Morning crawls in with a thin light through the frosted window and a draft that snakes up my back before I even bother to open my eyes. The cot could double as punishment seating, more tape than mattress, and drooping in the centre—but the fuzzy weight at my feet throws me. A crescent of warmth, breathing, snoring very softly. Sometime overnight, Teddiursa must’ve abandoned her own pile of blankets to climb into bed with me, hunting for a spot that wasn’t freezing. Now she’s tucked by my ankles, fur dulled by the sickly gray dawn. That’s when the dream comes back—her mother’s shape looming in the dark, massive and unyielding, shielding Teddiursa with her own body as the cave buckled and collapsed around them. I can still feel the weight of that moment: the press of fur, the desperate strength, and then the world tearing away. But there’s nothing left to go back to. Just this patched-up shack at the edge of the wilds. I sit up—the cot groans—and Teddiursa flops off onto the rug, pops right back up like she meant to do it all along, makes a slow circuit, then settles at her post by my feet again. The blanket is military surplus from three wars ago and mostly hers now; she’s pulled most of it down with her. My breath hangs in the air. At least it isn’t cold enough yet to freeze the inside of my bones.

  The rest of the “room” looks like someone just unpacked and gave up halfway. There’s a birch-stump table— dragged in from outside camp; someone had already stripped and sanded it—holding a sweating glass bottle and a folded scrap of lined paper. Across the wall is a shelf made out of cinder blocks and plywood, sagging under field manuals, meal bricks, and one chipped mug nobody wants to claim. On the floor is a nest of paracord around a hand-crank radio—left behind by someone clearly expecting another ranger instead of our current lineup: human on the run, half dead-machine, plus an orphaned cub with boundary issues.

  Beldum isn’t here. I don’t even need to check; you notice an absence like you notice an itch or an old scar suddenly missing. There are fresh marks on the metal near the vent where they’ve been gliding around on patrol. Beldum doesn’t sleep—just drifts into standby until something actually needs fixing. I flex my left arm and pick up the note.

  Lindel’s handwriting is neat and a little too careful, like he’s filling out lab forms or writing up someone for breach of protocol. His note reads: “Tried to use this hyper potion on your Beldum’s cracks, but it wouldn’t let me. – Lin.” Below it, the bottle sits sweating onto the table, nozzle glistening gold at the tip. I picture Lin hunched in the triage tent, hands unsteady as he tried stitching up injuries no training manual had prepared him for. “Standard potions don’t seem to work well on steel types,” he’d muttered, eyes fixed somewhere over my shoulder. “You might have better luck with—well—just the steel.” He meant well, but it landed sharp anyway: your Pokémon, your problem.

  Teddiursa has nudged up beside my knee now, studying me like she’s waiting for breakfast to materialize from thin air. Her ears flick as she sniffs toward the bottle, brow creased in concern or curiosity—hard to tell which. I twist off the cap and take a whiff: sharp medicine, thick with something almost sweet beneath it. Good enough for her; she immediately crawls onto my lap and shoves her nose into my arm until I give her a taste on my finger. She laps it up, then grimaces—deeply unimpressed—but swallows anyway, her tongue poking around as if it might help.

  “Sorry,” I tell her, voice low. “Definitely not honey.” She probably doesn’t follow a word of what I’m saying, but she hears the apology anyway. She lifts those huge black eyes at me—too wise for someone so small—and for a second all I can see is what’s missing; her mother’s absence, and all the ways I couldn’t change that.

  A gust rattles the siding and shakes loose a whine from somewhere overhead. The floor vibrates as something thumps against the door—two quick knocks and silence. After a pause, the knob twitches and the door creaks open just enough for Beldum to edge through—hovering low, catching the early light across their dented plating, the cracks now patched with bright seams that weren’t there last night. Wordless as ever, they fill the air with faint static while the radio coughs out a garbled burst.

  Teddiursa puffs herself up—not scared, just ready to challenge anyone on principle—and hops down to face Beldum head-on. They circle each other in total silence: one analysing, one bluffing bravado with every ounce of fluff available. Beldum’s eye glows once; Teddiursa answers with a growl so soft it could pass for contentment if you weren’t paying attention.

  The tension eases as Beldum glides to the table, using a pulse of magnetism to gently lift the potion and place it right in front of me. It’s a clear request, a sign of trust that they’re ready for me to help them heal. I guess that means I’m up next on stubborn metal duty. I stall a second, then uncap the bottle and spritz a careful mist along the edge of Beldum’s armour. The potion hits, sizzles briefly, and then vanishes into the cracks, pulled in neat as you please. Beldum gives a quick shudder—almost like a sigh—then goes still, no drama, no complaints. They drift closer, and for a moment all I see in their polished shell is my own uneven face: younger than I feel, definitely more battered. “See?” Beldum’s silent look says. “Told you it’d work.”

  Teddiursa, apparently satisfied that nobody is dying, slips back to my side and paws at my hand, then at the pouch on my belt. She clearly remembers last night’s ration of dried meat. I dig out a few strips and hold them out; she gobbles them up with suspiciously polite pauses, glancing at Beldum as if checking for hard feelings. Beldum just hovers there, content to watch—I get the feeling that it has already hunted for sustenance.

  When Teddiursa’s finished, she lets out a hiccup and leans her head against my knee. The gesture nearly guts me. I remember the day in her den—the way her mother shielded her from the explosion, the chaos as it all crumbled around them. Now she’s here, looking up at me with something almost like a question.

  I sink down to the fraying carpet in front of her, sunlight working its way under the door behind us. “Teddiursa,” I say—no ceremony—“do you forgive me for what happened to your mum?” She plops onto her haunches on the coarse rug and meets my gaze without flinching; her little ears tremble as tears start to well up. Beldum sweeps in close enough that the cabin’s dim light sparks off their shell just as Teddiursa rumbles out a low growl—sad but somehow gentle.

  Then Beldum fires off a short pulse that reads like plain speech: Not fault. I offer out the Poké Ball in my palm, voice quiet. “Do you want to come with me? Sometimes you’ll have to be in here.” Teddiursa looks from my face to the ball and back again, grumbles softly under her breath.

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  Beldum helpfully pipes up: Name. Luna.

  I know how this is supposed to go—the old script, the step-by-step of “choice” and “belonging”—but I pause, not sure if it’s right to drop tradition on someone who’s already lost so much. Still, I try: “Luna,” I repeat, gentler this time, almost stumbling over it. “This is up to you. Stay here if you want. Or…” I show her the Poké Ball, thumb clicking the release until it splits open with a quiet sound, hardly more than a breath. The air gets heavy, expectant.

  Luna’s ears twitch like she’s picking up a signal only she can hear. She leans in, nose wrinkling—first cautious, then oddly intrigued. Her paw comes out slow, testing the ball as if she's waiting for it to snap at her. Weird tech—she seems to get that it’s both invitation and a cage. Her eyes flick up to me for a beat, and I honestly think she might bolt for the door and never look back. But instead she lets out a little rumble—it barely counts as a growl—and presses her forehead to the Poké Ball.

  Instantly there’s a flash of red—sharp and precise—and Luna dissolves into light and vanishes into the ball in one smooth pull. The capsule shudders in my palm; its mechanism ticks once like it’s thinking about arguing before giving in. Just like that, she’s gone. It leaves too much space in the room—like taking down photos and realizing how bare the walls always were.

  Beldum slides over, humming softly with mechanical interest. They give the Poké Ball an exam worthy of a bored technician on night shift—not jealous, just nosy in their low-key way. “Capture confirmed”, Beldum announces with a little zap of static that passes for cheer around here. It almost cracks me up, but my throat isn’t quite working.

  I hit the release again. The ball opens with another soft exhale and Luna reappears at my feet—looking more surprised than anything else, legs wobbly as if she spent the last minute spinning in circles inside a dryer. She blinks at me, then sniffs my boot for reassurance before clambering up my shin and latching onto my leg in an oversized bear hug that nearly knocks me flat.

  Relief sweeps through me so fast it makes me dizzy; I hadn’t realized just how tightly I’d been holding everything inside until now. I scratch behind Luna’s ears—she lets her eyelids droop and does something that could pass for a smile if you squint. Beldum hovers nearby, all quiet vigilance while I kneel down to gather Luna against me.

  I let Luna climb the sleeve of my coat and wedge herself into the crook of my elbow, where she ponders the world for a moment, then falls immediately to sleep. The whole room feels lighter, like we finally worked out where things are supposed to go. I gather my meagre belongings—the half-used hyper potion, the battered map, and the chunk of foil-wrapped jerky—and stuff them into the backpack. The bottle is heavier than it should be, and I tuck it deep, not trusting myself to remember it otherwise. These things are expensive, you don’t leave them behind for any reason.

  The wind outside is a live wire, rattling the vents and making the siding groan. I nudge the door open and step straight into cold so sharp it hisses against my teeth. Beldum floats ahead, slicing a path through the wind like it’s nothing. I hear voices before I see the people—out past the row of battered trailers, the outpost is a hive of activity, all hands on deck for some kind of shuffle.

  The Throh from yesterday is loading crates onto the back of an old army truck, muscles straining through it’s makeshift clothes, face an eternal slab of focus. He gives me one fast glance—a nod of recognition, maybe, or just a calculation of whether I’m about to pitch in or get in the way. Past him, Lindel is directing the whole operation, clipboard crooked in one arm while he points with the other, voice carrying over the clang of metal and the slap of frozen tarps.

  He spots me and waves me over, eyes bright under his hat. I trudge across the packed snow, boots slipping on the hidden patches of ice, Luna still dead to the world against my chest. Beldum hovers beside me, eye twitching between the workers, cataloguing the whole scene.

  Lin waits until I’m close enough to speak quietly, though nobody here is exactly eavesdropping. “Good timing. We’re packing up—by noon, we’re gone. Thaw’s on the way. Replacement crew’s already rolling in from the city.” He flicks a look at the sky, like it’ll tell him something useful. “If you’re heading west, we can drop you at Mistralton. The depot, most likely—not much point in marching solo through the cold unless you’re feeling especially heroic.”

  I just nod, not trusting myself not to sound like I’ve swallowed my own tongue. Luna stirs against my chest, squints at Lin, then burrows back in with a little huff. Beldum does an anxious orbit, buzzing faintly.

  Lin keeps going: “City’s nothing special, but it’s easy to blend in there. More trainers, more weirdos, more…” he waves a hand at Luna, “better odds for her if you want to ger her checked at the Pokemon centre.” He holds my gaze for a second longer. “Up to you. For now—you’re with us.”

  Camp bustles around me—boxes shuffling, people barking orders, trucks getting ready before the ground turns into sludge. For once I don’t have to decide anything; someone else is steering the ship and all I have to do is show up and not mess it up. Lin’s already off again, calling at Throh not to drop anything breakable before I find my voice.

  I trail after him into the tent everyone shares for meals. It reeks of propane and burnt coffee and bleach that doesn’t quite cover the rest of it. Lin takes his spot across from me and pours two mugs—one for me, one for himself. I swallow some; still tastes like chemical runoff but at least it’s hot. Luna lifts her head long enough to sniff at my food ration, so I break off a piece and let her nibble it out of my hand.

  Lin leans back with a sigh and rubs his jaw. “So—what about you? Got people waiting in Mistralton? Or is this more of a ‘laying low’ situation?” His tone is casual but he isn’t just making small talk.

  “Nobody waiting,” I tell him, surprised how dull it sounds coming out of me. “Just need to move on.” I glance at Luna as she polishes off the last crumbs and gives me that look like she understands anyway. “ After that… who knows.”

  He shrugs like that makes perfect sense. “Makes sense. Survive out here and the city should be manageable.” He drains his mug in three big gulps and stands up, shoving it aside. “Truck leaves at noon; don’t miss it”.