The moment the scorched trainer delivered the warning, the lobby erupted into absolute chaos. Trainers scrambled for the exits like madmen. Fortunately, the Goldenrod City medical hub had been designed with separate entry and exit partitions, otherwise the stampede would have pinned the wounded Quilava against the doors.
"Let's move, Chang Chang!" Guinaifen shouted, her eyes locked on the horizon.
The two girls sprinted into the open air. Because the northern orchard grid was relatively close, they bypassed their massive Dragonites, choosing Pidgeot (Guinaifen) and Fearow (Sushang) instead. At short distances where acceleration grids didn't matter, the smaller flying types offered a significantly more agile, responsive mount, and the riding saddles were far more comfortable than a dragon's raw scales.
BOOM!
Even from a mile away, a pillar of incandescent orange flame erupted into the upper atmosphere, staining the digital sky with a violent, smoky red.
"Over there!"
As they swooped down over the orchard boundary, the sheer scale of the trial revealed itself. A loose perimeter of local trainers had surrounded the legendary beast, attempting to throw their teams into the fray one by one. But the exchanges weren't even close. Pokémon were being systematically swatted away by massive, heavily armored paws, while others simply froze in their tracks, paralyzed by the sheer, unbridled pressure radiating from the creature.
Even at this altitude, Guinaifen could feel the heavy, oppressive density of the air. If her Pidgeot and Sushang's Fearow hadn't been max-leveled veterans of the Kanto circuit, they likely would have thrown their riders and bolted from the airspace.
"This... this is a completely different algorithm," Sushang muttered, her knuckles white against the reins. "The pressure under the standard sandbox code wasn't anything like this."
The core fan base knew that the legendary Pokémon available in the standard buy-to-play files carried a localized "Collector's Parameter." Before capture, they were a steep mechanical challenge, but once they snapped inside a Poké Ball, their stats were normalized to fit the competitive meta. Julian Reed had designed it that way to prevent legendary assets from completely centralizing the game, allowing for diverse team builds.
But here, within the hallowed lines of the Legendary Adventure Mode, Entei's parameters had been restored to their full, cinematic glory—a literal force of nature derived straight from the anime archives. For two veterans who had climbed to the absolute peak of the galaxy's leaderboards, the sight didn't breed fear. It bred a fierce, burning desire for the ultimate challenge.
"ROOOOOAARR!"
Entei unleashed a full-power Roar. The shockwave manifested as a violent, localized gale, the kinetic force scattering the remaining wild lines and novice Pokémon like dry leaves. The clearing was wiped clean in a single breath.
The beast turned his heavy, golden-masked head, preparing to leap back into the deeper valleys, completely indifferent to the human audience. But Guinaifen wasn't about to let a five-trillion-credit plotline walk away.
"Not on my watch! Lapras, intercept! Hydro Pump!"
"Feraligatr, double down! Let's show him a real torrent!" Sushang screamed in unison.
The two girls slipped from their mounts, their boots hitting the scorched grass just as their primary water-types materialized. Twin high-pressure pillars of water locked onto the beast's trajectory, the velocity forcing Entei to cancel his leap and anchor his heavy claws into the dirt to slide beneath the streams.
"ROAR!"
The lion's eyes flared with an ancient, burning energy. He opened his maw, and a terrifyingly dense column of white-hot magma erupted from his chest—a raw Flamethrower that tore through the air with the speed of a railgun projectile.
"Protect! Both of you, brace!"
Twin octagonal shields of crystalline green energy snapped into existence. Entei's magma column slammed into the barriers, the sheer kinetic weight pushing the heavy Lapras and Feraligatr backward across the orchard floor, their claws carving deep furrows into the rich soil.
The thermal radiation was blinding. Even standing fifty yards behind their shields, Guinaifen and Sushang felt as if they had been dropped into the smelting furnaces of the Zhuming. Sweat instantly soaked through their collars, and their water-types groaned under the immense, exhausting temperature shift.
Finally, the fire column sputtered out, leaving the air shimmering with heat distortion. The two Pokémon exhaled ragged, steaming breaths, their hydration bars dangerously low.
But Entei didn't follow the turn-based script. Before the steam could even clear, he kicked off the ground, his body trailing a golden, multi-hued wake of residual energy—a maximum-output Flame Charge. Without a secondary Protect cooldown available, the water-types had no choice but to take the physical impact head-on.
BANG!
The collision sent both heavy reptiles hurtling backward into the shattered orchard trees. Jagged burn marks scorched their scales, their digital status rings pulsing an emergency red.
"Lapras! Get up!" Guinaifen called out, her heart hammering.
"Feraligatr, can you still see him?" Sushang's voice carried a rare trace of panic.
If they hadn't possessed the typing advantage, that single physical trade would have wiped them out instantly. Julian had built this encounter to be ruthless. Believing Entei was only a slight variation of the standard boss files, they hadn't packed a full defensive water-grid. Defeating this thing without a specialized rock or ground anchor was going to be an uphill battle through hell.
"Chang Chang, pull them back for emergency medicine! Use the Full Restores and the Rawst Berries! I'll buy the clock!" Guinaifen snapped her primary ball from her belt. "Go, Dragonite!"
"Waaah!"
The dragon materialized, its small wings snapping tight as its eyes locked onto the legendary beast. Sensing the shift in quality, Entei paused. A low, rumbling growl escaped his chest, his lips curling into what looked remarkably like a proud, feral smile. He respected the dragon. He was willing to trade.
Thrum-thrum-thrum-thrum...
The heavy, mechanical beat of multi-bladed propellers shattered the tension. Entei's ears twitched. His gaze snapped toward the western sky, his posture instantly returning to a defensive, alert stance. Without a second's hesitation, he swiped his front paw across the earth, conjuring a towering Fire Spin that completely obscured the girls' vision and cut off any immediate pursuit.
By the time the fire wall collapsed into harmless embers, the valley was empty. Entei had vanished into the mountain folds.
"He ran? Wait, did we fail the condition?" Sushang cried, frantically checking her console while applying medicine to her Feraligatr.
"The tracker is still active," Guinaifen breathed, a sigh of relief escaping her as she checked her interface. "It's a scripted escape. The story is moving."
The shadow of a massive, four-propeller transport plane loomed over the orchard, its heavy engines roaring as it descended toward the clearing. Painted in cold, stark lettering across the fuselage was a corporate logo: Cihuai Pharmaceutical Corporation.
Sushang, looking at the inscription, felt a sudden, familiar chill go down her spine. "Cihuai... Pharmaceuticals? Boss Julian really has a dark sense of humor..."
As a fresh recruit of the Cloud Knights, her training had drilled the names of rogue factions into her memory. The name on the hull differed by only a single character from the Disciples of Sanctus Medicus—the immortal-seeking cult that plagued the Alliance's internal security. If Julian didn't possess the explicit, personal backing of the Seat of Divine Foresight, Sushang would have flagged Arceus Studio as an undercover cell of the Abundance right then and there.
30+ chapters are available now and daily updates! @patreon.com/AgentTwilight