On top of a cliff, 3 pokémon trainers along with Lazarus and a few pokémon are looking down at the crater below them, they are dressed in lightweight trainer gear and wearing a visor over their eyes.
"Guess that's where the pokémon we didn't see around went," Lazarus says.
Jacob frowns. "The researchers came here to collect soil samples, right? How did they miss this?"
"Isn't it your job to notice things like this?" Lazarus replies, "And they didn't come here, they went inside the volcano."
Jacob turns to Seth and asks, "How many corpses do you think there are? Did you take a closer look yet?"
Seth shakes his head, "No, I was waiting for you guys to arrive, but I estimate the number is a little more than thirty,"
Jacob lets out a whistle, "The pokémon here might be weak, but something capable of killing that many pokémon must be powerful."
Seth gives him an annoyed expression before turning to Lazarus, "Did you report this to your father?"
Lazarus replies, "Not yet, I will send him the full report later." Then points at the carcasses of dead pokémon scattered below them, "When we find out what did all this."
David narrows his eyes, "Do you think it was a Dragon pokémon. I think maybe we should also consider the possibility as well. Maybe one decides to come out of the inner areas. Got bored or something. It's not outside the realms of possibility."
Seth shakes his head at that, "Doubt it. What would a Dragon pokémon even do here? This place can't sustain them, and I am pretty sure they have better things to do than kill weak pokémon and not even eat them afterwards.
So it is probably a group of pokémon, that got bored and decided to wander around rather than one individual pokémon."
"But why do it? Why kill this many pokémon?" David asks, "Seeing how many carcasses are left behind. I don't think whatever killed them wanted to eat."
"It could be a territorial thing," Lazarus says before he reaches into his backpack and grabs a camera.
Seth replies, "I don't think so. Territorial wars don't cause pokémon to migrate out of the area. It just changes who rules it. And then it's business as usual."
Jacob smiles, "Let's not discount the possibility that David is right. What are the chances that a really powerful pokémon came here from outside The Fumelands? This place is pretty close to the White Ocean after all."
Seth thinks for a moment before answering, "It's possible, but it would have gone deeper into the Fumelands. No reason for a pokémon of that caliber to loiter around a place that can't even provide it with enough resources.
And we have been here for a couple of weeks now. If there was a pokémon like that here, we would have seen it by now."
Lazarus snaps a dozen pictures of the site, "Let's go take a closer look."
Seth turns to look at Lazarus, "Yes, we will. But you are not coming with us."
"What!" Lazarus scoffs at Seth, "Why not?"
"What do you mean 'why not'. It's dangerous, and last I checked, you are not a registered pokémon trainer."
"Someone needs to man the drones. And Last I checked, I am the only one here with experience in that." Lazarus shrugs, "And I am kind of the project leader here."
"And I am the chief of security. You don't have any say in how I do things. Your father hired us to protect you. He won't be happy if I put you in danger. And I really happen to like this job. Besides you can man the drones from inside the outpost."
"I can take care of myself, you know that, and besides, Dad wouldn't have sent me here if he didn't think I could handle myself," Lazarus retorts back.
Seth pats him on his shoulder, "Kid. Go do whatever you are supposed to be doing inside the labs, and leave these kinds of things to the professionals."
"Come on, boss, let him come. Don't we have to prove that we are way cooler than the researchers he hangs around every day?" Jacob flashes a smile at Lazarus, who gives him a thumbs-up.
David also decides to add his own opinion to the mix, "I vote to let him come as well. It's not every day you get the opportunity to investigate an exciting mystery."
"We are not voting on anything, but fine," Seth says and then sighs, "You can come, but you will follow every single one of my orders while we are here."
"Yes, sir," Lazarus smiles while doing a mock salute. "I shall follow your every command. I will risk my life for the greater good of humanity if need be. I swear to uphold the sanc—"
Seth sighs again "No need to be that dramatic."
—
"Found another one," David says, his visor turned into a helmet to keep the stench from the rotting pokémon corpses from assaulting him.
He surveys the remains of a dead pokémon with burnt orange fur, "An Arcanine, with the same wounds as all the other pokémon."
"How many is that now?" Seth asks, "And roughly how much time do you think has passed since they died?"
David replies as he checks the injuries on the Pokémon carcass, "Thirty-six so far. And judging by the decay of their flesh, it's been around three months since they died. Most of the pokémon have their flesh melted.
Whatever killed them did so with a scorching heat blast, hot enough to fuse their limbs together.
And the real crazy part is that the attack didn't even hit them directly. These pokémon died from just the heat alone."
David walks a couple of steps and picks something up from the ground. "The attack also managed to vitrify parts of the soil."
Seth sighs as he eyes the glassy crystal in David's hand. "Most fire pokémon here aren't strong enough to do this. I hate to say it, but we are dealing with pokémon from the inner regions here. I just hope we don't get to see it or them."
"I'm gonna have to disappoint you there, Chief," Seth hears Jacob yell out from a distance.
Seth and David turn to see Jacob walking towards them with Lazarus following behind, holding a drone controller in his hands.
"Take a look at this," Lazarus says as he hands the controller to Seth, "This is kilometers away from here."
Seth takes a look at the shaky drone footage on the small monitor and sees a giant cave entrance that looks too artificial to have been created naturally, with even more pokémon corpses scattered around it.
Seth hands the drone monitor back to Lazarus, "David, go and grab a couple more drones from the outpost, we need to see what's inside there. And get some camera harnesses for pokémon as well."
Lazarus looks at him with surprise, "Do you want to send your pokémon inside the cave? Is there a need for that? I think the drones will be more than enough."
Seth replies, "We may encounter pokémon inside the cave that will attack the drones if they see them.
And we need to be quick, because if our mystery pokémon is inside there then it's probably sleeping right now.
So we take some pictures, identify the pokémon and get out of there as fast as we can. Then we send a report to your father before an ash cloud fucks with our communication relays again."
Lazarus looks curious, "What makes you think the pokémon inside is sleeping right now?"
"If it weren't sleeping, it would have made its presence known to us by now." Seth replies, "So it's either not here anymore or it's hibernating.
It's breeding season right now. Maybe some pokémon decide to nest here for some reason.
Which also explains all these dead pokémon. Whatever did this probably wanted to make the place safe for its egg to hatch in peace."
—
Some time later.
Hundreds of meters away from the crater, inside a temporary tent made of heat and fire-resistant material.
Lazarus sits at the end of a table, and looks at the dozen of drone feeds on his laptop screen.
"Is the drone setup done?" Seth asks, looking at Lazarus.
Next to Seth is a canine pokémon with black fur and curved gray horns on its head.
Lazarus nods, "Yeah, I am good to go."
The drones are equipped with a 360-degree camera, four retractable rotors made entirely out of a lightweight alloy for silent flight and high mobility.
Lazarus types a few lines of command on the terminal, "I'll send some of the drones to check other sides of the mountain for anything out of the ordinary and send the other half inside the cave."
Outside the tent. The drones rise in the air making a faint buzzing noise, before dividing into two groups, and then each group heads in a different direction.
"Alright, what about you guys?" Seth turns to ask David and Jacob.
"Yeah, I'm done," Jacob replies as he tightens the last strap on the neck of a dark brown bipedal, mole-like pokémon with huge arms with three blades instead of fingers.
A small camera sits just below the pokémon's neck, locked in with magnetic clamps.
"Same," David says, standing next to two of his pokémon.
One of them is a quadrupedal pokémon with a huge black shaggy mane and a four-pointed yellow star at the end of its long, thin black tail, the camera resting on its chest.
Another one is a bipedal humanoid pokémon with blue clown-like hair extending from its pale pink head.
"Alright, make the psychic link and send them out," Seth nods, as he unclips a pokéball, and releases a yellow pokémon with pointy ears, a long nose, and a pendulum in one hand.
Seth pats his Hypno on its head and tells it to create a psychic link between the two of them and include the Houndoom sitting next to Seth into the link as well.
Jacob and David also establish a psychic link with their pokémon before sending them out.
David does this through his Mr. Mime, and Jacob through his Swoobat, a psychic bat-like pokémon with a pink heart-shaped snout flying outside, just above the tent, keeping watch.
The Houndoom and Luxray waste no time and run towards the cave entrance at full speed.
'Quarry, drill through the ground and follow them.' Jacob telepathically conveys his thoughts to his Excadrill, made possible by the psychic link.
Minutes later, Houndoom and Luxray reach the cave entrance and wait for Excadrill to arrive.
They don't have to wait long, as minutes later, Excadrill joins the two pokémon by digging out of the ground.
In front of three pokémon is a huge cave entrance with rotting pokémon corpses scattered around it.
This sight is projected back to the tent where Lazarus and the others watch everything on a monitor.
"I'm sending the drones in first," Lazarus says as he directs the drones to go inside the cave entrance one by one.