Of course it couldn't withstand the power of that Seed Bomb. The instant the barrier shattered, Abra had already grabbed Ethan and Houndour and Teleported away.
There was no escaping before the move landed. Because it was a Present, even if you fled it would chase you; the opponent had even stacked Phantom Force just to keep a lock.So the "gift" had to be received—let the move trigger, then escape.
Staring at the collapsed cliffside and the rising mushroom cloud in the distance, Ethan was grateful he had Abra as a partner. Without it, he'd have been stuck in that freakish forest long ago.
After waiting a beat and seeing no more Presents ripping out of the rift, Ethan finally exhaled.
"Houndour, sweep the outskirts and keep burning. These trees are all its roots. Torch everything—don't leave behind some ancient remnant to hurt people."
Fresh from learning Flamethrower, Houndour happily took the job, sprinting laps and spraying fire.
Ethan popped an Energy Cube and handed it to the drained Abra to top up its strength."Nice work. Hang in there—almost done."
About twenty minutes later, the writhing trees inside the firestorm stopped struggling. Which likely meant the controller behind them was dead.
Time to cash in.
Before they'd bailed, Abra had left a Super Imprint stone at the temple gate to make returning easy. Ethan recalled Houndour and let Abra carry him with Teleport.
A white flash—Ethan and Abra reappeared in a sea of flame. Abra carefully parted the fire with telekinesis, keeping the heat off Ethan.
Houndour burst from its ball, volunteering on its own. With Flash Fire, it carved out a broad, safe pocket of air for Ethan to move in.
Even so, Ethan looked rough—the temperature here was brutal. He didn't have Houndour's hide or Abra's elemental tolerance; the heat alone made him reel.
He glanced at the scorched ground and the charred little shrine and gave a helpless shrug."So I just… burned down a millennia-old site. If the rangers nab me, I'm doing, what, ten years?"
Behind the shrine, the ten-meter Trevenant was nearly gone. The trunk was even drier; the insides had long since rotted. Under the blaze it broke apart, turning into crimson coals that kept on burning.
"Houndour, on me."
Guided by the birthmark's pull, with Houndour leading, Ethan finally found the ancient fruit beneath several toppled trees to the shrine's left.
Just as he'd hoped, it was fine.
Even in the fire it was only lukewarm, palm-sized, springy like a rubber ball. A slick film seemed to sheath its surface, condensing all that ancient energy into a milky white body veined with snake-like black mist. Even plucked and resting in Ethan's hand, it felt vividly alive.
Judging by the sear crawling from his wrist's birthmark, it should be worth close to 3,000 ancient-energy points—about the same as that broken jade pig-dragon.
But he didn't feed it to the mark. He slipped it into his Backpack, opened the view, and relaxed only when he saw it hadn't been auto-devoured.
He had Houndour rein the flames in, making sure the burn stayed confined to Trevenant's forest, then turned to leave.
Half an hour after Ethan was gone, a forest ranger finally arrived and had his Water-type douse the blaze.
Rangers here weren't like in the anime; they were Alliance civil servants with full selection, appointment, assessment, and promotion systems. Even a baseline ranger needed a team averaging level 35–45, six non-overlapping types, enough to handle most hazards in their sector.
This one had been patrolling the official boundary to keep high-tier Pokémon from disrupting normal life. He was wrestling a bear when HQ pinged about a wildfire on his patch. He finished that mess, then rushed in on a flier.
Once the Water Gun smothered the flames, he eyed the lone, grotesquely charred trees and the old shrine remains, then concluded a Fire-type had taken revenge on a Phantom Forest of Phantump—and quietly didn't report the shrine upstream.
Bureaucrats who do nothing aren't rare. And he knew how sensitive the Alliance was about "ancient ruins." Even without the details, this shrine clearly wasn't simple. If anything important had been here, it was already gone; with nothing to trace, why blow up his own day?
He searched the shrine top to bottom. Finding nothing, he sent out an Onix and had it flatten the site.
If something truly important had been inside and he reported it only for it to be missing, he'd eat the blame. He'd worked this beat for years and never logged the anomaly—did that make him incompetent? Better to take a slap for lax supervision and lose a few months' pay than lose the job when the shrine went public.
…
On the bus into the city, Ethan had no idea someone had just covered for him. From today on, no one would know he'd walked off with something priceless.
He stared out the window, mulling over the fruit.
If it existed, the Alliance had seen its like—and knew more about how to use it. The near-absence of ancient-energy talk on academic sites and forums pretty much screamed curation.
That's why he wasn't feeding it to the birthmark yet. As long as the mark wasn't flaring hard enough to mess with daily life, he'd keep the fruit intact until he learned more.
Ancient energy, ancient fruit, ancient Pokémon… this world was turning out a lot more interesting than the cartoons ever hinted.
Ethan looked at the rolling green ridges outside and felt his chest fill with a fierce kind of hope.
…
To make taking jobs easier, Lana had rented a place in the city. They'd talked yesterday. Because of Pokémon, she didn't love sharing with strangers; even though it was a two-bedroom, one-living room unit, she lived alone—so Ethan could crash in the spare room.
Knowing he was coming, Lana skipped missions and cooked him a legit feast.
After dinner, Ethan asked about her last two days. "Not bad," Lana said—enough to cover daily spend.
She'd taken two jobs in three days. The first was a co-op task: inspect assigned sewer runs for wild Pokémon strong enough to threaten residents—¥30,000 payout.
The second was a house call to clear a Ghost-type. That one paid better: she sold the Misdreavus to the Trainers' Association for ¥150,000.
Looked like a windfall, but they both knew most of that was the sale price—even without egg moves, a rare Ghost was money.
Bottom line: poaching (or "hunting") Pokémon is insanely profitable. Catch the right rarity and, even sans inherited moves, you're talking more than Ethan's parents could earn in years.
Unfortunately, the Alliance strictly bans wrecking wild ecosystems. Get caught poaching and the penalties are heavy.
Still happens, of course—big profits pull people into big risks. And it's not easy money: you sneak around, you scrap with strong wilds, you get hurt, sometimes worse. And training costs are brutal—Mozi Berries at ¥10,000 each, rare evolution stones over a million, family heirloom move scrolls, priceless Mega stones… it adds up. Most aren't living large unless they're big-time operators.
Public opinion paints them as villains anyway.
Talking it through, the two traded a look and, with mutual understanding, shook their heads—for now. Some lines couldn't be crossed yet. But black isn't always black, and white isn't always white.
Otherwise, how do you explain where that Scorbunny Ethan's hunting for is coming from?
Same ideals, same background, a little something unspoken between them—the conversation looped through cheering each other on.
Ethan slipped her two Energy Cubes to test compatibility. In the end, Lana felt only fullness—no special digestion, same as Ethan's parents.
Only then did Ethan dare conclude: he's the odd one out.
Ethan "Super-Cute" Sheng has entered the chat.