We arrived in Saxumshire early the next morning. People stepped out of their homes into the chilly morning air to look at us ride past, which I didn't quite understand. This town didn't even have a wall around it, so Pokemon were definitely just wandering in and out and hanging around. Not to mention the massive mining operations we had passed on our way into the town that were certainly driving Pokemon from their homes and nests into the town for safety.

"Why are they looking at us like that?"

"Because we're here to deal with their issue. Whatever it is," Allison adjusts herself on her saddle. "It's quite odd that Prophet Kelsie couldn't see what it was we'd find here, don't you think?" She wasn't addressing me, but she also wasn't really addressing anyone in particular and was instead just talking into the air.

"Maybe it's like how she couldn't see my future. Maybe it's 'shrouded in darkness' or something."

"Your future is shrouded in darkness because you're probably going to live for another day and a half before something kills you," Allison jabs. "It's a waste of Prophet Kelsie's energy to view a future that's only going to continue for the next several days."

"Allison." Donald chided as he stretched his back and arms, letting Sweepfoot trot along without actually controlling him. Allison scoffed and waved Donald off as she trotted ahead towards a dingy brown cathedral, it's bell tower piercing the sky like an ugly stone finger. The man we met inside wasn't any more pleasant to look at; a fat, balding man with large bushy mutton chops connected by the largest mustache I had ever seen. His robes were not the pure white of the priests at the church in Ecclessi City but were instead the same dingy ugly brown as the rest of the cathedral, and matched the square plate that was pressed into the wall high above the pulpit.

"Welcome to the Church Of The Stone Plate. We are so very grateful to have you here." The man bowed as well as he could, which showed the top of his bald head to us. "My name is Priest Orville, and I'm the-"

"Head priest of this church, we know." Percius cut him off. "You've got a problem, we wanna know what it is."

Priest Orville was taken aback for a moment before regaining his composure. "O-of course. As you probably saw on your way in, Saxumshire is a town that gains much of its income from the high amount of evolutionary stones and rare gems in the surrounding area, and because of that we have many mining operations. Unfortunately, not all of them are performed by people who are aware of what they're doing, and one of them caused a collapse out in the forest."

"Simple enough, we go out there, calm down anything that's been stirred up, call it a day." Donald nodded optomistically.

"Not quite."

"Not quite?"

"You see, the collapse caused a large tree to fall into the mines, and this tree had many Nincada attached to it when it fell and it... well... crushed them." The priest explained awkwardly.

"You're acting like this is somehow your fault, Priest Orville." Allison put a hand on her hip as she stared daggers at the man. "You wouldn't have happened to have told people to mine in that area, did you?"

"No, of course not!" The priest put his hands up defensively. "But... in my last sermon, I encouraged people to 'go out and make their own dreams come true, and do whatever is necessary'. A rolling stone gathers no moss, as they say."

"So you feel responsible for an inexperienced person going into the mines and causing the collapse." I could see how he might come to that conclusion. It's the conclusion I had came to, after all. Priest Orville nodded guiltily. "Well, it's not your fault someone misinterpreted your words. It's a good message to always keep pushing forward, but doing whatever's necessary to achieve your dreams isn't always the right move. Sometimes you have to wait and find a way around an obstacle instead, or you're going to jump feet first into the Sharpedo pit."

"Thank you, young man. I will remember those words as I continue to preach the word of Arceus." Priest Orville clears his throat before straightening a bit. "A bunch of squashed bug Pokemon would not typically be a problem, but the issue is that when a Nincada dies prematurely, its body often turns into a Shedinja, and Shedinja are difficult to deal with. Extremely resilient to any attack that is not super effective against them."

"They're just bugs, Priest Orville. We'll deal with the issue and be back as soon as we can." Allison gave a reassuring smile and then turned on her heel and walked out of the church where the facade immediately shifted to disgust. "Let's get this job over with so I don't have to look at this depressing building anymore."

We left nearly immediately after that, other than a stop at the market to acquire antidotes on the advice of Donald, and headed towards the mines. We were pointed by workers towards the tunnel that had collapsed, and as we arrived with saw a massive beam of sunlight piercing the darkness of the cave, and in the middle of that beam of sunlight was a massive tree with a collection of exposed roots surrounded by Nincada in various states of crushed, but all dead.

"Depressing." Percius noted through his helmet.

"They're bugs." Allison repeated, walking over to examine one that had been effectively decapitated when it was crushed along the upper body.

"It's still sad. They didn't ask to be crushed by this tree. And so many of them too." I sighed, walking over to a mostly intact one.

"Do we really think these things are gonna come back to life or something? That sounds insane." Donald kicked one of the mangled bodies, which basically collapsed into dust as it rolled away from him.

"I don't know, but Priest Orville... said..." As I knelt there examining the body, a golden claw sliced through the carapace of the Nincada from the inside, and I stumbled backwards in shock as a bright light emanated from the newly created seam.

"What is that?" Allison asked the question as though accusing me of doing something wrong while shielding her eyes from the light, and out of the light rose a gold and grey bug with a white halo above its head.

"That must be a Shedinja." Donald mused, not particularly worried as he watched the bug drift slowly through the air. "Looks stupid." He pulled out an Apricorn and tossed out Crybaby. "Crybaby, use-" Before Donald could finish, Crybaby began to sob loudly, its scream causing the mine to rumble and all of us to cover our ears, though the Shedinja seemed unphased as it continued to slowly float around. Donald quickly returned Crybaby to its ball, letting out a sigh of both defeat and relief. "Well that didn't work. What's this thing made of?"

"Chitin, probably. Percius, destroy this thing." Allison rolled her eyes.

"Gladly." Percius sent out Justice, and when Justice used Dragon Pulse on the Shedinja it was completely engulfed in the volatile energy, but when the energy faded it remained, completely untouched. When Justice used a Swords Dance-empowered Dragon Claw on Shedinja it did nothing to the bug. Even when Justice took Shedinja in its hands and slammed it repeated against the ground in an Outrage, Shedinja didn't even get a scratch. "Die already!" Percius demanded, punching the Shedinja, which didn't hurt it but did send it slowly spinning through the air.

"Doesn't Justice know any Dark type moves?" Allison looked at Percius with an annoyance that said she already knew the answer, and Percius clocked it immediately because he didn't answer. "Jackson, deal with the bug."

I tossed an Apricorn at it and caught it.

"The Donald Solution." Allison sighed. "I guess it works. I guess if you want a bug, you can have it. Let's make sure none of these other ones turn into that."

"Kicking them seems to work well." Donald informed, kicking another one which turned immediately into dust. We set about kicking and stomping on a bunch of already dead Nincada, and I wondered if this was something the Legendary Trio had ever had to do. It was hard to imagine any of them wasting their time with something like this, but they must have been a novice team at one point too. Maybe even veteran teams had to do clean up jobs like this some times?

It wasn't long before we were back in the Church Of The Stone Plate, and Priest Orville was thanking us for making sure none of the Nincada turned into Shedinja.

"It wasn't too difficult. None of the Nincada seemed to be intact enough to turn into Shedinja anyways." Allison shrugged with a reassuring smile. "We cleared out the bodies either way, just to be sure."

"There was one-" I began.

"Yes, there was one that might have been intact enough, but we destroyed it before anything happened." Allison cut me off, giving me a glare that did not match the smile on her face as she turned to look up at me.

"Well that's wonderful. I'm glad this job was no issue for you, though I'm sorry you had to come so far just to kick a few corpses!" Priest Orville laughed a bit, before trailing off awkwardly in silence that lingered for too long.

"Well we'll be going now." Donald finally broke the silence.

"Oh, yes. I've already gotten rooms for you at the local inn. You may all sleep there tonight and head out in the morning."

"I'd rather just le-oof!" Allison elbowed Donald in the stomach.

"Thank you so much, Priest Orville! We'll do just that!" Allison basically cheered before leaving quickly with us in tow. "I hate this town." She grumbled.

The inn we ended up finding was called the Tipsy Eevee, and smelled exactly the same way the mine had, along with the rest of the town: heavily of dirt. The inn was rowdy with miners now done with their work day or people who were having a night out, or perhaps the whole town was there because there was nothing else to do. Allison had only gotten more and more disgusted with the state of the people as she dragged her eyes across the crowd, though Donald and Percius's eyes sparkled as they saw a group they could finally get as rowdy as they want with. Allison immediately walked towards the stairs leading up to the bedrooms while Donald and Percius disappeared into the crowd as drinking songs filled the air. I thought about joining the other boys, but a thought crossed my mind, and instead I went up the stairs and knocked on the room Allison has chosen.

"What?"

"I need something."

"You need a lot of things, Farm Boy. I can't provide them."

"Can you write a letter for me?"

Silence. Footsteps. The door clicked open only an inch, Allison's eye looking out at me. "What?"

"Can you write a letter for me?" I repeated. "I don't know how to write."

"You can't write?" Allison opened the door more, showing she had removed most of her accessories by now. Her ribbons removed, her white hair hung down past her feet and dragged a good foot on the floor. Her pink dress, unbound from its ribbon prison, flowed out around her like it was happy to be free and would fly away with her at the first gust of wind. Her dainty hands gripped the door frame, betraying her trained grace with similarly trained power. "I suppose it's no surprise, but why me? Percius and Donald can both write too."

"Can I come in first?"

"Fine." She stepped aside, allowing me into the room, which looked like every other room in the inn. She shut the door behind her and crossed her arms. "Now answer my question."

"I'm pretty sure Shedinja is a ghost."

Allison blew an amused raspberry through her lips. "Yeah right, and I'm a Mawile."

"I'm serious!"

"Shedinja is a bug! Shedinja can't be two types, no Pokemon is two types! Even Arceus had to use the Plates to change His type!"

"Look, I know a professor in Ombrea who I want to send a letter about Shedinja to. He studies Ghost type Pokemon-"

"Uck. Ombrea allows that?"

"I guess? I've never been there. But if I send him a letter asking about Shedinja, maybe we can get a letter in return telling us what's up with it and why it was able to just shrug off so many attacks."

Allison was quiet for a moment before letting out a defeated sigh. "I guess that could be beneficial. Let me get my quill."