Experience was the best teacher, and Josh's experience in the depths of the Ultra Sea had taught him that perhaps his Pyroar pride weren't the best fit for the stresses of unearthing Dynite Ore from the Ultra Wilds' depths. With how prevalent Ultra Beasts were, it was an opportune moment for Josh to open the door to Aleph's heart. The Type: Null was far and away the most moody Pokémon had ever raised. If raising a legendary Pokémon was like this, was Raikou truly worth the trouble for him, even if he were to land the bond of his dreams? It certainly brought the prospect into question.

This trip to the sea bottom, Josh took advantage of the environment's water-like buoyancy. He had brought Snacker, his Sharpedo, who was fully able to swim through the strange air as though it were water, using a combination of physical BITES and distant PSYCHIC FANGS to crush the surrounding softer rock, leaving only the desired ores. He had also brought Verte, whose wing vibration could grind large amounts of the softer rock to dust. Josh himself was Sygna Suited up astride his Manectric, directing the operation and protecting his partner, Laurence Anderson , from the radiation. While it still leaked through his suit's protection, the burning sensation was far less than what the Head Ranger would have felt without the human shield in front of him. Nearby was a giant, saddle-wearing Salazzle of all things, who was ready to defend the two League personnel from any Ultra Beasts that slipped by Aleph.

Josh started laughing hysterically at Lars' remark, breaking the silence between the two. The Gym Leader was laughing way too hard, his Pokémon distracted from breaking down the rock surrounding the minerals they were to bring back to the League. Snacker rolled his eyes at Josh. "I'm sorry, Lars; I don't know why I found that so funny. I was trying to say, 'Isn't vibration a really efficient way to grind rock up?' then I immediately thought that's something Shalin would say. Even with a Sygna Suit, I wouldn't want to do what she does. She's got a Venusaur now, and what she's doing with it makes me motion sick just thinking about it."

Coming down from the emotional high made Josh more vulnerable to the core's radiation than before, leaving him coughing and gagging in a critical moment. The poison-type Ultra Beasts were coming, this time Naganadel the greatest in number. With Josh incapacitated by a wave of nausea from a combination of the radiation and his own physical weakness, Aleph was without orders. Josh tried to issue some, but his words were incomprehensible. Aleph interpreted them as an order to use X-SCISSOR. The claws bounced off almost completely harmlessly, one of the Ultra Beasts jabbing into the Type: Null with its rear stinger and pumping dangerous volumes of toxin into him.

Though the Ice-type JUDGMENT sent the Ultra Beasts packing, the Naganadel toxin left Aleph in a dangerous state: both asleep and envenomed. "I've found even Pokémon medicine to be ineffective here; you wouldn't happen to have any Pokémon that can purge Ultra Beast toxin, would you?" he kindly asked Lars, Saber still on edge as the rest of Josh's Pokémon still involved with the mining operation stopped what they were doing to clean up. They had to focus on defending the duo from what was to come, and it wasn't pretty.

From the pink Eternatus core expanded a facsimile of the basement of Josh's Operations Center, where he and illeana reyes had performed the stem cell extraction that ultimately resulted in the Type: Null existing. A seemingly physical flashback of the moment Valoo the Drampa passing away from not surviving his extraction made Josh well up, not saying anything to Lars. It was clear he felt guilty for what he did. That guilt manifested itself toward aggression, the memory of the dragon taking physical form and lifting Josh off his Manectric steed with his EXTRASENSORY!

Amir's mind overpowered the sludge-Drampa's, freeing Josh and getting him back on his feet. "Lars, thanks for the save," Josh replied, getting back on his mount and keeping his distance from the corrupted memory of the Drampa taken from him all too soon. The sludge-dragon's will was just as strong as Josh's, not even Saber's THUNDER WAVE slowing it down. With powerful wingbeats, the dragon tried to envelop all four of them in a wide and intense TWISTER.

To make matters worse, the goop surrounding the Eternatus core gave form to a second of Josh's Pokémon: Bora the Corviknight, who bravely flew toward the trainers that may have been ensnared by the whirlwind. If they were trapped, it would make the corvid's blade-like, cleaving STEEL WING even harder for them to dodge!

While there were no Ultra Beasts to speak of this time, the memories of the two Pokémon he had sentenced to death to create Aleph haunted the Gym Leader. Paralyzed with regret, it was up to the Type: Null to take them out. His CRUSH CLAW and TRI-ATTACK fared much better against the poison-type facsimiles of the dragon and steel Pokémon, though the Valoo look-alike's DRAGON BREATH rendered Josh's greatest ally within Ultra Space unable to battle.

Huffing, the Gym Leader withdrew Aleph. "Those two are...V-Valoo and B-B-Bora," he stuttered. "Or rather, l-looked like them." He shook his head and took a deep breath. "How familiar are you with the... lethality... of the process of synthesizing Type: Null?" he asked. If Lars knew anything of the Type: Full manual, he would have easily been able to put two and two together that these two were manifestations of Pokémon the Gym Leader sacrificed to create the Normal-type Ultra Beast Killer.