April 4th, First Year
Cold, cold, cold! It was all Akari could think about as each step brought her further and further into the soaked, sludgy gray hills of the Horseshoe Plains. At least it isn't raining. Or snowing again, for that matter. She could only hope that the brutal winter would eventually let up soon; there was only so much Akari could tolerate. And how long have I been here anyway, she found herself asking, narrowly avoiding a foxhole. She trudged on at the head of the group, Rei and Warden Lian not too far behind her, their snow-flecked cloaks whipping in the fierce winds as they stood to survey the opposite riverbank.
Their task was to move further toward the evacuated Oreburrow Settlement and follow Lord Kleavor into The Heartwood to see whether the lord stopped to rest or when a good opportunity to strike would be. It was a mission that only a few skilled scouts could partake in; ironically enough, the three of them- herself, Rei, and Warden Lian- seemed to be the only ones deemed fit for the task. Warden Ingo had stayed behind to keep an eye on the returning party.
Akari shivered, balling her hands into fists as her eyes caught on the shiny wet stumps atop the forested cliffs. They certainly weren't shiny because of the snowmelt, that much she could tell. She tried not to gag the deeper they traveled into the woods. It would be childish of her to give up so soon or to look weak in front of the others. It had certainly sounded to her like a piece of cake back in the encampment. Her impression had slowly begun to change the further she wandered into the decaying woods. She swallowed and found her footing, careful to watch where she set her feet as she picked her way down the barren hill.
"Remind me again why the settlement was evacuated," Rei murmured, his eyes wide as they walked amongst the damaged undergrowth.
"Flooded about a month ago," Lian responded curtly. His eyes were trained on the approaching terracotta buildings, his mouth set in a tight-lipped grimace. "Cut through the old bridge an' drowned a bunch of folks. I wasn't here when it happened and all, but I hear it was real bad. Happened in the middle of the night… Don' wanna talk about it right now."
"Oh... Sorry."
Lian didn't so much as regard her apology, holding his hand up to signal a hasty stop. "Slow it down now, ya'll. We're gettin' to the worst of it. Watch your feet and make sure ya' don't step on anythin' sharp."
The closer they approached, the more apprehensive Akari became. The shock of the disaster could only be understood as a sea of scattered debris and broken stones. Water trickled somewhere, dripping onto exposed tin shingles and flat rocks. Flattened trees, broken and bare, clogged destroyed wooden bridges and cobblestone water channels. They walked further.
Houses. Rows and rows and rows of stone houses collapsed. Stained. Caved in. Curtains of shredded ivy at their feet. Pots and pans and soiled papers plastered to the walls and floors. Ink pens and old dolls here and there. The empty houses whistled as a vigorous wind whirled through shattered windows and empty door frames. Wooden poles dotted with nails and indecipherable papers. Wagons and wheelbarrows bent under the stress of long-gone floods. Clothes, cloths, baskets, and bins utterly destroyed hanging by a thread upon bent rooftops. They walked further.
An abandoned cloth doll soaked with mud and snowmelt laid up against a tree stump on the side of the path, completely forgotten. Rotten wooden buckets and reed bindings littered the clearing just shy of the bridge heading south of the encampment. The mud brick houses colored with various scribbles were splattered with dark browns and blacks and the windchimes that hung from the rafters were none better. A horrid stench clogged the air, slow shapes crawling over the debris- not human but pokémon.
Akari knew what they had been doing in that place; eating. She shuddered and drew her attention away. Her mind flashed to a similar place. One with a home. Just one where the walls were a solid white stucco, a bit odd and bumpy on her fingers. Where the shingles atop the roof were a simple dark blue, sometimes darkened by the occasional downpour of rain. Where the daisy-strewn grass of the lawn was always kept tidy, pruned to ensure that it wouldn't become tall grass. Where the excess of rainwater they received would drip down serenely in front of her bedroom window and collect on her mother's flower garden. She would open her window, letting in the cold forest breeze before sitting down in front of her c-r and making notes to L-s and B-y about her plans for the day. Days like those- well- Akari had always enjoyed the wet muggy weather in T-f T—n but not so much being out in it.
Akari stilled. A memory. She wanted to laugh aloud like a giddy schoolgirl. Finally! Finally, a memory has surfaced! She focused harder on the little mud-brick house but to her utter dismay, the memory of her supposed home faded. The stench of something rotting had only grown stronger.
"Let's keep movin'," Lian huffed, giving her an odd look before quieting. "Don't wanna stick around here for too long. Follow me. I'll take ya' to the old bridge used ta cross the river."
From its outward appearance, the Oreburrow Settlement looked to have been a once-thriving village. The trio passed plenty of underwater homes, wooden bowls and chairs floating in the current as they knocked against disturbed doors and broken walls. There, in a place where the river should never have touched, the water came up to their knees, dark and cloudy and with debris. They moved deeper still to where the settlement had been split in two by the river. On the side they stood on, the river thundered down a rocky gulch. Large branches and stones clattered together violently as they raced downstream, Akari taking a hesitant step back as an unidentifiable dark mass whizzed past her. Warden Lian drew them to a halt, gesturing at a rotten wooden post.
"Here's where the bridge would start if the flood wouldn't have broken it. I don't think there's a place we can cross up here. S' too rough- water's too choppy." Lian turned toward the two of them, his eyes fixed on the hissing waters. "Any ideas, you two?"
Akari immediately brightened. "Rei, can't we just ask your Buizel for help?" She'd been thinking about how to cross the river since they had come to the top of the hills some time ago.
Rei nodded excitedly. "Good idea!"
In a few back-and-forth trips, they stood on the other side of the river on an exposed cliff, watching as a chunk of river ice cascaded into the wider bay downstream.
"Okay, so-" Akari began, pulling out a map- " we need to move higher into The Heartwood. Is there a path from the village to your old post? Or, do you know a way to get to the Scyther that live in the woods?"
"There is as a matter o' fact. Though, with all these bugs rampagin', I sure hope the trail is still intact. Lemme see." Warden Lian led them up the hills where the village houses were still intact, noticeably turning his head to stare dolefully at one of them before focusing on the emerging treeline. "Looks like this half of the village survived the brunt of the storm. We can take this trail here-" he pointed at a half-cobblestone, half-dirt path- "and it'll take us up near where the Scyther live. We'll need ta' be real careful from here on out."
"Agreed," Rei nodded. "Everybody have their supplies?" The boy pulled out a stained brown cloth bag, his nose scrunching as he began fiddling with the knot at the top. Ever since their run-in with the alpha Luxray in that outbreak distortion some time ago, Rei had been trying to work out a means to keep wild pokémon at bay as he had suffered greatly from guilt following the traumatic incident. With Akari's help and with the notes gathered by the other Galaxy Scouts, the two juniors had come up with a temporary solution: smelly herbs.
It worked well enough in keeping wild pokémon out of the encampment. Akari had brought the idea to the guards who had each set numerous bundles a distance from the encampment walls. To everyone's surprise and relief, the item worked wonders. It even worked a little too well. Both Akari and Rei's tamed pokémon stayed in their pokéballs when the foul items were brought near. Each of them kept three bags of the smelly concoction on them and thus far, it seemed to have been working. They hadn't encountered a single wild pokémon up until that point.
"Yup." Lian held up his bundle.
"I've got mine," Akari confirmed.
"Then let's go."
The further they drew into the forested cliffs, the louder and louder the ringing became in her ears. The swarm was becoming worse and worse. Each time they stopped to make camp, Akari found herself staring anxiously into the woods, waiting for the swarm to emerge and attack. The smelly poultices seemed to also keep the frenzied bugs at bay, though it didn't stop them from felling trees to nearly crush the group in their tracks. A few bug-types like Beautiflies or Cascoons would simply throw themselves into the path before beginning to convulse, too weak to crawl away or use their moves.
Akari seized the opportunity and captured each new pokémon they ran into during their ascension. She palmed the ball of a particularly large Beautifly and tucked it away at her belt. If she could find the chance, maybe she could put the alpha on her team. Bug-types certainly aren't my favorite, but they do have access to a wide variety of status moves; particularly, their moves regarding spores- and again, Akari's memory seemed to unlock only slightly, allowing for the most useless of insights to emerge. And then she thought to herself, maybe it's the spores causing the bugs to act like that. Though they awaited the arrival of a Scyther or perhaps even Lord Kleavor, they never did come, even as the group stopped and began making camp for the night.
Is this something I can do? Calm a noble? Akari carefully held her packed rations in her hands, letting her eyes wander back into the shadows of the woods again. The familiar hot and uncomfortable pressure in her throat arrived and she set down her bowl, pain tingling up her tongue as she realized she'd been biting down in her absence of mind. Shouldn't my core memories have come back by now? Shouldn't some form of awareness or some muscle memories have kicked in? She palmed Oshawott's ball. A deeper question, one that she really didn't want to ask herself, clawed at the back of her mind, desperate to be answered: am I being protected by Almighty Sinnoh?
There, in that vast expanse where people were viciously attacked and the weather killed, Akari asked herself whether her creator- presumably the one to bring her there- would protect her. Whether it would miraculously keep her from death. Akari thought back to Yuki and to what she had seen during her brief expedition into a distortion. She had seen something bright. Something indescribable. Something tall and something spindly. But what was it? Akari found herself wondering whether the event had been a mere coincidence or whether it had been the preplanned intention of her harbinger.
Akari turned her eyes up toward the cloudy skies, watching as the swarm of bugs blotted out the sky. Who's to say that this bug swarm wouldn't descend upon us at any moment and devour us like they did the trees and the flowers? Who's to say that my attempt at calming the noble won't end up with me in pieces? ...Am I invincible? …No, Akari found herself thinking, trying to ignore the urgent flood of panic that was making her hands shake. "No, I got attacked by those wild pokémon back during my trial. I'm not invincible."
"You talkin' to yourself over there?"
Akari nearly fell over as Warden Lian came into view, slowing down so that the two walked side-by-side. "Me? Oh-uh- no! No, of course not! Heh heh. Just uhh… just thinking out loud, that's all."
Lian gave her a long hard look and then nodded, seemingly satisfied with her answer. "Good. Don't think there'd be enough time to get 'ya back ta camp. Ain't nice, but it's the truth."
"Sooo," Rei butted in, twiddling his hands as he sat in front of the fire they'd created. "If I may ask, Warden Lian," he began, his voice weak.
"What is it?"
"I wanted to ask how you usually handle Lord Kleavor." Rei pulled out a poorly-bound notebook from his pack, taking up his pen again. "It would be a- uh- a wonderful opportunity to study Lord Kleavor up close and- uh- maybe possibly to get some pointers from the warden who sees to them…?"
Akari thought Warden Lian couldn't possibly look prouder of himself as the boy adjusted his large hat atop his head, a toothy grin playing on his face.
"Ya know, I don't quite agree with what ya'll Galaxy folks do, but I most certainly can give ya some notes on the lord, what with how much I do 'round here. Whaddya wanna know?"
"Everything!" Rei replied cheerfully.
Akari listened as the two boys chatted amicably next to the fire but she started back awake when the topic came to something else so obvious Akari couldn't help but want to smack herself in the face. The two had gotten to the topic of taking care of the lord; specifically how to keep the lord happy and healthy.
If Lord Kleavor is frenzied now, then how would we- namely, me- go about making Lord Kleavor happy again? If it were her, she would be far happier if she were somewhere warmer where a cold wind wasn't creeping into her clothes and where she was full. Akari blinked. If a frenzy is a noble going out of control, then the simplest solution would be to find some way to calm them down. It had been what all the wardens had been referring to throughout their assignments. "How do you calm Lord Kleavor down when he's usually angry?" Akari suddenly blurted out.
Lian took only a moment to respond. "Well, I usually make sure the other Scythers are away from Grandtree Arena where the lord's seat is and then I go an' get his favorite foods. Lord Kleavor likes eatin' the Wurmple and Silcoon bugs that make their homes 'round here, but he also likes snackin' on tumblestones."
"Wait. You kill the Wurmples?" Rei asked, his pen flying across the pages in his notebook.
"Wha- no! Heaven's sake, no! We respect pokémon- we don't go around killin' 'em!" Lian retorted. "I just herd 'em straight to the arena. Not a fan of hurtin' small bugs myself. Gatherin' the stones is easy enough. I jus' mix 'em with pinecones and leaves ta make balms. Do it every week or so."
"Have you tried giving Lord Kleavor the balms since he's been frenzied?" Akari asked.
"I have as a matter of fact- was one of the first things I tried, though it didn't work too well. Nearly got sliced in two since Lord Kleavor was in a rage and it was just me." The boy paused, his mouth twisting into a sly grin as he looked first to Akari and then to the darkening woods. "But maybe…"
"-If we use those balms in conjunction with battling the lord, maybe we could calm its frenzy." Akari put forward. "Think about it. We could slow the lord down with our pokémon and then throw balms at it to try and snap it out of its frenzy. There's a few of us scouts who can wield pokémon- Warden Ingo would be a key player there! We could have him do most of the battling and then myself, Rei, and the other scouts can hurl the balms at the lord in the meantime."
"That… that might actually just work, Akari," Rei mused. "But why throw the balms? We're just throwing food at it. Why not lay a trap instead?"
"I never said we couldn't."
"And we're not just throwin' the food. It's the smell of it that's most likely ta work. I don't think Lord Kleavor will be chowin' down while we're throwin' down if you get my gesture."
"But do you think it could work, Warden Lian?" Akari queried. She wasn't a fool. She would need to think carefully about how she would implement her plan in using the balms but if she could get the warden to agree with her, recruiting force for the mission would essentially be a cinch.
Warden Lian then fell silent for a long time, his eyebrows furrowed as he quietly finished up his bowl of stew. "I'll think about it," he muttered. He said nothing more as he rose and began cleaning up.
As Akari rolled out her bedroll that night, she couldn't help but wonder what to make of their situation. They couldn't do anything unless Warden Lian gave them the green light- whatever that's supposed to mean. He was far younger than the both of them. Why did the Pearl Clan appoint such a young kid to such a high position of power? Akari glanced over to where Warden Lian had taken up a guard position, reclined against a petrified tree trunk with his arms crossed behind his head. She took note of the slight bags beneath the child's eyes and the way in which the boy's feet were planted firmly on the ground, their face turned away from them toward the darkened woods. I wonder what happened to you. How did you become a warden? Why?
Slow shocks of realization stabbed into Akari's side as the events of the day replayed in her mind. The slow trek to where Oreburrow once sat. Lian's unquestionable ability to figure out where they were despite the horrendous damage to the plains and the forest. The boy's solemn attitude upon trekking through the village. Up until that point, Lian hadn't said a word about his family; only that he often slept near Grandtree Arena. He called Warden Ingo 'gramps' a while back… is he okay, even? I guess we're both missing our families.
Akari turned over in her bedroll and closed her eyes. Is putting this decision into Lian's hands such a good idea? Maybe, we're better off asking Warden Ingo or Warden Mai. Those two are much older than Lian, and probably more experienced than him too.
"…We should test it out on the swarm first," Lian eventually murmured, so softly that Akari struggled to hear him.
Huh?
"Test it out?" Rei queried. "How?"
"See if it works on the bugs first. Especially the Scythers. We could test it tomorrow an' then go back ta camp and see what the others think about it. They are helpin' us out an' all. Would be better to run it by everybody instead of just us three."
"Right," Rei replied, settling down in his own sleeping bag. "Sounds good."
April 6th, First Year
The trio rolled back into camp just as the sun was cresting over the hill; their research mission on balms had been a partial success. Akari could do nothing but wait as Warden Lian presented the idea and the research conclusions to both Warden Ingo and Warden Mai along with a handful of Galaxy Scouts that would be tagging along. After what seemed like an eternity of waiting, three figures exited the tent, their heads bent close as they spoke in hushed whispers. One of their eyes fell to Akari.
"Ah, good morning Miss Akari!" Warden Ingo was the first to notice her and gave her a courteous nod. "Thank you for your patience. I'm sure you would like to hear the results of your plan being shared with the survey scouts, yes?"
Akari quickly got to her feet, noticing with unease at how the other scouts had flinched at the Pearl Clan warden's boisterous voice. "Yes, please!" she piped up. "The sooner we take care of this, the better."
Warden Ingo nodded, the corners of his eyes crinkling. "We have heard about your test concerning the usage of balms on the frenzied bug-types in The Heartwood; quite clever! Warden Lian told us that it had been upon your suggestion to look into the matter. Very good intuition!"
"Thank you very much for your diligent note taking as well, Rei," Warden Mai added. "It seems the balms are our first step forward toward quelling Lord Kleavor. While I am skeptical that the balms would take such a calming effect so soon as you had noted in your journal, I don't see why it wouldn't work or in the very least, why we shouldn't test our theory on our main target." In a side note, Mai added, "And I hope to see whether this theory might work on Lord Wyrdeer as well."
"Have we gotten any news on Lord Wyrdeer actually?" pondered Rei. "Has anybody else from your search party gotten better? I know Haru had to be taken back to Jubilife but how are the others? No amputated fingers or anything?"
Warden Mai shook her head. "Luckily, no. No lost appendages within my group. It seems I'm the only one who hasn't fallen seriously ill. That might be due to my constant exposure to Lord Wyrdeer or perhaps it is something out of my control."
"What do you mean by 'falling ill'? What happened up there in the hills?" Akari questioned. "I don't mean to sound rude ma'am, but you do still look pale from that whole ordeal a few days ago. Are you sure you're okay to be up right now?"
"I'm as alright as I can be," Mai chuckled. "As for what happened in the hills, I'm not quite sure." I'm not usually out of turn with my memories, so to speak-" she threw an uneasy glance at Warden Ingo- "but I can't remember exactly what happened after one of the scouts had a seizure. Haru, I think his name was."
Akari listened as Warden Mai described her recollection on her group's ascension into Deertrack Heights. Between the mentionings of time distortion outbreaks and the warden's visible discomfort at actually sighting her own lord, Akari couldn't tell which was more disturbing: the fact that just being near the elusive lord apparently caused mental distress and seizures or the fact that all of the party members had lost multiple days' worth of memories.
"You don't remember anything after sighting Lord Wyrdeer?" Rei tried. "Nothing at all?"
"The last thing I remember is Haru having a fit of some kind; most likely caused by Lord Wyrdeer's frenzy. Frankly, I'm surprised that that young boy didn't die. Everything else is completely blank after that. I've already asked the remaining party members what they remember but they aren't well enough to be fully coherent. They slip into wakefulness and then faint a few minutes later. Some of them didn't even remember the trip up the mountain. I want to believe that one of us does know, but…"
"But?" Akari intruded. She knew where this conversation was heading to.
"…But I am- well, I am very uncomfortable at the prospect of asking. Maybe now would be a good time to explain."
"Please, do share," Ingo encouraged her.
"Right. Lord Wyrdeer has the ability to talk to people- with its divine powers, I mean," Warden Mai stumbled. "I have heard it speak to me numerous times during my tenure as its warden. I have also had a few chances to see it use its powers on other people and it seems that they all adopt that look-"
"Like the lights are on but nobody's home?" Akari tried not to remember how cold the tent was the last time she was close. "When Warden Ingo, Warden Lian, and I went to visit Jaku, we all noticed that same thing. It was… creepy. Very, very creepy. How long does it usually last for?"
"For as long as the lord is speaking, I believe."
"Does that mean that Lord Wyrdeer is speaking to Jaku? Is it still speaking to her and if so, is that a bad thing?" Rei postulated.
"The last time we spoke, it called me 'champion'," Akari interjected. "If anything, we weren't talking to Jaku so we were probably speaking to Lord Wyrdeer. I don't want to believe that we were talking to something else."
"Halt. That wouldn't make sense given that Lord Wyrdeer is still derailed in Deertrack Heights," Warden Ingo cut through. "How can it be speaking calmly to us when its cab is still rampaging from afar? I don't believe psychic-type pokémon have the strength to operate completely independent of their tracks."
"That's what I'd like to know," Warden Mai quipped. "I've never seen the lord try to speak through other people. Usually, whatever it says is just kept between whoever it's talking to. And… I don't know if that's really the case here. Egel- one of our own rangers- he was the first to start feeling sick. Jaku was next- something happened to her in the distortion. Apparently, a few wild pokémon attempted to kidnap her? I am not sure, but she reported feeling fine afterward." Mai then cleared her throat. "Here is a note that I remember from my trip. My group uncovered a strange phenomenon- half of my party reported enduring visual hallucinations. They retained their coordination and situational awareness, but lost the ability to hear or see those of us who weren't hallucinating. We theorized that it was a side effect of being within the main distortion. After we uncovered that theory, I led my group further where we encountered Lord Wyrdeer. And then-"
"The blackout?" Rei finished promptly. "That's all fine and dandy, but how about we try to get some more information from her? She's still in the medical tent, isn't she? We can try to see what or who it is we're talking to."
"…Rei, do you even realize how horrifying that is? To not know what you're talking to?" Akari grimaced. "What do you think it would feel like, to be used as a mouthpiece against your own will? To be strung around like a puppet on a string? Does Jaku even know what's going on or is she just completely oblivious? … Is Jaku even still with us?"
Ingo set a calming hand on her shoulder. "That cannot be determined at the moment. While it is concerning to rest on those tracks, we must continue with what we can control; gathering information. Let us all go and see whether any information can be derived. All aboard!"
Much to Akari and Warden Mai's dismay, the group carefully made their way through the camp toward the unguarded medical tent; both Warden Ingo and Rei had insisted upon questioning the party members. They would need answers to their questions to better understand how to quell Lord Wyrdeer when the time came to it. All Akari could do was follow along.
They arrived at the unguarded medical tent, a cold breeze stirring up leaves as they pushed through the tent opening and into the dark bay. The window of the tent lay closed, stifling the inside in warm, damp, darkness like a cave. A few covered bodies slumbered, shuffling, tossing, and turning as the group ventured further back toward the end of the room. Akari remembered where their particular patient should be and in no time at all, they found what they were looking for.
Sitting up straight in their cot with a blank expression trained on the far tent wall was Jaku looking as though she hadn't moved since the night Akari had last seen her. Her face was slack and her eyes were dull, her hair thoroughly disheveled and littered with twigs and leaves. Upon their arrival, the young woman whipped her head around to stare at them before smiling, reclining back against a tower of pillows.
"Oh, it's just you guys."
Akari paused, dumbfounded. Wait, wait, wait. What? The group approached closer and to Akari's further surprise, Jaku gave them a little wave with a confused grin on her face.
"Why're you guys looking at me like that? Was I the first to get up or something?" She then spotted Warden Mai. "Nevermind. I guess I was the last, huh?"
"… I wouldn't say that," Akari spoke carefully. "More like, we're surprised to see that you're back to normal… Are you back to normal?" Akari knew the answer the moment Jaku raised an eyebrow at her. The tired look had given way to a skeptical, almost humorous look in the older woman's eyes as she reclined lazily against her pillows.
"Don't tell me I set something on fire or got into a fight while I was sick. I thought it was bad enough that my pokémon were missing when I woke up. You wouldn't happen to know where they are, would you?"
"We thought you would know that," Warden Mai rasped, pulling up a seat to sit at the ranger's bedside. "Are you… okay? Do you feel strange at all?"
"Apart from my vision being a little fuzzy, not really. I think the medics said that I was hyped up on psychic-energy or something like that," the ranger drawled, scratching at a spot on her head. "Apparently I was staring at the wall for a few hours like a zombie. They gave me something to keep me calm- don't know what exactly but it's certainly doing its job." They then chuckled, covering their eyes with a shaky hand. "I hope it was opium. Then I've got bragging rights and that would be funny as hell."
"Do you remember the conversation we shared a few days prior?" Warden Ingo tried.
"Nope. Not at all."
"What is the last thing you might recall?"
Jaku grimaced. "Haru was having a seizure after we got a little too close to Lord Wyrdeer. Komuro ran off and I couldn't hear or see him due to some weird phenomenon-"
"I brought that up with Warden Ingo," Mai inserted.
"Yeah, that happened," Jaku grimaced. "I tried to help Haru after his seizure but he became unresponsive. I tried yelling for the rest of the group but nobody answered." Jaku shook her head. "After that, it's just bits and pieces but how much of it was real or just hallucinations, I don't know."
"What do you recall?" Warden Ingo prompted her. "Do you remember anything about Lord Wyrdeer or about which sights you came upon?"
"That's the thing: the hallucinations- I keep thinking that we were all out in the mountains though I was completely aware that we were supposed to be in the woods. Those of us who fell 'ill' all thought we were in different places. I think I walked by some kind of cave? One with crystals? Or maybe they were just really bright flowers. No idea. I do remember running into those pink-and-white pokémon again."
Akari paused. "...Pink-and-white pokémon? What do you mean by that? What did they look like? What did they do?"
"One question at a time, Young Akari," Warden Ingo warned her. "It would be best to take things slowly. Ahem." He turned to face Jaku. "What was your history with the pokémon you're describing?"
Jaku smiled. "Earlier on, before we encountered Lord Wyrdeer, a distortion opened up right on top of our party and I ran into a group of these small fuzzy pink-and-white pokémon. They looked a little similar to my Eevee, Peanut. Taller. Big ears. I think they came up to my hip or something like that. They had these long ribbon things- kind of like Chandelure's arms? They were incredibly friendly when I first met them and they seemed awfully familiar to me."
"Those pokémon!" Warden Mai gasped. "I know what you're talking about. You ran into those things again? What did they do? Did they hurt you?"
"What? No, not at all! I ran into like three of them and I think they were leading me somewhere. They used their ribbon-arms to lead me around but I don't recall ever feeling like I was in danger. We went higher into the hills, I think, because we were completely off the trail after that. Again, the hallucinations. No clue where the hell I was."
"Language."
"Make me. Anywho, I don't remember when they disappeared, but I do remember walking into this huge clearing at the summit of the hills. No grass- just dirt and gravel and these weird tracks in the ground- or maybe it was a pattern? I don't know." And then Jaku sat up. "I remember encountering something and hearing somebody talking to me, but everything after that is just… nothingness."