Under the moonlight, Ariel's silver mask appeared utterly ferocious.
In the next instant, he felt as if a red-hot iron rod had been violently thrust into his brain.
The intense pain caused his vision to darken, nearly sending him to his knees.
It was Malamar's Hypnosis!
In that very moment of mental vulnerability, two deadly shadows closed in on him from both sides.
On the left was Viper and her Arbok.
The massive purple serpent flicked its tongue, venom dripping to the ground and corroding small pits.
On the right was Ariel's Weavile. Its sharp claws gleamed with a cold, murderous light in the firelight.
"Protect me! Poliwrath!"
Vulcan, enduring the headache, roared hoarsely.
Poliwrath tried to fall back to defend, but Blaziken's Flare Blitz was already charging head-on, firmly pinning it down.
Vulcan despaired.
Only now did he understand that his opponent's target from the very beginning had never been his Pokémon, but his own person.
On a proper Trainer battlefield, in a one-on-one match, Vulcan's Gym Leader Level Pokémon would indeed be troublesome.
But one must remember, this was in the wild!
In a wild battle, most of the time, the side with greater numbers holds the advantage.
Viper's movements were alluring and lethal. Like a true serpentine seductress, she closed in on Vulcan's body, her poisoned blade slicing towards his throat.
Vulcan instinctively retreated to dodge, only to collide with something cold and unyielding.
It was Weavile.
He didn't even see Weavile's movement, only felt a chill at the center of his back.
Sharp claws had already pierced through his chest.
Vulcan looked down at the claw protruding from his body, his eyes filled with disbelief.
He opened his mouth, blood mixed with fragments of internal organs gushing forth.
Weavile withdrew its claws, and Vulcan's body slumped softly to the ground, raising a cloud of dust.
With the Trainer's death, Poliwrath's and Golem's movements froze for an instant.
This opening was seized by Blaziken and Froslass, two fatal attacks striking simultaneously, ending the battle.
The entire supply point fell into a deathly silence.
Only the crackling of flames and the panting of survivors remained.
Those Alliance members who had snapped out of the illusion looked at the bodies of their comrades littering the ground and the weapons in their own hands, their faces etched with collapse and despair.
"Don't kill me! Please! I surrender! I'll tell you everything!"
A young soldier knelt on the ground, weeping bitterly.
Others also dropped their weapons one after another, kneeling and begging for mercy.
Dar watched this scene, her thoughts flickering in her narrowed eyes.
Ariel, however, merely watched them coldly, as if observing a flock of lambs awaiting slaughter.
He understood clearly that mercy was a privilege of the strong, and he was not yet among them.
Letting go of any witness could become a blade pointed at him in the future.
He raised his hand and gently lowered it.
"Leave none alive."
The three icy words were like a death sentence.
Weavile and Malamar moved again.
Screams rang out once more, but soon faded into silence.
This time, even Dar felt a chill.
This chill did not come from her Froslass, but from Ariel's utterly emotionless, pure resolve.
At that moment, the communicator at Ariel's waist suddenly vibrated.
He answered it. An urgent voice came through.
"It's appeared! The legendary Pokémon, Suicune, has appeared at the Lake of Rage!"
...
The smell of blood was thick, suffocating.
A scene like a slaughterhouse, the scent of blood mixed with char and dust, forming a nauseatingly viscous substance that clogged everyone's mouths and noses.
When the elite Alliance squad stationed to the east finally arrived on the scene, this was the sight that greeted them.
This could no longer be called a defensive line.
Shattered walls and ruins, scorched earth embedded with fragmented Poké Balls like red beetles crushed by immense force.
Shreds of Alliance uniforms were mixed with twisted wooden debris, indistinguishable from one another.
Bodies.
Bodies everywhere.
Some were burned by flames into nothing but curled black charcoal, others frozen into ice sculptures in various poses, their faces still frozen in the terror before their pleas for help.
Further away, some bodies lay together in unnatural postures, weapons plunged into their comrades' chests, clearly having fallen into some illusion and killed each other.
Silence.
Deathly silence.
The wind blew, picking up a small swirl of ash that struck the leading captain's face.
He was an experienced Superior Trainer, his Scyther notorious throughout the Johto region, having witnessed countless scenes of carnage.
But this sight before him still caused his stomach to convulse violently.
This wasn't a battle; it was a one-sided massacre.
"Urgh—"
Behind him, a young squad member could no longer hold back, bending over and retching violently.
The sour, rotten smell mixed into this bloody hell, making the air even more unbearable.
The captain did not reprimand him.
In fact, his own face was as pale as paper.
He crouched down, picked up a bit of the dust from the ground, and brought it to his nose to sniff.
"It's Team Rockets..."
His voice was parched,
"...raided by Team Rockets."
No one responded to him.
Everyone was stunned by this infernal scene. The strength they prided themselves on seemed so laughable in the face of the power that had created this hell.
...
Meanwhile, at the Lake of Rage.
The wind from the lakeshore carried a biting chill, stirring the hems of the clothes worn by Ariel and his three companions.
Unlike the bloody battlefield they had just experienced, the air here was so fresh it felt refreshing to the heart and lungs.
The lake was vast, its waters deep and dark, appearing an almost blackish blue under the gloomy sky.
It was quiet here.
Quiet to an abnormal degree.
Suddenly, far out in the center of the lake, a soft and sacred light bloomed without warning.
The light was not blinding, yet possessed a purity that seemed to penetrate the soul, as if capable of cleansing all filth from the world.
Where the light touched, the dark blue lake surface visibly froze into ice at a visible rate, the smooth, mirror-like ice layer rapidly spreading towards the shore.
The air temperature plummeted sharply, exhaled breath condensing into tiny ice crystals before their eyes.
"It's coming."
Corona lowered his voice, his tone betraying a barely suppressed excitement.
As the light faded, an elegant and noble creature stood quietly upon the frozen lake's center.
Its form was leopard-like, its body covered in sky-blue fur adorned with white diamond-shaped spots.
Upon its head was a crystalline blue crown, two long, ribbon-like white tails flowing gracefully behind it.
Most striking was the purple, cloud-like mane flowing behind it, dancing gently in the breeze like the embodiment of the north wind.