Teo didn't sleep.
He couldn't.
Every time his eyelids drooped, he saw the Treecko's torn throat. The Lucario's bloodied muzzle. The e-bike's headlight swelling in his vision like a dying star.
He sat with his back against a jagged obsidian spire, shivering despite the heat. His ribs ached with every breath. His left ankle throbbed. His nose still bled faintly, the coppery taste clinging to the roof of his mouth.
The Lucario lay a few feet away, curled on its side, chest rising and falling in shallow, uneven rhythm. Its aura—visible now through Teo's left eye in stark grayscale—flickered like a dying candle. Unstable. Fragile.
Teo flexed his left hand. The one that had touched the Lucario during synchronization.
His skin still tingled.
He remembered the flood of memories—the collapse of a city, the trainer's scream, the sky tearing. Not metaphor. Literal rupture. Like reality itself had been peeled back.
This wasn't just another region. This was a world broken.
He exhaled slowly, watching his breath fog in the cold air that shouldn't exist in this heat. "Okay," he murmured. "Think, Teo. You got dropped into hell with a traumatized Pokémon and a system that sounds like it was written by a war criminal. What now?"
No answer came.
Only the distant groan of tectonic plates shifting deep beneath the crust.
He needed water. Food. Shelter. But more than that—he needed to understand the rules.
He focused inward, toward the presence that had branded itself into his mind.
System.
Nothing.
He tried again. Not a command. A request.
Show me what I can do.
Silence.
Then—a flicker.
Not words. A sensation. Like a door creaking open in the back of his skull.
[ SYNCHRONIZATION STATUS: LUCARIO — 24% ]
[ ABILITY PATH: NEN — STAGE 0 (ZERO)]
[ PREREQUISITES: AURA AWARENESS, BREATH CONTROL, EMOTIONAL ANCHORING ]
[ TRAINING PROTOCOL: MANUAL INITIATION REQUIRED ]
Teo frowned. "Manual initiation?"
He glanced at the Lucario. "So… we have to train this? Like, from scratch?"
The Lucario stirred, one ear twitching. Its eyes opened—dull, exhausted—but it held his gaze.
Teo swallowed. "Alright. First things first. You need food. I need water. And we both need to not get eaten."
He pushed himself up, biting back a grunt of pain. He scanned the horizon. Nothing but ash plains and black rock. But to the northeast—a shimmer. Not heat haze. Something else. A faint scent on the wind: ozone… and damp earth.
"Smells like rain," he muttered. "Or… water?"
He limped toward the Lucario and knelt. "Hey. Can you walk?"
The Lucario tried. It made it two steps before its legs buckled. It let out a low, pained whine.
Teo's chest tightened. He remembered his lola massaging his sore muscles after he'd twisted his ankle playing patintero as a kid. She'd used coconut oil and firm, circular strokes along his calves, humming old Visayan lullabies.
Hilot. Traditional Filipino healing.
He didn't have oil. But he had hands. And breath.
"Okay," he said gently. "Lie still."
He placed his palms on the Lucario's forelegs, just above the paws. He closed his eyes and focused on his own breath—slow, deep, rhythmic. In for four counts. Hold for four. Out for six.
It was something his lola taught him for panic attacks during typhoons. "Your breath is your anchor, Teo. When the world shakes, your breath holds you steady."
As he breathed, he pressed his thumbs into the muscles along the Lucario's limbs—not hard, but firm. Searching for tension. Knots. Blockages.
The Lucario flinched at first. Then, slowly, it relaxed.
And then—Teo felt it.
Not with his hands.
With his left eye.
The aura around the Lucario's limbs had been chaotic, frayed. But as Teo's breath deepened and his touch remained steady, the aura began to align. Threads of energy, once scattered, started weaving back into pattern.
It wasn't healing. Not fully.
But it was stabilization.
[ SYNCHRONIZATION INCREASED: 29% ]
[ AURA CIRCULATION DETECTED — PASSIVE HARMONIZATION ]
[ NOTE: HOST UTILIZED NON-SYSTEM CULTURAL TECHNIQUE — "HILOT" — EFFECTIVENESS: HIGH ]
Teo blinked. "Wait—you recognized hilot?"
He didn't get an answer. But the data didn't lie.
His culture—his kapwa, his shared humanity—wasn't just memory. It was functional. It had tangible power here.
A lump rose in his throat. "Okay, lola," he whispered. "If you're watching… thanks."
The Lucario pushed itself up again. This time, its legs held.
It looked at Teo. Not with fear. With something closer to recognition.
Teo smiled weakly. "Let's go find water."
They moved slowly across the Glass Wastes—a vast plain of fused silica that crunched underfoot like shattered windows. The sun, if you could call it that, hung low in the bruised sky, casting long, distorted shadows.
Teo kept his eyes peeled. Every rustle in the ash made his pulse jump.
Then—water.
Not a river. Not a lake. A shallow seep in a cracked basin, ringed by black stone. The water was murky, tinged red with mineral deposits, but it moved. It wasn't stagnant.
Teo dropped to his knees. "Thank god."
He cupped his hands and drank. It tasted metallic, bitter—but it was wet. It was life.
He filled his cupped palms and held them out to the Lucario.
It sniffed, then drank greedily.
As it did, Teo noticed something: its fur, once dull gray-blue, now held a faint sheen. Its eyes were clearer.
[ SYNCHRONIZATION: 33% ]
But before relief could settle, a voice cut through the silence.
"Interesting."
Teo froze.
The voice was calm. Measured. But it carried the weight of a tomb.
He turned.
A man stood at the edge of the basin.
Tall. Gaunt. Cloaked in tattered white fabric that might've once been ceremonial. His face was sharp, pale, eyes sunken but burning with quiet intensity. At his side stood a single Pokémon—sleek, silver, serpentine. A Milotic.
But its scales were dull. Its eyes vacant.
It didn't move. Didn't breathe like a living thing should.
It just… existed.
"Who are you?" Teo asked, stepping between the stranger and the Lucario.
The man smiled. It didn't reach his eyes.
"My name is Kaelen," he said. "Former Elite Four of Sinnoh. Current servant of the Cleansing."
He gestured to the Milotic. "This is Seraphine. Or what remains of her."
Teo's stomach dropped. "What happened to her?"
"I freed her," Kaelen said, voice soft, reverent. "From weakness. From emotion. From the illusion of partnership."
He took a step forward. "You cling to your Lucario like it's a friend. A companion. That's your first mistake."
Teo's fists clenched. "It is my partner."
Kaelen's smile vanished. "Partnership is a lie told to children. Pokémon are not allies. They are shells. Crude vessels of power that must be broken so their essence can be purified."
He raised a hand. The Milotic's body rippled. Not with life—but with forced energy. Its mouth opened, and a beam of searing light—crimson, unstable—lanced toward them.
"Seraphine no longer feels pain," Kaelen said. "She no longer fears. She is perfect."
Teo grabbed the Lucario and dove sideways.
The beam struck the water basin.
The stone melted. The water vaporized in a hissing cloud of steam.
Teo coughed, shielding his face. "You're insane."
"No," Kaelen said calmly. "I am awake."
He turned to Teo, eyes gleaming. "You're new. I can smell the death on you—fresh. You died in that soft world of yours, didn't you? Crushed by your own fragility."
Teo said nothing.
"You've been given a second chance," Kaelen continued. "Don't waste it on sentiment. Break your Pokémon. Strip it down to its core. Only then will you wield true power."
The Lucario growled, stepping in front of Teo, aura flaring weakly.
Kaelen laughed—a dry, hollow sound. "Look at it. It's still afraid. Still human in its instincts. Pathetic."
He raised his hand again.
But Teo spoke first.
"Why?" he asked, voice low. "Why do you hate them so much?"
Kaelen's expression darkened. "I loved mine. More than my own blood. And when the Sky Rended… they failed me. They screamed. They bled. They died like animals."
His voice cracked. "If they are to serve, they must be reforged. Without pain. Without will. Without weakness."
Teo understood then.
Kaelen wasn't a villain because he was evil.
He was a villain because he was broken.
And he was trying to break everything else so he wouldn't feel alone in his brokenness.
"I won't do that," Teo said. "I won't break my partner."
Kaelen's eyes hardened. "Then you will die with it."
The Milotic's mouth glowed again.
Teo turned to the Lucario. "Do you trust me?"
The Lucario stared at him. Then nodded—once.
Teo closed his eyes. He remembered the flicker of aura during the Scorchclaw attack. The push. The connection.
He focused on his breath. In. Hold. Out.
He placed a hand on the Lucario's back.
And pushed—not with force, but with intent.
Let me in. Let us move as one.
The Lucario's aura surged.
Not a beam. Not a blast.
A shield.
A dome of blue energy bloomed around them just as the Milotic's attack struck.
The impact threw them backward, but the shield held—barely. Cracks spiderwebbed across its surface before it shattered.
Teo's nose bled again. His left eye burned like it was on fire.
But they were alive.
Kaelen stared. Not with anger. With… curiosity.
"You synchronized," he murmured. "Not domination. Synchronization."
He tilted his head. "Foolish. But… fascinating."
He lowered his hand. The Milotic went still.
"I'll let you live," he said. "For now. But know this—this world does not reward kindness. It rewards clarity. And you… you are still clouded."
He turned and walked away, the Milotic gliding behind him like a ghost.
Teo slumped, trembling.
The Lucario collapsed beside him, exhausted.
[ SYNCHRONIZATION: 41% ]
[ NEN STAGE 0 ACHIEVED — ZERO (NEUTRAL STATE) ]
[ WARNING: NEURAL OVERLOAD IMMINENT — RECOVERY REQUIRED ]
Teo laughed weakly. "We did it."
The Lucario leaned against him, breathing hard.
They were alive.
But the cost was already showing.
Teo's left eye—his aura eye—throbbed with a deep, grinding pain. He blinked. The world through it was now permanently grayscale, like an old film reel. Every living thing glowed with varying intensities, but it was overwhelming. Disorienting.
[ PERMANENT ADAPTATION: AURA SIGHT (MONOCHROME) — NEURAL REWIRING COMPLETE ]
[ SIDE EFFECT: CHRONIC MIGRAINES — ESTIMATED ONSET: 3–5 HOURS ]
"Great," Teo muttered. "Just fucking great."
He looked at the Lucario. "But worth it."
The Lucario nudged his hand with its nose.
Teo smiled. "Yeah. Yeah, you're worth it."
He pulled out his phone—miraculously still in his pocket, though dead. On the lock screen was a photo of him and his lola, grinning over a pot of sinigang.
He traced her face with his thumb.
"I'll find a way back," he whispered. "Or… I'll build something worth remembering."
Above them, the sky pulsed with crimson veins.
Somewhere far off, mountains groaned.
And in the distance, something vast and ancient stirred in its slumber.
The Shattered Archipelago had noticed them.
And it was hungry.