The group of curious investigators roamed around the ruins of the castle. Jonny explained to Bianca that a few of the walls around were only fronts for some other rooms, one where the girls slept, another one for the boys, and one for Grimsley's center of operations, aka where he went to doze off, which was their destination.

Everybody knew where it was located, in one of the most decayed, almost collapsed hallways on the ruins. Lucia stopped right in the middle of the hallway, inspected the frail looking walls from top to bottom, then stuck her ear on the wall to her right, right on its middle point, and started knocking on it. After a few knocks she smiled and pointed at the spot right next to her,

"it's right here, does anyone want to knock down this fake wall?" She asked,

"how do you know it's fake?" Jonny asked back,

"you'll have to trust me".

Jonny nodded with a smile on his face and got right next to the wall, he feinted a punch against it and instead did a gesture with his open hand, inviting someone else to try,

"Helma, you want to headbutt this wall?"

"Why don't you do it?" Helma asked in return,

"knowing this witch," Jonny pointed to Lucia, "I will punch a very hard wall and injure myself, and nothing else will happen,"

"come on, don't you trust me?" Lucia defended herself,

"ha, no," Jonny added.

Helma shrugged her shoulders and, without skipping a beat, went ahead and headbutted the wall, taking it down whole with ease,

"she wasn't lying," said Helma as she dusted off her black hair, "this time."

The fallen wall revealed a seemingly deep hole, which somehow looked darker than anything outside of it. The four of them went in cautiously and stumbled upon a door just a few steps ahead. In pitch black darkness, Jonny identified the handle of the door and tried to open it, but failed,

"it's locked," he whispered to the girls.

Helma tried to reach for him but, as she wasn't able to see anything in the dark, and as she was considerably shorter than Jonny, she ended up grabbing his face, and Jonny contained the urge to cry in protest. Helma then pushed him away, not minding him in the least, and moved ahead to try and open the door herself, but also failed.

"It seems Jonny's right for once," Helma said,

"What are you talking about? I'm always right but you guys never listen to me,"

"yeah mention one time," Helma challenged Jonny,

"well...what was that?" Jonny silently warned the group as steps were heard behind them, then another noise, like that of a small rock falling off to the ground,

"I heard that too," Bianca said, "we should go,"

"nah, we've got this far, let me", Lucia said making her way to the door. She identified the lock and started tampering with it, producing minimum noise.

"Are you sure you can do it?" Bianca said, she had grown increasingly anxious,

"what's taking so long?" Jonny asked with a remarkably calmer tone,

"just a sec, I've done this before, this one won't take long."

Seconds later, everyone heard the noise of the door unlocking. They saw the silhouette of Lucia standing up and turning to them, they noticed a small and shiny metal stick on her hand, and then her smile,

"are you ready?" She said, while the others could only see a glimpse of her white and shiny teeth moving as she spoke,

"I'm kind of second guessing myself guys, I don't know about this." Bianca took a few steps backwards,

"just open it already, we have not come this far for nothing," Helma added.

Lucia grabbed the cold handle, she hesitated for a moment, then pulled it toward her producing a loud screeching noise no matter how little she moved it,

"shoot, whatever at least it is open now," Lucia said as she opened the door on its entirety without looking inside, "do you think anybody heard that?"

"That's the least of our problems," Jonny whispered.

Lucia did not turn to look inside and instead kept staring at a startled Bianca. She slowly walked toward her without looking back, and once she was right next to her she looked at the door. Inside it, three different sets of shiny white fangs were showing, with complementary aggressive growls that became louder as the seconds went by. Another louder growl was heard, their paws clashed on the ground and their fangs got bigger, then the mouths of three houndooms were revealed by the shadows, and their full bodies slowly came out the door, drooling from their open mouths, with visible anger in their eyes.

The guys slowly backed away until they made their way out of the hole in the wall, although the houndooms followed them outside at the same rhythm. Bianca reached for her pocket and took out a pokeball, and when Helma saw her she did the same. Immediately afterwards the houndooms barked loudly, two of them sprinted all the way to Bianca and Helma and ripped their pokeballs away from them with their teeth, without injuring them in a noticeable way.

"Ahh! Dude!" Helma felt a swift blow on her hand, and less than a second later her pokeball was gone,

"we're doomed!" Lucia exclaimed,

"that's it, make a run for it!" Jonny shouted, causing the group to let the panic completely overtake them at the same time the houndooms barked ear piercingly loud and chased after them. Jonny, Helma, and Lucia ran to the left while Bianca ran to the right, but two houndooms promptly cornered her to the wall, while the third houndoom went after the rest. The lone houndoom barked louder and more violently than ever before and the three of them froze on the spot.

"Stand down," a voice was heard from inside the hole in the wall. The houndooms obeyed it and immediately stopped barking, then laid on the ground without taking their eyes away from the intruders. Suddenly, Grimsley himself came out of the shadows and looked around the scene. No trace of emotion could be discerned from the frozen expression on his face, but he could see everyone's naked souls as they quietly stared at him, with a fear in their eyes that only served to make their eyeballs look bigger. A subtle grin then appeared on his face,

"did you get lost?" He asked.

Terrified, Jonny and company caved in, "she made us come here it was her idea!" He exclaimed.

"Yeah she doesn't trust you she says Grimsley isn't even your real name," Lucia said as she stood up. She felt like her legs were made of jelly.

Helma and Jonny followed Lucia's gesture and slowly got back up. Helma cleaned some tears off her face and Jonny cleaned some drool off his mouth, then the three ran away while the indifferent houndoom followed them with its eyes.

Grimsley let the moment run, he looked relaxed and rather glad as he took the pokeball from the houndoom's mouth and then handed it to Bianca. Then, speechless, she put it back in her pocket; she knew there was no point in trying to fight her way out of there. Grimsley's mischievous smile then disappeared, his face changed to a more somber expression. He looked right into her eyes,

"carry on then, isn't that why you came here?" He then said, but Bianca couldn't answer, her whole body was paralyzed. She softly turned to look at the hole in the wall again, it was pitch black dark, although at the very end, right past the open door she noticed the faintest light which did not help her distinguish anything else inside.

"What is in there?" Bianca asked in a very low voice,

"why don't you take a look for yourself, there's no reason to be afraid of the dark,"

"I beg to differ," Bianca audibly gulped.

"That's because you have not been in there...go on then...get in."