wtwo's power was imnse, and Team Rocket's restrictions on it were equally extensive. Kairos knew that in reality, those restrictions went far beyond anything shown in the ani.
Team Rocket would never create a weapon so powerful that they couldn't control it themselves. Giovanni was no fool.
If wtwo wanted to break free from Team Rocket's grip on its own, it would need a very long ti to find the right opportunity. But now, Kairos felt the mont had nearly arrived.
He had been watching closely as wtwo played through the ga, quietly observing every shift in its emotions.
He was certain that releasing wtwo now wouldn't cause the kind of catastrophe that had unfolded in the original story.
Kairos's gaze swept quickly through his system inventory, and finally, his eyes landed on a peculiar device sitting quietly in the corner. He had been saving it for just the right mont, never expecting that day would actually co.
With a single thought, the item materialized in his hand.
It was a distinctly unusual sphere, roughly the size of a tennis ball, its entire surface a translucent silver-white, with rippling patterns flowing across it like waves on water.
[Item Na: Cleanser (Single-Use)]
[Item Grade: S ]
[Item Description: A strange device imbued with the power of fundantal laws. It can remove any and all status effects afflicting a target, whether curses, poisoning, parasites, brands left by legendary Pokémon, or even certain forms of forced technological control.]
[Usage Restrictions: None]
[Special Note: Though highly powerful, this item automatically calculates the resources required based on the actual severity of the statuses affecting the target. If insufficient resources are available, it cannot be used.]
Kairos raised an eyebrow slightly as he read that last line.
Team Rocket had clearly done a great deal to wtwo in order to keep it in check, from physical restraints and armor to psychological conditioning and embedded control programs. All of it counted as "statuses" forcibly imposed on wtwo's body.
And this Cleanser seed almost purpose-built for exactly this kind of situation.
One use, and everything dirty and unwanted would be stripped from wtwo entirely, restoring it to complete freedom. Without question, this was the single greatest gift he could offer wtwo right now.
Kairos didn't hesitate. He selected "Use Reward: Cleanser on target player 'wtwo'" in the system interface.
The mont the command was issued, the system imdiately threw up a red confirmation window with a full list of required resources.
[Warning! The target unit is under an extrely high-intensity forced control protocol!]
[Using the Cleanser requires the following resources:]
[S Grade Attribute Resources x2]
[Emotion Points: 5,000]
[Confirm paynt?]
Seeing that list, Kairos's mouth twitched.
That hurt. It genuinely hurt.
Five thousand Emotion Points wasn't a staggering amount at this stage, but two S grade attribute resources were genuinely steep. Even so, wtwo was a long-term investnt, and one with an extraordinarily proud and fiercely independent personality on top of that.
If he only offered it so ordinary rare items, wtwo might not appreciate the gesture at all, and might even take it as a brush-off.
Only by solving its greatest source of suffering and granting it true freedom would this gift carry any real weight.
And the goodwill of soone at wtwo's level was worth far more than two S resources. This was called investing.
Better to take the short-term pain now. You couldn't catch a wolf without sacrificing a lamb.
Kairos took a slow breath and pressed the confirm button.
[Paynt confird!]
[Deducting resources...]
[Cleanser and corresponding resources are being transferred!]
As the system notification faded, a faint smile crossed Kairos's lips.
Co on, wtwo. Ti to co out and play.
At the sa mont, deep within New Island, the image on the screen in front of wtwo froze on a line of golden text.
[Congratulations on clearing the ga. Thank you for playing.]
wtwo's violet eyes reflected the screen's light as it slowly faded to black.
Inside that virtually constructed world, it had experienced, for the first ti from a human perspective, a sweeping and magnificent adventure. It had chased waves along the shores of Hoenn, stood at the rim of a volcano and felt the pulse of the earth beneath its feet.
It had witnessed beings known as legendary Pokémon: Groudon's magma surging up from the depths of the land, Kyogre's towering waves raging through the farthest reaches of the deep sea, and Rayquaza's commanding presence as it descended to end the battle of gods.
That kind of power, the kind that seed capable of rewriting the laws of the world itself, stirred sothing in wtwo's restless heart that it had never felt before.
In the ga, it had only ever been a spectator, an operator working from the outside.
But when the ga ended and its consciousness returned to its body, the weight of true confinent ca crashing back.
It looked down at itself, wrapped in tubes and cables, surrounded by nothing but cold steel walls and the antiseptic tang of disinfectant hanging in the air. No sky. No clouds.
Those humans had told it that it was the ultimate weapon, engineered by humanity for the sake of war and power.
But was this truly its fate?
During those dozens of hours inside the ga, it had witnessed sothing between humans and Pokémon, sothing called a "bond." It didn't fully understand that kind of emotion, and part of it found the concept foolish and weak. Even so, it couldn't deny that the power behind it was real.
But none of that applied to itself.
It didn't need companions.
It was wtwo, a singular existence, born of an act unlike any other.
If it was born as a Pokémon, then only one goal was worth pursuing.
To beco the strongest.
Not to serve humanity. Not to prove anything to anyone. Simply because only from that height, the height of absolute supremacy, would it possess true authority over its own existence and be able to define what that existence ant.
But for now, that goal was still far out of reach.
wtwo could feel it clearly, sothing embedded deep in the flow of its own blood, sothing that felt like countless restrictions laid down by those humans. Whether it was a constraint at the genetic level or sothing else entirely, any thought of resistance triggered imdiate, searing pain that threatened to shatter its will.
It had tried before. More than once.
Every attempt to break through the shackles had only resulted in tighter surveillance.
Those humans seed deeply wary of it.
Was it truly going to spend its entire existence locked away in this lightless place?
After a brief silence, a sharp glint crossed wtwo's eyes. Violet psychic energy began surging around its body, and the instrunts nearby shrieked with alarms, straining under the pressure.
Just as it was preparing to force its way through the restraints once again, a strange fluctuation appeared from nowhere.
It wasn't any signal from Team Rocket. It wasn't any form of energy wtwo had ever encountered.
It was light.
A gentle yet overwhelmingly dominant golden light that pierced straight through the thick walls of the culture tank without warning and fell directly onto wtwo's body.
[Detecting delivery of ga-clear reward...]
[Received S Grade Item: Cleanser.]
The text that materialized out of thin air gave wtwo pause. Then, without warning, a force beyond description flooded into its body. It moved like a warm current, flowing through its veins and spreading to every corner of its being.
Sothing had changed.
The pain was gone.
wtwo seed to sense what was happening. Its eyes flew wide open, and the violet aura surrounding its body erupted.
This ti, its power t no resistance whatsoever. That pure psychic force swept through the entire laboratory like a tidal wave.
BOOM.
A massive explosion shook the entire base. The thick steel blast doors were torn off like sheets of paper, and piercing alarm sirens scread through every corridor.
wtwo rose slowly into the air. It looked down at its own hands and felt the vast, boundless power flowing through its body, no longer bound by anything or anyone. A rush unlike anything it had ever known surged into its chest.
What was this feeling?
"...So this...is what freedom feels like?"
At the sa mont, deep inside Team Rocket's headquarters in the Kanto region, Giovanni sat behind his broad desk, idly turning a coin between his fingers, his expression dark and unreadable.
Before him, a researcher in a white lab coat stood with his head bowed, cold sweat dripping steadily from his brow.
"You're telling that wtwo's condition has been unstable lately?" Giovanni's voice was low and rough, giving nothing away, but the invisible weight in it seed to solidify the very air around him.
"Y-yes, sir," the researcher replied, trembling. "Its psychic fluctuations have recently been spiking dramatically. At tis they've even exceeded the asurent range of our monitoring equipnt. But please don't worry; we've increased the dosage of the suppressants. It's still under control for now."
Giovanni gave a small nod and stopped turning the coin.
"Keep monitoring it. It is our greatest creation. We cannot afford any mistakes."
"Understood, sir! Of course!" The researcher bowed frantically, as if granted a pardon, and quickly backed out of the room.
The door closed, and silence settled over the office once more, heavy and absolute.
Giovanni leaned back in his chair, gaze drifting to his computer screen.
The end-of-first-playthrough screen for Erald.
He had been playing seriously for so ti now, not rely to learn about the Rainbow Rocket he had glimpsed early on, but to understand another side of this world through the lens of the ga.
Inside it, he had seen the twin gods of Hoenn, had witnessed Rayquaza descending with an authority that rose above all things.
That kind of power had shaken even Giovanni, a man who prided himself on controlling everything.
He had once believed that wtwo represented the pinnacle of biological engineering, the most powerful existence in the world. That to hold wtwo was to hold dominion over the entire Pokémon world.
Now, for the first ti, he found himself questioning that.
Compared to the legendary Pokémon in that ga, beings that casually reshaped the land and sea, the current wtwo seed to fall genuinely short of sothing.
And then there was Rainbow Rocket. It hadn't appeared at all throughout the entire playthrough. Apparently it was sowhere deeper in the ga's remaining content.
He was still lost in thought when the red ergency phone on his desk erupted into frantic ringing.
Giovanni's brow furrowed. He picked up.
"Speak."
From the other end ca the voice of a subordinate, clearly panicking, barely holding back tears.
"B-Boss! Sothing's happened! wtwo, it..."
"What about it?" Giovanni's voice dropped several degrees.
"It broke containnt! And it...it's destroyed the underground base beneath Lavender Town! Now it looks like it's heading toward New Island!"
"What?!"
Giovanni shot to his feet. The coin in his hand was crushed into a twisted shape.
New Island. The very place where wtwo had been created.
And the place where every piece of data from the wtwo creation experint was stored.
"Get the car ready. We leave for New Island imdiately."
Several hours later, on New Island.
What had once been a scenic wild island was now a field of ruins.
A massive storm still churned above, violent winds driving sheets of rain across the devastated land.
Deep, jagged fissures split the ground in every direction, torn open by forces of incomprehensible magnitude.
Giovanni stood at the edge of a shattered cliff, his black coat whipping in the gale. His face was as dark as a storm cloud, and the fury in his eyes as he surveyed the destruction looked ready to overflow.
Behind him, several surviving researchers knelt on the ground, shaking, not one of them daring to raise their head.
"This is what you called still under control?"
Giovanni's voice was quiet, but it cut through the roaring wind without effort.
"What exactly happened? What beca of the restraints? The control chips? Why didn't any of them activate?!"
An older researcher lifted his head with great effort, his face white as a sheet.
"We...we don't know, sir! Just a little while ago, a strange energy broke into the system and wiped out every single control program in one fell sweep!
It was...it was a technology we've never seen before. There was absolutely no way to defend against it!"
"No way to defend against it," Giovanni said with a cold laugh. "Then what exactly are you people good for?"
At that mont, a figure in red stepped out from the shadows.
It was Archer, one of Team Rocket's top executives.
He bowed respectfully before Giovanni, then spoke in a low voice.
"Sir, according to our tracking systems, wtwo has already left the area. It was moving extrely fast and has deliberately blocked our signals. Shall I dispatch an elite unit to pursue it?"
Giovanni said nothing.
He stared at the churning clouds in the distance, his expression shifting into sothing deeply complicated.
Pursue it?
With what?
It was a creature fully awakened — a fully awakened beast, at that — and pushing it into a corner would only provoke it. A provoked wtwo could bring catastrophic destruction down on Team Rocket.
More than that, Giovanni's mind kept returning to an image from the ga: the silhouette of a great green dragon.
Rayquaza.
He had believed that wtwo was the greatest creation in existence, a weapon capable of standing against any legendary Pokémon.
But now, looking at things honestly, the current wtwo still couldn't genuinely compete with the true legends of this world. It was powerful, yes, but not powerful enough for him to risk annihilating his own forces just to reclaim it.
"No."
Giovanni let out a single word, and his voice had, sohow, grown calm.
"No pursuit?" Archer froze for a mont, as if he couldn't trust his own ears. "But sir, that's wtwo we're talking about..."
"I said no."
Giovanni turned away from the ruins, his gaze settling into sothing distant and unreadable.
"It is no longer a piece on our board. What we have now is a wild horse that has slipped its reins. If it can't be ridden, leave it for the ti being. We have far more important matters to attend to."
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