Necrozma had marked a location.
Hikaru hadn't expected this blessing to come with a side effect.
Getting noticed by the Radiant One was definitely not going to end with a nice juice box.
Sunlight powers may apply to all Pokémon equally, but for this god of light they did absolutely nothing.
Worse than nothing—he might get grabbed on the spot and turned into a living battery.
Which begs the question: you don't even have a tail, so how did you wind up with the Tailed Beast script?
Hikaru made some gear in the Ancient Castle.
After a slight delay, he left the Ancient Castle with Victini.
In a complete and ultimate form, they arrived at the Black Skyscraper!
Back in Black City again, he could feel the vibe had changed since last time.
"A bunch of reformed Pokémon hunters have started going undercover, cracking down hard on crime and hauling every smuggling ring hiding in Black City into the light."
"Recently, Officer Jenny units from multiple cities and League personnel swooped in and rounded up a ton of smuggling crews—the International Police even got involved."
"Some tycoons with huge piles of illegal assets were taken away too. Word is they'd been secretly funding various 'mystery' organizations."
"Out of nowhere, a swarm of do-gooders showed up, and some pretty overpowered Trainers pitched in."
After asking around, he got answers he didn't expect.
Hikaru was stunned.
Yikes—that's a multi-agency joint operation.
No wonder Black City's old aura of unrestrained desire had been dialed down. But seriously… the oh-so-free Unova actually doing 'law enforcement'?
America really flipped the script.
Is this because Alder returned to the League and, with one command—"ten years have passed"—set out to make Unova great again?
That said, Black City's improved vibe lines up with the games: in the Black 2 era, world-class Trainers converge here, smugglers get beat down, and the crooks can't keep operating.
Hikaru looked up. The jet-black tower pierced the clouds, stabbing into space.
In theory, to reach the top you had to clear area by area, and the higher you climbed, the more floors each area had.
"The Black Tower is the crystallization of human civilization—so it corresponds to [Civilization]."
Compared to the Battle Subway, the Black Tower is way more aggravating, all thanks to its rules and layout.
There are "Gate Trainers" and "Boss Trainers," and you only reach the next area by defeating the Boss.
But first, you have to locate the Gate Trainer among the many challengers. Only the Gate Trainer carries the key that opens the Boss's room.
Which sounds exactly like some RPG dungeon crawl.
He'd wanted to cheat with Teleport straight up to the higher floors, but the building clearly had machines to suppress teleportation and similar powers.
After all, in the games, Black Tower is crawling with psychics; their abilities vary, but someone was always going to try warping ahead.
Anti-psy power devices were inevitable to prevent cheating.
[It's fine. Even if I can't perform Teleport in the usual sense, I've grasped how it works. I've learned Mind Tracking.]
Deoxys' thoughts reached Hikaru.
Mind Tracking—Deoxys' special trick in the Adventures manga—can use the faintest clues to zero in on someone's location.
"I get it. We'll sniff out the first Gate Trainer, record the key's unique pulse, and then we can quickly find Gate Trainers in later areas."
Say it, do it!
Hikaru went to the front desk of the tower challenge. "I'd like to register to challenge the Black Tower!"
Area 1 was open first. In the games you couldn't use healing items inside, though an in-area Doctor would patch you up.
In real life, the tower wouldn't forbid medicine outright; instead it would punish sloppy planning—limited potions and careful timing.
In Area 1 there's always a tutorial Gate Trainer; Hikaru immediately ran into that Backpacker.
[I've got it. His aura. Gate Trainers themselves don't have any special power, but I've recorded the key's waveform.]
From inside its Master Ball, Deoxys pulsed out psychic feelers and quickly located the Backpacker's hidey-room!
Hikaru: "Nice—breach in one go!"
"Vii!"
Victini flashed a V-sign. It wanted to fight too, but if it battled here someone would recognize it and that'd be bad, so it flopped on Hikaru's head, hid itself, and got hyped to spectate.
So… which Pokémon is going to sweep the place in one shot?
"Of course I'll use the new teammate to build some rapport—and test the newly-developed Drives."
"I like the feel here, though it seems there are cameras in the shadows recording these battles."
Genesect's steel feet clicked through the high-tech corridors. The environment made it uncomfortable, like it had been hauled back into the lab where it was modified.
Hikaru had mounted two Drives onto Genesect's back.
A dual-Drive system: Genesect can carry two different Drives, letting Techno Blast swap between two types.
In the manga, the Drive system is pretty taxing on Genesect; in the anime, not so much.
Which, honestly, tracks.
Without a boost, Techno Blast's base power was only 85; after the improvement it climbed to 120. Hard to imagine a base-85 move putting real strain on the body.
And with a convergence module added, all those hidden downsides disappeared.
Trust future tech!
"The Drive from the Undersea Ruins was the Chill Drive."
"Using that as the base, I made Fire, Electric, and Water Drives."
"In the Ancient Castle, with the ruins' power, I further infused psychic energy and derived new variants."
"In theory, we can make Drives of every type!"
"So the first three new types I finished are—"
"Flying Drive, Fairy Drive, Dragon Drive!"
All-type Techno Blasts with 120 base power and no drawbacks!
Among these, Hikaru himself has only one Flying-type Pokémon, but the Ancient Castle has heaps of Sigilyph.
So capturing Flying-type energy was really straightforward.
The reason for these three was simple: Genesect's movepool lacks these attacking types.
Sure, it technically has "Fly."
But you can't use that as a normal damage option.
As for a Fairy Drive—this was "testing the waters."
Fairy moves are sparse to begin with.
A few big hitters exist, but they're signature moves.
Magearna's Fleur Cannon, Eternal Flower Floette's Light of Ruin, Enamorus' Springtide Storm.
But beyond those, there's a lesser-known Fairy move with 100 base power—also man-made.
That's "Magical Torque"!
Base 100, with a 30% chance to confuse.
Only Ortega's Ruchbah Starmobile could use it.
What, Team Star's student garage can whip that up…
…and my future tech can't?
"Genesect will lead. The second slot goes to—"
Hikaru pinched a Strange Ball.
Inside it, the out-of-this-world visitor had long since stirred awake.
She was still baffled by her surroundings, so she'd been silently observing from inside the ball.
But, to be honest, the language barrier made all that observation just as confusing.
Only now, when Hikaru initiated true "diplomatic relations" via telepathy, did it click.
Celesteela was lost.
She'd descended from space to a particular planet, only for a bunch of paper-thin people to rush up and hack at her.
They seemed to believe slicing off her boosters was a sacred cause.
That genuinely scared Celesteela!
Way too intense!
It was just an emergency landing to sip a little tectonic energy.
She wasn't some rampaging alien invader.
Absorbing power from the ground was part of her ecology.
She was only going to sip a smidge!
But those "protect world peace" "cleave the bizarre iron pillar" paper people charged without caring about their lives.
She couldn't really fight back, either.
That's just the ecosystem. That's the environment. Chalk it up to bad luck!
And she didn't dare speak—she'd only ever held conversations when others started them. Before someone else spoke, she never knew how to begin!
S-so she just spammed "Iron Defense" and turtled!
Thank you, dear god of the cosmos, for blessing me with such a warm, safe move!
So when the "tunnel" opened, she didn't dare stay in Paper-People World a second longer!
Ignition—acceleration—liftoff—super-acceleration—entering the planned trajectory!
Wahoo!
All in one go—straight into the space-time tunnel!
Crash!
Smooth as butter. She almost had to admire herself!
Truth is, her cosmic voyages had always been like this, full of bumps and scuffs.
She'd almost never landed normally.
Not that crashing was a hobby.
It's just… she's unreasonably unlucky.
"So your astronautics aren't up to standard?"
Celesteela heard the human's voice.
She recognized the species.
Because those paper people's world had humans too.
Even so, it gave her a jump!
She went silent. Hikaru grew puzzled, and only when he asked again did she blurt:
[Ah-uh-uh… welcome to preheating boosters]
[A gloomy bamboo like me deserves to get shredded by paper folk—sneaking into other worlds is unforgivable—I'll leave right away—n-no, I mean please spare me!]
[I crashed because my piloting is bad—I'm a flying scrub!]
"…So a social-anxiety type, huh. In other words, a Timid nature."
But this was way timid.
Such a massive body, housing a soul born to fear small talk.
[The universe is cold and lonely. If you spend ages without meeting your own kind, being afraid to socialize is normal.]
[You said Ultra Beasts are violent, but it seems they're living creatures like any other—with their own temperaments.]
Deoxys chimed in, scaring Celesteela so much her core thrummed!
Celesteela: [Wh-who said that? I'm so sorry, god of the cosmos—am I hearing voices now? Are you going to tear out my soul and turn me into a rotten bamboo stalk? I'm sorry—I'll bury myself and decompose in the soil to pay back the life energy I drained—]
Deoxys: [That's not a thing. Abandon that fantasy.]
"Where were you planning to fly?"
Hearing the human ask, Celesteela managed to crawl out of her spiral.
W-where to fly?
That's… the problem!
Truthfully, she didn't have a destination. She'd fled in a panic, yelling "I'm out," and whooshed off.
But she had one specialty: outrageous luck.
She always crashed!
Yet somehow, never died!
Listening to her inner monologue, Hikaru was speechless.
This "one-ton ojou-sama" really was built for social anxiety…
"Ever heard of Feiyan No. 1? That plane crashed constantly too."
At this rate, her crash frequency would catch up with Daigo and Shinjō.
Ace pilot? No—more like a "wipe-out pilot!"
"Anyway, in this world you count as a dangerous lifeform. I can't let you go around sucking up land energy wherever."
"Stay with me for now."
"And if you don't have a destination, join our Defense Force!"
[Defense Force?]
The one who answered wasn't the anxious Celesteela, but Deoxys.
Hikaru: "Yeah, like an Exploration Team but for defense—a containment and response outfit for space visitors. If we can cross time and space, we can even send lost travelers back."
"Just spit-balling."
But Deoxys was already mulling it over:
[This world does have many dangers, with unknown off-world visitors appearing all the time. Forming a Defense Force to protect the planet sounds like a solid plan!]
[Like the Exploration Team you mentioned to Victini! Explorers, defenders, rescuers!]
In the anime, Ash even served as a Defense Force member—an Ultra Beast Defense Squad—with a specialized suit after transforming.
[Members should be Pokémon tied to space… and Genesect would be great too.]
"What is this, Special Airborne Machine duty?"
Isn't this the Pokémon world? How did we hard-cut to tokusatsu?
Defense Force roster: Special Airborne Machine (Genesect), Space Ultraman (Deoxys), HQ rocket (Celesteela)?
So the final boss must be…
Cosmic Kaiju: Necrozma!
Behold—on distant Neptune, a terror unfolds. The tyrant of cosmic light—Necrozma—has appeared!
Invincible Solgaleo has fallen; its signature from space bounced back by Necrozma. No one even knows this disaster is brewing in the void.
Next recruits: Rayquaza or Jirachi would be nice.
We even have the "Ancient Giant (Regigigas)" ecological slot!
And in a pinch we can summon the three Titans and trigger The Rumbling!
"Ger-no?"
Genesect tilted its head.
It didn't get the Defense Force thing. Current orders: when do we fire?
"You can't siphon planetary energy freely here either—it wrecks the environment. I'll repair your boosters. Then I'll find you meteorites to feed on. I figure that's close enough—meteorites are packed with energy."
Celesteela: [Ahhh… heh-heh~ endless energy… O god of the cosmos, then please await the recruitment form of your useless rocket-bamboo—I'm sorry, I'm just a rotting plant shuttling between stars—]
"…And we're back to daydreams. At least you didn't blurt 'I absolutely refuse to get a job—I fear society.' Also, you're not even Grass-type—how are you a rotting plant?"
"Steel doesn't rot!"
As if struck by Hikaru's words, Celesteela was shocked speechless.
That said, for cosmic-drifter Pokémon, getting a part-time job is never happening.
This one-ton ojou-sama was oddly devout too—every other line was "god of the cosmos." Arceus would be delighted.
"By the way… have you ever fought? I mean actually attacked first."
[N-no… but I can use Iron Defense, Substitute, Protect, Ingrain, Toxic, Leech Seed—sorry, sorry, I only know these—Iron Defense is so warm…]
"Magnificent. Reliable! Pick up Heavy Slam and Flamethrower and you'll truly shine!"
"Ahem. Then, Celesteela-kun—prepare for departure. Time to begin your new-world journey!"
(End of Chapter)
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