The last thing Mateo "Teo" Dela Cruz remembered was the scream of an electric motor—too fast, too close—and then impact.
He'd been crossing EDSA near Cubao, scrolling through a group chat about whether adobo should have coconut milk (it shouldn't, obviously), when a delivery rider on a full-throttle e-bike swerved to avoid a jeepney that never stopped. Teo didn't even see it coming. One second he was thinking about dinner, the next—crack.
Not a loud sound. Not dramatic. Just a wet, sharp thud, like a sack of rice hitting concrete.
Then blackness.
He woke up choking.
Not on smoke. On ash—fine, gray, bitter powder that clung to his tongue and throat like ground bone. He rolled onto his side, coughing violently, palms scraping against something hard and glassy. His head pounded. Blood trickled from a gash above his eyebrow. Every breath sent fire through his ribs.
"Where…?" he rasped, voice raw.
No honking. No street vendors yelling "Balot!" No smell of exhaust and sizzling isaw. Just silence—and heat. Dry, oppressive heat that pressed down like a lid on a boiling pot.
He forced himself up, wincing. His left ankle throbbed—definitely twisted. His Barangay Ginebra shirt was torn at the shoulder, his jeans soaked in something sticky that wasn't sweat. He looked around.
Jagged obsidian plains stretched to the horizon. The sky wasn't blue. It was bruised—deep purple-black, split by slow-pulsing veins of crimson light. In the distance, mountains belched black smoke.
"This… this isn't Manila," he whispered.
He pinched his arm. Hard.
It hurt.
Okay. Not a dream.
He stood, swaying slightly, and limped forward, scanning for anything familiar—a road, a sign, even a damn billboard for Chowking. Nothing.
Then movement.
In the ashen scrub ahead, something emerged.
Canine. Blue fur. Red spikes on its hands and chest. A black mask over its eyes.
Teo froze.
"No fucking way."
It was a Lucario.
A real, living Pokémon.
His brain short-circuited. He'd watched the anime as a kid. Played the games. Collected cards. But this… this was real. Flesh and blood and breath.
His fear flickered into awe.
Then horror.
Because behind it, half-buried in the ash, lay another Pokémon—a small green reptile, maybe a Treecko. Its throat was torn open. Guts spilled onto the black rock. Flies buzzed. And the Lucario?
It turned its head.
Blood coated its muzzle.
It locked eyes with Teo—wild, desperate, exhausted—and then went back to tearing into the carcass with sharp, hurried bites. Not out of cruelty. Out of starvation.
Teo stumbled back, bile rising in his throat.
This wasn't the Pokémon world he knew.
No Poké Balls. No Nurse Joy. No gentle battles that ended with a faint and a nap.
This was nature. Red in tooth and claw.
The Treecko wasn't "fainted." It was dead. Eaten.
And the Lucario looked like it hated itself for doing it.
Cold dread sank into Teo's chest like stone.
Oh god. I'm not in a game. I'm in a goddamn food chain.
He sank to his knees, ribs screaming.
Then it hit him.
The e-bike. The impact. The darkness.
…I died.
He'd been hit at nearly 60 kph. No helmet. No chance.
And now… this?
Why?
He wasn't special. Just a 23-year-old Filipino call center agent who loved his lola's sinigang and hated rush hour on the MRT.
He closed his eyes.
Please let this be a coma dream.
But the ash in his mouth didn't vanish. The pain didn't fade.
Then—the world stopped.
Not metaphorically.
Everything went silent. Wind. Distant groans of shifting earth. Even his own heartbeat—gone.
In that hollow void, words burned into his mind like hot iron:
[ EVOLUTION INTEGRATION SYSTEM — INITIALIZING ]
No voice. No flash. Just cold, clinical data flooding his consciousness.
Host identity confirmed: Mateo Dela Cruz
Origin World: Earth-734 (Non-native)
Cause of Transfer: Fatal kinetic trauma (e-bike collision @ 58 km/h)
Soul integrity: 92% — acceptable for integration
Evolution Potential: ACCEPTABLE
Teo gasped, clutching his skull.
So I'm dead. And this… thing… pulled me here.
Not as a hero. Not as a chosen one.
As raw material.
His vision flickered—suddenly layered. He saw heat signatures. Heartbeats. Threat vectors.
And behind him—
Movement.
Fast. Low.
He turned.
A nightmare on eight legs. Chitinous shell. Mandibles clicking. A stinger dripping black fluid that hissed as it hit the ground.
[ WARNING ]
Unregistered Hostile Lifeform Detected
Species: Scorchclaw Predator (Tier 2)
Survival Probability: 12%
Teo's blood turned to ice.
He had no weapon. No idea how to fight. He worked in customer service.
The creature shrieked—a sound like glass dragged over steel—and charged.
He dove sideways, pain exploding through his ribs as he hit the ground. The stinger whistled past his ear, embedding in the obsidian with a crack.
He scrambled back, heart hammering.
I'm gonna die. Again.
But then—a blue blur.
The Lucario.
Half-starved. Bleeding from old wounds. But it moved.
It slammed into the Scorchclaw with a guttural roar, aura flaring weakly around its fists—more a dying ember than a flame. The predator backhanded it like trash. Lucario flew twenty feet, slamming into a rock spire before collapsing, motionless.
The Scorchclaw turned back to Teo.
Six violet eyes fixed on him.
Teo closed his eyes.
Make it quick.
But instead of death, a choice bloomed in his mind:
Continue?
Abort?
Abort meant the System would leave him. Let him die. Erase him like a glitch.
Continue meant letting it in. Risking mutation. Insanity. Death in new and creative ways.
He looked at the fallen Lucario.
At the dead Treecko.
At the predator circling like he was just another meal.
This world didn't care about fairness.
But if he wanted to live—if he wanted to understand why he was here—he had to play.
"I choose continue," he whispered.
[ SYNCHRONIZATION INITIATED — LUCARIO (ID: AURA-7) ]
[ NEURAL LINK ESTABLISHED — 18% ]
Agony ripped through Teo's skull—not his own, but the Lucario's. Memories flooded him:
—A trainer's hand, warm on its head.
—The sky splitting open like wet paper.
—Cities burning. Mountains collapsing.
—Being thrown from a collapsing tower into this wasteland.
—Days of hunger. Killing to survive. Hating itself for living.
And one thought, over and over:
I am not a monster.
Teo opened his eyes, tears cutting tracks through the ash on his cheeks.
"No," he said, voice breaking. "You're not."
He crawled toward the Lucario, ignoring the predator behind him.
He placed a trembling hand on its chest.
"I'm here," he said, voice low and steady. "You're not alone."
The Lucario's eyes fluttered open.
And the System moved.
[ ABILITY PATH UNLOCKED: NEN (HUNTER X HUNTER) — AURA MANIPULATION ]
[ WARNING: NEURAL STRAIN AT 91% — MUTATION IMMINENT IF SYNCHRONIZATION FAILS ]
The Scorchclaw lunged.
Teo didn't dodge.
He pushed.
Not with muscle.
With something deeper—something raw and desperate.
A flicker of blue light sparked between his palm and the Lucario's chest.
The predator screamed as an invisible force hurled it backward, carapace cracking against obsidian.
Teo collapsed, nose bleeding, vision swimming.
But the Lucario sat up.
Slowly.
Its aura—dim, fractured—flickered… then pulsed.
Not strong.
But alive.
Above them, purple lightning split the sky.
Somewhere far off, something ancient stirred.
Teo coughed, tasting blood and ash.
He wasn't in Manila.
He wasn't even in the Pokémon world he remembered.
This was darker.
Realer.
And he was no longer just Mateo Dela Cruz, call center agent.
He was Host.
He was Partner.
He was prey no longer.
[ EVOLUTION INTEGRATION SYSTEM — ACTIVE ]
The path ahead would cost him everything.
But for the first time since the e-bike hit him, he felt awake.