The world slowed to a crawl as death came for Riven Valehart.
The Mightyhyena's jaws yawned wide, strands of saliva stretching between yellowed fangs. Its breath washed over him—a putrid mix of rotting meat and old copper. Every instinct in Riven screamed at him to move, to run, to fight. But his muscles refused. His body had become a cage, frozen by sheer terror, his limbs leaden and useless as he stared into the abyss of that yawning maw.
Then—light.
A streak of emerald tore through the shadows, so fast it left afterimages burning in his vision.
For one impossible heartbeat, nothing happened.
Then the Mightyhyena's head jerked back violently. A crimson geyser erupted from its throat, painting the stone walls in blood. The hot spray drenched Riven's face, stinging his eyes, filling his mouth with the iron tang of death. He gagged, coughing, blinking through the haze, heart hammering against his ribs like a trapped bird desperate for escape.
And through the red, through the pounding of blood in his ears—he saw it.
Froakie.
The small blue Pokémon stood trembling on three legs, its right arm still extended from the strike. A gash across its chest bled steadily, the wound soaking its skin a deep, unnatural purple. But it wasn't the injury that made Riven's breath catch.
It was the energy.
A sickly green aura clung to Froakie's claws, pulsing with eerie life. The air shimmered around the Pokémon, distorting light like heat haze dancing over scorched desert sands. Riven had seen enough battles to recognize elemental energy—the crisp crackle of Electric, the fluid dance of Water, the dense strength of Ground.
This was none of those.
This energy skittered. It clicked in the back of his mind, wrong in a way that made his skin crawl. It reminded him of childhood, of flipping over a rotten log and recoiling from the mass of pale, writhing insects beneath. That same primal revulsion twisted in his gut now, instinct screaming danger even as logic failed to explain.
"Froakie…?" His voice came out hoarse, barely louder than a whisper, raw from smoke and panic.
The Pokémon turned its head slowly.
Its eyes—once bright and curious—were glassy, pupils dilated so far that only a thin rim of blue remained. Something looked back at Riven through those eyes. Something not entirely Froakie anymore.
A wet cough tore through the creature's body. Froakie's mouth opened, but instead of a croak, a thick stream of dark blood poured out. It splattered across the stone with a sickening sound. The green energy flickered once, twice—and died.
Froakie collapsed, legs buckling under its weight.
The silence that followed was too brief.
A snarling, gurgling sound broke it like glass.
Riven twisted around to see the Mightyhyena still crawling toward him. Its head dangled grotesquely, held on by frayed tendons, black blood pulsing in steady bursts with each dying heartbeat. And yet—it moved. It kept coming. Claws scraped across stone. Lifeless eyes locked on him with unwavering hatred.
His knife—where was his knife?
Riven's hands scrambled across the slick floor, fingers slipping through blood until they closed around cold steel. Just as the beast's claw came slashing down, he rolled, the blade hissing past his face, ruffling his hair with the force of the strike.
The Mightyhyena loomed above him, blotting out what little light remained, its shadow long and full of death.
Then—impact.
Aron.
A streak of silver and steel slammed into the side of the beast. There was a crunch of bone as the small Pokémon hit with all its might. Aron spun midair, claws flashing like polished blades. They struck true—cutting through the final strips of tissue holding the creature's head in place.
The skull hit the ground with a sickening thud.
Its jaws still snapped for a few seconds, twitching with death's last reflex, before finally going still.
Then came true silence.
Riven's breath came in shallow gasps. Blood—some his, some Froakie's, some the monster's—soaked his clothes. His wounds ached, his limbs trembled, but he crawled anyway. Toward Froakie.
The little Pokémon was barely breathing. Each shallow inhale came with a bubbling rattle, wet and wrong. The strange green energy had vanished—but something was still off.
Froakie's skin had lost its color, the blue fading to a ghostly, washed-out grey, as if something was leeching the life from within.
Gently, Riven turned it over—and froze.
There was something beneath the skin along its spine. Hard. Sharp.
He peeled back a layer of blood-matted fur.
A line of growths—jagged, not quite scale, not quite chitin—ran along the spine in a raised ridge. They pulsed faintly with the same green light, the eerie rhythm in time with the Pokémon's weakening heartbeat.
And then he saw it—buried under Froakie's ribs.
A flicker of green. Faint. But steady.
Beating in time with its heart.
Riven's breath caught.
This wasn't over.
Something had changed inside Froakie.
Something unnatural.