(In Orsay City, Kalos)
A man runs down a street holding a Pokéball as a woman and a few police officers chase after him.
He runs around a corner and runs into an Electronics Store, he hides in the aisles as the police run past the entrance.
Sighing with relief, the man starts to rub the Pokéball trying to think of his next move.
Man: "Can't believe I finally got me a Meowth, you are going to make me rich."
The Pokéball shakes in his hands which startled him a bit.
Man: "Calm down, you are going to have more fun with me than with her."
The entrance opens again, this time a Charizard walks in. The Charizard starts looking through the same aisle as he's in; he starts moving away and She quickly gets to him, picking him up by his jacket.
Man: "Hey! What are you doing?"
She takes the Pokémon and opens it, Meowth appears from it, angered for being kidnapped.
Man: "OK, I'm sorry. How about we be friends or something?"
Charizard without hesitation takes him outside where the police are, he gets taken away and Meowth walks out and hugs the woman.
Woman: "Thank you, where's your trainer?"
Charizard simply shakes her head no.
Woman: "Well thank you very much."
Meowth uses PayDay and gives some money to Charizard. "Meowth"
"Charizard. " She said, bowing her head as she began to continue walking before something caught her eye.
She sees that the display TVs from the Electronic Store Window are playing some Breaking News.
The screen pans out to show people getting evacuated from the yacht before switching to the beach where there's a Lugia and a Charizard.
She looks closely and notices that his wing has a Team Rocket logo on it; she gasps with excitement and goes to a nearby bus stop with a screen and looks for ways to Ryme City.
Using 5 of the gold coins given to her, she purchases a ticket before stuffing the rest of the coins in her small bag.
(Eclipsa's Apartment)
Early in the morning, Eclipsa goes through her routine, showering, dressing, the usual; as she gets ready for the day, she hears a familiar voice from the living room.
She looks in to see that it's her voice from the TV, with several USB drives on the coffee table. Max pauses the video when it switches to a clip showing Mewtwo in the air.
"Charizard." He looks over and sees her walking in. Snivy was in the kitchen making breakfast.
Eclipsa: "Yeah, I used to work there. It was the last time I've ever reported anything on television before they fired a lot of us."
"Char?"
Eclipsa: "None of us know why we were fired. Tried to get to the bottom of it and well I got arrested."
Max then points at the Mewtoo on the TV. "Chari?"
Eclipsa: "Believe me, I've tried; the Mewtoo simply vanished to who knows where."
Snivy walks over, using her vines to bring 3 plates of toast and eggs, and some coffee as well. "Snivy." She said, giving a plate to Charizard.
Charizard takes the plate but hesitates to eat it, to which Snivy jokingly shows him how to eat food, almost making Eclipsa laugh.
Eclipsa: "Snivy, don't. Max, you can trust us; sure we've only known each other for almost a week, but if we were trying to do something, we would have done it by now."
Charizard nodded and took the first bite of his toast, being cautious about it. Snivy playfully whips a vine to his arm, trying to make him ease up. "Snivy"
Eclipsa: "I honestly can't tell if you're being mean or nice to him anymore."
(The Sanctuary)
Leo drops Goodra off by Francisco's truck before driving up to the entrance. The police and fire departments have the place cut off.
Leo leaves his car and walks up to the entrance with the other officers involved.
Leo: "So, what happened?"
Officer 1: "We believe it was a gas leak that caused the library to pretty much explode. At least that's what the fire department said."
Leo: "Were there any bodies discovered?"
Officer 1: "Just one, fire has already taken care of it."
Leo: "So why are we here?"
Officer 1: "Because there is a laboratory."
They enter the lab while putting gloves, goggles, and masks on. They also walk cautiously to not step on the glass.
Leo opens up a cabinet with several jars of stardust and sugar along with some candy kept in a container.
Leo: "Now this is interesting."
Officer: "What is it for?"
He takes out the jar of stardust and opens it to examine it. The dust rapidly changes color as it reacts to the air.
Leo: "The combination of stardust and candy, or in this case sugar, is a medicine used to cure Shadow Pokémon."
Officer 1: "Shadow Pokémon, yeah I heard of them; but why would this be here if there are no reports of any Pokémon suffering from it?"
Leo: "Just because no one reports it, doesn't mean it can't happen."
Leo looks over to see a broken syringe covered in a blueish-gray substance. He kneels to put the syringe into a plastic bag.
However, the substance reacts with a gurgle, almost like it's alive. Still, he puts as much of the gray goo as possible into the bag with the syringe.
He held the bag up, seeing the thing moving in it; both of them watched in curiosity.
Leo: "The lab is going to love whatever this is."
Meanwhile, Goodra begins to drive off and heads home. While driving through the gate, a van parked on the side starts and begins following Goodra from a distance.
(Hideo Yoshida's Apartment)
Grace knocks on the door of Yoshida's apartment, several locks can be heard opening.
The door barely opens as a Snubbull peaks through, with a low growl.
"Eevee." She said to him.
"Snubbull." He shuts the door to take the hatch off and lets Grace in, but stops Eevee from entering, pointing at her necklace.
Grace: "I'll be fine, just stay put."
"Eevee" She lies down by the door as Snubbull closes the door. Grace gets to the living room where Hideo is waiting.
Grace: "Are you, Lieutenant Hideo Yoshida?"
Hideo: "Just call me Hideo, now you called earlier about some ring?"
Grace: "2 rings actually, the autopsy revealed that there was a second ring implanted into his brain with the purpose of killing him, if needed."
Hideo: "Do you have them here?"
Grace takes out a plastic bag containing the 2 rings, one of them seemed obvious that it was in the brain due to how red and degraded it was.
He puts on a pair of gloves and washes them before going to the kitchen to put them in a scanner. The device shines a laser-like beam and begins scanning, Grace looking at how long it'll take decides to kill the time with a question.
Grace: "If you don't mind me asking, why aren't you still working?"
Hideo: "I was fired?"
Grace: "Why? You were an amazing detective, one of the best Lieutenants in the field; At least that's what I've been told."
Hideo: "Funny how you say that, I was fired for that exact reason."
Grace: "What happened?"
Hideo: "Well, it wasn't just me, but a lot of people got fired. From the PD, FD, the media... It all happened almost a week after the incident."
Grace: "Who would even authorize such a thing of that magnitude?"
Hideo: "Who do you think? Those who fired us are the same ones who helped in the relief effort."
Grace glances over to the Snubbull who is waiting beside them, she is about to ask her next question but hesitates on the thought.
Hideo: "You're not the first outsider to give me that look, so go ahead, ask me about it."
Grace: "What was it like?"
Hideo: "Painful, actually no but. When Snubbull sniffed the purple gas he panicked and lashed out at me, I never saw him so aggressive, then my mind went into his; I had full control over him and his mind was fading out."
He begins petting Snubbull in a comforting way.
Hideo: "Howard wasn't just trying to transfer everyone's consciousness into their Pokémon, he was also trying to commit a mass genocide of every Pokémon involved."
A small green light started blinking on the machine and his computer downloaded some information into a USB drive.
"Snubbull." He said as he took the USB and gave it to Grace. She then takes the 2 rings, putting them back in the bag along with the USB drive.
Grace: "Thank you"
Hideo: "Do you know what the square root of pie is?"
Grace: "3.14 isn't it?"
Hideo: "Good, remember that in case one of us gets implanted by those rings."
Grace: "I will."
Hideo: "Thanks."
Snubbull leads Grace to the door, locking it behind her. Eevee gets up and they walk back out.
(On the train going into Ryme City)
The Charizard sleeps on the seat, her head laid on her tail before several beats wake her up, a small screen behind the seat in front of her turns on.
A woman appears on screen and is in a park surrounded by small and cute Pokémon, she sits on a bench and looks directly at her audience.
"Hello, let me be the first to introduce you to Ryme City. Here at Ryme City, we've become the first and only city in the world to have no Pokémon Battles of any kind, thanks to our founder Howard Clifford, who envisioned a world where Pokémon don't have to fight for entertainment. Sadly, if you may remember 5 years ago, he attempted to transfer everyone's consciousness into their Pokémon, causing many, both human and Pokémon, to lose their lives and leaving a scar on this city."
The Charizard sits up to pay more attention to the screen. The woman in the video gets up as she continues.
"That is why we invite all to the 2024 Pokémon festival on May 10th, in celebration of this city and to remember the tragedy of what happened that day. From your friends, here at Team Rocket Laboratories, we thank you for coming; and we hope you have a safe and wonderful journey."
The screen switches to a map showing when the train will reach its location. The Charizard looks out the window to see that the train is going over a bridge overlooking the city.
The neon lights of the city reflect off the bay area and a tall advertisement from one of the skyscrapers is counting down to the festival, apparently a little less than 2 weeks from now.
As the train comes into the station, a few staff members walk through the train to check everyone's ticket.
When one of them gets to her, looks around for someone.
Staff: "Where is your master?"
"Charizard." She said shaking her head no, she handed him the ticket to check it.
He looks over the ticket and then stamps it in green before handing it back to her.
Staff: "Strange, 4 months ago, I remember a Charizard without a trainer going into the city as well. You wouldn't happen to know him, right?"
"Char" She nodded.
Staff: "I hope you find him."
He continues, as the train comes to a full stop. She gets off while holding a map with RCPD marked down.
(RCPD)
In a briefing room, Eclipse, Leo, Snivy, and Charizard were waiting for Francisco and Goodra to come. Meanwhile, the small container with the Shadow substance is on the table, the thing keeps trying to open it, making the container jump only for Leo to move it back to the middle repeatedly.
Leo: "Let me get this straight, someone from Team Rocket visited the Sanctuary earlier before you guys left."
Eclipsa: "Yes, and there was a woman there, her name was Brianna."
Leo: "We couldn't find anyone, the explosion must have killed her."
"Snivy?"
Eclipsa: "She asked if all of the Pokémon that were there were fine."
Leo: "Sadly 2 are currently missing, the Lugia from the other day and a Rampardos."
Eclipsa: "Well, he was a wild Lugia. Maybe he went back to his home or something."
Leo: "You're more worried about a missing Rampardos than a missing nuke made of water?"
Eclipsa: "Well…"
Leo: "Wait a minute, you know where Lugia is."
Eclipsa: "Actually we don't know where."
Leo: "But you know who, right?"
"Charizard!" he said in a loud voice.
Leo: "Fine, but we will have to talk about it later."
Martin walks into the room knocking on the door.
Martin: "Mr. Rouge Charizard, there's someone here for you."
"Charizard?"
Eclipsa: "Can we trust him?"
Martin: "Well, actually it's she, and you can trust her because she has the same tattoos as he does."
Max then decides to go as Martin leads him with everyone else following. Once downstairs, the 2 Charizards looked at each other.
They hug each other in a tight and warm embrace. Eclipsa looking at the pair couldn't help but think about Francisco for a second, which then makes her try to call him again.
The phone finally gets answered but not by Francisco, not even Goodra but by someone else entirely.
"Hello Eclipsa, let's talk."
Eclipsa: "Who are you? Where's Francisco and Goodra?"
"They are fine."
She gets a notification and it is a picture of Francisco and Goodra tied up together in a small room.
Eclipsa: "What do I need to do?"