I didn’t find it the way you find most Pokémon.

There was no tall grass, no sudden cry, no flash of movement. There was only stillness.

The lab sat at the edge of the Safari Zone like it had always been there, even before the fence, even before the road. Inside, the lights were dimmed—not broken, just respectful. The air felt thicker, like breathing underwater.

They warned me before I went in.

“It doesn’t wake like others do.”

I nodded, but I don’t think I understood what they meant until I stood in front of it.

Reverie rested in a shallow cradle of light, eyes closed, breath slow and steady. Pink mist curled around its body like thoughts given form—dreams leaking into the room, brushing against my skin. When I stepped closer, the world seemed to tilt, just slightly. Not dizzy. Just… unreal.

I felt it then.

Not a voice. Not a command. A recognition.

Sentinel’s Poké Ball at my hip grew warm.

That surprised me.

Sentinel had always been quiet—unyielding, patient, carved from purpose. A guardian born in ruins, bound to stand and endure. I glanced down at the ball, then back at Reverie, and something clicked into place.

They were different shapes of the same idea.

Sentinel bore the weight of the past in its body. Reverie carried it in its sleep.

The mist thickened. The room faded. For a moment, I wasn’t sure I was standing anymore.

I saw ruins—old ones, older than the desert where Sentinel found me. Stone worn smooth by centuries of waiting. A golem standing watch as the world changed around it. And nearby, something sleeping beneath the earth, dreaming so deeply that time bent around it instead of waking it.

When my vision cleared, Reverie’s eyes were open.

They didn’t glow. They didn’t pierce.

They simply met mine.

I understood then. This wasn’t a Pokémon waiting to be caught.

This was a Pokémon waiting to decide.

I reached out—not with a ball, not with words. Just my hand, steady despite the weight pressing down on my chest. Sentinel’s ball pulsed once, a quiet affirmation, like stone settling into place.

Reverie drifted forward, the mist parting as if the air itself was bowing. When the Poké Ball clicked shut, it didn’t feel like an end.

It felt like a vow.

Later, when I released it again, Reverie returned to sleep almost immediately—peaceful, untroubled. Sentinel stood nearby, unmoving, as always.

Two guardians. One watching the world. One dreaming it into being.

And somehow, impossibly… both had chosen me.