Julian took a deep breath and carefully positioned himself next to Sandshrew. His hands were shaking as he placed them on his partner's injured body.
Okay. You can do this. You healed yourself. You can heal Sandshrew too.
He closed his eyes and reached for that mysterious energy again, feeling it respond to his call. Now came the hard part—getting it to flow outward, into another living being.
Julian's face scrunched up in concentration. His forehead creased with deep lines, veins standing out against his temples as he strained to maintain control. Sweat began beading immediately, rolling down his face and dripping onto Sandshrew's matted fur with soft little plip sounds.
His breathing got heavier, more labored, like he was physically wrestling with something.
Come on. Move. Flow out. Please.
At first, the energy responded sluggishly. Inside his own body, it had been obedient, easy to direct. But pushing it outside himself? That was a completely different challenge.
The energy leaked out from his palms in a thin, uncertain trickle—more like trying to squeeze water through a coffee filter than the steady flow Julian needed. His whole body trembled with the effort.
"I have to succeed," he muttered through gritted teeth, his voice barely above a whisper. "I have to save you, Sandshrew. Come on, work with me here..."
The smell in the burrow was getting worse—damp earth mixed with the metallic tang of blood, both his and Sandshrew's. The pungent odor made Julian's stomach turn, made his anxiety spike even higher.
But he didn't open his eyes. Didn't break concentration. He kept his gaze fixed on Sandshrew's unconscious form, as if his willpower alone could pull his partner back from the edge.
Then, suddenly, everything changed.
The moment the energy actually made contact with Sandshrew's body—really connected, not just touched the surface—Julian felt something like an electric shock run through him.
His consciousness lurched.
It was like his soul got yanked out of his body and dragged somewhere else entirely. Julian's face went tight with shock, his eyes squeezed even more tightly shut. More sweat poured down his face, tracking lines through the dirt on his cheeks.
His hands pressed hard against Sandshrew's sides, fingers digging in slightly, trembling with the strain of whatever was happening.
What the hell is this?
Julian's breathing went ragged. Each inhale felt like he was trying to capture and hold onto something slippery, something that wanted to escape. Each exhale felt like he was pushing his consciousness deeper into... into...
Into Sandshrew. I'm inside Sandshrew's body. I can see inside him.
It was the strangest sensation Julian had ever experienced. He could feel Sandshrew's life force—weak, so incredibly weak it was terrifying. Like a candle flame in a windstorm, flickering, barely holding on, about to go out any second.
"Hold on," Julian whispered, his voice cracking. "Please, Sandshrew, just hold on. I've got you."
What Julian saw in this weird inner vision completely blew his mind.
Pokemon anatomy was nothing like human anatomy. Not even close.
Deep in Sandshrew's core—maybe where his heart would be, maybe somewhere else entirely—there was this glowing sphere. It pulsed with dim yellow light, flickering weakly like a dying star. The light wasn't steady; it stuttered and wavered, threatening to go dark completely.
What is that thing?
Julian had never heard of anything like this. Not in any of the textbooks he'd read, not in any of the breeding manuals he'd studied. The system database had nothing on it either.
Fear spiked through him. Don't touch it. Whatever that is, it's important. Probably vital. If I mess with it wrong, I could kill him.
Julian forced himself to look past the sphere, to examine the rest of what he was seeing.
Surrounding the glowing core were these channels—pathways that carried energy through Sandshrew's body. They wound around and through everything like some kind of intricate subway system, branching and connecting in complex patterns that made Julian's head hurt just looking at them.
They're like... meridians? Like in those old kung fu stories where people talk about chi flowing through their bodies?
Julian had read enough web novels in his previous life to recognize the concept. Except this was real. Actually real. Energy—not blood, not nerve signals, but actual energy—flowing through dedicated channels in a Pokemon's body.
"I have no idea what these are called here," Julian muttered, his mental voice tinged with awe and confusion. "But they've gotta work like meridians, right? Energy circulation system?"
As he examined the channels more closely, though, Julian noticed a serious problem.
Most of them were blocked. Clogged up, narrow, barely functional. Only a few of the major pathways were open enough for energy to flow through, and even those were struggling. The energy would circulate sluggishly, loop back to the central sphere, then try again—an endless, exhausting cycle getting nowhere.
Is this normal? Or is this because of the injuries?
Julian didn't know, and right now, it didn't matter.
"Focus," he told himself firmly. "Stop getting distracted. You're here to heal Sandshrew, not study Pokemon biology. Priorities."
He took a deep mental breath and forced his attention back to the immediate problem: the injuries.
Okay. The bee venom first. That was the most dangerous thing—poison spreading through Sandshrew's system, doing damage every second.
Julian carefully adjusted how much energy he was outputting, trying to get the flow steady and controlled. It felt like trying to steer a boat through rough water—one wrong move and everything would go sideways.
Easy. Slow and steady. Don't rush.
He guided the mysterious energy toward the concentrations of venom he could sense in Sandshrew's body. The poison showed up as dark, ugly spots in his inner vision, like ink stains spreading through water.
The moment his healing energy touched the venom, something incredible happened.
The poison just... dissolved. Broke apart and dissipated like sugar in hot water. It didn't resist or fight back—it just vanished on contact, unable to withstand the power flowing from Julian.
And each time a bit of poison disappeared, Sandshrew's body twitched slightly. Small muscle spasms, like he was fighting through pain even while unconscious.
"I know it hurts," Julian said softly, his mental voice gentle. "Just hang in there. Almost done with the poison. You're doing great."
Sweat kept pouring down Julian's actual face, making his eyes sting. His vision blurred, but he didn't dare wipe it away—didn't dare move his hands from Sandshrew's body and risk breaking the connection.
Just a little more. Come on.
Finally, the last traces of venom broke down and vanished. Sandshrew's body gave one more shudder, then seemed to relax slightly.
But Julian didn't stop. Couldn't stop. The venom was gone, but the physical injuries were still there—puncture wounds, torn muscle tissue, damaged blood vessels, all of it.
He shifted his focus to the wounds themselves.
This part was harder. More delicate. Julian had to carefully guide the energy to each injury site, using it to stimulate healing. It was like being a surgeon, except instead of a scalpel, he was working with pure life force.
The mysterious energy moved through the damaged tissues under Julian's direction, and everywhere it went, cells started regenerating. It was like watching time-lapse footage of a plant growing—injuries that should've taken weeks to heal were closing in minutes.
Torn muscle fibers reconnected. Blood vessels sealed themselves. Skin knitted back together.
Julian watched in absolute amazement as the puncture wounds from the Beedrill stingers gradually closed up. The raw, bloody mess of Sandshrew's injuries transformed before his inner vision—new tissue growing, inflammation fading, everything returning to how it should be.
Within just a few minutes, all the major wounds were healed. Only faint scars remained, barely visible beneath the fur.
If it weren't for the blood matted into Sandshrew's coat and the general mess of his appearance, you'd never know he'd been on death's door just minutes ago.
"Holy crap," Julian breathed, opening his eyes and staring at Sandshrew. "That actually worked. That actually worked."
The power of this energy was beyond anything he could've imagined. It wasn't just healing—it was practically miraculous.
But as the seconds ticked by and Sandshrew still didn't wake up, Julian's relief started morphing into new panic.
Wait. Why isn't he waking up? The poison's gone. The wounds are healed. So why—
"Come on, Sandshrew, wake up," Julian said, his voice rising with stress. He started pacing in the small burrow, three steps one way, turn, three steps back. His shoes scraped against the dirt floor in an anxious rhythm. He kept running his hands through his hair, tugging at it in frustration. "What did I miss? What's still wrong?"
The poison's cleared. The injuries are fixed. Everything should be fine. So what the hell is the problem?
His voice cracked slightly as desperation crept in. "This doesn't make sense. You should be awake. Why aren't you awake?"
The sound of his own voice echoing in the small space just made him feel more isolated, more helpless.
Julian forced himself to stop pacing and think.
Okay. What else did I see in there? The energy channels. Those were mostly blocked. And that glowing sphere—the core.
He looked down at Sandshrew's still form, his mind racing.
The sphere had looked important. No—vital. Like it was the center of everything, the source of Sandshrew's life force or energy or whatever it was. There was only one, and messing with it felt incredibly dangerous.
I can't touch that. Not without knowing what it does. If I damage it somehow, I could kill him.
But the energy channels... those had been clogged, blocked, barely functional. Maybe that was the problem? Maybe with the channels so restricted, Sandshrew didn't have enough energy circulation to wake up?
"That's gotta be it," Julian muttered, crouching down next to Sandshrew again. "Nothing else makes sense."
He placed his trembling hands back on Sandshrew's body, took a deep breath, and closed his eyes once more.
Back into the weird inner vision. Here we go.
The sensation of his consciousness diving into Sandshrew's body was a little less jarring this time, but still deeply strange. Julian pushed past the discomfort and focused on those energy channels he'd seen before.
Okay. If I can clear these blockages, maybe that'll help. But I need to be careful. Really careful.
Julian started with just a tiny trickle of energy—barely anything at all. Like dipping a single toe into unknown water to test the temperature.
Please don't let this make things worse.
He carefully directed that small amount of energy toward one of the blocked channels and watched what happened.
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