The first thing I felt wasn’t the pain. It was the weight.

  It felt as though my soul had been poured into a suit of lead, pressing me down into a surface that was far too soft to be the cavern floor I remembered. My st coherent thought was the deafening crack of shifting tectonic ptes and the suffocating scent of pulverized limestone as the ceiling of the grotto gave way. I should have been crushed. I should have been a memory.

  "Ugh..." The sound that left my throat was raspy, a dry rattle that felt like it was tearing through paper.

  I tried to force my eyelids open, but the world punished my curiosity. A nce of pure, uncompromising sunlight stabbed through my retinas, triggering a dull, throbbing ache behind my temples. I smmed my eyes shut, gasping as my mind raced to catch up. I remembered the rocks. I remembered the darkness. But the pain was gone—repced by a hollow, gnawing hunger and a profound sense of weakness that made my very marrow feel like water.

  But there was something else. Something wrong. As I shifted under the thin fabric covering me, my limbs felt... long. My perspective of the room, even with my eyes closed, felt higher than it should have been. It was the phantom sensation of a body that didn't fit the blueprint in my head.

  [You were in an accident ten years ago.]

  The voice didn't come from the air. It resonated inside my skull, vibrating against my nerves with a crystalline crity.

  [You have been in a coma ever since. My name is Cryo. I have been slowly repairing your cellur structure and maintaining your vitals through localized muscle stimution. You will experience significant disorientation; your nervous system is re-learning how to pilot a body that has matured without its master.]

  I braved the light again, squinting through the gre. As my vision adjusted, the "hospital" I expected failed to materialize. I was in a sterile, high-tech medical suite, the walls gleaming with a soft, pearlescent finish. But the most striking thing wasn't the room—it was the creature hovering at the foot of my bed.

  It wasn't a machine, though its presence felt calcuted. It was a Pokémon unlike any documented in the old field guides. It drifted in the air, mostly transparent, its body shimmering like moonlight trapped in a gcier. Six delicate, translucent wings beat in a silent rhythm, casting blue, prismatic highlights across the floor.

  "What... are you?" I managed to ask, my voice gaining a bit of strength as I felt the cool, high-thread-count sheets beneath my palms. I sat up, and the world tilted dangerously. "Where am I? This isn't a clinic."

  [You are within the Aether Paradise Research Facility,] Cryo responded, its wings shimmering. [I am a Pokémon of a lineage you do not yet recognize. I was sent here by a Great Power from the folding of time to ensure your survival and to facilitate your Ascension. I have waited a decade for your mind to bridge the gap back to the physical.]

  I swung my legs over the side of the bed. My skin was pale, my muscles lean but surprisingly defined—likely the result of whatever "stimution" Cryo had been providing. I stood up, my bare feet hitting the cold, clinical floor. I felt tall. Too tall. I looked at my hands; they weren't the small, soft hands of the boy who had gone into that cave. These were the hands of a man.

  "Special abilities? Ascension?" I took a shaky step toward the door. It slid open automatically, but the hallway beyond was a byrinth of white gss and reinforced steel. I tried the first door I saw. Locked. The second. Locked.

  A surge of frustration, hot and sharp, fred in my chest. This wasn't a rescue; it was a cage. I turned back to the room, my heart hammering a frantic rhythm against my ribs.

  [I have merged with your nervous system to stabilize your recovery,] Cryo expined, floating closer. The Pokémon’s eyes were like deep-sea sapphires. [This union creates a 'System'—a bridge between your will and the world. The Poké Balls you acquire will be fundamentally altered. Any creature caught within them will undergo rapid evolutionary refinement. Furthermore, you will possess the unique capability to enter the digital and physical space within the Poké Ball yourself, customizing the environment to suit your needs.]

  I stared at the shimmering creature. "You’re talking about rewriting the ws of biology. Catching... what did you say? Humans?"

  [The System does not discriminate between spirits,] Cryo stated ftly. [It is a tool for the preservation of this world. You must embark on a journey to locate the Great Power that sent me—the one held within a temporal prison. Only by freeing them can you prevent the colpse of the Shattered Universe.]

  I paced the small room, the "Hero" knowledge Harold had forced into my mind—wait, who was Harold? The thought flickered and vanished, repced by a strange, cold logic. My brain didn't feel like that of a child. I had the analytical depth of a schor and the tactical instincts of a veteran, despite having no memory of earning either. It was as if a decade of experience had been downloaded into my gray matter while I slept.

  "I can't even get off this floor, Cryo! You’re talking about saving the universe, and I don't even have a pair of shoes." I sat back on the bed, rubbing my face. "And my parents... they’ve been looking for me for ten years. I need to get to them."

  The air in the room seemed to grow colder.

  [Your parents passed away six years into your slumber, casualty of a boratory accident within this very foundation.]

  The news hit me, but it felt muffled, like a sound heard underwater. I waited for the soul-crushing grief, the scream, the tears. But they didn't come. I felt a pang, a distant sense of loss, but the logic-driven part of my mind simply filed the information away. My memories of them were hazy, bleached white by the decade of static.

  "I see," I whispered. I stood up again, a new kind of resolve hardening in my gut. "Then there’s nothing left for me in this bed. You said I was here because of a connection to something called Cosmog?"

  [Yes. You were the catalyst. You dreamed of the void, and the void answered in the form of Necrozma—a devourer of light. It is one of the Aether Beasts required to reach Ultramex, my master. But right now, you are a candle in a hurricane. You are weak.]

  "Then how do I start?"

  [Fate has provided an opportunity. A woman of great influence is arriving soon to meet a man. If their union is allowed to proceed, it will trigger a chain of events allowing the Aether Foundation to pierce the veil of Ultra Space for the wrong reasons. They seek to exploit the Aether Beasts, not restore the bance. To stop them, you must intervene. You must 'cim' this woman before the Foundation’s path is set in stone.]

  I didn't have time to process the ethics of "ciming" someone. The sound of a chime echoed from the hallway—a distinct, melodic ding that signaled an arriving elevator.

  "I need a Pokémon," I muttered, moving toward the door with more confidence. "And I seriously need some pants."

  I stepped out into the hallway, the sterile lights humming overhead. I turned a corner, my bare feet silent on the polished floor, and nearly collided with a woman.

  She was dressed in a crisp, white nursing uniform that hugged a figure that was, quite frankly, distracting. Her pink hair was styled in the iconic loops of a Nurse Joy, but there was an air of authority and maturity about her that I hadn't seen in the local clinics of my childhood.

  She froze, her eyes widening as they swept over my tall, half-naked frame.

  "Excuse me?" She asked, her voice was a mix of shock and professional arm. "What are you doing out of your room? How are you even moving around?"

  I looked her in the eye, the "System" in my head already beginning to pulse with a strange, predatory heat.