The silence and darkness enveloped the duo like an impenetrable haze, as they delved further and further into the cavern. Hidden away from the rest of the world, far beyond the beaten path, unable to be found aside from those who had already been gifted with that knowledge. It almost felt like they were passing into the realm of the dead, as the blackness around them grew colder...and colder...and colder...
"Have you found it?"
The familiar voice echoed around them, emanating from seemingly every angle. A pair of icy blue eyes flashed into sight behind the hood of a ghostly white robe, giving a dim hue to the bare rock walls around them, revealing the statuesque figure of a Froslass hovering a couple of inches from the ground, staring straight into the souls of the two new arrivals.
"Yes," the Kingdra replied with a calm nod. "Straight from the laboratory."
The Aerodactyl, meanwhile, silently strode forward, handing over a bundle of papers, allowing an eerie purple glow to wrap around the edges of them. Within a second, those same papers were gently floating up to meet the eyes of the Froslass.
After a moment or two had passed, the Ice-type simply reading in silence, the Kingra chose to speak up. "Are you sure this is going to help us?"
The only answer she received was a deep, threatening snarl from the imposing wall of a Bastiodon right at the back of the cave.
The next few minutes passed in the same unsettling quiet as the journey through the cavern had been, with the three others not daring to interrupt, simply standing and watching the Froslass inspecting the papers with her usual chilling gaze. "They would never have known what they had," she pondered in her ethereal, disembodied voice.
The Aerodactyl and the Kingdra glanced over at one another, each remaining in their chosen, regimented stance, despite the growing sting of the frigid air in the cavern. They had both tried on occasion to fathom a little more of the mind of the cryptic spectre before them, her mystifying musings, her labyrinthine logic, but neither had been able to piece together anything more than what little she had been willing to reveal.
They didn't even know if she had a name.
The lifeless glow of the cave drew on, time itself seeming to fade into the stillness, before the papers steadily floated upwards into the air a little. "This is perfect," rang the voice of the Froslass once again.
The Kingdra gave another respectful nod in acknowledgement. "So is that everything you needed?" she asked. "Are we ready?"
Without warning, a brilliant, ethereal blaze of pink flame engulfed the professor's research, swallowing it up and turning it into nothing but ashes scattered upon the cold stone of the ground.
The Froslass' gaze remained unmoving. "We're ready."
