Kyurem descended slowly over the town, and Lucien looked down at what was below him and stopped.
This was not what he had expected. The town was not the modest, struggling settlement the surrounding countryside suggested it should be.
It was prosperous in a way that had no natural explanation: exquisite architecture, streets paved with smooth polished stone, gold and silver artifacts displayed casually in front of every doorway.
The wealth here exceeded anything in the towns nearby by an order of magnitude, and it had clearly appeared recently.
Lucien did not need to think long about why.
He guided Kyurem down and continued on foot toward the center of town, where a crowd had gathered around something enormous.
As he drew closer, the shape resolved: a throne of pure gold, inlaid with gems, built at a scale that suggested whoever had commissioned it was not human. When sunlight touched it, the reflected light spread across the whole town in a warm, dazzling wash.
On the throne sat Hoopa Unbound.
Six great arms. Multiple golden rings circling its body, each one radiating with contained power. Its eyes surveyed the kneeling townspeople below with the particular expression of something that has never had cause to consider that it might not be the most important thing in any given situation.
A man in the crowd pressed forward, his face bright with fervent devotion. "Wise and mighty Hoopa, please grant us more wealth!"
Hoopa waved one hand idly. From the rings on its arms, gold and silver and jewels cascaded outward and piled up on the ground. The man scrambled for them with undisguised joy.
Lucien pieced together what had happened as he walked. Three months ago, Hoopa had arrived here. The townspeople had been terrified at first, naturally, but Hoopa had not harmed anyone. It had taken some food, and in exchange had produced treasure in quantities that transformed a struggling town into the wealthiest settlement in the Kalos Region.
The townspeople had built the throne and offered their worship, and Hoopa had accepted the arrangement because it suited its mood.
All of which fit perfectly with what Lucien remembered of Hoopa's nature.
He kept walking toward the throne. Kyurem moved beside him, its ice aura pulled inward and quiet.
Hoopa's eyes opened fully and found him.
The kneeling residents looked up. A stranger was walking directly toward the throne without breaking stride, accompanied by a Pokémon that made several of them instinctively flinch.
"Who are you? How dare you disturb the great Hoopa!"
Hoopa, for its part, was not alarmed. It was curious. It could sense something emanating from the Pokémon beside this human, a power that warranted attention. But Hoopa had never encountered anything it considered its equal, so it narrowed its eyes and looked down from its considerable height with the expression of something assessing an unexpected entertainment.
"A small human, bold enough to walk into Hoopa's presence uninvited," it said, its voice carrying the specific laziness of something that has never had to work for anything. "Quite courageous, for your kind."
"Hoopa," Lucien said, meeting its gaze directly. "My name is Lucien. I'm not here to cause trouble. I need to ask for your help."
The town erupted in alarmed noise. Several residents shouted warnings, certain this was about to go very badly.
Hoopa remained still. It looked at this human for a long moment. No malice in the aura, which was already unusual. Something else instead, something that held its attention without it quite being able to name why.
"Interesting," Hoopa said, faint amusement entering its voice. "You are asking Hoopa for help." It rose from the throne, its six arms spreading wide, the golden rings beginning to rotate slowly around its body.
"Hoopa has brought wealth to these people and ensured their prosperity. They offer burning devotion and fill Hoopa's golden throne with their faith. What exactly are you offering in return?"
Lucien thought about this carefully.
He remembered what he knew of Hoopa. It acted entirely according to its own desires, unconstrained by anything external.
The trouble it had caused in Dahara City had not come from malice but from a moment of wounded pride, wanting to demonstrate its power when challenged. It was free-spirited, impulsive, and did not respond to conventional appeals to duty or reason.
What could such a being actually want?
After a moment, tentatively, he said: "I could offer you something called a donut."
Hoopa stared at him.
A visible pause settled over it, as though it was not entirely certain it had heard correctly.
"A donut," Lucien continued. "It's a kind of dessert. Very sweet. Quite good." He had specifically had his people prepare some before this trip, remembering that the smaller form of Hoopa had been genuinely devoted to them.
He was reaching into his bag when Hoopa erupted.
"How dare you!" Indignation blazed around it, the rings on its arms vibrating with outrage. "You dare suggest that the great Hoopa, above all things, could be tempted by sweets?! The insult!"
A golden aura shot outward from one of the rings, a beam of intense concentrated energy aimed directly at Lucien.
Kyurem moved.
It stepped between them without hesitation, opened its mouth, and met the beam with a blast of concentrated cold. The two energies collided in the air between them. The golden attack began to freeze, piece by piece, crystallizing and falling harmlessly apart.
Hoopa went very still.
Then real anger moved into its eyes.
All five remaining rings launched simultaneously. Five beams of concentrated power tore through the air toward Kyurem, each one carrying the kind of force that warped the surrounding air and cracked the ground below into long, jagged fissures.
The townspeople hit the ground and covered their heads.
Kyurem did not move from its position in front of Lucien.
Lucien leaned forward slightly. "Kyurem."
Kyurem had already registered what it was facing. Hoopa Unbound carried more raw power than it had anticipated, genuinely exceeding Zacian and Zamazenta. It filed this information away without alarm, because Kyurem did not experience alarm the way smaller things did.
Its wings spread. The cold that erupted from its body was not a targeted attack but an environmental one: the temperature dropped immediately and completely, the ground thickening with ice in a spreading ring outward from where it stood.
Simultaneously, ice spikes erupted from its body in every direction, intercepting all five beams at once.
The collision was enormous.
The sound shook the horizon. Shockwaves rolled outward across the town. The gems on Hoopa's golden throne rattled in their settings.
The piled gold and silver and jewels scattered in every direction on the force of the wind. In the air above the town, two extreme forces held each other in stalemate: Hoopa's golden power and Kyurem's absolute cold, each one continuously testing the other's limit, neither giving ground.
Hoopa stared at the standoff.
In all its existence, its power had never been answered like this. A lone human and one Dragon-type Pokémon, standing in its territory, refusing to yield.
"Hoopa will crush you!"
Hoopa tilted its head back and roared. A golden aura churned violently around its body, merging with its Psychic power into something that radiated in every direction at once.
It swung all six arms simultaneously, and dozens of energy beams rained down on Kyurem from every angle, sealing off every possible direction of retreat.
Kyurem did not attempt to retreat.
Its body erupted with extreme cold, an absolute and total force that spread outward from it in every direction at once. Everything the cold touched froze. Glaciate, at full power, without restraint.
"What is this?!" Hoopa's voice cracked with something it very rarely experienced. The cold was reaching it, pressing inward through its aura, and for the first time in a very long time, Hoopa felt something approaching the edge of genuine danger.
It was not going to win this exchange. That calculation happened fast.
Hoopa gritted its teeth, its mind working quickly. If it could not overpower this creature directly, it would simply remove it from the equation entirely. It seized one of its great golden rings and hurled it downward, the ring dropping over Kyurem and Lucien from above, pressing down, and activating.
The space where Kyurem and Lucien had been standing was suddenly empty.
Hoopa exhaled heavily, its six arms lowering. A slow, satisfied smile spread across its face. Sent to another dimension. Without Hoopa's own assistance, they would have no way back. That was that.
Hoopa, it reminded itself, was the strongest.
Kalos Region. Dahara City. Many years later.
Night had fallen over Dahara City, and something catastrophic was happening.
The Prison Bottle, the vessel that had contained Hoopa's destructive power for a century, had been shattered by Team Rocket's trio in a moment of careless meddling.
The sealed power, carrying a hundred years of confinement and resentment, had torn free and was now attempting to devour the smaller Hoopa that had lived without it, merging against its will into the enormous Unbound form, all that suppressed fury given shape and direction.
And it had found a target.
Ash rode Latios at full speed through the city's canyons of tall buildings, Pikachu clinging to Latias beside him, a black Rayquaza keeping pace behind them. The enormous Hoopa was relentless in its pursuit, its six arms reaching, its rings spinning with barely contained power.
"Faster!" Ash pressed forward, holding the small Hoopa tightly against his chest.
They burst out from between the skyscrapers and over an open lake, and then Hoopa was in front of them, blocking the way entirely. Ash pulled back in shock. Latias and the black Rayquaza braked hard.
The enormous Hoopa's purple aura radiated outward in waves, its eyes locked on the group. Six golden rings rose slowly from its back, each one humming with power that made the air around it feel unstable.
"You think those three are the only ones who can help you?" it said, its voice distorted and enormous. "Watch."
The first ring released a surge of deep blue temporal power, and from within the swirling energy, a vast steel figure descended. Dialga, the God of Time.
The second ring tore open space itself, deep purple light spilling out, and Palkia materialized over the lake, its presence warping the geometry of the air around it.
The third ring produced a crimson mist, and from within it, Giratina's serpentine form emerged, its red eyes sweeping the scene.
The fourth and fifth rings brought seawater and molten lava simultaneously, and from the water came Kyogre, and from the lava came Groudon, both of them enormous and ancient and entirely under Hoopa's coercive pull.
The citizens of Dahara City stared upward in horror. Ash's hand tightened into a fist. Five Legendary Pokémon, all summoned at once.
The sixth ring hung in the air and did nothing.
Hoopa noticed. It tried again, forcing the ring to respond. For a long moment, nothing happened.
Then the ring activated.
An intensely cold energy surged outward from within it, and a large Pokémon emerged: ice-blue and black-white, two golden eyes, a presence that dropped the temperature of the surrounding air immediately. Kyurem drifted out of the ring and into the night sky above Dahara City.
Ash stared. "That's... Kyurem."
Then Pikachu pointed urgently and called out.
Ash looked more carefully.
There was a figure standing on top of Kyurem's head. A man in clothing that looked like it belonged to a very different era, completely at ease at this altitude, looking around at the assembled Legendary Pokémon with an expression of mild interest.
Ash had no idea who that was.
Below, the enormous Hoopa was regarding its summoned army with satisfaction. Six Legendary Pokémon, all answering to it. It opened its mouth to speak.
Then it looked at Kyurem again, and stopped.
Something was wrong. The last one it had summoned did not feel like the others. The others were under its control, compelled by the rings' power. This one was not behaving like something under compulsion. It was simply there, calm and cold and entirely self-possessed, as though it had decided on its own to emerge from the ring and see what was happening.
A question mark formed in Hoopa's awareness.
The man on Kyurem's head noticed Hoopa looking at him. He raised a hand in an easy, cheerful wave.
"Hello again, Hoopa. Fancy meeting you here."
...
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