I triggered [X], crossing the gap in a splashing flash of lightning, but rather than strike, I crouched to immediately chain it into [Y]. The Hydro Flash Barrage slammed directly under the Golisopod's chin and into its torso, a series of lightning fast uppercuts of pure electrical force that emitted water bullets to lift the massive bug entirely off its feet. It crashed onto its back, its eyes swirling.
"Useless bug!" Guzma spat, recalling the fainted Golisopod in a beam of red light. "Fine. You want to play hard? Let's see how you handle a real swarm."
He pulled three more Ultra Balls from his jacket, tossing them into the air simultaneously.
An Ariados, a Masquerain, and a towering, battle-scarred Scizor materialized.
"I told you, I'm taking those freaks," Guzma sneered, pulling a handful of empty, heavily modified Snag Balls from his pocket. He chucked two of them directly at Nemona and Grusha.
The balls flew through the barrier and hit the girls square in the chest before I could react, popping open to draw them in. But instead of converting them to energy, my Paradise System violently rejected the foreign capture tech. Sparks flew as the balls short-circuited, bouncing off their bodies and shattering on the pavement.
"What the hell?" Guzma muttered, his eyes wide. He gritted his teeth, his arrogant grin twisting into a mask of pure, unadulterated malice. "Fine. If I can't catch 'em in balls, I'll just have my boys drag 'em out in cages! Ariados, Masquerain, pin the kid down! Scizor, tear those girls apart!"
"Hey!" Nemona shouted, floating higher. The twelve stars orbiting her head flared dangerously, shifting into an offensive formation. "I can handle a bug!"
"Grusha," Grusha agreed, stepping fully onto her crystal snowboard. A heavy frost gathered in her hands as she prepped an Ice Beam.
But I wasn't listening.
A cold, primal fury erupted in my chest. This wasn't testing the walls anymore. He was trying to enslave my family. He was trying to hurt them. And with their energy reserves sitting at only ten attacks, I wasn't going to let them burn their strength on this thug.
My vision tinted red, the purple Quasartico HUD flickering violently as an ancient, terrifying weight settled over my soul.
I waited for Cryo to warn me. I waited for the logical voice in my head to tell me to calm down, to play by the rules.
Silence.
Cryo wasn't saying a word. The sheer intensity of my rage had completely severed my restraint, and in that silence, a different voice spoke.
'Look at this pathetic insect,' Primordial whispered, its voice echoing from the deepest, darkest abyss of my System. 'He dares to claim what is ours? He dares to threaten us? Release me. Shatter these artificial rules. Erase him.'
For the first time since I woke up in this world, I didn't fight it. This wasn't Garon, but I also knew that this… Thing inside me, beneath Cryo, needed me to get stronger. It also shared my growing distaste of insults.
So? I embraced it.
[Override: Penultimate Primordial System]
The Quasartico goggles on my face sparked, the glass cracking down the middle as the A-B-X-Y interface completely shattered in my vision. The Hydro Flash Skin evaporated, replaced by a blinding, terrifying pillar of white and red light that erupted from my body.
"What the—?!" Guzma yelled, taking a step back as the shockwave of raw energy forced his Ariados and Masquerain to the ground.
I didn't stop there.
[Attempting Mega Evolution][...Successful!]
The energy within me surged to an impossible height. The transformation I had used against Garon returned, but fueled by pure, unadulterated wrath, it felt entirely different. It didn't feel like a tool; it felt like a weapon of mass extinction.
Four massive, ethereal wings of radiant red and white energy tore from my back, expanding until they nearly brushed the edges of the red Hard-Light barrier. My majestic smooth pure white form was now armored like Knighty, but pure white covered in pulsing red lines. My head was the same, but I could feel strange pulsing runes on my face. This Mega Evolution felt dramatically different than the first time I did it myself. The aura surrounding me was so dense it actually cracked the glowing blue pavement beneath my feet.
Guzma stared at me, his jaw slack, the arrogance completely wiped from his face. But he was a syndicate boss. He didn't know how to surrender. He tapped a Key Stone hidden under his gold chain.
"You think a light show scares ya boy Guzma?!" he screamed, his voice cracking with panic. "Scizor, Mega Evolve! Kill him!"
The Scizor erupted in a blinding flash of Mega Energy, its armor becoming jagged and heavier, its claws transforming into massive, serrated pincers. Mega Scizor launched itself at me, moving faster than the Golisopod, its claws glowing with the lethal metallic sheen of a Bullet Punch.
It was fast. But to my eyes in this new form? It was moving in slow motion.
I didn't use a button. I didn't wait for a cooldown.
I simply reached out and caught Mega Scizor's Bullet Punch in the palm of my bare hand that was almost triple the size of a human's.
The impact created a shockwave that rippled against the red Hard-Light walls, but I didn't move an inch. Scizor's eyes widened in sheer terror as it tried to pull its claw back, but my grip was like a hydraulic press.
"No," I whispered, my voice echoing with the dual resonance of my own vocal cords and Primordial's ancient, booming tone.
I tightened my grip, the sound of cracking metal echoing through the dome as Scizor's Mega-evolved armor began to fracture. I lifted the two-hundred-pound steel bug effortlessly into the air and slammed it face-first into the glowing blue pavement.
The crater was massive. Mega Scizor immediately reverted to its base form, completely unconscious, its armor shattered and smoking.
Guzma backed up, his eyes darting frantically to the exit. "Ariados! Masquerain! Get him!"
The two bugs hesitated, terrified of the aura radiating from me, but their loyalty forced them forward. Masquerain fired a Bug Buzz, while Ariados lunged with Cross Poison.
"Sequence 3: Primordial Mega Sun Flare," I commanded softly as the attacks hit me harmlessly.
My ethereal wings flared, pulling the ambient light from the arena. Massive, blood red beams of pure, localized destruction blasted from my wings, sweeping across the street. It didn't just knock Ariados and Masquerain out. They didn't just vaporize the street beneath them, they caused them to erupt, blowing both Pokémon into the air. Both of them slammed against the red Hard-Light barrier, and then fell down to the ground, unconscious and scorched.
Guzma was out of Pokémon. He was out of options.
He fell backward, scrambling away on his hands and knees, his gold sunglasses falling to the pavement and shattering. "Wait! Wait, kid! I was just doing my job! The scientists told me to push you!"
I floated forward, the tips of my energy tipped wings scoring deep trenches into the concrete. The rage hadn't subsided. The urge to completely erase him from the timeline was burning in my veins. No world needed more people like this.
I reached down, grabbing Guzma by his neck, and lifted him effortlessly into the air. He kicked and thrashed, his hands clawing weakly at my arm.
'Crush his throat,' Primordial hissed in my mind. 'Show them what happens to those who challenge a god.'
My grip tightened. Guzma's face started to turn purple as he gasped for air.
"Landon! Stop!" Nemona yelled, dropping back to the ground to pound on the barrier.
"Landon, no," Grusha said, her voice finally losing its flat tone, laced with genuine alarm as she gripped her snowboard tightly.
I raised my free hand, Psychic energy pooling in my palm, ready to blast him through the Hard-Light wall.
Suddenly, the red barrier above us flickered violently. A massive, mechanical hum echoed through the sector.
"That is quite enough, Landon," Mable's voice echoed, amplified over an invisible PA system.
Before I could unleash the attack, the glowing blue street beneath us flared with an intense, blinding white light. A localized gravity well—a specialized containment field built into the Quasartico testing grid—slammed down on my shoulders. It was like a skyscraper had been dropped on my back.
The sheer, concentrated force of the gravity field disrupted the Mega Evolution. The ethereal wings sputtered and vanished, and the Penultimate Primordial System was forcibly pushed back into dormancy.
I dropped Guzma, falling to one knee as the gravity field held me in place, my chest heaving as I gasped for air.
The red Hard-Light barrier hissed and dissolved, retreating back into the pavement. Emma, Jennifer, Anabel, and the girls rushed forward.
Guzma was on the ground, coughing violently and clutching his throat, staring at me like I was the devil himself.
Mable's voice crackled over the PA again, completely devoid of panic. In fact, she sounded utterly fascinated.
"Cooldowns are for mortals, it seems. Your raw output just overpowered the primary kinetic dampeners. Fascinating. Emma, have the medics scrape Guzma off the floor. Landon, cool yourself... Then come back to the lab. We have much more to discuss."