The elevator doors hissed open. I walked into the lab, but the room felt different. Mable was there, frantically typing, but I barely saw her. My eyes were locked on the massive monitor at the end of the room.
The silhouette of Giovanni sat in his leather chair. The ember of his cigar pulsed like a dying star in the dark.
"You look like you've seen a ghost, Landon," Giovanni rumbled over the speakers. His voice was a rich, dark mahogany, completely devoid of warmth. "Did Emma tell you about the ZZ? About the thing that turned my world into static?"
I stood in front of the screen, my bare feet anchored to the cold floor. "You've seen the ZZ system," I said, my voice steady despite the chaos in my head. "An Endbringer."
"I watched it peel the sky away like old wallpaper," Giovanni replied smoothly. A puff of smoke drifted across the screen. "I had a Mega Mewtwo Y at my side, and it didn't even matter. That is why you are here. You have access to both sides of your system, and you are still holding control over the Necrozma infection. Your PP System is a Paradise type. It is meant to preserve. But if you don't learn to control the Penultimate Primordial infection within that system, you won't be the one who preserves this world. You'll just be the next letter in the sequence of our destruction."
I pulled up a chair and sat down, my jaw set. I now understood the Drafted's part, but there was so much more that I didn't get.
"What exactly do you know? And what makes you think that I won't just end up like the others?" I asked, and Giovanni gave me a small smile.
"What I know is a list neither of us has time to listen to, but I will tell you this. Your little decade long hibernation might be your saving grace. Then your time working on creating a paradise for the pokemon you have caught, like that Feebas. These… Systems that you gain are often gained by children that are unable to fully utilize them, and they end up losing people they care about. That voice you hear from deep within you? That is the echo of Necrozma's persona. A twisted version of… something," Giovanni explained before taking another long drag of his cigar. "Whatever it is, it has to be infected for a reason."
At this point, Cryo held my face in composure. I was freaking out internally. I had come from another timeline, then gone to another, and then finally this one, which seemed to be bent in strange ways. Just how did he know about all of them? I never told anyone about my short jump to the city of Phenac in the Orre region.
[This is troubling, but this could also be extremely beneficial.] Cryo explained. [If everyone already knows, then we can be more open about things, but be careful. Do not give away anything that will give anyone an advantage. They don't know everything, and we know far more about every variation of each of them. I am currently lacking in this timeline's base information and pokedex, but I have the information from the known timelines to cross-reference with. We know that Giovanni is a criminal, but he is also one of the most successful enterprise builders, and if this is the Leader of Rainbow Rocket as I assume, we could learn a lot from him.]
I cleared my throat, trying to regain some sense of agency. "You talk about the Seven like they're the main event, but Emma mentioned the Drafted were yours. If Guzma and the others are so talented, why are they here out on the island while you're sitting in a box?"
Giovanni's silhouette shifted slightly, the leather of his chair creaking. "Because, Landon, true power isn't about being on the front lines. It's about positioning the pieces so that when the board breaks, you're the one holding the glue. The Drafted were my team. They were the ones who successfully hunted and captured the Seven before Colress managed to compromise the facility and turn the psychics into his personal vanguard. They are here because they are the only ones with the field experience to teach you what it feels like to be hunted by a mind that doesn't follow your rules."
He paused, a wisp of smoke curling around the camera lens. "As for my 'box,' as you call it—it is the only place on this island that is shielded from the Prism energy that fuels your kind. I am not a prisoner of Interpol, boy. I am a guest who refuses to be deleted twice."
I looked at Anabel, who was still standing by the door. She didn't deny it. My mind raced back to the Aether pod. If they had been watching me for ten years, then my "freedom" in this timeline was just another layer of the experiment.
"You've been watching me since the beginning," I said, the realization settling like lead in my gut. "Looker didn't just stumble upon me. You were waiting for the PP System to wake up."
"We were waiting for the user to survive the infection," Giovanni corrected. "Necrozma doesn't just grant power; it consumes the host. Most burn out in the first year. You, however, spent a decade marinating in the stasis of a timeline that shouldn't exist. That gave your 'Paradise' side enough of a head start to act as a buffer. But the clock is ticking."
He gestured to Mable, who tapped a final key on her console.
"Landon, if you want to protect that 'Prisma' you've built, you need to be more than a Hero. You need to be a System Architect. We start with the Seven because if you can't survive a human mind trying to drown you, you won't last ten seconds against the five Endbringers currently carving their way through the local cluster."
I stood up, my bare feet feeling the cold hum of the lab floor. "I've had enough secrets for one day. I'm going back to my city to process this. We can start your simulation when I'm ready."
"Very well," Giovanni purred, his silhouette retreating into the darkness of the monitor. "Go to your sanctuary, Landon. Breathe the air of the world you've built. But remember—the Temptress protocol waits for no one. We will see if you can keep your heart in your chest when a psychic tells him it's time to let go."
I didn't wait for a response. I closed my eyes, focusing on the tether at the center of my chest. The world of metal and cigars dissolved into a rush of warm, radiant light as the Paradise System pulled me home. In an instant, the sterile lab was gone, replaced by the familiar, vibrant hum of Prisma.