The frozen wilds north of Spikemuth were cold, harsh, and unforgiving. Few would dare to venture there without cause; yet, Marnie—newly-instated Gym Leader of Spikemuth—was no weak trainer. After coming of age, she’d taken the Gym Challenge and placed in the Champion Cup, and now, wielding the Dark-type pokemon she loved so much, she was the chief trainer of her hometown.

But Gym Leaders were expected to do more than just scrap with any challenger who came their way. Their job was to safeguard local areas. And when trainers began vanishing in the frozen routes, Marnie was tapped for the job.

Marnie’s Liepard prowled ahead of her, the feline pokemon’s keen senses leading the way. She’d crossed the frozen bay and was now trekking in the cold mountains. Liepard had led her thoroughly off the path, but Marnie trusted in her partner.

She hugged her leather jacket around her, keeping it tight and close, and trying not to let her teeth chatter. Spikemuth and its environs were known for being frosty, but the blizzards lately had been worse than ever. She wondered if there was some connection between the weather and the disappearances.

At Liepard’s behest, she clambered over an ice-encrusted rock. The Dark-type was standing at the mouth of a yawning, cavernous hole in the side of the mountains. Something about it seemed ominous—but a Gym Leader wouldn’t be frightened. “Lead the way, partner,” Marnie said, and she followed her pokemon in.

As she did so, she pulled up a list of the missing trainers. “Ellen… Marie… Sylvanie,” she said, swiping down the list. A little over half-a-dozen had gone missing in the past week or so, all around Marnie’s age or a little older. “Olivette… Francesca.”

Even as the cavern deepened around her, the grey light of the snowy range shifting into a low darkness, something clicked together in Marnie’s mind. “‘Oy, Liepard!” she exclaimed, her voice bouncing off the stony walls. “Just realized somethin’, I did! The trainers who went missin’, they all was—”

A sudden pale brilliance cut her off. Marnie stepped back, hissing as white-blue light filled the cavern. She had a split second to make out a massive form hovering in the cavern (a Frosmoth, she realized, as big of one as she had ever seen) before it launched an attack. The buzz of its wings echoed through the cave as it unleashed a Bug-type move, felling Liepard in one go. As Marnie’s pokemon fainted, her eyes widened as she made out other forms behind the giant moth: all the missing trainers huddled up at the end of the cavern. They blinked blearily, groaning and snuffling, and even in the wan light Marnie could make out something that was conspicuously missing in each woman’s picture:

An enormous, round, heavily pregnant belly.

She blinked again, cogent of the Frosmoth turning its attentions to her—no, not it. Her. Marnie’s mouth dried as she saw a long and slender ovipositor sticking out of Frosmoth’s thorax.

“The missin’ trainers,” she finished in a whisper, “they all was female.”

Realizing she was only seconds away from being stuffed full of eggs like the rest of the trainers, Marnie released her oldest and trustiest partner, Morpeko. But before she could even order the little pokemon to the fore, Frosmoth screeched and unleashed another Bug Buzz attack.