Weeks passed in a blur of absolute chaos. With Pokémania rising to unprecedented heights every single day, breaking sales records and dominating the cultural zeitgeist, Dorian Kepler was forced to temporarily pivot his focus. It was time to resurrect his other massive persona: Composer Percival.
His highly anticipated debut solo concert was rapidly approaching, and the preparations were grueling.
Inside a brightly lit dressing room of the Kepler estate, Ratik was aggressively sifting through a massive rack of high-end concert wardrobe options. Laid out on a velvet-lined table next to her were several variations of sleek, polished metal half-masks.
Dorian stared at the metallic visages with a look of deep, lingering trauma.
The last time Percival had performed live as a surprise guest during Briane Taleini's concert, he had worn a solid metal mask. It had looked incredibly cool, but under the blazing heat of the stadium stage lights, it had basically turned into a wearable oven.
Learning from that sweaty, suffocating mistake, Dorian needed to make absolutely sure his new mask could comfortably stay on his face for at least a one-to-two-hour solo setlist without suffocating him.
"Haaaa," Dorian sighed heavily, running a hand through his messy black hair. "Which one should I pick?"
Ratik picked up a silver mask, examining the ventilation slits. "There is not a lot of wiggle room with solid metal, Dorian. Honestly, if you want comfort, you can just use a high-tier holo-mask instead. A digital projection weighs nothing."
Dorian thought about it for a second, but firmly shook his head. "No. Holographic emitters are highly prone to visual failures and short-circuiting when they get wet. And I am inevitably going to get drenched in sweat under those stage lights. If the holo-mask glitches for even a second, my actual face gets broadcasted to the entire galaxy."
Sitting on a plush sofa in the back of the room, casually sipping a juice, Briane Taleini smirked. "You know, Composer... with your crazy fanbase, you could probably bottle that sweat and sell it for a fortune."
Dorian's face instantly scrunched up in profound disgust. He looked at the galactic pop star. "Eww. Please don't tell me you sell yours."
Briane gasped in sheer, offended outrage. She grabbed a tremendously expensive velvet suit jacket from the rack, balled it up, and hurled it directly at his head.
"DORIAN!!" Briane shouted.
She vaulted over the back of the sofa, marching up to the teenager and aggressively putting him into a playful headlock, vigorously shaking his head around while Dorian helplessly laughed and tried to pry her off.
Standing in the center of the room, Ratik just let out a long, deeply exasperated sigh. She looked at the two biggest musical icons in the Accord acting exactly like a pair of bickering toddlers.
Ratik pulled out her datapad and tapped her stylus against it. "Alright, let's recap our progress for the day. The metal mask design is... indefinite. The primary suit is... indefinite. The stage layout is... indefinite. The custom microphone is, thankfully, chosen. And the rest of the setlist transitions are... haaa."
Sitting quietly on a chair by the wall, Kio offered Ratik a look of profound, shared solidarity. She pumped a small fist in the air. "Fighting!"
…
While Dorian was busy wrestling with velvet jackets and metal masks, the galactic media was practically burning to the ground.
The official announcement of Composer Percival's debut live concert had exploded across the mainstream networks. Entertainment media outlets were in an absolute, rabid frenzy, desperate to be the very first to dig out the specifics. Where was the venue? What was the setlist? Who were the guest performers?
Amidst this desperate, swirling chaos, Mira casually strolled through the sleek, towering glass doors of the GalaXtica media building on Sela.
She walked past dozens of frantic reporters and screaming producers, making her way directly to the main executive reception desk.
"Hi," Mira greeted the frazzled receptionist with a calm, polite smile. "I'm Mira, an independent journalist. I need to see Editor-in-Chief Rintao."
The receptionist didn't even look up from her rapidly flashing terminal. She was currently juggling five different comm-links. "Uh... umm, hold on. Ah, yeah, sure, let me just check his schedule, do you have an appointment–"
Mira leaned slightly over the polished desk.
"I got the exclusive update from Composer Percival," Mira whispered.
The receptionist instantly froze. Her fingers stopped flying across the keyboard. Her head snapped up, her eyes wide with shock.
"Percival?!" the receptionist shouted, her voice cutting through the lobby noise.
Realizing she had just yelled, the receptionist quickly caught herself. She slapped her hands over her mouth, looking around before instantly straightening her posture and shifting into a flawless, hyper-professional demeanor. She stepped out from behind the desk and gestured toward the private VIP elevators.
"Right this way, ma'am," the receptionist said breathlessly. "Let me lead you directly to our Editor-in-Chief."
Mira just offered a highly satisfied smirk and followed her in.
…
Across the galactic net, independent animators were uploading incredibly detailed fan animatics of their personal in-game journeys, fully voicing their pixelated characters and dramatizing the battles.
Major Stellarcasters would then react to these animatics on stream, creating a massive, self-sustaining snowball of billions of views. The cultural grip of the game was absolute.
Roric was currently riding the very peak of that hype wave.
The famous streamer was broadcasting live from his brand-new, incredibly spacious high-end apartment in the upper sectors of Core-Rims. His viewers had quickly noticed a slight physical change in the loud, energetic gamer. He had put on a little extra weight.
In the past, Roric's primary content consisted of high-octane, full-dive VR combat shooters. Those games required intense physical movement, acting as a grueling daily cardio routine. However, ever since he had become hopelessly addicted to Round Table Studio's titles, he had been sitting comfortably in an ergonomic chair, playing flat-screen games with a controller. He had completely neglected his exercise.
But his audience didn't care at all. Roric was still the exact same genuine, over-the-top, passionately loud gamer they had fallen in love with. That authenticity was exactly why his viewer count hovered in the multi-millions.
"This is it, chat!" Roric bellowed, slamming his hands onto his desk as his digital avatar stepped through a set of sliding doors. "Cinnabar Island's Gym!"
The chat flowed like a waterfall of absolute hype, spamming fire emojis and animated Poké Balls.
Roric cracked his knuckles. He reached over to his audio deck and completely muted the game's standard background music. Instead, he cued up a custom track. A thundering, bass-heavy orchestral war anthem began to blast through the stream, complete with the pounding rhythm of a hundred marching drums and the blare of brass horns.
"Listen to me, soldiers!" Roric shouted, deepening his voice into a gravelly, battle-hardened commander's tone as he initiated a battle with the first Gym trainer. "We have breached the enemy gates! The heat of the volcano licks at our boots, but we do not sweat! We do not falter!"
On the screen, a Super Nerd sent out a Vulpix.
"They send their hounds of hell to burn us!" Roric improvised flawlessly, his eyes wide with theatrical intensity. "But they forget... we are the storm! Blastoise, wash them into the abyss! Hydro Pump!"
Roric clicked the attack. The massive blue turtle unleashed a devastating torrent of water, completely wiping out the Vulpix in a single, critical hit.
BOOM! The sound effect perfectly synced with a massive crescendo in Roric's war music.
"Perfectly timed!" Roric cheered, pointing a finger gun at the camera. "We push forward, brigade! Leave no ash unturned! The frontline is ours!"
He continued his march through the Gym, answering the trivia questions and battling every single trainer in his path. With every victory, his dramatic, improvised war speeches grew more intense, riling his chat up into an absolute frenzy of excitement.
Finally, his character stood before the lone figure standing on a raised platform at the very back of the fiery room.
The music swelled to an epic, heart-pounding climax. The viewer count spiked as millions of people leaned closer to their screens.
"The Demon King of the Volcano," Roric whispered, his face inches from his microphone. "We are here. For glory. For the badge. Engage!"
He initiated the dialogue. The screen flashed, and the 2.5D sprite of a bald, sunglass-wearing scientist with a fiery mustache appeared on the screen.
"HAH! I am Blaine, the red hot leader of Cinnabar Gym!" the text box typed out rapidly. "My fiery Pokémon are all rough and ready for an intense battle!"
The chat instantly began to murmur.
> "Uh oh."
Unlike the games from Dorian's original world, Arthur had completely overhauled the Gym Leader AI. Round Table Studio had made each major battle incredibly intense and tactical. The Gym Leaders utilized held items, complex strategies, and flawless type-coverage.
Players could no longer just over-level a single Water-type and button-mash their way to victory. Blaine was notoriously brutal, utilizing sunny weather mechanics to instantly fire solar-powered grass attacks that completely obliterated Water-type challengers.
Blaine's final line of dialogue appeared on the screen.
"They incinerate all challengers!"
Roric took a deep, dramatic breath, ready to deliver his final, epic pre-battle speech to his loyal soldiers.
But his chat had already completely forgotten the hype.
> "Well RIP."
> "It was good while it lasted."
> "Wrap it up boys."
> "See you guys again in an hour when he has to redo the run."
> "o7 Commander Roric. You will be missed."
Roric blinked, reading the sudden wave of overwhelming defeatism. "Hey! Where is the morale?! I have a Blastoise! Poliwrath! Gyarados! We can take him!"
The battle screen flashed, and Blaine immediately sent out his first Pokémon, completely ready to burn the streamer's hopes to ashes.
…
As the weeks rolled on, Pokémon players across the galaxy found themselves completely absorbed in the digital ecosystem of Kanto.
Their Pokédexes were ever so slowly growing, but the journey was not as straightforward as simply catching monsters in the grass. Players quickly discovered that the game did not hold their hands. Certain Pokémon required highly unique, obscure methods to evolve, methods that weren't explicitly written in any in-game manual.
Driven by an insatiable curiosity, the player base essentially transformed into millions of amateur Pokémon Professors. They aggressively tested theories, documented encounter rates, and shared their findings on the Avalon forums.
The influx of research was so massive that Avalon's moderators were forced to create an entirely new, dedicated section just for these discoveries. To filter out the noise, the community naturally sorted itself out, nominating the most dedicated, credible players to act as official "Verifiers" who would rigorously test and confirm every single new mechanic before it was added to the community guide.
One afternoon, a brand new thread hit the front page, completely blowing the minds of the galactic player base.
[Thread: [VERIFIED] Evolution Breakthrough! Machoke & Graveler!]
Posted by: PokeManiac_Rex
PokeManiac_Rex:
"Guys, I finally figured it out! You know how Machoke and Graveler just stop evolving after level 28, no matter how many hours you spend grinding them in Victory Road? It's because leveling them up isn't the trigger! I was trading my Machoke for my brother's Graveler over the network just to register them in our Pokédexes. But the exact second the trade finished, BOTH of our screens flashed white! They evolved! You have to TRADE them with other players to trigger the final evolution! Look at the screenshots!"
[Attached Image: Two side-by-side HelioPad screenshots. On the left, a Machoke is surrounded by blinding white light, morphing into a massive, four-armed Machamp. On the right, a rocky Graveler is transforming into a smooth, reptilian-faced Golem.]
> SpeedDemon:
"Yooo that's crazy! I have been grinding my Graveler against wild birds for three days straight trying to get it to evolve! I feel so stupid!"
> Happy_Citizen:
"Thank the stars for this forum, or else I literally would never know this. Now I just need to find someone who won't steal my Pokémon during the trade..."
> MatTheory:
"Wait... look at the designs. This is kind of genius. I get it! When they passed through the trading network, their digital DNA must have gotten mixed up! Machoke got the extra rock appendages from Graveler, making Machamp have four arms. And Graveler got the humanoid DNA from Machoke, making Golem have that weird face and two regular arms! RTS is so insanely detailed with their lore!"
> TryHard_99:
"@MatTheory That actually makes total sense. I need a Golem right now."
The absolute joy of these legitimate, community-driven discoveries was intoxicating. However, it inevitably gave birth to something else: completely unhinged rumors.
Without a central strategy guide to debunk them, players began making stuff up.
Some rumors were blatant, predatory scams aimed at gullible players. Threads would pop up claiming: "Hey guys, I found a glitch! If you trade me your level 100 starter, it will overload the routing code, glitch the game, and automatically give you all three starters at level 100! DM me to trade!"
Other rumors were much more subtle and incredibly elaborate.
A massive, highly debated rumor started spreading like wildfire across the Mid-Rim sectors. It claimed that there was a "Secret Garden" located directly behind Bill's house in Cerulean City. According to the myth, if a player successfully beat the Elite Four exactly fifty times, used the move 'Surf' on the water behind the house, and then used 'Cut' on a specific corner of the fence, they could enter a hidden zone where fully evolved starters and incredibly rare, uncatchable Pokémon roamed wild in the grass.
Players didn't know where these kinds of rumors started, or who originally posted them. But it didn't matter. The magic of the unknown had completely taken over. Every single star system, from the Core Worlds to the Outer Rim colonies, was starting to formulate its own unique, bizarre regional myths and secret button combinations to catch so-called "super rare" Pokémon.
While the digital ecosystem of Kanto was expanding, an entirely different sub-culture was simultaneously brewing in the physical world.
On the Avalon forums, a brand-new page dedicated strictly to the Pokémon Trading Card Game had been launched. It started out slow, with people mostly posting pictures of the cute artwork on the cardboard squares they had picked up at local general stores.
But then, a user from the Mid-Rim uploaded a picture that sent the entire forum into an absolute spiral.
[Thread: [TCG] Is this card supposed to be this cool? Look at this dragon!]
Posted by: BigTails
BigTails:
"So I bought a few packs from the general store in my sector because the foil packaging looked cool. I was just flipping through them, and this Charizard card at the back of the pack was literally shimmering. The whole background reflects the light like a prism. Is this normal? Did the printing machine glitch out?"
[Attached Image: A high-definition photo of a pristine Base Set Charizard card. The holographic foil background is catching the room's lighting, making the dragon look like it is bursting out of a dazzling, multi-colored inferno.]
> CardShark_99:
"WHAT IS THAT?! That is the most beautiful piece of card I have ever seen in my entire life!"
> GiveMeTheMoney:
"Is this actually real? I've bought like twenty packs already and I haven't seen a single card that shines like that! Are you faking this with a filter?!"
> Nameless_Citizen:
"Bro, I am so incredibly jealous right now."
> BigTails:
"Whoa, chill guys, it's real! This was only the 10th pack I've ever opened. Honestly, maybe I am just naturally gifted at this? 😎"
> ArtManiac_Liseli [RTS Dev]:
"@BigTails Whoa! Massive congrats! You got yourself a Holo!"
> SpeedDemon:
"A Holo?! Wait, an actual dev replied! Liseli, just how many of these 'Holo' cards are out there in the wild?!"
> ArtManiac_Liseli [RTS Dev]:
"@SpeedDemon Not too many! Theoretically, the printing distribution rate is about 1 Holo card in every 5 packs."
> Skeptical_Steve:
"1 in 5? Oh, so there are actually a lot of them. That isn't too hard to pull."
> ArtManiac_Liseli [RTS Dev]:
"@Skeptical_Steve True! But can you be absolutely sure you'll get the Charizard? There are several different Holo cards in the set, you know. 😉"
> TryHard_99:
"Oh my god. She just triggered the gambling addiction inside of me. I am going back to the store right now."
> Newbie_Trainer:
"Okay, the shiny dragon is cool and all, but how do I actually play this game? There are numbers and HP stats on the bottom of the card."
> DeckMaster_T:
"@Newbie_Trainer There is a community forming all over in the Core Worlds! We are renting out a hall in Ardota Prime this weekend to play the card battle mechanics. Bring your decks!"
…
While the Pokémon physical card sub-culture was rapidly catching fire, back at the Kepler estate, Dorian was currently pacing around his bedroom in a deep, highly unusual dilemma.
His massive debut concert as Composer Percival had just been formally announced, and as expected, it was exploding news. It was dominating the mainstream entertainment media. But when Dorian checked the galactic trending metrics... Pokémon still actively had a massive chunk of the spotlight.
It was an incredibly bizarre problem. Percival was directly competing for galactic attention against Arthur.
"I am literally suffering from my own success," Dorian sighed, rubbing his temples as he stared at the analytics on his datapad.
While it was a phenomenal thing for Arthur's gaming empire, it was slightly problematic for Percival's grand musical debut. But both of them were him.
Dorian stopped pacing. He slowly lowered the datapad, his eyes widening as a brilliant idea suddenly crossed his mind.
Why fight the hype train when he could simply ride it?
A cover. A Percival cover of the massive hit rock anthem, "Gotta Catch 'Em All".
For years, a massive, unkillable conspiracy theory had been floating around. Because the Hades soundtrack was so good, players had constantly theorized that Composer Percival was actually the secret mastermind behind Round Table Studio's audio department.
If Percival suddenly released a cover of the Pokémon theme song... it would pour gasoline on that conspiracy fire.
Gamers would tune into the concert to see if Percival was actually Arthur's audio director, and the music fans would look into Pokémon to see why their favorite composer was singing about animated elemental monsters. It was the ultimate, inescapable synergy.
A deeply mischievous smile spread across Dorian's face.
"In a way, I am just playing along with their theories," Dorian chuckled to himself, already walking briskly toward his composer's desk to boot up his recording software. "Alright. Let's see how you sound with a full orchestra."