"Welcome again, everyone."
Mr. Arceus sat in his seat and looked at the vapors of the people in front of him.
"Mr. Arceus...we seem to be missing a few people..."
Fire spoke up.
As he spoke, the others present naturally saw what was wrong with this meeting.
Ice's brow furrowed, of course he knew about Malkin's arrest, Cynthia Champion had informed her. Cynthia was Ice and Vision's handler when Rope couldn't be reached.
Electric shivered as he watched...
Malkin was missing... by all rights he was supposed to be on this mission with Malkin. He certainly wasn't going to have any 'if I go, Malkin might not be in trouble!' Such stupid thoughts.
He only wanted to know if he would be blamed for this. Seriously, he really wanted to hold on to Mr. Arceus' thighs, but unfortunately he just didn't have much of a chance. Every time a task was handed over to him he would complete it diligently, and the results were generally very good as well. But only this time, he was lazy just this once, and something happened as a result.
Of course, there really weren't many people present who cared about Malkin's whereabouts.
Grass, Ice, Ground and the others already knew where Malkin was.
So all they cared about was the other empty seat.
"Ghost was captured by Professor Rope."
Saying that, Mr. Arceus, also known as Red, looked at Ice on the side and said, "Harumi... Miss Ice, please talk to Professor Rope. We are willing to use some resources to change Ghost back."
And so all eyes gathered on Ice's mask again. Her current mask was Articuno, and it was kind of nice.
Ice froze for a moment at first as well, before saying with a smirk, "Yeah, I'll let professor know. But whether professor will agree is none of my business."
"Just do your best. And thank you for your contribution to our organization too."
The parallel world Red said with a nod, then he turned his head to look at everyone in the room.
"The same goes to everyone here. Thank you for your contributions to our organization, all of you are human beings and I think you will have better prospects in the future, so I won't hold you up here."
The words were still said coldly, but it gave a feeling of let's get together and see each other again in the jungle.
"Mr. Arceus... what do you mean by that..."
Electric was the first one who couldn't accept it...jokingly he had put in so much effort to really integrate into that small group of three people from Servants of God and keep the thigh of such a strong man tightly. Now the thigh says 'fuck off, I'm not taking you guys anymore...'.
With sunk costs this high, no one could give up easily...
"Servants of God is hereby dissolved, and the resources previously promised to everyone will be distributed to your hands as soon as possible. I don't think you all will want to meet with me again after what happened last time, and then we'll all have a break-up dinner together."
The parallel world Red actually said this with a few rare smiles...
"Mr. Arceus, we need an explanation."
Electric immediately interjected again.
But he was the only one in the room who wanted to know the reason.
Everyone from Water to the rest of the group doesn't need an explanation, they don't care if Servants of God as an organization still exists. Seriously, this disbanding might not be a good thing for them.
Servants of God had been too high-profile lately, and had begun to be targeted by League, which was a precursor to being able to run away with a bucket for those of their members who didn't really have a sense of belonging to the organization.
They wanted to mess with resources. But there was no enmity with League.
Even the notorious Malkin wouldn't think of clashing with League head on.
People are animals of interest. Going head-to-head with League wouldn't benefit them.
But human curiosity is also very heavy...they basically couldn't get any information about the various League secrets. So they didn't organize Electric to ask for that explanation either.
"We're hostile."
Mr. Arceus spoke up.
"We, me, Ghost, and all of you everyone else have a fundamental difference in position. We are hostile."
He looked at the silent crowd, a flicker of dismay finally flashing under his eyes.
"It was really inspiring back when we were fighting destruction together! I didn't realize that there would be so many powerful and like-minded people standing together when the world was in danger. Although we all used to have different positions. But when it comes to attitudes towards things like the end of the world, they're still very much the same."
"But unfortunately. We didn't succeed in changing something in the end."
"I'm also pretty sure that as long as you know our fundamental purpose, then you'll definitely rise up and kill me."
Here he shook his head and said, "So this break-up dinner is more about me not daring to eat with you than you daring to eat with me."
"And what is your underlying purpose?"
Electric instinctively felt bad. But the atmosphere had baked up to this point, and it did seem a bit unseemly not to ask the question to the end...
"Destroy your world."
The parallel world Red didn't drag his feet at all, it was as if he had planned to tell them the news in the first place.
After saying that, without waiting for any reaction from the others, he immediately cut off the contact.
"Quite an unwise move."
Ms. Psychic said blandly.
"But you didn't object either."
The parallel world Red said equally blandly.
"Can you talk with some emotion... it's like I'm listening to a robot."
Though it sounded like a complaint... Ms. Psychic's tone was ridiculously flat.
"Neither are you..." The parallel world Red shook his head, "We've talked and mobilized too many emotions before. I don't really feel like talking about life and ideals with this group again right now."
"What are you going to do about the next plan?"
Ms. Psychic also changed the topic, she herself didn't care much, about such trivial matters. After all, the existing intelligence had basically been revealed pretty much.
All that was left was the way they were going to implement their next plan.
"You go figure out how to rescue Phoebe...she's still careless. I'll go for our second step."
"Find the real...Arceus."
——————————————
"That's our initial plan, the most important thing for you guys right now is nothing else but to focus on improving yourselves."
Rope said seriously and earnestly, "The number of times we've actually been in direct conflict with Servants of God is not many. But you all know each other's strength in your hearts. Although we still don't know who Ms. Psychic's identity is. But whoever it is won't be easy to deal with."
"When a world dies with only three people left, these three people are already the three most needed people in this world."
The crowd stared at first, then nodded. Seriously, after hearing that the world possessed its own consciousness to a certain extent, he could all understand...these three people who survived might not really be on their own.
But they were definitely all people that the world felt should have survived.
"Rope, what are you going to do?"
Lance opened his mouth to ask.
The crowd present also converged their eyes on Rope they could kind of hear it. this guy Rope definitely wanted to do something dangerous... at least this thing wasn't prepared with them...
"I'm going to search for Arceus' true body."
Rope wasn't hiding anything from them.
"There are 18 attributes, while Plate only has 17, because Arceus's true body, itself, represents the General Attribute. It is only right then that the Laws of the General Attributes are being given to the Ontology."
"Right now every Arceus bilocation is out of contact. We can't get the relevant information. So we can only take the initiative to look for it ourselves."
Rope said it very easily. But none of the people present would consider it an easy job.
Since Arceus's main body hadn't even made contact with them, its so-called 'allies', just think about it and you'd know that there must be something wrong.
Either Arceus's main body was so severely injured that there was no way to make contact. Either that or he had become disappointed in the humans, in Rope's performance, and didn't feel it was worth contacting.
It couldn't be that he didn't feel the need to make contact, could it?
All seventeen of his own doppelgangers were still out of control. There was still no need to contact his allies?
Then Arceus' heart was really big.
Some people cared about Arceus' reaction, but many more were concerned about Rope's question.
"How are you sure something hasn't happened to Arceus' own body?"
Alder opened his mouth to ask. Although he still couldn't quite figure out all these things that the younger people were tossing around. But in front of big events, he, an old man, would definitely not drag everyone's feet either.
"It doesn't even matter if something goes wrong or not." Rope just said this, and then realized that he might have to go out for a long period of time this time, so he simply explained his speculation to everyone, but before Rope could open his mouth, a clear female voice rang out.
"It's impossible to complete world remodeling with one of the eighteen attributes missing. That's why the parallel world Red is bound to find Arceus's original body. If that means he found it, then Rope is going to stop him. If he didn't find it, then Rope had to find it before he did. Regardless of the current status of Arceus' essence. It's only right that our focus should be on trashing Servants of God's trio once and for all."
Everyone nodded as they looked at the eloquent Cynthia.
Cynthia turned her head to look at Rope, and sure enough, she met Rope's appreciative and happy eyes.Cynthia smiled brightly as well.
[Didn't let you down, did I.]
[My Cynthia is the best!]
The conversation in the back of his mind was as simple as that. And there were no distractions.
"Wouldn't it be more efficient for everyone to search together."
Professor Kukui pondered for a while, but still opened his mouth to suggest.
Rope sniffed but shook his head decisively and said, "You guys are still more important to protect the territory, if Arceus wants to be found, then you could get lost for a moment walking today and then walk to his God's Kingdom."
"If he doesn't want you to be found, then even if you searched every corner inch by inch, he would still be nowhere to be found."
"It's not that I don't trust you guys, but if you all go looking in a group, the cost effectiveness is just too low...the possibility of you guys finding him is basically non-existent. Because there's no connection between you guys."
"And I can, only I can."
Rope's words silenced the champions in the room a bit. They knew Rope had a point. But this feeling of being sheltered in the afterlife hadn't been experienced in a long time, so it was more or less awkward.
Especially when the person sheltering you was younger than you, the sense of dissonance was especially noticeable.
"Alright everyone...that's enough discussion for now."
Rope smiled, "Everyone's actually been working pretty hard these days, and I've seen it all. Although I am nothing right now, and by definition have little authority to command you all to act. However, as the matter is urgent, you all have the right to tolerate me for a period of time. After my mission is accomplished, I will beat or scold you as I please."
With that, Rope got up and left the conference room.
Kanto
As the light curtain dissipated, Lance sat on his desk and let out a bitter smile, "Saying something useless, do you really have no authority to order us around?"
Alola.
"Isn't the fist the greatest right?" Professor Kukui let out a bitter laugh before looking at all this paperwork on his desk.
"Heh..."
Kukui laughed bitterly and put the documents and information all away organized to one side. Grabbing his belt with Pokéball embedded in it from one side, he then walked towards the trainer school's training grounds.
Kalos
Diantha recalled Rope's back with a vaguely intoxicated feeling. Then remembering Cynthia, he felt a little ashamed, shook his head, and sent a message to his assistant.
"Help me put off all my movie work."
Unova
Alder shook his head helplessly and sighed.
"I'm getting old, I can't keep up with the young people's thinking ah... No training is fine, the job of finding people definitely can't be left behind."
Talking to himself like this, he headed towards the forest not far away. He had heard that there was a very talented girl practicing there right now.
Galar.
Leon looked at the slightly cozy forest in front of him, remembering what Rope had told him about the two legendary heroes. After a few moments, he walked into the misty, churning Micro-Melee Forest.
Hoenn.
Steven and Wallace look at each other, both seeing the glimmer of hopelessness in the other's eyes.
"What are you going to do?" Wallace subconsciously asked Steven.
"Cultivate...there doesn't seem to be much else we can do." Steven let out a bitter smile. Suddenly it felt like he was so useless as a trainer in his main profession and chose miner in his secondary profession.
In the face of such a situation, there really wasn't any help at all.
Sinnoh.
Cynthia walked out of her office and looked at the youth who was walking away in the small garden in front of her, shook her head, and then walked over.
"What's on your mind?" Cynthia sat down graciously beside Rope and took his arm.
Without looking at her, Rope just said, a little lost in thought, "I have a hunch. It's going to be slightly longer this time..."
"What slightly longer?"
Cynthia asked, a little confused.
Rope casually picked a small purple flower from the ground, then pinned the flower in Cynthia's hair and smiled, "I'm talking about how long it will take me to go out and find someone this time."
After saying that he said with some emotion, "This is the sixth year I've been here. The previous five years I have lived can't be said to be muddled, but can only be said to be muddled. Those researches were all forced by the professor to toss me around, otherwise I wouldn't have bothered."
"But ever since I became professor at the Research Summit and made up my mind to start traveling, this one thing after another has come rushing in. It's weighing me down a bit."
"It's like trying to get me to make up for all that laziness I stole before."
"If it hadn't been for that adventure with you in Alamos Town, I would have traveled on my own, searching for the trajectory of the Twin Dragons of Time and Space, and when I found it and learned that I wasn't likely to go back, odds are that I would have gotten discouraged and gone back to Pallet Town to munch my way out. The Oak's aren't short on food for me anyway."
"At the end of the day if Daisy doesn't mind me she'll marry me and I'll help her with the family business and bring up the kids too. Maybe its fun too."
He glanced at Cynthia, and sure enough, he saw the look that was gentle with a dangerous glint in it.
"But, Cynthia, that won't happen. I didn't cross over into this world by accident. I figured it out a long time ago. Though I don't know exactly what that guy wants. But there's definitely something superior in me that I don't see and he does."
Rope then pressed his own forehead against Cynthia's, and with his eyes closed, Rope said, "That's why I believe. I will succeed. No matter who the opponent really is."
——————————
"Dad. Why won't the uncle over here let us go over?"
A little girl with crocheted hair looked at her dad and asked with innocent and puzzled eyes.
The big man who looked like an iron tower revealed a gentle smile and said, "The uncles are playing games with daddy. So does little Ao want to go and get something to eat with his sister over there first."
The big man pointed at the clean-looking woman over there, and the woman obediently raised the bag of snacks she was holding.
The little girl beamed and said with dissatisfaction, "Daddy's going to lie to the little kids again."
The corner of the big man's mouth revealed a bitter smile as he said, "Right, so little Ao can listen to daddy?"
"En! I'll listen to daddy."
Said the little girl as she gave the big man a kiss on the cheek, then ran towards the female staff member over there.
Bringing the staff to lead the little girl out some distance, the three staff members over here who had the big man under guard looked at the big man and didn't say anything.
"Alright, just say what you guys want to do. I won't resist or anything."
The big man was also quite helpless as he looked at the expressions of this this three people who wanted to speak but were somewhat scared.
When did his image become so bad. People didn't even dare to ask themselves questions...
"Mr. Leopold, you are Mr. 'Steel' from the Servants of God organization, right?"
After a moment of silence, a staff member spoke first.
"I am indeed 'Steel' but hasn't your message arrived yet?Servants of God has already been disbanded, and I didn't do anything illegal in Servants of God."
Steel was acting completely differently at this point than he had at the Servants of God meeting. Or rather 'Steel' was 'Steel' and 'Leopold' was 'Leopold '. There are still plenty of instances where a change of vestigial style of doing things is completely inconsistent.
"We received a message from above. But the order we received was to take you to a place."
Seeing that Leopold really wasn't a particularly difficult person to talk to, the staff member relaxed a bit and said, "You can also rest assured that we, League, have no ill will towards you, and the purpose of this time is unknown to us little people though. But the above said for us to tell you, so feel free to relax."
Leopold nodded, and naturally didn't bother to refute the staff member's words.
"Little man humbling himself.Shuzo, the leader of Team 3 of League's Manhunt Division, a famous master now."
Leopold immediately named the identity of this self-effacing group leader.
Shuzo didn't say anything, but just made an inviting gesture.
"If you guys don't want to be chastised, then take care of my daughter, or else..."
Leopold's eyes flashed with beastly ferocity.
Shuzo was a little nervous again, even though he was the head of the Wanted Division. But if we really talk about it, the one in front of him was an Elite Four level starting combat power according to the intelligence...
"Don't worry, we're not so bad as to embarrass a little girl."
Shuzo said with a dry smile. He didn't look very convincing.
Leopold, however, put his heart down. He was just making an attitude...really think he could just bully his daughter? Thinking too much.
...…
"Sister you're so pretty! Can you be my mommy?"
The little girl ate her Poké Puff and looked at the female staff member in front of her and smiled.
Her big watery eyes were full of innocence.
That staff member looked at this little girl but she liked it, but to give that tower-like strong man as a daughter-in-law...
Nope, why am I really thinking...
She secretly laughed bitterly in the bottom of her heart. On her face, she did not show the slightest bit, "No way, my sister has a favorite person."
The little girl deflated her mouth somewhat unhappily, "Okay..."
What the woman did not see was that the Pokéball hanging around the little girl's neck was emitting a faint pink glow.
And there are many more in the same situation as Leopold today.
——————————
"That's indeed a solution...but does a large crowd really help?"
Blue, who was caught over as a laborer, looked at Daisy and asked with some doubt.
"No matter what, these people will always serve some purpose. Even if they don't serve a purpose, there's always no harm in collecting them."
Daisy didn't raise her head either, she just seriously handled the documents on the table.
"Sis...why do you bother? It's not like you like these."
Blue looked at Daisy who was burying her head in the paperwork and said helplessly and heartbreakingly.
Daisy looked up and smiled, "Rope doesn't like running around either, but he's still running around."
"We've been lucky, Blue. at least we have the option to do something about it. Instead of not even having a choice anymore."
With that, she lowered her head again and took care of business.