December 12, Fog Island.
The fog-shrouded waters lay south of the Sinnoh Region, so the weather was a little warmer than in Jubilife City.
Li Wei had traveled south from the coast of Twinleaf Town to meet up with Steven, Cynthia, and the others.
These once-peaceful waters had been swallowed for days by fog so dense it seemed almost solid.
The island was lush with towering trees, and at its center lay a lake more than five kilometers across.
On maps of Sinnoh, it was called Mirror Lake.
But Mirror Lake was nowhere near as famous as Lake Valor, Lake Acuity, and Lake Verity. After all, legends said the Lake Guardians lived in those three lakes.
Mirror Lake simply preserved its ancient landscape, much like Mt. Coronet in the Sinnoh Region.
Later surveys of the Mt. Coronet Foothills had even uncovered Shieldon, a Pokémon confirmed to be extinct and thought to be obtainable only by reviving fossils.
Protecting the original landscape also meant protecting the ecosystem and the habitats of wild Pokémon.
That was why neither the Kanto nor the Sinnoh League had developed the island, choosing instead to leave it to wild Pokémon, just as they had with Mt. Coronet.
Li Wei, Cynthia, and the others landed on the island.
The vegetation was unusually massive and ancient, and the air was damp. The fog was thinner here, but an unsettling atmosphere still hung over everything.
Seen from above, Mirror Lake at the island's center resembled an enormous, bottomless black mirror, reflecting distorted tree silhouettes and the gray sky.
Mirror Lake should have been clear enough to see the bottom.
The lake, more than five kilometers across, and the island itself had been completely sealed off by the strange fog blanketing fifty kilometers of sea.
More troubling still, Lt. Surge