The forest thickened around them like a living cage, branches weaving overhead into a lattice that allowed only fragments of light to strike the ground. Cyrus adjusted his hold on the blue Tyrunt — two feet of stubborn muscle, scales, and attitude squirming in his arms. The little dinosaur growled at every rustling leaf as though each one personally offended it.
"Easy," Cyrus breathed. "I'm trying not to drop you. Again."
Tyrunt clicked its jaws and puffed out its throat — still proud, still annoyed, but not fighting to escape anymore. Its injury had slowed; the potion had worked. But beneath that pride, Cyrus could feel the faint tremors of fear. It was acting brave because bravery was the only thing it had left.
Ditto, having transformed into a snug vest around Cyrus's torso, jiggled slightly with each step. It had taken the role upon itself the moment Cyrus freed his arms.
"Don't you dare," Cyrus warned under his breath as Tyrunt sniffed Ditto's surface. Too late — the dinosaur leaned forward and gave a testing lick.
Ditto made a wet, offended shlorp noise.
"No. No licking the equipment," Cyrus hissed. "Or… the Ditto."
Tyrunt blinked, smug, as though it had won something important.
Meltan and Charcadet padded along at Cyrus's heels… until the forest shivered. A sound — deep, guttural, wrong — rolled through the trunks. Cyrus immediately crouched and tapped both Poké Balls to recall them in flashes of red light.
"Stay safe," he whispered as they disappeared.
Gengar floated up behind him and slipped silently into his shadow — a cold, reassuring weight pressing beneath his heels.
The forest went quiet. Too quiet.
Tyrunt's eyes narrowed. Its claws tightened against Cyrus's jacket.
Then the stillness broke.
A crack of branches. Heavy footfalls. Harsh, hungry breathing.
Cyrus pulled himself behind a thick trunk, peering through the leaves.
Up ahead, three Bastiodon stood back-to-back, shields braced outward, horns locked. Their stony plates were cracked, bleeding, but their formation remained strong… until the predators struck again.
Velozolt — six of them — electric arcs snapping between their talons. Raptor-fast. Coordinated. Starving.
Their teeth sank into exposed joints. Their tails lashed like whips. Thunder cracked with each lunge.
One Bastiodon bellowed — a desperate, furious roar — but the defenders were faltering. Just one misstep…
They broke formation.
In an instant, the Velozolt swarmed the isolated Bastiodon, dragging it down in a frenzy of lightning and teeth. The ground shook with each violent impact.
Cyrus pressed back against the tree, breath locked in his chest. His pulse thundered against the frightened squirming Tyrunt resting against him.
Cyrus tried to move, slow and silent, edging backwards through the brush.
Then his boot scraped against a stone.
The sound was nothing. Small. Harmless.
To everything except a pack of hunting raptors.
Six bright, slit-pupiled eyes snapped toward him.
Tyrunt whimpered and curled into Cyrus's chest.
The Velozolt hissed… and charged.
Cyrus ran.
Branches whipped at his face. Roots grasped at his ankles. The forest blurred. He clutched Tyrunt tighter, lungs burning, Ditto tightening protectively against his ribs.
Shadows churned behind him — claws digging earth, lightning popping like firecrackers.
"Gengar!" Cyrus threw the name like a command and a plea.
The ground behind him erupted in black.
Gengar burst from his shadow, eyes blazing. A pulse of darkness exploded outward — a Dark Pulse that slammed into the lead Velozolt, hurling it into a tree. The others skidded, regrouping, snarling.
The alpha of the pack — a Velozolt with a jagged scar over its snout — stepped forward. Electricity flared from its jaw. Its glare locked onto Cyrus.
Gengar moved again. A Shadow Ball formed, churning with ghostly turbulence… and detonated against the ground before the pack. Soil and splinters flew. The attackers reeled, screeching.
The scarred leader held the air a moment longer — staring, judging — then whipped its tail and vanished into the undergrowth, the pack slithering after it like streaks of living thunder.
Silence dropped like a stone.
Cyrus couldn't breathe. Tyrunt clung to him, claws digging through his shirt. The little dinosaur's chest heaved, a tiny heart pounding against his ribs.
"You're alright," Cyrus rasped, rubbing a thumb gently along Tyrunt's jaw. "We're still here."
But Tyrunt didn't relax.
Because the forest had gone silent again.
This silence was different.
Darker.
A rumble swept through the ground — a quake so violent it knocked Cyrus onto his back, shielded only by Ditto's quick reshape and Tyrunt's desperate grip around his neck.
The trees parted.
And death entered the clearing.
A Tyrantrum — colossal, scar-laced, bone horns cracked and battle-worn — thundered into view. Its roar tore bark from trunks and sent loose stone tumbling from cliffs.
Opposite it, towering from the earth like a metal god, a Mega Steelix snarled and lashed its crystalline body like a whip, shattering rock with a single strike.
The two titans collided — metal screeching against scale — and the entire island seemed to groan in protest.
Tyrunt chirped — a tiny, aching sound.
Cyrus looked down.
The little dinosaur's eyes were wide and shimmering. Fear and hope and longing tangled together in its trembling body.
That Tyrantrum wasn't just any predator.
It might be its parent.
Another earth-splitting roar.
Tyrantrum lunged, jaws clamping onto Steelix's armored neck. Steelix writhed, plates grinding, then whipped its tail — a blow like a falling meteor — throwing Tyrantrum through a wall of stone.
Dust erupted.
Tyrunt screeched — a shrill, broken plea.
Cyrus held him tight… because he understood.
He could not run now.
He could not abandon this Pokémon to fight alone against an island designed to kill the weak.
Gengar drifted forward, eyes narrowing. Ready. Watching.
The dust cleared.
Two monsters — one steel, one bone — bared their fangs and charged again.
Cyrus swallowed hard.
"We're in this now," he whispered.
No turning back.No safe path.
Only the fight for survival.
And the battle of titans raging ahead.