The inky blackness swallowing him whole seemed to go on for an infinity. Ash wasn't sure how long he'd been walking – all he knew was that he'd given up on running after his lungs began to feel as if he was sucking in hot cinders every step. Occasionally he thought he heard the scuffle of one of his friends, or a low rumble in the distance (from behind or ahead, who knew?) and sometimes Ash swore he heard a keening chorus all around him singing to some otherworldly tune. It nagged at him, like he should recognize it but could never quite place it.

Ash grimaced as he kept his pace. His legs felt like they were filled with lead. It wasn't painful yet, but it was plenty uncomfortable. Throw in the disorientation of the Hale Mansion's huge interior – he knew for a fact that it wasn't a tenth of this size – and frustration began to mount.

He rubbed his arms as he forced his way through the darkness. There was no indication of how much time had passed. A minute? An hour? Without his senses Ash found it impossible to tell. It was like he'd been suspended in outer space. Perhaps even worse. At least in space there would be the light of the stars to navigate.

All he knew was that he had to keep going. There was no use stopping and complaining – white-hot fury flashed as he nearly stumbled over his own feet. Ash knew there wasn't anything he could have tripped on and he glared out into the darkness, desperately wishing whatever Legendary owned this place would stop these games.

There was something wrong here. Ash wasn't sure what it could be beyond the obvious…the obvious being the silent, blank void he was in. That definitely wasn't here the last time he'd visited Uncle Spencer. But something brushed at the edge of his senses. It was ill defined and little more than a vague pull of intuition, but it was enough to alert Ash that another force was acting on him.

He tried to hone in on the feeling over time, but it was like trying to catch smoke with his bare hands. Or looking at an eye floater. Whenever he got close it just slid away and began the process all over again.

Ash growled. This was ridiculous. And it wasn't helping that every step was getting harder and harder. His breaths were labored, like he'd just finished racing against Steven. What was this? His bones ached with every twitch and he found himself exhausted after just a few more minutes (or was it seconds?) of walking through the darkness.

If only he could find his team…Bruiser would be a great help, and even though Infernus' light and heat had been swallowed up in this abyss he'd find comfort in the Magmortar's presence. Plume might not be able to help carry him, but at least he'd have someone here. Try as he might he just couldn't seem to find them no matter what direction he swayed or reached. It didn't make sense that Infernus' heat was undetectable, but sense had left this place long ago.

The boy rubbed at his legs, gasping as the weight redoubled. He wasn't strong enough to move for long if this kept up…

He steeled himself as the blackness brushed against him again – this time he barely remained standing and had to brace himself against his legs. What was happening?

It gradually swung at him again, and Ash groaned as the sensation started to overpower him – it felt like his bones would rip from his skin if this kept up. There was a painful tug at his teeth, like the strange force weighing down and exhausting him was about to yank them from their sockets. Ash ignored the little trickle of worry and wheezed, grasping madly for the Feather – he needed it right now.

The Feather was dead and lifeless in his hands.

Ash snarled helplessly as it laid inert against his hand, the fine obsidian frame refusing to respond to him. There was power there, he knew it! Power to get him out of this, to dispel whatever effect this was…power to help him win!

It thrummed in the void, glowing with a light again with sparks shaking onto his chest and melding happily with him and little threads of electricity winding its way into his skin, but it didn't bless him with the strength of Fire or the focus of Lightning. The dark power Sneasel injected into him had stolen its strength away for a time…

He grit his teeth as the pressure redoubled, finally forcing him to his knees. Ash groaned as it nearly drove him to the floor (what was he even standing on?) and something in his body threatened to give. Panic, another desperate grab for the Feather's aid, and nothing.

Ash refused to give into the force. He stayed where he was, mind intent only on reaching and reaching and grasping the power so close to where he was. He knew it, knew it could fuel him for as long as he needed. There was only that damn trickle right now but if he could just find it –

Something gave. It wasn't his body. Ash couldn't even scream as the Feather ignited, all the latent power regenerated after Sneasel's touch flooding him in an instant – Fire boiled his blood, forced his muscles into action. Lightning jolted him and for a dreadful moment he feared his heart stopped, but then the seizure hit. Ice numbed him, deadening him to everything except the hot burning inside him.

Fingers curved into claws snagged at the Feather helplessly, their raw animalistic strength doing everything it could to rip the instrument from his chest. Anything to stop the elemental flood, even if the Feather's wild light seemed to dispel the pressure crushing him. But he didn't care: the Feather would snuff his life out faster than the darkness ever would.

Another presence, hot like fire but with a core of cold steel, reared up in the back of his mind. It numbed the tugging at his soul, pacifying it to the point that it wouldn't destroy him. Ash laid gasping in the darkness, beads of sweat frozen to his forehead and palms thanks to Ice's touch.

The void didn't touch him as he curled into the darkness. His breathing was hard and quick and rasping as he sucked precious oxygen into his lungs – they burned again like he'd just left Mt. Ember. He tried to regain his bearings, but failed.

Stupid boy.

He snarled at the familiar voice, but couldn't find it in himself to reply. Ash needed just another moment or two before he tried speaking.

Did you really think removing the Conduit would accomplish anything but your own ruin? Do you really think your link to Fire and the rest of those simple Birds is rooted in that?

Ash scowled at Mewtwo's mocking words, but didn't reply. He just basked in the sudden relief of the Feather's influence going numb again – despite his annoyance, he felt almost grateful to Mewtwo for extinguishing it again.

That left a bad taste in his mouth.

The Conduit is a symbol and nothing more. The connection rests in you. You hold the essence of the Birds within you. It is yours and you are theirs.

His mind was quick enough to catch onto Mewtwo's meaning. Ash thought quietly to himself, puzzling out the psychic Legendary's cryptic words. He felt a surge of the icy fire within his mind, mocking and acerbic as always. Ash was too exhausted to care. It felt like he'd just run a marathon…just that brief surge of Lightning and Fire had practically sapped the rest of his strength.

Are you going to let them master you? I expected better, Ash Ketchum.

Ash caught onto…disappointment? He'd never thought Mewtwo capable of it. He growled beneath his breath and steeled his will, reaching for the power again. If what Mewtwo said was true…

There was something lurking below the surface of his thoughts. Something subtle, yet deep as an ocean. Ash focused. His mind recoiled from the great forces storming at the edge of his fingertips, always there yet never apparent, but Ash thought back to what Mewtwo had said.

They are yours and you are theirs.

He brushed the powers, in constant conflict yet always balancing each other out, and tore them out. Just as the Feather could influence Ash, Ash could influence the Feather. And right now he needed a lot of influence.

Ash's jaw locked up in the resulting inferno that flooded his every cell, followed by a veritable lightning bolt that shot through him in an instant. He seized in agony, mind blank with the overwhelming force of Fire and Lightning, but a light nudge from the splinter of icy steel in his mind pointed him to the direction he needed to take.

Even as Fire burned his body inside out, roasting his skin and muscles and leaving his hairs to twist and curl with heat, and Lightning made his limbs twitch erratically and flail in a hundred different directions, Ash reached for Ice.

His lungs filled with icy cold air and he fought the urge to wretch and gasp for more, guiding the relentless blizzard in his veins and skin with an iron will. Ash quickly learned he couldn't force it anymore than he could force Fire to stop burning or Lightning to stop shocking, but he shaped pathways and directives with his will and thoughts and Ice followed, soothing the burns and numbing his nerves.

Ash lurched to his feet, eyes askew and every single inch of him in agony. He didn't feel like a person right now – he was more like a puppet or doll being yanked every which way by a much greater force. Every twitch wasn't through his own power, but through the rough direction of Lightning to signal, Fire to move, and Ice to calm the destructive forces.

Ice grew too strong, rearing against his guidance. The smoking hairs started to twist and harden into little frozen strands. Ash's skin went numb and white with cold, though the deep chill in his bones left his teeth chattering erratically. His limbs slowed and resisted his commands as Ice froze the muscle fibers and stole away their energy. His eyes started to sting as little crystals started to form, and he reached for Fire – anything to stop this!

The Fire burst to life in a roaring blaze crackling in his every cell…it seared him badly – so badly – but he clung to the heat as though it were a lifeline. It scorched away Ice, roasting him from the inside out, and his face warped into an ugly grimace as his skin went hot, hotter than he could take –

Ice, then Fire, then when both stung at his core and sapped his body of all semblance of balance, he instinctively reached for Lightning.

It arced through his nerves, seizing his muscles, and he fought back a scream as it pounded him and every one of his muscles cramped up mercilessly…Ash's teeth clanged together as his jaw tightened, then a touch of Ice brought him back to earth. Lightning calmed and slowed under Ice's touch, becoming a more manageable current that waxed and waned with Ash's breath.

He finally opened his eyes again as Fire, Ice, and Lightning finally reached a primitive, barely-there balance. Ash grimaced at the sight (or lack thereof) that greeted him. The deep black void wasn't the most welcoming thing, though he found it almost peaceful compared to the intense focus he had to maintain to keep moving.

His first steps were awkward and haphazard, like Ash was learning to walk again. The boy's eyes narrowed and he stopped almost as soon as he began. That sense of unease was back, stronger this time. Ash didn't waste time trying to catch it – he'd accepted that he wasn't likely to figure it out that way.

Instead he stopped. He breathed. He closed his eyes, focusing on what he knew was real.

At this point it wasn't very much. Ash himself, Fire, Ice, and Lightning were all he could really believe in right now. It was all he could feel, see, or hear. He frowned and added Mewtwo's presence as well, though he'd rather discount the shade entirely. The thought of it being as much a part of him as Fire, Ice, and Lightning wasn't something he liked to think about.

But that didn't matter. Ash focused on what was real, felt his erratic heartbeat underneath Lightning's influence, and opened his eyes.

For a moment he just saw the void again, empty and infinite as it had ever been. A pressure brushed against him, doing its best to sap his strength, but Fire seared the presence away before he could react. Ash ignored it all. This void didn't make sense. It couldn't exist, could it? He'd have walked miles by now…Ash stared past the darkness, past the impossibility.

It melted away in the blink of an eye. Ash blinked, startled at the sudden change from the emptiness to the end of the hallway he'd entered what felt like hours ago. Though it was heavily encrusted in thick plates of crawling, grasping crystal he recognized it easily enough – a few of Uncle Spencer's paintings and pictures (mostly of Uncle Spencer, Molly, and even one of them with his mom that hadn't been there last time he visited) were still entirely uncovered by the crystal. The heavy door was practically entombed in crystal. He'd need his team to break through that…

Ash's breath hitched as he glanced to his friends. They were all in varying places down the long hallway. Plume seemed frozen in motion several feet above the ground, utterly suspended in the air – a few strings of crystal hanging from the ceiling reached down to ensnare her, but hadn't even reached her feathers yet. Ash was quick to recall her – she was too big for the mansion.

Bruiser was frozen in motion just twenty feet behind Ash. Unlike Plume, his lower body was completely covered in the crystal. It seemed to recede every few seconds, but ultimately climbed higher inch by inch…in a few minutes Bruiser would be covered entirely. Ash refused to entertain the thought of Bruiser turning against him – he'd stop the crystal by then.

But how?

He glanced to Infernus and squinted. What was that? For a moment there seemed to be some kind of glow about Infernus – something red and orange and gold and familiar, laced through his thick skin (and deeper) that vanished as soon as he tried to get a better look. Ash frowned, more than a little frustrated, but he shook it off. Right now he needed to get his friends free.

The Magmortar was barely five feet from Ash and the crystal hadn't yet made it past his ankles – hardly any heat was emanating from him, which was concerning, but he didn't seem injured or uncomfortable. If anything Infernus looked peaceful. His face was drawn into tight concentration and his only movement was the twitching of his cannons, although Ash didn't think he'd be firing them any time soon.

Ash's body lurched closer to the Magmortar. How would he free him? Sneasel would probably dispel the illusion entrapping Infernus easily enough, but Ash couldn't help but discard that idea. If Sneasel so much as brushed him there was a chance it'd ruin the delicate balance he'd maintained between Fire, Ice, and Lightning. He couldn't risk that right now.

He wobbled over to Infernus, hand grasping the crystal-slick wall for support. Ash's muscles burned with the strain but he put up with it…there was even a little flash of vindictive pleasure when the crystal fled from his touch as though it was scalded, leaving Ash leaning against smooth, polished wood.

Ash stared at Infernus for a moment. A tiny part of him didn't want to wake his friend up. He wasn't normally so peaceful.

It didn't take long to ignore that foolish notion – he didn't need peaceful right now. He needed Infernus.

He laid his hand against Infernus' muscular chest. It was warm enough to be uncomfortable against Ash's skin, but for Infernus it might as well have been cold as ice. Ash was a bit concerned, but he was breathing normally and didn't seem unhealthy. It was just a side effect of whatever was going on in this place.

The Magmortar didn't twitch. Ash frowned and shut his eyes, guided by instinct more than anything. For a moment he swore he saw Infernus' shape behind his eyelids, radiant and burning brighter than he ever had, but it flitted away like the illusion it was. He paid no more heed to it before he grit his teeth, grasped Fire with every bit of his will (Lightning and Ice spasmed, allowed to run free in his burnt out body) and guided it into Infernus –

Ash hissed as he staggered back, reeling from the sudden blast of dry heat emanating from Infernus. He blinked madly, doing his best to moisten his eyes, and silently thanked Ice for numbing the burns littering his face, arms, and hands…they'd be much worse than the equivalent of sunburns otherwise.

Infernus' shape glowed violently, his eyes open to reveal a brief glimpse of burning red before the energy slipped away and his eyes went white and black. The Magmortar sagged over, exhausted, before he seemed to regain some of his stamina and straightened up. He looked around, eyes narrowed to vicious slits, but relaxed on seeing Ash.

"I'm okay," Ash reassured Infernus as the fire-type glanced at his minor burns. After everything else he'd been through today Ash barely registered them. Infernus nodded, trusting Ash, and glared at their surroundings. "We didn't make it far before that illusion caught us. What did you see?"

His friend shrugged, his shoulder and head flames flaring slightly at the question, and mostly ignored Ash. He frowned but didn't push it. They had more important things to deal with. Ash glanced over to Bruiser, who was still frozen in the slowly-rising crystal. "Can you get him out of that?"

Infernus grinned and raised one of his cannons at Bruiser, a deep orange glow – "Without throwing a Flamethrower at him!" Ash interrupted quickly. Infernus frowned but finally nodded. He walked over to the fighting-type and was quick to shift his cannons to his claws. The sharp points quickly raked down the crystal entombing Bruiser's lower body and it melted away into a steaming puddle on the floor…even Infernus glanced at his claws oddly. He had no idea what was going on more than Ash.

He wouldn't question it, though. Ash just took the lucky break in stride as Bruiser's eyes snapped open, wild for just a second or two before he realized where he was. "Are you good?"

Bruiser rolled his shoulders and nodded. He looked distrustfully at the crystal clinging to the roof and walls and quickly walked with Infernus to meet Ash. He took the massive, intense heat better than Ash – his burns itched and seared and for a moment he could taste volcanic ash in his mouth when Infernus came closer. He ignored it, though, and turned to the door that would take them into the mansion's heart.

"That's going to be rough," Ash murmured as he saw more and more crystal flooding from the walls and ceiling and floor to the dark wooden door. It piled on more and more, and sometimes he swore the crystal simply appeared, as if drawn from the air itself.

Nidoking and Dazed appeared at his side a moment later. He'd need their Shadow Balls to destabilize the crystal enough for them to break through (at least if he didn't want his team to exhaust themselves). Altogether the narrow hallway was extremely cramped but he didn't care too much as he backed away to a safe distance. His team were quick to maneuver to a point where they all had a clear view of the doorway – Dazed and Nidoking stood side-by-side in the rear, ready to unleash their ghostly barrage as soon as he said so, and Bruiser stood behind Infernus.

He grimaced as the heat pouring off Infernus became greater and greater but stomached it. They needed Infernus at his strongest right now.

"Alright, everyone," Ash rasped to get his team's attention. Nidoking's ears perked up, but none of the others indicated they'd heard him aside from tensing. He glared at the crystal as it flowed seamlessly over the entrance, almost as if it wanted to block the whole thing off. "Go!"

Ash couldn't properly describe what happened next. He was blinded, nearly hurled off his feet from the simultaneous barrage of attacks that hammered into the hardened glass in the span of a single second – his ears rang thanks to their cramped quarters, but he could still hear a low keen in the distance grow higher and sharper in the attack. It hummed angrily, a few notes out of place, then began its singing again.

The stars in his eyes finally dimmed enough for Ash to squint at the damage. He was pleased to see that quite a bit of it had been melted away by the Shadow Balls and the follow up attacks, although it was replacing itself too quickly for his liking. Ash grimaced as the crystal beneath his feet oozed forward (yet not disturbing his footing) and left dark wood bare and pristine underneath him. His heart ached at the reminder of what this place really was, but he quickly focused his attention on the door.

"Again! Before it can –"

He was cut off by a thin, concentrated blade of shadowy matter that stole the strength from his limbs as it swept by, just a foot from his arm. Ash grimaced as he stumbled, though a soft, firm hand snagged him before he could fall. Ash wheezed as he immediately asserted his will over Fire, Ice, and Lightning before they could fall out of balance. There was still something fighting him, though – something destabilizing the forces and making his skin crawl.

"Karen?" Ash wheezed, eying the slender woman in disbelief. Her team stood behind her. The Weavile and Absol (the source of the dark-type scythe that had struck the crystal and paralyzed it) he recognized. He hadn't seen the Houndoom, Honchkrow, Umbreon, and Gengar except from afar or in her televised battles.

Ash ran a quick eye over her team. Weavile, Gengar, and Absol were in good shape, albeit tired. The rest looked alert but there was a weight to them, as if they were mentally exhausted. He wasn't sure they would be able to fight much longer. They had to be running on fumes after holding the line against the crystal tide.

They'd probably been Revived, Ash noted. The stimulant was strong enough to jerk a pokemon out of unconsciousness or the worst exhaustion, although they'd suffer for it over the next few days.

If they had another few days. That wasn't a certainty at this point.

Then he remembered the last time he'd seen her and yanked away from her grip.

"Are you still Karen?" Ash growled, eying her warily. She didn't look corrupted. Not like Will had, anyways – he'd been clad in a suit of glass armor. There wasn't a single fleck of the twisting crystal on Karen, though that didn't mean he'd trust her. Who knew if it had just learned from his past encounter with it and flowed to somewhere he couldn't see?

Her team tensed, ready for battle. She just watched him impatiently. Karen brushed a few strands of crisp, burnt hair across her face. It was still slightly disfigured and wrinkled from the burn, he noted. "I'm me," Karen said at last. The look on her face made Ash want to back away. "But I was almost gone – almost like Will and Lance," the Elite grimaced. "Agatha dispelled the crystal with a tap of her cane and revived my team. She sent me in here once the Beasts arrived to back you up while her and the reinforcements chip away at the crystal."

Ash didn't dare trust the woman. He leveled a scathing look at her, and frowned.

"Reinforcements?" Ash questioned. He waited patiently as Karen waved her hand at the shielded door he'd been trying to break through – Gengar grinned with too many teeth and too many mouths as its gaseous body flowed past his team smoothly, eagerly flooding the whole surface…it quailed and squirmed at the touch, melting away as if covered in acid. The rest of Karen's team simply waited as Gengar melted away the defenses.

Karen didn't look at him, instead watching her ghost quietly. "Morty, Phoebe, Fantina, and Sidney are all here to reinforce the SPECTERs. They've brought contingents from Hoenn and Sinnoh as well. Gym Leaders and Elite Four members are pouring in with their own forces...I heard talk of Unovan and Kalosian support as well. We're just trying to stay out of the Beasts' way…"

"What are they doing?" He asked. They'd already taken care of the Entei he'd been fighting – he'd seen that for himself. To be honest he was surprised the Beasts hadn't turned their fury on the Hale Mansion by now. It wasn't like they cared about preserving it. "Are they causing trouble?"

"No," Karen scowled as Gengar sloughed more and more melting crystal off the door. Soon it would be thin enough for Ash's team to plow right through. He figured she was trying to use his fresher team for the muscle. Hers needed to be saved for situation like this. "They're fighting the second Entei right now. It's a stalemate."

Ash's sharp eyes stared daggers at her. "What?" He hissed, nails cutting into his palms. Fire roared inside, heating his skin and threatening to boil his eyes, but even Ice could just barely numb the flames. "I saw them – they killed the other Entei…they ripped its head off and impaled its body so it couldn't regenerate! What happened?"

The Dark Master glared back at him, clearly no happier with the situation than he was. She folded her arms. "It flailed around for a while, then it dissolved into crystal. As soon as it touched the ground it regenerated and sucked a bunch of crystal into it – it's stronger now. It was playing at our level before, not its limits…" Karen exhaled, calming down a bit. She sounded very tired. "The Beasts are winning, but it's slow. It just comes back from whatever hits it. And it's smarter now – before I came in I saw it dissolve part of its body to avoid Raikou's claws. We're just trying to starve it of any other crystal so that it can't regenerate. Once that happens the Beasts will be able to tear it apart."

Something ugly curled in his gut. It was stupid of him to have thought it would be over that easily. He'd thought the Beast to be outmatched. And in a sense it was…but it had adapted and come back even stronger, just like it had when his team had finished it off. Was it even possible to kill it? Or would the false Entei just keep returning until it had won through attrition?

It was an unpleasant thought, but he realized it made their mission even more critical. The false Entei would inevitably win if it could outlast the Beasts – starving it of its crystal could slow its regeneration, but he'd seen how quickly the crystal tide spread, crawling and covering the landscape like some hungry beast. Who knew if the League would be able to push it back?

No, the only way they would win this was by finding the heart responsible for all of this and ripping it out. His fingers grasped into claws that dug at his palms. They had to act quickly.

"If you're trying to trick us…" he trailed off warningly as he eyed the silver-haired Elite. She sent an ugly look right back, and he didn't finish his thought. No, she understood. It would be difficult to betray him anyways considering her team were at least somewhat resistant to the crystal's foul touch.

He glanced to the crystalline wall. It was oozing away, eroded by Gengar's noxious presence. It only barely clung to the wall, squirming desperately to remain on the surface and block their way. "Have Gengar back off. We can get through this. When we destroy the rest of the crystal have Gengar block the rest of it from regenerating."

Karen nodded and snapped her fingers. Gengar quickly flooded away, raking its shadowy claws down the ceiling and cackling as the crystal fell away like dead worms. Ash crossed his shaking arms, struggling to remain upright. Bruiser was considerate enough to pick up on his struggle and propped him up on one of his shoulders.

"Thanks," Ash exhaled as his body stopped shaking. He looked to the membrane of crystal still remaining. "Infernus…blast it!"

Infernus grinned and leveled one of his cannons at the crystal, which writhed in a panic as heat flooded the room – then a long, angry tongue of flame erupted from his cannon and licked at the crystal and door, searing and devouring it all with contemptuous ease. The cone of fire burned bright for one, two, three seconds, then dimmed away. Ash wiped a few beads of sweat from his brow and nodded to Karen. Gengar instantly surged forward in a shadowy purple mass, coalescing into a ring that shielded the rim of the doorway.

"Everyone through!" Ash ordered, grateful to Bruiser as the Machoke hauled him up and followed the rest of his team through the doorway. He grimaced as Bruiser's heavy footsteps nearly made him lose focus – and control of the elements warring within him – but weathered it.

The world went black, like a candle carelessly snuffed out. Ash was no longer in Bruiser's arms. He laid helpless on the floor, trapped by the overpowering weight of the air against him. "Nidoking?" Ash called into the void, praying for a response. There was nothing. Not even a breath.

"I'm afraid your paltry team isn't here to help you this time," someone chuckled in the distance. Ash squinted, despite the utter blackness that surrounded him. That voice sounded so familiar… where did he know it from?

"Who's there?" Ash scowled. His hands scrabbled against his belt, though it only alarmed even more when his team's pokeballs were nowhere to be found. The hair on the back of his neck raised and he futilely tried to pull himself backward against the awful sensation of being crushed. His lung struggled to inflate, trapped beneath the pressure. He breathed rapid, short gasps that only made his heart pound and his mind jump to the worst of places: beneath the awful, cloying stench of raw sewage in Mt. Moon, free-falling into the utterly black ocean as the St. Anne sank to its doom.

The void remained lightless, but the grinning man that hovered over him appeared as if he stood beneath the sun at high noon. It became harder and harder to breathe. Cold sweat stained Ash's battle-worn clothes and lent his tan skin a light sheen. Every gasp was a monumental effort. His eyes locked onto a figure he'd only seen in his nightmares for almost a year now.

Rocket Executive Pierce leered down at him. His fingers fiddled with his long, grey coat. His eyes reminded Ash of a Sharpedo's: cold and blank, like there was a light supposed to be there that had never been sparked. Despite the impassivity on his face, there was an aura of cheer around Executive Pierce that set Ash entirely on edge.

"It's been too long, Ash," Pierce knelt down at his side. Every nerve in Ash's body screamed when one of the man's gloved hands tapped against Ash's forehead mockingly. "The tables have turned at last. I have to balance the scales after our last meeting, don't I?" The tall man's dark green eyes narrowed murderously, and his free hand wrapped around Ash's throat. His hands wildly tried to rise and clutch at Pierce's impossibly stronger arm, but there was nothing he could do. The pressure around his throat grew tighter and tighter. It slowly began to crush his windpipe. His eyes bulged and blood trapped in his head began to pound…

Fire was nowhere to be found. Lightning wouldn't answer his call. Ice eluded his dying prayers. He couldn't even think as his oxygen-starved brain began to black out. His fingers began to slacken.

Pierce grinned. "Look at the great Ash Ketchum now," he crowed. "This is the boy who defeated? This is the pathetic little child given such lofty titles? Pathetic!"

Ash groaned silently, and -

"Ash? Ash! Wake up!"

The pressure of the grip vanished like a ghost. Pierce's cackles ceased to exist. The blackness gave way to the pale light of the crystal and he was acutely aware of being pressed into Bruiser's arms - his friend's broad face peered down worriedly at him, surrounded by several of his teammates and Karen.

"You alright?" Karen wore her concern openly for once. She let his hand go and he gratefully sucked in air, blind to everything around them. Absol stepped away from Ash and gracefully pulled his furry white head off his skin. "We walked through that door and you just blacked out and started hyperventilating. Absol had to flood you with Distortion to get you to stop."

Ash squeezed his eyes shut as he struggled to recall the horrific vision that had assaulted him. It had been so real…

Like a gravely wounded man desperate for relief, Ash grasped for Ice. It was distant at first - probably from what Absol had done to him, he dimly realized - but his determination to escape the fear and nerve-wracking memories pulled him through. He breathed a sigh of relief as his body and mind went cold and still, but embraced the feeling all the same.

Logical and cool again, he pushed Pierce and the nightmares behind him out of his mind. Now was not the time to be afraid. It was the time to move on and focus on action. With that thought in mind (and the last tremors wracking his body gone) Ash looked around at what must have been the Hale's entry hall.

He narrowed his eyes at the void behind the ashes of the wooden door. That hadn't been here before. This was supposed to be the main hall…he remembered a large room of tile floors and twin grand staircases and seemingly hundreds of portraits and pictures and paintings that the Hale family had amassed over the years. They were renowned for their collections of art – or so Uncle Spencer had said, anyway.

Ash reflexively glanced to his left, where his favorite (a picture of his mother with Uncle Spencer and Professor Oak when she'd studied with them) had always hung. He should have known better, but he couldn't pick out a single thing within the inky blackness. Only a few strands of crystal gave off enough light for him to notice.

Despite himself, he remembered his lesson from last time. He spared a single glance as the rest of Karen's team entered the portal behind him – he didn't miss the fact that wherever the dark-types stood, there was light (albeit wispy and indistinct, like a cloud had covered it) and then looked past the darkness as he had before, revealing what he knew to be there.

His first reaction was of disgust. Ash sneered at the main hall. It was nothing like what he'd remembered – every inch of the place was covered in thick, shifting plates of crystal. Little filaments grew from the glass floor like stalks and shaped into an orchid of squirming diamond flowers…if it wasn't so grotesque and unnatural it might've been beautiful. But as it was the thousands of little flowers just made him feel a little ill – they flowed to point in his direction, and he got the uneasy feeling that they were watching him. Every now and then he swore the flower petals would twitch and blink, like eyes. Whenever he looked more closely they froze into place aside from a few dull twitches.

Even more great, stalactite-like growths hung from the ceiling. They swung and flowed constantly, spreading into more and more branches that swayed as though pushed by an invisible wind. One of the tendrils swung his way, as if to grab him up and snatch him away, but Nidoking's Shadow Ball slammed into the thick mass – it screamed, an otherworldly noise joined by every other flower and stalactite in an awful chorus, and recoiled as fat slugs of the crystal fell from it. They oozed away from him and every time he looked closer they melted away into the fields…

Ash nodded gratefully to Nidoking, who snorted and looked away. His whole team (and Karen's) glanced around the room. None of them felt half as bad as Ash did. He could still hear that singing from before, louder and more erratic than ever now. When he looked to the crystalline growths covering the room, he realized they swayed and danced in tune with the melody. It was hypnotic, though a heavy nausea filled him when he stared.

He looked away. Ash did his best to ignore the chorus (it felt like it came from above, behind, within, and without all at once) and instead looked again at the hall. Every picture except for a few of his mother, Molly, Spencer, Teddiursa, and a few old people he didn't recognize was covered in a heavy purple barrier that hid them from existence. Some of the portraits seemed to stare at him – he pointedly avoided looking at any of his mom.

Not that it was easy to see in the first place. Even with the void dispelled (was it ever real at all, he wondered, or was it just an illusion conjured up by whatever Legend had made this place its home?) it was much darker and foggier than it was outside. It conjured up images of twilight, though he doubted twilight had ever been this dark. If it weren't for some unseen light source shining from the ceiling and the gentle glow of the crystal there'd be no light in this place at all.

"What is all of this?" Karen whispered by his side, horrified as he was. She nearly reached out to touch one of the tendrils winding towards them, but he shook his head. Absol was quick to leap into the tendril, severing it with a single swipe of its blue horn. "What should we do?"

Ash blinked once at the authority Karen was giving him, but shrugged. He had been around many more Legends, though none had been quite like this. He used a gentle pulse of Fire to point at the orchard of flowers in front of them. There was no way Ash was going to walk through that – they'd probably grow into vines or something and strangle them.

He narrowed his eyes as Fire filled him. Cinders flew from his fingertips, dancing erratically in the thick air before they withered and died. Only a few wispy strands of smoke were left of them.

"Those have to go," Ash coughed. He looked pointedly at Infernus. "Karen, have your team hit all of that with some Dark Pulses. Infernus, burn the rest once we know it won't come back."

He wrinkled his nose as Karen's team silently stepped forward. The crystalline growths cried out as the melody missed a note, writhing away from their reapers as dark wisps of energy bled from the team. It was so potent Ash could smell the dark-type energy conjured up. It was odd, a scent he really couldn't place but one that almost reminded him of ozone mixed with something indescribable. A heavy, cloying scent that stank of rot and fresh grass and smoke.

They shone black for a moment, flooding the field before them with Dark Pulses, Night Slashes, and Shadow Balls. Ash was nearly blinded by the bright white that followed each as the force behind the crystal was disrupted and natural light shone brilliantly, but he quickly adjusted…only to be blinded again when Infernus loosed a white-hot stream of flame that seared all of the flowers and stalactites away in just an instant. They had no hope of resisting his powers while already disrupted by Karen's team.

The orchard wailed and melted away into nothingness, streaming away in vivid glass trails as ethereal bubbles of the substance boiled away underneath the heat of the fire. He bared his teeth at the crystal's retreat – that was more satisfying than it should have been. Ash glanced to the walls as the glassy material crawled away from the floors, leaving bare tile and cloth that somehow survived the flames and dark-type barrage unscathed. His eyes narrowed but he ultimately thought nothing of it.

"C'mon!" Ash ordered. Bruiser was quick to haul him up and carry him forward, careful to allow several other members of his and Karen's teams to take the first steps. The vanguard would be able to survive any nasty surprises a lot better than he could. Karen kept pace with Bruiser, clearly uneasy. She kept looking deep into the remaining crystal (it had darkened to a deep violet, to the point it was nearly black as it piled atop itself to avoid the small army invading its sanctum) and went paler and paler each time.

"What do you see?" He asked, genuinely curious. Ash had to fight to look past the darkness veiling the rest of the room – it was hard to trick your mind into seeing the truth of things. To see underneath this false reality was going to give him a headache sooner or later. If he lost focus it would slip back into the swirling inkblots of the void.

His companion blinked and jerked her attention back to him. Her eyes refocused after a moment. "Eyes."

"Eyes?" That was weird.

Karen nodded stiffly. Her hands curled into fists and the veins on her forearms throbbed. "Yes. Can't you see them?" She stared at the walls and pointed to a spot covered in blackness. When Ash saw past it he picked out a brief glimpse of bare, untouched wall before the chorus inside him shrieked and he squeezed his eyes shut. "They're watching us…they're all around us. They see us."

Ash shook his head and looked at Karen oddly. He actually did believe her. There was something wrong going on in the mansion and who knew what the truth was? But it bothered him that he couldn't perceive the same things Karen was. It itched at that rational part of his mind that demanded everything make sense.

But what about this made sense? They were in a mansion covered in crystal made of psychic energy looking for the source of all the madness while a beast capable of regenerating from nothing faced down its "siblings". And all the while the League was trying to quarantine the whole mess.

It would be enough to give him a headache even if he wasn't probably suffering from a concussion. As it was the whole situation was just icing on the cake.

The chorus grew more and more intense as Bruiser carried him up the main stairs towards another door. This one wasn't covered in crystal (the substance practically fled from Karen's team) and he would have been grateful if the chorus would just shut up. "I wish that singing would go away," Ash grumbled.

Karen frowned as she kicked a tiny glob of crystal out of the way. It hissed as it landed a few feet to the side and oozed away. At least she wasn't looking at the walls anymore. "What singing?"

He looked at her oddly as the disordered chorus hit a particularly high note. Infernus, Dazed, and Bruiser all flinched. "You can't hear it?"

"Just like you can't see the damn eyes," his companion bit out. She swung her head to the side to stare at another blank section of the wall. Ash watched her warily. A deep paranoia had started growing as soon as he realized the crystal – or whatever controlled it – could alter their perception. "I hate this place."

Ash nodded, avoiding a bit of crystal that grasped for him. It hummed as he passed by. It didn't dare reach for any of his team – he smirked as Dazed melted it away with a miniscule Shadow Ball. Her eyes twisted up in a smile. "Yeah, I hate it too. It's disgusting what the crystal did to it."

Karen turned to look at him, obviously curious. Her curls bounced lightly as she twisted her neck. He admired the sight before flushing at her annoyed stare. "You've been here before?"

He nodded with a grimace. Ash raked his eyes over the seemingly infinite expanse of shifting, thrusting, and swaying crystal swallowing the walls and ceiling and floor, growing and yearning and testing the limits of Karen's team – it retreated whenever the dark-types so much as looked at it, but when they looked away it crept forth like a shining tide of molten glass. Moltres stirred within him and the crystal yanked back, as though scalded. The glistening sheet melted into nothing, yet reappeared as soon as Fire sizzled away.

It would keep going after them, he realized. The crystal hated their presence. Some of the stalactites twisting from the ceiling seemed as though they might drop down and swallow them whole.

The chorus fell into discord as Gengar raked its shadowy claws along the walls, cackling merrily as the vast orchard of unnatural flowers and vines and trees starting to unfold into fractals dissolved away. He grimaced as it struck something deep within him and looked away from the walls – he suspected he didn't want to give the crystal a chance to affect him anymore than it already was.

"Ash?" Karen asked again. He shook himself out of his stupor, realizing he'd become lost in thought as he glared at the abominations crawling their way up and down the walls of the former mansion. "You alive?"

He didn't miss the concern in her voice. Ash flashed her a strained smile. It was hollow, but that was all he could manage. "Yeah. I used to come here with my mom to see my Uncle Spencer. This was the main hall. Up through that door," he pointed to the crystallized door standing proudly above what was once a grand flight of stairs, "is a little garden I used to play in. After that is just a bunch of bedrooms and old studies."

Karen blinked, distracted from their unnatural surroundings for just a moment as she processed his words. "Spencer Hale?"

Ash nodded. "He's not my real uncle, just an old friend of my mom's. They worked under Professor Oak together," he explained. He was glad to take his mind off of their foray into this place, though now he was dealing with unpleasant thoughts of what might have happened to Molly and Uncle Spencer…there were so many mysteries.

Were they okay? His mother seemed to think so. And how did Molly tie into all of this? There was something deeper going on here. He couldn't help the brief surge of Fire as the frustration flooded him – he hated mysteries. He hated being kept in the dark.

"Really?" Karen asked, snapping him back to reality. It was appreciated. The darkness of the room seemed to recede as he looked at Karen's pale face. "Does she know about everything going on? She must be worried about you."

His gut twisted into a knot. "She was the one that Entei brought back," Ash muttered. Karen grimaced and actually apologized. It was odd seeing her be…well, not really nice, but amiable. Her exhaustion must've worn away her pointy edges. "The last I saw of my mom was her melting into crystal…"

Karen was silent for a few moments. She actually looked awkward, something he'd never expected from the woman. "Sorry," she finally sighed and looked away, focusing on something Ash couldn't see. Whatever it was must have been horrible, because she squeezed her eyes shut just a second later. "That's pretty rough, Ash. I hope we find her."

"Me too," he whispered. Ash glanced up at the stairs, frowning when he realized they still hadn't reached the top. Bruiser had been carrying him up for at least a minute…

"Seriously?" He scowled when he looked back. Every step they took didn't even move them forward! They were still in the middle of the staircase even after climbing up it for what felt like ages! He was tired of these stupid games! There wasn't even any crystal covering the stairs! It had all been melted away by Karen's team.

"What is it?"

"We aren't moving," Ash pointed out. It was like the staircase was a secret escalator or something. He jerked his head back to motion behind them and she scowled when she caught on. "See?"

The look on Karen's face could have stopped a Gyarados in its tracks. "Yes. I do. Gengar?"

Ash blinked, but caught on a moment later when Karen's Gengar giggled and the scent of burning sewage filled his nostrils. He barely had a warning before the specter dissolved into a cloud of noxious purple smoke streaked with blood and white teeth – it took care to avoid him, but brushed worryingly close at times. It gave Karen a wide berth, of course.

There was a sudden lurching, a distinct feeling that something had just unraveled in his gut, and his eyes reflexively shut as they snapped back into reality while the damned chorus snarled like it had just stubbed its collective toe. When he looked up next the world was just as it had been, but the entire staircase had been stripped bare of the foul corruption. Ash couldn't help the wistful smile that came up when he saw plain, aged wood and intricately patterned red carpet – it was just like he remembered.

He wished they could have given the entire mansion this treatment, but he got the feeling that this wasn't easy for Gengar – it hadn't yet managed to collect back into its corporeal form yet, and the scraps of gaseous matter seemed a little…less than they once were. By the time Gengar had reformed its smile was a little less and tiny wisps strayed off its blurred body (the edges bled off, like he was looking at Gengar underneath the water) and Karen saw fit to let it straggle behind.

"C'mon!" Karen ordered as she began the march up the steps. Her team followed. Ash waited to make sure she actually moved up the length before he did as she said. He didn't miss wriggling serpents of crystal inching their way back onto the stairs…this brief flash of normality wouldn't last long. It bothered Ash more than he thought.

Some sixth sense screamed in his mind – Ash looked back just long enough to see a great, pulsing, shuddering amorphous mass of flailing crystal arms and an immense, spherical core of dark violet glass collect on the ceiling (the choir hit a high note) from the vast sheets plated all over the room. Then, like a fat drop of water, it swelled nastily and dropped to the ground. Dozens of tentacles instantly sprouted from the thing, the thickest pushing up from the bottom in a bizarre parody of legs, and a furious light emanated from deep within its murky depths.

"Run!" Ash howled, realizing that they'd pushed the crystal to its limit. It was done passively resisting – he didn't want to fight this abomination. Bruiser was quick to follow his orders and darted up the stairs in a blur. The sudden acceleration jarred Ash and rattled his teeth, but he bore it steadily. The rest of his team were quick to follow suit. The monstrosity hadn't moved yet, but the utter stillness of the thing was almost as uncanny as it chasing them.

Then it shifted, scraping along the ground with its legs like some strange bug-type. Ash grimaced at the sound and took another look at it as a great flare of heat roasted his skin – damn it, Infernus! His friend had turned to face the crystalline creature, blazing with a wild grin on his face, and raised a cannon to engage the creature. On one hand Ash appreciated the effort, but he also knew that Infernus hadn't done this out of altruism. He just wanted to fight…whatever this thing was.

So Ash returned him. He was sure Infernus was going to be frustrated later but Ash really didn't care. He had no intentions of engaging this construct unless he had to – they needed to save their energy for later. Besides, he doubted that he and Karen would be able to fight something like that. Karen might be able to stop its regeneration, but if it just unleashed all of its psychic power at once it would probably kill them and their teams.

He glanced at the door Absol had just shorn open with a Night Slash – the crystal bled and peeled over to the sides, exposing the wood beneath like a gaping wound. Sorry Uncle Spencer. Ash couldn't find himself caring too much as Bruiser shot between the group of Karen's pokemon, who turned to face their new enemy after Absol easily tore the heavy wood apart with a Shadow Ball – it almost looked like Absol had vaporized it. Karen's team were packing some serious firepower. Dazed or Nidoking could have cleared it, but they'd probably just blow it up. Karen's team removed it completely.

"Let's go!" He shouted, heart pounding like a frantic drumbeat as Bruiser shot into the blackness of the new exit…he hoped the construct wouldn't follow them in. They could probably beat it if they caught it off guard, but they were also fighting it in its own lair, with endless reserves of crystal around to augment its abilities and regenerate itself. It wasn't a fight he wanted.

The rest of his team weren't as stubborn as Infernus. He could feel them thundering behind him, moving as quickly as they could to follow him through the portal into whatever new nightmare was waiting for them. Karen, who had stayed back with Absol, followed after them once she was sure he'd made it through.

For a moment there was darkness, inescapable and suffocating and muting all of his senses. It was like it had reached into his brain and shut off everything but his own thoughts…he couldn't even feel himself breathe! Ash reached for Moltres' Concept to fill his heart with flame and heat and power but the void vanished as soon as it began, giving way to the gentle heat of the sun and the aroma of vast fields of grass and flowers unspoiled by civilization.

Ash's stomach lurched as they unexpectedly…stepped up? They were walking in a straight line. There wasn't any feeling of going up stairs, but somehow they had ascended. Regardless, they kept walking up. He felt more than a little uneasy as Bruiser walked forward…up? His brain was about to break trying to understand these geometries. The chorus sang for a few moments, taunting him.

Bruiser froze, just as confused at the impossibility they'd emerged in as Ash was. The rest of his team slowed to a halt behind him. Nidoking took his place by Ash's side, ears twitching frantically. His huge nostrils flared as he peered around warily, alert for any sign of danger…or explanation for the fact that they'd just emerged in an exact replica of Greenfield.

And not the ravaged, ruined mess of Greenfield that they'd just escaped. This was Greenfield exactly as Ash remembered it. There was even a replica of the Hale Mansion in the distance, proud and tall and unspoiled by the crystal – if anything it looked vastly larger than the true mansion. It made Ash's heart ache. He stared longingly at the towers, though quickly realized this was the least of their concerns.

The singing was louder here, though it had quieted to a murmur ever since they'd appeared. Ash did his best to ignore it. Instead he decided to break this illusion – it was even more frustrating than the void he'd been hurled into the last few times. Was the Legend that had twisted reality like a Meowth playing with a ball of yarn mocking him? A flush of anger filled him, spurred on by Fire's volatility, and he looked past the miles and miles of beautiful flowers and lush pastures –

Nothing changed. He wasn't in Ash froze, then tried again. He focused on what he knew to be real: himself. An awareness from his spirit's deepest depths brushed his mind, pouring information that confirmed what he had been afraid of all along: this was real. How and why? This didn't make any sense. This was beyond the strange crystal and the undeniably Legendary force behind it. He could accept that it could somehow bind an Entei to its will – possibly even construct one of its own through the crystal. But this? Ash didn't even think Mewtwo could accomplish something like this!

For once, Mewtwo was silent. Ash didn't miss that, but didn't give it much thought as he ruminated on this impossibility. Dazed seemed just as fascinated, though at least as perturbed as he was. Tangrowth was the only one unbothered by the mystery and saw fit to poke around curiously, careful to avoid damaging any of the flowers. The only place he avoided was the inky doorway that was behind him – Ash felt a surge of worry when he realized Karen and her team still hadn't emerged from behind them, but didn't focus on it. She could take care of herself.

It's real, Ash. Unnatural, but real. In our bones we know it to be true. Tread lightly. A terrible force has constructed this reality from the flesh and blood of our own. It doesn't belong to us anymore, warped and bent as it is.

Ash felt a little sick at Dazed's words. They held a sense of finality to them. He'd hoped this was just some grand illusion to slow them down and confuse them, but it was worse than he could have imagined. This beautiful vision was in stark contrast to the corrupted main hall and the crystal creeping and collecting all over it, but in a way it was even worse. He preferred the nightmare he could see, not the one lurking innocently beneath his feet.

If he remembered correctly, the door they'd entered normally led to a simple garden. It wasn't especially large, but it was a nice place to relax. Some of his earliest memories were of sitting in the garden listening to Uncle Spencer and his wife tell stories about pokemon and myths while his mom held him.

He ignored the pang in his chest when he thought of his mother. No time to feel bad.

"Nidoking, can you shoot a Shadow Ball at some of the flowers?" Ash ignored Tangrowth's shock and hoped the grass-type wouldn't hold this against him. Nidoking snorted and lowered his head, a swirling sphere of otherworldly energy collecting on the tip for just a moment before he released it into the distance.

Ash traced its flight easily. Zapdos' influence helped a lot in that regard, quickening his perception a tad. It wasn't instinctual, but he found it a bit easier now that he'd been forced to rely so heavily on the powers of the Birds.

The Shadow Ball rippled through the air unscathed – so at least he knew they weren't breathing in some sort of strange psychic air, which was just about the only bright point in this whole situation – and skimmed the top of a beautifully green hill before shooting off into the vaguely purple sky, lit by a vividly violet sun that burned brilliantly overhead, for what must have been miles and miles away. It should've struck some sort of barrier, but instead it seemed to fly off for an eternity.

Ash grimaced as the Shadow Ball seemed to peel the illusion away where it struck the hill. For a moment the mound held up, though the edges blurred and rippled, then a few strands of sickly grey energy ate away at the top. The ghost-type energy gnawed hungrily at the hill, devouring a crater several feet wide before the crystalline force finally overcame the Shadow Ball remnants and flooded the area, returning it to the perfect image of Greenfield again.

He felt Karen arriving behind them. She sagged as she ascended the impossible stairway – something about the fleshy, pulsing crystal that surrounded it made Ash's stomach turn – and grimaced once she had the chance to look at their surroundings.

"This is impossible!" She whispered. Absol nodded mournfully. The rest of her team just examined the new Greenfield warily, expecting an attack from any direction. It was too calm. Too serene. "Do you know what's going on? Is there anyone else here?"

Ash shrugged in Bruiser's arms, idly noting how the grass melted smoothly away from the dark-types . "I have no idea," he admitted. What else was new? That didn't stop him from guessing, though. "But it's not an illusion. It's real – as real as it can be, anyway. We managed to damage it with Shadow Ball but it grew right back."

"How can this be real?" His fellow frowned, really taking in the sheer scale of the new Greenfield for the first time. It had to make up miles and miles of area. "There's not enough space in the mansion for this."

He snorted. "I think we left real behind a long time ago," Karen looked sharply at him, annoyed, but he ignored her. "I'm just worried about what this thing could be. None of this makes sense. I'm trying to put things together."

She folded her arms. Despite the urgency of the situation he was glad they were taking a moment to relax. He'd been going nonstop since he'd gotten to Greenfield. There had been no real time to think. This might be the only chance they had to work things out since there wasn't any crystal expanding or trying to attack them. It would be stupid to waste it.

"So how did this start?" Ash questioned, more to himself than to Karen. Dazed stood by his side, analyzing everything with her calm, collected gaze. The rest of his team milled about, intermixed with Karen's dark-types and ghosts, but made sure to avoid straying too far.

Karen grimaced. "About six hours ago from what I understand. We got a report from Spencer Hale's research assistant. He and the Hale family butler barely escaped the crystal when it surged out from the mansion. They said it looked like it came from deep within the mansion. Sabrina gave us just enough warning to be prepared for the report. After that we arrived with the SPECTERs to set up a Distortion Field and limit the crystal's growth."

"Where does Entei fit into all this?" He muttered, a flurry of theories flooding his thoughts. The Entei he'd fought was distinct from the Entei that arrived with the rest of the Beasts – it seemed much weaker, plus it was tied to the crystal. Not to mention that it could speak, or knew Molly somehow. That was the most puzzling part of all this, an irritating little distraction that had itched at his thoughts whenever he'd had the time to think. It was so unlike any other Legend he'd met, especially in stark contrast to the other Entei. The corrupted purple fires (which he'd at first thought a symptom of the crystal's touch), the human eyes, the odd behavior…it was all a puzzle he didn't have enough information to answer.

His partner chuckled bitterly. "That's the big question, isn't it? All we know is that it came tearing out of the mansion a few minutes after we started pushing it back. It ripped a hole in our defenses before it took off – we had a few ACE trainers and psychics track it, but when we realized it was headed right for Goldenrod we had to take action. I stayed to oversee the containment while Will teleported the others to cut it off."

Ash thought back to how effective ghost and dark-type energies seemed to be against the crystal. "That was probably a mistake." Karen was probably the only one that was able to do any lasting damage to the Crystal Entei. "That must have been when Lance called me."

Karen sent a curt nod his way and folded her arms. She looked up at the deeply violet sun uneasily. Its heatless rays pounded heavily on their battered skin. "I believe so. They evacuated as much of the area as they could, but they weren't able to stop Entei. From what I understand it went straight to Goldenrod University and took –"

His teeth ground together as he hissed, "My mom."

She nodded, actually looking like she regretted bringing it up. "Exactly. Then Entei returned and that's where you come in."

"Interesting…" Ash said to himself. He mulled over what Karen had just told him. "Did Uncle Spencer's assistant have any idea what happened? He must've had some kind of idea. I know they studied Legendaries – I think my mom said he was studying the Unown a few months back."

"He had no idea. All he included in the report was that Dr. Hale had recently gone alone to the Ruins of Alph to conduct some sort of research," Karen said, slowing thoughtfully.

"The Ruins of Alph?" Ash echoed. He'd never heard of those – it sounded like some kind of excavation or something.

Karen turned away from him, staring off into the horizon. Absol strode to her side and nuzzled her hand, which she seemed to appreciate. "It's some new find. An ancient city that turned into a tomb – I don't know anything about it," Karen admitted, a little frustrated. That staved off any new questions from Ash. "All I know is that Lance was keeping an eye on it."

That said volumes to Ash. The Indigo Champion wasn't one to pay attention to those sorts of things unless it related to his heritage or the League itself. Uncle Spencer – or someone else the League employed – must have had suspicions that there was some kind of Legendary influence there. Ash didn't know much of anything about the Unown other than that they were rare and scattered all across the world, but maybe they were what Uncle Spencer had discovered.

Of course, that realization just brought with it another wave of frustration – they really needed to start telling him these things. Ash seemed to be the one always getting caught up in the devastation whenever a Legendary or two came out to play.

"So all we can know for sure is that the Ruins of Alph are probably involved. Uncle Spencer might have taken something that attracted a Legend or carried it somehow," Ash held back a shudder at the idea of anything that could contain a Legendary this powerful. What could have designed something like that? "And somehow it unleashed the crystal, controls an Entei –"

"That thing isn't Entei," Karen spat. Ash jerked in Bruiser's arms, a little shocked by the sudden vehemence. His frazzled partner shook herself out of her fury a moment later. "We know that now. I have no idea what it is, but the real Entei is out there!" She jerked a finger vaguely in the direction of the door they'd climbed through. "That thing is just an imitation."

Ash hummed, acknowledging her point. That made sense. Maybe the crystal had just created it to act as a guardian? A living defense that could act more directly than the crystal itself? It would make sense, he supposed, but that just raised more questions.

Why an Entei?

Why create this copy of Greenfield?

Why did Entei take his mom and know who Molly was?

And how did the Unown (possibly) factor into everything?

He grit his teeth. There were too many questions and zero answers. Every deduction led to a hundred new mysteries and every mystery shrouded a hundred more behind it. There was no way an Unown could have done this. Individually they were weak. He knew they could act together, but they'd never existed in the numbers to do something like this – they couldn't create an entire world, right?

Ash looked impassively at the beautiful world they'd entered. Despite the wrongness of it he couldn't help but appreciate it for a moment – the crystal had shaped Greenfield with the love and care of someone that knew it well. If anything it was more beautiful than the true land, even if the unnatural depiction gnawed at him. The grass was greener, the flowers were more vibrant, and the Hale Mansion was massive, though as he looked closer he realized there were a few small details missing, as if it had been painted by an expert artist from memory.

Then a thought entered his mind…if he kept walking past all of this, how far could he go? Had the Legend created an entire new world in this tiny garden? Would it end in a void, or just stretch on as far as he could walk?

That stray question bothered him more than he'd like to admit. Dazed shifted uneasily, perhaps just thinking of the possibilities of that herself. How powerful did something have to be in order to create an entire world out of nothing?

Whatever it was, it was clearer now than ever before that there was so much more to the crystal than the sea of it settling outside the mansion. Would it ever stop expanding?

"There's no point," Ash whispered. Karen looked at him oddly, but he ignored it. "We're not going to find any answers here!" He decided. Ash looked to the towering spires of the mansion that stood a mile away on a field of bright green and arrayed yellows, oranges, and reds. "We need to go to the mansion."

"Agreed," Karen said curtly. She narrowed her eyes at their surroundings. "Do you think it'll fight us?"

Ash looked out at the gorgeous fields. They were just a simulacrum of the real thing, composed of living crystal that stole the will and mind of everything it touched, but he felt a great sense of peace as it swayed in an empty wind. The crystal outside was a hostile thing, reactive and crawling like a vicious bug-type. In here, the heart of the Hale Mansion, it had settled comfortably into the foundations. An infection that had chewed up the reality here and swallowed it whole.

"No," he said with more certainty than he felt. Ash shook his head. "We just need to be careful. I don't think we have anything to worry about in this place – yet," he corrected.

Karen didn't seem particularly convinced but she went along with his suggestion regardless. "Should we head to the mansion?"

He shrugged and scanned the rest of the fields. "I have no idea – it doesn't look like there's anything else here. What do you guys think?" Ash directed at his team. They shared a few glances, most uncertain, but after a moment of contemplation Dazed's eyes flashed.

Yes, that seems apt. I sense a great force there, distracted though it may be. The construct is where we will find our answers, Friend-Trainer.

"You hear that?" He asked Karen. She snorted.

"Barely. Psychics have a hard time talking to me unless they put some power behind it – I've been around my team too much. It's why the others had to leave me behind when they teleported earlier," the young woman explained with a rueful smile. Umbreon nuzzled against her, seemingly taking pride in the statement. "The crystal ?"

Well, that was interesting, Ash mused as he replied, "We're going to the mansion. Dazed senses something in there." How often would he have to be around ghosts or dark-types to block out psychics? Obviously Sneasel wasn't powerful enough to do that. Did it just accumulate over time or did the resistance show up immediately after exposure? He was fairly certain the crystal had wiped out Karen's psychic resistance earlier, but had Agatha's touch restored it?

Questions for another time, he decided.

"Let's head out. I have the feeling it's going to take us longer than we'd expect to get to the mansion," Ash scowled. He really hoped there wouldn't be another illusion or trick of his perceptions…that was more frustrating than the strange crystalline monster that had chased him into this faux-Greenfield.

Karen nodded and took the lead. Her team fanned out around them evenly, providing a defensive perimeter. They were better suited to it than Ash's team, although he would have released Sneasel if he had the chance. Ash didn't miss how the orchards' pastels flickered and washed away whenever Karen's team drew near, revealing a glossy purple beneath the disarmingly bright colors that reminded him of what lurked beneath the surface.

Ash relaxed into Bruiser's huge arms as they made their way across the landscape and closed his eyes. For a moment he reached deep within him and tugged on the Concepts of Fire, Ice, and Lightning still dancing inside, but withdrew his touch almost immediately once he felt heat and cold grasp his limbs…they were still there, unaffected by the crystal or this new world that they'd entered. He could still use them if he was truly desperate.

That said, he dearly hoped that wouldn't be necessary. Now that he was safe with his team and bolstered by Karen's as well he hoped that he wouldn't have to draw on the Birds until this was all over. He'd gotten an objective look at the feelings they engendered and found himself more than a little worried.

The powers he could use hurt him. They practically stole away his thought and rationale, replacing his human mind with one touched by vast, inhuman forces he could never hope to truly control. All he could do was guide the elements inside him, diverting them in paths and entwining them to bolster himself and oppose their siblings lest they burn him out and leave him a mindless husk.

But it was satisfying to use that power – addicting, even, to renew his strength and spirit with Fire, to allow Lightning to flow through and sharpen his mind and reflexes. To quench it all with frigid Ice and numb the effects. It was something altogether different and certainly unnatural…or was it natural? The Legends were older than him, certainly. Probably older than any living thing.

How was he even doing this? The question repeated itself over and over again in Ash's thoughts. He wasn't an idiot. It was obvious that this wasn't a result of psychic powers – while he might not be an expert, he was well-versed in the basics of psychic abilities. Psychics were all about manipulating what was already there. They generated force to change the world, could twist minds to cast illusions or warp thoughts, and transverse time and space.

They did not create. And somehow Ash knew that's what he was doing when he drew on the Birds. Maybe a skilled psychic could generate fire or electricity or freeze something (he'd have to ask Steven about that later) but they didn't make it from nothing.

This was something deeper, like he was creating something from nothing. Brushing against some deeper, transcendent force and drawing it into the material world. It was impossible…

Ash checked his surroundings – the faintly purple sky, the rolling hills overgrown with flowers which stretched for miles around, and the replica of the Hale Mansion across them – and decided he really shouldn't be deciding what was possible or not. Reality was more of a suggestion at this point…

"Ash!" Karen hissed, catching his attention. He followed her gaze to just a few feet in front of the party and stared as glistening steps of a shimmering glass materialized from the heavens as if they'd been there all along. Ash tried to see where they began, but it seemed to go on forever – thousands and thousands of feet into the sky, so far that they disappeared into space. "Should we destroy it?"

He hesitated. "Not yet. This is something new. It might help explain some of…this," he gestured at the incredible world they'd arrived in. His eyes narrowed as his team readied themselves. "But be ready. If it's dangerous we'll have to hit it with everything we have!"

"Got it."

A chill crept up his spine as Karen's team spread in a semicircle, angling around the staircase to view the base of the stairs from every side. Anything of the crystal would find itself melted away in a storm of dark-type energies. The only question was whether they could keep it down.

"Let Karen's team act first," Ash directed. His team listened raptly. "Hit it with ranged attacks as soon as they're done. Nidoking and Dazed, keep it from regenerating with Shadow Ball. We need to keep it under pressure constantly, alright?"

Nidoking and Dazed were quick to show their assent – Dazed's pendulum emerged from beneath her snowy mane and Nidoking thrashed his tail against the orchard, shattering hundreds of delicate flowers into tiny shards of crystal before it flowed back into shape.

The others took up their positions as well. Torrent floated between Umbreon and Gengar, taking a rear position to get a better angle. Infernus found his spot in the gap between the muscular Houndoom (who he eyed with more interest than Ash would like) and Weavile, who didn't seem to appreciate the heat pouring off of the fire-type very much.

Those two would be the most responsible for keeping anything attacking them down. Their incredible elemental offenses would deal real damage to the crystal so long as it couldn't regenerate. All the others on his team would just work to make up for the gaps. Hopefully this would be enough to at least slow their unseen opponent down…

"Tangrowth!" His friend jerked and gurgled cheerfully at Ash's call. His vines waved erratically, barely resisting the urge to run over Karen's team and make some new friends. "Don't touch whatever's coming through here, alright? Charge up a Solar Beam or use Ancient Power."

The grass-type's vines drooped at that, but the full-body wriggle Ash got made it seem like Tangrowth understood. He spared the huge Tangrowth a smile before he motioned for Bruiser to back him up to where Karen stood. Honchkrow circled overhead, beak pointed in the direction of the staircase. Hopefully it would go mostly unnoticed. Plume veered higher still, ready to shear whatever emerged in half with a Steel Wing if necessary.

Something in the air changed. A pressure, gentle but strong enough to raise the hair on his arms with a violet glow, wafted from the stairs. Ash tensed in Bruiser's arms. Karen looked a pale wreck beside him, eyes set deep in dark circles. Her hands shook.

"The eyes, the eyes…" she murmured beside him. A chill set upon him as Karen seemed to unravel, only the fierce core of determination to set the world right keeping her together. "They see us."

He'd grown numb to the giggles and keening choir singing throughout this world, but they redoubled their efforts with a jubilant laugh. Ash squeezed his eyes shut as tightly as he could as the frenzied singing hit a high note – he felt the flowers dancing beneath his feet to the erratic notes, brushing close every now and then and winding in circles. The wind itself leapt to the choir's tune, crying and howling madly and he wanted to join it! To become one with the wind and sky and solid, real earth beneath his feet. It called to him, a lure that became harder and harder to resist in each passing moment…

If he just let go he could be so happy. Free. One with all of this beauty. Perfection was in reach. All he had to do was submit.

His eyes snapped shut, a snarl caught in his throat as his instincts warned him of the danger. Ash felt a few glossy petals retreat from his exposed ankles, rearing away as if they'd been lit aflame. He glared down at the interlopers. He'd been stupid to disregard them…they were essentially fighting inside a Legendary's mind right now. Maybe not literally, but considering they were standing atop its psychic power the analogy worked well enough.

"Hi!"

Ash's attention immediately settled on the figure that strode down the stairs with an easy confidence he recognized in all powerful trainers. It was the kind of relaxed, easygoing demeanor that came from someone that knew there was nothing to fear.

He stared as the girl came to a stop, hands on her hips. She seemed oddly familiar, like he'd met her before. But he was pretty sure they never had. It was faint, like he was seeing a ghost. Overall she cut an odd figure. She looked to be about Karen's age with bronzed skin, honey hair and dark blue eyes that watched he and Karen raptly. More interestingly, she had a row of pokeballs clasped onto her belt that he'd never seen before – they looked to be formed from the same crystal that had dominated the mansion in its unnatural grip. It was more blue than purple, however, and even appeared to have a few scratches artfully etched into the material.

It was her clothes that really caught his attention though. His teeth bared and Moltres boiled his blood in his veins – this girl was wearing his mom's clothes! They were a bit different – a little looser, covered with a long white coat – but the similarity was too much to be a mere coincidence.

He opened his mouth to demand some kind of explanation, but Karen's bloodshot eyes stared in his direction and cut him off with a shake of her silvery head. Ash reluctantly cut himself short (though he had to numb his rage with Ice just to do so) and waited for Karen to make a move. She was more experienced in this sort of situation…well, he hoped so. Normally when he was faced with a mysterious stranger he'd prefer to blast his way out.

Karen took a step forward. Just as she began to approach the newcomer she was cut off by the woman's excitable babbling. "Wow!" She admired Karen and Ash's teams, zeroing in immediately on Nidoking. The hulking poison-type shifted nervously at her stare, beads of venom trailing constantly down the length of his horn. "He's so big! I only ever saw him on TV."

Ash and his teammates exchanged odd looks. "You watched Nidoking?" He hedged, hoping to break the ice a bit.

"Of course! My mommy had all the videos!" The woman bragged. Ash frowned at 'mommy'. Seemed a bit odd for someone in their late teens or early twenties to say that. Karen seemed just as perturbed.

"Who are you?" Karen demanded, taking a few rushed steps toward the new woman. She seemed to have lost any patience she'd showed earlier, though he probably should've seen that coming. He didn't consider Karen wholly sane at this point – the crystal hadn't left her whole. "Did you do this? If you are, then you're under arrest!"

It was the woman's reaction that bothered Ash more, though. He watched her oddly as she stumbled back, obviously scared of Karen despite her previous ease. "STOP!"

Karen stopped. She was locked completely in place for several seconds, frozen like a statue. A clap of thunder and flash of purple lightning fired in the distance, the clouds went black and a great quake shook the earth beneath their feet – even Bruiser nearly fell, unbalanced as he was by carrying Ash. His team was frozen in place as well, although they weren't bound quite as tightly as Karen…as terrible gales of wind whipped across the fields, rustling the crystalline flowers, her hair refused to so much as blow. Her eyes were blank and for a moment Ash worried that she had outright been killed.

It ended as soon as it began. The woman put some more distance between them, but the fearful look was gone. She seemed more curious than anything. Karen collapsed into the flowers, exhausted and dazed from the ordeal. She laid limply against the grasping flowers before she struggled to her feet, brushing off little worms of crystal that had tried to meld into her skin. Absol trotted over to her side, offering some support to the woman.

"Who are you?" Ash wondered. The girl looked at him like he was stupid.

"I'm Molly! You know that," she laughed, twisting a curl of honey hair around her finger. It was like she didn't even realize the sudden pallor to Ash's face, or the way his blood ran cold. He stared at her, horrified. What was going on?! This couldn't be Molly…she was just a toddler!

He couldn't speak for the life of him. Whenever he tried to form words they died in his throat, choked out by his lack of incomprehension. Nothing made sense anymore!

Molly teetered back and forth on her heels and frowned at him. Ash barely noticed. "What're you doing down here? You're supposed to be upstairs with mommy and daddy!"

A haze settled over his vision, throwing everything out of focus. "You're right," he smiled. "That sounds like a wonderful idea – wait," he caught himself, fury filling him as he tore himself from the dream. "What did you just do to me?"

A petulant scowl crossed Molly's face. "I didn't do anything!"

He scowled right back, but held his tongue as a fierce gale whipped across the false Greenfield. Arguing with Molly wouldn't get him anywhere – it was clear she was at the source of this, even though he didn't understand how. The mystery was still there, but the pieces of this puzzle were starting to fall together. Molly's involvement and seeming control over this world explained why the Entei knew her name and why it had kidnapped his mom…at least she was probably safe.

That took a burden off his shoulders that he hadn't even realized was there. Ash visibly exhaled, tension flooding out of him. "Fine, fine," he said to Molly, who seemed to have eyes only for him. An idea came to him – this was probably his only chance to get any kind of answers, he realized. "Can you tell me where all of this came from?" Ash gestured to the vast world they'd emerged into.

"This is Greenfield, dummy!" The woman laughed girlishly, doing a little spin. She smiled happily as the flowers bloomed, their crystalline stalks extending a foot in a minute. The orchard leaned in towards Molly, seeking her touch like an obedient, loving Growlithe. "Isn't it pretty?"

"But where did it come from?" Ash stressed, trying to get some sort of information out of the woman. She didn't seem to know much, but anything would help.

Molly wrinkled her nose at him. "I wanted it! Outside is filled with all of those dumb people trying to get in and bother us. I don't want them here!" She stamped her foot against the flowers, which stretched away to avoid her stomping feet. Ash shuddered as the temperature fell fifty degrees in an instant, briefly frosting over for a breath before they returned to normal. "They'll try to take mommy away…" she muttered under her breath.

"Okay, okay," Ash said soothingly, hoping to avoid upsetting the girl like Karen had. She was somehow tied to the crystal, though he was pretty sure she wasn't a psychic. Besides, it didn't seem like she was going to hurt them. "I don't you remember you being this old."

"But we just saw each other!" Molly protested. Her eyes widened, seemingly noting Ash's exhausted state as Bruiser carried him. "Are you feeling okay? I know you were getting worried earlier. Do you need mommy to –"

Ash frowned. "I'm fine," he said firmly. It was odd having such a casual conversation with the girl considering how stressed he was right now. There were so many questions he wanted to ask… "But aren't you three?"

"No, dummy," she scowled, grinding her heel into the dirt. The temperature spiked a few degrees, drawing a few beads of sweat form Ash's brow. Her eyes narrowed at him. "You know I'm four and a half! You're acting weird."

He wasn't sure why Molly had any idea of what he normally acted like, but he put it out of mind. "Sorry," Ash muttered, actually a little embarrassed that he didn't even know how old she was. He'd thought she was much younger. "But how'd you make this?"

"I already told you! I didn't want to go outside because there were bad people out there," Molly seemed a little frustrated. He decided to back off. Nothing good could come out of antagonizing her.

"Okay, I get it now," he said placatingly. Molly relaxed a bit. "But why do you look older?"

Molly giggled, a stark change from her earlier frustration. A few stalks of grass brushed against Ash happily, though he was quick to adjust his feet away from the overly friendly stalks. "Because I wanted to! I saw her," Molly pointed at Karen's trembling form," and she's so pretty! I wanted to be old."

"Alright," Ash murmured. He could work with that. Molly's mind seemed as childish as it would normally be, so he wouldn't be getting any logical answers. But she obviously had some extreme control over the crystal. It seemed utterly entwined with her wishes, reflecting whatever she wanted at that point in time. But how did that work? Was it a psychic connection? She probably wasn't gifted herself but maybe she'd formed a bond with whatever had actually created the crystal. "When did all this start?"

"This is boring! Can't we talk about something else?" Molly whined, shifting around. She brightened all of a sudden, ignoring Ash. "Look at what I can do!" She ripped a fistful of flowers and blew on it, giggling madly as a few tiny, vividly colored Butterfree sprung forth from the flowers as her breath reached them. Ash, Karen, and their teams stared, absolutely stunned by the simple act, but Molly didn't have the patience to let them do that for long. "Come on! Let's do something! We can play a game!"

Ash and Karen exchanged glances. "What kind of game?" Karen hedged, far more cautious as she leaned heavily on Absol. She wouldn't anger Molly again – not willingly, at least. She was smart. She'd caught on that they needed to have Molly help them, not hinder them. "And what do we get if we win?"

Molly didn't seem happy that Karen was talking at first, but she smiled brightly as Karen finished her words. "If you win…you get ice cream! I have a ton! And if I win, you have to everything I say forever!"

No way. For one, Ash wasn't about to put any kind of food that was probably made out of the insidious crystal into his body. Second…no. Just no. "How about we make another deal?" He suggested, wincing as his useless muscles struggled to pull his body up so that he could look at her better. Bruiser adjusted him to be more comfortable. "If you win, we spend the day with you and do whatever you want. Tangrowth would love to play with you," he said, knowing Tangrowth was the only one of his friends that wouldn't hate him for putting him in that situation. Tangrowth waved, which Molly responded to with a bright smile and a shy wave of her own. "If we win, you have to do whatever we want for the day."

The girl-turned-woman's face scrunched up as she considered the deal. Ash desperately hoped she'd take it and not just throw the crystal at them…there was no way they could resist her if she really put effort into it. If they pushed her too far this world would become just as hostile as the one they'd just escaped from.

"Okay!" Molly agreed at last. She rubbed her palms together eagerly. "What kind of game do you want to play? I'll beat you at anything!" The girl boasted.

Ash caught an aside glance from Karen. It looked like she was planning on letting him handle this. He definitely got on with Molly better than she did.

"Alright…" he murmured, mind racing frantically with any idea he could think of. The games he'd played as a kid were mostly games with Gary about training and exploring and imagination.

Ash did not want to test Molly's imagination. He got the hunch that it wouldn't stay imaginary for long.

What else could he do, though? She'd win any normal game. The crystal would probably make sure she won. He'd suggested that they'd spend the day with her because it was the safest way to get answers and have a chance to safely observe this new world. This was a win-win situation for them even if they lost.

That said, he'd rather win. Not just for his own competitive spirit (even though that was rearing its head) but because Molly working with them was the best option. If she was willing to listen to them they might have a chance to stop this whole catastrophe in its tracks.

"Hurry up!" Molly whined again, glaring at him. Ash nodded, then turned his eyes to the crystalline pokeballs on her belt. A small smile split his face.

He had an idea. "How about we play two games at the same time?"

"Two games?" Molly asked. He nodded. "Yes! That sounds fun!"

"Alright," Ash smiled. "Do you know how to battle?"

Molly's eyes got huge and she squealed (Ash and most of the pokemon winced at the piercing noise). "Yes! I've seen all of them!" She bragged. "I've never battled, though…"

"It's easy," Ash reassured her, glad she was taking the bait. "You'll battle Karen –"

The sky became overcast, though no thunder rumbled in the distance. "But I want to battle you!" Molly grumbled at him. "I don't want to battle her."

"You can practice on Karen," he was corrected himself. Molly relaxed at that, and the blackened skies quickly brightened to a brilliant purple reminiscent of Nidoking's leathery hide. "In the meantime, how about we mix some hide-and-seek in? While you and Karen battle, I'll go find somewhere to hide. When you finish up you can try to find me."

Molly's smile brightened. "Sure! I'll catch you so fast!" She boasted. Ash didn't doubt it, but maybe Karen would occupy her long enough for Ash to uncover more about this place. And at least this proved that they could work with Molly peacefully…she wasn't any smarter than she would normally be. How hard could it be to trick a three – sorry, four-and-a-half year old?

"Great," Ash smiled, pleased that this was going about as well as he could hope. He winced as he adjusted himself in Bruiser's arms, then another idea struck him. "I'm not feeling too good," he directed at Molly, almost feeling guilty at the way her eyes grew wide with concern. "Is there anything you can do to help?"

"Oh no…" Molly rushed over to him, her hand warm as she placed one on his forehead – he caught Nidoking's horn lowered as if to gore the young woman, but thankfully his friend restrained himself. An ugly feeling weighed in his gut as her gesture vaguely reminded him of the way his mother would treat him when he was sick.

Her eyes squeezed shut and a startling heat (so different from Fire's hot burn) flowed into him from Molly's skin. For a moment he thought to jerk away, but it seemed to lock his limbs in place. Almost instantly he felt the strange power weave itself into his every muscle, filling them with vigor and strength. There was still an underlying ache and exhaustion in his core, but he still felt a million times better than he had just a moment ago.

Ash curled his fingers and straightened them with wonder – it was startling to realize how low he'd been brought by the events of today. Everything felt clear and smooth again, though there was still a residual pounding in his head that told him his concussion wasn't entirely healed. But the overpowering ache that had distorted his thoughts was finally wiped away, leaving him clear to work with his full brain.

"Thanks," he muttered as Molly grinned down at him, pleased with how much better he looked. Ash was surprised to find that he meant it as he allowed Bruiser to lower him onto the ground. It was nice for his legs to actually support him without trembling or giving out at the lightest stress.

As he straightened, stretching his rejuvenated muscles, he glanced around at his team. With Molly willing to work with them he didn't need to have them all out. Ash doubted the world would actively fight him anymore, and if it did he could just release his team. But right now they would slow him down while he raced to find the source of this new reality.

So he returned them. Only Bruiser and Sneasel remained. The dark-type was beginning to stir, thankfully...of course, right now he just looped the furry Sneasel around his neck like a scarf. His limp body would give him some measure of protection from the crystal.

The thought of having Molly wake Sneasel up crossed his mind, but he decided against it. Sneasel was too unpredictable and might lash out with his vicious claws in his confused state. If he scared Molly then this whole plan would be ruined. He could just give Sneasel a revive once he'd cleared the area.

"I'll teach you the rules for battling," Karen offered. Molly turned to her with interest. It looked like she was already forgetting her dislike of the Dark Master. "I know you've seen some, but there are secret rules we don't teach anyone. If you want to be as good as we are then you'll need to follow them," she finished. Ash looked at her oddly, but she ignored him.

Ash got the feeling that Molly might be a little confused about how to battle when they got out of this. Karen had caught onto the plan. What they needed now was time.

"Alright!" Molly nodded, big blue eyes wide like she was about to learn some secret knowledge. "I'm so going to win!"

"I'll go ahead and look for places to hide," Ash offered. "When you and Karen finish up you can both come and look for me, okay?"

"Okay!" Molly cheered, looking just as happy as her younger self had in the photos his mom had sent. And that reminded him…

Ash stared right into Molly's eyes. The girl smiled at him like the child she really was. "What happened to my mom?"

Molly pursed her lips, obviously confused. "She's upstairs in my room taking a nap. Don't you remember?"

"I do," he nodded, heart lightened at the news his mom was fine. With any luck he could find it himself (or have Molly bring him there) soon. The sooner he found his mom the sooner he could get her out of here. "Thanks."

The sooner she would remember him.

"I'll see you in five minutes," Molly stuck her tongue out at him as Ash started walking up the crystalline stairs, which were quite a bit sturdier than he'd expected. They didn't sink at all as he ascended them. Ash turned to look at Molly when he was about thirty stairs up and watched her chattering inanely to Karen, who looked like she was about to throttle the girl.

His lips curved into a smile, somehow amused by that. It was a lot less stressful now that he could walk on his own without relying on the Birds' strength, though he found his attention still on them. Ash looked up into the infinite sky, spirit dismayed ever so slightly as he saw an endless spiral of the crystal stairs to climb.

Did they ever end? He hoped so – Ash could already hear the chorus singing higher and higher, the erratic wails and keens leaving him uneasy. He was getting closer.

Ash took one more step and considered releasing Dazed to potentially teleport him. Maybe it wouldn't be so difficult for her anymore now that Molly knew who they were. They needed all the time they could get and every second wasted on the stairs was a second he could be searching for the source of this nightmare.

Just as that thought crossed his mind, he and Bruiser stepped into a dark room. He froze, jarred at the sudden shift, and felt Bruiser fall into a fighting stance at his side. Ash motioned for him to stay calm and took a moment to examine the new room.

It didn't take him long to realize this was just another copy of the entrance hall. In fact, the only difference was that this version wasn't covered in crystal. He could easily picture him, his mother, and Uncle Spencer striding through these doors on their way to dinner or the garden to rest and tell stories.

A light pang went through his heart, but he ignored it. With the agonizing weakness the Feather had subjected to gone it was like his mind was finally clear again. He'd forgotten how nice it was to be able to think.

Where should he go to? To be honest, Ash didn't really remember the layout of the mansion that well. At once his mind leapt to the thought of finding his mom – she was in Molly's room, at least according to the girl herself. Ash was inclined to believe her, but he wasn't sure where her room would be. The one he used to stay in when he was younger, maybe? There wasn't that much space, but even if he was in the real mansion (as he remembered it, anyway) he couldn't be sure everything was as it was in reality. For all he knew opening doors could lead him into more and more versions of the mansion.

Ash's fingers curled into fists. He hated this whole situation. He couldn't fixate on it – there was work to be done – but he savored a brief moment to bitterly reflect on the day. Nothing made sense anymore. Molly apparently controlled this false world, him and his team's only ally in the belly of the beast was forced to stay behind and buy him time, and he was still no closer to finding out what was really going on here.

"Where do you think we should go?" He questioned. Bruiser shrugged, beady eyes skimming over the room with no real destination. Ash sighed. "Yeah, that's what I thought. We need to find my mom and get her out of here."

Bruiser nodded. Ash grimaced, traitorous thoughts warning him that his first priority should be finding the cause of this. If he didn't stop it in its tracks then there might be no use in finding his mom at all. He hesitated, but convinced himself that she might able to help point him in the right direction.

But would she help them? That same voice whispered again, damning him with its cold logic. She hadn't even remembered he was her son. The thought was like a cold blade twisted into his heart but he drew upon Ice to numb his feelings. They would betray him.

Ash squeezed his eyes shut and released Dazed. She was the only one who could really help guide them right now. The Hypno materialized a little slower than normal, hands clasped together around her pendulum – the crystalline loop shone with an ethereal purple flame, a heatless light so bright that he could see the thick bones of Dazed's fingers through it.

We are near!

He hissed in agony as the brute force behind Dazed's whisper slammed into his mind like a sledgehammer. Ash barely weathered the mental barrage, though Bruiser fared far worse – he'd been brought to his knees and groaned pitifully as his huge hands clutched uselessly to his ears. Without any hesitation Ash placed a comforting hand on Bruiser's powerful shoulder, though he feared it did nothing to really help his friend.

Dazed recoiled as if struck, then squeezed her eyes shut. Purple flame seared him through her eyelids, burning terribly bright. Her fingers shook as if she had just been pumped full of stimulants and it was only getting worse as the seconds ticked on.

"Where's my mom?" Ash shouted, barely able to hear himself above the mental groans emanating from Dazed. Her eyes snapped open, though it hardly made a difference considering how bright the power consuming her had become. She looked at him blankly, trembling uncontrollably. "Dazed! I need you!"

She still didn't answer. Ash readied the pokeball to return her if she didn't recover…he wouldn't risk permanent harm to his friend, but he needed her help. Desperate, he clasped her hands in his smaller ones and thought of the cold haze of Ice, remembering its frozen numbness and praying for Dazed to experience it.

Ice frosted his hairs, stilled the pumping of his heart, and left his airway burning with comforting cold. Ash remembered the lessons he'd learnt when he first entered the mansion and guided Articuno's force into Dazed through 