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CHAPTER 310 - ASCEND, CHILDREN OF CORONET II

Paras scuttled ahead of us with agility I hadn't expected. She could navigate these caves like the back of her hand, jumping over crevasses or crawling onto walls when they were too large to leap over, all while keeping to the corners and shadows. In normal circumstances, she would be hiding from predators even when Brood-Mother was inside of her very being to help. Paras never stopped even once, not even when we reached the edge of her mom's territory and we got back to the lake's shores, where the tremors were more pronounced. The water was agitated here, sloshing around like it was the ocean. No longer having to breathe spore-filled air was a relief, though. While I trusted Brood-Mother now, there was no denying that breathing around her territory had been an awful experience and fresh air coursing through my lungs again did wonders. Sunshine seemed to think the same, with the way he drew upon heavy breaths, greedily sucking onto as much air he could while Jellicent looked at him like he was insane and Claydol simply observed.

They wouldn't get it. They had no lungs and no need to breathe.

Paras screeched at us— and enthusiastically snapped a pincer to get us not to dawdle for too long. She probably wanted to get back to Parasect as soon as possible. It was difficult not to smile at the little bug mimicking her mother's body language. An hour ago, without added context, this would have been a horror to witness. I no doubt would have thought Brood-Mother had control of her body and was using her like a puppeteer.

She could do that, but she hadn't, because she cared for her children.

Paras kept away from the water, and the tremors seemed not to affect her speed whatsoever. The cold was bothering her a little bit, however. I could tell, not through her words, but through the way she moved now that she was away from the relative warmth of her mother's spores and her hundreds of brothers and sisters. Once in a while, she would shiver, racking the grey sections of her shell together into an unpleasant grind, and she walked closer to the ground, almost scraping it with her stomach by tucking in her legs. Sometimes I'd ask her to walk closer to Turtonator so she could feel warmer, but she always refused while emanating sentiments of worthiness, like she shouldn't have to rely on others, but only her own self. Hers was a simple mind and difficult to understand fully, but compared to Mimi's, it was like reading an open book, so I'd practiced quite enough.

The cavern around us seemed to shift less and less the further in we went, as if a perimeter around ourselves had been rendered immune to Coronet's mourning. Along the way, we came across a few Pokemon in need of aid, too. Nothing too extravagant. I'd used a bit of the potions supplied on me on a Lotad who'd wounded by a falling rock in the water. There was a Rolycoly who had gotten splashed by water and was too weak to even move and needed Buddy's help to extract the liquid from the inside of her body. Sunshine's help was needed as well to warm the rock type back up. The small flame he surrounded her with supercharged her with enough energy to go faster than she ever had, and she thanked us before zooming away on her wheel-like stomach.

"You know," I said as I turned toward Sunshine, "once upon a time, I'd wanted one of those."

He looked at me in an almost-offended manner, and I snorted.

"I was looking for a fire type, and they live in Coronet, so… yeah." A snap of Paras' claw told us that it was time to go again, and we started walking. Though she wanted to hurry— and I wanted to hurry as well— helping the people of the mountain was what I'd sworn to do. What I wanted to do. "I might have caught one of them had I not heard about you. I'm happy I did, though."

He bashfully looked away and grumbled under his breath. Thank you for saving me and not giving up on me, he'd said.

I patted him on the arm. "You're a grouch, but you're our grouch. Isn't that right?"

Jellicent heartily agreed, and Cassianus launched into one of their rambles about the pros and cons of being a grouch, which we were content to allow, both to fill in the dead air and because it amused Sunshine to no end, but it was also because it took my mind off things.

I was strangely more worried for my friends than about the end of the world, if that made any sense. Life without them, for all intents and purposes, would be akin to that fate anyway. To keep going, being among the last of them, or the last, was unthinkable for me. It made every inch of my skin itch, and the worst part of it was that I would have no one to direct my ire toward, if Team Galactic was to be defeated. No one to exact revenge upon.

I would be emptied. Gouged out. Meaning itself would be lost to me.

My throat tightened, and I kept going with a renewed spring in my step. We walked around the lake for around thirty minutes before I saw the washed-up body of an ACE Trainer, easily recognizable thanks to their orange uniform under their torn-up mountain gear. He wasn't anyone I knew, and I felt a little ashamed at the sigh of relief out of my mouth when I realized that. The body itself was in good condition, if a little pale and bloated, meaning he had probably drowned after that attack from Gyarados and all of the other Pokemon who had retaliated once they'd struck at her.

"It was give and take, always give and take, and you simply took too much," I whispered at the corpse. "You figured yourselves kings of this place when we aren't even close to that." I closed his eyes, which were still half-opened. "I should have been better. I'm sorry."

I dragged the body away from shore so it wouldn't be taken away by the water, just in case the League went on an operation to retrieve corpses after this was all over. It'd be good if there was a body left to bury.

Why apologize? Cass asked privately asked. I worry that—

"I won't be like after Lou." I made my way to the beach again under Paras' irritated stare. To her, this man had been an intruder, so helping him was a waste of time, especially when he was dead. I could almost imagine her saying that his nutrients would return to the soil and give life back to those who needed it, but she couldn't quite articulate that. "I'm okay. It's just that had everything gone better these past few months, this could have been avoided. I guess I have to reap what I sowed too." There were… two Pokeballs to be found here, though I knew from when I'd seen this man earlier he had six. Had they been lost in the water?

Either way, I lay them next to his arm.

"It might seem a little tone-deaf, considering I'm alive and they're dead but these deaths are heavy, I guess," I finished.

I will try to understand, Cass hummed.

"Thanks."

Finally, we left the lake's shores and began a climb upriver instead toward a series of cliffs that I used Princess to navigate. I would recall my Pokemon, carry Paras in my arms and have her guide us. Ordinarily, she would have been able to climb those on her own, but it would have been a lot slower—

"Princess! Princess, down!" I yelled.

We'd been lucky we were flying slow. I caught a flash of pink in the corner of my eye thanks to how bright the area she was standing on was, full of glowing moss and a few glowing Volbeat led by an Illumise. Maylene was swinging her arms wildly with a look that could only be described as sheer distress. It was only a Geodude facing her— no, not even facing her. Slowly edging away from her, and yet she was yelling at him like he was about to attack.

"Stay back!" the girl yelled, her voice propelled further than it ever should have been. "Don't force me to crush you, you shitty piece of sentient rock!"

"Get down." The words were immediate and swift. "Don't startle her."

The fairy type answered by saying that was a little difficult, at the moment, but she swooped down low enough for Maylene to hear me should I yell. Instead, the Gym Leader's palm burst forward in the sky, and a blast of aura exploded toward us before dissipating halfway through. Now, Maylene was an aura-user, but she was also a human, and these days they were only strong enough to stand up to the weaker Pokemon like that Geodude had been. The rock type had already scrambled away, using his hands to speed away from who he had perceived as a threat as soon as she grew distracted.

"Maylene! It's us! It's Grace!" I called out.

It was difficult to tell from here, but I swore her shoulders relaxed a smidge.

"Grace…?"

"Can we land, or not?!" I asked. "I just want to help, yeah?"

While her attacks would only mildly hurt Princess, she could snap me and Paras like twigs should she want to. Maylene nodded, her fists clenching at her side, and Princess landed amidst the glowing Volbeats who had apparently decided to ride out the storm like Brood-Mother and her children had. As soon as Princess' feet touched the ground, I was off her back. I swung my legs above her and landed in the soft moss. I almost slipped and fell because of the earthquake, but I managed to catch myself on Togekiss' wing. How had I found Maylene amidst this chaos?

"What—" No, not what happened. That would be stupid to ask, given that she landed in the water like everyone else. I approached slowly, and she said nothing, instead looking away. "Are you okay— do you want to…"

Damn it. I was bad at this with people I didn't know. She'd been crying, that much was evident. Her eyes were red and there'd been a quiver in her throat when she'd yelled at that Geodude. Her gear was wet, and she looked like her teeth constantly chattered. She'd seemingly lost her bag, too, so all of her supplies were gone.

"My Pokemon," Maylene cried. "They— I lost them when I landed in the water."

My heart dropped to my stomach. "They drowned?"

Maylene paled. "No!" Her voice boomed slightly, making me and Paras behind me flinch. The bug type scuttled behind Princess and squealed while she reassured her with a pat of her wing. "I swam to shore as fast as I could… I didn't want to freeze to death, so I just swam. I swam, but…" she choked up, and her eyes drifted to her belt. "I didn't realize I'd lost them."

I restrained the coming relieved sigh at the idea that they weren't dead and the Pokeballs had only unclipped. The fact that she hadn't frozen to death despite still being soaked in cold water was crazy to me. "They were in their balls, though, right? They'll be okay," I said, trying to reassure her. We were only a foot away from each other now, but I was still uncertain about if she would lash out or not.

"How can you know that?" she asked— demanded of me.

She had a way of talking that was very menacing. Like she could crush me in an instant. I'd grown used to seeing this in Pokemon, but not in people themselves, and the last time I'd seen Maylene like this was when I had tormented her myself. I knew she wasn't going to do anything, but I couldn't help being on edge.

But to answer her question, the truth was, I couldn't know that. I believed it, but I couldn't know.

"Pokeballs are basically magic," I said. "They'll be okay. When this is all over and Coronet feels better, they'll send people to retrieve your team."

She hesitated for a few seconds before giving me a half-convinced nod. "Can we go back? You have a Jellicent, you could—"

"It wouldn't work. I don't want him to get too far away from me, or we run the risk of getting separated. I'm sorry. That lake is way too big and too deep."

Maylene shut her eyes tight. "I figured. I just wanted to try."

"I'm sorry."

She clicked her tongue. "Stop it. I already told you to stop apologizing all the time." She took a deep, calming breath and finally, I felt safe around her. She leaned to the side and looked at the scared Paras, who was eyeing her from behind Princess. "Did you— did you catch that?"

I turned toward the two Pokemon. "Paras? No, no, she's guiding us toward the next layer. We were almost there before we ran into you, but she has her own life to get back to and stuff."

Had she wanted to come with me, I would have said yes. In a way, it would have meant that she'd always have a piece of Brood-Mother with her, which made for some interesting questions, but it wasn't meant to be and even though I understood Paras and Parasect as a species now, that did not mean I was equipped to handle them in any way shape or form. I could try, I knew I could, but the consequences of failure and the grief that would follow would be far too large for me to handle. If Brood-Mother had failed after centuries of attempts, as had many scientists in the field, I doubted I would ever come close to reaching symbiosis between the spores and Paras herself.

"So… she knows where to go?" Maylene wiped the remaining tears off her eyes and cheeks and sniffled.

"She does! Her mother told me she was great at navigating the area, and she is."

"Her mother— you know what, okay." She worked her jaw and crossed her arms. "Fine, then. Let's get moving."

"Huh?"

"I'm coming with you," she said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. "I have no idea how the hell you found me, but I'm not letting you out of my sight again."

"Maylene, you don't have your—" I stopped, not wanting to phrase this in a rude way.

"Without your Pokemon, it'll be dangerous."

Maylene wordlessly stomped a foot on the ground, cracking the stone below her until it dented and crumbled into a hole from which fissures spread out and reached me.

"Point taken," I whispered, turning toward my bag next to Princess. "But at one point, you'll need oxygen and I don't have enough for two people—"

"Then I'll turn back when it gets hard to breathe," Maylene said. "And trust me, I can take more than you'd think."

After that display of strength, I believed her. It was one thing to hear about aura-users and how they could affect the world around them, but another entirely to see it happen. I'd heard about Maylene having been able to take out grown men at her Gym at seven years old, and she routinely sparred with Pokemon, but those were only rumors and stories, with how private her father had been when raising her. Then again, I'd found out these past few months that stories were more important than I'd ever given them credit for.

"Okay."

"Good, because I wasn't going to take no for an answer. Let's get on your bird already so we can get to the summit."

Princess scoffed at being called a bird, a noise that was almost human, but always not quite. At least she hadn't called Maylene any names.

"What?" Maylene huffed. "I call Cynth's Togekiss a bird and he doesn't mind."

At the mention of Cynthia's Togekiss, Princess lost all of her hardiness and her wings flattened at her side, exposing Paras who opted to climb on top of her already.

"She's only seen him once, but she has a bit of a crush on him," I explained, ignoring her protests. "She's still a kid, though, but you know, she can't help it no matter what I tell her— sorry, I'm rambling and we need to get going. Should we dry you up before we leave, or…?"

"No. I'll live."

"If you say so."

Maylene climbed on top of Princess behind me and decided that she would carry my bag instead of having Togekiss levitate it. If I had to guess, she wanted to feel useful, but honestly having found her was a weight off my shoulders. I'd been prepared for the worst and thought she might be dead after finding that ACE's dead body. As soon as we cleared the cliffs, we reached a grand, glowing waterfall with…

Bodies. They were the bodies of Team Galactic and their Pokemon.

I'd seen my fair share of death, but Maylene hadn't, and I could quite literally feel her squirm behind me because of how uncomfortable she was, and she kept muttering about how she was going to hurl and calling Arceus' name. Admittedly, these were in quite a bad condition. Crushed to a pulp and burned, mostly, though some had been cut apart at the fringes. Normally I would have asked for Princess to stop to investigate, but that wasn't going to end well.

I kept silent about the pleasure collected from seeing them dead.

Eventually, though, we had to land again so Paras could situate herself, and after twenty more minutes of trekking through the edge of the huge cavern, where few of the glowing moss or algae grew, we reached the way up. A gaping, silent void that only allowed the sound of the wind through. A jagged mouth full of sharpness, teeth upon teeth that never ended. I pinched my nose and blew as hard as I could to get the pressure out of my ears, but it just kept coming back. This was… stronger than it had been on the first floor, or maybe I was just imagining things. Paras chittered behind us as I recalled Princess, and I crouched next to her.

"Thank you for the help, little one." I offered her my finger, which she grabbed with a pincer. I knew she didn't understand the concept of a handshake, but the bit of pain I felt made the goodbye meaningful. I would never see her again, would I? "Are you sure you'll be alright for the way back? If you want, you can come with us until the mountain's settled. I'll take you back to your mother after."

The bug type denied me instantly, which I'd expected.

"I figured. I was just giving you the choice. Stay safe, then."

I waved to little Paras as she scuttled away as fast as she could, but before she could scamper behind a rock, she turned back, and tendrils of fungus writhed out of the cracks in her shell, and the mushrooms on her back glowed a little from their usual dim grey.

Brood-Mother was saying goodbye too.

I laughed, and Paras finally left.

"I'm not even going to ask," Maylene sighed. "Legendaries, you're odd. No offense, I mean, I knew that already. Guess having a God in your head will do that to you."

"What do you mean?"

Maylene tightened her hold on my backpack, and we eyed the 'stairway' together.

"I mean that the first thing you did when getting to Veilstone was give the Rangers a whole lot of trouble and make my day a million times more stressful, and that you were always weird even if we ignore the history between us. Anyway, Claydol should be enough, no?" she asked.

"Cass and Princess, I think. Better safe than sorry." I let them both out of their Pokeballs again and explained that they'd have to generate a shield above us in case something collapsed. "Ready?"

She answered with a silent nod, and we began our trek upward into the dark. There was a wordless worry between us, that something would go awry and we would get separated, but like the first path of the sort, there was nothing we could do to avoid that problem. One thing intrigued me as I let out a tired huff and kept climbing, however. Coronet was alive and responded to what I asked of it, to a reasonable extent. That meant that it must have sensed I was worried about Maylene enough for our paths to meet, which was well and good, but did that mean I could engineer a way to rendezvous with someone else? Cece, Denzel and the others?

That most likely depends on how feasible the ask is, I answered myself after a beat. Different layers were probably a no-no, and interacting with other shards stuck in their own tales might be tough. Denzel, Emilia and Pauline could still be an option, though, if they were also on the third floor.

Then again, it was a fool's errand to try and trick the force on which the world functioned. A story was always to a certain extent engineered, but it lost all of its charm and power if it could be exploited. If one could poke holes into it and tilt the scales in their favor instead of letting it play out. I wished I'd asked Bellatrix more about how they worked, though. Their structures, their shapes, the way the world thrusted people in and out of them…

"We're here."

I blinked. Maylene's words had almost flown over my head.

The third layer was breathtaking. It was beautiful in a way one didn't expect a cave to be, with crystals littering the walls of the wide tunnels here. Unlike below, this wasn't just one wide chasm where all life could congregate, nor series of tightened tunnels where anything but the most powerful of flashlights would see their lights swallowed by the darkness. The crystals bounced off so much light that rainbows formed everywhere my eyes settled for too long. They were so clear that our reflections were visible within, like staring at two mirrors opposed each other leading to endless copies.

Legendaries, it was cold. The layers I was wearing weren't doing much, and I almost felt compelled to release Sunshine again for warmth, but I wouldn't until we made sure that this area in general was safe and I could retire one of my barrier users.

"Woah," Maylene gasped. "This is like one of those hallways of mirrors or whatever they're called. They had one in Hearthome for a little bit. Fantina helped set it up a few years back."

That was a little out of nowhere and took me off-balance. I searched for a way to answer for a few seconds.

"How old were you?"

"Like, eight. My father brought me since it was during the summer and it was kind of the first time I interacted with kids my age. To be honest I didn't really have friends outside of my Pokemon until Nia and Candice took over their Gyms. Anyway, uh, it didn't go that well." Maylene's story ended in a murmur, barely audible.

"Oh. What happened?"

"Yeah, it was a horror attraction run by Fantina, right, with a bunch of ghosts and all, and she's always had a love for the theatrical. My Dad told me to go in alone and make some friends, and I got spooked by some asshole Shuppet in the plushie of a barely-held-together Bidoof. So, uh, I might have freaked and exploded like twenty mirrors on accident."

"Shit. How many people were…" I stopped.

Her face was contorted in guilt. "A lot of other kids and their parents were injured because of me, so… yeah, not the best holiday. It caused a lot of problems for my Dad, too."

We took a few tentative steps forward, and I let my foot settle on the crystalized floor. It crunched under the soles of my boots. Once we proved that the ground was stable to walk on, we continued without a direction in mind. There wasn't going to be much to do without a Pokemon to guide us. Princess and Cassianus whispered behind us about whatever came to mind. Currently, Togekiss was gossipping about Brood-Mother's old trainer and wondering what someone with three Paras had been doing in the middle of Mount Coronet that long ago.

"He didn't blame you, did he?"

"Oh, no, he was proud of me. I hated that part of him, you know. Or I guess I still hate that about him, among other things." She hunched forward, almost like she was making herself smaller. Like she hated admitting that. "But I'd never used aura that strongly before then, which I guess kind of makes sense, given that it's linked to your emotional state. Training is just training, you know? There's this fakeness about it no matter how much it hurts or my muscles strain."

"Meanwhile, if you think a ghost is about to kill you…" I guessed.

"I thought that Shuppet was going to eat my soul and turn me into a plushie," she said with a slight smile. Not a laugh, though, not when her Pokemon were missing. "But yeah, it was terrifying, and it showed my Dad how much potential I actually had. He'd ramble all day about how I could surpass him, and how I was a prodigy because aura was supposed to grow less, not more, from generation to generation."

"Aren't you? A prodigy both in this aura stuff, martial arts and battling?"

She looked at me and shrugged. "Yeah, I guess. Doesn't feel like anything, you know? It's been told to me so many times now that it just washes off my back." She waved her hands wildly and quickly added, "And I don't mean to brag, or anything! It's just how it feels."

"I didn't think you were bragging."

"It's hard to tell. You always make that same face," Maylene said.

"What face?"

"It ranges from emotionless to the point of being disturbing to you looking like you want to kill something," she simply said. "Though I guess you were smiling when you were with that Paras. And you smiled when you were having dinner."

"That's because my friends and their Pokemon were over. And because Cece was there. We were pretending to—"

Actually, it'd be weird to say that out loud when she already thought I was strange. Arceus knew how'd she'd react to us pretending the world wasn't ending.

I cleared my throat. "Anyway, I can smile. I'm a cheerful person."

Maylene laughed. "Okay."

"I am!" My tone was a little more defensive than I'd like. "I— you just haven't seen enough of me to tell!"

"I'm sorry, I've seen cheerful. I literally hang out with Gardenia and Candice on the regular… man, I hope they're okay."

Knowing how Coronet was acting, I doubted they'd ever make it to where we were, let alone to the top, unless they had a shard's help.

"They'll be fine," I tried to reassure her.

We kept chatting a little about her childhood, the way she struggled to meet her father's expectations as soon as he saw how much potential she truly had, after her scare in Hearthome. She vented about how she knew the only reason she hadn't gotten in trouble was because she'd been a Gym Leader's kid, and how frustrating that was to her, but soon enough, we reached a wall.

Like everything else, it was full of crystals, and there was no path around or above it. It was difficult to describe or understand, even, but there was a feeling of wrongness here. Like a subtle, almost invisible flaw. Maybe it was how perfect everything looked like someone had literally grabbed and arranged the crystals to look as beautiful as possible, or the way we'd seen zero Pokemon here so far, but…

I glanced at Princess and Cass. "Guess we can try Ancient Power." I touched one of the crystals, and my head felt like it exploded into a million pieces. My hands clutched at my forehead, and Maylene grabbed me by the arm to keep me from falling while Princess cried out in worry.

"What the hell was that?!"

I coughed. "I don't know. Just don't touch the crystals— what are you doing, I said not to touch—"

She tapped her finger on the glowing rocks a few times. "Huh. Nothing happens to me. Must be one of those shard things."

Legendaries, my head hurt. It was slowly fading away, but it reminded me of the first time I'd trained with telepathy with Cece's Slowking on the road to Solaceon.

My eyes widened. In fact, it was the exact same feeling.

"Maylene, do you think rocks can talk using psychic powers?" I asked.

She let go of me and sighed. "What are you talking about now?"

"This feels like the mountain trying to talk to me, but it doesn't know how. Like my mind is too fragile to—"

My heart sank.

I had the protection of Mesprit's full gift in my brain, and it still hurt that much.

"Yeah, my mind is too fragile to handle it." The words were hard to force through my clenched throat. I took a step away from the walls. "I won't be able to touch any of these with my bare skin, I think."

"Better find a spot clear of them when we have to sleep, then. Makes you wonder what those rocks are made of," Maylene pondered.

I asked Togekiss and Claydol to create a path through the wall, which they got started on immediately. Cass put a barrier around me so I wouldn't accidentally touch one of the stones again. The tunnel was wide enough for us to comfortably pass through, though it hurt my eyes a little to be in such a tight space with so many reflections. Eventually, though, we finally found what we were looking for.

Wildlife.

I'd seen only one Carbink in Coronet before, but there were too many of them here to count, all chock-full of gems that the ones I'd seen before— both in my Gym Battle against Roark, and in the first floor of Mount Coronet— simply didn't match. They were all huddled together, hovering right under the ceiling, not for warmth, but for reassurance, and the way they shone almost had them too bright to look at for too long. It made sunspots in my eyes. A lone Beartic cried out for her cubs, anxiously looking left and right to see if she could find them, but to no avail. Once in a while, she would make herself tall to get a good view of the surroundings. She had a face that looked threatening at first glance, and that had Maylene step in front of me when she noticed the ice type, but I knew better. Pokemon I had never seen before— blue and crystal-like with bright yellow eyes— camouflaged among the crystals in hundreds. I might not have been able to tell, had I not been using empathy. Even with their bright eyes

So I did something I hadn't done in a while. I pulled out my Pokedex from the endless supplies in the backpack Maylene was carrying for me and scanned them from as far as I could.

Glimmet, the ore Pokemon. Few facts are known about this Pokemon. It absorbs nutrients from cave walls while camouflaged to hide away from predators. The petals it wears are made of crystallized poison. Should it be provoked, it will often dash away and spew poison in the air as a defense mechanism like an Inkay.

Type: Rock, Poison

They were pretty. Like flowers. They looked similar to Glimmora, but I knew that Pokemon was Paldean, originally. How had they gotten here?

So many tales left unsaid.

"What now?" Maylene asked.

"Now, we help."

—

It began slowly.

There were a lot of Pokemon here. This was a living, breathing ecosystem, after all, and stumbling upon a trove of knowledge like Brood-Mother in my first attempt again would be far too easy, story or not. We started with Beartic who had lost her children, slowly following her until we found an opening to show ourselves. Maylene hadn't understood. Yes, Beartic was strong, but my Pokemon were most likely strong enough to protect ourselves through a barrier while we tried to communicate.

"That'd be a mistake," I had told her in a whisper. "We can't sneak up on a mourning, scared Pokemon, or she won't listen to us no matter what we say."

"I mean I know that, I'm not stupid," she'd said. "I just thought that since you were special…"

"I have a set of abilities, not magic that makes everything like me."

"Okay, well it's hard to tell sometimes," she grumbled.

Though technically, it could be what I'd described it as. I'd ignored the wanting frisson that spread through me then and kept tracking Beartic, ignoring the Pokemon around us. They were too scared or distracted by their own lives to care for us beyond staring.

Had she been in a normal state of mind, Beartic might have most likely smelled us trying to approach, and had the mountain not constantly been shaking, then perhaps she would have heard us, but the world would have it that an opportune moment would present itself to introduce ourselves to Beartic when she found herself to be taking a break. With a frosty sigh whose chill I felt from our hiding spot behind a formation of crystals, we watched the ice type wrap her massive paw around one of those reflective rocks. She brought it up to her mouth, and water slowly dripped into the open maw.

My eyes narrowed. "What…?"

Were those crystals ice?

Either way, we circled around Beartic to get to where she could see us before approaching her. She was a towering, hulking beast with fur thick and bristling, radiating an icy chill that sent cold pooling around my bones. Knowing that Princess would look menacing, I had recalled her, leaving only Claydol with me, and I had them put down their barrier even with the cold. The trust wasn't there yet, and this could, as Maylene had told me, be stupid and get me killed, but I'd found that trust had to be given, before being received in turn. In the Lost Tower, I had come to Mathilda armed to the teeth with my Pokemon ready for a fight, and she had figured me out instantly. What could have been rather diplomatic had turned into a battle right then and there, even if I hadn't figured it out quite yet.

A lesson was not a lesson, nor was a fight that close to resulting in my demise worth it, if nothing was learned from the experience.

So yes, Beartic could have frozen me to death. In fact, she was mulling it over. I could see it in her eyes.

I placed a hand over my chest. "I don't know how many, but you have children you're looking for. I can help you."

And so, it began.

The three Cubchoo were found by having Princess fly overhead above us and scanning the area. Her eyesight was nowhere as good as Talonflame's, but it was still enough to find them within twenty minutes. They'd been hiding out in a small crevice in a wall, where the largest of them had been keeping guard to protect the other two. Had this been another day, another moment in time, then perhaps they would have died to a starving Pokemon. Or maybe the cave would have collapsed in on them like it had on the Paras, had we been a few minutes late, but today wasn't that day. Beartic did not know where the exit was, however. She did not frequent the edges of the cave, which according to her were difficult to get to.

"That makes sense," I'd answered. "We had to make a hole through a wall to get to here. This place… it's like it gets denser and denser the closer to the center, isn't it? There's something there, creating these crystals, and you sustain yourselves off of them."

Beartic had eyed me with a glint in her eyes and called me smart, then.

With her children on her shoulders and arms, she pointed us in the right direction and told us to seek out a friendly Cryogonal. While we followed her, I asked her about the rocks in the cave.

Beartic laughed, flashing her teeth. It was a deep, guttural rumble reminiscent of rolling thunder in the background when I would go to sleep under my covers in Jubilife. She answered that these were not rocks, but ice, as I suspected. A lot of the Pokemon here used them to drink, should they need to, but they couldn't take too many at a time or it made them hear and see things. Like a dream they could never understand. That dream is Coronet, she'd told me with a fond smile. It was as much a lesson to me as to her children. The mountain could communicate, but it was too clumsy. Too… impersonal about it, even when it had a prophet to talk through.

She did quickly warn me that the Pokemon creating this ice was not one of her kin, however. Not an ice type.

Once in a while, Beartic would give her cubs to Cryogonal, if she had to make a long trek to hunt. Cryogonal was known here as someone every ice type could trust if they were ever in need of help, and they were old. Beartic talked about how they'd saved her life when she'd been a Cubchoo from a Lairon desperate for food, when she'd been separated from her mother for reasons she didn't want to get into. Cryogonal's constantly rotating geometric form seemed almost ethereal, with the way it glowed. It was almost as if they were a part of the environment. I could see the resemblance, now. Candice's own Cryogonal I had battled had been made of blue ice, but this one was completely clear, like a mirror that refracted and reflected light. That also meant that they were difficult to look at.

But Beartic had warned me that there was a sinister side to Cryogonal. Ice types were their allies in truth, but with others, they were incredibly aggressive and wouldn't hesitate to strike first. What had led Cryogonal to this behavior? What had their life looked like— how had it formed, lived, what experiences had shaped their very being? Were they being pushed by a story, just one not as obvious as Brood-Mother's, or did they live independently of them? The questions burned on my tongue, but it would be rude to ask. How would I feel, if an uppity stranger suddenly asked me about the possibly sensitive subjects in my own life?

There was a cold pulse of blue light that forced us to cover our eyes, when Cryogonal first spoke. They seemed displeased at my presence, but I could tell they had seen humans before, as had Beartic, somehow. Beartic vouched for us, and as soon as she said we helped her find her cubs, Cryogonal was far more amenable to giving us aid in finding the exit. First, however, there was a conversation to be had between the two of them that they seemed content to have me listen in to while I waited.

Maylene rubbed the smallest Cubchoo's fluffy forehead with her two hands, and the ice type let out a pleasant sniffle. "What're they talking about?" she asked with a smile. "Strategizing to find the way up?"

"No…" I frowned. Cryogonal was a little tough to get, but I could fill in the blanks thanks to Beartic. "They're talking about feeling more powerful. About how working with ice is getting easier and easier despite the 'Jeweled One's' influence—" My words died in my throat when Cryogonal shot me a look that had me hugging myself. "Sorry, I'll be quieter."

Maylene had almost shot up from her crouching position, ready to… punch Cryogonal to death? I doubt that would have worked. "Can we whisper, at least?"

"Yeah." I nodded. "Um, they're talking about some kind of deity. The Hoarfrost? They're different than the Jeweled One. More important by a ton."

My companion's eyes narrowed. "Think that's the Regice thing Maxwell told us about?"

"Hmhm. I think you're right."

The Legend's presence was far more pronounced than it usually was, and as a result every ice type in the mountain was seeing a burst of power. Cryogonal told Beartic that this was like the incident 'four years ago'. That while this was the only one she could remember, Cryogonal had gone through eleven periods where their power grew the most powerful it would ever be. Four years ago… could mean anything outside of here, considering time was different in Coronet, but the general rule was that time in the mountain passed slower than out of it. Cryogonal's words came not as a warning, then, but to inform Beartic of the coming opportunity should they keep their heads cool. The old ice type did not seem to believe Coronet would actually die— as if that was antithetical to their entire being, and so, they would rather scheme and prepare to capture territory when the time came.

Capture it from who, that, Cryogonal did not say, but I was almost certain it was this Jeweled Pokemon they were talking about. Were they the prophet? After a bit, they were finally ready to lead us out of here. Maylene had gotten attached to the Cubchoo in the short time she'd seen them, and she was bummed out when she found out that Beartic wouldn't follow us. The ice type had already gone out of her usual lands and tunnels she frequented to get us here, so she couldn't go any further. This trek was a long one. At one point, we actually had to stop to make camp because we'd been walking for too long and I was exhausted. Hell, even Maylene was starting to tire. Cryogonal was content to let us sleep and said they would keep the cold away from us for the night, which was very welcome, given it had gotten worse throughout the day. The thermometer in my bag read -19 degrees Celsius outside their little bubble of warmth. Soon enough we'd reach the temperatures of Snowpoint in winter.

Cryogonal was a silent host. They rarely responded to any questions I would ask, and it was easy to tell the only reason they were helping was because they were content to bide their time and we'd helped one of their friends in need, so instead of annoying them further, I just thanked them for the help, unfolded my sleeping bag and prepared to go to sleep after eating a League MRE that tasted like cardboard. Beef stew, corn some trail mix and some cookies. Maylene's own bag had been lost, so she didn't have a sleeping bag to use and I had to share my supplies with her, which I was all too willing to do. For her to rest, I released Princess so she at least had something fluffy to rest on. I would have used Angel, but again, he needed to stay in his Pokeball until we met a threat from Team Galactic.

I was surprised we hadn't run into any of them yet beyond those corpses.

—

We reached the exit the next day. A literal exit leading out of the mountain, from which howling cold winds rushed past us and stabbed into my pores like a thousand needles. Cryogonal chimed, saying that should we follow this path, we would reach one of the ways to the fourth layer, and they left before we could even say goodbye. I did thank them, even with their back turned to us, and despite them ignoring me, I was happy we'd figured out another way to get through this.

Sunshine was out with me today, along with Cass, as usual. I was hoping to make it through multiple layers. There was a real chance that if we didn't reach the summit in time, we would all freeze to death if the League didn't manage to handle Regice. I had faith in them, however. They had their job, and I had mine.

At least Maylene's clothes were dry, now.

It was strange to see an area this banal again. There were no rainbows or countless lights here, just… it was normal. A natural platform perched on the rugged slopes of Mount Coronet, with trees and tall grass barely poking through the knee-deep layer of snow. Small shrubs and mosses clung to the nooks and crannies of the rock face, making the most of the moisture that condensed from the clouds hanging low over the mountain. Visibility here was awful. It reminded me of the Land of Fog between Solaceon and Celestic, yet it was simply this way because Coronet was so tall, even at the third layer. The air here felt a little thin. Each breath simply held less, and almost became a deliberate act to supply myself with enough oxygen to function. The fourth layer would be fourth out of seven, and I would need to start wearing my oxygen mask soon already.

"Do you think time here passes normally?!" Maylene yelled. She had to, with how strong the wind was, but then Cass wrapped a barrier around us. "Oh. Right, you can just do that."

"Just for now, and just sound," I warned the psychic. "No need to exhaust yourself when it isn't needed."

"Acknowledged, even if it displeases me."

"We can hide behind Sunshine if we need to," I said. "Anyway, I think so, right? The entire area around the mountain's affected, which is why you can't just fly to the summit."

Maylene covered her eyes and looked up in the sky, searching for the sun's general area, after which she pointed at it. "We could use the sun's position to calculate how much time is passing, or something."

I frowned at her. "Like, a sundial?"

"Yeah!" She beamed. "Do you know how to do that?"

"I thought you'd know how to do it."

"What? Why even—"

"Because you brought it up!" I groaned. "Anyway, I don't think it'd be that useful. I'm pretty sure the sun is just going to be stuck in that same position in the sky the entire time we're outside."

"You'd best give it a try anyway, Cass. To see if there are any variables in the way time passes because of how agitated the mountain is," Maylene said.

"In truth, I would like to. I am… quite bored," Claydol said. They followed up with a sound effect that mimicked a sigh from their catalog of sounds. "It will give me something to pass the time."

"Fine, don't let me get in the way of your fun."

My steps were careful, occasionally stumbling over stones and roots hidden among the snow. Only a few inches of it would melt, even with Sunshine here, and I didn't know whether it was because that was what had been set in stone— the way this place was meant to be— or because of Regice growing more active due to Coronet's mental state. Still, we trudged through the upward slope, slowly gaining in altitude. It was actually only barely snowing, and occasionally I'd see a flying type perched on one of the trees. Not many species made this high up Coronet their home, but there were groups of Starly and Staravia huddled together on branches for warmth. There was a cry far above us that I recognized as Braviary thanks to knowing Pauline's, although this one was higher-pitched. A Noctowl stared at us as we passed below the tree she had seemingly claimed for herself, and she carried a nasty, fresh scar right above her right eye.

"Can't they just fly away?" Maylene asked through the strong winds. "They're in a better position than most!"

I nodded. "Some did, I bet, but we arrived too late to see them leave! It's like, if someone told you and everyone in Veilstone to abandon your homes and everything you held dear, there'd be a portion of you who remained, no?"

"Huh. Makes sense!"

The land-based Pokemon were nowhere to be seen, which possibly meant most of them had retreated into the caves or were hiding too. The scarred Noctowl followed us through our trek, never leading, but always stalking us. Early on, I'd tried to communicate, even disturbing Cass from their calculations to try to speak into her mind, but she seemed uninterested in what any of us had to say. It was curiosity, that had her following, not the need to help, but she seemed to know I was different. Shard. The next time Cass spoke up, it was to tell us that time was seemingly standing still outside of this place.

An hour in, and with many breaks, we reached the end of the overhang and the side of a cliff with a section barren of any snow despite all logic pointing to the fact that the contrary should have been the state of things. Everywhere else was covered in snow and ice, but this was different. Maylene placed a hand on one of the rocks and gave it a tug before swearing.

"It's cold as fuck," she moaned, blowing hot air on her hand. "It peeled some skin away."

"Stop touching everything, we don't have to climb it, we literally have Princess with us. I'll get the first-aid kit from my bag."

"I just like rock climbing…" she turned away from me and I unzipped the backpack.

Grabbing things was easier said than done. Closing my fingers around objects was growing increasingly difficult, even with Sunshine here to warm us up. I released Princess so she could scout above the cliff. She returned when I was putting band-aids on Maylene's fingers and palms and said that there looked to be a chasm similar to the one that had led us up. She couldn't really tell

"Don't get too close to the edge," I warned Turtonator.

He'd been trying to see the world from up here and had his eyes in a perpetual squint. His goal had been— or was to climb Mount Wela and to reign over it on his own. To kill the current ruler, who most likely had the wind of a story behind their sails. Of course, when he talked about it, he'd tell me that he would do it long after I died, after which he would threaten that he'd kill me if I died of anything other than old age, as a gentleman usually did. Anyway, I supposed he was internally cursing the weather for obscuring his view so he couldn't bask and pretend he ruled over everything the light touched.

"There." I closed the first-aid kit and turned Maylene so I could put it back in the bag. "After the whole ordeal with the mind-bending rock, you'd think you wouldn't touch—"

"I get it, I get it! Give me a break and let's get on your Togekiss, Arceus."

"I'm just saying that this is an eldritch, living being we're climbing, so it'd do you well to respect it, aura or not. I know you're used to being, like, basically invincible to what would hurt a lot of other people." Togekiss approached us, and I let Sunshine and Cass back in their balls temporarily. "Arceus, it's— cold."

So cold I could barely even speak, and Maylene was feeling it too. Were Brood-Mother and her children fine? I hoped them being one layer lower was buying them time, at the very least.

"I—I wanted to s—say that if I'd touched the rock, I pr—probably would have ripped my entire palm away, since I'm no—normal. Even if it hurts you le—less, it's stupid to risk it."

Her lips flattened. Aura flowered around her skin, probably keeping her warm. "I hear you."

Then, snow erupted so high that nearly covered the both of us. Noctowl had landed right next to Maylene, and her aura flared to life. Her coat whipped around due to the excess energy, and a blue light coated her skin.

"What do you even want?!"

"Relax." I held out a hand toward Noctowl. "I think she wa—wants to tell us something."

The normal type tilted her head abnormally far to the left, and she hooted once, twice, thrice.

Beware. Beware. Beware.

"She's warning us about what awaits us above—ve," I slowly translated. "Is that the Po—Pokemon who hurt your face? Are they aggressive?"

The owl's feathers puffed up until she doubled in size, and she let out a resonating giggle that was crystal clear through the screaming winds. The sentiment was clear. If the Pokemon she was warning us about had attacked her, she would be dead, and this entire overhang might have collapsed as well.

I gulped. "But can y—you answer my question? Are they aggressive?"

Noctowl blinked, as if she couldn't understand the meaning of my question.

"Will they attack us? What Pokemon is it?"

She answered with a simple, long tone.

Old.

There was a way certain people had to weave words in a manner that conveyed multiple meanings. Old could have meant a multitude of things, but there was a certain weight to the word. There was old, akin to Bellatrix, Brood-Mother, or Buddy, Mathilda or Ruth, but there was old, as in truly ancient. One who had lived through many eras, who had seen eons pass them by, and who were still here to tell the tale. The gravity afforded by Noctowl told me this was the old she was talking about. She followed by saying to watch our words and left in a hurry before we could ask anything else, nearly sweeping me off my feet with a gust of wind.

The flight up the cliff was silent, as was the climb up the chasm. I'd put my mask on, covering my face, and I was breathing from oxygen tanks strapped to my back. The way up felt longer than before, and the pressure in my ears was giving me a headache, but eventually.

Eventually, we made it and found ourselves in a cavern that seemed to stretch on forever, its size almost too much to take in at once. What caught my attention first were these massive stone spires shooting up from the ground. They were everywhere, towering over me like skyscrapers. Each one looked different— some were smooth, probably worn down over time, while others had sharp edges that made them seem almost dangerous. The light in there was rather dim, barely enough to see by. It gave the whole place an eerie feel, especially with the way shadows moved when the light hit the spires just right. Unlike below, there was no apparent source of light. No crystals or glowing moss. It was just there when it shouldn't be, and I knew the light from outside was nowhere near enough to light up this entire cave and barely made it through the 'stairwell' anyway. The ground was uneven, cluttered with smaller rocks that had broken off the bigger ones. There were also pools of water scattered around, reflecting the spires and making the place look even stranger—

"Gah!" Maylene screamed next to me. Instantly, a barrier went up in front of us, glowing for an instant before disappearing. Only Princess and Claydol were with us, but hopefully it'd be enough for whatever was coming— I quickly moved my mask so I could see better where Maylene was looking, and my hands went limp at my sides.

He was stone on top of stone, disorderly, sharp, and most of all, large. His body was a fortress, towering at at least ten or eleven feet tall, with layers of hardened rock that told a story of survival through age upon age. The spikes that adorned his back seemed like the jagged peaks of mountains, and the boulder at the tip of his tail looked capable of shattering steel in a single blow.

He was Rhypherior.

The moment Rhyperior's eyes settled on me, I knew nothing I could do would change what he had in store for me. I could struggle, maybe my Pokemon would tickle him a bit, cause him to shed away a few of the stones that seemed to perpetually grow on his body, but I would be crushed in an instant, barrier included. He looked at us like we were bugs, with cold, unfeeling eyes that had me sweating and feeling somewhat warm even through the frigid temperatures.

There was the possibility that this was a different Rhyperior. Barry's father had caught his own in Coronet, after all, so I was certain there were at least a few, but I knew better.

Even if the wounds of that battle had now been overgrown with new rocks, I just knew.

I just knew.

Rhyperior eyed me down, saying that if I was going to kill him, I'd better get the attempt over with right now so he could crush me instead of wasting his time. I frowned and realized I'd been glaring at him with my hands over my Pokeballs. Maylene had been more scared than aggressive. She knew that we were dead if we provoked Rhyperior in any way, shape or form. That would have been the case even if we had her Pokemon with us. His drill-like horn looked duller than it should have been and had been chipped away year after year.

Why did you kill my Pokemon's mother?

What led to the fight in the first place?

If you're all the way up here, what were you even doing on the first layer back then?

I said nothing.

Rhyperior moved, and stones ground together like the shifting of tectonic plates. So deafeningly loud, so imposing that I could barely stand to be next to him.

I had heard you were coming, speck, he told me. Follow.

Sweetheart's Pokeball felt heavy on my waist.

---