"Sinbad! What happened in the World Alliance Calendar Year 1792?" Mr. Ruskin, the Pokémon professor at the Colegio Brisamar Royal Academy, asked the barely awake member of the 12th grade class.
Mr. Ruskin's voice cracked like a Thunder Shock across the classroom.
The Pokémon professor stood rigid behind his lectern at Colegio Brisamar Royal Academy a prestigious coastal institute perched on sun-bleached cliffs overlooking turquoise water and violent trade winds. The school liked to brand itself as the jewel of Caribbean education. Locals called it the pressure cooker where nobles learned how to stab each other politely.
Thirty pairs of eyes snapped toward the barely conscious student slumped in the back row.
Sinbad Mar did not move.
Sinbad Mar, the 12th Prince of the Haitian Empire, a Caribbean kingdom that shares the island of Hispaniola with the Dominican Republic to its east. Historically poor and politically unstable, Haiti has faced severe economic and political crises, gang activity displacing over 1.3 million people, and the near collapse of the government and royal family. But thanks to the efforts of King Adéwalé Kenway, a former slave turned pirate turned revolutionary from Trinidad, the nation survived.
The king kept Haiti from falling out of the World Alliance.
Sinbad didn't answer because he was asleep to the world.
As a prince, even though he was 12th in line and from the lowest branch, the Mar family, whose only saving grace was that his father married Jennifer Kenway and was one of the twelve boys in the royal family, his status was still fragile.
Still, with such low standing, Sinbad and his father were not treated well by most people at the Royal Academy.
At the Royal Academy, status was a blood sport. The higher families barely acknowledged Sinbad and his father unless they needed someone to talk down to, blame, or step over. The Mar name carried no weight. No allies. No protection.
Flick!
The chalk rebounded when Sinbad flicked it back in his sleep, bouncing off the professor's head. Glowering at the prince, Mr. Ruskin breathed in and out, remembering that despite his low bloodline, Sinbad was still part of the royal family.
It's not worth jail to beat up the slacker…
"Candi, please answer the question."
Candi Marson, a 16-year-old long-haired blonde beauty. She wears a red-colored, short bolero-style jacket that reveals a lemon tattoo on her midsection. She's also got a choker, biker boots, a Hello Kitty–inspired tattoo, and uses red eye makeup and hair dye to suggest both "geisha" and "suicide girl." Being on the cheerleading team, a sport requiring flexibility and muscle strength, her body is toned and curvy from top to bottom, with visible abs, muscular thighs, and voluminous breasts.
XxX--World Alliance Calendar Year 1792
Salt spray hammered steel hulls as storm clouds rolled low across the horizon. Radar pings and Pokémon cries overlapped in chaotic layers of sound, battle stations alive with tension that never truly slept.
The Haitian Fleet was the Russian Fleet for months that spread over all the islands. Looking to spread their influence the Russian Alliance (Bear Alliance) was looking capturing the Pokemon the realms in the Caribbean Islands.
Supply routes burned. Island strongholds fell and were reclaimed. Entire ports vanished overnight under orbital bombardments and Legendary-class engagements that cracked coral reefs and rearranged coastlines.
The Caribbean islands are a tropical archipelago in the Caribbean Sea, comprising over 7,000 islands, cays, and islets, home to 13 independent nations (like Cuba, Jamaica, Bahamas) and numerous territories of the UK, US, France, and Netherlands, known for diverse geography, rich culture, and stunning beaches, divided into Greater Antilles (Cuba, Jamaica, Hispaniola, Puerto Rico) and the Lesser Antilles arc, offering a mix of volcanic mountains and flat coral islands.
Tourist posters still tried to sell paradise. Reality sold evacuation routes and reinforced seawalls.
The Haitian Fleet was resisting the Russian Fleet for months that spread over all the islands. Looking to spread their influence, the Russian Alliance (Bear Alliance) was looking to capture the Pokémon realms in the Caribbean Islands.
The Caribbean islands are a tropical archipelago in the Caribbean Sea, comprising over 7,000 islands, cays, and islets, home to 13 independent nations (like Cuba, Jamaica, Bahamas) and numerous territories of the UK, US, France, and Netherlands, known for diverse geography, rich culture, and stunning beaches, divided into the Greater Antilles (Cuba, Jamaica, Hispaniola, Puerto Rico) and the Lesser Antilles arc, offering a mix of volcanic mountains and flat coral islands.
The Outer Realms are pockets of space from another dimension transferring from another world. A world filled with advanced technology and creatures called Pocket Monsters or Pokémon, a race of superpowered animals and creatures from folklore with powers that can destroy the world. As more and more realms merged with Earth, the planet changed to something straight out of a fiction book.
Soon people figured out a way to capture Pokémon in Poké Balls, and soon Pokémon replaced guns and other types of military weapons for the most part. As humans multiplied and advanced technologically, Pokémon evolved alongside them to survive and avoid being pushed out of their habitats by expanding industry. The evolution of Pokémon in general took the form of size, ferocity, intelligence, and even submission. This allowed some Pokémon to defend their habitats, slow the expansion of civilization, or integrate into human society.
The Russian Alliance, backed by the mythical beast Articuno, known as the Winter Bird, a mystical bird that brings winter to their region, destroyed the Haitians in great numbers and managed to kill the former king but was greatly injured in the process, halting the progress of the Russian Alliance.
Adéwalé Kenway, after days of battle, returned to the base in Port-au-Prince. Along the way, all the soldiers and trainers respectfully greeted the newly inducted king of Haiti.
"Votre Majesté."
Thanks to him, they managed to repel the enemy. After King Jarc fell, he and his Pokémon immediately battled Articuno and killed its trainer, the commander of the fleet, while capturing the other legendary Pokémon before it could be brought to help Articuno.
The legendary beast of ruin, Chien-Pao.
Returning to the base of operations, Adéwalé went straight to the war room. Despite being tired, the Russian Alliance won't stay bothered for long.
At this moment, a soldier walked into the war room and greeted his king. "Votre Majesté."
Adéwalé greeted the fleet admiral of the Haitian Fleet, his former disciple, Edward Nassu.
"Report on the damages, Edward," Adéwalé demanded bluntly. As king now, he can't treat him as a fellow comrade anymore.
"We lost twenty dreadnoughts and twelve carriers in the battle. 34,000 men have been reported missing or dead. While you did kill the Russian Alliance commander and stole one of their prized legendaries, breaking the morale of the enemy, that was only a short reprieve. The men we captured said that Russia will not take this lying down."
Adéwalé knew this already but can't think that this war was going to be easy.
"How many ships, men, and Pokémon were captured?"
Edward swallowed, tapped the holo-slate on his forearm, and projected a tactical overlay into the center of the war room. Blue light spilled across the scarred metal table, forming rotating silhouettes of ships, troop counts, and containment sigils.
"Six carriers were seized intact. Three dreadnoughts are damaged but recoverable. Approximately eight thousand Russian personnel surrendered after their command structure collapsed. We've secured over twelve thousand standard Poké Balls, military-grade capsules, and thirty-seven high-value Pokémon assets."
Icons flared amber.
"Two pseudo-legendaries, multiple elite battalion-class combat units, and…" Edward hesitated for half a breath, then nodded toward the reinforced containment glyph pulsing at the edge of the projection.
"…the legendary-class specimen."
Even through layers of shielding, the temperature in the room dipped a few degrees.
Frost crawled across the edges of the holo-table, evaporating almost instantly under thermal dampeners. The air hummed faintly with restrained power.
Chien-Pao.
The Beast of Ruin remained sealed within a triple-layer containment prism buried beneath Port-au-Prince's naval citadel. Psychic suppressors, Aura anchors, and dimensional locks formed a lattice designed by three different allied nations. No one trusted a single system with something that could rewrite weather patterns and erase cities if it sneezed incorrectly.
Adéwalé studied the projection silently.
His uniform still carried faint scorch marks and frozen fractures along the armored seams. His knuckles bore healing scars where ice had bitten through reinforcement plating. One of his Pokémon's Poké Balls at his belt showed visible microfractures, emergency repairs barely holding the shell together.
Victory had not come cheap.
"How many of the men are still able to fight and how many ships do we have left. How many—"
Edward exhaled slowly before answering, eyes flicking back to the tactical display. The numbers were not kind.
"Combat-ready personnel stands at approximately eighty-three thousand across all fleets and island garrisons. Another forty-two thousand are wounded but expected to return to duty within the next three weeks if medical recovery holds. We've lost full operational status on seventeen capital ships. Nine more are functional but running on emergency repairs and cannibalized parts."
He paused, jaw tightening.
"Escort vessels took the worst of it. Our screening lines are thin. If the Russians push again within the month, we will be fighting stretched."
Adéwalé absorbed the numbers without visible reaction. His expression stayed hard, controlled, calculating.
"How many aircraft carriers?"
"Eight fully operational. Four more undergoing hull reconstruction. Two are write-offs."
A quiet weight settled into the room. Carriers meant air superiority, rapid Pokémon deployment, mobile hospitals, and command relays. Losing them hurt more than losing cities.
Adéwalé nodded once.
"And our Pokémon units?"
Edward scrolled the display again.
"750 Units of Pokémon are still able and ready."
A unit can have up to 1,000 to 12,000 hundred of Pokémon.
Adéwalé's fingers tapped against the table once. Not impatience. Habit.
"Supply lines?"
"Ammunition reserves at sixty-one percent. Food shipments remain vulnerable through the Windward routes."
Adéwalé held the number in his head for a moment longer, then gave a short nod.
"That will be all, Edward."
Edward straightened. "Yes, Your Majesty."
The holo-display dimmed. Officers quietly dispersed back to their stations. The war room emptied with the low hum of machinery and distant echoes of alarms and engines bleeding through the steel bulkheads.
The war did not pause.
But the briefing did.
XxX
Early the next morning, the bugle sounded, its sharp cry cutting through the humid air like a blade. The sound carried across the base, bouncing off hangar walls, carrier decks, and half-repaired hulls still scarred from battle. Crews stirred from bunks and med-bays alike. Boots hit metal floors. Orders began moving before voices fully woke.
The fleet was already rising again.
Early the next morning, the bugle sounded, its brutal metallic cry slicing through the fog-choked harbor like a blade dragged across bone. Sleep vanished instantly across the base as crews poured from barracks and med bays, half-armored sailors fastening harnesses while running, mechanics vaulting tool crates, trainers yanking open Poké Ball racks with hands still shaking from adrenaline and unfinished nightmares. The air smelled of fuel, salt, ozone, and old smoke that never fully left after a real battle, the kind that soaked into steel plating and human lungs alike.
Radar alarms began howling seconds later.
A wall of red contacts bloomed across command screens, blooming outward from the eastern horizon like a spreading infection. Fast movers. Heavy signatures. Energy spikes large enough to warp localized weather patterns. The Russian Alliance had not waited. They had not regrouped. They had come back angry, coordinated, and armed with everything they could drag out of their reserves.
The ocean itself seemed to recoil as the first long-range bombardment screamed in.
Orbital rail slugs punched into the water kilometers out from the fleet, geysers erupting high enough to blot out the rising sun while pressure waves slammed into hulls like invisible fists. Shock dampeners groaned as decks shuddered violently beneath boots and treads. Fighter wings screamed into the air in dense swarms, contrails carving jagged scars through low clouds as interception grids activated across the battle network.
Then the monsters arrived.
Massive silhouettes breached the surface in rolling explosions of displaced seawater, armored leviathans dragging sonar towers and broken coral across their backs as they rose into open air, bellowing with voices that vibrated through bone and metal alike. Electrical arcs danced along spined fins, superheated steam vented from glowing vents in their scales, and every movement displaced enough mass to generate localized shockwaves that smashed into escort vessels and sent smaller ships skidding sideways through the surf.
Haitian artillery batteries answered immediately.
Heavy plasma cannons thundered from carrier decks and coastal platforms, beams punching molten scars across thick hides while missile swarms streaked low over the water before detonating against exposed joints and sensory ridges. Trainers unleashed their own living artillery into the chaos as towering elemental beasts surged forward in disciplined formations, walls of flame colliding with glacial shock fronts while sonic attacks shattered incoming drone swarms mid-air. The battlefield rapidly became layered hell, sea boiling beneath conflicting energy fields while burning wreckage rained from the sky like falling stars.
One carrier took a direct hit from a hypervelocity impact round that punched straight through its starboard deck and detonated inside the hangar bay. The explosion tore the vessel open like a peeled shell, aircraft and fuel tanks igniting simultaneously as shockwaves hurled crew members into bulkheads and open sky. Emergency shields flared desperately before collapsing under sustained fire, fragments of burning hull raining down into the surrounding water where rescue skimmers immediately dove into debris clouds thick enough to blot out sonar.
A massive enemy beast lunged through the smoke curtain, jaws wide enough to swallow a gunship whole as crystalline energy built along its throat in a rapidly compressing sphere. Before it could fire, a coordinated strike of synchronized elemental beams tore into its skull from three angles, liquefying armored bone and detonating the charge internally. The creature collapsed in a cascading avalanche of burning flesh and superheated vapor, its corpse slamming into the ocean hard enough to generate a rolling wave that nearly capsized two destroyers.
Adéwalé stood on the forward command deck of his flagship, coat snapping violently in the turbulent wind while targeting overlays scrolled endlessly across his tactical visor. Orders flowed through his command channel in overlapping layers, fleet movements adjusting in real time as losses mounted and openings appeared, his voice steady even as the horizon burned in multiple directions and shock tremors rattled through the reinforced bridge plating.
"Rotate the third carrier group behind the shield wall. Deploy reserve aerial squads into corridor seven. Pull the damaged destroyers back before their reactors destabilize. Keep pressure on their heavy units. Do not let them anchor."
A nearby explosion rocked the flagship hard enough to momentarily distort gravity stabilizers, several officers catching themselves against console rails as warning lights flared across multiple systems. Through the armored viewport, a massive enemy unit slammed bodily into a Haitian cruiser, its sheer mass crushing armor plating inward like soft tin while energy claws tore into exposed weapon mounts. Defensive Pokémon swarmed the breach, elemental detonations rippling across the hull as the creature was forced backward into open water in a violent cascade of shattered armor plates and liquefied tissue.
Blood streaked across the ocean surface in dark spreading ribbons, quickly boiling away under overlapping thermal fields while debris and broken bodies drifted through expanding kill zones that shifted constantly as both sides adapted and countered. The sea itself had become a battlefield organism, churning, burning, freezing, and reforming under layered physics abuse that would have shattered any conventional naval engagement within seconds.
This was not war between ships.
This was war between ecosystems forced into collision.
Adéwalé watched a distant enemy formation collapse under concentrated fire, multiple massive signatures vanishing from the tactical grid as coordinated strikes punched through their core defenses. The victory was brief. New contacts were already replacing them, surging forward from deeper range like a tide that refused to learn fear.
His jaw tightened.
The Bear Alliance was feeding bodies into the grinder without hesitation.
Which meant something bigger was coming.
And the morning had only just begun.
The sky over the fleet fractured into layered combat zones as the first wave fully collided, Dynamax energy pillars erupting from multiple carrier decks and coastal platforms as containment fields expanded outward like glowing storm domes, massive Pokémon swelling into city-sized silhouettes that immediately began trading continental-scale blows with incoming enemy leviathans. One Dynamaxed Rhyperior anchored the defensive line like a walking fortress, its rocky plates absorbing artillery impacts that would have flattened cruisers while it hurled incandescent boulders the size of buildings through advancing formations, each impact detonating in concussive shockwaves that shredded smaller targets into mist and twisted wreckage.
Mega Evolutions flared across the battlefield like miniature suns.
A Mega Charizard tore through cloud layers trailing molten contrails, its amplified flame storms carving burning corridors through aerial drone swarms and forcing enemy flyers into chaotic evasive patterns where interception squads shredded them apart. A Mega Blastoise anchored near the flagship projected overlapping hydro-cannon barrages so dense they formed temporary moving walls of compressed water, deflecting incoming energy beams while pulverizing anything unfortunate enough to cross its firing lanes. Trainers coordinated through encrypted battle networks, rotating stamina cycles, aura reserves, and elemental coverage with surgical precision while med units pulled wounded Pokémon back through recovery corridors mid-fight.
The Russians answered in kind.
Their own Dynamax units surged forward, monstrous silhouettes wreathed in unstable energy fields that warped gravity and atmospheric pressure around them, while synchronized Z-Move detonations punched localized craters directly into defensive screens, collapsing shield layers and throwing entire formations off balance. One colossal ice-class unit slammed bodily into a Haitian carrier's forward shield array, its mass deforming the barrier into a screaming arc of fractured light before cracking through and tearing a chunk of armored deck free like a slab of meat. Fire suppression systems erupted instantly as trainers scrambled to contain secondary explosions while emergency teleport relays extracted survivors from open voids and collapsing compartments.
The battlefield did not pause.
It escalated.
Adéwalé stepped onto the forward deployment platform of his flagship without ceremony, wind tearing at his coat as his command staff tried unsuccessfully to argue him back behind layered shielding. His hand closed around the heavy Ultra-grade Poké Ball at his belt, its surface scarred and reinforced from years of frontline deployment, and with a sharp forward motion he released it directly into the storm.
"Out."
Light detonated outward as his lead Pokémon manifested in full combat form, immediately projecting an overlapping defensive field that stabilized local turbulence and carved a temporary corridor of controlled airspace around the flagship. The presence alone shifted tactical readings across nearby sectors as allied units synchronized positioning around the mobile anchor point he provided.
Adéwalé vaulted onto the deployment rail without hesitation and launched himself forward, landing cleanly onto the stabilized energy field as the battle raged around him in layered destruction. His second and third Poké Balls followed in rapid sequence, each release adding additional overlapping combat vectors, elemental pressure zones forming around his moving strike group as he pushed directly into the densest enemy concentration.
"Mega Evolution."
The command snapped through his neural interface and the responding aura surge detonated outward in a violent cascade of energy, his partner Pokémon's silhouette warping and hardening as amplified power flooded its musculature and combat systems simultaneously. The air screamed under the sudden pressure shift as the Mega form stabilized, immediately accelerating into high-velocity assault patterns that carved a path directly through enemy ranks, tearing into armored targets with force sufficient to rupture containment fields and destabilize core reactors.
Enemy units attempted to intercept.
They were erased.
Adéwalé chained commands fluidly, stacking tactical sequencing with brutal efficiency, rotating shield reinforcement timing between strikes while his supporting Pokémon unleashed synchronized elemental barrages that overwhelmed defensive resistances through layered type pressure. A Dynamax-class enemy lunged into the corridor, its massive form blotting out sensor visibility as it attempted to crush the advance outright, but Adéwalé didn't slow. He triggered a stored Z-Move sequence mid-charge, the accumulated energy discharging in a blinding explosion that punched straight through the creature's reinforced core, collapsing its containment field and sending its collapsing mass spiraling into the ocean below in a thunderous detonation that rocked surrounding formations.
Blood and superheated vapor rolled outward in expanding shock rings.
The flagship's sensors lit up with cascading kill confirmations as the breakthrough destabilized the enemy's forward coordination grid, multiple command units collapsing under sudden loss of synchronized support. Haitian formations surged forward immediately, exploiting the opening with disciplined aggression, aerial units flooding the breach while naval batteries redirected fire into exposed flanks and collapsing shield gaps.
The Russian push finally began to buckle.
Not retreat. Not surrender.
Collapse.
Their formation fractured under compounded losses, several remaining heavy units disengaging violently while leaving rear elements exposed long enough for containment sweeps to neutralize surviving assets. The battlefield slowly stabilized into controlled chaos rather than outright annihilation, fires still burning across damaged hulls while recovery teams moved into extraction lanes under heavy escort coverage.
Adéwalé returned to the flagship platform with armor scorched and energy residue crackling faintly across his equipment, his Pokémon recalling back into containment with visible exhaustion but stable vitals. He did not celebrate. He did not relax. He watched the tactical grid settle into survivable margins and allowed himself exactly one controlled exhale before turning back toward command operations.
The Bear Alliance had been bloodied badly.
But the war was far from finished.
XxX
Back in the classroom, Candi's voice cut cleanly through the lingering silence as she finished recounting the historical engagement, her tone confident and animated as several students leaned forward, caught by the sheer scale of destruction and legendary involvement.
"And that battle marked the first major collapse of the Bear Alliance's Caribbean expansion. King Adéwalé's direct intervention broke their momentum and forced a strategic withdrawal. The capture of Chien-Pao shifted regional power balance and secured Haiti's continued position within the World Alliance."
Mr. Ruskin nodded slowly, satisfied.
"Correct."
Several students murmured quietly among themselves.
Sinbad remained asleep.
Completely.
Utterly.
Unimpressed by history, war, and geopolitical consequences.
Candi glanced toward the back row, lips curling slightly as she spotted him still drooling faintly on his folded arms.
"Unbelievable," she muttered under her breath.
Port-au-Prince, Hideout of Sinbad
On top of the tree sat a structure so massive it could easily be mistaken for a mansion, hidden deep inside the mango groves like a smug secret the jungle refused to give up. Thick branches wrapped around polished stone balconies and reinforced glass walls, leaves forming natural camouflage that broke aerial scans and visual tracking alike. From above, it looked like nothing more than an unusually aggressive tree.
Inside the living room of the hidden palace, sunlight filtered through layered canopy windows and scattered across marble floors and hanging vines. The place felt surreal. Too clean. Too expensive. Too alive for something that technically shouldn't exist.
Sinbad had stopped asking questions about this life a long time ago.
Dying a virgin and having to spin multiple wheels of reincarnation just to appear in some ultra-realistic version of a Pokémon world had burned through his capacity for surprise early. Sinbad Mar, age sixteen, officially the laziest prince in the world, had learned very quickly that reality was apparently a comedy special with a personal grudge.
After working himself to the bone in his previous life and discovering that none of it bought happiness, peace, or even a decent death scene, Sinbad had made a firm executive decision.
This life?
Easy mode.
He was a prince now. Not a CEO. Not a corporate war slave. A literal prince in an actual country. If destiny wanted him to relax, he was going to lean into that invitation like it owed him interest.
Granted, his family situation didn't really change much.
Back on Earth, his Haitian roots were poor. Church-run. Barely scraping by. Faith, community, hand-me-down everything. Here it was similar, especially on his father's side. Noble blood didn't magically translate into luxury when you sat near the bottom of the inheritance ladder.
His mother was part of the Kenway royal family, but she wasn't a trainer and had zero interest in becoming one. No ambition for glory. No hunger for money or political power. His father wasn't much different, preferring quiet administration work and staying far away from the battlefield politics that chewed nobles into statistics.
Still, being born a prince of an empire came with one unavoidable rite of passage.
At sixteen, Sinbad officially inherited the right and obligation to become a Pokémon Trainer.
Originally, he would've said absolutely the hell not and lived lazily while expanding his bloodline with a wife or two.
Hey.
He died a fucking virgin last time.
He fully intended to correct that cosmic injustice in this life and actually have a family instead of dying surrounded by spreadsheets and regret.
Unfortunately, destiny had different opinions.
Some mysterious fat motherfucker had sent him a letter stating very clearly that if he did not become a Pokémon Trainer, his life would be forfeit. No fine print. No appeals. No unsubscribe button. Just existential blackmail.
Next time he met that thing, somebody was catching hands.
The letter hadn't come alone.
It came with a heavy reinforced box filled with Smooth, Damp, Icy, Heat, Drake, and dozens more specialized catalysts. All eighteen Pokémon types represented. Weather amplification items designed to boost and manipulate environmental effects far beyond anything normal storms could achieve.
Which was when Sinbad learned this world had gone absolutely insane with weather mechanics.
Thanks to this being real life instead of a balanced game, there were far more weather effects than anything the old systems ever allowed. People called it Weathergy.
Unlike normal weather, Weathergy amplified elemental output, stamina regeneration, environmental hazards, visibility manipulation, and even battlefield morale in measurable, terrifying ways.
Used correctly, it could turn a small squad into a regional threat.
Used incorrectly, it could erase cities.
"Lets see what's in the box."
Sinbad stared at the box with a deadpanned stare.
"…This better come with an easy-to-train bug type."
Rich or not, Sinbad did not want a "good" Pokémon starter. The prices for common Pokémon ran like foreign car prices. For sixty to eighty thousand, you could buy a starter with decent potential from a licensed Day Care, which wasn't too much of a financial burden according to financial history class.
That was just the entry fee.
Then you factored in items, berries, medical supplies, training equipment, rental battle fields, transport permits, insurance premiums, and the endless diet regime Pokémon required just to stay healthy while growing stronger. Most people went broke just training two Pokémon. Three if they were reckless. Four if they were either rich, insane, or sponsored by something that didn't care about human survival rates.
Elite trainers didn't raise teams.
They raised ecosystems.
Sinbad had done the math more than once. Even with royal stipends and inheritance access, going full competitive trainer meant burning money faster than a Mega Charizard burned forests. Every evolution stone was priced like a luxury watch. TMs fluctuated like stock markets. Rare berries were auctioned like fine art. Healing compounds for high-output Pokémon cost more than rent in three cities combined.
And that wasn't even touching battlefield damage repairs, Poké Ball replacements, or emergency medical extraction fees when something went wrong and your monster tried to eat a tank.
He wasn't stupid.
He wanted comfort. Food. Air conditioning. A decent bed. Time to sleep in. Maybe a girlfriend or two. A peaceful, low-effort existence that didn't involve getting vaporized by some overachieving twelve-year-old with a god complex and a Legendary rental contract.
Bug types were cheap.
Bug types evolved fast.
Bug types didn't eat like industrial furnaces.
Bug types didn't require exotic minerals, solar reactors, or emotional therapy after every battle.
Most importantly, Bug types snowballed early.
Fast growth. Fast power curve. Low overhead. Perfect for someone who wanted results without bleeding money or lifespan.
Sinbad rolled the weather core between his fingers, watching the faint energy shimmer ripple across its surface like trapped lightning.
"If I'm getting forced into this circus," he muttered, "I'm min-maxing the hell out of it."
His gaze drifted toward the rest of the box. Eighteen different Weathergy catalysts. Each one representing a potential environmental nightmare waiting to be unleashed by someone irresponsible, emotional, or stupid.
Which statistically meant everyone.
He sighed.
"Bug weather better not summon flying spiders the size of buses," he added flatly. "I draw the line at nightmare fuel."
The mansion, once again, declined to answer.
Sinbad finally leaned forward and popped the latches on the reinforced case.
The seals disengaged with a soft pneumatic hiss, pressure equalizing as the lid lifted slowly under internal dampeners. Cold mist spilled out first, thin and faintly shimmering with suspended energy particles, the kind you usually saw around high-grade elemental containment units. Inside, instead of a bomb or cursed artifact or glowing apocalypse marble, there sat a compact bio-cradle padded with adaptive gel and stabilization rings.
Something inside shifted.
A small aquatic creature floated lazily within the containment field, its sleek blue body curved like a living ribbon, pale fins drifting gently as if suspended in invisible current. A thin tail extended behind it, ending in a small metallic hook-like structure capped with a red nodal bead that pulsed softly with low energy. Its eyes were large, bright, and alert, watching Sinbad with quiet curiosity rather than fear or aggression.
It didn't look dangerous.
Which immediately made Sinbad suspicious.
A laminated data card slid free from the inner casing and hovered upright as the system activated, projected text scrolling across its surface.
POKÉMON IDENTIFICATION CARD
Species: Lurish
Classification: Tether Fish Pokémon
Type: Water / Steel
Growth Tier: Pseudo Legendary Line
Ability: Huge Power
2nd Ability: Tempted Steal
(Contact moves deal no damage but raise Defense by one stage.)
Hidden Ability: Mega Launcher
Temperament Profile
Carnivorous foragers. Natural prey includes insects, worms, crustaceans, small fish, and progressively larger aquatic organisms as growth advances. Displays high curiosity, environmental intelligence, and strong imprinting behavior toward consistent handlers.
Habitat Range
• Ocean depths exceeding 1,006 meters (3,301 ft)
• Polar and iced waters
• Submerged tunnel systems, abyssal trench networks, flooded megastructures
Biological & Physiological Notes
Lurish possess a flexible aquatic physiology capable of operating in both freshwater and saltwater environments under extreme depth pressure. Skeletal musculature and tail-hook structures are specialized for prolonged deep-sea foraging, high-speed tethering maneuvers, and rapid vector changes during pursuit or evasion.
Oxygen retention is stored primarily within slow-twitch muscle fibers, enabling extended endurance cycles and sustained maneuverability without frequent surfacing. Elevated myoglobin density supports deep-dive oxygen efficiency and pressure tolerance.
A dense subdermal blubber layer measuring approximately 50–100 mm (2.0–3.9 in) constitutes roughly one-third of total body mass and provides thermal insulation against hypothermic environments.
Male Lurish typically reach sexual maturity between 12–20 years of age, attaining lengths of up to 2.5 meters (8.2 ft) in mature forms.
Sinbad stared at the floating card.
Then at the fish.
Then back at the card.
"…FUCK!"