Pokémon Court

Chapter 852: Big Loss

Ughhh…

It hurts…

After dragging his aching body upright, Terrance spat out a mouthful of sand he had accidentally swallowed.

His clothes were already torn, and his hair was a complete mess.

Even without a mirror, Terrance could imagine that his complexion must look terrible.

“Thankfully… this is already the best outcome in a bad situation.”

Glancing at Gallade slowly getting to its feet beside him, Terrance let out a sigh of relief. If not for Gallade and Gardevoir, whether they could have escaped that hellish place at all would have been a very serious question.

“Gall~ade!”

At the same time, Gallade shook its body, feeling dizzy. From the day it was born until now, it had never experienced such an intense Teleport.

Worth mentioning was that through this Teleport experience, Gallade suddenly felt it had gained a new understanding of Teleport.However, before Gallade could carefully comprehend it, its stamina was exhausted and it returned to its normal state, the wondrous feeling disappearing along with it.

“Rotom Pokédex…”

Noticing that the ground beneath his feet was a bit uneven, Terrance hurriedly dug the Rotom Pokédex out of the sand. Ever since entering the space-time rift, this guy hadn’t said a single word. Terrance had already found that strange at the time. Now that he had dug it out, he discovered the Rotom Pokédex was also in a daze, muttering incoherently.

“It hurts, Roto…”

Faintly, Terrance finally managed to make out a sentence.

“What’s going on…”

Looking at the Rotom Pokédex with its screen badly scratched and countless cracks on its body, Terrance said worriedly.

“At this point, I think I should switch to a new body, Roto,” the Rotom Pokédex groaned, muttering that if not for the body’s protection mechanisms, it wouldn’t be as simple as just changing a casing.

“Leave it to me. As long as you’re okay, that’s what matters.” After confirming that the Rotom Pokédex was fine for the time being, Terrance let out a breath. But just then, Altaria, Arcanine, Castform, Ninetales, Pupitar, Carbink, Beautifly, and the others suddenly popped out of their Poké Balls. Seeing this, Terrance froze for a moment.

After hearing the noisy discussions among several Pokémon, Terrance quickly took the Poké Balls from his waist, then revealed a helpless expression.

Perhaps because of contact with the space-time rift, cracks had appeared on his Poké Balls as well.

According to Altaria and the others, although they couldn’t feel any major problems right now, they had clearly felt a strong vibration earlier.

“Even Gardevoir’s and Mismagius’s Poké Balls have cracks too… forget it.” Holding the ten Poké Balls in his hands, Terrance shook his head and said, “Let these Poké Balls be kept as souvenirs. Cracks are a hidden danger, after all. I’ll prepare new Poké Balls for you guys.”

Hearing this, Altaria and the others nodded in understanding.

After a while, due to the Fairy Mark, Gardevoir made its way over to Terrance and the others. When Terrance saw Gardevoir return, a wave of lingering fear washed over him. In the next moment, he plopped down on the ground and said, “I’ll rest for a bit first.”

“And everyone needs to thank Gardevoir and Gallade. Otherwise, we might all have ended up stuck in that space-time rift…”

“Oh right, Gardevoir, Altaria, help me and Gallade recover some stamina first.”

As soon as Terrance finished speaking, Gardevoir and Altaria moved at once—one using Heal Pulse, the other using Flame of Life.

Bathed in Altaria’s Flame of Life, Terrance not only felt no burning sensation, but his injuries were rapidly healing instead.

At the same time, Terrance fell into deep thought. What exactly had happened?

If it had been an ordinary Teleport, something as outrageous as accidentally entering a space-time rift would never have occurred.

During Gallade’s Teleport, who exactly was the source of that aura?

Terrance looked around. The Mirage Ruins were already nowhere to be seen. He was fairly certain that Pokémon inside the ruins had launched an attack on them, interfering with Gallade’s Teleport.

But… beings capable of interfering with Gallade’s Teleport should be exceedingly rare. Ordinary Pokémon simply wouldn’t be able to disrupt it at all.

To successfully interfere, one’s mastery of space would have to surpass Gallade’s at the very least… After thinking it over carefully, Terrance concluded that only Legendary Pokémon like Celebi or Palkia possessed such skills.

However, the probability of those existences appearing in the Mirage Ruins was practically zero, and why they would attack in the first place was also a complete mystery.

Just as Terrance was deep in thought, the Rotom Pokédex nudged him and whispered, “What about the fossil, Roto?”

The fossil… where… Roto?!

Terrance’s expression stiffened. He clenched his hands, patted himself down, then abruptly stood up and shook out his clothes, only to be utterly dumbfounded.

“Yeah… where’s my Anorith fossil…”

Looking at Gallade, Terrance wanted to ask if it had seen it, but all he got in return was an equally bewildered expression.

“……”

Could it be…

Realizing that the fossil might have been left somewhere, or even lost forever, Terrance felt like spitting blood.

His face darkened, and he began to regret this trip to the Mirage Ruins. Wouldn’t it have been better to honestly go look for that mysterious ruin instead…

“Don’t let me find out who attacked us. Forget the clothes, but the Poké Balls, the Pokédex, and the fossil, I’ll note down this debt for now.”

“Uh…” The Rotom Pokédex glanced at Terrance’s darkened expression, shook its head, and wisely refrained from mentioning the fossil again, instead going off to tenderly rub its own battered body.

“Forget it, forget it. Rotom Pokédex, contact Sharan and have her buy ten Poké Balls at the Mauville Shopping Mall. Ordinary ones will do,” Terrance said, turning to the Rotom Pokédex and forcing himself to stop thinking about those annoying matters.

“We’ll use regular Poké Balls as a temporary measure. Since we’re replacing them anyway, we might as well go for the best. After some time, I’ll find a top-tier Poké Ball smith to custom-make more comfortable Poké Balls for you all.”

After giving it some thought, Terrance added. This was also a good opportunity; it was time to upgrade their Poké Balls.

Beautifly, Altaria, Arcanine, Castform, Gallade, Pupitar, Gardevoir, Carbink, and Ninetales all looked at the dust-covered Terrance and nodded in unison.

“Alright, stop staring. Next… let’s get out of the desert first,” Terrance said helplessly. Right now, all he wanted was a shower and a good long sleep, not to investigate any mysterious ruins.

As they made their way out of the desert, Mismagius also rejoined the group and brought Terrance some good news.

The mysterious ruin from before had been found, and Mismagius had memorized its location. However, Terrance had no intention of exploring it immediately. He planned to wait a couple of days; after all, the ruin wasn’t going anywhere.

The top priority right now was to digest what they had experienced in the Mirage Ruins and the space-time rift.

Setting aside that bizarre attack, the scenes of other parallel worlds he had seen within the space-time rift also weighed heavily on Terrance’s mind.

If he hadn’t been mistaken, two groups of people in those visions had been wearing Team Magma and Team Aqua’s uniforms…

“They actually managed to control Groudon and Kyogre?” Terrance’s thoughts grew heavy. Whether in a parallel world or the original one, allowing those evil organizations to realize their ambitions was anything but good news.

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