[attr="class","aurelie"]

[attr="class","aurelie_body"]As they continued walking side by side down the sloping path into the caverns, Aurelie smiled softly and nodded at the other Rocket's response. The redhead had to admit, the other woman presented a rather intriguing and impressive puzzle, with her melodic Galarian accent, impeccable ramrod-straight posture, and studious, intellectual diction. Was she soldier, scholar, or possibly both?

Aurelie knew perfectly well that she herself was neither. Like the ordinary grunt she was, she answered lightly and forthrightly, "As a matter of fact, I do have a tera orb and several tera crystals of my own. I helped conduct initial testing on some early samples too.

"There's still so much that we don't know about them, though, or about the terastallization process as a whole," she mused aloud, pursing her lips thoughtfully. "So, I wouldn't be surprised if the organization's scientists are down here as well to conduct field research and collect more samples."

Hearing the woman's last question, Aurelie raised an eyebrow and chuckled. "Yes, I'm a metalsmith. So, I'm always interested in learning more about new materials and substances, not to mention how they can be put to use. You can never have too many test samples, right?"

She turned to flash a warm smile at the other woman, only to stumble as one of her feet caught on a rock. Instinctively, Aurelie reached out to catch herself. What she didn't expect was the sharp zap and spark of pain as her hand brushed the electrified threads of a massive Galvantula web stretching across the path in front of them.

"Ow!" she exclaimed, pulling back hastily and rubbing her hand as she stared up. The web covered nearly the entire span between the cave walls. "What the heck? How do we get past that?"

Hissing softly in pain, Aurelie glared at the humming, electricity-infused web and pulled out a Pokeball, releasing her Armarouge. She cradled her hand and addressed the Pokemon with a grim smile. "What do you say we burn our way through this thing?"

[attr="class","cred"]VEL OF PIXEL PERFECT

[attr="class","aurelie"]

[attr="class","aurelie_body"]Still hissing a little from the pain of the electrical burn, Aurelie waved her hand in the air to cool it and pulled a small bottle of BURN HEAL from her backpack. While her Armarouge and Ameena's Espathra tore through the electrical webbing with flame and flashes of light, the redhead sprayed the BURN HEAL on her skin and sighed in relief as it gradually mended the damage.

"That's a lot better!" she exclaimed with satisfaction, inspecting her skin for any remaining traces of redness. "I know we're expected to run into dangers down here, but I would've hated getting seriously injured for tripping over a rock in the dark!"

Falling face-first into a fully electrified web definitely sounded like something that would cause serious injuries. Aurelie gratefully flashed a thumbs-up at her Armarouge as it fired off a final FLAMETHROWER blast. After checking warily for any sign of the Galvantula itself and seeing nothing, she stepped through the breach, this time carefully watching where she put her feet.

The redhead frowned and shrugged when the other woman noted how odd it was for a Galvantula to live here. Aurelie had never even visited the Silent Icelands before the Kyurem battle, let alone these mysterious areas below it, so she had no idea what natural disasters the area might be prone to. When Ameena then returned to the topic of tera crystals, though, Aurelie pursed her lips thoughtfully.

"Well, originally, tera crystals were spread all over Hoenn when the meteor, 99943 METENO, was broken apart in the atmosphere by...Rayquaza, I think." Her brow furrowed as she tried to recall the events from a year and a half ago.

"But...more recently? I know some tera crystals also fell from the Megalopolan spaceship that was under Route 119 when we were flying it, but I didn't think it was that many," she mused aloud.

"I don't think that accounts for this sudden outburst of crystals everywhere. It's definitely not just a funny quirk of the region, though. It seems more...ominous than that."

Aurelie would have continued further, but at that moment, a harsh, blood-curdling roar echoed from deep within the caverns below. The sound made every hair stand up on the back of her neck, and her Armarouge hesitated and peered down into the darkness curiously.

What could possibly be down there that's making that sound? she wondered nervously. Did we alert it to our presence somehow? Or was the noise completely unrelated to us?

"Did you hear that?" she asked in a low voice, turning toward Ameena. "I heard a cry that sounded like a Pyroar, if it was magnified a hundred times into a Dynamax-sized beast!"

[attr="class","cred"]VEL OF PIXEL PERFECT

[attr="class","aurelie"]

[attr="class","aurelie_body"]Aurelie smiled, pleased to hear Ameena agreeing that the tera crystals' sudden, explosive growth across Hoenn must have some other cause or reason behind it. Then she nodded thoughtfully when the other woman—who she was realizing must be a scientist or scholar of some kind, judging from her language and thought process—spoke of her own experiences with Megalopolans.

"Are you talking about Lesser Megalopolis?" Aurelie asked curiously. "I've been meaning to visit that world myself at some point with Dr. Naomi Sato. Are there Megalopolans living there? Do they try to..."

She mimed taking a bite of something and pointed at the other woman. An embarrassed flush rose over her cheeks, especially when Ameena didn't exactly bear any visible bite marks or wounds of that sort. Aurelie grinned self-deprecatingly—an expression that drained at the sound of the deep roar.

"Ha, I don't think I'd want to confront a Pyroar bare-handed," she said, wincing at the idea of not having a knife, sword, or hammer in that situation. "But I agree, I really don't want to go up against whatever that was!"

Shuddering as the last echoes of that unearthly cry died away, Aurelie shook her head. Backing off from the edge of the sloping pathway, she instead eyed Ameena's supplies speculatively.

"I think you're right about it being a good idea to not travel deeper without better equipment," she agreed, pursing her lips. "Can I ask—what equipment did you bring? Do you have a camera? Or an energy-monitoring device?

"I have some rope and coils of wire in here," and she gestured to her backpack, where she had already stashed away her healing spray. "I'm wondering if we might be able to rig the camera or monitor to the end of a rope or wire, lower it down to where that noise came from, and pick up some data that way? But you know, at a safe distance."

If Ameena hadn't brought a camera, Aurelie supposed that they could probably use one of their phones, if they had to. She didn't want to stop here without learning any more, but...she also didn't want to go charging down there right now either. This was all she could think of as a middle ground.

[attr="class","cred"]VEL OF PIXEL PERFECT

[attr="class","aurelie"]

[attr="class","aurelie_body"]"Yup, they're definitely cannibals," Aurelie confirmed when the other woman expressed surprise about the Megalopolans' grisly eating habits. "I didn't believe it either at first. But when you see one gnawing on human bones or approaching you with saliva trickling from their mouth, it becomes all too easy to believe."

The redhead nodded attentively when Ameena spoke of her energy reader, only to be cut off abruptly by a sharp cry from the Espathra. Seconds later, the earth began rumbling and shaking all around them. Aurelie let out a disbelieving gasp and smacked her palm against her forehead.

"What the hell? An earthquake?" she exclaimed in dismay, hopping to one side as a crack started opening up between her feet. "As if things haven't been weird enough already!"

Thankfully, Ameena was staying much calmer and more level-headed. Listening to her reasoning, Aurelie nodded vigorously in agreement. "Yeah, you're right. We need to get out fast, or we're going to be crushed and buried down here!"

Ducking to avoid a shower of pebbles raining down from above, the redhead turned to her Armarouge. "Can you help clear a path by blasting any debris with FLAMETHROWERs? And be ready to shoot an ARMOR CANNON if too much comes down on us at once!"

With that, Aurelie reached unthinkingly for Ameena's hand and spun around on her heel. Gritting her teeth, she began running back up the path toward the entrance to Area Zero, weaving and dodging as more stalactites came crashing down around them. Blasts of flame shot to either side as the Armarouge helped burn through obstacles and hazards, making the scene even more chaotic.

Even in the tumult, though, Aurelie froze for a second when she heard a powerful, reverberating growl echoing from alarmingly close by. A cavern wall behind them suddenly crumbled into rubble, and for an astonished second, she thought she caught a glimpse of something shadowy, immense, and very swift, leaping past. Then she blinked and it was gone, replaced by tumbling boulders.

She gave herself a fierce shake and turned back to escaping. Large and scary as that mysterious creature might be, it too seemed more worried about the earthquake than them. At this point, Aurelie was more worried about the earthquake too.

"We must be getting near the entrance, right?" she huffed breathlessly, clutching a hand to her side as she felt a stitch developing. "We can't be that far away by now!"

[attr="class","cred"]VEL OF PIXEL PERFECT