The sudden arrival of Volkner left Lance, Cynthia, and the others visibly stunned.
Lucius felt his throat go dry. Forget the group standing before him—just the looming, sky-darkening shadows hovering behind them were enough to shake him to the core.
"Lila, teleport—now!" Lucius ordered without hesitation.
But Anabel didn't move.
Lucius turned and saw both Anabel and Brandon suspended in a soft blue glow. Their faces were frozen mid-expression—surprise etched into their features.
They were caught in a time freeze… inflicted by Dialga, the Temporal Deity.
"So we meet at last… source of the evil," said Lugia, the Guardian of the Seas, staring down Volkner.
"Wait… what?"
"Volkner is the virus?"
Lance and Cynthia gasped in disbelief.
They had assumed Anabel and Brandon had brought Volkner to help—but now it all made horrifying sense.
Lucius understood their shock. With Volkner's recent activity, it was no surprise that he had been selected as one of Kanto's new Elite Four, becoming a trusted ally of Lance. Cynthia, as the Champion of Sinnoh, had a deep history with Volkner as well.
Now, to hear Lugia declare him the origin of the virus—it was shattering.
"So, the mythical Pokémon had this all planned?" Lucius muttered, clenching his fists.
Floating beside Lugia was Palkia, the spatial deity—clearly the one who had disrupted their attempt to warp away.
"Indeed. With the god of time watching, your every move has been under our observation," Lugia said coolly, unfazed by Lucius's unease.
So even when Anabel rescued me from Ho-Oh, you were watching…?
Lucius activated his telepathic command. Flashes of white light erupted around him.
Over twenty powerful Pokémon emerged, forming ranks behind him—a force composed entirely of King-tier and Leader-class Pokémon. Among them: Regice, Regirock, Registeel, Azelf, Electivire, Gardevoir, and Crystal Rampardos.
These included the Pokémon he'd captured or converted during the virus outbreak—some once belonging to Archer or even Volkner himself. The weakest of them still ranked among the elite.
The appearance of such a devastating battalion drew audible gasps from the assembled Champions and Trainers.
Individually, none of them could match Lucius's strength. Even as a group, they realized the gravity of the threat he posed.
In response, powerful Pokémon on the other side—Dragonite, Garchomp, Tyranitar, and Corviknight—stepped forward, emanating intense auras. The very air began to warp under the clash of sheer power. Even the glacier-topped peak they stood on started to crack beneath the pressure.
Just as the tension peaked, a second sun rose over the horizon. A radiant arc of golden rainbow light streaked down from the sky, descending in the blink of an eye.
A colossal, divine being cast its shadow over the land.
"Ho-Oh…"
Everyone knew the name of this mythic Pokémon.
Ho-Oh's crimson eyes swept across Lucius's army. It gazed at the Regi Trio, its expression filled with disdain—though it quickly softened.
"Regice, use Explosion," Lucius commanded grimly.
Only overwhelming force could repel such mythic beings.
"Ai… ssuu…" came a stuttering response from Regice. But the detonation never followed.
Instead, Regice was enveloped in a shimmering blue field. Its right arm lifted, dropped, lifted again—repeating endlessly, caught in a single moment.
A time loop.
Dialga had trapped it in an infinite one-second cycle—doomed to repeat a singular action, unable to process Lucius's commands.
Damn it… Dialga and Palkia are literal glitches in the fabric of reality…
Before Lucius could act again, the blue diamond on Dialga's chest and the purple pearl on Palkia's shoulder began to glow.
Sinnoh's ancient divine energy surged as the two deities channeled their powers. At the point where their energy met, space folded inward—a black sphere formed, pulsating like a gravitational sinkhole.
A gateway had opened to the unknown.
From within, a chorus of unearthly shrieks erupted—shrill, guttural, and horrifying. The sound bypassed hearing, cutting straight into the soul, stirring hatred, fear, and madness.
"That's… not the Ultra Space?" Anabel's voice rang out.
Freed from the Time Freeze, she hovered beside Volkner, shimmering with green light drawn from her mastery over temporal energy.
"No," said Palkia. "This is the Distortion World."
With that, Palkia raised its hand. Lucius, Anabel, and every single infected entity were instantly bound within a twisting field of violet space.
What shocked Lucius even more was that Lance, Cynthia, and their Pokémon were also caught within.
"Palkia, what are you doing? We're not infected!" Cynthia shouted.
Her Garchomp and Lance's Dragonite roared and thrashed violently, but the space around them held firm—unbreakable, even under their titanic strength.
Though the rest remained silent, their eyes were wide, filled with disbelief and confusion as they stared at the four deific figures above.
Lucius's mind raced. Then, an idea struck him.
"So… you intend to destroy humanity?" he asked, turning to Lugia.
"What?" Lugia blinked. "Why would you say that?"
Lucius continued calmly.
"From Azelf's memories, I know it was following Dialga's orders—recruiting soldiers in preparation for a war against some so-called 'interdimensional upheaval.' But what it didn't realize… is that the source of that upheaval is none other than you."
"You're not referring to Ultra Beasts," Lucius went on, "and you're certainly not referring to me… You're talking about Giratina, aren't you?"
The mythic Pokémon exchanged glances. Shock flickered in their eyes.
Lucius knew, in that moment, that he was right.
He recalled what Anabel had said earlier—how the mythical Pokémon planned to drive all infected hosts into another world via Mount Coronet. But how did they intend to do that?
And more importantly—why hadn't Lugia or Ho-Oh intervened to protect humanity when Lucius's alternate self had died, causing the mutant virus strain to spiral out of control?
The answer now stood before him.
The deities… weren't just observers.
They were executors.
They were about to purge the world.
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