The caverns closed behind Cyrus like a frozen throat.
One moment he was stepping forward into a corridor of carved ice, blue light flickering across the walls; the next, the world swallowed its sound, its air, its warmth. A pressure settled over him — not painful, but expectant. Meltan's hum quieted. Charcadet's flame dimmed. Even Gengar, who usually made jokes at the worst possible times, stayed expressionless.
Tyrunt pressed close to his leg, a low, uneasy rumble rising in its chest.
"Yeah," Cyrus whispered. "I feel it too."
Ahead, the tunnel opened into an impossible chamber. Ice stretched upward in crystalline pillars thicker than redwoods, each glowing from within. Snowflakes drifted in circular spirals, never touching the ground. Water pooled in a perfect mirror at the center of the cavern, suspended as if gravity worked sideways.
And at the far end stood two titans.
The Ice-Steel Regi—massive, chiseled, its body like glacier-forged iron—watched him with unblinking diamond eyes. Beside it, the Ice-Water Regi shifted like a living iceberg, runes glowing beneath layers of translucent frost.
They didn't move, didn't speak, didn't threaten.
They waited.
A pulse rolled through the chamber.
Then the world changed.
Cyrus blinked—and the cavern melted away.
When Cyrus opened his eyes, he stood on grassy cliffs, wind warm against his face. Sunlight danced on far-off blue water. Meltan stared around in confusion; Tyrunt's claws clicked on stone that wasn't there a second ago.
Cyrus knew this view.
He'd hiked here as a kid.
This was his home continent—but ancient, untouched, before cities carved into the coastlines. And there, stretching across the horizon, was Frostveil Isle… connected by land bridge.
Not an island.A peninsula.
A booming voice shook the sky. Not words. Feeling.A question.
A question older than language.
Should they be one again?
Cyrus swallowed hard.
"No," he whispered. "Not yet. Maybe not ever."
The wind stilled. The illusion trembled.
He continued, voice steadier:
"If Frostveil reconnects, everything changes. The habitats, the climate patterns… the prehistoric Pokémon here survive because they're isolated. My continent's ecosystems would collapse. So would this one."
He wasn't sure the Regis could understand human language.
But they understood intent.
The vision shattered like ice under a hammer.
Snow roared back into existence, but not the cavern—a battlefield.
Two Regigigas.Colossal. Planet-shaping. Frozen mid-strike.
One—the First Regigigas, creator of Regice, Registeel, and Regirock—glowed with cores of earth energy.
The Second—the unseen one, the creator of Eleki, Drago, and Faye—radiated stormlight.
The sky above them cracked with raw continent-shifting force.
Cyrus stood between their shadows.
And the island trembled underfoot, repeating the catastrophe that tore Frostveil free from the mainland eons ago.
The chamber whispered a second question:
If the colossus on this island awakens fully… will history repeat itself? Will Cyrus choose a side?
Cyrus shook his head fiercely.
"No. I won't choose one of them. Power like that… it doesn't need a master. It needs balance. And boundaries."
His breath misted in the frigid air.
"I don't want the island to reconnect or collide. I don't want one Regi to dominate the others. I want to learn how to keep the peace they originally built."
Silence.
Then the battlefield dissolved into drifting frost. A flash of light hit Cyrus again causing him to close his eyes.
When Cyrus opened his eyes, he was back in the cavern.
But now… a third figure stood between the two Regis.
Not fully physical. Not fully illusion.
The Ice-Ground Regi.Its form looked like a glacial mountain shaped into a guardian—ridges of permafrost, spines of frozen sediment, a body layered in ancient soil and frozen clay. Its runes glowed with tectonic patterns.
And it moved.
Slowly. Deliberately.
It stepped toward him until its shadow fell over his entire team.
Then the pressure eased.
And the cavern itself whispered its verdict:
Cyrus King has chosen understanding over dominion.Balance over ambition.Curiosity over conquest.
The Ice-Ground Regi lowered itself, placing a massive hand against the ice. Runes lit up across the chamber like constellations.
The final question rose from the ice, deep and resonant enough to shake his bones:
Will you protect the boundary, Cyrus King?Will you preserve the separation that keeps this land alive?
Cyrus's breath hitched.
He didn't hesitate.
"Yes."
Something—energy, warmth, permission—flowed through him like a breath from the ancient world.
When he looked up, all three Regis were watching him.
Waiting.
Accepting.
The pulse he'd been tracking for days now beat in perfect rhythm with his own heartbeat.
The cavern walls shifted—opening a path deeper, leading to the core chamber.
Where the island's Regigigas, the Ice-Water-Ice fusion giant, slumbered.
Cyrus tightened the strap on his pack, his team gathering close.
He exhaled, voice a barely-there whisper.
"Alright… let's see how far this goes."
And with that, he stepped forward into the heart of Frostveil Isle.