Groudon's earth-shaking roar immediately drew the attention of everyone present, humans and Legendary Pokémon alike.
Infected?
While the capture of Dialga and Palkia had already sent shockwaves through the group, the revelation that the virus had breached Unova's borders was an equally dire development.
Mewtwo teleported straight to Groudon in a flash, unleashing a psychic scan sharp as X-rays. His mental probe swept through Groudon's body, revealing a horrifying sight: every inch of its being was already teeming with a dense swarm of viral organisms.
Everyone had been focused on the seismic energy and the distortion duo's struggle. No one had noticed Groudon's infection.
In truth, a portion of Lucius's invisible virus had piggybacked into Hero's Summit when Dialga entered the wormhole alongside White Kyurem and Zekrom.
To avoid detection by Arceus, Lucius had immediately latched onto Groudon's outer surface upon arrival.
Then came the burst of golden energy. Amid the chaos, Lucius infiltrated Groudon's body directly, capitalizing on the distraction while all eyes were on the gods of space and time resisting the pull of the anomaly.
By now, the infection had consumed more than half of Groudon.
Of course, had Dialga still been present, even a 50% infection wouldn't have been irreversible. The Temporal Pokémon could have simply rewound Groudon's biological state by ten minutes, purging the virus.
But with Dialga gone, Lucius was free to act with impunity.
Blue psychic light flared around Mewtwo's body as he pushed his power deeper, threading it into every single one of Groudon's cells, intent on forcibly separating the virus from the host, one microscopic partition at a time.
An almost impossible task, but Lucius wouldn't sit idle and let it happen.
Groudon's right arm trembled, then lashed upward, unleashing a burst of black energy that detonated like a shockwave, blasting Mewtwo away in an instant.
Dark Pulse.
A move Groudon should never have been able to use. And yet, under viral stimulation, it had forcibly manifested.
Now that the infection had been exposed, there was no need for Lucius to keep hiding.
Primal Groudon, claws aglow like molten magma, slammed its massive palm into the earth. The already trembling ground shook violently. Hero's Summit itself began to collapse under the sheer force of the impact.
Mewtwo, battered but unyielding, extended his psychic field once more. The collapsing summit froze mid-air, suspended in a stasis field.
White-Kyurem's crimson bio-pipes flared, surging with raw energy. Its jaws opened wide, and it unleashed a torrent of blazing golden-red fire.
Before the flames could reach, Mewtwo flared again. His psychic energy scattered the fire into countless tiny embers, each one orbiting Primal Groudon like burning stars.
Then, in a synchronized instant, the fire-motes phased into Groudon's colossal body, like microscopic missiles burrowing inward.
Mewtwo and White-Kyurem had opted for a bold tactic: introduce the fire directly into Groudon's body to incinerate the virus from within.
Thanks to Primal Reversion, Groudon now bore the Fire typing. That gave it immense flame resistance, enough to survive internal cleansing without sustaining lethal damage.
Even so, the moment the scarlet-gold fire ignited inside it, Groudon, used to soaking in magma like a hot spring, howled in raw agony.
The fire raged throughout its being, burning every cell. Groudon could feel the invasive, foreign power inside it beginning to retreat, however slightly.
Is it working?
No. It's not.
After absorbing Ho-Oh's genetic code, the Leviathan Virus had developed a near-total resistance to flame.
Lucius's viral strain didn't retreat because it was vulnerable. It shifted focus, abandoning the physical front to instead invade Groudon's mind.
Groudon's mental realm was still the same as before: an endless sea of molten lava. But this time, it wasn't the Mindworm that infiltrated, it was Leviathan itself.
And not just any Leviathan, this one had surpassed Level 140.
The last time Lucius tried to infect Groudon, he had needed ∞ Energy weapons and a dozen Champion-tier Pokémon just to hold it down.
This time, even with the Legendary Pokémon attacking in unison, Lucius was steamrolling the lava ocean, turning the once-raging inferno into congealed, choking sludge.
With its body over halfway consumed and its mind under siege, Groudon could no longer mount any meaningful resistance.
That was when a psychic light flashed above the mental sea.
Mewtwo had arrived, his psychic projection manifesting inside Groudon's consciousness.
And across from him, waiting in the molten sky, was Leviathan: a massive draconic-serpentine beast, cloaked in writhing shadows.
Mewtwo didn't speak. He didn't have time to waste. Every second counted. Groudon's infection was deepening with each breath.
He raised his arm, and unleashed a titanic slash of gleaming blue psychic energy.
Psystrike: Mindblade form.
The blade spanned the horizon, a shimmering arc of pure psionic force. It cleaved downward with world-splitting power, tearing apart magma, splitting fire seas, and sundering the mental plane in half.
This was the psychic realm. Power here was dictated by mental strength.
And Mewtwo, was a master of the mind.
But Lucius didn't dodge.
Because here, there was no distance. Once Mewtwo locked onto him, evasion was meaningless. The blade would strike no matter what.
Instead, Leviathan surged with black light. Its colossal tail swept horizontally, unleashing a slash of its own.
Psystrike: Corrupted form.
The dark blade met the blue one midair.
No explosion. No shockwave.
The blue blade shattered, splintered clean in two, and dissolved into fading sparks.
The black blade continued on… and sliced Mewtwo's psychic form in half.
Mewtwo, arguably the strongest psychic being among the Legendaries, had lost.
Yes, his power was unmatched.
But his opponent was Lucius.
Lucius had absorbed over 80% of the world's genetic material, including countless Psychic-type Pokémon. His own mental power had long since surpassed what most minds could even comprehend.
And with the Collective Will, billions of humans and hundreds of billions of infected Pokémon and plants, feeding him their strength, he had the mental mass of a planet.
Crushing Mewtwo's projection was effortless.
With the psychic guardian defeated, Groudon's last line of defense crumbled.
Moments later, Lucius completed the infection.
[Mission Complete: 'Devour 10/10 Primal Genes' — Reward: Old One Gene]
At last, the long-awaited system notification echoed in Lucius's mind.
After infecting Ho-Oh, Lugia, and Yveltal, he had accumulated nine Primal Genes.
With Groudon, the tenth was secured.
He glanced at his new reward.
Old One Gene.
It aligned perfectly with his evolution path.
Back when he'd conquered the Ultra World completely, his system interface had displayed a new evolution option: Old One Virus.
Yet no further prompts had appeared, even after leveling past 100. It had puzzled him.
But now, after acquiring this final genetic piece, just as the Divine Gene emerged after infecting Kyogre, the pieces had fallen into place.
The evolution trigger had been met.
Back outside, Mewtwo's psychic trauma rippled into the real world.
His physical body reeled, mind staggering, vision spinning.
Hero's Summit, suspended only by his telekinesis, gave way in an instant.
The entire peak came crashing down with an earth-shattering roar.
Fortunately, while Mewtwo had stabilized the mountain earlier, League personnel had been evacuated just in time.
Had they still been there, the Unova League might have been buried under stone.
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