For a long time, Anabel wrestled with guilt and indecision—should the Ultra Space really be destroyed to save this world?
In the end, it didn't matter. Lugia, without warning, used Giratina's power to trap Lucius and the other Champion leaders inside the Reverse World (Distortion World, they are the same).
The betrayal stung—but at the same time, it brought a strange relief. At least she no longer had to worry about the people of Ultra Space.
After that, she fully joined Hive, convinced—until today—that the vision Lugia had shown her had only been a lie to manipulate her.
She never imagined that the twisted Celebi from that vision… actually existed.
Lucius and Anabel didn't act immediately. Instead, they activated stealth mode and watched from the shadows.
The bizarre Celebi, after being yanked back multiple times by a time loop, suddenly let out a piercing shriek. Its body swelled grotesquely, and horrific tendrils of raw, fleshy matter burst from within it. Black energy exploded outward, finally tearing it free from the loop.
Flesh tendrils…
Lucius and Anabel exchanged a glance. Something was very wrong.
The void rippled again. A beam of violet light lanced through the air, glimmering with the brilliance of countless stars as it tore through space-time and grazed the twisted Celebi's side.
Roar of Time—Dialga's signature move.
When the light faded, only half of the grotesquely enlarged Celebi remained. A good portion of its head had been obliterated.
But what came next was even more terrifying—countless writhing tendrils of meat surged from the remaining half, weaving together and regenerating its mutilated form.
"…"
Lucius and Anabel could tell—this wasn't simple regeneration. It was too unnatural. This wasn't a natural recovery—it looked almost exactly like the regenerative properties granted by a virus.
Without hesitation, Lucius sent out a strain of the Leviathan Virus, directing it toward Celebi.
Although the twisted Celebi kept teleporting through time-space to evade attacks, Lucius activated Future Sight, projecting the virus into the location where it would next appear—instantly infecting it.
[Alert: Ouroboros Virus detected.]
The system warning flashed without warning.
Ouroboros Virus?
Lucius' heart sank.
Impossible.
He knew, instinctively, this shouldn't be possible.
The Ouroboros Virus was a pathogen from the Resident Evil universe. It wasn't native to this world. Although, like his old Veronica Virus, it originated from the Progenitor Virus, Lucius had deliberately avoided evolving in that direction. So how could the Ouroboros strain have manifested here?
His thoughts raced, but his body didn't stop moving.
The Leviathan Virus and Ouroboros Virus collided in a biological war.
The Leviathan—half dragon, half serpent, covered in wings—clashed violently with the grotesque form of the Ouroboros Virus, which looked like a grotesque sphere covered in noodle-like tendrils. The sheer horror of it was stomach-turning.
When the two viruses met, it was as if natural predators had crossed paths. They immediately entered a frenzy of mutual devouring.
Leviathan began consuming Ouroboros in great gulps, absorbing and parsing its genetic code. At the same time, vast swarms of Ouroboros clusters counterattacked, tearing into Leviathan and consuming it in return.
Lucius could tell—Ouroboros was no less formidable than Veronica, perhaps even more so. But compared to Leviathan, it was still outclassed.
That made sense. In the original Resident Evil canon, Ouroboros and Veronica had a shared origin, both ranked among the deadliest bio-weapons on Earth.
But their focus differed—Ouroboros endlessly rewrote its host, forcing them to surpass their limits again and again until they inevitably broke.
Veronica, by contrast, was more stable and emphasized swarm dynamics over individual augmentation.
Maybe it was because of this viral clash, but the grotesque Celebi suddenly ceased its assault on the void. It clutched its body and let out a heart-wrenching cry, clearly in agony.
From its body surged more of those ramen-like tendrils, cocooning it into a monstrous, fleshy sphere.
It looked eerily like a Tangrowth—if Tangrowth were the stuff of nightmares.
Sensing that something was wrong with Celebi, the void ahead rippled. From it emerged a colossal figure.
Its body gleamed deep blue. Steel plates covered its limbs, chest, and tail. Embedded in its chest was a radiant, diamond-shaped core.
A timeless, divine aura filled the space—it was the God of Time, Dialga.
It glanced toward the place where Lucius and Anabel were hidden in stealth. But it said nothing.
At its chest, energy began to gather—an energy beyond description, as if eons of time were collapsing and compressing into a single instant. It was magnificent, terrible, eternal.
Roar of Time.
A blast of radiant blue light burst forth, saturated with infinite glowing particles, striking the twisted Celebi dead center.
The flesh tendril monstrosity vanished under the torrent of temporal power—as if it had been erased from time itself.
One clean blow.
The mutant abomination was destroyed.
Then, a piercing dragon's roar echoed from the sky.
Mega Rayquaza descended from the clouds, hovering before Dialga in the air.
Seeing Rayquaza appear, Lucius and Anabel disengaged their stealth, flying forward to meet Dialga face-to-face.
"What was that thing?" Lucius asked, frowning.
"That thing?" Dialga looked utterly unbothered by the presence of both Mega Rayquaza and Lucius—each of them entities on his level. "You don't find it… familiar?"
Lucius didn't answer.
When Dialga destroyed the grotesque Celebi, he'd also wiped out the Leviathan Virus he'd used to infect it. But Lucius already knew—what he'd encountered was indeed the Ouroboros Virus.
What he didn't understand was how it had gotten here.
Dialga's gaze sharpened. "Your virus seems to have some suppressive effect on it."
"You noticed," Lucius said, not bothering to hide it. "My virus is simply more advanced."
"It didn't originate from our world, did it?"
Dialga gave a dry laugh. "Our world? You don't belong to this world either."
Lucius's expression changed slightly.
So… the Legendary Pokémon were aware he came from another universe.
"It came from a neighboring parallel world," Dialga continued. "Humans and Pokémon from that world once crossed into ours, leaving traces in the fabric of spacetime. That… thing followed those traces here."
Humans and Pokémon from another world…?
Was that not referring to Ash, Misty, Pikachu, and Celebi from the future…?
"But wasn't that our future?" Anabel asked.
"There are countless parallel worlds similar to ours," said Dialga, voice echoing with the weight of eternity. "Each one runs on its own timeline—some earlier, some later—but they do not intersect."
"This world was heading toward that same future… until their arrival altered the course of history."
"And now, this world—relative to the world seven years ahead—has become a parallel world of its own. Just like the one you visited, where Ho-Oh incinerated the origin of the virus… that, too, was another parallel space."
"All parallel timelines… exist simultaneously."
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