"Don't you know how to use the coordinate grid I taught you? Every mark I left is unique. If we find adjacent points and compare the pattern, we can locate ourselves."
"That's nice in theory," abra replied in Ethan's head, "but our position keeps changing—and the marks I set are changing with it."
Ethan exhaled, scanning the warped grove. They hadn't moved an inch; the forest was moving.
"Houndour, scent check—any trace of Phantump?"
Houndour sniffed long and hard, then shook his head.
They'd seen this kind of space-warp before—once, thanks to a friendly guide they'd forced a path through it. But this time there was no caster to pin down. No Phantump anywhere. So who—or what—was driving all these trees?
"We can't fix our heading, and we've lost the center," abra said. "Do we pull out?"
"Not yet. We walk. I'll try to feel where the temple is."
They pushed deeper. Ten minutes later Ethan halted. The burn-sting on his wrist from the birthmark—their Ancient Energy compass—kept surging and fading like a tide. The forest was sliding them around on a board they couldn't see.
"Now do we leave?" abra pressed, worry leaking through the link.
"Last try," Ethan muttered. "Houndour, one more sweep—no Pokémon?"
Houndour nodded: none.
Ethan rolled his neck and let the civility drop. "People died in here. I'm not leaving it like this."
He pointed. "abra, keep me covered. Houndour—Ember into Flame Vortex. Let it burn."
Sparks kissed bark; the cyclone roared to life. Fire ran like powder trail across desiccated trunks. The trees writhed—not swaying, writhing—as if in pain. Earth trembled. Unlit trees lurched to form firebreaks; others yanked their roots free and staggered into the blaze to smother it—only to catch and collapse.
"Low IQ response," Ethan said, half grim, half amazed. "Putting out a fire with firewood?"
Within Houndour's Flash Fire aura, a tight, smokeless bubble held—no embers, no choking haze—abra's Telekinesis funneling smoke skyward.
Then the sky snowed neon green.
Confusion prickled Ethan's brain; nausea rose. Houndour bristled—but abra snapped up a glassine pane above them: Magic Coat. The drifting Confuse Ray dust pattered harmlessly, rebounding to nowhere.
The glow thinned. Embers ringed them, star-bright. Outside, the inferno had eaten a circular firebreak and stalled.
"Still not coming out?" Ethan taunted the air. "Brother, aren't you angry yet?"
"Positions stabilizing," abra said. "We're about three hundred meters north of the Dragon King site."
They edged to the fireline. As Houndour stepped through, three ribboned presents dropped at their feet and burst—Worry Seed, Leech Seed, and a drifting Will-O-Wisp lunged for them.
"Front!" Ethan barked.
The mirror flashed again. Seeds skittered; the ghost-flame fizzled.
"Flame Charge—drive!"
Houndour became a comet, shouldering through, sowing sparks that caught and raced. Roots speared up; he shattered them. Behind, vines whipped; abra's Telekinesis snapped them mid-lash, then blinked Ethan forward in chained Teleport hops, always to Houndour's side.
A fourth present popped at point-blank.
The Wood Hammer it disgorged came down like a felled oak.
"Protect!"
The shield sang, spider-webbed, and shattered. The hammer crushed through Houndour, bowled abra and Ethan into a trunk, and blew the breath from all three.
They groaned, staggered up. The fire was everywhere now—a red world. And beyond the heat shimmer: a walled courtyard, scarcely twenty paces on a side, time-dark stone still standing. Two Poliwag statues flanked the lintel; within, a black bronze Politoed glowered on the altar.
Behind the shrine, a towering Trevenant loomed—trunk half-rotted, skin inked with unerasable black veining. From a spur at its brow hung a fruit that looked carved from fog itself—veins pulsing, a soft, impossible light threading within.
Ethan's pupils tightened. "An… Ancient Fruit."
Up close, the shrine, the gate gods, even the bronze Politoed were dead of history: their Ancient Energy spent to dust. Only the fruit burned on Ethan's wrist like a brand—pure, condensed Ancient Energy, bound into a single hanging jewel.
"Report?" Ethan asked the ring.
Trevenant. Status: deceased. Ability: Harvest.
Nothing else. Dead—and yet the forest moved.
"Then what's pulling the strings?" Ethan muttered, and flipped open a deeper dossier. He read, and the world tilted: this grove was a will-rigged domain, Trevenant's last bequest—a rigid guardian program meant to shelter its clan. After centuries of misfires, the Phantump had fled. All who entered since had been judged "intruders" and ground down by traps and tricks until they starved or fell.
No wonder the tactics were blunt and literal. Code, not mind.
"abra—can you pull the fruit with Telekinesis?"
Abra tried. The fruit didn't so much as sway.
"Immune to TK. I'll fly up and pick it."
"Careful."
Abra rose. As it crossed the shrine's airspace, Trevenant's hollow face opened—a single scarlet eye. Verdant hex light crawled over Kadabra's fur—Forest's Curse—turning it Grass-typed and suddenly very aware of the fire below.
"Teleport ready—" Abra began, then froze. A greasy pressure sank over the courtyard like a lid.
"Spite," Ethan snapped. "It's sealing your moves!"
Only raw psychic levitation still answered. Abra surged forward—only for dark-violet jets to lance up from the flagstones. Toxic Spikes—laid long ago, now blooming. Venom sheeted Abra and hurled it back out of the dome. Once clear, Teleport snapped alive and it blinked to Ethan's side, dripping poison.
"I can't breach it," Abra grit out. "Not yet."
Trevenant's eye guttered. The dome sank. Around them, the trees—mindless, dutiful—went back to smothering flame with their own bodies.
"Then we finish it," Ethan said. "If we can't take the fruit, no one does."
He recalled Houndour, slotted a disc from his "vendor," and the capsule pulsed once—Incinerate learned. "Out! Target Trevenant—Incinerate!"
A lance of orange heat drilled the hollow trunk. The rot whoomped alight. Roots writhed, drew deep, forced new growth—but the blaze ate faster. The hanging Ancient Fruit shivered but didn't char.
The crimson eye found them again, hateful. A massive present bloomed above the altar.
"Teleport!"
White light cracked; they reappeared under a cliff face—safe—
"Space fluctuation," Abra warned. "Get Houndour out—Protect!"
Houndour popped, slammed paws to stone. The barrier rose just as the air tore open—the present forced itself through the rift and thumped at their feet.
The lid sprang.
A seed blinked out.
And the world went white.
Phantom Force (for the delivery), Present, Seed Bomb—a long-range, space-warping package from a dead Trevenant's spiteful will.
Ethan coughed through the shock-wave grit, eyes stinging, ears ringing—alive only because Houndour's shield held.
"Round two," he rasped, pointing back toward the burning grove. "Let's end this."