The two of them began preparing to start their race to the Wild Area of Route 6.
“Alright then, get ready, Gible. I’m going to beat you,” Zayn said confidently.
“Gible… Gible… Gible…” Gible replied in a mocking tone, as if saying, “Try to catch me if you can.”
Zayn then started counting down.
“One… Two… Three!”
They both took off running—but of course, they weren’t actually going to run fifty kilometers. Zayn immediately headed to the nearby high-speed train station. He paid using his Trainer ID, which cost ₽75, leaving him with ₽13,500. Zayn figured he really needed to be more careful with his spending.
“Good thing I timed it perfectly, just like I calculated back at the park,” Zayn thought to himself. Running fifty kilometers would have been insane—it would’ve taken way too long.
Meanwhile, Gible, who also thought running fifty kilometers was a hassle, decided to use Shadow Sneak.
Zayn tried to enjoy the scenery through the train window.
“Maybe I should enjoy the view before reaching the Wild Area,” he thought. Unfortunately, that wasn’t easy—the train’s speed was 1,500 kilometers per hour. The scenery was nothing but a blur. Zayn felt a bit disappointed, but then he noticed something strange: his bag felt lighter.
In just two minutes, Zayn arrived at Outpost 1 of the Wild Area. At first, he thought he had beaten Gible.
“Finally, Wild Area Route 6—and I finally beat him,” Zayn said proudly.
“Next, I’ll just tease Gible for losing. I’m sure he’ll behave better after that,” Zayn muttered as he walked out of Outpost 1.
Thak! Crack!
“Ow!” Zayn yelped as something struck his head. He rubbed the spot, certain a bump had formed, then looked at what had hit him.
“What was that just now?” Zayn muttered, still holding his head.
“Wait… isn’t this a Figy Berry that’s already been eaten? No way. That’s impossible. How does that make any sense? How could he get here faster than me?”
Zayn was both shocked and confused.
As he stepped outside Outpost 1, he saw Gible calmly eating berries from a tree. Since Gible had thrown the remains of a Figy Berry earlier, that meant his stored supply was already gone.
To be sure, Zayn opened his bag. As far as he knew, Figy Berries shouldn’t even grow in this area.
“They’re really gone… completely gone!” Zayn exclaimed in disbelief.
At that moment, he realized Gible had stolen them again. This time, Zayn was even more confused—how could Gible steal them when Zayn had been riding such a fast train?
In the end, Zayn admitted defeat. After that, the two of them began exploring the Wild Area in search of wild Pokémon.
“You know, Gible,” Zayn said, “I’ve loved video games since I was little. In Pokémon games, you usually encounter Pokémon when you walk through tall grass.”
As if on cue, a Pokémon appeared the moment they stepped into the grass.
It was Joltik.
“Joltik, a Bug- and Electric-type Pokémon. I’m pretty sure this is going to be troublesome for you, Gible,” Zayn said as he checked its level.
The Joltik was level 8. The level gap wasn’t that big, but Zayn knew they were at a disadvantage due to type matchups.
Zayn decided to warn Gible.
“Hey, Gible, just so you know—this one’s Electric-type, and you’re Water-type. You’re definitely going to have a hard time fighting it.”
“Giiible!” Gible replied, refusing to be underestimated.
“Alright, Gible. I’ll give you two choices,” Zayn said.
“We can leave, or we can fight. If you choose to leave, we leave. If you choose to fight… your chances of winning are slim.”
The battle began.
“Gible, use Aqua Jet!” Zayn commanded.
But Joltik struck first with Thunder Shock. Zayn immediately noted that Thunder Shock had +2 priority for Joltik, thanks to its Ability, Volt Rush, which granted increased priority to Electric-type moves as long as its HP was full.
Gible retaliated with Aqua Jet, dealing solid damage to Joltik.
“Good job, Gible! Just a little more and we can take it down. Now—Shadow Sneak!”
Gible vanished into the darkness of the shadows and struck Joltik directly. However, Joltik countered with an unexpected move—Secret Power.
In Joltik’s case, Secret Power was Ghost-type. Since it was a physical move, it was highly effective against Gible due to typing—and Gible’s Defense wasn’t very high to begin with.
“What the hell? How does it have Secret Power?” Zayn exclaimed in confusion.
“Moves like that are usually learned through Technical Machines and require manual training. They’re not supposed to be available right from the start!”
Then Zayn remembered that Pokémon like Unown could use Secret Power and Hidden Power innately, so he reluctantly accepted it.
Zayn threw a Poké Ball toward Joltik—but Joltik dodged effortlessly and vanished deeper into the forest.
“I don’t know why,” Zayn said slowly, “but don’t you feel it, Gible? Pokémon in this world seem… way too intelligent.”
“Gible,” Gible replied.
“Alright. Looks like it’s time for us to head back to the Pokémon Center,” Zayn said at first.
But neither he nor Gible wanted their efforts to be wasted.
So they decided to enter the forest after Joltik.
(Author’s Note: This is where things start getting strange. The Wild Area is supposed to be an open field—there shouldn’t be a forest here. Zayn and Gible also fail to realize that Outpost 1 no longer exists. Another oddity: there are no other Pokémon around—only Gible and the Joltik they encountered earlier.)
After that, they ran straight into the forest. Zayn and Gible charged through it without realizing that the forest was filled with suspiciously dense spider webs—far too many to make any sense, almost covering the entire forest. The atmosphere itself felt wrong. The forest should have been humid, yet instead it felt strangely hot.
At first, Zayn thought the spider webs were normal. After all, forests were natural habitats for Bug-type Pokémon. What Zayn failed to notice—something not easily perceived—was that the webs seemed to envelop the entire forest. Gible, on the other hand, noticed something else: electrical energy was present everywhere they ran. Unbeknownst to both of them, countless eyes were watching. Those eyes observed them continuously, yet neither Zayn nor Gible noticed their presence.
After running for quite some time, both of them began to suffer status effects such as paralysis and burns. They brushed it off as simple fatigue.
Not long after, Zayn spotted several Poké Balls scattered around. Inside them were items. One of them contained a Paralyze Heal, which Zayn used on Gible. After that, they continued forward and found more Poké Balls containing:
3× Rare Candy
2× Burn Heal
4× Liechi Berries
2× Lum Berries
4× Revives
1× Muscle Band
1× Wise Lens
2× Magnets
As Zayn’s burns grew worse without him realizing it, Gible sprayed a Burn Heal onto Zayn. Zayn immediately drank Fresh Water to recover, finally becoming aware that he had been burned—though strangely, he hadn’t felt any pain until then.
Soon after, they noticed a massive tree—the largest in the forest. Both of them assumed it was Joltik’s hiding place, as all the webs converged there. As they headed toward it, they failed to realize that the spider webs were not merely physical objects. In truth, the webs were what formed everything around them.
Without knowing it, the ground, the air, space itself, the trees, the leaves, the items—everything was part of the web. That was why they kept suffering effects despite never directly touching the webs.
Zayn measured the distance to the massive tree. It was about two kilometers away. But strangely, instead of getting closer as they moved forward, the distance increased—to one hundred kilometers.
“That’s weird… why does the tree move farther away when we get closer?” Zayn said in confusion.
Then Zayn began to think.
“If getting closer makes it move farther… aha! I’ve got an idea. What if we move away instead?” Zayn suggested.
“Gible…” Gible replied hesitantly.
They tried moving away—but instead of improving, things got worse. The distance jumped to four thousand kilometers. At that moment, Gible realized something terrifying: the webs surrounding them were eyes, endlessly watching. Meanwhile, Zayn concluded that the spider webs covering the forest functioned as a radar—or more precisely, a complex sensor system.
No matter how they tried to escape the webbed world, it was impossible. Everything was web. Running in any direction was meaningless.
“I feel like this forest has a mind of its own,” Zayn said quietly.
“Gible,” Gible replied in agreement.
They continued exploring the forest. Gible began to wonder why Zayn was still alive. The electrical aura saturating the entire world carried immense energy—enough to disrupt biological functions. Not only that, the webs could alter, erase, and recreate things entirely.
Gible sensed this because the world itself felt as though it was being constantly reconstructed. Zayn also felt something was off—Gible wasn’t being affected by the electrical aura, even though Electric-type energy should have been devastating to a Water-type Pokémon.
Eventually, they realized something crucial. This wasn’t an illusion—it was reality. But not reality as they knew it. It wasn’t even truly a “world.” Everything here operated according to its owner’s will. And unless they defeated that owner, they would never escape.
That was when Zayn had an idea.
“Hey, Gible. I know how we can reach that tree,” Zayn said excitedly.
“Gible?” Gible replied, confused.
“Just use Shadow Sneak to take us there,” Zayn said.
“Gible… Gible… ble… ble… ble!” Gible replied angrily.
Gible then explained the mechanism of his Shadow Sneak, drawing diagrams in the dirt. He explained that Shadow Sneak allowed him to access the Shadow Realm—a place of pure darkness, without light, laws, states, or locations.
Zayn was shocked. He had always thought the shadow world was merely a reflection of the physical world, a phenomenon caused by light.
Gible then illustrated his understanding of shadows: he drew a person with a shadow, and a creature without one. The drawing explained that a shadow was proof that something physically existed—but the shadow itself never truly existed under the laws of the real world. Gible manipulated that concept to bypass distance, space, objects—everything.
“That explains your ability well,” Zayn said, “but how do you explain the items you stored in shadows earlier?”
Gible illustrated again: when a Berry was placed into a shadow, it lost its physical form. What remained was proof of its existence. Once that proof merged with the shadow, it followed the same mechanism as Gible himself—allowing him to retrieve the object at will by transferring its ‘existence’ between worlds.
“Oh… th-that’s insanely broken,” Zayn said, shivering at the explanation.
“So if I enter… I’ll disappear. I’ll lose my physical form and become part of the shadow,” Zayn concluded.
Gible nodded.
Zayn told Gible to do it—to take them directly to the center of the webbed world: the massive tree.
“I don’t care how insane the method is. As long as we get out of this madness!” Zayn shouted.
Gible was clearly worried about Zayn disappearing.
“Relax, Gible. Do you know who the main character of this story is?” Zayn said confidently. “Yeah—it’s me. I choose my own path. This is my decision as the protagonist.”
Gible smiled and laughed, feeling that following this trainer hadn’t been a mistake after all.
Gible then pulled Zayn into his Shadow Sneak.
Zayn felt as though he could no longer move, speak, think, or see. He didn’t even know what he was supposed to do. He felt himself fading—no longer a living being. Gible transferred Zayn’s existence from the physical world into the shadow realm.
For the first time, Gible transported a living being.
Moments later, Zayn reappeared at the base of the massive tree.
Zayn touched his face, his clothes, his hair.
“Haha… hahahaha!” Zayn laughed loudly. “I made it—and I didn’t disappear!”
“Alright, I’m here. Let’s take down that Joltik,” Zayn said.
“Giii-Blee!” Gible growled, furious after being trapped for so long.
At the core of the tree, Zayn ordered Gible to use Shadow Sneak. The attack struck Joltik directly—even though it had shifted through the webbed world.
Joltik was stunned. Its existence spanned the entire web. The entire world was its possible location—so how could Gible hit it?
Joltik retaliated with Thunder Shock, aiming to erase Gible entirely. The attack hit. Joltik believed Gible should have been deleted, erased directly through the web—ignoring even Ghost-type immortality.
But Zayn used a Revive, bringing Gible back instantly.
“Oka y, Gible—now we get serious!” Zayn shouted.
“Use Aqua Jet!”
Joltik countered with Electroweb, exploiting the type advantage—but it only struck a clone. Joltik wasn’t fooled for long. Knowing the locations of all clones through its webs, it unleashed Discharge, causing massive area-wide destruction. All the clones vanished. Gible fell.
Again, Zayn used a Revive.
Realizing Zayn was the true problem, Joltik targeted him directly with Thunderbolt. Zayn tried to dodge—but since the web was the world itself, escape was impossible.
Zayn was erased. Instantly. Without climax. Without delay.
Gible snapped.
Fueled by rage, Gible used Phantom Force—his signature move. Unlike Shadow Sneak, Phantom Force allowed Gible to attack directly through shadows with overwhelming power. He leapt endlessly between shadows, striking again and again.
Joltik made the entire world glow with light, believing that without shadows, Gible could no longer attack.
That was a mistake.
Gible’s definition of “shadow” was different.
The light changed nothing.
Gible ended the battle with Shadow Fang.
Joltik was defeated.
Gible felt sadness. He had lost his trainer—someone interesting, someone precious—on the very first day of their journey.
Then—
He heard the sound of a Poké Ball being thrown.
Gible froze.
Zayn stood there, alive.
Gible leapt into Zayn’s arms.
“Were you worried I died?” Zayn teased. “Relax. I’m the main character of this game. I’m not dying that easily.”
Gible knew—it was truly Zayn.
Zayn picked up the Poké Ball he had used to catch Joltik.
“Looks like this adventure is going to be a real pain… if even day one is this insane,” Zayn said with a smile.
They realized they were back in the normal world.
At Outpost 1, Zayn tried to buy a Max Potion—only to freeze when he saw the price: ₽1,500.
That left him with just ₽12,000.
Zayn was in shock again. He had spent ₽8,000 on the very first day.
Gible was now absolutely certain—this really was his trainer.
As Zayn stepped outside, he shouted to the sky:
“WHY DOES MY FIRST DAY HAVE TO BE LIKE THIS?!”