Ethan was settling in.

  Not comfortably—not fully—but enough that the days no longer felt like they were bleeding into each other.

  His grandmother had taken him shopping, insisting he have proper clothes for Celestic Town. Ethan had quietly taken advantage of the situation, using the character customization interface to cheat at getting dressed every day. Perfect fits, clean looks, no effort required. It was one of the few small mercies he was more than happy for.

  He’d been tempted to feed Eevee some Eevee Candies more than once.

  But he held off.

  Whatever had happened in the b—and whatever had gone wrong with Eevee afterward—felt too unstable to rush. Better to save them for ter, when he understood the rules a little more.

  For now, patience felt like the smarter choice.

  So that meant Eevee had to be trained the normal way.

  Which was how Ethan found himself in the forest just beyond his grandmother’s house, early morning light filtering through ancient trees older than most cities. The air was cool, carrying the scent of moss and stone, and the distant echo of Pokémon cries rolled softly through the undergrowth.

  Eevee bounced in front of him, full of energy, tail flicking as if it already knew this was important.

  “Okay,” Ethan said, crouching slightly. “We’re starting simple. Stamina, movement, awareness. No Hyper Beam.” He paused, then added, “Absolutely no Hyper Beam.”

  “Vee,” Eevee agreed, entirely too quickly.

  They started with running drills—short bursts at first, then longer stretches as Eevee darted between trees and over fallen roots. Ethan kept pace as best he could, calling out corrections, encouraging clean ndings and controlled turns instead of wild leaps.

  After that came bance. Ethan rolled a fallen log into a near by ke and had Eevee practice hopping up, holding position, then moving along it without slipping. Every misstep was corrected; she didn’t mess up that often. Eevee hated getting her fur wet.

  “Again,” Ethan said calmly.

  Eevee huffed, but complied.

  Aim practice came next.

  Ethan set up small markers—stones, broken branches, bits of bark—at varying distances and angles. One by one, he called targets, forcing Eevee to focus before acting.

  “Left. High.”

  “Center. Short.”

  “Right—now.”

  Eevee unched Swift bursts with increasing precision, correcting misses on the fly, adjusting stance and timing instead of relying on raw speed. Although swift was known as the never-miss move, apparently didn’t start out like that.

  Between drills, Ethan closed his eyes for a moment and focused.

  The Pokémon GO interface flickered faintly at the edge of his vision—distance walked incrementing by fractions, Buddy progress ticking upward in slow, steady pulses. Numbers changing, quietly. Persistently.

  It was nothing dramatic. Nothing that would stand out at a gnce.

  But over the course of the week, it became noticeable.

  Day by day—almost imperceptibly—Eevee began to move differently.

  More deliberate. More controlled.

  The guy with Hyper Beam probably had around six badges’ worth of combat power. That realization sat uncomfortably in the back of Ethan’s mind. Another few months of training, maybe some light battles with Pokémon pulled from the game itself—

  He paused.

  Could he even summon Pokémon from the game? His Instincts told him yes.

  The interface had never said he couldn’t. It treated wild encounters, items, and locations as if they were all perfectly normal. But testing something like that wasn’t exactly easy with his great-grandmother hovering nearby, watching him like he might break if left alone for too long. Then again, she thought he was 5.

  An she was worried.

  And honestly… that was starting to worry him too.

  Because if his power scaled the way he suspected—if Pokémon GO didn’t care about this world’s rules—then he was a walking army.

  ===

  He continued training Eevee, running through another set of drills—focus, movement, restraint.

  Then something moved.

  Fast.

  Too fast for the forest to ignore.

  Ethan’s head snapped up on instinct, eyes tracking a blur cutting through the canopy. White—maybe pink—wings beating hard as it streaked across the sky.

  For a split second, he thought it might have been a Togekiss.

  But it was hard to tell. It was too damn fast to be one.

  And it was heading straight toward his grandmother’s house.

  Ethan’s stomach tightened.

  “Eevee,” he said sharply.

  Eevee was already looking in the same direction, ears pinned forward, body tense.

  Ethan took note of that. The Pokémon felt strong, but if it had Eevee like this, it must be super powerful.

  ===

  Ethan didn’t run.

  He moved carefully through the trees, keeping low, Eevee padding silently at his side. By the time he reached the edge of the property, raised voices were already spilling out through the open windows.

  Shouting.

  Two women.

  The words were sharp, clipped—anger yered over something raw and emotional.

  Ethan hesitated at the side of the house, heart pounding as he crept closer, pressing himself against the cool stone wall beneath the window.

  The shouting sharpened as Ethan edged closer.

  A younger woman’s voice cut through the house, loud and furious—strained in a way that spoke of exhaustion pushed past its limit.

  “Where is Maverick?” she snapped. “You can’t just hide him away like this, Grandma!”

  Ethan froze.

  “That child nearly died before that whole mess kicked off,” Carolina shot back, her voice iron-hard. “He will not be dragged into this mess.”

  “Dragged?” the younger woman barked a bitter ugh. “His father died in it. And the League—those useless bastards in their cushioned chairs—are doing everything they can to make sure the investigation goes nowhere.”

  Ethan’s breath caught.

  “I’ve been stonewalled for a week,” the woman continued, her footsteps sharp and restless, pacing hard enough that the sound carried through the walls. “Records deyed. Witnesses with no contact info. Evidence misfiled. Every door I open gets quietly shut again.”

  A pause.

  “This is below your station.” The younger woman states sarcastically.

  Carolina’s reply was immediate, cool. “Technically, you are above that.”

  The pacing stopped.

  “…Speaking of investigations,” Carolina went on, “any news on my other granddaughter?” her tone shifting—lower, heavier.

  “The note was legitimate. We found her body in the woods off of Route 215.”

  Silence followed.

  Then—

  “I—” The younger woman’s voice faltered, just for a moment. “I’m so sorry, Grandma.”

  Another pause. Longer this time.

  “I just… I never would have expected my big sister to choose that,” she said quietly. “Not when her son is still alive.”

  Ethan stood just outside the door, breath caught in his throat.

  He hadn’t meant to listen. Hadn’t even realized what the voices were saying at first. But now the words sat heavy in his chest, pressing in until it was hard to breathe.

  This was too much. His mom had killed herself, no that didn’t make too much sense. Maybe Cyrus killed her to silence her.

  He made his decision.

  Ethan reached for the handle and pushed the door open.

  “Grandma, I’m home!” he called out, raising his voice on purpose—bright, normal, a lie wrapped in cheer.