Let us rewind to a day ago.
Outside White Poplar Town, beyond the elevated bridge, in a forest bordering a vast stretch of wilderness soil.
A nearly one-sided battle was underway.
Three men in Team Galactic's standard gray-and-white uniforms had spread out in a triangular formation, each looking worse than the last.
At their feet, two Pokémon had already fallen beside each of them.
One was a large, dark-blue bat with wing-like membranes and no eyes, while the other was a crow with jet-black feathers, the feathers atop its head forming something like a wizard's hat.
They were Zubat, a Poison- and Flying-type, and Murkrow, a Dark- and Flying-type, respectively.
Clearly.
Their specialty was moving silently through the night and dark forests, so they had been sent out as "scouts" to gather intelligence.
Yet, the moment they had followed those three brats and kept their distance behind them, they had been struck by an ice-blue beam that shot out from the side.
And the culprit behind all of this, a bird Pokémon with red-and-white feathers, was perched steadily on a thick branch.
A visible layer of ice mist still lingered around its beak, a trace left behind after using a move.
Its black eyes calmly swept over the three men who had rushed over after hearing the commotion.
"Delibird?" One of the grunts frowned, uncertainty in his voice. "This kind of Pokémon shouldn't even be distributed in the Sinnoh Region."
He had previously been sent out by his superiors to fight off a group of operatives from an evil organization in the Johto Region, who had apparently also been sent to investigate Team Galactic.
That organization's operatives had also used a Pokémon called Delibird, so he recognized it.
Another man stared fixedly at the ice mist that had yet to