That had been telepathy.

  There wasn’t a single doubt in her mind.

  Cynthia snapped her gaze toward Myst, but he had already turned to face the caves, eyes narrowed in thought. Apparently, he hadn’t noticed. She almost thought he would have, which was—

  Well, she wasn’t sure if she wanted to call it unexpected or not, but in some sense, him not noticing was certainly on brand. Then again, maybe it was just that everyone was more focused on what Navi had said, rather than how she had said it, because it wasn’t just Myst who seemed oblivious.

  Neither Byron nor Johanna had so much as twitched.

  On some level, she could understand Byron missing it. He didn’t know Navi, was probably used to being around Pokémon who could casually use Telepathy, and had more important things on his mind.

  But Johanna?

  Honestly, the fact that she wasn’t exchanging glances of pure disbelief with Cynthia was downright baffling. Johanna was a strong trainer, sure, but she wasn’t in that echelon, the one filled with League elites who met Pokémon who could use Telepathy at the highest level. Then again… the whole “lost children in a collapsing mine” situation probably took precedence over spontaneous psychic revelations anyway.

  Still, just because they missed it didn’t mean she had. Because it was weird how easily Navi had projected her thoughts.

  Telepathy wasn’t some common, casual trick. Sure, almost all Psychic-types could learn it eventually, but most only used it to communicate with other Psychic-types. With serious training, that range could expand to include other Pokémon, but for trainers dreaming of communicating directly with their partners, of directing them in battle through thought alone?

  Unless you were a Psychic yourself, that level of clarity and control usually took years of dedicated training.

  Of course, you could technically attempt it straight away after a Pokémon learned the most basic form of telepathy. It was just that you had to prepare yourself for some truly brutal, skull-splitting headaches. Cynthia knew that better than most. She’d tried it herself once, stubborn, lonely, and desperate to talk to her grandmother’s Chingling when there was no one else around.

  The result, in hindsight, had been entirely predictable.

  She’d wanted to hear Chingling, and the poor thing had tried to respond, but neither of them had the faintest idea how to regulate the exchange. Cynthia fainted in under a minute. Even years later, she could still remember lying in bed with an ice pack pressed to her forehead, her grandmother smiling as she calmly explained her mistake.

  “A Psychic-type’s mind is an ocean, darling, yours is barely a puddle. Their whispers are screams to us. Even kindness can thunder when your mind isn’t ready to hold it.”

  So, in a desperate attempt to avoid ever getting mind-blasted again, Cynthia had spent months researching telepathy, its mechanics, its risks, its boundaries.

  And everything she found only confirmed what her grandmother had said.

  Telepathy wasn’t rare. But safe, controlled, direct-to-human telepathy? That wasn’t something even most regular trainers encountered on a regular basis. Which meant, in all honesty, there could only be one explanation for how Navi had managed it so effortlessly.

  It wasn’t training. It wasn’t coincidence.

  It was her Ability.

  Cynthia glanced at the Navi, whose horn shimmered faintly as she looked back at her, brow furrowed. Like she could sense Cynthia’s reaction but didn’t quite understand it.

  Cynthia smiled, fighting back the urge to scoop the Psychic-type into her arms and poke at her glowing horn out of sheer curiosity.

  How fascinating!

  Myst had mentioned it before, that Navi had the potential to have the Hidden Ability Telepathy. It was just, at the time, that was about all he could offer. He didn’t know what it actually did, didn’t know how to activate it, and didn’t even understand why it was called a "hidden" ability. All he could say with certainty was that there existed a special category of abilities beyond the norm, and that Navi’s was Telepathy.

  But looking at the situation now?

  Considering the fact she had already been wondering why Navi didn’t seem to activate either Trace or Synchronize?

  Navi’s natural ability being Telepathy would explain a lot.

  After all, Abilities were just a Pokémon’s natural traits, dialed up to eleven. A Buizel’s swimming becoming water manipulation through Swift Swim. A Geodude’s stone-like body turning so resilient that its Aura became impossible to break in a single hit though Sturdy.

  It wasn’t that Pokémon couldn’t learn to do those things otherwise. In many ways, Endure operated under the same principles as Sturdy, after all. More than that, any Water-type could, with enough practice, manipulate water around them to simulate Swift Swim.

  The difference was that mimicking an ability took intent. It took time, focus.

  But an Ability?

  An Ability just happened.

  So if she had to guess what Telepathy did?

  Cynthia grinned to herself, watching Navi shuffle subtly closer to Myst as if trying to shield herself from Cynthia’s gaze.

  Well… it probably skipped some part of the whole “learning how to” part altogether, didn’t it?

  “Lucario.”

  A sharp bark rang out from just inside the mines, almost snapping Cynthia out of her thoughts. It didn’t quite succeed, simply because there were so many questions rattling in her mind.

  When had Navi activated the ability?

  If it was her natural ability, the one she was born with, then why had it only manifested now?

  And maybe most puzzling of all: Why did Myst call it a “Hidden Ability” in the first place?

  “You already found their signature?” Byron rang out, sounding mildly impressed.

  At the sound of his voice, Cynthia finally managed to tear her attention toward the mine entrance. Byron had already lowered his walkie-talkie and was glancing at Lucario.

  Lucario gave a single nod.

  Byron grinned, satisfied, and turned back to the group.

  “Well, you heard the old dog. He’s picked up the trail, that means we’re moving.”

  Johanna was already on her feet before he finished the sentence, springing up from the stone she’d been sitting on.

  “Then what are we waiting for? We’ve already wasted nearly twenty minutes just waiting for Lucario to lock onto their Aura. Let’s go.”

  …

  There was one reason they’d waited for Lucario to pick up the kids’ signature instead of rushing in without a plan. It wasn’t because they didn’t care, it was because waiting would, in the end, make the process of finding the kids faster.

  Lucario turned left, ignoring the two other tunnels that stretched ahead and to the right.

  At every fork in the tunnels, he barely hesitated. He would pause for a heartbeat, just long enough to sense their Aura, then move forward with quiet certainty, navigating by a trail only he could see.

  It was honestly amazing, and more than a little humbling.

  Riolu was incredible at picking up Aura signatures, nearly on par with the only other Lucario she’d ever met. That Lucario’s trainer had once called him a genuine prodigy, and Cynthia didn’t disagree with that assessment.

  Being able to track through forests, through crowded cities, even when hundreds of other Auras blurred the trail? From what she’d read, even most Lucario struggled with that. Still, Riolu’s skill was largely tied to things connected to her, her own signature, which he’d had months to memorize. One he could always find again, because she was always right there beside him.

  Byron’s Lucario, though?

  He had somehow sorted through the dozens of lingering Aura traces near the cave’s mouth and managed to isolate six that belonged to human children. That wasn’t just impressive, she would have called it outright impossible if it wasn’t happening before her eyes.

  After all, considering what Byron had said about the mines, Pokémon had definitely made this place their home. Their Aura would have lingered, strong and overwhelming compared to the faint traces left behind by children. Finding those specific trails among all that noise?

  It was like finding a needle in a haystack.

  With your eyes closed.

  In a wind tunnel.

  Myst let out a short breath beside her. Cynthia blinked, letting her thoughts scatter. It didn’t matter. She could maybe ask Byron about it later, if she had time, but right now there were more important things at stake. She took a breath, and tried to calm her breathing.

  Their pace was still just a little bit too fast for her to—

  Her heart gave a small drop.

  Fuck.

  As subtly as a person could whip their head around she snapped hers towards Myst.

  She hadn’t quite realized it, but they weren’t just walking through the tunnels. They were running. Fast. The pace wasn’t theirs, it was Lucario’s, and Lucario’s urgency didn’t care about human stamina. More than that, Myst didn’t exactly have the best stam—

  She took in his condition, brain catching up to her sight.

  He was fine.

  Which was good.

  She blinked.

  For some reason she’d expected him to be struggling. Not falling behind, exactly—he never really fell behind—but struggling, breathing harder, visibly pushing through it.

  But he wasn’t.

  His breath came short, sure, but controlled. His posture was solid. And the gap she’d been used to, between his effort and his actual condition, felt… smaller now.

  Huh.

  Of course, she knew he trained constantly, that he was still eating more than he sometimes wanted to recover. To hit whatever baseline he thought counted as ‘normal.’ It was just, somehow, she kept missing how much he’d changed.

  How much he’d filled out.

  His arms weren’t painfully thin anymore, not bulky, not overblown, but healthy. Toned. Even his skin had started tanning, no longer pale and drawn from whatever vitamin he’d once lacked. More than that, his face had almost completely stopped looking slightly sunken.

  He honestly looked handso—

  Lucario stopped.

  Byron and Johanna skidded to a halt.

  Cynthia?

  She almost tripped, catching herself with a quick, graceless shuffle of steps. Then, for a couple of seconds, she just stared at the ground. Blankly.

  Nope. Absolutely not.

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  She had not just been thinking anything weird about Myst.

  …And honestly, even if she had thought he looked handsome, that was just an objective observation. A neutral, fact-based assessment. She was pretty sure most people would agree.

  Which made it fine.

  Completely fine.

  “Lucario.” A sharp bark from Lucario shattered the thought spiral, and she inhaled deeply, dragging her brain back to the present.

  Never mind. Actual important things to do.

  She looked up just in time to catch the shift in Byron’s expression as it fell.

  “Fuck,” he muttered, then exhaled, jaw tight. “No problem. Take your time. A wrong turn costs us more than two minutes ever will.”

  Lucario gave him a steady look, then nodded.

  Myst stepped up beside her and crossed his arms. He cast a quick glance over his shoulder, then shook his head. “Honestly, why do the mines split so many times anyway? Wouldn’t that just make the whole place unstable and confusing?”

  Cynthia blinked, then looked behind them.

  That was… a good question. Cynthia hadn’t thought about it before, but they’d already passed four forks in barely ten minutes of running. If this kept up, the mine wasn’t a tunnel system, it was a maze. And that didn’t exactly seem ideal for a place people were supposed to work in.

  Byron’s voice echoed down the tunnel, catching Myst’s words despite the distance. “You’re right, kid. This place is designed like shit. Half the reason they shut it down was because people kept disappearing while on the job.”

  A sudden clatter of loose stone cut through the air.

  Byron paused, glancing back just in time to see Johanna scaling a low rock. She reached out and brushed a hand along one of the thick, oversized support beams lining the tunnel. Dust poured off in heavy sheets, revealing roughly carved letters beneath the grime.

  CLOSE OFF; LEADS TO THE UNDERGROUND

  For a long second, no one spoke.

  Byron stared at the sign, the tension in his shoulders coiling tighter. His expression shifted, serious to grim, then worse.

  “Fuck.”

  Johanna dropped back to the ground, eyes locked on him. “What is it?”

  Byron licked his lips, eyes darting to Lucario.

  Lucario didn’t react.

  “Shit,” he muttered again, quieter this time. “Shit.”

  Cynthia squinted at the message. The Underground? They were obviously underground already, so what—

  Myst spoke up, his voice quiet. “The Underground? Like the cave system that runs beneath all of Sinnoh?”

  Byron, who had just opened his mouth to speak, froze mid-breath. Slowly, he turned to Myst. “How do you know about the Underground?” he asked, too calm.

  Cynthia instinctively stepped in front of Myst, as Byron’s entire posture tightened, shoulders squaring.

  “Wait, wait,” she said quickly. “Let’s take a step back. What is the deal with the Underground? There’s a cave system under all of Sinno—” She cut herself off, the words sounding ridiculous even to her own ears.

  Byron stared at Myst for a long moment. Then, jaw tense, he turned away.

  “I mentioned the crap layout being one reason we shut this place down, right?” He exhaled. “Well, the second reason was… we dug too deep. Hit a cave. Happens sometimes. Empty pockets in the earth, some natural, some left by Pokémon.”

  He paused.

  “But this one didn’t end.”

  Johanna frowned. “And the problem with that is…? You said Pokémon lived down here. They can form large cave systems, right?”

  Byron shook his head slowly. “Not like this. And it wasn’t just the size, honestly, that was the least crazy thing about it. No, the problem was everything else. We didn’t just find Geodude or Onix. We found Pokémon of every type. Pokémon I’d never seen before. Species I haven’t even heard about. Ice-types, Grass-types, hell, even Water-types.”

  Cynthia stared at him. “That’s impossible. That wouldn’t last more than a generation. Sure, you could get an Ice-type or Water-type down here somehow, but it wouldn’t propagate. It wouldn’t survive.”

  Byron laughed. Dry and humorless.

  “You’d be right, if the Underground didn’t have full-on biomes. You know why these mountains can produce every type of Evolution Stone? It’s because underneath them is a forest. A swamp. Hell, there’s even a cave full of snow.”

  His voice dropped.

  “Calling it a cave system isn’t right. It’s a world under the world.”

  He let that hang for a beat, and then, a second later, his eyes flicked back to Myst.

  “So, I need to know boy. How did you hear about it? Because this isn’t just about you knowing about it, it’s about protecting the damn place. Hell, it’s about protecting people from the place.”

  Myst slowly opened his mouth, then paused.

  Cynthia let out a bitter smile.

  She didn’t need to guess why he knew. Or why he had such a hard time answering.

  But, before either of them could speak, Johanna cut in smoothly. “I told him about it. Heard it from a friend.”

  Byron turned sharply. “And how do you know?”

  Johanna shrugged easily. “Let’s just say everyone’s sworn to secrecy until you have won the Oreburgh Contest and the beer starts flowing.”

  Byron stared at her for a moment, then sighed. “Yeah, that tracks. Honestly, the fact that half of Oreburgh doesn’t know about it is a goddamn miracle. I told the mayor it wouldn’t stay a secret forever, that we needed to start figuring out what to do about it, but no, ‘we don’t have the funds,’ ‘I want to build apartment buildings’...” He trailed off mid-rant, catching himself.

  Lucario came to his rescue. With a sharp clap of its paws, it drew everyone’s attention, then pointed down the left tunnel.

  “Lucario.”

  Then it pointed down the right.

  “Lucario.”

  Byron just stared.

  Then he let out another sigh, “Fuck.”

  Beside him, Johanna narrowed her eyes, already guessing. “The kids split, didn’t they? That’s why you hesitated earlier.”

  Lucario nodded. Then, before anyone could speak again, it lifted a torn piece of cloth, part of a child’s T-shirt, and pointed towards a nearby beam, where it obviously had snagged somehow.

  “Lucario.”

  Byron glanced at it, then up at Lucario. “No offense, buddy, but how’s that going to help? You can already track them. That’ll make it easier, sure, but the issue is that the kids split up.”

  Cynthia’s eyes locked onto the cloth. Riolu couldn’t track Auras through the air the same way Lucario could. Not without help. But with a piece of clothing from one of the children…

  Byron stared at Lucario, and when the Aura Pokémon didn’t answer, he sighed. “Whatever. I guess that means we need to move fast,” he began, turning toward the tunnels. “After all, we need to cover both paths and Lucario can only—”

  Cynthia cut him off.

  “Riolu can track them,” Cynthia cut in. “With this cloth, he should be able to follow the one it belongs to. He can’t do what Lucario does, not on his own, but this will be enough. And if we find one of the kids, what’s the chance they’ve split up again?”

  Byron turned to her, eyes sharp.

  “What if—” He paused, visibly biting back a retort. Then, after a beat, he sighed. “You’re right. We don’t have time to argue.” He nodded at Myst. “Myst, right?”

  Myst barely nodded before Byron continued.

  “You go with her okay? Normally, I’d want one of you with me to keep power balanced, but your Ralts changes that...” he paused for a second, glancing to the side where Myst usually kept his Pokeballs, “Still, you’re sure she can teleport everyone out? Even with the kids?”

  Myst didn’t hesitate. “As long as she’s not exhausted, she can.”

  Byron gave him a long look, then nodded. “Alright. Johanna and I will keep going, try to catch the other kids before they go too far. You two track down the one this belongs to. If he’s alone, use him to find the rest. Once everyone’s safe, teleport straight to the surface.” He paused, then added, “I left a walkie-talkie by the entrance. If you get out before we do, scream into it. Backup should already be en route, but a little encouragement can work wonders.”

  Cynthia and Myst nodded in unison.

  “Good.” Byron turned to Johanna. “We’re picking up the pace, alright?”

  Johanna didn’t reply, just nodded, expression having already turned to stone.

  Lucario, sensing the handoff, approached Cynthia and gently laid the cloth into her palm.

  “Lucario,” it said softly.

  She curled her fingers around it, but, before she could thank him, Lucario was already moving, feet silent against the stone. Byron followed, then Johanna, boots thudding in rhythm behind.

  Myst’s eyes lingered on them for a moment, watching them go. Then he turned to her and asked, quietly,

  “…So I guess this means I should release Rei?”

  …

  Riolu was good at tracking, but they still ended up slowing down slightly. Compared to Lucario, he needed to concentrate more, which turned their run into a fast-paced walk. Not that Cynthia minded that much. After all, that left her with time to actually talk to Myst.

  She glanced down Rei.

  “She has Run Away, right?”

  Myst nodded easily, ducking under a sagging support beam. “For all the good it does. An Ability that only works when you’re trying to flee a fight is about as useful as a bag of rocks during a swim for Rei.”

  Rei bounced beside him, nodding solemnly at his words. Even so, her ears stood straight up, twitching every half second, straining for any sound.

  Cynthia looked back up towards Myst.

  “And her Hidden Ability?” she asked.

  “Limber. Makes you unable to be—”

  “—unable to become paralyzed.” Cynthia finished for him, “I know, Glameow has the same one…” She hesitated for a beat before continuing, “You had any success activating it?”

  “Nope. Honestly not even sure how you would. I know you said you can activate Abilities by training skills related to them, trying to make them automatic, but… we’re not really seeing progress.”

  Cynthia pursed her lips. “What about exposure training?”

  Myst shrugged. “Tried it. Didn’t work either. Roselia was, honestly, a little too eager to help. But all paralyzing Rei did was make her mad.”

  She nodded at that.

  That more or less matched what he’d told her last time. Honestly, Hidden Abilities were still strange to her. When he first talked about them, she’d assumed the name came from the fact that a Pokémon couldn’t naturally have one, which made them harder to detect.

  Obviously, that couldn’t be the case if Telepathy was Navi’s natural ability…

  Myst glanced at her. “You asking ‘cause you’ve got a new idea?”

  Well, that sentence still contained an if though.

  She turned sharply to face him. “When we saw that Geodude migration, why didn’t you have Navi defend you?”

  Myst blinked. “The Geodude—” He paused, recognition lighting in his eyes. “Ah, that thing? I mean, Navi told me it was fine, right? You didn’t hear her?” He pitched his voice absurdly high. “‘Don’t move. They’re going around.’”

  Cynthia just stared at him.

  She understood how he could’ve made the mistake. Sometimes she translated her Pokémon’s emotions and Aura into words in her head too, it made communication easier. And with Ralts? Considering how her telepathy had sounded, it was an easy mistake to make in the heat of the moment.

  But still—

  “Myst,” she said slowly, “you need to be able to hear a Pokémon to understand them. How could you hear anything she might have said back then? I couldn’t even make out my own thoughts, let alone Navi speaking before most of the Geodudes passed.”

  Myst opened his mouth, then paused. His eyes flicked down toward his belt. “What do you mean?”

  Cynthia didn’t look away. “You know what I mean.”

  He pursed his lips. “Navi knows how to do telepathy?” he asked, but it still sounded more like a guess than a statement.

  “Myst,” she said firmly, “her Ability is Telepathy. That’s why she’s never shown signs of Trace or Synchronize. She doesn’t have either.”

  He stopped. Just for a second. Still staring at Navi’s Poké Ball.

  “I thought you said it’s probably called a Hidden Ability becau—”

  “I did say that,” Cynthia cut him off. “I was obviously wrong. Seriously, what is wrong with you? Your mind’s been a million miles away since the Gym C—” She stopped.

  Ah.

  Fuck.

  The gym battle.

  She had honestly almost forgotten about it, but the battle had never actually concluded, had it?

  Really, even now, thinking back at it, she wasn’t entirely sure he would have won. With Rei that worn down, it probably would’ve taken a miracle for her to take out Lairon alone. That would’ve left Navi, and while the little Psychic-type was stronger than she looked, that was still an abysmal matchup.

  Myst smiled at her.

  “Sorry. Just tired after…” he trailed off.

  Cynthia stared for a few moments. Then she opened her mouth, finishing his sentence.

  “The Gym Battle?” she said, voice soft.

  He hesitated. Then took a second, like he was debating whether he could lie. Eventually, his smile twisted slightly, bitter around the edges.

  “Well. Yeah.”

  They walked in silence for a moment, and Cynthia could feel it settle like dust around them, quiet, and heavy.

  Okay, sure—the truth was that Myst might have lost. She didn’t want to admit it but given the state of the battle before it was canceled, it wouldn’t have been unexpected. He’d challenged Byron at a badge level above what he was supposed to be, and he’d done it with one fewer Pokémon. Honestly, the fact that she still wasn’t sure he’d lose even after Rei had taken that much damage?

  That said more about her confidence in him than anything else.

  At the same time, she wasn’t going to lie.

  She was absolutely surprised at the possibility.

  Myst might not be the best at perfectly setting up his training regiments, but as a battler?

  He was good.

  Very good even.

  Part of it came down to his Pokémon, how good they’d become at fighting by themselves. So many trainers micromanaged their teams, like they thought they could react to every move the opponent made faster than their Pokémon could. As if the opposing Pokémon would politely wait for them to finish giving commands, rather than just keep fighting.

  Myst never made that mistake, always trusting his Pokémon to act, and that alone put him above most trainers early on in the circuit.

  Still, maybe even more importantly, under pressure?

  He was calm.

  Always reacting appropriately, always able to focus on the things that mattered, ignoring the things that didn’t. Part of that was probably the forest. When losing meant getting seriously hurt, or worse, training stopped being a game. The rest, she figured, was just who he was.

  So for him to nearly lose to a third-badge team?

  Yeah. It didn’t track.

  It didn’t feel like something should happen.

  Then again, she knew why it had happened.

  She slowly opened her mouth. “You know… I don’t really agree with Byron’s choice of Pokémon. They aren’t really suited for a gym challenge at that level…” she paused for a second, before adding firmly, “at any level really.”

  Myst glanced at her, then sighed. “Thanks, but it’s fine. You don’t have to comfort me. I messed up, that’s on me. If he used weaker Pokémon, I could’ve won, sure, but at that point I’d just be fighting him at second-badge level, right?”

  She licked her lips.

  Normally, she’d agree. She hated the idea of dumbing down the circuit. Trainers needed to be challenged, if Gyms were too easy, no one would grow.

  But there was a difference between a challenge and whatever Byron had pulled.

  “That’s not what I mean. I just don’t think he should be using Mawile, at least not if he’s going to fight with her like that,” she said, her voice firm.

  Myst raised an eyebrow. “Okay, why not? Because I can tell you right now, she’s not too strong for a third badge team.”

  “She’s probably a little too strong, but that’s still not what I meant.” Cynthia shook her head. “The problem is that she’s a knowledge check. Byron fighting with her the way he did, that doesn’t teach a trainer anything. I’d never blame someone else for using her like that, but a Gym Leader? They’re supposed to challenge you in ways you can learn from. Mawile doesn’t do that.”

  She took a breath.

  “She has one trick. And if you fall for it? You instantly lose a Pokémon. That’s not a battle, it’s a pop quiz with one question. If you walk into the Gym not knowing the answer? Too bad. You just lost a team member without even getting a chance to respond.”

  Myst frowned, but she kept going.

  “It’s like if a Gym Leader sent out a Voltorb that only knew Explosion. Either your Pokémon knows Protect, or it doesn’t. Doesn’t matter how hard you trained. Doesn’t matter how clever you are. You just lose.”

  She looked back at him, but instead of looking encouraged, Myst just gave her a hollow smile.

  “And since I did recognize Mawile the second she came out, I guess that makes it an F on my report card.”

  Cynthia froze.

  That hadn’t been what she meant at all.

  But before she could say anything, Rei stopped moving.

  The little rabbit’s ears, which had been twitching constantly, suddenly locked into place. Then, slowly, they rotated left, like twin antennae zeroing in on a signal.

  Her eyes narrowed.

  “You hear—” Myst began.

  He didn’t finish.

  Rei burst into white, launching down the tunnel in a streak of light.

  Cynthia stared after her, then, without hesitation, sprinted to follow.

  For a full minute, they ran at full tilt. The tunnel curved sharply, and as they rounded the bend, Cynthia nearly stumbled. Since they had entered the mine, it had been mostly narrow, maybe three meters across, four at the widest, with a few meters up to the ceiling.

  But the space ahead?

  It was massive. Almost like someone had carved out a dome, thirty meters across probably, with the highest point rising around seven meters overhead. Dusty benches lined the walls, long-unused. A rickety scaffold stood along one wall, half-collapsed beneath a faded map painted directly onto the stone.

  But Cynthia’s eyes didn’t go to any of that.

  No.

  She was staring straight at the middle of the chamber, where Rei stood, bristling, ears curled, low to the ground.

  Behind her were two kids.

  In front?

  A small horde of Sandshrew, led by a very large, very angry Sandslash.

  Beside her, Myst let out a sharp curse under his breath, putting words to the realization that had just hit her too.

  “They took a fucking egg.”