Galar… Wyndon Stadium.
A championship-level Pokémon battle was coming to an end.
Blue, looking utterly disillusioned with life, recalled his fallen Charizard.
He had already mastered Gigantamaxing, and even taught his Charizard the invincible G-Max Airstream and G-Max Wildfire.
Yet in the end, he still couldn't do a damn thing against Leon.
Leon wasn't just stronger in sheer power—he was also far more… cunning than Blue had expected.
Yes, cunning was the word.
During the match, after Blue's Charizard Gigantamaxed, Leon had the nerve to use a move that swapped held items—handing Blue's Charizard a cursed Eject Button.
The result? Blue's Charizard got yanked back into its Poké Ball before it could even show off its full might.
Just thinking about it made Blue grind his teeth.
Damn it… next time I'm using Terastallization. Let's see how you deal with that, Leon.
Across from him, Leon—still maintaining his perfect 100% win rate—smiled contentedly as he recalled his own Charizard.
Then, as always, he turned his back to the crowd and struck his signature victory pose.
Mm… though at this particular angle, the sponsor logos plastered across his cape were especially prominent.
Not that anyone in Galar minded—it was practically a national tradition by now.
Seeing their champion win yet again, Leon's fans erupted into wild cheers, their excitement hitting a fever pitch.
That was Galar for you: if you were strong enough, the people adored you.
As for the losers… well, one glance at Blue's face—twisted tighter than someone who just failed three Great Ball throws in a row—told the whole story.
"No way… no way…"
Blue didn't even look at Leon. His head hung low, his entire soul in a state of existential crisis.
He'd already made a fool of himself in front of Haru not long ago. He thought that since he'd hit rock bottom, things could only go up from there—surely it was time for his comeback arc, right?
Reality, however, had once again taught him a harsh lesson.
Ever since arriving in Galar, he hadn't won a single battle.
Yes—this former Champion hadn't scored even one victory!
First, he ran into some self-proclaimed "tough old guy."
He thought he could take the guy down easily… until the man casually sent out two Legendary Pokémon and gave him the beating of his life.
For crying out loud—what kind of Pokémon ignores Protect, lands guaranteed crits, and still has base stats through the roof?!
And as if that weren't enough, that busted Pokémon even got stronger in the rain—roasting Fire-types like they were toddlers.
At that point, Blue had to wonder: how the hell was that thing not a full-fledged Legendary already?
Then came another "just a former Gym Leader," a middle-aged man with a team full of Steel-types.
Blue figured, former Gym Leader, this'll be a breeze.
Wrong. He got flattened again.
Who the hell fights like a Champion but calls himself a "former Gym Leader"? If you're that strong, why'd you even quit?!
After that, he ran into a "regular Dragon-type Gym Leader."
Blue thought the last one was a fluke—surely not every Gym Leader in this region was that tough.
And yet again, he found himself locked in a brutal slugfest, barely managing to scrape a win.
At this point, Blue was starting to doubt the very concept of what a Gym Leader was supposed to be.
And then came Leon…
Well, enough said.
A pure, refined, top-tier Trainer through and through.
Of all the battles Blue had fought lately, his match with Leon had been the most humiliating defeat yet.
Honestly, his whole journey through Galar was one long tragedy written in blood, sweat, and tears.
He just couldn't figure it out—was the problem him, or were the people here all just monsters?
Sure, maybe he'd underestimated his opponents, or maybe he was using a newly trained team—but still, how did things end up this bad, damn it?!
Was he really that terrible?
At that moment, Professor Blue began to seriously doubt himself.
If things went on like this, could he really ever surpass Haru? Could he actually get his revenge?
Or would that damned "Legendary Beast Boy" complete an entire team of Legendaries before Blue even caught up?
Still, regardless of Blue's despair, Leon was clearly in high spirits.
He walked up to Blue, smiling as he offered his hand. "Good battle. You're even stronger than I expected."
"Now I'm really looking forward to my match with Haru."
"I've heard I'm not the only one interested in him."
"You've probably already met Raihan—but there's also Piers from Spikemuth. Seems both he and his sister Marnie are curious about Haru too."
"So they'll probably be looking for you sometime soon. Better be ready."
"Oh, and by the way—Piers doesn't use Dynamax. That might be an advantage for you."
"Though, to be fair, it'd sound kind of weird if a former Champion had to Gigantamax just to beat a Gym Leader who doesn't, wouldn't it?"
"Ah, never mind me—don't take that personally."
"…"
Blue's face twitched, his expression unreadable.
What the hell… why does it feel like I've become Haru's stand-in punching bag?
Unbelievable. I'm not that Legendary-loving freak!
The more he thought about it, the more pathetic he felt.
He'd only come here to watch a few battles—and somehow ended up in this sorry state.
And even his friends were acting weirder by the day.
For instance… why the hell did Red of all people fall in love with a Goodra?!
Worse yet, ever since Red's Pokémon started turning into Goodra, they'd only gotten stronger!
No. Enough was enough. He had to bring Haru back to Galar, and fast!
Once the real deal showed up, maybe these lunatics would stop pestering him.
At the very least, he refused to be used as anyone's warm-up opponent ever again.
With that thought, Blue pulled out his Rotom Phone and sent a message to an account he hadn't contacted in a long time.
====================
Meanwhile—
As Blue and Leon's battle came to a close, the match between Haru and Sabrina was just beginning.
It wasn't the first "battle" between the two—and probably wouldn't be the last.
But compared to the last time, Haru's mood this time was… subtly different.
He might not have shown it outwardly, but Haru was, deep down, a self-proclaimed "Champion of Pure Love."
He liked battles, sure—but if the other side clearly didn't want it, the fun kind of vanished.
And since he had no shortage of sparring partners around, there was no reason for him to force a fight on any unwilling girl.
So, when Sabrina greeted him with that "I'm super scary" aura again, Haru simply stopped walking toward her.
He then, right in front of Sabrina, fetched a chair and sat down, playing on his phone as if he had no intention of advancing on her.
Lugia had already been taken away by Mew to go look for that little Lugia, so there wouldn't be anyone coming to interrupt them for the time being.
They'd even dragged away the outcold Dr. Namba, who was passed out like a dead pig.
According to Mew, Dr. Namba still had "uses" left—what he intended to do with him was anybody's guess.
So... the room Haru occupied fell back into silence.
Although odd noises occasionally came from Haru's phone, they probably wouldn't have any special effect on Sabrina… right?
Sabrina wanted to believe that, but reality...
Wasn't cooperating.
True, Haru wasn't physically touching her by any means.
But don't forget: Mew had already placed a binding move on her, plus a "demon-ninja–grade" sensory enhancement.
Even if Haru made no move, her body would respond with a thousand strange reactions.
As time passed, Mew's influence on her only deepened.
At first it was nothing more than subtle, local sensations; then it spread outward fast—creeping to her Petilil and Foongus regions—with every touch growing more intense.
By the end, she looked like a freshly boiled crab, flushed all over.
That terrifying lust had slowly eaten at her inner resolve, corrupting her like a rotted Horus until she teetered on the edge of madness.
And yet Sabrina still refused to concede.
She would never bow to Haru and beg for mercy—so even though her body was going bananas, she fought to stay conscious.
Whenever she felt herself about to "fall," she would bite her palm until the pain snapped her awake.
That was the measure of her iron will.
Alas...
Sometimes stubbornness is the most pointless thing of all.
No matter how strong her self-control, there were some "evil forces" she simply couldn't resist.
Just as Sabrina was contemplating how to knock herself out, she suddenly noticed her body moving without her permission—its trajectory seemingly aimed straight for Haru.
Her body was drawn to him as if a mourner's teardrop lament longed for the return of a celestial angel.
How... could this be?
Her mind swelled with disbelief and fear.
Not only that—when she lost control of her body, her sensory perception seemed to be stripped away as well.
She could still see what was happening to her, but the tactile sensations vanished, as if she were watching someone else's actions.
Interestingly, the moment her body began to mimic a caterpillar crawling toward Haru, it suddenly seemed to regain autonomy and stopped.
Freedom returned—briefly—and with it the overwhelming sensitivity slammed back into place.
Because her last movement changed, the already amplified sensations surged even further into Sabrina's mind, multiplied many times over.
Enduring it... the unspeakable urge grew even harder to bear.
At least she had freedom again and didn't have to spiral into Haru's gravitational field.
But that liberty didn't last long.
She'd only just exhaled when her body started moving again, nearly frantic to clamber to Haru's feet and devour his baguette.
From then on she was trapped in a loop—losing control, regaining it, then losing it again—
As if two wills were fighting inside her body, neither able to dominate the other.
"What are you doing?" Haru noticed Sabrina's odd struggle and switched off his phone screen, watching her with mild curiosity.
He'd originally planned to let Sabrina fall into the unbearable frenzy on her own—then, by "sacrificing himself," snap her back to her senses.
Of course, if she could really hold out, Haru wouldn't mind waiting for Mew to return before letting her go.
He considered himself a kindly person and had even left an escape route for her.
Yet now his behavior had somehow been misread by Sabrina.
She naturally assumed those changes happening to her were Haru's doing, and she snapped at him loudly: "You're shameless!"
"?"
Haru, inexplicably blamed for something he hadn't done, tilted his head in confusion.
Dude, I really didn't do anything this time—can you not put this on me?
===============
Alola. After successfully "taking down" Lusamine, Miss Lillie finally got control of the console... uh, the lab's equipment.
Through that device she could remotely observe Haru in Alola and influence his life in various ways.
At first Lillie only intended to use it to observe Haru's daily routine, not to personally intervene.
But as she used it, she felt something off.
The subject she was controlling wasn't what she'd expected—not an invented "person," but a real, living woman.
If Lillie wanted, she could even rip that person's perceptions away and graft them onto herself, using them to directly manipulate the other.
Who knew how Lusamine had managed to do something so absurd.
It was like projecting your consciousness into another body and acting as them—practically a temporary possession.
So Lillie confirmed the identity of the girl chosen as the control node through a series of actions.
Yes—this had to be Team Rocket's Sabrina.
Sabrina had briefly been at Mr. Haru's side before mysteriously disappearing.
Lillie didn't know much about her, just that she was curious how Lusamine had convinced Sabrina to cooperate with the experiment.
After all, Sabrina was a Team Rocket member—she shouldn't be so easy to manipulate, right?
Lillie then used Sabrina's viewpoint to watch everything that had happened in the underwater lab…
Including dog-headed strategist Mew whispering schemes to Haru and issuing the "anti-ninja" curse on Sabrina.
"..."
Lillie, wearing the haptic interface, watched Haru sitting in the distance playing on his phone and fell silent.
Her Haru had not disappointed her—he refrained from making a direct move even when Sabrina was tempting him.
But now there was a problem: because she was linked into the remote empathy device, Lillie herself was being affected by Mew's anti-ninja debuff.
Should she sever the connection? Or leave the lab and return later to watch Haru and Sabrina from afar?
If she kept going like this, she feared she'd soon be unable to bear the frenzy herself.
But what if she left and Sabrina couldn't hold out?
The girl grew anxious.
What Lillie didn't expect was that today's surprises would be even more than she imagined.
Lusamine, whom Lillie had earlier forced into unconsciousness, should have slept until night, according to Lillie's estimate.
Yet just as Lillie fretted about Haru and Sabrina, Lusamine—thrown on the floor—suddenly opened her eyes.
The moment she awoke she realized her "TV remote" had been snatched away—and the "plot" had conveniently reached the "climactic part."
Well damn, this was Lillie's latest product—she hadn't even enjoyed it properly. No way was she going to let Lillie steal it.
Outrageous! She had to get back what was hers.
Lillie quickly noticed Lusamine's awakening, and when Lusamine demanded the control of Sabrina back, Lillie refused flat out.
She knew Lusamine too well—she didn't need to think hard to imagine what would happen if Lusamine regained control of Sabrina.
Therefore, even though Lusamine technically owned the device, Lillie wasn't about to give up.
So a battle over the control of Sabrina's body was about to erupt.
Lusamine wanted to use Sabrina's body to go all out on Haru, while Lillie wanted Haru to remain as "pure" as possible.
Because of that, Sabrina's bodily control kept switching hands.
As for Sabrina herself? In the "fight for Sabrina" she was nothing but the prize.
Under the extreme sensations she'd already unleashed her ultimate secret technique, the Ultimate Bladder Strike.
What Sabrina didn't know was that every time she briefly reclaimed control of her body, she'd relive the anti-ninja debuff she'd already endured.
With those instances stacking, her sanity slowly frayed.
More terrifying still—if she lost control and was used on Haru, then when she regained control the cravings that had been satisfied wouldn't belong to her.
She would be nothing but a substitute.
"I'm asking—what are you actually doing?"
Although Sabrina's palm-strike ambush had grazed Haru, he remained unmoved.
Compared to the raging urges, Haru was far more curious about Sabrina's mental state.
He'd begun to wonder whether he needed to "do" her properly to help her become a bit more 'normal'—she clearly wasn't herself right now.
===============
The passageway to the little Lugia's holding cell was dark—without a light, a human could hardly see the way.
Fortunately the tunnel wasn't long, and Mew and Lugia didn't take much time to reach the end.
Like the outside, the end of the tunnel opened into a laboratory.
But this one's equipment was clearly more advanced than the one above, and most of it was still powered on.
Blue glow from incubators crawled across metal surfaces; the smell of disinfectant mingled with a sickly sweet stench in the air.
Four robotic arms trembled inside a glass partition; beads of liquid clung to syringe tips, reflecting the strip lights overhead.
An electron microscope screen glowed with dim green speckles; unremoved slides left dark red crystals behind.
At the center of the lab, a small white birdlike creature was imprisoned in a cage made of some unknown metal.
No one knew what it had suffered—but the little Lugia looked utterly listless, failing even to notice the arrival of Mew and Lugia.
Dr. Namba hadn't lied—it was here. But its condition sparked fresh anger in Lugia for the good doctor.
How dare that damned human treat her child like this? He was a dead man walking.
"How do we open this cage?"
The white-haired woman—her cowlick spinning—looked to Mew.
"Hm... how about we just rip it open?"