Kairos snapped his fingers.
The villa disappeared.
For one weightless instant, there was only golden light, Marshadow's startled shout, and the sensation of the world folding in on itself. Then Kairos opened his eyes beneath a sky that wasn't the real sky.
Pokemon: Genesis spread out around him.
Mountains floated in the distance like islands. Rivers of light cut through open plains, and between them, wild Pokemon moved in herds.
Every blade of grass had weight. Every gust of wind carried the smell of rain and fresh earth.
Marshadow hovered beside him, eyes wide.
"This is a game?"
"Not anymore," Kairos said.
Marshadow spun toward him. "You said you were taking me to Lord Ho-Oh. Right now."
"I'm taking you to the strongest trace Ho-Oh left behind," Kairos said. "If we can't reach him directly yet, we start by finding his trail."
Dragonite landed behind them with a low rumble. Gengar rose from Kairos's shadow, already grinning, until Chandelure's flame grazed its head in warning.
Kairos pulled up the Genesis control layer. Thousands of players were pouring in across three worlds, but he ignored the numbers and zeroed in on one map.
Faith traces.
Tiny rainbow lights flickered across the vast world, each one sparked by a player who had witnessed Ho-Oh inside a story, a rescue, a miracle.
Marshadow went quiet.
For once, he didn't joke.
"Lord Ho-Oh..."
The lights drifted toward a distant mountain wrapped in cloud. Not enough to reveal Ho-Oh fully, but enough to mark a path.
Kairos studied it. "You said I promised to help restore him."
"You did."
"Then we start here."
Before Marshadow could respond, another trace moved across the control layer.
Not rainbow.
Black-gold.
It cut through the Genesis sky like an eye opening from the other side of glass.
Giratina.
Kairos's eyes narrowed. "Watching already?"
Genesis had thinned the border between worlds the moment it opened. If anything was going to notice a new door pressing against reality, it would be the one that ruled the space behind it.
The trace shifted, then fixed itself over a valley marked by three symbols: rainbow wing, black spiral, green dragon.
Elsewhere in Genesis, Cynthia opened her eyes, Garchomp at her side. The last line of the trailer was still running through her head.
Between the game and reality, there will be no border.
Cynthia looked out at the impossible world ahead.
Then the same three symbols shimmered faintly above the distant valley, like a myth answering the shape of her thoughts.
Her expression sharpened.
"So that's where this begins."
~~~
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