It was clear from the start that they were being watched.

Aegis had taken those first couple steps on his own, but he was soon tugging on his pants, begging to be carried. Anywhere else, Kallisto would've refused, and the penguin would've never asked for such a thing anyway, but here, he obliged, lifting the Pokemon and letting his flippers flop over his arms. The gesture comforted the little Pokemon a tiny bit, but now that they were in contact, the man could tell his partner was trembling.

But there were no eyes, only endless gray land and sky. There were no signs on where to continue walking, so Kallisto just moved forward; the stale air disquieting him.

<They're...they're looking...>

He hushed the penguin, but it had no force behind it. ❝I know, but they have yet to show themselves.❞

Speak of the devil.

Something bubbled in the horizon, but it looked like tar, gooey and pitch black. From afar, it seemed tiny, but it quickly grew in size, elongating and shifting, taking shape into something familiar and yet not quite. A silhouette of a person with its back turned, but it...it moves...

And it was only then that Kallisto realized that they were surrounded by the tar-like creatures, all humanoid in shape, all with their back turned but wriggling, unable to stand still. Looking like they would turn around at any moment, and it made his heart pound, because it could be anything on the face, or on the body...

a̵̢̽̀n̶̞͝ͅg̵̮͆e̴̜̔͆l̸̥̳͊̒,̷͓̙́̈ ̷͚͛d̶̳̈́e̸̹͂͛a̵̭̼̿͐ŕ̷̲͖ ̸̺̒̈́ȁ̵̟̞n̸̪̥̅g̴̻͆͜͝e̴̪̐ͅl̴͙̣̽

Whispers crawled and prickled his skin. They were so dangerously close to using his real name that he couldn't move. How...

<Master! Master, they're..!>

They all turned, backs straight, and suddenly they had form. They were...terrifyingly familiar.

AEGIS - 200/300

A strong gust of wind made Kallisto stop in his tracks; he had no choice but to use one of his arms as a shield while he narrowed his eyes. Aegis yelped, feeling an onrush of leaves, but there was no such thing in front of them -- it was like the silhouette of leaves hitting them, so they were black like shadows, covering the originally gray space to something darker. Immediately, it felt colder; the environment then giving way to the gnarled trees that the player thought he saw before they stepped in. Kallisto desperately thought it was the game just buffering -- any grasp that he could take that tried to comfort him, but it didn't help that the last time he dreamed that dream was just last week. It still hung over him, and he wondered if that was how the game managed to obtain the information (or again, maybe he was projecting; he couldn't tell which were illusions and which were truly a part of the game, or wasn't everything part of it?)

There was a clear sky and a clear ground this time, dry and cracked like an arid plain. Black trees dotted the landscape, none with leaves, many of them clustering to show that this was once a forest. Once again, there was a feeling of being watched, but it didn't take long for them to figure out where it was coming from. A few minutes of meandering in wasteland led them straight to a large, beast-like void, hanging from the trees like a giant spider or a swath of vines.

Two red eyes twinkled underneath all of the plant-like matter. Kallisto cautiously guessed that it might be a Pokemon, since this was a Pokemon game, after all.

Y̶o̶u̷ ̵s̶e̷e̶k̷ ̶t̵h̴e̸ ̸w̸a̷y̵ ̷o̷u̴t̴,̶ its voice grates his ears, making him flinch. E̴m̶b̶r̵a̶c̷e̷ ̴m̷e̷

<No way, we're going to beat you! Let me at 'em, Master!>

He hugged Aegis tighter, not wanting to let go of him this time, ❝I don't think this is a boss we can beat.❞

E̵̗̳͑̿̔͒m̴̞̣͇͈̀̏͊ͅb̸̜̖͐r̸̡̡̻͈͗̈̍̔a̷̢͈̜͔̤͗͛́͑͠c̵̰̃̈́͗͒͛ͅȇ̸̼̪̔ͅ ̶̢̌̀̾m̶̛̘̓̀̂̄e̶͈̊̋̕̕

Finally, he felt like he could tell his legs to move again. There was no way he was sticking around here, so he turned and ran.

AEGIS - 100/300

Darkness.

No, was he out of Mistra? But where was here? Where was Aegis? Something didn't feel right. His body, whose body? Kallisto's? Alexander's? Remmiel's? It took all of his strength to move a single step, and in that step he saw the grass underneath his feet turn into tar. Or was this foot? Was his foot...melting? That was the avatar he designed though, for certain, or the design that was given to him by the producer in charge of the stream company. His hands felt so, so cold.

But a part of him kept telling him he needed to move. He was not going to make it out of here until he did. Keep...moving...even if he became a puddle, which seemed like was going to be his fate in this empty world. Keep moving. Keep...

In front of him was a lake, water so still that it looked like glass. At this point, he had lost feeling in his legs and had resorted to crawling on the ground. If he looked around, he saw the environment around him becoming black, becoming tainted.

When he reached the edge, he...

He screamed. He thought he screamed, he wanted to scream. He couldn't, for everything was melting, melting, exposing a nightmarish scrawl underneath.

AEGIS - 0/300

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