She stood on some magnificent spire, overlooking the whole land… One paw gently tapping her wand into the other…

Her firey crimson eyes barely moved… Her pupils were dull, yet burned with an intensity of hatred that few could have fathomed, let alone assumed someone could feel…

She stared out across a countryside… A squalid and dried place covered in prickly brown grass and shriveled trees. Once lush fields of crops and laughing Pokemon had been replaced by a dead wasteland under an angry red sun…

A world destroyed by an endless thirst… Where water was as precious as life itself… 

Her wand smacked into her paw hard enough to cause a bruise, but she didn’t even flinch…

She took a deep breath, and then closed her eyes…

When she opened then, her shoulders relaxed. She grinned softly, and her tail flicked back and forth excitedly. The Braxien glanced down at the map in her paws…

Around her was a beautiful green forest. Deeper in, it was dark and foreboding. People called this place a nightmare. Perhaps it was a Mystery Dungeon, but few had been able to pierce the gloom and find a way to its center. It seemed to be an unending maze of paths and trees that no one could hope to navigate…

...until now.

She pulled her wand from her tail and used the charcoal to make a few light marks on the page. The map was painstakingly hand drawn over months of grueling exploration. There didn’t seem to be the strange Pokemon who inhabited most Mystery Dungeons here, but none the less the fatigue and the oppressive atmosphere made it difficult to stay even one night. Most said that staying there longer than a few days would cause the shadows to subsume you entirely… Pulled into a waking dream of pain and suffering from which there was no escape…

And yet, she had done it. A basic map. And potentially… A path…
She continued making a few notes, but was interrupted by a sharp rustling next to her. She glanced as the bushes burst and a Rockruff tumbled out, rolled twice, and then collapsed in front of her looking utterly dizzy…

“...RRG!”

“If you’re going to run about that cluster of trees, Dak, you could at least tell me if there are any game trails there…”

The Rockruff shook his head hard and got up onto all fours. He was tall; his head came above the Braxien’s shoulder. His fangs were already large and the gleam in his eyes was tinted a ruddy pink with what could only be described with obsession… or perhaps, madness…

“No, there WEREN’T. There’s NEVER anything to hunt here. It’s empty and everything is too scared to try and nest here! The only things here are birds and they don’t last long in these bushes and branches and…”

He stomped in a circle, ranting. The Braxien paid him no heed, softly marking a few more things before putting her wand away and then cupping her chin in thought…

“Even with the map we’ve made, it’s useless unless we can assure that we follow the paths correctly.” she said, with a light sigh. She had interrupted the Rockruff, whose ears were stood on end as he stared at her furiously from behind. She never seemed to listen to him…

“You can’t walk paths without notes?!”

“Shush.”

His ears folded and he growled low in his chest…

“The paths aren’t always the same… But they follow a certain logic. Once I’ve worked it out a bit more… Hmm.”

She turned and looked over her shoulder suddenly. It took Dak a moment, but he did the same…

His fangs bared again…

“We’ve been followed…”

Dak turned and dashed into the underbrush again. The Braxien took a few steps… And then paused with a grimace as she heard someone emerge into the clearing behind her…

“...You.”

Dak kept moving as quickly as he could, his nostrils twitching as he paused only to push his nose against the ground. He stopped suddenly, and moved his head back and forth. He inhaled deeply over a small divot that he would have ignored otherwise…

Two toes… Amphibian.

WHAM!

He went sprawling and looked dizzy again. He winced as he stood and backed away quickly, dodging back and forth as water shurikens briefly embedded themselves in the trees around him before they burst. The splashes stung like acid as he fled his pursuer, until…

He burst from the treeline and yelped as he tripped, blinded by the radiance that streaked across the horizon and set the sky a-fire with a gloriously beautiful red sunset…

It distracted him just long enough that he felt three watery blades jam into his back, putting him down…

Ilianna strolled casually from the treeline, idly spinning a shuriken on her finger and nudging her hood back with her other…

“No one is allowed in the forest, by order of the Guild, until someone can figure out whether it is dangerous or not…”

“What do you think we’re doing!?” Dak barked, as he stood himself up and flinched, then collapsed again. Illy was far stronger than him, at least thanks to her advantage. But he tried again as she stopped in front of him. The light slowly dimmed, her body becoming a silhouette as the sun receded until it was a mere sliver on the horizon…

And then it winked out, and left them in the murk…
Dak pushed himself up again, his legs shaking like they would snap in two if he kept trying. Ilianna took a stance and prepared to knock him out entirely…

“It’s dangerous, and you should let someone who is qualified…”

“And that’s YOU?!” roared Dak, arching and howling in fury. It was enough to make the Frogadier step back in surprise…

“Explorers with rules and soft REGULATIONS to make sure Pokemon don’t get HURT… RrRr... Do you think you’ll stay in that stupid Guild until you and your stupid little mate have STUPID LITTLE CHILDREN!? WITH HIM!?”

Ilianna was stunned, having not expected that. Dakarai was not the most articulate, so to hear him speak so sharply on the subject made her nervous immediately. Especially the part about her ‘stupid little children.  Her hand went over her midsection...

Dak seethed, but noticed her touch her middle. He grit his fangs and spat a bit of sandy blood from his maw before charging at her…

She dodged, and he disappeared into the treeline. Ilianna spun and braced her stance to fling a barrage of shuriken where she could hear the underbrush rustling, knowing it could be no one but him…

The night deepened… Moment by moment, it became harder for her to rely on her eyes, and the shadows beneath the trees grew into pitch black darkness…

She stopped, panting… She crouched there, focusing as hard as she could to listen to the movements. She wasn’t sure where he was… What he was doing… She cursed under her breath, whispering to Mew for a little bit of light…

The clouds swirled above… Parted…

The full moon glinted down and cast the scene in eerie blue…

“...AAAAAAAWWWWWOOOOOOOOO!”

Ilianna’s blood ran colder. She started to stumble backwards as a broad paw reached from the treeline and gripped a trunk, dragging along it until the gouges were so deep that the tree would be rotting by morning…He leaned slowly out… No longer a worrying large-fanged puppy, but a Midnight Lycanroc, with a grin so sharp that it could cut stone…

“What did I say…? So maybe you’ll have children earlier than you expected…!”

“W-What…?” Ilianna asked, barely above a whisper. Dakarai gave an uproarious laugh before he suddenly dashed forward, and the poor Frogadier had to turn and flee, or risk finding out what the wolf that now nipped at her heels had meant…

Within the forest, the Braxien hadn’t fled. She hadn’t lead a grand chase like her companion did, nor did she panic or start flinging her fire around in an attempt to defend herself.

The raging inferno could do little against the rushing river, after all.

She turned around, and sure enough she saw the Dewott there… Same stance as when he had accepted his Guild Badge so long ago… Hands on his hips, legs apart, chin lifted, and his grin wide…

“Hello, Noah.” she said, rolling the map up in her paws…

“Hello, Malla~!” he said, in an almost singsong voice. He had the air of one who got to punish a particularly naughty child…

“Still with that little reptile I see…”

“She’s an AMPHIBIAN.” Noah said, dropping his grin for one moment to be deathly offended, before smirking again… “And I see you decided to return here… After a hundred times of telling you no… AND you enticed that damned Dakarai to come along? Tsk. It is so not like you to manipulate others for your own gain, Malla…!”

Noah spoke casually and sarcastically. He stretched his arms up with a grunt, popping his joints, and then took his scallop from his fur to twirl it lightly... much like his mate was twirling her Shurikens right now no doubt…

The Braxien seemed less than impressed. She started to walk, and so did he, so they could circle each other…

“You disappoint me Noah… I thought for certain that there would come a time where you would break ties with that foolish Guild. Whatever you see in it, I can’t follow…”

“That much is apparent, Malla, considering you LEFT…”

She paused, her paws wringing around the map in frustration at that…

“And you stayed.”

Silence. You could cut the tension with a butter knife…

“You did say you wouldn’t hold it against me…”

“I lied.”

She said, bluntly. It was enough to make Noah laugh. Malla grinned too…

“So I suppose that makes us rivals…? Is that why you call yourself ‘Team’ Drought?”

He disparaged the word ‘team’, since it had only ever seemed to be her… Dakarai was a surprising addition, but Malla’s gaze hardened…

“You’re going to take me back then. You’ll lock me up and some Guild fool will find the secret to this place and give all that power to some short sighted workhorse whose only desire is keeping peace and making Poke’, instead of what NEEDS to be done...” 

“Save it.” Noah held up a paw, and Malla’s eyes snapped wide in indignation… The irony was palpable… “I’ve heard your ‘greater future’ speech a million times. You act like you’re destined to save the world or something…”

“I suppose YOU are instead, Noah?”

“Look.” he said, suddenly stepping forward. She blinked and backed away until she bumped a tree. Noah’s paw thumped into it next to her, effectively trapping her if she hadn’t been already…
“You are coming with me. That part I can’t do anything about. If I let you go, who knows what nonsense you’ll get up to out here. You don’t seem to understand Malla… We’re not here because the rules say you’re not supposed to be. We’re here because you are… And whether you got hurt or not, it…”

Malla suddenly lifted her muzzle and kissed him…

Noah was surprised, but only a little. He sighed heavily, and steam curled from both of their lips… It lazily drew up into the air and dissipated amongst the darkened treetops…

In the distance, a wolf howled…

Malla’s eyes closed as she deepened the kiss. The map was dropped and her arms were put around him… Then one of her legs lifted and hugged her hips firmly to his…

He broke the kiss and panted hard…

“...PAH! Ma-Malla I can’t… You knew you couldn’t the moment you left the Guild… I have Illy now, and if I did YOU of all Pokemon, she would…”

“Noah..”

She gripped the fur on his chest and yanked him against her. Eye to eye, she let out another soft sigh… A puff of steam…

“You always were bad at hiding your arousal…”

His face went red. She was right…

“You’re just going to use this to slip away…”

She released him suddenly. All affection stopped, and her eyes hardened again…

“Fine then. If you want to take me back, then take me Noah.”

Noah stared down at her… then suddenly yanked her other thigh up. She squeaked, especially as he rolled his hips and dragged his member up her front. She started breathing faster…
“You were always too hot to leave to wandering alone…” Noah whispered into her ear, before kissing down her face, biting her neck, and lining himself up to her puffy canid spade. She breathed faster, her eyes widening, her body heating up at so many good memories…

“You were always… Too good to be trapped within their walls…” she argued… Noah paused… His member was laid against her… Until he thrust, the tip jamming firmly up and only stopping once he hit resistance within her…

She arched and gasped, and gave a sharp puff of flame…

“You could still join us… Imagine the places we could go… The things we could do…!” Noah whispered, already starting to dampen. Her heat meant the scene was literally steamy…

“You… Nhh… Haven’t… Caught me yet… And if you think I’ll… Join that… Foolish place again… After all they denied of me...”

He silenced her with another deep kiss, and as the night drew deeper shadows around them, they remained illuminated by the jets of flame that came from her throat, along with her cries of pleasure…

The map laid nearby… Fluttering softly in a patch of grass, just under a bush…

When Malla had been thoroughly pleasured, she was dragged away by Noah. The parchment was left behind, and for a time that was the end of it… 

The forest remained silent thereafter for years… What might have been ages or a few blinks of the eye, for all one could measure in this strange place. But the map remained, curled and protected just so in its little hiding spot. It yellowed and became weather worn, until…

One day a cream coloured paw picked it up curiously… The Spinda stared down at the swirling paths, took note of the small marks, and then realized that her dizzy eyes could spot something… 

A pattern...

“...She’s dangerous.” 

Noah was telling the room, though it was clear his mind was elsewhere… Fixated on certain memories, just the same as Illy’s. She hadn’t said a word since it was revealed who it was in the Deep Forest once more…

“Ever since she discovered that place, she has been obsessed with it. It doesn’t surprise me, now that Explorers are probing into it more, that she’d show up… But a part of me was desperately hoping she had found some swampy hut to settle down in and… I dunno, become a witch. And instead…”

“And you’re sure Dak is still with her?”

Asked Illy, suddenly. The Chatot puffed firmly a few times in annoyed frustration…

“WHAT DO YOU THINK!?” the Chatot barked, in a perfect impression of Dak’s voice. Everyone was silent for a moment, taken aback at the harshness, and how intimidating it was…

Noah moved over to Ilianna to place his paws on her shoulders. She glanced up at him with those half closed eyes, always seeming to catch on to something others didn’t…

“So.” he said, mostly to her…

“So.” she repeated, in a much more terse tone.

Farri glanced at her male half, who glanced back and shrugged. Sayl, sitting like they were riding a saddled horse, tapped their pom cluelessly to their chin, though they also looked concerned… They were a bit of a strange team mom, but a ‘mom’ they often were nonetheless…

Li took a few steps to stand next to Mua, whose arms were gently crossed as she ‘stared’ at their leaders. Orin floated next to her, swaying lightly. Abra developed much slower than Dewott, for example, and so this was mostly just experience he would put to use later… And his meditative pose didn’t hide his ears tilting in each direction as each Pokemon spoke…

“So what?”

They all turned and looked at the ‘newest member’ of their Team… 

Nahna lifted her chin, just a bit. She didn’t share her papa’s grandiose stance, but there was a suave smirk on her face that imitated its effect…

“So these are some terrible Pokemon and we go to hunt them down. Do you think after Team Wellspring defeated a cosmic being that we would just set our heads down and sleep for the rest of our lives?”

Noah couldn’t help but smile proudly. His brow furrowed as he squeezed Ilianna’s shoulder…

“It’s not so simple. Malla is not a force to be reckoned with. If we enter the Deep Forest and she knows what’s going on but we don’t, then we’re as good as blundering straight into a cage…”

“She’s really that intelligent?” Femmi asked, as Farrim instead grumbled and stamped his feet a few times… “She can’t be more intelligent than us, we’ve spent our entire career as an Explorer learning!”

“Malla has spent her whole life.” Ilianna spoke this time. When she spoke of the Delphox, her voice was a bit more sharp and had just a hint of bitterness to it… “Her and her kind peer into the future. And there are those who presume that the witch saw something she didn’t like…”

“And went mad?” Sayl asked, as Li rolled her eyes…

“What an absolute-…” she paused… Then turned and ran from the hut…

Everyone was concerned, as Mua blushed and muttered “Ah, don’t fret. She’s not feeling well.”

How many times had those words been said in the village? And how many times had they turned out to be a ‘mere’ sickness?

Noah grinned even wider…

“Nothing is going to get done if we pace here and pretend that we can come up with some perfect plan.” he said, as he thumped a fist into his palm…

“For now, we treat this as priority. Farri, Sayl… Farri. You all stay here and handle the simple gathering requests.”

“ALL OF THEM!?” the three whined in unison. A stern look from Noah had them all collapse against one another in shared sympathy for being given the dull chores…

“Meanwhile, Nahna will accompany Garde back to the Guild. We need to inform the Dragonite that there might be a situation…”

“And you’re going to leave me to that boring task?! That’s a long trip, and you’re gonna have it handled before I even get BACK!”

Nahna stomped sharply and Noah flinched. He turned and walked over to her, hands on his hips…

“Do you want to be a warrior?”

“YES.” she said, as she took her scallop out and flicked it in all directions with the smooth grace that one could only have after a literal lifetime, (however short so far), of training from her mother, and instruction from her father…

“Do you want to save other Pokemon!?”

“OF COURSE!” she shouted, with the gusto that only someone who grew up on bedtime stories of her parents’ grand victory could muster…

“Then do something that might save dozens.”

Nahna’s eyes flared in frustration. She stared her papa down for a few long moments before she turned and slammed the door.

There was a whoosh. The Gardevoir was suddenly there, hand on the door’s handle, her silent gaze staring obediently at Noah…

“...yeah. Chase her. Try to get her back, or at least take her to the Guild… Don’t do anything stupid…”

The Gardevoir nodded firmly and then gripped the handle. Noah took her arm…

“And keep her safe… You understand?”

The strange ‘clone’ had never spoken a word. Never made much of a sound. Never had much of an expression beyond distant curiosity. She was like a robot, barely sentient but so intent on understanding life that even just being in a room with others was exhilarating… Watching them talk… Interact… Love… Her imagination budding from a dusty garden to a verdant crop…

Now, she gave a firm nod. Her brow knit lightly, and she turned to leave…

“OOF…”

She bowled over Li as she rushed after Nahna. Li laid there on her face in the dirt, and puffed a cloud of it sharply as she sat up…

“...Are you… INSANE?! You’re going to let her protect your daughter?!”

“Of course, Li, you don’t trust her… But I do. She hasn’t done anything in these years to warrant otherwise. She’s an orphan, not a villain…”

“All it’d take is…” Li muttered, trailing into grumbling as she walked back in and… was pecked on the cheek by Mua.

The Fighting type silenced immediately. She looked far more docile…

“Well, don’t worry over it. The path back to the city is well travelled and clear. Nahna will get to fight some bandits if she’s lucky!”

Li shot Noah a look, then gave her shark toothed smirk…

“And it leaves us free to go put a foot in some gravelly goon’s tailside…”

“RAAAH!”

Dakarai slumped heavily and then pushed himself up… The Lopunny below him was breathing like she’d just run a mile, holding her chest as her poor puss leaked the seed that had just been jammed into it…

Dakarai turned and flicked his paw casually before walking away. A pair of burning orbs appeared in mid air before the rest of the Pumpkin ‘faded’ into existence, and slapped her wispy arm sharply between the rabbit’s legs, making her squeak in pain…

A paper talisman was adhered there, as if it was fused to her skin itself. It was written in bold red script, obvious characters for things no one should ever desire…

“Another fool, another pyre, swell enough to feed our fire~” laughed the Gourgeist, as she waddled slowly away and yanked a vine…

This section of the Deep Forest was densely packed with trees, dead and living. It was barely possible to move between them for how tightly together the snarling thorny branches were. Many paths had been cut, and needed maintaining else they grow back within a few days. With the canopy above weaving tightly with dense foliage, it made the place as good as a cave… Pitch black at all times, except for perhaps the height of noon…

But now? It was so dark that the only light cast was the swirling green flames within the hollow body of the whimsical ghost, who strung the Lopunny up by her wrists to… ripen…

“Ashi, Ashi, Negata, Negata…”

Her whispers called forth flickering will o’ wisps from the surrounding darkness. The dim light they cast illuminated dozens of Pokemon strung up and tied down, and though their species varied by degrees they had a singular affliction that they shared…

...the ones that had survived it, anyway…

“Lllllliving things… Disgust me so… Abhorrent to keep yourself from gaining your true form…!”

Her voluminous arms seemed as if they could cover the entire countryside in their fearful embrace…She reached up and tickled the chin of the Lopunny, who was taking shaky, fearful breaths… 

“Don’t scream… Or do, I don’t mind… Isn’t that right, my lovelies…”

An utterly terrible howl emanated from the gyre of hellish imagery within her jack o’ lantern…

She breathed in lightly as if she had just heard the most wonderful music. She drew her hands along her swollen, pregnant middle…

”Goha Fortus, Lutus Menta, my little lamb…”

“I told you not to speak that language in my woods.”

Purgis stiffened and spun. Malla stood there, at the ‘entrance’ to this ‘room’. She tapped her staff gently on her palm, and even with the light so dim that her form was almost entirely obscured, her eyes were as bright as the pumpkin’s flames…

“My apologies, my dearest mistress, but I was merely checking on my crop… It will be so bountiful this harvest…!”

Malla rolled her eyes a bit and then turned to leave. Purgis followed immediately, her hands folded in a servile manner…

“All goes well?”

“Do you think Team Wellspring being alerted to us, and having the map, is well?”

Purgis winced hard, as if she had just been struck…

“Our deepest anxiety manifest! You’d presume we would be used to that by now…”

“Hrm.”

They walked along corridors in the brush until they came to better lit areas of the forest. Here, though still dense with trees, it was not so choking that it couldn’t be navigated without maintaining… And the leaves above still allowed in a dim and comforting light.

In other words, a bit further from the centre…

Malla paused, took a turn, and ended up in a clearing that had a few amenities… A chair, a bed, a trunk, and a desk. Malla walked to it and looked down at it silently, staring at the scattered notes that always seemed to get just a bit closer every time she looked at them… to revealing the secrets…

If she only had the map she had drawn so long ago… It would all come together, but… To map it out anew would take months, and cooperation from her slavering pet that she didn’t have…

She cursed allowing his evolution to happen at night. It meant his lead had  to be so much shorter…

“I didn’t raise you to doubt yourself like that…”

Malla spun and flicked a fireball directly at the Gourgeist’s head. It burst into flame, and the Ghost winced, and held the spot for a moment, but then breathed out as she rubbed the ash from her eyes and gave a light, conceding chuckle...

“DO NOT.” Malla said, before the Gourgeist’s smug little mouth could open…

“I ordered you never to imply such things again, Purgis. ORDERED.”

“Of course, miss…” The Ghost said, her eyes drooping with an implied smugness that just made the Delphox’s eyes light up brighter…

“You… Stay out of my THOUGHTS.”

“I do not need to read your mind to know you are beginning to doubt what we have been working towards, for so long…”

Malla turned back to the table and thumped her fists down on it, into two scorch marks that just had more cinders added as she fumed quietly with rage…

“I did not have what I needed before, and now I do not have the time to GET IT. What do you suggest we do?”

“You fear this Noah then… You fear what he’ll do, if he finds us here…”

“Am I a fool to fear the Water when I burn so bright?” Malla said tauntingly, throwing one of the crone’s lessons back in her face. But it only made the Gourgeist smile with a maternal satisfaction that made Malla slam her fist down again and begin to walk away…

The Gourgeist followed… She always followed…

“DAKARAI!”

Dakarai stepped up beside her after a moment. He ripped a berry in half and chewed it, showing how drained he was… He usually didn’t touch the sweet ones unless he needed energy… 

“Proud of yourself? You couldn’t put your damned lust aside for two moments and this is what happens. You have them on us…”

“It wasn’t my fault. Do you see me sprouting wings?”

The side-long GLARE that Malla gave him silenced him instantly…

“What do you propose we do?”

Dakarai paused, just behind Malla as they got to another clearing. This one had supplies stashed away, showing how many weeks the ‘Team’ had already been out here. They could have been out here for a long time, but now…

Well, no use in holding back. He shoved the rest of the berry in his maw and grabbed another as he chewed…

“Flee.”

“HA!”

Malla burst briefly with flame and Purgis had to carefully pat a few of them out. The Delphox glared at him even harder then…

“So you’re a coward now?”

“No. But they have the map, and they know we are here. So that means they’re going to be here any moment. And probably, they’ll get further even than you. To that heart you want into so badly…”

“If I did not know better… I would say you were attempting to get me to destroy you before they could imprison you, AND that insatiable lust of yours…”

She stepped up to him and he flinched again, and flattened his ears…

“So, you seem far too casual for someone who does not have a plan. You MUST have some grand vision for how we escape this horrid situation that is YOUR fault, yes?”

She was stalking up to him, and looming over him now… He was acting like he was; a scolded dog… Ears flat, a soft growl in his throat, his tail between his legs…

“No? It seems you haven’t matured from that pitiful fugitive that begged for my guidance all that time ago!”

“I NEVER…”

There was a rustle, and the tense Pokemon spun…

Causta strutted carefully over a fallen branch, and then into view…

All of them calmed slowly with her presence… Though they said nothing, some strange aura about them brought the mood down from knives… To a bubbling curiosity… As each one caught her eye, their expressions changed...

“...She does have a point…” Purgis said, with a slight grin, as the Psychic Ostrich strutted up to Malla, and bowed low…

“...On the border… A Mienshao…” the Delphox muttered...

“Li…” Dakarai answered, “The Bandit…”

“A… An Abra?”

“Mua. The Daughter…”

“A Frogadier…”

“Ilianna…” he hissed, his voice dripping with mixed emotions of seething hatred… and overwhelming desire… “The Ninja…”

“And…”

They said the last word in unison…

“Noah…”

“That… HERO…” Malla growled, as she started pacing… “That… Stubborn… Vile little… WATER type…”

Dakarai stomped and turned to leave. Malla glanced at Causta, and the wolf moved off quickly into the woods with the bird swiftly following…

“What now then? Just a desperate fight against the wall?”

“Let Dakarai be our stone wall for now. If what Causta said is true, then all they must do is delay them.”

She turned and moved quickly off. Purgis followed just as quickly with a jolly little amble…

“The village then?”

“They will have brought the map with them, but if they use it to accomplish this then it won’t matter. We just must prepare…”

“A haunted little moment to be certain, one way or the other. Do you think he sees? From within his dreams…?”

That gave Malla reason to pause, and blink…

“I never… considered.”

“Do you think he can bring the endless night…?”

Purgis twirled about to the front of Malla, to stand there with her head tilted…

“Do you think blotting the red sun will change what you see… When you set your Sight to the Future…?”

Malla turned, but Purgis twirled to follow…

“Dare you gaze into the flames again, lass…? Go on… Go on!”

“Leave me alone, you vile witch, or when we awaken the Nightmare you will be the first to be FED TO HIM.”

Purgis disappeared with a puff of flame and a noise that sounded suspiciously like a giggle, and Malla tapped her wand against her palm a few times in furious, worried rhythm… 

She hadn’t looked into the future in many years… When a Delphox gazed into the flame, each flicker was a potential future that could exist… At the fringes were the faintest wisps… Tiny, far reaching possibilities or momentary diversions that joined in with the whole soon again after…

Then was the oily ‘near future’… Here things mixed and moulded to an almost worthless degree… Much insight could be gleaned on the nature of those around you with it, but for predictions it shifted too often to be of any real use…

And then there was the brightest flame… The ‘centre’… The glow that it all swirled around… The sure and furthest future… Well… Most thought so anyway… Some Delphox saw only vague potentials… Things such as, a bright future, or a dim future… Others saw distinctive events… Moments that would assuredly come to pass, if many things did not change… but sadly, they lacked the context to know who, or why these things will occur…

And some gazed obsessively for long enough that a vision of the future became clear…

Where they stood before a world barren of life… Burned by the sun, scoured of life… A wasteland…

She did not know when that red sun would come… That blood red opal of terror that haunted her nightmares…

But she knew she could not allow it…

“Extreme measures…” she muttered to herself, scornfully… 

She tapped her palm very hard and seemed to snap out of it. She turned and began to move again, quickly…

She bounded through the forest with more grace than you would expect for a creature with such fur, but her kind had long since instinctually learned how to move easily around the obstructions, and even use them as assets. In a moment, she was in another corridor that was close to the centre of the woods. Here, if you went too far, there was a chance to become hopelessly snarled in the winding paths, and then you would be lucky to find a way back out…

Here was one of the few structures Team Drought had built… A hut, and Malla’s home. She skidded to a stop in the dust just outside the front door, breathing softly and holding herself a moment…

She had a strange intuition that something was wrong…

She opened the door and peered around… It wasn’t a particularly well made hut, but it had something of a cozy charm… If the Deep Forest, especially here, wasn’t a terrible place to sleep, she would spend more time studying there … But now, Malla moved through nervously… The front room was empty, and…

She burst into the back room. Looked in the closet…

“No… Tessa…!!!”

“This?”

Noah asked, his eyebrow raised as he inspected his surroundings…

It hadn’t taken Team Wellspring long to travel the countryside and into where the trees thickened. Eventually, after more than one branching path going deeper into the woods each time, they reached a place that had a stone marker that read;

“The Deep Forest Lies Beyond, Go No Further”

“This is… Somewhere I’d take Illy for a picnic. This isn’t even… SCARY.”

“And I suppose if you stand at the entrance to a cave, still within the sunlight, it is perfectly fine in the depths below?”

Ilianna said, with the patient calm of a wife who had corrected her husband a thousand times… And still took a bit of smugness in it. Noah’s cheeks reddened and he huffed lightly…

“Well, we’re stocked right?”

“Water… Food, Berries, a full Adventurer’s Kit if I do say so, boss.”

Mua said, with a smile. Li stood nearby, thumping her foot. She looked a bit drained already, but no one was willing to bring it up… Except now…

“...Li…”

“I don’t want to hear it.”

And that was that.

Ilianna unfolded the map and studied it. She pointed, and they began to walk…

As far as Dungeons went, it was fairly dull to say the least. It was, as Noah said, almost idyllic enough to be a place for a picnic, although there was a strange and undeniable sense of… foreboding.

As Ilianna lead and conversed with Mua, Noah fell behind… And Li did too, glancing down at him...

He was already grinning…

“You little rat…”

“I’m not the one who came whining about her heat.”

“And Ilianna lets you?”

“You have to ask at this point?”

She glared at him for a few long moments, as Mua pointed out a hidden path they needed to take…

“Well what about MY girlfriend?”

Noah glanced up at her, blinking…

“Is she upset?”

Li opened her mouth… Then snapped it closed as she realized she hadn’t even discussed it with Mua. Noah’s grin got wider…

“How do you manage to be so insufferably righteous all the time… How do you manage to get away with it...”

As Noah couldn’t help but devolve into a chuckling fit, Ilianna paused and stared at a symbol on the map…

“...I know this… This is an old witch’s glyph… But it doesn’t make sense here…”

Mua tilted her head and leaned in to look…

“What does it mean?”

“...Home?”

There was a rustle in the trees… The Team spun in unison to face it… 
It froze… Then rustled harder... before…!
A Braxien stumbled from the bushes and fell with a soft ‘oof!’…

She picked herself up as the Team stared in surprise… This was clearly not some manifestation of a Mystery Dungeon… It seemed more like a helpless young fox that would fall victim to one, if anything. She wore her fur lightly trimmed to resemble a lower skirt, as if she was already evolving, although it was clear she was far from it. She clung to a hood as she fell, and now it fell back to reveal her ears were undeniably larger than normal to an almost absurd degree, but it seemed to only make her more adorable. Their eyes were immediately drawn to hers, and how deep they were… She wore a haunted look in a piercing gaze of radiant blue flame…

Now she pulled at the cloak nervously… She didn’t seem to know what to say… It was as if she had never even dreamed she would be in this situation… Where she would have to… TALK to someone…

“Uh… C… Can I be… Uh…”

“Rescued…?” Mua said, as Li stepped forward. Both were immediately concerned, and ready to take her into their arms if not for their years of experience keeping them wary for a trap…

“You don’t sense anything then…?” Noah asked the Abra, who shook her head softly…

“No. There’s no… Malicious thoughts, no traps. Just… Strain. What happened to you…?”

The girl inhaled in a shaky gasp, and held her shoulder as her heart thudded so painfully in her chest… Her eyes fluttered and she fell to a faint… She hadn’t run so far in so fast, in so long… But no… She couldn’t give up..!

Would these strange Pokemon save her if she fell into the nightmare now…?