Dark.
Cold.
The metal floor of the cage rattled beneath Riolu's body with each bump and jolt, but it couldn't move—not yet. The sedative fog still clung to its blood. Its limbs twitched but refused to obey.
Its aura flared and faded like a dying ember.
Pain. Fear. Hate. Greed.
The emotions of the men around it pressed into its skull like thorns.
Their auras were jagged. Gray-black. Empty of honor.
They laughed when it resisted.
They struck when it refused.
They cheered when it fell.
Each moment left another crack in its trust, its body, its will.
But then.
A shift.
A breath in the distance.
A pulse of light.
It wasn't physical.
Not a sound. Not a scent.
It was a feeling.
An aura.
Riolu's ears twitched.
It was like touching warm stone. Like standing at the heart of a mountain that wouldn't break, even against the sky itself.
Calm. Resolve. Pain. Hope.
The pulse came again.
Stronger.
Closer.
Riolu's heart beat once—sharply.
Eyes fluttered open, barely slits.
Its vision blurred.
But it saw the light approaching.
A boy.
His silhouette was haloed in a storm of golden-blue threads—thin, elegant, ancient.
Not wild.
Not human.
Something between.
Riolu had heard stories in the wind of forests past.
Of humans who moved like Pokémon.
Who fought for balance, not profit.
Who carried the aura of the origin.
And now one stood before it.
The boy's voice cut across the clearing.
"That Riolu doesn't belong to you."
The hunters turned. Fear. Confusion. Rage. The usual.
But Riolu felt something else from the boy.
Controlled power.
Loyalty.
Grief.
This boy had lost things.
And kept walking.
It stirred something inside Riolu's chest.
Something it hadn't felt since it was taken.
Memory.
A pulse.
A flicker.
A tower in a dream.
A man made of light kneeling before a Riolu just like it, his palm glowing with a spiral of aura, whispering something it couldn't understand.
A promise.
A bond.
Its aura trembled.
Its fingers twitched.
The cage no longer felt like a cage.
It felt like a question.
And the boy…
Felt like an answer.
The men reached for their Poké Balls.
Steel against steel.
They had numbers.
They had type advantage.
But they didn't have intention.
The boy did.
The boy moved like wind through flame, commanding without shouting, stepping without fear.
His aura blazed.
Charizard landed beside him with a roar.
Light met darkness.
And Riolu felt its aura rise in sync.
Not fully healed.
Not yet free.
But awake.
It pressed one hand against the cage.
Metal hummed beneath its palm.
Its aura burned.
It remembered.
Who it was.
What it was meant for.
And who it was meant to find.
The boy turned his head briefly—eyes locking with Riolu's.
Skylar.
Not a master.
Not yet.
But a flame with the potential to become one.
And Riolu…
Would follow that flame.