Haru leads me back to the elevator, his stride so brisk I have to suppress the urge to jog. The security grunt from earlier shadows us, even though the corridor is empty and the only sounds are the thrum of the recirculating fans and our boots on the cheap tile. Haru doesn’t speak. He never glances back. He just pushes the control labelled “M1 / Commons” and the lift lurches upward, past half a dozen silent floors.

  It’s only when the doors stutter open on M1 that my brain registers the full effect of the transition. The bunker’s icy quiet explodes into the heat and racket of organized human chaos. The walls are plastered with layer upon layer stickers, protest slogans, and hand-scrawled memes, all done in a dozen languages. The air is thick with steam and bodies. On the far side of the hall, two dozen Plasma grunts are packed around battered metal tables, wolfing down some sort of blue-green gruel from mismatched bowls. The uniforms aren’t crisp here. Most of the grunts have their hoods down, jackets half-peeled, sleeves rolled up to the biceps. Above them, flatscreens dangle from the ceiling, flickering between newsfeeds, security cam footage, and a looping, low-budget montage of Plasma’s greatest hits—protest marches, police skirmishes, wild Pokémon being released into the hills.

  Every corridor has a flavour. One reeks of unwashed polyester and monster energy, another of toothpaste and stale sweat—likely the showers, where a pale-skinned guy in just a towel stares at me as we pass, slack-jawed and half-lidded with sleep. In the next, the air is sharp with the tang of disinfectant and floor polish, the walls vibrate with the racket of weights being dropped and battered machines in full use. A young man with a Shinx tattooed across his knuckles grunts out pull-ups on a metal bar, ignoring a trio of grunts egging him on with the slow, menacing chant of “Ten… ten… ten…”

  None of this is for me. Haru doesn’t pause. He cuts toward a hallway marked in blue hazard tape: “Training/Assessment.” The noise drops to a hush as we enter, the floor here laid out in rubberized matting instead of tile. The lighting is colder, more surgical, and the doors lining the corridor are reinforced with disappointed institutional yellow.

  He stops at a broad, frosted glass panel, the kind they used to have in old Castelia police stations. A block-lettered sign reads: BATTLE COURT 2 - CLEARANCE CANDIDATES. The letters are flaking off in places, as if the paint itself is embarrassed to be here. Haru palms the sensor and the door slides open with a pneumatic wheeze.

  Inside, the other four ‘initiates’—the intake group I’d been assigned to—are standing in a row on the near side of an oversized indoor arena. The “battle court,” as advertised, is little more than a repurposed storage room: battered concrete floor, two faded stripes demarcating the ‘field,’ overhead lights that hum like hornets. The far wall is covered with a tangle of exposed pipes and, mounted above them, a crooked plasma screen looping footage of the same propaganda from the mess hall. The audio is muted.

  The recruits already have sweat on their brows as if they’ve been standing at attention for hours. The Nickit-faced woman from orientation—her name tag now visible: “I. Sable”—cracks her knuckles as we file in. The short Driftveil local, sleeves bunched, looks up and blinks, registering my presence with a flicker of recognition before returning his gaze to the floor.

  Haru steps onto the matting, jerks his head for us to follow, and then produces a Poké Ball from his belt with a bored economy of movement. He tosses it underhand onto the field.

  The ball hits the concrete, splits in a burst of sterile red light, and out towers a Krookodile. Even by the standards of its species, this one is monstrous—nearly seven feet tall, with a scar running laterally across the bridge of its snout. Its claws flex and curl, scraping the mat with a sound like knives on glass. The head swings our way, and for a moment, its eyes lock on mine. There’s nothing in that look but calculation and hunger.

  Haru doesn’t flinch. He puts a hand on Krookodile’s shoulder, then lets it drift away, pacing the line of initiates, tail swaying in slow, predatory rhythm. I feel a burst of recognition—my own nerves echoing the raw, animal tension in the room.

  “Team Plasma doesn’t work like the League,” Haru says. “We don’t do showmanship or badges. You get results or you get recycled.” He lets the words hang, then gestures at the senior cohort. “Let me spell it out for you,” Haru says. “It’s not enough to believe in the cause. Anyone can parrot doctrine, post in some forum. You wouldn’t be here if you weren’t already committed. But it takes more than belief to survive what’s coming. Plasma’s mission is simple: separate the Pokémon from their abusers. But the abusers don’t line up to surrender. They hide behind walls, laws, and Poké Balls, and if you want to change the world, you have to rip it from their hands.”

  He lets the words hang. Krookodile grins, rows of teeth like broken marble.

  “Most of you will be logistics. Some of you—if you survive today—will be extraction. All of you have to prove you’re not dead weight. If you can’t keep up, you’ll be ‘liberating’ supply crates off a loading dock for the rest of your useless lives. Or until you quit. Or until Krookodile gets hungry.”

  The rest of the intake group shifts. Sable’s knuckles are pale, the Driftveil kid is shivering, but nobody moves. Not yet.

  Haru snaps his fingers. The security grunt steps forward, rolling a battered blue cart stacked high with Poké Balls and battered, duct-taped training gear. “Sable, you’re up,” Haru says, not bothering to check the name tag. “Pick something.”

  Sable strides to the cart, pawing through the balls like she’s shopping for groceries. She selects one, scans the barcode, and underhands it to the field. A Liepard materializes in a shimmer of light and static, fur rippling with tension.

  “Driftveil,” Haru calls. The kid stumbles forward. His hand is shaking so badly I almost expect him to fumble the catch, but he snags a ball releases a Stunky with a flick and a low whistle. The two Pokémon circle each other, sniffing for openings.

  The match is barely underway—a purple blur and a stink bomb sparring in circles—when the door behind us slams open so hard it bounces off the stop and leaves a dent in the drywall. Marrow storms in, flanked by two guards in the kind of gear that looks like it could stop a tank round: matte-black plates, visors, even the little badges replaced by stark white serials. They’re both carrying new model batons, the kind that flicker with static at the tip.

  Marrow’s eyes are laser-focused, not even sparing a glance for Haru or his monster. “There,” she says, stabbing a finger directly at me. “That’s him. He sent the message.”

  The words land like a wet rag across the room. My stomach hollows, but I feel my pulse slow, not spike—the calm before something awful.

  Haru doesn’t even look surprised. “Come again?” he asks Marrow, voice perfectly even.

  "The security Porygon-2 flagged a message routing out through the intake logs. An unauthorized signal. The signature doesn't match mine or any registered device in the system."

  For the first time, Haru turns fully to face me. His expression is corpse-flat, but the faintest shadow of disappointment ghosts across his mouth. He gestures to the two guards. “Go.”

  You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

  I don’t wait for them. I’m already moving—sidestep, then vaulting the blue cart, one hand scooping two Poké Balls off the top as I go. Sable and the Driftveil kid collapse backward, instinctively ducking for cover. The guards fan out, one coming high, the other low, both moving like they’ve trained for this.

  The first ball splits open in my hand—a Magneton, buzzing and hissing arcs of current in every direction. The next is a Muk, gushing onto the mat in a slick, purple tide. I throw both directly into the path of the oncoming guards, not to fight them but to buy seconds. The Magneton shorts the lights for a blink, filling the arena with a shower of sparks. The Muk oozes across the floor, viscous and slow, but immediately seeping under the feet of the first guard. He slips, cursing, and slams into the wall, baton skittering across the court.

  Haru’s voice cuts through the chaos: “Krookodile. Bring him back, all of him.”

  The beast is on me in less than a heartbeat. I drop flat, rolling beneath the reach of its massive jaw, the stink of its breath a punch to the face. I grab another Ball from the cart as I scramble past—random, unscanned, no idea what’s inside. I thumb the release as hard as I can and fling it like a grenade down the court. A Scolipede erupts, carapace glinting in the half-light, and immediately curls its massive body into a deadly wheel, barrelling toward the Krookodile.

  It’s not a fight. The Scolipede is steamrolling for half a second, then Krookodile stops it with brute force and ragdolls it into the lockers on the far wall. The impact explodes metal and paint chips; Scolipede doesn’t get up.

  There’s an exit door in the back wall, barely marked except for a faded red “E” and a battered push bar. I aim for it, low and direct, but one of the tank-armoured guards recovers faster than anticipated. He gets a grip on my arm with a clamp that feels surgically precise, hauling me backward off my feet. I pivot with the momentum, locking his wrist to my chest and wheeling—hard. The joint pops. I catch his knee with my heel and sweep, dropping him like a sack of gravel. There’s a split second as he hits the ground, his grip loosening.

  I strip the baton from his belt and roll to a knee. I pivot, baton raised, and am instantly face to snout with Krookodile. The thing blocks my vision like a living wall, scarred jaws less than an arm’s length away. The air between us is thick—static and something feral. I feel every Pokémon in the room freeze at once, as if the apex predator’s presence alone yanked the kinetic energy from the air. Magneton’s rings grind to an uneasy halt, Muk’s ooze trembles, even the Scolipede’s carcass twitches and goes limp.

  It’s Intimidate, I realize. The ability is more than theory or battle script—it’s visceral, a psychic torque on the nervous system that seizes you at the base of the brainstem and says: you do not matter.

  The two guards are on me before I can adjust, their moves practiced and merciless. I’m shoved hard, face-first, into the ground. My cheek grinds against the stone, the taste of sweat and old blood clinging to my tongue. Arms wrenched behind my back, wrists forced together so tight it feels like the bones will grind to dust. I expect cuffs, but instead I hear the hiss of zip ties—industrial, double-thick, looped and ratcheted until my skin pinches.

  Haru’s voice, cool as a cryogenic chamber, cuts through the aftermath: “You two. Escort him to Colress. Now.” No drama, just as if I’d failed a pop quiz and was being sent to the principal’s office rather than the inside of a black site.

  The armoured guards don’t need to be told twice. They haul me up by the zip ties—no attempt at gentleness—and frog-march me out of the court. The Magneton, left behind, spins in panicked, off-kilter ellipses before discharging a sobering jolt into the wall and shorting the overhead bulbs with a loud pop.

  They hustle me down two flights of stairs, my boots barely skimming the steps, past a reinforced door with NO EXIT stencilled in blood-red. Then it’s a corridor, bleak and even colder, every ten meters marked by a dome camera and a repeating block of text: “Authorized Protocol Only.” There are no windows, no clocks, just the relentless hum of the forced air and the smell of nothing.

  At the end is a steel door, unmarked, with a crescent-shaped cut-out for a palm scanner. The left guard presses his hand to the reader; the door doesn’t just unlock, it opens with a hiss, as if whatever’s inside is under pressure. They shove me in. The door seals before I can clock how many seconds it takes.

  The room is small, ten feet square, lined wall-to-wall in soft grey acoustic foam. There’s one desk, nearly floating in the centre, and behind it sits a man with the kind of posture that’s either military or medieval. He’s young, but not ageless—angular, with a sharp jaw and a cowlick of pale hair arched like a question mark over one eye. His glasses are too modern, rectangular and rimless, and the lab coat is pristine, almost glowing under the blue-white LEDs.

  “Thank you, gentlemen,” he says, voice warm, even. “Do wait outside.”

  The guards leave.

  He watches me a moment, then gestures to the single chair on my side of the desk. “Please. Sit.” I sit, plastic zip cuffs biting into my wrists, and he makes no move to comment on my state.

  “I am Colress,” he says, and I notice the name is pronounced like a colourless absence of anything. He steeples his fingers. “You’re resourceful, Kuro. Not many get a signal out of this place.”

  I wait.

  He watches me for a long beat, as if cataloguing my pulse. His eyes flicker—a tell, or maybe just refracted light. Colress leans back, elbows on the arms of his chair, and for a moment he looks less like a warden and more like the world’s most bored therapist. “I think I owe you an explanation,” he says, as if we were in the gentlest part of an interview. “You’re not typical. This is not a judgment, but an observation. The vast majority of people—even within Plasma—do not take risks unless the outcome is certain or the cost negligible. You, on the other hand, knowingly broadcast from a hostile environment, knowing it would be traced. My question is not why you chose to do it, but rather, what you expected to happen next.”

  I say nothing. If he doesn’t know, there’s no virtue in correcting him. Colress studies me anyway, the air dense with the hum of unseen filtration.

  He shrugs, almost imperceptible. "No answer is an answer, you know." He leans forward, his hands clasped loosely on the desk. "I’m not Plasma," he says, and the words hang strange, given the uniform, the location, the whole arrangement of guards and secret labs. "I mean, I am, administratively. But not philosophically. I’m interested in something better than their revolution. I want to know why some Pokémon are strong. Not in the statistical sense—they’re all numbers, all muscle and type and move set—but in the true sense. Why does a Trainer’s Pokémon, even the weakest, outperform the same species in the wild? Why do they obey, when every instinct should tell them to run?"

  He waits as if expecting me to react. When I don’t, he keeps going.

  "Team Plasma pays me to solve the mystery of control. How does a human, all soft flesh and poor instincts and no offensive typing, command a creature that could kill them at a whim?" He gives a quick, joyless laugh. "It’s not dominance. I’ve seen Pokémon disregard the harshest discipline, and I’ve seen them fight to the death for a Trainer who can barely speak above a whisper. There is a principle of connection here—one that is, as yet, invisible. But not unsolvable."

  Colress glances up at the foam-lined ceiling as if hoping for divine inspiration. "It’s not just a moral matter, or a psychological one. I believe there is a physical basis for it. Not soul, but signal. Not friendship, but frequency." He fixes me with a look so direct I feel it in my teeth. "I think you know what I mean."

  I don’t answer. The question is rhetorical, but I let the silence answer for me.

  Colress reclines, satisfied he’s found an audience. "So. Why am I telling you this?"

  I flex my wrists against the zip tie, trying to work blood back into my hands. "Because you want something."

  He beams—not a smile, more an inverted grimace, but pleased nonetheless. "Correct. You are to be the subject of a critical experiment, Kuro. Not just you, but you’re the first. Subject Zero. All-in." He keys a command on his desk console; somewhere behind the walls, a relay clicks. "A short explanation: we have already succeeded in linking Pokémon to each other via electromagnetic interface. The prototype works on Rattata—simple, yes? But scaling is always the challenge. The next trial requires a human subject. You."

  I almost laugh. "You want to turn me into a Rattata?"

  Colress laces his fingers and leans in, eager, like a kid about to unwrap the cruellest present at the party. “Not a Rattata. I want to see if, with the right interface, a human can communicate with Pokémon in their own language. Not just the crude approximations of command and obedience, but the raw, direct exchange. A shared wavelength.”

  He watches my face for a reaction, probably hoping for horror, or at least revulsion. I give him nothing. My hands are going numb behind my back, and my jaw aches with the effort of not showing my teeth.

  He shrugs away my silence. “There will be side effects,” he says, “and no, they are not trivial. Direct neural coupling has a tendency to interfere with higher brain functions—motor control, emotional regulation, memory formation. There will be disorientation, pain. Anaesthesia corrupts the data, so we won’t be using any.” He says this with the off-hand chill of someone informing you the elevator is out and you’ll have to use the stairs.

  He cracks his knuckles, then smooths the lapels of his coat, a detail so human and out-of-place it makes me want to laugh. “The risk of total memory loss is significant, but not absolute. In fact, there’s a possibility you’ll emerge with enhanced cognition, improved reflexes, electromagnetic abilities.”

  He stands, restless, and begins to pace the small perimeter of the room. “Most of Team Plasma’s leaders are obsessed with the old paradigm. Conquest. Control. They think if they can just sever the link between Trainer and Pokémon, the world will revert to some mythical state of harmony. Idiocy. The real power isn’t in destruction—it’s in merger.” He stops, points a finger at me. “You, Kuro, get to be the first true hybrid.”

  The word lands with a thud in the pit of my stomach. Hybrid. He means it literally.

  Colress walks back to his desk, leans over, and taps a sequence on the terminal. “I won’t lie to you. The procedure is not reversible. You will not be what you were. But I think there is potential for something new.” He pauses, then adds, “You have the right to refuse, if you prefer summary execution.”

  I wonder if he expects me to beg, or to spit in his face. I do neither. I simply tilt my head, holding his gaze. “You’re going to kill me anyway,” I say. “Might as well be worth your while.”

  He grins, delighted at my compliance. “That’s the spirit!”

  Moments later, the guards re-enter, efficiently frog-marching me down another twist of corridor, to whatever end comes next. Maybe Looker will find me before its too late.