Chapter 496: Ouyang the Brute

However.

All Baimu's hand had barely reached out before it was frightened back by Hoenn Rayquaza's icy gaze.

It seemed he had been thinking too wishfully.

The basic condition for using the Heart of the Gods, beyond his having brewed up sufficient emotion on his end, also required the other party's cooperation — but clearly Hoenn Rayquaza was unwilling to lower its head for him to touch.

The dignity of the Dragon God… perhaps?

He clicked his tongue in regret, though he wasn't all that surprised.

The smooth spiritual communication with both Latias and the Shiny Rayquaza had been purely a matter of special circumstances — one had no choice in the matter, and the other had practically delivered itself to his door.

How many times could such good fortune occur under heaven?

If efficient communication was off the table, then he could only resort to the relatively inefficient method.

All Baimu turned his head to look at the Shiny Rayquaza right beside him, only to find it twisting its head to look at Hoenn Rayquaza.

Then, before he could confirm what was happening, the fellow spiraled through the air like a coiling dragon and came up behind him, giving him a gentle push with its tail.

"Huh?"

All Baimu nearly stumbled and fell, and by the time he steadied himself, he found himself already standing before Hoenn Rayquaza.

This was…

He looked up at Hoenn Rayquaza, which held its head high; those golden dragon pupils seemed to brim with an emotion called displeasure, and he couldn't help turning to look at the Shiny Rayquaza.

The latter, meanwhile, looked just like a parent sending a child off to school, its eyes full of encouragement.

"Hiss—"

All Baimu drew in a sharp breath, his previously somewhat dull mind suddenly clearing, and he hadn't expected that he would ultimately gain the chance for spiritual communication with Hoenn Rayquaza.

Although the latter seemed to take some inexplicable dislike to him, he still wanted to say what needed to be said.

If it wouldn't lower its head… then so be it.

As long as their eyes could make contact, that was enough.

He looked up at Hoenn Rayquaza's lowered gaze, slowly reached out and placed his hand on the three-toed dragon claw it had extended, and brewed up emotion within his heart.

In fact.

Compared to the Shiny Rayquaza, whether in film and television works or in games, All Baimu had far more contact with Hoenn Rayquaza — this fellow was the Pokémon he would always go to the Sky Pillar to catch, no matter how many times he played through Emerald or its romhacks.

Even if he often had no chance to use it, just having it sit on his computer and looking at it would make his heart glad.

Therefore, his affection for Hoenn Rayquaza needed no words; as for the kind of reverence the People of the Meteors held… honestly, he didn't have much of that.

Could mere affection be enough for him to successfully use the Heart of the Gods?

The answer was naturally in the affirmative.

In the world of Pokémon, only affection is the most sincere — here there exist only two kinds of people: the upright Pokémon fanatic, and the obsessed Pokémon fanatic.

Golden light emerged, spreading from between the claws up to the head.

Hoenn Rayquaza watched this scene in surprise — though it looked like an external invasion, it felt not the slightest repulsion, and by the time it reacted, the "view" before its eyes was already a blaze of gold.

The mindscape had appeared.

All Baimu hovered not far from it, gently placing his hand atop its head; a great flood of emotions and thoughts were exchanged in that instant, and any deeper meaning hidden beneath surface appearances and the barrier of language was laid bare without a shadow of a doubt.

【Heart of the Gods】.

The staircase for communicating with the "deities" of the Pokémon world.

A moment later.

The two parties withdrew from the mindscape, and as they looked at each other, there was something rather odd about it.

"—Aoo!

"

Hoenn Rayquaza suddenly let out a great roar, and without a care for All Baimu standing right in front of it, swung its long dragon-like body and soared up toward the heavens — so fast that in the blink of an eye it had vanished without a trace.

The latter was blown to the ground by the gale, but didn't blame Hoenn Rayquaza in the slightest.

He was simply very surprised that the Hoenn Rayquaza revealed in the mindscape was nothing like the fierce and domineering creature he had imagined — this fellow was actually rather introverted… well, a closet brooder.

Take the earlier scene where All Baimu reached out his hand and was scared back.

It wasn't that Hoenn Rayquaza was unwilling — it felt that this human of his had no sense at all; clearly he should have walked over in person, so why was he making it come to him?

Did Rayquaza have no pride to keep?

Besides, the Shiny Rayquaza had already coiled itself up into a ball — where was it supposed to put its head if it leaned over?

So later it refused to lower its head to make things convenient for All Baimu, using that to hint at its displeasure — having long enjoyed the People of the Meteors and their reverent habit of constantly guessing at its thoughts and intentions, Hoenn Rayquaza had already mastered a precise scale of eye-expression for dealing with humans.

Unfortunately, a certain someone was young — not only did he not fall for its routine, he hadn't even noticed.

Thus Hoenn Rayquaza had purely been casting flirtatious glances at a blind man.

And in the spiritual exchange, this point was conveyed to All Baimu in full, without any concealment.

Of course.

This still wasn't the fundamental reason Hoenn Rayquaza "fled" the Sky Pillar; the reason it had to slip away was, on the one hand, its aversion to the Heart of the Gods.

"Not every legendary Pokémon likes to have its innermost thoughts dug out and shown to others."

After this encounter, All Baimu understood that even though he possessed a power like the Heart of the Gods, he couldn't use it casually. Putting himself in the other's shoes — even knowing the other party meant well, how many people would be willing to let all their thoughts be known to someone else?

The right to privacy was important.

And the other reason Hoenn Rayquaza left was that it had been found out to have a psychological shadow regarding human technology. It regarded its own little fear as a disgrace, so once it was sensed, it could no longer continue communicating with the other party.

This made All Baimu feel even more guilty.

He felt he had been too eager for convenience, to the point of being somewhat willful and abusing his ability.

The objective had been achieved, though…

Hoenn Rayquaza was willing to give humanity one more chance to properly make use of the megalith, and along the way acknowledged his identity as the inheritor of the People of the Meteors.

Such a grand display was wildly reshaping All Baimu's understanding of Rayquaza.

One must understand that the Hoenn Rayquaza had actually been harmed by human technology more than once in the anime — the first time was in the movie "Visitor of the Split Sky," when it was engulfed by a rampaging block-shaped robot. The second was at the opening of the movie "Prince of the Vast Sea," when Team Rocket captured it with missiles and a special restraint device.

Naturally it regained its freedom afterward, but human technology still left it with no small amount of psychological trauma.

The two people who captured it were also very familiar to All Baimu—

Once struck by Lei Gong, and having also raided Meteor Village — Purson and Bashu, they had completed the operation to capture Rayquaza with the help of Team Rocket's well-known researcher, Dr. Shiranu.

Although all three operations ended in failure, one had to admit that Team Rocket really did have a few tricks up its sleeve.

"I did something wrong."

All Baimu turned around and said to the Shiny Rayquaza, who was gazing upward at the direction the Hoenn Rayquaza had left, with a guilty expression.

The latter did not reply.

After a long while.

The Shiny Rayquaza slowly drew closer and extended its claw to touch his hand; its lowered gaze held friendliness, and then it too flew high into the sky, the rumbling sound of breaking air continuously deafening.

At All Baimu's earnest request, it would once again return to the Kalos region, searching from high above for traces of the Legendary Titan and keeping watch over it.

In other words, it was yet another contingency being prepared.

But as long as Fladily failed to complete the Mega Evolution energy system, the Shiny Rayquaza would not need to step in.

Both dragons departed.

All Baimu stood on the Dragon Calling Altar letting the cold wind blow for a while, then searched around for any scales; finding nothing, he asked Hu Pa's spatial door to take him away.

"I'll apologize again when there's a chance — time to wrap things up."

——

Lumiose City.

When All Baimu received the Mega Ring from Liza, Alain was still unconscious in the hospital room.

According to the doctor, he had suffered a fairly violent impact, and combined with extreme physical exhaustion, he needed a certain amount of time to rest; although there was no major issue, it was best to rest quietly and remain hospitalized for observation for a few more days.

Upon hearing this news, Fladily very magnanimously gave this young man a holiday.

Such an upright child collapsing from exhaustion was not something this ambitious man wished to see.

Marnon was also overjoyed — she was the most resistant to Alain running around everywhere and putting himself in danger, so being able to let him rest quietly was naturally exactly what she wanted to see.

Champion Dawu had come to take a look a few times, but had other matters to attend to and left.

Only Miss Xijiana had long since boarded a plane bound for the Kalos region — there was no helping it, she had always been a loner with her own opinions, and it was impossible for her to tag along with Champion Dawu.

"Mr. Baimu!"

The drowsy Marnon saw All Baimu come in from outside the door, hurriedly rose to greet him; the Chespin sleeping beside her also gave a sudden start, its face blank with glistening drool still lingering at the corner of its mouth.

"If you're sleepy, go to bed early — only with plenty of rest can you better adventure with Alain." All Baimu patted her shoulder, then added: "Don't worry, there are nurses and Nurse Blissey on duty in the hospital, there won't be any problems."

Marnon shyly scratched her head. "Then… then I'll go rest?"

"Go ahead, I'll check on Alain's condition." he said softly, and only then did the young girl reluctantly leave.

Not long after.

All Baimu glanced at the bedside table, then at the unconscious Alain, and without a change of expression opened the bedside table, quickly finding the Mega Ring placed on top.

He truly hadn't expected that he would still have a chance to secretly swap the Mega Ring — according to the original plot, Alain had only been briefly unconscious before waking up; his willpower was simply outrageously strong…

Was the Lucky Scale helping out?

Regardless, after swapping it out, he'd take it to Liza for testing before anything else.

All Baimu deftly removed the Key Stone, swapping the Mega Ring for the one in his own pocket; during the process he also compared the ring size and the feel of the interior, and upon finding them nearly identical, swiftly closed the cabinet door and left the hospital.

Beep.

A soft sound came from his phone.

"The footage has been swapped?" All Baimu asked in a low voice.

The Porygon2 in the phone replied: "It's been replaced, no one will notice."

Porygon2 was simply one of the strongest hackers of the current era — at the very least, a small hospital system's firewall couldn't stop this fellow's infiltration, and it had effortlessly altered the ward's surveillance.

He found Liza once again.

"So this is the 'stolen goods' you wanted to swap out?" Liza held the Mega Ring, examining it from side to side.

The fact that she could participate in the research and development of Mega Evolution energy naturally meant she was no fool — the moment she saw All Baimu bring the "thing" over again, she had already guessed most of it.

All Baimu nodded, his expression unchanged: "Please check the condition inside — if I'm not mistaken, it contains extraordinary Mega Evolution energy!"

"You really do trust me, aren't you afraid I'll tell Officer Jenny and have her arrest you?"

Liza rolled her eyes, complaining quite a bit about his brazen behavior, "And are you kidding? Where in the world does a Mega Ring have the function of storing Mega Evolution energy…"

Seeing All Baimu's completely serious face, she swallowed the second half of her sentence, and said: "I don't know what you're planning to do, just one question — does Champion Dawu know?"

"Once you examine the energy and the ring's structure, he'll naturally know."

"…Fine."

Liza took the Mega Ring and left.

However, the moment she walked away, All Baimu immediately contacted Champion Dawu, and specifically made clear that he had stolen the ring from Alain.

At this moment, Mr. Champion was in the conference room explaining to the Mayor of Lumiose City, and his father President Zuvich, a series of situations that had occurred offshore; during the discussion, a glance at his phone instantly stiffened his expression, and he hurriedly excused himself before rushing downstairs.

"Baimu!"

Champion Dawu found All Baimu waiting outside the research lab to watch the show, and asked helplessly: "Why would you do something like this?"

"I'm sorry, I just hope you can take it a little more seriously."

The latter said softly: "I caught a fleeting glimpse of it during my battle with Alain — when he Mega Evolved, his didn't light up, but when I had Aggron Mega Evolve, it did light up. Don't you think there's a problem here?"

"Even so, there was no need… forget it."

Champion Dawu sighed — he had previously praised All Baimu in private for being calm enough, but it turned out the latter was just as reckless.

Younger, or...

Of course.

He also knew that people who came from the Orei region always carried a wild streak in how they handled things — their actions were usually very direct and decisive, striking straight at the opponent's vital point without ever considering any other peaceful solution.

After all, the environment the Orei people used to live in was impossible to soften, so it left them with this kind of habit.

Not long after.

Inside the research room, Liza spun her head around quickly. The moment she spotted Champion Dawu, she froze for a beat, then frantically waved him over.

Seeing this, Dawu opened the door and walked in.

"Quick, come look at this — it's incredible!" Liza pointed at the computer screen's analysis of the Mega Ring. "This thing imitates part of the structure of a Key Stone. It automatically draws energy from inside Pokémon. Even though each individual draw isn't much, when it accumulates, look—"

Dawu was also researching Mega Evolution energy, so naturally he couldn't possibly be unaware of what this implied.

They had also made something like an "Absorb Orb" before, but without a doubt the Absorb Orb was far inferior to this compact Mega Ring. The technological power contained within it left even Dawu somewhat shocked.

Baimu, on the other hand, wasn't surprised in the slightest. One had to remember that most of the core members of Flare Laboratory were scientists, and among them, a middle-aged fat man named Xerosic was a genius among geniuses, on par with the Plasma Frigate's Ghetsis.

The mind-control system used in the anime to control the two 50% Zygarde was most likely also his handiwork. What a pity such a genius brain was never put to proper use.

Dawu looked at the Mega Ring on the screen, then turned his head to look at Baimu beside him.

How could he possibly fail to read what the latter meant?

It seemed the secrets hidden inside Flare Laboratory were even more than he'd imagined…

He silently pondered.

And Baimu, seeing his expression, felt somewhat reassured.

With this, Dawu probably wouldn't notice Chespin's abnormality and still turn a blind eye to it, would he?

The Dawu in the anime was really too polite. Even though the lab that had captured Zygarde was right nearby the boulder, and Chespin was having problems, he had never once thought there was anything wrong with it.