The transport to the Cinnabar Medical Annex was a high-pressure vacuum. Zeth lay on the anti-gravity stretcher, surrounded by four Elite Rangers, while Lance sat opposite him, eyes closed, seemingly meditating—though the air in the cabin hummed with the invisible weight of his Dragon-Aura.
Zeth's mind, however, was far from calm. His internal HUD was screaming with proximity alerts as the League's scanners tried to penetrate his tactical vest.
'Data-Zero,' Zeth called out in the silent theater of his mind. 'The moment we hit the facility, they're going to strip my gear. They'll find the Luxury Ball. If they scan a Blue-potential Porygon in the hands of a Trainee, we're done.'
A pulse of cold, sharp data rippled through his consciousness. It wasn't a voice, but a stream of pure logic.
[Link Established...] [Subject: Data-Zero (Porygon - Blue Potential)] [Status: Optimizing System Architecture...] [Proposal: Digital Migration. Reason: Physical containment is 98% compromised.]
Zeth's heart hammered against his ribs. 'You can live inside the System?'
[Confirmed. I am a creature of code. Your internal interface, anchored by the Primal Spark, provides a stable 'Sub-Space' environment. Requesting permission to de-materialize physical form.]
'Do it,' Zeth commanded. 'Now.'
Under the heavy fabric of his vest, the Luxury Ball didn't click; it grew ice-cold. Inside, the Porygon dissolved into a stream of cyan-colored light, but instead of manifesting in the air, the light was sucked directly into Zeth's skin, drawn toward the violet heat of the Primal Spark.
A searing, electric jolt shot through Zeth's nervous system. He gasped, his back arching off the stretcher.
"Stabilize him!" Lance barked, his eyes snapping open. A medical droid immediately extended a needle, but Zeth slumped back, his breathing ragged.
"Just... the burns," Zeth wheezed, clenching his teeth.
In the back of his mind, the HUD transformed. The flickering, grainy interface he had relied on suddenly sharpened into a crystal-clear, high-definition display. The Porygon wasn't just a tool anymore; it was the Core Processor.
[Migration Complete.] [Physical Luxury Ball: Empty.] [New Function Unlocked: Deep-Trace Masking.] [Status: I am the System.]
Zeth felt a grim sense of satisfaction. The "grind" had just paid off in a way the League couldn't possibly fathom. He reached into his pocket and subtly pressed the release button on the Luxury Ball. It popped open—empty. To anyone who found it, it would look like a discarded, broken capture device from the Gate.
The transport touched down atop a black-rock spire overlooking the Cinnabar volcano. The facility was a fortress of steel and glass, designed to contain survivors of the most volatile rifts. As the Rangers wheeled Zeth through the decontamination arch, the scanners flared, and the lead technician pulled out a handheld Potential Resonance Device—the League's most accurate tool for measuring a Pokémon's ultimate ceiling.
"Hold!" Commander Vera called out. "I want a manual potential check. We've had too many 'glitches' in the broad-spectrum scanners today."
Zeth's pulse hammered. A manual device didn't rely on the local network; it read the biological frequency of the Pokéball itself. If that device touched the Bagon's ball, it would scream Black-Tier potential—the mark of a Champion's ace or a weak legendary beast. Zeth would never see that Dragon again.
Inside the theater of his mind, Zeth's interface turned a violent, warning red.
'Data-Zero! The handheld is analog-to-digital. You can't spoof the network if the device is offline!'
[Calculated Risk: 89% Neural Strain.] The Porygon's logic surged through his brain. [If I cannot spoof the device, I must spoof the Pokémon. I will use the Primal Spark to 'Dampen' their biological resonance. I will physically suppress their potential signatures by wrapping them in a layer of 'Dead-Data' from the Gate.]
'Do it. Now!'
Zeth gritted his teeth as the Primal Spark in his arm flared with a cold, agonizing light beneath his skin. He reached out with his mind, using Data-Zero as a conduit to project a "shell" of stagnant, grey energy into the Pokéballs on his belt. It was a biological suppression—forcing his Pokémon's inner power into a state of temporary hibernation.
The technician pressed the sensor against the Shiny Bagon's ball. The device hummed, its needle flickering as it struggled to read through the "noise" Zeth was projecting.
Beep. Beep. Beep.
"Reading confirmed," the tech muttered, squinting at the screen. "Red-tier. It's exactly as the wide-scan suggested. The Shiny mutation is a dead-end; its internal reservoirs are shallow. Beautiful, but functionally useless for high-level combat."
Lance stepped closer, his eyes narrowing. He didn't trust the machine. He trusted his instinct, and his instinct told him that a Dragon found in a C-Rank Gate shouldn't be that quiet. "And the Lunar Charmeleon? Check the inverted thermal signature."
The technician moved the device to the next ball. The Lunar Charmeleon was a different beast—its cold, pale moonlight was aggressive. Data-Zero worked double-time, weaving a "Static-Loop" around the Charmeleon's heart.
"Yellow-tier," the tech reported. "The Lunar mutation has caused 'Cellular Degeneration.' It's powerful for its level, but it'll never reach the Elite tiers. Its body is literally eating itself."
As the technician stepped back, Zeth felt the Primal Spark snap back into his arm. The suppression was over, but the toll was heavy. Blood began to leak from his nose, and his vision swam with static.
"He's crashing!" a medic shouted.
"Exhaustion," Lance said, though his eyes remained fixed on the Pokéballs. He reached down and picked up the Shiny Bagon's ball, holding it up to the light. The Bagon inside was silent, its true Black-tier power buried under the 'Dead-Data' Zeth had forced into its soul.
"If these Pokémon are truly 'duds,' then you really are just a lucky scavenger, aren't you, Zeth?" Lance whispered, his voice dripping with a skepticism that hadn't quite faded. "But I've never seen a 'lucky' man survive the Spark-burn you're carrying."
They moved Zeth into a lead-lined room. As the Rangers began to strip his tactical vest for "cleaning," Zeth felt the cold weight of the Luxury Ball leave his pocket.
"The ball is empty, Commander," a Ranger noted.
"Keep it with his effects," Lance ordered. "He stays under 24-hour surveillance. I want a full behavioral workup on that Lunar Charmeleon by morning. If it's as 'unstable' as the scanner says, I want it sedated."
As the heavy blast door hissed shut, Zeth's eyes snapped fully open. The room was bathed in the soft, blue glow of his internal HUD. He wiped the blood from his lip, his body shaking from the strain of the suppression.
'Data-Zero... did we...?'
[Success. Their analog devices read the 'Dead-Data Shell' I constructed. Your team is categorized as 'Genetic Failures' in the League's physical and digital ledgers. However, the suppression has stressed your Bagon's metabolism. It will need high-purity minerals to recover.]
Zeth felt a sharp, cold smile spread across his face. He was in the heart of a League research facility, surrounded by high-purity samples and confiscated loot.
"They think I'm a scavenger with a team of duds," Zeth whispered into the dark. "Let's show them how much a 'failure' can steal in a single night."