*Risk's POV*

It all happened, quicker than lightning. One moment, I was looking my precious Shaymin friend in the eye, and the next second, an extremely sharp stinging sensation crept up my entire body. My eyes stung from the pain, and I had to painfully shut them to the world, or I felt that the pain would overtake me. I hesitated to open them again, even minutes after the attack, because I feared what I would find.

When I finally opened my eyes again, Riku had vanished, just like that, into thin air.

"Riku?" I called, frantically tracing and retracing our team's steps up and down the corridors we had walked previously.

"Riku? Riku?!" My call had been picked up by other members of the Crusaders, who had also seemed to experience a tremendous amount of pain, because they reported the same sensations as me to the group. Even Alakazam had been afflicted, but, even though the rest of us were once again functioning, none of could find any trace of where Riku went.

I looked down in despair.

"Where did he disappear to? That immense pain- why do I get the feeling that..."

I am interrupted by a loud chortle, and I immediately know the source of the voice.

"Von Spectre..." I clench my fists in rage.

"How dare you?!" I scream into the darkness.

Several seconds pass.

No response.

It must have left after placing that little spell on us all!... But, at least we know where Riku is... Although that won't mean much if we don't hurry...

The rest of the Crusaders and ACT all shared my sentiments towards the situation, but Felix still seemed to be fixated on something.

"I've seen that light before..." Felix stated, a smile on his face.

"That's the light of Mega Evolution!"

"Mega Evolution?" Now, the entire group was curious about what the Flygon had to say. He simply nodded,

"Yes, I've heard plenty about the legends surrounding it, but I never thought I'd see it in person. Mega Evolution is an enormous power boost bestowed to a Pokemon by the combination of a Mega Stone and a Key Stone. Now, I don't really know what Pokemon in that room underwent that change, but I have a feeling it was probably your Mawile friends..."

"Then we need to go help! They must be in trouble to be wielding that kind of power!"

I pushed past the others, to Felix's dismay, but, when I entered the room, my lungs weren't filled with this "poison gas" that Photon talked about.

The air here is... Perfectly normal? Or as normal as you can get in this underground insane asylum!

"Alpha! Beta? Hello?" I threw my voice as far as I could into the room. It bounced around the walls for a considerable amount of time, suggesting that this chamber was much more massive than the tunnel we were just in.

Tentatively, I took a few more steps into the room, and I gasped when I saw Alpha and Beta passed out on the floor. Running over to them, I felt their pulses and sighed in relief- they were alive.

"Come over here," I called to the rest of the group,

"You've got to see this!"

Felix was the first one to materialize out of the darkness, and a broad smile was on his face.

"I knew it! She really did..." He stopped when Beta began to stir.

"Unrgh... What? Why do I feel so... so exhausted?" she asked. The Mawile slowly stood up, still half- dazed. She stretched her hand and yawned. I noticed that the Mawilite and another small object were a few feet away from her.

"Did you... Did I... Did I imagine that?" she inquired.

Imagine what? was the only thought on my mind at the time. Felix put his hand on her shoulder,

"You didn't imagine that- don't worry. I'm just as excited as you are that I could see visible proof of a Mega Evolution..." he chided, picking up the two stones and giving them back to Beta.

"But how do you... How do you know?" she asked. Felix smiled again,

"Nothing else gives off that same light- the only way to produce that type of luminant explosion is through Mega Evolution. But..." he seemed lost in thought.

"I saw it twice! What happened to the other?"

"Was that weird change Mega Evolution? In that case, the other Pokemon was Gengar."

Was? Does that mean what I think it means?! I got my hopes up when she referred to Gengar in the past tense.

"I don't think it'll be coming back to "Kekekek!" another day for a long time!" Beta laughed aloud.

"I had this second horn-jaw, and I rammed both of them through its ugly face, and Gengar exploded into this purple goo, and..." she trailed off, looking at her back.

"Aww, it's gone now... I wish I could have shown it to you- it was really cool!"

Second horn-jaw?! What on earth can this Mega Evolution possibly do?!

"Unfortunately, the effects of Mega Evolution are only temporary. You usually revert back to your usual self after a skirmish..."

"Hey, Felix," Photon spoke up,

"How come you know so much about this 'Mega Evolution?' Can you Mega Evolve, too?"

"I... I've never really seen a Mega Stone that I can use. But, if you're wondering about how I know so much... Long story short, it was a book Sophia left on her house's front porch one day. I found it and decided that I'd take a look at it. Turns out, it was a book on old legends- which Mega Evolution happens to be," the Flygon stated.

"We should really be going deeper. While this Mega Evolution may be extremely powerful, Von Spectre will be stronger than that if it can unseal the full potential of the Dark Arts! Hurry, there is no more time for idle chatter!" Alakazam reminded us of our goal, and that rekindled the fire to keep going for all of us. Without another word, we walked past a purple throne and into the next room.

*Supernatural Bastion, B3F*

Immediately, a cold breeze whipped past us and chilled me to the bone.

"It's..." I closed my eyes and concentrated, trying to sense the Aura of any unfamiliar Pokemon nearby.

...

"It's completely empty?"

"I'll be the judge of that!" Charizard fumed, spewing a fireball down the middle of the room. I watched it quickly illuminate the inside of the room, and I saw that the entirety of this new chamber was cloaked in a thick ice.

Not a jagged formation of it like on Mt. Avalanche... The ice looks like...

"Pokemon..." Cedric finished my thought for me.

"This room's filled with frozen Pokemon!"

The fireball exploded against the back wall, a few hundred feet away, and brought me back to reality. I gasped- many of the chilled statues looked like Pokemon from the Guild. A horrible thought crossed my mind, when I realized that the ice sculptures probably were my guildmates. Alakazam seemed to have the same thought and said, calmly,

"Go and get rid of Spectre. The three of us can bring these Pokemon back- my Psychic powers combined with Charizard's fire should be enough to pry them from their icy prisons..."

"Don't forget me!" Tyranitar roared angrily.

"I'll shatter the extra ice that's covered this entire place..."

"And we won't let anyone else through here," Alakazam interrupted him,

"On my duty as the leader of a rescue team, Risk, we can handle this large task. Keep going- we'll hold down the fort here! I know you will be able to win- just stay calm and fight. Fight for the safety of this world!"

Alakazam looked at me sternly, and, for a split second, I thought I could see him smile- the first time he had ever done so in front of me- and I knew that the Guild was in good hands.

"Come on, Crusaders! We've got to keep going! Not just for the Guild, not just for Team ACT, but for the world!" I shouted confidently, paving the way for the Crusaders as I walked into the darkness.

*Supernatural Bastion, B4F*

As soon as we entered the next room, I knew something was different. Firstly, although the room looked suspiciously like the place where we found the Key Stone, the torches along the wall were all lit, giving the impression that the room was occupied. I turned my eyes to the place where the purple throne would have been, but, in its place, was a middle-aged girl, about five feet tall, lost in thought.

Photon and Cedric immediately recognized the girl, and, before I could reason with either of them, they ran over to the girl, tears streaming down their faces. The rest of us had no choice but to follow them.

"Sophia... Is it really you?!" Photon asked.

"This place gives me the creeps... But I think I can manage now- now that my friends are here!" The girl burst into tears of her own and embraced the two Pokemon.

"It really is you! You're... You're..." Cedric stopped, mid-sentence, when he noticed something odd behind Sophia's hair. To the girl's chagrin, he pulled part of her hair back to reveal a small spike, jammed into the back of her scalp. I knew what it was the instant that I saw it.

Dusknoir's puppet strings! So that's your weakness- you can never truly mask yourself- those strings give it away!

"You... You're..." The Leafeon's words seemed to be caught in the back of his throat.

"A what?" she asked.

"What am I?" her tone suddenly changed to a much more hypnotic tone, and it was all I could do but to yell,

"Cedric, get away from her!" before Sophia grabbed him with her left arm.

Cedric struggled to get away, but the girl's form changed to that of Dusknoir, complete with puppet strings in its right hand.

"You are all so easy to fool, I wonder why Master Spectre even puts me in charge of dealing with incompetent whelps like you! Now come here, little Leafeon..."

Dusknoir lifted the strings into the air, preparing to stab them into Cedric's chest, and I knew I only had one chance to attempt the split-second idea I had come up with.

Dashing forward with a speed that I did not even know I was capable of, I crashed into Dusknoir with such force that the three of us toppled into the wall on the far end of the room. The surprised Ghost let go of Cedric, but not before it tightened its puppet strings and stabbed them into me, instead.

Pain arced through every single nerve in my body, rivaling only that of the Serperior's gut. It felt like I was being removed from myself, as if I no longer had control of my own actions. I tried to get away, but every action only drove the spiked strings further into my skin.

Dusknoir laughed,

"Yes, struggle more, Risk! The more you do, the less painful it will be for me to finish what I started!" and I closed my eyes to try to shut out some of the pain.

...

"No! I won't let you have him!" shouted a loud voice from behind me. I opened my eyes just long enough to see Beta grab Dusknoir by the arm with one horn-jaw and gnaw through the strings it was holding with the other.

Dusknoir roared in simultaneous pain and rage. The Ghost dropped me and eventually pried itself from Beta's dual vicegrip. She lunged at Dusknoir once more, but the Gripper Pokemon just laughed and disappeared. A voice echoed from where it once was,

"I may not have been successful here, but your little antics have given Master Spectre enough time to recreate the Banettite- the strongest artifact of the Dark Arts still known to exist. This battle between the two of us is over for now, but your meaningless existences will end soon enough! And besides, we already have Riku- you won't be getting him back, that's for sure! Gahahahah!"

Beta rushed over to me and pried the three spikes from my back. Each removal hurt successively more, and I felt like I was about to pass out by the time the third needle clattered to the floor. Then, the full force of a dozen headaches came over me, all at once, and I fell to my knees.

"What's... What's happening to me?!" I cried out in sheer agony, as a dark mist began to form around my palm.

"No... No! Leave me alone!" I tried to dismiss the mysterious energy, and, surprisingly, it vanished at my command, spiraling into my left paw.

Both agitated and scared at the same time, I nervously tried to move my paw. It worked just like it did before Dusknoir attacked.

But is it still there? What did Dusknoir do to me?!

Even though I didn't really understand what happened to me, I only had one thought in my mind,

I'm going to get rid of you, Von Spectre, and everything that you created in your little corrupt world!