Morning doesn’t so much show up as seep into the woods—first a dull gray, then threads of blue sneaking between tree limbs. I wake just as my blanket slides off, clammy and cold against my skin. A twig snaps nearby, wiping out any chance of an easy start to the day. Instantly, I’m wide awake, aches forgotten, heart thudding fast. My breath comes out in sharp bursts, every beat pounding behind my eyes.

  The cargo bed is half full of shimmering blue light from Beldum’s barrier, which has faded overnight from a dome to a skin-tight shimmer, just thick enough to hold off the frost. I wriggle upright, careful not to jostle any loose metal, and peer over the lip of the tailgate. The truck is rimed in ice, the snow around it crunched and pitted from my scramble the night before. Nothing moves at ground level, but I can feel a new tension in the air, a static that wasn’t there in the night.

  Beldum is already at the edge of the blanket, floating parallel with the floor. Its eye flicks from the woods to me and back, over and over, like a hyperactive metronome. There’s a faint tingle at the top of my skull; the relay relay is up, waiting for me to tune in. I let the link open, the way I’d open a fist, and get back a single, crystalline impression: danger. Imminent. Close.

  Another twig breaks, this one much nearer—ten metres, maybe less. I slide backward, butt first, until my back is pressed to the thin steel wall of the cargo hold. My palms are sweating, even though the rest of me is freezing. I hold my breath and focus on the space just outside the truck.

  Footsteps, careful, almost soundless. Whoever’s coming knows how to move. I reach down, fingers fumbling at the straps of the scavenged backpack, and pull it tight against my chest. The ration pack goes into the inner jacket pocket, slick with a melting bit of snow. My boots scuff the bed, but I freeze and listen: the steps have paused.

  Beldum nudges closer, its hull brushing my shoulder, and for the first time since we met, I feel it pulse a real, deliberate question: Wait, or run?

  The world narrows to the dead air inside the truck and the nothing-to-hide-behind emptiness at the treeline. Whoever’s out there isn’t in a hurry—they’re creeping, or circling, or already drawing a bead and waiting for me to move. Could just as easily be a wild Pokémon, but I know that’s not true before I even finish the thought; the shape of the silence is all wrong, premeditated, not wild. I catch a glint of motion five metres off, pale as a knife’s edge, and a soft phosphor glow behind it—some kind of instrument. The next steps are slower, but they’re real, and they’re getting closer.

  I think: run. But Beldum pushes a flood of stats and cautions straight into my brain, the data so fast it’s less idea and more reflex: We are outmatched, it says—more clearly than speech. Out-matched, outnumbered, and if we break cover now, we won’t make it a metre. I want to argue, but I see the logic laid out in sharp, ugly relief—Beldum’s own energy readings are down, its barrier shot to hell from the night’s exertion and the short supply of whatever passes for calories in its system. Anything we do here will end with us dragged back to the lab, or just plain dead.

  The options are stacked: stay and get cornered, or gamble on a smarter escape. I grip the edge of the truck, mind racing, and send the thought right back: What do we do, then? Beldum’s next move is physical, not mental—its hull twitches, and the metal underneath me vibrates in a narrow band. The truck body, already frozen through, now rings with a frequency just below hearing. It wants me to brace.

  I haul the pack over one shoulder, clutch the blanket in a fist—and throw myself forward, just as Beldum slams its whole body into the bed’s bulkhead. The steel panel gives way with a shriek. I lunge through, boots skidding on the truck’s frame as I tumble onto the snow. The world is so bright it hurts, gray-on-white and blinding, but I blink it clear and spot the next move: under the chassis, into the ditch, and gone as my pursuers breach the truck bed..

  Behind me, a voice shouts—just one, sharp and almost childish in pitch. “Contact, west side! Move!” I don’t wait for the rest. I dig my elbows into the snow and slide, scraping skin raw but clearing the truck’s shadow. Beldum dives after, eye flaring for an instant, then dark again. We both hit the bottom of the ditch, a tangle of roots and slush, and flatten down so hard my ribs almost crack.

  Above us, boots—maybe six pairs—stamp past, barely slowing. To my left, someone breaks off from the pack, forming out of the trees: definitely human, crouched low and lugging something heavy and awkward in front like a shield. The helmet picks up what little daylight there is, white and grey pattern sharp against the woods, with a visor so black I can’t tell if they’re looking at me or through me. The rest of their suit melts into the snow and shadows: white armour plates broken by dull grey joints that vanish against the trunks. Only their right hand moves, quick and practiced, releasing a small, dark Pokémon into the snow. I don’t clock it at first, but Beldum fills me in—a Sneasel. Not great news; these things are born for this kind of weather—quiet, fast, nowhere near friendly.

  Beldum’s relay goes tight, a warning spike: Don’t fight. Can’t win. Beldum’s running on fumes after last night’s jailbreak, and it knows it.

  I freeze. There’s no good cover, no back door—just the forest and the snow and a dead truck. I wedge myself flat beneath the tailgate, sucking in a lungful of ice, and try to flatten out every panic response into something useful. I risk a glance at Beldum; its hull has gone perfectly still, red eye slit to its narrowest.

  The man in the visor waits, perfectly patient, while the Sneasel edges closer, claws low to the snow, sniffing for the trail I left. Its eyes gleam sharp as surgical steel. There’s no way I can outrun it, not at this range. My boots are too big, my body too fatigued, and my only real asset is Beldum, who is telegraphing nothing but “Don’t engage.”

  Beldum’s pulse drops so low I almost miss it, then comes a single, deliberate burst: Stay put. The Sneasel is already in motion, zigzagging through the ice crust, eyes flicking between my boot tracks and the shadow I’ve tried to curl myself into. I can feel its hunger and calculation—every movement trimmed of anything but necessity.

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  Beldum floats up, barely a metre from the snow, and emits a sound so low it’s more in my jaw than my ears. The Sneasel notices. Its head snaps up, and for one second, red meets red: predator and machine, each waiting for the other to make a mistake. Then the Sneasel lunges, claws outstretched and moving so fast the air cracks with cold.

  Beldum doesn’t dodge. Instead, it flares bright and meets the attack head on, their collision so explosive the snow around them lifts in a ring. Sneasel’s claws spark off Beldum’s hull, scraping deep furrows, but Beldum shoves forward with everything it has, driving the Sneasel back with a punishing Take Down. The Sneasel hits the ground, recovers instantly, and whips a shard of ice straight through Beldum’s field.

  Everything in me wants to scramble up and help, but Beldum’s next pulse is a command: If I fall, catch me. Don’t stop. Run.

  I barely have time to process before the Sneasel is on top of Beldum, pinning it with both claws. That visor-faced handler raises a Poké Ball, thumb ready, but Beldum pulses again—hard enough that my teeth ache—and the Sneasel is thrown off, landing in a splay of limbs and fury. Beldum’s eye dims, flickers, then steadies.

  The handler steps forward, holding Sneasel’s Pokeball ready, should it need to be recalled. No time left. I fumble the first of the scavenged Balls from my jacket, hands so numb I nearly drop it. There’s a sharp, metallic scream—Sneasel’s claws scoring a direct hit under Beldum’s eye. My heart cracks wide open. I don’t even think: I lunge forward, and hurl it as hard as I can.

  The ball finds Beldum mid-air. It folds up instantly, vanishes in a flare of red. The Ball drops to the snow, shakes once, twice, then goes still. The static hum in my skull cuts out, leaving a vacuum in my chest.

  The handler’s visor snaps my way. He’s close, maybe three strides out, and the Sneasel is already angling to cut off any escape. I throw my shoulder against the truck’s rear wheel and roll, scooping the stabilized Ball as I go. The next moment, a black-hot wave tears right over my head—Sneasel’s Night Slash, so near it strips the paint off the truck’s fender and sends metal fragments spinning. I don’t look back. My hands clutch the Poké Ball, and I’m already up and barrelling through the drifts, boots pounding, knees numb. The woods are a blur of sticks and whipping snow; I duck, stumble, and smash through the first layer of brush, sliding down the far side of the ditch.

  Gravity does most of the work. I tumble, half-slide, and land hard, scraping my cheek raw on a patch of ice. The Poké Ball nearly bounces from my hand; I snatch it back and roll under the shield of a fallen trunk. Up above, Sneasel’s handler shouts, but it’s not pursuit—it’s a call for backup. The Sneasel hangs at the ditch edge, claws flexing, but the man in the visor hauls it back with a curt hand signal. They’re not here to chase; they’re here to box me in.

  I crouch low, chest heaving, and press the ball to my forehead, just for a second. There’s nothing inside—no hum, no psychic static, only the empty hush of a power-out. The shell is scuffed and cold against my skin. I hold it tight, then stuff it deep into the inside pocket of my jacket.

  Above me, the woods erupt in voices—more boots, more crash and shuffle, maybe a dozen people shouting quadrant numbers and “Zero is mobile” and “Sneasel, with me.” The search net tightens, closing off every line of retreat except the worst one: straight down the ravine.

  There’s no time for thought, only motion. I scramble to my feet and sprint, using gravity’s pull to pick up speed. The snow gets softer, heavier, but I skip off every rock and root that’ll hold my weight. My breathing whines in my ears, and my hands are slick with sweat even as the wind freezes it raw. Each tree is another chance to snag, to twist an ankle, or to bash my face in, but I don’t slow, not even when the world tilts and the ground pitches me headfirst into a hollow.

  It’s a clean drop, maybe three meters, and I hit bottom in a sprawl. The air is punched out of me, but I force my head up and look: the ravine is tighter here, the walls slick with old runoff and frozen moss, branches tangled overhead. I hear the Sneasel and handler at the lip above, voices echoing as they try to guess which way I went.

  I stay dead still. The only motion is my breath fogging up, then vanishing. My hands curl around the dirt, nails packed with snow. The Sneasel sniffs the edge, but the trail gets weird at the drop; it shrieks in frustration, a needle-dry sound, and the handler curses under his breath. I listen as they start moving parallel, shadowing me from above while the backup circles to cut me off at the bottom.

  I keep pushing, scraping up every bit of speed I can. The ravine narrows fast, banks closing in until there’s barely space between the ice-slick walls and the black-fanged tree roots clutching at the sky. My boots slip, then catch again, pounding out a brutal rhythm. Above, shadows flicker through the trees—Sneasel and the helmeted handler tracking me from the rim. Every few steps, a clod of snow drops right on my head, close enough to remind me that they’re never more than a few meters out.

  The ravine bends hard left. I follow, lungs on fire, and nearly slam into a deadfall of tangled branches. I try to duck under, but the blanket snags and nearly yanks me off my feet. I twist, wrenching it free, and in the same motion I see a bulge in the wall ahead—a pocket of darkness where the snow doesn’t quite reach. A cave.

  Every bit of me screams to keep running, but I know it’s a dead end. The Sneasel will have my scent by now, and the handler’s probably already called in coordinates. I’m cooked either way; might as well pick the ground for my last stand.

  The cave mouth is wide enough for two men to stand abreast, but I still crawl inside, careful not to get skewered on roots. I squeeze through, scraping raw against the stone and ice, until I’m hidden from view. The air inside is old and still, thick with the smell of wet pennies and stale breath. I can barely turn around, but I twist just enough to catch a glimpse of the ravine through the gap.

  Boots hit the snow at the top of the drop. There’s a scuffle, a curse, and the Sneasel leaps down first, landing almost silent. The man follows in a controlled slide, one hand on the trunk of a birch for balance, the other already on the Poké Ball at his belt. I pull my knees up and try to shrink even smaller, but I know it’s already over. The Sneasel stalks right to the cave mouth, sniffs once, and lets out a short, sharp screech.

  The handler doesn’t even hesitate. “I see you,” he says, voice weirdly calm. “You’re out. Just come on out, and we’ll make it clean.” He’s barely older than me, face still soft under the visor’s edge. The way he stands, though—legs braced, Poké Ball ready—tells me he’s not messing around.

  I press myself flat, heart rattling. The Sneasel waits just outside, claws flexing slow. Beldum’s Ball burns cold in my pocket, but I know if I let it out now, it won’t last a second. I try to think, to run the numbers the way Beldum would, but every option is a perfect, screaming zero.

  There’s movement behind the handler—a half-dozen others in mottled camo, picking their way down the ravine with deliberate care. They’re grunts, not elite, but they outnumber me ten to one. The second they see me, two more Pokemon hit the ground: a Machoke, muscle-bound and bored, and a Koffing, already leaking fumes from its vents. I shrink back as it floats in, a cloud of sickly purple haze spilling ahead of it and curling through the cave mouth. The handler’s order is quick and flat: “Koffing, Smog.”

  The gas hits me in a second, burning my eyes and stinging my throat with a sour tang that’s almost sweet at the back of my tongue. I clamp both hands over my mouth, but it barely slows the creep. My vision goes watery, doubling the world into wet, overlapping shapes, and every inhale feels like chewing through cotton soaked in battery acid. The Sneasel stays just outside, motionless, as if daring me to run.

  I press tighter into the cave, losing ground with every breath. The urge to cough nearly knocks me out of hiding. I bite my fist and hold it in. The grunts at the cave mouth are laughing now—one of them yells, “He’ll be cooked in ten seconds, just wait.” Another grunt, this one with a voice like gravel, shouts over the first: “You want him alive, don’t you? Koffing, pull it back!”

  The smog tapers off for a moment, leaving just enough of a gap to see shapes shifting in the haze. That’s when the world changes. There’s a noise from the back of the cave—a sound that doesn’t belong here, a low, guttural rumble that grows and splits the haze like a blade. I freeze. The grunts freeze, too.

  The Sneasel’s ears flatten. Even the Koffing’s giggle cuts off.

  The next sound is a roar. Not the shriek of a bird or the hiss of some reptile, but a sound pulled straight out of nightmares and ancient memory: a full-throated, chest-caving, beast’s roar. It shakes loose old dirt from the roof, pelting down on my hair and shoulders, and shivers the air so hard my chest vibrates. There’s a split second where nobody moves—where the only thing in the universe is that noise—and then out of the smoke and shadow comes something huge and brown and impossible.

  An Ursaring, shoulders too wide to fit the cave, pressing through anyway.