March 13th, First Year
Akari rubbed the sleep from her eyes and shivered. Snow swirled quietly around her tent as a dense chill set into the earth. Ahead of her that day was yet another attempt to just do a regular old survey; they were still waiting on the commander's orders before they could go back home.
Dark clouds wreathed overhead blocking any shred of sunlight from coming through. Their little campsite near the Floaro Gardens overlooked the frozen riverbank where nothing but snow stirred. Akari pulled on her warmer gear and fixed the straps to her snowshoes, pulling her headwrap over her ears. Winter had to be waning soon. She would just have to hold out longer. Gods, she missed the warmth of spring!
One of the tents tucked away under a fir tree stirred and out came Yuki, his golden hair sticking up in every direction. His jaws parted in a long yawn before he gave her a confused look. "Isn't it too early to be up right now?"
"It should already be past sunhigh," Akari murmured. "Besides, I have stuff to do."
"You mean those requests that the professor sent your way?" Yuki had finally managed to get out of his tent, bringing along a bundle of tinder and a kettle as he began to make his breakfast. "So what? You're now the errand-boy of Jubilife?"
"Sort of. If it means the villagers will stop being rude to me-"
"Unlikely," Yuki sniffed. "Trust me when I say that they're always looking for something to gossip about. Doing their dirty work will just make them lean on you harder."
Akari withered a little. "Really?"
At her despondent look, Yuki hastily backtracked and clapped a covered hand on her shoulder. "I meant that you shouldn't let them bring you down!" he cheered nervously. "You've already got Rei and I! And the professor too! Just ignore the villagers! They're just jealous that we get to go anywhere we want with our pokémon!"
Once Rei and the other Galaxy Scouts had woken, their small camp bustled as they rushed to finish packing up. Mister Volo would be impressed that I can carry so much weight on my back, Akari mused. She was looking forward to seeing him again once this mission was over. Hopefully, she would see him back at Jubilife Village.
They set into the gardens shortly thereafter, Rei on her left and Yuki on her right. They were heading south toward the edge of the Floaro Gardens. Once there, they would split into two groups. Akari, Rei, and Yuki would be cutting north through the gardens toward Aspiration Hill. The older scouts would follow the riverbank back to camp as they had been tasked to do a survey of Deertrack Heights from afar.
As the trio departed from the rest of their squad and trudged upwards, Akari could've sworn that the ground was rumbling underfoot. "Does anybody else feel that?"
"Feel what?" Rei muttered, his eyes caught on the pale gray body of a Starly. He crouched low and lobbed a pokéball at the small bird. The clearing around them lit up with the bright sparks before the ball sank back into the snow. "What are you talking about over there?"
"That weird shaking feeling. In the ground, I mean."
"No. Not at all." Yuki gave her a side glance. "Are you sure you're okay? You know, Hideyoshi did say that you were allowed to stay back at camp until it's time for us to-"
"No!" Akari grimaced. She flinched after realizing that her sudden surge of volume had caused Rei to trip into a hidden foxhole. "No. Uh- I meant, no. I want to pull my weight too."
"…Okay? A little quieter next time Akari," Yuki retorted with a little snark. "We're not trying to attract attention out here with just the three of us."
The further they ventured into the Floaro Gardens, the louder the buzzing became. It shook at the ground beneath her feet, causing the hairs along her arms to stand straight up. Even Yuki and Rei had noticed it now too, their eyes darting around in an attempt to find the source. Akari had managed to catch a venturing Wurmple for Beauregard and with Rei's Starly, she safely tucked the pokéballs into her satchel.
"I think we should start the journey back to the encampment," Akari declared. She glanced at the darkening skies above. "I think there's gonna be another snow storm soon and I don't want our trip back to get delayed."
"More like, you can't wait until we can get back to a nice warm hearth and dry bedding," Yuki teased. "I'm with you there!" The older boy turned, his face red from the cold as his eyes landed on Rei's back. "Oi! Rei! Hurry up over there or I'm fining you a million cenz!"
Surprisingly, Rei didn't stir. The boy didn't so much as flinch. He was crouched low in the snow, hurriedly writing something in his notepad as he stared at a half-frozen stream a few paces away.
Yuki paused and then followed Rei's lead, ducking low as Akari tailed him to come up behind Rei. "What's the matter?" Yuki hissed.
"Look. Over there," Rei whispered cautiously.
Akari recoiled from the sight before her. So this was where the loud buzzing was coming from! In a clearing bordered by empty white hills were numerous pokémon, so many that Akari couldn't even begin to count them all. "Bug-type pokémon," she thought aloud.
They crawled over fallen logs and flitted about aimlessly, coagulating in dense dark swarms as they dipped and circled and wheeled in the sky. The buzzing had been the hundreds and thousands of chitters of mandibles and the distinctive flap of wings as the bug-type pokémon infested the little clearing. Beautiflies, Cascoons, Dustox, Heracross, Kricketune, Paras, Parasect, and countless others gathered and fought each other as if in a hypnotized trance. The branches of the fir trees had been stripped bare even past the bark.
Some of them lay dead or seizing, their tiny legs and wings torn apart violently as their brethren set upon them to devour them. They clumped together in the snow and in the frozen stream producing a sheer cacophony of noise that made all three of them retreat with their hands over their ears.
The three made their way away from the clearing, Rei scribbling furiously in his notes as he led them back toward the river heading north. That was highly unusual for winter, especially for bug-type pokémon who usually didn't emerge until the middle of spring. What was causing them to act like that?
"What in the name of Sinnoh was that?" Yuki exclaimed as soon as they were far enough. "Hey, Rei! Did you write all that down? The professor is gonna go nuts when he hears out about that!"
"Yeah," the boy gasped. " I got it. Let's go home. Please." He had a look to him as if he had seen something more disturbing than that other two did, but Rei said nothing more and took up the head of the group, his scarf fluttering in the breeze as he trudged onward.
"Is there anything else that you need to get done?" Yuki asked her in a quieter tone.
"I need to catch a Shinx for Toshi. He wants to know what their ears look like."
"Well, I can always just show him mine. And it'll get us out of here faster. I don't know about you, but I don't fancy figuring out what's causing that swarm of bug pokémon in the hills."
They ascended farther up into the hills until the river was far beneath them, Akari calling for a break as they started a small fire under a large fallen spruce. As Akari had predicted, a new snowstorm had begun to build and soon they were huddling in the treeline for warmth.
"Hey, Rei. Yuki. Can I ask you two a question?" Akari edged out.
"Sure," Rei mumbled around a mouthful of a bean cake. "Shoot."
"Is surveying usually like this?" She glanced back at the Floaro Gardens. "Is it- you know- always dangerous like that?"
Yuki took a drink from his waist flask. "Sometimes. Most of our time out here is just staring at pokémon from afar and making sketches of them. We don't usually get closer unless we have a few of the senior scouts with us. Sometimes, we have no other choice but to fight off the little critters. Why do you ask?"
"I-"
Akari's thoughts were quickly scattered as the sky turned an eerie shade of gray. The wind picked up to drag branches and mounds of snow along and to her horror, the buzzing from earlier was getting louder and closer. The noise reverberated in her chest and knocked the air out of her lungs. "What's going on?"
"No clue!" Yuki shouted back. "Rei! Akari! Grab on!" He held out his sleeves and the two wordlessly seized them. We need to take cover!"
At his words, the dense snow cover had been blasted upwards and the ground trembled and crumbled under their feet. The trees rocked back-and-forth before becoming uprooted and tossed aside like twigs. The sheer cold of winter vanished immediately and was replaced with a searing warmth as cold beams of light poked through the clouds. No, not clouds, Akari thought with a twinge of horror.
A large network of cracks spun outwards overhead as the eerie light continued to seep through, the buzzing from before becoming warped and distorted. Akari was sweating through her clothes. She took a step back, confused when instead of snow, her shoes met soft dewy grass instead. Wind swirled like a tempest on the edge of the distortion but here, the breeze was calm. It would be the perfect weather for taking a walk in if not for the creature that had just emerged from the treeline.
A Luxray. A utterly massive Luxray. A Luxray that was so large that the closer it got, the more she was dwarfed in its shadow. It didn't seem at all fazed by the distortion, its eyes glowing a bloody red as it approached, jaws slavering with saliva. Rei yelled something from behind her as a bolt of lightning rocketed forth and struck the large beast squarely in the face.
"Out of the way!" Yuki yelled. He stood tersely as though afraid to move, his Shinx quivering with its tail between its legs as it whimpered before its trainer. Rei was no better, his hand moving skillfully over his notepad as his Pikachu sparked defiance.
"Let's get out of here!" she yelled back. She carefully turned to gain more distance between herself and the beast, electricity crackling before her as she stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Rei and Yuki. "How can we get out of here?"
"Not possible! If we try to run, it'll catch us! Rei! Pikachu and Shinx won't be able to fight it off!" Yuki froze and stared down the large predator before them as it cocked its head, eyes narrowing with faint curiosity. "I'm about to do something stupid so you guys just hurry up and get moving!"
"What're you talking about?" Rei hissed back. "We're not that far from the encampment! If we just stay calm and-"
With a deafening roar, Yuki charged forward, his long legs stumbling over the pebbles in the grass as his Shinx ran behind him blindly. The little creature stopped short and withered, ears flattened against its skull. Yuki didn't notice.
The world seemed to freeze. One moment, Yuki was getting ready to attack the Luxray and the next- Akari recoiled to the ground as Yuki's agonized scream pierced through the distortion. Bone snapped and flesh tore. The Luxray had pinned Yuki to the ground and had completely broken the boy's legs.
She started to move before her eyes caught on something behind the beast. A large white figure cloaked in the light of the distortion stood motionlessly by the bank as though it were staring at her. It was almost ethereal, and a weighty calm settled around Akari's shoulders. A faint voice whispered at the back of her mind. Akari's eyes rolled up into the back of her head and she saw no more.
