Name: Corvin
Origin: Hisui
Affiliations: Galaxy Expedition, Security Corps
Pokemon:
Kishin - Hisuian Aegislash (M)
— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —
The scorching, midday sun beat down mercilessly over the Security Corps training grounds, baking the dirt field into a hard, cracked crust.
In the center of the ring, Corvin stood without the haori of his uniform. His tanned skin shone with a thick layer of sweat as his abdominal muscles coiled in a low stance.
Both of his hands were locked securely around Kishin's hilt, as the sleek edge of the katana's tip pointed straight at a massive, weathered tumblestone target. The giant rock was already covered in a chaotic web of deep white scars from hours of continuous impacts.
"Again, Kishin," Corvin grunted, his breath ragged with a surge of irritation. He lunged forward. "Agile Style!"
"Shadow Claw!"
Once again, a vibrant, restless flare of cerulean light exploded along the blade, throwing off long, chaotic ribbons of blue that whipped and hissed into the wind.
In the exact same moment, Kishin channeled the dark, purplish-black tendrils of Shadow Claw. The dark ghostly energy tangled directly into the bright blue style aura, wrapping the entire length of the sword in a thick, spectacular tempest of flickering color
It was a storming kaleidoscope of energy. He crossed the distance in a fraction of a second, driving the blindingly fast, accelerated slash into the stone.
CLANG!
"Damnit!"
The blade struck hard, leaving a fresh white line across the tumblestone, but Corvin immediately stepped back with a scowl. The slash was incredibly fast, sure, but the impact lacked the true, bone-shattering power of a standard Shadow Claw.
Agile Style inherently boosted a move's speed at the explicit cost of lowering its raw power, and Corvin was stubbornly trying to force the technique to break that one rule. He wanted to keep the full speed of Agile Style, but also wanted the move to maintain its full, unmitigated baseline strength.
"Still not enough," Corvin panted, wiping a line of sweat from his forehead with the back of his arm. He glared at the Kishin's blade. The spectacular blue and purple shadows were still flickering off the steel, dissolving uselessly into the drifting wind.
"Look at the Style energy, Kishin. The energy shroud is completely coating the blade! If your edge is overflowing with this much power, why is the force behind our strike still landing so weak?"
"Why?"
At his shoulder, the floating pauldrons vibrated with a sharp, metallic shrill of shared exhaustion. Corvin felt Kishin's stubborn defiance pulsing through their phantom bond, but the sword was clearly just as frustrated as he was by the lack of results.
Corvin reset his stance, his muscles tightening. If the impact was weak, he figured the answer had to be more power. If he could make the armor of energy around the blade even thicker, the hit would have to be stronger.
He lunged again, pulling a massive surge of style energy from Kishin across the bond, forcing the blue ribbons to roar like a bonfire as he slammed the steel down with everything he had.
CLANG!
The same result.
The fire flared brilliantly upon impact, blindingly bright, but the actual cut into the stone was still shallow. Corvin let out a sharp hiss, lowering the sword as his chest heaved in the heavy heat. With this much energy wrapped around the steel, it made absolutely no sense to him.
"We're doing it again. One more time."
Again they reset their stance, the blade angling back toward the scarred rock.
"Um... C-Corvin?"
A soft, incredibly hesitant voice cut through the rhythmic scraping of their training.
Corvin blinked, easing out of his stance and lowering Kishin as he turned around. Standing at the edge of the dirt ring was Sera.
The young Supply Corps receptionist was still wearing her standard green uniform, her messy brown hair tied into its usual loose bun. She had run out to the grounds in a hurry, but the exact second her eyes processed the fact that the young, muscled officer was standing in the direct sunlight entirely shirtless and dripping with sweat, she froze completely dead in her tracks.
A bright crimson flush immediately painted itself across her cheeks. Her eyes widened behind her lenses, staring for a fraction of a second before she violently slammed her large wooden clipboard upward, completely blocking her view of his torso.
"Sera?" Corvin questioned, tilting his head in confusion. "You need something?"
"Uhhh… Captain Zisu!" Sera blanked for moment before she squeaked from behind the safety of her clipboard, her voice an octave higher than usual. "She... she sent me to fetch you immediately! You've been assigned an urgent escort mission!"
Corvin let out a long, theatrical groan, his shoulders slumping as he lowered Kishin into a loose grip. "An escort mission? Seriously? I literally just left the Wallflower yesterday evening and saw three of my same-level seniors sitting around laughing and stuffing their faces full of potato mochi."
"Why can't one of them do the babysitting? I'm kinda in the middle of a training session here."
"T-The client specifically requested you, Corvin," Sera mumbled, her clipboard shifting down just enough for her eyes to peek over the rim, though her face was still a burning red.
Thankfully, she wasn't violently ill like she had been in the canteen before the Mirelands debacle, but the sheer awkwardness of a half-naked coworker was making her just as breathless. "Captain Zisu said if you tried to negotiate, that there would be none. Please put a shirt on and report to the headquarters building right away!"
Before he could respond, the shy Supply Corps girl turned on her heel and practically sprinted back toward the main building, her boots kicking up small clouds of dust.
Corvin stared at the empty path, then looked down at Kishin, who released a low, highly amused giggle. "Yeah, yeah, shut up," Corvin muttered, sliding the katana back into its obsidian scabbard.
"Let's go get cleaned up, then. Works calling."
— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —
Ten minutes later, properly washed and dressed in his standard, pristine Security Corps uniform, Corvin pushed open the heavy wooden doors to Captain Zisu's office.
He was still rolling his shoulders, trying to work out the lingering stiffness from the training grounds, his mind still cycling through the math of his failed attempts at achieving a perfect Style Technique.
"Ah! There's my favorite Officer!"
Before Corvin could even clear the doorframe, a tornado of pure fiery energy hit him full force.
Captain Zisu, the boisterous and formidable leader of the Security Corps, lunged forward and slammed him into a fierce, bone-crushing bear hug.
The moment her arms wrapped around his torso, Corvin's breath was crushed from his body. His eyes widened as his ribs pressed against her forearms, feeling her muscles instantly hardening like solid iron.
But, it wasn't the sudden strain of physical exertion, instead it was the unmistakable, terrifying strength and density of Strong Style's amplification.
Corvin looked down at her arms, his eyes straining against the glare.
There were no messy, trailing ribbons of light leaking off her body, nor were there any chaotic blue waves or flickering embers fracturing into the air like the ones he had spent all morning accidentally bleeding over the dirt ring.
Instead, Zisu's forearms simply emitted a perfectly contained, shimmering orange glow. The energy was compressed so deeply into her flesh that it looked like solid topaz, perfectly bounded by her skin without casting a single errant spark.
Then came the flames. Overlaying that silent orange aura, a volatile coat of real, scorching fire roared across her shoulders. The heat washed over Corvin's face, instantly drying the remaining dampness in his hair.
The sharp, heavy scent of smoke and burning charcoal filled his nose as she practically lifted his sandals off the floorboards, laughing loudly while she embraced his body with enough force to grit his teeth.
"C-Captain—Zisu—I—can't—breathe," Corvin gasped, his face turning slightly blue under the suffocating pressure of her strength.
He wriggled futilely against her iron grip, his vision momentarily spiraling as the oxygen was squeezed entirely from his lungs. "Are you seriously using... Style... for a hug?! This is too much!"
"Hah! Nonsense! A little pressure builds character!" Zisu laughed heartily.
The radiant orange glow and flickering flames vanished instantly as she released her grip, snapping back into her skin as if someone had flipped a switch. The scent of ash and smoke dispersed as the residual heat trailed off her Security Corps coat.
The absolute control of her energy left Corvin standing there, slightly breathless and deeply envious of her mastery that felt a lifetime away.
She finally dropped him back onto his sandals and gave his shoulder one last firm slap that nearly sent him off balance. Marching back to her wide desk with a heavy, purposeful stride, she picked up a rolled map.
"Alright, let's get straight to the metrics of your task," Zisu said, her voice dropping back into its commanding, professional cadence. "Your destination is Prelude Beach. It's just a standard field research escort."
"Basically, you're to act as the primary shield, ensure the client's safety, and maintain a safe perimeter while they conduct their observations. Blah, blah, blah, formal stuff."
Corvin adjusted his uniform jacket, his expression flattening into a serious demeanor. "Understood, Captain. But Sera mentioned that the client requested me personally by name. Do you know why? I usually don't do standard patrols and escorts unless there's a higher danger level or a rogue alpha sighting."
Zisu's boisterous expression suddenly shifted. A highly mischievous, knowing smirk crept up the corners of her mouth, her eyes glinting with a sharp amusement that immediately made Corvin's posture stiffen in suspicion.
She didn't say another word. Instead, she slowly raised one calloused hand, pointing a single finger toward the heavy side door of her office.
"Why don't you ask him yourself?" she teased, her voice dropping into a conspiratorial whisper.
As if right on cue, the side door creaked open, the rusted hinges letting out a high-pitched, agonizing squeak. A familiar, overly enthusiastic face popped into the room, instantly shattering the tense atmosphere.
"Ah! Corvin! My boy! Splendid timing!" Professor Laventon beamed, stepping fully into the office and waving his arms with such dramatic flair that his oversized white lab coat billowed behind him like a sail. His signature purple beanie was still unfixed, tilted slightly askew and precariously resting against his ear.
A massive leather satchel over his shoulder clattered loudly with the frantic shifting of notebooks, inkwells, and an absurd amount of blank wooden Poké Balls.
"Forgive the deception, truly!" Laventon continued, entirely oblivious to the exhausted glare Corvin was leveling at him. He adjusted his round spectacles with a quick flick of his finger. "But I was in absolute, desperate need of your specific combat metrics!"
"You see, I went to the Survey Corps headquarters first—glorious place, really—but I cannot secure a single proper Surveyor due to their supposedly 'overwhelming workload.' Ugh, the bureaucracy! It is an absolute nightmare!"
The professor threw his hands into the air, pacing across the polished floorboards with frantic, energetic strides.
"So, I decided to take matters into my own hands and conduct the fieldwork for the paper index myself! And who better to keep a clumsy scientist alive on the shores than Jubilife's finest 4-Star Elite?"
A heavy, absolute silence descended upon the office.
Corvin didn't move. He didn't blink. He simply stood by the doorway, his flat, unimpressed gaze boring straight into the ecstatic scholar.
The ticking of a wooden clock on Zisu's shelf seemed to grow louder with every passing second. Laventon's triumphant smile slowly began to waver under the sheer weight of the stare, his arms lowering by fractions of an inch until he was awkwardly twisting his fingers together.
Corvin let out a slow, deliberate breath. His eyes locked onto the small, silver-rimmed frames resting on the older man's nose.
"Professor," Corvin started, his voice deceptively calm. "Why do you have glasses?"
Without missing a single beat, the professor straightened his spine, threw his chest out, and answered with complete, unshakeable confidence. "So you won't hit me!"
Corvin's eyebrows shot up.
Laventon paused, his bravado instantly evaporating. He blinked behind his lenses, suddenly looking very small as he took a hasty half-step backward. He gave Corvin a tentative, deeply nervous look, gesturing weakly to his face. "You... you wouldn't hit a gentleman with glasses, would you, my boy?"
A visible tick formed near Corvin's right eye. "Kishin," he muttered.
Clang!
The obsidian hilt didn't even move from Corvin's hip, but behind his shoulder, the heavy steel pauldrons snapped open with a terrifying, metallic screech. A localized flash of raw, unfiltered Style energy flared from the scabbard—not a leaky ribbon, but a sudden, intentional burst of intimidation.
The sheer spiritual pressure of the Hisuian Aegislash lunged forward in a blinding, split-second feint, stopping mere inches from the professor's nose with a resonant, vibrating buzz.
"Eeeek!"
Laventon let out a high-pitched, thoroughly undignified shriek, his paperwork scattering into the air like falling leaves. He dove sideways with surprising agility for a man of science, scrambling across the floorboards until he was securely anchored behind Zisu's heavy desk, using the Security Captain as a literal human shield.
"Aha! Hahaha! Brilliant!" Zisu roared, slamming her fist onto her desk so hard the inkwells rattled.
She threw her head back, her boisterous laughter echoing off the wooden rafters as she looked down at the trembling professor clinging to her coat. "See that, Laventon? I told you the boy's reflexes are sharp! A little more, Corvin, and you could've shaved his whiskers off!"
Corvin gave a tired sigh, the floating pauldrons snapping back into their passive, silent alignment against his uniform. He ignored his partner's highly amused, shaking giggles at his hip and looked at the mess of loose parchment on the floor.
"Alright," Corvin groaned, crossing his arms. "Let's talk about this 'safest shores in the region' escort..."
"Prelude Beach?" he questioned.
"You mean the place that's an hour or two down a well-traveled dirt path through a small forest," Corvin muttered, counting the distance on his fingers as his eyes narrowed at the professor. "To the safest shores in the region."
"Professor Laventon, you're going to Prelude Beach. There are a few wild Bidoof that will rather chew on a rotten log than look at you, and maybe some stray Starly if the wind blows the wrong way. Why on earth do you need an Elite escort?"
Corvin stepped closer, crossing his arms over his pristine uniform jacket. He fixed the man with a piercing, suspicious stare. "You aren't doing anything incredibly stupid or dangerous today, are you? You're not testing new volatile mixtures? Not trying to pet an Alpha, are you?"
"Good heavens, no! Absolutely not!" Laventon gasped, his hands flying up in a defensive, frantic gesture. He adjusted his purple beanie, which had slipped even further askew from his sudden movements. "I am merely conducting standard observations on the local fauna's nesting habits! Completely routine, I assure you! Pristine and peaceful science!"
"Right." Corvin's expression softened into a relaxed, casual smile. Since they were on familiar terms, he didn't mind dropping the rigid military posture for a moment. He leaned back on his heels, a look of lazy satisfaction washing over his face. "Ok. So you don't actually need me at all. Splendid. You can go by yourself."
Laventon's face went entirely pale. The dramatic, confident posture he had been sporting a second ago crumbled instantly into pure, unadulterated panic.
"Corvin! No! My boy, you cannot abandon me to the wild elements!" Laventon cried out, his voice cracking comically as he practically lunged across the office. Before Corvin could step back, the professor grabbed him by the sleeves of his uniform haori, his round spectacles fogging up from his frantic breathing.
"I beg of you! I am a man of the great indoors! A scholar! My knees lock up if a strong gust of wind hits them! What if a rogue Buizel decides to challenge my academic authority, I shall perish on those sands!"
At his hip, Kishin gave another low, eerie shudder, the sword's spirit deeply amused by the professor's total lack of dignity.
Corvin looked down at the older man currently clinging to his uniform sleeves like a child hiding behind their parent, then slowly raised his eyes to the ceiling. He let out a long, heavy sigh, rubbing the bridge of his nose with his free hand.
"Seriously, Professor?" Corvin muttered, his voice dripping with dry amusement. "Which one of us is supposed to be the adult here? You have a literal doctorate."
"A doctorate in ecology, Corvin! Not in surviving the terrifying, untamed wilderness of Hisui!" Laventon practically whined, squeezing the fabric of the haori tighter.
"Alright, alright, let go of my uniform, you're wrinkling the fabric," Corvin groaned, gently swatting the professor's hands away.
He adjusted his jacket, sighing as he, for the third time this week, resigned himself to his fate. "Fine. I'll come. But if you make me carry any spare materials again, I'm leaving you down there with the Bidoofs."
"Magnificent! Truly magnificent!" Laventon instantly bounced back, his panic vanishing as if it had never existed. He straightened his lab coat, beaming with triumphant joy. "I knew I could count on you, my boy! The annals of Hisuian history shall forever remember your sacrifice today!"
"Let us depart at once!"
— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —
The journey down from the main gates of Jubilife Village toward the coastal lowlands was, true to Corvin's predictions, entirely uneventful.
The dirt path cut a lazy, winding trail through the tall, sun-bleached grass of the Fieldlands. The early afternoon heat was still a bit heavy, but a gentle, steady breeze rolling off the distant ocean kept the air from becoming completely suffocating.
Every now and then, a small flock of Starly would erupt from the brush, their wings fluttering loudly as they scattered into the cloudless blue sky, completely ignoring the two humans walking down the path.
Corvin kept a steady, relaxed pace, his eyes lazily scanning the perimeter out of pure procedural habit. Kishin remained quiet against his hip, the sword resting in a calm, dormant state.
Next to him, Professor Laventon was the complete opposite of calm.
The professor was a perpetual machine of motion, his leather satchel bouncing rhythmically against his hip as he constantly pulled out charcoal pencils, scribbled furious notes on loose sheets of parchment, and muttered rapidly to himself about migratory patterns and species behaviors.
"Look at that structure over there, Corvin!" Laventon whispered loudly, pointing his charcoal stick toward a massive, hollowed-out tree trunk near a riverbank. "The bite marks are distinctly precise! A textbook example of local wildlife behavior!"
"It's a log, Professor. A Bidoof probably chewed on it. We see about thirty of them a day," Corvin replied dryly, not even breaking his stride.
"Ah, but the depth of the groove reveals the incisor health of the colony!" Laventon countered, eyes wide with scholarly fervor as he tripped over a protruding root, stumbling forward a few paces before catching his balance with a clumsy flail of his arms.
"Whoops! Steady now! Remember, my boy, research requires a firm footing!"
Corvin just shook his head, a faint, small smile tugging at the corner of his lips despite his feigned annoyance. For all of the Professor's dramatic whining and total lack of physical coordination, his genuine, pure passion for Pokémon was truly infectious.
It was a stark contrast to the rigid, survival-first mindset of the rest of the Galaxy Team. And it was nice, for an hour or two, to just walk through the grass without expecting a fight.
As the path began to slope downward, the sweet scent of inland wildflowers slowly gave way to the sharp, crisp tang of saltwater. The distant, rhythmic crashing of waves against the shoreline began to echo through the hills, signaling that the sandy borders of Prelude Beach were finally just ahead.
When they finally broke through the tree line, the sheer grandness of the ocean hit Corvin all at once.
The Hisuian sea stretched out into an infinite, glittering expanse of deep indigo, its surface dancing under the brilliant midday sun. White, frothy crests crashed rhythmically against the pristine sands of the beach, sending a cool, salt-laden mist drifting over the dunes.
Far out on the horizon, the water seemed to melt directly into the cloudy sky, creating a boundary so vast and empty it always made Corvin feel incredibly small.
For all of Hisui's terrifying, untamed wilderness, the ocean possessed a different kind of ancient majesty, one that wasn't hidden in the shadows of the forests, but laid itself completely bare beneath the shining sun.
Instead of heading straight down to the breaking waves, Laventon led the way into a secluded clearing just off the main beach. It was a beautiful, sheltered pocket of land, framed by towering, sea-weathered rocks and shaded by a cluster of wind-bent trees that filtered the harsh sunlight into soft, dappled patterns.
Near the center of the clearing sat a small, crystal-clear pond, its still surface completely undisturbed by the ocean breeze.
Corvin walked to the edge of the water, his boots sinking slightly into the soft soil. Peering down into the shallows, he watched a lone, small Barboach methodically dig its whiskers through the muddy bottom, kicking up tiny clouds of silt as it searched for a midday meal.
"Ah, splendid! Simply magnificent!" Laventon beamed, dropping his satchel onto a flat rock with a loud thud. He unbuckled the brass straps with frantic, trembling fingers.
"This is the absolute perfect baseline environment! Fresh water adjacent to the coast! My boy, help me set up a perimeter, it is time for the field team to stretch their limbs!"
Before Corvin could even ask where the professor had hidden his Poké Balls, and if he even had Pokémon of his own, the satchel itself began to violently heave and squirm.
"Wait, you kept them all in the—"
"Osha! Osha-sha!"
Shogun's round, whiskered head erupted straight out of the bag's main flap, scattering extra charcoal pencils across the grass. The little sea otter scrambled frantically over the leather rim, dropping heavily onto the soft dirt with a wet, familiar splat.
He immediately gave himself one rapid, violent shake, spraying fine droplets of leftover tank water across Corvin's pristine Security uniform, before his webbed limbs became an energetic blur.
Right behind him, a soft, silent ball of feathers floated effortlessly out of the messy depths of the bag. Ronin spread his feathers, and without making a single sound, flew straight up into the foliage of the shaded trees.
The small owlet ruffled his feathers contentedly, rumbled a soft "Roww!", and immediately tucked his head into his body, turning a thick ironwood branch into his new cozy sleeping spot.
"And let us not forget our sweetest little scholar!" Laventon cheered, gently tipping the bag forward.
From the dark safety of the leather interior, Onibi hesitated before plopping right into the sunlit grass. The little Cyndaquil squinted her narrow eyes against the bright coastal light, her slender paws tapping nervously on the grass. The scorching flames along her back blazed for a brief, terrified moment, but the exact second her nose twitched and caught the familiar, Corvin's comforting scent, she let out a tiny squeak.
The flames instantly sputtered out, smoke trailing off her fur as she darted forward, completely ignoring the tall grass to scramble up Corvin's uniform trousers.
Corvin couldn't help but chuckle, his flat expression softening completely as he caught the small fire-mouse before she could slip off his shoulder. He settled her into the crook of his arms as he dropped to one knee, lightly tapping the gleaming, freshly polished scalchop shell of Shogun, who had already pulled out his tiny treasure to show off his hard work.
"Alright, alright," Corvin muttered, a genuine smile breaking through his tired face as gently set Onibi into the soft meadow.
He looked at the trio. "Go play in the clearing. But keep away from the deep ocean water, Shogun. And Ronin, don't sleep so deep that you fall out of that tree."
Before Corvin could fully straighten up, a small, familiar weight pulled at his pant leg.
He paused, looking down. Onibi hadn't run off into the shaded grass with the others. Instead, the tiny Pokémon had reared up on her hind legs, anchoring her sharp white paws firmly against his knee, exactly like a stubborn cat pleading for attention.
She tilted her head back, her narrow, near-blind eyes squinting up at his face with intense reluctance. Her small nose twitched rapidly as she let out a faint, mournful squeak, her claws digging just deep enough into the red fabric to make her intentions entirely clear that she had absolutely no desire to go play.
Corvin let out another quiet, defeated chuckle. He reached down, gently hooking two fingers under her front limbs to ease the tension on his uniform cloth, but she merely leaned her weight forward, pressing her cool snout against his palm.
"Still a baby, huh?" Corvin muttered, his voice dropping into a soft murmur. He glanced over his shoulder at Professor Laventon, who was already fully absorbed in adjusting his wooden tripod near the pond, completely oblivious to the commotion around him.
Corvin looked back down at the tiny Cyndaquil. Her defensive flames remained completely dark, a silent sign of safety and trust.
"Alright, fine," he sighed, a small smile breaking through his tired face. "You don't have to go with them. Just follow me around, then. But if you trip me while I'm working, you're going back in the bag."
Onibi let out an incredibly happy, clicking chirp. She dropped back down onto all four paws with an eager bounce, a burst of fire scattering in the wind as she immediately fell into step right beside his right sandal, a small, pint-sized shadow.
With his tiny guard in tow and the other two Pokémon scattered into their respective areas of the shaded oasis, Corvin finally stood back up to his full height and stretched his arms, the heavy fabric of his haori shifting against his shoulders.
The peace of the clearing was serene, but as his eyes drifted back toward the infinite, sparkling horizon of the sea, that strange, lingering weight returned to his chest.
It was the perfect afternoon.
Which, in all his experience in the Security Corps, usually meant something was about to go horribly wrong.
Something caught his eye from above.
Corvin froze mid-stride, his boots burying themselves into the soft mud at the edge of the pond. His eyes snapped upward, a wave of dizziness washed over him as he comprehended the sight. The cloudy, blue sky directly above the beach rippled.
It shifted and warped outwards in a perfect sequence of concentric circles, exactly like the surface of a disturbed lake. The air itself seemed to bend, distorting the line of the horizon until the ocean and the sky looked like they were melting into each other.
A heavy, unnatural stillness fell over the entire clearing, the wind dying instantly. The rhythmic crashing of the ocean waves suddenly muted, reduced to a hollow, distant echo that felt miles away.
Next to him, Onibi went completely rigid, her nose twitching erratically as her tiny claws nervously dug deep into the dirt.
Behind Corvin's shoulders, the floating pauldrons above his shoulders flared with a violent jolt. Kishin didn't awaken, but through their shared bond, a wave of profound, cryptic confusion and surging panic flooded straight into Corvin's chest. The katana at his hip thrummed with a nervous, rapid ringing that rattled the black metal of his scabbard.
Kishin was… scared.
"My word! Corvin? What on earth is that?!"
Professor Laventon's voice was stripped of all its usual jubilant cheer, replaced by a fearful, trembling whisper that barely carried across the still air of the clearing. His charcoal stick slipped from his fingers, tumbling into the grass as he pointed a shaking, pale hand toward the dead center of the region.
Corvin turned on his heel, his eyes following the professor's gaze. The air froze in his lungs.
Far in the distance, dominating the entire horizon, the entire sky directly over the snow-capped peak of Mount Coronet was splitting apart, fracturing, cracking like glass.
A jagged, monstrous tear forced its way through the sun, tearing open into a massive, swirling storm of violet-black clouds that churned with a slow, unnatural velocity.
Each time the fracture splintered further, the rift violently pulsed with a silent shockwave. Like a stone repeatedly dropped into a still pond, the expanding crack served as the epicenter, sending visible, shimmering ripples cascading across the clouds.
The distortions warped outwards in heavy waves, bending the very fabric of reality before settling into the next expansion.
Crashing serpentine tendrils of violent white lightning spiraled fiercely around the gaping wound, striking the mountain peak down below in rapid succession.
Through the empty void of the rift bled a suffocating, corruptive entropy into Hisui's atmosphere—a heavy, ebony ooze that seemed to poison the very light of the sky.
"That… that looks just like—" he stopped himself.
CRACK!
He flinched, spinning around as the Hisui's atmosphere was shattered for the second time.
Behind him, a second, completely separate fracture violently splintered the sky right over the coast of Prelude Beach, barely a few hundred yards down the shore from where they stood.
A horrific, metallic tearing sound echoed from nowhere, like warping iron, as the sky was ripped in half by invisible hands.
From the center of that jagged, glowing wound, a monumental bolt of golden lightning arced downward. It slammed into the earth with the terrifying speed and weight of a falling star. The sheer force of the strike hit the shoreline with a deafening, concussive boom that rippled across the water and shook the earth beneath Corvin's sandals.
The light casted a blinding radiant glare that instantly erased every shadow in the clearing and turned the ocean completely white. A sonic explosion tore through the trees, flattening the tall grass and sending a violent gale of hot sand rushing outward in all directions.
At his feet, Onibi let out a terrified, high-pitched shriek. The little Cyndaquil shivered violently, her back venting a panicked, uncontrollable burst of defensive fire before she leaped straight up into Corvin's arms. She scrambled desperately up his chest, burrowing her head deep into the folds of his Corps haori to escape the deafening aftershocks.
Corvin braced his boots against the trembling ground, leaning heavily into the wind. He threw his arm over the small fire-mouse to shield her, his eyes straining against the searing brightness as he forced himself to look directly into the core of the coastal rift.
Unlike the black void of the storm over Mount Coronet, this smaller distortion was leaking a pure, divine golden-white light that felt almost blindingly sacred. The sheer brilliance of it nearly burned his retinas, but Corvin couldn't look away.
And there, standing within the radiant gap of the fractured sky, a colossal, ethereal silhouette materialized.
Corvin had never seen anything like it.
Its body was of a strange shape. Four long, crystalline legs supported a towering, elegant pure white torso, and arching over its midsection was a wheel of intricate golden spikes that seemed to pulse with the rhythm of creation itself.
It had no face that Corvin could discern, only a pair of piercing, glowing eyes that burned like stars against the shining background of the rift
The entity's glowing gaze shifted slowly down, staring directly at Corvin.
"Argh!"
In that exact microsecond, an invisible, crushing weight slammed into Corvin's entire body and soul. The absolute pressure of the being's sight drove him downward. His knees nearly snapped, buckling with a sickening crack as his chest locked tight as the air was violently forced from his lungs.
It felt as though gravity itself had suddenly increased tenfold, like a mountain was pressing down on his shoulders, forcing his muscles to scream as he fought to keep himself from slamming into the dirt.
He tried to call on Kishin's Style to stabilize his limbs, but the internal flow of energy was completely paralyzed under the its vision.
But as he struggled to breathe, he noticed Onibi was completely unaffected by the gravity, she was merely trembling from the noise in his arms. The suffocating, agonizing pressure was targeted entirely and explicitly at him.
Then, as quickly as it had opened, the golden rift snapped shut.
The entity vanished, and the suffocating weight lifted instantly. Corvin collapsed forward onto his knees, planting his free palm hard into the dirt as he dragged desperate breaths of cool air back into his burning lungs.
Sweat poured down his face, dripping off his jawline onto the parched grass. His heart hammered against his ribs like a trapped bird.
"Professor. Did you... did you see that?" Corvin choked out, his voice hoarse and trembling as he forced his head up. "Laventon, what the hell was that thing?"
He turned around, fully expecting to see the professor frantically taking notes or hyperventilating, but instead, Laventon was tightly balled up behind a massive coastal rock. The older man had his arms wrapped securely over his purple beanie, his eyes squeezed firmly shut as he muttered silent prayers.
The moment the professor realized that silence had returned, he instantly scrambled back to his feet, brushing the sand off his pristine lab coat with quick, aggressive slaps, straightened his hat with a sharp, dignified flick of his finger, and cleared his throat as if nothing out of the ordinary had just transpired.
"See what, my boy? A bit of seasonal coastal thunder, nothing a seasoned man of science cannot handle!" Laventon insisted, his voice a full octave higher than normal despite his horrible attempt at a confident posture.
"Seriously?" Corvin groaned in disbelief.
For a long, agonizing moment, no one said a word. Corvin and Laventon shared a grave, silent glance. The professor's face was completely drained of color, his round eyes wide with a deep, existential dread that none of his textbooks could explain.
Corvin's fists tightened on his crossed arms, his knuckles turning white as he and Laventon stared back at the distant rumbling mountain. The massive rift wasn't going away.
"Osha?" Oshawatt!" A frantic, high-pitched bark cut through the lingering ringing in Corvin's ears, catching his attention.
Near the edge of the clearing, Shogun's nose was twitching furiously. The little sea otter had caught a sudden, strange scent on the wind.
Without waiting for permission or a command, he scrambled over the rocks, throwing himself onto the open sandy beach and racing toward the direction of the lightning strike.
"Rowlet!" Ronin took flight from his branch, his silent wings beating fast as he launched himself into the air, following Shogun's trail from above, driven by the exact same sudden curiosity.
In his arms, Onibi's shivering finally stopped. She sniffed the air, her narrow eyes snapping wide open before she, uncharacteristically, boldly leaped out of Corvin's grip. She landed gracefully on the sand and scrambled at top speed to catch up with her friends.
"Good heavens! Stop! Pokémon on the loose! Children, come back!" Laventon yelled, his academic image dissolving entirely as he clumsily chased after the three Pokémon, his heavy leather bag slamming loudly against his hip.
"Professor Laventon, wait!" Corvin called after the man, forcing his muscles to move as he pushed through the residual strain in his legs. His hand clamped tightly onto Kishin's katana, the familiar coldness of the steel grounding his senses as he sprinted after the group, out onto the open sand.
That golden lightning was something that mysterious being spat out. It couldn't have left the beach empty.
As they rounded the final hillside, they were met with the grand expanse of the beach, the vast indigo ocean roaring on their left.
In the center of the pristine sand lay a deep circular crater. The sheer, otherworldly heat of the golden lightning had instantly melted the shoreline, turning the surrounding sand into a smooth, glittering ring of jagged, translucent glass that still glowed with residual heat in the sea breeze.
And there, lying completely unconscious in the dead center of the bed of glass, was a person, dressed in strange clothes, sound asleep.
"Is that a girl?"