When I heard the sound of the zipper to my tent moving, I instantly lost any grogginess I might have felt. I stayed still in my sleeping bag to not reveal I was awake and listened carefully to see if someone was inside the tent with me. I didn’t hear any movement so I slowly opened my eyes and looked around.

Empty.

I reached to where I left everyone’s Pokéballs, but couldn’t find them.

Where are they?

I was used to having my Pokémon out while I slept, and the fact that none of them were around and my Pokéballs were gone made my heart rate skyrocket. I forced my breathing back under control and stood up to quietly move next to the entrance flaps of my tent. I was about to zip them open to check outside when something caught my eye.

It was a doll.

It was gray and ratty, with a long loose cloth hanging off the back of its head. Its mouth was nothing more than a zipper and its hands looked more like claws than cloth. Its head flopped forward before jerking up and staring at me with dark red eyes. The Banette had left my shadow.

It raised its clawed hand to its mouth to shush me, and it sank into the shadow underneath it as if it was nothing more than a liquid. The shadow slid over the floor of my tent to be right next to me, then the Banette resurfaced right at the door.

The implications of the Banette being out and my Pokémon missing was making me more than nervous. I breathed out to stay calm and tried to figure out my next steps, but it was hard to do so when all evidence pointed to me being in serious danger.

The Ghost Type motioned to the tent flap and pressed the side of its head to it, as if to listen to the outside. I covered my mouth to muffle the sound of my breathing and did the same. I could clearly hear voices outside.

“...don’t see why we need to do this,” an unfamiliar voice whispered.

“Yeah, why take the Pokémon first? Seems a bit unnecessary,” another replied.

“Quiet!” a third voice quietly shouted.

I recognized that voice. It continued to speak.

“My Drowzee detected something protecting their mind. They clearly know something valuable. It’s my last chance to find out, so we’ll just hypnotize them to tell the truth and make them think this is all a dream. I don’t want their team to come out and interrupt the process. We can just blame a wild Ghost later, like usual.”

It’s that Aether Researcher! I knew I should have been more careful. That Drowzee was acting far too suspicious.

I looked over to the Banette. It was trying to take command of this situation, and I had no reason to stop it when it had been professionally trained by a member of the Elite Four, especially since it was sent to protect me. I was more than a little upset that it didn’t step in to help my Pokémon, which got us into this situation in the first place, but I had no clue what its specific orders were. It might have been told to only protect me, and took that command to the extreme.

The Banette saw me staring at it and made jerking motions with its hands. I could tell it was trying to communicate with some kind of sign language, but I didn’t know what the signs meant. I did recognize when it used two fingers to mimic walking, and took that as it meant I should run away.

“Alright, I don’t know most of what you meant, but I will run when you signal me to,” I said.

The Banette palmed its face and dragged the hand down. It suddenly paused and held its hand halfway down its face before bringing the same hand forward and holding a finger in an “idea!” pose. It slapped its fist into its palm and nodded its head comically. The Banette moved its hands to be in front of its mouth and made a series of even simpler signs that while I didn’t fully understand, did get the gist of: don’t yell, stay quiet, and run away.

Once more, the Banette sunk into its shadow. This time, the shadow slithered through the zipper of the tent and went outside.

“Is anyone else suddenly really cold?” one of the voices said.

“Yeah, now that you mentioned it, it is kind of chilly out,” another responded.

“Shut up!” the Drowzee-man said in a loud whisper. “You better not have woken them up. I’m not finished getting ready.”

“...Ette ette ette.”

There was a moment of silence.

“Did anyone else hear that?”

“Yeah, it sounded like laughter.”

“Lower your voices! It was probably just the wind.”

“No, uh, I don’t think it was the wind.”

Everything was plunged into eerie, silent darkness. I expected to hear screaming, but it was like all sounds were muffled and a chill instinctually ran down my spine. I immediately grabbed the zipper to my tent and ran out, turning to the right and running towards the center of the camp as fast as possible.

I burst through a dark mist and continued to move away. I looked to where a few tents were set up a short ways away and saw no movement. Everyone was already asleep. I was tempted to scream, but I didn’t want to go against the specially trained Banette’s orders.

However, I immediately stopped running when I realized something important. My will to escape faded and I became determined to head back to confront the researchers. There was something else I had to do.

Banette appeared next to me, emerging from another shadow. It pointed toward the machine in the center of camp used for communication while I looked back at the cloud of darkness behind us.

“I can’t go back. They have my Pokémon.”

Banette continued to try to point towards the camp but I ignored it. I wasn’t going to lose my friends here. If I delayed too long, the researchers might do something to them. I charged into the dark mist, just missing the Bannette slumping in defeat and chasing after me.

Whatever move the Banette used to cause this fog was unfamiliar to me. It felt like I was trudging through sludge, and a breeze whipped around me and made it feel like things were flying in the air.

It seemed like the effect wasn’t meant to be held this long and the darkness started to fade. I could just barely see a few feet in front of me as I searched around for any sign of my Pokémon’s Pokéballs. I wandered aimlessly within the shade before I finally saw a familiar white coat of an Aether Researcher.

Knowing they had my team, my panic faded and was replaced by calm and cold determination. I wouldn't let them take everyone.

I lunged forward and grabbed onto them, taking them down and knocking them unconscious from the impact against the ground.

Pinning them to the floor, I paused, not really thinking far enough ahead to know what to do next. Grasping at straws, I started to move to search their coat to see if they had Pokéballs on them, but the darkness suddenly completely disappeared and I found myself raised above the ground with Psychic Type energy.

Other than the one I took out, another Aether Researcher was on the floor, and the one that owned the Drowzee stood confidently while holding Banette by the neck in his left hand. Meanwhile, I was floating and encompassed by a blue light. Next to him was a tall Pokémon nearly his height that looked like an upside down squid. Its entire head glowed the same Psychic Type blue that surrounded me while its head tentacles flailed around seemingly randomly.

I tried to move but found I was only able to shift my head and wiggle my fingers. The squid Pokémon, Malamar, was keeping me afloat with its Psychic powers.

The scientist and his Pokémon started to walk away from the camp, dragging me midair and taking me with them. Once we were far enough away to speak without alerting others, the scientist finally spoke up to talk to me.

“Well, well, well. Seems like someone got a little violent. I’ll have you know that’s assault, and as one of the leaders of this expedition, I have no choice but to use my legal right to detain you and search you for evidence.”

I grunted and struggled to escape. In my desperate flailing I became enraged, seeing my Pokémon’s Pokéballs at his waist out of the corner of the eye.

Inwardly cursing myself for being so stupid to run back and get myself caught, I spoke up to ask the scientist something that had been bothering me about this situation.

"How. How are you holding a Ghost?" I asked, practically growling at him.

He glanced over to the Banette twitching in his grasp then looked back at me.

"Did you really think I entered abandoned ruins without some kind of protection against Ghosts? Please, I'm smarter than that."

With his free hand he reached into his jacket and pulled out a strip of paper covered in runic writing.

"This is a Ghost-sealing tag, cousin to both the Cleanse Tag and Spell Tag. It's supposed to be regulated, but there's always a Channeler down on their luck willing to make some money. It's great to cause Ghosts to instinctively avoid me, since it saps their strength if they so much as touch me. Even better, it can be used to shut them down completely."

As if to accentuate his point, he placed the paper against Banette's chest and opened his hand, causing the Ghost to fall to the floor, unable to move with the sealing tag stuck to it.

"It's decent protection to keep on me, but now I won't even have to worry about your friend,” the researcher said. “It'll be hard to obtain another one, but it's a small price to pay to figure out what you're hiding."

He moved closer to me, stepping over Banette's limp body as it struggled to move.

"Now then, let's see what's so important to be so well-protected in that mind of yours."

The researcher reached into his pocket to pull out a Pokéball that belonged to him and sent out that same annoying Drowzee.

“Hypnotize them to answer my questions,” he ordered. “Make them think this was a dream.”

Drowzee wagged its fingers and I felt something touch my mind, less careful and much more aggressive than Oranguru. I knew the Drowzee was trying to make me think of them as trustworthy friends, but I didn't want to reveal my knowledge. I was desperate enough to go for a Hail Mary.

"Faba won't be happy you're doing this." I said, dropping the name of his boss.

"Stop," he commanded his Drowzee. His Pokémon immediately obeyed.

"What do you mean by that?" he asked curiously.

I tried my best to smirk and display confidence to disguise how nervous I was.

"Please, don't you think Faba already knows? What makes you think he's not already involved?"

This was a complete bluff and I was lucky just saying his boss's name worked. He had called off the Hypnosis after the slightest mention of Faba, which now made me think he was worried that I actually might be involved with whatever his boss was up to. The researcher wouldn't want to interfere with whatever Faba was planning, so he wouldn't want to touch me until he was completely confident I was an independent actor.

I noticed that the Drowzee hadn’t started checking to see if I was lying yet. I had already stopped talking and the researcher looked frustrated to see that he hadn’t been able to get a read on my truthfulness. I would need to be careful of what I said from here on out.

"You're bluffing," he stated.

Behind him, Banette was starting to move once more and was trying to peel the sealing tag off its body. I had been hoping that Thomas would somehow find me in this commotion, but it seemed like I might be able to stall long enough to let Banette escape instead. Since he wasn’t trained as a Channeler, the researcher didn’t realize he didn’t apply the tag properly. Banette could just barely move, and the scientist and his Pokémon were too distracted to notice.

"How could it be a bluff if I know about Type: Null?" I said, dropping another secret to try to prove my claims. I specifically phrased it as a question to try to work around attempts to tell if I was lying. After all, a question couldn’t be a true or false statement.

Sharing my knowledge of a secret, experimental Pokémon caused the scientist to pause and consider my question.

"That doesn't mean you're working for Faba,” he said, expressing his doubts. “You could have found out from any member of his inner circle."

So Faba has an inner circle, huh?

"Ask yourself this: who would benefit from telling me Aether's secrets?"

The scientist scoffed.

"Please, any of us would stab one another in the back for a chance to work closer with Faba. That man's a genius. You still haven't proven anything."

"Then I guess details about Ultra Beasts wouldn't convince you either. What if I told you what Pokémon he owns?"

The Aether scientist sighed at this point. It seemed that nothing I could say would convince him.

"Any common person could find that out,” he replied. “If you're really in league with Faba, you'd know his ultimate goal."

I grimaced. The only information I had left to convince him was stuff I was hesitant to share. I didn’t know what Faba’s true goals were since that was inconsistent across different forms of media, but I could at least make a fake goal that pieced together enough secrets to resemble what he might plan. I could only hope I didn’t accidentally reveal anything too important.

"And why would I tell you that?" I asked, desperately stalling to give me time to assemble an explanation, and praying that Banette could get the last bit of the tag off in the meantime.

"Because I already know what it is,” the scientist snapped. “Tell me. Otherwise we continue and you reveal all your secrets anyway."

I couldn’t see the researcher’s face, but I could guess he was making an annoyed expression. Honestly, I had no clue what Faba wanted so I decided to just make the most insane goal I could think of.

"Faba wants to harness the power of Solgaleo and Lunala to properly explore Ultra Space and take control of Ultra Necrozma and its light for himself. He’ll use their power to take over the Aether Foundation and ultimately the world."

He froze and stayed silent after I stated what I came up with. Every second that passed increased my nervousness, but also let Banette get further along in its attempt to free itself from the tag. That fake, insane plan revealed a bit of my information on legendary Pokémon, but nothing specific enough that he would be able to use for himself. Honestly, I was pretty sure Faba already knew most of what I said, so I was hoping saying this was less of a risk than I thought.

After almost thirty seconds, he finally recovered enough to respond to what I said.

"...that’s almost right. How did you know that?" he asked.

It was at this moment Banette got free.

The Ghost lunged at the researcher and I fell hard to the ground. Malamar focused its Psychic energies to engulf Banette and stop it midair temporarily before it could hurt the researcher.

But that wasn't Banette's goal.

Its doll-like hand stretched out and with a flex of a finger, it hit the button on one of my Pokéballs on the researcher's belt.

Vulpix appeared on the ground, curled up into a ball and still asleep. She poked her head up and started to yawn before I shouted out an order.

"Vulpix, Ice Beam on the Malamar!"

Hearing my urgency, she jumped up and attacked.

A sudden cry of pain from the Malamar rang out as the piercing cold attack hit it square in the chest. The Psychic glow disappeared and Banette fell to the ground and immediately sunk into a shadow. I saw it slither off toward Drowzee’s direction. I stood up in the chaos.

“Aim an Ice Beam at its head! Give it a brain freeze!”

Another freezing Ice Beam shot out from Vulpix and hit the Malamar right where I ordered. The scientist’s Pokémon hadn’t been trained for a battle, and it tried its best to retaliate with Psychic. However, Vulpix knew not to let up her attacks and Malamar wasn’t able to focus enough to respond. It fainted rather quickly for an evolved Pokémon, and Vulpix and I turned to face the Aether Foundation scientist.

Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed the Drowzee sink into a shadow like the Banette had earlier, and I immediately pushed that image out of my mind to focus on the scientist.

Vulpix and I took a step forward.

The researcher took a step back.

“Now see here, since you’re clearly not here on behalf of Faba, I had no choice but to assume you were a dangerous criminal since you assaulted a fellow Aether Researcher. I had to have Drowzee prepare a check to make sure everything added up.”

He took another step back towards the camp as Vulpix and I stepped towards him again. I glanced at the part of his belt that had my Pokémon’s Pokéballs attached to it and frowned. I wished I had that baton I took from the Team Magma grunt, but it was in my backpack that I left in my tent. At least Vulpix was nearby.

He continued to step away from us as we approached, but I suddenly noticed a faint pair of red eyes sneaking towards him in the darkness. They were too feline-like to be from Banette, and I felt relief knowing that the commotion had finally been noticed.

“You have to realize that as a member of the illustrious Aether Foundation, I needed to make sure this expedition was not infiltrated by any illicit members of society,” he lied to me, panicking. “Drowzee noticed your awfully suspicious mental block, so I was forced to uphold my duty and- Urgfh!”

The red eyes revealed themselves to belong to a four-legged creature that jumped up from behind him and bit down on his neck. I lunged forward to secure my Pokémon from his belt as the Pokémon started to drag him back. I barely managed to take all four back before the pair faded away into the darkness of Sea Mauville. The last thing I saw of them were the yellow rings on Umbreon's body.

Vulpix, seeing that I was safe and had reacquired everyone’s Pokéballs, ran forward and jumped into my arms. I held her up and hugged her while rubbing her head.

“Thank you. Without your help, I don’t know what-”

Vulpix interrupted me by pressing her cold nose to my check and licking me with her icy tongue. I laughed and put her back to the ground, not wanting to continue such a negative line of thought.

I looked back towards the camp. I could just barely make out the two other Aether Researchers lying unconscious on the worn metal floor, and my tent was still set up behind them.

I started to walk back, not willing to stay away from where everyone else was any longer. The night was quiet and motionless around me. I looked around to see what happened to the Aether Researcher that owned the Drowzee, but my vision couldn't piece the darkness. The Umbreon that dragged him away probably belonged to Thomas, who was likely to show up soon.

“Alex? Are you there?”

Thomas’s familiar voice rang out as I approached my tent, right on cue. My head shot towards the direction of his voice and I saw him walk out from behind it, clearly searching for me.

I jogged to close the distance and entered the illuminated area of Thomas’s flashlight. His Murkrow was perched on his shoulder, and he looked extremely worried. He glanced over his shoulder at the two unconscious Aether Researchers before turning back to look me over. He frowned, putting the pieces together.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

“I’m fine for now. Probably in shock, to be honest. I think your Umbreon took a scientist.”

“Umbreon took a scientist..? Shit!” Thomas looked like he was about to run to find his Pokémon before Umbreon suddenly appeared out of the darkness and rubbed her head against his leg. Vulpix immediately took a protective stance next to me. Neither of us failed to notice the glint of red on her claws.

Thomas looked down at his Umbreon, not bothered by the obvious act of violence she just performed.

“I need you to lead me to whoever you abducted this time,” he said.

This time?!

He brought his head up to look me in the eyes.

“I’ll bring back your Pokémon. Just stay here, don’t move.”

Thomas disappeared into the darkness and I was left alone once more. I went into my tent to grab my flashlight and sat down in the entrance. I glanced over to where the fainted Drowzee had resurfaced outside my tent when my back was turned, and felt a cold breeze around my feet, where my shadow was.

I knew Banette didn’t want to be known by anyone, not even Vulpix, so I whispered under my breath to thank it.

“Thank you for the help, Banette. I’m sorry I ran back. I couldn't leave my Pokémon with them.”

I didn’t hear its reply but the chill at my feet intensified for just a moment. I waited in the darkness for a few minutes, petting Vulpix as she laid in my lap, before Thomas appeared once more. He looked frustrated and was carrying a roll of bandages.

“Luckily, she wasn’t too vicious this time so I just needed to apply some basic first aid. She’s still with him, making sure he doesn’t escape. I have to make a few calls. I’ll be back.”

I briefly considered sending out the rest of my team, but decided against it to let them have a good night’s rest. Vulpix started to doze off in my lap as Thomas left to head to the center of the camp.

I wasn’t happy that the Aether Researchers tried to do something, but I could at least be satisfied knowing they had been captured and would be punished.

As much as I never wanted this to happen, this might be a good thing. I could use this to warn the League of potential wrongdoings in the Aether Foundation.

Since Thomas had authority as an Ace Trainer in training, and his Dark Types had absolute immunity over the Aether scientists’s Psychic Types, the next morning all of the trainers left Sea Mauville on the scheduled boat, leaving behind the machinery and Aether Foundation researchers on Sea Mauville.

It didn’t take long for the other Ace Trainers to arrive. They came in helicopters and quickly swept over the entire area all of the trainers had camped in, trying to find any evidence. I asked Thomas why there were so many Ace Trainers present, and his explanation only made things sound worse.

“Well, the Aether Foundations is pretty important for the continuation of Pokémon biodiversity projects not just in Hoenn, but across all regions. This is technically an international incident so we have to gather as much evidence as possible. The biggest issue will be making sure that we can prove the scientists weren’t hypnotized themselves or possessed by Ghosts since they had claimed there were Ghost attacks around them frequently in the past. If nothing is found, we’ll know they have been lying.”

I silently nodded at his explanation. I didn’t want there to be any chance of the Aether Foundation scientists getting away scot-free.

Thomas led me to some other Ace Trainers who asked me questions about the whole situation. Rather than using Telepathy, they used a Kirlia whose empathetic sensing allowed it to tell lies just as well. It was weaker than the mind-skimming of other Psychic Types, but just as accurate. I was annoyed that emotion reading had always been an option, but they had gone ahead and read minds in the past. It felt like far less of an invasion of privacy to only have them read my emotions.

Pretty soon, all of the Ace Trainers had finished and were preparing themselves to leave. They had combed over this entire area like ants, so the entire process didn’t take that long at all. I was led to a decently sized tent in the corner that had been set up right when they first arrived. The trainers escorting me didn’t enter, but waited outside of the entrance.

When I entered, I immediately froze when I saw who was waiting for me. A man with a familiar black and purple suit and light blue hair sat on a foldable chair at the end of a simple rectangular table. We were alone in the room.

“I believe it’s time we have a conversation,” Steven, the Champion of Hoenn, said.