The members of the expedition all woke up at dawn, which Vulpix and I weren’t too happy about since we both liked sleeping in.

Since my group was the only group with assistants, we were the ones who had to help assemble the machinery the researchers required. It was a lot of holding large pieces of metal in place while others slotted in different units and cables. The researchers' Psychic Types lifted up pieces and quickly performed the finer bits of assembly that would have taken us hours.

Eventually, the devices were assembled and we got a brief overview of what they did. There were actually quite a number of them, in total taking up a space the size of a small room. The majority of the machines took environmental readings of the area around us while the few that weren't measuring data were helpful for quality of life while we would be in Sea Mauville. There were computers, a positional beacon, a satellite uplink device, and an emergency use Pokémon transfer machine. Only the researchers were allowed to touch the equipment with the exception of Thomas, who, as an Ace Trainer in training, could use the devices if there was an emergency. Other than that, everyone else was limited to using signals the machines gave off to make sure our personal devices like Pokégears and PokéNavs stayed connected and usable.

Winston had no choice but help us to do the manual labor of assembling the machines, and it was obvious to anyone that saw him that he thought this whole process was beneath him. Against my finer instincts, I decided to start up a conversation with him once the building process was done and everyone was resting.

"So, if you're so rich why are you on this expedition?"

He raised a hand to his chest, actually offended.

"You really think that I, son of the heir to the Pokébites fortune, would need to do this job for money? Please. I’m practically being escorted to a perfect location to train and expand my team."

I tilted my head upwards to stare at the clouds and considered his point. Other than the money, I joined up for the training opportunities and to explore the ruins.

"Huh. That is a pretty good reason to be here. Too bad there's no Fairy Types around here. It would've been nice to catch one for my team."

He scoffed. "Fairy Types? Those weaklings? Of course you choose a pathetic Type like that to add to your team."

I turned and looked him in the eye. His face immediately turned red.

"You really keep finding new ways to get worse, don't you?"

He sputtered at what I said but I got up to leave before he could respond.

Since the machines were assembled, we had the rest of the day to ourselves while the scientists made sure they were functioning correctly. I let out Swablu and Vulpix, but kept Marill and Floette in their balls. Marill would have challenged everyone around us to battles, and Floette wasn't comfortable in crowds. I planned to let them out tomorrow once the other teams were out escorting the scientists, when the base camp was more empty.

Since I was focusing on Vulpix's training right now, I had Swablu use this time as practice for keeping watch and scouting. He was too used to sitting on my head and I needed him to be able to keep an eye on our surroundings when we would visit more dangerous areas alone in the future.

I had to make it clear that Swablu was not to land on the researchers’ devices, but he was free to land on my tent or some of the larger plants growing out of the ruined rooftop park around us.

I worked with Vulpix with her ability, the same as I had been doing in Dewford. She could manifest a small snowstorm that extended a few feet around her, but it wasn't useful for much outside of cooling down the environment. At high levels she would be able to turn an entire area into an instant blizzard, but she didn't have the control or power reserves to do that right now.

I tried to get her to "push out" the small storm around her to get the weather working. All it would take was a sudden realization or epiphany and I knew her ability would work, but nothing succeeded. At the end of the day, Thomas called everyone in our group over for some announcements about how the expedition would proceed from here.

"Alright team, for the next few weeks we'll stick to a regular schedule unless asked to deviate. The researchers shouldn't be present often so we will just need to stick around to protect the camp. Each day I'll select two out of the eight of you to take the day off to explore or do whatever you want. Please stay away from the other teams, and for legal reasons I have to ask you to return to camp before dusk.

"If anyone is out too late, I'll send Umbreon after you, and trust me, you won't want that."

Everyone else shivered at the mention of Umbreon, but I didn't. I didn't have the context of living in the Pokémon world my entire life to know why that was so terrifying.

After the announcements, we got our free meals (which was much better than Pokémon Center food, and that was already decent by itself), and turned in for the night. I would have the chance to go through Sea Mauville in two days, so I had training to do before then.

"Has she tried picturing it as water?" Thomas asked me.

"No, we've done most of the possible images already. We even tried to think of it as a third limb, but nothing has been working."

Vulpix continued to try to push to extend the snowstorm around her, but failed to manifest the full on weather condition like her ability called for. Thomas and I were discussing how Vulpix could get her hidden ability to properly activate while we kept watch at the edge of the camp. Only one of the researchers didn’t leave with the other groups, and basically kicked all of us out of the camp, so all of the assistant-level trainers were standing around and had formed a perimeter.

With both Murkrow keeping watch and Swablu learning from Murkrow how to keep watch, Thomas and I could afford to not need to pay full attention to our surroundings. It was unlikely that a Pokémon would go near a human’s camp anyway, and we assistants were mostly here as a backup for emergencies. If a dangerous Pokémon or a swarm approached and we couldn’t scare it away ourselves, we would have to stall and wait for Thomas or one of the other experienced groups to deal with it. Since they didn't expect us to be that competent anyway, I was focusing on helping Vulpix get that one last push to perfect her ability.

Thomas, a Dark Type specialist, had his eyes on getting a Larvitar to raise into a Tyranitar. They were especially rare and expensive Pokémon, but once he properly became an Ace Trainer he could apply to receive one from the League. Since Tyranitar had its own weather-based ability using terrakinesis, he wanted to see how Vulpix perfected hers to help him down the line.

Vulpix stopped looking like a glassless snowglobe by ceasing her weather attempts and trotted up next to me. I sat down on a loose metal tile sticking up and she jumped into my lap. I scratched her behind her ear and thought about how she might tackle the next steps.

"Do you think the concepts of tightening and loosening might work? Maybe something like a hose or a faucet to control the output of her power?" Thomas asked.

Vulpix answered for me by grunting negatively. We tried following some of the visualization advice we found both online and in Old Man Harvey’s journal, but nothing had worked to help her develop her ability. We were missing something, but I couldn’t figure out what.

"Well I'm stumped. Sorry Alex, I can't think of any other ideas to help."

I waved him off.

"It's fine. I think we might be going at this wrong anyway. We have to think outside the box, which is hard to do since we're still firmly inside of it."

Thomas rubbed his chin. "Can Vulpix use her cryokinesis on some ice for us? Maybe seeing that would give us some ideas."

Vulpix hopped off my lap and shot out a weak Ice Beam to create a chunk of ice a feet feet away. She took a few feet back and her eyes flashed dark blue. A piece of the ice separated itself from the rest and started to be slowly reshaped as Vulpix focused on it.

Thomas whistled. "Every time I see your Vulpix I'm impressed just how good her Ice control is."

I stood up and pulled my arms back to stretch before responding.

"Yeah, we've focused on technique and control these last few months over strength. Her attacks might be a bit weaker now, but we'll have plenty of time to develop her power once she evolves."

Vulpix tried to reshape the smaller chunk of ice into a representation of herself, but just ended up with a rough fox-like shape with a large clump in the back rather than a set of tails.

She brought the chunk of ice closer to her before setting it on the ground and circling it. She started chipping off shards as she tried to properly create details on her ice sculpture.

Seeing the ice and thinking about the Ice Beam from earlier gave me an idea.

"Hey Vulpix, can you show me Powder Snow?"

She collapsed the ice sculpture into a flat sheet of ice to let it melt faster then turned around to face the remaining chunk from earlier. She opened her mouth and sent out a wave of snow at it. She looked at me to see if I was satisfied.

"That was good. Could you do Icy Wind now?"

Vulpix opened her mouth and sent out a freezing breeze that caused the loose snow from her previous attack to solidify into ice.

"Great. Now, Aurora Beam."

This time, Vulpix sent out a glowing rainbow beam from her mouth that shattered the ice she had formed. She looked at me curiously after she performed it.

“Finally, use Ice Beam.”

A chilly blue beam shot out of her mouth and refroze all the previously created shards together.

I glanced at Thomas.

"Did you see what I see?"

Thomas looked at Vulpix then back at me.

"Other than the destruction of a poor, innocent ice sculpture at the start, then no. I didn't."

I paused to think about how I should phrase my realization. If I said it correctly, Vulpix's ability might be completed right here and right now.

"Vulpix, when you use your moves, they originate from your mouth, right?"

She nodded.

"But when you use Hail, the move originates in the sky."

She nodded more slowly this time, gears turning in her head.

"When you try to use your ability, you've been originating it in your body and trying to push the snow storm out and away from you. What if instead of originating it inside you, you originate it elsewhere, like with Hail?"

Vulpix's eyes glimmered in realization while Thomas hurriedly reached into his pocket to pull out his own journal full of notes. Vulpix faced the half-melting pile of ice and focused her eyes.

After a few moments, a weaker version of the same snowstorm that had appeared around her formed where she was looking. Slowly, it began to expand out and pretty soon a small area was engulfed in hail.

She stopped focusing and looked at me, all the ice immediately falling to the floor.

"We'll need to work on having it last past the point of you dropping focus, but that's it! You've figured out Snow Warning, Vulpix. Congratulations."

Vulpix yipped then ran forward to jump in my arms. I tried to hold her to pet her, but her tails were wagging so violently and she was shaking in so much excitement, I could barely keep her up.

I set her on the ground and she immediately began jumping around and creating small pockets of snow. Thomas just looked on in amusement, having finished taking notes to help him when he eventually obtained a Tyranitar.

"So now that she has the basics of her hidden ability, are you going to evolve her?" Thomas asked.

I shook my head. "No, we’ll develop her ability to make storms that can engulf an entire battlefield before we do that. I was waiting until we returned to Dewford anyway, so I don’t see a reason to rush it now. Plus, I think she would appreciate a few more days of being small."

Vulpix nuzzled my leg and I bent down to pet her. I released Floette to let Vulpix tell her the good news as they both started to converse excitedly.

We had a few more days to practice while we were stuck around camp, but once we would be given the day off, my team and I would finally have the time to explore Sea Mauville.

When we finally had a day off, we left to search for an entrance to the abandoned residential section of this structure. We didn’t leave until noon since Vulpix and I decided to go back to sleep once all the other groups had woken up and left, which meant we only had the afternoon to explore. I wanted to see if I could find any items, but doubted I would find anything good. However, I was confident that there would be at least one decent item, especially since there were so many of them here in the games. I hoped that whatever I found would be useful for my team.

As we walked through the overgrown park on the surface of Sea Mauville, everyone was out and about. Vulpix walked next to me while Floette rode on her back. Marill stayed in the lead, despite the fact she wasn't actually leading and we were just wandering about randomly to find an entrance. Swablu, having learned about scouting from Thomas’s Murkrow, flew above to keep an eye out.

Swablu chirped to point us in a direction and we reached a ruined metal building that was obscured by vegetation. It was just a small metal box that contained a staircase down. Before we descended, I made sure to test the stairs to check if they could support my weight. This structure was built to last for years, but it had been exposed to the elements for so long it didn't hurt to be careful.

The interior of Sea Mauville was dark and wet from sea water. There were parts of the ceiling worn away and let light in, but the lower floors wouldn't have the same holes. I pulled out my flashlight to give us more light, and to Marill's disappointment, Vulpix led the way.

The area we entered was a hallway within a large ruined office space. Some broken doors on the sides lead to meeting rooms, and there were open cross-sections in the walls where I could see open spaces filled with rotting cubicles. We made sure to avoid large empty spaces since those locations were more likely to contain wild Pokémon. We didn’t want to accidentally step into an aggressive Pokémon’s territory.

I heard the familiar screech of a Zubat in the distance as we pressed forward to find a staircase that would lead deeper into Sea Mauville.

Luckily, the end of the hallway we were in contained an open door leading to a stairwell that connected to the lower floors. Our range of exploration would be limited since the very bottom of Sea Mauville was flooded, but the upper levels of the residential section below us would be dry enough to explore.

We started to carefully climb down the rusted stairs, making sure to go slowly to prevent the whole thing from collapsing. Swablu had the easiest time since he would just fly ahead and find something to perch on and wait for us to catch up.

As I walked past the entrance to the third floor down, the stair I stepped on creaked from my weight. My Pokémon and I immediately froze as we waited for a response. A deep growling emanated from far past the door to that floor, but it didn't get closer so we were safe. Even more carefully now, we continued to push deeper down.

The stairwell had signs that were labeled and showed what the floors had once been for, but many of the specific details were worn away. It was on the fifth floor down that I could just barely make out the sign that stated it was a residential floor. I motioned to the doorway and everyone gathered next to me.

I carefully opened it up and was thankful the hinges didn't creak. Peaking in, I didn't see any wild Pokémon so we proceeded to enter.

Now that we were several stories down, the only light present was the light from my flashlight. None of my Pokémon had a move that could generate light, aside from Floette's Wish, but that didn't last long enough to be useful. This floor was drier than it was on the surface, and it was too deep for the salty breeze to decay the metal.

It felt like we were walking through an abandoned apartment complex, which made this whole exploration feel like something out of a horror movie. This would have been the perfect environment to find a Mimikyu or Klefki, but those species hadn’t been introduced to the region yet, and were two of the species that were being considered to be added based on the results of this expedition. They wouldn’t be present within Sea Mauville until next year at the earliest.

The doors to the apartments were either still intact or had been broken down by wild Pokémon. I was hesitant to enter any of them, but I knew if there were valuable items here it would be within these abandoned living quarters.

I passed by the rooms that had the doors broken down, wary about entering a location claimed by a wild Pokémon. I walked over to the first still intact door and gave Floette a smile. She was uncomfortable from both being inside a metal construction and scared by the spooky atmosphere.

I checked the handle only to find the door was locked, but decided to try to force my way in. I didn't ask Marill to break down the door because while she could do it easily, she would make a lot of noise and could attract wild Pokémon.

I forced the doorknob and braced my shoulder against the door. I pushed with all my might and a sharp crack of something breaking came from the handle. The door swung open from the force, but I still had to push for the last little bit of distance due to the now uneven floor.

The inside of the room was reminiscent of Marty's home. It was a large singular living space with a door leading to a bathroom and another leading into a bedroom. We entered the apartment and looked around. It was pretty cleared out by whoever once lived here, but we dug through what little remained anyway. There were no interesting items or signs of Pokémon, so we moved on.

The next few rooms were similar. The doors were either unlocked or easily forced open, and didn't contain much that was interesting.

After a few more rooms, I realized I could peek into them through cracks in the doors or their keyholes. It wasn’t incredibly useful, but it did let us see if there would be wild Pokémon present before we entered.

At the third door I peeked through, I wasn’t able to see through the keyhole. Usually I could angle the flashlight just right or shine it under the door to give me enough light to see into the room, but this time, all I could see was some kind of red cloth obscuring my vision.

I frowned, thinking there was something blocking the door. I could have had Marill break it down to get past the blockage, but since whatever was past the keyhole was just made out of cloth I was pretty sure I could still force open the door myself.

I once again grabbed the handle and braced myself against the door to push. There wasn’t a cracking sound, but a click like the door was being unlocked before it swung open.

It smoothly opened with my hand still on the handle, causing me to stumble as I lost my balance. I looked up to see into the room and found it was completely spotless. Unlike the other rooms we had entered into, the walls weren’t rusted at all and the floor was in perfect shape. There was only a single piece of furniture within the room, and it was a short bedside table with a small round disc on it. It was purposely set up in the center of the room, where we could all see it easily from our position.

That's a TM. That gold sheen means it's a reusable one, too.

Of course, I didn’t always miss the obvious. Compared to the other rooms, this room was far too clean and the TM was set up in just the perfect way to try to lure us in. Everything about this screamed “trap,” and considering there was a chill in the air and I could see my own breath, I was pretty sure this room belonged to a ghost.

I took a step back to leave the room and looked around at my Pokémon to figure out how to tell them. Everyone seemed to be more curious than anything else, except for Floette who was visibly shivering in fear.

Not wanting to stall and cause her to be afraid any longer, I spoke up to inform my team of our next decision.

"This room is a trap. No one is going in there. We're going to return to the surface and not return to this location, alright?"

I got a quiet collection of eager responses, which, to my surprise, included Marill. Since I was pretty confident this was a Ghost, our best option was to not show signs of fear, leave, and don’t do anything to offend it. Ghosts were tricky and dangerous, and I wanted to make sure to stay away from them as much as I could. I was thankful the Ghost Type specialist forums had a thread pinned to the top of it detailing how to behave in these kinds of situations.

Staying alert, we turned around and walked back towards the staircase we came from, leaving the still open doorway behind us.

We reached it without any paranormal event. I was nervous that the ghost would do something harmful to Floette since she was visibly afraid, but nothing happened at all. I hadn’t explicitly stated it was a ghost to my Pokémon, so she was the only one who thought it was a possibility. When we reached the staircase and started to climb, I don't know why, maybe morbid curiosity, but I received an urge and turned around to check behind us one last time.

On the floor of the hallway a few doors down was a ragged gray doll standing stock still, watching us walk away. It had the same shape and make of the one in my nightmare a few nights ago, but it was clearly different. For a moment I did nothing but stare at it, then realized something bothered me about its eyes. They were made out of the same cloth I saw through the keyhole.

I immediately ran up the staircase to catch up with the rest of my team.

We followed the staircase up to reach the same office hallway and quickly passed through to exit to the surface. No Pokémon bothered us on the way out, so we were able to safely make our way out. My Pokémon seemed to have recognized my nervousness as everyone but Swablu was practically stressed out of their mind. We collapsed onto the ground in the bright afternoon sun, and I reached into my backpack to bring out bowls to fill with water for everyone.

As my hand entered my backpack, I froze.

I grabbed the cold metal object I felt and pulled it out to see what it was.

Despite never picking it up, I clearly held the TM we saw in that room in my hands.

We returned to the camp tired and exhausted. We were only gone for maybe two hours, but I never wanted to get that close to a wild and potentially aggressive ghost ever again. I was thankful that I had been hired as an assistant and not a full-fledged expedition member, since I would have had to enter Sea Mauville and encounter Pokémon like that if I was with the scientists.

The only Pokémon that bothered us on the way back was a Wingull who got annoyed when we strayed too close to its nest.

When I arrived back at camp, I was happy to see that Winston was assigned to keep watch on the opposite side of the area. I was too tired to deal with him if he decided to talk to me.

I returned to my tent only to see that the flap was still open. I clearly remembered closing it this morning and I was still on edge from the recent ghostly encounter. Vulpix stalked forward and I called Floette back and onto my shoulder. She was still freaked out and I wanted to let her calm down. Swablu had perched on my head now that he no longer had to keep watch, and Marill pretended to not still be scared, doing her best to stay calm.

Vulpix walked to my tent and poked her head in. Rather than attacking or jumping back in fear, she came right back out and looked at me, confused.

Floette hopped off and floated down as I approached the tent myself. I pulled back the open flap to reveal that one researcher's Drowzee, just standing in the corner of the tent and staring at the fabric.

It turned to look at me when I made myself known, then calmly walked to the entrance and passed me to exit the tent.

I frowned. I couldn’t do anything about it since it belonged to an Aether Researcher who was in charge of the expedition. I wasn’t happy it was in my tent, but I also had little clue why. All I knew was that the Drowzee definitely knew something was up, and I would have to be even more careful in the future. Maybe Thomas could give me some advice.