The vast sea stretched endlessly beneath them. Smoke billowed from a submarine on the surface, and directly ahead stood Necrozma, the one who had opened the gateway for Lugia.
After Zekrom shattered the electric barrier and descended, the appearance of the corrupted Lugia once again shifted the tides, turning the battle into a 4-vs-3 standoff.
"Lugia, you…" Dialga's eyes widened in shock. He immediately channeled the power of time into Lugia's body.
But Lugia erupted with a dark blue aura that completely blocked out the effects of time.
"Damn it…" Seeing this, Dialga instantly understood, Lugia had turned against them. He wasn't just uncooperative; he had become an enemy.
The gem in Dialga's chest pulsed with radiant light. Invisible energy rippled outward like waves, and in an instant, time halted across a hundred kilometers.
Only the Necrozma reacted in time, shielding itself in Ultra Energy and thus evading the temporal freeze. Xerneas and Zygarde, meanwhile, looked like oil paintings, suspended mid-motion in space.
Seizing the moment, space behind Dialga twisted like flowing water, forming a wormhole.
With a powerful flap of his wings, he dove in first, vanishing into the rift.
Zekrom blurred into lightning and lunged for Yveltal, hauling the Dark-type Legendary with him toward the wormhole.
Just then, a furious beam of light came crashing down from the sky, Dawn Wings Necrozma's Prismatic Laser.
Dark blue beams denser than rain slammed into Zekrom's lightning shield, sparking violent ripples across its surface.
Zekrom roared and halted mid-flight.
Though the laser hadn't pierced his shield, it had shattered Dialga's wormhole like fragile glass.
Dialga had already escaped. But with the wormhole gone, Yveltal and Zekrom were now stranded on the battlefield.
The moment the portal collapsed, the time-stunned Legendaries broke free of their frozen state, surging toward Yveltal and Zekrom.
Lightning surged in Zekrom's eyes. Arcs of electricity exploded from his body as he whipped up thunderbolts shaped like serpentine whips, lashing out in every direction.
Even passing through air, those scorching-hot whips crackled with explosive fury.
Yveltal, however, had lost Dialga's support and could no longer reverse his own time. The virus surged in, flooding his body. Countless sinewy tendrils of flesh burst forth, wrapping around him like a monstrous cocoon.
Many of the tendrils were turned to stone and shattered under Yveltal's deathly aura, but more kept pouring out, creeping across his form.
Originally, it should've taken another ten minutes for the virus to fully corrupt Yveltal. But with Lugia subdued, Lucius had shifted his full focus to this front. A tidal wave of viral energy surged into Yveltal's body, rampaging through every cell.
In less than a minute, the former God of Death was utterly overwhelmed and brought under control.
Zekrom was still furiously wielding his lightning whips when a flicker of danger surged behind him.
Too late to dodge.
In an instant of blinding thunder, an "X"-shaped arc of electricity flared across his back.
He had countered with his own body, executing Cross Thunder from behind, trying to overpower the incoming blow with sheer force.
Boom—
A massive explosion erupted behind Zekrom. The shockwave carved a kilometer-wide depression into the ocean below.
Riding the blast, Zekrom didn't even glance back, he unleashed a Bolt Strike at full force.
The cone at the end of his tail spun at full speed. Lightning wrapped around the Black Dragon as he broke through Zygarde's encirclement, fleeing toward open sky.
With thunder at his heels, Zekrom covered several kilometers in a single second, an almost unimaginable speed.
But then… darkness fell over him. A massive shadow blocked out the sun.
Zekrom looked up, towering above him was a Leviathan several thousand meters long, its gold-red scales gleaming like a divine tapestry.
The larger the body, the greater the drag at high speeds.
Yet this Leviathan, ten times Zekrom's size, was flying just as fast, even without being boosted by lightning.
Its belly scales writhed, and out came a colossal claw, reaching straight for Zekrom.
"No—!" Zekrom's tail-cone spun at maximum output, lightning twisting space itself around him.
But it was no use. The enormous claw closed around him in a crushing grip.
From between the claw's fingers, blue lightning writhed and snarled, but not a spark could penetrate the monster's grasp.
The moment the Leviathan seized Zekrom, space twisted nearby, and a blue figure shot forth.
Dialga had returned.
And not just him.
Emerging from the wormhole alongside him was a titanic figure, half white, half gray, wreathed in fire and frost.
White Kyurem.
Thousands of crimson-rimmed white beams exploded from Kyurem's body, converging on the Leviathan's claw.
It instantly froze over, turned to massive ice.
Glaciate.
Only White Kyurem could wield it. Though it resembled flames, it was pure Ice-type energy.
As the claw froze, Dialga gathered radiant energy in his mouth and fired a shimmering, metallic beam, Roar of Time fused with Flash Cannon, obliterating the icy claw in one strike.
The Black Dragon tore free from the shattered claw and ice.
"They're all here? Hah! How convenient." Lucius laughed aloud.
The Leviathan's body was composed entirely of viral matter. Losing one claw meant nothing, Lucius immediately grew hundreds more.
This time, he wasn't just after Zekrom. He was going after Dialga and Kyurem too.
But the Legendaries clearly weren't planning to engage.
With Zekrom freed, Dialga rewound time, delaying the Leviathan's grasp by one crucial second. Within that moment, he opened a wormhole again and escaped with both dragons into the void.
Elsewhere on the battlefield, Palkia and Mewtwo were still holding out, but barely.
Even with their immense power, they were struggling under the assault of four overwhelming foes—Mega Rayquaza, Primal Kyogre, and the mutated Black Ho-Oh, each far stronger than before.
"We'll hold them off. Go!" Mewtwo said to Palkia.
Without another word, Mewtwo's eyes blazed a deep blue. A surge of psychic energy blanketed the entire field.
For a moment, confusion flickered across the eyes of every Legendary present.
It was Mewtwo's psychic manipulation, disorienting their minds, plunging them into chaos.
Palkia's pearl glowed violet. A shimmering wormhole opened, and the Spatial Deity slipped into it in a blink.
The moment Palkia escaped, Mewtwo teleported away as well.
...
Hero's Summit, Unova Region.
One by one, White Kyurem, Zekrom, Dialga, Palkia, and Mewtwo reappeared atop the summit.
Of them all, only White Kyurem and Mewtwo remained unscathed.
The others were battered, their majestic forms marred with signs of combat.
"Did we… fail?"
The words came from Goodshow. His expression was bitter.
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