Alex teleported to the Sinnoh region once he realized that the Team Luminal bases in Hoenn had essentially gone into hiding, taking their shield generators with them. According to the information he had received, 2 bases in Sinnoh had remained operational rather than abandoning their facilities. He expected either a tough fight or an encounter with someone who still wasn't taking his threat seriously. Either way, he had no intention of leaving without their generators.
He soon arrived in Canalave City and headed west toward the undeveloped wilderness. After traveling for some time, he spotted a cliffside forest and immediately recognized the signs of another hidden Team Luminal base. Without wasting any time, he breached its illusory shell and pushed inside. However, he quickly noticed something unusual. There were far more Champion ranked presences in the area than normal.
That alone was enough to confirm that Team Luminal had taken his threat seriously. Unfortunately for them, the additional defenders still weren't enough to give him pause.
Alex released the rest of his team and sent them in different directions, quickly turning the base into a battlefield. Explosions erupted throughout the facility as his Pokémon clashed with the defenders. Amid the chaos, Alex deliberately left the center of the base untouched. A communications tower stood there, housing a large generator that powered the shield surrounding the facility and maintained the near-static illusion that concealed the entire base beneath the appearance of an ordinary forest.
The battle dragged on longer than usual, with several stalemates slowing the attack team's advance. They performed best when they had a numerical advantage or could break through a tightly packed formation, but they struggled when outnumbered by enemies spread across a wide area. Instead of allowing them to plow straight through their ranks and sow chaos as they normally would, the defenders kept their distance and peppered them with attacks, steadily wearing them down while preventing them from spreading out.
The rest of Alex's Pokémon, meanwhile, were having a grand time. They tore through swathes of opponents with sweeping area-of-effect attacks, devastating everything caught in their path. The battle might have continued that way for quite some time if Rotom and Gardevoir hadn't suddenly warned Alex that reinforcements were on their way from outside the base.
"They've definitely adapted," Alex murmured as he assessed the state of the battle.
The grunts and Champion ranked trainers he was currently fighting were avoiding direct confrontation. Instead, they were doing everything they could to prolong the battle and wear his Pokémon down. Their objective was obvious. They wanted to keep Alex contained until reinforcements arrived, and there was a good chance those reinforcements included Master ranked trainers.
That left Alex with two choices. He could either stand his ground and fight with everything he had, or he could retreat with the generator while he still had the opportunity.
"Stand and fight!" Alex declared.
His Pokémon immediately tightened their formation around him. The attack team fell back toward the outer perimeter while the defense team closed ranks around Alex. At the same time, they pulled turrets from their personal space bags and deployed them around their position, preparing for an all-out defensive battle.
The effect was immediate. Guns blazed as Protect shields shattered under the sudden surge in firepower. The defenders responsible for keeping Alex's team contained began dying in droves as the intensity of the battle increased.
Even so, their enemies had accomplished their objective. More and more Pokémon arrived to reinforce them, steadily tipping the balance of the battle. Before long, Team Luminal's combined attacks began matching and then overpowering the firepower coming from Alex and his Pokémon. Bullets vanished before they could reach their targets, while area-of-effect attacks were nullified in midair. The enemy casualties gradually decreased until both sides reached a deadlock.
Then the balance began to shift.
The intensity of Team Luminal's attacks continued to increase until Alex's Pokémon could no longer completely withstand them. Their Protect shields flickered violently as they absorbed hit after hit, with some attacks beginning to break through their defenses. If this continued, they would eventually be overwhelmed, and once Team Luminal forced the battle into a chaotic melee, his Pokémon would be picked apart by sheer numbers.
For the first time in what felt like forever, Alex found himself considering retreat.
He had been dominant ever since his Pokémon reached Champion rank. Even when the odds were heavily stacked against him, he could always resort to the B.O.M.B. and threaten his opponents with a mutually assured destruction. But he wasn't sure that tactic would work here. Team Luminal had the numbers to spare, and if sacrificing enough of their forces meant eliminating Alex, they would gladly make that trade.
Deciding to test his theory before committing to a retreat, Alex pulled out a B.O.M.B. and activated it, its timer beginning at 60 seconds. As the countdown passed the 30-second mark, the energy radiating from the device broke through Master rank. Yet the enemy continued their assault without hesitation. They clearly weren't intimidated.
Alex narrowed his eyes as he watched them. The energy output was no longer enough to threaten a group of Master ranked trainers. Perhaps a single Master could still be forced to retreat, but with a group of them working together, their confidence was bolstered by sheer numbers and the momentum of their apparent victory. None of them were willing to break formation simply because a threat equivalent to them would soon be unleashed.
With that realization, Alex reluctantly made his decision.
"Prepare to retreat," he ordered Gardevoir.
Even after giving the order, Alex felt no shame whatsoever. He could sense the auras of no fewer than 6 Master ranked trainers surrounding them. There was nothing cowardly about retreating when faced with such overwhelming odds.
Fortunately, Alex had a reliable method of escape thanks to a recent addition to his team. His previous tactic of riding Arcanine with Extreme Speed was unlikely to work when they were completely surrounded, so he had developed a new method specifically designed to break through an encirclement.
Once Gardevoir gave the signal, all of Alex's Pokémon unleashed their area-of-effect attacks while the turrets along the perimeter were recalled and stored away. Then Rotom and Alex acted, with Rotom quickly storing all the Pokémon inside the backpack as Alex released Ultra Necrozma.
Using its command over light, Ultra Necrozma unleashed a blinding radiance so brilliant that it overpowered even the sun, fulfilling its legend as the Blinding One.
"Gah! My eyes!"
"What is this!?"
"I can't see!"
Shouts echoed from the trainers behind their Pokémon as the light blinded everyone. Worse, the radiance was so intense that it seemed to surround everything. Closing their eyes, turning away, or even attempting to attack the source of the light did nothing to help. Everyone within the Team Luminal base was completely blinded, to the point that they couldn't even determine where the light was coming from. All they could do was cover their eyes with their arms and endure it.
When the light finally began to fade, the Team Luminal trainers instinctively focused all their attacks on the Master ranked threat they could sense building at the center of Alex's formation.
It was the last thing they ever did.
BOOM!!!
A tremendous explosion erupted from the center of the base, engulfing everything in its path. The resulting fireball obliterated the facility and everyone inside it before tearing through the cliff beneath the base and spreading into the surrounding forest. The explosion was brilliant and devastating, resembling a miniature nuclear detonation. When it finally subsided, nothing remained. Not even ash.
Alex, meanwhile, watched from a safe distance atop Mantine as it flew westward over the ocean. Mantine had resisted the blast by using Hydro Pump to punch through the force of the explosion while continuously spraying water to counter the intense heat. They had also managed to escape the immediate blast radius in time, leaving them with little more than the scorching shockwave to contend with.
"That was quite the close call," Alex said. "Still, it worked perfectly, and we even managed to get away with the generator. Unfortunately, I only have 3 of those bombs. Let's hope not every base has the same defenses."
Unbothered by the devastation he had left behind, Alex moved on to the next base, where he faced 3 Master ranked trainers before ransacking the facility. Fortunately, they only had 3 Master ranked Pokémon among them, allowing Guzzlord, Ultra Necrozma, and the attack team to overwhelm them without too much difficulty.
The raids continued without pause, with Alex moving from one base to the next. It took him an entire day and well into the night to work through every known Team Luminal base on the list provided by the Black Market Alliance. Once he had cleared out all the known bases in Sinnoh, Alex teleported to Unova to continue his rampage.
Unlike the more prepared bases in Sinnoh, the Unova bases had far fewer powerful defenders, allowing him to overpower them without resorting to a B.O.M.B. He raided 2 bases and found a third already abandoned before moving on to Alola. There, he managed to raid only 1 base before moving on to Galar and doing the same. Finally, he teleported to Paldea, where he was fortunate enough to find 2 more bases and claim their generators, finally completing Rhea's requirements.
It had been a close call. The known bases listed by the Black Market Alliance were completely cleaned out just as Alex secured the 12th generator. With that, he had exhausted every lead he had, leaving him with no idea where to hunt for more. At this point, his only remaining option might be the dimensional expeditions.
"Let's go home," Alex said with a contented smile, sounding like a farmer who had just finished plowing his fields.
He teleported home and released his Pokémon, finally allowing himself to relax after the continuous battles and close calls. Unbeknownst to him, however, one final battle was waiting for him at noon the following day.