The air tasted of ash and wet earth. Dawn was a hesitant thing in this part of the forest, a shy visitor filtering through a canopy still laced with the ghost of smoke. Embers from the lab's explosion, miles away, pulsed like distant, dying stars in the undergrowth. This glade, however, was a sanctuary, a pocket of defiant green that the blast hadn't managed to scour away. It was here we had brought him.
He lay in a heap of scorched fur, a knot of wounded pride and pain. Makeshift bandages, strips torn from my shirt were wrapped around his torso and one leg, already stained with soot and something darker. His breathing was a ragged whisper against the morning quiet, each inhalation a struggle. Streaks of black marred his vibrant orange coat, a brutal map of his ordeal.
I took a slow step forward, my boots sinking into the soft moss. "Easy now," I murmured, intending only to check if the poultice Oddish had helped me prepare was still in place.
It was a mistake.
A growl, low and guttural, tore through the silence. The Growlithe scrambled, wincing as his injuries protested, and pushed himself onto three legs. His lips peeled back, and a desperate, dying spark of fire flickered between his fangs. His eyes, dark and wide with terror, were fixed on me. They held no malice, only a cornered animal's certainty that more pain was coming.
Lila moved to my side, her hand instinctively going to the Poké Balls on her belt. I put a hand on her arm, gentle but firm, and shook my head. She looked from the trembling Pokémon to me, her brow furrowed with concern.
"He's in agony," she whispered. "We have to help him."
"It's not about the pain," I replied, my voice just as low, never taking my eyes off the Growlithe. "It's fear. He doesn't know the difference between a helping hand and the one that put him in a cage." I knew that feeling. I knew it in my bones.
I lowered myself to the ground, cross-legged, a dozen feet away from him. Close enough to be present, far enough to be safe. Lila understood and retreated to the edge of the glade, giving us space. The Growlithe's growl subsided into a suspicious rumble, his body still coiled tight as a spring.
"Hey," I said softly. The sound of my own voice felt loud in the stillness. "I'm not going to hurt you."
He watched me, his small chest rising and falling in shallow, rapid pants.
"I know what it's like," I continued, my voice calm, rhythmic. "To be changed. To be used as a weapon. To have something inside you, something that's supposed to be yours, twisted into a tool for someone else's purpose."
I didn't try to move closer. I didn't offer a treat or make any sudden gestures. I just sat, and I talked. The sun climbed, a merciless white eye that burned away the last of the morning mist. I let the hours stretch, filling the silence with a low, steady murmur. I told him about the feel of the wind under a hawk's wings and the smell of the earth as a mole. I spoke of things that were wild and free, a language I hoped some part of him still remembered.
After a while, I signaled to my companions. Oddish waddled forward, not toward the Growlithe, but to the scorched earth at the edge of the glade, and began its quiet work. Its leaves trembled as it drew the toxins from the soil, leaving behind patches of rich, dark loam. Butterfree drifted overhead, a silent, graceful dancer. It shook its wings, and a shimmering curtain of gold dust—Sleep Powder, but in a micro-dose—drifted down, not to sedate, but to calm. The pollen smelled of honeysuckle and peace, and it dulled the sharp, acrid scent of smoke that still clung to everything.
Slowly, almost imperceptibly, the tension bled out of the Growlithe. The trembling in his legs ceased. The growl faded completely. His breathing, while still shallow, found a more even rhythm. He was still watching me, but the frantic terror in his eyes had been replaced by a deep, weary caution. He laid his head down on his paws, never looking away, but surrendering to the exhaustion that was pulling him under.
Night fell, and Lila built a small, smokeless fire. She'd laid out her sleeping bag a respectful distance away and was soon lost to a deep, well-earned sleep. I stayed awake, watching the firelight dance across the Growlithe's fur, turning the scorched black to silver and the orange to deepest crimson. The flames were reflected in his dark, unblinking eyes. He watched the fire, and I watched him.
"I was part of a team once," I said into the quiet, my voice barely a whisper. "A family, of sorts. But before that… before them… they made me into something else. Something they could control."
I thought of the cold metal of Mento's helmet, of the sterile white labs of my childhood, so different from the vibrant, living chaos of this forest. "People saw a monster before they ever saw a boy. They were afraid of what I was, of what I could do. They didn't understand that I was just as scared as they were."
My tone wasn't bitter. The anger had been burned out of me long ago, leaving behind only the ash of understanding. This small, broken creature knew that same fear. He knew the feeling of being powerful and yet utterly powerless at the same time.
I reached into the small pouch at my belt and pulled out a single, smooth seed. It was the one Forrest gave me before we left, warm to the touch and pulsing with a faint, latent energy. I leaned forward, just enough to press it into the soft earth beside the sleeping Pokémon.
"New life always grows out of pain," I murmured, more to myself than to him. "It has to."
As if hearing me, the soil around the seed stirred. A tiny, green shoot emerged, unfurling in the moonlight. It pulsed with a soft, verdant glow, a miniature beacon of hope in the deep dark of the glade. The Growlithe's ear twitched toward the light, and he let out a soft, sleeping sigh.
The peace was shattered by the snap of a twig, followed by the unnatural whir of machinery. My head shot up. Lila was awake in an instant, sitting up and grabbing for her gear. Out of the darkness, shapes emerged. The forest's corrupted guardians. A metallic Scyther with blades that glinted with cold, artificial light. A Magnemite that hummed with a menacing energy, its single red eye scanning the glade. They were searching for survivors from the lab. For him.
We ducked behind a large fern, the shadows swallowing us. But the Growlithe was stirring. He smelled them. He sensed the same cold, wrong presence that had caged him. A weak, pained growl rumbled in his chest. He was going to give us away.
I looked at him, at the faint green light of the seedling illuminating his determined face. There was no time for subtlety now. I met his gaze and nodded, trying to pour all my understanding into that single gesture.
"You're free to run," I whispered, my voice urgent but steady. "No one would blame you. But if you stay, I'll fight beside you."
I offered him a choice. The one thing that had been stolen from him.
The metal Scyther's head swiveled, its optical sensors locking onto the sound of his growl. It lunged. Lila was already sending out her Eevee, as it spread a cloud of sand. I morphed, my form shifting, elongating, hardening into the solid, powerful shape of a Tauros. I met the Scyther's charge with a wall of muscle and horn, the clang of metal on bone echoing through the night.
The Magnemite fired a Thundershock, a bolt of jagged yellow energy that I barely dodged. But as I braced for another attack, a flash of orange shot past me. The Growlithe, limping heavily, staggered forward. He planted his three good feet, inhaled sharply, and coughed out a small, defiant jet of flame. It wasn't much, but his Ember struck the Magnemite square on, sending it reeling backward with a screech of static.
He had stayed. He had chosen to fight.
A surge of energy, of fierce protectiveness, coursed through me. Together, we held the glade. I was the shield, the unmovable object. He was the flickering, defiant flame. Lila's Eevee and my Butterfree filled the air with a swirling vortex of stunning polle sand and calming light, confusing the machines' sensors. The battle was short, chaotic, and ended when the corrupted Pokémon, overwhelmed by fire and light and nature's raw power, retreated back into the darkness.
When the last hum of their engines faded, the silence that returned was absolute. The Growlithe stood for a moment longer, swaying on his feet, before his legs finally gave out. He collapsed in a heap, exhausted but, for the first time, calm.
I shifted back, my human form feeling small and fragile after the raw power of the Tauros. I knelt beside him, my heart hammering in my chest. Slowly, carefully, I extended my hand, palm up. I didn't force it. I just offered.
He lifted his head, his breathing labored. He sniffed my fingers, his wet nose cold against my skin. I felt the faintest brush of whiskers. Then, he pressed his muzzle firmly into my palm and let out a long, shuddering sigh. It wasn't a surrender. It was an offering. A choice. The first true trust he had shown since this nightmare began.
From the edge of the glade, Lila smiled, her face illuminated by the soft glow of the seedling. "Guess you found your fire," she whispered.
I watched the rise and fall of his chest and felt a smile touch my lips. "No," I said softly, stroking the warm fur on his brow. "He found his."
The next morning, he was standing. He was still weak, still favoring his bandaged leg, but his tail gave a small, tentative wag when he saw me. The forest itself seemed to breathe easier, the air cleaner. During the night, the little green shoot had grown into a small, luminous plant, its leaves curled protectively over where the Growlithe had slept.
I'd found a shard of twisted metal in the ashes near our camp, a remnant of a cage or a machine. I spent an hour rubbing it smooth against a river stone, dulling its sharp edges, working it into a small, crescent-shaped charm. It was a remnant of his prison, reforged into a symbol of his freedom. When I was done, I looped it onto a bit of vine.
"A promise," I told him, showing him the charm. "Not a leash. A promise that you're safe now."
He allowed me to place it around his neck. It settled into his fur, a glint of silver against the fiery orange. He was whole again. Not healed, not yet, but whole.
As if sensing the shift, the balance being restored, the glade seemed to respond. New green shoots were pushing determinedly through the ash at its edges. Life was returning.
I sat with him by the little glowing plant, Butterfree resting on my shoulder, and we watched the sun rise. For the first time in a long time, a sense of peace settled over me. It wasn't a lazy, complacent peace. It was a watchful one. A peace with steel behind it. I felt the weight of th
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The air was a wet blanket, thick with the smell of rot and ozone. Every breath felt heavy, borrowed from the suffocating humidity of the jungle. It had been swallowing this place for years, its green tendrils cracking plasti-crete and pulling down the skeletal frames of comms towers. Another dead end, another monument to failure. I'd been chasing ghosts.
This place felt different. My senses, a curse I'd long ago learned to weaponize, were screaming. The drone of a million insects was a dull roar in my ears, but underneath it, I could almost feel the phantom hum of a power core, long dead but still bleeding radiation into the soil. I pushed aside a curtain of vines, their leaves slick with moisture, and my boot crunched on something that wasn't earth. Shattered glass from a high-impact viewport. I was close.
A cold knot in my gut loosened, replaced by a familiar, weary ache. The ache of knowing the worst was yet to come. I traced the edge of the scorch mark, the ghost of its heat a phantom on my fingertips.
"So, you're still alive," I muttered to the empty clearing, the words swallowed by the jungle. My voice was rough, rusted from disuse. He was alive and he was still out here, fighting. "And you've found your war."
I stood, my gaze sweeping the treeline. He was long gone, but his fight was just beginning. And if he was involved, so was I. Whether he wanted it or not. I pressed a finger to the comm unit tucked behind my ear, the soft click a stark intrusion in the natural song.
Static hissed for a moment before a clear, digital tone confirmed the connection.
"Find everything on a man named Vile," I commanded, my voice flat and cold as the steel beneath my feet. "Code name, aliases, last known location, what he had for breakfast. I want it all. If he's behind this, I'll drag him into the light myself."