The road to Lavender Town wasn't supposed to be long.
But fog doesn't follow schedules.
Arcanine's heavy paws padded against the rocky path as the sun dipped low in the sky. The trees on either side leaned in tighter now—tall, ancient things that whispered in the wind. The route between Vermilion and Lavender had grown eerily quiet.
Too quiet.
Skylar sat forward slightly on Arcanine's back. Misty clutched him tighter behind.
—"This… doesn't feel like Route 11 anymore," she murmured.
Skylar nodded. "I think we took a wrong turn after that fork near Rock Tunnel."
Arcanine growled low—not in aggression, but as a warning.
Fog now coated the ground in a thick, silver-white sheen. It wasn't natural. The temperature dropped rapidly despite the fading summer warmth.
Up ahead, the path curved… then vanished.
The mist swallowed the trail whole.
Skylar pulled Arcanine to a stop.
"Alright," he said. "We take it slow."
They dismounted.
Gardevoir appeared from her Poké Ball in a soft glow, materializing beside Skylar with an alert expression.
Misty let out Starmie, whose jewel flickered faintly—reacting to energy in the air.
Skylar held up his hand, palm open.
He reached out with his aura, trying to feel beyond the mist.
And he did.
Something moved.
Not footsteps.
Not Pokémon.
It was like static in the air. Echoes. Faint and wrong.
Then—
A voice.
Faint. Distant.
"Help… me…"
Misty flinched. "Did you hear that?"
Skylar looked around. "It wasn't you?"
"Help… please…"
The voice wasn't angry.
It was scared.
Starmie floated closer to Misty, its jewel pulsing blue.
Gardevoir's eyes glowed faintly, scanning.
She turned to Skylar and sent a quiet mental whisper:
This isn't a normal haunting.
This is a memory.
Just then, the fog shifted.
A shape appeared ahead—a young trainer, no older than ten, running… and running… and then disappearing into the mist.
"Wait—!" Skylar called, stepping forward.
But the moment he entered the thicker fog, the world changed.
He stood in a forest clearing that wasn't real.
The air smelled like autumn leaves and burnt wood.
Children were laughing in the distance.
And across the clearing stood the same boy.
Skylar approached slowly.
—"Hey… who are you?"
The boy turned.
His eyes were black. Hollow. Glowing faintly red.
He opened his mouth—
But his voice wasn't his own.
"You shouldn't be here."
Skylar backed up.
The trees around them bent inward.
Ghost-type energy surged through the air like a wave of nausea.
Gardevoir appeared beside him, shielding him with a psychic barrier.
"Skylar," her voice echoed in his mind, "this place is layered. Someone—or something—is feeding this illusion."
Skylar reached for his Key Stone—but then froze.
Because the boy started crying.
"I didn't want to stay. I didn't want to get lost."
Misty's voice broke through the fog.
—"Skylar! Are you there?!"
Skylar spun.
The fog cracked apart as a beam of Starmie's psychic light carved a path through the illusion.
Misty emerged, panting. "I saw them too. Children. All repeating the same moment."
The moment she said it—
Everything stopped.
The boy vanished.
The air shifted.
And from deep within the trees…
A Dusknoir rose from the ground.
Silent.
Floating.
Its body flickered with unnatural shadows.
Its single red eye locked onto them.
Skylar stepped forward.
"Let me guess," he said. "You've been feeding on those echoes."
The Dusknoir didn't speak.
It simply raised one arm—and the phantom forest cracked.
Ghostly vines and memories surged toward them.
Skylar shouted—
—"Gardevoir! Moonblast!"
Misty: "Starmie! Confuse Ray—left side!"
The battle lit up the forest with color and psychic energy.
The fog twisted violently, caught in the storm of power.
Then, with a final shriek, the Dusknoir was banished, fading into the mist it had once controlled.
And silence returned.
The world around them slowly settled.
They were back on the path.
Fog still lingered—but it no longer pressed against them.
It now felt like… normal weather.
Misty looked at Skylar.
"That wasn't just a wild ghost-type."
Skylar nodded. "It was holding something here. A fragment of something trapped."
He looked up at the stars now peeking through the trees.
Then at Lavender Town, barely visible on the horizon ahead.
—"Whatever's waiting in the Tower…"
—"It's worse."