The Pokéball was still. Silent. No lights. No struggle.
Orion crouched beside it, not moving. Not blinking. Barely breathing.
His heart pounded in his ears, not from the fall anymore—but from what he had just done.
He picked up the ball.
Cold metal. Smooth hinge. It looked like every other Pokéball in existence. Inconspicuous. Safe.
But inside it was a living fossil.
A Tyrunt.
He'd caught it.
And now he had no idea what to do next.
The cave around him was dark, the air still. His lantern crystal pulsed gently in his pack, casting slow, blue light across stone walls that looked too smooth, too shaped. He was maybe ten meters below the slope he'd fallen through. No visible path back up. Just a jagged ceiling and the remains of the rock he'd broken on the way down.
His ribs still ached. His thigh burned from the impact. But nothing was broken.
Just bruised.
And confused.
He clipped the Pokéball to his belt and stood slowly, forcing the adrenaline to settle.
First priority: get out.
Second: figure out what he had just done.
The chamber had only one exit: a narrow crack between two slabs of stone. He crouched, squeezed through it sideways, and emerged into a long tunnel. It curved gently, uneven underfoot, but not man-made.
He tested his footing as he moved, staff out in front to probe the path ahead.
The tunnel dipped sharply.
He followed it.
Downward.
Because of course it went deeper.
For the first twenty minutes, he stayed focused. Each step careful. Listening for movement. Breathing shallow.
But then, the silence got too loud.
His thoughts slipped in.
Tyrunt. Ancient. Extinct. Officially only found as restored fossils.
And he had one.
Not in a lab. Not in a museum.
In his pocket.
He didn't need a professor to tell him what that meant.
If anyone found out—
They'd want it. Not as a partner. Not as a wild discovery.
As property.
League researchers. Black market collectors. Trainers who cared more about power than partnership.
They'd study it. Lock it up. Use it.
Or take it from him.
And what would he do?
Stand there with a stick and tell them no?
He moved faster after that.
The tunnel began to narrow. The walls got closer, slick with cold moisture. The ground turned from packed stone to rough gravel. His lantern dimmed, casting long shadows.
He didn't like the shadows.
Especially when he remembered what he was now walking beside.
He stopped.
His fingers brushed the Pokéball again.
He unlatched it.
Took it in his hand.
He stared at it for a long time.
He didn't want to open it.
But he knew he'd have to.
Sooner or later.
He placed it gently back on his belt.
Not yet.
The tunnel forked.
He chose the right-hand path—narrower, but rising slightly.
After a dozen meters, the air felt cleaner.
Drier.
He kept moving.
His lantern caught something in the wall—an impression. Fossilized bone? Ancient clawmarks?
He couldn't tell. But it only reinforced the truth: the Tyrunt hadn't gotten here by accident. This whole place had been sealed for a long, long time.
Until now.
He climbed another slope, slipping twice before finding the proper footholds. The incline was sharp, but manageable. Eventually, it led to a low, rounded alcove.
And then—
Light.
Faint. Thin. Barely visible.
But real.
He rushed the last few steps and emerged into a small, mossy crevice. The daylight filtered in through an overhead gap, about four meters up, blocked by old tree roots and loose stone.
He could get out.
It would take effort. Rope. Time.
But it was possible.
He set down his pack and leaned against the wall.
His breath steamed in front of him.
His heart still hadn't slowed.
He let himself sit for a moment.
Just to think.
Tyrunt.
He'd read about it. Before. Not in this world—but in the one before.
A Pokémon modeled after a T. rex. Rock and Dragon type. Known for its bite force. Its aggressive instincts. And its evolution—Tyrantrum.
One of the strongest pseudo-prehistoric species ever theorized.
He didn't know the real biology. Just the fan knowledge. But even that was enough to realize what he'd just caught.
Tyrunt wasn't supposed to be here.
Not alive.
Not wild.
And definitely not in the hands of a nobody eight-year-old with no license and a tendency to pick fights with rocks.
He pulled out his notebook.
Opened to a fresh page.
Scrawled the name:
Tyrunt.
Below it, he wrote:
Behavior: weak, lethargic, starving. No known attacks yet. Movement shaky. Did not resist capture.
Assume recently awakened from deep stasis. Ice around body, dried frost.
Likely disoriented. Possibly unstable.
He paused.
Then added:
DO NOT RELEASE UNPREPARED.
It was another hour before he trusted himself to move again.
He cleared the roots slowly, bracing them with his staff, digging out just enough space to squeeze through.
The surface air hit him like a slap—humid, pine-scented, noisy with wind and birdsong.
He hadn't realized how quiet it had been underground.
Now everything felt too loud.
He was still in the ridgelands, but south of where he'd fallen. The sun was past midday. He adjusted his bearings and began moving northeast, back toward familiar ground.
His body ached. His ribs flared. His brain felt like it had been left out in the rain.
But he walked.
He didn't stop until he saw the cabin roof in the distance.
Only then did he exhale.
Reid wasn't back yet.
That gave him time.
He dropped his pack inside, removed his coat, and sat heavily on the floor beside the hearth.
His fingers went to the Pokéball on his belt.
He took it off.
Held it in both hands.
Then, without giving himself time to hesitate—
He pressed the release.
The red light pulsed once.
Then the shape formed, crouched low, barely balanced.
Tyrunt materialized in a slow, shaky wave—legs curled, eyes fluttering open, jaw clamped shut.
It didn't roar.
Didn't snap.
Just blinked at the fire.
Orion stayed still.
No sudden movements.
He opened his pack and retrieved more food—jerky, dried root strips, small cooked meat chunks wrapped in leaf paper.
He laid them out slowly, one at a time.
Tyrunt's eyes twitched toward the food.
Then toward him.
Back to the food.
It moved forward.
Wobbly.
But not hostile.
It ate.
Again.
Orion didn't try to touch it.
Didn't speak.
He let it eat until it stopped—until its stomach pressed lightly against the floor and its eyes started to droop.
Then it curled beside the wall and slept.
Orion sat across from it.
And finally let himself breathe.
This wasn't the end.
It wasn't even the beginning.
It was just the opening move in a game no one else even knew had started.
He had a Tyrunt.
And the world couldn't know.