Tapu Koko left in a hurry and returned just as quickly, holding a few black feathers.
"These look very familiar," Roy remarked.
Tapu Koko threw the feathers to the ground angrily.
"Koko!"
"So it was those little troublemakers! Just wait—I'm going to teach them a lesson!"
Roy thought to himself: Why does that sound familiar?
That doesn't sound like something a righteous guardian would say.
Roy kept these thoughts to himself, but on the surface he maintained an expression of righteous indignation.
"That's right! Let's go find them and get payback!"
Tapu Koko looked puzzled. "Koko?"
"Aren't we going together?"
Roy spread his hands innocently. "We don't have any deep grudge against them."
"Koko?"
"Wouldn't trying to kill you count as a deep grudge?"
Roy looked embarrassed. He couldn't very well say he wanted Tapu Koko to get revenge for him, could he?
So Roy found himself reluctantly convinced, sitting on Salamence's back and surrounded by Lucario and Mimikyu.
Of course, there was also Tapu Koko, their strongest ally.
"Where are we going?"
"Koko Koko."
"I asked the Lycanroc pack. They said they've seen Murkrow at Poni Meadow recently."
Roy nodded. The name Poni Meadow sounded familiar, but he couldn't quite remember where he'd heard it before.
"Then let's head to Poni Meadow."
Salamence raised its head high and roared loudly. Feeling the temperature of the air currents, it instantly spread its blood-red wings.
They traveled in silence. Actually, Roy had only wanted to investigate the mist at first.
Who could have known things would spiral this far? The matter of the mist still hadn't been clarified, and now problems were popping up like mushrooms after rain.
It was completely overwhelming.
It was already pitch dark outside. The plants in Poni Meadow were very lush, though most of them were shrubs and not very tall.
But in the pitch darkness, only being able to hear the sounds around him was still somewhat frightening.
At this moment, Roy was grateful he hadn't brought Ninetales along.
Otherwise, Ninetales was so timid it probably would have retreated into its Poké Ball in fright.
Tapu Koko's body emitted a faint glow, illuminating some of the path ahead.
Poni Meadow wasn't a very large area, so aside from one cave that seemed particularly suspicious, they had already searched most other places.
Of course, they hadn't made this decision hastily.
The main reason was that the area around this cave had the most black feathers scattered about.
Tapu Koko and Roy exchanged glances, and it was Tapu Koko who relied on its own light to lead the way.
Roy crouched on Mimikyu's shoulder, indicating it would be in charge of scouting ahead.
Roy patted Mimikyu's head in praise.
"Kyu~"
"No problem~"
To be honest, in Roy's eyes, this cave was much better than being outside.
Although there was no light at all in the first passage, after turning a corner and walking a few more steps, he discovered that torches were placed at intervals along both walls of the cave.
Roy inspected these torches carefully and found they were made with fuel oil and cloth that could burn for extended periods.
"Alola still produces cloth after all this time?"
Tapu Koko, who was walking ahead, felt much more comfortable now that they had light, but it didn't care about these details.
So it was surprised to hear Roy mention this suddenly.
"Koko?"
"Why would they?"
"These crafts haven't existed in Alola since human civilization disappeared."
Roy nodded, showing he understood.
Another mystery...
During all his time in Alola's spiritual realm, he had never seen this kind of plant-based material.
Roy frowned and continued walking behind Tapu Koko.
After going around a few turns, Roy found that the terrain here was actually quite simple.
Go straight from the entrance and you'd reach a platform. From this platform, you could see four different passages branching out.
They had just chosen one of these passages, but when they reached the end, they found it was a dead end with no other exits at all.
So now they were retracing their steps.
Roy observed that about halfway down, these torches appeared, and the torches extended all the way to the end of the dead end.
In this passage, aside from some sparkling blue ore deposits, there were no Pokémon.
Roy touched the rock walls on either side of the passage.
"This doesn't look like it was excavated by hand."
Tapu Koko didn't seem concerned, because Poni Island usually fell under Tapu Koko's management.
And Tapu Koko had very loose jurisdiction over the Pokémon on Poni Island, following the principle that everything was nature's choice. Except for critical moments, it normally wouldn't emerge.
Tapu Koko usually had many responsibilities—not only managing its own island, but also because of its surveillance network, there were more things to worry about.
Also, because Alola was in the process of merging with the regular world, Tapu Koko, as Alola's "representative," was also responsible for dealing with those troublesome human officials.
It was truly exhausting.
"Koko."
"Maybe some Pokémon just wanted to live here and made this place their home."
When Roy heard Tapu Koko say this, he didn't worry about it too much.
But looking at the tooth marks on the rock walls, Roy still felt somewhat uneasy.
Occasionally, there was the sound of water dripping onto the ground.
Combined with the sound of only Roy's footsteps echoing, this place suddenly felt rather eerie.
The return trip was safe and uneventful, and it didn't take long to get back to the platform.
Aside from the one passage they'd explored, the other three passages remained unvisited. At a glance, they were just dark openings. It was unclear whether they would have light inside like the first one did.
After Tapu Koko suggested it would be faster to split up, Roy chose the passage directly behind the first one they'd explored.
Tapu Koko entered the passage opposite to the one Roy had chosen.
They agreed that if any abnormalities were found, Lucario would be responsible for alerting the other.
Lucario tapped its chest to show it had this under control.
This passage was basically no different from the first one. It started as a pitch-black tunnel where you couldn't see your hand in front of your face.
However, such an environment was good news for Mimikyu.
After walking for a while, Roy felt they should be at about the same position as in the previous passage, but he still hadn't found any trace of light.
"Is there no light here?"
Roy continued walking in the darkness.
He didn't know if it was because of humanity's innate fear of the dark, but Roy's heart was pounding like a drum.