Cliff, Arlo, and Sierra looked confused, "Who are you?"

Ash looked over at his two friends and looked smugly, "Ohh, so they don't recognize us from the ship,"

Green returned the smile, "Ohhh, then should we introduce ourselves like we practiced?"

Gary sighed into his hand, "You can't be serious," but when he noticed they were 100% serious he screamed into the air, "I hate you both!"

Cliff looked at the other two, "Is this normal?"

Sierra shrugged and before they could respond they heard a snap as they looked back at the three as they did a pose.

Ash: Prepare for trouble!

Gary: And make it Double, Double

Green: To protect the world from devastation!

Gary: To ignite all people within our nation

Ash: To denounce the evils of truth and love!

Green: To extend our reach to the stars above!

Ash: Ash!

Green: Green!

Gary: And Gary

Ash: Surrender now, or prepare to fight, fight, fight!

Pikachu: Pika, Pika!

"..., I feel like we should be filing a lawsuit," Arlo said blankly

Gary resisted the urge to kick Ash as he stomped forward, "You were there on the ship when you sank it!"

Cliff slapped his hand with a fist, "Oh yeah, you were the weaklings that tried to stop us, I thought there were only 2 of you who didn't realize there was another."

"And I need to pay you back," Green said angrily, "Do you know how much business you made me lose!"

"..., what?"

"Don't listen to her," Ash said as he struck his fists together, "But the point is, we're here to get it back in blood after what you did back on the S.S. Anne."

"...ha hahaha!" Cliff started laughing as Tyranitar walked back next to him, "And how are weaklings like you expecting to do that, hahaha."

Ash just put on a big smile and laughed along with him, "hahaha!"

Arlo walked next to Cliff as Scizor moved next to him, "And why are you laughing."

Ash didn't answer, he just snapped his finger, "Let's have some fun."

Then without warning a large Machoke appeared in front of Tyranitar delivering a +2 boosted punch directly to the dinosaur's face sending him flying back.

Then before Cliff or Arlo could react an Arcanine dashed passed and delivered a [Flare Blitz] straight to Scizor's side knocking him away and into the volcano's side.

Ash was still chuckling as he opened his eyes which were slightly glowing, "Did you think we would remain weak forever."

—

{In the sky}

Blaine was circling in the sky flying around Zapmolcuno taking advantage of the fact that it was just attacking wildly, so far he is yet to be hit but he knows better than to become overconfident.

Blaine kept having Charizard focus on dodging, although Charizard could take a hit from this thing he definitely couldn't, so until he could get off Charizard would have to play hit-and-run

Blaine knows a lot about this thing especially thanks to that file he was sent, such as its weakness, the first being that all 3 heads had a conscience meaning he could use that to his advantage.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

The next thing was that this thing was Ice, Fire, Electric, and Flying, meaning it had a glaring x 8 weakness to Rock, so he was abusing Charizard's [Ancient Power].

Although this was a good strategy, it wasn't great since despite being constantly hit like this Zapmolcuno looked like it was barely taking the damage, by no means was it not hurt it's just he was taking less than Blaine would have liked.

But although he wasn't dealing as much as he would like, this was never his end plan, no for that he was slowly leading Zapmolcuno closer to the volcano, although this was taking time in total it's been about 7 minutes since he started.

Eventually, he checked his goggles in which he added a feature to check the progress and they showed it was ready so Blaine signaled for Charizard to fly back to the volcano.

When he was at a safe distance and flying towards the volcano with Zapmolcuno behind him, he yelled out, "NOW!!!"

From the top of the volcano stood not 1 but 5 Magmortar all charging their arm cannons, they had been for the past 7 minutes ever since Blaine left he had them charge up for one big attack.

As Charizard dive bombed down so that Zapmolcuno would be the only target all the attacks were released, they shot a blast that combined [Solar Beam, Hyper Beam, Flamethrower, Thunderbolt, Rock Slide] as they all combined into one big beam and hit Zapmolcuno.

The sky exploded with dark smoke as the force of the attack finally gave the monstrosity its first major bit of damage, and it took 5 Gym leader ranked Pokemon charging for 7 minutes to do it, and it didn't even go down.

Blaine grit his teeth as he mumbled, "They really upgraded it, a blast like that would have taken Thu-Fi-Zer down at full health, this really is a monster."

Zapmolcuno recovered from the blast before it could hit the ground and flew back up to look at Blaine, this time it was close enough to finally be seen by the town.

Blaine couldn't help but grit his teeth harder, by his estimation this thing should be twice if not three times stronger than Thu-Fi-Zer, he could probably take it down if he could charge another super attack like that but he no longer heard the element of surprise.

He raised his arm again as he stood next to his 5 Magmortar, "FIRE!!!"

The Magmortar began bombarding the monster as Zapmolcuno approached, as that happened Blaine griped 2 stones in his pocket and pulled them out, a Keystone and an orange Mega stone

He threw the Mega stone to Charizard who caught it as he yelled, "Charizard, Mega Evolve!"

[Status: Zapmolcuno - 47% heath remaining]

—

Spark, Candela, and Blanche were circling around the two Legendary Birds sending chip damage when they could and Zapdos would save them when it got too dangerous thanks to its speed while also keeping the two at bay.

The main plan was keeping them separated as the more beneficial matchup would take care of them and Zapdos with Spark would keep both away from each other.

Articuno vs Metagross and Moltres vs Salamence were fine but if they managed to switch targets then there would be a problem. Luckily the Two birds didn't seem to think about that option; their main goals were to fight those in front of them.

Which was hard to do since Zapdos was the fastest among them and the two Pseudos weren't slow either, so slowly but surely they were beginning to whittle them down.

Any moment they could Candela and Blanche would yell to their respective birds to try and break through to them, things like;

"Hey, are you in there!"

"It is me!"

"We don't want to fight!"

"Don't you remember us!"

Ect

Although unfortunately, their attempts didn't seem to work as the only thing they got was almost being hit by an attack, which they were pulled away from thanks to Zapdos.

"As much as I hate to say it, I don't think we can get through to them!" Spark said, "Do you guys not feel anything?"

"Nothing"

"Negative"

Spark looked sadly at the two, "Then our only option is to take them down and go from there."

Blanche nodded, "That seems to be our only option at the moment,"

"Alright!" Candela said, slamming her fists together, "Let's knock some sense into them!"

[Status: Shadow Articuno - 39% heath remaining]

[Status: Shadow Moltres - 43% heath remaining]

—

{Back on the island}

Looker and Cole were running through the streets approaching the place Looker described, Looker kept Croagunk out since he knew that Cole was secretly part of Team Rocket.

There was no doubt in Looker's mind that Cole was planning on getting rid of him since he was the one who informed the higher-ups, how is he so sure, well even before Looker found out he had met Cole before.

Cole is arrogant, to say the least, he would gloat about he was the strongest even stronger than some commanders. He was also short-sighted, as in he was brash in his decisions and acted like a child even though he was in his 20s.

Though he isn't one to talk since he is 30, the point is he knows, now why did he choose to bring him along, well it's easier to deal with him as long as he knows where he is instead of him following behind secretly waiting for a surprise attack.

But the main point is that he discussed this with Anabel as well, and they agreed on a plan to trap him in his lie and so he needed him to think he had the upper hand.

As for strength, well Looker isn't weak if that's the question, he definitely isn't the strongest but he is confident that he could take Cole on with Croagunk alone, and even if he couldn't he does have more than one Pokemon.

As Looker and Cole arrived at the bathhouse in question they got in easily since no one was at the counter and after a quick search they found a secret tunnel, although the fact that this place was empty meant one of two things.

1, there are no more grunts coming in and they are all already out, or 2, there are more Tunnels. Looker was willing to bet it was the latter but with Cole here he didn't say anything about it.

Instead, he turned to him, "It looks like this is the place, if we follow the tunnels we should find their headquarters."

Cole nodded and smiled, "You first, I'll cover your back."

Looker didn't fight it since he knew what was coming, he jumped down and Cole followed, looking maliciously at Looker's back.

But as he went down a girl with lilac-colored hair followed behind sneakily making sure no one noticed her.

—

Down by the center of town Brock, Misty, and Yellow were running around working with the international Police and looking around for wherever Ash ran off to.

When they met up Brock asked, "Do you have any word on Ash?" receiving a head shake from the girls.

"No, I asked some of the People but they said they haven't seen him," Yellow said as Chuchu stood on her shoulder.

"Ugg, why does he need to always go off on his own," Misty said rubbing her head, "he always makes things more complicated than they need-"

Suddenly the sound of rock breaking followed by a dust cloud by the side of the volcano, followed by a bright blast all came from the volcano.

"... Any chance one of those was Ash related?" Brock asked.

"If I say no, can we not go there?" Misty asked

"No"

"Then probably," Misty said, defeated as they all started running towards the volcano, but before they got too close a Bolt of Lightning cut them off as a man with a lab coat and riding a Magnezone appeared in front of them.

"Hey, what's the big Idea, who are you!" Misty Yelled at their new obstacle

Colress didn't answer, instead, he put on his infamous blue cowlick, "I apologize but I can't let you go any further, I must see the results of those battles, and they are enough extraneous variables without you."

"H-hey, I don't know what that means but I assume it is something mean," Yellow said looking grumpy, "And our friend is there and we need to help him!"

"Sorry, but I can't allow that, I am so close to finally seeing my experiments bear fruit, you may not see it now but in the future, you will thank me."

Brock stepped forward, "I don't know what you're talking about but if your standing in our way that makes you our enemy,"

"Is this really how you wish to proceed," Colress said coldly

But when everyone got ready and pulled out a Pokeball he could only sigh looking disappointed like a parent who scolded a child, "Very well, let's make this quick, Magnezone let's begin."