The night was deep.
Pallet Town's lights were scattered and sparse. Most of its residents had already fallen fast asleep to Lapras's singing.
Only the occasional chirping of insects and the distant sound of waves made the night seem especially peaceful.
But Lu Chen had not slept.
He sat at the entrance to his mud house, holding a cup of tea that had gone completely cold. For some reason, he kept feeling uneasy tonight.
Then he sensed it.
An enormous presence was approaching from the sea.
Although it was a colossal creature, its speed was astonishing!
It was practically like the legendary Sky Island.
Lu Chen put down his cup and stood, his expression changing.
"An uninvited guest is here."
Lu Chen walked out of the farmyard and looked up at the night sky.
An enormous shadow blocked the moonlight.
The shadow blotted out the sky, moving slowly and bringing gusts of damp sea breeze.
Above Pallet Town, a Dragonite of suffocating enormity hovered in place.
Its wings covered almost half the sky, and its body was even larger than it had appeared on television that afternoon.
After defeating the super-giant Tentacruel that afternoon, the super-giant Dragonite had now suddenly appeared over Pallet Town!
Whoom! Whoom! Whoom!
Simply by hovering in midair, the super-giant Dragonite generated air currents with its wingbeats that were enough to make the area off-limits to ordinary Flying-type Pokémon.
"Roar! Wooo!"
Almost at the very moment the super-giant Dragonite arrived.
Aerodactyl and Lapras in the forest rushed out from their respective locations almost simultaneously.
Aerodactyl shot up from the mountaintop, spreading his wings, his black stone gleaming coldly in the moonlight.
Lapras surfaced from the river and placed himself in front of Lu Chen, the scars covering his body looking even more fearsome in the darkness.
Both Pokémon stared warily at the colossal creature before them.
Yet the super-giant Dragonite's gaze had been fixed on Lapras the entire time.
Those enormous eyes were filled with delighted surprise.
He slowly descended, his massive head almost touching the ground.
Looking at the super-giant Dragonite mere inches away, Lu Chen's expression did not change at all as he said coldly,
"What are you doing at my farm? If you're just passing through, I'd like you to leave quickly!"
"Spare me the trouble."
The super-giant Dragonite had not expected Lu Chen, a mere human, to speak like that in his presence.
Still, the super-giant Dragonite opened his mouth and gave a series of urgent, low growls.
His voice held excitement, longing, and an urgency found only in a child who had found his family.
Hearing Dragonite's growls, Lu Chen frowned. He really could not understand what this Dragonite was saying.
Then Lu Chen suddenly remembered the Zorua he had caught just a few days earlier.
"Stop sleeping. Come out and get to work."
Lu Chen woke Zorua, who was dozing in his nest.
Zorua crawled out, rubbing his eyes, then saw the super-giant Dragonite before him.
"Wooo-!"
He snapped completely awake, his fur bristling like a hedgehog's spines. His four short legs were rooted to the ground, and he did not dare move.
"A m-monster!"
Looking at the terrified Zorua, Lu Chen patted his head.
"Don't be afraid. I'm here. Even if the sky falls, I'll hold it up. Hurry up and translate what he's saying."
Zorua swallowed and pricked up his ears, trembling.
The super-giant Dragonite lowered his head, bringing his enormous eyes close to Zorua.
Those eyes were several times larger than Zorua's entire body, reflecting the moonlight like two deep lakes.
Zorua's four short legs shook violently, and his tail was tightly tucked, but after glancing at Lu Chen behind him, he forced himself to stay instead of running.
The super-giant Dragonite did not even need to speak. Zorua could communicate directly with him through Telepathy.
An eerie silence settled over the scene.
Zorua turned toward Lu Chen, not even daring to meet his eyes, and lowered his head as he began translating haltingly.
"He says... he says he heard singing... Lapras's singing, that language..."
Zorua paused, listened some more, and continued translating:
"He says that language is exactly the same as what his companions spoke in his memories. He's searched the sea for a very, very long time, looking for that voice."
After listening, Lu Chen frowned slightly.
The language of Ancient Pokémon?
He turned to look at Lapras.
Lapras was stunned as well. He gave a low cry, indicating that he had only sung a song passed down through generations of Lapras and knew nothing about any ancient language.
But Lu Chen knew.
Lapras's Song was something passed down from ancient times to begin with.
Lapras had been the overlords of the oceans in ancient times, and their songs contained the language and memories of that era.
Tens of thousands of years had passed. Modern Lapras might have forgotten the meaning of their songs, but the melodies and syllables Lapras sang were still genuine ancient language.
Zorua listened some more, then cautiously added:
"He also said... he wants to take Lapras away."
Lu Chen's expression darkened.
"No. Lapras isn't your companion, and he certainly won't go with you."
Lu Chen's answer was blunt.
Lapras went so far as to step back and hide behind Lu Chen, giving a low cry of refusal.
The super-giant Dragonite froze.
His expression shifted from delight to confusion, from confusion to resentment, and from resentment to rage.
"Why?"
"You must have been deceived by that cunning human!"
Dragonite roared at Lapras in the ancient language:
"We're your companions! That human only treats you as a tool!"
Then he reached out to grab Lapras.
Aerodactyl moved.
He charged up like a bolt of gray lightning, slamming his body into Dragonite's outstretched claw.
With a dull boom, Aerodactyl's collision forcibly knocked Dragonite's claw off course.
Dragonite looked down at Aerodactyl, who was smaller than a single joint of his finger.
He actually dares to stand in my way?
Having just defeated the super-giant Tentacruel that afternoon, Dragonite was now both furious and anxious.
He felt certain he would not lose.
"Then come at me together!" Dragonite roared.
"Once I defeat all of you, I can take him away!"
Lu Chen sighed helplessly.
"So this is what it means to have trouble fall into your lap while you're minding your own business at home."
"I just want to enjoy a comfortable retirement. Why do you all keep making things difficult for me?"
Then Lu Chen raised his head and looked at the super-giant Dragonite blotting out the sky before him.
That super-giant Dragonite was indeed powerful.
With that enormous body, he could wear an ordinary Champion-level Pokémon down to death through sheer endurance alone.
But to Lu Chen, that was all he amounted to.
Because back in ancient times, Lu Chen had defeated more than one super-giant Pokémon.
Lu Chen even knew which ancient empire had created this super-giant Dragonite.
Because only that empire had liked creating such enormous Pokémon.
Who knew how many tens of thousands of years had passed since ancient times.
No matter how powerful those ancient empires had been, or how many inconceivably powerful individuals and Pokémon they had created, they had all been submerged in the river of history.
Lu Chen guessed that this super-giant Dragonite was probably that ancient empire's final creation.
Lu Chen still vaguely remembered that ancient empire being called the Ten Thousand Beasts Empire.
At its peak, the Ten Thousand Beasts Empire had possessed more than a double-digit number of super-giant Pokémon.
Every one of them had been a strategic weapon for conquering cities and territory, unstoppable on the battlefield.
Unfortunately, other ancient empires had eventually found their weakness. Once their Trainers were killed, those super-giant Pokémon had all scattered.
The Ten Thousand Beasts Empire had also fallen from a top-tier empire to a second-rate city-state, clinging to life on the edge of the continent.
And this super-giant Dragonite before him was very likely a surviving creation of the ancient Ten Thousand Beasts Empire.
As for that Ten Thousand Beasts Empire and the companions the super-giant Dragonite had searched so desperately for, they would probably be very difficult to find.
But Lu Chen watched as the super-giant Dragonite actually launched an attack!
Then Lu Chen's gaze changed.
The aura around him abruptly grew heavy.
"You're just a mere super-giant Pokémon, yet you dare court death before me?"
Aerodactyl was the most excited to hear those words.
Although this period of retirement had been comfortable, his bones had nearly rusted.
Hearing Lu Chen's words now, he opened his mouth, revealing rows of sharp teeth, a bloodthirsty gleam rising in his eyes.
" Aerodactyl, Agility! Lapras, dive underwater and stand by! Gengar, Shadow Sneak!"
The three commands came almost simultaneously.
Aerodactyl beat his wings hard, instantly becoming a gray afterimage.
He had been fast to begin with, but now, under Lu Chen's command, his speed rose straight to its limit, so fast that even his afterimages began to blur.
Dragonite swung his claw down, his enormous draconic talons smashing toward Aerodactyl with a whistle of displaced air.
Aerodactyl twisted aside and slipped past the wind of the claw, without the super-giant Dragonite touching so much as a hair.
Dragonite lashed out three times in succession, each swipe powerful enough to flatten a truck into a metal pancake.
Aerodactyl dodged them all, then dived during the gap as Dragonite withdrew his claw, biting into the joint of Dragonite's wrist.
His sharp teeth pierced the gaps between the scales, tearing through the skin. Dark red dragon blood seeped from the wound.
Dragonite roared in pain and swept his other claw across.
But Aerodactyl had already flown away with a beat of his wings, leaving only a gray trail and a few falling drops of dragon blood.
Meanwhile, Lapras sank to the riverbed and moved swiftly along the waterway.
His figure appeared and disappeared beneath the water as he waited for an opportunity under Lu Chen's direction.
By now, the super-giant Dragonite had been enraged by Aerodactyl. He opened his huge mouth, gathering a Hyper Beam within it.
The white light was blinding, carrying destructive energy.
But just as he was about to fire-
Gengar emerged silently from Dragonite's shadow.
He grinned, forming a basketball-sized Shadow Ball between his palms.
The Shadow Ball exploded at point-blank range, its purple energy blasting straight into Dragonite's neck.
Boom!
Dragonite's enormous body lurched sideways.
The Hyper Beam went wide, grazing the edge of the farm before blasting a crater dozens of meters across into a distant hillside.
"Kekekeke!"
Gengar gave a strange cackle, shrank down, and slipped back into the shadows.
Dragonite swung his tail furiously toward the spot where Gengar had vanished.
But before his tail could sweep out, Lapras shot from the river!
An Ice Beam struck Dragonite's flank with precision, its icy blue energy instantly freezing over.
Frost spread at a speed visible to the naked eye, the extreme cold freezing a vast stretch of scales.
It was four times super effective. Even the super-giant Dragonite screamed in pain again after taking that attack head-on.
He turned and breathed flames at Lapras, but Lapras had already submerged. The flames only sent a cloud of white mist steaming from the river's surface.
Unable to find Lapras, Dragonite could only attack the river's surface at random.
Just then, Aerodactyl dived again from above and to the side.
This time, he did not harass Dragonite. Instead, he charged straight to Dragonite's injured wing, opened his enormous maw, and used Bite!
He bit into the fascia at the base of the wing.
A tear.
Aerodactyl jerked back violently, forcibly ripping away a large chunk of scales and flesh.
Dark red dragon blood gushed out, scattering through the air in a rain of blood.
Aerodactyl tilted his head back to catch the falling dragon blood, gulping it down.
The instant that scalding blood entered his throat, his entire body trembled with excitement, and he let out a deafening roar.
It was an instinct from ancient times.
It was a predator's declaration to its prey.
Such was Aerodactyl's confidence: no matter who its opponent was, before it, they were nothing more than prey waiting to be hunted down!
Dragonite screamed as it retreated. The wound on its wing kept it from maintaining a steady hover, forcing it to descend.
But the ground was no safer.
Gengar emerged from the shadows again. This time, rather than attacking, it darted back and forth around Dragonite's ankles, creating chains of black energy.
The chains wrapped around Dragonite's legs, each one immensely heavy.
Dragonite tried to break free, but Lapras poked its head out of the river on the other side, blasting a Dragon Pulse straight into Dragonite's chest.
The relentless attacks left Dragonite scrambling to keep up.
More and more wounds covered its body: frostbite, blast injuries, and lacerations were everywhere.
Several scales had been torn from its wings. Dark red dragon blood dripped steadily, pooling into a dark puddle on the farm's ground.
"Boom! Boom! Boom!"
The terrifying battle at the farm sent out deafening noises, waking the residents who had been sound asleep.
The tremendous noise and light filling the sky jolted every resident awake.
People poked their heads out of their windows, then saw a sight they would never forget for the rest of their lives.
A Dragonite as enormous as a lighthouse was being attacked by three much smaller Pokémon, beaten back again and again as it howled in pain.
"What is that?!"
"Dragonite? The one on TV during the day?!"
"It's being attacked?!"
Dressed in cream-colored pajamas, Delia poked her head out of the window. Seeing that the explosions came from the direction of Lu Chen's farm, she looked worried and said,
"Mr. Lu Chen, please, don't let anything happen to you."