Agumon

Sinnoh Region, Solaceon Town.

Inside a vast ancient ruin east of town, abandoned for thousands of years, a boy was running at full speed.

His strides were long and his pace blistering, carrying him through the corridors of each floor in moments.

He raced through floor after floor without slowing, occasionally glancing back and shouting over his shoulder.

"Did sleeping for thousands of years rot your brains? Or has going too long without food made you stupid? You still haven't caught up! With efficiency like that, you call yourselves guardians of these ruins? Even Slowpoke would give you a thumbs-up."

His booming voice traveled down the corridor into the shadows behind him.

But as the seconds ticked by, the darkness remained silent. Nothing stirred.

"You've built up an immunity to taunts, huh?"

After muttering to himself, the boy decided to try something else and raised his voice. "If you don't catch up soon, I'm going to start tearing these ruins down! This junk's thousands of years old anyway. It's about time someone got rid of it."

As he spoke, he picked up a rock from the ground and hurled it at the wall beside him.

Bang!

The rock struck the wall, its sharp cracking sound echoing through the corridor, but everything remained silent. There was no response.

At some point, however, a huge black eye appeared where the rock had struck.

Then, around that eye, across the corridor's floor, walls, and ceiling, more eyes slowly emerged, one after another, densely packed together.

Their tightly shut eyes slowly opened. At first, they scanned their surroundings in confusion, but the moment their gazes settled on the boy, they let out sharp, furious cries, as though they had spotted a sworn enemy.

"Jima!!!"

The enormous eyes then pulled free of the walls and became streaks of black shadow charging toward him.

In the ruins' dim yellow light, he could just make out Pokémon shaped like the twenty-six letters of the English alphabet, each radiating an ancient presence.

Unown-the Pokémon devoted to guarding ancient ruins.

"That's more like it. You should show a little enthusiasm for your work."

The boy nodded in satisfaction, then took off running.

Seeing the smile on his face, the Unown became livid and accelerated, desperate to catch him.

Yet whenever they were about to reach him, the boy would suddenly turn, slipping into another corridor with practiced ease and evading their pursuit.

It was as though he, rather than they, was the guardian who knew these ruins inside out.

This infuriated the Unown, but there was nothing they could do except chase him as hard as they could.

Fortunately for them, after several turns, the boy abruptly began slowing from his sprint until he came to a stop.

Up ahead, a partial collapse had left a massive boulder in the middle of what had once been a passable bend, blocking the way forward.

It was a dead end.

The Unown noticed this too and let out gleeful cries.

With the path ahead blocked and the way behind him sealed off by their crowd, he seemed to have reached the end of the line.

The Unown quickly activated the only move they knew-Hidden Power.

Red, blue, green, purple... spheres of energy in different colors, each radiating a powerful aura, rapidly gathered before them.

A moment later, the energy spheres filling the entire corridor poured toward the spot where the boy stood.

Faced with what seemed an inescapable situation, the boy stared blankly, yet showed no sign of panic.

Once the incoming attacks reached a certain distance, he swiftly ducked and rolled sideways, deftly slipping into a hole in the wall barely large enough to hold one person.

Boom!!!

Explosions roared through the corridor.

All the Unown's attacks swept past him. Most struck where he had just been standing, blasting a large crater into the floor.

A smaller portion hit the boulder blocking the way ahead, breaking open a moderately sized crack.

The boy did not hesitate. Using the dust raised by the explosions as cover, he swiftly emerged from the hole in the wall and squeezed into the crack while the Unown were still watching to see what had happened.

On the other side of the boulder, the light shifted from dim to bright. After squinting briefly to adjust, he began examining his surroundings.

The place before him was little different from the ruins' other areas: another dilapidated corner steeped in the weight of countless years.

Yet a smile appeared on his face.

"After all that effort, with Unown chasing me down every so often, I finally made it in. I wonder which Pokémon I'll summon first after exploring these thousand-year-old ruins."

The boy's name was Qingliu, and he had transmigrated from another world.

He had arrived in the Pokémon world a week earlier, dropped straight into the wilderness where he could come face-to-face with a ferocious Pokémon at any moment.

Fortunately, before transmigrating, Qingliu had been an armchair "Void Wilderness Survival Expert" who regularly watched videos of Bear Grylls and Ed Stafford. After several days of trial and error, he had managed to become barely self-sufficient in the forest.

But a new problem soon arose.

Over that week, he had nearly run into volatile, aggressive Pokémon such as Ursaring and Beautifly several times.

This made him realize that, in the world of Pokémon, survival knowledge alone was not enough to ensure his safety and future survival. Having a Pokémon was essential.

But the problems before him were very real-he had no money to buy a Pokémon, he was no superhuman rookie Trainer capable of subduing one by force, and he lacked the luck to stumble upon an injured Pokémon that would devote itself to him after he helped it.

Most importantly of all... he did not even have a Poké Ball.

Without a Poké Ball, everything else was just talk.

Fortunately, just as he found himself at a complete loss, a blue virtual panel slowly appeared.

With his extensive experience reading webnovels, Qingliu quickly accepted the panel and grasped its basic functions.

Simply put, it was a Summoning Panel that could summon things at random.

And the first thing it could summon was precisely the help he needed most-a Pokémon.

However, the panel needed energy to activate, and gathering that energy required exploring objects with long histories, as well as ancient structures such as ruins.

The ruins where Qingliu now stood were the only suitable target he had found while exploring the surrounding area.

Thanks to his physical fitness and reflexes, he had explored most of the ruins over the past few days, bringing his exploration progress to 96%. Only the area before him, blocked by the boulder, had remained out of reach.

He had examined the boulder in person, too. Its weight and hardness made it impossible for him to move or break without a Pokémon.

So he had devised a plan to provoke the Unown guarding the ruins and use their power to break through it.

Although the process was rather dangerous, and the enraged Unown could have killed him at any moment, Qingliu understood that nothing ventured meant nothing gained.

Fortunately, everything had gone smoothly, and he had entered this final area in one piece.

Meanwhile, lines of small blue text flashed across the panel only Qingliu could see.

[Solaceon Ruins-Exploration in progress]

[Exploration progress: 96%...97%...98%...99%...100%]

[Exploration complete. Summoning available.]

[Summoning target-One random Pokémon. Proceed with summoning?]

[Yes/No]

Qingliu immediately selected "Yes."

With the prompt [Summoning in progress] displayed, the panel suddenly began spinning, then dissolved into tiny motes of light that formed a circular passage as tall as a person.

Blue light shone, and a figure roughly a meter tall poked its head out of the passage.

It was a creature resembling a small dinosaur. Most of its body was yellow, with only the tips of the claws on its hands and feet colored white.

It stood there, looking around with large teal eyes while scratching its head with a sturdy arm about as large as its feet, its expression full of confusion.

The reason he called it a creature rather than a Pokémon was that Qingliu did not know, either. Perhaps the fellow before him was not a Pokémon at all, but something that should be called... a Digimon?

And it was the partner of Taichi Yagami, the protagonist of the first anime season, the evolved form of Koromon, whom fans jokingly called the origin of all things-Agumon.

Yes, the creature that had emerged from the passage formed by the Summoning Panel was an Agumon.

At that moment, Qingliu was bewildered too.

In theory, several Pokémon in the Pokémon world could change their forms. Faced with an unfamiliar situation, taking on the appearance of another Pokémon would be perfectly reasonable.

But no matter how much they transformed, they could not cross fictional universes and turn from a Pokémon into a Digimon.

Or did I get hit by Hypnosis without realizing it, and now I'm hallucinating?

If that were the case, everything about Agumon would make sense.

Qingliu took a deep breath to keep himself calm and silently opened the panel.

Besides charging and summoning, the panel had a basic function for examining Pokémon information. He only needed to check the other party's details to learn exactly what the fellow before him was.

Qingliu turned his gaze toward "Agumon," and the panel followed, focusing on the creature.

In an instant, a line of small blue text appeared before him.

[Species] Agumon

[Category] Reptile Pokémon

[Type] Dragon

[Ability] Tough Claws (Its sharp claws increase the power of attacks made with them.)

[Level] 12

[Exclusive moves] Pepper Breath (Fire-type-Power 60), Razor Claw (Fire-type-Power 40)

[Known moves] None

[Base stat total] 360 (HP: 50, Attack: 72, Defense: 55, Special Attack: 72, Special Defense: 50, Speed: 61)

[Friendship] 10 (New acquaintance)

[Condition] Hungry

[Information summary] A reptilian Pokémon resembling a small dinosaur that can walk on two legs.

Although it was still growing and developing, it had an exceptionally brave temperament and feared nothing, even when facing powerful enemies.

Hard, sharp claws grew on its hands and feet, giving it considerable power in battle. It was predicted to evolve into a magnificent form.

Qingliu: "...?"