Sea Mauville

I never saw that coming.

The New Aqua Gang's miniature submarine had found the Seafloor Cavern where Lugia lived!

Baimu was too stunned by the sight to speak.

Even Yanagihara, who had remained remarkably calm, frowned and folded his hands beneath his nose in thought.

But then...

After moving forward a little farther, the submarine reached the edge of the water. Beyond it lay flat ground. Its built-in lights revealed only darkness ahead, a darkness that seemed to swallow the beams whole.

Yet when the lights swept the ground, they found no sign that Lugia had passed through.

Had Lugia flown in?

Porygon wasn't the only one wondering. Baimu and Yanagihara had the same question.

But the submarine couldn't travel over land, so it had no way to leave the water and keep exploring. Porygon circled twice, found no other route, and had no choice but to descend.

Once below...

Porygon searched the seabed for another entrance, but found nothing.

It began retracing its route.

Yanagihara quickly paused the video and switched screens. A string of numbers and strange characters flashed across a black page.

Seeing Baimu's blank expression, he explained, "These are the remote-operation commands for the submarine. They show that it started in cruise mode, then switched to follow mode when it spotted Lugia."

"Follow mode?"

"Right. It's used to pursue a designated aquatic Pokémon. Lugia was included."

"So when the submarine spotted Lugia, the people outside knew?"

"They did. Its video feed was transmitted to the outside in real time. The Black Box stores more than footage; it also records data from the internal machinery."

Yanagihara seemed to understand what Baimu was getting at. He tapped the keyboard twice more. "But after it entered the Seafloor Cavern, the data connection broke because the signal was unstable underwater...