Interceptor's Wish

by Masterdude21

What started as a young man's search for his abducted mother spirals out of control. Soon, he is fighting a desperate war for survival against greater odds than a more generous God would have allowed. The enemy is everywhere and allies are far too few. With the entire region at stake, who can prevail when fate itself seems set against you? - Novelization of Pokemon Rejuvenation.

45. Smoke and Mirrors

AB: The continuation of the Darchlight Caves segment, featuring a big plot decision and a LOT of foreshadowing. Enjoy!

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Chapter 10– Stopped In Our Tracks

Smoke and Mirrors

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If there was one thing that Will had to give Flora, it was that she was a smooth talker..Will liked to think that he could perform okay-ish when under pressure, but when faced with the prospect of Blaziken pulling her head off Flora just opened her mouth and held a speech that she must have practiced in the mirror at one point.

"Discard everything you've heard about Bladestar," Flora began, fixing him with a fierce look. "We're not thugs, we're not criminals and we certainly aren't terrorists. What we are, is an organization that works to dismantle the oppressive and toxic system that Grand Dream City promotes. In Grand Dream City you are put through rigorous courses only to be thrown into a rigorous and competitive job force. That's just normal for any given society, correct?"

"...yeah," Will said, not sure where she was going with this.

"Well, in GDC's case, the option to "realize your dreams" and become successful is locked behind the politically powerful and wealthy," Flora continued. "Not only that, but the system is designed to take advantage of those who aren't as successful. The modern man that has been assimilated into the system is worked to the bone. Those who are rejected by the system are thrown to the wolves and kept in their pit."

"That means blowing up our train…how?" Will asked.

Flora's eyes darted towards Blaziken for a second. She kept her expression calm, but she was starting to breathe faster now. "I never gave the order to detonate those bridges today, and I certainly wouldn't have done so had I known a train was coming," she firmly said. "We're freedom fighters Will, not terrorists. How would that benefit us?"

"You tell me," Will said, shrugging. He rose to his feet again. "Why bother blowing the bridges in the first place?"

"To send them a message," Flora said. "Grand Dream City is a disgusting and predatory society that only exists to benefit the upper class! But, if we started targeting their critical infrastructure, disrupt their cozy and peaceful way of life, that would send a signal!"

"What signal?" Will demanded.

Flora struggled for a bit, trying to shift her weight as Blaziken kept her on her knees. "That the people are sick and tired of being exploited! That we're done with the inequality and the corruption! That the one percent can't keep us underneath their boot any longer!"

Tackling an ingrained system of citywide corruption in Aevium's capital city seemed like a daunting and near impossible task. Will didn't have the foggiest how to even discover that corruption, let alone fight it. That wasn't his concern either way; he was here to deal with Team Xen, one way or the other. "Likely story. Got any evidence?"

Flora looked at the large screen that hung on the wall behind her. "I do. I can show you. Before I do, you should know that there's a reason why our forms changed. It has to do with our souls. You should know that as we are now, any form of injury or wound we sustain has the potential to be ruinous. If you hurt me, you could ruin my life forever." She paused to let her words sink in. "You might do worse than kill me. Are you really prepared to do something like that?"

The…what? How did her soul get involved here, what was she on about?

It was such a weird thing to lie about. If that was true, that complicated matters a lot. He'd been ready to potentially break some of Flora's bones, yeah, but nothing that wouldn't heal in time.

Uneasily, he rubbed his thumb across the strange line that now ran across his chest. Their appearances had changed and it wasn't just an illusion, since Florin could actually fly with his wings. What Flora said, had the potential to be true. He couldn't risk it.

"That goes both ways," he replied. "We had to stop our train with our Pokemon. If we hadn't, your freedom fighters would have dozens of dead or wounded on their hands. Your hands," he added angrily. "What's to stop you from attacking me the instant Blaziken lets you go?"

Flora swallowed nervously. "Consider this," she slowly said, "If our goal was to kill the passengers, wouldn't we have people watching for results? Wouldn't we have attacked you all the second you disembarked? Wouldn't I have attacked you the instant we were alone together? I have my Pokemon on me too, you know."

Now that she mentioned it, the lack of enemy activity after such a large bombing event hadn't made sense to him even back then. Kanon and him had been ready for an ambush that simply never came.

"Well?" She urged him when he didn't respond.

"That's true," he conceded. "Unless your backup plan was to simply pull back all your people and pretend this was an unfortunate accident or something, keep the ability to deny everything to try again another day."

Flora rolled her eyes. "Plausible deniability after we've blown up the two roads into Aevium's capital city, what a great idea. Has anyone ever told you that you are paranoid, Will?"

Repeatedly, but that wasn't the point. "Considering the last time I tried to relax, someone blew up the bridge I was about to cross…"

"Touche," she said. "Okay. How about this? As a token of my trust, I will show you my evidence. I propose this: you allow me to get to my feet and show you something on my console there. If I do anything antagonistic, or if I attack you somehow, you simply have Blaziken twist my head off."

Will stared at her. Had she lost her mind? If she was bluffing that was one hell of a thing to bluff about. "Just like that?"

Her expression morphed into that familiar scoff. "What more do you need?"

"...fine," he begrudgingly said. "Don't make me regret this."

"If I do, I doubt that will be my problem for long," Flora said.

That she was being this calm knowing that he had her at his total mercy was all kinds of wrong. Either Flora was Aevium's greatest bluffer or she really did tell the truth. "Blaziken, please let the lady go for now. If she does anything to hurt us…"

Blaziken's eyes flicked down towards Flora, before she took her claws off of her head and neck. She stepped away slowly. Under Blaziken's watchful eyes, Flora got back to her feet, moving with deliberate slowness and care.

"I've had a weird feeling about you even on Terajuma. I'm actually glad I was able to take a different approach with you," she said as she dusted herself off. "Please, take a look at this."

She tapped in some commands at the console and the screen activated. Its grainy image resolved into the image of a man with dark green hair and a pale complexion. The dark bags underneath his eyes suggested he hadn't been at his healthiest when his picture was last taken, but the way he smiled seemed to contradict that.

"This man…his name is…William Grevillea," Flora said, her voice uncharacteristically quiet. "He was my father. And he was also my predecessor."

Will took notice of the past tense there.

"My father was originally just an ordinary man who was part of GDC's political party," Flora explained. She looked at the photo of her father for a few moments more before turning back to regard Will. Her face was a mask of hard, angry resolve. "But when he saw how deep the corruption ran, he decided to fight against it in secrecy. He gathered supporters and created Bladestar. Before he was able to make important strides in his team, he was assassinated."

Will cast his eyes to the ground. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be," Flora said. "I'm not sad about his death anymore. If anything, it confirmed everything he spoke about."

…yeah, he could see that.

With a few button presses, Flora shut the screen down again. "I bet he knew his time was coming. That's why he pulled me aside and told me everything at such a young age. It's his wish of bringing equilibrium to GDC that drives me. Your fight is with Team Xen, Will, and I know for a fact that the Battle for Terajuma left many dead, some of whom you had a personal hand in." Her expression softened. "You wish it hadn't come to that, but in the end, you don't regret what you did. The same goes for me."

Will stared at her.

Flora stared right back. "So then…that brings us to the here and now."

It did. She was right; he had a choice to make. "Why are you even here?" He asked. "Why take Florin with you? He's not in on this, he's not a part of this thing, is he?"

"No," Flora calmly said. "He is not. I bet it's obvious now, but this is where my father held his operation. But after his death, this place was abandoned and a new HQ under my supervision was created. I was in the area to gather some books and information. But ever since Talon was turned to stone, Florin has barely left me out of his sight." She let out a weary sigh. "I thought telling him that I may have an idea for a cure would allow me to venture out here on my own. Obviously, that wasn't the case."

"So you don't know a cure? That was just a lie, then?" Will asked.

She nodded tersely. "I wish I did. And now that we've been thrown down here by Giratina, it doesn't matter either way. So…what happens now? I should add that, if you do decide my violent execution is in order, getting out of here may just become impossible for you."

Will rolled his eyes at her choice of words. "Geez Flora, that's messed up."

She quirked an eyebrow. "You are the one with my life in your hands. That makes you my executioner, or it could make us allies. Comrades, even."

That he couldn't even tell if she was serious or not didn't help matters here. So, he weighed his options. He obviously wasn't going to kill Flora, but could he trust her? Or rather, could he trust her word? Nothing she said seemed like an outright lie to him, and remaining stuck down here wasn't an option. Something told him that Erin could help them find their way out should push come to shove, but what was he supposed to tell Florin?

Freedom fighters blowing up public bridges…it just didn't make sense to him.

As he mulled it over, Flora continued staring at him, impassively awaiting her judgement. That she seemed so calm and collected could mean many things.

"People could have gotten hurt," he told her.

"You can't possibly avoid that outcome," she rebutted him. "You know this just as well as I do."

"Screw that," he snapped. "That's not the way."

"Isn't it? The system in GDC chews up and spits out people by the dozens every single day. You could not fight Team Xen without harming them, just like we cannot break their corruption without it affecting lives either."

Will grit his teeth. He hated how much sense she made to him. "Let me rephrase. If you do anything to harm the people I love again…"

Flora nodded gravely. "I never gave the other to detonate the charges. Had I known that a train was coming - any train at all - I never would have, either."

Well, shit.

He had to make a choice regardless. "Okay Flora," he said. "Blaziken, we're trusting her here. We're not hurting her unless she attacks us."

Blaziken just calmly crossed her arms over her chest.

Flora gave him a dry little half smile. "You made the right choice there, Will. Now, the way out of here won't be easy, but it is possible. I'll explain more as we continue on."

As Will followed her back out of the sideroom, Bladestar's leader began explaining the unusual properties of Darchlight Cave. According to her, it had something to do with a phenomenon her father had dubbed "Black Shards", which first piqued the man's interest when he noticed that sometimes, when Pokemon fell into the caves, their appearance would change.

"That's why there's a massive crevice in Darchlight Woods," Flora continued, striding towards the machinery in the center of the cavern. "Basically, the same thing has happened to us. But unlike Pokemon, humans have souls, and as such, it has been brought to the surface."

"What?" Will sharply said, his chest tightening in alarm at her words. "What do you mean, unlike Pokemon?"

Flora shot him a questioning look. "Just like I said. Pokemon don't have souls, and humans do."

"Bullshit," he spat. Something inside of him recoiled at Flora's words. "How is that even possible?"

"Where'd this come from?" Flora said. "Did you hit your head on the way down? This is basic, common knowledge. You know this already. Everyone knows this, Will."

What she said couldn't be true, it shouldn't be true. If it was, then - then -

"How would you know that?" Will demanded. "That's not - "

"The physical changes in our appearance is a reflection of what's deep within our souls," Flora said. "Looking at you, I wonder what that says about you?"

Maybe that he felt conflicted about some shit, it didn't matter. "If Pokemon don't have souls, that means…when they die - "

"They cease existing, yeah," Flora said, looking at him as if it was the most simple thing in the world, as if it just made sense. "Look, I'm not here to debate theology or the concept of the afterlife, Will. You saw Giratina, you saw your own Blaziken. Did you notice anything different?"

Will stayed silent.

"Well, did you?" Flora pressed on.

Tensely, he shook his head.

Flora snorted. "Exactly. Now, let's drop this and focus on what matters. This phenomenon is only possible in Darchlight Caves. If we were to leave the cave without decompressing our souls back into our bodies…" She heaved a sigh. "Well, our bodies would be obliterated, essentially."

Will would be lying if he said that Flora's words didn't rattle him. "Decompressing? What's that supposed to mean?"

The green-haired woman gave him an uncomfortable look. "The best comparison I could make would be how divers must decompress before returning to the surface. It is the same here. We cannot go above ground without decompressing."

Why was there always something involving his soul? He'd only just put it back together with Crescent's help - maybe, possibly, probably - and now Flora was saying he had to decompress it? "Great," he said through clenched jaws. "How are we going to do that?"

"There's a decompression chamber with these caves, but in order to get there we'll have to bend the walls to our will," Flora said.

"Good thing you already have me here, then," he said.

Flora shot him a blank look.

"Our will," he started explaining. "Bend the walls to our - never mind. Just tell me what you need."

Her eyes narrowed with suspicion as she said, "Riiight. To discover Darchlight's secrets, we'll have to craft what is known as a "Darchlight Mirror"." She raised one arm and swept her hand across the machinery scattered throughout the chamber. "There are instructions and notes strewn about this cave and the room before. I'm curious to see if you will be able to craft one yourself."

"You're letting me craft one?" He said with surprise.

Flora crossed her arms and performed a perfect imitation of a stubborn Venam. "Since I'm giving you my trust I'll let you have the instructions to craft it, yes. Aren't I generous?"

A pain in the ass was more like it…

Unfortunately for both Flora and him, the notes for crafting the device didn't simply call for someone to grab a crayon and write "Darchlight" on the back of a mirror. As Will began the arduous process of painstakingly collecting every last scrap, note and logbook regarding the forging process, Flora suddenly decided that now was her opportunity for small talk.

"So last time I saw you, you went off to fight Team Xen," she said as he slapped his bundle of papers onto the table.

Step one: he had to place Black Ore into the small, isolated device.

"Hmm," he muttered as he snatched a couple of Black Shards from the nearest mound. He used a couple of crumpled notes as an improvised glove; it would be just like him to scoop up toxic materials with his bare hands…

Step two: burning the ore in a great big pit of fire.

"Obviously, we all won, so I'm assuming you achieved your goals there," Flora continued, casually leaning back against the nearest wall as she watched him work.

"Something like that…"

Step three: zapping the fragment with a great bolt of lightning.

She nodded at him. "How'd you get that scar?"

"Forgot to take the spoon out of my teacup," Will said.

He could all but hear Flora rolling her eyes at him. "Ugh," she groaned. "He thinks he's funny."

Will had it on good authority that he wasn't just funny, but actually adorable, so her words couldn't -

"You should have seen your face!" The young woman laughed at him.

He blinked up at her, dazed by her presence - the sudden proximity. Her bright hair fell around her face like a curtain. "What do you mean?" He protested.

With some effort, Will pulled his focus back to the console in front of him.

Okay. That was weird.

He blinked away the memory of the girl and struggled to recall what he'd been doing again.

…Darchlight Cave. Giratina. Making…making a mirror.

Right. Step four: liberating the ore with plasma, whatever that meant, and then cooking it for exactly fifteen seconds

With Flora silently judging his every move, Will tried to shut her out to the best of his abilities and went to work. He slapped the Black Shard sample in the receptacle and started cooking.

The computer had a program dedicated to controlling the assembly lines. Simple button commands translated to entire treads reversing themselves and soon, he figured out which machine was the oven, which one contained the electrical coils and which one functioned as a plasma torch.

How did Bladestar manage to develop all this tech? This assembly line was something he'd expect in a Xen lab, not something in the hands of a ragtag group of terrorists.

Unless he chose to believe what Flora said. It all depended on how they wanted to achieve their goals, in the end. People could have gotten hurt when they blew up those bridges, yes, but as far as he was aware, there weren't any victims at all.

What was it that Rhodea had said about Bladestar? A can of worms?

He'd have thought that a terrorist organization warranted a much more pressing warning from her. It wouldn't have taken her more than a few sentences to do so.

If Rhodea the Stormchaser hadn't thought Bladestar important enough to give them more than a casual heads up, that suggested they weren't anywhere near the level of threat Team Xen posed. If GDC actually had an organized cell of terrorists running around, she would have warned them, wouldn't she?

So what was Bladestar about then, really? Freedom fighters? Out to dismantle an actual system of corruption?

He didn't know. Better to preserve judgement for later.

Through the assembly line he went, until the Black Shard finally passed through the final stage. Will saw the cluttered package drop down into its final container, guessed it was time to cook himself a new mirror and quickly made his way towards the final computer. Fifteen seconds of intense heating, not a second more.

"Nine…ten…eleven…" he counted, his hand hovering over the eject button.

"You think you got the correct order?" Flora said.

"...fourteen…fifteen." He tapped the button. A few meters away, in the middle of the room, a mechanical storage device of sorts slid open and a pedestal emerged from its depths.

The second she could, Flora snatched the mirror away and held it up into the light, scrutinizing it with a critical gaze. "Huh…" she said after a few seconds. "Not bad…not bad at all, Will. It's…excellently crafted. Immaculate, even. I'm impressed!"

That might have been the first honest thing Flora had said to him of her own volition. "Now what?"

"With this Darchlight Mirror we should be able to get out of this cave now," Flora continued, still studying the strange mirror he'd fabricated. "We should rendezvous with my brother and the other girl now."

"Erin," he said.

Flora shot an annoyed look his way. "What?"

"She said her name was Erin," he repeated.

"Whatever. Let's go."

Flora stalked off again, forcing Will to hurry after her. They headed back towards the central cave, where they'd all woken up in those glass cells, and met up with Florin and Erin again.

"There you two are," Flora said when she noticed the pair hanging around near the unconscious bulk of Giratina. "Have you found anything of note?"

"Uhm…Flora?" Her brother started.

"Just some old documents about this place," Erin said, shooting a glance at a bundle of papers she had arranged over the floor. "Turns out this place is an old Bladestar base…"

"But that's not all!" Florin said. He fluttered closer towards his sister, his eyes large and concerned. "Flora, there's something I found that I need to tell you about!"

"Oh?" Flora said.

His voice tight with distress, Florin said, "I found a tape in one of the rooms and it had a video recording of our father!"

Something like a shadow passed over Flora's face.

"He was going on and on about things that don't make any sense!" Her distraught brother continued. "He was saying that he was the founder of Bladestar…"

Will glanced over at Erin. She'd stopped rummaging around with the papers and was paying rapt attention to the ongoing conversation. Her eyes were locked on Flora's face, as if gauging her expression for something.

"I turned off the video after that. I couldn't take it anymore."

"Florin, I found the same video in the place I searched," Flora calmly replied. It was impressive just how convincing of an act she could put up, even if it was a very subtle change she was faking. Was that why she preferred to act all stoic and cold all the time? So that when the time came to fake her emotions, she didn't need to put so much energy and effort into it? "It does seem like father had some sort of involvement with Bladestar after all. But that's not important right now. We can discuss this after we escape."

That confirmed it. Florin didn't know a thing. If anything, the idea of his father being part of Bladestar had him freaked out.

Flora knew the way out. If what she'd said about their souls being compressed was true, she basically held all of their lives in the palm of her hand. Will doubted she'd be so cooperative if he decided to take matters into his own hand.

He couldn't afford to antagonize Flora right now. Not with Erin and Florin stuck in the crossfire. Not when Melia and Venam didn't even know where he was. He'd figure out the truth behind Bladestar eventually and when he did, he knew where to find Flora.

"I suppose…" Florin meekly said.

Flora arced a green eyebrow, then hooked her thumb towards Giratina. "Would you rather wait for Giratina to awaken then?"

Florin's eyes darted towards the unconscious Legendary. "No…I'm okay."

"Good," Flora said. "Just know that we have to change our forms back to normal, and to do that we need to use this device called a Darchlight Mirror to do it."

"And how is a mirror going to help us?" Erin said, sounding not all convinced of what Flora told her.

"It's quite simple, actually," Flora said, and to her credit she only pumped the bare minimum of venom into her voice. "I read a book that detailed its use. See that pillar over there? Allow me to demonstrate."

The Bladestar leader marched over towards the stone pillar that jutted up out of the ground next to the chasm. "These pillars hold a gem that reflects a strange light. When you reflect the light off the Darchlight Mirror…" She held out the device and blocked the gem's light.

Large beams of black light erupted from the gem atop the pillar and they cast enormous, warping shadows across the cave's interior. The result was like someone had thrown a mountain-sized bucket of black paint or tar across the cave, blackening the stones and throwing the place into a deep, shadowy darkness.

But it was more than that, deeper than just a new color. The interior of the cave had transitioned into a new one in the blink of an eye. A bridge of sorts now crossed over the abyss to their side where there definitely hadn't been one before.

"The cave just changed?!" Erin said, raising her voice just barely for the first time since Will had met her.

Flora strode towards that bridge, saying, "Looks like that book was right…the Darchlight Mirror has the power to change dimensions within the cave. This will allow us to escape."

Florin gaped at the bridge. "I never would have believed something like this was possible," he said.

"Anything's possible, Florin," his sister said, her voice making the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. "You'll realize that soon."

The message itself was uplifting enough, but something about the way Flora said it made him feel deeply uncomfortable.

"If you believe hard enough, you too can warp reality at your whim," Will said.

"Uh…thanks?" Florin said.

Flora shot Will the kind of look that was known to set houses on fire. "Hilarious," she hissed. "Thank you for your brilliant contribution. I am so glad that of all people, I got to fall down into the Darchlight Caves with you, Will."

Not particularly impressed with his current company either, Will shot back, "You sound cranky, Flora. Is it time for your tea break already?"

Flora scoffed. "Are you still hung up on that? Did the mean, horrible Flora hurt your feelings?"

"I feel like I am missing vital context here," Erin said.

Florin laughed uncomfortably. "Oh, uh, yeah, I'm uh, guessing Will's more of a coffee person, right Will? Right?"

Not taking his eyes off of the grumpy Bladestar leader for one second, Will nevertheless managed to pick up on the silent pleading in Florin's voice…which meant Erin definitely had, too. "Sure. Let's go with that."

Whatever Flora was about to say next had to wait, hopefully forever, because a low, threatening growl emanated from the unconscious Giratina. Things got very, very quiet as the four of them turned to look at the motionless beast.

Said beast didn't look so motionless anymore. If anything, it was stirring.

"Giratina is waking up!" Erin said.

"Which means we need to move," Flora said. "Now!"

"D-Don't have to tell me twice! Let's get outta here!" Florin cried out.

"Across the bridge, go!" Will shouted.

They started running. The specifics behind Giratina's presence or motivations here weren't important; the only thing that mattered was putting as much distance between them and that thing as possible while they made their way towards Flora's decompression chamber. If they were lucky, Giratina would lose track of them.

With the group caught up, Will took the lead. He ducked through one entrance into a whole different cave system, waited for Florin to squeeze his wings through and then forged ahead.

"Will, could you run a little faster?" Flora snapped at him after half a minute of running. "We're kind of in a predicament."

Will looked back at them. Flora was keeping up with his pace just fine, but Erin seemed to struggle a bit to keep up with them, while Florin…Florin had a difficult time.

"I don't know…if I can keep up…" The male Grevillea sibling panted. "I'm running as fast as I can…"

"Fly faster," Erin simply said.

Will skidded to a halt in front of an intersection of sorts, glanced back to see if Giratina was on their tail - not yet - and then took a gamble for the rightmost route.

They ran into a dead end not a minute later.

"It's no use," Erin said when they came to a sudden and jarring halt in front of yet another abyss, with no dimension-shifting gemstone in sight. "This way is a no go. We gotta find some other path."

A violent quake shook the cavern in its foundations.

"Pretty sure that's the sound of Giratina waking up," Flora sighed.

"Shit," Erin spat. "I was hoping we would get more distance than this."

Best-case scenario: Giratina would fly off back to the surface. Nothing that needed to be done in that case. But the worst-case scenario was Giratina coming after them like it had on the surface. Will would have rather endured a dozen tea sessions with Flora than face off against that monster again, but it seemed like his options were limited.

If combat was inevitable, it was going to take place on his terms. Not one more person was going to die to that thing, not on his watch.

"Okay…" Will said to himself. He plucked Froslass' Pokeball from his pocket and sent her out. She too didn't look any different from her usual form. It could be that Flora was very wrong, and that the Pokemon soul simply worked differently from the human ones. Whatever the case, Froslass looked at him critically, likely wondering why the heck her trainer looked so weird all of a sudden.

"Will, what are you doing?" Flora said with a hint of alarm.

He ignored her. "It's Giratina. He's back, and he's after us," Will instructed his friend. "We need to keep these people safe.

Through the holes in her mask, her crystal blue ices regarded him with their usual enigmatic wonder.

"Just like before," Will continued. "Shadow us, get ready to interfere if it spots us."

"You mentioned fighting this Giratina before," Erin said. "Is that why it's here? Because it's after you?"

It really shouldn't be. Crescent and Mewtwo had freed it from its captivity at Geara's hands. Giratina could have gone anywhere in the world, so why was it here? Why show up in the Darchlight Woods of all places?

"Good question," Will said. If this thing really was back on Xen's payroll, then it ought to have left the second it threw him down that crevice. Every second he ran around the cave was another second Melia was out there on her own. Since Giratina was here instead of hunting down Team Xen's primary target, Will could only assume it was for personal reasons. "It shouldn't be. Not anymore."

"Let's not find out, please!" Florin said. "Let's find another way."

"Agreed," Will said.

"Yo, Will, before you lead us down another dead end, how about you take this?" Flora said, holding out the Darchlight Mirror for him. "If the secret of Darchlight Caves is the dimension hopping, then we'll need this mirror."

Will repressed the urge to snap back and silently took the mirror. Since he was the one who made it, he guessed it was only right he'd be the one to use it.

"Now that you have it, you're responsible," Flora continued. "Don't get us killed."

If only.

They continued through the labyrinthine Darchlight caves, heading up and down slopes, through small passageways that seemed like they could have been cut through the rocks with power tools years ago. They activated yet another gemstone and reflected its light with the Darchlight Mirror, bathing the tunnels with pale, white light and shifting its dimensions again.

"You're pretty useful, Flora," Erin said as they crept through the passageways. "You seem to know a lot."

"Being alone with books will have that effect on you," Flora simply said.

"Oh, I can relate there," Erin sighed. "Guess we aren't so different after all."

Will was so focused on keeping an eye on his surroundings that he nearly missed it when a strange, translucent shape suddenly emerged in front of him, blocking the path just a few meters ahead.

"tO FiGhT cOrRupTioN," the ghostly image of the man snarled at him, his voice distant and echoey. His voice sounded more like several people were shouting at once, and Will had a hard time making out the individual words.

"What?" Erin said.

"Th-That's a member of Bladestar!" Florin gasped, pointing a shaky finger at the apparition.

Growling, the Bladestar apparition began shuffling towards them, his gait forced and difficult like he was contending with not one, but two bad limps.

"Why do they look like that?" Erin asked, slowly backing away from the ghostly appearance.

"Rude…" Florin gasped.

"No, I mean, they're translucent. Something's not right," Erin explained.

"Doesn't matter!" Flora yelled. "He's about to attack!"

Out of nowhere, Pokemon flickered into existence - a Magmar and an Electabuzz - and Will immediately backed up some more, his hand dropping towards Nidoking's Pokeball. "Watch out!" He shouted.

Magmar was faster, inhaling sharply -

Froslass materialized from the wall and blasted the Fire-type with a Shadow Ball. The ghostly projectile slammed into the side of Magmar's head and flung it to the ground, throwing it in front of the Electrabuzz before it could get an attack off itself.

Will managed to get Nidoking out in time. "Grab him, quick!" He ordered.

Nidoking moved without hesitation. A jolt of lightning flickered from the Electric-type, striking Nidoking head-on. What would have been a lethal bolt of electricity grounded itself through Nidoking's body and disappeared into the ground, and Nidoking proceeded to lunge for his foe.

Will saw his massive Poison-type connect, saw Nidoking slam a furious fist against Electrabuzz's head, sending the Electric-type careening through the cave, but something was off about it. Nidoking stumbled, off-balance all of a sudden, and he looked at Electabuzz with confusion. He shot a puzzled look towards his trainer.

"Nice job!" Will said. "Froslass, finish it off. Nidoking, the Magmar, quick!"

Froslass happily fluttered after her new target, while Nidoking stomped down on Magmar's head to ensure that it remained knocked out.

Again, Will saw his armored heel connect with Magmar's body, felt the tremor reverberate through the cavern, but Nidoking did a double take and began scanning his environment, his ears slowly rotating as he started focusing on sound instead of visual contact.

He wasn't sure what that was about, but the next second that Bladestar goon flickered out of existence, and his Pokemon disappeared with him.

"...he disappeared," Florin said helpfully.

"What the hell…" Flora muttered.

"Besides that, it seems our forms broke apart when we began batling," Erin supplied. "Does something disrupt them during - "

Before she could finish that thought, Nidoking roared a warning and swept his tail across the floor in agitation. On the other side of the cave, Giratina forced itself through an entrance Will hadn't even spotted before. Why it hadn't simply busted down the wall or floated through it entirely was beyond him, but something else was off anyway. Giratina's form was…different. It was smaller now, glowed with a faint purple hue and seemed to walk on three pairs of stocky legs instead of floating like it always did.

"Um…it looks different?" Florin said. "It's kinda tiny…"

"It must have transformed the same way we have," Erin said. "It's possible that it just took longer because it's a Pokemon."

That didn't make sense; the whole reason they looked so different was because this cave drew out their souls or something like that. Flora had just lectured him that Pokemon didn't have souls like humans did, so Giratina shouldn't have looked any different at all!

"That's not possible," Will protested.

"The evidence is right in front of you, Will."

"So happy that you're taking notes for your thesis paper," Flora hissed, "But have you all forgotten that we're on the run?'

"It does look angry," Florin said with a shaky voice.

"Hm. Excellent point. Will, lead the way!"

With Giratina on the warpath, they started running. Another entrance lay dead ahead, up a small of sorts. "Go, go!" Will shouted. "Nidoking, clear the way!"

Nidoking dropped to all fours and picked up speed, easily overtaking the slow, feeble humans he was tasked with escorting. He scampered up the rocky path ahead, his massive claws finding easy purchase in the craggy road.

Will noticed that Florin was slowly starting to lag behind, so he slowed down a bit, tugged at one of Florin's wings and started pulling him along with him. "Don't slow down, keep going!"

Just as they were about to hit the slope leading towards the exit, another ghostly apparition materialized from thin air. "eND oF tHe LIne…" she giggled.

Any hint of fear that Will would have felt was swept away by the adrenaline burning in his veins, his sheer annoyance at the entire situation and the reassuring presence of his heavily-armored companion. "Nidoking, toss them out of the way!"

Nidoking halted, stomped his claw against the ground and ripped a stalagmite from the floor. He hurled it at the translucent obstacle in their way but, much to their frustration, the stalagmite simply passed through her if she wasn't there.

"Quick question, does Bladestar normally look like intangible, glitched apparitions?" Erin asked.

"No, they're usually just in your face and obtrusive," Florin breathed.

Still giggling, the Bladestar apparition began stepping towards him.

"Thus one looks so friendly!" Flora remarked. "Will, why don't you give her a kiss?"

"Are you for real right now?" Will growled. He watched with growing annoyance as another pair of Pokemon just seemed to…manifest right in front of him. A Tangelo and a Vespiquen this time. "Seriously?"

"You do seem kinda tense!" Florin said.

Tangela immediately lashed out with a series of grassy whips towards Nidoking. The spiky Poison-type shoved his arm towards them, letting the vines wrap around his stocky forearm and pin it in place. Vespiquen flew into the air, buzzing around at great speed as it began pelting Nidoking with high-accelerated shards of energized rock.

"I'm not tense," Will protested. "Froslass, Icy Wind! Nidoking, you're heavier!"

As Froslass rose up through the floor and breathed a torrent of frigid winds at her flying opponent, Nidoking got the gist of his order. He squatted, then jerked Tangela towards him with immense strength. Little Tangela went flying, straight into Nidoking's waiting Poison Jab.

His glowing fist connected with Tangela's main body and connected with a satisfying smack. Something about it was different though, and again Nidoking stumbled forwards a bit. He flattened his ears into his neck and began looking around, as if searching for hidden threats.

"Sure you are!" Flora continued. "And I happen to think that finding the right girl to kiss would solve that particular problem."

"I'm not kissing a Bladestar grunt for that," Will snapped.

Froslass made short work of her opponent. Just like before, upon defeat, both enemy Pokemon just disappeared entirely. Were they stuck in that other dimension too? If so, how did they even pose a threat? How did any of this even work?

"Okay but that suggests you'd be open to kissing someone else, right?" Florin continued, unaware of the cruel smirk his sister shot Will from behind him.

He was starting to seriously regret not exposing Flora…

"As much as I admire your penchant for small talk in a tense situation, I would prefer to see you saving your breath for running instead," Erin commented.

They pushed onwards before Giratina could catch up with them and tear them apart. One by one they filed through the entrance into the next part of the sprawling cave system. They rounded a bend with more underground, brown trees, took a left when they came across yet another hawning abyss and ran straight into another pair of malfunctioning Bladestar grunts.

"More of these…" Florin muttered.

"We don't have time for this," Erin decided. "Will, let's take care of these ones quickly."

Once again, they started forcing their way through. More enemy Pokemon appeared out of thin air - a pair of Fighting-types in the form of Hitmonchan and a Hitmonlee, as well as a pair of Grass-types. Will recalled Nidoking in lieu of Blaziken and had Froslass lay down a heavy blizzard to force the opponents back. The two Bladestar grunts simply weathered the chilling air that swept past them as if they didn't even feel it.

Blaziken flung a Roselia off her feet with a quick blast of flames, then moved in close to engage Hitmonlee in close combat. The two Fighting-types moved like a blur, springing back and forth to avoid kicks packing enough force to shatter stone and rip through steel. That Hitmonlee was damn quick, but Blaziken had seen her fair share of fights and had a trigger-happy Froslass backing her up. Eventually she found her opening and her leg shot out, catching Hitmonlee in the side of its leg. It fell to the ground, but it was strange, as if its movement was half a second out of sync. Will couldn't tell what it was, but it was as if Hitmonlee fell…too late?

This place was getting to him.

Blaziken must have sensed something was off too, as she backed away from what should have been a simple stomp on a fallen opponent's unprotected face. Instead, she decided to bathe her enemy with flames, and when she ceased fire, her enemies were gone.

"Come on now, don't slow down," Flora barked at him when he continued to stare at the area Hitmonlee had just occupied. "Unless you want to be eaten by an angry Giratina, in which case, give me back my mirror."

"Flora, when we decompress, will I lose my wings?" Florin asked when he flew by Will, which shook him out of his musings.

"Yes, we should revert back into our original selves," Flora replied.

"Aw…I love my tail," Erin said with a light pout.

Will thought that tail looked really charming, but he kept that tidbit to himself.

They followed the path up a pair of small stone hills connected by a thin, black bridge. As they hurried to cross it, another Bladestar grunt flickered into existence. "OH? LoOk wHaT I fouND HeRe? TiMe tO plAY…" he cooed.

Their speech was all wrong, like these guys didn't know how syllables worked.

"This is getting annoying," Flora said. "Tear them apart!"

Her own guys, huh? She didn't seem too concerned about them. Keeping the charade up must have meant everything for her. How would she have reacted if he'd decided to call her out on her act before?

Violently, of course, he realized a second later.

More opposing Grass-type Pokemon. It had to have been a recurring theme with these guys. A heavy Blizzard from Froslass proved to be just what the doctor ordered, and once she'd blown half the enemy's Pokemon off the bridge and frozen them solid in the process, Blaziken cleared them a path, before drawing a bead on the Bladestar grunt.

"Our reports stated that you were weak?" The man observed. "Why were our reports wrong?"

Blaziken made a grab for the man's throat, but like all the others, he didn't seem to be physically there. His form fell apart when she reached for him, and the next second he was just gone.

Their reports had stated that he was weak? Reports?

Furious, Will whirled on Flora. "What the hell was that!" He demanded

Flora stiffened at his anger. He saw her put on an expression of measured annoyance and confusion, and knew that he was about to get another bunch of lies for his trouble. "Another Bladestar grunt, it seems," she said with a calm tone, but her eyes were furious. "Were you not paying attention before?"

"Since you seem to be in the know." Will said, "Can you explain how it's possible that guy was talking about having reports on us? Me? You?"

"I heard that too," Erin said. "Why would Bladestar have reports on any one of us?"

Florin hummed. "Well, considering I'm the head of GEPA! The Grand Environmental Protection Agency, I guess that makes sense, you know. We're, ah, kinda a big deal around these parts."

"That, and I am the Grass-type gym leader and responsible for maintaining the GDC's botanical garden," Flora added. "It makes sense that they have files on us."

Erin tapped her lip thoughtfully. "No," she slowly said, her tail wagging back and forth, "No, I don't think that tracks. What they actually said, was that they faced evidence contradicting their previous beliefs. They only engaged Will in battle, which provided zero evidence to change their stance on the both of you."

Crestfallen, Florin said, "Are you calling me weak?"

Flora pinched the bridge of her nose in visible frustration.

"I'm saying that it sounds, to me, like they had files on Will," Erin said. "And that what Will showcased today challenged what those files said."

"Well, that makes no sense!" Florin said. "Bladestar is a regional group and Will isn't from around here! Why would they have files on him?"

"Indeed," Erin said, before shooting a glance at him. "Unless there is something you are not telling us, Will."

The way Erin stared at him with those piercing eyes of hers made Will oddly vulnerable. "There's a lot I'm not telling, and none of it is relevant to Bladestar," he said. "I came here by train from Gearen City. The only reason I'm down here is because Bladestar blew up the bridges and my friends and I came here to gather building material to fix them." He looked over at Flora. "Isn't that right, Flora?"

Flora nodded slowly. "I don't see any reason why Bladestar would have a dossier on Will. Florin and I can confirm his story."

"Yeah!" Florin nodded.

"Hmmm…it's something to keep in mind," Erin said. "We should continue on nonetheless."

With the final Bladestar…grunt, Will would assume, out of the way, they were free to forge ahead. Giratina would still be right on their tail, so they kept up a steady pace. With the Darchlight Mirror Will activated one more gem-crested pillar, which phased the cave back to its blackened form.

"We've gotten pretty far from that Giratina," Erin pointed out when they started making their way across another formation of stone crossing over a misty abyss. "Hopefully."

"Giratina is one thing, but what's going on with these Bladestar grunts?" Florin asked.

Flora turned away from the group. "I don't know," she said, the words falling hard from her mouth. "But they're…not in their right mind, if that's applicable at all. For all we know this could be some weird phenomenon unique to the caves."

A long, mournful roar echoed through the passageway they just came from. It was far too close for comfort, and if Florin hadn't been kept aloft by his wings already, he'd have jumped a meter in the air.

Flora's head whipped around. She stared at the way they came for a second, before swallowing and saying, "We need to go. If what I read was correct. there should be a place for us to fix ourselves up ahead."

They started moving again, but Florin lingered.

Which meant the guy had finally lost his mind and that they would have to drag his winged ass with them now.

"Florin?" His sister said.

"That scream…" Florin muttered. "It sounded sad."

"It's most likely just upset it didn't gnaw on our bones, or whatever," Flora said. She reached out for her brother's wing and gave it a hard jerk. "And that's going to change unless we move. Right now."

"Come to think of it," Erin said, "We haven't seen Giratina since that first room. Not even much of a scream until now."

Flora rounded on the girl with unexpected fury. "And what are we supposed to do with that information?" She demanded.

"Nothing," Erin replied, her voice almost casual. "I was just mentioning the peculiarities of the situation."

"Such a philosopher, Erin," the Bladestar leader hissed. "I'll remember you when you get torn up by a Giratina!"

Jenner had the time to look down at himself in shock -

Will pushed the memory away from himself, hard, in time to catch Erin fixing Flora with a cold glare. "Someone's being a little salty. I'm so sorry to have offended you with my observation."

It looked like Flora was about to swing another angry comment Erin's way, but Florin suddenly yelled, "Guuuys, please stop fighting!" and the two ladies fell silent. "We made it this far…can't we all get along just a little bit longer?"

Flora and Erin glared at each other and somehow, that reminded Will of the beef Venam and Amber had had in the past. Whatever it was that drove these two up the wall around the other wasn't something he wanted to get in-between.

Don't get involved, he could almost imagine Melia whispering at him.

"I'm all for cooperating as long as she is," Erin said, regarding Flora with a cold, distant look that even reminded him of how Melia looked at her own enemies.

It was like pouring gas on a fire. "Taking orders from an imp is a large one," Flora hissed.

"How about taking orders from me," Will snapped, disregarding Melia's advice. "Bladestar is our enemy, not each other. Now I'm going to get us out of here, all four of us, But I need you to work with me here."

Flora scoffed. Angrily, she crossed her arms over her chest and looked away, which likely promised wonderful things in the near future. As it was, she refrained from giving him a lashing, which counted as a win in his book.

Erin, for her part, merely cocked her eyebrow and shot Will a very sceptical look. "Look - "

And then freaking Giratina warped in right on freaking top of them. Will jumped, Florin screamed, Flora cursed and everybody scattered and ran for cover.

"There's another one here?" Florin yelled.

Giratina had regained its old form again, that menacing, ghostly dragon that had been hounding them all over Terajuma.

"K, I'm done here!" Flora yelled back. "Run!"

Together with Erin, the Flo-siblings ran for their lives. With Giratina right on top of them and in a perfect position to rain down hell upon them with its ranged attacks, they would never make it in time. They needed some covering fire, something to distract Giratina before it could burn them.

"Froslass, Blizzard!" Will shouted as he backpedaled away from the Legendary to put some distance between them. "Fraxure, nail it with your Dragon Pulse!"

Giratina continued ominously floating towards them even as Fraxure's beam of draconic energy knifed through the air and slammed into its torso. The attack connected, Will saw it connect and yet the pulse carved a gouge through the ceiling directly behind Giratina, as if it had turned intangible at the last possible second.

Froslass poured cold and wind through the cave at the same time as Fraxure went on the offensive, and the resulting storm of hail washed over Giratina with enough force that it would have knocked him out of the sky, yet the ghostly dragon continued drifting towards them.

Something was off. Will had fought this thing several times before and he knew for a fact that the Ice-based attacks would have chilled its spectral flesh, coated its shadowy wings with frost and tempered the draconic energy flowing through its veins.

Giratina also wasn't trying to bite his head, which was even more suspicious.

"Fraxure, get in close, nail it with another Dragon Pulse!" Will called out.

His dragon bounded towards his foe, his body trailing bluish energy. Giratina swept down on him and Fraxure dropped into a slide, blasting Giratina at point blank range with the pulse.

Again, Will saw the beam connected with Giratina, but the dragon remained unfazed and the beam of destructive energy proceeded to phase through it and knife into the ceiling. That shouldn't be possible; elemental attacks infused with energy had the power to hit Ghost-type Pokemon even if they were trying to stay intangible. As a fellow Dragon itself, Giratina should have been weak to Fraxure's blasts, but it hadn't even touched him. it was almost as if he too was stuck in that other dimension or…or…

"Goddamn," Will whispered.

As if Giratina wasn't here at all.

As if all the other Giratina he'd seen before had never been there. There could only be one Giratina. There had only ever been one Giratina.

When Pokemon used decoy-based moves like Double Team, they created multiple copies of themselves, but those copies were still a physical presence that "popped" when struck or interacted with.

This…this was different.

Giratina picked up speed and surged towards him. Will stood his ground. Froslass hit it with several blasts of Icy Wind in quick succession, but her attacks weren't having any effect. Why would they?

There was nothing there.

Spreading its wings, Giratina came down on Will like a tsunami…

…and its form fell apart in a cloud of fractured dust, dissipating into nothingness.

Will let out a shaky breath. "...okay. Froslass, Fraxure, from your perspective," he said, taking another good look around the cave. Someone was out there, throwing down illusionary Pokemon to hamper their progress. Giratina's new master, he'd presume. It was likely that they were watching him at that very moment, but from where? "Tell me you two weren't just fighting against empty air just now."

Silently, Fraxure shook his head.

Froslass nodded.

"Young lady, this is not a time for jokes," Will sternly said.

She uttered a disappointed sigh. Floating closer, she brought her masked face towards his and though she didn't have any eyebrows to raise sceptically, she managed to convey the same sentiment regardless

"That's not the same!" He protested.

She crossed the flared portion of her arms over the red band around her waist and looked away, the discontent dripping from her body.

"We're not doing this right now, I have two scary girls and an angel to save. Get going."

With Froslass bringing up the rear and Fraxure taking point, the three of them quickly followed in the others' direction. The path narrowed ahead, forming a passageway of sorts through the narrowing walls. Will had no doubt that the real Giratina could have squeezed its way through had it really wanted to. "Come on guys, let's pick up the pace."

They hurried through the pass and came across another grove, complete with more decaying trees, strange gemstones and a small group of wild Pokemon. The pathway continued to the left, over a white metal bridge crossing over another chasm. It led to an actual corridor with brushed stainless-steel walls. It mirrored the strange, pale light cast across the cavern. Will stepped through the entrance and into a high-tech lab just like the one Flora had been nosing around in back before he invited her for a friendly chat.

The Grevillea siblings were right there, standing in the middle of the hallway arguing over something. Erin, meanwhile, was casually leaning against the wall a bit further down the passage, likely contemplating what life choices led her to her current situation.

Will could relate. "So - "

Florin was up in his face in less than a second. "Will! There you are! Where were you? We were so concerned when - "

"So concerned…" Flora muttered.

" - you didn't run with us when we had to escape - "

"Smart choice, that."

" - and if something had happened to you while in this shape it would have been a fate worse than death!"

"Florin, slow down," Will said. "That Giratina wasn't real."

"It wasn't?" Flora said, her interest piqued. She looked up from whatever she was doing and stomped towards him. "What do you mean, not real?"

"It was a hologram, or some sort of illusion," Will said.

Erin pushed herself off the wall and regarded him with a quizzing look. "We saw the other Giratina interact with its environment, that one was definitely corporeal."

"Oh!" Florin said, perking up. "Was that why you stayed behind? To make sure?"

"No, to put some pressure on that thing," Will replied. "Finding out was an accident."

Erin cocked a sceptical eyebrow at him. "To put pressure on a Giratina on the prowl?"

"...yeah," Will simply said, not sure why Erin sounded like that. "With your backs turned, it could have easily blasted you guys while you were running."

Florin gasped. "Aww, you were trying to protect us! That's so nice of you!"

"Foolish is more like it," Erin said with a surprising amount of bite to her tone. "Staying behind on your own just put you in danger instead."

"That was kinda the point, yeah," Will replied. "Me getting its attention, you not getting lanced by Dragon Pulses."

"Kinda the point," Erin repeated, her voice thick with sarcasm. "Always indicative of a great plan."

Will was almost happy when Flora cut in. "But you're saying it's fake?" She said. "Then, those multiple instances of Giratina we saw on the surface?"

"Only one of them is real, and it's down here with us," Will replied.

"Then we better not be down here anymore," Flora said grimly. "I think the exit's that way. We were debating on what to do while you were gone, but it looks like we don't need to go back to confirm your untimely demise after all."

"Flora!" Her brother exclaimed.

"What?" She said, flashing him an annoyed look. "That's a good thing."

"You sound so disappointed," Will said. "Well then, lead on."

"I shall," Flora hissed.

The incognito Bladestar leader took them through one of the bigger hallways, so pristine and clean that it could have been mopped the day before.

He wasn't the only one who noticed the flawless stare of the underground lab. "This place looks well maintained for an abandoned laboratory," Erin pointed out, her eyes never lingering in one spot for longer than two seconds as she took in her surroundings."Hmm…"

"Wait…" Florin said when they approached the heavy vault door at the end of the hall, "That sign says Decompression Lift! Is this our way out?"

This place had a LOT of fancy security for a ragtag group like Bladestar. Will spotted a palm scanner, something that might have been a retina scanner and even a cardreader. As Flora started fiddling with the door, he tapped his knuckles against its steel frame, then bonked his fist against it. It felt like solid steel. He might have been able to get through with his masterkey, but he wasn't sure.

Flora scoffed.

Florin did not like that. "Huh? Why the scoff? Why did you scoff?" He nervously asked.

"This door…" Flora said, kneeling down in front of the retina scanner and eyeing it for a moment, "Is locked."

Florin liked that even less. "No…" he said with a nervous giggle. "It can't be locked!" A nervous giggle turned into a manic laugh. "IT CAN'T BE LOCKED!"

"It's locked," Flora snapped at him over her shoulder. "It is what it is."

"Alright, so what's the plan then?" Erin asked.

Glancing over at the retina and palm scanner, Will wondered if Flora thought simply unlocking it would have outed her as a documented user of the lab? Would she choose maintaining her anonymity over getting them out?

If she had any other of her goons in the area, he could have dragged them here and forced them to open this door that way, but since Flora's people were all occupied by their badly-planned interdimensional trip, that was right out.

"The door seems like it has a simple locking mechanism," Flora began. "I can probably pick it."

Florin gave her a sharp look. "You can pick locks?" He said, incredulous.

"You don't see anything," Flora sternly said.

Swallowing nervously, Florin turned away from his sister. "I can see everything quite clearly, actually…wait, what's that?"

"I see them too," Will said. Another squad of those translucent Bladestar grunts was rapidly approaching their position. With nowhere to run and nothing to take cover behind, any exchange of fire would inevitably nail Flora in the back as she worked.

"More of those spectors!" Florin said, raising his voice in alarm.

Flora cursed under her breath. "Just take care of them! I need time to pick this lock!"

He was way ahead of her. Will had already called out Froslass, Kirlia and Nidoking by the time she shouted her order. "Kirlia, throw up Light Screen, protect Flora while she works!" He called out. "Froslass, suppressive fire. Nidoking, don't let anyone through!"

"There's only a few of them, how hard can it be?" Erin said

Just like it had for him, the universe was quick to prove Erin horribly, horribly wrong when another squad of Bladestar goons rounded the corner…followed by another three. Within moments, two dozen of those ghostly apparitions were standing in line to send out their Pokemon and rip these intruders apart.

How hard could it be, the lady asked?

Rare were the moments where Will was the one who sent an annoyed look at another instead of receiving it, but here he was. "You had to say it."

Wincing, Erin said, "Yeah, okay, my bad. This is actually a problem."

Nidoking shoved his way past the two, interposing himself between this human wave and the vulnerable trainers behind him. Froslass floated behind and above them, gathering power to herself to attack on a moment's notice.

Things were about to get very cold and very violent, real soon.

"So many!" Florin gasped.

"Here goes, I suppose," devilish Erin remarked with a tired look. "Absol!"

With the Grevillea siblings occupied - Flora lockpicking the door and Florin hiding his face behind his hands and shivering - it was up to Will and Erin to stem the never-ending tide of glitchy, translucent and utterly crazed Bladestar goons.

Quarters were tight and their enemies were bunched up. A trio of Dragonite was easy pickings for Froslass, who blasted them full force with a blizzard that should have swept every last Bladestar thug out of the hall. That it didn't, was cause for alarm.

Kirlia braced herself for incoming fire and it was a good thing she did; a stray blast of energy slashed through the air and her way.

"Kirlia!" Will called out, risking a quick look her way. He didn't see any visible damage in the barriers she had erected; she was unharmed, Flora was unharmed and heck, even the area around the ladies was unharmed.

Kirlia must have been pouring some serious willpower and focus into those screens of hers.

Two of the Dragonites dissipated when the Blizzard hit them full force and their trainers faded with them, but more stepped up to take their place already.

"Grgh…this is really freaking annoying," Erin said even as she ordered her Absol to pelt the next attacker with Night Slashes. "They just don't stop."

"Keep pushing!" Will ordered. "Nidoking, hold the line!"

"Know what?" Erin continued with audible frustration, "They aren't even real to begin with! Time to cut off their heads! Absol, Night Slash those trainers!"

A fresh onslaught of Bladestar goons was on its way. Every trainer Will and Erin beat back had two more foes waiting to step in their empty boots. Froslass and Absol laid down a constant stream of fire, sweeping from the left to the right and back as the enemy kept throwing Pokemon into the fray. With Nidoking there to absorb whatever attacks the enemy got off, Will was surprised at how steady their defense held out.

But there were more of them, always more, and Will could tell that Froslass was starting to get tired.

A duo of Bladestar grunts broke through their ranks and rushed past Nidoking, who was busy keeping a hostile Blaziken at range. Nidoking roared in fury as the pair rushed past him and he lashed out with his tail. Somehow, his attack missed and -

"Leave us alone!" Florin screamed, thrusting out one hand as if to ward off the attackers.

.A flare of golden light, a rush of wind and heat. Bands of golden light enveloped the offending pair, so bright that Will had to block his eyes with his arm and look away. When the intense glare faded, the pair of Bladestar goons was gone.

Florin let out a horrified gasp. "Wh-What did I just do?"

"No idea, but it was awesome and very badass," Erin said. "Do it again!"

"H-How?"

"Kirlia!" Will ordered, pointing at the pair of Bladestar members that was about to push their luck to new boundaries. "A hand!"

Purple energy enveloped Kirlia's body as she thrust her little arms at the pair. An invisible battering rum struck their bodies, but again, there seemed to be a split-second delay before their bodies reacted. Still, Kirlia hurled them down the hallway.

"Flora, elevator?" Will asked as yet another batch of Pokemon was sent into the fray.

"I'm almost done!" The beleaguered woman yelled back. "Just keep doing your angel thing in the meantime!"

"Okay, I will!" Will said.

Behind him, Flora began muttering to herself about obnoxious trainers, meddling teens and bloodshed. He didn't think he ought to take that personally, though. She was likely talking about Erin.

"Will, let's take the next batch," Erin said, readying herself for more combat.

Whatever drove the men and women from Bladestar to just throw themselves at their position, was starting to mess with their minds. They hadn't been very stable to begin with, but as the battle raged on, their behavior began to degrade. Orders and commands turned into gibberish, their Pokemon began acting erratically and didn't make use of the gaps that their sheer numbers caused.

It was a miracle that none of their attacks came through. Through all the fighting, neither the Flo-siblings or Erin got hit, and though Nidoking was a constant whirlwind of violence, Will didn't see him incur any damage or fire either.

The enemy was trying to break through, but it was like they weren't trying to break through.

What was going on here?

"Are we ever going to see that elevator today?" Will shouted.

"Will I swear if you don't - I got it! It's open!" Flora yelled back.

The heavy vault doors slid open. Flora immediately squeezed herself through the slowly-opening steel doors, after which Florin quickly joined her. Kirlia made sure to hop underneath his legs to fall back as well.

Absol and Erin were next, and after delivering one more bizarrely ineffective Blizzard that cascaded through the hall, Will and Froslass hurried through the opening next. Nidoking barely managed to squeeze his bulky frame through.

"Shut the door shut the door shut the door!" Florin blurted out in a panic, hovering over his sister as she began fiddling with the controls.

"I am trying, Florin," she bit back.

She managed to get the heavy doors shut again without any of their foes getting through. The second Flora managed to seal them off, however, their pursuers began aggressively pounding on the doors.

Boom. Boom. Boom.

A persistent bunch, for sure. Smart-dressed, irrational lunatics but when it came to the dress code -

They all look alike, he thought, the realization pushing his nagging doubts into overdrive. Nothing about this situation made sense. If these grunts were truly down in this cave, other dimension or not, it should have caused their soul to well up and shroud their bodies like it had for them.

"Oh God! We're all going to get eaten alive by Bladestar Grunts!" Florin yelled in a strangled, high-pitch voice. "We're all dead! We're trapped!"

Will watched the frantic angel flutter all over the place. Looked like Florin was about to lose it. Maybe he ought to -

"No one is getting eaten by Bladestar!" Erin said firmly.

"But there were so many! I can't keep using that power forever!" He balked.

"We can't be that much further from the decompression site," Flora muttered, looking around the large atrium they'd just barged inside of. Another set of vault doors blocked the path ahead, but the doors leading to the left and right wings were much lighter. Even if those were locked, they could just bash them down with their Pokemon.

Something heavy slammed into the door - Bladestar likely had the same philosophy regarding doors - and Florin lost it.

"I'm outta here!" He shouted. He dashed towards the exit on the other end of the room, realized it was locked and began frantically clawing and shoving at the various locking mechanisms and scanners. "This door's locked! It's locked too! WE'RE REALLY TRAPPED!"

Erin marched towards him and tugged at his wing, hard. "Florin you need to get it TOGETHER!" She ordered. "If you keep panicking then you really are bladestar meat!"

His breathing rapid and shallow now, Florin put his back against the doors and covered his mouth, his eyes darting across the room. He didn't look like he'd even heard the girl.

"I think he's panicking," Will said.

"Of course he's panicking," Flora hissed. "He's not used to this."

Erin cast her a look. "You seem to be handling yourself just fine."

"I'm just good at handling stress," Flora said offhandedly. "This door is locked, too. I don't see a lock on it. Probably magnetically sealed."

"Florin, come on, can you focus?" Erin said, turning her attention back to the panicky angel. "Look at me. We're going to get out, do you hear?"

Florin wheezed out the barest affirmation that he'd heard her.

"Let's split up again, find the system that overrides this door," Flora continued. "There are two rooms we can search. Erin, you and Will take Florin and - "

"Oh hell no…" Erin breathed angrily. Before Will knew it, she and Flora were squaring off again. Flora leveled a truly menacing glare Erin's way, which Erin met without flinching, her own expression calm and measured. "You want to split up again? That's ridiculous."

Another, much heavier impact went off like a cannonshot, and everybody flinched. That door must have been made of some seriously stern stuff; it didn't even rattle or shake in its hinges. But how long would that last?

"Do we have time to argue about this right now?!" Flora demanded furiously.

Erin flicked her eyes towards the besieged vault door. "Very well, but Will is keeping an eye on you again."

"Fine by me," Flora hissed through clenched jaws.

Holding her gaze for a few moments longer, Erin eventually turned away from the furious Bladestar leader. "Florin? Florin, hey, let's get you grounded…"

It was a strange sight, seeing the demony Erin trying to get the angelic Florin to calm down. If their appearance was indicative of how they truly were on the inside, a reflection of their souls like Flora said, what did her appearance say about Erin? He could guess at Florin's innocence and naivety and his pure intentions to want to do right, but did that mean Erin was the opposite?

Whatever her reasons for being here, he wasn't sure he could trust her, not like he could trust Florin. Considering he was still locked down here with all of them, he had to treat her like she was every bit as dangerous as Flora was. Nevertheless -

Will was so lost in his thoughts that he didn't notice Flora striding towards him until she was mere feet away. "You!" She snarled.

Startled by her sudden presence, Will sprang back, his spine hitting the door behind him. Fuck!

"Why didn't you rat me out when you had the chance?" Flora demanded, narrowing her eyes in a tight glare.

"And then what?" Will snapped back, meeting her glare with one of his own. "I corner you and you're gonna do something drastic to get out, won't you?"

"Is that it? Are you waiting for your chance until we're back at the surface?" Flora hissed. "Where it's safe to out me?"

Will would have been lying if he said that wasn't true. On the surface, with their souls tucked back where they belonged and plenty of maneuvering room, the potential fallout of exposing Flora would be far more manageable.

But all the equipment and hardware in this lab had painted a rather different picture of Bladestar. If this was their base of operations, they couldn't be the ragtag bunch of terrorists he'd assumed them to be.

If Flora's father had actually been assassinated for his beliefs and actions. If Flora's confrontation with her thugs back at the entrance reflected her true beliefs. If what she told him when she'd been fully prepared to die at his hands was trustworthy.

Those were a lot of ifs. Too many uncertainties to make a judgement call like that.

Exposing Flora was a decision he could never take back. It won him literally nothing except the animosity of yet another shady organization, which he simply couldn't afford.

"Why did you fight Team Xen?" He asked.

"What?"

"Back on Terajuma, in that temple, you said you wanted to crush team Xen yourself," Will explained. "Talon and Florin helped because that's who they are. You had zero reason to risk yourself for me. Yet you helped them anyway. Why?"

Flora took a few paces back. "Those idiots were already set to risk their lives for their new 'friend'. If I hung back, it would have been problematic. At the same time, I meant what I said. Team Xen is our enemy. I have nothing but contempt for them."

"Good," Will said, wild satisfaction kicking through his body. "I don't want to tangle with you and your people unless I have to."

"Unless you have to," Flora said, nodding in apparent approval. "I see I don't have your full trust yet. Good. You shouldn't trust anyone you just met. There are snakes hiding in that thicket. Somewhere in that strange head of yours, you do have something like common sense."

"A common foe is more like it," Will replied. Flora cocked an eyebrow at him, and it took him a moment to realize what he'd just said. "As well," he hurried to correct himself. "A common foe as well."

Even Melia couldn't have salvaged that more smoothly than he had.

With a shake of her head, Flora said, "Right."

"Everywhere Team Xen goes, corruption follows," Will continued. "That's your thing, right? Bladestar's whole purpose?"

"As much as opposing the Xen Initiative seems to be yours, yes." Flora said slowly. "I would very much not have you and yours as my enemy either. It is not necessary and it benefits nobody."

As long as Flora wasn't going to explode any more infrastructure underneath his feet, he could agree with that reasoning, yes. "Exactly."

"Fine." Flora turned away and gestured around the security room they now found themselves in. "Those…spectres outside are not my grunts. Erin and Florin should find the keycard to the Decompression Room shortly. For now, I want to take a look at the surveillance footage and investigate this mess closer…"

Will glanced at the wall to their right, which seemed to be one enormous screen divided into a dozen smaller views. Footage from security cameras, he realized.

"I'll control those screens over there," Flora said as she began fiddling with the consoles that lined the opposite wall. "You take a look at them and tell me when you find something weird."

Together, they began pouring over the security footage. It took Will less than a minute to notice something weird.

"Flora, is this now?" He asked.

"Yes."

Will stared at the footage showing the entrance to their current section of the lab, which was supposed to be under siege by a mob of spectres and their strange Pokemon.

"There's nothing there," he whispered.

"...there's no one out there?" Flora said. "But that can't be possible?" She was silent for a moment, before the screen suddenly changed to show the camera footage of Erin and him holding off the Bladestar assault. "I'm showing the images of a few minutes ago."

Perplexed, Will watched as Erin ordered Absol to use Night Slash on empty air. Shadow Balls splashed across the floor and frigid wind buffeted an empty hallway.

"Leave us alone!" Florin yelled frantically.

Golden light consumed nothing.

"We're fighting nothing," Flora declared. "But it's not just us, but our Pokemon too."

The way Blaziken and Nidoking kept stumbling and acting confused whenever they landed a physical hit…the way Fraxure's attacks had cleaved through the ceiling when they fought that fake Giratina…had it all been fake?

"None of us got hurt," Will said. "They attacked, but none of their attacks had an effect."

"It's also possible that the camera can't pick up those apparitions, but…something isn't right, here."

Why? Who would benefit from making them fight a horde of imaginary enemies?

More disturbingly, who even had the power to make all four of them see the same fake events? Had it all been one elaborate illusion? The way those Bladestar grunts and their Pokemon had acted suggested an intelligence "steering" them, down to the most minute details and timings.

Flora continued flicking through the frames. She paused on the footage from the section where Will had stopped to hold off the fake Giratina…

…it showed a whole horde of Giratina roaming around the stony bridge, aimlessly and lifelessly floating in random directions.

"This room is FILLED with those Giratina!" Flora exclaimed. "But they don't look right either. They look exactly like the apparitions. Wait, so the cameras can pick them up? Or can they not?"

"Yes," Will replied.

"If you could focus - " Flora angrily began.

"Flora," he cut her off. "Think about it. Something planted those illusions here. There's an intelligence guiding them, making us see what they want us to see."

"...what they want us to see," Flora slowly repeated. "I feel like I am going to pop a blood vessel. They aren't even moving with a goal. Just completely aimless and braindead."

Then the intelligence driving them had taken a coffee break or something, he didn't know. "What if it isn't just the caves? Those Giratina on the surface just came out of nowhere. One of them was real. The others…"

"...Illusions," Flora breathed. "Tch. How annoying. I am done with this frame. Let's move on."

She flicked through the images again, flicking through footage of empty and dark hallways until she came across footage from Erin and Florin rummaging through the other room together. Floaty Florin plucked books from bookshelves while Erin busied herself with a computer, her tail lazily moving from the left to the right as she worked.

"Look at these two love birds," Flora said in a deadpan voice. "Love angel? Love devil? Hmm. I don't think she is his type anyway."

Erin turned around and said something to Florin that the camera didn't pick up. The Grevillea brother turned towards her with an equally silent response.

"Let's tune into what they're so interested in."

A red dot appeared in the upper left corner of the screen. Suddenly, the sound of Erin and Florin's conversation came through the wall-mounted speakers. " - rin, there's something I'd like to talk to you about."

"Yes?" Florin said, hovering closer.

Erin leaned against the desk. "Your sister is definitely involved with Bladestar, right?"

Wow. Sharp as a razor and confident.

"There's just too much evidence that points towards her," Erin continued, casually observing Florin's reaction to this bombshell she just tossed his way.

Florin's reaction was predictable, but no less miserable. "...Why would you say such a thing?" He said, the hurt in his voice naked and visceral. "It's…it's not true."

"C'mon Florin. You're not stupid. Far from it, actually," Erin said. She continued punching holes in Florin's disbelief with a cold, calculating precision. "Flora decided to go off on her own, and then suddenly has the answers for everything? Suddenly she knows how to pick locks, how the Darchlight Mirror works and that we need to Decompress before leaving? Just put two and two together already."

Her voice was cold and hard. Whatever distress her words caused didn't seem to matter to her, and Will saw them cause Florin a lot of distress. He turned away from Erin and the camera was positioned in a perfect spot to capture his teary eyes, his quivering lip and his clenching fists.

It took Florin a while to even muster a response. "If you're so sure then you're taking a big risk in asking her brother about something like this. How do you know I'm not in on this too?"

"You're right," Erin calmly replied. "I am taking a big risk by asking you so upfront. But I wouldn't have taken the risk if I didn't think the odds weren't in my favor. The way your face dropped when you saw your father on that screen said it all."

"I just…I don't know."

Erin gave a shrug. "But, it's not my business, so I won't go into it or confront her about it. It's not like I have concrete evidence either. Just keep an eye on her from now on."

Flora cut the audio again, breathing a curse. "So both of them suspect me. I figured as much." She sighed. "There wasn't really a way I could discreetly lure the group out of here myself. Especially with Giratina being in the way. I had to act fast."

"What now?" Will asked.

She didn't bother to look at him. "I'll deal with this budding issue another time."

More camera angles. Caves, steel doors, empty corridors…nothing of interest. That was, until Flora switched to a camera view of the glass pods they had all woken up in. Will scanned the area for any irregularities, anything that might provide a clue or some context to the situation -

A woman with long, red hair just blinked into existence right in front of the tube he'd been stuck in himself. Some sort of visor, red and reflective, obscured her eyes.

"Flora," said. "Look - "

The woman's head tilted towards the camera -

Wind was howling, clouds gathering power. Flashes of crimson lightning erupted all around them. He screamed, but they didn't hear him. The noise, it was deafening, he had never heard anything like it before. Terror gripped his heart, sheer, mind-numbing terror that welled up in his throat like bile -

Noise flooded his mind, a memory overtaking his senses so suddenly, so vividly that it pressed in on him from all sides. Grief, hot and sudden, spiked through his head, and the pain it brought with it was a physical thing, a lancing dagger driven into his mind.

"Who is that? What is this!? Will? Will, get up! Scrape yourself together, we have a situation!"

"Wh-What?" Will groaned. His eyes fluttered open. Blood had splattered across every single camera screen, bathing the room in crimson. His head pounded, vestiges of terror and adrenaline burning through his veins. He'd somehow ended up on the ground, hands wrapped around his throat and neck, but he had idea how he got there. "Flora…where…?"

"Has the system in this base been overtaken by a virus?" Flora said.

The smooth, feminine voice that replied was like ice pressed against his soul. It didn't just raise his hackles, it clashed with every fiber of his being, every thought and impulse, rational or instinctive, recoiled when it brushed against his ears.

"I suppose you could refer to me as a virus. But you'll find out quick enough that I am something much worse."

"Will, get up!" Flora urged him. "Can you move?"

"Though there is one thing that you always must know about me and my actions."

Shakily, Will struggled to remove his hands from his throat. His muscles were so tensed up that it almost felt like he'd had a seizure or something. He managed to shove himself to his hands and knees.

"It is simply just business."

With that last remark, everything inside of the room went dark. The screens shut down, the lights flickered off and the computers died.

Moments later, the backup power kicked in and everything began rebooting.

A thoroughly puzzled Flora was still staring at the screen by the time Will managed to get back to his feet. "I…have no explanation for what just happened," she said. "Hey, are you good now? What happened?"

"I'm fine," Will said, his voice small and shaky. "I…guess my soul disagrees with being here."

Flora looked at him with suspicion. "That is not how it works. Still, me coming back without you wouldn't inspire much trust or confidence in the others, so try to keep yourself together."

"Gee, thanks," he muttered back.

"If it is any consolation, I - wait! Will, look at the monitor!"

He did.

Almost immediately, he wished he hadn't.

"That's the Decompression Lift," Flora explained.

"No, that's Giratina," Will said.

Flora growled at him. "It's right on top of the plateau we need to go to get the hell out of these stupid caves."

Will studied the ghostly dragon closely. It didn't resemble any of the fakes, nor was it the smaller, terrestrial version they had encountered before. This thing was like it had been under Zetta's control…which meant they would have to drive it off before they could get out.

"Damnit," Flora spat, slamming her fist into the nearest console. "We have no choice, we're going to have to fight."

"Let's put together a plan of attack, then," Will replied.

She made her way to the exit again. "Need I remind you that we're in an EXTREMELY vulnerable state right now? If we are damaged too much our souls will be destroyed, and that's a fate worse than death, I assure you."

"Why the hell do these caves still exist then?" Will snapped. "Blow them up or something!"

"Blow up the Darchlight Caves…and you called us terrorists," Flora scoffed. "I am not even going to dignify that with a response. You have no idea about the wealth of information, knowledge and potential buried in these caves."

"All that knowledge is sure going to come in handy when Giratina starts eating people's souls," Will shot back. "This place is wrong."

Furious, Flora whirled on him again. "Hey, you said that thing has been following you for weeks! Who is to say that you didn't lure it here? We have never had any trouble in this place until you decided to show up and ruin things! Our situation is your fault much more than it is mine!"

People had that sentiment around him a lot. "Imagine how peaceful your life would be if a certain group never blew up the bridges to GDC."

For a second, it seemed like he had pushed her over the edge and she would blow her top. What actually happened was arguably worse.

Flora smiled.

Okay, it wasn't so much a smile as it was the smallest hint of a smirk tugging at her lips, but Will still didn't like it one bit. "Fine. Pointing fingers isn't going to help. We should find the others and get out."

Without waiting for his response, Flora turned on her heels and filed out of the room again.

Will glanced back at the security footage one last time. The masked woman was gone.

His hands were trembling.

Breathe. In and out.

he clenched his hands into fists. This place was starting to get to him. The sooner he did that decompressing thing and got back to his friends, the better.

"Good news," Erin said when they all gathered in the main hall again. "Florin and I found the keycard to open this stupid door. But it turns out it's not a card at all, and more of an interface lock. So, we undid the lock on the door." She gave a half-hearted shrug with one shoulder. "We should be able to leave now."

"Good, but there's still a small problem," Flora said. "Those spectres that have been plaguing us…"

Florin shot a fearful look at the door.

"I fear that they may not have been real," Flora said, her voice almost hesitant.

"What do you mean?" Florin asked.

"We found a surveillance area, and we looked at the footage of when we were fighting that horde," she explained. "It displayed us fighting nothing. Just attacking the air itself."

"None of our attacks hit, but so did none of theirs," Will said. "Them disappearing after we beat them wasn't because they were conveniently pulled back to the other dimension, but because the gig was up, and there was no more need for them to be around."

"So they're illusions?" Erin said, quick to catch on. "Just like that particular instance of Giratina?"

"...I believe so," Flora said.

Erin scoffed. "Nifty."

"However, another Giratina seems to be on the Decompression Lift ahead, and I'm not so sure this is a spectre."

Florin's face dropped. "So we'll have to fight it?"

"Most likely," Erin sighed.

"Nooo…" Florin groaned, covering his face behind his hands again.

Erin shot him an annoyed look. "What are you "Nooo" ing about? Will is probably the one who is going to fight it while the rest of us sit pretty. He has the most experience fighting Giratina already, and crowding that lift with all of our Pokemon is just going to make matters worse."

With a nervous laugh, Florin said, "Y-Yeah, that's true, but I don't want Will to get hurt either…"

If this Giratina really was the same one that had murdered Jenner and Nim, then Will wasn't the one who was going to get hurt. "I'll be fine."

"No point in waiting now," Flora said. "It's just through that door. Let's finish all this."

"Are you ready then, Will?" Erin said. "We will support you as needed, of course."

Flora stepped towards the final door. Sensing her presence, it slid open, revealing another long hallway. The others fell in behind him, and Will made his way past several adjacent laboratories and towards a rectangular platform. It was enormous, easily large enough to transport Tesla's yacht back to the surface, and very much occupied.

Walking up to a hovering and very hostile Legendary Pokemon like Giratina felt like pure insanity, yet there he was, strolling up to a hated and deadly foe with half a plan and his soul sticking out. Hardly ideal circumstances.

Kirlia was the picture of calmth and composure as she walked towards the elevator by his side. Fraxure, on the other hand, was all tensed claws and rigid muscles. He walked a few meters ahead of them, his eyes firmly fixated on the creature hovering just up ahead, but Will knew it wasn't fear plaguing Fraxure's thoughts.

"I know that that thing did to us, Fraxure," Will said. "But this is just another lesson. Use that anger, but don't let it use you."

It wasn't so much an order for Fraxure as it was a reminder for himself. He couldn't let this become personal again. He didn't want that.

Just when his Pokemon and him came within stepping distance of the elevator, Giratina's form glitched and warped, just like it had before. It became translucent like those Bladestar grunts.

This isn't Giratina, he realized with a start.

"Wait…is it a spector?" Flora said.

That same soft, velvet smooth voice from before spoke up again, drifting from the speakers surrounding the elevator like a cloud of invisible poison. "I know what you're thinking. 'Giratina? Again?' How dull. How boring. Allow me to spice things up for you. It's the least I can do."

"Who the hell?" Erin said.

"We are going to have so much fun," the strange woman said brightly. "Truly. So much. Let's change the channel."

"Kirlia, start putting up Light Screens," Will quietly ordered.

"Lights."

"Fraxure, keep your distance. Stick to Dragon Pulses only, we can't risk blowing up the elevator."

"Cameras."

Will sent Froslass out as well. His gut told him that the tactical situation was about to change drastically.

"Business," the woman hummed.

That final declaration had barely even left her mouth before Giratina solidified and attacked. Right off the bat it opened its maw and unleashed a multi-colored beam of energy aimed at Fraxure.

Of course, two could play that game. The second Will saw the spectre turn solid he ordered, "Kirlia, teleport in its way! Froslass, pin it down with Icy Wind!"

Kirlia disappeared, before flickering back into existence right in front of Fraxure as it scrambled to avoid the searing beam of energy. She hopped into the line of fire and the Dragon Pulse just washed off of her like water poured onto a rainproof coat. Her secondary Fairy-type insulated her against the savage draconic energies.

Giratina flapped its wing-like structures, trying to get out of the way of Froslass' Icy Wind, but it wasn't fast enough. Her gust of glowing blue snow washed over its body like it had many times before. Almost instantly, the water in the air froze solid and began coating its appendages. That had slowed it down in the past before, but Will wasn't going to assume anything this time around.

The faux Legendary whipped its head around and gathered fire in its mouth.

"Froslass, evade it!" Will yelled. "Up, head up!"

The Giratina released a blast of fire her way. Bright, hot flames rolled through the elevator chamber, Flora yelled for people to take cover and Will too hit the deck. "Kirlia!"

As the fire traveled, it expanded outwards into the shape of a five-pronged star. Kirlia flickered into existence between him and the onrushing wave of flames and threw her arms out, materializing a shimmering barrier between him and the immense heat that washed across the chamber. As he hurried to shield his face with his arms, he spotted Fraxure inhaling sharply and gathering a multi-colored sphere of energy in front of his jaws.

The next second, his Dragon Pulse swept through the flames, cutting towards Giratina's face. The spectral dragon blurted to the side, moving impossibly fast for something that bulky, and it bit off its Fire Blast to retaliate with another Dragon Pulse.

Out of nowhere, a Shadow Ball slammed into the back of its head and it snapped sideways.

Sideways?

Giratina spun back around to face Froslass, who floated down the elevator shaft, her expression furious. As Giratina began gathering fire in its maw again, Froslass struck first. Will didn't know where she gathered her arsenal, or if she even needed to use the water in her surroundings to do so anymore, but the result was as awe-inspiring as it was disturbing.

With an ethereal scream, Froslass began launching the dozens and dozens of frozen spears and fragments of glass at Giratina. Fraxure and Kirlia ran for cover and Giratina had perhaps a split second to regret its life choices before a hailstorm of razor-sharp, frozen projectiles tore him to shreds.

Giratina burst apart into a black mist that swept out across the elevator. Things moved inside of that mist. Will caught the outlines of something that could have been a stinger, then a slender, humanoid shape. Out of that misty, shimmering mess, a blurry shape shot upwards towards Froslass. She barely had the time to spot it before the strange, glowing object promptly exploded. A blast of thunder rolled through the elevator shaft and a wave of heat plowed through the air.

"What!" Will shouted.

As Froslass's limp body began falling, what was left of Giratina's misty remains coalesced into the shape of another Pokemon. This one was much smaller, shedding Giratina's impressive bulk in lieu of a shiny, fuchsia and blue body. It appeared shiny, almost plastic or metallic in nature and its head was completely detached from its torso.

Distraction and deception. Whoever this enemy was, they were far more dangerous than he'd initially assumed.

"Fraxure, Kirlia, pin that thing down!" Will ordered. "Don't let it attack again!"

Together, the two smaller Pokemon unleashed a crossfire of Dragon Pulses and Psybeams at the strange, plastic-looking entity. Will retrieved Froslass' Pokeball and made ready to recall her when he noticed something…off. His Ghost-type fluttered down towards him in what could best be described as an out of control spiral…that delivered her straight into his arms.

"Froslass, are you alright? Can you move?" He urged her.

She lay limp and motionless in his arms, her body singed and battered. Slowly, her eyes fluttered open…and she winked.

Distraction and deception.

Damn, you're good, Will thought. He grimaced, then gingerly placed Froslass' body down on the ground. "Rest up. We'll take care of this."

Whatever this thing was, it seemed to take great effort to dodge all of Fraxure's attacks. It zipped and darted around the cavernous elevator shaft as the dragon peppered it with low-yield, quick-fire pulses of destructive energy. He alternated his fire with Kirlia's Psybeams, which Will noted the enemy didn't seem to care about at all. At one point, their foe even flew out of the way of one of Fraxure's attacks, only to drift straight into a Psybeam.

The burst of psychic energy simply bounced off of its body. Was that right? Did Kirlia connect, or did their foe have some sort of protective barrier covering its body? Was it somehow immune to Psychic damage, making it a Dark-type as well?

It hadn't enjoyed Froslass' Shadow Ball one bit. Now down here, in the darkness, an infuriated Shadow Ball coming from her would do a lot of damage even to a Dark-type, but…something wasn't right here.

If it was part Dark-type, he needed to know. One way to find out.

The second he reached for a different Pokemon, their foe went on the offensive. It circled through the air, performed a very unnecessary loop and then blasted Fraxure with another Dragon Pulse.

Fraxure reacted with ingrained reflexes and fired back with a pulse of his own. Instead of trying to overpower his foe with force, Fraxure instead dragged his pulse "through" his foe's, sweeping it across its body.

The flash of draconic energies colliding was so bright that Will had to shield his eyes. Through a blurry vision, he saw a blast of light striking Fraxure and throwing his body across the elevator platform. Their opponent, meanwhile, dropped as well. Its body grew blurry and its features warped -

Suddenly their foe was nowhere to be seen. What stood on the ground a dozen paces below its last location could best be described as the most slender clown Will had ever seen. Its limbs were as thin as matchsticks, one blue and the other pink, and its head seemed to be a large, white sphere dotted with rows of pink and blue lights.

"What," he heard Erin say, "Is that?"

That. Would be trouble.

Fraxure struggled to get back to its feet. Will, meanwhile, managed to send Blaziken out, his mind racing.

Their foe hopped onto one leg, wiggled, then hopped onto the other. It waved at Blaziken with both hands.

Blaziken snorted, thoroughly unimpressed. She began marching towards this strange thing, presumably to test if its limbs were as breakable as they looked.

But that would be too easy. As strange as this thing appeared, Will recognized a taunt when he saw one. It wanted Blaziken to get angry and attack? Fine. But that would happen on his terms. "Easy Blaziken. Keep your distance. See if it likes flames."

Blaziken got the gist. She braced herself, then leapt back and away from this strange, caricature of a Pokemon. The fire that flickered from her wrists flared and she sent a jet of flames its way.

The caricature stood there and took it. Flames consumed its body, shrouding it from view. Blaziken had perhaps a split-second of warning before she dropped into a low crouch. An instant later a Shadow Ball split the air above her head.

"Circle around from the left, keep using Flamethrower," Will ordered.

Blaziken got to her feet and started running. Her sudden motion seemed to trigger something in her foe, as it jumped up and down like a child and began throwing one Shadow Ball after another at her. The ghostly projectiles blew large, smoking holes in the walls as Blaziken ducked, dodged and weaved through its barrage, flinging large jets of flames its way in return.

But just like before, the heat of her flames didn't bother her foe, if it even reached it in the first place. If it resisted the fire, that suggested a Dragon-type.

"Time for you to hide," Will quietly ordered.

Fraxure shoved himself upright, sank through his arms, but raised his head defiantly. Will caught his glance and nodded.

With their opponent's attention centered squarely on Blaziken, it never saw the Dragon Pulse coming. The blast of destructive energy splashed across its frail torso -

Only to dissipate harmlessly.

"What the hell?" Will muttered. The strange Pokemon leaned aside and then flung a Shadow Ball in retaliation, knocking Fraxure completely out of the fight. "Blaziken, close quarters! Go!"

Even if it failed to harm their enemy, Fraxure's last-ditch attack still served to distract it for a crucial moment. Blaziken crossed the distance in several large, powerful steps and drove a series of lightning-fast punches at her foe's head.

Her fists phased through its body entirely.

A Ghost then? One that was somehow immune to elemental, draconic and psychic attacks? Impossible. Such a defense did not exist.

The bizarre Pokemon hopped back, brought its hands up and mimed blowing a raspberry at Blaziken. For her part, Blaziken wreathed herself in flames and tried grappling the slender creature, but it was as if she tried to grasp water instead of solid matter. She couldn't get a grip, her hands kept slipping off its limbs and her kicks didn't connect with its body like they should.

"Great, it's got Wonder Guard," Erin hissed.

"Wonder what?" Will asked.

"Wonder Guard is an ability exclusive to Shedinja that prevents it from registering attacks that aren't effective against it," she explained with quick, concise words. "I don't know what this is or why it does that, but it doesn't seem fair to me."

Wonder Guard?

Before, they'd been able to knock out Giratina's form with Ice and Ghost attacks. But now… "Fraxure hurt it before," Will protested. "Now it's suddenly immune?"

"I don't make the rules." She sent out Absol, who howled at the threat in their midst. "But I like to break them."

She sure looked the part. "I think I narrowed its type down."

Erin snorted. "You think you did?"

The enemy Pokemon suddenly jerked its own head off its shoulders and threw it in the air. Blaziken scrambled backwards and managed to put a few meters between herself and her foe before the head went off like an explosion. The resulting shockwave threw Blaziken off her feet and showered the air with fragments of fire and lights resembling fireworks.

So that was what had nearly blown Froslass out of the sky!

"Like with any good hypothesis, time to make a prediction and test it," Erin muttered. "Absol, use Night Slash!"

As Will recalled Fraxure, Erin's Absol whipped up a storm of dark-purple blades of energy. Their opponent saw them coming and began frantically dodging the incoming storm, backflipping and jumping across the elevator platform with impressive agility. At times though, it moved in one direction only to disappear and reappear in another. Unless it was secretly very adept at teleporting short distances, Will would assume it was using illusions to disguise its real movements.

But its desire to avoid Erin's attack instead of taking it on the chin told him enough. He raised his right hand in the air.

"Keep attacking Absol!" Erin said.

Their foe reached for its head again.

Will clenched his hand into a fist.

And Froslass, who had slowly been preparing her attack while Erin kept the caricature distracted, sprung her trap.

A full-powered Shadow Ball slammed into her opponent's back and even from a distance, Will saw that one hurt. The impact threw the clown-shaped Pokemon off its feet. It flew backwards, trailing smoke and wisps of ghostly energy, and fell straight into Absol's Night Slashes.

Will struggled to make sense of what happened next. The air grew blurry and Will's vision became choppy. Their foe's agony-induced spasms seemed to leave behind after-images which moved in different ways, incongruent to the original Pokemon's motions. Just looking at its movements made his head hurt again, and something in his backpack began moving and wriggling around.

A flash of light, a rush of air and the clown-shaped creature was gone. A Pidgey fluttered across the elevator shaft, chirping a loud and annoying tune.

"What the hell is going on?" Flora spat.

Froslass charged up another Shadow Ball.

With one final, mocking chirp, Pidgey disappeared mid flight. It didn't teleport, it wasn't recalled, it just vanished. As if it fell between dimensions.

Will waited for the moment where this strange foe would reappear and the entire thing started up again.

It never came.

"...is it down, finally?" Florin whispered.

He dropped to one knee and swung his backpack around.

"...seems to be?" Flora said in an equally quiet voice.

Opening its mainframe, Will saw that the egg April had given him was shaking and kicking. Someone was eager to get out. "Flora, Flora," he said, alarmed. "The egg is hatching."

Kirlia hurried back towards him, peeking inside of his backpack with large, crimson eyes.

"The egg is…what?" The woman snapped back. With hurried steps, she made her way to his side and glanced over his shoulder. "You were carrying a Pokemon egg with you the entire time?"

"Where else should I have kept it?" He shot back.

"I don't know, the Pokemon Center? A nursery? Somewhere it wouldn't get poached by an angry Giratina?"

"Oh! It's hatching!" Florin said, hovering behind Will's other shoulder. "It's okay, we're trained professionals! Calm down, there is no need to panic. This is a beautiful, natural process and you are about to witness something amazing!"

"It's just an egg hatching Florin, we've seen this a dozen times before," Flora grumbled.

"And it remains amazing to see every time!"

"Guys, these caves are weird, is it going to be okay?" Will asked as the first cracks began appearing in the outer shell. Something sharp penetrated the shell, retracted, and then rammed its way out again.

"Uh, well…Flora, these caves are weird, is it going to be okay?" Florin said.

"Ugh…I don't know! There's never - I didn't read anything about Pokemon hatching down here!"

Erin peeked at the egg as well. "What do you imagine will happen to the little thing?" She asked. "It's a Pokemon."

"Florin has wings, and you're all demony," Will countered.

Erin raised a slender eyebrow at that. "Demonessy, Will. And that is because our human souls are showing. It's different for Pokemon, as you've no doubt seen before."

But what if it hatching down here made it vulnerable? What if the strange energies of Darchlight Caves had a bad effect on its health, or gave it some sort of sickness or something? "But - "

"Oh, look!" Florin gasped.

With one final effort of violence, the baby Pokemon broke through its egg and wriggled its way free. It was a fishlike, grumpy looking Pokemon with a dark purple body covered with small, pink dots. Its pectoral fins and tail were the same purple as its main body, though the webs between its bony fins were reddish. Hidden between its several dorsal fins were a couple of sharp-looking spines that would make Nidoking smile.

It looked so cute.

Kirlia narrowed her eyes and then stepped a few paces back.

To his surprise, Florin and Flora immediately sprang away as well. "Watch out for your hands Will!" Florin said. "That's an Aevium Feebas! It is really toxic!"

"I'm not going to eat him," Will said, smiling down at the newborn fish. "I'm going to cuddle it."

"Don't!" Flora snapped. "It's got spikes. I don't want to have to drag your ass out of here."

"See those bright fins?" Florin asked. "Warning signs for predators. 'Don't eat me!' They say. 'I'm really toxic and I will stab you!'."

"I am not going to cuddle it," Will said, still smiling. As far as messages went, he could think of much worse ones to communicate. "Hello Feebas."

The purple fish dragged its large, deep-set eyes from his face to its surroundings. It opened its mouth, then closed it again. Several vertical slits behind its pectoral fins suggested it wouldn't last very long in this arid environment.

"Welcome to the team," Will said, grabbing one of his empty Pokeballs and gently bobbing Feebas' head with it. "Some of us love to stab things. You'll fit right in."

"I'm not even going to ask questions about what all of that was," Erin said, and her voice was startlingly loud in the silence that followed in the caricature's departure. She stepped onto the platform and strolled towards the center without a care in the world. "But this lift will change us back and bring us back above ground, right?"

After a moment's hesitation, Florin flew towards her side. "Gosh, I hope so. I'm done with all of this horror. Even that beautiful hatch doesn't take away from how messed up this place is. I'm ready to get back to my comfy office back at the Judicial District."

Kirlia stared at Erin for a few moments before she stepped towards Florin, mimicking him by taking a spot next to him as well. After that, Will supposed he would look silly if he didn't do the same.

"Indeed," Flora said, following him in lining up next to the others. "I bet there's a lot to report when we arrive at the surface. Mayor Cassandra's got a lot on her plate, soon…"

The tranquility lasted perhaps five seconds before an immense roar sounded from the dark hallway. At that point, all of them had heard it too many times and they all knew what that meant.

"WHAT?!" A distraught Florin shouted.

Freaking Giratina came strolling through the security doors, which they had left open in their haste to get out. The real one, the one they'd been running from this entire time. It just walked up on them on its many ghostly legs, its expression an enigma as it swept its gaze over the assorted humans and Pokemon.

Florin whimpered, Kirlia drew herself upright and gathered Psychic energy to herself and Flora and Erin took a couple of alarmed steps back.

Will glared at the Legendary Pokemon.

It stared back passively.

A moment stretched out for an eternity, a moment wherein nobody moved, nobody spoke, and Will stared into the eyes of the thing that had haunted him for so long and caused the people he loved so much suffering.

The eyes that stared back at him gleamed with intelligence.

Human intelligence.

Before he could process what that disturbing detail meant, Giratina tore its gaze away and took up a spot on the far right of the elevator, carefully brushing past Flora and then rounding off their formation.

There was a pregnant pause. From what he could see from his peripherals, Flora, Florin and Erin were all staring directly ahead, as if none of them wished to speak up and address the Giratina in the room.

Erin, as usual, was the one who broke that silence first. "Let's never speak of this again," she suggested.

"Got it," Flora grunted back.

"Yup," Florin muttered.

Kirlia and Will both nodded along.

And Giratina uttered a low, tired cry.

Machinery hummed, a mechanical voice droned something about a decompression process and the lift began carrying the assorted souls and Pokemon upward. Will kept his gaze glued to the ground in blank exhaustion. Anger and confusion churned within his heart and the voice of that woman kept bouncing through his thoughts. As much as he wanted to close his eyes, lie down on the elevator floor and shut down, he knew he couldn't. A new enemy had just revealed herself to him and until he figured out if those illusions she made them all fight were a by-product of how Darchlight Cave worked, or something more troubling, he couldn't let his guard down again.

God, he couldn't wait to hug Melia. He even felt like hugging Venam. Maybe it was a part of having worn his soul like a jacket, but he felt rattled. Something down there in that cave had gotten to him.

Finally, after spending far too much time standing on a metal platform with a terrorist leader and a killer Legendary Pokemon, the mechanical voice droned. "DECOMPRESSION COMPLETE", and the lights went back on.

They'd made it back to the surface.

Will stared at his hands. They were normal. The rest of his body, as far as he could see, was back to its old self as well.

"Hey, we're back to normal!" Florin whooped.

"Finalllly," Erin drawled. "That was an ordeal."

It sure was.

Will looked over at the girl. Minus the devilish aspects, she looked pretty much the same. Her snow-colored hair was short and wavy, barely reaching below her jawline. Her clothes appeared different now that her soul was back where it belonged, consisting of a black skirt that reached down to slightly below the middle of her thighs and a shoulderless shirt that was the same color as her hair. What stood out the most about her was the long, black bow attached to her back.

That stark, white hair and stern expression sparked a vivid memory in his head, and Will knew with sudden conviction that he knew her, that he knew this white-haired, stern-looking girl because she…because they had….they…

A dull headache began throbbing behind his eyes. Will rubbed his temple absentmindedly. A memory blossomed inside of his head, fell apart and then dissolved again.

…

What were they talking about?

"Giratina seems to be gone," Flora said. "Probably ditched us the moment our forms returned to normal."

"It was kind of funny seeing it ride the elevator with us!" Florin laughed.

Flora narrowed her eyes at her brother. "Funny? That thing tried to kill us."

"Yeah, but only that one time!" Florin, ever the optimist, shot back. "...Maybe two," he amended after a moment's thought. "Besides, it's left us alone this time, yeah? Perhaps it sees us as friends now."

"You keep being a dreamer, Florin," Erin said as she began walking towards the exit. "It suits you. Anyway, I'm gone."

"Wait!" Florin said.

She did. "Hm?"

"You're leaving just like that?" Florin said, and his pout made it look like he was about to lose a lifelong friend.

Erin, evidently, didn't feel that way. "Yeah," she said simply and bluntly. "I still need to look for my friend, Aelita, we became separated remember?"

"Aelita!" Will shouted. He barely noticed the odd look Flora gave him, or the way Florin nearly jumped when he cried out that name. That didn't matter, none of that mattered because Erin knew Aelita, said she was her friend and that they'd gotten separated recently, recently - "When?" He asked, his mouth unexpectedly dry. "When did you two get separated?"

Erin cocked an eyebrow at that. "Couple of hours before I ended up down there. Why?"

The relief that washed over him was so strong that it nearly swept him off his feet. Aelita, Aelita, Aelita! Aelita was alive, she was alive and she was awake! She had a friend and she was walking and she was awake!

"She's okay," he whispered, relief and hope burning away his exhaustion. "God, she's okay…"

"I am assuming you know Aelita as well?" Erin said, her words controlled and measured. Her silvery eyes were locked on his face. "...small world."

"She got hurt, and we got separated," Will said, trying to control the tremble in his voice.

"Then we should leave and search for her together," Erin declared.

Hell yeah they would. "Agreed," Will said. "Let's go."

A loud groan from Flora brought him back to reality again. "I wouldn't get your hopes up. Look."

They did.

A squad of police officers had barged inside, flashlights flickering and radios crackling as they spread out through the room.

Leading them was none other than Rhodea.

"Heh, I knew I heard a commotion down here," She said, placing one hand on her hip as she regarded the four hapless trainers on the elevator platform.

"Rhodea?" Florin said.

The woman nodded, then gestured for the officers to stand down or whatever it was that they did. Will didn't care. Aelita was back on her feet!

"Well well, this is a strange spot to meet, wouldn't you say? You're Will, I'm assuming?" Rhodes said with a grin.

"Hi," Will said intelligently.

"Well then Will." Rhodes's voice was amused as she approached and shook his hand. "What were you all doing down there?"

Flora sighed. "That is a long story…"

And Will let Flora tell it. Knowing that Aelita was out there somewhere made him feel lightheaded with joy. He needed to find her as soon as possible! But he also needed to tell Melia and Venam. Kanon too, whatever he was doing. There was so much he needed to tell Aelita, so much had happened in the meantime!

No matter what happened next, she was out there, and he would find her.

~~~~~~~(I)~~~~~~~

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AN: It looks like Florin survived to live another day. For now. Next chapter we'll be hiting the Grand Dream City itself! Don't forget to drop me a review if you liked this update, let me know your thoughts and opinions and I will see you all with the next update!