The nightmares started three nights after Silas.
Not Teo's.
Lucario's.
It would wake in the dead of night, drenched in sweat, aura flaring violently, claws raking the metal hull of their sunken ship-hideout. Not from Scorchclaws or Kaelen—but from something deeper. Older.
Memory.
At first, Teo thought it was just residual trauma from its last trainer's death.
But on the fourth night, he saw it.
A flicker in the Lucario's aura—black, jagged, like glass shards embedded in blue light.
And a name, whispered in the silence between breaths:
"Veyra."
Teo asked Yumi the next morning.
She paled.
She signed slowly, hands trembling: She doesn't kill trainers. She kills the bond.
Teo frowned. "What does that mean?"
Yumi drew a line in the damp metal floor. Then erased half of it. Some trainers enslave. Chain Pokémon with pain, fear, obedience collars. Veyra finds them. Frees the Pokémon.
"But… that sounds good," Teo said.
Yumi's eyes darkened. She made a sharp, cutting motion across her wrist. She doesn't just remove the collar. She severs the neural link. The emotional tether. Permanently.
Teo's blood ran cold. "She deletes the bond?"
Yumi nodded. Pokémon forget their trainers. Forget loyalty. Forget love. They become… empty. Free, but hollow.
"And the trainers?" Teo asked.
Yumi's expression hardened. She lets them live. So they remember what they lost.
Teo looked at the Lucario, who was watching them quietly, its aura dim.
"She's coming for us," he realized.
Yumi nodded. She sees synchronization as the ultimate chain. And you… you're the strongest link she's ever sensed.
They didn't have to wait long.
Two days later, while gathering black reeds along the acid estuary, the Lucario froze.
Its ears flattened. Its aura contracted sharply.
Then—it growled.
Not a warning.
A recognition.
From the mist-shrouded ruins ahead, a figure emerged.
Tall. Muscular. Skin scarred with old burn marks. She wore armor forged from broken Poké Balls—shattered red-and-white hemispheres fused into pauldrons, greaves, a chest plate. At her side walked a Garchomp.
But not like any Garchomp Teo had ever seen.
Its eyes were blank. No aggression. No intelligence. Just… stillness.
Like a weapon with no hand to wield it.
"Veyra," Yumi signed, stepping in front of Teo.
The woman stopped ten paces away. Her voice was low, rough, like stone grinding on stone. "You hide with a broken girl and a ghost."
She looked at Lucario. "And you—still chained."
Lucario snarled, stepping forward.
Veyra didn't flinch. "You remember me, don't you? The facility. The needles. The screams."
Lucario's aura shattered—not from fear, but rage.
Memories flooded Teo, unbidden:
A concrete bunker. Steel tables. Pokémon strapped down, eyes wide with terror. Lucario in a containment tube, wires piercing its temples. A woman in broken Poké Ball armor injecting something into its spine.
"This will set you free," Veyra had said then, voice almost gentle. "You won't feel the pain of betrayal anymore."
Lucario had screamed—not in pain, but in loss.
Teo gasped, clutching his head. "She tried to erase you."
Veyra's eyes locked onto him. "And you put the chain back on. Stronger. Tighter. You call it 'synchronization.' I call it slavery with better branding."
"It's not like that!" Teo snapped. "We chose each other!"
"Did you?" Veyra's voice turned icy. "Or did the System force you together? Did it give you a real choice, or just the illusion of one before your world ended?"
Teo had no answer.
Because she was right—partly.
The System had offered Continue or Abort. But Abort meant death. Was that really a choice?
Veyra stepped forward. "Let me free you both. One cut. One moment of pain. And you'll never fear abandonment again."
The Garchomp behind her shifted—no command, just instinct. Its claws scraped the obsidian, leaving deep gouges.
Yumi signed urgently: Don't let her touch you. Her Nen ability—"Severance"—works on contact.
Teo nodded. He placed a hand on Lucario's shoulder. "We're not letting her take what we built."
Lucario's aura flared—not in rage now, but resolve.
Veyra sighed. "Then I'll have to break you to save you."
She lunged.
Not at Teo.
At the Lucario.
Her hand—gloved in shattered metal—reached for its forehead, where the bond with Teo resided in neural and energetic form.
"Silent Guard!" Teo shouted.
The Lucario didn't dodge.
It braced.
A dome of aura erupted around it—thick, layered, humming with defensive intent.
Veyra's hand struck the barrier.
And cracked.
Not the aura.
Her fingers.
Bone snapped. Metal groaned.
She staggered back, eyes wide. "Impossible. That's not standard aura…"
Teo didn't hesitate. He dropped into a low stance, channeled a pulse of Ren into his right leg, and launched a sikaran kick aimed at her ribs.
Veyra twisted—but not fast enough.
The kick landed.
She flew backward, crashing into a rusted shipping container.
The Garchomp moved.
Not with strategy.
With instinct.
It blurred forward—preternaturally fast, claws aimed to eviscerate.
Teo raised his arms to block.
But the Lucario was faster.
It intercepted the Garchomp mid-air, meeting claw with fist.
The impact sent shockwaves through the estuary.
But something was wrong.
The Garchomp didn't fight. It didn't snarl. It just… attacked. No emotion. No tactics. Like a machine running a script.
And then Teo saw it.
Through his aura-vision, the Garchomp's core was dim. Not damaged. Severed.
Its bond with Veyra wasn't broken.
It had been surgically removed.
The Garchomp wasn't a partner.
It was a weapon wearing a Pokémon's skin.
"Lucario—don't kill it!" Teo yelled. "It's not in control!"
The Lucario hesitated.
That was all Veyra needed.
She rose, blood dripping from her mouth, left hand hanging at a sickening angle.
"You see?" she rasped. "Even your precious bond makes you weak. It makes you hesitate."
She placed her good hand on the Garchomp's flank.
And whispered something.
The Garchomp's eyes flickered—just for a second—with something like pain.
Then it turned and fled into the mist.
Veyra looked at Teo, her expression unreadable. "You think you're kind. But kindness in this world is just delayed cruelty."
She turned to leave, then paused. "The Conclave wants your bond dissected. Silas wants to extract it. Kaelen wants to purify it."
She glanced back, eyes burning. "I just want you to understand—freedom isn't given. It's taken. Even from yourself."
She vanished into the ruins.
Silence returned.
Teo sank to his knees, trembling.
Yumi knelt beside him, pressing a hand to his chest—checking his heartbeat.
The Lucario limped over, its knuckles bleeding, aura flickering with exhaustion and guilt.
Teo pulled it into a rough hug. "You did good. You saw it. You didn't strike to kill."
The Lucario leaned into him, trembling.
[ SYNCHRONIZATION: 61% ]
[ WARNING: PROLONGED EXPOSURE TO BONDLESS POKÉMON DETECTED ]
[ RISK OF EMPATHIC PSYCHOSIS: 28% — HOST EXPERIENCING GHOST MEMORIES OF SEVERED BONDS ]
Teo blinked. "Ghost memories?"
Then he felt it—a whisper in his mind that wasn't his. A voice, broken, fading:
"Why did you leave me, trainer…?"
He gasped.
It wasn't his memory.
It was the Garchomp's.
Trapped in the moment its bond was cut.
And now… echoing in him.
Yumi's eyes filled with fear. She signed: You're feeling their pain. All of them. Every Pokémon she's severed.
Teo looked toward the mist where the Garchomp had fled.
Somewhere out there, it wandered—free, but empty.
And a piece of its grief now lived inside him.
He closed his eyes.
This world didn't just break bodies.
It broke souls.
And he was starting to collect the fragments.