"Ho-Oh and Lugia are true Gods. They are fundamentally different from the fused Legendary Birds—their destructive potential is on a completely different scale," Green warned, her voice trembling as she looked at Red and Blue.
At that moment, a torrential downpour began to lash the Ilex Forest, dousing the initial fires that had threatened to consume the ancient woods.
Ho-Oh told me to awaken its avatar, but I'm still not entirely sure how to pull it off, Feng Che thought. He opened his left hand, and a flicker of seven-colored glazed flame danced on his palm—the Purifying Flame.
Do I have to defeat this avatar first and then plant this flame back onto its crown? He noticed the avatar's head was bare; the divine crest feathers had been plucked by Pryce to forge the Time Ball.
The Ho-Oh avatar exhaled a burst of Sacred Fire toward the sky, turning the dark storm clouds into a roiling sea of burning vapor. The bird bathed in its own flames, shimmering with a divine, golden light.
Then, a rain of fire began to fall. The Ilex Forest, which had just been saved by the rain, was reignited. This time, the fire was hotter and more persistent.
"We have to clear a firebreak, or the entire forest is lost," Feng Che muttered. "Greninja, use Water Shuriken! Scizor, use Slash!"
Greninja manifested a massive, rotating star of water, hurling it with surgical precision to fell the burning trees. Scizor became a red blur, its metallic claws shearing through trunks in the blink of an eye.
"The combination of Ho-Oh's Sacred Fire and Lugia's Aeroblast is too much. If they keep syncing their attacks, it won't just be the forest—the entire Johto region could be leveled. We have to separate them!"
"Red, Blue, Green! You three take Lugia!" Feng Che shouted across the clearing. "I'll handle Ho-Oh! Don't let them combine their moves!"
"Greninja, use Taunt on Ho-Oh! Incineroar, support him—absorb every spark of Sacred Fire you can! Three Beasts, go assist Red's group and pin Lugia down!"
The Legendary Beasts nodded in unison. They transformed into streaks of elemental light, lunging toward the sea god to draw its ire away from the forest shrine.
Counter-Strike on the Express
Back at Indigo Plateau and aboard the Magnet Train, Sabrina and Lt. Surge were facing the masked Rocket grunts.
"These people are brainwashed by the masks," Sabrina noted, her purple eyes glowing. "If we destroy the masks, we break the control."
She raised her hand, and her vast psychic power crushed dozens of masks simultaneously. The grunts collapsed, gasping as their sanity returned. "Where am I? What happened?"
"You were being controlled," Sabrina said firmly. "If you want to make amends, command your Pokémon to break the masks of the others!"
Meanwhile, Gym Leader Chuck was taking a more "manual" approach, grabbing two Rocket grunts and slamming their heads together. The masks shattered instantly. "There! That's how a Fighting-type handles it!"
In the Magnet Train's control room, Agatha's Gengar materialized behind the saboteurs.
"Sneaking into my control room without an invitation?" Agatha's cold laugh echoed through the speakers. "You little rats thought you could just scurry away?"
"Don't be so smug, Agatha!" one of the grunts, Sham, shouted. "Master Pryce is about to change history! When he succeeds, we will rule this world!"
"Pryce doesn't care about ruling the world," Agatha sighed, her voice tinged with pity. "He's a tragic old fool who just wants his Pokémon back. He's used you all as disposable tools."
The Fall of the Avatar
In the Ilex Forest, the Ho-Oh avatar beat its wings, sending fireballs screaming down like rockets.
The avatar is this powerful... I can only imagine what the true Ho-Oh is capable of, Feng Che mused. No wonder the Sky Miasma is so feared.
Incineroar entered its "Magma Form," standing in the center of the clearing and literally inhaling the falling embers to fuel its own core. Greninja unleashed a Origin Pulse variant, the massive pillars of water acting as a shield against the fire.
Ho-Oh screeched and conjured a fireball the size of a comet, blotting out the sky. If it hit, the Ilex shrine would be vaporized.
"Corviknight, use Brave Bird!"
The armored bird became a hurricane-wrapped phoenix, piercing through the center of the giant fireball.
BOOM!
The comet shattered into a rain of sparks. "Flygon, use Sand Tomb! Protect the remaining trees with a sand shield!"
Feng Che was playing a game of attrition. Unlike a true God, this avatar couldn't draw power from the laws of the universe; it needed to land to use Roost and recover stamina.
Mewtwo was invisible in the periphery, using its mental pressure to keep the avatar's power suppressed. Sirfetch'd and Togekiss hovered near the ground; every time the avatar tried to descend, they unleashed a barrage of high-powered moves to force it back into the sky.
Gyarados and Aerodactyl circled the bird, harrying its flanks. Finally, Incineroar saw its opening. It forged two swords of pure, solidified magma and hurled them with all its might.
The blades pierced the avatar's wings. Ho-Oh let out a pained, crystalline cry. Ditto, transformed into a Sixteen-Winged Crobat, swooped in to deliver a stinging Toxic to further sap the bird's strength.