"Yo! I got your message!" Big Bee called, as he waded out of the water. He'd spent all day swimming up and down the coast, getting used to the docks and bays and rusted hulks. He hadn't gone out deeper though...thar be dragons. Or Dragon's Den at least! And he didn't want to get sucked into a giant whirlpool. He sluiced the water off his shoulders with several easy movements and approached the nervous Cetoddle.

"Are you scared of swimming, little guy?" he asked. "You look just like a ball, I bet you'll float like a treat!" Big Bee grinned, and sent out Toot his Quaxly. "And this little guy will help you out. He's a great coach and master tactician. Aren't you Toot?"

The little duck was already clambering up Cetoddle. He struggled to find purchase on its spherical body, but once he was stable he whispered words like sweet poison.

"Toot is the one who helped Taka evolve," Big Bee explained. "I'm sure he has all sorts of wonderful sea knowledge. Don't you Toot?" He looked over to see Toot chuckle darkly and keep whispering.

"Oars, oars," Big Bee whispered, looking around for some in the dark. "Uh, I saw some in an old boat when I was swimming around before, but that was way over there." He pointed over to an rusted shack standing on stilts out in the bay. There was some dilapidated boats moored alongside it, and even more empty ropes trailing in the current. A single candle flickered through a broken window.

"I don't really want to swim back though. Being near it gave me the creeps and no way is it a 'night swim'." He chewed his lip. "Oh! We've got it all wrong. We're in a game! We don't need oars, we just need wood!" Bee spotted a loose plank along the shore. A few minutes later and they'd found a second one. He opened up his UI and selected the crafting tab. A few moments later and he was holding two new oars. "How's that for DIY?"

He climbed into the boat, set the oars into their brackets, and paddled out into the gloomy bay. Instantly he felt a tug on the boat, as if it was being drawn along a set path. Maybe it was game design, maybe it was a current, but something about it felt sinister. Bee stopped paddling and the boat coasted to a stop. Somehow that didn't make him feel better.

He picked up the oars again, and as they skulled further away from shore an eerie light emerged from the darkness.

Toot whispered dark secrets into Cetoddle's ear, filling the impressionable young Pokemon's mind with evil thoughts, malicious stratagems, and wicked rumors. An aura of forbidden symbols swirled around the pair, a crawling miasma of truly heinous energies and heavily sullied pathways to powers untouched by the light of heaven.

And all the while the duck just chuckled darkly.

Big Bee rowed hard. He heaved at the oars, trying desperately to keep them at the outer edge of the expanding whirlpool. Sweat and sea spray beaded on his skin, only to be instantly wicked away by his Swimmer powers.

The air turned cold as Bertha shot off a volley of Ice Shards. The blast rocked the boat, and Bee struggled to keep them righted. "Careful! Don't fall in!" he shouted, his words half-swallowed by the thunderous waters beneath them.

The boat rocked, torn between momentum, whirlpool, and the sheer willpower of its oarsman. The ancient metal creaked and complained, and Bee swore as he struggled against the slurp of the creature at the center of the pit.

Bee snuck a quick glance at the beast, but there was only a pair of tiny, grasping arms, and a mouth large enough to swallow them all whole.

Toot's Wormtongue whisperings were cut off as his Théoden was torn away into the depths. Momentarily unseated, he found a new perch on Big Bee's shoulder and began to mutter dark suggestions...

"I'm going in after her," Big Bee said, pulling off his shirt. "I suddenly think it's a really good idea." He didn't have Player powers like Laguna did, but if anyone could navigate the tearing currents of the hungry whirlpool then it was him.

With Toot still on his shoulder he plunged over the side, kicking hard as he rode the whirling currents down the rim of the funnel. His Swimmer subclass made his skin naturally water-repellant, and after a lifetime of swimming in the surf he could feel the difference. The buoyancy was an absolute blessing in such rabid waters, and when he spotted a white figure in the water ahead of him he surged towards it with his powerful strokes. "Hang on Bertha!" he shouted through a mouthful of salt water. "I'm right behind you!"

Whales, humans, and ducks all float. Put any of them in a pond, or shallow water, and they'll bob right to the surface!

But buoyancy is relative, and nothing really floats in a whirlpool. It all just gets pulled. And with Guzzlord defeated, everything that had been sucked in was suddenly unbound.

The released water of the whirlpool whipped Big Bee around, and he grabbed for Bertha's fin in the wash of white foam and chunky debris. "The worst of it is over!" he shouted, salt foam and spittle splashing from his mouth. "Hold on and we'll be fine!"

The crazed waters pulled him under for a last time, and he emerged into a world of streaking lights. A school of Nihilego were floating past with orbs of water or light hanging like hard spheres from their tentacles.

"Whoa! You seeing this Laguna? Where do you think they're taking it? What do they need light for?"

A group of the UBs at the back of the pack had picked up the unconscious Guzzlord and were pulling it through the water towards the distant shore. "Hey! Give that back!" Bee shouted. He tossed a Golden Pokeball at the slow-moving target and hit is dead on. The UB disappeared inside his Pokeball without a splash.

A sigh of relief followed the splashes of water, the slowing whirlpool, Bertha safe and sound. Laguna dropped the oars in the boat, it spinning in place as the Guzzlord floated up to the surface. At least the danger had passed, and they would recover.

The thought briefly crossed her mind that something else would show up to immediately threaten them, but she banished it before she could think it into existence. "Hey! You two alright?"

"Y-yeah! I did it!" Bertha splashed their fins against the choppy waters, immediately nuzzling up against their rescuer. It seemed Big Bee had made a new friend for life for sure.

Laguna sighed happily all over again, grinning ear to ear. It wasn't until she suddenly saw the Nihilego floating past with strange orbs of light that had her jumping straight back up onto her feet. "I do! What... What are they doing with it? Those lights? I'd suggest we follow, but the quest marker is still leading us somewhere. Do you think it has anything to do with their old lore? Like, Necrozma needing light or something? Something I think it's far more complicated than that. Nothing ever is straightforward in this game."

As soon as she witnessed the UB's attempting to drag the one they worked so hard to knock out, Laguna was swift to grab her Pokéball and toss it at the same time. She figured duplicating Pokémon catches was an old glitch, turned "Feature." But it did help prevent people fighting over who got what.

With a twirl of her wand, wind suddenly pushed the boat forwards on the much gentler waters towards others. "Come on, hop back in Bee. I have a feeling stuff isn't quite over yet."

Laguna had been enjoying the peace of the moment, gazing upon the shipwrecks in reverent awe of the past, when Big Bee mentioned his UI was being weird, and it pulled her out of the moment.

She instinctively attempted to open her own UI, only to frown as it seemingly failed to do so. Now that was certainly odd. "Yeah, it's acting weird. Think we're about to like, float into the equivalent of an important cutscene? Something grand to be revealed that we can't miss?"

"... I don't know what they are talking about. What's a cut scene?" Spoke Bertha, looking up at Toot, the duck likely back floating atop its head. They were swimming far more confidently after conquering that threat earlier.

Quiet whispering filled their ears, only making them look more quizzical. "No, no I don't think it has anything to do with actual cutting. But you know, that would make sense."

Laguna slowly stood up, a soft frown forming on their lips as they attempted to look around. Was it danger? Perhaps a friend? New location? "I don't really-"

Her gaze drifted upwards, and her words died on her lips. She said nothing more, slowly reaching up and pointing her hand towards the sky. Nothing she verbally said could explain the awe she felt looking upon it.

A massive spiral formed in the heavens, stars twinkling overhead almost in succession, as if they themselves were aware of their new shape. A spiral in the heavens, twisting and turning down into on itself before a bright central star shone so brightly.