"Don't you know how to use the coordinates I taught you? Every point I had you mark is different. As long as you find the neighboring marks and see the pattern, you can always fix our position!"
"That's easy to say, but our position keeps changing—and the marks I set are changing with it!"
Ethan exhaled, a little speechless. They were clearly standing still, which meant the forest was what was moving…
Since when did the Pokémon world have this kind of sorcery?
This place was straight-up magic.
"Houndour, any scent of Phantump around?"
Houndour twitched its nose; after a moment it shook its head.
It had seen something like this back when Tachibana Ōo helped it; in a pinch, it could even brute-force through with dark intent. But this time was different—no caster to sniff out, and not a single Phantump anywhere. So who was moving these trees?
"We can't get our bearings and we don't know where the center is. What now—bail?" Abra asked.
"Let's try walking again. I'll see if I can fix the direction of that Dragon King Shrine."
Houndour took point; Ethan and Abra drifted at his back, picking a path at random.
Ten minutes later Ethan halted Houndour. The birthmark's heat couldn't tell near from far—the signal ebbed and surged like Abra's outer marks were doing.
Which meant they weren't the only things moving. The ground around them was shifting the whole time, making the distance to the shrine fluctuate.
"Do we pull out?" Abra pressed.
It was willing to tank risk itself, but it worried about some unknown twist catching Ethan where Teleport couldn't save him.
Ethan didn't answer that—he checked with Houndour again."Nothing living?"
Houndour nodded.
Ethan rolled his neck and sneered."People have died in here. I'm not leaving it like this."
"If the rangers won't handle whoever's doing this, then I will."
Just like when he'd ordered Houndour to execute that Arbok, the polite mask slipped; the fangs came out.
The locals weren't villains—stumbling in here shouldn't be a death sentence. If this "carved-wood survival instinct" wanted a fight, then he'd grind its claws to nubs.
"Abra, cover me!"
"Houndour—Ember, then Fire Spin—light it up!"
Orange sparks spat from Houndour's jaws, catching on nearby trunks.
As the flames took, Houndour exhaled a streaming lance of fire that twisted into a whirling vortex, scooping up scattered embers and flinging them through the grove.
Where the vortex passed, trees caught—a forest fire bloomed.
The blaze swelled; the burning trees seemed to "wake," writhing like they felt pain.
The ground shuddered, something huge tunneling below.
Under that unseen command, untouched trees lurched into place—some forming a barricade against the fire, others yanking up roots and wading into the flames to beat them down with branches—only to be scorched and snared.
"Huh. IQ's a little low, isn't it? Who puts out fire… with firewood?" Ethan snorted.
Inside the inferno, Houndour's Flash Fire locked the burn radius tight—no stray spark crossed the three-meter shell around them—and even the smoke curled skyward under Abra's telekinesis.
"Getting a little toasty. Are they really not coming for us?"
Right then Ethan's Crow's Beak luck kicked in—fluorescent green motes drifted down from above.
At night, with this fire, it'd almost be pretty.
The instant he saw them, Ethan reeled—dizzy, nauseated, knees buckling.
Houndour barked and slammed its forepaws down, about to roast the glowing rain—
"Wait!" Abra cut in.
A transparent, mirror-bright pane blossomed overhead, sheltering them both.
Magic Coat—reflects status moves. Ethan's symptoms screamed Confuse Ray.
A long half-minute later Ethan shook it off and blinked clear."Figures. Confuse Ray. Gross."
The green motes kept falling; whoever was running this didn't realize the trick had been hard-countered.
"Can we hit back?" Ethan asked.
Houndour shook hard; Abra's look was complicated. A quick explanation later and Ethan got it: they couldn't find where to hit. And while Magic Coat blocked the effect, there was nothing to reflect—the enemy was immune to confusion.
So they hunkered under the pane and waited for the next gimmick.
Ethan didn't forget to have Houndour feed the fire, either.He was going to erase this haunted grove today.
Eventually the motes thinned… then stopped.
Outside, the trees had retreated far enough that the fire's edge stabilized—a scorched clearing, maybe a hundred square meters, burning but no longer spreading.
"Still not coming out? Brother, aren't you mad yet?" Ethan muttered. Nearly an hour in—was the thing really going to just tank it?
Bow before the iron hooves of the Pyromaniac Sect.
"Are our coordinates still drifting?" Ethan asked. The birthmark still burned, harder now.
"No," Abra said. "Stable. We're about three hundred meters from where we pegged the shrine—bearing north, behind us."
Ethan led them ten meters north and stopped on the lip of the firebreak.
Direction felt right. The brand seared hotter—closer to the source.
"Eyes up—we're stepping out. Be ready to light it again."
He'd barely finished when three neatly wrapped present boxes plopped down in front of them.
They burst open—two seeds and a blue wisp shot out.
"Front!" Ethan barked.
Abra shoved both hands forward; the vanished mirror re-formed, swallowing Worry Seed, Leech Seed, and Will-O-Wisp one after another.
No one else pushes Present this far—you're supposed to pass items, not moves. And these were addressed—if the tag said it was for you, it was for you.Guaranteed hit.
Thankfully all three were stymied by Magic Coat. Otherwise Houndour's body would've had to take it—Ethan's human frame sure couldn't.
"Flame Charge—break through!"
Orange-gold fire flared around Houndour; it blasted through the barrier and into the trees.
With a wet fwoomp, the blaze blossomed wider, the Pyromaniac gospel spreading on the wind.
Ethan and Abra sprinted after, matching Houndour's pace.
He was starting to think the mastermind was… not that bright.
The moment the barrier split, the drifting ground stopped. Ethan wasn't wasting that opening.
Houndour plowed a lane—Flame Charge at full tilt, scattering embers in its wake that flashed into fresh flame.
Roots stabbed up—Houndour shattered them on the run. Vines snared from behind—Abra ripped them apart with telekinesis. When spikes lanced from the soil, Abra Teleported Ethan clear a heartbeat ahead.
"They're only blocking the front," Ethan panted. "If they aimed at Houndour's belly, that'd sting."
"Roar!" Houndour called back, a signal.
Abra grabbed Ethan's shoulder, locked onto the Super Imprint on Houndour, and blinked them forward.
They landed—ding!—another gift box popped into existence and exploded before they could react.
A colossal Grass hammer coalesced and came down.
Houndour vaulted, bracing himself in front of Ethan, a Protect shield snapping up—
But Protect isn't truly invincible; it has limits. Against Wood Hammer at this power, the barrier shattered like glass and the blow crashed through Houndour.
Ethan and Abra were hurled back, slamming a trunk and sliding to the ground.
"C—cough! Houndour! Abra! You two okay?"
Ethan hauled the dazed Houndour up, keeping him from slipping into a KO-safety blackout.
Houndour staggered, shook hard—aside from screaming foreleg and shoulder, he was okay. Abra too—its job had been cushioning Ethan.
The flames still roared; trees still writhed and "helped," which only made the spread worse.
Through the heat-shimmer, Ethan finally took in the compound ahead.
Even after a thousand years, it was mostly intact: two-meter walls around a space of maybe twenty square meters. No frills—through the open door you could see the black bronze idol on its dais.
Two stone beasts flanked the gate—poliwag-like crests carved as "black waves"—and inside the "Dragon King" was a Politoed.
Behind the hall rose a giant tree more than ten meters high, twisted like a person; the trunk was rotten and etched with black lines that wouldn't scrub clean.
From the branch at its brow hung a ripe fruit, misty-looking, unreal; black tracery slithered over its skin.
Ethan's pupils pinpricked. His face went rigid.
The ancient fruit.