[Yandere Meowscarada x Reader] I'll Make Them All Disappear!

73 | Hidden Treasure of Area Zero

Penny asked that you make the sandwiches for everyone because you've got such good taste, and that kicks off the second picnic. You've got plenty, enough to make three, maybe four, sandwiches for each person and Pokémon here—including the Eevees.

Nibbling on your sandwich, you crack open that Violet Book Penny made a big deal about. She points something out on the front cover—the black shape of a creature gazing off at a sketched gold border sitting above plump, faded letters (symbols, really) that are indecipherable to you. She taps a finger on the artwork, says how it's a Pokémon and not just some creature the author decided to throw haphazardly into the cover to try and capture an easier audience.

"Miraidon," Penny says. "Legendary Paradox Pokémon, born right outta Area Zero, or at least I think so. Something like the futuristic successor to Cyclizar, if you've seen those around."

You give a nod. "People ride them around Paldea like cars. It's actually pretty weird, the way they're used and reused like rental bicycles."

"You think so? That's pretty normal for Paldeans. If it's convenient, we use it." She coughs. "Although, yeah, now I kinda see how it's a little strange, but mostly to outsiders. Anyway, getting off topic. Miraidon was said to be Area Zero's treasure a long time ago, but if you read a few pages in—"

Penny scoots closer to you until your shoulders are uncomfortably inseparable, and palms the page with speed only a real fanatic could conjure. She rips over to a seemingly random page, but its contents capture your eye immediately. A photograph, but not just any photograph—a picture taken from within the depths of Area Zero. Underbrush crawls along the borders of the photo, gray in color, but you figure the real Area Zero would be nothing short of bustling with vibrant greenery, thriving on surreal life.

It almost looks like a jungle, or a rainforest. The way girthy vines hang from the top of the photograph lead you to believe this is a whole other region, not a crater in Paldea, no one has set eyes on before. Tucked behind the motionless green arms of Mother Nature is a monster, a goliath of steel, which looks modeled after a Donphan, though far more terrifying of a beast than that creature could ever be.

"Iron Treads," says Penny, with that enlightened smile on her face. "Big hunky metal roller. Would kill you in an instant if you crossed it."

"That thing's down there?"

"Probably. That's not even the worst thing there, man. Cross the wrong hunk of steel and you're dead."

"Wow." You force an unsatisfied grin. "Thanks for making me even more excited to go." Sarcasm. You train your eyes on the written entry off to the right of the photograph:

Monsters of Area Zero
— A member of the survey team captured this photograph by chance. I notice a passing resemblance to the Pokémon known as Donphan, yet differences such as its texture and the way it moves suggest it is biologically separate—to say nothing of its treads of iron.