The sun is sliding behind the clouds with every swish of Klaki's fins. Gently but slowly, we glide into the darkness. The mist covers us like a thick veil, cold and foreboding.

 "Anyone else cold?" Rune says, shivering slightly.

 I pat him on the head. "It's just you, Rune. Everyone else is okay, right?"

 Pich buries herself in her feathers, fluffing up like the big songbird she is. "I'm f-fine." she says.

 "I am well." states Nico.

 "Man, I just don't see why we're here. This place is creepy." Klaki says, looking back at us. There's a loud slam and Rune falls forwards, hitting his face on solid rock. He swears loudly, and Klaki looks down. 

 "Sorry bruh, just landed on this." He squints at it. "Huh, could've sworn there wasn't an island here beforehand."

 "Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm guessing this is the magical mystery island we're looking for." Pich says.

 "Yeah."

 "Definitely."

 "Pretty much."

 The team echoes their agreement as I pull out Chrona, who lands with a thump on the rocky yet unnaturally flat ground.

 Klaki sits off the shore, bobbing up and down in the ocean. "Do you mind going back in the Pokeball for now?" I ask him, "Since you can't exactly move on land and we don't know what will happen in here."

 "S'all chill with me." he says, and I recall him into his Pokeball to take a rest.Tucking it into my bag, I walk down the shore, nervously apprehensive team in tow. A cave opens like the maw of some massive Pokemon, perhaps a legendary with it's sharp stalactite teeth. Dauntless, I take the first steps inside.

 It's pitch black, with only two glowing orbs lighting up the interior."Where's the light coming from?" I ask, as the light from them adjusts to give me a better view. It's not two orbs at all, it's Chrona's Venasaurite and Nico's Lucarionite. A similar, duller glow is also being emitted from my Mega Bracelet. I lift it up.

 Rune catches his stick on fire, but it burns silver, giving no light whatsoever. "What the heck?" Rune says, swinging it around. A few embers land on Chrona, which abruptly catch her leaves on fire. Chrona at first is nothing short of shocked, but her eyes dilate in the darkness as the lightless, colorless fire continues to singe her leaves. She flails them up and down, which does nothing to stop the fire but does manage to spread it. She continues whacking it with her Vine Whips as well, setting those on fire.

 "Holy mother of Mew, someone put this out!" Pich yells, as the fire intensifies and all of us stand there, panicking.

Chrona smacks the blazing foliage against a rock, putting it out. Calmly, she puts away her slightly singed vine whips, back to her usual refined and sarcastic self almost immediately. "It's still fire, smartass." She says to Rune. "Put the stick away."

 Rune needs no prompting. He simply takes the stick and puts it down, to the relief of all of us. "Well, I'm sorry." he says, his tone snappy as usual. "I'm sorry that physics don't work in this stupid cave that we walked into without any idea of how dangerous it was or what we were supposed to be doing."

 "Rune." Pich warns him.

 "I'm sorry I tried to give us some light so we aren't clamboring around in the darkness."

 "Rune." Pich repeats."I'm sorry I don't want to play by the rules of some stupid legendaries who are screwing around with us because whatever quest you're on is important but apparently not enough for them to do anything besides make weird-ass caves in the middle of nowhere!"

"Rune, calm down." Chrona is looking down a passage.

"What's wrong?" I ask.

"We're not alone."Another ball of light with seemingly no source levitates just down a narrow passage. As we watch, six more passages are each illuminated by the invisible light sources. 

"We aren't going to split up, are we? That would just be playing right into it." Rune complains.

"No, we aren't that stupid." I say. "Alright, what's the plan?"

"Nico has the know-how, right? He's the one who detected this thing." Chrona says. "So Nico, what do we do now?"

Nico closes his eyes and puts out a paw. The light from his Lucarionite flares and decreases, momentarily blinding all of us before plunging us into darkness.

"It's that one." he says.

"Which one? I can't see anything." I say.

"Humans have awful vision." Rune mutters. "He's pointing to the one in the middle."

"I can't see at all." I complain.

"Hold my vine, and I'll make sure you don't get lost." Chrona assures me.Like a small child, I clutch her vine, noticing her broad smile as her Venusaurite illuminates her face. Together, we walk through the long corridors, the light getting further away with each step.

I keep an eye on everyone, but am engulfed by shadow, as my heart beats quickly, terrified. Suddenly, the cave fans out into a huge, cavernous room.The lights go out.

"IS EVERYONE OKAY?!" I yell through the silence.

Five voices answer back, and I breathe out a sigh of relief.Mist begins to fill the room, and we close in towards the center, as if the mist is an entity in and of itself, out to kill us. Here, in the shadows, every pointless phobia is a legitimate one. I bump into something- a large pillar of some sort. Grabbing it for support, I feel it wobble. 

"That's it." Nico says. "Watch out."Without warning, a lightless, colorless ball of aura shoots the pillar and it explodes. With a loud and girly screech of terror, I fall backwards. Out from the shards of rock comes one small sphere, glittering in golden light. I pick it up, voltage tingling from it. A shape rises from the mist, looming and terrifying in the golden light. It's a Ho-Oh, giant wings fanning around me in an enormous, glorious arc.

"W-who are you?" I ask, terrified.

A familiar voice calls, "Lilly."I turn around. 

The misty form of Ashley waits in the mist, too real and too convincing for me to pull my eyes away."Lilly, is that you?"