“That would be us,” said Jade proudly. “Can I tell my bit? So anyway, like I was telling you before, there was no way I was going to miss the chance to go into the Greenforest with my friends, so at the first opportunity, I dashingly escaped Quentin and made a run for it. I was about an hour into the woods, and with Ena, that’s Ninjask here, leading the way, I was sure I would find you all soon. Tragedy of tragedies, Quentin found me first.

  “-Ms Silks- he said. -What are you doing out here? I’m going to wrap you up in Spinarak web and drag you back in front of a camera if it’s the last thing I do!-

  “-No, please don’t- I replied. -I want to be free from the shackles of society. And besides, you’re going to need a lot of Spinaraks for that. Can I meet them?-”

  From the way Quentin snorted, I had to assume Jade was taking some liberties in her recounting of the events. He wasn’t the only one laughing either. Jade made everything dramatic, with wild hand movements, and going from whispers to loud bellows within a sentence. It also helped that she put on a funny voice when saying Quentin’s lines. Jade paused briefly for her audience to settle, then launched back into her tale.

  “-No!- said Quentin. -The forest is dangerous. There are wild Pokémon that will tear you limb from limb. And worse, I’ve heard rumours of large-scale bounty hunter activity in the area. Nothing those scallywags do can be any good.-

  “-All the more reason to go forwards- I heroically exclaimed. -My friends might have need of me!-”

  “Alright, Ms Silks,” interrupted Quentin. “Tone it down a notch.”

  “Pssh, spoilsport. Fine. As you can see, I convinced him to join me in my little adventure. It may not look like it, but this bundle of joy is a decent enough trainer, though he is mostly carried by Megu.

  “We arrived at Dewpider Lake during the night, and what a sight! You’ll see it too, in a bit. Once the moon comes out, so do the Masquerain. They fill the air over the lake, making a carnival in the moonlight. It’s beautiful, and you mustn’t miss it.

  “It was at this time, though, that I had the thought, had we come into the forest before you all? Later, when we met up with Darren and the others, it turned out that yes, I had entered just an hour or two earlier than you, but at the time I didn’t know that. I didn’t know whether to push on, or to wait by the bridge. What was the point of coming this far if I wasn’t going to meet up with you all?. Well, the point is pretty obvious, really. All the bug Pokémon! This forest really is a paradise. It made our decision easy. We would wait a couple of days by the lake, and if no one showed up, at least I’ll have had the opportunity to see the Masquerain spectacle a couple of more times.

  “We set up camp and went to sleep with Ane, that’s the Shedinja here, kept watch. It’s a darling and can go without food or sleep as long as it’s in close proximity to its twin.”

  “What happens when they’re apart?” I asked. The only things I knew about Shedinja were that there was a one-in-a-million chance of it evolving alongside a Ninjask, and that people were strongly warned to stay away from them, and to report them to the authorities if any were spotted. Their rarity meant that not much information was publicly available on them. Jade caused quite a stir when she revealed she had one during the Rondo tournament, even if I had been too preoccupied with other matters to pay much attention.

  “Well, that’s,” said Jade, hesitating. “Either they die, or they, well, sustain themselves by absorbing the souls of the living beings around them. But Ane’s perfectly safe! As long as it shares the vitality of its twin, it won’t harm no one.”

  Even with her assurances, I inched away from it. Things made a bit more sense now. Having your soul stolen didn’t kill you, but it did leave you a vegetable with little hopes of ever recovering, depending on the circumstances. No wonder the information was being kept under wraps.

  “But that’s beside the point. Thing is, Ane alerted me to a commotion early in the morning of the next day, before the sun was even up yet. In the hour just before the dawn, the Masquerain return to their nests after being out all night. This is when they are at their most vulnerable. See, the designs on their masks, consisting of their heads and antennae, have a high value in certain circles. For the less scrupulous bounty hunters, the harvesting of these is seen as a nice source of income. There used to be laws against it, but they got repealed with the rest of the Pokémon Protection Acts, what, seven, eight years ago now? Anyway, that’s why you don’t see many wild Masquerain nowadays. Dewpider Lake is one of the last places they could be found. For most, it’s not worth the venture into the Greenforest.

  The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  “That was obviously not the case for this guy. The commotion came from way down there, down on the other end of the lake. Even half asleep, I sort of guessed what might be happening, so I went creeping, hoping to catch the perpetrator off guard.”

  “Without waking me up, by the way,” added Quentin.

  “I found him, the bounty hunter, I mean, and yes, he was working with a Graveler to knock Masquerain out of the air with Smack Downs. He was a young man, I wouldn’t say he looked too experienced as a trainer, and besides Graveler, he also had a Rockruff and a Poochyena out. Happily, they weren’t having the easiest time with the poaching. Masquerain and Araquanid often share the same area codes, and while they often compete over territory and resources, they are also known to band together against external threats. In this case, a large Araquanid was severely complicating his life, an almost continuous Bubble Beam firing straight at him.

  “The Rockruff wasn’t of much use to him; he was already out of commission by the time I got there. The Poochyena, while vicious, wasn’t able to fight off the larger Pokémon, and in any case, was mostly distracted by a swarm of Dewpider assisting the Araquanid. The problem was the Graveler. Even with his weakness to water, he was shrugging off attacks, counterattacking, and still having the time to aim at the Masquerain. I am reasonably sure he was loaned to the man, as he didn’t seem to be taking orders from him.

  “I stepped in as soon as I took stock of the situation. Quentin calls me reckless, but even though the Graveler was ridiculously strong, the battle just needed a little push to be in favour of the Araquanid. I sent out Golly, my Golisopod, for one of our first real battles together. See, I’ve had Ena, Ane, and Shucks for ages, even if it was just Ena and Shucks at one point, but I received Golly, Ephi, my Forretress, and Bébé from my agency before the Rondo tournament. It’s not my preferred way of forming a team, I’ll admit, but they wanted me to make an impression in Rondo for the free advertising. Anyway, I insisted they were all to be ethically captured, and it’s not so bad after all. Ephi was easy to get along with, I feel we really understand each other. Golly is fine too, it’s just his species' inclination to be shy, making battling with him somewhat of a challenge. Bébé is another story, but that’s not important right now.

  “I chose Golly because I know his heart is in the right place, and he is more than capable of stepping up when it really matters. It was a tense battle, but in the end, I was right, and Golly managed to distract the Graveler long enough for the Araquanid to land a devastating hit on him. The bounty hunter was panicking; he didn’t expect another person to find him, I guess, but he couldn’t flee, Dewpider and Surskit cutting off his escape routes. He recalled the Graveler and Rockruff, and it looked like it was all over when the Poochyena, who I had mostly disregarded, began to evolve.

  “Now, I don’t know how many of you have seen a Mightyena up close and personal before, but they are scary dudes. Teeth flashing like silver knives, and claws the length of my pinky, and eyes red and glowing through the darkness. He frightened Golly quite a bit, but we should still be fine after I swapped him out for Ena. I didn’t expect the incredibly aggressive Pokémon to use his intimidation to create an opening for him and his trainer to run. Failing to catch him was bad enough, but adding salt to the wound, the Mightyena clamped his jaws around a Dewpider on his way out, kidnapping the poor fellow. There was no reason for him to do that; I think it was out of pure spite.

  “Ena gave chase without me even needing to tell her, but I had a different problem to deal with. There were a lot of injured Pokémon around, including many badly hurt Masqurain, and I needed to make sure they were okay before going after them. None of my Pokémon are healers, and I didn’t have enough potions for everybody, so the best choice was to go back and wake Quentin, who was sleeping like a Snorlax through all this. He was grumpy at being woken early, but it was Megu who I really needed. His Heal Pulse is top-notch. I dragged them to the battle site and, as always, it was a treat to watch Megu revitalise all the injured Pokémon, and even regrow the plants that had been destroyed in the fight.

  “I couldn’t stay there, however. Ena was still tailing the bounty hunter, and I had to go free the Dewpider. Ane can sense where its twin is, so we weren’t going to lose track of him, but I didn’t want to let him get too far ahead. So began the long chase through the trees. I don’t know how long we spent running after him, but the sun was up by the time we finally glimpsed him up ahead. Turns out he ran into a Primape fury and he was coming back our way. I thought we finally had him then, but Mightyena dropped Dewpider in the path of the Primeapes and protecting him took priority.

  “Megu set up a defensive formation with Light Screens and Reflects that the Primeapes couldn’t break through, but between fighting them off and saving Dewpider, the bounty hunter slipped away, and this time Ena was too busy fighting a Mankey to go after him.

  “The Primeapes left us alone after a while, but Dewpider was in a bad shape. Megu was able to heal him, of course, but the main problem was his bubble had burst somewhere along the way, and the little guy was suffocating. He was also too weak to maintain a bubble, even when we poured water on him. It was scary for a while there. It turned out okay in the end. Golly kept a low-powered Water Gun continuously drenching him. Ever so slowly, he regained his strength. It was just about the time when he was finally able to form a bubble again that an adorable Cutiefly buzzed around us, and I’ll let Darren take it from here.”