Chapter 69: Intense Battle with Team Plasma

"There really were other intruders hiding here. Dammit... how on earth did these people get in? Lord Rood, I will handle them immediately!!"

"Wait, Aldith. Do not make a move just yet."

The Team Plasma woman wearing the black-and-white commanding officer uniform had a chilling look on her face. Just as she was about to step forward and engage personally, she was stopped by the brown-robed elderly man behind her. This left the woman, Aldith, completely bewildered.

"Lord Rood, why won't you let me handle this?!"

This operation was of paramount importance. If Team Plasma could successfully secure the Genesect fossil, they could easily resurrect it and modify it into an invincible weapon using their internal technology, which was at least decades ahead of modern society!

Armed with the power of Genesect, the ultimate hunter, Team Plasma would be completely unstoppable in the Unova region!

All that would be left was for the 'King,' the one capable of leading the Black and White Hero Dragons, to make his descent, and Team Plasma would possess more than enough strength to utterly crush the entire Unova League!

When that day came, the entire Unova region would see the ultimate realization of Team Plasma's grand ideal!!

"Wait... let me observe a bit longer..."

The elder named Rood looked advanced in years, yet his gaze didn't appear the least bit cloudy; rather, his eyes shone with sharp intensity.

He locked his gaze onto the green-haired youth standing behind Gurdurr. The faint smile playing at the corner of the boy's lips made Rood's expression turn even more contemplative.

Far on the other side of the cavern, N and the blue-haired girl were completely oblivious to whatever calculations were occurring across the room. The moment the girl spotted N, a look of confusion crossed her face, followed by a sudden realization, which then rapidly transformed into pure delight.

N had no idea how she managed to cycle through so many emotional shifts in a matter of seconds, but this was hardly the time or place for casual chat.

"You handle the ones on the right. Leave everything on the left entirely to me."

"Huh!? Wait, um..."

Without giving the deep blue-haired girl a chance to respond, N lightly pressed down on the brim of his cap with his left hand. He swiftly unclipped and hurled a few more Poké Balls from his belt, releasing Vulpix and Sylveon onto the field simultaneously.

"Vulpix, sweep them with Ice Beam. Sylveon, use Dazzling Gleam. Gurdurr, use Rock Slide again."

Under the girl's utterly astonished gaze, N delivered three commands in rapid succession with a perfectly flat, expressionless voice, as if coordinating multiple targets were nothing more than second nature to him. True to his orders, his three Pokémon unleashed their attacks in perfect synchronization.

Ice-type moves were inherently superb for wide-area crowd control, and they were exceptionally devastating when wielded by Vulpix. With a single, sweeping beam of absolute zero, its Ice Beam instantly encased five lunging Zangoose in solid blocks of ice. The unyielding frost anchored the front-runners perfectly in place, rendering them completely immobile.

At that exact heartbeat, a warm, pastel-pink aura flared to life right behind Vulpix. Struts of ribbon-like feelers fluttering in the wind, Sylveon vaulted gracefully over Vulpix's shoulders, crying out high into the cavern air. In a spectacular flash, a bursting dome of brilliant, blinding light erupted outward from its body, saturating every corner of the space.

Hummm—!!

The Quasi-Elite Four level Dazzling Gleam erupted with catastrophic force. The moment the blinding, searing light washed over the vanguard, the five frozen Zangoose were violently blasted backward by the concussive energy.

Vulpix and Sylveon had established a flawless partnership in that fleeting second. With just a single turn, they had effectively neutralized an entire segment of the surrounding mob.

Within N's current roster, no Pokémon was better suited for large-scale group encounters than Vulpix. It controlled the entire battlefield with its oppressive, wide-range Ice-type moves, which allowed Sylveon to follow up with its almost demonic clearing capacity. Together, they were an absolute nightmare in team fights!

"Lord Rood!!"

Deep within the Team Plasma ranks, Aldith suddenly sensed an oncoming threat. Her face paled instantly as she forcefully grabbed Rood's brown sleeve and yanked the elderly man backward.

A cold, silver flash caught the reflection of her eyes, a streak of light cutting through the air like a silver dragon.

In the span of a single breath, Aldith felt a chunk of her orange, shoulder-length hair cleanly severed by an impossibly sharp edge.

Not only that! A sudden sensation of damp, spreading warmth bloomed against the skin of her neck. Realizing exactly where she had been injured, a violent shiver of pure terror raced down her spine.

Materializing right before her was a dark fox with sleek black-and-crimson fur. The newly arrived Zorua possessed a chilling expression, its blood-red claws extended in a vicious swipe that had been aimed directly at her throat.

"Dammit..."

Aldith clutched the bleeding laceration on her neck, her legs trembling slightly from the sheer horror of the realization.

She had been a hair's breadth away, just a single fraction of an inch, from losing her life right then and there!

What terrified her most was that she had absolutely no inkling of where that Zorua had come from. From the beginning of the skirmish until the actual strike, she hadn't detected a single ripple of its presence! If the life-sign radar module on her wrist hadn't suddenly blared an emergency alert, she would likely be a corpse on the cavern floor right now.

"Commanding three Pokémon simultaneously in active combat, while secretly coordinating a Zorua to execute a flanking assassination?! How can someone that young possess such a terrifying level of command?!"

Aldith could no longer contain her fury. She violently threw three Poké Balls from her hand at once.

A beautifully muscled, agile Liepard, a slender Watchog with glowing, intense eyes, and a Magneton crackling with arcs of electricity materialized in a tight triangular formation, acting as a living shield to protect her and Rood.

All three Pokémon were firmly at the Alpha tier, displaying an aura of strength that was night and day compared to the grunts' Pokémon.

N naturally noted the shift. While his expression remained completely unbothered, he silently signaled Zorua to break contact and fall back. 

The ambush he had ordered Zorua to execute wasn't meant to be a lethal strike; his sole objective was to take the apparent leader hostage to leverage a diplomatic withdrawal. Unfortunately, the enemy had managed to react in time. Once a surprise attack failed on the first attempt, the enemy would maintain absolute vigilance, making a second attempt nigh impossible.

"Everyone, full power! Do not let those two brats escape under any circumstances!"

Aldith barked out the command with a darkened expression, gesturing violently with her right hand. At her signal, the ordinary Team Plasma grunts began throwing every single Poké Ball on their belts in a desperate frenzy, bringing an overwhelming horde of Pokémon onto the field.

Even giants could be brought down by an ant colony! Faced with an onslaught of dozens of Pokémon simultaneously, even if they were merely low-level Elite tier combatants, the sheer volume of attacks posed a critical threat to a Quasi-Elite Four level Sylveon.

When a chaotic, blinding barrage of moves came raining down all at once, even a high-level Pokémon would find it physically impossible to evade every single strike. If the enemy found an opening to pin them down, the sheer weight of continuous damage alone would be more than enough to overwhelm them.