"This guy finally woke up…"
Su Bai wiped the rain from his face and looked up at Zapdos hovering in the air, furious and arrogant beyond measure. He could not help but shake his head with a bitter smile.
Its long feathers stood on end like bolts of electricity exploding from its body, while its slender, sharp beak was a vivid orange-red.
A ring of black feathers surrounded its eyes, giving the giant bird an especially fierce appearance.
In fact… this bird really was as fierce as it looked.
Among the three Legendary Birds, Zapdos had by far the most explosive temper. Its temper was even worse than Articuno's!
Seeing a divine Zapdos in the real world should have been an incredibly shocking and exciting experience.
But under the current circumstances, all Su Bai could do was smile bitterly.
Following Zapdos's gaze, Su Bai looked around.
An Apostle-level combatant could easily destroy an entire city. And when that Apostle went all-out and blew itself up just to carve out a path of escape, the destructive power became even more ridiculous.
Nearly half of the abandoned power station had been swallowed by the explosion.
The buildings that had once been entangled in lush vegetation had been flattened by the blast.
Crater after crater pockmarked the ground.
Just looking at this section alone…
It was an absolute disaster.
Zapdos's anger clearly had not diminished much despite killing Amino with a single bolt of lightning.
The power station had simply suffered too much damage.
Although Zeraora and Charizard had blocked the two most powerful explosions, the shockwaves had still turned everything around them upside down.
Zapdos had actually been quite satisfied when it first chose this power station as its temporary home.
After all, most of the main structures were still intact.
But now…
A small portion of those buildings had disappeared entirely.
It had taken the bird a long time to find a power station like this after arriving in this unfamiliar place!
And now, even if it was dissatisfied, there was nowhere else to move.
As a Legendary Pokémon, all it had done was close its eyes for a little while to adapt to its new environment.
And someone had already stolen its home?
How could it possibly tolerate that?!
"WOOOAAAH!!"
Extremely furious, Zapdos spread its wings.
Its golden feathers flashed brilliantly as a bolt of lightning shot from its body straight into the sky!
A moment later, a continuous series of furious thunderclaps erupted from within the clouds.
"H-Holy…"
Rock's eyes widened as he tremblingly pointed toward the sky.
"Boss Su Bai… that bird isn't…"
"Thinking about killing us, is it?!"
Even as one of the Twelve Zodiac, Rock had never seen anything like this!
If he had a choice, he would rather drag Amino back and fight that monster all over again than face an enraged Zapdos.
His shadow couldn't defend against lightning!
"From Zapdos's perspective, we're no different from Amino…"
Su Bai stroked his chin as he looked at the thunderclouds churning overhead, seemingly unconcerned.
"If you woke up from a nap and discovered that your house had been demolished, you'd probably be pretty angry too, right?"
Rock's face went pale as he stared at the dark clouds above.
It seemed as though a genuine thunderstorm was brewing up there.
Golden lightning continuously flashed through the clouds, accompanied by rumbling thunder that shook the sky.
Was that thing…
Going to strike them with lightning in a moment?
With a thunderstorm like this, who could possibly survive?!
Rock was willing to fight the Sub-Beasts to the death for the sake of humanity. At least there was a greater purpose behind that kind of death.
But being mistaken for a thief and struck to death by a Pokémon…
What kind of ridiculous way to die was that?!
"I… I don't want to die like this…"
Rock looked at Su Bai with tears practically in his eyes.
"Boss Su Bai, why are you still so calm…?"
Looking at Su Bai, he genuinely could not understand how the man could remain so composed.
They were practically standing on the edge of death, yet Su Bai did not even seem worried about finding a way out.
"Hmm… As expected of a Legendary Pokémon."
Su Bai rubbed his chin and looked up at the thunderstorm.
Even the curtain of pouring rain could not obstruct the vision granted by his Super Rookie physique.
"Rain first… before the thunder."
"Looks like it hasn't completely lost its mind in anger."
"That makes sense. Unlike Articuno, it hasn't been contaminated by death energy."
Su Bai could naturally tell what Zapdos was preparing to use.
Thunder.
The move had a tremendous base power of 100 and also carried a chance of paralyzing the opponent, making it an extremely powerful area-of-effect attack.
However, Pokémon moves generally had to make certain trade-offs.
A power of 100 was already incredibly high, and adding a paralysis effect on top of that naturally meant its accuracy had to suffer.
Thunder had a mere 70% accuracy.
With only a 70% chance of hitting, using Thunder by itself in any situation always gave off a slightly unreliable feeling.
But moves that called upon the might of the heavens worked differently when rain was present.
Under rainy conditions…
Thunder became guaranteed to hit.
Zapdos had not used Thunder immediately after waking up.
Instead, it had first summoned the rain.
No wonder even Amino's tiny embryo, which had been fleeing at incredible speed, had been struck by Zapdos's lightning.
"These three giant birds really are…"
"Each one is smarter than the last."
"Their battle IQ is ridiculously high!"
Su Bai could not help but give Zapdos a thumbs-up.
The bird might have been suffering from a terrible case of morning rage, but it still knew how to combine its moves properly.
As expected of a Legendary Pokémon.
"Is this really the time to be talking about that?!"
Rock looked at Su Bai's indifferent expression and closed his eyes in despair.
He had never imagined that, as the Snake of the Twelve Zodiac, he would not die fighting an Apostle.
Instead, he was about to be mistaken for a thief and killed by a Pokémon.
Damn it…
What an undeserving way to go.
Then—
A thunderous roar suddenly exploded overhead.
Zapdos had unleashed its lightning attack!
For an instant, Rock's ears were practically deafened.
"I've never heard thunder this terrifying…"
Rock muttered.
Unable to help himself, he opened his eyes.
And his normally narrow eyes suddenly widened into perfect circles!
The sky had transformed into a scene straight out of the apocalypse.
Countless dragons of lightning danced through the clouds before converging together.
They formed a terrifying bolt of lightning large enough to cover the entire area they occupied.
The scene looked like the end of the world itself.
It seemed Zapdos considered them far stronger than that tiny embryo that had fled earlier.
The intensity of this lightning was on an entirely different level from the first strike!
But the thing that truly made Rock's eyes widen in disbelief…
Was not the lightning itself.
It was the tiny figure standing above them.
As countless lightning dragons converged into a massive "cannon," the torrent of electricity poured downward without end.
But the moment it reached the area above their heads…
It abruptly stopped.
The air was filled with stray sparks, crackling endlessly.
Zeraora's golden fur stood straight on end as it stood beneath the raging storm.
The furious lightning seemed to be drawn toward it by some invisible force, converging one after another into Zeraora's body.
This tiny, one-and-a-half-meter-tall big cat…
At this moment, looked like the true God of Thunder!
And judging by Zeraora's expression…
It seemed to be enjoying itself.
Rock stared wide-eyed at the scene, questioning everything he thought he knew about reality.
Then Su Bai's soft laughter came from beside him.
"Luckily, I brought Zeraora…"
"The Volt Absorb ability of a Mythical Pokémon isn't something you can take lightly, you know?"