16
The hilt hit my palm. The moment skin touched ancient metal, the world screamed.
It wasn't a sound; it was a sensation. The Key Stone didn't just glow; it pulsed with a heartbeat that felt like it was trying to restart a dead star. The connection to the Sceptilite in my bag snapped open like a breached dam.
But Kage wasn't a Sceptile. He was a Treecko. He wasn't ready.
"KAGE! NO! STOP IT!" I yelled, feeling the feedback loop burn up my arm.
It was too late. The Sceptilite, sensing the connection, demanded a host. It didn't care about evolution stages.
Kage screamed—a guttural, reptilian sound that tore at my heart. His small green body was wrenched into the air, suspended in a sphere of blinding, verdant agony. He didn't evolve gracefully. His limbs stretched with sickening cracks, his tail elongated, and the leaves on his head fused into a jagged crest. The stone forced him to skip an entire life cycle, dragging him kicking and screaming into the form of a Sceptile.
And it didn't stop there. The Mega Energy hammered into his newly formed body.
"CHREEEE-GAHHH!" The unstable Mega Sceptile hit the ground. He was monstrous—half-formed, radiating intense, scorching heat as his "Sun Breathing" training went nuclear under the Mega influence. His tail was a blazing chainsaw of solar energy, thrashing blindly, slicing through centuries-old trees like butter.
The Breakpoint: The Human Primal
At the exact same second Kage hit the ground, the sonic emitters hit their peak frequency.
The sound May made wasn't human. It was the roar of a dormant volcano waking up.
She stood up. The emitters didn't matter anymore. Her bandana had burned away. Her eyes were no longer blue; they were twin pools of molten amber, glowing so brightly they illuminated the fog from within. The "Vigor Strain" had taken total control.
"May! The Everstone!" I fumbled for the pouch Norman gave me, but the sheer pressure radiating from her knocked me onto my back.
May didn't look at me. She didn't look at anything. She was pure, instinctive rage.
The Outcome: Solar Flare Meets Primal Force
Team Aqua realized too late that they hadn't trapped us; they had locked themselves in a cage with two natural disasters.
May moved. It wasn't a run; it was an erasure of distance. She appeared in front of the lead sonic machine. She didn't punch it. She gripped the reinforced steel casing and tore it in half with her bare hands. The metal shrieked like paper.
Then, the unstable Mega Kage saw movement. In his pain-mad state, May was just another target.
He spun, unleashing a Solar Storm—a chaotic, explosive barrage of leaf-blades wreathed in white-hot plasma. The attack incinerated the fog, turning the clearing into a blinding inferno.
The attack was heading straight for May.
"MAY! MOVE!" I screamed, my voice useless against the roar of energy.
The "Human Pokémon" didn't dodge. She turned toward the incoming solar apocalypse, raised a single arm, and backhanded the energy blast.
BOOM.
The collision of Mega-amplified solar power and May's raw Primal fortitude created a shockwave that flattened everything within a hundred-foot radius. The Aqua grunts were blown away like dry leaves. I was lifted off my feet, only saved because Aaron's Lucario appeared in front of me, deploying a shimmering Aura Sphere barrier that barely held together.
The light died down. The clearing was a smoking crater.
In the center stood May, panting heavily, her clothes scorched but her body untouched. Her amber eyes were dimming, the "dumbass" glaze slowly returning as her brain tried to reboot from the trauma.
A few feet away lay Kage, reverted back to a small, unconscious Treecko, his ironwood stick reduced to ash beside him. The forced evolution had undone itself the moment the energy spiked too high.
Aaron lowered his staff, his face pale. The legendary traveler looked utterly terrified.
"That..." Aaron whispered, staring at the girl who had just slapped away a miniature sun, "...was not in the legends."
I crawled over to Kage, scooping up his small, smoking body, then looked over at May, who was staring at her hands in confusion.
The stream was dead. The forest was on fire. Team Aqua was obliterated. And I realized Norman had massively undersold the danger.
I wasn't training a team. I was managing a walking apocalypse.