Multiple flashlight beams swept over the damp, dripping tunnel walls.

  The only sounds that permeated the dead silence were the slightly muffled sounds of four sets of footsteps.

  Jules shivered and pulled his jacket tighter around him, he regretted not bringing something warmer. Being at the back of the group, he nervously glanced behind himself. The Swablu perched on the teen’s shoulder puffed up its cloud-like feathers as it sensed its trainer’s nervousness.

  Neither of them liked cramped tunnels, or being wet so this was setting off all the wrong alarms. Birds should not be underground, but the little bird wouldn’t let its trainer go underground without it.

  Gavin wrinkled his nose and snorted at the unpleasant musty scent that permeated the place. It lightly held the scent of decay and mold, and the scent had only gotten stronger as they had gotten deeper into the catacombs.

  The second frontmost boy flinched and groaned in annoyance. He had stepped in a cold puddle that had soaked his shoe and socks.

  “Shush Oliver, I’m trying to get a good ambience.” The boy in the front murmured, he was filming their adventure with a chunky vidcorder.

  “Innnk.” Vidcorder kid’s Inkay mockingly purred, smugly looking down its beak at the others.

  “Okay Antoine,” Oliver retorted with some attitude. “I thought you would’ve gotten enough ‘ambience’ in the first hour.”

  “Yeah Antoine, are we done yet?” Jules asked, his voice tense as he tried to hide his unease, “I wanna go home, my mom’s gonna be angry at me for skipping school to come to this dumb place.” The boy jumped and glanced behind himself as he thought he heard some scratching noises.

  “Oh don’t be a wuss Jules.” Antoine scoffed with a casual hand wave, “We haven’t even gotten to the actual Catacombs.”

  The other two boys voiced their agreement, none of them were willing to admit that they were too chicken to explore this place.

  “But, the ghosts…” Jules weakly protested. “Blu.” Swablu softly chirped, echoing its trainer’s sentiments. Birds weren’t meant to be underground like this.

  “That’s why we brought dark types. For the hundredth time Jules, we’ll be fine. No ghost is gonna be able to beat my Umbreon!” Oliver confidently patted the pokeball in his pocket.

  “They send people in to check the tunnels every few years, it’ll be fine for us to shoot a documentary.” Antoine said, firmly patting the tunnel walls as if to show how safe it was.

  “It’s illegal to be here.” Jules replied.

  Antoine rolled his eyes as he stopped and turned, “Well maybe you should’ve considered that before you came down here with us.”

  The boy paused, his friends were looking behind him so he turned to look at what was ahead.

  There were a few bones scattered across the floor, they were yellowed with age and were semi-sunk into the floor. Antoine used his flashlight to light up more of the hallway. The entire tunnel in front of them slowly turned from a mixture of stone, mud, and bones to purely just a tunnel of bones.

  “Woah, this is sick!” Antoine proudly turned back to his friends with a huge grin, “See? Prime Poketube material. We’ll go viral in no time!”

  Antoine walked over to the beginning of the bone tunnel, gesturing for Inkay to film him.

  “Ready?” He asked. The floating squid Pokemon, nodded and purred.

  Antoine put on a smile and began speaking in his ‘influencer voice’, “What’s up guys? It’s Swag lord sixty-nine and the crew!”

  Inkay swivelled around to briefly film the other three boys who awkwardly waved at the camera before it turned back to their leader.

  “Today, we are going to explore the Lumiose Catacombs!” Antoine squatted down and playfully picked up a few loose bones to show the camera.

  “These are real bones guys! Creepy right?” Antoine tossed the bones to the side, “Hey, maybe we’ll find a few ghosts down here for Oliver and his Umbreon to battle!”

  Oliver laughed, “Yeah, just like that time we beat up those Ghastlys when we were filming in the haunted house.”

  Antoine gestured to his friends to follow him deeper into the tunnels, making sure to emphasize the bones present by subtly kicking a few to make them rattle loudly. Oliver laughed and Gavin began humming the tune of Spooky Scary Skeletons.

  Jules cringed, they really shouldn’t do that. He was a bit more careful with the bones than his friends, gingerly trying to avoid even touching the bones with his feet.

  They rounded a corner and the boys in the front let out some quiet whistles or “woahs” at the sight before them.

  Unlike the previous hallway of randomly mixed bones crammed into the walls, this entire hallway was a work of art. The walls were in a tile pattern of skulls framed by straight bones, the ceiling looked like it was made of ribs, and the floor was an assortment of spine vertebrae arranged in grotesque flower patterns.

  There was a short pause as Antoine turned to the camcorder with an exaggerated surprised face as he made a few comments on the hallway. Then he continued walking.

  Jules lagged behind again. It felt sacrilegious to disturb these human remains let alone step on them, but he also didn’t want to be left behind.

  There was a quiet rattle behind him and he jumped, his heart rate spiking. Swablu puffed up and pecked the side of Jules’s head to make him move.

  Without looking back, Jules quickly caught up to his friends, rubbing his arms to get rid of the goosebumps. Jules took a deep breath to calm himself but the distinct musty smell of old bones and death just made him queasy.

  Jules covered his nose as he felt his stomach churn, then he wondered if a bunch of angry ghosts would appear if he threw up on their bones. Hopefully he wouldn’t have to find out.

  Antoine talking about this place provided a nice distraction from his nausea, so he put some extra focus into listening to his friend’s history lecture.

  “The Lumiose Catacombs were built three thousand years ago during the Kalos-Galar War as a place for civilians to shelter in while the war raged above.” Antoine said to the camera, lighting his face up from below with the flashlight.

  “After the war, its inhabitants moved aboveground. and the place was expanded into coal and fossil mines. Then, once those mines dried up, the entire tunnel system was completely abandoned.”

  Antoine gestured at a few rusty old lanterns that were sitting to the side of one of the tunnels. They had passed by a few other remnants of old mining equipment too, but the lanterns were the most recognizable.

  “Then during the industrial revolution, the population of Lumiose City exploded and suddenly there wasn’t enough space to bury people in Lumiose’s existing graveyards.”

  “So, the city began digging up dead people and putting their remains into the tunnels below the city to make room for people who could pay for a spot in the graveyards. Those who couldn’t pay were either cremated or were tossed in the catacombs as well.”

  “Who the hell decorated the place with bones then?” Gavin asked, pointing at the patterned skull walls.

  Antoine shrugged, “I dunno, opinions are pretty divided on that. Some sources say that it was cults that worship the ‘god of death’,” Antoine made finger air quotes, “others say the city paid people to keep the catacombs clean so that pestilence wouldn’t spread from it and they decided to sort the bones by turning them into art.”

  “I’m putting my money on the cult.” Oliver said with a grin.

  Jules made a face, “What? Hell no! The second theory makes way more sense than a death cult.”

  “Yeah but the death cult theory sounds spookier.” Oliver replied, the boy began making mock ghost noises and chanted a few nonsense phrases while he pretended to light candles.

  “I shall sacrifice this Gogoat to you! O great Yveltal! Ooooooooooo!” Oliver wriggled his fingers as if he was casting a magic spell.

  Antoine playfully swatted Oliver and laughed, “Dude, you got some balls mentioning that Pokemon in a place like this.”

  “Bro it’s just a legend.” Oliver replied.

  Gavin grinned rolled his eyes, “Sure, let’s see you call it a legend when you get disintegrated by it.”

  Jules smiled and was about to add in his own thoughts, but an accidental glance at the eye sockets of the wall skulls instantly changed his mood. He just couldn’t shake the feeling that the skulls were staring at him.

  Then he acutely noticed his friend go quiet. Swablu puffed up its feathers and shivered, making Jules pat the bird to reassure it. Then he realized what was wrong.

  It was cold. It was already cold before, but this felt unnatural. He could see everyone’s breath in the air, Gavin’s glasses were getting a bit foggy from it.

  They all nervously looked at each other.

  There was a flash of light as Oliver let out his Umbreon, “Stay sharp Midnight.”

  Midnight growled as if to say, “What the hell did you get us into this time?” Then the dark type sniffed the air and growled as she looked at the black eye sockets of the wall skulls.

  “Good idea.” Gavin muttered as he unclipped a pokeball from his belt, “You too Lucky.”

  There was another flash as a Krokorok appeared between Gavin and Jules. The sand-croc sharply exhaled and wrinkled its nose at the scent of old bones before rumbling at Umbreon, Swablu, and Inkay. Midnight quietly replied in a slightly annoyed tone. Swablu chirped with a tinge of fear in its voice. Inkay huffed back, the others were being paranoid.

  Jules took a step back to give Krokorok more space and squeaked in fear as he stepped on and cracked a bone that he was very sure wasn’t there a moment ago.

  “Ummm…Guys? Can we go back now? Like seriously. I don’t feel comfortable being here anymore.

  “Calm down Jules, it’s just colder because we’re deeper underground than before.” Antoine took off his jacket and tossed it to Jules, “Here, you can use my jacket. Next time make sure to bring your own.”

  Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

  Jules mumbled a thanks to his friend and then said in a slightly louder tone as he put on the jacket, “I still want to go back

  Antoine seemed a bit annoyed and rolled his eyes, “Fine, you still have the copy of the map I sent you this morning right?”

  Jules sheepishly nodded and pulled out his phone, pulling up a map that he’d saved.

  Gavin raised a hand, “I’ll go back with Jules cause he doesn’t have a dark type Pokemon.”

  “Sure.” Antoine replied, “Don’t get lost, I made sure to pack extra power banks for you guys in case your phone batteries run out.”

  “Thanks Ant.” Jules said.

  “Yeah yeah.” Antoine dismissively waved a hand, “Hey, Gavin, can you hand me some of the extra flashlight batteries from your pack then? You’re not gonna be using them as long as us.”

  “Sure.” Gavin took off his bag and ruffled through it, producing a pack of batteries. He nearly dropped the battery pack when they all heard someone manically laughing from deeper in the tunnels.

  The group stared in the direction the laughing came from for a moment. Jules nearly shit himself. Swablu actually did shit itself, though Jules didn’t notice the white splatter of bird poop on his shoulder.

  Gavin placed the battery pack in Antoine’s hands as he nervously glanced down the tunnel, “So, uh, you guys feel like joining us? That doesn’t sound very safe.”

  “Are you kidding me?” Oliver replied, “This is prime Poketube content!”

  Antoine nodded as he put the batteries in his bag and quickly turned to go towards the now quiet hallway where the laughing originated from. “Quick! We might’ve missed it already! Make sure Umbreon is ready for a battle Oliver!”

  “Roger that!” Oliver replied, briefly shouting to Gavin and Jules over his shoulder as he followed Antoine and Inkay, “We’ll have some great footage for you guys to watch when we get back!”

  “Hey, guys!” Gavin reached out to try to grab the back of Oliver’s bag, but the other boy was too fast. “Wait a second!”

  But Antoine and Oliver had already disappeared around another corner.

  Jules and Gavin stared after their friends for a moment, contemplating if they should go after them.

  “Are they gonna be okay?” Jules asked Gavin as he patted Swablu’s soft wings for comfort.

  “Probably…those assholes are just asking to get hurt.” Gavin half-heartedly replied as he quickly turned to retrace their steps, “Let's get out of here, I’m getting some major creeps.”

  “Yeah. I’m never going into a tunnel again if I can help it.” Jules said as he followed Gavin and Krokorok back in the direction they came from.

  Gavin grumpily shook his feet, “Ergh, I really shouldn’t have let Antoine talk me into coming to this dump. My socks are all soaked.”

  “Yeah, same here.” Jules vaguely gestured at his feet.

  “Krok. Krokorok.” Lucky grunted, looking pointedly at Gavin, the ground type wasn’t exactly happy to be in a cold, wet place either, and he didn’t even make the decision to come here.

  “Yeah, yeah, we’re idiots.” Gavin sighed, then he muttered under his breath, “We are not letting Antoine do the research next time–urk!”

  Gavin jumped and gasped as he sharply looked down. Krokorok growled in surprise and Swablu chirped, frantically flapping its wings as Jules jumped and unbalanced the blue bird.

  “What the?!” Jules exclaimed, back peddling a few steps.

  Gavin examined his foot before shrugging, “I…don’t know. Sorry, it just felt like someone grabbed my foot with their ice fingers.”

  He glanced at Lucky, trying to gauge if he had sensed anything unusual, but the sand croc shook its head and shrugged.

  “Maybe it’s a ghost with a foot fetish.” Jules suggested as they began walking again at a slightly faster pace.

  Gavin snickered, “Ugh, stop that’s even worse than a normal ghost.”

  The mood lightened for a moment. Sadly, it was instantly ruined by an ominous gust of wind sweeping down the tunnel and past them with the iciness of a midnight winter chill.

  The gust was immediately followed by the faint echoes of their friends shouting, which was then followed by a few distant booms, and a roar from Umbreon. Inkay screeched with the same frequency as nails on a chalkboard and someone screamed so loud that their voice gave out.

  Then it was as quiet as a graveyard.

  Jules and Gavin stared at each other in horror. Neither wanted to even think about what that sudden silence could mean.

  The boys were jarred from their stupor when Krokorok elbowed Gavin and Swablu pecked at Jules’s ear.

  “Krok.” The crocodile grunted and gestured for the boys to move. From the deepest reaches of the tunnels came a muted swell of voices whispering that jarred the group into action. Gavin and Jules broke into a run.

  The voices became less muted as they rapidly got closer, distending into a cacophonous roar of unfamiliar voices screaming and shouting unintelligibly. It was getting closer, and closer, and closer.

  Krokorok briefly turned back and shot a Dark Pulse past Jules, there was a boom and a bunch of pained screeching from whatever was chasing them. Jules didn’t want to see whatever was chasing them, but it sounded like they had been delayed by Krokorok’s Dark Pulse long enough to let the group gain some ground.

  “Take the right path!” Gavin shouted.

  The group was approaching a y-split in the tunnel. Jules glanced at his phone to try to figure out where they were, but the device had gone dark. Its screen briefly flickered and glitched out before completely dying.

  Dust and bone fragments crumbled down onto them as transparent purple bodies began worming their way through the ceiling, reaching down their emaciated hands to try to grab the boys. Gavin ducked, giving Krokorok room to fire off a weak Dark Pulse at them to make them retreat.

  Gavin and Krokorok went for the path on the right, diving underneath a series of claw-like hands that wildly grabbed for them through the ceiling. Jules tried to follow them down the right path but found himself face to face with the blood-red eyes and wide malicious grin of a Gengar.

  Swablu screeched at the ghost, spitting out pink soundwaves that crackled against Gengar’s translucent purple fur. Gengar shook itself and growled indignantly as it shrugged off the attack while Jules stumbled back. Seizing this brief distraction, Jules threw himself to the left, frantically grabbing onto the bone walls for support and almost falling before he booked it down the left corridor.

  Jules just kept running and running, blindly taking turns whenever he saw a wave of purple bodies and ravenous faces rushing down a corridor towards him. Left, right, right, straight, left, left, up a bunch of bone steps, right…

  The sounds of the swarm of ghosts shouting at him were only drowned out by the sound of his heart beating in his ears and the occasional screech from Swablu as it used Disarming Voice to try to keep their pursuers at a reasonable distance the same way Krokorok did.

  Jules briefly thanked his mom for forcing him to be on the track team, he wouldn’t have been able to run for this long this fast otherwise. The boy spared a glance behind him and was relieved to see that the ghosts were a good hundred meters behind him.

  He still needed to find an exit. Jules tried to think back to the directions on the map, but his train of thought was derailed as he ran into a tall cylindrical room and almost crashed into the wall. It was a dead end.

  “Oh…” Jules panted as he looked around the room, “Crap.” He hadn’t outsped the ghosts, they had been herding him into this dead end so they wouldn’t have to chase him.

  Swablu squawked and flew up to the ceiling to get Jules’s attention, there was a hole that had a small beam of sunlight filtering through it. The problem was that it was too high up for him to reach, and even if he could reach it, it was too small for him to fit through, though Swablu could probably fit through it.

  Jules whipped around as he heard the voices just outside the room. The Gengar from before stalked in, flexing its claws.

  “What do you want?” Jules asked, his voice cracked.

  The shadow Pokemon didn’t answer and continued to walk towards Jules with malicious intent while Jules backed away with raised hands.

  “Look, if you want me to leave I can leave. I’m sorry for trespassing!”

  The Gengar let out a sardonic laugh as its claws extended into massive sharp curved knives of purple energy.

  Jules looked up at Swablu and shouted, “Go Swablu! Get out of here!” He wildly waved for his Pokemon to fly through the hole, if he couldn’t escape alive, at least Swablu should.

  The bird Pokemon’s eyes widened before narrowing with determination.

  Gengar pounced and Jules raised his arms to try to block the ghost’s Shadow Claw.

  “SWABLU!” Swablu let out a war cry as it threw itself at Gengar, hurtling at the ghost like a fluffy blue and white cannonball. Gengar looked up at the bird and slashed at the bird instead.

  “NO!” Jules shouted

  Then his eyes widened. The little bird dodged the attack as its body began glowing with a blinding white light. There was a burst of energy and a roar.

  “AL-TARIA!” Gengar’s eyes widened and the ghost backpedalled, but it was too late.

  There was an explosion of dazzling pink energy that shook the room. Dust and bone fragments rained down on Jules, making him cough.

  The boy’s eyes watered and he tried to rub the dust out of them. He let out a short yell as he felt something hurriedly lift him up by the back of his jacket. It was Altaria.

  The cloud bird opened its beak and blasted the hole in the ceiling with a spiraling blue Dragon Pulse, making it big enough for them to fly through. Jules used his arms to shield himself from the rubble that rained down, then he had to close his eyes as they came aboveground, his eyes stinging from a combination of the sudden bright light and the dust.

  “GEN-GAR!” Gengar howled from below.

  Something large swooshed past him, then Altaria shrieked with pain. Jules felt himself falling.

  “Oomph!” The wind was knocked out of him as he fell flat onto the leaf-carpeted forest floor.

  “Urgh.” Jules scrambled to his feet, “Altaria! Are you okay?” He ran over to his companion, who was huddled on the ground.

  One of the cloud bird’s wings was bent the wrong way, and there was a nasty purple coloring to it that was slowly spreading.

  “Al-taria. Ria.” The bird cringed and whimpered at the stinging–burning sensation that was spreading through its wing.

  The two turned and watched as Gengar crawled out of the hole, its angry red eyes boring into them as it growled, “Gen gengar gar, gengar.”

  A choir of voices answered as a small army of ghosts followed their leader out into the open. Their forms were hard to identify due to how the ghosts grouped themselves together and shrouded themselves in purple energy, making them look like a school of fish.

  “Altaria tar, ria!” Altaria shouted back as it shot a Dragon Pulse at the ghost.

  Gengar sidestepped the attack and wagged a finger at them, its other hand generating a Shadow Ball that it whipped at Altaria. The swarm of ghosts surged towards them.

  Jules pressed the button on Altaria’s Pokeball, returning it just in time to dodge the attack as he backed away. He had begun shaking from the adrenaline and exhaustion. The boy turned to run, but he was thrown to the ground. A scream tore through his lips as a sharp stabbing pain exploded in his knee.

  Altaria’s Pokeball was ripped out of his hand as something grabbed the hood of his jacket and began dragging him. Jules thrashed around, a new surge of adrenaline numbing the pain in his leg as he slipped out of the jacket and tried to punch whoever was dragging him.

  Jules’s left hand felt like it had been plunged into liquid nitrogen as it passed through Gengar’s body and began burning and turning a shade of purple. The ghost simply rolled its eyes in utter annoyance as it grabbed Jules by the wrist and kept on dragging him towards the hole in the ground.

  “GET OFF ME!” Jules screamed, clawing at whatever he could get ahold of to prevent Gengar from being able to drag him any closer to that literal hellhole. The boy quickly grabbed onto a tree root for dear life, he gritted his teeth as he felt the ghost type jerk his other arm so hard that he felt like his shoulder would come out of its socket.

  “AHHHHH! LET GO OF ME! LET! GO!” Jules screamed at Gengar as the ghost growled and began aggressively tugging Jules’s arm, trying to get him to let go of the tree root.

  “Mur krow krow krow krow krow!” The loud laughing caws of a small flock of Murkrow in the branches above sounded. Jules glanced up, catching sight of those damned birds and their greedy, beady eyes gleefully watching the drama unfolding below.

  “Gengar!” Gengar cursed, gesturing at someone Jules couldn’t see.

  A tattered looking Banette floated out of the cluster of ghosts encircling them, grabbing the hand that Jules was using to hold onto the tree root. The ghost puppet’s nubby hand extended into a shadowy set of claws that it then used to crush Jules’s hand, earning a hoarse scream from the kid.

  He felt nauseous as he felt and heard his own bones cracking and splintering, his hand went numb. There was another uproar of cawing laughter from the Murkrow as Jules was yanked away.

  Everything slowed down as the weight of his reality crashed down all at once. He was in the middle of nowhere, no one was coming to help him.

  He was going to die. Altaria was going to die because of the situation he had brought it into. They were going to be dragged into that musty, dark, cramped tunnel and eaten by ghosts. They’d become one of the countless bones in the catacombs, and no one was ever going to find them. What about his mom and dad? His grandma? What were they going to think?

  Without even registering his own thoughts, Jules kicked Gengar. The ghost hadn’t expected the blow and flinched, then rubbed its face where there now was a solid shoe print. The other ghosts grabbed his clothes with their hands and began helping Gengar drag him faster.

  Fear spikes down his spine as they get closer and closer to the hole in the ground, Jules lets out an animalistic screech. He claws at the ground with his mangled hand while his other limbs all flail around as he tries to loosen Gengar’s iron grip on him.

  Jules’s breath came in short gasps and he felt his chest tighten till it was too hard to breath. The edges of his vision begin to darken as his images of him being back in that tunnel and being torn apart by ghosts flashed in his mind.

  The faces of the ghosts crowding around him only made those images worse as his brain focused on the twisted mask of a Yamask, the sharp teeth of a Ghastly, and the witchlike cackling from a Misdreavus.

  Out of nowhere, a bunch of Shadow Balls tore through the crowd of ghosts, sending them flying as they shrieked with pain. The ghosts scattered like Rattata at the arrival of a massive dark purple figure and a roar loud enough to shake his bones.

  “GAAAAAR CHOOOOOMP!” The biggest goddamned Garchomp that Jules had ever seen landed hard enough to cause a mini-earthquake. The ground beneath the dragon cratered from the sheer force of its landing.

  The landshark instantly identified the ringleader, its yellow eyes narrowing as it rushed Gengar. The shadow Pokemon did what any reasonable person would do when a nine and a half foot dragon charged them, and ran for it.

  Unfortunately for Gengar, the dragon was fast. Garchomp hooked the ghost type like a fish and slammed it into the ground hard enough to create another crater. Then it began curb stomping the ghost-type into the stump of a nearby fallen tree, sending splinters flying everywhere and quickly destroying the stump in the process.

  Meanwhile, a second group of ghost Pokemon zoomed in and began picking fights with the first group of ghosts, stopping them from escaping back into the hole in the ground.

  The ragged Banette from before sneakily floated over to Jules and tried dragging him the few feet left to the hole, earning a hoarse yell from the boy. A second, less ragged Banette dropped out of the sky and bitch slapped raggedy Banette into the waiting jaws of a Zweilous. The Zweilous happily gargled and began wildly whipping the puppet ghost around like it was a pokedoll.

  Jules tried to sit up, but his vision was swimming and he felt a horrible wave of nausea pass through him. Something gently picked him up and floated him away from the hole, placing him behind a tree and away from the ongoing fights.

  A Haunter flew over and tried to offer him a sitrus berry, but Jules was too nauseous to eat anything. He had begun shivering, chills were running through his body, and a pounding headache had started to form behind his eyes.

  He looked back at the ongoing battle. The catacombs ghosts were still fighting the newcomers with an unnaturally vicious attitude despite being easily overwhelmed by the newcomers. They weren’t going to give up without a fight. Gengar was still getting curb-stomped by the Garchomp, yet it still shouted curses at the dragon.

  A shadow flitted by above. There was a horrifying roar even louder than the Garchomp’s roar as a battle scarred Hydreigon even bigger than the Garchomp descended from the sky.

  The clearing went quiet, and even the catacombs ghosts stopped to stare in horror at the utter beast of nightmares that had ever so kindly graced them with its presence.

  The silence was only broken by the occasional squeaky toy sounds from the Banette that the Zweilous was currently chewing on, and the sound of the Garchomp still slamming Gengar’s face into the obliterated tree stump.

  Where did they come from? Jules blearily blinked his eyes as he looked for their trainer, he thought of someone big and tough like Snowbelle’s gym leader Wulfric, or maybe Drasna.

  “That’s enough Sahara.” The voice of a girl ordered, Jules shifted and saw a somewhat dainty-looking Kantonian girl jogging over with a Rufflet flying just behind her.

  The Garchomp paused mid-punch before snorting and tossing the barely conscious Gengar at the girl’s feet. The Gengar groaned like a balloon letting out air.

  “Same for you Kaiju.” The girl sternly said to the Zweilous. “Drop it.” She pointed at the ground.

  “Drop. Drop it. Drop it. Kaiju!” She grabbed the unruly dragon’s mouth, “DROP. IT.”

  The Zweilous grunted. “Mleeem.” It opened its mouth, and dropped a very soggy and chewed up Banette onto the forest floor.

  Nice Banette waved at the girl, “Banette!” It pointed at Jules.

  The girl looked at them and grimaced when she saw Jules, who was still trying to keep the contents of his breakfast in his stomach.

  “Oh shit that’s not goo–um,” The girl started before quickly inhaling through her teeth as she caught sight of Jules’s hand. He hadn’t seen it yet, he’d probably projectile vomit if he did.

  The trainer looked back at the Hydreigon and pointed at the defeated ghosts. “Make sure they don’t try anything.”

  Then she ran over to Jules, who tried to wave at her, but he couldn’t move his arms. It was like his body had finally registered that he was no longer in danger, so it was turning everything off.

  His vision began swimming, and the edges of his vision were getting dark again, this time due to the pain from his injuries finally registering to his brain all at once.

  Jules’s head drooped, and then jolted up as he thought of Altaria, where was Altaria’s Pokeball?

  “Pohe..pawl, Aldaria…” Jules tried speaking to the girl as she crouched next to him. His tongue felt like lead and his head began drooping again. It was so hard to keep his eyes open.

  “What?” She asked, “Hey, hey. Stay with me.” She gently shook him and looked away, “Rotom! Call 911!”

  She turned back to him, “Hey, what’s your–”