The rain never really stopped in the slums of Volucité.
It fell dirty, heavy, laden with ash and industrial dust. People said it was because of the factories above, but no one really bothered to find out. Here, understanding was useless. Surviving, yes.
He moved forward alone, his worn coat pressed against his body, in no hurry. Rushing drew attention. And attention, in the slums, killed more surely than a wild Pokémon.
Around him, figures lurked in the shadows: thin humans, injured Pokémon, hybrids of misery. A Machoke with a bandaged arm was rummaging through a dumpster. A Koffing fled, too unstable to stay near the living. No one spoke. Words were a luxury.
He didn't speak either.
Since his rebirth in this world, he had learned one essential thing:
the Pokémon world was not made to be fair.
The scream was almost inaudible.
A weak, strangled sound, which even the rain seemed to try to erase. It stopped abruptly. His eyes moved toward a narrow alley, cluttered with torn cables and debris.
He watched.
An Eevee.
In this world, everyone knew one thing.
Eevee had three evolutions.
Flareon. Vaporeon. Jolteon.
It was taught in school. Repeated by the League. Engraved in the official Pokédexes.
The rest did not exist.
And when everyone agrees…
that's usually when the world is wrong.
An Eevee, here, so deep in the lower levels, was already strange.
He watched the scene without moving.
Three Rattata.
A wounded Eevee.
Obvious outcome.
His mind worked immediately.
An Eevee has no business being here.
Too weak. Too coveted.
So either it got lost… or someone threw it away.
He squinted.
No one throws away a rare Pokémon without a reason.
He squinted.
The world loved standards.
Three evolutions.
Three stones.
Three predictable outcomes.
If an Eevee doesn't react as expected…
Then it becomes a problem.
He entered the alley.
The first Rattata attacked him without thinking. Bad decision.
A quick, precise movement. He grabbed an abandoned metal bar from the ground. Not to hit hard. To hit accurately. The Pokémon was thrown against the wall and did not get up.
The other two hesitated.
Hesitation is death.
When the silence fell, he stayed still, watching the Eevee.
The wound was old.
Treated once. Then ignored.
They tried to make it evolve.
It did nothing.
They gave up.
He crouched.
His gaze was cold, but interested.
An unknown variable, it was a weapon.
The other trainers prepare their battles thinking they know all the possibilities.
The League too.
He imagined an arena.
An official battle.
An Eevee evolving… and not into Flareon, Vaporeon, or Jolteon.
The element of surprise.
The panic.
The decisive advantage.
He improvised a splint. Precise gesture. Cold. Calculated.
— You're going to walk, he said.
It wasn't a promise.
It was an investment.
He got up.
I'm not saving you because you're weak.
I'm saving you because you can become unpredictable.
He turned his back.
After a few seconds, he heard the clumsy steps behind him.
Good.
If you survive until then…
Then you will give me what others will never have.
In a Pokémon world trapped in its certainties, a man from the slums had just made a simple choice:
get ahead.