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After the rain, Petalburg Woods was damp and muggy.
Water vapor rose and condensed into a thin layer of Mist, winding between the dark green canopies.
The air was thick with the cloying scent of earth mixed with rotting leaves; smelling it for too long made one's head swim.
Deep within this impenetrable greenery, a figure was struggling through in a sorry state.
"Quick... run!"
The passing Trainer, A Ming, scrambled along until a thick vine tripped him, sending him face-first into the slippery mud.
Ignoring the mud on his face, he crawled forward on all fours, his throat wheezing like a broken bellows.
He didn't dare look back.
Behind him, the Pokémon that was once his most trusted partner had now become a life-claiming demon.
"Roar—!"
A roar that didn't sound like a living thing tore through the forest's silence.
A Linoone slammed heavily into a giant tree before struggling to get back up.
Its fur was covered in wounds and mud, but most terrifying were its eyes—completely bloodshot, devoid of any reason, leaving only a pure, indiscriminate desire for destruction.
It no longer attacked its pursuers; instead, it set its Lock-On on its own master.
A Ming could feel that violent gaze pinned firmly to his back like a red-hot iron.
Why... why was this happening?
They had only wanted to come to the forest to pick some berries to prepare for the upcoming Pokémon Contest.
Everything was fine until they stepped into this area.
A faint purple Mist with a strange, sweet fragrance.
At first, they didn't pay it any mind.
But soon, the Linoone began to grow restless and eventually lost control completely, attacking him without distinguishing friend from foe.
A Ming ran desperately, his lungs aching as if they were about to burst.
The surrounding bushes made a dense "rustling" sound, but it wasn't the sound of the wind.
From the corner of his eye, he glimpsed countless pairs of dark red lights lighting up and flickering in the shadows like a field of burning Will-O-Wisps.
The Pokémon of the entire forest had gone mad.
Despair gripped his heart.
Suddenly, in the shadows ahead of him, a massive silhouette slowly stood up.
It was a Slaking.
But it was completely different from the description in the pokédex. There wasn't a hint of a lazy or leisurely posture; its muscles were knotted like rocks, and veins bulged under its skin like wriggling earthworms.
A visible, violent current of energy swirled around its body, causing the surrounding air to distort slightly.
Its eyes were also a hellish crimson.
A Ming froze, the blood in his body seemingly turning to ice at that moment.
The Slaking gave him no time to react.
Its massive fist swung down heavily with a whistle that tore through the air.
"Bang!"
Amidst the dull sound of the Tackle, A Ming's final scream was drowned out by the forest's never-ending cicada chirps, coming to an abrupt halt.
The forest returned to a deathly silence, leaving only the Slaking's heavy breathing.
All of this was witnessed by a pair of calm eyes.
In the dense canopy of a giant tree dozens of meters away, Ariel crouched on a thick branch, his body blending perfectly with the surrounding foliage.
He wore a monocle-like device on his face, with red and green data streams flickering across the lens.
A high-magnification thermal imager.
In his eyes, the bloody slaughter just now was merely a high-heat human body representing a Trainer being instantly overwhelmed and extinguished by another larger, more violently heated Pokémon form.
He turned off the device, revealing a pair of pitch-black eyes devoid of any emotion.
After killing the human, the Slaking below did not calm down; instead, it fell into even deeper agony.
It clutched its head, slamming its massive skull against the nearby tree trunk again and again.
"Thud!"
"Thud!"
"Thud!"
Every strike was like a battering ram hitting a city gate; bark splintered, and wood chips flew.
Soon, the Slaking's forehead became a bloody mess, blood mixing with brain matter as it flowed down, yet it seemed to feel no pain, continuing its frantic self-mutilation.
Ariel watched silently.
"Life force is burning at a high speed in an irreversible way, forcibly stimulating physical potential at the cost of complete nervous system disorder, ultimately leading to collapse at the cellular level."
He whispered to himself as if writing an experimental report.
This state looked very familiar to him.
Team Rockets' Berserk Potion.
No, that's not right.
Ariel quickly pulled up relevant data in his mind for comparison.
Team Rockets' technology was much more sophisticated; they sought controllable berserkness that could be used as a weapon, with far smaller side effects.
The scene before him looked more like a failed product made by a clumsy imitator.
Crude, wasteful, and devoid of technical merit.
Like a third-rate cook using the worst cooking methods to turn high-quality ingredients into a pot of swill.
"How unpleasant."
Ariel frowned.
He wasn't sympathizing with the dead Trainer, nor was he pitying that agonized Slaking.
He simply felt a visceral disgust toward such crude technology.
To him, the death of the weak was normal—natural selection.
But this kind of death was an excellent opportunity to collect data.
He had no intention of stepping in to save them; he never did from the start.
The moment that Trainer stepped into this area, his fate was sealed.
Ariel's intervention would have been meaningless other than exposing himself.
He took a small collector from the tactical pouch at his waist and pressed the button toward the air below. The collector emitted a faint beep, sucking in a sample of the surrounding purple Mist.
Then, he pulled a specially made blowdart from his leg, aiming at a relatively intact patch of fur on the Slaking.
"Shoo!"
The blowdart flew out silently, the needle precisely snagging a few hairs before automatically snapping back, where Ariel caught it steadily.
Sample acquired.
He placed the collector and blowdart into a sealed isolation box, preparing to evacuate.
The nature of this matter had exceeded his routine mission scope; it had to be reported immediately for the professional researchers in the organization to analyze.
Just as he was about to move, his ears twitched slightly.
He heard footsteps coming from a distance—more than one person.
The footsteps on the wet mud were heavy and hurried, carrying an undisguised arrogance.
Ariel's figure vanished into the shadows of the canopy again as he adjusted his visual device, pulling the focus toward the source of the sound.
Soon, several figures appeared in his field of vision.
Leading them was a middle-aged man wearing the uniform of an advanced League official, his face full of arrogance and impatience. It was Sen.
Behind him followed three Trainers also wearing Superior League uniforms, their expressions solemn, but their brows betraying a sense of conceit.
Ariel's gaze lingered on Sen's face for a moment.
This guy, he remembered him.
Sen.
A high-ranking official of the League who had used his power and means for personal gain back at Meteor Falls.
Thinking of this, a Poké Ball at Ariel's waist suddenly grew slightly restless, emitting a low hum.
Ariel reached out and gently pressed the Poké Ball, transmitting a soothing thought. The Poké Ball's agitation gradually subsided.
He could feel how much the little fellow inside the Poké Ball loathed and was wary of Sen's presence.
Frogadier.
It was the sole survivor of that roundup at Meteor Falls.
So, the culprit has delivered himself to the door.
The corner of Ariel's mouth slowly curled upward in a curve devoid of warmth, like the cold glint of a blade.
He saw Sen's group walk into the range covered by the purple Mist, yet they were completely oblivious, still swaggering toward the depths of the forest.
Sen, in the lead, even waved his hand in disgust, as if merely shooing away forest mosquitoes.
"A bunch of fools."
Ariel made his assessment internally.