“There it is,” Fiona whispered.

  It was their second day in the forest. Fiona and Chloe were crouching behind a bush, looking into a small clearing. It was unremarkable, just a rough circle of open space in the forest. A rough space that was currently occupied by a massive Heracross. Nearly two meters of shiny blue carapace, topped with a massive horn, currently sucking away at the sap of one of the trees.

  “What's your plan?” Chloe asked.

  The morning had been fairly easy going. Star was fresh after a good rest, and Echo had been scouting, with Lumen and Junior having handled the brunt of the battling. Last night they had decided that they would keep Mochi, Thistle and Mimi as fresh as possible, in case they ran into anything else that was as strong as those Pinsir. Salad and Junior had done the best they could, but the type disadvantage had really restricted their ability to handle the more powerful opponent.

  “I’ll have Star pin him with Confusion while Thistle hits it as hard as he can,” Fiona replied.

  “What if Star can't hold him?” Eleanor asked, and Fiona frowned for a moment.

  “He is pretty big,” Troy added.

  “I’ll have Mochi hit him as well,” Chloe said.

  Fiona whirled on her, and Chloe held her hands up.

  “I know, you’d rather do it yourself. But we can't afford to take risks, not when we're a day from either side of the forest,”she explained quickly, and Fiona glared, before sighing.

  “Yeah, you’re right,” she agreed. “In that case, let's have Mochi, Lumen, Reinette and Echo all hit him at once. Alpha strike for minimal risk.”

  Everyone agreed, and they got into position.

  “Go!” Fiona shouted, and Star’s eyes glowed before the Heracross slammed into the tree, closely followed by a hail of attacks. A Thundershock, two Hyper Voices and a Razorleaf impacted, sending a hail of bark flying in all directions.

  Chloe ducked, turning her face away to avoid the debris, then popped back up, eyes widening as she watched the Heracross, still very much conscious, struggle against the bindings.

  “Hit it again!” Fiona called, and all four Pokemon released another attack. The Heracross reeled, then gathered itself. Star whinnied in alarm as it broke free, and charged, horn glowing.

  A third wave of attacks landed, and the charge was stalled, but the Heracross, unbelievably, kept on.

  “Aerial Ace!”

  “Rollout!”

  Mochi and Thistle crashed into the Heracross, checking its momentum enough for Star to re-establish control. It halted, only for another pair of attacks from Echo and Lumen to strike it. Finally, it toppled, and Fiona hurled a Pokeball at the enormous bug type.

  Collectively, they held their breath, the air filled with tension as they watched the Pokeball wobble once. Twice. Three times. It clicked, and they all breathed a sigh of relief.

  “Holy shit,” Eleanor said, “That thing was strong.”

  “Yeah,” Fiona replied, grinning. “Thanks guys. We would have taken a beating catching that on our own.”

  Fiona collected the Pokeball and attached it to her belt with a smile. Things were going well. All they needed to do now was to get through to the other side of the forest unscathed, and considering how well they had handled it all so far, she felt good about doing just that. That of course, was when it all went wrong.

  They felt it first. An air of dread that settled on them with a cold chill.

  …The forest went still.

  Just silence, thick and unnatural.

  Star stamped and scraped at the ground with a hoof. Lumen shifted uneasily. Thistle dropped out of the canopy, wings fluttering nervously as he landed beside Fiona.

  Something was wrong.

  Chloe stood up slowly, scanning the treetops. “Anyone else feel that?”

  “Like we just walked into a haunted house?” Troy muttered. “Yeah. Big time.”

  Salad trembled slightly, hiding behind Troy’s leg. Eleanor felt Echo shift on her shoulder, feathers puffed and tense. He made a low warble, uncertain and alert.

  Reinette, ever calm, stepped in front of Chloe, but her form radiated tension. Mochi crowded close, puffing herself up as much as possible.

  The silence sat, heavy, unbearable. Chloe broke into a cold sweat.

  Then, the sky turned red, and the noise started.

  Ranger Michael had been walking these paths for years. With his Leafeon at his side, he patrolled every part of the forest. He knew it like the palm of his hand, could tell you where the moss was thickest, where the Stantler migrated each season, which creeks flooded after rain.

  And today, it was wrong.

  The forest, for all its thickness and gloom, was never silent. There was always a breeze in the leaves, the chitter of bug-types, the rustle of something foraging in the brush. But now? Everything was still. Dead still.

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  Michael stopped walking. So did Leafeon.

  The air had weight. Like walking underwater.

  Michael turned slowly, eyes scanning the undergrowth. Nothing. Just the soft green hush of trees. But every instinct he had, honed over a decade in the Ranger Corps, was screaming.

  “I feel it too, buddy,” he said quietly, resting a hand on Leafeon’s shoulder.

  She pressed into him with a faint whine, body tense, leafy tail twitching. She had never liked silence. Not this kind.

  They’d come out today to inspect a new game trail reported by another patrol team. A routine check. He hadn’t expected trouble. But the deeper they had come, the more the wrongness pressed in.

  And now, here, it was like something was holding its breath.

  Michael squinted up into the canopy. The sun should’ve been overhead, bleeding dappled gold through the leaves. But it wasn’t. The light was… red. Dim and distorted, as though filtering through stained glass.

  He took a step back.

  Leafeon growled. Low. Not warning. Not aggression.

  Fear.

  He didn’t know how he knew, but something had woken up.

  Something ancient.

  Something angry.

  “Get ready,” he told Leafeon, lowering his center of gravity, slipping into his practiced stance. He unclipped a second Pokéball from his belt. He didn’t open it, not yet, but the familiar shape in his palm was a small comfort.

  There was a pulse.

  A single, bone-deep thrum. Not sound, not heat. Just pressure.

  Then it came.

  Noise.

  Not from one direction. From everywhere. Above, around, below.

  Thousands, tens of thousands of wingbeats. A rushing cyclone of motion. A wave of bug-types burst from the canopy, all at once. Not in scattered panic. Together. As if flung outward by a single command.

  Combee. Beedrill. Dustox. Beautifly. Venomoth. Even rare Scyther.

  All at once. All flying in the same direction.

  Not away from something.

  Toward.

  He was attacked.

  A screeching Beautifly slammed into him, wings slicing across his cheek before veering back into the swarm. Michael stumbled, blood warm on his skin, and Leafeon immediately darted forward, firing a storm of Magical Leaf to push it back.

  Then another. A Beedrill dove, needle extended. Leafeon countered with a Quick Attack, but more followed.

  Michael spun on instinct, ducking a Dustox’s beam of Psywave that tore bark from a nearby tree. “They're not just territorial,” he muttered aloud. “They're coordinated.”

  It wasn’t a frenzy. It was a march.

  They fought as if possessed. Headless of injury. Unrelenting. The attacks weren’t random, they were targeted. Calculated.

  The whole forest had turned into a battlefield.

  Something had taken control. Something old, powerful and angry.

  And he was caught in the middle of it.

  Gary ran.

  His Buizel ran at his side. Ahead of him Peter led the way, his Rhyhorn thundering through the forest, smashing them a path to follow.

  Hana limped along behind him, helped by Fernando while their Pokemon held the rear, Garifarig and Snover fighting a desperate fighting retreat, barely holding the horde of bug types at bay.

  “What the fuck is going on?” He yelled, ducking as a Combee swopped past. Buizel clubbed it out of the air, and they kept moving.

  “Who the fuck cares?” Fernando yelled back, his voice filled with strain as he hauled Hana along. She had taken a nasty bullet seed to the ribs when the madness had started, and was wheezing with effort.

  “Let’s just get the hell out of here!” Peter shouted, and the group kept running.

  They had been halfway through Eterna when it happened. The strange, primal fear that had overtaken them, followed by the mindless, endless assault by the wild Pokemon.

  Gary had no idea what had gone wrong. He had been in Eterna before, having spent the week leading up to the challenge training in its fringes. The forest was challenging, but this was a whole new level of insanity.

  “There!” Peter shouted, pointing. Gary followed his arm to see a flare bursting above the canopy.

  “Another group?” Gary replied, panting.

  “Let's try to group up with them,” Hana gasped, holding her side as she ran.

  “Agreed,” Fernando said, and they changed directions. Hopefully they could link up with this other group and weather the storm together.

  “Should we move?” Shouted Eleanor as Echo blasted another Beautifly out of the sky with a Hyper Voice. Beside her Lumen let off blast after blast of electricity into the oncoming Pokemon.

  “Rangers said to stay put and wait for help,” Chloe called back.

  They had been attacked by wave after wave of Pokemon for the last 15 minutes, and they were feeling the strain. Chloe tried to maintain her calm, it wouldn't do to panic right now, but the situation was incredibly bad. Chloe had fired off their flare when it became clear that whatever was going on, it wasn't going to end soon, but they had no idea if or when it had been noticed.

  All of their Pokemon were out, battling to defend their trainers. They were holding them back for now, but the group’s Pokemon were heavily outnumbered. It had only gotten worse when Troy had been forced to withdraw Salad, the little Oddish being unable to continue battling. Chloe had plugged the gap with Reinette, but they were fast running out of options.

  “There's a ridge over that way!” Eleanor shouted, “Could limit what directions they can come from.”

  Chloe considered. They weren't supposed to move, but there would be no point if they didn't last long enough for help to arrive.

  “Let's do it,” she said, and both Fiona and Troy shouted their own agreement.

  “Let's go, Mochi, lead the way!” Chloe shouted, and the group started moving.

  Mochi charged at the line of Caterpie that were blocking their path towards the ridge, blocking their Stringshots with a Hypervoice that sent the strands of silk flying back towards their origin. She followed with a Rollout, scattering them like bowling pins and they all immediately followed, Chloe right behind Mochi, Fiona and Eleanor following and Troy, as always, bringing up the rear.

  Chloe ducked under branches, leapt over logs and crashed through bushes as she ran, making sure the others were keeping up with her. Star barreled through the forest, Reinette on his back, the two intercepting Pokemon and their attacks with Razerleafs, protect and Confusion, while Echo and Thistle soared on either side of the group, taking on any that got too close. Lumen stuck to Eleanor’s side, blasting any targets that presented with Thundershocks, and Mimi and Junior acted as the last shields, blocking anything that came close to hitting any of the trainers.

  They all ran together, then Chloe heard Eleanor scream.

  “Scyther!”

  Chloe turned to see a Scyther burst out of the bushes. It blurred forward, faster than any Pokemon she had seen before and swiped Echo out of the air. The Chatot fell, wing bent at an alarming angle, and the Scyther immediately went for Eleanor. It dodged Lumen’s attack, but Star managed to get a Protect up, and its X-Scissor bounced off the shield harmlessly.

  But the distraction cost them.

  None of them noticed the Pineco hanging next to Chloe.

  It began to glow.

  Chloe had just enough time to gasp before it exploded.