Josh gasped as soon as he saw the Sinistea; he remembered how much work they had put into making the Pokémon what it was. And now, Robin invoked the massively powerful STELLAR TERA TYPE: a feat only Josh's Gogoat could match. He knew of its strengths, both defensively and offensively. Any attack that Sinistea used would be devastating. Even so, he felt compelled to stand his own ground.

"I do not fail to uphold ideals, Robin," Josh answered, electricity in his eyes. "It is you that do not truly represent the League's mantra. This is why I tried to stop you from trying to bond with a shadow Pokémon by warning you of the dangers. You have not heeded my warning. You cannot control your Pokémon. Why? Because Shadow Pokémon cannot be controlled." Except by the Harbinger and his mighty Patron. "You make Cillian Quinn sound like a saint, Robin."

Josh listened to Aqua Kennedy , too. Their voice of reason reminded him of many Rockets that rose to prominence in the League through the Amnesty program. "I know," he answered. "I know Swift's not the true Raikou. And I know the real Raikou would almost certainly never let me ride him." If kyle lopez 's Entei and Isaac Merlo 's Suicune were any indication, it was only in a dire emergency that any of the Beasts would permit a human to grace their backs. "But he's my Raikou. My Raikou, how I want him to be." Swift purred like a Raikou, flew on storm clouds like a Raikou, sprinted like a Raikou, and fired the fastest ELECTRO BALLS in the world just like a Raikou. "Raikou has meant so much to me since I was six. For him to ally with me, even in this form, is the most fulfilling thing in the world to me. Say what you will, but Swift is not inferior. He may even be... superior to the original!"

Josh shouted as robin coello 's Toxtricity slammed its fists into Aqua Kennedy even after she had surrendered. He and his Raikou were both livid, an indicator of his hostility toward the psychotic Ranger being completely genuine. "I knew it! You're being controlled by your bloodthirsty Shadow Pokémon, Robin!" he pointed, electricity still dancing about the rivets of his Beast's black crown. "I tried to bring the real Robin out. She's down there somewhere, and if I can't bring her out by reason, I will by force. Swift, ELECTRO BALL!"

With a thunderous roar, the monochrome legendary Beast dashed circles around Robin, an electric twister forming around her. While he built up speed, the Champion whistled for his Type: Null to come to the unconscious Aqua's aid. "Aleph! Get them to John Sullivan 's tent!" he pointed to the unconscious, barely-breathing Rocket. As the synthetic Pokémon hooked Robin by their clothes and flipped them onto his back without hesitation, Josh began filling the suddenly-obedient creature's saddlebags with their Poké Balls.

Josh was now alone with Robin, his only Pokémon his Raikou. The electric whirlwind growing to its peak speed, Swift at last released the ELECTRO BALL barrage, the charged projectiles flying toward her and her Pokémon from all directions at the speed of a high-caliber firearm's bullets. Toxtricity may have been an electric-type, but even electric-types could suffer from a voltage overload!

Josh was too blinded by his confrontation to notice that Aqua Kennedy had radioed in before taking off on Aleph's back. What didn't go unnoticed, however, was how all of her Pokémon retreated back into their Poké Balls in protest. All except for her Toxtricity. The scene was eerily similar to when Josh himself was at his lowest point, in his greatest, most desperate longing for the Beast Kyle had later bestowed upon him.

FEBRUARY 2023

The Leader's Pokémon took a defensive stance, Josh laying as low as he possibly could in the saddle, using his mount as cover. The SPRINGTIDE STORM still badly hurt both of them, Blitz more so. Both of them felt the Fairy-type move's shredding winds, even the blooms carried in its wake having cutting power. The Gym Leader was bleeding in several places, and yet still, he was blinded in his own rage. "One hundred volts, Blitz," Josh sternly ordered, getting a shake of the head. "ONE HUNDRED VOLTS, BLITZ! NOW!"

There was no saving Josh now. He was lost in his own rage.

The wounded Luxray stepped off Eris, the young lady free to move once more. The first thing she might have seen afterward was Blitz spinning and bucking Josh like a Tauros at a rodeo, the Gym Leader holding on for dear life as a few drops of blood went flying around him. It didn't take long for the electric-type to fling Josh out of the saddle and away from Eris Halla , in a heap on the rocky plateau. The big cat stood in front of Josh, ready to defend his trainer at all costs but showed no signs of further aggression. One paw remained on Josh's upper right arm, pinning him to the ground and preventing him from standing.

Before Josh could respond to the psychic's hateful remarks, Robin's Z-CHARM glowed brightly, a web of ethereal chains completely binding and immobilizing him just after he had leaped into the thundercloud saddle to fight alongside his ashen friend. Though the Raikou could not think or even act on his own, he was still a friend to Josh. A friend he would not have taken away from him. Her psychic abilities gave her the precognition to foresee how Josh would be placed at his most vulnerable. The old Josh, the one Eris Halla struggled against, would have begged for mercy and thrown his Poké Balls to the ground.

Not the Josh that came from the pyre of the Great One's RAINBOW FEATHER. The Josh kyle lopez , Melody Miro , Greyson Connors , MATIAS SILPH , Navy, and Callan Young had cultivated and transformed through the Champion Assessment.

"No, Robin, you aren't in control," Josh retorted using the only set of muscles he could move: the ones around his mouth and throat. "You're making a huge mistake. A mistake I made, too, and one not far from your own. Your lust for power is getting to your head... just like my lust for speed once destroyed me. And the life of a child." She was far from an innocent child, having committed some truly heinous acts under Rocket's directive. But she had completely repented under the League's amnesty program. She was a valuable asset to the League, alongside Cassandra Kubrick and Hideo Kino .

"Eris Halla . My Pokémon, too, turned on me after I gave the command to attack her when she was most vulnerable. All but one: King Zing, my Beedrill. It took me months of being separated from my Gym, and well over a year of being ostracized by my coworkers, to mend relations with the League. I was separated from that Beedrill for over a year, too. It would not surprise me if the League did the same thing to you for what you've already done to that Rocket who already laid down their arms. I went through this, Robin. You don't have to. Please... stand down. The League will handle them from here. There is no reason for us to fight. You're not a victim. You're a Ranger. A hero. Think about all the people and Pokémon you've brought back from nearly certain death. What would those people think if they saw you like this today?"

The way Josh's mind had shaped Swift's capabilities, he was almost all-in on his recognition of the Beast's unparalleled land speed. Quick Attack and Electro Ball both relied upon the electric tiger's unparalleled land speed to be at their most effective. The spheres the Pokémon launched from his crown were far less effective when done so from a standstill. There was far more nuance to the electric legendary Pokémon than that. While his extreme speed was what Raikou was most well-known for, he was also a god of thunder and lightning.

And there was more than one way to harness lightning's power.

While he could not move his arms nor his hands, Josh curled his fingers like he was in prayer. "O Great One... Robin needs your help. She, like I once was, is a lost Mareep. In Your name, I pray for your help in guiding her back to Your flock. To a place where she can use her Arceus-given gift not for evil, but in Your name. To spread not emnity, but benevolence. Purity. She cannot do this on her own. When You delivered me from my sins, O Great One, I could not do it on my own, either. Please, grant her the strength she needs to overcome this great trial. May she surface from the darkness, her mind and body emerging from it into the light of Your Most Holy Rainbow. In Your name, amen."

As if beckoned by Josh's prayer, a gigantic downdraft blew upon the entire battleground as black storm clouds rolled in. A light drizzle rapidly turned into torrential, hurricane-like rainfall, bathing the grassy plains north of Petalburg in a deluge. A RAIN DANCE whose floodwaters would almost assuredly conduct the ashen Beast's electricity. In the boy's moment of greatest plight, he and his mind's reflection realized a new power.

MOVE SLOT REGAINED

Swift the Raikou regains the move RAIN DANCE.

Bound by the Z-MOVE: PALE RIDER'S SHOT, Josh was as helpless as Robin was filled with virulence. The water only aided the Dhelmise in its efforts to bleed the Champion dry, the rider letting out a scream as the sharp anchor Pokémon cut across a small part of his bad arm to siphon life force from him.

His Beast, however, was far from helpless. With a deafening roar from the striped shadow of a god, Swift projected a crown-shaped REFLECTIVE barrier around Josh and himself. Speed was the legendary species' specialty, yes, but as the Champion was learning, one trick did not make a Pokémon's battle prowess worthy of the gods' classification. The greyscale, translucent shield kept every ounce of the shadow Pokémon's venom out of the wound Robin's Dhelmise had inflicted, repelling both of Robin's Pokémon.

Outer disdain and inner anger resonated with one another, the shade of the Raikou's eyes shifted to a brighter, more menacing gray. His voltage-laced shield expanded outward, zapping all it touched with the intensity of a lightning strike. The rising floodwaters made nowhere within them safe other than the inside of the REFLECT shield.

"I am not... the one that has... betrayed the League, Robin..." Josh's rasping voice echoed as loudly as crashing thunder. "You... are the betrayer."

Rockets weren't irredeemable. Far from it. Josh had listed many Rockets that had escaped the clutches of the Syndicate. Many of them on AQUA or formerly on the most elite of Hoenn's forces. Isaac Merlo and Remiel Calcifet in particular were two of the League's strongest Avatars. As much as he wanted to repeat it, she wouldn't listen. The only way Josh could get through now was by force.

The force of lightning incarnate.

"Swift, ELECTRO BALL!" the Master of Faster ordered the use one of his Gym's signature moves. A move that grew stronger the faster its user was. To his knowledge, there was no Pokémon with a stronger one than Raikou. His command was too late; the Duskull's IMPRISON prevented the Beast's ultimate attack from leaving the inside of the shield. Fizzling out, he could barely keep up the shield that protected him from the psychic as judge, the ghost as jury, and the Ultra Beast as executioner.

The Blacephalon's head detonated, instantly boiling the floodwaters around the ground-level light show that pounded. The legendary Beast grit his teeth together, his eyes growing wider and wider until the shield shattered, the shrapnel melting away before it could harm Josh or his Raikou. The heat was a whole different story. Under its broiling pulses, Swift could no longer maintain the shape of his body, dissolving into ash and returning to the now-inert RAINBOW FEATHER. The barrier lasted long enough that Josh was spared from the worst of it, though his legs were singed with first-degree burns in a couple places.

Once Robin had disappeared, Josh radioed back to HQ. "It's Devlin. I'm down. And it's not by Rocket's doing. It's robin coello . She's lost it. She can't be trusted. Over." From how much static was on the channel, it was uncertain whether he had been heard...