands. Stand up, and keep your powers to yourselves… and your friend there…" He approached Sam, circling around him… then suddenly shoved his fist into his gut viscerally, earning a pained grunt for him, which… he recovered from almost immediately, grinning at the Excadrill. He chuckled, and rubbed his chest. "I like you." With that, he snapped his claws and pointed onward, leading the pack as he and the tribal pokémon surrounded the group, and escorted them deeper into the badlands. The terrain around them became rougher, with a slight incline heading down, a sandy slope of sorts that headed towards a vast canyon.

---

The terrain, while at least unique in a way, was still terribly dull, giving the group ample time to inspect the tribal pokémon closer: many of them had markings and writings akin to the ones they'd seen on the curtain of papers at the spires. They saw three more of those, two amid the vast desert, and another right at the entrance to the path that leads down the cliff face of the canyon. Before each of them, the pokémon stopped, and got on one knee, crossing their arms and mumbling something, before walking through.

"What are they doing?" Nox, curious, and the closest one to one of the ant pokémon, inquired. "They keep muttering in that weird tongue."

"Must be their language, and if I'd wager a guess… they're praying, or thanking something, or someone." Elly answered this when they walked through the last curtain of papers, an overwhelming feeling of safety, wellbeing and serenity overcoming them all, progressively becoming stronger with every gate they passed, until they finally came to the edge of the canyon, allowing them to see down it.

(Rito Village (Day) - The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild)

Rope bridges stretched from side to side of the canyon, connecting both faces as houses had been dug and sculpted into the rock, pokémon coming in and out, walking across the rope bridges, large windmills spinning and blowing, some connected to what looked like lifts that descended all the way down, where they dipped into the water of the river flowing beneath, and then carried it back up, distributing it through wooden canals that flowed downward to each house. One on each cliff face, spread across the entire village, with three different levels: the highest, near the top, the lowest halfway down the ravine, and the one between them, rope bridges allowing one to traverse to lower or higher levels.

"Woah… This is so cool!" Nox had finally found something that looked at least mildly interesting, the village stretching for a kilometer, suspended over the ravine beneath, filled with vegetation, albeit it looked mostly like farmland, likely their only food source, outside the rare white tree that somehow grew in the badlands they'd just travelled through. As they reached the entrance proper, two guards, large Aggrons moved out the way to allow the Excadrill passage, who turned to look at Nox afterwards.

"Not many say that when they first gaze upon Haleno."

"We come from another region entirely, Sinnoh. It's nowhere near as advanced as Unova and… well, villages and small towns are the norm there. Nothing to this scale though."

"So, the strangers are stranger still." He looked at them, amused. "Come all this way to investigate a meteor, then? Must say, sounds like a fool's errand." He looked skyward. "We've no need for useless stones from the heavens above, when the earth already provides us with what we need: motion, from the air, homes, from the earth, and sustenance, from the water." He looked to Elly. "All else is unnecessary, and pointless."

Elly frowned, deeply disagreeing with him, and wishing to bring up points such as writing, or culture… but she didn't want to sour their relations anymore than they already were. "Well… I won't deny that part of this mission has seemed pointless or… counter productive." She glanced at Lucy. "But still, while you might not have a use for it, we could gain something from investigating whatever it is that landed. If you have no use for it, then we'd be happy to help you part with it." To this however, the Excadrill laughed, and shook his head.

"Heh… you strangers all think the same, that the land is yours to thread and trample upon as you see fit, but are offended when we deny you access to our most hallowed of lands… But I digress, the elder shall inform you of your fruitlessness, and you shall be sent home shortly after."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Lucy asked, annoyed at the cryptic nature of the mole-like pokémon.

"It sounds like the meteor landed somewhere important for them, and won't allow us passage into the area because of it." Zed finally spoke up for the first time they entered the village, and the glances he got from their escorts confirmed his suspicions.

"What?! That's tauros shit! We are supposed to be here on a mission, you can't keep us out of it and make sure we can't even complete it!"

"Well… technically they can, this community doesn't have a formal relationship with the ETF… Given what we were told at the guild and by the Zebstrikas, they have no reason or obligation to let us in." Elly hit the nail on the head with everything, as she was told right after, so they were basically stuck in a village in the middle of nowhere, and the whole trip had been utterly pointless… which sat well with nobody. "It's all up to the village elder, whether or not we can go inspect the landing site."

"Uuuugh, this fucking blows… you mean we've been travelling all this time, and it was all pointless?!" Nox now joined Lucy in skulking and muttering under his breath about how shit this entire trip had been, which really, just didn't help anyone and made the trip even worse. Elly at least contented herself by looking around the village, appreciating both the architectural genius and the clever use of space. She'd noticed yet another type of elevator, beyond the ones that lifted the water from the river, which were empty, and served as a way to transport pokémon and other goods from the bottom of the valley to the top, like small wooden platforms with railings that kept moving up and down ropes, kept in movement by the windmills sticking out of the cliff faces.

"Again, if you have any complaints or wish to amend something, take it up against the elder… I expect he will be telling you to leave real soon, so worry not, it won't be long before you return home to resume your "exploring", as some of you put it."

(Stop the music)

They approached the end of a long bridge, where a large, oval house was located against the far wall of the entire ravine. The dome of the building had an opening, letting the light of the sun through there, a curtain of beads and written papers being the only thing that separated the building from the outside world. There was another guard outside, an Aegislash, his single eye one that made all of them shudder uncomfortably, glaring at the Excadrill. "They come to see the elder."

"I presume to speak of the meteor?" Elly stepped forward to speak up… but the Aegislash rose a single "hand", and silenced her. "Silence. No words need be spoken, or exchanged with one such as I. The Champion is still within, I shall tell them of your coming." As he went inside, they'd hear just the faint noise of two pokémon laughing, before everything was silent again.

"That is still so weird… how are those curtains blocking all of the noise?" Elly was already curious from the first moment they'd seen those curtains, and now that she saw them acting like that right in their face, and with someone who was no doubt learned on these things, her curiosity got the best of her. The Excadrill turned to her, pointing to the papers.

"These are filled with prayers. They ward off evil and keeps us hidden and harder to detect. The badlands are enchanted, the path to our home is hidden by the shifting winds and sand, and will keep any who do not pass through the gates we lead you through. The spirits of the earth keep us hidden, and protect from those who seek to harm us."

"You're all about that protection and staying hidden huh… what's up with that?" Nox's question seemingly fell on deaf ears, curiously ignored by the Aegislash.. "Uh… hello?" Before he was capable of repeating the question the Aegislash came out from the house, and parted the curtains for them to enter. The Excadrill came in first, and the team followed him in, including Sam, who was apparently now an "honorary" team member. As they moved in, they spotted two shapes: one at the back of the room, a shrivelling, old, tiny form of a Bisharp, his eyes fiery and determined, yet nothing could hide the fading light behind them, and in front of them… They were facing his back when they first realized who it was, his right shoulder and part of his back exposed, strange markings and scars along the surface before he pulled up his white and golden cloak, and turned around to face them.

It was Tharmius.

"Greetings, Team Star."

"The fuck?!" Nox was the first to voice his thoughts, whilst the others looked on in shock. "The hell are you doing here?!"

"The very same thing you are: investigating the crash site of the meteor that was spotted approximately five days ago to have fallen down around this area. You can't possibly believe that the ETF is the only organization that is concerned with the wellbeing of the pokémon of this world." He looked at Elly, holding eye contact for a bit, before bowing. "I am glad to see you well, Elizabeth. How is Eric? Recovering from his endeavour against the Parasite, correct?"

"Mind your own business, Tharmius."

"I shall, make no mistake, but I still wished to send the Riolu my kindest regards and wishes for his swift recovery… I have a feeling he will need his full strength very soon." The delivery of that line made the team shudder, and Elly specially felt threatened, tempted to call and check on Eric right away. "I see you still do not trust me, and do not believe that I only have kind and supportive words for your team."

"I don't think our first meeting was a good show of this "kindness" and "support" you're offering us, Tharmius. And if this is the way that you extend an olive branch, then I have to say, it's awfully ineffective."

"Then, let us stay as acquaintances, instead of enemies, or allies. I believe it to be the best course of action for all of us. Don't you agree?" She didn't answer straight away, but her silence was answer enough for him, turning around to face the elder. "These are the pokémon I mentioned would be coming for the same purposes that I did. I suspect that they too, shall be turned away?"

"That they shall, Champion."

"Wait, how'd you kno-"

"I have my contacts, and my men are stationed in every major city in the world, keeping watch and informing me of any notable characters that come through."

"And I suppose we are notable enough." Zed commented, Tharmius responding with a nod. The Kommo-O then turned his head to Sam, who was glaring at him all this time.

"I do not remember them mentioning you… or at least, mentioning your accompanying Team Star. A stowaway, perhaps?"

"The fuck's that mean? You insulting me pal?" He took a step forward, but Tharmius didn't shift in the slightest, even if the Krokorok was about as big as he was.

"Someone who decided to incorporate themselves into the team for their own reasons without really asking for permission. I suspect I've hit the nail right on the head, given your reactions. But let us not delay this meeting any further, the leader of the heathens wishes to speak to you." His comment, however, didn't sit well with the Excadrill, whose face turned to a sour scowl and stomped forward, right in Tharmius' face.

"What did you just call us?! How dare y-"

"You are Heathens. I merely state the facts. You do not believe in God, and renounce his work upon this world. You claim that the land, the air, and the water have a will of their own… which is foolish. A tribe of heathens describes you well, though let it be known, that I do not mean harm or offense with this statement. I merely state the facts."

"Why you-" He looked just about ready to punch Tharmius, while the Kommo-O hadn't risen a single fist to defend herself… but before he hit the dragon type, the elder rose a single hand, stopping the Excadrill in his tracks. "Grandfather, wh-"

"The Champion speaks the truth, regrettably… Let him, and his beliefs be. And avoid any confrontation with him, he far exceeds the power that any mortal in this world should ever be able to wield." The steel type looked at his leader, then back at Tharmius, and scoffed, storming to the back of the room and leaning against the wall, hidden in the shadows, scowling at Tharmius. The whole scene was kind of surreal: he was a stranger, just like them, so what had he done or said to gain so much respect and control over them? "Now, strangers, come forth, and I shall tell you the same that I told the Champion."

"Lemme guess, we can't go check out that meteor, eh? Well you can shove that right up your ars-"

"Don't talk to the elder like that!" The Excadrill suddenly slammed forward and hit the back of Sam's head, catching him off guard and making him growl. "How dare you, I should have you thrown into jail!"

"Perhaps you should." Tharmius chimed in. "While these four are here on the grounds of exploring and investigating, you my friend are a true stranger. An anomaly even. They have no reason to trust you, and I shall not vouch for your innocence. You are to leave at once, or stay in prison until tomorrow and leave at the crack of dawn, when the trip back will be far easier." The dragon type got a glare from Sam, and the two looked at each other for a long time… and to everyone's surprise, Sam backed off, scoffing and looking away.

"Fuckin' whatever… yeah sure, I'll go away, don't got anything to do with this shit." The Excadrill grabbed his arm, but he quickly shoved him away. "Don't fuckin' touch me. Lead the way, but you ain't takin' me, I can fuckin' walk there." The mole pokémon swore under his breath, and lead Sam out of the house, their voices drowning out and disappearing after they went through the curtain.

"Now that he is out of the way… you may sit now, all of you." The Elder invited them to four cushions laid out in front of him, Tharmius sitting to his left, and facing the team, towering over everyone in that room.

"So you really were expecting us then? I guess Tharmius told you that we were coming."

"Yes, that, and that you were heroes with odd powers, who wanted to investigate the landing site of that strange star. While I have no doubts that your intentions are mostly pure, I am sorry to say that you are not allowed to walk any further into our lands."

"The Excadrill mentioned something along those lines. Please, we know it is perhaps too much to ask, but this meteor could be something important, and perhaps even dangerous. We may not know until we check." Elly took the role of talking for the team, since she was the leader, so everyone else started looking around, and taking in the ceramic and wooden furniture, which looked antiquated to them.

"Even so, I must deny you deeper access into our hallowed lands. The star landed in our most sacred of places, the resting place of all those who preceded us, and that have died protecting our village."

"So it landed in your graveyard?" Nox's statement was a gross oversimplification of the importance of these lands, but that was, in a way, the gist of it. "Damn… well, I mean, why are you being so defensive about us, and all this? Like, they're all dead, it's not like we're gonna bothering anyone if we walk around for a bit. Hell, wouldn't you want some hunk of rock gone from that area as soon as possible, so it doesn't bother you while you pray… or whatever?"

"You are far too brash for your own good, child… but you speak the truth. Yes, at a glance, it may seem that we are being selfish, and even foolish… but there are many reasons for us to both deny you access to those lands, and recommend you avoid them altogether, as we have ever since the coming of the star."

"What do you mean?" Elly took over again to prevent more issues or offending the elder.

"We have not entered those lands ever since this meteor crashed, and we have no intentions to, for we fear that what has come from the heavens is a sign of the end, a harbinger of destruction, just like it came thirty years ago." He knew they were going to ask what he meant, reaching down for a cup of what looked like a murky, smelly liquid, taking a long sip from it. "Long ago, a star, just like this one, fell in this area. It seemed harmless, at first, but the spirits were restless, and desired to warn us of the danger… many of us listened, and heeded their words… one, however, did not. He ignored the spirits, and got too close. A metal fragment, like a piece of a larger whole, corrupted him. Before the eyes of friends and family he turned into a monster that set about destroying all in its way. Many died, more were wounded in the struggle to contain and seal it… myself included. My shrivelling body is what remains." He look unwell, and some parts of his were blackened and bent. "Even still, the effects of its presence are still felt, to this day." He looked upward through the window in the ceiling.

The tale was short, but to the point, and Elly and company knew exactly what he was speaking about, all while Tharmius looked on in silence, his presence constantly there, making the air that much more tense. "So as you may understand… we wish to avoid anything and anyone to enter in contact with the meteor. The spirits safeguarded and protected us for weeks before tragedy struck, and we have reasons to believe they would've done so permanently hadn't we intervened. We aim to follow the same course of action. And that, is final."

He laid back and took a long whiff from his pipe, filling the room with the scent of herbs and tobacco, aiming the stream of smoke upward. "My apologies, if your quest has been fruitless. To compensate, we will provide you with a house and food for the night, so that you may leave at the crack of dawn, and never return here. We have no business with outsiders, and we would like to keep it so."

"Well, there's no need, we'll just get out of the village a-"

"Do you think him a fool?" Tharmius suddenly cut in as Zed was speaking and the group was getting up. "Perhaps you did not hear clearly, but he has offered you sustenance and residence."

"Yeah, and we said no. You know what 'no' means, right?" Lucy scoffed back, but Tharmius only chuckled.

"Indeed, I do, but this is an offer you cannot decline: how else will they make sure you do not sneak off into their sacred grounds during the night?" Elly tilted her head sideways, confused, and as soon as she realized what the dragon type was doing, the elder was riled up.

"Is that so?! Then a guard shall be stationed at their door, so that they may not leave! I regret to put such a weight on someone, specially on such a night like the one that awaits… but given that you know them better than I do, and you suggest we do so, then we shall. I shall station one of my best guards."

"Yes, that is the safest course of action… I shall personally escort them to their temporary residence." He stood up, but not before crouching and bowing in front of the elder, and… speaking in their own tongue. This shocked the group, even the elder, who looked at him wide eyed.

"You know our tongue…" He continued that sentence in their tongue, then exchanged looks with the group. "So shall it be done."

"My thanks." Once he turned to face the group, they were all positively fuming, walking ahead of them.

"Asshole." Nox coughed under his breath, the dragon type ignoring his insults and meeting up the Excadrill, informing him of the elder's decision, and just as he had done earlier, speaking in their tongue once again. His reaction to the latter reveal was much more violent than his grandfather, shouting and most likely swearing back at him, though after some silence, and him looking back at the house, he agreed with a nod, then looked at Elly and company.

"You lot, follow me, I'll show you to your house." He was very blunt about his sentence, glaring at Tharmius as he took the position between him and the group, with Elly in the lead, walking close to the edge of the rope bridge, Tharmius doing the same on the opposite end.

"A strange village, do you not agree?" He suddenly spoke out, the Eevee glancing at him. "No children playing outside, no steel types… and it seems nobody is harvesting the vegetables down in the river bank. Why do you think that is?"

"Are you talking to me?" Elly asked, very annoyed that he was even considering starting a conversation with her.

"Perhaps, or maybe I am merely thinking aloud, who is to say…" He took a heavy breath, humming. "At any rate, the air here, contrary to the badlands, is much less arid, and instead fresh, full of life." Elly breathed in at that moment and… he was right, but there was also the scent or something lingering in the air, just as they were moving past one of the empty elevators: the scent of fresh vegetables and fruit. She glanced down again, not a soul was down there, but she could see some of the crops and carts with vegetables… abandoned down there. "A genius mechanism to make those work, they can use them to take themselves and the food up and down, as well as the water, avoiding any unnecessary travels to the bottom… in fact, they've minimized the amount of time they have to spend near the river. And yet… why have they chosen to place lightning rods at the top?" Almost involuntarily, Elly glanced up, and sure enough, they were just going past a large windmill, and at the very top, a rod of iron stuck out like a sore thumb. "Curious, is it not?"

"Well, I'm sure their ornaments or something, now can you stop bothering me? The last person I want to talk with on this world is you, Tharmius."

"Believe me, Elizabeth, I am well aware of that… but sometimes we are forced to look for unlikely alliances, and find companions in the most unlikely of places and circumstances." She glared at him.

"Whatever you're implying, stop. I will never, for one second, consider working with or for you, Tharmius. Specially after what you said about my friends."

"Please, you can distrust me, but I assure you there is no need to spread lies such as that one. You've insisted on saying that ever since the trial, haven't you?"

"You approached me, and told me that one of my friends wasn't trustworthy. I know what it is you wanted to do, Tharmius, you want me to start doubting my friends, and the bond between us, but that isn't going to work. We know who you are, and what you want, and we won't let you get away with it." As she finished her tirade, they were approaching the lowest levels… which had the least amount of houses, and soon, they'd learn why: that ever familiar sensation, dizziness, anguish, paranoia, albeit not as intense as in other locations. Even Tharmius tensed up, humming.

"The lowest levels… the feeling in the air, you can feel it too, can you not? Are you piece it together? If so, then, I shall leave you with one final sentence." He broke away from the group. "I was not the one who said such things to you after the trial, and I assure you, from looking at your band of friends, that I have no need to feed such fears: you already do so yourself." And with that, he left, walking through another bridge, swinging and moving as he moved carefully, but constantly, leaving Elly angered, confused, and with a pit in her stomach, knowing that in some twisted, sickening way, he was right.

---

"So, this is how we stand: there seems to be a fragment somewhere in the area, potentially two. This feeling that we have… it's similar to what we felt in Banshee Hook, and the story checks out with what happened to that Abomasnow when we saw him." Elly finished cleaning the plates and putting them away as she spoke, knowing that this was just a house they'd been lent for the night, some pokémon lived there and they'd been moved higher to accommodate them.

"Go figure. It's like wherever we go there's one of those things." Lucy complained, resting her head on the table, quite exhausted, Zed right besides her, drinking a glass of water.

"Well, remember what the Abomasnow said. Elementals attract other elementals. Maybe it works the same with us and the fragments?"

"So you're sayin' that's why another one of those things landed right next to this canyon? Well that's some ts luck then. The fuck do we do? Try to get both fragments back?"

"It'd be the best course of action. It'd make it so they do less damage to innocent pokémon, and the sooner we get them, the more powers Eric and I can get for when they really come into hand." She sat down besides them, the kettle on the stove beginning to heat up, making herself some coffee. "Besides, the Pursuer and his men are after the fragments. A fragment in our possession is one less fragment that can potentially go to them."

"Alright, fair enough, just one tiny problem: we're currently stuck inside this house. If you don't already know…" She pointed to the wardrobe of an Aggron standing guard right in front of their door, the same one that had escorted them earlier. He was quite big, that was for certain, and the last thing they wanted to do was make a fuss and risk him call reinforcements. "Fucking Tharmius… why the fuck is he even here anyways?! Fuck him seriously, such an annoying cunt, putting us into this situation, the shit head…"

"Well, he was right in a way, he knew that we were planning on possibly sneaking out during the night and exploring the meteor."

"And then with that story, he probably realized that there were fragments in this area, and boom, he's got a fucking hard on and throws us into jail. I'm telling you, he's with him!" Nox slammed his paw on the table. "Tharmius is with the Pursuer! Remember, we saw an ice sculpture of him before the Hunter showed up!"

"I think we're jumping the gun on that presumption. Like, it would explain… a lot of things, but also open up some holes and questions that we don't have an answer to…"

"Listen to yourself! You're scared! You're scared of him!" Lucy called out, pointing at her friend. "He's gotten you all scared and intimidated after the trial thing! That's what he gained from all that bullshit! He's gotten you, Eric, and almost everyone on the team hanging from a rope on his pinky! He's a menace, he doesn't even have to fight us to try and hurt us!"

"Yeah, so what? He's abusing his power, we've already established that, that doesn't have anything to do with him being a part of this terrorist group."

"It means the world! Why would he want to abuse his power to screw us over unless he has some kind of ulterior motive?! And the reason why he has such a motive is because he's with these assholes! Listen." She got off her chair, walking around as if making a point. "He is the one behind the attacks. He orders them, probably to his lackey, who we can guess is the Pursuer, or hell maybe HE is the Pursuer! Regardless, he orders the attacks, then he has the Judges come in, fix the issue, make themselves look good, and us like idiots, and begin blaming and pointing fingers, and locking people up, and they get more money and more power! He's out to get us! They all are!"

"...What kind of conspiracy theory is that?" Zed chimed in from the other end of the living room. "I'm sorry, but that's just way too far fetched, Lucy."

"Your ass is far fetched! It makes perfect sense! It gives him a reason to be gaining so much power, and a method! And I'm pretty sure his motive is already obvious enough!"

"So… how is he supposed to hunt me down?" Elly asked. "He said that the Judges' main objective was to put any and all supporters of Blake and the Dark Eons behind bars and make them pay for their crimes, even with their lives if need be. How does him staging attacks play into those plans? Besides, the whole stealing money and locking people up left and right was all on Martin's part."

"That was confirmed?" Zed asked, surprised, the Eevee nodding, and citing the newspaper from memory.

"Yes, apparently Martin owned up to the whole thing being done under the hood, and the police found no relation between some of the higher ups and his suborganization."

Lucy still wasn't convinced though. "And you believe that?" The kettle began whistling and screeching.

"Honestly, given how he reacted, either he and all of his posse are incredibly good actors, or they really were unaware of what was happening under the hood. Either way, no other town has had as many pokémon locked up as there were in Cunabula, so it's safe to assume it was more of a localized event."

"Lies, all of it." Lucy was still convinced of her own conspiracy theory, even if there were some holes in it. It was hard to go argue with it, but to Elly, it all just sounded too simple, and if it were that simple, then someone else would've made the connection before, they had a lot of enemies, not just the ETF. She got up, and turned off the stove, pouring herself a cup of coffee and some milk.

"Well, lies or not, right now we need to focus on the matter at hand: we're stuck here, and we need to find a way out, and to their graveyard before Tharmius does."

"I don't think that's a good idea either." Elly shut down Nox as well, her friends looking at her, confused. "At least, not right now. While we were walking here, I noticed some strange things: lightning rods on the windmills, a noticeable lack of steel types out, or children for that matter… the village looked deserted, nobody was working down in the valley. And remember what the elder said: he didn't want anyone coming out on a night like this."

"So? They're all just paranoid assholes, easy to explain and understand that."

"Not just that Lucy, think of it this way: why would they be so paranoid? They said that they sealed away that creature, which we're going to go ahead and assume it was a Rebscura. But then he also said that its presence is still felt to this day in the badlands. I'm thinking that just like the fragment in Banshee Peak made it so harsh snowstorms came down from the mountain, this fragment is making something else happen in this area… and that coming out tonight is probably a bad idea."

"Then what do we do?"

"We wait, we take turns guarding, and if something happens, inform the others. We need to know what we are up against, and if there's a chance we might be able to walk out at some point in the night, and sneak into the meteor crash site, retrieve the first fragment, and look for the location of the second."

"If Tharmius hasn't already gotten ahead of us, that is…" They could only hope that wasn't the case, Nox himself being the first watch as the others retreated to the bedroom and got as much sleep as they could. Two hours later, it was Lucy's turn… and she would bear witness to the weirdest sight she'd ever seen. Halfway through her shift, the windows would flash, light flooding and filling the room briefly, making her snap out of her half asleep stupor, a steaming hot cup of coffee besides her. She hopped off the table, and looked out the window. She saw a lightning bolt strike down, and to her confusion, not a single cloud in the sky.

"Hey, hey guys! Guys!" She called for the others over and over, the group running over, and catching a glimpse of another bolt striking down… ignoring all of the lightning rods, and hitting down in the valley, the glass window shaking, the Aggron standing guard outside shifting uncomfortably, still very much awake. "That guy's still out there?! He's going to get hit!"

"That's why the elder was so reticent on making someone stand guard… Those lightning bolts are normal at all th-" More struck down, coming in droves, one after another, one hitting a house opposite of the cliff, glass jumping out and starting a small fire that quickly burnt out, another striking a rope bridge on the highest level, snapping it in two as the boards that fell down burnt to ashes, and another striking feet away from the Aggron, who they saw jump backwards in fear and the glass from the window cracking, scaring the team as well.

"Fucking holy shit! Ok, that is NOT normal." Nox screeched out.

"No wonder they're all so paranoid." They all watched in horror as the bridge fell and became undone, and another bolt fell right next to the house. At this point, the Aggron snuck into the house, pale as snow, and sat down on a chair, wiping sweat off his brow, looking at the pokémon he was supposed to keep in the house, panting. "Are you ok?" Elly approached, concerned.

"Yes, yes… Apologies, the state outside as you can see is… dangerous, to say the least."

"Yeah, you don't fucking say… good thing we stayed then, we would've been fried." Even Lucy herself was unsure if she could withstand a bolt like that.

"We have had some unfortunate incidents in the past, back when this all started thirty years ago… mortal victims, and every year someone is hurt, or worse." He covered his face, breathing in deeply.

"This is horrible… why don't you all just leave? It'd be far safer and easier, and I am sure you'd be welcome in Pontavicel as refugees…" The steel type shook his head as Zed kept talking, and eventually he fell silent.

"This is our home… our ancestors lived here, and have protected us. Without their help, those bolts outside would smite us one by one, until no one is left." As if on cue, more bolts struck outside the house, getting even closer, coming from impossible angles, counting three more. A total of five bolts. The exact number of pokémon currently in that house. "We must endure, and keep surviving… these are our lands, and we shall not be dissuaded, or moved by some curse." Even as he tried to sound brave, Elly saw him gripping his sides, and crossing his arms, swaying back and forth on that chair, eyes wide open. She could only imagine the other pokémon in the village were very much like that as well. It was harrowing, to say the least.

Eventually, the bolts stopped raining down, and the Aggron walked back outside, seemingly safe now, for the rest of the night, everyone else looking at the sky in fear. "Those… were not normal bolts. They were targeting us. Targeting everyone in the village."

"Idiots… leaving would be so much easier, and would avoid all this… why does it always have to come down to this? To tradition always holding people back, and making them do stupid shit like this!" She stomped around, furious. "Just because your ancestors did it doesn't mean you have to!" Elly bowed her head down, biting her lower lip and clutching a paw. She knew all too well what her friend meant.

"Lucy, calm down." Zed patted her mate, who breathed and looked at him, sighing.

"Sorry… I just… get really carried away by all this… I'm tired, I think I'm going to sleep."

"That's ok, I'll take the next watch…" Zed offered himself, but Elly shook her head, and took his place. "Are you sure?"

"Yeah, I'll be alright. You lot just get some rest, the worst has passed, no doubt." She pushed them into the bedroom, and told them to get some more rest, whilst she sat besides the cracked window, cup of coffee in her paw, as she continued the watch, looking at the sky, at the houses on the opposite face, and the area in front of the house, observing the five black spots on the ground, the last one still steaming from the impact. Time passed at a crawl, the Eevee wishing she'd brought a book or something along with her, since looking out the window was almost as boring as watching paint dry… but eventually, her dutiful watch earned her fruits.

As she was slowly dozing off, her head sinking and raising up, she took another sip of her coffee, watching the Aggron out of the corner of her eye… and it just happened, just like that, she saw him look sideways in a snap like move… and he shot forward, and into the house, sliding across the floor and crashing into the opposite wall, the entire house shaking, just like the papers hanging from the door frame. "Hey!" She screamed out, and jumped off and to the Aggron's side. He was out cold, in just one punch… fearing the worse, and hearing her companions scrambling to their feet in the other room, she turned to the entrance to face off against the incoming menace… and in came Sam.

"Oi oi, fuckin' cool your teats, woman, chill." He rose his arms, attempting to look as least threatening as possible.

"You?!" The others came in just then, replicating the Eevee's reaction, the Krokorok's appearance being the least expected thing that night.

"Yea, me, did ya'll miss me or sumthin'? Thought ya'd need some help with that big 'ol bodyguard, so I clonked him over the head… bit too hard I feel, got sent flying." He entered and moved past a very tense Elly, just brushing her away casually, and crouching besides the Aggron, moving his head and snapping his fingers. "Yea no he's fuckin' out like a candle. Well, sweet dream's what I say." He got up, looking at the team, and crossing his arms. He was utterly massive, just a bit taller than Serge. "So, ya'll ready to wreck some shit?"

"Wreck some shit? Dude, you're already wrecking enough shit! Besides, what the hell do you want with us?! You're a double agent! A spy!" Nox's accusations didn't sit well with the ground type, who tapped his foot on the ground, the house groaning with each tap.

"Again with the 'hole "Yer a fuckin' spy" tauros shit? How many times do I gotta say it: I ain't done nuthin' or got no nuthin' to do with these assholes ya'll keep accusing me of helpin' out. Swear of me fuckin' nan, you lot sound like a bloody broken record." His accent seemed to get thicker the angrier or more annoyed he grew, making his sentences even harder to understand… as if they weren't already, with the large amount of grammatical errors that were making Elly's ears bleed. "The fuck ya want me to do to show ya'll I'm clean? 'cuz I'm willing to do it, except if it involves bending the knee in front of ya'll, 'cuz that can piss right off."

"Oh god… what have we done to deserve this… we're dead meat. Like, come morning, these dudes are going to be absolutely livid with us, and are going to blame US for YOUR fuck up." Lucy's voice seemed to tick off the Krokorok even more, the ground type glaring at Zed, making him whimper and scuttle away.

"Yo. 'tis your bitch?" He pointed at Lucy, and the black fox nodded. "Do us all a favour, shove a yer big 'ol dick in her face and shut her the fuck up."

"Excuse me?!"

"Ok everyone just calm down!" Elly stepped in before Lucy attacked Sam because of his rather… misogynistic comment. "Look, Sam, we really don't know why you wanted to follow us, or came here to knock out our guard, but you must agree that all of this looks suspicious!"

"Suspicious? Bitch please! I already told ya'll, I need to find someone, and you lot could help, so I said to myself. "Ya know what, I scratch my back, and you scratch yours, and that way, we can all get through and get what we want." Ya dig, sister? Or that too hard to understand?" He tapped her head, the Eevee smacking his claw away, groaning.

"First of all, no, it's not too hard to understand, and second of all… it's "I scratch YOUR back, and YOU scratch MINE". And how is this supposed to help us?" She pointed at the still knocked out Aggron, a frying pan falling from the rack and smacking him over the head with a loud clatter.

"Well 'first of all'." He exaggerated Elly's voice and swayed his hips with every word. "Ya'll were fuckin' locked up here, couldn't leave without getting this guy all rile'd up, so I snuck up, and gave 'im a bit of of the good 'ol head clobberin', so now ya'll can leave and we can go check out that meteor or whatevers. And 'second of all', that's what I said, you deaf fuck."

"What?! I'm not…" She groaned in annoyance, sitting down and tugging down on her ears until it hurt, huffing and taking deep breaths with her eyes closed. "Right… just… what you are saying then, is that you're breaking us out? How did you break out, you had a guard outside too, didn't you?"

"Nope, mine was jus' fuckin' gone. Must've run off like a lil' bitch when the thunder started, though I don't think I saw anyone. Just saw that Tharmius dude walk by once, look at me, then fucked off." Elly looked at him, confused, but didn't continue down that line of conversation. "Whatever though, don't matter: we doin' this or what?"

"You want to come along?" The Krokorok rose a fist in response to Nox's question, making him shuffle away. "Fucking what did I say now?!"

"Don't fuckin' make me repeat myself! Yes, yes I want to fuckin' tag alone! I said it already, ya'll scratch my back, and I'll scratch yours, or whatever the fuck you say, I don't give a shit let's just fuckin' go already holy shit. You lot are fuckin' thick for being some explorers like I swear me m-" He left through the paper curtains just then, cutting his tirade short halfway through, the group looking at each other, confused.

"So… what do we do now? Come morning, we're sure as hell gonna get kicked out, and they won't let us come back ever again, since Tharmius will pin what Sam did on us." Lucy was right, it all seemed to have gone tits up without them doing anything… or had it? Elly took a step forward as she thought, and looked at the entrance.

"Well… if we're going to be kicked out and blamed for breaking their laws already…" Tharmius' words, once again, echoed in her mind, hating herself for doing so much as think about him. And yet… "So why not keep going?" She grinned, turning to face her friends.

"What do you mean?" Zed asked, voicing what crossed everyone's minds at that moment.

"Well, as I said, Sam's already going to get us in deep trouble when they come check on us in the morning. So why not just keep going, and do what we wanted to do in the first place? We'll get kicked out if we stay here or go either way, but in the former scenario, we get to explore the meteor landing site, and if it is a fragment, get to retrieve it, possibly the other one if we reach the area of the seal in time." The others quickly caught on, and already Lucy had an issue with the plan. And the name of said issue was Sam.

"Wait, we're going to be working with that asshole then?!"

"Yes. He's strong…" Elly glanced at the Aggron. "Monstrously strong, and tough. But he's not the sharpest tool in the shed, and so far he hasn't really done much to try and directly hurt us unless we aggroed him. If we keep it that way, he could even help us do what we came here to do."

"But that means that we'll have to do whatever he asks of us afterwards." Zed was right, but at that point, they had no other option: it was Sam or bust, since he'd just follow them wherever they went.

"Well, we'll cross that bridge when we have to. Besides, he only wants to find out where someone is, shouldn't be that h-"

"Ya'll fucking comin' or what?!" The ground type himself poked his head through the curtain, his voice booming in their ears, and making them all jump out of their skin.

"Yes, we are, just let us grab our stuff first!" Elly hurried the others into the room, and told them to grab their things. Zed did so immediately, whilst Nox and Lucy were a bit more reluctant. However, even they knew that this was most likely the best course of action, even if it meant collaborating with the rather volatile Krokorok, who was eagerly waiting for them outside.

"Finally! Took ya'll long enough!"

"Shhhhh! Quiet down, or you'll wake up the whole village!" Elly hushed him as she walked by, the others joining them shortly, the Krokorok rolling his eyes, now an unofficial member of Team Star it seemed. "Alright… where do we go?"

"Well… judging by how the entire village is laid out, look for anything that looks out of place, or has a lot of those papers all over the place." Zed's idea was a good one, and the group searched high and low. Eventually, Lucy called them, and pointed at the second level: just in front of them, a little to the left, there was a gaping hole in the face of the cliff, large ropes and tree bark banners hanging from it, almost like a warning.

"Looks fishy as all hell. Let's do it then." Sam walked first, going up the bridge taking them to the second level, while looking at the one that had been broken by the lightning. "Bloody 'ell, that lightning was fuckin' weird wasn't it? And not a cloud in the sky." Seemed like as dumb as he seemed to be, he was quite observant. Made sense, after all, one couldn't get far into that world relying just on brute strength.

"How many lightning bolts struck near your house?" Elly asked, out of curiosity, the Krokorok rubbing his chin for a bit, and glancing back at her.

"Think just one of 'em. Why?"

"Nothing, just thinking of something…" The ground type shrugged, and kept moving, leading the band as they got on the other side, and moved along the cliff side and more rope bridges until they got to the cave entrance. It was deserted, not a soul in sight, and no one to keep guard. "Seems like the storm scared off even the guards here."

"How'd you know that?" Nox asked, the Eevee pointing at the black spots on the ground: one of them, but the weapons laying on the ground indicated two guards at least. They all watched in silence, the scene before them unsettling, before Sam broke the silence with his booming voice, clapping his claws.

"C'mon now, no time to dilly dally, ya'll." Nothing seemed to scare or intimidate him it seemed, as he walked into the cave without thinking it twice, the others following him purely out of concern, as they heard him speak from within. "Fuck me, this is as fucking dark as my asshole."

"Do you have to be so crass?" Elly asked, starting to get irritated by the ground type. She didn't get a vocal response, but he most likely gave her a physical one. "Lucy, Nox, can you give us some light?" They nodded, and the Houndour breathed out some fire onto his paws, and Lucy's fur crackled with electricity as she generated some, making two faint lights that together illuminated some of the tunnel ahead of them, Sam letting them go ahead this time, whilst Zed transformed into a Zubat, and opted to use echolocation.

"Damn… you lot are a fuckin' weird group." He just saw Zed transform when he said that, looking at the two pokémon in front of him. "What were your names again? Didn't quite catch 'em."

"Nox, and that's Lucy. The Eevee you should know her name, Elly, and the Zorua is Zed." The Houndour made the introductions short and to the point, keeping his eyes facing forward.

"Roight… well, Nox, Lucy, at least it seems you two are fuckin' useful for somethin' after all, didn't take ya for the kind that were all too bright!" He laughed at his own joke, the duo lighting up the path glaring back at their new companion. "Eh, fuck you, it was a good one."

"The hell it was…" Lucy growled, the Krokorok flipping her off.

"Whatever… so, you lot are an exploration team from Sinnoh? I remember I saw some of ya, and there was an asshole Riolu with you. Where the hell's he at? We got a score to settle." He cracked his knuckles, grinning.

"He was hurt during our last mission, and is back at home, resting, and protected by our other friends." Elly's snappy response came as a surprise to the ground type.

"Oh, really?" He fell silent for a bit, then chuckled. "Would've thought he was a bit tougher than that! Who did 'im in?"

"Wouldn't you like to know." Elly didn't appreciate him making fun of her mate like that, frowning. "Why did you say you have a score to settle? Is this about your encounter in Crimsand?"

"Yup. Guy walked away before we got into a fight, and I could see it in his eyes: he's one tough mother fucker. So I wanted to scuffle with 'im, and all… then you lot stepped in and killed the mood. By the way, that was uncool."

"Well, whenever he gets back to full shape, I'll tell him to go out of his way and kick your ass if we come across you again." What should've been an intimidating threat ended up making the Krokorok's grin grow wider, almost as if he was excited about the prospect. "Why are you even looking forward to it? Do you know who he is?"

"Don't need to, I could already tell he's one tough customer. And what can I say, I like fightin', feels good to pound some cocky fucker into the dust. Don't always go picking fights with any old poor sob on the street though, that's kinda fucked up. Guy was looking for a fight, and I wanted to respond in kind." Elly didn't know the specifics of their interaction in the bar, but Lucy had told her that things were pretty tense prior to that confrontation. "You look like a smart gal. Ya like readin'?"

"Huh? Well… yeah, I do. How'd you…?"

"I guessed. Got a pretty good eye, y'know?" He tapped his face right below the left one. "But anyways, fightin' 's just like that for me. A hobby of sorts, but almost everyone I come across fuckin' gets their shit pushed in so far that they're done in two or three hits. 's dull man. That's why I got so worked up back in town, you lot looked pretty competent, and then… Wham! Got hit in the back of the head by that asshole." He rubbed the back of his neck. "Still fuckin' smarts too…"

"You complain about getting hit in the back of the head, but I could've sworn you had a glass bottle and a chair broken on your head, and you look just fine. What's up with that?" Nox was right, Elly did remember Sam just tanking through a glass bottle… not sure about the chair though.

"Well, I couldn't defend from it in time, duh. He snuck on me. For an old geezer, he moved fast." They looked at him, confused. "What?"

"What do you mean 'defended'? Not once have we seen you try to block anything that's hit you!"

"Ah, roight, ya'll are blind… ok, you. Elly right?" He pointed to the Eevee, snapping his fingers. "Do the black thing. You know the one. You pulled it on me earlier, tried to hit me with it. Make it small, otherwise it'll be hard to see."

"What?"

"Just do what I say woman!"

"Don't call me that!" She scoffed, but still did it anyways, making a small Riolu fist replica.

"Alright… you two, might wanna turn around and get close, otherwise we ain't seein' shit here. Closer a bit closer… there ya go. Ok. Now, hit me right there, below the chest. Got it? Hard as you can, but not too hard, don't want to break that thing, or something."

"I think you underestimate how tough my dark matter is."

"Oh just shut up and do it, ya wuss." His constant insults and taunting got to her, rearing that fist back and slamming it into the spot she was told to strike… and through her bond with that fist, she felt it: it was the hardest thing she'd ever struck, even more than iron, it simply didn't budge, hissing as she pulled the fist back, and the Krokorok barely budged. However, once they looked at that spot, they all saw it: a group of scales near his lower chest seemed to have crystalized, reflecting light.

"What the…"

"Cool, eh? I can do that on reaction to anything, so I don't got to block everything. As long as I can see it comin' and react to it, I can just harden that part of my body, and it all just bounces right off." Elly inspected the scales, as they uncrystallized and returned to normal, explaining the ones she'd found on the table, and how he'd been able to defend himself from some of those attacks on earlier occasions, as well as grabbing and almost breaking Eric's light staff.

"I suppose that is cool… was that an ability you got with that weird tattoo on the back of your hand?" Her question went unanswered, but given the nervous glance between his own marking and hers, and a quick shake of his head, she got her answer. The more she learned about him, the less and less likely it felt like he was collaborating with some bigger organization… Could he really be just a loose cannon? A straggler of sorts? She didn't want to make any assumptions yet, but it seemed all the more likely as time went on.

---

An hour or so passed before they came out into the open again, the tunnel was long, and went up slightly, and finally they came out to the surface, facing the starry sky head on. There were five stone pillars around the exit of the tunnel, strings of those strange tree branches, ropes, and more of those prayer slips hanging from them, swaying with the gentle, yet arid winds blowing. Before them, rows, and rows of those same stone pires, massive ropes, bigger slips of paper, and covering the spires as well stood before them. They extended to the left, and to the right, and behind them, and didn't seem to have an end to them from where they stood. Nox whistled. "Holy… this place is massive."

"If I'd wager a guess… each of those spires is a grave. They weren't kidding when they said that they honoured the dead." They all looked around, in awe of the incredible pillars that had been erected, those curtains of paper and even cloth in some cases swaying in the wind, large characters, larger than Sam himself, flapping at them, a strange, silent dance. That was something that was incredibly unsettling about that place: the serene, crushing silence, no doubt thanks to the spells written on those slips. "The amount of work that must've gone into this… how did they even build these in the first place?" Elly approached one of the spires as she asked, inspecting it. It wasn't cut out and planted there… it was like the stone around had been dug out with extreme care, and left those pillars behind.

Each pillar had different writings, names no doubt, though the question of where the rubble and dirt had been sent to was very much hanging on their minds. "Each spire is ten meters tall, they're all the same shape and form. They can't be using some sort of mold its just too big. There's about fifteen meters between each pillar…" She began making calculations that nobody in the team could understand, and ended up spouting a ludicrous number of cubic meters of rock that would've been needed to be dug out to make a massive field like that.

"So basically, they dug out a shit ton o' rock and dirt to make graves for everyone?" Sam spoke in an unimpressed tone… most likely because he had a hard time processing just how much stone this actually was. That was a lot of graves, and a lot of ground they'd needed to dig out.

"So wait, now we have to explore this barren ass place?! Seriously?!" Lucy groaned, that was a lot of ground she was being asked to cover, specially when it was still night time. Granted, the sky was completely clear, and there were plenty of stars and the setting moon to light some of the paths. Still, the spires cast long, dark shadows over the ground, and the unsettling air to the whole thing just made everything far creepier than it had to. They could catch glimpses of what lay ahead, through the curtains of paper.

"Hmmm… Zed?"

"On it." The Zorua transformed into a Pidgey, much to Sam's surprise, and flew up.

"Oh, he can do that too?" They all nodded in response, the Krokorok nodding. "Not bad. Kinda impressive."

"I can see… well, there's a lot of spires, like… a lot of them."

"How many? Just tell me, out of curiosity." Whilst Zed into painstaking detail of how big the area was, setting on about two kilometers wide and a kilometer and a half tall, Sam once again looked at Elly confused, as if she was crazy.

"She's got psychic powers, she's talking with Zed."

"Psychic powers too? Bloody 'ell she's like a jack of all trades, ain't she?"

"Yes, very much, thanks for the compliments. Can you see anything weird?"

Zed fell silent for a bit, looking. "Well… actually, I think I see something, to the north, there's an area where some of the spires crumbled down, and there's an exposed area… I think that might the meteor landing we're looking for."

"To the north? Great! Let's head there and…"

"Wait, there's more. I also see like… a temple ahead."

"A temple?" They all stopped and stared at Elly. "How big is it?"

"It's not that big, it's more like a mound on the ground, but you can definitely see like a shape, like a long square and becoming taller towards the back. I can't really see much else from here… looks like a tomb all things considered."

"Or a mausoleum. It could be where they bury their elders or something like that. Whatever the case, that could be where they've enshrined the fragment, so let's go. Come down Zed." She waited for a bit for his response. "Zed?" She asked again, and again, but received no answer. They all looked at her, concerned, and looked at the sky again… and Zed was just flapping down at them like he was running for dear life, transforming back into a Zorua a few feet off the ground and scaring Lucy, Elly reacting quickly and making a flexible water wall, which broke his fall and made him bounce up and down safely. Once he was on the ground, he looked utterly horrified.

"Zed, are you ok?! What happened?!" Lucy was losing her shit, Nox and Elly showing concern whilst Sam looked away, and around, standing upright, and tense.

"I… I saw… I saw something move! Something big!" He pointed to the north! Over there!" They all looked at him, concerned, even the Krokorok turning to face him, raising an eyebrow.

"Was it a Rebscura? Something big and black?" He shook his head no to Elly's inquiry.

"No, it was big… and I only saw it for a split second, it disappeared right after, and I just winged down here. It was big, and white… I don't know, but whatever it was it made my skin crawl."

"To be honest, anything here makes my skin crawl… this place's giving me a bad case of the heeby-jeebies. All of these are supposed to be graves, so we're technically surrounded by corpses." Nox's observation didn't help.

"Oh… yay, that's just the best thing to know at a time like this." Lucy's sarcasm didn't go unnoticed by the Houndour, who stuck his tongue out. Sam cut all of this conversation short with a stomp, then another, stomping the ground.

"Right right… fuck's sake, let's just get moving already. 's a fuckin' graveyard, worst thing we can find here is a bloody skeleton or rottin' corpse, heck, maybe a ghost type. Last time I checked none of 'em are really scary, and we can beat the shit outta the latter, so les' just go, get to that bloody meteor, and get this shit done and dusted!" While he was definitely annoyed, he had a point: the sooner they got moving, the sooner they'd be done there, and could head back to the village.

"The meteor site is a few spires away, and the temple is right ahead as well. But…"

"Hey, that's awesome!I think we might be able to make it back before anyone goes to check on us! Get scot free, and all that!"

"I think you're forgetting there's an unconscious Aggron in our house, Nox. But I digress, let's get moving." Elly took the lead, and the group passed through the first curtain, then the second, the third, continuing onward, losing count… and that was when they saw it: one of the banners had snapped off of the opposite spire, and was flapping to the wind, sometimes slinging up and showing up over the rows of spires. They all turned to face the Zorua, who just blushed in embarrassment, and apologized for his reaction.

"It's ok… just a few more until the crater, right?" He nodded, and they kept walking, the light of the stars making the entire thing that much creepier. Dawn was still some time away, and the moon was sinking under the horizon behind them, casting those shadows in the direction they were moving. Everything seemed to grow into a routine, and they got used to the sight of the curtains, moving them to the side, flapping besides them and revealing yet another identical looking square, bar the different characters… which made any difference all the more noticeable, and any change terrifying. Which was why when the curtain in from of them flew up and flapped violently, a high pitched whistle piercing their ears, just a hint of white flashing before their eyes, all of the curtains around them flying and going mad, the one to their right snapping and breaking, flying above in the air before the sudden current's effect died down, and everything returned to normal, the loose curtain falling to the floor slowly, and resting there.

"Fuck me… That scared the fucking PISS out of me. What the fuck…" Even Sam wasn't safe from the jumpscare, all of them panting and breathing rapidly. They relaxed after a bit, chuckling as the nerves wore off, chucking it up to tension and the wind, and kept moving, giving themselves some time to rest and recover from the jumpscare before moving onward. On the other side, they found that the sand had shifted a bit, no doubt from the wind that had blown by, and as they kept going…

"Ouch!" Lucy yelped and jumped up and away, looking at the ground, spotting just a tiny dot of light that quickly flickered out. "What the…" She moved to the same spot, and it returned. "What's this?"

"Wot's wot." Sam approached, annoyed, and crouched down besides the Shinx, looking at the spot closer… then pushed her away with his tail, and the sheen appeared for him as well. He reached for it with a claw, and hissed as he pulled away. "Fock me, that's some hot glass."

"Glass?" Elly got close, and sure enough, they were tiny spots of glass on the sand.

"Must be from how hot it gets around here, I don't know." Sam sucked on his burnt fingers. "Just keep an eye out, will ya? This shit tends to happen sometimes." They all kept a close eye on the sand from that point onward, and although they found some more spots of glass, they weren't as hot as the first ones. After what felt like ten minutes of nothing but walking, they finally reached the crater. It was a massive hole, having swallowed up one of the pillars and several of the banners, leaving the entire area barren and exposed for at least five squares to the left and to the north. "Hoooly shiiiit. That's a big ass crater."

"That it is…" Elly muttered, taking in everything, and inspecting the edges. Sand had flown into the crater and filled up the centre. "If there's anything here, it's bound to be in the middle, let's get down there." She took the initiative and stepped inside, walking down the rather steep crater and approaching the center, feeling for the sand. Whenever they approached a fragment, she could feel it, it'd happened every time prior, and she expected it to happen this time… but although she could feel that "Miasma" around them faintly, she could not feel the fragment. "Something's wrong…"

"Ya wanna dig through?" Sam asked, coming up to her, and grabbing a handful of sand.

"Yeah, it'd clear up things, but it'll take a long time witho-" Sam didn't let her finish that sentence as he suddenly bent down and dived headfirst into the sand, swinging his arms wildly, and outright digging through, disappearing through the surface and his tail being the only thing poking out, though even that disappeared after a few seconds, and left a sinking hole in the centre.

"Did he just… burrow into the sand?" Nox asked, incredulous.

"I mean, he is a ground type…" Zed stepped into the crater as he spoke, and looked around. This definitely looked like the area he had seen earlier, so everything lined up. "The temple is like eight or nine squares from the last one over there. So we can go check that straight away. After this, of course." They waited for a few more seconds before Elly felt the sand shift, and got off the patch before Sam burst through, buried to his hips, shaking the sand off of him.

"Aight… good news or bad news?" They looked at eachother, confused. "Alright, bad news first: whatever there was down there is gone. There's just sand and rock, nothing else." Elly bit her lower lip, shaking her head, having already sensed something along those lines, while the others got a sinking feeling that Tharmius truly had gotten ahead of them.

"And the good news?"

"Good news is that whatever was down there…" He unborrowed completely. "Is gone." Everyone stared at him, confused. "Just look at this massive fucking crater. What you're telling me about was a dinky piece of metal, and nothin' else. But this… this looks fucking massive for that kinda thing, and this hole down there was way big."

"So what are you saying, that it wasn't a metal fragment?" Everyone's expectations were tempered, realizing that maybe they still had the upper hand, and could still get the one from the temple. "That's… surprising. Then what was it?"

"I'm telling ya, I don't know, it's just gone. Maybe it like, fucking blew up when it crashed, and there's bits and pieces of it everywhere. In fact…" He pointed the way they came as they climbed out of the crater. "Betcha five hundred poké that glass we saw had something to do with it. Fucking huge ass rock came down." He opened his palm and struck it with a fist, and then spread his arms. "Chunks flew everywhere, heated up the sand, we got class, and then what was left was swept away by the wind. Case closed." He cleaned his hands just like that, and moved his head to the way back. "Now let's head back, you lot."

"Wait wait, we still have one more place to check."

"That there temple that Zorua boy over there saw, eh? Yea, figures. Sure, les' do it, after that beeswax's done, I'll tell ya lot what I need help with. Sound good?" They all nodded, since that was the deal, and they'd all agreed to it, one way or another. The group climbed up out of the hole, and continued with their voyage further north, the sun still not rising, and the stars still shining down on their path, whilst the shadows grew longer and longer, until finally, they reached the temple. The front was decorated with statues of humanoid like figures in the same position as the ones they saw on the pokémon in the village when they prayed… but upon closer inspection, Elly noticed something interesting.

"These statues… they seem familiar." They all got closer and closer, and while Sam didn't really give a flying fuck about the statues or what the temple looked like, he stopped to wait for them regardless, and looked from afar, still tense and head raised. The others meanwhile, approached Elly, and soon they began seeing the similarities. The figures were humanoid in shape, but their heads and their chests had a hole, looking skyward, prostrated, knees bent forward, as if in a fetal position.

"Hey, these are the same statues in Cunabula. In the fountains besides the entrance and stuff!" Nox, of all pokémon, was the one who remembered, looking at them, confused. "What the heck are they doing here?" Nobody, not even Elly, had an answer to that, but while they were familiar, their mere presence, and the state of erosion gave them this kind of uncanny feel. Nobody knew what they meant in the first place when they were in Cunabula, so why were they there now, in a completely different region?

Whatever the case, they weren't there to sightsee, and they were most likely on borrowed time, as things were, so they hurried into the temple. Luckily, it seemed it was all just one big chamber, with rows of impeccably sculpted statues on the walls, and on the square pillars. Thick, robust, and ancient, expertly made, that even with the passage of time the walls retained an unnatural smoothness and the corners remained sharp. No method of sculpting known at that time was capable of making such things, giving the whole temple a greater air of mystique. One thing was for sure though…

"That tribe didn't build this place." Zed's observation was obvious, but still, it made sure everyone was up to speed. It was massive, those statues also laying on the floor. Some of them looked ancient, with the same statues that were outside, some broken, some intact, whilst others looked far more recent, the sarcophaguses were rounder, and the sculptures weren't as precise and detailed, and also resembled pokémon, like a Bastiodon, or a Scyzor. "I think you were right about this being a different graveyard, Elly, but I think they took the tradition from whoever built this thing in the first place."

"Yeah, I assumed as much… this is incredible, I can't believe the amount of history that is hidden away in the outback of these badlands. And the culture is so rich… if only these people opened up a little more, we could learn so many things, and exchange so much…" She looked around, starry eyed. It was like discovering new lands, specially when this was supposed to be no longer possible, finding something like this reignited that excited explorer spark that had first moved her to choose that profession… of course, with time, other reasons came along, but that had originally been her dream, and here she was, in a way, realizing it.

Unfortunately, they weren't there to observe or explore those ruins, so much as finding and securing that metal fragment… and just like before, she felt nothing out of the ordinary, aside from that oppressive miasma. "Shit… no no no… it can't be… look for it, look for anything that looks out of the ordinary! A shrine, anything!" Everyone except Sam got to look, the Krokorok looking at the centre of the room, a hole in the ceiling, and rocks and stones scattered about. He approached it slowly, and sighed.

"Ey, Elly." He called her over, his arms crossed. When she approached, she saw a circle ropes and symbols, laying on the floor, the papers and planks decaying, the characters half-erased by the passage of time, and in the centre, an altar where she could see the indent of a strangely shaped fragment. Except that was all there was. An indent.

The fragment was gone.

"...Damn it." She had no doubts as to who had gone ahead, and removed that fragment. "He must've been out here while the storm and the lightning bolts were coming… took over behind one of the pillars, or something…" That could explain the hot glass they'd found: that's where the lightning had struck. The pieces all fell together one, and spelled out one possible picture: Tharmius had gotten ahead of them, and stolen the fragment. Now, he was nowhere to be seen. They were too late, and were now no doubt going to be pinned with all the blame. This much she told the others, and their spirits were immediately crushed, whilst Sam stayed quiet, and watched from the entrance.

"So… what do we do now?" Nox asked.

"I suppose we head back, and deal with what we have to… after that, we go back home, I suppose. I'll tell Jake to tell the guild we investigated the crash, and failed to retrieve whatever landed, and also a fragment… Crap, this is bad."

"What could he want with those things anyways?"

"Nothing good, that's for certain." Elly was quick about her answers to Zed, clearly unhappy with how things had turned out. And she grew even more frustrated when she realized she couldn't talk with anyone that wasn't in that room with her, testing it repeatedly. "Arceus damn it! Can anything else go wrong today! Now I can't even tell the others we failed!" She pulled on her fur in frustration.

"Maybe… maybe these papers are interfering or something. Let's just head back, deal with whatever we have to, then leave. We can always tell them after we are at Pontavicel, and in safety." Zed's words made sense, and cooled the Eevee down a bit, sighing and nodding.

"Alright… everyone, let's head back." They all walked out of the temple, facing the moon, noticing the papers swinging, no doubt because of those strong winds that they'd seen earlier. They were all silent, Sam in the middle, breathing in deeply, and huffing.

"Honestly, I don't really get why ye lot are so caught up about a piece of scrap like that. 's literally just that, a fuckin' metal fragment, wot's the big deal 'bout it? Grants magic powers or wishes? As if. That shit don' exist." He got no response, so he opted to go straight to business, and what he was actually interested in. "Well, whatever, I held up my end of the bargain, and now ya'll gotta help me with my business. I'm lookin' f-"

"You know what. No. I'm done." Lucy suddenly cut him off, and got ahead of Elly, and everyone. "We went all this fucking way, went through this blistering desert, just to figure out that there was an empty crater and that the asshole that locked us up in the first place in a house got away with it?! Fuck this. I'm done with this explorer bullshit." She was looking at Elly straight in the eye when she said this… and knew that she'd hurt her friend, by the way her eyes widened. "It's just been one fuck up after another, specially after I almost fucking died back in that mountain… who the fuck was I even kidding, I was never gonna get anywhere, and now we're all washed up. From being the world's heroes to just fucking nothing, the average joe."

"Lucy, you can't… After all this?! You can't seriously mean what you're saying right now!"

"And what if I am!" She snapped back at the normal type, and turned around. "I'm tired of this! It's like nothing I do is enough anymore, I can't act the way I want to, I keep getting fucking hit from every angle with shit from my past, which absolutely nobody can understand, and none of you fuckers help me deal with it! You berate me, you try to pry into my family's history, and think that you're some kind of friend. But guess what, you're not! I've always been running alone! My life's been like a fucking marathon where the goal keeps stretching further and further, and I have no one to support me and help me get there, specially through those tough times!" She glared at Zed. "Because I DID think I had someone, it turned they barely had any fucking idea on what to do! Well guess what you asshole, I'm done with YOU as well!"

Zed felt as if someone had dropped a bucket of cold water on his head, closing his eyes, and biting his lower lip, whilst Elly just stared in shock. Nox was surprised as well, but Sam was just looking confused. "Wait, why's all this happenin'?"

"Please… Lucy you can't… you can't mean that!" The Zorua whimpered forward, and Lucy felt something twist in her stomach. She was right there, about to say it, something that she had had in her body all this time, something that was eating away at her, something that she'd been meaning to tell Zed for the longest time… but she couldn't, the words died in her dried up mouth, panting and looking away.

"All of you just need to leave me alone! I've always been living like this, and I can sure as hell keep it up!" She scoffed, turned to face away from them, and just as she was crossing the curtain of paper…

"Lucy, wait come back, plea-" The whistling returned, kicked up more sand and wind, and almost blew Lucy away, her eyes shooting wide open, the sudden noise having drowned out Elly's voice and Zed's cry for her name.

It all happened in an instant: the noise filled her eardrums, deafening her, the sand blasted from behind her, and the paper kicked up and flipped, the wind howling at her back, the stream of sand stopping almost immediately, but the wind lingering for just a bit. She turned around… and saw three things: the first, small, white lights, like fireflies, flickering in the air, emitting heat as they circled and trembled, before fading out and disappearing, like embers, the air full of them for just a few seconds, dying out incredibly quickly, like a trail of sorts. The second, was the new layer of glass on the ground, steaming from the heat.

The third was the blood. A puddle of blood was on the ground, not that big, just a few drops, but still there. She stared at the scene in front of her, frozen, time slowing to a crawl as her brain tried to process the images in front of her. "E-E-Elly?" She looked around, shifting in her place, the papers still shifting and moving. "N-Nox?!" The papers began to settle, and fall down, the wind howling coming through the gaps between them and the ground. "Sam?!" She saw them fall down, and then, the wind died, and there was complete silence once again.

"Zed?! Zed! ZED! Where are you?! GUYS! GUYS!" She scrambled frantically, looking at the blood, and at the glass. Where were they?! What happened?! They were there one second, the next they were gone! Where were they?!

"No no no no please no Arceus please no no no please please no not like this please oh god oh good… Zed! Elly! Please! Anyone fucking answer me please! PLEASE!" She looked behind the curtain they'd just come from, nothing, she looked to the left, and the right, nothing still. She checked everything, and everywhere, without leaving that square, every time praying she'd find them sitting behind of them, disgusted and crying, about to ready to apologize for everything. She hadn't meant it… had she? She wasn't sure at this point, some things she'd meant, others she didn't. She was confused, when just a few seconds she'd been determined. Now she was scared, and didn't know what to do, completely alone, the rocks looming above her, the shadows extending to grab at her, the last few of those embers dying out, until nothing but her own breathing could be heard… then the wind came back.

The curtains to her right flew up, and immediately she turned to face that direction. She saw a blur of white and gray. The wind wasn't strong at first, but progressively became stronger, and stronger, more of those curtains flying upward, one of them snapping all together and flying off into the sky, visible from where she stood. She let out a scream, and her body took over: she ran for her life, turning to the direction they'd been heading, slipping on the sand, but gaining her footing again as the wind howled and whistled behind her, screaming and not even attempting to look back, running past the crater, and right behind her, the sound of stone crashing and a screech was all she could hear, feeling the sand crashing behind her and exploding outward, making a cloud of dust.

But she didn't stop running. Nothing could stop her feet. If there'd been one thing she was good at ever since she was young, was running, running to the goal. Running to her destination, running with someone, racing, even. He'd always won though. He was always faster than she was, always ahead. Now, she was the one that was ahead. Ahead of whatever this thing was, and most likely ahead of her friends. She wasn't thinking about them, not at this point, or whether they were alive or dead, her brain having kicked into what truly concerned her: self preservation.

She ran desperately, the sound of the whistling and screeching approaching, then disappearing, and just as she reached the next, resuming. It was chasing her, blowing back and forth, feeling something hot breathing down her neck almost… just as she crossed the last one, and saw the entrance, and immediately dived under, sliding down the first few meters and to safety, turning her head as the cave shook, spotting flames, and a light, and then more of those embers floating down into the hole. She backed away from the hole, looking at the starry sky, just staring up there… she heard the sound of sand shifting. And then a childish giggle.

She screamed again, and took off running into the tunnel as fast as she could, using her electricity to at least see something in front of her, her heart sinking as she faced that deep darkness. MInutes earlier, she'd gone through there with her friends, joking somewhat, remembering how they'd tested Sam's scales. Now, she was running. Running for her life. Running away from harm. From her friends. Her family. Like she always did. She ran, and ran, always did, ran away from her problems.

"You run without a goal in sight."

She froze where she stood, the voice distorted, not even that, just thoughts, words that popped into her mind. Like Elly's telepathy, but somehow deeper. It wasn't speaking to her mind, but to her very soul. She was confused, and scared, her nerves were about to literally kill her, running away from… whatever that was. And now… this. Was she going insane?

"To pursue meaning in infinity is insane."

"Fucking leave me alone! Just leave me alone!" She continued to run.

"Where shall you now go? Your friends will die if you abandon them here."

"Shut up! They're all… they're already…" All she could see was the blood. She could smell it, smell Elly's scent of pechas, the taste of Zed's fur, of cinnamon, shuddering, shaking, crying, tears rolling down her eyes. She could smell the air of death and decay that surrounded her father, the taste of her mother's sadness overwhelming her.

"No matter how fast one runs, life shall catch up to them eventually."

"I know that… I know that already… but I don't know what to do… I don't know what to do anymore!" She fell to the side of the cave, in the darkness, curling up into a ball, whimpering and crying. Now, she had nothing, and no one. She was alone, truly alone. She'd never be forgiven for running away. She should've been the one to die just then.

"The end of your race is not yet in sight. You have not been left behind, not yet. There is still hope for you to catch up."

"What… what does that mean?! What does that mean?! Just stop fucking stopping in riddles, and leave me alone! I… I don't… I don't want to be alone!" And yet, that was all she did, she was always alone, because that was what happened when she ahead of everyone.

"You are lagging behind. You must catch up."

The words echoed in her mind, and with them, a vision, of the valley below the village, of the river, the waterfall, and behind it… a pedestal, and a fragment.

"What?" "Find us." "Wait, what do you mean?! What's this all supposed to mean?!" "Find us." "What kind of idiot… you're… what are you going to turn me into!" "Find us." "No! You'll… I'll… they'll…" She grabbed her head, the words echoing over and over, insisting. It wans't an order, or someone trying to brainwash her… it was hurrying her. Like a guide, it was advising her what to do, but not forcing her to. She closed her eyes, and something came to mind.

The warmth of another's flesh. The scent of his fur. The proximity. Closeness. Family. Laughing, holding a paw with someone else, finding respite and safety in another's eyes, comfort in someone's embrace… meaning in someone's life.

She stood up, and made a mad dash for the end of the tunnel, rushing out and facing the cliff, almost falling over the edge. She stopped right at the end, looking down at that river, and the waterfall. She ran past the bridge, to the nearest elevator, and hopped on, shifting and looking over the edge nervously, and looking up. Not a soul in sight. The sun was about to rise, the stars were fading out, and in a few minutes' time, streaks of crimson would addorn the sky. She thought of the blood, and closed her eyes. Whose was it? She felt a knot in her throat, something rushing up, and leaned over the edge, throwing up, the adrenaline too much, coughing out whatever she'd eaten in the past few hours. No time to waste. She was down in the ground in a minute, and ran past the river banks, through the crops, unsetting and uprooting vegetables. The miasma washed over her, in the corners of her eyes, the shapes of bushes and trees morphed, becoming languid, tall shapeless forms, beady eyes staring at her, those same whispers echoing in her mind. She ran for the waterfall, crashing right through, the water refreshing her, panting, swallowing, tasting the bile in her mouth, stuttering onto her feet, and continuing deeper, using her electricity… though shortly, she wouldn't need to.

She found herself before a dome of stone, at the stop, a sphere of glass, electricity sparking and bouncing within the walls, the faint shapes of paws, claws, fangs and distorted faces greeting back, and beneath it, electricity surged from the metal fragment she'd seen. The room was decorated with hundreds, perhaps thousands of those prayer slips, covering them from wall to wall, and the apparitions, the ghosts, and the whispers, were stronger than ever before. She could feel her mind being undone, a splitting headache taking over, as if every neuron of her mind was being split apart, cut off, severing them and spreading them thinner…

She steeled herself, not even thinking it twice. She didn't know what was going to happen, she didn't know for whom she was doing it. People flashed before her eyes. Her mother. Her father. Elly. Zed. And then… her brother. As she was hit by the electric field, she felt the energy entering her body, her fur standing on end, electricity running across and through her body, covering her, making her scream out as white hot pain surged through her body.

"I'll be running ahead…"

She touched the fragment. Immediately, the pain became too much to bear, screaming her lungs out as the dome above her cracked and shattered, glass falling around her as something roared, the dome craking further as she was about to let go, the pain too much. She was too scared. Terrified. She thought of what had happened to the Abomasnow. Had he been tempted in the same way? Was she… about to die? Again? Was she in the throws of death, only this time she wouldn't be saved? Was it the same thing that had happened? Why was she doing this?! She didn't want to die! Not for everyone, and certainly not for herself! But why… Why did she want to live? What was the meaning? The why behind it all.

Again, her brother answered for her.

"...you catch up later."

He was waiting for her. Elly was waiting for her. Zed was waiting for her. They all were.

Instead of letting go, she gripped it with two paws, with newfound strength, roaring… and then she felt something snap, the electricity died down, before she was blasted by it, thrown across the room, and against the far wall. She head another sickening snap, and something warm run down the back of her head, electricity running through and over her body, washing her all over, bolts striking her right paw over and over. She rebounded off the wall, and against the dome, hearing a screech, no longer sure if it was her own. She just knew it all hurt. And then, everything stopped, there was silence, she slumped to the ground, her body unmoving. Her vision blurred, but she could see and hear something metallic land in front of her. And through the entrance, she saw a figure come in: a cloaked figure.

"A shame… he would've loved to see you again."

And then, everything was black.