Author's Note: This was written in 2021 as part of a writing challenge, and it came out as kind of a fun, casual little character study with some particular hints about upcoming twists.

What's here was only ever meant to be the first half. Coming back to finish it, I found that, for various reasons, I simply did not feel like finishing it. And given the option of making this a two-parter, I would much rather get back to the main plot than obsessing over what's essentially a fluff piece that I didn't feel inspired to write anymore. But what's here is pretty nice and I think it deserves to be shown off, and I feel that it fits well at this point in the story.

Instead of a second half, there is a rather rushed final scene that attempts to hastily summarize the originally intended plot, so I apologize for that, if and when you find it jarring. Otherwise, I hope you enjoy this for what it is, and next update we're finally getting back to the A-plot.

"Soul Bound"

I'm sure you've heard about "love at first sight." Anyone who's ever read a book or heard a fairytale story is probably familiar with the concept.

Because love is such a big deal, it's supposed to be this whole process. You go through an acquaintanceship phase, a friendship phase, a best friends phase, and finally you start to realize you can't envision yourself ever living without them, or maybe that seeing them happy is the most beautiful thing in the world and you're willing to do just about anything to see their smile or hear them laugh as much as possible. Then you go through a turmoil phase where you awkwardly hope they feel the same way about you, slowly push your limits to see how close they're willing to let you get, maybe spend some time holding your breath and waiting to see if they work up the courage to tell you first, and cry yourself to sleep every night at the thought that they'll reject the idea and you'll basically lose the whole friendship and drop back down to the acquaintanceship level.

If that isn't bad enough, that's only half of it. If by some miracle you get past that part and you both admit to maybe being in love, then you go into the dating phase where you try little by little to see if it actually works out. It hurts even worse if something goes wrong here, and a lot of things can go wrong. Maybe you find out you have opinions that just don't work together. Maybe you have lives that just don't work together. Maybe you find out that it just doesn't make you as happy as you thought it would. And maybe even petty things like... maybe you hate the way they chew their food, or how messy they keep their den, or how loudly they snore. Dumb as it sounds, those things matter if you have to deal with them every day of your life. You realize that your partner isn't perfect, and you have to really ask yourself if you're okay with that.

Survive that long enough, and you'll get to the final part. The life-mate part. The part where the crush goes away and everything becomes weirdly normal. Things will change, feelings will change, everything in life will change. If you want to stay in love, then you need to spend the rest of your life growing together through it all, instead of growing apart. You need to be a team and you need to solve problems together. You need to compromise when you can't agree. You need to keep working hard and making sacrifices for one another even if it hurts.

If all the stars align like that, then congratulations, you've one of the few and proud who have won at love. Not everyone will win. And even those who do win, they probably won't win on the first try. If you fail, all you can do is let yourself die on the inside a little bit, and use the experience to help you find a better partner and not to make the same mistakes. (And that's not even mentioning... y'know... having eggs. Whole other topic, I'm not getting into that.)

That's what everyone told me about love growing up. That's what most of my friends went through. That's the normal way. That's what I was always prepared to deal with, if I ever found out I had a crush on someone and decided it was worth the effort to go through all of that.

Now love at first sight... that's some kind of random, super-lucky magical force that lets you skip a few of those steps, but not all of them. Usually lets you skip right to the dating part. Sometimes more. Mostly an idea perpetuated by storytellers, because it's exciting to imagine happening to you, and because stories usually don't have the time to go through everything the real way and have to cut half of it out to save time. But even so, it's not completely a myth. It does happen for real sometimes.

Some of you might have even felt it for yourself. People are right to envy you. It's one of the rarest blessings you can get.

Now... can you imagine a force greater than love at first sight? Something even more powerful?

Can you imagine something so powerful, it lets you skip all the steps?

Imagine that just by locking eyes with your partner for the first time, for just a moment... there's no fear. There's no misunderstanding. There's no awkwardness or hesitance. Imagine seeing someone for the first time and you just...

...You just know.

And you know that they just know, too. An instant, mutual understanding. And the questions that start flooding your head aren't things like "Does he like me? How do I tell him what I feel? Are we compatible? Would anything work between us? How fast should I move? Is this worth pursuing? What will everyone think?"

It's like, in the blink of an eye, the past has been rewritten and you've already lived a hundred lives together. And in that moment, the only thing tugging at your heart, which you know is the same thing they're thinking at the same time, is... "Welp. I guess it's us versus the world now. Let's plot our next move."

"Love at first sight" doesn't do it justice. It's a moment that defies all explanation and all description. But if I had to give it one, it would be something like "Soulbound at first sight."

I barely remember anything else about that moment. Like when you black out and wake up two hours later like it's a perfectly normal thing to take an unplanned nap on the flood in the middle of the lobby. That's really what it felt like. The world blurred out of focus. All I saw were his eyes.

Everyone was yelling at me. Saying something about taking me to the hospital wing. But I only thought, What? What's the big deal you guys? I literally just found my soulmate... I have a lot to think about right now! And that's what I kept thinking until I suddenly woke up two hours later in a hospital bed.

"Alright, good, you're awake." said a voice. I recognized the voice. My squad leader.

"Shelly...? What happened?" I looked at my claws. "I thought we were... Is this Bogdown Ruins? I thought we had a mission..."

The Machamp rubbed me on the head. "Mission was canceled because of you, sweetie."

"Because of me? Huh?"

"Yeah. You don't even remember what happened, do you?"

What happened? Did I dream it all? Seems a lot like something a dream would come up with.

"I was... I wasn't even in the tunnel yet," I said. I tried to remember. I still stared at the back of my claws like my life depended on it. "The memory wipe shouldn't have kicked in yet. But I passed out. How did I pass out...?"

"Well, cuz I tranquilized you, sweetie."

"Tranquilized... huh?" Also, they had tranquilizers that work on Zangoose? Must have been electric-based. Or sleep seed. Something like that. "Why the heck would you do that?"

"Oh! Well... I guess you really don't remember, do you?" she laughed like I was a poor fool. "In that case, no need to tell you right now I guess. But you have to stay here an extra night so they can finish the treatment."

"Treatment...?"

"Just get some rest and come back downstairs when you're discharged and I'll explain everything. Meanwhile, I've got to have a little talk with Team Cog. They've got some real work cut out for them.

So she left. And I was alone in the infirmary hall just looking at myself. Wondering if I'd just hallucinated something. I practically forgot what had even happened except that it was apparently super important and I really needed to remember it.

Why? Why couldn't I remember it? I wanted to claw my own forehead off. I kind of tried. Hoped the pain would jog my memory but only ended up growling at nobody. It was serious. It was life-changing. It had happened in the hallway on the way to a mission. What kind of medicine did they give me exactly? Why did I feel like half of my brain was chopped off?

"Psst. Hey." said a voice.

His voice. The first time I would ever hear it.

I didn't even have to ask. I knew he wasn't even supposed to be here. He snuck in somehow after visiting time was over. Just to talk with me. Hearing his voice at least gave me a chance to prepare myself before seeing him again. I didn't know if my body would react the same way. Maybe this time it would react to a Seviper the way it was supposed to in the first place.

I suddenly remembered everything. I remembered how I felt after just a single glance at him from across the hall.

And suddenly there he was, slithering out from underneath a bed at the end of the room. And at first glance, I saw that there was nothing real special about him. He was just a snake. Nothing to be alarmed over. Small stature at least compared to Arbok or Serperior. Some keen-looking eyes and a grin to his mouth. Pretty impressive blade that looked like it could cleave a Bidoof in half with one strike.

He slithered up to me fearlessly, he reared up to look me right in the eyes, and then he said:

"Now. I'm only going to say this once, and you are free to pretend you never heard it. Next time we meet, we can commence with all the theatrics and tearing out one another's throats. But I need to say it. But you are the most magnificent creature I've ever laid my eyes upon. That is all. Do with it what you will."

…Oh. Oh. So… it wasn't a dream. It was all real. The moment was real, and it was exactly how I experienced it. I had to think about that for a moment because something was confusing to me.

For some reason I just said, "Uhhhh… I don't think that's how it's supposed to work."

He recoiled back and looked away from me. "Yes. Yes. Of course. I'm quite out of line. I'm sorry."

Nope. Oh no you don't. You're not getting away.

I reached out to him with a claw and missed grabbing him by a longshot. I said "No. Wait. That's not what I meant."

He turned back to look at me, and now there was this look in his eyes that was just… well, awestruck, as he started to realize his desperate plea for my attention was actually about to work.

I said, "I meant… the bloodlust. I don't think that's how the bloodlust is supposed to work. All my life, they warned me that one day I'd run into one of you. They warned me what it would feel like. But I don't think it came out as bloodlust. I think it came out wrong. I think it came out as something else."

That made coil back a little bit and look bashful. Then he said to me very carefully, "…Oh. So you're saying… It came out wrong for you, too?"

I stared at him and nodded blankly.

"Ugh. Those eyes. Those eyes of yours. When you look at me like that… it's like we're back in that hallway all over again. I've only known of your existence for two and a half hours and already I'd know those eyes anywhere. The tiger-eyes of Zachel. That is your name, correct? I heard them talking about you while I was hiding here."

Me, not being so much of a poet with my words, I just sat up in bed and stared at him. He stared back. It's like we were having a whole silent conversation with just our eyes.

"The fact that it happened to both of us, I think, is a cosmic stroke of luck," that viper offered. "A rare birth defect. I figure it could happen, say, once a century. But to happen to both of us, and that we would have the opportunity for this chance encounter… that's once-in-a-millennium. If not once-in-a-universe."

I tried to argue back. "Yeah. But if this is really just our instincts messing up and having the opposite effect… these feelings are all fake, aren't they? That means we probably shouldn't even listen to them."

He grinned at me. A saber-toothed grin. "And why would that be a problem, exactly?" He asked. "So what if this is a fake feeling? So what if our instincts are just controlling us? The feud between our species never ends. Everyone knows that. So if these are the same instincts… that only means this will never end, either." He slithered closer, close enough to whisper. "It means that no matter how many times we look at one another, how many times we lock eyes, we're always going to feel the same way. Forever. So let's not overthink this, alright? Let's forget everything else, and ask ourselves… is this the way we want to make one another feel… every day… for the rest of our lives?"

Hearing him say that, and realizing how true it was, something melted inside of me. I didn't feel like a warrior. I felt like a hatchling. And I probably gave him those starstruck eyes that he loves so much.

Then I hugged him. He coiled around my torso and softly constricted me. Made me feel so warm and secure. And look, I've never hugged anyone like that. Not ever. Not even the cutest little recruits of Team Stripes. But that dastardly snake, I hugged him with such heart that I never realized I had.

So after barely a ten-minute conversation, we'd skipped everything. The awkwardness, the hesitation, the whole process. Everything. Just like that. No reservations. No conflict. Our fates were sealed together.

Some love story that was, huh? Over and done in the blink of an eye.

But this isn't going to be a story about how we met. That's the dullest part of it all. This isn't the same kind of love story you're probably used to.

This is a story about literally everything else that happened after that.

"So what now?" I whispered, never letting go.

"Now, we plot our next move," he answered. "This isn't going to be easy. I've pledged my life to my boss and as of today that pledge is now secondary to the one I'm giving you. And you probably have a team you thought you were loyal to as well."

"Uh-huh," I only said.

"Who ever thought a chance encounter could have been so disruptive to our normal, everyday lives?" Seviper sighed. "I'll have to figure out how to tell Croagunk and Dusknoir about this. Or whether I'll even tell them at all. They're not going to be happy. Falling in love is the one thing Team X is not supposed to be doing. Unfortunately for everyone else, this issue is non-negotiable. I belong to you now. The rest is just minor details."

"I have an idea," I told the snake. "I know what we need to do. We need to be rivals."

"In public, you mean?" he said. "To throw everyone off?"

"Exactly," I said. "Put on a convincing enough performance, and nobody will ever suspect a thing."

I felt Seviper wiggle at that thought. "Oh, that's going to be so much fun," he cackled. "I'm already imagining how cruel we can be to one another. And we can be as ridiculous as we want, too, because that's what our rivalry is supposed to be like." He touched his forehead to mine. "I knew you were a keen one. There was never any question. I knew it just by looking at you."

I began giving him a tour.

The base was my life. My world. I wanted him to get to know it. Because I know I wasn't getting to know his. He wasn't going to take me into the Master's fortress even if I begged.

So I just settled with a little tour of the Gold Division base.

When the morning rush had died down, and all the teams were out for the day, we snuck around to the lower levels and I showed him my favorite room in the place: the meeting hall.

"Yikes. Big place," he said. "You must have more Pokémon in this base than we thought."

"Yeah… like uh… five thousand or… Oh I don't know, it's big, yeah," I babbled. "But they can mostly all fit in here when High Intelligence calls their meetings."

We crept around the outer wall together, down towards the stage.

"Oh. Dialga and Palkia. I hardly noticed them," he said. "Not bad. Master's got better sculptures though."

"You really do work for the Master, huh?"

"Yep."

"A double-agent? A spy in the base?"

"Yeah."

"So we're all pretty much doomed? Is that what you're saying?"

He snickered at me. "That's not the tone I would expect from someone who just realized their whole world is doomed," he said. "Nah. We'll definitely save this room though. I can see why it's your favorite."

But that begged a question that I needed to ask…

"Hey, what if I joined Team X someday?" I said, sounding halfway serious but not so much that I couldn't say I was just kidding if he called me out. "That's the name of your team, right? With Croagunk and Dusknoir? How would you like an extra set of claws?"

"Sorry to disappoint, but I don't think that's going to work," Seviper said, almost with the same level of awkwardness as someone who's rejecting a love confession. "Team X isn't a normal resistance team."

"Yeah, a Master Team," I said. "You can still count me in. I'll work for the Master."

"No. Not… ah, how to put this? We're on a very special mission to throw a Pokeball at a very specific Pokémon. Once we do that, our team is over and uh… I guess I can do whatever I want."

"Sounds fun, honestly," I said. I jumped up on one of the benches for a larger-sized audience member. "No, but seriously, why not just tell me everything? You know that I'm your ally."

"You wouldn't believe me if I tried."

"Well, try me."

"Fine. We have a big purple ball with an M called a "master ball." Humans designed them to capture any Pokémon in one try without letting them escape. And we're trying to capture Enigma, the Master's most dangerous girlfriend."

"Girlf- what?" I choked out. "Did I hear that right?"

"Oh yeah, did I mention? The master has two girlfriends. One of them is a ghost who ruins everything and never leaves us alone when we want to be left alone."

"Very funny," said a weird new voice that came from behind me. I realized Seviper was mocking someone standing there. I looked over my shoulder. Sableye.

"Alright, look. I'm from Team Cog," she said blandly. "First off. You can't just come in here whenever you want. The torches go into low-power mode when nobody's in the room. When you come in, it wastes power."

"Why not just force the low-power mode on, again?" Seviper said.

"Secondly… are you two supposed to be killing each other, or something?"

"Oh yeah, we're totally mortal rivals. Rawr and stuff," I snarled in a pathetic play-voice, scratching at the air. "Prepare to die."

"Look, we've been given an official order to keep you two apart," the Sableye explained to us.

Seviper was the one who said it. "Excuse me. This Zangoose and I are madly in love. Isn't it obvious?"

"Honestly, I can't tell whether you're being serious or not, but fine, I'll take that as an answer," said the Sableye as she stepped back into the wall. "We'll ignore the order. Also, get out of the room."

"Fine, be that way, Team Cog," I shouted at the wall. "Let's go, vipey. Plenty of other places to show you."

We kind of had to cower behind a pillar and stay low-key as I continued with the base tour. "And over there, down those steps, that's where my team is." I explained. "And over there, that's the cafeteria. That's where everyone goes whenever they want to lose their appetite."

"Keh. Wonderful."

"And there's the bank. And Kecleon is up a floor or two from there, easiest way is to get up those stairs."

"Yeah we know."

"Heh. Bet this is the most boring tour ever, isn't it?"

"The tour isn't what I'm here for. What next?"

"Uh… if you go that way you can get to the room where they brainwash you with the Resistance Creed until you memorize the whole thing," I groaned.

"Already seen, already done, already memorized," Seviper said. "That's kind of my thing. Perfect memory."

"Well I'm jealous. I had to turn it into a song to get any of it down the throat."

"Now I want to hear you sing."

"No you don't trust me."

"No, I do. Trust me."

I ignored him. "Alright. Now I'm going to show you a place that nobody actually knows is even here."

"Oh? Oh really?"

"Yeah. I've never seen anyone draw it on the maps, never heard it mentioned, but… it's a thing."

I took him to one of the corner stairwells, and we followed the stairs around in circles, all the way down to the bottom. Kind of.

At the bottom of the stairwell I leaned against the wall. I tapped it with one of my claws. "This is a door," I told Seviper. "Totally a door. Nobody wants to talk about it though."

"Now that is fascinating," Seviper hissed, squirming closer and looking at all the well-hidden hinges and crooks in the stone. "So the base goes down even further?"

"Yep. Never figured out how to get the door open, though."

"Easy. Mobile scarf," Seviper shrugged. "I can get you one. Next time I visit the Master's fortress, that is. He has a few of them. Nah, but really, what do you think is actually down there?"

"Honestly, it's probably just a closet or a dead end or something lame like that," I said. "If it were something interesting, like mystery dungeon or something, you'd think someone would have talked about it for as long as we've been here. But not a single Pokémon has ever mentioned it. Hey… what about your Dusknoir?"

"What about him?"

"Make him phase through this wall, and see what's on the other side," I instructed.

"Right, after I tell him that a friendly Zangoose showed it to me," he snickered. "But nah, I'm afraid I can't do that either. Boss just does his own thing, and we kind of just have to go along with it. Fat chance getting him to follow any of your requests."

"Yeah, well your boss sounds like a real killjoy."

"Yeah. He's such a kill joy, he's killed joy. He's the ghost of joy. I wouldn't bring him to a party if I were you."

And then the torches turned blue on us. I was kind of shocked and horrified, and so was he.

He looked up at the torch and said, "Hey, Tiger-eyes. Is that a glitch with your torch-colors, or did we really just spend nine hours sitting in a corner and talking about nothing?"

"Oh. Oh my Arceus," I groaned. "Yes. We just spent eight entire hours chatting about nothing. How did this happen…? I'm going to be in so much trouble."

"Hey! I'm going to be in so much trouble too! And I'll have to make up false memories of what I did today."

"Your memories are really that sharp, huh?"

"Sure are. I remember every word you spoke today and the order you spoke them."

I fidgeted a little. It was a weird feeling. Like there was my whole team downstairs somewhere probably filing missing reports about me as we speak. But for some reason… that was fine. Because I was huddled in a little corner talking about nothing to a snake I just met this morning. And just because of that, all was right in the world.

"See you tomorrow, down here in this little crook, after missions are over?"

"Yep. I'll be here."

The biggest question I was asking myself all the way back to my team base wasn't "How much trouble am I in?" but it was more like "Is this really what relationships are supposed to be like? Is this actually what love is like? Just… mundanity? Also, why is mundanity so comforting? And why would I prefer the mundanity over doing literally anything else…?

I actually had to stop and remember what I was doing before meeting the snake. Like rediscovering myself. I'm a dungeon explorer, aren't I? I find scarves in dungeons and keep them in bags for my team. That's my thing. I kind of completely forgot about that.

"Okay, so I got a little turned around in the hallways," I told a very exasperated Shelly at the front door of Team Carrier. "But yeah, they discharged me. So… Hey, I've been in suspense all day. Are you going to tell me what the heck that was all about? Tranquilizing me and throwing me in the hospital wing?"

She looked awkward. "Alright, I guess you deserve to know," she breathed. "I don't know how else I'm supposed to tell you this. But… alright. So you saw a Seviper."

"And…?"

"And… that was it. You know what happens if you stare at a Seviper too long, right? Or just get too close to one?"

"It uh… it hugs me?"

"Oh for crying out loud, Zachel. Don't be this dense. Not after you've given us all heart attacks wondering where you went after you disappeared from the hospital wing."

"Oh, well, truth is. That Seviper kidnapped me and took me hostage and I had to fight for eight whole hours just to break free and come back."

"Ha. Ha. Very funny. But seriously, why aren't you shocked about that? Why aren't you more concerned?"

"About a stupid snake?"

"Yeah! I mean it's your whole thing… isn't it?"

I gave her the dirtiest look possible. I even raised my claws at her. "My 'whole thing' is my rivalry with Seviper. Is that what you're saying? Not my battle skills, not my … I mean, do you realize how terrible that sounds?"

"Zachel. No. I didn't mean your 'whole' whole thing. I meant your whole thing with the rivalry. You have to fight whenever you're in the room together, right? That's why everyone panicked. That's why I had to put you to sleep and drag you away. Look, you got super lucky that you just barely avoided getting into a fight with that thing!"

I tapped her on the chest with a claw. "Alright, how about this. Next time I meet that guy in the hall, how about you just stand back and see for yourself what happens? I'm a grown-up. I can handle my impulses. Apparently unlike some people who can't handle their impulses to tranquilize their best friend in the middle of a mission run."

And I left her standing there on that note. And I went to sleep, thinking not about the dungeon exploration the next day, or whatever scarves I'd bring, but how the heck I was going to manage my time with Seviper after it was all said and done.

Heh. Kind of an ironic way that Shelly had put it. Seviper was kind of 'my whole thing' now. But I was never going to tell anyone that.

Now, you need any more proof that this soul-binding is a real thing and not complete nonsense that I'm using to justify having a weird crush on a Pokémon… this is what happened the next day. We had agreed to meet at the bottom of the stairwell. But where did we meet instead? The meeting hall again, at the foot of the Dialga and Palkia statues.

No planning. No communication. It happened like invisible telepathy, like we both somehow knew we'd find one another in there. And when our eyes met, we knew it was for the same reason.

"Hey," I said casually, leaning back on the nearest wall. "How'd your getting-in-trouble with Team X go last night?"

"Oh… I got in trouble, all right. But that's alright, because nobody found out about us. And you?"

"Good. I convinced my teammate she was crazy for trying to save me from you."

"Well done. So… am I to assume you're in here for the same reason I am?"

"What, like we're synchronized or something?"

"Well? Are we?"

"One way to find out…"

We talked and talked and talked some more, until the thing happened that we were waiting for.

"Oh, speaking of being in trouble," said the Sableye from earlier. "You two are going to be in a lot more trouble if you don't stop -"

I sprung with Seviper at the same time. Silent, perfectly synchronized thoughts. Unrehearsed actions. We just… knew.

We each took a hand of the Sableye. It was ice-cold, but it stayed solid as we pulled her along. We knew she could have just as easily phased out of our hands if she wanted, but I think she was interested to see where this was going.

"We need you to come see something," I said to her. "It's a weird part of the base. I want to know if you know anything about it."

"Oh, there are no weird parts of the base to us anymore," said the Sableye. "But I'm going to give you a shot to surprise me."

So we took her across the hall, to the stairwell at the… north side of the base, I think? I never remember directions in there. And we took her all the way down.

"First off, you don't mind if we hang out down here all the time, right?" Seviper demanded of the ghost. "We'll hang out here instead of the meeting hall, if that doesn't break any rules or whatever."

"I'm pretty sure it breaks at least one rule, but… if it'll keep you out of the meeting hall, I won't say anything." She scowled at us. "Okay, so what is this all about? Where's the so-called weird part of the base?"

I pointed at the solid wall at the back of the staircase. "Care to tell us what the heck this is?"

The Sableye crossed her arms. "That? That is, um… how to put this… a solid wall? And a big giant waste of my time?"

"Seriously? You're going to lie in our faces like that?" I whined at the ghost. "Look. This is so obviously a hatch that opens. Look here. Look at the way the stone is carved into seams here. Look at these hinges. This totally comes off."

The Sableye approached hesitantly, though she seemed more preoccupied with the only torch that was down here… probably didn't get checked very often. "Look, team Cog knows the whole floor plans of the base. I've seen this part and I can tell you there's nothing freakin' here."

"Then prove it," Seviper said. "Phase into the wall and back out again."

"Fine. If it will get you to shut up, I will."

She walked into the wall and back out again.

"…There's a secret passage back there."

"SEE?"

"I… I'm a bit stunned at the moment, sorry," said the Sableye. "This isn't in the floor plans. And I've never heard anyone talk about this. And believe me, Team Cog talks about everything. Also… It's skipping my mind, a bit, which ghost torch this is. Like what its ID number is. Maybe it doesn't have a number."

"Are you going to open the secret passageway or what?" I groaned. "We don't have all day."

"Why do I get the feeling I'm going to get in huge trouble for this…?" said the Sableye, as she reluctantly phased back into the wall. A moment later, we could hear the sounds of moving rocks. Heavy slabs of rock scraping through each other. And slowly but surely, the "door that wasn't a door" started popping out from the wall.

I held my breath. I could tell Seviper was excited too. What could be down here? Even if it was like… a funny dead end, that'd be really awesome, since that'd be an even more private place to hang out that nobody would complain about, and it's somewhere we could hide when we absolutely didn't want anyone to find us. And since not even Team Cog knew about this, well…

The door popped off. We thought it was hinged, but the hinges were missing, or fake, and the whole slab just popped straight off the wall and fell. Almost fell and crushed Seviper.

"Alright, alright, nobody knows about this," said the Sableye. "Not. A. Soul."

So inside the hallway… it got dark pretty fast. No ghost-torches. And there was descending staircase.

Ooh, looked like fun.

But then a certain tingle hit the back of my head. I knew that tingle anywhere. And I think Seviper, with his so-called synchronized thoughts, felt it too.

"Um… there's totally a mystery dungeon down here," I suddenly said. "A mystery dungeon, right underneath the Gold Division base. Yikes. Hey, Sableye. What are we supposed to do about this?"

"Run," whispered the sableye. "Run. Get out of here. There's a reason this is locked, and I don't think any of us want to find out."

So after we worked so hard just to get that darn door off, there we were, struggling to get it back shut again. Seviper got his tail blade beneath the slab and the ground, and I forced my claws down below the other side. But we couldn't lift the thing. The Sableye needed to phase into the floor and help lift it from beneath.

It took the three of us to force the thing back into the wall. When it was over, we all had to stop and catch our breaths. Except for the Sableye – she didn't breathe.

"Shortest mystery dungeon crawl of my life," Seviper said to break the silence.

"Yeah, mind telling us… WHAT THE HECK WAS THAT?" I shouted all dramatically at the Sableye.

I could tell she just wanted to run away… but I gave her a good "Oh no you don't, don't you dare abandon us now" look. And it thankfully worked.

The Team Cog grunt was visibly shuddering. (Do you know how weird that is to see? A ghost getting spooked?)

"I'm going to be completely honest with you," she said. "I don't know and at this point I'm too afraid to ask. Something tells me that either nobody knows about this, or if I try to ask the higherups about this, I'm going to mysteriously vanish by tomorrow morning."

"Hold on," I said, touching my ear to the wall, "Do you coggies not… ever come down here or something? Like never have to calibrate this torch here?"

"We get assigned a range of ID numbers for the torches we need to check," she explained. "thing is… I don't actually know which one this is."

"You don't know… a torch's ID number?" Seviper echoed, slithering up to the wall. "Is there… a way to check? Is there a number etched into the stand or something?"

"No. They're numbered on the floor plans," said the Sableye, grabbing the snake and pulling it away before it could tear the torch off the wall or something. "This floor has most of the six-hundreds. And I'm pretty sure they're all accounted for."

I stared intently at the flame for a moment, until it started to burn into my retinas. "So, why exactly do the torches need to be checked?" I thought to ask. "Do they stop working if they're not checked?"

"It's complicated," said the Sableye, starting to sound annoyed. "They need to be recharged with ghost-type energy to stay lit. And sometimes they stop responding to the signals that tell them to turn different colors."

Seviper got where I was going with this. But I had no doubt that he would. "If the torches need to be regularly checked, it means someone's checking this one," he said, showing me that stupidly handsome smirk I never wanted to live another day of my life without. "Who do you think keeps this torch calibrated?"

The Sableye had to stop and think about it for a moment. "How should I know?" she grumbled. "Look, if the torch doesn't have an ID number, it won't be on the schedule, and I can't see who it's assigned to," she figured.

"I can think of at least… three other ways to figure out who maintains this torch," he pressed. "Should I give you some hints?"

The Sableye flung him onto the floor like a bag of compost. "Excuse me, but why, exactly, do you expect me to care so much about this?" she loudly groaned. "Obviously the torch is doing fine on its own. It's gone this long without hurting anyone. What's the big deal if there's some kind of a hidden passageway here? Maybe it's hidden for a reason, and maybe we should all just forget we even saw anything. How about that, huh? Ever think of that?"

C'mon, you viper. You're the smart one! Think of something, I tried thinking at the snake, hoping he would hear me with telepathy or something. And of course, he sort of did.

"What if we broke some kind of ancient seal, kept meticulously hidden away for all the decades of the resistance history? Don't you suppose we should at least make sure we know what we've gone and done? What kind of a coggie would you call yourself if you broke the whole base just by breaking down a single wall? What would everyone think once they found out you failed at your only job? Face it: if that wall was sealed for a reason, you're now duty-bound to find out what that reason was."

The Sableye looked like she was about to phase into a wall and just leave us standing there, but the words made her hesitate for a moment.

"I… I hate it. But you're right," admitted the ghost. "We… have to know." But she hesitated a second time and glinted her eye at me. "Also, if you think you can guilt trip me into some kind of sense of duty, I'm afraid you're mistaken. I don't give two stitches about failing my duty. I've done this for such a long time that I feel I'm entitled to screw something up for once. Heck. I'll admit I'm just as curious as you are. But thank you for giving me a good excuse in case my boss asks about this."

"Anytime. No problem," said the snake with a little nod. "So… now that we have you as a confirmed accomplice… I guess you know what we need to do now, right? We've gotta uncover the conspiracy. Find out whoever is managing these torches down here and catch them in the act."

"Yeah. I guess I do," she mumbled. "But you can't be here. We have ways of telling where other Pokémon are in the base. They'd know you're here. I'm the only one who can hide from them."

"…You can't just touch us and give us ghost powers?" Seviper wondered. "I know you can. My boss does it to me all the time."

The Sableye shook her head. "Not good enough. They'd still know you're here and they'd wonder why I'm letting you in on this secret. Sorry, but you've got to leave this one to me if you want me to find the answers that you want."

But Seviper did it again with his cleverness. He was far too observant for his own good.

"They'll know regardless," he told her with a devious little hiss and a flick of his tongue. "Wanna know why?"

She crossed her arms. "Why's that?"

"Because they'll ask you why you tore down the wall in the first place," he said. "You're a ghost. You could have just phased through on your own. The fact that the door got torn down in the first place, and the ancient evil potentially unsealed from its eternal prison, meant that there were some meatlugs trying to break in."

"You could have just phased us through the wall in the first place," I further noted. "When we asked you to open the door, you coulda just said 'nope, I'm going in myself.'"

"I… I just wanted to see whether would actually open like a door…" she said skittishly. "Alright. Fine. We can figure out how we want to do this. But you know it won't be easy. You know I can't just leave you in the wall. Even if I'm touching you the whole time, you still can't breathe."

"I uh… I can't believe I'm actually going to suggest this, but… maybe we should hide on the other side of the door," I said. "The mystery dungeon didn't start until further down the stairway. We're safe just inside the wall. Well… except for the ancient evil, of course."

"Oh? So you just want to sit there and wait for the ancient evil to just reach out and grab us?" Seviper snickered.

"Yeah? So? I like to live dangerously," I said, wiggling my tail. "I can take a little ancient evil if you can."

"As long as you're there, I can take anything the world throws at me, tiger-eyes," he deviously replied.

"Oh good grief… you weren't kidding about being madly in love," groaned the Sableye. "Just… try not to get too sappy around me, alright? I can only take so much."

So we took her hands and she phased us through the door.

At first we hadn't realized the wall had ended and the space had begun. It was complete darkness on the other side of the wall. We only realized it was safe to breathe when she practically threw us onto the ground to sit.

"Ugh… I'm a ghost, but even this is giving me the spooks," said the Sableye with a shiver in her voice. "Yeah. You heard me. We ghosts get scared too. You know we're not actually dead, right? We're just Pokémon, just like you."

"I know. I told you, my boss is a ghost too," Seviper said, the sound of his voice bringing me some sanity In the darkness. "A significantly scary one at that. …And I think even he'd be a little freaked at what we're looking at here."

"Glad to know I'm not alone," muttered the Sableye. And maybe it was my eyes adjusting to the darkness, but I thought I saw her gemstones sparkle for a moment.

We waited for a moment in complete silence. Above us, we could hear and feel the ruckus from the rest of the base. You know, the usual. You always know when some Rhyperior or something is trudging along one floor above you. That's nothing new to us.

What was new, though, was the calling of the abyss. Down the stairs, we could hear it. The ghastly howl of the wind. Yeah. Wind. Twenty stories under the ground. Blowing in bursts and gusts, rumbling around the corners and whistling through tiny corridors.

Absolutely unnatural. Made the inner animal skittish like nothing else. Absently I reached a claw beside me, searching for some sense of comfort, and at the very same time felt Seviper begin to gently coil around me. Reading my mind again. And I didn't care whether or not the Sableye noticed this gesture of vulnerability from me. Maybe she intentionally ignored us. But I clutched onto the viper's coil around my belly and held onto it like it would save my life.

"It's alright, I gotcha," he whispered. And I believed him.

"Great Giratina. A mystery dungeon underneath the Gold Division," muttered the Sableye. "Does it have a name? What would it be called? Why has nobody ever spoken about this before? I… I wonder how many Pokémon have gotten lost down there…? Oh. Oh no. I wonder how many ghosts have gotten lost down there? Team Cog wanders through the walls all the time… at least one of us must have gotten lost and… Oh… oh no… Jayrx. Liniel. Aliza. No. No."

"Who are they, exactly?" I asked, afraid of hearing the answer.

"Used to be old teammates. Co-workers," she explained. "Disappeared without a trace. Didn't say goodbye. Didn't even put in their notice of departure. Didn't file for a transfer. Just… gone. And nobody seemed interested in looking for them. I always thought that was strange. But now… Oh, great gracious Giratina. Now I'm wondering if they fell down there. Into the abyss. The abyss that nobody warned us about."

We all gave that a little unpleasant moment to sink in. Like we could just… vanish into the abyss at any time.

"So uh… how often do torches need to be checked, exactly?" I thought to ask.

"Once every three days. And major calibrations twice a year," she explained. "Not that they always get checked according to the schedule. Some of my co-workers are particular boneheads and shirk our duties… and then the torches burn out or they stop turning colors and we all blame one another and…"

"Okay, I get that," I said, finding it difficult to speak loudly with my belly constricted by a comfy snake. "So we were here all of yesterday. Practically. And we didn't see anyone come to check on the torch."

"If they're keeping it a secret, they're going to only check it at night, I can assure you of that," said the Sableye. "So we might be waiting here for a while."

"Ugh… waiting on the stair-steps of a deep, dark, unknown mystery dungeon that's been right under our feet this whole time and we never knew…" I groaned in horror. "You know that mystery dungeons grow, right? So… won't this one expand, and… I dunno… eventually take over the base?"

"Maybe that's why it's kept secret," said Seviper. "Maybe they can't afford the mass panic of everyone trying to run out and find a new base all at once. I hope your High Intelligence officers at least have some sort of plan about what to do with this…"

Of course, nobody knew what to even think about this. All we could do was wait and hope that someone came along who could explain it to us. Even though we knew full well it was none of our business.

So we waited, and we waited… every once in a while, the Sableye would peek through the wall and report that nobody had come. At one point she brought us some spare apples from the mess hall, and then some fire-scarves to help keep us warm. The drafts coming up from the stairs seemed to be getting colder… or maybe that was just my imagination. Maybe I was just jittering from the fear. I don't really know.

"So uh… Sableye. Do you have a name?" I asked.

"Yeah, sure I do," she said.

"Uh… gonna tell us what it is?" asked the snake.

"Well that's not what you asked," she snidely replied. "Nah. I don't feel like telling you my name. Because if this all blows up in our faces, I don't want you tattling on me for helping you out."

Then we heard a very terrifying noise rise from the abyss before us.

A grumble. A roar. The growl of a stomach.

And then, unmistakably, a flash of lightning. From below. From down the stairs.

I felt Seviper coil me more snugly, somehow without making it any more difficult to breathe. Almost like he had experience cuddling with other Pokémon or something. I tensed up and clung to him more tightly.

"So, what do you think that was all about?" Seviper said.

"Uhhhh… dunno, probably the ancient evil," said the Sableye. "Y'know, guys, I think this might have been a bad idea."

"Think we should get out of here, then?" said Seviper so nonchalantly.

She didn't have to answer. She grabbed us, pulled us apart with a little tug, then dragged us back through the wall and into the weird blue-tinted stairwell. Blue-tinted because the torch had turned blue. Somehow we'd stayed for hours again, probably to the annoyance of our bosses, and now it was in the middle of the night when the Watchers were out covering the night sky.

Heh. Watchers. Those hideous ghosts. Once again I had to stop and just be thankful that we had actual friendly ghosts on our side. Friendly ghosts like this kind Team Cog member who yanked us out of the wall and away from whatever was growling menacingly at us from the ungodly depths below.

And then we all found ourselves face-to-face with a Frosslass. One who looked both shocked and infuriated to see us just pop out of the wall right in front of her.

"Oh. Uh. Hi, boss," grumbled the Sableye.

"…Kerzek?" hummed the Frosslass suspiciously. "Is there a reason you're here, and not in your flamequarters?"

"Heya, we should be asking you the same question, lady," hissed Seviper. "Actually we were waiting for y- "

"Please. No. Don't…" Kerzek tried to hiss, failing to stop him in time.

He got all cocky and squirmed right up to the icy ghost. "Anyway. As I was saying. We were waiting for you."

"Oh. You're that new Seviper," plainly spoke the Frosslass. "We're supposed to be keeping you separated from the Zangoose. Is there a particular reason you're not ripping one another to shreds right now?"

"One, stop dodging the question. Two, if you even for a moment think about separating Zachel and I, I'll have my Dusknoir boss punch you into the reverse dimension. Three, who are you, anyway?"

The Frosslass looked absolutely disgusted at the Seviper, and sneered at him, looking almost as though she wasn't going to even answer his questions. But finally she said, "I am Ether. I am one of the leaders of Team Cog, the team responsible for keeping the structural integrity of the base intact."

"Yeah, I know who Team Cog is, thank you," Seviper said, slithering around to behind me again.

Ether, who was much scarier and more intimidating than she had any right to be, glanced at me as though I were responsible for the Seviper's behavior. "I can't say I'm impressed by the way you speak to your superiors," she said icily.

"You're not my boss," he said defiantly back at her. "But I know you're not stupid. You probably know exactly why we're here."

The Frosslass glared at him, floating eerily in the air. She glared at me. Then she glared at Kerzek with a look of utter rage in her eyes.

"I see you've found the door to the Golden Abyss," Ether finally said.

"Oh! So it does have a name. Golden Abyss," said Seviper. "Nice. I like it. Fits well with how it's, y'know, hidden beneath the Gold Division. But, uh… I've never seen that name on any list of mystery dungeons. Never seen it mentioned in my life, in fact. And I can't help but wonder… is there a reason for it? Sounds a lot like you're trying to keep it under wraps, or something."

The Frosslass scoffed at him. "Oh. So I assume you've already figured out that we're going to need to wipe your memory of this evening," she said, floating across the room and touching the torch. "And here I was afraid we were in for quite a difficult conversation."

Something came over me. Probably the soul-binding. I jumped across the room and got in the ghost's face. "Yeah. That's not happening," I said in his defense. "His memory is kind of his whole strength. He can't afford to have anyone messing around with it."

"Oh, please. Do you know how many memory wipes you experience just by your participation in the Gold Division?" she said passively as she worked her hand around inside of the blue ghost torch. "You experience one every time you leave the base for any reason. And occasionally when you stumble upon something you weren't meant to see. Happens quite often, in fact. We have very strict orders from Alakazam to make sure certain secrets stay secret."

"Oh, like how the Gold Division is about to be swallowed by a mystery dungeon? Secrets like that?" I accused back. "Or how many of your own Team Cog members have gotten lost down there? Vanished without a trace? Do you wipe our memories of them, too?"

"I don't like the way you speak to your superiors either, kitty," she spoke plainly. "As though you have a right to demand answers? Please don't make me laugh. We are the secret-keepers around here, Zachel. We've been doing this for decades and we're quite good at our jobs. Now, we can do this either the easy way, or the difficult way. But either way, I'm going to need you to come with me and have your memories erased. End of story. You too, Kerzek. Don't go thinking you're getting out of this one alive."

Getting out of this one alive? I had to blink. Did I hear what I just think I heard? I glanced at Seviper and could tell he was thinking the same thing.

"It's… a running joke for ghost-types," Kerzek dryly explained. "You wouldn't get it. The irony in threatening to kill us, because we're ghosts, and… yeah. She just means I'm in huge trouble."

"Alright, fine. We'll let you wipe our memories. Or at least I'll let you wipe mine," said Seviper. "But in that case, why not just tell us what's going on with this Golden Abyss, hmm? If the memories are just going to get wiped anyway…"

"Because for one, it's a waste of my time, exactly because your memories will be wiped anyway," said the Frosslass. "And for two, I don't know how stupid you think I am, if you think I'd fall for a ploy as pathetic as that."

"Fine. Guess you're not as easy to trick as I thought," said the Seviper with a little cackle. "In that case, maybe I should try something else. If you wipe our memories, dear superior, we won't be able to tell you what we saw come out of the pit."

The Frosslass stopped, stunned. Seviper had pulled that completely out of nowhere and she wasn't questioning it. What a silver tongue on this snake.

"Excuse me…?" she said, all dark and threatening-like. "Are you trying to tell me… that something came up the stairs?"

Seviper looked very pleased with himself now. "Why yes, it just so happened that something did," he said with all his smarminess. "And not only that… we didn't just phase through the door. We had the door open for a moment. That's when it got into the base."

Oh, now this broke her. The Frosslass was absolutely appalled.

"If you value your safety… or the safety of anyone in the Gold Division base… you will tell me what you've seen," she sternly said.

"Sure, I'll tell you," said the snake "But first, you're going to tell me what's supposed to be down there and why nobody's known about it for this long."

"You fools. We don't have time for this!" screeched Ether. "As we speak, it could be…" and she infuriatingly silenced herself before saying something that we really wanted to hear. How disappointing.

"Could be what…?" prodded Seviper. "Are you going to tell me? I have all day. And I really don't care what it does with the base, by the way. Because I don't have to live here. My boss is only staying here because it's temporarily convenient for us."

Frosslass looked like she hated herself, but she reluctantly broke down and told us. "Fine, snake, have it your way. You're going to help me fix what you've broken. But once everything is over with, all three of you are getting your memories wiped. Is this clear?"

"Perfectly clear, boss," said Kerzek. "Now tell us. What have we gotten ourselves into?"

She huddled us all into the very corner, probably to be sure that not another soul could hear us. I could see her body sparkle in the eerie blue light of the ghost torch on the wall above us.

"The Mystery Dungeon down there was discovered two hundred years ago, thereabouts," she said. "It's not a normal dungeon. It's much more… orderly than any we've ever seen. But High Intelligence has been using it for a practical purpose: they've trapped a dangerous immortal Pokémon down there."

"…Immortal Pokémon? You mean like… a god?" I wondered with awe. "What kind of a Pokémon is it?"

"They didn't tell me," she said. "They only entrusted me with ensuring that the entrance remains secret and safe for as long as I hold command over Team Cog. The mystery dungeon itself is very lucrative, many rare items and artifacts down there, and lots of gold. It has taken many of the Gold Division's traits, and probably has made copies of a lot of our treasures. It must stay secret, because if word were to get out about it, many Pokémon would be trying to go down and explore it to find items for themselves, potentially letting out the dangerous Pokémon trapped within."

"…And you keep it secret with a single solitary stone tablet that can fall out of the wall," I said dryly. "That seems pretty ineffective, especially since any old ghost can just walk right through it."

"Oh, our security measures aren't that simple, I can assure you of that," said Ether. "That staircase goes down about two stories, and we have a giant set of doors down there to seal the entrance to the dungeon."

"Yeah, uh, about that," said Kerzek. "I'm fairly certain the dungeon has expanded past the doorway by this time."

"…Huh?" said Ether.

"Oh yeah… go in and check for yourself. You'll start feeling the distortions just a few steps down."

Ether was silent for a moment. She looked worried, and angry, and confused all at the same time.

"It wasn't supposed to spread this fast," she said. "Mystery dungeons never spread this quickly. Unless all the theories we've developed and the laws we've measured are just plain wrong… But this is a huge problem. If the dungeon has grown to encompass the door itself, that means the prisoner was no longer trapped by it… and could have left whenever they wanted. They could have been set free the moment you unblocked the wall. I'll need to let High Intelligence know about this immediately. Kerzek… make sure these two rascals stay right where they are. Time is of the uptmost importance right now, and I'll be right back."

"As you say, boss," said our little partner in crime, and Ether phased up through the ceiling.

I looked at Seviper. He looked at me. We each knew exactly what the other was thinking. There was only one question left for us to ask.

"You coming with us?" I asked.

"Coming with… what are you talking about now?" Kerzek grumbled. "We're not going anywhere. Didn't you hear my boss? Heads will roll if I let you two out of my sight."

"Exactly. So maybe, if you don't want your head to roll, maybe you shouldn't let us out of your sight," Seviper said. "We're going to the dungeon."

"Uh… excuse me? Why…?" Kerzek nearly shrieked. "You heard what she said, didn't you? It's a super dangerous dungeon… and you just want to go down there with no plans and no preparations?"

"…Yep," we said both at the same time.

"If there are valuable items down there like Ether said, then we'll be just fine on supplies," I noted. "Hopefully we'll find an escape orb, but even if not, I'm sure someone will come down to rescue us eventually, now that the cat is out of the bag."

"Yeah, and if we're going to get our memories erased, this might be the last chance we ever have to actually explore the place and maybe get some of the valuables down there," Seviper said. "And I know you like shiny stones, don't you?"

"…I like shiny stones? What, did you read that out of the Pokedex or something?" she scoffed. "I like shiny stones just about as much as you hate Zangoose. And that's saying something because apparently you don't hate Zangoose at all."

"Well. Not this one at least," he snickered, waving his tail-blade at me. "But our offer stands. Come with us, or stay here and explain to your ice-queen boss why you let us go when you were given explicit orders to keep us here. Your call."

"Ugh. Fine. I mean, we're getting our memories of this wiped anyway, what's the harm in throwing some deadly risk into the mix?" she sighed. "I haven't had this much excitement in years, either. Alright. I'll help you. We going, or what?"

So we descended down into the stairwell one step at a time. The darkness deepened, getting to the point where I couldn't adjust my eyes at all to it. I walked on two legs and kept my claw planted firmly on Seviper's neck, to remind myself he was always still there. The only light source we had was a small glinty glow from Kerzek's eye gems, whenever she would decide to flash them at us.

The darkness got deeper, and the sound of a deep rumbling storm got louder.

"Starting to think we should have brought a weather orb," I croaked.

"Yeah. There's still time to go back and get one," said Kerzek. "And by that I mean go back and follow orders and not get ourselves into this mess that we'll probably regret forever."

"Ahh, what's the fun in that?" Seviper laughed. "Following orders? Hss. Nobody ever accomplished anything great by following orders."

"I don't have the mental capacity to argue with you about that," Kerzek said.

One step after another. Down, down, down the stairwell. We could feel the shores of the mystery dungeon in the depths of our souls. We probably couldn't have even gone back upstairs if we wanted. Maybe the staircase was infinite now. Maybe we'd be trapped walking up or down these stairs for years, for all we'd know.

Another strange flash of lightning. In the flash, I saw Seviper's face only inches away from mine. But I also saw that the stairwell we were descending had turned into something else.

It… almost looked like some kind of a… throat?

"No going back now," Kerzek muttered. "The dungeon's got us now."

"At least you'll have some good company down here if you're trapped for the rest of your life," kidded Seviper.

"Ha. Ha. Very funny," said Kerzek, still leading the way since she was the only one of us who could actually see in this absolute darkness. "What's funnier is that that's probably true. You're already much more interesting company than any of Team Cog has ever been.

"Well, you're welcome, I do try my best to be interesting company," said Seviper.

After what felt like half an hour of descending a spiral staircase, and hearing a storm far in the distance that intensified with every step but never seemed to get any closer, the stairwell just… stopped. The ground evened out. And then we found ourselves on flat ground, in what felt like a long and wide hallway.

There was the wind. We began to feel the breeze from the mysterious storm of the abyss, rushing outward against my fur. Like we'd just gotten swallowed by a beast who was eternally exhaling. That was a very pleasant mental image, indeed.

"Oh… well that's interesting," Kerzek said. "There are ghost-torches down here."

"Makes sense," I noted. "Seeing that this part was never meant to be part of the mystery dungeon at all. It was supposed to be the seal, apparently."

"But what it does mean is that I can light them, and maybe get a little light shed on what we're dealing with here," she said. "Stay still. And I mean absolutely still. Cling to one another like lovebirds or something. I'll be right back."

"I like that suggestion," Seviper said, coiling around me as I clung to him, making me feel momentarily safe in this strange and dangerous place that should have never existed.

Then we heard the ghost torches ignite. One, two, three, four. And the whole hallway lit up, revealing the most giant steel and wooden door we'd ever seen in our lives. The ghost torches were very large, and on giant candlesticks that stood on either side of the great door. Our eyes sparkled in the ghastly blue light as we beheld this spectacle. This great sealed chamber, right beneath the Gold Division for maybe centuries, never known to anyone except us.

Strangely, the moment the torches sparked to life, the sound of the wind was gone, leaving uncomfortable dead silence. Not even the usual thumps and creaks of the Pokémon wandering around the upper floors of the base were perceptible to us. It was almost like the darkness itself was making those sounds.

"Beautiful," Seviper said. "So how old do you think this is, tiger-eyes? I'm thinking this is from the days when the Gold Division base used to be a secret academy…"

"You know about that?" I whispered.

"It was mentioned once," he said. "And when something's mentioned once, I remember it forever. Perfect memory."

"Hah. I like it. Wish I had a perfect memory," I sighed.

"You do," he hummed. "Now you have mine."

Kerzek paced in front of the door from side to side, prodding at the cracks in the wood. "Uh, if it's not obvious by now, you two can move," she called out. "And I hate to disappoint you, but this thing's sealed shut. I can't even phase through it. Something's repelling me. Like the wood is enchanted or something. So either we have to figure out how to open this door, or we're not getting in at all. Any ideas?"

"If this is a mystery dungeon, can we not just space-glitch our way through?" wondered Seviper. "Perhaps turn around in circles until the door misaligns itself with the fabric of reality, and slip inside? That's how mystery dungeons work, right?"

I looked intently at the door. At the dancing blue ghost torches at its side.

"Wait," I said suddenly. "Kerzek, I thought you said all ghost-torches need to be regularly calibrated."

"Yeah, why?" she said absentmindedly.

"What about these?" I said, pointing at the ones she'd just lit. "If your boss didn't know the dungeon had spread so far, that means that these torches here haven't been checked by anyone in a long time. So why do you think, if she knows the reason for the Golden Abyss existing, she hasn't come this far down?"

"Maybe these torches were decommissioned, I dunno," Kerzek said idly. "I don't see what your point is."

"They can't be decommissioned. Because they turned blue," Seviper said for me. "That means the Gold Division's spell still reaches them. That means they're still calibrated. How can torches remain calibrated for so long if the ghosts can't get to them?"

"Um. Mystery dungeon. Duh," said Kerzek. "Follows its own rules. Remember? The spell might not even be causing the colors to change. That could be the dungeon, too. Look… unless you have some kind of an idea about how we can open this very locked door, I'm inclined to think that coming down here was all just a big mistake. Whatd'ya say we return to our normal, predictable, everyday lives up there and forget all this happened?"

Seviper turned to look me in the eye. "So much for a wild first date, Tiger-eyes," he said. "Was looking forward to risking life and limb with you. And I know I'm saying that as a Pokémon with no limbs, but still, I hope it's the thought that counts."

I put my claw on the door and made a long sigh. "Yeah… guess you're right," I said. "Would've been fun."

Then I heard Kerzek yell something up the stairs. "Wait… who are you supposed to be?" I heard her say.

I turned to look, and for a moment I spotted a strange figure staring down at us. I can't remember what it looked like… I think my memory of its exact shape was wiped from my mind. I could just tell it looked very displeased at us all.

And that's… all I can really remember from that moment, before something blacked me out.

I awoke back in the bunks of Team Carrier, with Shelly the Machamp nudging me awake. "Rise and shine, time to tackle the Bogdown Ruins today!"

And I thought… ugh… wait a minute, did I dream everything? Was all of that just a dream? I didn't remember what happened, but I remembered how it made me feel. I remember that it made me feel full of life, in a way I really can't describe. I really wanted to roll over and go back to sleep, but I knew Shelly wasn't going to leave me alone.

Still, as I scrounged myself awake for the day and admittedly acted a bit rude towards some of my teammates, I couldn't take my mind off the dream.

This is what I was taught since I was very young: dreams are important, even if they're not real. They tell us how we'll react to extreme situations, like having to actually risk our lives, so we can be ready for how we'll react in real life if it does happen. They tell us what we're actually deeply afraid of, way down, by showing us our deepest fears. And probably most important, they tell us what we truly want from life. When you find that deep joy feeling in a dream, that's your mind telling you what your life is missing, reminding you that you're looking for something you don't have yet. So you could really say that my mind was in two places at once. Half of it was still stuck in the dream, trying to figure out what it meant.

I did what resistance teams do. Went downstairs, ate breakfast, packed our team bag, and headed out.

The day's job was Bogdown Ruins, a mystery dungeon full of steel-types and poison-types. So it was kinda perfect for me, since I can't get poisoned. Made complete sense why they were sending me. But all the while, I couldn't shake the funny feeling like I'd done all of this before. Just like one of those dreams where you dream about waking up for the day, then you actually wake up and you annoyingly have to do it all over again. Those are the worst kinds of dreams. And that's what I felt like.

I especially felt a lump in my chest when we headed for the base exit, and my eyes instantly focused on a particular place that I felt like I should have been looking. There was nothing there, just a Croagunk and a Dusknoir team, heading in for the day. I squinted at them as I walked past, and they looked at me all funny.

"Hey, where's your third teammate?" I asked as we passed by.

"What third teammate?" asked the Croagunk. "We don't have one. It's just us. Maybe you have us confused with another team."

"Yeah, I guess I did," I mumbled, and quickly caught up with my own team.

Something about that was really bugging me. Why did I think those two random Pokémon had another teammate? Why did I feel like something was missing?

And this bugged the heck out of me all day. On the three-hour walk to the dungeon, on the three-hour walk back. Kept looking down at my claw and trying to remember the dream. Distinctly remembered grabbing things with my claws. Things I'd never grabbed before. It was so frustrating, so vague.

That night, I did something I liked to do in my spare time. I snuck down to the bottom of the deepest stairwell in the base and sat against the far wall. I loved how quiet it was in there, how no other Pokémon ever bothered me. I could have all the peace and quiet I wanted, as Arceus only knows you never get any peace and quiet on Team Carrier. Too many squeaking and barking kids.

When I went down there at the end of the day, I noticed something unusual. The secret door in the wall was wide open. The giant slab was gone entirely, and there was some kind of a dark, spooky staircase on the other side.

I sat across from it and stared at the dark hole in the wall. I felt like it meant something. What did it mean? Why was I suddenly having trouble remembering?

The more I stared into that hole, I felt a panic attack coming on. I felt like a part of my mind had run away and escaped. I couldn't feel things I used to be able to feel. Everything was just flat now. The world was drained away of color, like it was all disappearing and getting sucked into that hole in the wall.

My mind was so blank, so filled with nothing. Was I always like this? Was I only now just realizing how blank my mind was all the time?

Is this… just who I am? Was I always this way, and never noticed?

Was I always just trying to chase distractions to keep my mind off the fact that my life is bland and colorless?

I must have sat there for at least three hours. Even after the torch turned blue, I just kept sitting there and staring down into the abyss. That's what they call "rumination" – probably the most mentally unhealthy thing you can do with your mind, but sometimes rumination is the only interesting thing there is to do, so I couldn't really help it.

I tried remembering the dream, but the more time passed, the more the memories dissolved and got confused with other memories. Whatever had happened in my dream, it was disappearing fast. The only thing I remembered now is how interesting it was. Something interesting had happened in my dream, something I actually cared about. I remembered the feeling of actually caring about something and I wanted to get that back, though I didn't know how. That's not something you can get back just by deciding on it. I tried that so much that it hurts.

I came back down to that room every day for the next few weeks. Staring into that hole of nothing, being terrified of it but also obsessed with it in some weird way. I gravitated toward that feeling of doom it brought me when I looked into it. Thought maybe that feeling of doom would eventually spur me to do something drastic. It never did, but I always felt like I was getting closer to doing something every time.

Why was this happening? Why did everything in the world lead me back down to this stupid hole in the wall? And when I got here I wasn't even doing anything with it. I was just staring. Like I was making friends with the empty feeling it brought me.

After about a month, I couldn't take it anymore. I had lost something I was never getting back, and I couldn't live with myself anymore. I decided I was going to throw myself down into that hole in the wall, and whatever happened would happen, and I would have no regrets because I just didn't care anymore.

That day I went for the stairs, I looked down at my claw, and there was a red scarf that reminded me of something. I never remembered owning a red scarf, but there was something important about it. Something made me not want to let go of it. It was my only comfort from the dread I felt as I climbed down those dark stairs. Like the darkness was calling to me, and also urging me to go back at the same time. Like it was an old friend who liked seeing me from a distance but wanted me to go away when I got too close.

I felt the piece of cloth in my claw, strangely warm as it was. I felt the stone steps under my feet. Other than that, I felt nothing. My mind was blank and empty and going in so many circles. But something urged me onward.

At the bottom of the stairs, in near-total darkness, was a giant wooden door. Completely locked shut. It looked big and important, like the doors to a church. No doubt hiding something insanely important on the other side. Like some mystery dungeon I could let myself get lost in.

Having come this far, working up the courage – or maybe the despair – to throw myself down the pit, I got mad. I screeched loud and I gave the giant door my best fire-punch. I put my whole heart into it, even knowing it wouldn't do a thing. It wouldn't make even just a dent. But I did it anyway. I wanted that door to know my hopelessness and misery.

"Hey! Is someone there?!"

There was a voice. Someone heard my outburst. The voice was coming from the other side of the door.

I rushed up to the door and screamed at it. "HELLO?"

"Tiger-eyes?" said a voice. "Is that you?"

"Who are you? Why are you locked inside?" I tried calling.

"It's me… your favorite sabertoothed viper," said the voice. "You're the one who's trapped inside the doors."

"Wait… what? What do you mean?" I demanded.

"You're in a place called the Golden Abyss mystery dungeon," he informed me. "You've been in there for a few days, actually."

I had to stop and think for a moment. So all this time, this reality was fake. And it was the dream… that dream that I couldn't let go of, that I couldn't get out of my head… that was the reality.

I was so confused, but so relieved that my life was starting to make more sense. "How did I get in here?" I said, trying not to cry a little bit.

"Nobody's really sure how you got in," said the voice. "We were on the outside. But something attacked us and sent you inside."

"How do I get out?!" I called.

"I don't know how we're going to get you out of there," said the voice. "But I was going to wait as long as it took. I knew you'd come back to me, tiger-eyes. Something told me that I just had to wait for you. Just you wait. I'm going to figure out how to get this door open, and we'll get you out. Alright?"

"Alright…" I sighed, digging my claws deep into the door now. "Alright, alright… Please help me…"

That voice… I didn't know that voice, but my heart knew it. I can't explain how, but my heart knew it. My heart had been wanting to hear it this whole time. It was the only thing keeping me anchored to reality. The soul-bond. Without it, without knowing that there was a sabertooth viper waiting for me on the other side of those doors, I would have wandered off into oblivion and let myself go. I would have become part of the dungeon and forgotten about reality altogether.

I don't know how else to explain it. But that's what happened. That's how I was saved. Something told me, without any kind words, that he was there. And that's the only thing that

[Security log annotation: Zachel was apprehended before she could continue writing this deposition. Memory erasure has been applied to Kerzek, Zachel, and the Seviper, to ensure the continued secrecy of the Golden Abyss.]

End of Season VII