Ash and Virgil arrived at the Great Crater of Paldea in record time.
Geeta was already there along with Larry and Hasal from the elite four.
"Let's get this over with, what do we have to do?" Larry asked dryly.
"From what we've gathered, Team Galactic is in the lower areas of the crater."
"Do we know what they want from there?" asked Hassel.
"We don't know, and there are so many crazy rumors about it I would never be able to pin it down to just one of them."
"Whatever it is, we need to get them out of here, there are dangerous things down there." Geeta sent out her Glimmora and let herself pass the no-entrance tape.
Hassel sent out Baxcalibur, Larry sent out Staraptor, Virgil sent out Flareon, and Ash sent out Pikachu, and they made their way into the cavern.
It was odd to be back here again. This place still felt weird, like there were so many things hiding behind the seams just begging to be looked at more.
But that wasn't the problem right now, they needed to find Team Galactic.
Ash sent out Noctowl to scoop out the area.
Noctowl came back shortly afterward, circling around the entrance to a lower spot in the cavern.
Ash didn't like what Noctowl had found.
It was a large group of Team Galactic grunts moving downwards.
"Use Sludge Wave!" Geeta ordered using Glimmora's Sludge Wave to cut off the grunt's path.
"Use Icicle Crash!"
"Brave Bird"
"Lave Plume go!"
"Pikachu, use Electro Web!"
The attacks sent the team Galactic admins running back up the hill.
"Use the Paradox Pokémon!" one of them ordered.
"Slither Wing go!"
"Iron Hands go!"
What landed in front of them was like nothing Ash had ever seen.
One was a strange metallic Hariyama with disproportionately huge hands
The other was a reptilian Volcarona like the one Ash had seen on the trail cam video.
Ash ran threw the list of Paradox Pokémon in his mind.
Iron Hands and Slither Wing, that's what they were called.
"Use First Impression!" Slither Wing lunged forward and sent Pikachu and Flareon flying back.
"Use Close Combat!" Iron Hands punched threw Baxcalibur, Staraptor, and Glimmora.
"Use Glaive Rush!"
"Double Edge"
"Iron Hands block it." Amazingly, Iron Hands was able to take the Double Edge and Glaive Rush without falling over.
"Use Superpower!"
"Dodge it!" Ash and Virgil ordered their Pokémon to avoid Slither Wings' attack.
"Fire Blast go!"
"Use Iron Tail!" The two attacks connected, but Slither Wing refused to go down.
As if things couldn't get worse, another Paradox Pokémon entered the battle.
The field was enveloped by a Fiery Dance, obscuring Ash's field of view.
What caused the attack was swiftly answered when a robotic Volcarona attacked them with Dazzling Gleam.
Ash remembered that it was called Iron Moth.
And Ash recognized the person commanding it.
Team Galactic admin Saturn.
"Use Sludge Wave!"
"Use Power Gem!"
"Use Icicle Crash!"
Glimmora and Baxcalibur cut through the Sludge Wave, but Iron Hands and Slither Wing protected Iron Moth.
"Brave Bird!"
"Fire Blast!"
"Thunderbolt!"
"Use Wild Charge!"
"Use Lunge!"
The attacks all cancelled each other out, giving Iron Moth a chance to strike.
"Use Fiery Dance!"
"Use Mortal Spin on the Fiery Dance!" Geeta ordered.
Glimmora began spinning around with purple energy, deflecting the Fiery Dance.
"What?" Saturn said in surprise.
"Now use Power Gem!"
"Use Glaive Rush!"
"Double Edge"
"Fire Blast go!"
"Use Thunderbolt!"
The power of all five attacks overpowered the Paradox Pokémon and sent them tumbling towards Saturn. The blue-haired man was too busy on his radio to notice.
"Use Fiery Dance!" Iron Moth surrounded them in fire, allowing Team Galactic to escape.
"This is a waste of time; it appears that what we're looking for isn't here anyway." Ash heard Saturn say into the radio.
"Keep looking for the beast and justice paradoxes, we'll keep looking for the rest in area zero."
By the time the fire cleared, Team Galactic was gone.
That left Ash with so many more questions.
How did Team Galactic disappear so quickly?
And what were the beast and justice paradoxes?
Questions that he feared wouldn't be easy to answer.
…
Once they got back to the academy, Ash was desperate to figure out what Saturn was talking about.
But so far, he had found nothing.
He had gotten Torterra, Heracross, and Noctowl to fetch him as many pages on Paradox Pokémon, and he still hadn't found anything.
That was until Torterra handed him a page with something very interesting on it.
It looked like a combination of the three legendary beasts rolled into one creature.
Below the drawing, it explained that this was a sketch of a creature that one of the explorers of Area Zero imagined.
"That doesn't make sense at all," Ash stated.
The way Saturn described it made it seem like there were multiple of these, not just one.
And the description said it was something made up, but Saturn described it like a very real thing, but that's how all the other Paradox Pokémon were described as something from a book that turned out to be real.
And what were the justice paradoxes?
That question was answered at least when Noctowl gave him a page with a drawing merging the swords of justice together.
"So, these must be what Saturn's looking for," Ash determined. "Maybe there's more of these Paradox Pokémon than I thought."
However, he spun it, it was a head scratcher for Ash.
"What do you guys think?"
"Spriga!"
"Pika!"
"Watt!"
Ash looked up and saw a Wattrel had landed on his table.
"How did you get in here?" the Wattrel turned his head slightly.
Then Ash remembered where he had seen the Wattrel before.
When he had been watching gym battles in Cortondo, the Wattrel had been watching too.
"I got an idea; you want to have a battle?" asked Ash.
"Wat!" the Wattrel nodded.
End Credit Everything Moves, Bronze Radio Returns
No real notes for this one, just happy to get this chapter of mostly set up done.