On the plateau, the camp looked normal at a glance—low fire, tents in place, shadows stretched out and lazy.
It was a lie. Every detail was where it needed to be, because it had been placed there like a weapon.
Enzo's TR Device vibrated one last time.
26 signatures. Closing the ring.
They didn't arrive in a line.
They arrived like a net.
The first shapes appeared between the ravines—dark silhouettes moving with practiced restraint, boots finding stone without scraping, breath kept low so it wouldn't puff white in the cold. Then more. Then more. The wind tried to swallow them, but numbers had weight, and the plateau could feel it.
Ten of them formed the first ring.
Not wide. Tight. Close enough to see the tent flap breathe in the wind, close enough to smell smoke and think it meant safety. They didn't keep their Pokémon in their balls. They wore them like knives—one, sometimes two at a side. Nothing impressive at first glance. The usual Trial Island stock: underfed, over-aggressive, most of them not even Level 25.
But ten trainers with ten Pokémon didn't have to be impressive.
They just had to be enough.
The second ring stayed back—shadows on higher rock, bodies in broken lines along the ravine mouths, silhouettes spaced like anchors. The ones in the rear didn't rush, didn't crowd. They took positions that mattered: escape routes, blind angles, the places a desperate target would sprint toward when panic overrode thought.
A cage built out of patience.
And above it all, on a ridge with clean sightlines, two figures watched like judges.
Laurence stood with the posture of a real trainer—still, centered, eyes not on the tent but on the space around it. Wind direction. Approach lanes. How the ravines funneled movement. Where a flyer would dive from. Where a Ground-type would erupt if the stone felt wrong. His gaze didn't linger on the fire.
It measured the kill zone.
Klaus looked like a man forced to wait with a knife already in his hand. His jaw kept tightening, loosening, tightening again. His Arbok coiled at his feet, thick as a cable, head swaying in slow, predatory arcs as if tasting the air for fear.
Klaus leaned in, voice low but sharp. "We hit fast. We don't give them time to set anything off."
Laurence didn't even look at him. "You don't know what they set."
Klaus's nostrils flared. "It's a tent. There are three recruits."
Laurence's eyes shifted—just slightly—toward the camp, toward the open flap, toward the quiet that felt too clean.
"Three recruits," he repeated. "And forty-one bodies..."
That shut Klaus up for half a second.
Laurence raised two fingers, signaling the first ring. Not a charge. A tightening. The ten moved again, silent and controlled, closing their spacing like a drawstring.
Their leader—one of the older scouts, the kind who'd survived long enough to learn that confidence was just noise—whispered to the group beside him.
"Don't all go in."
Heads tilted. Ears sharpened.
"First, we clear the tent," he said, voice thin as wire. "Then we hunt the survivors."
The ring tightened.
The tent sat there, patient, breathing in the wind like it didn't know it was about to die.
And somewhere inside the fabric—too quiet to hear from outside—something waited with a grin.
The first ring kept tightening.
Boots slid through grit. Pokémon shifted—low growls, claws scraping stone, breath steaming in the cold. The tent flap moved with the wind, opening a finger's width, closing again, like it was asleep.
Like it was vulnerable.
Inside, it wasn't.
Enzo's Koffing floated dead-center, perfectly framed by canvas walls and dim lantern light, vibrating so hard its vents rattled—like a bomb that had learned how to smile. The grin on its face didn't match the situation at all. It never did.
Above it, the air felt wrong.
Haunter was fused into the darkest seam of the tent, a jagged silhouette that wasn't visible so much as felt. The temperature dropped in slow waves, and even the lantern flame leaned away from that corner like it didn't want to be watched.
On the ground near Enzo's knee, Porygon2 hovered with a quiet, precise hum—its body flickering with restrained processing, always online, always listening. It wasn't just a Pokémon. It was a signal jammer with teeth.
Enzo stood near the tent's center pole, calm enough to be insulting, eyes half-lidded as if he were listening to music only he could hear.
Proton and Ronnie weren't inside the tent.
They were where they mattered.
Proton held the flank Klaus would choose if he tried to be clever—shadowed rocks, a narrow approach lane, just enough cover to make a rush feel safe. His Crobat circled overhead without noise, a moving blade in the dark.
Ronnie stayed wider. Onix was buried beneath loose gravel like a sleeping wall, only the tiniest hint of horn visible if you knew what to look for. Fearow perched higher, restless, neck craned, wings twitching—ready to dive on anything that broke and ran.
Everything was placed.
Everything was waiting.
Enzo lifted his TR Device (Team Rocket Device) just enough for the screen to catch light. Porygon2's icon pulsed once—steady, confident—then the interface flashed a clean, clinical update.
[ TR DEVICE — LIVE GRID ]
First ring targets: 10
Distance: optimal
Signal access: CONFIRMED
Spoof status: READY
Enzo didn't rush. He didn't smile wider. He just spoke softly, like he was telling a machine to execute a program.
"Porygon2," Enzo murmured. "Send them a push."
The screen flickered.
Porygon2's body glitched once—like reality stuttered—then stabilized. Lines of code-like symbols crawled for a fraction of a second, too fast for a human eye to read.
[ MESSAGE INJECTION — ACTIVE ]
Recipients: 10 devices (first ring)
Sender ID: SQUAD LEADER CHANNEL (spoofed)
Content: "Advance. Breach now."
Trace risk: MINIMAL
Outside, ten different TR Devices buzzed at nearly the same moment.
Ten different heads tilted.
Ten different trainers received the same false certainty: an order that sounded official enough to be obeyed without thinking.
The first ring moved.
Not charging—closing.
Like wolves stepping in after hearing the pack leader's growl.
They came closer to the tent. Closer to the flap. Closer to the invisible center point, where the air felt thick and safe and normal.
Canvas "breathed" again.
The lantern flame trembled.
Haunter's shadow deepened.
Koffing's grin widened as if it finally understood the punchline.
Then Porygon2 delivered one final, tiny confirmation—short enough to feel like a heartbeat.
[ MICRO-NOTIFICATION ]
10 targets within optimal radius.
Enzo's voice didn't rise.
It didn't shake.
It didn't hesitate.
"Now."
Enzo didn't shout it. He didn't need to. The word left his mouth like a switch being flipped.
Porygon2 reacted instantly.
Reality folded—clean, mechanical—like a page turning too fast to see. Enzo vanished in a cold blink, yanked out of the kill radius at the exact moment the tent breathed in for the last time. Haunter came with him, torn out of the canvas-shadow like a hooked fish, its jagged hands reforming mid-teleport as the world snapped back together outside the blast ring.
For half a heartbeat, the plateau went silent.
Then the tent detonated from the inside out.
Not an uncontrolled explosion. Not chaos.
A shape.
A dirty, brutal shockwave that expanded in a perfect circle—canvas shredding, dust punching outward, grit turning into a sandstorm for one violent second. The blast didn't just hit the first ring… it erased it. Ten trainers and their Pokémon got caught in the same instant, the same pressure, the same blunt truth.
Pokémon dropped almost together—eyes rolling, bodies slamming stone, limbs going slack like someone had cut their strings.
Humans fared worse in a different way. Some were thrown hard enough to forget where up was. Some hit the ground and didn't get up again. No blood-spray. No gore. Just the quiet, heavy consequence of being too close when the world became a weapon.
The shockwave died.
Dust drifted.
And when the air cleared enough to see…
Koffing was on the ground.
Not scattered. Not destroyed. Just… there, in the middle of the ruined tent space, wobbling slightly as it recovered, wearing the biggest, dumbest smile on the island.
"Koff…!"
It sounded proud.
Like it had just thrown a surprise party and was waiting for applause.
Enzo stepped through the settling haze, coat flapping once in the wind, gaze landing on the purple idiot like a tired commander looking at his best missile.
"Good job," Enzo said flatly.
Koffing's grin somehow widened.
Behind the shattered ring, the second line of attackers finally processed what they'd just witnessed.
"What the hell was that?!"
"They had a bomb inside the tent?!"
Panic spread in the gaps where confidence had been.
And Enzo didn't give it time to stabilize.
The trio moved like the explosion had been a starting pistol.
Ronnie went first.
Fearow tore out of the dark sky in a crooked, vicious dive—ragged wings screaming—landing on a retreating scout like a nightmare with feathers. It didn't fight "clean." It fought like it took the chase personally, running targets down, forcing them to burn stamina until their legs turned into dead weight.
Onix answered next.
The ground buckled.
Stone cracked.
And a massive body surged up from beneath the plateau like the island itself had decided to join Enzo's side. Onix didn't just appear—it rearranged the battlefield, cutting escape routes with its bulk, forcing survivors into lanes Ronnie and Proton had already chosen.
Proton's Grimer became a problem with gravity.
It rolled forward like a filthy tide, sludge dragging over rock, swallowing space. Where it passed, movement slowed. Footing vanished. Pokémon that tried to rush got stuck. Trainers who tried to retreat found their boots glued to the earth by something that smelled like despair and refused to let go.
Haunter slid through it all like the cold between thoughts.
A Confuse Ray hit one survivor's Pokémon and turned coordination into self-sabotage. Mean Look locked another in place at the exact moment it realized running was the only correct answer. Shadow hands—half real, half wrong—grabbed ankles, wrists, tails, anything that could be held.
Above them, Porygon2 did what it did best.
It lied.
TR Devices buzzed across the ravines as maps glitched and paths rerouted into dead ends. Pings jumped to wrong cliffs. "Friendly markers" appeared where there were none. Two small groups tried to regroup and instead walked straight into each other's panic, misreading each other as enemy silhouettes.
Enzo didn't chase.
He harvested.
A flicker—Teleport—he appeared behind a stunned recruit who still hadn't realized the tent had exploded. A single command. A single strike. Then Enzo was already gone, moving like the battlefield was a spreadsheet and everyone on it was a cell being cleared.
Mini-duels cracked open everywhere, fast and ugly:
Fearow clipped a fleeing Archer follower mid-sprint and sent him rolling into dust.
Onix dropped a Rock Tomb behind two survivors, sealing them in with the sound of a door slamming shut.
Grimer flooded a narrow corridor, forcing three Pokémon to fight while half-submerged, their attacks turning sluggish and desperate.
Haunter drifted behind a trainer who tried to call for help—and the call died in his throat as his shadow suddenly grabbed him first.
The second ring stopped being a ring.
It became scattered pieces.
And scattered pieces were exactly what Enzo liked.
Klaus saw the pattern before most of them did.
He didn't waste time trying to save the first ring. They were already a loss. Instead, he looked for the thing that mattered: the head.
Enzo.
While the chaos swallowed the ravines, Klaus moved like a man who'd survived long enough to understand one rule—you don't win a war by fighting the soldiers.
He flanked.
Quiet. Low. Aggressive. Arbok slid beside him, thick body coiling through shadow with practiced menace. Its hood flared once—warning, threat, promise—and Klaus aimed straight for Enzo's blind side, counting on the battle to hide the approach.
He almost made it.
Then the air shifted.
A wingbeat cut the wind—sharp, sudden.
Crobat dropped into view like a blade falling out of the sky, eyes burning with focus, fangs catching starlight. Proton stepped out of the dark a half-second later, standing between Klaus and Enzo as if he'd been waiting there the entire time.
No speech.
No warning.
Just a cold, correct placement.
Proton's voice came out calm and flat, like he was stating a fact Klaus should've understood earlier.
"I'm the one you were supposed to handle."
Klaus didn't waste breath.
He moved first—fast, mean—using the chaos as cover while his Arbok slid forward like a living rope, thick body coiling through the dust with practiced hunger. Its hood flared wide, pattern screaming threat, and the air around it tasted sharp—venom and confidence.
"Wrap him," Klaus hissed.
Arbok struck.
Not at Crobat's head.
At its space.
It lunged to own the air—to trap Crobat's angles, force it low, force it close, force it into the one mistake that mattered.
Crobat didn't make the mistake.
It vanished sideways in a blur, wingbeat snapping the wind, staying just out of the coil's bite radius—close enough to tempt, far enough to punish.
Proton didn't shout commands like a rookie.
He watched.
Arbok's pattern was disciplined: feint left, coil right, cut the exit, poison on contact. It wasn't trying to "hit." It was trying to end. One wrap, one injection, one slow collapse.
"Confuse Ray," Proton said quietly.
Crobat's eyes flashed.
A sickly, wrong light washed over Arbok's face, and for a moment the snake hesitated—its muscles tightening in the wrong order, its head twitching like it couldn't decide which threat was real.
Klaus clicked his tongue. "Shake it off—Glare!"
Arbok's eyes burned—
—but Crobat was already above its hood, rotating around it like a planet with teeth. The glare hit the air. The intimidation hit nothing.
Proton's gaze narrowed.
He saw it then: every time Arbok committed to a coil, its neck opened for a fraction of a second—just enough space between defense and attack. A clean window. A surgical gap.
"Shadow Ball."
Crobat spat darkness.
The orb hit Arbok's hood and burst like ink in water, forcing the snake to recoil, forcing its coils to loosen just slightly—reflex overriding control.
That was the moment.
"Wing Attack."
Crobat dropped.
Not a straight dive—a diagonal cut, the kind that sliced across Arbok's line instead of into it. The impact slammed into the coil seam, whipping the heavy body sideways and breaking the wrap before it could form.
Arbok hissed, furious, and lunged again—fangs aimed high, poison ready—
Proton didn't blink.
"Bite."
Crobat hit the throat.
Teeth sank in hard, right under the hood where the armor of intimidation turned soft. There was a wet crack of puncture—then a violent jerk as Crobat ripped sideways and tore something that didn't want to be torn.
Arbok's hiss turned into a choking gurgle.
Venom mixed with blood, spraying in a thin arc across the stone.
The snake's body tried to coil again out of instinct… then failed. Muscles twitched. Hood collapsed. Its eyes rolled once, slow, confused, and then it slammed to the ground—fainted, heavy as a dropped chain.
Klaus took one step back.
Just one.
His face finally understood what his mouth hadn't admitted yet: he'd brought a level-25 solution to a problem that had already evolved past him.
He reached for his belt anyway—knife, Poké Ball, TR Device, anything—
Crobat was already behind him.
A single wingbeat.
A single shadow crossed his shoulders.
Klaus turned too late.
Fangs opened his throat like a zipper.
The sound was ugly and final.
Blood sprayed hot across Proton's cheek and the front of his jacket, and Klaus collapsed onto his knees with both hands clutching a wound that couldn't be held shut.
He tried to speak.
Only bubbles came out.
Then he fell forward, face-first into the dust, twitching once—twice—and going still.
Crobat hovered over the body, breathing steady, eyes bright and calm like it had done this a hundred times.
Proton wiped the blood from his face with the back of his glove.
He didn't shake. He didn't celebrate.
He just looked past Klaus's corpse toward the bigger fight—where Enzo and Laurence were still turning the night into a slaughterhouse.
"Good," Proton said, voice flat.
Then he glanced at Crobat.
"Don't get sloppy. We're not done."
On the other side of the plateau, Laurence didn't rush in.
He let the first ring close.
He watched the smoke roll outward.
He listened to the gap between screams—counting distance, counting wind, counting how long a human stayed brave after the world stopped making sense.
Then he stepped forward.
"Houndoom," Laurence said, quiet as a switch being flipped.
The hound slid out beside him on the gravel—Level 35 weight, horns catching starlight, eyes locked with disciplined hunger. It stayed low, claws digging in, anchoring itself like a weapon platform.
Enzo's gaze sharpened for half a second—just long enough to let the System do its job.
[ SYSTEM SCAN — TARGET IDENTIFIED ]
Specimen: Houndoom
Level: 35
Potential: BLUE
Ability: Flash Fire
Typing: Dark / Fire
Moves Detected:
— Flamethrower (Fire)
— Dark Pulse (Dark)
— Nasty Plot (Dark)
— Fire Fang (Fire)
Obs: "Combat discipline: high. Trainer synchronization: elite."
The air changed.
Houndoom opened its mouth and the ravine lit up—Flamethrower carving a long, ruthless wall across the plateau edge.
It didn't aim at Corvisquire.
It aimed at the airspace around Corvisquire.
Fire didn't just burn; it shaped. It turned the open sky into a corridor with only one safe line—and that line pointed straight where Laurence wanted the fight to go.
Enzo didn't blink.
"Hone Claws."
Corvisquire banked hard, metal feathers grinding against each other as sparks snapped from its wings. It didn't strike. Not yet. It sharpened—talons, focus, intent—eyes glowing red as it circled the pillar of fire like a hawk circling a gallows.
Laurence's mouth twitched.
"Boosting?" he said, almost amused. "You won't live long enough to use it. Houndoom—Nasty Plot."
The hound's silhouette darkened, an ugly aura blooming around its body like a thought that shouldn't exist. Its Special Attack spiked—violent, sudden, controlled.
Laurence's voice cut again.
"Dark Pulse."
The ground itself answered.
A wave of black energy ripped outward—not a neat beam, but a shockwave that felt like someone had slammed a door on reality.
Corvisquire tried to dive—
—but the Flamethrower had already turned "dive" into "die."
So it took the hit.
BOOM.
The pulse smashed into the bird's chest and armor, rattling metal and bone. Corvisquire screeched, losing altitude, wings stuttering for a heartbeat—
hurt, but not broken.
Enzo's eyes flashed.
That was the trigger.
"Payback."
Corvisquire didn't climb to recover. It didn't widen space. It used the momentum of pain like a sling. It dropped harder, faster—turning into a black blur falling through heat and smoke.
Houndoom snapped up, fangs igniting—Fire Fang—
—but Corvisquire was already past the bite line.
CRACK.
The strike landed on Houndoom's flank with the force of a falling anvil. Gravel exploded. The heavy hound skidded sideways across rock, claws carving sparks, a short, furious whine tearing out of its throat.
Enzo didn't celebrate.
He just watched—cold, calculating.
Laurence didn't panic either.
He was a real trainer.
"Burn him," Laurence said, voice flattening. "Point blank."
Houndoom recovered instantly—disciplined, brutal—mouth glowing white-hot as it turned into the gap Corvisquire couldn't escape.
Corvisquire was too close.
At this range, there was no "dodge." No "outfly." No "angle."
If that Flamethrower connected, the bird would be cooked in the air.
Enzo's gaze flicked to the pulsing icon on his TR Device.
"Porygon2," he said, calm as frost. "Lock."
A clean chime.
A microscopic pause—like the world inhaled.
Enzo didn't order Corvisquire to flee.
He ordered himself.
"Teleport."
The air folded.
Enzo vanished.
And reappeared behind Laurence—close enough to smell dust, sweat, and the faint metallic sting of fear trying not to be fear.
Laurence sensed the shift. His shoulders tensed. He started to turn, eyes widening—
"You—"
Enzo's hand moved once.
Not a swing.
Not a struggle.
A single, surgical motion—blade kissing throat with the certainty of a decision already made.
Laurence staggered.
The command died in his mouth before it could be born.
He dropped to his knees… then tipped forward into the dust like a puppet whose strings had been cut.
Houndoom froze mid-attack.
The fire in its mouth sputtered and died like someone had stolen the oxygen from the moment. Its body stayed coiled, waiting for the voice that guided it.
Nothing came.
It looked back at its trainer—confused.
And confusion was an opening the size of a canyon.
Enzo didn't waste it.
He looked at Corvisquire.
The bird was still glowing with the sharpened edge of Hone Claws, the boost sitting inside its muscles like stored violence.
"Power Trip."
Dark energy erupted from Corvisquire's wings like a storm given a shape. It didn't dive.
It fell.
Like judgment.
Houndoom tried to turn—too late.
SLAM.
The impact cracked the ground. Houndoom's body hit stone hard enough to leave a shallow crater, breath punching out in one forced exhale. Its eyes rolled, the fight draining out of it in a single, brutal conclusion.
Fainted.
Corvisquire stood over the fallen Fire/Dark beast, chest rising slow, wings flexing with that abnormal mass like it was carrying a storm.
Then the air around it tightened.
A pressure build.
A change that wasn't just level-up fatigue.
It was evolution.
Enzo's System chimed.
And the blue window opened.
[ SYSTEM EVENT — EVOLUTION DETECTED ]
Specimen: Corvisquire (VIRUS ACTIVE)
Condition: "Threshold surpassed. Evolution proximity fulfilled."
Status: EVOLVING…
Light swallowed the bird's silhouette—not soft, not gentle. It looked like armor being forged in midair.
Feathers thickened.
Frame expanded.
Wings broadened until they blocked the stars.
The shape settled into something heavier, colder, final.
And when the light died—
Corviknight stood where Corvisquire had been.
A living fortress with wings.
[ POKÉMON PROFILE — UPDATED ]
Specimen: Corviknight (VIRUS ACTIVE)
Evolution: Corvisquire ➝ Corviknight
Level: 38
Potential: DEEP BLUE
Ability: Pressure
Size: 2.5m (abnormal scale)
Moves:
— Air Slash (Flying)
— Steel Wing (Steel)
— Power Trip (Dark)
— Payback (Dark)
— Hone Claws (Dark)
— Iron Defense (Steel)
Obs: "Mass density spike confirmed. Threat rating increased. Aerial dominance: absolute."
Notes: "Armor plating formed. Wing impact output exceeds prior baseline."
Corviknight turned its head slowly.
Not scanning.
Claiming.
And across the plateau, the remaining recruits saw Laurence's body in the dust… and the new shadow overhead.
Numbers didn't feel so safe anymore.
Without Klaus and without Laurence, the resistance evaporated.
There was no more strategy. No more "formation." No more brave talk on a shared channel.
There was only panic.
The remaining recruits tried to run—but the ravine was already a cage.
Ronnie and his Fearow—"Beauty"—went after the climbers, the ones desperate enough to claw at red stone with bleeding fingers. Fearow chased them like a curse, screaming over their heads until they slipped, until they fell, until they stopped moving.
Proton and Crobat carved the ground routes. Every sprint became a mistake. Every shadow became a dead end. Crobat didn't "fight." It deleted angles.
Haunter slid out of the darkness whenever someone thought they'd found safety. Cold hands. Frozen lungs. A scream that never finished.
And above them all, Corviknight hovered—newly crowned, steel-black, massive. It didn't even need to strike sometimes. Its presence alone was enough to make enemy Pokémon hesitate… and that hesitation was fatal.
In ten minutes, it was over.
Enzo's TR Device vibrated one last time.
[ PORYGON2 REPORT ]
Targets Eliminated: 26/26
Mission Status: COMPLETE
Enzo finally released the breath he'd been holding.
Done.
But the device didn't stop.
It vibrated again—harder. Faster. Like something was trying to claw its way through the screen.
The display turned red.
The Porygon2 icon distorted, pixelating like it was afraid of what it was seeing.
[ ALERT ]
[ TRACE RISK: CRITICAL ]
[ ERROR. ERROR. ERROR. ]
[ SIGNAL MAGNITUDE: UNMEASURABLE ]
Enzo's brow tightened. "What is this?"
Then he raised his voice—sharp enough to cut through the crackle of dying fires and the groans of the wounded.
"Everyone! Group up! Now!"
Proton and Ronnie moved instantly. Their Pokémon formed a defensive circle without needing commands—Crobat above, Fearow restless, Onix shifting under the ground like a coiled wall, Haunter melting into the nearest shadow.
"What's going on, Boss?" Ronnie asked, wiping soot from his face.
"Something is coming," Enzo said, eyes lifting to the sky.
It wasn't a cloud.
It was a stain—a sheet of darkness sliding down from the stars.
As it approached, the air pressure spiked. Breathing got heavier. The plateau felt like it was being pushed down by an invisible hand. Every Pokémon on the field—even Corviknight—tensed with a primal, screaming instinct:
Danger.
The stain took shape.
Three heads. Wings like torn night. Black-and-blue scales that swallowed starlight.
A Hydreigon.
It landed with a thud that shook the ground and kicked dust up like a shockwave.
Then—slow applause.
Clap.
Clap.
Clap.
Ronnie and Proton moved on reflex, stepping in front of Enzo like shields.
"Boss, run!" Ronnie barked, voice shaking but firm, Onix shifting into position. "We'll try to delay it!"
"Don't even think about it," Proton hissed, Crobat screeching—ready for a suicide run.
Enzo stared at their backs.
A real smile—small, genuine, almost invisible—touched his mouth.
Loyalty.
He'd chosen right.
He placed a hand on each of their shoulders.
"Stand down," Enzo said calmly. "It's not necessary."
He stepped past them.
"He's the one who gave me the mission."
The man hopped down from Hydreigon's back like gravity was optional.
Executive Nero.
His presence was oppressive in the same way a loaded weapon was oppressive—silent, undeniable. He looked at the bodies, the wrecked camp, the trio standing in the aftermath like they'd just finished chores.
"Incredible," Nero said smoothly. "I've never seen a trio of recruits cause this level of devastation." His eyes flicked to Proton and Ronnie—still positioned to protect their leader. "And your chemistry…"
Enzo gave a short, controlled bow. "Executive Nero."
Nero walked closer.
"You exceeded expectations. You cleaned the island. You removed the political obstacles." He paused, amused. "So I have a proposal."
The three of them held still.
"Normally, the top three rankers in the Final Exam are promoted to Squad Captains and assigned to different divisions." Nero's smile sharpened. "But I don't want to separate this… efficiency."
He let the next words land like a crown.
"If you place in the top three… I will let you enter directly into the Shadow Unit."
Proton actually choked on air. Ronnie's eyes went wide.
Shadow Unit. Black operations. Autonomy. Budget. Real power.
"With Enzo as Squad Leader," Nero continued, "and you two as his Captains. You answer only to him… and to me."
It was a golden offer. A shortcut past idiots. A future where nobody could step on them again.
Ronnie and Proton looked at Enzo like take it was a prayer.
Enzo kept his face neutral.
"Executive Nero," he said, voice even. "The proposal is generous. But before accepting the future…"
He extended his hand.
"…I'd like to see my reward for the present."
Nero laughed—short, approving.
"Straight to the point. I like that."
He reached into his coat and produced a Poké Ball with a matte black finish.
Then he tossed it like a coin.
"It's yours."
Enzo caught it.
The System reacted the moment it touched his palm.
[ SYSTEM SCAN]
Content: Deino
Level: 5
Potential: LIGHT BLUE
Ability: Hustle
Egg Moves: Earth PowerDark Pulse
Moves:
— Tackle (Normal)
— Dragon Rage (Dragon)
— Focus Energy (Normal)
Obs: "Juvenile specimen. High growth ceiling. Loyalty imprint: unassigned."
Enzo felt his heart skip.
Light Blue.
A pseudo-legendary with elite potential. A future nightmare.
He didn't let a flicker of shock escape his face. He made himself look like he'd expected it.
He released the Pokémon.
A small Deino materialized on the stone—blind fur over its eyes, clumsy paws slipping as it sniffed the air, confused and newborn.
Then it heard a heavy breath.
The Deino turned toward Hydreigon—toward that massive, familiar scent.
It squeaked and ran—tripped twice—then slammed into the dragon's legs like it belonged there.
Hydreigon lowered one side head and nudged the baby gently.
Enzo's eyes narrowed.
That's his mother.
Nero watched the scene with something almost soft… then looked back at Enzo.
"Take good care of him," Nero said. "He has champion blood."
Enzo recalled Deino. The Poké Ball felt heavier now—like a future sealed shut in his hand.
"I will," Enzo promised.
Then he looked Nero in the eye.
"If the three of us take first place," Enzo said, a dangerous glint showing through his calm, "what will our squad be called?"
Ronnie and Proton stepped up beside him, grinning despite themselves—aligned, inevitable.
Nero studied the three of them.
The strategist. The assassin. The vice-captain.
He smiled.
"Lambda."