Immediately upon gaining consciousness, Luca began coughing. Her body felt far too weak, but try as she might, she couldn't stop herself. Within about a minute, her body seemed to completely run out of energy. However, as soon as the tension of coughing left her, a dizzying wave of exhaustion overcame. Her throat and lungs burned from the heat that had knocked her out, of course, but far and away the most impactful symptom was the overwhelming tiredness. Still—as easy as it would be, and as welcoming as it seemed, Luca could not yet fall asleep. Even if she wasn't in the position to do anything about it, she had to at least know where she was.
Looking around, Luca found herself leaning against a sloped cave wall inside a small single-room cave. To her right, the cave entrance beamed excessively bright light into her eyes—but despite that, she was fairly sure she could see… snow? Dante was curled up on the cave floor in front of her, his satchel strapped across his chest. He seemed perfectly fine, just resting. Luca didn't really understand, but with the revelation of her own apparent safety, the urge to sleep began to take over again. She happily relented, finally allowing herself to return to unconsciousness.
When Luca awoke again, she found herself shivering and aching with hunger. While she seemed to be in the same small cave, the previously bright entrance was now dark, and the only terrain visible to her was a shallow radius around Dante's tail flame. Dante himself hadn't moved an inch, and suddenly, Luca realized that significant time must have passed.
Luca pushed herself to her feet and plodded over to Dante. He was visibly breathing, at least, so she used both paws to rock his shoulder. He initially didn't respond, but after enough prodding his brow furrowed at the annoyance and he blindly pushed Luca's arms away.
In response, Luca redoubled her efforts. "Wake. Up," she said under her breath. "At least answer some questions."
Dante half-growled half-mumbled as he pushed back more forcefully. Luca, in her weakened state, lost her balance entirely and fell backwards, letting out an involuntary yelp. The instant she did, Dante's eyelids flew open and his muscles tensed as he emanated panic.
"…Oh," he said, his voice drowsy. "Sorry, Luca."
Luca didn't bother standing again. Instead, she shifted in place to be comfortable sitting on the cave floor. "It's fine. Where are we? I saw snow."
Dante yawned, his maw expelling barely perceptible wisps of black smoke. Luca felt the strong urge to yawn in response, but managed to beat it back. "We're a ways away from camp, up in the mountains." Dante delved into his satchel and produced two packages of food and a large canteen. "Here," he said, handing her one of the packages.
Luca was hungry enough to not even fully consider the food she was already shoving into her mouth. It was some strange kind of bread, she thought—something made without the dungeon berries, something she hadn't eaten before. Regardless, it was already gone, and Luca was already greedily guzzling from the canteen. Dante was eating much slower, of course, so once Luca was finished she had to wait patiently for him. While she did, she rubbed her arms to try to warm up a bit.
"How are you feeling? Are you cold?" Dante asked just before he took a large bite. As he did, he moved his tail between them to act as a makeshift campfire.
"Yeah, really cold," Luca said, allowing herself a shiver. "Thanks."
Dante nodded, his mouth full. He paused to swallow, and then he spoke: "We have a lot to talk about."
"Yeah…" Luca agreed. "What happened? Last I remember the air got really hot."
"I'm sure we both have a story to tell. Yours happened first, I think, so why don't you share first? You could start with why you met Isle in the middle of the night."
Luca opened her mouth intending to respond, but found herself unsure of what precisely to say. All of the rationalizations she had given herself just last night seemed completely insane. As she sat there in the cave trying to put it into words, she realized: any excuse she could produce sounded like someone who desperately wanted to die. But she didn't, did she? No, she was happy in this world, and she was finally beginning to feel like she belonged. So why had she seemingly tried to so desperately to last night?
Dante was waiting patiently for an answer, but Luca could see something more in his eyes. Surprisingly, it wasn't judgment. It was… confusion? Worry? Regardless, he wasn't feeling it strongly enough to give off Aura.
"I think I was being really stupid," Luca finally admitted.
Dante nodded. "Not to hurt your feelings, but I figured. Still, could you share why, precisely? I'm hardly the one to judge for temporary irrationality."
"I guess that's true," Luca sighed. "OK. I already told you about Isle's Aura. After I spent the whole day thinking about it, I figured that the only possibility was that she thought there was good reason for me to die. So, it was only a question of if she was being duped—category I—or not—category II. I went intending to figure out which category it was. I knew that I likely wasn't equipped to figure it out alone, but I didn't want to share, 'cause… I thought you guys might try to stop me if it was category II."
Dante frowned in the flickering light. "It kind of sounds like—"
"Like I wanted to die," Luca finished. "I know. But I really didn't—I don't. It just felt like the right thing to do at the time. In my defense, we did end up figuring out that it was category I."
"You figured out she was being duped? Really?"
"Yeah. Isle told me that my being in this dimension, the wrong one, is killing it. She said that the dungeons were the early symptoms of that, but that the world would eventually be destroyed entirely. I pointed out that we should focus on finding whoever brought me here instead since they might just keep doing it, and maybe they'd be able to send me back. That's how Isle figured out she was being lied to: apparently she was told that I was in this dimension by accident."
"Wait, how did whoever told her that know enough to lie about it, even? And were all of her other victims for the same reason?"
"I'll get to her boss. But yes, she implied that all of her victims were for the same reason as me. Apparently, that's just her job."
"But the dungeons only showed up a few months ago," Dante pointed out. "That's long after her first victims and well before you arrived."
"I figure that she saw herself as fighting a losing battle, you know? Like if she had managed to kill faster the dungeons would have never shown up."
"Oh, that makes sense. I didn't think of that. Sorry, continue."
"OK, so at that point Isle realized she was being lied to and outright betrayed her boss. Turns out Giratina is the one that wants me dead. Isle showed me an emblem cut into her skin under her cloak—the mark of Giratina, she called it. Apparently it connects her to him, allowing him to speak to her and see within a certain radius around her."
Dante's eyes went wide with the mention of the Legendary. "Giratina himself…?" Dante whispered, his eyes lit by the flame. "I guess that explains the dreams you were having."
Luca nearly gasped as something slid into place in her mind. "You know what Giratina said the last time I saw him, right before Isle appeared? He said 'Found you'. Those dreams must have been nothing more than him searching for me through Isle. Ugh," Luca groaned. "I really should have put two and two together at the time."
"It would have been a serious leap in logic to assume a connection, you know."
Luca shrugged. "Either way, she told me that she worked for an organization called 'The White Spine'. Apparently it's super secretive and has spies everywhere, including in the camp. That's everything important that happened before I passed out."
"All of that about fits with my story. We'll talk about it more later—for now, here's my side of things. I woke up to what knocked you out, that heat wave. It put me straight into blaze, so assume my judgement was at least a little bit compromised for the rest of the story.
"Hold on, it knocked you into blaze immediately even though it was heat? It was that strong?"
"Yes," Dante nodded gravely. "I expect many of us were woken up only to be knocked out. After the heat stopped, I went out to find the archives burning. Then, I went outside to find the entire camp burning. I saw two uninjured Pokémon that don't work for us, so I hid before they saw me. It was an Eelektross and a Mightyena, and I listened to their conversation. The Eelektross was assigned to 'cleanup' which I can only assume referred to knocking out anyone that survived the initial attack, while the Mightyena was assigned to rescue. She said there were a few spies still left in the camp and it was her job to save them, though I'm not sure why. I'd guess Giratina rushed the attack because of what Isle had told you. Anyways, Mini contacted me via telepathy and told me to go to Isle's tent to save you and escape the camp. He, Lann, and Absol were fighting an especially strong electric-type based on the lightning strikes and were held up. So, I got you and managed to escape. I got extremely lucky: I was only caught once, and it was by a single, gullible Pokémon very weak to fire. That's about all I have to share."
As Dante spoke, a wide pit of dread had slowly opened in Luca's stomach. "Are we the only survivors?"
Pity emanated from Dante. "We can't know for sure, but the attack was bad. There was a good amount of expeditions out, and it's always possible others managed to escape, but… I think that nearly every Pokémon in camp is either dead or captured, depending on the White Spine's intention. More than likely, the Explorer Coalition is no more."
Deep hurt gnawed at the edges of the pit in Luca's stomach. It was really all gone—all because of her. She had accelerated the attack, but she was also the only reason that it happened at all. Without her, the Explorer Coalition would still exist. Hundreds of Pokémon were dead by her hand.
"I wish Isle had killed me," Luca finally said.
In response, Dante's face was overtaken by disbelief. He emanated an accompanying Aura pulse, though the emotion itself was tinged with worry. "Oh, Arceus, you're actually suicidal, aren't you?" he asked incredulously.
"I mean—I," Luca stuttered. Against her will, emotion was beginning to overwhelm her. "Hundreds just died because of me. They had families—connections in this world. Would it not have been a better result if I had just died?"
"That's not the point," Dante pushed, his voice uncharacteristically harsh. "The point is, your very first reaction was not 'what do we do?' or 'let's figure out what happened,' or even mourning everyone. You went straight to wanting to die. Can you blame me for being worried after what you said about meeting Isle?"
"Look, I'm not suicidal," Luca snapped. "I don't know how many times I have to say it. Maybe this is just how I deal with grief—sorry I'm not dealing with this tragedy as perfectly as you are."
Dante's voice suddenly became low and vulnerable. "I had hours while I was running away to get through what I needed to. To cry through it, really. Throughout that, as much as I wished the attack hadn't happened, and even though I suspected they were there for you, I never once wished you had been killed by Isle and I never saw the fact that you and I managed to escape as anything but a blessing. I realize that you're only dealing with it now, and I should respect that, but I still don't think it's remotely healthy to think of it like you are."
Luca felt a surge of irritation. Trying to be honest and forthcoming with Dante only to be told she should see things differently was no less than infuriating. "Can we talk about something else?"
"Yeah, let's," Dante agreed. "We should talk about what we do next. Hold on." Dante temporarily moved his tail from between them as he shifted to remove his satchel from across his chest. From within it, he produced two folded maps. Then, using the satchel as a table, he unfolded one of the maps and spread it out between them before finally returning his tail to illuminate it.
Spread out in front of Luca was a beautiful map of a mountain range. It strove to be both stylistic and to scale, with a compass and scale marker in the lower right corner. Each mountain—or every geographical feature, rather—was represented by a small drawing. The perspective of these drawings was not from above like the greater map, but from the side: how they would appear while traveling.
Dante tapped the lower left of the map with the tip of a claw. He was pointing outside the mountain range itself, at the bordering forest. "This is where the camp was, and this," Dante said as he moved his finger to a particular snowy peak with a drawn cave. "Is where we are now. I think w—"
"Wait, you went 15 miles while running away?" Luca interrupted, having estimated the distance.
"Yeah. I was abusing the fact that I can't feel exhausted while in blaze, and I wanted to minimize the chance of being found. I slept nearly as long as you did for a reason."
"Wow. OK, sorry, continue."
Dante nodded gratefully. "I think we shouldn't return to camp. For all we know it's safe now, but we certainly can't assume that. I think we need to assume the Explorer Coalition is properly gone, like I said." Dante unfolded the second map and placed it over the first. "I suggest we go to my family, here. Whether we want to just disappear and live a normal life or we want to unravel the mystery of what happened, a safe place with Pokémon we can trust is a good first step. Plus, traveling will give us plenty of time to decide. Sound good?"
"Makes sense to me," Luca confirmed. The second map was drawn with a different, more typical and boring style. While the first map showed only a mountain range about 95 miles wide, this one showed almost 600 miles of the adjacent terrain. Dante's family was in a separate mountain range about 300 miles from the one they found themselves in, though unlike the previous map there were clear, defined roads to be followed as well as a few towns on the way.
"Good," Dante nodded. Luca could detect some relief in his voice. "Now, here's the problem. As it stands, all we have is three oran berries, a rawst, a chesto, a pecha, a cheri, an aspear, a persim, a lot of maps, and some medicinal bandages. Most importantly, we just ate the last of the food. Everything else has an easy solution: we don't have any warm clothing, but I can keep us warm; we don't have any water left, but we have a fire-type, a canteen, and plenty of snow; there's wild Pokémon that may be dangerous, but most of them will be ice-type and therefore very unwilling to hunt a Charmeleon and Riolu. Food does have a solution, but I'm not sure you're willing to eat the dungeon Pokémon."
"It doesn't matter how I feel about it, does it? It's eat meat or starve."
"Some Pokémon would choose to starve."
"I guess," Luca shrugged. "For what it's worth, I have nothing against it. Really, I'm curious to try it."
"Excellent. We may actually make it. By the way, the mountain map marks all significant caves. We have it because caves are seemingly always dungeons, but it was originally made to plan journeys across this mountain range. Each morning we'll plan what dungeon to aim for during the day, and each night we'll do the dungeon, get our food, and use the real cave to sleep. Sound doable?"
"Mhm. Not too bad at all, I think."
"Great. I don't keep much money in my pack, but once we're out of the mountains I think it'll be enough to buy food for the rest of the trip. We'll need to make sure to not be seen together since I'm sure they're looking for a Riolu and Charmeleon together, but minimizing interaction in general is definitely ideal. We can go over the specifics when we actually get there, so I think that's about all we had to talk about for now."
"Thanks for taking charge on this, Dante," Luca said, speaking from the heart. "I wouldn't have known the first thing to do. I'm glad you're here."
"Oh, uhh… you're welcome," Dante said with a toothy smile. "For what it's worth, I'm glad you're here too."
"Do you want to plan our route now?" Luca offered. "I've had quite enough sleep, I think."
"Sure, let's do it," Dante said as he folded up the larger map. Then, he leaned over the makeshift table and pointed out a specific mountain cave on the smaller map. "I was thinking we'd go to this cave. It's a single-room burrow, so the dungeon will be short and manageable."
Before Luca leaned over to see Dante's proposed goal, a shiver took hold of her entire body for a moment. After a brief convulsion, she blew cool air through her lips to recover. She didn't shiver because she was cold: she had been warm enough for a while now. It felt more like anticipation. Regardless of its cause, the shiver somehow fully reminded Luca of her situation. Here she was, in a cave on top of a mountain in a foreign dimension. Everything she knew had just been ripped away from her, but everything she knew didn't even amount to two months. She was now a fugitive, essentially, intending to resort to a cannibalism equivalent to travel hundreds of miles in search of safety. Even as she recounted her situation, it still somehow felt far too surreal. Maybe hiking through the mountain tomorrow would make her fully believe it.
When Elyan the Scizor awoke, he gasped with panic and raised his pincers reflexively, ready to fight.
"Ahh, welcome back to the world of the living, Scizor," a voice above him came. It was kind and feminine, very small and soft-spoken. Upon following the voice, he saw a small flower crown—a Comfey—hovering above him as he lay on the ground. He seemed to be inside a small tent, bare of anything other than the two of them, but sunbeams from the entrance told him that it was daytime.
"Where am I?" Elyan asked. "How long have I been out?"
"Oh, a handful of hours," the Comfey smiled wearily. "You're back at the temporary camp. I only just arrived, and they told me you were the most critically injured. You certainly weren't looking good. You remember the injury, I presume?"
Elyan finally looked down at his abdomen as he finally sat up. His beautiful red carapace was terribly warped where the Charmeleon had bit into him. He could see the gaping teeth marks clearly, but underneath them was intact and unmarred flesh.
"I healed you as much as I could, but I'm afraid healing does nothing for your armor," the Comfey explained. "If you could tolerate it, you could find a skilled fire-type to melt it back into place so you wouldn't have exposed skin, at least, but it will never look natural again. I'm sorry."
Elyan pushed the tip of his pincer into one of the larger teeth marks. It was a strange sensation, his actual skin being touched. Maybe he would change his mind in the future, but as it was, melting it back into place felt like a waste: he would like to keep a reminder to not be so damn trusting—or at least slow to react.
"…Do you think you could tell me what happened?" the Comfey asked quietly. "We need to know who managed to escape the camp."
Elyan finally properly inspected his healer. Although it was difficult to see, there it was: the mark that many of the officers bore somewhere on their skin. It was tiny, even relative to her body, and given the fact that plant Pokémon didn't typically bleed it was nearly unnoticeable even on her forehead. Although he didn't know much about the White Spine, he knew that the members who had the sharp eyes-like mark cut into their flesh were important within it and were always gruff and unforgiving. This Comfey wasn't anything like the others he made met, though perhaps it was simply in a healer's nature to be more gentle.
As he spent more time in her presence, Elyan became more and more sure: something was seriously bothering this Comfey. She appeared tired with darkness under her eyes, and while her bedside manner was as one would expect, her heart wasn't in it. She kept staring off into space, considering something or other that wasn't in the tent with her. Perhaps all the other mark-bearers were gruff and unforgiving due to the stress of their job, and it was beginning to get to her as well.
Regardless, Elyan had to answer her question sometime, so he launched into a full explanation. "I was on border duty. At some point, a Charmeleon approached as he tried to exit camp. He was carrying an unconscious Riolu. I was never given a list of spies within the camp, so when he claimed to be one, I couldn't refute it. I talked with him a bit, and at no point did he seem suspicious. The Riolu appeared to be hurt, and he wanted to bring her somewhere she could be healed, so I decided to lead him to the temporary camp. Worst case scenario, he would be found out later. He appeared relieved but asked me to carry the injured Riolu. He said he was afraid of passing out and dropping her. So, I revealed myself and approached him. Then, he dropped the Riolu and… yeah, bit into me. That's the last thing I remember."
"…I see," the Comfey said after a pregnant pause. "And you weren't given the mission's actual goal, is that right?"
"Right. Apparently, the mission was launched much sooner than planned. I wasn't given proper instructions or information."
"I hate to inform you now, but that Riolu was the mission objective—and a very important one, at that."
"The missio—" Elyan half-repeated in disbelief. If the White Spine had wiped out an entire camp—and a well-known one, at that—just to get to a single Pokémon, there was no forgiving the one who was at fault for its failure. He had seen it happen, executions for unforgivable mistakes. He had always wondered: how foolish did they have to be to mess up so monumentally? Now, he was one of those fools. "I'm… dead for that, aren't I," he asked numbly.
"Perhaps not. It was a terrible oversight, leaving you without necessary information—rushed mission start or not. I'd argue that you've suffered quite enough with that terrible injury and scar, personally, but it's really a question of if those above me agree."
Elyan finally stood to his full height, his head grazing the ceiling of the tent. "I'd appreciate anything you can do for me. What should I do now?"
"Whatever you'd like, I suppose. You won't have any orders until your fate is decided," the tiny Comfey said with a smile full of apologies. "I strongly advise you don't try to leave this camp, though. There won't be much hope for you, then."
"I see," Elyan sighed as he sat back down. "Thank you, then."
"Of course. I have other patients to attend to, but should you need anything more you may come find me. Good luck."
Elyan sighed to himself as the Comfey gently floated out of the tent. Good luck, indeed.
