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Kael stared down at the unconscious boy lying on the floor, tilting his head in mild confusion.
"…He fainted? Really?"
The kid Earl, if Kael had caught his name right was the only living soul left in the entire town.
If Kael wanted to figure out where he'd ended up in this strange world, this boy was his only lead.
Sighing, Kael bent down and lifted him effortlessly with one arm.
"Guess it's you and me for now, kid."
He scanned the blood-stained street once more, then slipped into a nearby house, pushing the broken door open with a quiet creak.
He laid Earl carefully on a sofa, brushing off some dust before turning to survey the place.
"Flat-screen TV… stove hood… refrigerator…"
He muttered under his breath, taking note of the familiar shapes.
Technology here didn't seem primitive.
At least, not for civilian life.
Still, his mind wandered back to the underground facility he had escaped from.
Those scientists had possessed some of the most bizarre technology he'd ever seen: regeneration tanks, advanced surgical pods, genetic stabilizers…
And yet, they'd guarded it all with nothing more than pistols and a handful of weak Pokémon.
It was as if this world's tech tree had grown sideways brilliantly advanced in Pokémon research, hopelessly uneven everywhere else.
"Either that," Kael murmured, "or something big went wrong here."
He glanced back at the sleeping boy. Earl's breathing was steady, his small chest rising and falling in rhythm.
Kael rubbed his chin.
Waiting around wouldn't help.
So he started exploring the house.
---
One door creaked open to reveal a quiet room washed in golden evening light.
A desk stood by the window, its wooden surface glowing beneath a stray sunbeam. Several books lay stacked together, half-read and dust-covered.
The shelves along both walls were crammed with volumes.
A study nothing unusual, yet promising.
Kael's crimson eyes lit up.
"Books… perfect. Maybe I can finally figure out where the hell I am."
He pulled one from the shelf, a thick, red-bound book, and opened it.
Within seconds, his excitement vanished.
The pages were covered in squirming, unfamiliar characters, twisting like a mess of tiny worms.
"…Oh. Right."
He blinked once.
"I can't read."
The written language of this world resembled Japanese at first glance but the symbols and structure were all wrong.
Even if it had been Japanese, Kael's literacy in his past life hadn't exactly been impressive.
He sighed, shoulders slumping. "Figures. I can punch through walls, but not through literacy barriers."
Still, he wasn't giving up that easily. "Books for kids… pictures, maybe?"
A bit of rummaging later, and luck struck.
Two thin, illustrated books lay hidden behind a row of novels.
Bright colors. Simplified drawings.
"Bingo."
The first seemed like a Pokédex primer each spread showed sketches of Pokémon species, accompanied by snippets of text.
Kael couldn't read the descriptions, but the pictures were enough:
Pidgey, Rattata, Zigzagoon… and, disturbingly, several he didn't recognize at all.
The second book looked older almost primitive.
Its pages were filled with murals, telling a story in pictographs:
Figures of humans and Pokémon standing together, then fighting, then falling apart into chaos.
Kael frowned, tracing one of the sketches with his finger.
"History, maybe or prophecy."
A creak echoed from the living room.
Earl had begun to stir.
Kael placed the book back gently and turned to leave the study.
---
Earl blinked awake to a ceiling he didn't recognize.
The faint scent of wood polish filled his nose.
"…Where am I?"
His head throbbed, memories sluggishly returning, and then, like a flood, everything came back.
The screams.
The blood.
The burning houses.
"Dad… Mom…"
He bolted upright, chest heaving, eyes wide.
In a panic, he stumbled off the couch and staggered toward the door.
From the corner of the room, Kael leaned silently against the wall, a small book in his hand.
He watched the boy's trembling form, the tears gathering in those green eyes.
His own expression softened.
He didn't say a word.
There was nothing to say.
Sometimes, pain needed space to breathe.
Earl burst outside, his choked sobs echoing through the silent streets.
The sound carried, rising and falling with the wind a lone requiem for a town that no longer lived.
By nightfall, the entire Town was quiet once again.
No lights, no laughter, only the sound of the wind, and the weight of loss.
---
Later that night, one small light flickered to life inside the same house.
Kael sat at the dining table, arms crossed, watching Earl eat.
The boy was shoveling food into his mouth mechanically, barely tasting it, tears still clinging to his lashes.
The canned stew and a few reheated leftovers weren't meant for Earl. Kael had pulled it from the fridge for himself, realizing belatedly that he hadn't eaten since escaping the lab.
By all logic, he should have been starving.
Yet… nothing.
Not even a twinge of hunger.
It was strange.
Even Pokémon needed energy intake after battle.
And he'd been moving nonstop for days.
He glanced at his own hands dark-skinned, veined with faint red and violet light beneath the surface.
No exhaustion. No weakness.
Kael had noticed the same thing back in the facility, but he'd assumed it was because of the Ghost-type energy the researchers had injected into him.
He'd believed that energy acted as a sort of fuel.
But now, outside that sterile lab, the phenomenon persisted.
"Guess I'm not running on calories anymore," he murmured.
What Kael didn't yet know was that his body wasn't just any Pokémon's. The Machop-based clone he inhabited had been genetically engineered to perfection.
The scientists had enhanced its metabolism to absurd efficiency so much that it could extract and recycle energy from almost any source, even ambient particles in the air.
Combined with the vast reservoir of Ghost-type essence sealed inside him, Kael had unknowingly achieved something close to mythical, a state a monk in his previous life would've called fasting through the spirit.
He no longer needed to eat to survive.
The world itself fed him.
---
Kael looked up again.
Earl had stopped eating, slumped forward, eyelids drooping with exhaustion.
For a long moment, Kael simply watched him.
In that flickering light, the boy looked heartbreakingly small just another fragile spark trying to survive in a dying world.
Kael leaned back in his chair, exhaling softly.
"Rest up, kid," he muttered under his breath.
"Tomorrow… we figure out what's left of this world."
The lamp buzzed faintly.
Outside, the wind carried away the last traces of warmth from Whiteleaf Town.
And within the quiet house, two survivors, one human, one not quite, faced the long night together.
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