Kairos took the metal plate and studied the crude coordinates etched into its surface. Not bad, he could make sense of it.
"Thanks."
He stood, ready to leave.
"Hold on."
The old smoker called him back, tapping his pipe in Kairos's direction.
"Almost forgot the most important part.
I'm giving you this address so you can find them, but if you want to know exactly where in the Old Data Port the fragment's hidden, this won't be enough.
You'll need to meet face-to-face with their leader. Everyone calls her 'Elara.' You'll have to get her approval."
"That's the deal. I'm just the middleman. Only she and a few core members know the exact location."
"Got it."
Kairos nodded, motioning to Axuan, who'd been waiting quietly beside him. "Let's go."
He pushed open the heavy metal door, and the bar's noise came flooding back.
When Kairos emerged, the three thugs who'd been so cocky earlier practically tripped over themselves bowing and scraping, rushing over to ask if he needed anything. Kairos waved them off and left with Axuan in tow.
Following the coordinates, Kairos headed deeper into the lower district.
The farther they walked, the more run-down everything became.
Finally, tucked behind what looked like a massive valve, Kairos found a hidden door camouflaged as part of the pipe wall.
He knocked a few times in the rhythm the old smoker had mentioned, and a small window immediately slid open.
A pair of eyes peered through the darkness, lingering on Kairos's relatively clean clothes with obvious suspicion.
"Who are you?"
"The old smoker sent me," Kairos said evenly. "I need to see your leader."
Silence. The person seemed to be confirming something.
Then the door let out a heavy grinding sound and creaked open just wide enough for one person to slip through.
Kairos pulled Axuan along and squeezed through sideways.
Beyond the door lay a narrow downward passage. Old pipes clung to the walls, and a metal grated staircase descended below.
The person from before was a young man in patched work clothes, grease smeared on his face.
As he led the way, he spoke without looking back. "Name's Anvil. The old smoker sent you? He told you the rules, right? What's your business?"
"I need to meet your leader. Got something to discuss."
Kairos replied.
Anvil's steps faltered. "Look, you picked a really bad time. The leader probably won't have time to see you right now."
"Why's that?"
Kairos asked.
"You don't know?" Anvil glanced back at him in surprise before continuing forward.
"There's been this huge thing recently.
A game showed up out of nowhere, and apparently the information and content in it matches exactly with legends from before the Great Catastrophe—even more detailed!"
"I'm telling you, when word got back, the old scholars in our organization who study ancient texts nearly lost their minds.
They went absolutely crazy. The whole Watcher organization's been in an uproar.
The leader's spent the last few days stuck in meetings, discussing everything, verifying intel.
She's probably going insane. She's got no time for outsiders. So yeah, you picked a really bad time."
Hearing this, Kairos raised an eyebrow.
"Oh, that game."
"Pokémon Dark Phantom. I made it."
Anvil stopped dead in his tracks. He spun around and stared at him, eyes wide as dinner plates.
His mouth opened and closed, but no sound came out. He looked like he'd been struck by lightning.
He looked Kairos up and down.
"What did you just say? You made it? That's impossible! The stuff in that game—the sky, the ocean, the forests, and those Pokémon I've never even seen..."
Kairos cut him off:
"The game follows a trainer with the Champion title who falls into a coma.
Two professors use memory regression to send the player back to the day this trainer started their journey."
He roughly described the game's opening, then mentioned some later plot developments—things that hadn't even happened in the story yet.
"There. Need me to keep going?"
The doubt on Anvil's face instantly transformed into shock.
The way he looked at Kairos completely changed—from distant suspicion to frenzied excitement and disbelief.
"Holy... seriously... you actually made that game?!"
"Where the hell did you get that content? And those things, those Pokémon—they really existed in history, right?"
"Wait... come with me! Quick! I have to take you to Elara right now!"
Without another word, he grabbed Kairos and started rushing downward, nearly tripping on the stairs.
A few moments later, the passage opened up dramatically. A massive underground space spread out before Kairos's eyes.
The place looked like a base converted from an abandoned factory workshop.
Large high-powered mining lamps hung from the ceiling, providing most of the light.
Maintenance tools, parts boxes, and old engineering machinery were scattered around.
Quite a few plainly dressed people were busy working throughout the space.
Kairos quickly scanned the Watchers' operation.
Some were training against sandbags in a corner, drenched in sweat.
Others huddled together, carefully maintaining crude homemade weapons.
A few were training Pokémon—mostly low-level ones like Geodude, Machop, and Cubone.
But in this world, even Pokémon with these abilities were clearly extremely rare.
Kairos also noticed they had relatively few modification marks, or none at all.
They were running basic physical fitness drills or skill control training—nothing technological.
A few people were gathered around an old terminal, heatedly discussing something, anxiety written across their faces.
Anvil led Kairos through the busy crowd, heading straight for an office converted from a shipping container deep in the workshop.
He didn't even knock—just pushed the door open and burst in, shouting:
"Elara! We've got a situation! A big one! Look who I brought!"
Inside the office, a woman who looked to be in her fifties with graying hair and a faint scar on her face sat behind a worktable piled with blueprints and parts.
She looked up, her gaze sharp. First she frowned slightly, clearly displeased with Anvil's behavior.
Then her eyes landed on Axuan and the backpack he was holding, pausing for a moment as if sensing something. A flash of surprise crossed her face.
Finally, her gaze settled on Kairos and lingered.
This person's presence was unusual.
"What's going on? Explain."
Her voice was low when she finally spoke.
"Elara, this is Kairos," Anvil's voice still shook with excitement. "He... he says he made 'Dark Phantom'! He made that game!"
The leader called Elara's pupils contracted sharply. She shot to her feet, hands pressed on the table, body leaning forward, staring intently at Kairos.
"You're sure? How are you going to prove that?"
Kairos had to repeat everything he'd said before.
"I made this game based on... certain materials I have access to." Kairos spoke frankly.
He couldn't explain the system's origin, but this explanation wasn't exactly a lie. After all, Dark Phantom was something he'd copied over.
Then he briefly mentioned details about the Pokémon League structure and type advantages in the game.
These would further prove his identity.
As Elara listened, her expression gradually shifted from shock to something far more complex.
She slowly sat down, gesturing for Kairos and Axuan to sit as well.
She waved her hand, telling Anvil—still practically vibrating with excitement—to go outside and guard the door.
Though Anvil looked reluctant, he obeyed.
After the door closed, she stared intently at Kairos, took a deep breath and said, "Young man, what you've brought... it's incredible.
You actually know things that aren't even in our organization's generations of secret records!"
Although Kairos had just made the game based on Dark Phantom's content, in Elara's eyes right now, he was practically a living archive.
Her tone grew heavy.
"You've seen the situation here. The Alliance maintains its rule through absolute control of limited underground resources and total information lockdown."
"The upper district gets most of the energy, food, and the best living conditions, while we in the lower district are treated like a forgotten dumping ground.
At least half the people here can't even get enough to eat each day, barely surviving..."
"Countless people are trapped here, unable to escape, all because of their greed!"
She clenched her fists, anger flashing in her eyes.
"Our organization's goal is to uncover the buried truth and show everyone that we shouldn't be cowering in this place where we never see the sun!"
"We should long for the real world under blue skies and white clouds—and return to it!
We even suspect that after five hundred years, the surface world may have recovered enough for people to survive. So much time has passed, after all."
Since the conversation had reached this point, Kairos went ahead and asked, "So what exactly happened during the great catastrophe five hundred years ago? What caused all of this?"
But Elara shook her head, helplessness showing on her face. "The specifics? The Alliance destroyed almost all records. What we have are just fragments.
The truth is nearly impossible to piece together. But the one thing that might contain relatively complete information about that disaster is probably the remnant pages of the 'Survivor's Diary.'"
As she spoke, she took out a fingernail-sized chip that flickered with a faint light from a drawer and handed it to Kairos.
"This is the key to sensing the remnant pages. If you get within a certain range, it'll give you a signal. The pages are hidden deep in the Old Data Port..."
Before she could finish, a piercing alarm suddenly sounded from outside the base, followed by the explosive sounds of Pokémon moves colliding and people shouting.
What now?
Kairos raised an eyebrow slightly.
"Damn it! Alliance forces! How did they find this place?!" Elara's expression changed.
She shot to her feet. "Quick! Use the emergency passage in back! Anvil, organize resistance!"
Outside, chaos had already erupted.
Several Alliance guard team members wearing uniform gray armor and full-coverage helmets charged in.
Beside them were Magnemite and Magneton that had undergone standardized mechanical modifications.
Dense electric shocks and ultrasonic waves surged toward the Watchers.
The Watchers sent out tankier Pokémon like Snorlax and Golem, using the terrain with their trainers to counterattack, but they were clearly outmatched.
The Alliance's firepower was more concentrated, their Pokémon coordination was tighter, and their strength was obviously superior.
But Kairos wasn't in a hurry to leave. He stood at the container office doorway, observing for a while.
The strength of these Alliance guard members was actually weaker than he'd expected.
Their Pokémon's attacks looked impressive, but the energy output was mediocre, and the commands seemed pretty basic.
Plus, these Pokémon probably weren't even at Gym Leader level—at most Ace Trainer level, maybe even lower.
Right then, seeing a powerful electric shock about to hit a young Watcher, Kairos let out a light sigh and gave his shadow a meaningful look.
"Gengar, you're up."
The next moment, a chilling aura instantly spread. Kairos's shadow surged like boiling water, and a purple figure with a massive grin emerged silently. It was Gengar!
Gengar was in high spirits.
After staying in the shadow for so long, Gramps finally gets to come out and play!
Hehe-haha!
It waved both hands, and an invisible wave of psychic force spread out like a tide.
The electric shocks and sonic waves in the air seemed to hit an invisible wall and instantly dissipated!
Immediately after, that psychic force precisely enveloped all the Alliance members' Pokémon.
BOOM BOOM BOOM!!!
They had no chance to resist. They didn't even have time to cry out.
All the Magnemite and Magneton were like toys grabbed by an invisible giant hand, then violently slammed into the ground or nearby walls.
Under the massive impact, the mechanical parts on their bodies shattered with crackling sounds.
After flickering with a few sparks, they completely shut down and collapsed.
The entire base instantly fell into dead silence.
Whether it was the Alliance guard members or the Watchers who'd been fighting desperately, everyone froze in place, staring in disbelief at the Pokémon floating in midair that still looked somewhat unsatisfied.
They'd never seen a Pokémon like this, and were even more terrified by its incomprehensibly devastating power.
"What... what is that?"
"Am I seeing things?"
The Alliance guard members stared at their instantly decimated team, scared senseless. They didn't care about anything anymore.
With that monster here, the mission was over.
They let out terrified shouts, hastily recalled their Pokémon, and vanished within moments.
Elara and the surrounding Watcher members watched as Gengar slowly shrank back into Kairos's shadow, then looked at Kairos, who stood there calmly as if nothing had happened. Everyone was completely stunned.
Clearly, Gengar's power was way beyond anything they'd ever seen.
Kairos walked through the silence and countless stares to stand before Elara.
"There. That should take care of things."
He glanced at Axuan, who'd been frightened by the earlier scene and was gripping his clothes tightly.
He wouldn't bring the kid along for what came next.
Acting alone would be much more convenient anyway.