That… thing.
Not a gorilla, not quite a sloth. Pale fur like old parchment. Its long arms rested on its knees like it was meditating, or waiting. Watching me.
I didn't know what it was called. Not exactly. I'd seen dozens of creatures since waking up in this nightmare jungle. Some familiar. Most not. This one… maybe something my grandkids had shown me once, back when I still had lazy Sundays and rusty knees. A late-generation Pokémon. What do I know is that Its definitely a psychic type.
I tensed. In my line of work—former line of work—you learned to recognize power when it looked at you. And this thing wasn't just looking. It was feeling. Reaching.
I did the only thing I knew: I tried to shut my mind. Years of mental drills, trauma response, field conditioning. Imagine a wall. Make it real. Reinforce it.
Then it spoke.
Not with its mouth. Not with sound.
"There is no need to fear."
The voice echoed in my head. Calm. Slow. Heavy like a warm blanket, yet ancient. Not hostile, not prying—just there.
I grit my teeth. "Get out of my head."
"I have not entered it. I only speak through a link. I do not read your thoughts. I could… but I choose not to."
It was like being told by a lion that it could bite, but won't—this time.
Before I could respond, the room shifted. Or maybe it was just the air.
The space grew thicker.
And then another presence entered the link.
This one didn't feel like calm wisdom. It felt like a throne being dragged across stone. Like a beast that didn't need to roar to rule.
"You are far from your walls… human."
The voice was deep—baritone and slow, with that quiet kind of power that made you listen.
I turned my head, even though I already knew.
The massive creature. The one that stood taller than any gorilla I'd ever seen. The one that beat its chest like thunder and moved with the weight of a continent.
It is resting leaning its huge frame on the bark of the tree.
"What business does your kind have beneath my trees?"
I hesitated. I didn't want to lie. Not because I trusted them, but because I knew—if these things could talk like this, they could probably tell truth from fiction.
So I told them.
"I'm not from this world."
That made the link ripple.
"I was taken. Abducted. Thrown here by… something. I don't know what it was. All I got was a note. That I should entertainit."
I thought saying it out loud would help. It didn't. The moment I remembered that smug handwriting, the helplessness, the pain returns and my control slipped again.
The rage came flooding back.
Grief.
Anger.
Hate.
Not at them. At the thing that did this. At the goddamn entity that shattered my life like it was nothing.
I felt it bleed into the link before I could stop it. Like a stormfront spilling through a crack. I didn't want to hold it back. Let them see.
Silence followed.
Not a calm silence. A stunned one.
Even without words, I could tell they weren't expecting that. Not from a mere human.
Not that kind of hate. Not that deep, unrelenting fury.
Slaking turned to the old pokemon.
They didn't speak—at least not in words. They just looked at each other.
Like old friends who'd fought wars side by side.
Like kings and counselors measuring judgment.
A stillness passed between them.
The old pokemon tilted his head first. A silent nod.
Then Slaking stepped forward, each movement heavy with deliberate weight. That same quiet power hung around him like a mantle. A low grunt escaped him.
"Then I believe you… for now," he said, voice like a falling drum.
"At first, I thought you were the one who brought the beast."
I blinked. "Beast?"
"The mountain-flesh. The glutton. Snorlax."
Slaking's gaze sharpened.
"Few of its kind roam this region. And rarer still is one that powerful."
"It reeked of your kind. Of training. Of one who was forged to fight."
He looked past me now. Into the jungle. Into the distance where the battle's echoes still lingered.
"Had it not fallen… perhaps the creatures of this forest would be in its belly before sundown."
I didn't say anything. Not right away.
But inside—I felt something shift.
Respect.
It wasn't just that Slaking had won. It was how.
Because even I remembered enough to know: trained Pokémon? They're different.
Humans raise them. Teach them to battle. Refine their instincts. Strategize.
A trained Snorlax—especially one that strong—wasn't just muscle. It was a living tank with a mind sharpened by a partner.
And Slaking beat it.
Alone.
Just raw will and maybe—just maybe—experience.
I eyed him warily. "Were you trained too?"
Slaking didn't answer. Not with words. But the flicker in his gaze told me enough.
A long story.
A long time ago.
Before I could press, Oranguru stepped forward—closer now, as if sensing the heaviness of that silence.
"I am sorry," he said gently. His eyes met mine, and for once I didn't feel invaded—just seen.
"For your loss. For the pain that echoes behind your eyes."
I said nothing.
"My kind are called Oranguru," he added, folding his hands around a strange fan and branch.
"But you may call me The Elder. As all creatures here do."
He paused. His voice lowered.
"And you, flame-eyed one? What do they call you?"
I hesitated.
I opened my mouth....but nothing came out.
A name?
A title?
A face?
There was only static in my mind. The sharp burn of memories I couldn't hold.
Moments, yes.
Emotions, yes.
But not a name.
Just silence. I gritted my teeth as my fury again rises.
"…I don't know," I whispered.
The words hit harder than I expected.
"I don't remember my name..."
*
[ Petalburg Wilds: Danger Zone]
They had been assigned an S-Class field deployment—normally reserved for natural disasters or Ultra Beast incursions.
Three villages had vanished in less than a week. What was left weren't ruins, but craters—entire communities flattened as if the sky itself had come down to punish them. No confirmed survivors. Just fragments. Burned carts. Bent metal. Blood.
The culprit: a rogue Snorlax. Not a wild rampage, not some territorial dispute. This one had been released—unleashed—by one of the Pokémon League's most wanted.
Proton.
A name spoken in Ranger channels with venom. He was a commander of Team Rocket, long thought to be a threat quarantined to Johto and Kanto. But now, somehow, his reach had slithered into Hoenn. And it left nothing but ash in its wake.
Which is why the Pokémon Ranger had been pissed when she learned she'd be saddled with a "civilian trainer."
"An S-Class op, and I'm babysitting a rookie?" she'd snapped when the orders came. "Tell the League to send someone who's finished puberty."
He was fifteen.
And to her growing irritation, he didn't complain once. He didn't posture. He didn't even seem interested in proving himself. Just quiet observation, sharp questions, and Pokémon that listened to him like they'd followed him through hell and back.
Now, after days of hiking through torn forest and cratered land, they were closing in on the trail's end.
The Ranger moved briskly through the undergrowth, one hand resting on the Pokéball at her hip. A sleek Mightyena padded ahead of her, low to the ground, sniffing the disturbed soil. Overhead, a Swellow wheeled in wide, soundless circles, eyes scanning for movement.
The boy kept pace silently. His Swampert was out as well—towering, scarred, and alert.
"Too quiet," the Ranger muttered. "This whole route. Even Taillow nests are empty. I don't like it."
He didn't respond.
She glanced at him. "Still think this is just a stray Snorlax?"
He knelt down beside a tree, inspecting deep claw furrows burned into the bark. "This isn't just Snorlax," he said. "Something else fought it."
Mightyena growled—a low, uncertain warning.
And then they crested the hill.
It was hard to miss. Even slumped, the corpse dominated the clearing. A Snorlax, half-buried in soil and vine, lay still at the center of a churned battlefield. The very air was heavy—burnt, humid, wrong.
"Dead…" the Ranger whispered, stepping forward. "No way. Something brought it down."
He followed her slowly, eyes tracking each gouge in the earth, each crushed branch. Swampert moved at his side, nostrils flaring.
She crouched beside the body. "Do you see any footprints? Burn marks? Anything that—"
He was already pulling out his holo-comm.
She raised an eyebrow. "Calling the Ranger Hub?"
"No." He didn't look up. "Calling someone else."
He tapped in a secure code—one not found on standard Ranger channels.
The signal pulsed. Connected.
A low, familiar voice crackled through the static.
"Yes, Brendan?"