Chapter Text
Cold.
Dark.
Someone groaned as he woke on the stone floor of what looked like an old temple. For a few seconds, he did not move. He only stared up at the cracked ceiling above him, where faded carvings curved around one another in strange, unreadable shapes.
“Huh…?” he muttered, slowly sitting up.
His head felt foggy. His body felt wrong. The air smelled like dust, old stone, and rain, even though he could not see any opening to the outside yet.
He looked around and froze.
There were Pokémon around him.
Six of them.
A Mawile lay curled near a broken pillar.
A Shinx was sprawled on his side, twitching in his sleep.
A Piplup was face-down with one flipper over his head.
A Tepig snored softly beside a cracked tile.
A Noibat hung awkwardly from a low stone ledge, one wing draped over his face.
A Glaceon rested near the wall, her paws tucked beneath her, her breathing calm but shallow.
“Why are there so many Pokémon here?” he asked, rubbing his face as if that would clear the confusion.
Then he stopped.
Something about that motion felt strange.
He looked down at himself.
His paws were blue.
His paws.
“What the—?” he yelped, jerking backward.
Blue fur. Long ears. A small snout. A tail. A tail.
“What happened to me?” he cried.
His eyes landed on a cracked mirror leaning against the far wall, half-buried under dust and broken stone. He scrambled toward it, stumbling as his body refused to move the way he expected. When he reached the mirror and looked into it, his breath caught.
Staring back at him was not a human.
It was a Riolu.
For one horrible second, he could only stare.
Then he screamed.
“AAAAAHHH!”
“Ugh… stop yelling,” the Piplup groaned from the floor. “Trying to sleep here.”
“Same,” the Glaceon muttered, not opening her eyes.
The Riolu whipped around, ears standing straight up. “D-did those Pokémon just talk?”
The Tepig snorted awake and pushed himself clumsily to his feet. “Ugh… what happened?”
“Huh?” the Mawile mumbled, lifting her head.
The Shinx blinked awake and tried to stand on his hind legs. He lasted half a second before dropping back to all fours with a startled squeak. “Why can’t I stand straight?”
The Mawile reached up toward the large black jaws behind her head. “What’s on my head?” she asked, tugging at it like it was some kind of strange hat.
The jaws twitched as she tugged on it.
“Ow!” she cried, letting go immediately.
“I said quiet!” the Glaceon snapped, finally sitting up. Then her eyes opened fully, and she stared at the others. “Uh… why am I surrounded by Pokémon?”
The Piplup lifted his head and looked around. His expression slowly changed from irritation to confusion. “Wait. I’m surrounded by Pokémon?”
“You’re talking,” the Riolu said, backing up a step. “How are you talking?!”
“Aaah!” Tepig cried. “Talking Riolu!”
“Talking Tepig!” Glaceon shouted, pointing a paw at him.
That was enough to set everyone off.
The Mawile saw her reflection in a broken shard of mirror and screamed. Tepig ran in a frantic circle, tripped over his own feet, and rolled onto his back. Shinx yelled for his mother. Piplup flailed his flippers in outrage. Noibat dropped from the ledge, landed badly, and covered his enormous ears as everyone shouted at once. Even the Glaceon, who had seemed calm a moment ago, stared at her own paws with wide, horrified eyes.
The Riolu was panicking too. His heart hammered so hard he could barely hear anything else. But as he looked around at the others, something in him forced its way through the fear.
Someone had to get control of this.
“Stop!” he shouted.
The word echoed through the temple.
One by one, the others quieted. Tepig stopped kicking. Piplup lowered his flippers. Shinx sniffled. Mawile clutched her hands to her chest, careful not to touch the jaws behind her head again. Noibat peeked out from behind one wing.
“Okay,” Shinx said shakily. “Okay, this is probably just… a dream. A really weird dream.”
“I don’t know if it is,” the Riolu said, though he wished he sounded more certain, “but we’re Pokémon. All of us.”
“No, really?” Piplup snapped. “I thought I was just extra adorable today.”
“Don’t start,” Glaceon said, though her voice was tight.
The Riolu took a breath and tried again. “Why are all of you talking like humans?”
“Heck if I know,” Piplup said.
“Who even are you?” Glaceon asked.
“My name is…” The Riolu paused.
The answer should have been there. It was such a simple thing. His name. Everyone had a name.
But when he reached for it, there was nothing.
“My name is… is…” He swallowed, panic creeping back into his voice. “I don’t know.”
Piplup blinked, then gave a weak, strained laugh. “Nice to meet you, I Don’t Know.”
“No,” Riolu said, touching a paw to his chest. “I mean I really don’t know. I don’t know my name.”
The Mawile went pale. “I don’t know mine either.”
“How do you forget your own name?” Piplup demanded. Then he stopped. His beak opened slightly. “Wait. What was mine?”
Silence fell over the group.
Tepig squeezed his eyes shut, trying hard to remember. “I… I had one. I know I had one.”
Shinx’s ears flattened. “First I wake up on four legs, now I can’t remember my name?”
Riolu turned to him. “What do you mean four legs? Were you not always like that?”
“Duh,” Shinx said, his tail flicking behind him. “I was human.”
He noticed his tail moving and immediately tried to pin it down with one paw.
Noibat slowly lifted his head. “You were human too?”
“Me too,” Tepig said.
Mawile stared down at her small yellow hands. “This is crazy. We were all human?”
“It seems that way,” Glaceon said carefully.
“Then how did this happen?” Piplup asked. His voice had lost some of its bite.
Noibat tried to step forward, but his wings got in the way, making him waddle awkwardly across the stone. “I don’t know. I can’t remember anything before waking up here.”
Riolu looked around the temple again. The walls were covered in strange markings, each one shaped like a staring eye or a crooked letter. They seemed meaningless at first, but the longer he looked, the more uncomfortable he became. It felt as though the carvings were looking back.
He forced himself to focus on the others.
“All right,” he said. “We need to calm down. We should find people. Maybe someone nearby knows what this place is.”
“How are we supposed to ask them?” Piplup demanded. “We’re Pokémon.”
“We can talk to each other,” Riolu said. “Maybe they’ll understand us too.”
“And if they don’t?” Mawile asked quietly.
Riolu did not have a good answer.
Glaceon stood, moving with careful elegance despite the fear in her eyes. “Then standing here panicking will not help us either.”
Tepig nodded, though he still looked unsteady. “I guess we don’t have a choice.”
Shinx pressed close to Tepig’s side, trying to look braver than he felt. Noibat glanced toward the dark hallway ahead and swallowed.
Riolu took one last look at the mirror. The Riolu in the glass looked small, frightened, and completely unfamiliar.
Then he turned away.
“Let’s go,” he said.
The others followed him cautiously out of the chamber, stepping beneath the silent markings carved into the ancient stone. Behind them, high on the wall, one of the strange symbols gave off the faintest blue glow.
---
As they moved through the corridor, the others began to notice Noibat falling behind.
“You coming?” Piplup asked, glancing back.
“Yeah,” Noibat said, awkwardly dragging himself forward with his wings. “It’s just hard to move like this.”
Piplup slowed. “Try flying.”
Noibat stared at him. “I’m a human. I’ve never flown before.”
“You’re a Pokémon now,” Glaceon said. “Try.”
“That does not make it sound less terrifying,” Noibat muttered.
Still, he spread his wings and gave them an uncertain flap. Nothing happened. He tried again, harder this time, and hopped half an inch off the ground before landing on his face.
Piplup snorted.
“Not a word,” Noibat said into the floor.
He tried again. Then again. The next attempt sent him veering sideways into a wall. The one after that made him spin in a clumsy circle, squeaking in panic as his wings caught the air unevenly. After several more flaps, tumbles, and one near collision with Tepig, he finally lifted off the ground and stayed there.
“H-hey!” Noibat cried, wobbling in the air. “I’m flying!”
“Fantastic,” Piplup said. “Let’s continue before you discover falling.”
Noibat rolled his eyes, but he kept himself airborne, flapping carefully above the stone floor.
“Can you see in the dark too?” Shinx asked, looking up at him with open curiosity.
“No,” Noibat said, tilting his head. “But I’m hearing things. Shapes, I think. It’s like the walls are answering when I make noise. Is this what echolocation is?”
Shinx nodded quickly. “That makes sense. Noibat use sound waves because their eyesight is poor in dark caves.”
Tepig blinked at him. “You seem smart.”
“Thanks!” Shinx said, immediately wagging his tail.
He noticed himself doing it and looked down, embarrassed, but Tepig smiled like he thought it was nice.
“Think you can echolocate us an exit?” Piplup asked.
“No need,” Riolu said.
The corridor opened into a larger passage, ending at a massive stone door. It rose high above them, covered from top to bottom in the same strange markings they had seen in the chamber. Some looked like eyes. Some looked like letters. Some looked almost like warnings, even though none of them could read what they said.
At the base of the door sat a broken cart.
Riolu approached carefully. The cart was tipped onto one side, its wheel cracked. A few old tools had spilled out across the floor: a flashlight, a pair of thick gloves, a bent metal pry bar, and a yellow hard hat split down the middle. Near the cart, several empty cloth wrappings lay scattered over the stone, the kind someone might use to pack fragile objects.
Mawile stared at the mess. “Were people here?”
Glaceon lowered her head and sniffed at one of the gloves. “Recently, maybe. Not today, but not ancient either.”
Piplup picked up the hard hat and turned it over in his flippers. There was a logo printed on the side, but a long scratch had torn through the name. “Looks like some kind of work crew.”
Riolu stared at the cart, and for one sharp second, something flashed through his mind.
Stone dust. Voices. Someone saying, “Just load them. They said the site’s already been cleared.” A hand reaching for something carved and pale. A warning cry that was not human.
Then the memory vanished.
Riolu staggered slightly.
“You okay?” Tepig asked.
“I… don’t know,” Riolu said. “I think I remembered something.”
The others went quiet.
“What?” Glaceon asked.
“Not enough.” Riolu looked at the door. “Just people working here. Moving things.”
Piplup looked down at the empty wrappings again. “Moving what?”
No one answered.
The silence around them seemed heavier now.
Mawile stepped closer to the door and looked up. “Well, whatever happened, we still need to get out. How are we going to open this?”
“I dunno,” Piplup said, dropping the hard hat. “Why couldn’t I have been turned into a Machamp or something? That’d have been useful,”
“At least you’re bipedal,” Glaceon muttered.
“At least you don’t look like a plush toy,” Piplup complained.
“At least neither of you has a second mouth sticking out of the back of your head,” Mawile snapped, gesturing upward as the jaws behind her head slowly opened and closed.
“At least—” Noibat began.
Riolu cut him off. “Our situation is uncomfortable, but complaints won’t help.”
Piplup crossed his flippers. “Easy for you to say. You look like you were designed to be taken seriously.”
Riolu glanced down at his small blue paws and did not feel serious at all.
“All right,” Glaceon said. “Then what do we do?”
“Maybe if we all push at the same time?” Tepig suggested.
“No,” Shinx said, eyeing the door. “These must weigh a lot. Like, a lot a lot.”
Riolu looked at his paws again. “What if I use Aura Sphere to bust it down? Riolu know that, right?”
The moment he said it, the temple shook.
A low hum filled the corridor, deep enough to vibrate through the stone under their feet. The markings on the door flickered with faint blue light, one after another, like eyes opening in the dark.
Everyone froze.
Riolu slowly lowered his paws.
“On second thought,” he said carefully, “never mind.”
The hum faded.
The markings dimmed.
For several seconds, no one moved.
“What was that?” Shinx whispered, pressing close to Tepig.
“A sign,” Piplup said, voice tight, “that we need to get the heck out of here without angering the giant magic door.”
Glaceon’s ears twitched. “It reacted when you talked about attacking it.”
“So no breaking things,” Mawile said quietly.
Riolu swallowed. “No breaking things.”
Noibat hovered a little higher, glancing around the upper walls. “Maybe there’s a window somewhere. Or a crack. Something smaller than that door.”
“Hopefully,” Tepig said.
“I’ll check,” Noibat said.
He flapped upward, still unsteady but improving, and followed the curve of the wall toward the ceiling. As he flew, he made a few small clicking sounds. The echoes came back to him in strange layers: stone, cracks, carvings, empty space beyond one wall.
Then something else.
A shape tucked high above the door.
Noibat slowed.
“Guys?” he called down. “There’s something up here.”
“What kind of something?” Piplup called.
Noibat hovered closer. A narrow ledge ran along the top of the doorway, and on it sat a small stone object wrapped in torn cloth. It looked like it had been dropped or hidden in a hurry.
The cloth had the same scratched company logo as the hard hat.
Noibat stared at it, his ears twitching.
“I think,” he said slowly, “someone was taking things from this place.”
“Bring it down if you can,” Tepig called.
“All right,” Noibat said.
He hooked his feet carefully around the object and lifted it from the ledge. His wings beat harder as the extra weight dragged him lower, and for a few seconds he wobbled so badly Piplup stepped back with a grimace.
“Please do not drop that on my head,” Piplup said.
“I’m trying not to,” Noibat squeaked.
He managed to lower it to the floor with a dusty thump, the cloth falling away from it.
Once he let go, the others gathered around it.
It was not a relic after all.
It was a sign.
The surface was scuffed, cracked, and scratched so badly that half the lettering had been ruined. The printed logo was the same one they had seen on the hard hat, though this one was slightly clearer. Beneath it, only pieces of the company name remained.
“Arg… ian… Develop…” Piplup read, squinting. “That’s helpful.”
“Developers?” Glaceon asked, lowering her head to inspect it. “Was someone planning to build something near this temple?”
Riolu stared at the sign.
A strange heaviness settled in his chest.
“Or over it,” he said.
He reached out and picked it up to examine it.
The moment his paws touched the sign, the world lurched.
For a heartbeat, the temple vanished.
Heat.
Dust.
Human voices echoing through stone.
Someone laughed nervously and said, “Relax. We’re not stealing anything. We’re relocating it.”
A flashlight beam swept across a wall of symbols.
A gloved hand touched an old carving.
Something small and black drifted in the air, shaped like a crooked letter with a single staring eye.
Then another voice, sharper and older, said, “They told us the site was already cleared.”
A machine rumbled somewhere above them.
Stone trembled.
A warning sign lay face-down in the dirt outside, its red letters half-covered by tire tracks.
The memory broke apart.
Now there was a cart. Cloth wrapping. A pale object being lifted from a pedestal. Someone saying, “Careful with that one. Boss said it’s worth more intact.”
The air went cold.
The symbols on the wall opened their eyes.
Not eyes, Riolu thought wildly. They were not eyes.
But they were watching.
A sound filled the chamber. Not a voice. Not exactly. More like dozens of thoughts pressing against the inside of his skull.
Taken.
Moved.
Named as yours.
Not yours.
Then there was shouting.
A dropped flashlight spun across the floor.
Someone cried out.
Blue light swallowed everything.
Riolu gasped and stumbled backward, dropping the sign.
The others recoiled at the same time. Mawile clutched her head. Tepig sat down hard. Piplup nearly fell onto his back. Shinx shook from nose to tail, sparks crackling weakly from his fur. Noibat crashed to the floor with a squeak, and Glaceon stood frozen, her eyes wide and distant.
For several seconds, none of them spoke.
Then Piplup swallowed. “Did everyone else just see that?”
“I heard voices,” Tepig said quietly.
“I saw people,” Mawile whispered. “Humans.”
Shinx’s ears flattened. “I saw a big machine. And dirt. And someone yelling.”
Noibat folded his wings tightly around himself. “There were things in the walls.”
“Unown,” Glaceon said.
Everyone looked at her.
She blinked as if she had surprised herself. “I don’t know how I know that.”
Riolu stared down at the sign lying between them. His paws still tingled where he had touched it.
“We were here,” he said.
Mawile looked at him fearfully. “As humans?”
“I think so.” Riolu tried to hold onto the memory, but it was already slipping away, leaving only pieces behind. “There were people moving things. Maybe from this temple.”
“Maybe?” Piplup snapped, though his voice shook. “One of them said something was worth more intact.”
“That doesn’t mean it was us,” Tepig said quickly.
“No,” Glaceon said, still staring at the sign. “But it does mean somebody was doing something they should not have been doing.”
The corridor seemed to grow colder around them.
Behind the group, the markings on the great door flickered once. The glow was faint and brief, but all seven of them saw it.
Shinx stepped closer to Riolu. “Are they mad at us?”
No one answered right away.
Riolu looked from the sign to the broken cart, then to the empty cloth wrappings scattered across the floor. The memory had not shown enough. Not names. Not faces. Not the whole truth.
But it had shown one thing clearly.
This place had been disturbed.
And somehow, they were connected to it.
“We need to find out what happened here,” Riolu said.
Piplup gave him a sharp look. “I thought we were finding a way out.”
“We are,” Riolu said. “But if this place did this to us, then getting out might not be enough.”
Mawile shivered. The jaws behind her head opened and closed once, slow and nervous. “What if we find out we did something bad?”
Riolu did not know how to answer that.
Glaceon finally looked away from the sign. Her expression had gone guarded again, but her voice was quieter than before. “Then we find out how to fix it.”
A soft scrape came from somewhere beyond the door.
Everyone froze.
Noibat’s ears lifted.
“What is it?” Tepig whispered.
Noibat stared toward the dark hall branching off from the main corridor. “Something moved.”
Piplup’s flippers stiffened. “Something like a person?”
Noibat listened.
A faint clicking sound drifted through the stone passage.
Then another.
Then several more.
“No,” Noibat said, voice small. “Something smaller.”
A single Unown floated out of the darkness.
It hovered at the far end of the corridor, silent and still, its black body shaped like a letter none of them could read. Its eye fixed on them.
The seven Pokémon stood frozen.
The Unown did not attack.
It simply watched.
Then it turned and drifted away down the side passage, vanishing into the dark.
Tepig swallowed. “Was that… an invitation?”
“Or a warning,” Piplup muttered.
Riolu looked at the others. Every instinct in him wanted to find daylight, find people, and get away from the ancient stone walls watching them from every side.
But the Unown had waited for them to see it.
Then it had left slowly enough to be followed.
Riolu took a breath.
“We follow it,” he said.
“If we end up eaten, that’s on you,” Piplup muttered, walking after him.
Mawile stiffened. “Why would you say eaten?”
“Let’s move,” Riolu said before that thought could settle in anyone’s head.
The group followed the Unown into the darkness. The side passage was narrower than the corridor before it, and the air felt colder, brushing over them like the temple itself was breathing. Their footsteps echoed strangely against the stone, too loud one second and too soft the next.
“Wait,” Piplup said suddenly. “We should let Batty lead.”
Noibat turned his head. “Batty?”
“Yes, you. You’ve got echolocation.”
Noibat frowned, but after a second he flew forward with a nervous flap of his wings. “I guess that makes sense.”
As they moved deeper, they saw more markings carved into the walls. They were not only on the walls either. The floor, the ceiling, even the edges of the stone pillars were covered in them. Some were faded. Some looked freshly cut despite the age of the temple. Every so often, Riolu caught himself thinking one of them had shifted when he looked away.
“Where did it go?” Glaceon asked.
Noibat hovered in place and made a few clicking noises. His ears twitched as the echoes returned.
“This way,” he said. “I sense something.”
“Don’t go too far ahead,” Riolu warned. “It’s dark here.”
The moment he said that, the runes along the walls began to glow.
One by one, pale blue light spread through the passage, filling the corridor just enough for them to see. Shinx jumped, sparks snapping from his fur. Tepig pressed himself close to Mawile, while Piplup stared hard at the symbols like he was daring them to do something else.
“Well,” Shinx said after a shaky pause, “let there be light.”
“Over there!” Tepig cried.
They turned in time to see the Unown drifting down another hall.
Noibat flew after it first, and the others followed. The passage twisted several times, leading them past broken alcoves, cracked stone steps, and more walls covered in silent markings. The Unown never came close enough to touch. It simply waited whenever they fell behind, then moved again when they caught up.
Finally, the darkness ahead began to thin.
Natural light spilled across the floor.
Tepig’s ears lifted. “Oh, thank Arceus. Sunlight!”
“Let’s go,” Mawile said, relief breaking through her fear.
The group hurried toward the exit. The stone passage opened at last, and they stumbled out into fresh air, blinking against the brightness.
Riolu was the last to leave.
Just before he stepped outside, he paused and looked back.
Far inside the temple, half-hidden by the blue glow of the runes, one Unown hovered in the darkness. It watched them silently.
Then it vanished.
Riolu stared for a moment longer.
“Riolu?” Tepig called from outside.
He turned away from the temple and ran after the others.