My eyelids dragged like weights—had someone slipped me a Sleep Powder? No, just exhaustion gnawing at my bones. Pathetic. The great Champion of Kanto, brought low by paperwork and sleep deprivation.
Team Rocket's audacity grew with each passing day. Pokémon thefts. Trainer ambushes. And now—hostages?
"Rocket's barricaded themselves inside a restaurant?" The words tasted like bile.
I hurled the stack of league documents across the office. They scattered like frightened Pidgey. Screw protocol—this demanded action.
Charizard's Pokéball was in my hand before I'd even made the decision. The moment I burst into the open air, the wind—usually a liberating rush—felt oppressive, thick with the tension of what awaited in Saffron City.
Hostage crisis. The phrase looped in my skull. Rocket had never hesitated to slaughter Pokémon that inconvenienced them. My knuckles whitened around Charizard's reins.
"Full speed," I growled.
The police comm crackled in my ear:
"—dozens of Rockets, heavily armed. They're using Pokémon as shields. Demands? None that make sense—"
The officer's voice dropped to a murmur. "Sir, they keep babbling about… gems? And some 'black bag' in the restroom."
A cold knot formed in my gut. Nonsense, maybe. Or the ramblings of men who'd seen something they shouldn't have.
"ETA five minutes," I snapped.
Charizard roared, flames licking at the twilight.
Hold on. Just hold on.
Blue barely registered the city lights blurring past as Charizard cut through the night sky. His grip on the phone tightened with each passing mile. When it rang again, his pulse spiked—
"Status?" he demanded.
The officer's stammer sent ice through his veins. "Ch-Champion! The situation's… handled."
Handled? The word didn't compute. Not with hostages. Not with Rocket.
"Elaborate. Now."
"All Rocket operatives have been incapacitated. Hostages unharmed."
Blue's breath stalled. All? His mind scrabbled for logic. This wasn't how sieges ended—not without intervention. Not without blood.
Then—
"An Alakazam's suspended them mid-air. Upside down."
Static filled Blue's skull. Alakazam. Singular. His professional composure cracked. "You're telling me one Pokémon neutralized an entire Rocket cell?"
"Yes, but—" The officer's voice dropped. "There's no trainer. At least… none we can see."
Blue's stomach lurched. No visible trainer meant one of two things:
A psychic prodigy operating remotely.
Something not human pulling the strings.
Charizard banked sharply toward Saffron's glowing skyline. Whatever awaited them, the rules had changed.
The officer's weary sigh told Blue everything—some things had to be seen to be believed.
As Charizard descended toward Saffron City, relief over the hostages' safety warred with gnawing unease. What kind of madness awaited him?
The scene outside the restaurant was chaos barely contained. Police lights painted the street in flashing blues and reds, officers herding shaken civilians to safety. One lookout spotted Blue immediately, his initial alarm at the airborne Charizard melting into recognition.
"Champion Blue! Thank Arceus you're here."
"The Rockets?" Green demanded as he dismounted.
The officer gestured grimly toward the building. "Inside. Just… brace yourself."
Witness accounts trickled in as Blue strode forward—Rocket grunts arguing over jewels, vanishing into a back room, then screams. It sounded like the opening of some cheap horror flick.
Then he saw it.
The dining area had been transformed into a grotesque gallery. Dozens of Team Rocket members hung suspended upside-down in midair, their faces purple from blood pooling in their skulls. Some whimpered; others dangled unconscious. The psychic energy binding them thrummed visibly, distorting the air like heat haze.
And at the center of it all—Alakazam.
It stood perfectly still, spoons glinting, not a drop of sweat on its brow despite the staggering display of power. Its eyes locked onto Blue, evaluating. Judging.
Blue's gut clenched. This wasn't just strength—this was impossible endurance. No ordinary Alakazam could maintain this level of psychokinesis for so long. Which meant…
"Where's your trainer?" Blue kept his voice steady, signaling the officers to stay back. Alakazam's gaze sharpened.
He tried a different tack. "We're not your enemies."
The spoon in Alakazam's left hand twitched. Somewhere in the rafters, a Rocket grunt's belt snapped, sending Pokéballs clattering to the floor.
'Message received.'
No matter what I said, the Alakazam remained silent—its piercing gaze fixed on me, as if anticipating something. Or someone.
So I waited.
The Rocket grunts continued to groan, suspended in midair like grotesque puppets. I wasn't concerned for their safety—after all their crimes, they deserved far worse—but I didn't want unnecessary chaos. Their whimpers echoed through the room, a grating soundtrack to the tense standoff.
Then, abruptly, Alakazam's expression shifted. A flicker of awareness—before it vanished in a flash of teleportation.
Gone.
At first, I thought it had simply concealed itself. But then a radio crackled to life from outside:
"The Alakazam—it just appeared out front!"
Leaving the Rockets to the authorities, I rushed outside.
There, Alakazam stood beside an armored avian—a Corviknight, but not like any I'd seen before. Its plumage gleamed copper-gray instead of the usual obsidian, its metallic feathers catching the sunlight like polished steel. A shiny variant—rare, powerful, and unmistakably from Galar.
They were waiting for me.
The moment I stepped into the open, Alakazam mounted the Corviknight, and with a thunderous beat of its wings, they shot into the sky.
I didn't hesitate. Charizard's Pokéball was in my hand before I'd even made the decision. The police scrambled to follow, their own Flying-types taking off in pursuit.
The chase was brutal. The sun scorched overhead, sweat beading on my brow—until a sudden gust tore through the heat, cooling my skin.
We landed at the base of a secluded mountain, untouched by human footprints. Wild Pokémon scattered at our arrival, their cries fading into the rustling trees.
Corviknight loomed ahead, its steel-capped wings twitching as it watched me approach. Despite its intimidating presence, it made no move to attack. Still, my palms were slick with sweat. Wiping my forehead, I realized—this was the first time in years I'd felt this kind of tension.
Then I saw him.
A figure crumpled at Corviknight's feet, clothes shredded, limbs bent at unnatural angles. Blood streaked his face, his body trembling not from restraint, but from sheer terror. His lips moved soundlessly, pleading—not for escape, but for capture.
Someone had done this to him.
And beside the broken man—a freshly dug pit.
My stomach twisted.
What kind of Pokémon leaves a hole like that?
With a deafening screech, the Corviknight signaled its departure. Its massive wings beat against the air, kicking up a swirling storm of dust as it ascended—far faster than before, as if it had been holding back earlier for my sake. Within moments, both it and Alakazam vanished into the horizon, leaving only the faintest shimmer of psychic energy in their wake.
I turned my attention to the broken Rocket grunts. Even for criminals, their state was... disturbing. Their uniforms were torn, their bodies trembling violently, eyes darting wildly as if still seeing horrors invisible to the rest of us.
I crouched beside one, trying to steady him. "What happened to you?"
His response was a garbled mess of terror:
"N-Not here... can't be here... if you stay, you'll die! Where is this?!"
Another clawed at the dirt, babbling: "Shadows—the shadows move! Light—need light—!"
The third simply rocked back and forth, repeating "Hate it hate it hate it—" between choked sobs.
They were beyond reason. Whatever they'd witnessed had shattered their minds.
--------------------
Giratina's Realm
Palkia tilted its head, nudging one of the unconscious Rockets with a claw.
—"What now? it asked, boredom dripping from every syllable."
I studied the limp bodies. We had told Palkia and Dialga to hold back—but humans were so fragile.
—"If they're dead, we dispose of them, I replied. The last thing I wanted was rotting corpses littering my domain."
Through the fractured veil of dimensions, I searched the human world for somewhere remote, somewhere dark—
A forgotten corner of a mountain, perhaps.
Perfect.
The mountain's base was perfect—untouched wilderness, far from prying eyes. A black rift spiraled open, depositing us into the quiet embrace of nature.
Poor trees, I mused, eyeing the thirsty soil. Surviving on mere rainwater. For a moment, I considered leaving Team Rocket as fertilizer—a final gift to the earth.
As I raised a claw to carve their grave with Dragon Pulse, movement flickered in my periphery.
A twitch. A shuddering breath.
Alive.
Pity. Corpses would have been simpler.
With a sigh, I summoned Alakazam. Its spoons glowed as it rewrote their memories—visions of formless horrors, of teeth in the dark. Enough to ensure they'd never so much as look at a stolen Pokémon again.
Their screams were satisfying.
My apologies, trees, I thought as the rift closed behind us. I've reclaimed my offering.