“did you really have to use this much repellent?” Winnie asked, covering his nose. The illusion fox was disguised as a Unovan Zoroark at the moment to discourage any ghosts that might think we were an easy target to pick on.

  “Yes.” I replied, “It’s either repellent, or my flashlight gets swarmed by both bugs and wild Pokemon. Take your pick.” I wrinkled my nose as the mud unpleasantly squelched underneath my rainboots as we walked.

  “Why not use Will-O-Wisp?” Haunter suggested before pointing at Lampent, “Or maybe the literal lamp Pokemon?”

  “Will-O-Wisp flames aren’t going to work very well in a fog like this.” Bantte responded, gesturing at the drifting fog all around us.

  Lampent nodded, “Uhh, yeah. My flames aren’t as bright as a flashlight.”

  “i’m getting mud everywhere.” Winnie complained, irritatedly shaking the mud off one of his feet.

  “Imagine not being able to float.” Haunter teased. The illusion fox rolled his eyes, “let’s just find whatever we need and get out of here. this place is so muggy.”

  “I’ll second that.” I said, looking around, Angela hadn’t given any clues on what we needed to look for, and she didn’t answer any later questions I had thought to ask about it even though she had clearly read the messages.

  At least most members of our search party weren’t landbound and hindered by the mud like Winnie and I. Glados, Haunter, Banette, Midmagius, and Lampent were out helping look for anything that might help a ghost Pokemon evolve. We had decided that Rufflet and the weaker ghosts would not be involved in the search, something about the swamp just gave us all bad vibes–another reason why we weren’t looking to stay long.

  Frankly I was a bit jealous of them being able to float and not worry about getting trapped in a mud sink the moment we stepped off trail.

  Aside from the creepy as fuck atmosphere, almost every trail on this route was muddy year-round, and full of bugs, quick sand, and mud sinks. Don’t even get me started on the Swalots who could eat an adult human in one gulp and stomach acid strong enough to disintegrate steel in minutes, or the lurking Whiscash, ready to electrocute anything edible that stepped into their pools. No sane person would come here without a good reason.

  The haggard, blackened trees and the big red and yellow warning signs telling people how not to die helped keep the route’s popularity in the negatives.

  Goosebumps formed on my skin as the fog thickened once more to the point that I could no longer see more than five feet in front of me. It was like when we were in the catacombs, but somehow the vibes were even worse.

  Why does it always have to be a stupid fog and a temperature drop? Can’t they get creative and use something else?

  “Looks like we’re getting close.” Mismagius commented, her orange eyes narrowed.

  I grabbed Kaiju’s dusk ball and let him out, “Stay close to us and think bad thoughts Kaiju.” I told the dragon as he shook himself and made a happy muppet face. “Zwei!”

  “Switch to dark type Glados.”

  The AI shot a weak Dark Pulse and converted into a dark type. The combined dark type energies were enough to make the fog halt and slowly retreat a few feet. That pretty much confirms this is ghost related.

  “Ummmm…” Banette vocalized, the nervousness of her tone instantly put me on edge, “Where’s Haunter?”

  I looked up and did a quick headcount. Haunter indeed, was not among anyone here. “Haunter?!” I shouted. There was no response.

  “i don’t like this.” Winnie muttered, his ears twisted like satellite dishes as he looked around, “i can’t sense him anywhere. the fog is like an impenetrable wall.”

  “SCAN. FAILED.” Glados stated matter of factly. “TESTING. DARK. PULSE.” A beam of black and purple dark type energy blasted a hole into the fog, but the fog simply reformed in a matter of seconds. That earned a displeased series of noises from the AI.

  “Okay,” I slowly said, “We need to stay together.” First rule for surviving a horror movie, never split up.

  “Is Haunter in danger?” Lampent asked in a wavering voice, his flames spiked with anxiety as he floated lower to the ground so he could jump into my shadow at the soonest hint of anything dangerous.

  I wish I could do that too.

  Mismagius floated over to the lamp ghost to reassure him, “Well he did come here to evolve, so perhaps this is part of the process. I trust that he’s capable of protecting himself.”

  Flexing his claws, Winnie growled, “well i don’t appreciate the fact that we also have to get stuck in a stupid fog as part of the process.”

  “And, I’d be more worried about what he might have to protect himself with.” Banette added, shooting a Dark Pulse into the fog, which had the same effect that Glados’s Dark Pulse had.

  Lampent’s yellow eyes widened and he partially floated into my shadow as he whined, “Does that mean he’s in danger?! We gotta find him fast!”

  “Zwei zwei zweilous?” Kaju chimed in.

  Winnie shrugged in response to the teen dragon’s question, “hopefully not, but we really should get moving so we can find him quickly in case he is.”

  “ZWEI ZWEI ZWEILOUS?! ZWEI! LOUS!” Both of Kaiju’s heads shouted. I winced at how loud his voice was and was about to turn to Winnie for a translation when Kaiju began running into the fog. I jumped and grabbed onto his wing, but was dragged like a kite for a few feet before losing my grip and faceplanting in the mud.

  Covered in nasty swamp mud, I spit some dirt out of my mouth and scrambled to my feet as fast as I could to run after Kaiju as I shouted into the fog, “KAIJU YOU GET BACK HERE RIGHT NOW MISTER!”

  I was quickly dragged back to the rest of the group by Glados’s Psychic, and the Winnie and the AI quickly began removing the mud from me as I growled under my breath, “Oh he’s in so much trouble. KAIJU!”

  “Hello?! Anyone there?!” Haunter’s voice echoed unnaturally in the fog. It had been a few minutes since he had unexpectedly found himself isolated from the rest of the group. One moment, he was right next to Banette, the next, he was by himself.

  The grey-white wall that was this awful fog didn’t exactly help with figuring out which direction he was heading in and which he came from, so he just kept going as straight as he could, hoping to run into something.

  It felt like forever before he flew out of the wall of fog and into a circular clearing, at the center was a quaint little cabin with smoke lazily drifting from the chimney.

  The ghost Pokemon squinted at the cabin suspiciously looked around before floating a bit closer to it. Some movement behind him made him whip around to look once again. Now there were countless humanoid silhouettes standing stock-still, just deep enough into the fog that he couldn’t get a good read on any details aside from their general shape.

  Even more unnerved than before, Haunter decided that he’d have better chances going inside the cabin and getting a barrier between him and whatever those things were. He knocked on the door, and heard some shuffling and someone’s muffled voice telling him to come inside. So he did so, quickly shutting the door behind him.

  The cabin’s interior was well kept, though the only furniture in the room consisted of a bed and stove on opposite sides at the back, and a table with two chairs in the center. Seated in one of the chairs was a tidy young man in business casual clothing.

  Haunter tilted his head in confusion as he took everything in. Something about this man’s amber eyes, neatly combed dark purple hair, and the specific shade of the light purple outfit. It gave the ghost Pokemon a strong sense of apprehension and deja vu, even though he was pretty sure he’d never seen this human before.

  The young man gave Haunter a reserved smile, “Glad to see you. Come, take a seat.” He gestured to the empty seat.

  “Where the hell are we?” Haunter asked as he hesitantly floated over and took a seat.

  “The in-between.” The young man replied, folding his hands, “Well, that’s what I call it. I’m not sure if there is an official name for it.”

  Haunter frowned, “Explain.”

  “Well,” The young man paused for a short moment as he considered his words, “this is literally, the world in between the living and the dead. It’s normally impossible to enter this place without being already dead, but this swamp, and I’m sure a few other places in the world, are exceptions with doorways to this place.”

  There was a longer pause as something outside wailed, it voice radiating sorrow and regret in a way Haunter didn’t know was possible. The ghost Pokemon nervously glanced out the cabin’s window and shivered.

  With a casual shrug, the young man commented, “I call them splinters, because they’re what’s left of fragments of souls that got lost here.”

  There was another wail, followed by another, and then another, and another, until they all merged into a nonstop chorus of wails and sobbing, like some sort of horrific choir.

  “Fragments? That got lost?” Haunter asked, unsettled by the disturbing noises coming from outside.

  The young man shrugged again and said matter of factly, “Those things are what’s left of dead souls who got trapped here for too long and lost themselves. I’m not sure why, but some people’s souls get split apart after death and get lost here. Those who get stuck here too long without reuniting with themselves turn into one of those.” He pointed towards the window.

  “Is this common?” Haunter asked apprehensively, “There’s a lot of uh, splinters out there.” He glanced at the silhouettes milling about in the fog outside.

  The young man shook his head in response, “No, most of them are pieces of the same being that can no longer be reunited because they don’t even remember who they are.”

  He tapped his chin thoughtfully, “I’d imagine the rest are souls who got ripped apart before they could move on. It’s pretty gruesome. My theory is that the splinters think that they can steal a part of a whole soul for themselves, but that obviously doesn’t work, so they just end up creating a new splinter.”

  Then, with a jolt of horror, Haunter realized that the others were probably wandering around in this place too, and without any protection. The ghost Pokemon floated out of his seat and began heading to the door, “I gotta go warn my friends about these things!”

  He put his hand on the doorknob, but flinched away as the wailing and howls got more frenzied, as if the splinters sensed that he was about to go outside.

  “That’s not a good idea.” The young man got up from the table and joined Haunter at the door, “They can’t come in here, but we can’t go out.”

  “So we’re trapped?” Haunter asked.

  Once again, the young man shrugged, which Haunter now found a bit infuriating, “Kind of, but I know a way out.”

  “Really?” Haunter asked with a mix of skepticism and sarcasm.

  “Well…” The man hesitated before continuing, “hmm, this will be hard to explain in words…” He sighed and then just decided to be straightforward about it, “I’m you, and you’re me.”

  “What?” Haunter then backed away a bit from the man, “and how do I know you’re not one of those splinters trying to get me? You’re a ghost that got stuck here, so you’re not an intact soul, are you?”

  The young man looked a bit exasperated and put a hand on his hip, “While I’m only a part of a soul, please, don’t mistake me for one of those,” He pointed to the faceless creatures outside the window. “Besides, I have a face, and those things don’t have the intelligence to trick their victims.”

  Then the man points at Haunter, “And you must’ve gotten that sense of deja vu from seeing me, right? Kind of like deja vu? Many souls have come through this place since I got here, but this is the first time I’ve gotten that feeling.”

  Seeing that Haunter still wasn’t convinced, the man kept going, “I’m the part of the soul that contains memories of when we were alive. I’m not sure what you are, but you somehow stayed in the living world and became a ghost Pokemon with no memories from your former life. Were you even aware that you were formerly a human?”

  Haunter frowned, “Yes, of course I knew.” He didn’t mention that he only knew because old man Trevenant told him so.

  “It’s probably why you haven’t been able to evolve normally, isn’t it?” The man pressed, “Most people use the trade link to evolve, but if you don’t have access to that, gathering enough ghost type energy to evolve should be enough. I can sense that you’ve more than enough stored away.”

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  “Here.” The man offered a hand to Haunter, “We’ll know for sure if nothing happens when we made contact. If we become whole again, we should be able to leave. I’ve seen it happen before.”

  The ghost Pokemon stared at the offered hand, and then at the young man’s determined eyes. Well, it wouldn’t hurt to touch the hand, right?

  So Haunter hesitantly reached out and touched the man’s hand with a finger. The moment there was contact, they were both plunged into darkness.

  It took a few seconds of disorienting darkness before Haunter opened his eyes and blinked a few times, and his vision returned to normal. He did a double take as he realized he was seeing through eyes that weren’t his, and in a body that he couldn’t control, a human’s body at that.

  He was shaking hands with a pale-green haired man, donned in an extravagant gold and blue robe that was decorated with large eye patterns, and a strange crown-like structure at the shoulders. It was all quite striking, especially the shiny emblem attached to his cloak, a half white, half black shield with a blue P struck through with blue lightning.

  Haunter vaguely remembered being hired as a head researcher by this man, but before he could try to recall that memory, he was ripped away from that scene and thrust into images and other scenes that flashed by nauseatingly fast. Images of school, textbooks, friends, places that felt familiar but weren’t, the amount of information suddenly being shoved into his head was painful.

  The most prominent things among these memories included a family picture, two cheerful middle-aged men posing with a teenage version of the young man from the cabin, and two other teenagers. “BEN! Stop stepping on my toes!” “I’m not!” “Yes you are!” “Kayla, come stand here, Ben, you stand with ????????????????.” “But dad, I wasn’t!” “Ben better not step on my feet too.”

  Haunter barely had any time to process the family photo before it shifted into a memory, a beautiful woman with auburn hair snuggling with a Crobat and Venipede, the mere sight of them sent a pang of regret through his nonexistent heart. The Venipede wriggled out of her grip and ran over to him, causing the woman to turn and smile at him. She reached for him and opened her mouth to say something.

  Then the scene was ripped away and replaced with a sterile lab full of advanced tech, and fragments of conversation playing. “With the DNA Splicers, we’ll eventually be able to unite the three dragons back into one. We just need to make improvements to…” “...Colress…” “This development will make history! We should apply for a bigger grant…” “…kemon league…”

  Then he saw the inside of a jewelry store, then a farm somewhere with the family from before, then a funeral, then him catching his first Pokemon–a Zubat, and then—

  ???????????????? gasped as he opened his eyes again. A few cars beeped as they drove by. The lights of the city illuminated the night sky and reflected on the wet pavement.

  What was he doing again? Oh, yes. He was on his way home from the jewelry store. Must’ve spaced out, perhaps he wasn’t getting enough sleep.

  A cold breeze, made colder by the autumn chill, blew by. ???????????????? shivered and shoved his hands into his pockets to keep them warm as he walked. He forgot to bring his gloves. It would certainly have been nice to have a fire type. Jenna had been showing him a lot of Growlithe videos recently, but that wasn’t possible at the moment because their apartment building didn’t allow fire types. Most apartment buildings in Nimbasa didn’t.

  Well, perhaps he’d be able to get her a Growlithe once they moved out to the suburbs. ???????????????? smiled as he felt a small velvet box in his pocket. That would actually be a pretty good proposal plan.

  They’d have to find a place with a large yard. His Whirlipede had just evolved, but it wouldn’t be long before it evolved into a Scolipede. Crobat wasn’t a small Pokemon either.

  The light of the moon was blocked out as he walked underneath an overpass and waited at a stoplight for the walk signal. He stared at the subway entrance on the other side and shivered as another breeze blew by.

  “Urgh, why’s it got to be so windy today?” He grumbled to himself.

  He looked to both sides for any cars. This intersection usually wasn’t very busy at night, so it would be fine to cross without waiting for the green light.

  A shuffling noise made ???????????????? pause before crossing. He grabbed Crobat’s Pokeball in his pocket and pressed the button that enlarged the ball. This was kind of the perfect place to get mugged, he knew because he’d been mugged before in this exact place.

  He glanced behind himself, and then all around, but saw nothing. There wasn’t really any place a person or Pokemon could hide nearby either. Was it just his imagination?

  A gasp escaped ????????????????’s mouth as a sharp pain erupted in his chest. He looked down and saw the tip of a knife penetrating his jacket; blood was already staining his clothes, and he felt a hot trickle make its way down his chest before the knife retracted. He stumbled forward as blood sprayed from his punctured heart.

  Black dots danced in his vision as he took his hands out of his pockets to break his fall onto the concrete. His mouth moved as he tried to speak, but the only sounds that came out of his mouth were garbled gurgling, and he spat up blood as his arms gave out and he collapsed, grabbing at the sudden pain spreading in his bleeding throat. When did that happen?

  He weakly looked up, locking eyes with a hunched over person in a strange ninja uniform, their long white hair trailed in the cold wind. Their grey eyes, even colder, passively watched as he slowly bled out, and his vision went black.

  Haunter gasped as he opened his eyes again and looked around, disoriented and confused. He was back in the cabin, but the warm and clean room had been replaced with a completely empty, cold, and rotting interior.

  Looks like whatever protected this place is gone. We should get ready to run, splinters are gonna overrun this place soon.

  Haunter shook his head, those were his thoughts, but they weren’t his either… He looked around. The man from before was gone.

  The ghost Pokemon rubbed his face, and then recoiled as he saw that his hands were now attached to his body. He floated over to the window and examined himself in the faint reflection. He was now a Gengar.

  He gave himself the signature Gengar grin and gave pointed finger guns at the reflection, “Nice.” Then his smile died as he stared longer at his reflection. He didn’t look…right. There was a pang in his chest as he remembered the ring box. He wondered if his Crobat was okay. Unlike Cofagrigus, he didn’t have a way to know if his family was okay. Would it even be right to try to find them again?

  The shadow Pokemon shook himself and slapped his cheeks. He had to get out of here firs–THUNK!

  The glass reverberated as a pale, boney hand slapped itself onto the window. Gengar flinched and floated back, readying a Shadow Ball in one hand.

  His eyes widened as a whole mob of faceless, fleshy, humanoid things crowded around the cabin window. Their combined weight began to crack the window’s glass.

  Don’t let them touch you. Gengar–but–not–Genger’s voice whispered in Gengar’s mind, They’ll take things that you want to keep…

  The shadow Pokemon flinched again as something slammed into the door, making it crack and sending splinters flying. Gengar didn’t bother waiting for them to break in and flew up through the roof.

  “Woah!” Gengar yelled as he dodged a set of pale boney hands trying to grab him, “These things are on the roof too?!”

  A blast from Gengar’s Dark Pulse dissipated the creatures, but that attack seemed to set off the entire horde. Their slow, methodical movements quickly became frenzied, and they began desperately climbing over each other to try to get to him.

  The ghost Pokemon flew higher and began shooting Dark Pulses downwards as he avoided the crooked hands reaching for him. The sight of countless pale, fleshy bodies crawling over each other like bugs, literally building hills out of each other, was quite the disturbing sight.

  Gengar methodically kept blasting them away with Dark Pulse as he got the heck outta dodge, but they just kept coming. There was a literal endless sea of these things. It was a wonder that other-him was able to survive here without being able to fly. The cabin was a lifesaver, but a few memories were lost to the splinters before I got there.

  “That said, how do we get out?” Gengar growled. He did a barrel roll to avoid another mountain of splinters and blasted the base with Dark Pulse to make it fall.

  Dark type energy, a lot of it. It would probably be easiest if we had a dark type Pokemon with us.

  “I know a dark type, just need to find a way to navigate back to them.”

  I can’t help you with navigation.

  “Great.” Gengar glanced down at the literal sea of splinters milling about below him. What was he going to do about this? This entire situation?

  Then something large fell from the sky and splatted on the crowd below. Gengar paused midair and looked. It was a splinter. How’d it fall from the sky? It’s not like he could see very far because of the fog, but there weren’t any high places nearby that it could’ve jumped from.

  Then more splinters began raining down from the sky, falling like skydivers without parachutes. All of them mindlessly reaching for Gengar regardless of distance or the fact that they were literally falling from the sky.

  “What the?!” Gengar exclaimed as he dodged a few splinters, “They’re raining from the sky now?!” He took off, flying even faster than before as he dodged the splinters that were somehow falling out of the sky.

  Hm. This is new.

  “Don’t be so casual about this! We’re literally running for our lives here!” Gengar shouted at himself.

  “GAGH!” Suddenly, he felt something grab onto his ear and pull him down, unbalancing him. The shadow Pokemon’s arms flailed as he tried to regain balance, but that quickly turned into a struggle to get free as he felt more hands grab onto him like Grapplocts and begin pulling him down with them.

  Gengar shrieked and tried to phase out of their grasp, but it didn’t work, so he resorted to blindly shooting Dark Pulses everywhere. It was able to fend the creatures off for a few seconds, but every one that was destroyed by the attack was replaced by ten more, and he was slowly dragged into the sea of faceless monsters.

  Gengar spun and twisted around, trying to loosen their grasp on him. The pathetic, pain filled wails of the splinters filled his ears as he kept spamming Dark Pulse in the hopes that it would make these things let go of him.

  Then he began feeling foreign forced trying to pull at his mind, trying to steal memories, his identity. It was like trying to keep a pack of starving Mightyena away from a Mareep carcass. He writhed as he tried to tear his arm free to aim an attack, but he was too tired. These things weren’t just trying to drain his memories, but his energy too.

  Well this certainly isn’t a boring way to die. Gengar thought to himself. Other-him the yelled, We weren’t planning on dying in the first place! What happened to not being so casual about this shit! MOVE!

  He felt the weight of the splinters pressing down on him as he tried to move again, but he didn’t have the strength for it. The only thing he could do now was try to keep his mind from being torn apart, which was easier said than done. He was beginning to feel woozy, what was I doing again?

  Then his ears twitched as they picked up a new sound amongst the sea of screaming and wailing. The sound of bodies being hit and sent flying, like that one time he witnessed a Sawsbuck getting hit by a truck.

  There was a shift in movement from the splinters, and their grips loosened as Gengar heard a familiar voice yell, “DIIIEEEEEEE!” “I HELP FRIEND!”

  A wave of dark type energy tore through the splinters, scattering them like a horde of Rattata. Gengar felt himself drop onto the ground, and he yelped as the dark type energy crackled painfully against his skin.

  Kaiju leaped into the clearing he had just created, both mouths occupied with tearing the limbs off of a splinter.

  “Kaiju!” Gengar shouted as he slowly got to his feet. He couldn’t be happier to see the dragon.

  It took a few seconds of ragdolling the splinter into nothingness before Kaiju spotted the shadow Pokemon and trotted up to him.

  “I SAVE FRIEND!”

  One of Kaiju’s heads grabbed Gengar by the arm and plopped him onto the dragon’s back.

  The teen dragon then looked back at the mob of faceless creatures surrounding them, milling about uncertainly, and shouted, “LEAVE FRIEND ALONE! OR I WILL EAT YOUR FACE!” One head shouted, then the other followed up with, “THEN I WILL EAT YOUR LEGS!”

  One of the faceless creatures wailed belligerently and charged, its hands greedily outstretched, but it was easily caught by Kaiju’s Crunch attack and ragdolled around until it was dissipated by the dark type energy.

  “NO I SHOULD EAT YOUR LEGS FIRST SO YOU CAN’T RUN, AND THEN I WILL EAT YOUR FACE AND MAKE YOU WATCH AS I EAT YOUR FACE!”

  Dark type energy flared up around Kaiju from the use of Nasty Plot.

  Gengar’s signature grin returned to his face as he tapped Kaiju’s neck and asked, “You ready to destroy?”

  Both of Kaiju’s heads roared, “YES! I DESTROY!” There was another flare of dark type energy as Kaiju psyched himself up.

  “Dark Pulse, maximum power.”

  Kaiju unhinged both of his mouths and began spinning around as he released two utterly devastating beams of dark type energy. It only took a few seconds for him to clear out the faceless things around him, making the rest backpeddle and keep an even wider distance from them.

  “I DESTROYY!”

  Gengar patted Kaiju’s necks, “Yes, you’re the best destroyer Kaiju.” Then he looked around nervously as the splinters slowly began closing in again. These things were annoyingly persistent.

  “Let’s get out of here, we don’t want the others to worry about us being gone for too long.”

  “YES! WE GO!” Dragon type energy swirled around Kaiju as he prepared to use Dragon Rush. Gengar gripped the dragon’s neck feathers and shouted,“Wait! we don’t even know which direction–”

  “I SMELL!” Kaiju’s left head yelled, then his right head yelled, “I KNOW DA WAY!”

  The shadow Pokemon held onto Kaiju’s neck feathers for dear life as the dragon launched himself like a missile and crashed through the ocean of splinters like a wrecking ball. The shadow Pokemon spared a glance behind at Kaiju’s trail of destruction. His eyes were unfortunate enough to be subjected to the sight of a writhing wave of fleshy bodies and blank faces rolling after them. He was gonna have nightmares about this for years to come.

  Slowly, they gained ground on the horde. Putting on a brave face, Gengar gave the horde a crisp middle finger and shouted, “Sayonara suckers!”

  Then the fog swirled around them, and some invisible force began slowing the splinters down. The two rocketed out of the thick magic fog and into normal swamp fog. BAM! Kaiju crashed into a barrier and tumbled to the ground, throwing Gengar from his back.

  The shadow Pokemon’s eyes widened as he saw Kaiju about to roll over onto him, so the shadow Pokemon quickly phased into the ground and emerged in another spot just in time to hear Az yelled, “WHAT THE FUCK WERE THOSE THINGS?!”

  Followed by Banette shouting, “Haunter you idiot!”The marionette Pokemon grabbed Gengar and hugged him, “Where the heck did you guys go?! Are you okay?!”

  Gengar was too tired to do much and he gave her a weak hug back, “Doing just fine.”

  Winnie came over and patted them both reassuringly on their backs, “you gotta call him gengar now.” Then he observed Gengar, “you look like you’ve been through hell.”

  “I literally have.” Gengar sighed.

  Banette wriggled out of Winnie’s grip and floated in the air with her arms crossed, “Yeah, yeah, yeah. Congrats Gengar.”

  “You look tired.” Az said as she handed the shadow Pokemon a sitrus berry.

  “I SAVE FRIEND!” Kaiju proudly yelled, spraying juices from the berry he was eating everywhere.

  Gengar nodded as he ate some of the sitrus berry, “Yeah, he saved my ass from those things.”

  “YES!” “I RIP ENEMY!” “I TEAR ENEMY!” “I SHRED ENEMY!” Kaiju’s head said, alternating sentences.

  Az let Kaiju finish his victory speech and patted his heads, “Yeah, good job Kaiju.” Then she get very stern look, grabbed the teen dragon’s cheeks and leaned in close, “Don’teverrunofflikethatagaindoknowhowworriedIwas?”

  “Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.” Kaiju said in reply, and his heads nodded.

  “i wanna hear about what happened.” Winnie said, then he lifted a foot and irritably shook the mud off. “once we get out of the swamp, that is.”

  Gengar finished his sitrus berry and grinned as he looked between Az and Winnie, “and maybe once you guys have a bath. You guys look miserable.”

  I didn’t know about Winnie, but I sure did feel miserable covered head to toe in mud, despite having help from Glados’s to get the majority of it off. The fact that I would’ve been literal roadkill if Winnie didn’t stop Kaiju with a Protect, and a few minutes ago there was a literal wall of faceless, naked, humanoid monsters crashing towards us like zombies straight out of the World War Z movie didn’t exactly help my mood.

  From the lack of details Angela gave us, I had just assumed we’d be finding something like a mossy rock, or icy stone in the swamp, not legit nightmare fuel. I’d rather go another round with Isolde. Actually that might be worse. Both are terrible.

  I cursed under my breath as I felt mud squish in my boots. Ew. Angela was going to have a lot of explaining to do, just sending us into a situation like this with no explanation. She’d better have a good reason for this.

  If this shit keeps happening, I might have to switch from generalist to dark type specialist.

  But for now, just knowing that everyone was okay was enough. Gengar and Kaiju definitely had an insane story to tell later.

  Mismagius and Banette quickly took Gengar back to the shadows to rest, he could barely keep his eyes open, even after eating the sitrus berry. After returning Kaiju, Winnie, Glados, and I began making the trek to look for a spot for Sahara to take off from.

  Despite being a ground type, the landshark would not tolerate getting her scales dirty outside of a battle. We’d have to find a non-muddy area like the one we landed in, and I for sure wasn’t going back through that damn swamp just to find that spot again. No sir.

  Winnie looked up at the rays of sunlight filtering through the fog, “the sun’s already out. were we really out that long? what time is it?”

  “THE. TIME. IS. FIVE. FORTY. SEVEN. A. M.” Glados reported.

  That helped explain why something still felt off to me. I could’ve sworn that were were in that stupid magic fog for no more than twenty minutes, but of course an entire night had gone by.

  I don’t care anymore, I just wanna go take a shower and switch to some non-muddy clothes.

  “how long is it gonna take to get to camphrier?” Winnie asked, irritably shaking his foot again.

  “APROXIMATELY. FORTY. FIVE. MINUTES.” Glados answered again.

  “booooooooo.” Winnie groaned.

  We eventually got to a more wooded section of the route (though it wasn’t any less foggy), and came to a fork in the road. The signpost that was supposed to be there was completely gone. Eaten by a single Gulpin, we knew because the little shit was resting right next to the stump that was once the signpost.

  “Gulp.” The blob burped, exuding a small puff of toxic gas.

  The Pokedex chime played as Rotom poked its camera out of my pocket and scanned the blob. “Gulpin, the stomach Pokemon. There is nothing this Pokemon’s stomach can’t digest, as it contains special enzymes that dissolve anything, even scrap iron. Most of its body is made up of its stomach—its heart and brain are very small in comparison. As a result, it can swallow something its own size.”

  I sighed and rubbed the bridge of my nose, “Okay, can you find a map of this place?”

  Rotom hesitantly levitated out of my pocket and looked around before starting up the maps app. It was still very on edge due to the magic fog incident. I couldn’t blame it for still being scared.

  I was legit considering just letting Sahara out right here and dealing with her bad mood later, cause I wanted to leave. Now.

  My head snapped up as I heard something rustle in the bushes to my left and a figure, still mostly shrouded by the fog, stepped into view. “Do you need help with direc–” BAM! My fist found itself buried in the newcomer’s stomach in a super painful liver punch.

  “PORY!” Glados beeped in surprise.

  The guy doubled over, groaning and clutching his abdomen as he slowly sank to the ground while my brain caught up.

  “Oh shit.” I gasped as I crouched down next to the trainer, giving him a string of apologies, “Ohmygodimsosorryyousurprisedme, omg are you okay?”

  “you just punched someone.” Winnie keenly observed. He had turned himself into a Lucario shortly before I punched the other trainer and didn’t warn me that he had sensed someone. I gave him a look that said, ‘Shut it bozo.’

  The trainer put a hand up and wheezed, “I’m okay, just give me a second.” So I stood up and gave him some room.

  Uhhhh, wait, I think I recognize this guy. Black hair, black jacket, a mega ring, and the signature blue scard that matches Charizard X? Alain? It’s definitely him.

  …Greninja should’ve won… Wait that hasn’t happened yet.

  Once the guy’s pain subsided, I helped the guy get up. He straightened himself as I apologized once again, but he waved his hand and said, “It’s fine, really. I’ll live.” I grimaced as I saw him rub his sore side.

  “So, do you need help with…” Alain vaguely gestured towards the Gulpin and the signpost stump.

  I nodded, “Yeah, that would be super helpful. I just need a non-muddy area my Garchomp can fly from. She’s uh, kind of particular about staying clean.”

  The trainer nodded, “I understand. My Charizard doesn’t like mud either.” He pointed down the left trail, “There’s a clearing down there you can use.”

  I nodded and gave Alain a thumbs up, “Thanks, uh, have a good day. Again, sorry about that.”

  Then I hurriedly grabbed Winnie and ran down the left trail with Glados following. So awkward. That was awful. AHHHHHHHHH!