Pokémon: Raising Abandoned Pokémon into Legends

Chapter 304: Destroying the Hunter Organization Headquarters (Two-in-One)

The battle in the sky, however, was much clearer.

Mewtwo was still maintaining its advantage. Even with the Galarian Articuno and the ordinary Moltres joining the fight, they couldn’t shake Mewtwo’s overwhelming power. It still dominated them without issue.

Seeing this, Hunter K gritted his teeth.

"Have Darkrai use Dark Void! It needs to take down that Greninja as quickly as possible, then join Regirock in surrounding Mewtwo!"

The hunter subordinate received the command and quickly typed on his keyboard.

"Dark~"

Moments later, Darkrai on the big screen spread its hands apart. A pitch-black sphere, seemingly capable of swallowing everything, materialized in its palm. The Dark Void was aimed at Greninja, who was darting through the forest at incredible speed.

Greninja stopped dead in its tracks. Its once-alert eyes went hollow and vacant in an instant.

Greninja collapsed—thud. And because of the mental link, Rio also froze in place, his eyes glazing over as if he had blacked out.

"Now! Strike while he’s down! Take out that Greninja while it’s trapped in Dark Void!" Hunter K shouted excitedly from the base.

His subordinates quickly typed away at their keyboards. The remaining Pokémon in the forest, along with Darkrai and Regirock, all launched their attacks at the fallen Greninja.

But just as they were about to strike, a piercing cackle echoed through the forest.

A lavender fat figure rose from Greninja’s shadow.

"Gengar~" — Well done, little Darkrai. Finally gave your Ghost Dad a chance to show off!

It grinned maniacally at the surrounding Pokémon, then snapped its chubby little fingers.

A ripple of temporal energy spread from the snap—and suddenly, all the attacks meant for Greninja slowed to a crawl, as if being played at 32x speed.

"What the hell is this?!"

In the hunter base, Hunter K’s eyes practically popped out of his skull. He couldn’t understand how a Gengar snapping its fingers could slow all his Pokémon’s moves like that.

"Did you put the screen on slow-motion?" Hunter K smacked the subordinate in front of him on the head.

"No, Boss! The speed is normal—no fast-forward, no slow-mo!" The subordinate looked like he was about to cry, pointing at another screen. "If the playback speed was off, then look at the Gengar—its speed is completely normal!"

On the big screen, after Gengar snapped its fingers, black mist spread from its body. Compared to the slowed attacks of the surrounding Pokémon, the mist spread at a perfectly normal speed.

Hunter K’s mouth slowly fell open.

Was this a Gengar, or was it the legendary time-controlling Dialga? Since when did it have control over time itself?

Meanwhile, Rio remained frozen nearby, his eyes still vacant and hollow.

Inside his mind, however, he had appeared in a lake in the Kalos region. Many Froakie were there. And they were being captured by Pokémon hunters.

One Shiny Froakie was targeted by the hunters. It ran frantically, pursued by a Drapion. It was eventually caught—just as it struggled, enraging the Drapion, which raised its pincer to strike—another Froakie rushed in.

This Froakie pushed the Shiny one out of the way and took the pincer strike directly to its head.

The Shiny Froakie witnessed everything. It was devastated. It went berserk, trying to fight back against the Drapion—but a hunter shot it with a stun gun, subdued it, and threw it into a cage.

Then everything went dark.

The world was pitch black. Nothing.

After a while, the light returned. The world was once again the lake from before. The Shiny Froakie was frantically calling out to the Froakie and Frogadier in the lake—but none of them responded.

The Shiny Froakie could only drag the Froakie that had protected it, trying to leave. But tragically, the direction it headed was straight into the Pokémon hunters. And so it went through the chase again, and the crushing grief of watching its kin die before its eyes.

Rio watched with a heavy heart. He wanted to shout and wake Greninja—but his voice couldn’t reach it. He could only exist outside that world, like a silent observer, accompanying the Froakie through its painful dream over and over.

During this, the Froakie tried different ways to change the outcome, but the ending was always the same: its kin died, and it was captured.

Rio had no idea how many times this dream repeated—he was numb, nearly breaking down himself. He couldn’t leave, forced to relive it alongside the Froakie.

Until the Froakie’s mindset finally shifted.

It no longer tried to change the ending. It just watched the events unfold with a numb expression, waiting calmly for the hunters to arrive again. Like an outsider, it let everything play out before its eyes.

And then, this time—the dream world shook violently. Instead of plunging into darkness again, the light returned. They were back in the forest.

"I’m... back?"

Rio looked at the forest—familiar yet strange—with a survivor’s relief. He thought he understood the key to escaping Darkrai’s Dark Void.

It was accepting what had happened. As the saying goes: The past cannot be changed, but the future can.

What Greninja could do was change the future. Dwelling on changing the past would only trap it deeper.

Just then, Rio heard the cries of Pokémon and Gengar’s triumphant cackling. He turned to look.

Now, everywhere in the forest except where he stood was shrouded in black mist.

"Tell Old Ghost to clear the mist." Greninja’s low voice echoed in Rio’s mind. Through their shared vision, Rio could see only darkness—Greninja was still inside Gengar’s mist.

"Old Ghost, clear the mist and give the stage back to Greninja!" Rio called out.

The moment he gave the order, Gengar’s round face emerged from the mist.

"You two woke up so fast? Old Ghost hasn’t had his fun yet!" Gengar said with a resigned look, but still complied, drawing the mist back into its plump body.

As the mist receded, Rio could see the forest clearly. There was not a single standing Pokémon left—except Regirock and Darkrai. Regirock was already severely wounded, close to collapsing, while Darkrai remained unscathed.

"I saved this one specially for little Froggy." Gengar said proudly, pointing at Darkrai.

Rio rolled his eyes and looked at Greninja. It was staring coldly at Darkrai, and Darkrai was staring coldly back—as if the real battle was about to erupt.

"How long were Greninja and I asleep?" Rio asked Gengar.

"Not long—just a minute or two." Gengar’s voice echoed in his mind, clearly dissatisfied that they had woken up so quickly.

"Krrk~ Krrk~"

As they spoke, the battle between Greninja, Regirock, and Darkrai resumed—Regirock struck first, gathering a Charge Beam at its chest.

But the next second, Greninja appeared above it like a vengeful spirit. A single Water Shuriken brought down Regirock mid-charge.

Now it was down to a one-on-one between Greninja and Darkrai.

Greninja lunged, slashing at Darkrai. Darkrai vanished into its shadow just before the strike landed.

What followed was a battle of shadow and speed.

Darkrai kept emerging from different corners of the forest, striking from stealth. Greninja, in turn, moved like a shadow itself—the moment Darkrai appeared, Greninja would use Shadow Sneak through one of the scattered Water Shurikens, appearing behind it. Where it couldn’t teleport, it would burst with incredible speed, closing the gap in an instant.

In this exchange, both Greninja and Darkrai landed hits on each other. It became a battle of endurance—who could outlast the other.

Greninja was determined to cut down the one who had forced it to relive its painful memories. Darkrai was defending its pride as a Mythical Pokémon.

After about forty or fifty exchanges, a winner finally emerged. Greninja won with a Water Pulse, bringing Darkrai down.

The moment Darkrai fell, Mewtwo easily defeated the Galarian Articuno in the sky—as if it had deliberately timed it.

With that, not a single Hunter Organization Pokémon remained standing outside the mountain.

Greninja charged toward the entrance of the hunter headquarters.

"Gengar, watch these Pokémon—especially Regirock, Darkrai, Articuno, and Moltres. Don’t let them escape." Rio instructed Gengar, then followed Greninja inside with Mewtwo.

As he passed the fallen Galarian Articuno and Moltres, Rio glanced at them. As he had suspected—the Galarian Articuno was a divine-tier Pokémon, while the Moltres was just an ordinary one.

"Gengar~" — Old Ghost really is unlucky. Always stuck with the supervising jobs.

After Rio left, Gengar sighed and spread its mist to cover all the Pokémon in the forest.

Inside the mountain, Greninja was cutting through everything in its path. Every hunter it encountered fell to its blade—literally. It showed no mercy.

The hunters’ Pokémon were completely powerless against it. Rio didn’t stop it.

If it hadn’t been for that Dark Void from Darkrai, Greninja might not have been so ruthless. But that attack had ignited the deepest hatred within it. It wouldn’t stop until every hunter in the organization was cut down.

When Rio reached the mission conference room, however, Hunter K was nowhere to be seen. He had apparently already fled. Only a few hunters remained, desperately commanding Pokémon to try and hold Greninja back.

"Wait—spare them." Rio called out to Greninja.

Greninja shot him a murderous glare—but still obeyed, sparing the hunters.

Rio approached to ask about Hunter K’s whereabouts—but the big screen suddenly lit up. Hunter K’s face appeared on it.

"Rio, the Hunter Organization will remember today’s grudge. From now on, it’s either you or us."

"Just wait. I’ll make sure the whole world knows what you’ve done today." Hunter K said coldly, his eyes burning with hatred.

Rio simply smiled.

So what if the world finds out? It’s not like I destroyed a charity organization. What you really mean is that you want other regions’ League officials to come after me, isn’t it?

"Where are your client records?" Rio glanced at the surviving hunters.

"We don’t know." The hunters all shook their heads.

Rio’s eyes narrowed.

"Hypnotize this one. She knows." Rio pointed at the female hunter on the far right, speaking to Mewtwo.

When she had spoken, she had given a slight shrug—a sign, from a behavioral psychology perspective, of uncertainty.

And as Rio predicted, once Mewtwo hypnotized her, the truth came out. She admitted she knew where the client records were stored and began pulling up the data.

Before long, lists of client information from all over the world appeared before Rio’s eyes. There were clients from Kanto, Johto, Hoenn, Sinnoh, Galar, Unova—every region had people who had posted missions with the Hunter Organization. And their identities were all prominent. Some had hidden their identities, but the organization had ways to infer who they might be, marked as "suspicious" in the records.

Rio pulled up the Kanto region records. The client information there made him laugh coldly.

What a great bunch of subordinates I have.

Honestly, if these were made public, he felt the world would descend into chaos.

While Rio was reviewing the documents, news of his raid on the hunter headquarters—and its successful destruction—had already reached the Sinnoh League and other regional Leagues. Those who heard the news had only one reaction: shock.

And some, after the shock, had another reaction: fury.