Little Rayquaza's declaration of "You must be my real dad!" left Flash Rayquaza dumbfounded.
Rayquaza, however, was furious.
A backhanded swipe of a claw embedded Little Rayquaza in the ground.
Still not satisfied, Rayquaza followed up with a flurry of punches.
Little Rayquaza begged for mercy. "Dad, I was wrong! You're my real dad!"
"Stop hitting me! It hurts, it hurts!"
"Owww!!"
"What did you do wrong?! Nothing!!"
The corners of Chen Shi's mouth twitched.
He had never imagined Little Rayquaza would immediately claim someone else as his father.
Right in front of his actual father, no less.
Now that was filial devotion enough to bring the house down.
But the farce had barely gone on before the parallel-world Eternatus fully came to its senses.
It turned to survey its surroundings, fell silent for two seconds, then asked in confusion, "How did you save me?"
Chen Shi's eyes flickered as he asked, "After waking up, your first question wasn't why you were here, why there were so many Legendary Pokémon here, or even why there was another Eternatus."
"Instead, the first thing you asked was how we saved you."
"Is that especially important to you?"
The otherworldly Eternatus fell silent.
Of course it was curious about all the things this human had mentioned.
But it cared more about exactly what method they had used to save it.
Chen Shi continued, "We have plenty of time, and I know you have a lot of questions."
"But there's no rush. We can talk things through."
"You want to know how we saved you, and I want to know more about this Dark Matter."
"Also, as far as I know, anyone assimilated by this Dark Matter loses their memories, but you seem to remember some things."
The otherworldly Eternatus swept its gaze over