Kairos reached down to his waist and pulled out an empty Ultra Ball, holding it up in front of Miraidon with a casual wave.
Ding!
The Ultra Ball snapped open, and a beam of red light washed over the massive mechanical body.
There was no resistance at all. Miraidon dissolved into a streak of light and was pulled cleanly into the ball.
It rocked once, then went still in the palm of Kairos's hand.
Well. At least it could be caught.
"I'll bring it back and figure out the rest later."
Kairos pocketed the ball without any particular urgency. The thing had been buried in the underground world for who knew how long, without falling apart. As long as he could track down a power source or some way to fix it, getting it running again was just a matter of time.
And this was Miraidon, of all things.
Who turns down an electric motorcycle?
If he actually got it working, not only would another slot light up on his legendary Pokédex, but he would have one more ride to add to his collection. Any way you sliced it, this was a win.
With Miraidon taken care of, Kairos turned back to Gouging Fire.
"Hey, Gouging Fire, what's the situation on the surface been like lately? Still dealing with the Iron Pokémon?"
Since Gouging Fire had been holding things down here the whole time, it would have the clearest picture of what was going on up above.
Gouging Fire flicked its tail, a relaxed calm flowing through its psychic communication.
Roar.
It relayed that Iron Pokémon appearances had been tapering off steadily. The occasional one still slipped through, but none of them were much of a threat anymore.
There was one strange thing, though. The Iron Pokémon that did show up seemed to have gotten noticeably stronger than before. On paper, that should have been a problem.
But the trainers on the surface were outpacing them.
The moment an Iron Pokémon showed its face, packs of trainers would converge on it and drive it back in short order. They worked together well, their Pokémon were varied and powerful, and some had even started teaming up with the Ancient Pokémon native to the surface world. The Iron Pokémon didn't know what to do with any of it.
Kairos nodded along as he listened.
So the resources he had funneled into the game had paid off even better than he'd expected. All those rare items, TMs, and stat-boosting supplements he had pushed through had translated directly into real-world fighting ability.
The trainers, once completely overmatched in this world, had clawed their way back and turned things around entirely.
It had been worth it after all.
He was still thinking about it when Gouging Fire suddenly leaned in close, its enormous head nearly pressing into Kairos's face. A flicker of eagerness lit up those golden eyes.
It asked through their psychic link: Hey, that game, Emerald, are there more after it?
Kairos blinked, then pulled up his interface to check Gouging Fire's progress.
He hadn't expected it to get this into it. It had already cleared five Gyms.
Apparently even a legendary Pokémon wasn't immune to a good game.
"Of course there are," Kairos said with a nod. He swept a hand through the air and pulled up the system backend.
"Since you're into it, let me point you toward something a little different."
He browsed through the options as he talked.
"This one's called Rescue Team."
Gouging Fire tilted its head, a note of confusion coming through its psychic tone.
Rescue Team? What's that?
"In this one," Kairos explained, "you don't play as a trainer. You play as a Pokémon."
"You can pick a Charmander, a Bulbasaur, even an Oddish if you want."
"Then you put together a rescue team, take on requests from other Pokémon, explore dungeons, and help whoever's gotten themselves into trouble."
Gouging Fire's eyes visibly brightened at that.
No trainer. Just an ordinary Pokémon.
That sounded like something completely different.
It was used to looking down on the world from a position of overwhelming power. That feeling had its own satisfaction, sure, but the idea of experiencing life as a regular Pokémon for once, actually knowing what it felt like to be small and vulnerable, had a strange, unexpected pull to it.
"Give it a shot. I think you'll like it," Kairos said.
He raised his hand, swept it forward, and a massive game panel materialized right in front of Gouging Fire, already loaded up with Rescue Team of Time.
Gouging Fire reached out a claw without a second's hesitation and tapped the screen.
A cheerful, upbeat title theme rang out, and the game began.
Watching Gouging Fire throw itself into the game immediately, groaning over which starter to choose, Kairos couldn't help shaking his head.
Not a scrap of legendary Pokémon dignity left. It was basically just a gigantic, overpowered gamer with a dependency.
"Alright, have fun. I'm heading out."
He didn't bother interrupting it, just called out a quick goodbye and turned to leave.
Gouging Fire gave a lazy wave of its tail in response, eyes glued to the screen.
Kairos left the volcanic region and made his way back toward the Lower District.
His mood was noticeably lighter than when he'd come down here.
Miraidon was in his pocket. The threat on the surface had mostly been dealt with. And the underground world was growing faster than he had ever hoped for.
Everything was moving in the right direction.
By the time he got back to the Lower District, the sky had gone dim. But the night here was nothing like the dead quiet of the old days. The streets were bright and full of life.
The moment he walked through the base gates, he stopped in his tracks.
The normally open plaza was packed from edge to edge.
A massive crowd stretched as far as he could see, everyone waving glowing lightsticks or holding up signs that read things like "Welcome Back, Kairos" and "The God of Gaming."
The instant people spotted him, the whole plaza exploded.
"KAIROS! KAIROS!"
"KAIROS IS BACK!"
The noise hit like a wall, loud enough to rattle the ceiling.
Kairos hesitated for half a second, his instinct pulling him a step back. Being stared at and cheered by tens of thousands of people at once was, for someone who preferred to stay under the radar, a bit much. He genuinely had no idea what to do with himself.
Before he could even get his bearings, Alicia, Hart, and the others came pushing through the crowd toward him, all grinning widely, steering him toward the large ceremonial stage that had been set up in the middle of the plaza.
"Not bad, right? Caught you off guard?" Hart leaned in with a smug look. "The people put this whole thing together themselves. We couldn't have stopped them if we tried."
Kairos let out a quiet, dry laugh. "Yeah. Definitely didn't see that coming."
He still wasn't used to being looked at like this.
He was guided up onto the stage.
Standing at the top and looking out at the sea of faces below, every one of them glowing with excitement and something resembling awe, Kairos brought his hands together.
The music faded down. The cheering settled into an expectant hush.
A young man who had stepped up as emcee moved forward, gripping a microphone with barely contained energy. "And now, let's give the biggest welcome we've got to our hero, the man who gave us hope when we had none, Mr. Kairos, to say a few words!"
The applause surged again.
Kairos took the microphone. He barely got out a simple "Hey, everyone" before the crowd below buried it under another wave of noise. It took a solid few minutes before things settled down enough to continue.
He looked out at all those eager faces, and something quiet settled in his chest.
These people had lived in fear and darkness for a long time. His game had given them something to work toward, a way to get stronger, and a reason to actually enjoy being alive.
"I haven't really done all that much," Kairos's voice carried across the plaza through the speakers. "Everything you have now is something you built for yourselves."
"I just gave a small nudge along the way."
Someone in the crowd immediately called back, "Mr. Kairos is way too modest! That game was the best thing that ever happened to us!"
Then a louder voice cut through the noise: "Mr. Kairos! Can I ask you something?"
Kairos nodded. "Go ahead."
A young man jumped to his feet, practically buzzing with excitement. "Do the Pokémon in the game actually exist?! Will we ever get to see them for real?!"
The question landed and the whole plaza went quiet.
Every person held their breath, waiting.
For people who had grown up underground, the vivid, wild Pokémon from the game, creatures with incredible abilities and forms straight out of a dream, had always felt beautiful but somehow out of reach. Every Pokémon they had ever actually seen in their lives was Normal-type or Steel-type. The ones from the game were something else entirely, almost like mythology.
Kairos looked out at them.
"They absolutely exist."
"Not just the ones you've seen in the game, either. There are far more Pokémon in this world than you can imagine, and they're more amazing than anything I could describe."
"They live in forests, in oceans, up in the open sky, on top of volcanoes and glaciers."
"Some can breathe fire. Some can call down storms. Some can bend time and space itself."
The crowd stared in stunned silence, something like longing spreading across every face.
"That many different kinds..."
"I always figured it was just Normal and Steel..."
"If I could just see one of them someday..."
Listening to the quiet murmurs drifting up from the crowd, something clicked in Kairos's mind — and the corner of his mouth pulled up.
He had prepared exactly the right thing for this moment.
"I know how much you all want to see them," Kairos said, letting a hint of mystery creep into his voice. "But before that, I want to give everyone something."
"Something that'll let you experience the world of Pokémon like you never have before."
He snapped his fingers.
Snap!
The sharp sound echoed across the plaza.
At that moment, the enormous screen behind him, the one normally used for announcements, flickered once.
Then, from speakers ringing the plaza on all sides, a bold, driving, undeniably catchy piece of music burst into the air.
"I wanna be the very best!"
With that iconic opening line, the screen blazed to life, showing the familiar image of a boy in a red-and-white cap, and right beside him, that unmistakable yellow mouse, Pikachu.
The anime had started.
It was the very first episode of the Indigo League, with a proper opening theme that Kairos had made sure to include.
"Sit back and enjoy," he said.
With every pair of eyes fixed on the screen, the episode began to play.
At first, scattered murmurs moved through the crowd.
But as the episode went on, the voices dropped away one by one, and the entire plaza was pulled in.
On screen, Pikachu darted across a grassy field, sparks crackling from its cheeks, while Ash threw himself in front of a flock of Spearow to protect it.
Every frame hit like something new — tens of thousands of people went completely silent, eyes locked onto the screen, barely blinking.
The kids especially sat with their mouths hanging open, eyes lit up in a way they had never been before.
"That's Pikachu... it can actually use electricity..."
"That Ash... he's got guts..."
Watching the crowd below lose themselves completely in what they were seeing, Kairos gave a small, satisfied nod.
Good. That should keep the points coming in nicely.
But while the Lower District was wrapped up in wonder, far away on the surface, something quiet and dark had begun to move.
Without any warning, a patch of space buckled and twisted.
A circular vortex spread open in an isolated valley, its edges crackling with unstable arcs of dark purple electricity, widening like a drop of ink bleeding through water. Its interior was pitch black, a passage to somewhere unknown, giving off a coldness that made the air feel wrong.
A flash of light, and a figure stepped through, landing lightly on the ground.
A man. Tall, composed, dressed in a fitted white uniform trimmed with gold thread and marked with strange geometric patterns, somewhere between regal and technological.
The green-haired man who had been here once before.
The moment he steadied himself, the easy smile on his face went stiff.
He swept his gaze across his surroundings, his expression tightening with every second, the smile draining away entirely and giving way to open confusion.
Something was off. He couldn't name it at first. Then it hit him — everything looked too... alive.
Lush, healthy trees. Wildflowers in bloom. Grass swaying gently in a soft breeze.
The air smelled like clean earth and green things.
No metallic dust drifting through the sky. No warped structures scattered across the landscape.
This was nothing like a world in the middle of being taken over.
"That's strange..."
He murmured to himself, genuinely puzzled.
"Why has the spread slowed down since last time?"
He remembered it clearly. When he had been here before, the corruption hadn't been moving fast, but it had been moving. There should have been visible signs of it in the surrounding area by now.
But there was nothing. If anything, this place seemed more alive than it had been before.
It was almost as if the world was recovering.
"What exactly happened here?"
The green-haired man frowned.
He raised a hand. From the shadows nearby, a large Iron Hands stepped forward, its body gleaming with cold metallic light, its electronic eyes glowing a deep crimson, clearly pushed well beyond a standard specimen.
"Let's take a look around," he said.
۞۞۞۞
~ Push the story forward with your Power Stones