Within her World Progress Alliance base on Kuwahawi's main island (really basically just a clubhouse), with her friends Penny and Rinoa at her sides, Ariel looked down at the faded, worn map in her hands. The Kuwahawi Archipelago was not yet fully studied and understood. One thing or another had come up time and again to keep the archipelago out of the minds of explorers and scientists. Another, closer and larger island, or lack of funding, or bad weather, or any of a million excuses. Civilization was coming to the islands, true, or at least some of them, but it had been remarkably slow, and there were at least a few islands in the vicinity that were not known well at all. These islands were uninhabited by humans - at least as far as anyone knew - and at least one was not even included in some maps. Given modern aerial photography, Ariel didn't understand why...
Regardless, this was all she had to go on. An old map passed down from residents of the mainland, made untold years ago by some ancient mariner. And all they had to say about this mysterious island was 'Here Be Monsters', accompanied by an elaborate sketch of some kind of monster. It looked like some kind of salamander, but with nozzles on its' knees that sprayed water.
"Well, girls, what do you say?" Ariel asked.
"I say we check it out!" Penny exclaimed, smacking a fist into an open palm. "We're likely to find some new species of animals!"
"New species?" Rinoa perked up at that. "Ah... Aye, it doth be true. Islands are known to carry many unique and beautiful creatures seen nowhere else on this planet..."
"Then it's settled. We'll gather our supplies and catch a skiff to this island, scope it out for a few hours, and head right back here to determine where to go from there. No camping, we don't know what kind of trouble could be on that island."
"Sounds like a plan. Let's do it!"
"It promises to be quite the experience."
-----
That had been in the morning. It was now early afternoon, and Ariel and her friends had set off in the direction of the island. It wasn't far, which made it all the stranger that not only was it not on any maps, but despite supposedly being close enough to see from the mainland, Ariel couldn't spot anything.
"This is weird." she mused as Penny steered the skiff and Rinoa looked through a guidebook. "Is this island real? If so, why can't we see it...?"
"Maybe it's just really flat with no trees?" Penny offered.
"Doubtful." said Rinoa, not bothering to remove her face from her book.
"I feel like this is a snipe hunt... waiiiiiit a minute! Up ahead, there! What's that?!"
It was... a shimmering in the air. The area ahead was distorted.
"What's this about?" Penny lifted up the hair that was perpetually covering her eyes, hoping to get a better look.
"Slow down and approach carefully." Ariel ordered.
The skiff puttered to a crawl as Penny gently eased it up to the distorted air. Gingerly, Ariel reached out and touched it.
"...Mist? It's some sort of refractive mist. What on earth...?"
"Should I take us through?"
"I'm starting to understand why no one noticed this island... Take us through."
The skiff plowed into the mist, and the girls felt its' odd damp coolness on their arms and faces. Soon, they made it through to the other side... and there it was. The mysterious unnamed island loomed before them, surrounded by a dome of the odd cloaking mist.
"Land ho! Here Be Monsters Isle has been rediscovered!" Penny cheered.
"Jubilations!"
"Okay, look for a safe place to dock and let's investigate this place... Whew." Ariel wiped her brow. "Is it me or is this island really... humid?"
"It's not just you. Man, this place feels... heavy." Penny stroked her neck, looking around. "What an odd feeling... like my lungs aren't used to this kind of air."
"Hmm... Rinoa, can you use my toxin detector to check the air?"
"Certainly."
Rinoa held up a handheld device about the size and shape of an original model Game Boy and started flipping switches and pressing buttons. This detector was one of Ariel's field tools, which Celestia had aided in developing for her. It was capable of analyzing the air and determining information about its' contents.
And currently, what the screen was displaying made Rinoa's eyebrows rise.
"Oxygen levels are abnormal. Approximately 35%."
"Uh, what's normal for oxygen, again?" Penny asked.
"21%."
Penny and Ariel exchanged glances.
This island definitely had a secret.
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