"Arceus? Playing God."
"Since you like playing games, Ye Feng, I'll play along."
The Red-Striped Pikachu turned.
Ye Feng's disguise could fool others, but not it.
It said, "You've finally arrived."
Ye Feng was now in the form of Arceus.
He ignored the Red-Striped Pikachu and unleashed a beam of white light from his body, aimed at it.
The Red-Striped Pikachu scoffed dismissively, "Heh, attacking right off the bat? Then don't blame me."
The Red-Striped Pikachu recoiled, and a terrifying thunder erupted from its body.
This fearsome power seemed capable of destroying an entire region at once.
But the lightning bolt met the white light and immediately dissipated.
Red-Striped Pikachu: "????"
Before it could react, it was enveloped by the white light.
In an instant, the Arceus that Ye Feng had become, along with the Red-Striped Pikachu, vanished from the spot.
"Huh???"
"Where did they go?"
Hoopa Unbound looked around.
Gazing at the spatial distortions before it.
It confirmed that the Red-Striped Pikachu had been captured.
"He failed," Hoopa Unbound mused with a frown.
Kyurem: "Then what about us?"
Hoopa Unbound: "Naturally, we leave."
Hoopa Unbound used its golden rings, capable of traversing space.
The group of legendary Pokémon also fled.
Meanwhile, beneath them, Daigo and the others exclaimed, "We're saved already???"
...
In the Kanto region, within a dense forest clearing.
The Red-Striped Pikachu reverted from its teens-of-meters-tall form to its original size.
It was currently pinned to the ground by a force controlled by Ye Feng, utterly unable to move.
Even with all its might, it was useless.
And before it stood Ye Feng.
Alongside Gardevoir, Squirtle, and Rayquaza.
Rayquaza looked at the Red-Striped Pikachu in its predicament and laughed heartily, "Hahahaha! Yellow rat, you little brat! So this is your end?!"
Rayquaza had harbored a deep resentment towards the Red-Striped Pikachu since being severely beaten by it long ago. Seeing it like this now, it felt immensely satisfied.
However.
"I must commend you, for daring to rebel."
The Red-Striped Pikachu scoffed upon hearing this.
"Do kings and generals have a fixed lineage?"
"Why should I be Ye Feng's pet? Can't he be mine?"
Ye Feng, hearing this, burst into laughter.
"Pikachu, the ability to grow stronger was given to you by me. If you were to be my pet, what could you offer me?"
The Red-Striped Pikachu fell silent.
Ye Feng continued, "However, I am still impressed by you. Your abilities were all granted by me, yet you dared to rebel."
Red-Striped Pikachu: "The abilities were indeed given by you, but one's own destiny ultimately depends on oneself."
"The more one eats, the faster one grows stronger."
"It's a shame, I could never understand why, despite eating far, far more than you, I am still no match for you."
Ye Feng: "Do you want to know?"
The Red-Striped Pikachu nodded. "Yes, let me die a knowing ghost."
Ye Feng then leaned close to the Red-Striped Pikachu's ear and whispered:
"Every time you ate a Pokémon, a portion of its strength was transferred to me, and I could adjust the proportion of that division. Initially, it was sixty percent for you and forty for me, but later it became ninety percent for me and ten for you."
Its pupils instantly widened.
Like duck eggs.
The Red-Striped Pikachu nearly spewed blood.
"This means the more I ate, the stronger you became, and, and..."
The Red-Striped Pikachu was completely stunned.
But in the next moment, it let out a great laugh. "Hahahaha!"
"Hahaha! So that's how it is! It seems I was too naive!"
"Alright, I understand. Kill me or flay me as you please."
The Red-Striped Pikachu stood resolute.
Ye Feng looked at Squirtle. "Turn it into barbecue."
Squirtle nodded.
Drawing its knife, it approached the Red-Striped Pikachu.
In truth, it held no grudge against the Red-Striped Pikachu, but since Ye Feng had commanded it, it dared not disobey.
And the Red-Striped Pikachu, suppressed by Ye Feng, was unable to resist.
Under normal circumstances, Squirtle's knife would have been unable to harm the Red-Striped Pikachu.
But now.
With a single slash to its belly.
The Red-Striped Pikachu immediately broke out in a cold sweat.
Since following Ye Feng, it had always crushed all other Pokémon.
Their attacks had never harmed it, and it had never felt pain.
Except for when it was still with its own kind in the past.
This sensation of pain was something it hadn't experienced in a long time.
Now, with death approaching, it felt a sliver of fear.
Ye Feng gazed at the Red-Striped Pikachu.
There was not a trace of pity in his eyes.
"Pikachu, rest assured, Gengar, that fellow, is likely to rebel just like you, but you're going on ahead."
Half an hour later.
The Red-Striped Pikachu was dead.
Its meat was on the barbecue.
Crispy, sizzling, fragrant, melting in the mouth.
Ye Feng did not eat.
He gave it to Gardevoir, Squirtle, and Rayquaza.
Rayquaza ate the most ravenously and happily.
"Speaking of which, Red-Striped followed me for a long time."
Ye Feng stood there, his handsome face turned towards the sky.
"Too much ambition is ultimately not a good thing."
After finishing the Red-Striped Pikachu, Ye Feng returned to Pallet Town.
The news of Hoenn's salvation spread throughout the world.
It was learned that the calamity-stricken region of Hoenn had been saved by a mysterious Pokémon.
A collective sigh of relief was felt.
However, following the incident with the Red-Striped Pikachu, Hoenn had suffered countless casualties and was in a deplorable state.
All cities and towns in the region were destroyed, reduced to ruins.
Essentially, the region of Hoenn had reverted to its primeval state.
But even so.
Hoenn's leadership began planning for reconstruction.
Devon Corporation.
"Call me Daddy, call me Daddy."
Daigo held the infant daughter of Junko.
He wanted her to call him Daddy.
But for some reason, the little girl called Junko "Mommy" but refused to call him Daddy.
She even said, "You're not my daddy! Who are you?!"
Although Junko insisted the little girl was just being willful, Daigo was not a fool.
He took a single strand of hair from the little girl and his own, and conducted a paternity test.
The results came back.
She was not his child.
Not his.
He read the paper over and over, but the truth presented on that paper was that Junko's child was not his.
"Then whose could it be?"
Daigo was enraged.
Perhaps in that moment of anger, his mind's circuits were overloaded.
He thought of his mother Aiko's child.
Since the child's birth, his father, Steven Stone, had also seemed distant.
"Could it be that Father's child isn't his either?!"
Daigo dared not think about it and went to find his father.
He wanted to obtain a strand of his father's hair.
To compare it with that child.
He arrived at the chairman's office but did not see his father.
In anger, he sat down on a chair, waiting for his father.
At this moment, he noticed a video on his father's computer.
He clicked on it, but it was encrypted.
He tried several passwords.
None were successful.
Subtly, he remembered that his father, due to poor memory, usually recorded his passwords in a notebook.
He looked at the last drawer of the desk.
Things were usually kept there.
However, it was locked with a small padlock.