The sun beat down on Leo’s skin. He surveyed the surrounding stone walls with a sense of grim satisfaction. Finally, he’d finished his pokemon ranger internship and was deemed ready of being given his first real job. What was more, he’d been honored by being given one of the most remote and prestigious positions for a new ranger: Vast Poni Canyon in his native Alola region.

Though he could have gone straight for the hardwood cabin that would serve as his home for the next several months, Leo decided to take things slow. He took his time wandering through the remote canyon, camping under the stars and making notes about the native population of pokemon from afar. Many rare pokemon, some of them dragons like the Dratini and Jangmo-o lines, called this area home, and were they disturbed, their wrath could be ferocious.

Though he gave them space, it was impossible to completely conceal his presence from the wild pokemon. They kept their distance, this area remote enough that most of them had never really encountered a human before save for the very small handful of trainers who tried their hands at Alola’s toughest trial. Many of the wild pokemon acted cagey around him, and more than once he had to back respectfully away from a Machoke or Kommo-o that decided to treat him to a threat display to remind him who was really in charge here. He didn’t begrudge them for it; in fact, the sheer wildness of the canyon’s inhabitants only made him more excited. Wild places like this were why the world needed rangers; increasingly, urbanization was threatening the wilderness and driving pokemon out of their ancestral homes. Places like Vast Poni—the last remaining refuges of true nature, unspoiled by human encroachment—needed to be preserved, as much for humans to remind themselves of the world that was their heritage as for the sake of the pokemon.

He made his way past stony tunnels used as dens; thundering cascades shimmering the air with spray; dry, brown-barked trees, their bare branches pointing towards the azure sky. The canyon was noble and all the more beautiful for its starkness.

Finally, though, Leo had to commit to actually setting up camp. The remote cabin that would be his home base, sheltered in a wooded glade, was several days’ trip from the canyon entrance. It had been hand-built over sixty years ago and used by generation after generation of rangers since.

He set in, chased the dust out, set new glass panes in the windows, and eased into a life of monitoring Vast Poni’s pokemon population. And perhaps that would have been it, if not for the strange clacking noise the floorboards had made one day while he was sweeping the cabin clean.

Investigation revealed that one floorboard had been sawn free and carefully replaced, leaving a hollow underneath. On prying it free, Leo found an old map of the canyon—decades at least—covered with hand-drawn notes. Some of them observed pokemon migrations or marked springs for fresh drinking water, but one note on the far reaches of the canyon caught his eye. In a seemingly ordinary locale, a command was scribbled with extreme harshness: UNMARKED CHASM. DO NOT EXPLORE—AVOID AT ALL COSTS!

Perhaps a normal person would have heeded the warning, but part of being a ranger was knowing when to shush your sense of self-preservation, so Leo packed up and made for the so-called chasm.

It was a three-day journey roughing it in the wilds, and when he arrived, he saw a small gap in the rocks barely big enough for a human to fit into. It hardly seemed noteworthy; why had one of his predecessors gotten so worked up over this? Shrugging, he shucked off his pack and jacket to provide himself with more maneuverability. Then, hitching his rope securely to a tree near the cavern’s mouth, he descended.

The interior was more spacious than he’d expected. The entrance was narrow, but the inside was a yawning chasm of darkness, overlaid with the distant sound of dripping water. When his feet touched securely on stone, the ranger pulled out a handlamp and lit the darkness. Immediately, he was greeted with a spread of ancient paintings peppering the wall. His breath left him. He’d known that there was an ancient altar in the canyon’s depths, but this was an archaeological trove like nothing he’d ever seen! The wall paintings depicted ancient Alolans standing side-by-side with pokemon; he saw Ribombee, Drampa, Araquanid. Center to the image was a mysterious, vaguely humanoid form which the Alolans appeared to be looking at with a mixture of awe and fear. Leo wondered what the entity could be.

He didn’t have too long to wait to find out.

The darkness spooling at the edge of his lamplight’s glow was not static; it was shifting, moving like mist, undulating about him. Leo turned his lamp to it and watched open-mouthed as the shadows congealed into a new shape.

The creature was dwarfish, about half as tall as a human with proportions to match; its arms, its body, its head were all mist incarnate, wispy and greyish-black. Vaporous trails drifted off its head and shoulders, forming a vague approximation of a helmet and cloak, and oval eyes burned red, like embers, in its flat face.

Leo recognized this creature from legends. Every Alola native had heard the stories at some point or another. The watcher of the night—Marshadow.

I thought it was just a legend, Leo thought, amazed. Was this cavern all that remained of an ancient temple where his people had worshipped the being? How marvelous!

Marshadow blinked a few times and opened its tiny mouth, releasing a microscopic yawn. It seemed he had disturbed the mythical pokemon from its rest. How long does a god sleep for, I wonder? Leo thought.

“Hello,” he said, hoping it understood him. “I’m a pokemon ranger. It’s my duty to safeguard this region. I didn’t know you were here, but I can—”

He cut off at the feeling of something unfamiliar prodding against his thigh. Glancing down, he saw that some of the darkness pooling around him had become a tendril of sorts, half-solid, which was poking experimentally at him. Turning his gaze back to Marshadow, Leo noticed the spectral pokemon standing with one arm outstretched. More tendrils of darkness began probing at him out of the blackness, winding their way about his wrists or poking at his shoes.

“H-Hey now,” Leo said. “Be careful, alright?” He actually didn’t have a partner pokemon—he relied on his own strength, plus tools like Repel, to keep himself safe. But everything was in his pack up above…

He didn’t think that Marshadow intended to hurt him. The pokemon was acting more curious than anything. But if it was half as powerful as his people’s legends said, then it might very well wreck him by accident.

Gently trying to shake off one of the tendrils, Leo gulped as it coiled around his wrist assertively, keeping him good and pinned. Other tendrils did much the same, and within seconds he was completely locked in, at Marshadow’s utmost mercy as the darkness coiled around his arms and legs. Some of the tendrils went even further, slithering up his pant legs or ducking down below his collar, and Leo started from the sensation. It felt like being touched by mist—mist made vaguely solid, cool and even sensuous, but devoid of water, leaving his skin chill but dry.

“What are you—” he began.

Marshadow immediately banished its form into a cloud of grey vapor that drifted over to him. The vapor partially re-formed, the creature’s head and upper body poking out of a formless bottom, and it poked him with one experimental hand.

The pokemon’s touch was firmer than the tendrils it commanded, but still oddly insubstantial, as if it wasn’t really there and was only tangible due to the creature’s will. Given its power, that might very well be the case, Leo thought.

It pawed at him, seemingly more curious than anything, small chirping coos emanating from its mouth. As it did, the tendrils continued entwining Leo’s body