So he had been in this world for a little over a day.

  His dad was dead.

  His mom… wasn’t all there.

  And he’d been sent off to live with his great-grandmother—who somehow managed to be both a Pokémon Professor and look suspiciously familiar in a way that made his brain itch.

  “Oh, and Eevee is here too,” Ethan muttered.

  “Veee!”

  “Thanks, Eevee,” Ethan responded ftly.

  A voice cut in from the front of the vehicle.

  “Ah, you are finally awake, Ethan. You fell asleep partway through the drive.”

  Carolina gnced back briefly before returning her attention to the chauffeur.

  “I was going to wake you soon anyway. We are arriving.”

  Ethan blinked, sitting up properly for the first time since he’d dozed off. Outside the window, the scenery had shifted—not vanished into wilderness, but aged.

  Modern roads narrowed into well-maintained stone-lined streets. Traditional buildings stood beside newer ones, electric lights mounted carefully so as not to disturb the old architecture. Shops, homes, and League offices blended seamlessly into the town’s yout, all circling around something far older.

  In the distance, Ethan caught sight of it—the preserved historic site.

  Ancient stone structures stood behind protective barriers and League markings, carvings worn smooth by centuries but still unmistakable. Unlike a ruin left to decay.

  …Then again, if he was remembering correctly, this was also the Champion’s favorite pce to go cave diving and py archaeologist when she wasn’t busy saving the region.

  Eevee pressed its paws against the window, ears twitching, tail flicking with restless energy. Something about the pce had its full attention.

  Ethan felt it too.

  A faint pressure built behind his eyes—not pain, not quite awareness, but a sense of alignment. Like something invisible had snapped into pce.

  And then—

  An interface flickered into existence.

  Not projected. Not visible in the air. It was inside his vision—semi-clear and unmistakably familiar. Clean lines. Soft icons. Muted colors. An iOS-style yout hovering just at the edge of his perception.

  Ethan forced himself not to react.

  “So,” Carolina asked from the front seat, her tone casual in a way that told him she was anything but distracted, “what do you think of your new home?”

  He blinked once, deliberately. The interface dimmed, sliding to the edge of his awareness without vanishing entirely.

  “Well,” Ethan said after a moment, “it’s not a shipping city, and there’s a lot of green in the streets. I think Eevee and I could get used to it.”

  “Vee,” Eevee agreed, tail thumping once against the door.

  Carolina hummed thoughtfully. “Celestic has endured because it adapts without forgetting what it is.”

  The vehicle slowed, turning off the main road and onto a narrower path that wound gently uphill. The buildings thinned, giving way to trees and carefully maintained stonework. At the end of the path stood Carolina’s home.

  Calling it a house felt inaccurate.

  The front portion resembled a traditional Celestic residence—stone foundation, wooden beams, tiled roof softened by age. Behind it, partially built into the hillside, rose a modern structure of reinforced gss and alloy, League-standard security…

  She wasn’t the main professor for this region he knew that much… that was Birch or Rowan.

  As they stepped out, the air felt different—cleaner, quieter. Eevee hopped down immediately, circling once before stopping, ears swiveling as it took in the unfamiliar space.

  “Come,” Carolina said, already moving toward the entrance. “I will show you around. You will be staying here, so you will need to know where things are—and where not to go.”

  Inside, the transition was seamless.

  The front rooms were warm and lived-in: bookshelves packed with old texts, floppy disks, and… were those rolls of magnetic strip.

  Carolina gestured as they walked. “Living quarters are this way. Kitchen, common room, training yard out back. The lower levels are boratory space. You do not enter them without permission.”

  Meanwhile behind her, Eevee was already eyeing the stairs down.

  She stopped and turned to face him, gaze sharp.

  “That includes Eevee.”

  Eevee froze mid-step, then sat, pretending it hadn’t been curious at all.

  Ethan nodded. “Got it. Could I see it with you guiding?”

  Carolina studied him for a moment longer, then gave a single approving nod. “I will think about it, go unpack and I’ll prepare dinner.”

  As she continued the tour, Ethan felt the interface stir again—quiet, unobtrusive, mapping the space without his asking.

  He ignored it.

  For now.

  It was going to be a long night.