Zeth lay flat on the scorched Promenade Deck, his lungs burning as they sucked in the salty, humid air of the Kanto coast. It felt heavy—thick with oxygen and reality. His right arm was a charred mess, the skin blackened up to the elbow, with the Primal Spark now retreated deep beneath his flesh, pulsing like a dying ember.
Beside him, Aria was coughing, her Gabite curled protectively around her. Koji was slumped against a railing, staring at the blue sky with a hollow, shell-shocked expression. They were alive, but the temporary alliance that had held them together in the Glasswoods was already beginning to fray under the weight of the real world.
"We're... we're out," Aria rasped, her voice trembling as she looked at the Cinnabar horizon. "Zeth, we actually made it."
Zeth didn't answer immediately. He forced his shaking left hand into his pocket, feeling the cold, smooth surface of the Luxury Ball containing Data-Zero. His internal System, now optimized by the Blue-tier Porygon, was flickering with proximity alerts.
"Don't celebrate yet," Zeth whispered, his voice like grinding stones. He looked toward the horizon, where the white-and-red hulls of League cutters were already slicing through the waves.
He turned his head slowly, his eyes locking onto Aria's. There was no warmth in them—only the cold, predatory calculation of Cain.
"Aria, listen to me very carefully," Zeth said, his voice dropping to a low, lethal hum. "The League is going to board this ship in minutes. They're going to scan everything—our gear, our Pokémon, and especially my arm. They're going to ask how a Trainee-level group defeated a Gold-tier Warden."
Aria started to speak, but Zeth leaned in, the smell of ozone and burnt fabric rolling off him.
"If you mention the violet light, or the way I channeled that energy through the Spark, you aren't just putting me in a cage. You're putting a target on yourself. The people who want this power don't leave witnesses, and I don't leave loose ends."
He reached out with his good hand, gripping her chin just tight enough to make her flinch.
"If a single word about the Spark or the Porygon reaches a League report, I won't just come for you. I'll find every name in your file—your family, your friends, anyone you've ever sent a letter to. I will erase them before I even touch you. Do you understand?"
Aria's breath hitched. She saw it then—the total lack of empathy. This wasn't the boy who had helped her climb the Ravine; this was a monster who had merely used her as a tool to reach the surface. The "alliance" was over, replaced by a cold, hard threat.
"I... I understand," she whispered, her eyes darting to her Gabite, then back to Zeth's dead stare. "The Magnezone's core became unstable. The ship's engines did the rest. That's all I saw."
"Good," Zeth said, releasing her and standing up, swaying as the adrenaline began to dump. "Keep that story straight, and maybe you'll live long enough to see your next promotion."
The League's arrival was not a rescue; it was an occupation.
Within minutes of the SS Anne hitting the water, six heavy-lift helicopters hovered overhead, their rotors whipping the salt spray into a blinding mist. Elite Rangers in charcoal-grey tactical gear rappelled onto the deck, their Arcanine and Machamp hitting the wood with heavy, rhythmic thuds. They didn't lead with medical kits; they led with scanners and containment fields.
Zeth stood his ground near the prow, his blackened arm cradled against his chest. He watched as the civilians—the same people who had cheered his name ten minutes ago—were herded into lines by the Rangers.
"Don't move! Hands where we can see them!" a Ranger Captain barked, his Pidgeot circling above to suppress any attempt at flight.
Zeth didn't flinch. He knew he couldn't play the "shaking survivor" act. Over a thousand people had seen him command the defense of the ship; they had seen him organize the scavenger teams and lead the final charge against the Glasswoods. To the crowd, he was a hero. To the League, he was a variable that shouldn't exist.
A woman in a high-collared League uniform stepped off the lead chopper. Her eyes were sharp, scanning the scorched deck with the clinical precision of a veteran auditor. She walked straight past the crying families and stopped three feet from Zeth.
"I am Commander Vera of the Gate Regulatory Bureau," she said, her voice cutting through the roar of the rotors. "You're the one the civilians are calling the 'Captain of the Ledge.' You're the one who authorized the 'Metal Tax' for the Warden."
Zeth looked her in the eye, his expression a mask of cold, exhausted indifference. "I'm the one who kept them from being vaporized. If you're looking for a 'Captain,' check the bridge. You'll find the real officers were too busy hiding in the liquor cabinets to lead."
Vera's eyes narrowed. She signaled a technician, who stepped forward with a high-resonance scanner.
"A Trainee-tier trainer with a Lvl 40 Houndoom leading a successful C-Rank exit," Vera muttered, checking a tablet. "The math doesn't add up, kid. We detected a massive energy spike—violet-spectrum—at the moment of the breach. Our satellites show the ship didn't just drift out; it was propelled by a force that shouldn't be possible for a civilian vessel."
"The Warden's core was failing," Zeth said, his voice flat. "The Magnezone was trying to anchor the Gate. When it collapsed, the backflow hit the ship's auxiliary lines. We didn't 'propel' anything. We were spit out by a dying dimension."
"That's a convenient story," Vera replied. She looked around at the crowd. "But a thousand witnesses say they saw you touching the Central Prism. They say the light came from you."
Zeth tilted his head slightly, a ghost of a smirk touching his lips—one that didn't reach his eyes. "A thousand terrified civilians saw a lot of things in a dimension made of glass and lightning. They saw ghosts and monsters. If you want to base a League investigation on the hallucinations of people suffering from mana-poisoning and starvation, be my guest."
He stepped closer to her, lowering his voice so only she could hear.
"But if you want to know why the ship is still in one piece, look at the Silicon-Fiber Silk we used to insulate the hull. It was a grind, Commander. We fought for every scrap of mineral in that Gate while your 'Response Teams' were sitting on the coast waiting for the rift to close. You want to audit someone? Audit the Bureau for leaving a thousand people to rot for three weeks."
Vera stiffened. The political weight of his statement hit home. If the public found out the League had been "waiting it out" while a group of teenagers did the heavy lifting, it would be a PR disaster.
As the Rangers began the "Intake Process," Zeth noticed a figure standing on the edge of the heli-pad, separate from the grey-clad tactical teams. This man wore a high-collared, dark-blue cape that snapped in the sea breeze, revealing a red lining that looked like dried blood. He wasn't much older than Zeth—perhaps nineteen or twenty—but the air around him felt heavy, pressurized by a sheer intensity that made the nearby Arcanine whine and lower their heads.
The young man was kneeling, examining a jagged shard of Silicon-Fiber that had been embedded in a piece of the ship's charred railing.
"Commander Vera," the young man called out. His voice wasn't loud, but it carried perfectly over the roar of the helicopters. "Leave the boy be for now. He has undergone a level of spiritual and physical strain your standard medical units aren't equipped to handle."
Vera turned, her posture snapping into a rigid, military salute. "Agent Lance. I didn't realize the Indigo Plateau had dispatched a G-Man of your rank for a C-Rank exit."
"When a thousand lives are at stake and a ship jumps across dimensions, rank is irrelevant," Lance said, standing up. He turned his gaze toward Zeth. His eyes weren't just searching—they were predatory, the eyes of a man who lived and breathed the legacy of Dragons.
Lance walked toward Zeth, his boots clicking rhythmically on the metal deck. He didn't look at Zeth's face initially; he looked at the blackened skin of his arm and then at the Houndoom standing guard beside him.
"A Houndoom with crystalline residue on its horns," Lance noted, his voice humming with a dangerous curiosity. "And a trainer who smells of ozone and ancient silicate. You're the one they're calling the leader of the 'Scavenger Corps,' aren't you?"
Zeth didn't back down. He met Lance's gaze with the flat, dead stare. "I'm the one who didn't wait for the League to do their job. If the G-Men had been there, maybe we wouldn't have had to burn our own skin to get out."
The Rangers gasped at the disrespect, but Lance's expression didn't change. Instead, a faint, sharp smile pulled at the corner of his mouth.
"Bold," Lance whispered. "But the energy I'm sensing from your arm... it doesn't match the signature of the Magnezone Warden. It's older. More volatile."
Lance reached out, his hand hovering inches from Zeth's scorched sleeve. Zeth felt the Primal Spark beneath his skin throb in a violent, defensive warning. The Spark recognized the "Draconic Aura" in Lance—a power that, while natural, was just as ancient and dominant as the Gate's own laws.
"This Silicon-Fiber weave on your gear," Lance continued, his eyes locking onto Zeth's. "It's Grand-Mastered quality. You didn't just 'find' this, Zeth. You survived a hell that should have erased a Trainee. I think you and I need to have a very long conversation about what really happened at the Core."
"He needs a Level-4 containment ward for his recovery," Lance commanded, turning back to Vera. "I will be personally overseeing his debriefing. No one—not the Bureau, not the Press—is to have access to him without my clearance."
Zeth felt the trap closing. Lance wasn't just a hero; he was the League's most elite enforcer. Being under his "protection" meant being under the most sophisticated microscope in Kanto.
As the medical team moved in with a hover-stretcher, Zeth looked at the Luxury Ball hidden in his vest. Data-Zero was silent, but Zeth could feel its digital pulse quickening.
The Gate was a nightmare of glass and monsters, but the Indigo Plateau was a den of dragons. And Zeth knew that if Lance found the Blue-potential Porygon—or realized the true nature of the Spark—the "rescue" would become a quiet, permanent disappearance.
"Move out," Lance ordered, his cape billowing as he led the way to the transport. "We have a lot to discuss, 'Captain.'"