"What?! You can't just go in after him!" Joey cried.

"I have to!" Mira argued. "Riley's my friend! He risked his life for me. How could I call myself his friend if I weren't willing to do the same? I'm not asking you to come with me, but if you-"

Looking around, the pink-haired girl could see that Joey was already running as far as humanly possible from the forest entrance. "Sorry, Mira," he called over his shoulder. "I'm not ready to die yet!"

"Coward!" Mira huffed. "Oh well. Riley needs me and I'm gonna be there for him!"

Not one to waste words, the girl sprinted into the forest, calling out for her older companion.

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Riley grunted as he felt a thick vine slam into his midsection, causing him to fly backwards into a tree. As the strange forest creature began closing in on him, Riley wiped a bit of blood from his mouth. Glancing at the crimson liquid on his sleeve, he remembered something that his grandfather had once told him while training him to be an Aura Guardian.

"Now, Riley. As you take more damage in combat, your aura abilities increase in power. But beware! If you take too much damage, they may backfire horribly and drain you of your life essence! Fufufu…"

In hindsight, Riley wasn't exactly sure how fit his grandfather was to teach him, nor if he was even completely sane. Regardless, there couldn't be a better time to test out that theory. As several more vines came flying towards him, Riley outstretched his hands in front of his body and conjured an aura barrier that destroyed the vines on contact. While the forest creature was momentarily stunned in confusion, Riley leapt into the air and fired an Aura Sphere attack directly at the shining gem on the creature's head. Once again, it let out a humanlike shriek of pain, causing Riley to pause. 'What on earth…?'

"Riley! Where are you!?"

"Wha-? Mira!?"

'Damnit,' Riley thought. 'I thought I told her to stay pu-'

Suddenly, the man was knocked out of his thoughts by a Wood Hammer attack to the stomach, dropping to his knees in pain. "Gah!"

"Riley!" Mira gasped. She had finally caught up and words could not describe her shock at the scene playing out before her. True to what Joey had claimed, there was indeed a strange creature in Eterna Forest, one that looked to be neither human nor Pokémon. Whatever this thing was, it had injured Riley pretty badly from what Mira could see. Without thinking, she sprinted forward and stood between the beast and Riley, her arms spread as if to protect them both. "Stop it! Leave him alone!"

The creature paused briefly, as if to contemplate the small girl's words, before letting out another hideous wail and swatting the girl aside roughly. Mira grunted in pain as she was knocked onto her back, causing Riley to gasp in concern before looking at the creature with a new feeling now building inside of him. With a mighty roar, the guardian leapt to his feet and tackled his adversary head on, actually managing to knock it off of its "feet". Sitting up, Mira could see that Riley was now lying on top of the creature and pounding away at its frame with aura-coated fists, dealing more and more damage to the monster's exterior with each blow. This continued for a few moments until the creature's leafy appendages stopped moving and it became still, no longer having the will to fight. Seeing this, Riley slowed his hits to a halt while panting in exhaustion. He noticed that the odd stone in the creature's head had stopped glowing and was now almost completely covered in moss, making it almost impossible to differentiate it from the rest of the creature. Riley and Mira glanced at each other briefly before the former slowly reached for the stone and carefully removed it from its place.

"What… is it?" Mira inquired, her eyes never leaving the object. Examining it carefully and noticing its "cool to the touch" texture, Riley immediately drew a conclusion.

"This must be a Moss Rock," he claimed. "Eevee use this to evolve into Leafeon, but just what could this creature possibly want it for?"

"Pro… tect…"

Riley and Mira both froze instantly as they heard a raspy voice behind them. The duo slowly turned around and saw the creature still lying on the forest ground, its green parts now turning brown. Riley cautiously approached the creature and asked, "Did you just speak?"

"Must… protect… the for…est…"

"Huh?" Mira asked. "It was protecting… the forest?"

Suddenly, the creature let out a horrible screech, causing Riley to jump backwards and hold Mira behind him protectively. It shook and shuddered as its mossy exterior dried up entirely, the bark on its body now chipping and breaking away only to reveal a woman with green hair and similarly colored attire underneath it. Her eyes were closed, as if she was sleeping, and her chest heaved with each breath.

"That beast… was a woman?" Riley questioned. It wasn't as if he was embarrassed to have been beaten by a girl; he just had a hard time believing that there was a girl underneath all of that plant life at all. A rather pretty girl, at that. Shaking his head, Riley kneeled down and took the girl's pulse, not liking what he was sensing.

"Riley… Is she gonna be okay?"

"She's gonna be just fine, Mira," the man reassured with a smile, though he wasn't completely sure he believed what he was saying. "But not if we leave her out here in the forest. We need to get out of here and take her to the Pokémon Center in Eterna City."

"Right," Mira spoke with a small, determined grin.

Gently cradling the woman in his arms, Riley stood up and began to walk down the road, his younger companion close behind him.

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"Hold it right there, sir."

"Wha-?"

Riley was stunned. Never in all his travels had this happened before. A group of Galactic grunts stood in a row, blocking off the path to Eterna City with their bodies.

"Excuse me," Riley began politely, "my friend here is quite sick. May we move on ahead to Eterna?"

"I'm afraid we can't let you do that, sir," one grunt replied. "This city is off-limits until further notice."

"But… Why?" Mira questioned. Even though she was young, she was old enough to know that these bowl-cut clowns were bad news.

"Apparently, there was a skirmish deeper in the forest a few hours ago. Quite a few of our cadets went missing and have yet to return," another grunt answered. "You wouldn't happen to know anything about this little incident, would you?"

"Can't say that I do," Riley fibbed.

"Oh really now?"

A grunt got out of the row and approached Mira calmly, looking straight into her eyes with a smile "And what about you, little girl? Do you know what happened?"

Mira gulped nervously, but shook her head.

"A likely story, isn't it boys?"

The grunts let out a sinister chuckle and began to step forward, never breaking formation.

"Mira," Riley spoke telepathically.

"Wha-? How are you doing that?"

"I'll explain later. These guys aren't gonna let us by and by the looks of things, they mean serious trouble. On the count of three, we'll have to run back deeper into the forest, okay?"

"What!? No!"

"One…"

"Riley, I swear…"

"Two…"

"Seriously?"

"… Three!"

Despite her protests, Mira ran from the scene as fast as she could, Riley running beside her with the forest woman slung over his shoulder.

"After them!"

As expected, the grunts gave chase to our heroes, brandishing what appeared to be electrified nightsticks. Mira's eyes widened at the thought of being caught and struck with one of those dastardly weapons. Suddenly, Riley grabbed Mira's hand and pulled her up into his free arm, sprinting towards a large mansion in the distance. The pink-haired girl shut her eyes tightly and wrapped her arms around Riley's neck so he wouldn't drop her as the grunts could be heard not too far behind them.

"Over there! They're headed towards the Old Chateau!"

"What!? Haven't they heard the legend? You'd have to be a fool to go in there!"

"Fool or not, if they're going in there, we're going in there. Do not allow them to get away!"

Riley stopped at the entrance of the Chateau's yard, cursing under his breath at the fact that there was a small tree blocking their way. Setting Mira down, Riley used his free hand to conjure a small Aura Sphere powerful enough to completely obliterate the tree. "Come on," he said to Mira, "we have to hurry!"

The duo reached the front door to the abandoned mansion, Mira jiggling the doorknob rigorously. "It's no good! The door's locked!"

"Locked?"

'Strange,' Riley thought to himself. 'I didn't think people here even did that…'

Shaking his head, the man motioned for his younger friend to move to the side as he lifted up his leg and concentrated all of his energy into it. With a rough grunt, Riley kicked the old door open, causing a cloud of dust to arise in the house. Not wasting words, Mira and Riley ran inside and shut the door behind them, looking for any kind of furniture to block the door. Riley set the mysterious green-haired girl down and, with Mira's help, moved a large sofa in front of the closed door.

"That should buy us some time," Mira panted, wiping her head. "What are we going to do about the flower girl?"

"… The flower girl?"

"Yeah!" the younger girl piped up. "Since, you know, we found her in a forest. That makes her a flower girl!"

Riley chuckled at his friend's childish behavior. No child should grow up too fast, after all. The duo's light mood was quickly soured as they heard voices outside the chateau.

"They've got to be in there! Let's move in and finish them."

"Hell no! Remember what happened to the last person who went in there?"

"I remember. That… thing just up and fried their skin right off their bones! Bzzt-zap!"

"That's just some superstitious Tauros shit. We're wasting time here, people!"

"That's enough," a calm, clear voice spoke, silencing the others. "Our true business lies in Eterna City, does it not? A few whelps are not worth Team Galactic's time."

The grunts all voiced their sudden agreement and began to depart. While looking through a window, Mira could spot a tall, almost robotic man with light blue hair in a spiked fashion. After the grunts had all left, the man spun around quickly and looked Mira dead in the face. Her eyes widened as she let out a gasp, but she did not look away. The man gazed back at her with an emotionless expression, just… watching her, before leaving to join the others in Eterna.

"Mira? Are you alright?" Riley asked, placing a hand on her shoulder.

"Y-Yeah," she muttered. "Just fine…"

The duo breathed a sigh of relief that Team Galactic decided not to pursue them, and then shared a glance at the green-haired woman lying down not too far away, still appearing to be asleep. As of right now, she was their priority.