The morning air in the Eterna outskirts was thick with the scent of pine and the heavy, metallic tang of the massive iron vessel moored at the dock.
I stood near the gangplank, my boots planted firmly on the wooden slats, watching the "twerps" with a mounting sense of disbelief.
They were huddled in a tight circle, their voices bright and carefree. They had seen the docked boat and decided that this was going to be a scenic detour.
"Alright! If we're going to be on this boat for a few hours, we definitely need to stock up on supplies," Ash shouted, his fist punching the air while Pikachu mirrored the gesture with a high-pitched "Pika-pika!"
"There's a PokéMart just up the hill," Dawn added, checking her Pokétch with a distracted hum. "They have a sale on specialized Poffin ingredients. Piplup and I have been waiting for this!"
Brock nodded, his expression shifting into that of a focused quartermaster. "We're low on medicinal herbs and fresh produce, too. We should head out now before the morning rush."
He turned toward me, his gaze lingering for a moment on the heavy bandages across my chest and the golden hilt of Kishin resting against my hip.
"Hey, Corvin. Would you mind staying here on the ship for a bit? The Pokémon are already settled on the deck, and it'd be a big help if someone was here to keep an eye on things while we grab the gear."
I looked over at the deck. Pikachu, Piplup, and the others were scattered about, chasing each other around the lifeboats and sunning themselves on the warm metal plates. They weren't in cages, but they were effectively stranded if anything went wrong.
They were playing like children in a nursery that happened to be floating on a deep, hungry river.
"You're leaving them behind?" I asked, my voice a low, questioning rasp. "To find... snacks and ingredients?"
Ash blinked, his reckless smile never wavering. "Oh, they'll be fine! It's a secure ship, and we'll only be gone for twenty minutes. They're just having some fun! Besides, they've got you watching them, right?"
"Rest is for the camp, not the transit. And I am a member of the Survey Corps, not a—" I started, but the boy was already turning away.
"Thanks, Corvin! You're the best!" Ash yelled over his shoulder as the three of them began to jog toward the town, their laughter trailing behind them like a taunt.
I stood there in the silence of the dock, the only sound the rhythmic lapping of the river against the hull.
Kishin drifted out of my shadow, his spectral eye pulsing with a cold, analytical violet as he watched the children disappear behind a row of modern, brightly colored buildings.
"Unbelievable," I spat, the word tasting like the cold ash of a dead fire. "Treating a war-bond like a checked satchel left at a merchant's stall. In Hisui, a soldier who left his partners exposed while he went to seek a meal would be stripped of his rank before the sun set."
"And they trust me? A man who smells of blood and wears the scars of a god? Their naivety isn't just endearing, Kishin. It's a death sentence waiting for a verdict."
Kishin hummed in agreement, his hilt vibrating against the deck railing with a low, resonant frequency.
I leaned against the railing, my eyes scanning the treeline and the rooftops of the town.
They moved through the world with an arrogance that only centuries of peace could foster. They didn't listen for the crack of a twig or the shift in the wind. They didn't understand that the moment you separate yourself from your strength, you have already lost.
"And they think they're ready for the League," I said, a bitter, hollow laugh escaping my throat. "They wouldn't last a night in Hisui, even in the Obsidian Fieldlands. They'd be half-digested by that damn Alpha Snorlax before they finished their first rhyme about friendship."
The Pokémon on the deck were still playing. Piplup was sliding across a wet patch of metal while Pikachu cheered him on. They looked up at me occasionally, perhaps sensing the dark aura I radiated.
"Don't look at me," I growled at them. "I'm not your friend. I'm just the one who knows what happens to things that aren't paying attention."
I paced the deck, my boots clunking with a heavy, rhythmic finality on the metal plates. The ship was quiet, too quiet. The crew was nowhere to be seen. The sun was warm, but it felt hollow.
I looked at an Ultra Ball on my belt, the one containing Shogun. I could feel my team's restlessness as they had recently exited stasis.
He, too, hated the stillness of this era. He lived for the cold spray of the sea and the weight of his seamitars in a real fight. To be tucked away while "children" went shopping was an insult to his scars.
"We're babysitters, Kishin," I muttered, resting my hand on the katana's hilt.
"Babysitters for a generation that has forgotten the heat of battle."
I looked back at the town, waiting for the familiar red cap of the boy to reappear. Every minute they were gone felt like an invitation to disaster.
Silence was never a sign of peace, simply a breath the wilderness took before it lunged.
And I was right.
Suddenly, the ship lurched. It wasn't the gentle sway of the current, but a violent, mechanical groan from deep within the engine room. The mooring lines creaked, straining against the wood of the dock with a sound like snapping bone.
"Kishin. Alert status," I commanded, the Rift-Eye on my chest flaring a sharp, piercing violet. "Something's wrong."
The "twenty minutes" the boy had promised were up, but the danger didn't wait for a schedule. The current was picking up, and the iron beast beneath my feet was starting to wake up with a mind of its own.
Pachirisu had slipped into the vents earlier, and I could hear the faint crackle of electricity from the ventilation shafts.
"They went for snacks," I whispered, my gaze fixing on the bridge of the ship as black smoke began to billow from the stacks. "And they left the keys in the ignition?"
I didn't wait for the boat to drift. If the guts of this iron beast were to fail, then this was a battle that was already lost.
"Kishin, guard the deck. If any of those pups fall overboard, pull them back. No excuses," I barked, already pivoting toward the narrow steel hatch that led to the lower levels.
The Aegislash hummed a low, metallic acknowledgment, his spectral eye flaring as he took a high-ground position on the main mast. I didn't stay to watch him, plunging into the dark, sweltering throat of the ship.
The air in the stairwell hit me like a physical blow—a thick, choking soup of aerosolized oil and ozone. My boots rang out against the metal rungs as I descended, the sound echoing in the cramped space.
The deeper I went, the louder the scream of the machinery became. It wasn't the steady, rhythmic thrum of a healthy engine. It was the frantic, uneven grinding of metal on metal, punctuated by the sharp snap of electrical discharges.
Hitting the floor of the engine room, I nearly lost my footing on a slick of black grease. The space was a nightmare of hissing pipes and rotating brass gears that looked like they were trying to tear themselves off their mountings.
I kicked open the heavy metal door to the pilot house, and for a second, I couldn't even see the wheel. The interior was a screaming deathtrap of hissing white steam and the smell of scorched copper.
In the center of the chaos, tucked behind the primary electrical housing, I saw a familiar flicker of blue fur.
Pachirisu.
"You little idiot," I hissed, shielding my eyes from a sudden arc of blue lightning that danced across the ceiling.
On top of the main control system of the ship, a small Pachirisu was sprawled out, its fur standing on end, eyes spinning in its head. It had clearly tried to nest in the primary fuse box, and the resulting discharge had fried the automated navigation and sent the ship into a mechanical seizure.
The steering wheel wasn't just spinning; it was bucking like a wild Wyrdeer caught in a snare, the brass spokes whipping around with enough force to shatter a man's forearms.
I took a deep breath, tasted the metallic tang of the engine's failure, and lunged for it.
"Argh!"
The first time I grabbed the spokes, the momentum nearly wrenched my shoulders from their sockets. I slammed my boots against the oil-slicked floor, digging my heels into the metal grating.
I've faced down charging Alphas in the Highlands with nothing but a wooden shield, I refuse to be broken by a pile of rusted iron.
"Turn, you stubborn bastard!" I roared, my muscles screaming as I threw my entire weight against the rotation.
Beside me, the tiny pink blur of the Happiny appeared. She didn't wait for a command. She reached up, her small hands gripping the lower spokes right next to mine.
With a raw, physical strength that defied every law of biology I knew, she hauled the wheel alongside me. The rudder groaned somewhere deep beneath the hull, but the river was still winning.
The current was a tidal wave of gravity pulling us toward the center of the channel where the water turned into a white, vertical void.
I looked through the spray-slicked glass. We were heading straight for a graveyard of jagged rock pillars that rose from the foam like broken teeth. If we hit them, the hull would burst open like a ripe berry.
"We need a hand," I said, my voice dropping into a cold, tactical command. I pulled a weathered Ultra Ball from my belt. "Shogun. Slumber's over. Clear the path and hold the line!"
With a roar of cold, pressurized water that filled the small room with the scent of the deep ocean, my Hisuian Samurott manifested on the foredeck.
He didn't look like the sleek, blue-and-white warriors of this era. Shogun was a scarred veteran of the Cobalt Coastlands, his dark armor pitted and jagged from a hundred life-or-death struggles. He didn't need to look back at me for a strategy.
He saw the stone teeth waiting to gut the vessel, and the white void of the falls looming only yards away.
"Shogun! Ceaseless Edge!"
The Samurott drew the twin seamitars from his forelegs in a motion so fluid the air itself seemed to hiss in protest. He stepped into a low, predatory stance and unleashed a jagged, spiraling wave of dark energy and razor-thin water.
The strike hit the largest rock pillar with the kinetic force of a falling mountain. The stone cracked, splintering, before shattering into a million shards, the dark blades of the attack lingering in the water like an invisible minefield that shredded any debris before it could impact the hull.
With the primary obstacle obliterated, Shogun didn't hesitate. He plunged into the freezing, chaotic water, his dark mane swirling like ink in the foam.
He became a living rudder, his massive, powerful frame slamming against the iron hull as he used his sheer, unrelenting power to shove the steel beast back toward the main channel.
The ship lurched violently, its metal screaming as the bow finally swung away from the precipice. I felt the freezing spray of the falls on my face—a cold, wet reminder of how close we had come to the end of our story.
We surged past the edge, the mist swallowing the stern for a heartbeat before Shogun's strength and my grip on the wheel forced us into the calmer silt-shallows of the far bank.
I wrenched the wheel one final time, locking the rudder into a return arc that aligned with the river's natural backflow toward the dock. The vessel shuddered and began to drift back toward the pier, the mechanical screeching finally settling into a low, dying moan.
I exhaled, my hands finally letting go of the wooden spokes. They were cramped into claws, the skin raw from the friction. I looked down at the Happiny.
She let out a triumphant chirp, patted the wooden spoke of the wheel, and looked to me as if to ask what we were going to conquer next.
"Good work, little soldier," I muttered, leaning heavily against the helm.
As I walked out of the pilot house, wiping the grease and spray of sea foam from my face, that's when I heard the music.
"Let's see what the noise on deck is."
I walked out of the pilot house and stopped dead at the top of the stairs.
Another ridiculous balloon shaped like a Meowth was hovering just above the deck. Three figures in colorful uniforms were dancing in a choreographed circle with the Pokémon.
They were singing some nonsensical rhymes about "trouble" and "double," their movements jerky and exaggerated.
They looked more like performers than threats. As they finished their final flourish, the woman with magenta hair slammed a heavy cage door shut, trapping the confused Pokémon inside with a resonant clang.
I stood there, speechless, watching the spectacle in a state of absolute silence. Kishin drifted behind my shoulder, his spectral eye pulsing with a bewildered, purple light.
"Were… you just watching this?" I asked, turning to the katana for some kind of explanation.
The sword's violet tassels simply shrugged.
"What..." I started, my voice flat. "...am I looking at?"
The thieves froze in mid-pose. The man with the blue hair still had one leg tucked behind his ear. The woman's triumphant grin slowly curdled into terror.
"It's him!" she shrieked. "The scary guy with the sword!"
"And he looks even grumpier than he did at the museum!" the man added, nearly tripping over his own boots.
The Meowth in the balloon basket looked down, its ears flattening. "I told ya guys we shoulda waited until the guy in the bandages went for a snack too!"
I looked at the cage, then at the dancing thieves, then back at Kishin. I had seen the fabric of the universe tear open. I had survived the collapse of a mountain and the silence of a void where time was a dead thing.
"I have seen the sky bleed and gods go to war," I muttered, the words thick with a weary disdain.
"But this... this is the most ridiculous thing I have ever witnessed."
"Hey! We aren't ridiculous! We're Team Rocket!" the woman yelled, though she was carefully backing away toward the rope ladder.
I took a single step forward, the temperature on the deck dropping instantly. Shogun pulled himself back onto the deck behind me, his dark mane dripping river water, his seamitars clicking into place.
"You were dancing," I said, my voice dropping into a low rumble. "The boat was seconds from a watery grave, and you were practicing a dance routine."
"You aren't even thieves anymore. You are a localized anomaly of incompetence."
"Now, now, let's not be hasty!" the man squeaked, fumbling with a Poké Ball. "We have the advantage! We have... well, we have a very sturdy cage!"
I didn't draw a blade. I didn't need to. I just looked at the Pokémon trapped inside—Ash's Pikachu, Dawn's Piplup, and the others. They were staring at me with wide eyes, their faces pressed against the bars.
"Kishin," I whispered. "End the theater. They're giving me a headache."
The Aegislash didn't wait. He blurred forward—Spectral Draw. The air hissed. He didn't hit the people; he hit the tether lines of the balloon and the hinges of the cage with the precision of a surgeon.
The balloon jerked violently as the ropes were severed, the thieves screaming as they were suddenly hoisted into the air. At the same time, the cage door fell off its hinges and clattered onto the deck, releasing the Pokémon.
"WE'RE BLASTING OFF AGAIN!" they wailed as their balloon spiraled away into the afternoon sky, disappearing with a faint, distant ding.
Was that a star?!
I stood on the deck, the silence of the river returning. The Pokémon scrambled out of the cage, chirping and sparking with relief, but they kept a respectful distance from me.
They saw the scar. They saw the sword. And they saw the sheer amount of disappointment on my face.
"Unbelievable," I muttered, sheathing Kishin with a sharp, final clack.
By the time Ash, Dawn, and Brock managed to catch up on a borrowed Mantine, I was already walking out of the pilot house and onto the deck.
They burst over the railing, sobbing and shouting, throwing themselves at the cages to release their Pokémon. They were hugging their Pikachu and Piplup as if they had just returned from the afterlife.
I stood by the railing, watching Shogun as he hauled himself out of the river. He shook the water from his dark armor, his seamitars clicking back into their sheaths with a sound like a closing vault.
He looked up at me, his cold eyes conveying his silent report: Objective secured. Threat neutralized.
Ash ran toward me, his face a mess of happiness and gratitude. "Corvin! You did it! You saved everyone! We saw that huge explosion from the dock and—what's that Pokémon? It was amazing!"
I didn't stop to listen. I walked past him, my boots clunking heavily on the metal deck as I headed for the gangplank. Shogun fell into step behind me, his wet fur leaving a trail of dark drops on the iron.
"The water is a grave for the undisciplined, Ash," I said, my voice somber. I didn't turn around to see the confusion on his face.
"You left your lifeline in a cage so you could find a meal. In war, that's how you lose everything. Guard your own."
The steamboat groaned one last time as the hull settled into the silt, the violent vibration of the engine finally dying into a hissing silence.
Ash and the others were a frantic blur of color and noise on the deck, weeping in joy over their recovered partners, but I stepped away from the light of their relief.
I walked down the gangplank and into the tall, damp grass of the riverbank. Shogun was waiting there.
He stood like a monolith against the darkening treeline, his dark, shell-hardened armor glistening with river water.
He didn't shake himself dry this time. He just watched me approach, his blue eyes—cold and sharp as a winter morning in the Cobalt Coastlands—tracking my every movement.
In Hisui, he had been my shadow. My second Pokemon along with Ronin—given to me by Professor Laventon after Akari chose Yūreibi as her first partner.
But since the fall, since the Distortion World had claimed us, he had been tucked away in the stasis of an Ultra Ball. To him, the gap between the Temple of Sinnoh and this river was a single, terrifying moment of darkness.
As I reached him, the Hisuian Samurott didn't maintain his usual, rigid soldier's posture. He stepped forward, his massive frame closing the distance until the damp, salt-heavy scent of his fur filled my lungs.
With a low, guttural rumble that vibrated through my own chest, he leaned his heavy head down, pressing his scarred snout firmly against the bandages covering the Rift-Eye. It wasn't a tactical report. It was a greeting.
"I know, Shogun," I whispered, my hand moving to rest on the jagged plate of his forehead. I felt the slight tremor in his muscles—the lingering adrenaline of a warrior who thought he had lost his general to the void. "It's been a long night for both of us."
Unlike Kishin, who had shared the frozen stagnation of the void with me, Shogun had been asleep in the dark, unaware of the two weeks I'd spent rotting in the silence.
To wake up in this soft, bright era must have felt like a second exile.
He huffed, a warm burst of air against my neck, and nudged my shoulder with enough force to make me stumble. It was an uncharacteristically emotional gesture for a Sea King. He wasn't just checking for injuries; he was making sure I was still solid, still real, and still here.
I felt a faint, spectral hum from the small of my back as Kishin drifted out of my shadow. The Aegislash didn't intervene, but his purple eye pulsed with a dim, understanding light.
The two of them—the sword that watched me die and the beast that refused to let me drown—stood with me in the gathering twilight.
"We're still here," I said, my fingers curling around the edge of Shogun's armor. "The world changed, but we haven't. Not yet."
Shogun let out one final, sharp exhale, as if letting go of the terror of the mountain. He straightened his back, his seamitars clicking into place, the soldier returning to his post. He took his place at my left flank, a dark sentinel guarding the path back to the brats.
I looked back at the ship, where the modern world was still celebrating its narrow escape. We didn't belong in their light, but as long as I had my front line back, the darkness didn't feel quite so heavy.
Our reunion with the group led to another series of "Thank you!" and "You're so strong!"
At this point, I didn't even want their thanks. I just wanted to find a world that made a little more sense.
— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —
Name: Shogun
Species: Hisuian Samurott
Type: Water/Dark
Abilities: Torrent, Sharpness
Moves: Ceaseless Edge, Night Slash, Razor Shell, Aqua Cutter, Sacred Sword, X-Scissor, Swords Dance, Taunt, Focus Energy, Poison Jab, Sucker Punch, Aqua Jet, Knock Off, Icy Wind, Megahorn, Riptide, Kuroshio
Techniques: Strong/Agile Style