For a long time after the last pulse faded, Cyrus didn't move. The ice cliffs ahead of him still glowed faintly from the runic light, wisps of vapor curling off them in soft, eerie ribbons. The air had changed—heavier, charged with static and cold that bit through his gloves.
He adjusted his visor, checked the scanner, and muttered to himself."Alright, readings first. Don't lose focus."
The numbers flickered wildly—magnetic interference spiking every few seconds, temperature dips that defied logic. The whole glacier seemed alive, breathing under the surface.
Cyrus crouched and touched the ice. The vibrations buzzed against his palm. "Resonant frequency… similar to the first site." He took a core sample, recording the faint metallic hum it emitted.
A faint snort behind him broke his concentration.
Turning slowly, he saw a small shape trudge through the mist—a Swinub, its fur coated in frost so thick it sparkled blue under the weak sun. It sniffed curiously at Cyrus's boot before darting away into the snow.
Then more appeared—three, then five, weaving through the drifts. They were followed by the deep rumble of something larger.
The ground trembled. Two Piloswine emerged from the haze, their tusks rimed in silver ice, eyes glinting faintly with reflected runelight. They weren't aggressive, just wary—watchful sentinels of the tundra.
Cyrus slowly lowered his scanner. "Alright… noted. Frost-adapted behavior, unusually stable social hierarchy…"
But before he could finish, the sound changed—metallic this time. A scraping grind, like stone dragged against iron.
From behind a fractured ridge came movement: squat, heavy forms trudging in formation. At first, he thought they were machines left by some long-gone expedition. Then one lifted its head, steam venting from its trunk in a plume of freezing mist.
"...No way," he breathed.
A Cufant—but not the orange, copper-bodied kind he knew. Its plating shimmered pale steel-blue, patterned with thin veins of white ice that pulsed faintly as it moved. The trunk ended in a crystalline segment, jagged and sharp like a pickaxe.
Another followed, and another, each moving with slow precision. Their steps left small geometric impressions in the snow—almost the same rhythm as the runes glowing on the cliff.
Cyrus crouched low, recording rapidly. "Variant adaptation—Steel/Ice typing likely. Cryogenic metallic exoskeleton. Purpose… mining? Or excavation?"
The lead Cufant stopped and lifted its trunk toward him. For a moment, he thought it might charge—but instead it emitted a low hum, a tone that resonated through the frozen ground.
The glacier answered.
A deep crack echoed through the valley as a mound of snow collapsed, revealing an enormous silhouette beneath. Ice cascaded away, unveiling a Copperajah, easily twice the size of its normal form. Its armor was forged of overlapping plates of frosted steel, seams glowing faint cobalt. Its tusks were jagged ice, partially translucent, and its trunk ended in a blade-like edge.
"...Now that," Cyrus whispered, "is ancient engineering."
The great beast let out a low, metallic trumpet that reverberated through the air. The smaller Cufant responded in perfect unison, their tones harmonizing into a haunting, mechanical song that rippled through the glacier.
His scanner spiked red. "Magnetic amplitude increase—thirty, no, forty percent…"
He looked back to the cliff face where the Regi runes had appeared earlier. They pulsed faintly in sync with the Copperajah's call.
Cyrus's eyes widened. "You're not just adapted to the ice… you're linked to it. You're conduits."
The great Copperajah shifted its head slightly, regarding him. For a fleeting instant, Cyrus felt like it was studying him, calculating his purpose. Then it turned, leading its herd back into the fog, the sound of their metal steps fading slowly.
Snow began to fall again, covering their tracks as if the island wanted to keep its secrets buried.
Cyrus stared after them for a long moment, then recorded quietly into his tablet:
Observation Log – Frostveil NorthDiscovery: regional variant of Cufant/Copperajah.Typing: Ice/Steel. Exoskeleton shows hybrid crystalline alloy composition.Behavior linked to glacial magnetic network. Possibly symbiotic relationship with subterranean Regi structures.Conductive resonance confirmed.Investigate acoustic frequency tomorrow.
He took one last reading, the scanner now pulsing steadily with a soft blue light—almost like a heartbeat.
As he turned toward the distant outline of the Odyssey, he glanced back once more. The snowfield was empty. But the echo of the Copperajah's call still lingered—deep, rhythmic, ancient.
Something beneath the island had heard it.
Back at on the Ship
The Odyssey was quiet except for the hum of its engines and the occasional creak of ice against the hull. Outside, snow drifted in long, silver curtains, brushing the portholes like whispers.
Cyrus sat hunched over the main console, the cabin lights dimmed to a soft blue. Meltan perched on the edge of the desk, its single eye focused on the flickering data feed, while Ditto snoozed beside him, currently shaped like a half-crumpled pillow. Tyrunt snored at his feet, the sound oddly comforting in the cold silence.
He rewound the audio recording for the third time. The Copperajah's harmonic call played through the ship's speakers—low, metallic, drawn-out like the groan of an ancient gate opening. Beneath it, faint but undeniable, another pulse resonated—a pattern.
He isolated the frequency. The monitor spat out a waveform that climbed and fell in intervals far too precise to be natural.
"Not seismic," he murmured. "Not wind. Artificial resonance... repeating every twelve-point-three seconds."
He ran a comparison scan against older expedition data from other Regi ruins—Desert, Rock, Steel, and Ice. The results came back with a soft chime, and Cyrus froze.
"Match found," the computer said.Pattern Source: Regice – Sealed Chamber fragment, Shoal Bay coordinates.
Cyrus leaned forward. "Regice?"
He hadn't even finished processing that when Meltan gave a low metallic chirp. The lights flickered, just once, but enough to make him glance up.
Outside the window, the snow was no longer falling straight. The flakes were spinning, circling a point somewhere beyond the cliffs. A faint aurora shimmered above the horizon—blue, white, and something deeper, a pulse like the one on his screen.
Cyrus activated the outside camera. The feed flickered into focus, showing a section of the glacier where he'd recorded the Copperajah herd. The snow there wasn't solid anymore. It was moving—waves of frost rolling outward like breath from beneath the surface.
"Meltan, record that magnetic field shift."
The tiny Pokémon nodded and extended a glowing tendril toward the scanner. The readings jumped immediately: Subsurface resonance — increasing. Source depth: 800 meters.
Cyrus frowned. "That's below the Copperajah route... deeper than the core chamber."
He zoomed the feed in again. Under the swirling frost, faint shapes were becoming visible. Geometric pillars of ice—perfectly aligned. Some were etched with runes similar to those from the Regice chamber, but more fluid, almost watery.
"Ice... and water," Cyrus whispered. "A second construct."
A sharp metallic ping interrupted him—Meltan tapping insistently at the scanner. The readings now showed two overlapping frequencies. One matched the Ice Regi pattern from earlier. The other was lower, rhythmic, like waves colliding against a hollow shell.
Cyrus's pulse quickened. "Two entities… connected."
He opened a new file and began typing rapidly:
Observation Log — Frostveil Subsurface LayerMagnetic frequency resonance pattern identified — dual signal structure.Primary: Ice-type energy, 800m depth.Secondary: Water-type interference, lateral spread beneath ice shelf.Possibility: Coexistent Regi signatures — "Regice" and unknown water analog.
He paused, tapping the console absentmindedly. "If Regice represents frozen time... maybe the water variant embodies the flow itself. Two halves of the same mechanism."
The floor trembled faintly. The lights dimmed again. Tyrunt stirred, lifting his head with a low growl.
Cyrus stood, crossing to the window. The aurora had brightened, twisting into a spiral that pointed directly downward toward the glacier's heart. The hum through the hull grew stronger—a deep vibration that seemed to sync with his pulse.
"Yeah," he murmured, almost to himself. "Something's waking up."
He set the scanner to continuous record and opened a live relay to the research team back on the mainland. But as the signal pinged out, the static grew thick. The aurora flared once more, and all communications cut to black.
For several seconds, the only sound aboard the Odyssey was the low thrumming under the floor—like the heartbeat of something ancient stirring far below the ice.
Ditto opened one drowsy eye, shifted shape into a blanket, and pulled itself over Cyrus's shoulders.
He exhaled slowly. "Guess we're not sleeping tonight."