The Cinnabar Medical Annex was silent, save for the low, rhythmic hum of the facility's life-support systems. Outside the lead-lined door, two Rangers stood guard, their heavy boots occasionally shifting on the polished tile. They thought their charge was sedated. They were wrong.
Zeth sat up in the darkness, his right arm throbbing with a phantom heat. The Primal Spark was quiet, but the connection to Data-Zero was razor-sharp.
'Report,' Zeth commanded silently.
[Local Surveillance Overridden,] the Porygon pulsed in his mind. [I have looped the internal camera feed. To the guards, you are currently in a deep REM cycle. I have also bypassed the electromagnetic locks on your equipment locker. Your Pokéballs are accessible.]
Zeth slid out of the medical bed, his feet hitting the cold floor without a sound. He didn't head for the door. Instead, he moved toward the ventilation grate in the corner of the room. With a subtle flick of the Spark's energy, the metal screws liquefied and the grate popped free.
Navigating the maintenance ducts was a crawl through a labyrinth of wires and coolant pipes. Data-Zero acted as a GPS, highlighting the facility's thermal signatures in Zeth's HUD.
'Target: Medical Storage Unit 4-B,' Zeth thought. 'The Bagon's metabolism is crashing from the suppression. I need high-purity catalysts.'
He dropped out of the ceiling into a sterile, dimly lit storage room. Rows of refrigerated glass cases held everything from Moon Stones to stabilized Mega-Stone shards. He bypassed the common items and moved straight to the "Hazardous Materials" section.
There, held in a vacuum-sealed canister, was a Grand-Grade Dragon Scale Fragment.
[Warning: Biometric Lock Detected,] Data-Zero pulsed. [Initiating Decryption... 3... 2... 1... Access Granted.]
The canister hissed open. Zeth didn't hesitate; he released the Bagon into the small room. In the dim emergency lighting, the Bagon's Shiny green scales shimmered with a sickly, dull luster. The vibrant emerald hue that usually defined its rarity had faded to a muddy forest green due to the "Dead-Data" suppression Zeth had forced upon it.
As soon as the small Dragon saw the fragment, its eyes lit up with a primal hunger. It didn't just eat the mineral; it absorbed the energy. As it fed, the Black-tier potential within it began to roar back to life. The dullness vanished, and its scales returned to a brilliant, sparkling neon green that seemed to hum with Draconic power.
Navigating the maintenance ducts was a crawl through a labyrinth of wires and coolant pipes. Data-Zero acted as a GPS, highlighting the facility's thermal signatures in Zeth's HUD.
'Target: Medical Storage Unit 4-B,' Zeth thought. 'The Bagon's metabolism is crashing from the suppression. I need high-purity catalysts.'
He dropped out of the ceiling into a sterile, dimly lit storage room. Rows of refrigerated glass cases held everything from Moon Stones to stabilized Mega-Stone shards. He bypassed the common items and moved straight to the "Hazardous Materials" section.
There, held in a vacuum-sealed canister, was a Grand-Grade Dragon Scale Fragment.
[Warning: Biometric Lock Detected,] Data-Zero pulsed. [Initiating Decryption... 3... 2... 1... Access Granted.]
The canister hissed open. Zeth didn't hesitate; he released the Bagon into the small room. In the dim emergency lighting, the Bagon's Shiny green scales shimmered with a sickly, dull luster. The vibrant emerald hue that usually defined its rarity had faded to a muddy forest green due to the "Dead-Data" suppression Zeth had forced upon it.
As soon as the small Dragon saw the fragment, its eyes lit up with a primal hunger. It didn't just eat the mineral; it absorbed the energy. As it fed, the Black-tier potential within it began to roar back to life. The dullness vanished, and its scales returned to a brilliant, sparkling neon green that seemed to hum with Draconic power.
As the Bagon fed, Zeth noticed a strange vibration in the floor—a low-frequency thrum that didn't match the facility's generators.
'Data-Zero, what's beneath us?'
[Accessing Restricted Directory... Level 9: 'Project Chimera'.]
Zeth's eyes narrowed. He looked at the floor. 'Show me.'
His HUD expanded, overlaying a 3D wireframe of the building. Level 9 wasn't just a basement; it was a massive, high-security lab hidden deep within the Cinnabar volcanic rock. Inside the containment cells were signatures that made his HUD flicker with "Unknown" errors.
[Analysis: Multiple 'Gate Mutants' detected. These are not standard Pokémon. They are biological constructs fused with Gate-energy. I detect a signature similar to your Lunar Charmeleon, but... unstable. Far more aggressive.]
Zeth realized then that the League wasn't just "investigating" the SS Anne survivors. They were looking for fresh subjects to bolster their secret research. If Lance found out about the Lunar Charmeleon's true stability or the Bagon's real Black-tier potential, they wouldn't just be "G-Man assets"—they'd be pieces of the Chimera project.
Suddenly, the Bagon let out a low, vibrating growl, its head snapping toward the door, its green scales flaring with a sudden, sharp light.
[Warning: High-Energy Signature approaching the storage room!]
Zeth didn't have time to get back to the vents. He recalled the Bagon and pressed himself into the shadows behind a stack of lead-lined crates. The door hissed open, and the heavy scent of ozone filled the room.
It wasn't a guard. It was Lance.
The Dragon Master walked into the room, his cape trailing on the floor. He didn't turn on the lights. He walked straight to the canister Zeth had just emptied, his eyes glowing with a faint, draconic blue light in the dark.
"I know you're not in your bed, Zeth," Lance said, his voice echoing in the small room. He didn't look toward the crates, but he didn't need to. "I've spent my life around Dragons. I can smell the hunger of a Bagon from a mile away."
Lance turned slowly, looking toward the corner where Zeth was hiding.
"The League thinks you're a lucky survivor. But I've seen that 'Grand-Grade' scale before. It was recovered from a Master-level rift three years ago. If you're smart enough to find it in the dark, you're smart enough to know that Level 9 is where 'survivors' go when they stop being useful."
Lance stepped forward, his hand resting on the hilt of his belt-knife. "Now, are you going to show me what that Bagon really is, or am I going to have to drag the truth out of you?"
The air in the storage vault didn't just grow cold; it became heavy, as if the oxygen itself were being crushed by an invisible weight. This was the pressure of a true Elite—not a Gate-mutant or a feral beast, but a man who had mastered the apex of the natural world.
Lance stood centered in the room, his hand still resting on his belt-knife. He didn't reach for a Pokéball. He didn't have to. The shadows behind him seemed to coil and shift, manifesting the physical pressure of his Dragonite (Lvl 62) and Aerodactyl (Lvl 58), even while they remained in their spheres.
"Both, then?" Lance's voice was a low, dangerous vibration. "You want to bargain while hiding in the dark? That's a bold gamble for a boy whose file says he's a Trainee."
Zeth stepped out from behind the lead-lined crates. He didn't lower his head. His right arm, scarred and blackened, hummed with a faint violet light as Data-Zero channeled a stream of defensive code through the Primal Spark.
"I don't bargain with people who treat survivors like lab rats, Lance," Zeth said, his voice flat and devoid of fear. "You want to see the Bagon? Fine. But once I release it, the 'Trainee' story is dead. Are you ready for the paperwork that follows a Level-10 security breach?"
Zeth clicked the release on the Bagon's ball.
The room was instantly flooded with a brilliant, neon-green light. The Shiny Bagon emerged, but it wasn't the sluggish "Red-tier" runt the League's scanners had recorded. Fueled by the Grand-Grade Dragon Scale, its Black-tier potential was roaring. Its green scales were shedding a fine, crystalline dust, and its eyes burned with a predatory intelligence that matched Lance's own.
Lance's eyes widened. The blue glow in his pupils intensified. "Black-tier... a perfect genetic specimen. You didn't just 'find' this, Zeth. You've been masking its resonance using that Spark in your arm."
"I'm masking a lot of things," Zeth replied. "Data-Zero, show him."
Zeth didn't attack. Instead, he flicked his left hand toward the wall. Data-Zero projected a high-resolution holographic feed directly from the Level 9 servers onto the cold steel surface.
The images were horrific. They showed Lunar-form variants—similar to Zeth's Charmeleon—strapped to tables, their lifeforce being drained to power experimental "Gate-Keys." It showed the League's "Chimera Project" attempting to fuse human DNA with silicate-based Pokémon.
"You're a G-Man, Lance. A 'Hero of the People,'" Zeth spat the words like venom. "While you're up here auditing me for 'illegal minerals,' your superiors are down there turning children from the SS Anne into batteries. Is that the 'Justice' of the Indigo Plateau?"
Lance went silent. His hand drifted away from his knife. He stared at the flickering images of the distorted Pokémon, his jaw tightening until the muscle pulsed. The Draconic pressure in the room shifted—it was no longer directed at Zeth, but at the floor beneath them.
"I was told Level 9 was a quarantine zone for infected specimens," Lance whispered, his voice thick with a brewing rage.
"Then they lied to you," Zeth said. "And if they find out I know, I'm going into one of those tubes. So, here's the deal: You give me a 'Clean Exit' from this facility. You scrub my records and let me walk out with my team. In exchange, I give you the decryption keys to every server in Level 9. You can burn this project to the ground from the inside."
Lance looked from the hologram to the brilliant green Bagon, then finally to Zeth. He knew that if he fought Zeth here, he would win. His Lvl 60+ team would crush Zeth's mid-tier squad in seconds. But the cost would be the truth.
"You're a dangerous boy, Zeth. Or whoever you really are," Lance said, his cape swirling as he turned toward the door. "If I let you go, I'm letting a wild variable loose in Kanto. A boy with a Black-tier Dragon and an unknown power source."
"Better a wild variable than a silent corpse in a tube," Zeth countered.
Lance stopped at the door. He didn't look back. "The guards will have a 'system malfunction' in five minutes. There is a sea-cave at the base of the spire. A skiff is docked there for emergency evacuations. If you're still in this building in six minutes, I'll be the one to personally put you in a cell."
Lance paused, his hand on the frame. "But leave the Bagon's data. If my superiors ask, I'll tell them the 'Red-tier Shiny' died during a botched medical procedure. Don't make me a liar twice, kid."
As the door hissed shut, Data-Zero pulsed in Zeth's mind.
[Warning: Facility Alarms Silenced. 'System Malfunction' initiated. We have 300 seconds.]
"Recall," Zeth whispered, pulling the Bagon back into its ball. He didn't head for the vents. He sprinted for the stairs.
He had the data. He had his team. And now, he had the "death" of his Bagon on record—making it the perfect invisible weapon. The League would be looking for a boy with a "Red-tier failure," not a ghost with a Black-tier emerald dragon.
"Cinnabar was just a pit stop," Zeth muttered as he hit the sea-cave air, the salt spray hitting his face. "Now, we start the real grind."