By midafternoon, most of the frost had begun to weep from rooftops and gutters, dripping in silver threads that caught the sun. Ethan Carter led Charmeleon and Munchlax along the rim of the frozen belt, testing patches of ground with his heel. The ice field Munchlax had accidentally created was still immense, but it was receding at a speed you could see if you stared long enough. Not Kyurem-grade devastation, then—terrifying, but already loosening its grip on Lavender Town.
"Good," Ethan murmured, half to himself. "Not permanent."
He knew Metronome mirrored the user's own mastery: if Munchlax's Metronome was at twenty-odd percent, any god-tier move it pulled would only manifest at that same rough potency. Even so, the power was obscene. If Munchlax ever improved that finger-snap to true proficiency, the world might feel it.
On the way back, he caught himself walking like a thief—hood up, head down—as fire-type trainers and municipal workers hurried past with Growlithe and Vulpix in tow to thaw the streets. By the time they reached the Pokémon House, Saffron TV was already running a breaking banner: sudden extreme icing across Lavender Town and Route 8; experts debating whether it was a rare meteorological anomaly or the footprint of an Ice-type far beyond ordinary scale. The advice crawled along the bottom of the screen: avoid the wilds for a few days; expect aftershocks.
Mr. Fuji muted the set and turned in his chair. "Ethan, Cynthia—what do you think? Natural disaster, or a Pokémon?" he asked, weighing their faces.
Cynthia, composed as ever, folded her arms. "If it were purely atmospheric, we'd have seen pressure warnings beforehand. I just can't place the exact Pokémon that could freeze such a large radius this fast."
Ethan kept his tone neutral. "Same conclusion." He could feel Charmeleon's eyes on him and didn't dare meet them. Munchlax, sitting on his heels, studied a bowl of berries with saintly innocence.
Mr. Fuji nodded slowly. "Then be careful. A Pokémon that can do this is not one ordinary trainers can handle."
Cynthia let the warning pass with a small nod, then leaned forward, eagerness finally breaking through her restraint. "So—battle?" Her gaze flicked to Charmeleon. "Your Charmeleon can command Sunny Day, yes? Garchomp is itching to test him."
Charmeleon straightened, tail flame pricking brighter. Ethan raised a hand. "We can fight—but not with Charmeleon. Not yet." He drew a calm breath. "You'll face Munchlax first. Defeat him, and then I'll send in Charmeleon."
Mr. Fuji's brows jumped. "You captured Munchlax already? This morning you said it would be a few days."
Ethan managed an honest smile. "Taking advantage of a friend is a bad habit. I shouldn't wait just because the meals are easier that way." The old man's eyes narrowed—as if something in the boy's posture didn't quite match the words—but he said nothing.
"Two hours," Ethan added. "He needs to recover."
"Two hours, then," Cynthia agreed, chin high. "But no more excuses."
They gathered at dusk in the half-finished Lavender Gym. The main hall was still a skeleton of steel and stone, the dirt floor tamped flat for temporary use. Mr. Fuji, the volunteers, and a ring of Ethan's students took places along the boundaries; overhead, a rectangle of sky burned orange and then bruised to purple as evening came on. Hao raised a borrowed flag and cleared his throat, playing referee with more gravity than the role deserved. "Trainers ready… Begin!"
Ethan pointed. "Munchlax—Metronome."
"Ka—" Munchlax's stubby fingers flashed white as he waggled them in front of his belly. A few gym students snickered; more than one adult exchanged a look. In the center circle, Cynthia's expression cooled into something like offense.
"You're mocking us," she said, voice level. "Opening with Metronome? Fine. Garchomp—Quicks—"
She didn't finish. The sky darkened as if an eclipse had slid over the town. A wind out of nowhere knifed across the site, strong enough to whip standards loose and rattle the scaffolding. Pressure—raw and crushing—fell over the arena, a weight so primal that even Garchomp's pupils thinned, her jaw clenching as instinct screamed at her to keep her head down. Mr. Fuji's cane bit deeper into the soil. He stared upward, face gone pale.
"What…is that?" he breathed. "I've never felt a skill's prelude distort the world."
Ethan felt Charmeleon press against his shins, heat bleeding up through his pants. Divine draw, he thought, throat tight. Lucky Stone or not, this was beyond Glaciate. This felt like a string pulled taut across the bones of reality.
Far away—and not far at all—a throne room the color of deep amethyst rippled like water. A vast, pale-violet shape stirred where it sat, eyes opening in a long, soundless resonance that became a roar. Around that throne, the air cracked—clean, gleaming fissures spidering through a darkness that wasn't quite space and wasn't quite sky.
Back in Lavender, the pressure crested.
Munchlax's little hands finished their waggle.
The world held its breath.
A hairline seam appeared in midair above the ring—then another, crossing it. The seams brightened, edges like mirrored blades. The first cut whispered as it opened, and every living thing on the field felt the slice, the way you feel lightning before it lands.
Ethan's mouth had already formed the words. "Spacial Rend."
The invisible blade fell.
It did not strike Garchomp. Ethan's scream—"Up and out!"—and Cynthia's reflex—"Dig!"—collided into the same desperate command. Garchomp vanished beneath the ground in a shower of dust. The Rend cleaved through the place she'd been standing, slicing the air itself; a line of night opened from ceiling truss to chalked sideline and closed again with a chime like shattered glass sucked backward. The shockwave arrived two heartbeats later, tearing a zipper of furrows across the floor and snapping the nearest steel upright like a twig.
Silence. Then sound returned all at once: scaffolding clanging, someone's gasp breaking into laughter and then sobbing, Mr. Fuji's cane tapping forward as he checked the nearest student with shaking hands. Garchomp burst back up twenty meters away, breath sawing, body low and ready despite the tremor in her limbs.
Cynthia stared at Munchlax as if seeing him for the first time. The casual appetite, the affable laziness—all of it had blown aside like mist, leaving behind a strange, holy echo. What did you just borrow, her eyes seemed to ask, and from whom?
Ethan's head spun. Lucky Stone… pulled a god again. The odds shouldn't be this generous—but probability meant nothing to a blessing that bent it. He lifted his hand, palm down. "Hold," he told Munchlax softly.
Munchlax swayed and dropped to a seat, puffing for breath. Even a borrowed, attenuated version of that move had devoured his stamina. Ethan slipped an energy cube into his mouth, then another. "Easy," he whispered. "You did enough."
Across the ring, Cynthia drew a slow breath and re-leveled her arm. "Garchomp—Sandstorm."
Garchomp's blade-arms crossed. Dust rose in spirals, grit flaying the air until the edges of the hall blurred to a storm-swept gray. Smart—neutralize line-of-sight, cut criticals with Sand Veil, win on pressure and endurance. But the referee's flag hadn't moved. Hao—jaw loose, eyes shining—looked to Mr. Fuji.
The old man lifted a hand. "Stop."
The wind fell obediently, dust settling in soft curtains.
"Today's lesson," Mr. Fuji said, voice steady now, "is that there are powers in this world that don't answer to our schedules. That strike alone proves enough." He turned to Cynthia and bowed, more formal than Ethan had ever seen him. "Your Garchomp endured in the face of something most Pokémon would run from. That is merit."
Cynthia held his gaze for a heartbeat, then nodded once. "Understood." She recalled Garchomp and exhaled through her nose, a near-silent sigh that acknowledged both relief and frustration. Her eyes slid to Ethan. "Next time," she said, the smallest smile ghosting her lips, "Charmeleon."
Ethan returned the look. "Next time."
Hao lowered the flag, the spell broken. Voices rose; the students surged forward, half-terrified, half-elated, all of them talking at once about the sound the tear had made, the way the air had tasted like metal, the bending light. Reina hustled two of the smallest volunteers back from the cracked post; Charmeleon scrambled up Ethan's side and perched on his hip like a child who'd sat through thunder and was trying very hard to pretend he'd never been scared.
Back in that amethyst place, the pale-violet colossus settled again, cracks knitting into sleek, perfect planes. The throne stilled. The silence there was not peace so much as symmetry, restored.
Ethan walked to center, placed a palm on Munchlax's broad head, and felt the heat under the fur, the steady thud of a heart that loved food and naps and, inexplicably, him. "Good job," he said simply.
Munchlax smiled, eyes turning into little crescents. "Ka~."
That night, the late news recycled its earlier questions with new urgency. Experts debated whether the day's icing had been a fluke or a herald; whether an unknown Ice-type had moved through, or whether a stronger force had brushed the region. Warnings went out again. People argued in comment threads about gods. Ethan sat on the steps of the half-built Gym with Charmeleon's tail warming his shin, Munchlax snoring against his shoulder, and the wind smelling, faintly, like iron where the air had been cut.
He didn't sleep early. He read, and re-read, and re-read again the three ancient characters Mr. Fuji had taught him last night—red, silver, call—until the curves stopped writhing on the page and lay still.
Somewhere out there, beneath oceans and within vaults of sky, names like Lugia and Palkia were written into the scaffolding of the world. Tonight, by accident or providence, one of them had looked back.
Ethan closed the book and let the quiet settle. "Next time," he whispered, "I won't need luck."
Charmeleon made a soft sound that might have been a laugh. Munchlax rolled onto his back and hugged the air.
The stars above the torn sky shone on, perfectly ordinary.