"Master Leo, this Annihilape may still be unstable. Perhaps you should wait another day."
Little Fatty froze. He had been about to capture Annihilape, only for it to devolve again?
Forget another day—he couldn't wait another hour! Another minute! Another second! He spun toward the research assistant and roared:
"Get every Mankey out of those chambers and put them on the operating tables! I refuse to believe..."
Before Little Fatty could finish, the laboratory door blew open with a boom. A chill ran down his back, and the Poké Ball slipped from his hand.
Before he could curse whoever had dared interrupt him, the two guards stationed outside were thrown in. They slammed into the laboratory's glass wall and lay motionless.
A Golem that had lost the ability to battle came hurtling toward Little Fatty. The middle-aged butler's Stoutland knocked it aside with Take Down.
A tall figure appeared in the laboratory doorway.
"R-Roy?"
Little Fatty recognized him at once. He had met Roy aboard the S.S. Anne.
It was because Roy had refused to sell him Annihilape that Little Fatty had only now managed to produce one—and even this one's evolution was unstable.
Roy looked at the Primeape leader sprawled on the floor, the Primeape confined in chambers all around, and the Mankey strapped to a metal table, electrocuted until its original fur color was impossible to make out.
This wasn't a laboratory. It was an execution ground for the Primeape clan. The metal tables, the chambers, the new materials—every last thing was an instrument of torture.
For a moment, Roy regretted everything. He regretted not coming sooner. He regretted not dealing with that spoiled brat aboard the S.S. Anne.
But he pulled himself together. He couldn't change the past. He could only ease his regret with the lives