Cynthia stifled a yawn as her eyes caught another of the misgrown trees.

  They’d been walking for about an hour, maybe a little more, and the strange growths were becoming steadily more common. In the first ten minutes, she’d noticed two. In the next half hour, eight. And now, in just the last twenty minutes? This was the eighteenth.

  She looked away.

  Still…

  Eighteen.

  As she kept moving, her mind turned that number over for a moment.

  That was about as many as she had seen yesterday, in total, wasn’t it?

  Her gaze drifted back, tracing the shape of the tree. Like the others, it was small, two and a half meters at most, with deep splits running through the bark, one near the roots and another just below the crown. From its sides drooped a pair of thick branches, their sparse leaves clinging stubbornly to the wood as the limbs bowed under their own weight.

  She slowed, brows knitting slightly.

  Something about that… didn’t feel right.

  She stared at it for a split second, before she realized why.

  She had thought it—like the others.

  Like all the others.

  She stopped entirely.

  She’d assumed the deformities were a side effect of the forest’s rapid growth—but if that were true, shouldn’t each tree be misshapen in its own way? Bark splitting at random, branches twisting in all directions. But instead they seemed almost… uniform.

  Not identical, exactly, she would have noticed that sooner, but even with differences in height, bark placement, and leaf cover, the pattern remained.

  They all had the same basic shape.

  Two large branches jutting from its sides. Roots pushing slightly above the soil. Bark was missing where roots met trunk, where the trunk split into branches, and where the crown began.

  Myst tugged her forward, but she didn’t move.

  He turned back, confusion flickering across his face—then stilled as he caught her expression.

  “You see something?” he asked, lowering his voice.

  Cynthia slowly turned her head away, then grabbed his hand and started dragging him up toward the rest of the group.

  As they reached them Johanna turned first.

  She blinked, eyes flicking down, before a smile crossed her face.

  “You—”

  Cynthia cut her off just as Volkner and Flint turned too.

  “Let’s move, we need to talk.” She said simply

  …

  As she kept moving, Cynthia never let her eyes stop sweeping across the forest. And as five minutes turned into ten, then twenty, her faint suspicion slowly hardened into something closer to certainty.

  Every time one of those twisted trees slipped out of sight, another seemed to take its place. It wasn’t immediate, and sometimes the next one was far enough away that she could barely make it out through the dense growth, but they were there.

  Always there.

  No matter which way they turned, it felt like they couldn’t avoid meeting one.

  Slowly she stopped moving, and as she did so everybody in the group shot her a weird look, including the eleven Pokémon that were still out of their balls.

  “I’m guessing you had a good reason for this?” Johanna asked after a beat.

  Cynthia nodded slowly, forcing her gaze away from the nearest of the odd trees. It stood just at the edge of her vision, half-hidden behind another trunk.

  “So…” Johanna continued when she didn’t say anything.

  Cynthia didn’t answer. Instead, she turned, scanning the forest again, searching for any she might’ve missed.

  She wanted to think she was overthinking, after all, none of their Pokémon seemed to notice anything unusual—not even Rei or Navi.

  And yet… if her guess was right, that made sense.

  Rei’s hearing was exceptional, but even she could miss things. A tree standing still, just existing?

  No chance.

  As for Navi—

  Cynthia frowned, glancing down at the Kirlia. Navi met her eyes, worry flickering across her face—probably sensing her unease.

  Navi was both harder and easier to fool. Most Pokémon, even ones far stronger than her, couldn’t truly hide from her telepathy. It was possible, of course—Cynthia remembered her grandmother once mentioning that some Pokémon could use a Dark-type move, keep it active constantly, and, through that, mask their presence. But that wasn’t the kind of skill you’d find in a wild Pokémon. Not one that hadn’t been trained by humans, anyway.

  Still, certain types were exceptions. Dark-types were self-evident, even if one stood right in front of her Navi wouldn’t be able to sense it at all.

  “Cynthia? Hello? You there?”

  Ghost-types?

  At least, possible.

  “Have any of you noticed that some of the trees look weird?” she asked, her voice low.

  But only if they weren’t trying to hide.

  Johanna—who had, for some reason, been giving Myst a look—turned back to her.

  “…What?”

  Cynthia almost pointed toward the nearest one but stopped herself. Instead, she simply opened her mouth.

  “Some of the trees in the forest, they’re a lot smaller than the rest. Their bark’s missing in places, and they only have two branches. Ringing any bells?” she asked.

  Volkner raised an eyebrow, as the Pikachu on his shoulder tilted its head.

  “I’ve noticed them, yeah,” he said after a pause. “But I figured it was just a side effect of the forest’s abnormal growth.”

  Cynthia met his eyes.

  “Aren’t they too alike for that? Every single one of them looks almost exactly the same. If they were the result of uncontrolled growth, shouldn’t the only thing they have in common be that they’re twisted?” She hesitated, then spoke even softer. “Instead, they’re almost more similar than the other trees here. Like they’re… all the same, just different variants.”

  She glanced toward Myst, and he tilted his head.

  “Myst. Pokémon that look just like trees. You know of any?” she asked simply.

  Myst stared at her.

  “Like a tree? I mean, there are half a dozen Grass-types, right? But ones that look like—” He stopped himself.

  Cynthia didn’t need to be Navi to understand he just thought of one.

  Myst lifted his eyes, scanning the forest until he found the same one she had.

  “...Fuck.”

  Flint looked between them, one eyebrow raised, before following Myst’s eyes. Then he blinked.

  “You guys are talking about that twisted tree way back there, right?” He paused, “…There’s been a bunch of those around?”

  Volkner turned casually, scanning the forest himself.

  “One of them’s here?” he asked quietly.

  Flint nodded instantly.

  “Yeah, just—"

  Myst’s hand shot out, grabbing his arm. A tight smile pulled at his face.

  “Maybe don’t do that,” he said sharply.

  Flint froze mid-gesture, before slowly lowering his arm.

  “Okay. Good point. But honestly, what’s the big deal? It’s one tree. I get what your implying, that it’s Pokémon, but really like—if anything goes down, we just take it out, right?”

  “Yeah,” Cynthia said. “We could probably handle one. Probably handle way more even, but the problem is that I’ve seen one of those every few minutes. So far today, I’ve counted almost forty.”

  Flint still shrugged.

  “But that’s still just one, right? And if you see one every five minutes, that means their spread out. Worst case, we just run if they start ganging up on us.”

  Myst shot him a look.

  “You’re assuming we can actually take one out fast. I know you’ve probably never heard of it, but that’s almost certainly a Trevenant. And if what I know about them is right, then fighting one in a forest is going to be a nightmare.”

  He let his words hang, like that alone should’ve been enough to make his point.

  Cynthia sighed, catching Volkner and Flint’s matching blank stares.

  “Myst, calling it a Trevenant tells us exactly nothing.”

  Myst glanced down at her, before letting his serious expression give away to a sheepish smile.

  “Okay, fair point.” His tone grew sober again. “Still, all I’m saying is that we really shouldn’t underestimate one. Maybe in a straight fight it’d be fine, but from what I know, they can control the forest around them to fight for them. Maybe even use moves through the forest, and considering where we are…”

  He didn’t finish.

  “That… that would make things a lot harder,” Johanna said quietly, eyeing the forest around them.

  “Yeah,” Myst said. “And even if we can beat one, I honestly don’t want to anger the rest. They’re not exactly weak Pokémon. A final-stage evolution, a Ghost–Grass type.” He shook his head. “Hell, setting aside their brute strength, there’s a bigger problem. They don’t just control the forest—they monitor it. If they do start chasing us, unless we somehow get outside their sphere of influence entirely, we won’t be able to hide at all.”

  For a moment, nobody said anything. Then Flint slowly opened his mouth.

  “Okay, I mean… sure, creepy forest monsters, got it. But is this really something to be worried about?”

  Cynthia turned to him.

  “What do you mean?”

  Flint shrugged.

  “What I said, honestly. Spooky trees all over the forest, very unsettling for sure, but it’s not like they’ve attacked us yet, right? Maybe they’re not even hostile. If this were anywhere else, we wouldn’t be panicking over random Pokémon showing up, would we? Either way, not much we can do about it, right? Of course, we could turn around, but who says that would be better? We’re like a day into the forest right after all.”

  Everybody glanced at each other.

  “He has a point.” Volkner said slowly. “At this point, we are in too deep anyway right? And if what Myst’s says is true, we probably can’t even escape. They will find us no matter what we do.”

  “I guess.” She said.

  …

  Cynthia realized they had been wrong after about another hour of walking.

  Flint had said they didn’t seem hostile—that there’d been no sign the things wanted anything to do with them, and that if they had, they’d already had plenty of chances to attack.

  And he’d been right.

  When Flint had used one as a leaning post yesterday.

  When they were asleep, with only a pair of them keeping watch.

  When they had just woken up and were all tired from said watch.

  Any of those moments would’ve been perfect for a single Trevenant to cause serious trouble.

  Take a hostage, and the fight would almost certainly instantly spiral out of control. Strike before they even knew they were under attack, and they might never figure out what was hitting them. Take out the two on watch, and they’d win instantly.

  But those all carried a certain risk.

  A hostage was only as useful alive—meaning the Trevenant would be just as limited as they were. Attack through the forest, and there was always the risk they’d figure out where it was coming from. Fail to take out the watch, and the rest would wake instantly, ready to fight.

  A single Trevenant, no matter how clever, unless it could overwhelm the teams of five different trainers, would never be able to win.

  But what about five?

  What about ten?

  Cynthia felt her feet slow as she counted.

  Four just behind them.

  Three to the sides.

  And five up ahead.

  Twelve.

  She kept walking.

  Thirteen—

  No, fourteen.

  One had been right behind the other, obscuring it from sight.

  Her stomach sank.

  She hadn’t asked Myst how many Trevenant usually shared a forest, hadn’t thought to. But from what he’d told them earlier, she could piece together enough.

  Trevenant were final-stage evolutions.

  Even if she accounted for the extreme concentration of Grass-type energy here…

  Even if she pretended they’d just wandered into a nesting ground, some kind of natural gathering—

  It still didn’t make sense.

  There simply couldn’t be that many in a forest of this size.

  “Guys, I think we need a new plan.” She said simply.

  Nobody reacted.

  “I think everybody has figured that out by now.” Myst said dryly, face frozen.

  Cynthia nodded too deep.

  Fifteen—another one came into view from behind a half-toppled boulder, its shape matching all the others.

  “Yup, think we pretty much all agree.” Johanna said casually.

  Volkner’s head moved toward Flint, a couple of centimeters too far.

  “Why couldn’t you be right for once?”

  Flint shrugged with one shoulder.

  “The elders always said being wrong this often just means I’m great at finding what doesn’t work.”

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  Volkner stared for a couple of seconds, head not turning to Johanna.

  “How long?”

  She met his eyes, a cheshire grin on her face.

  “Since Cynthia started talking.”

  The ground shuddered.

  Roots burst upward from every angle, tearing through soil as the forest itself seemed to lurch alive. Branches bent low, sweeping toward them; thick roots coiled around their legs, their arms—

  Nobody reacted.

  Instead, as the wood smashed into their Pokémon and tightened around them, they all simply—

  Faded.

  The roots tore through nothing but air. The copies shimmered, then broke apart into drifting motes of light that vanished into the mist.

  A few meters away, the real group burst through the undergrowth, boots thudding against soft soil. Johanna ran near the back, flanked by both Midna and Sassy, as they both seemingly bounced slightly as the illusion broke.

  The hastily cast Double Team—crude, rushed, and not nearly good enough to fool a real trainer—had bought them seconds.

  And only seconds.

  It didn’t matter that they were almost thirty meters from where their illusions had popped; Cynthia vaulted over a low root—only for it to snap upward toward her in midair.

  She twisted instinctively, boots skidding hard against the dirt as she landed and nearly lost her footing, stumbling through a few quick, uneven steps as the root cracked through the space her legs had been a heartbeat earlier.

  Sensing her weakness, a nearby branch whipped toward her—but before it could reach her, a flash of white cut across her vision, Queenie’s blade slicing it cleanly away, while at the same time catching her arm. Then, like she was as light as a feather, the Gabite hauled her upright and shoved her forward without breaking stride—or slowing her Slash as it tore through anything coming near.

  Cynthia didn’t spare time for a nod as she sprinted after Myst and the others, trying to make up ground after her near fall. Still, even as her legs pounded forward, her mind was racing faster.

  The small army Trevenant was gone, their attacks having broken all line of sight. Of course, not that it was a good thing. She couldn’t see them anymore, but they could still see her.

  Her mouth snapped open.

  “Riolu, Roselia—cover me.”

  Without a moment’s hesitation, Riolu darted a step ahead, instantly smashing through any roots that dared to hinder her path. At the same time, Roselia fell back, going from covering everybody equally, to focusing slightly more on just his own trainer. With a flick of his wrist the leaves of nearby trees shuddered to life, slicing through their own branches, before tunneling towards Cynthia--creating a loose barrier around her head.

  And so, Cynthia risked a glance, trusting them to hold the line for the half-second she dared not look at the ground.

  It didn’t help.

  As her eyes swept the chaos, she realized calling the forest shifting was an understatement.

  It was alive.

  Branches shivered and clawed downward, tearing their own bark in the process. Roots ripped free of the rocky ground, cracking the earth and writhing like snakes across the path.

  The only thing keeping them moving at all was their Pokémon, fighting in a blur of motion, cutting, blasting, and pulverizing branches and roots as they ran.

  Moreover, if any Trevenant were close enough to see, she couldn’t find them.

  A tree bent low in front of them, splitting open as it lurched toward the group. Volkner stumbled, throwing himself back just in time.

  “Flame Wheel!” Flint’s voice rang.

  Monferno burst forward in a whirl of fire, smashing into the trunk and sending it crashing down in a shower of embers and splintered bark. The group ducked beneath the falling branches, racing through the smoke before the forest could knit itself back together.

  They needed a plan.

  Cynthia sprinted past Myst as he hauled Volkner to his feet, Rei crushing the root that had already tangled his leg while Flint and Johanna covered them from behind. Her mind raced.

  Trevenant could sense people through the trees. So running on foot was only delaying the inevitable. They could track them. And even if they couldn’t, Trevenant were still Pokémon—there was no way they could outrun them.

  They couldn’t outrun them.

  For a moment, that thought lingered in her mind.

  Could their Pokémon carry them?

  Her eyes darted across the teams, weighing the idea.

  No.

  Too few that could carry. Too slow, all of them.

  New plan, then—

  The sound of stone shattering split the air. Myst jerked back as a root burst from the ground, curling where his torso had been. It started to twist—Pikachu’s lightning hit it before it could finish the motion, splitting it apart in a shower of sparks.

  —preferably now.

  “Go left!” Johanna’s voice rang out.

  Cynthia turned on her heel—only to nearly stumble when everyone else veered right.

  What—

  Flint and Volkner surged past her, their Pokémon firing bursts of fire and lightning to clear the way, Myst and Johanna hot on their heels.

  Her brain caught up just as Johanna grabbed her hand and yanked her forward.

  Another Double Team had split the forest’s wrath in two, and for a brief second, half of the attacking roots tore through their afterimages instead of them—

  —before those copies simply blinked out of existence, swallowed by roots.

  Oh.

  Blinked out of existence.

  Oh, right.

  Her eyes snapped to Navi, the realization hitting like a hammer as the words burst from her mouth.

  “Myst, Navi needs to get us out.”

  Myst, just ahead of her, flicked his gaze back, looking almost confused. She blinked, then opened her mouth to explain, but before she could realization flashed across his face.

  “She can’t teleport everyone,” he said, just loud enough for the others to hear. “Absolute max is eight if we want any distance. And she’ll need to focus for a little more than ten seconds—”

  Monferno’s Flame Wheel slammed into another wall of roots that had formed just ahead—

  And bounced off.

  He stopped.

  Cynthia skidded to a halt, snapping her gaze upward.

  Roots, trees, and branches had twisted together in a half-circle ahead. Layer upon layer crossing and tightening until they formed an interlocking grid of living wood, thick and woven, pulsing faintly with Grass-type energy.

  “—second,” Myst finished grimly.

  Flint didn’t even flinch as Monferno landed beside him, frustration etched across its face. He just turned back toward the forest they’d come from, already speaking before anyone else had the chance.

  “That leaves two Pokémon for cover? Let me handle—”

  He stopped mid-sentence, just as Cynthia finished turning—

  And she instantly understood why.

  Red.

  Not one. Not eight. Not nine.

  Dozens upon dozens of crimson eyes gleamed from between the trees. None of them matched in size or height, no two aligned, and together they gave the unnerving impression of a dozen one-eyed giants staring straight at them.

  Then one of the eyes shifted forward.

  A shape pulled itself free of the shadows, and Cynthia felt the hair in the back of her neck stand up in response.

  Its roots moved like tendons, coiling and uncoiling as they dragged its body along the forest floor, carving deep furrows in the soil. The trunk split near the center, bark peeling back to reveal raw, dark wood beneath. Like flesh torn open.

  And yet—

  None of that caught her attention.

  She’d seen enough of these twisted trees to know how they looked, to imagine how they would move if they could. Their oddness didn’t surprise her.

  No—what held her attention was the upper part, where, lodged in the hollow beneath its crown, an eye stared back at her.

  Huge. Red. Wrong.

  For a second, her mind flashed back to the ranger’s warning, and she had to force herself not to step back as she repeated his words in her head.

  Bloodshot—not just red.

  Still…

  Her hand fell toward Queenie’s empty Poké Ball as she stared at the Trevenant.

  From how Myst had described it, she’d imagined something more like a Drifloon—a Pokémon that merely resembled an object, giving the illusion of life to something otherwise hollow.

  But it wasn’t.

  Her gaze followed the eye, tracing its faint glow. The instinctive fear in her chest dulled, replaced by a familiar, unstoppable, curiosity.

  The eye was alive—pupil-less, glowing, but unmistakably biological in some way.

  She stared at it, and for a second, she forgot about the situation she was in.

  Did that mean, unlike every other Ghost-type, it had a functioning biological system inside its tree-like body?

  Because if that were true, it would be completely revolutionary.

  Something that could upend—

  Before she could follow that thought any further, Volkner’s voice cut through the quiet.

  “Why did you attack us?”

  Cynthia blinked.

  Right.

  The Trevenant before them stood unnervingly still for a heartbeat. Then, with the brittle sound of cracking wood, the hollow in its trunk that passed for a mouth began to move.

  “Trevenant trevenant, trev.” It said, its voice was low and rasping, like wind forced through dead branches.

  Cynthia felt a sudden weight on her shoulder, and a moment later, Riolu’s voice echoed softly in her ear.

  “Riolu. Riolu, Ri.”

  Intruders. Your words cannot be understood.

  “Trevenant trevenant trevnant.”

  It continued, as Riolu kept translating in her ear.

  But the Majesty does not welcome you.

  “Trevant trev.”

  Nor does the Elder.

  “Trevnant trevant.”

  Wait here to be judged.

  “Trevnant treva.”

  He will be here soon.

  Cynthia knew she should be more concerned with that last part, but—

  Judged?

  Her mind caught on the word. Communication through Pokémon was never exact. No matter how strong your bond to a Pokémon was, it always relied on a blend of empathy, aura, and interpretation—what the Pokémon felt, what she understood, and how those two things met in the middle.

  So even though she’d used judged, the meaning wasn’t that simple. The nuance was both narrower and broader than human language allowed. What Riolu really meant was closer to put through a trial—a process, not just a verdict. And if they failed that trial… punishment would follow.

  And that was—

  She hesitated, the Trevenant still staring at them, its unnatural eye unblinking.

  She’d always thought Grass Kingdom was a strange name for this place. For all the intelligence Pokémon displayed, they didn’t build kingdoms. They built communities—simple ones, instinctive and small. In all her years of study, she had never read about Pokémon forming anything beyond basic, hunter-gatherer societies.

  But this forest... the way it seemed deliberately shaped into a barrier.

  The way the Trevenant had stalked them—one finding them, then slowly summoning the rest.

  And now, the talk of a trial...

  The sharp crack of a branch snapped her from her thoughts. Cynthia turned, heart stuttering, only to find Myst stepping forward, Rei’s Poké Ball already in hand, his eyes locked on the Trevenant ahead.

  “Well, since it looks like we’re in a bit of a pinch,” he said evenly, “how about we recall our Pokémon, group up, and have Navi teleport us out?”

  Flint turned and then stared at Myst like he’d just lost his mind. “Dude, what the hell? You think they’re just gonna watch while we prep an escape? While we discuss it right in front of it?”

  “Didn’t you have Monferno translate or something?” Myst shot back, glancing down at Navi beside him. “I mean, it said so itself—it doesn’t understand human speech. And have you ever heard a Pokémon just lie for no reason? Besides, Navi confirmed it. With how close it is, and how active, it can’t completely hide from her anymore. It was legitimately confused when Volkner started talking.”

  He paused, glancing up again, his expression darkening.

  “More than that… the Trevenant just said ‘he’ isn’t far away. And I don’t know about you, but I’m not sure I want to find out what it considers worth calling ‘him.’”

  Flint’s mouth opened, then closed. He glanced at the Trevenant, then back at Myst, and finally exhaled.

  “Fine. But we stick to the original plan, yeah? You said Navi needs time to charge Teleport. I’ll cover us.”

  “Actually—” Johanna’s voice cut in, calm but tense. “I think I should handle that.”

  Flint turned to her, frowning, but Johanna didn’t let him speak.

  “No offense. I know you’re the Fire-type expert here, good against Grass-types and all, but I’m going to be honest: I’m the strongest one in this group.”

  She sighed at Flint’s blank stare.

  “Yes, I get it—it’s easy to forget, considering how hard I’ve been trying not to overstep. I mean, this is supposed to be your guys journey and all, but…” Her eyes swept over the trees, then back to them, the strain clear in her voice. “I can handle this situation, but I’m not sure I can handle it while keeping you guys safe.”

  Flint opened his mouth like he wanted to argue, but Volkner spoke first.

  “I agree with her. Flint, don’t be stupid.”

  Flint exhaled through his nose, lips pressing thin before he finally nodded.

  “Alright, fine. So the plan is what—we hold hands, stand in front of half a dozen Trevenant, let Johanna’s team keep them busy, and hope Kirlia gets us out before they figure out what we’re doing?”

  Cynthia stepped closer to Myst, reached out, and took his hand, clenching it slightly.

  “Yes.” She stated simply.

  Flint shrugged.

  “Okay then.”

  The next few seconds felt almost surreal. They took their places in silence, like performers in some grim ceremony, as the forest around them closed in tighter and tighter. Slowly the half-circle of knitted roots, branches, and trunks thickened into a living cage. By the time Volkner and Flint recalled their Pokémon, only a few narrow gaps remained between the trees, with dozens of Trevenant watched from the darkness.

  Then, without a word, they joined hands, careful to leave space for Johanna and her two Pokémon. And, when that was done, one by one, their gazes lifted—until every eye turned toward the lone Trevenant watching them.

  It didn’t move. It simply stared back… and let them.

  Like it had no idea what they were about to do.

  Myst glanced around the circle, receiving small nods, before looking down at Navi—his and Volkner’s hands still linked with hers. She met his eyes, nodded once, then closed them. A faint light began to pulse from her horns, a slight purple glow that seemed to light up the dark light around them.

  Cynthia’s gaze lifted to the Trevenant. For a heartbeat, it didn’t react, and she almost let herself believe it wouldn’t.

  Ten seconds left.

  Then its eye snapped downward—straight to Navi.

  And the bark broke.

  A scream tore through the clearing—raw and violent, like a storm crushing a forest, like wood splintering under its own weight, like life itself being wrenched apart.

  Cynthia almost tore her hands free to cover her ears; the sound drilled straight through her skull, hollowing her chest as it passed.

  For an instant, everything froze.

  Then the Trevenant in front of them moved.

  Its arm rose, a green glow forming around its fist, about to strike—

  Sassy was already there.

  The Glameow blurred forward, wrapped in a shroud of oily darkness that pulsed like a heartbeat.

  Sucker Punch.

  She hit the Trevenant dead-center, the impact cracking through the clearing like a gunshot. The Ghost-type didn’t stumble. It didn’t fall—it vanished.

  Like a bullet, it shot backward, smashing through half a dozen trees before slamming into the ground in a shower of bark and dirt, its roots torn clean from the soil.

  Instantly, the rest of the forest moved.

  The other Trevenant attacked—not just through the roots and branches anymore, but in person. Bark split as they lunged from between the trunks, their movements unnaturally smooth. Green energy flared around them, gathering into sleek, rippling trails of light that carved across the ground as they moved.

  Grassy Glide.

  Cynthia barely had time to widen her eyes before they were on them—crossing the clearing in an instant, faster than she could even think.

  One second, they were meters away.

  The next—

  The world went dark.

  A deep, all-consuming darkness exploded outward in an instant, washing over the clearing in a single wave as Dark-type energy swallowed color and sound alike. The Trevenant, sensing the power of the attack, raised their arms in defense.

  It didn’t help.

  The Trevenant charging were simply too weak.

  As the pulse struck the first wave, they crumbled where they stood—their auras bursting against the impact, the green energy from their Grassy Glide splintering into sparks before vanishing completely.

  The second line fared better—but only barely.

  Instead of fainting instantly, they were hurled backward, smashing into the ground like falling trees. Damaged, but still able to move.

  And yet, that wasn’t the end of it.

  If it had been, Cynthia wouldn’t have stared.

  Like the ranks of Trevenant were nothing more than a passing obstruction, the wave of darkness kept going—ripping through trees, roots, and branches alike. Where it passed, the forest didn’t fall or burn. It simply ceased to exist.

  The slowly knitting barrier.

  The wall that had made Monferno bounce back.

  All of it simply vanished.

  Dark Pulse.

  A dull thump echoed as Midna landed, her paws sinking into the soil as she sagged slightly, a faint purple shimmer still clinging to her fur.

  Eight seconds left.

  Myst stirred beside her, and Cynthia glanced over almost absently—just in time to see his jaw go slack.

  She blinked at him, and for a moment, the urge to comment bubbled up.

  What had he expected?

  Half the reason she’d agreed to check out the Grass Kingdom in the first place was because Johanna was here. After all, Johanna had told them herself—if she’d pushed, she could’ve made it to the Conference. You didn’t get that close without serious, serious power.

  And yet…

  Cynthia closed her mouth again and turned her gaze back across the clearing. The second row of Trevenant were already starting to rise, but her eyes caught on the aftermath first—the sheer destruction. The Dark Pulse had erased everything within sight. Trees reduced to nothing. Roots cut clean through. The forest floor scoured down to raw stone and soil.

  For the first time in days, she could see straight up—through the empty gap in the canopy, all the way to the cavern ceiling high above.

  She let out a slow breath, a faint, incredulous smile tugging at the corner of her mouth as Sassy and Midna returned to Johanna, ignoring the hands of at the edge of their half circle in favor of climbing onto their trainer’s shoulders.

  …Alright. Maybe she was a little surprised too.

  “Holy shit.” Flint’s voice rang out.

  Six seconds left.

  Cynthia felt herself relax slightly as she glanced over to find him staring at Johanna.

  Johanna, for her part, just smiled back smugly.

  “What? Surprised the best Contest trainer in Sinnoh can dish out some damage?”

  Four seconds left.

  “Yes,” Flint replied honestly.

  Cynthia shook her head slightly, the air around her beginning to hum as Navi’s psychic energy gathered and the familiar pressure of teleportation built. The light from Navi’s horns began to rise, bending as it covered them.

  Three seconds left.

  “Honestly,” Flint started, half-laughing, “feels kinda anticlimactic. I mean, I really thought we were screwed, but I guess you could’ve just taken—”

  Nobody saw it arrive.

  No warning. No sound.

  Just there.

  Like reality tearing itself apart, like the fabric of the world unmaking itself for a single breath, it arrived and—

  —the glow surrounding them shattered like glass.

  Cynthia didn’t even have time to register what was happening.

  Before Flint could finish his sentence, Sassy was already gone—a streak of black cutting through the air toward the intruder. The Glameow struck like a bullet, her body wreathed in Dark-type energy—

  —and met resistance.

  A root, glowing with a green light so bright it lit up the area around, lashed out of the mist and collided with her Sucker Punch mid-flight. The impact cracked through the clearing, and for a moment, the world seemed to lose its color as dirt and bark exploded outward.

  A perfect deadlock.

  The next moment?

  “them—"

  The shockwave threw everyone off their feet.

  And the balance shifted.

  Green light bled up Sassy’s body, leeching through the dark aura around her, draining the strength from her strike. Slowly the root forced her backwards until she—

  Horn Leech.

  —got flung away.

  …

  Cynthia came to with a sickly-sweet smell curling in her nose. Blinking slowly, she saw only dirt.

  What just happened?

  She tried to push herself up, palms sinking into soft soil, but everything around her blurred at the edges. Her heartbeat drowned out the sounds of battle, her vision swimming in and out of focus.

  BOOM.

  Another explosion—dark and green light colliding—rolled through the clearing, and she felt the shockwave tear through her body, flattening her back into the ground.

  After a moment though she still forced herself to move. Her muscles trembled, her breathing shallow, but inch by inch she lifted herself onto her elbows.

  Shapes came into focus through the haze.

  Midna stood planted before Johanna, rings blazing gold and body wrapped in a pale purple aura. A focused Dark Pulse erupted from her, slicing through the clearing in a straight line. Opposite her, Sassy darted forward in a blur of movement, claws flashing with darkness as she struck again and again.

  And between them—

  Cynthia blinked, slowly, as if her eyes were lying to her.

  They weren’t.

  Four meters tall, maybe more, the Trevenant towered over its opponents, as massive as the trees that surrounded it. Its bark was darker than any she’d seen, nearly black, veined with lines of pulsing green that glowed faintly from beneath the surface. One massive hand burned with green energy as it clashed against Midna’s Dark Pulse, while its roots whipped outward, meeting Sassy’s hit-and-run strikes in a blur of motion.

  And yet—her eyes, still blurry, couldn’t seem to focus on any of that.

  Not the bark. Not the roots. Not even the battle itself.

  They could only lock onto its eye.

  It wasn’t like the others.

  The rest had red eyes too—biological things that glimmered faintly through their bark. But those were still, clean in a way. More like cold lanterns than living eyes.

  This one…

  Red veins spiderwebbed through the black wood around its socket, pulsing faintly with each heavy, deliberate breath the creature took. The eye gleamed wetly, the light within it twitching and narrowing, as if it wanted to close and vanish—but couldn’t, forced to follow the battlefield.

  Bloodshot.

  The word surfaced unbidden in her mind, the ranger’s warning echoing through the haze.

  A royal guard.

  Her pulse spiked.

  Shit.

  She forced herself to scan the clearing through the blur.

  Volkner—there. Still moving, barely.

  Not far from him, Flint lay face-down in the grass, unmoving but breathing. Relief flickered—short-lived.

  Myst.

  Her pulse spiked. Blood thundered in her ears as she turned frantically, searching. Another shockwave rippled through the air, forcing her back down, the ground trembling beneath her palms. Panic clawed up her throat.

  Where was he?

  She pushed herself up again, arms shaking—

  A low groan came from behind her.

  Cynthia spun, adrenaline kicking in and heart in her mouth—and froze.

  Myst sat slumped against a splintered tree, one arm braced weakly against the trunk, the other wrapped protectively around Navi, cradling her. The Kirlia trembled faintly in his hold, eyes squeezed shut, the light from her horns flickering in uneven pulses.

  And yet—

  Blood streaked down his face, dark and wet, dyeing his black hair red. It dripped from his jaw, soaking into the torn fabric at his collar.

  Her breath caught, strangling a scream—

  An eye cracked open, meeting hers.

  Relief flooded her chest, fierce and sudden. He shot her a crooked, shaky grin, then reached down with trembling fingers toward Rei’s Pokéball, nodding weakly toward the towering Trevenant.

  Cynthia met his gaze, swallowed, and forced her own expression to steady.

  She reached to her belt, fingers finding Queenie’s Pokéball. The mechanism almost clicking beneath her thumb—

  —and then she froze.

  Something small was moving over the fallen log beside Myst. A green, round figure draped in a leafy cloak, creeping forward like a Caterpie.

  It stopped at the edge, staring at the battle ahead. For a heartbeat, its face mirrored Cynthia’s own—a tiny, solemn determination hardening its soft features. Then a single vine extended, delicate and deliberate, tugging open the flap of Myst’s backpack.

  It hesitated. Looked once more toward the fight. Then it slid inside.

  Cynthia blinked.

  What—

  The question never formed.

  A flash of color, white and black colliding with green, filled her vision. The sound hit a split-second later: a deep, shattering crack that made her bones vibrate. Air rushed past her like a physical blow.

  Then—

  Nothing.