Under Calyrex's suppression, the space-time rift could no longer expand, and the world's own power of self-repair continued to work.
All Lucas had time to do was pull out his camera and snap a single photo of that pitch-black space-time rift—of the countless densely packed single eyes opening within it—before the crack closed at a speed visible to the naked eye and vanished.
With several soft clacks, twenty-six wooden slates, neatly arranged under Calyrex's telekinetic control, fell in front of Entei.
Watching the rapidly dissipating crystallization phenomenon around them, Entei's gaze once again fell upon the twenty-six wooden slates.
For it was a being born from the influence of Unown's power—birthed from Little Molly's dreams.
Because of that, Entei could clearly sense the twenty-six Unown within the slates, as well as those slender, thread-like channels connecting the Unown to itself—pathways that were invisible to others.
Deep in its heart, Entei faintly understood: perhaps it was precisely because of these twenty-six thread-like channels that it had not vanished together with the retreating crystallization.
Entei turned its gaze toward the majestic figure mounted on a black steed—an existence as dignified as a king. It had not yet voiced its doubts when the other, as though already knowing what it wanted to ask, spoke first.
"They were awakened by the wish of the girl you wanted to protect—Little Molly. Before they fell asleep, I made an agreement with them."
"So long as these twenty-six wooden slates are not separated, and you are never cast to the opposite ends of the world from them, you will be able to maintain your existence and remain by that girl's side."
Calyrex smiled at Entei. Through communicating with the Unown, it had learned that the Unown wished to help that human girl named Little Molly.
When they accepted its proposal—"You don't want Little Molly to not only lose her father, but to also lose the 'replacement' father and feel even more heartbroken, do you?"—the Unown indeed used their mysterious power before they went to sleep, creating twenty-six channels that would sustain Entei's existence.
With those channels in place, Entei could maintain its current strength and stay by Little Molly's side.
The price was merely that it could not stray too far from the twenty-six wooden slates.
Entei's eyes widened as it stared at Calyrex in shock. It had not expected that even this sort of thing was within its power.
After pondering for a moment, Entei solemnly expressed its thanks to Calyrex, and to Lucas—who had given it the resolve to act and had even summoned the strongest outside aid, Calyrex itself.
"Thank you very much for your help. I will never forget this favor for as long as I live!"
Lucas had just raised his hand to wave off the gratitude when Victini flew in front of Entei, crying out in dissatisfaction.
"Vii-ni! Tini!"
It was clearly them—Victini and Arcanine—who had helped too, so why was Entei only thanking Lucas and Calyrex!?
Faced with Victini's displeasure, Entei instead furrowed its brow in confusion. After a brief silence, it hesitantly asked, "What is it… saying?"
Not only did Victini freeze on the spot, even Lucas and Calyrex wore looks of disbelief.
Entei actually couldn't understand what Victini was saying?
…
Morning.
Gentle sunlight, as if bringing new life, shone down upon the somewhat damaged Hale Mansion.
Ash's group stared in wonder at Entei, who was lying beside Little Molly with its eyes closed, resting.
Then, they turned to Lucas—who was sitting politely as he accepted the hospitality of Professor Hale's assistant and sipped the black tea brewed by Delia, who had enthusiastically volunteered—gazing at him with looks of pure admiration.
Not only the incident on Shamouti Island, but this incident as well had been resolved in a god-descending, overwhelming manner by the man before them in a single stroke. He had even, by some unknown means, managed to keep Entei here.
He was the very picture of "absolute safety."
After finishing the tea, Lucas called Little Molly over. Following a brief exchange, he personally handed her a box that was a little heavy for her, speaking with a very solemn expression:
"You must keep this safe."
Little Molly held the box with difficulty, her small hands gripping it tightly. She earnestly answered Lucas's reminder:
"I will, big brother."
"Very good."
Lucas smiled as he ruffled Little Molly's hair. Only after watching her ride happily into her room on Entei's back did he stand up and look out through the window at the garden outside, lush with greenery.
It was hard to imagine: Entei clearly could speak human language, and yet was unable to understand the meaning of Pokémon cries.
In Lucas's view, this was probably related to the power of the Unown and to the fact that Entei had been born from Little Molly's dream.
Compared to a pure Pokémon, Entei was more like something the Unown had sculpted from Little Molly's dreams—
"A Professor Hale who can speak human language, who has no memory of being Professor Hale, but retains Entei's appearance, and therefore can't understand Pokémon speech."
An existence like that was truly strange.
After finishing its support, Calyrex rode Spectrier back to the ranch. Before leaving, it had even taken advantage of the night to restore the scorched land Arcanine had burned black.
Then, time moved on to dawn.
Thanks to Officer Jenny and Professor Hale's assistant's efforts, the reporters who had rushed over after hearing the news were all blocked outside. Aside from Team Rocket's trio—who had slipped away at some point—Ash's group, Delia, and Professor Oak all accepted Little Molly's invitation and returned as guests to the Hale Mansion.
At that moment, in the garden of Hale Mansion, Arcanine looked rather troubled as Professor Oak circled around it from every angle like some kind of crazed stalker, observing it.
Professor Oak even went so far as to stick his rear into the air, pressing half of his face to the ground as he observed the cloud-like fur on Arcanine's paws from an extremely low angle.
How to put it… he looked like he was one step away from drooling.
As Professor Oak wiggled his hips closer and closer, adding in some questionable, vaguely indecent sounding interjections as he went, even the "husky-in-spirit" Arcanine couldn't take it anymore.
Arcanine first looked for help toward Raging Bolt, who was struggling off to the side as it tried to groom its fur alone and was having a hard time of it—but Raging Bolt, already traumatized by Professor Oak, simply ignored it.
Next, Arcanine sharply noticed a gaze from inside the house, peering out through a window.
It was Lucas!
Like someone who had finally grabbed hold of his last straw, Arcanine shot Lucas a desperate plea for help.
It thought, I'm the one Lucas's raised since I was little! He wouldn't be so heartless as to leave me alone to face this terrifying pervy old man just over biting a few hundred pairs of slippers, would he?
Arcanine had already conveniently forgotten that it was Lucas who'd handed the two of them over to Professor Oak. It swore that if Lucas would just save it this time, once they got back to the ranch it would absolutely never chew up hundreds of pairs of slippers again!
From now on, at most one pair of slippers a day… It would be good. It would be so, so good. Just please let it off this once!
However, Lucas's gaze only met Arcanine's for a brief instant before he withdrew it at a speed that left the dog dumbfounded.
He even vanished from behind the window entirely!
Arcanine's motion of reaching out for help froze in place.
Meanwhile, Professor Oak felt like he had already ascended to heaven.
Raikou's look-alike—its stance reminiscent of one of the three legendary beasts said to have been revived by Ho-Oh in Johto's myths; Electric/Dragon typing; named Raging Bolt.
And then there was Arcanine, seemingly a regional variant—a Fire/Rock-type Arcanine. It was his first time seeing such a mysterious form up close!
As a Pokémon professor, Oak felt he was already in paradise.
Staring at Arcanine, Professor Oak panted quietly, almost imperceptibly. His very presence was so suffocating that even the always-unruly Arcanine—who feared no one at the ranch except Lucas, Moltres, and his main team's Luxray and Serperior—was sweating bullets.
In a voice only he and Arcanine could hear, Professor Oak muttered:
"As expected… just looking isn't enough. I have to touch it."
Just as Oak's "sinful" hands reached for Arcanine's mane—fur that he couldn't help but speculate about: what kind of substance could possibly feel like that—
Perhaps it was the lewd heat in Professor Oak's gaze, or the way his fidgeting fingers made Arcanine's skin crawl.
Like the proverbial last straw that broke the camel's back, Arcanine finally couldn't take any more.
It opened its jaws and fired a point-blank Flamethrower straight at Professor Oak!
Inside Hale Mansion, Lucas—who had left earlier because he had already agreed to let Professor Oak examine Arcanine and Raging Bolt and therefore could do nothing about Arcanine's desperate looks—heard the commotion outside and stuck half his face out the window.
His pupils suddenly contracted.
It wasn't because he was shocked to see Professor Oak being roasted by Arcanine's Flamethrower.
It was because, after completely bathing in the blast of Flamethrower, Professor Oak's body only had a layer of charcoal-black soot on it. His clothes weren't even singed.
After spitting out a ring of black dust, Oak moved freely, not a trace of burns on him, and continued to approach Arcanine.
At that moment, only one thought flashed through Lucas's mind:
Could this… be the legendary Super Rookie?
Seeing Arcanine's terrified expression, Lucas suddenly felt a twinge of sympathy.
After a brief thought, he turned around, choosing to turn a blind eye.
The moment Lucas turned, the battle-honed intuition he had developed as a Trainer pricked at him: something behind him was watching.
He tapped his toe lightly on the wooden floor—a tiny signal that only he and Mimikyu understood. At once, he heard two faint plops from behind him.
As Lucas slowly turned around, Mimikyu's shadowy form shot out of his own shadow.
When he had turned fully, he found that behind him there was nothing.
Nothing but three solid walls with no secret doors anywhere.
"Kyuu?"
Mimikyu, as though having discovered something, tugged at Lucas's pant leg with one shadowy claw while pointing at the wooden floor of Hale Mansion with the other.
Lying there were two wooden slates, just slightly different from the others, resting quietly on the floor.
On a closer look, the patterns carved into them were different from the twenty-six patterns on Little Molly's slates.
They were:
"!" and "?"
Exclamation mark and question mark.
…
Afternoon.
"We'll be taking our leave then." Delia gave a slight bow to Professor Hale's assistant. "Thank you for taking such good care of us today."
The assistant waved his hands in flustered panic.
"Not at all. If it hadn't been for all of you stepping in, who knows—Little Molly might still…"
Halfway through his sentence, the assistant suddenly covered his mouth, forcibly cutting himself off.
He glanced guiltily at the upstairs window. He almost forgot: the Entei doting on Little Molly now would no longer do what it had done last night.
Still, would Entei alone really be able to take care of Little Molly properly? It seemed he'd have to find a way to contact that "madam" who had unilaterally cut ties with them.
They might be divorced, but with Professor Hale missing, surely she wouldn't leave Little Molly alone, would she?
As a veteran who'd long become a sly old fox, Professor Oak picked up on this immediately and smoothly changed the subject.
"As for Professor Hale, I'll also be organizing a research team to investigate the place where he disappeared. In the meantime, I'll be counting on you to look after Little Molly."
"It's no trouble—I'll be careful!"
The assistant looked at Professor Oak gratefully, nodding again and again.
Listening to their conversation, Lucas said nothing.
He remembered that at the end of the movie—in other words, not long after the Crystal Tower incident concluded—Professor Hale, who had been taken by the Unown into the rift, was simply "spat out" by the Unown dwelling in the space-time crack.
Now, the Unown living within the rift had, just like in the movie, returned to their home. The Unown within the wooden slates had also gone back to their own slates. There shouldn't be any issues.
The slates…
At that thought, Lucas unconsciously touched his jacket pocket.
It held a symbol independent from the twenty-six Unown letters—completely unrelated to the twenty-six letter-slates that Professor Hale's assistant had brought back.
In that case, what about the two slates that had inexplicably dropped behind him—engraved with symbols for "?" and "!"?
What did they mean?
Everyone left Hale Mansion, walking across the beautiful green plain.
After a while, Professor Oak drove away with Delia toward Pallet Town, leaving Lucas alone with Ash and his friends.
Noticing that all three were watching him, Lucas smiled. As the adult here, he took the initiative to start the conversation.
"I'm heading to the Indigo Plateau. Where are you three planning to travel next?"
The three exchanged a glance. Reliable and level-headed—except when facing pretty older girls—Brock answered on their behalf.
"Our short-term goal… is Ecruteak City. There's the Ecruteak Gym there, where Ash can earn his fourth badge."
The moment Gym battles were mentioned, Ash became visibly excited, nearly ready to sprint to Ecruteak right away.
But before that, he stepped up to Lucas, looked at the Delibird cocking its head at him by Lucas's side, and bowed slightly in request:
"Mr. Lucas, please have a Pokémon battle with me!"
"Pika-pi, pika!"
Balancing perfectly on Ash's shoulder, Pikachu mimicked its Trainer, solemnly issuing a challenge to Delibird.
In the Indigo League, after he had defeated Ritchie, Ash had been eliminated in the quarterfinals. He knew clearly that he was still nowhere near strong enough.
Now that chances to challenge the truly strong in Johto were rare, he naturally wanted to gain more experience through a battle with Lucas.
Misty and Brock, who once would have instantly jumped in to stop Ash from troubling Lucas, both stood frozen instead.
Was this really the same Ash—the kid who never seemed to grow up, who would shout about battling any Trainer he saw regardless of their identity?
Scrutinizing Ash and Pikachu's firm expressions, Lucas turned to Delibird.
"What do you think? Want to battle?"
Delibird hopped down to the ground, its gaze burning as it stared down Ash and Pikachu, crying out with iron-clad resolve:
"Deli!"
How could it not want to battle?
Who would have thought that after just a short time, the two brats it had once beaten into submission would dare to challenge it on their own initiative?
They deserved a beating!
Seeing Delibird's eagerness, and curious to see how far Ash had come—and whether in his future Sinnoh journey he could still grow strong enough to become a rival to Paul, who would later train under him—Lucas decided to accept Ash's challenge.
After a brief moment of thought, Lucas decided to test Ash using the same kind of challenge Paul had used against Cynthia in the anime.
"The rules will be a one-on-seven singles battle."
"Whether it's Charizard, who hasn't yet returned from Charicific Valley, or the six Pokémon currently in your team—use everything you've got and try to defeat me."