48: Chapter 48 The Mad Scientist, Chaper's Theory of Mutation

[Cinnabar Volcano · Observation Platform · Edge of Hell]

After the black gravity sphere plunged into the magma, the entire observation platform began to shake.

Red alarm lights rotated in circles, their piercing sirens drowning out the roar of the magma.

A black hole collapsed in the center of the pool, swallowing the crimson lava bit by bit, and the magma level sank visibly to the naked eye.

The six Magmar instinctively rushed toward the railing, trying to drag the sphere out of the fire.

Gengar darted out from beneath Lynn's feet first, its shadow—like black mud—wrapping around their ankles.

The Magmar roared, their flames burning against the shadow and emitting a pungent, charred smell.

Blaine's expression darkened.

"Young man, your methods are ruthless, and dirty."

He unclipped the deep crimson badge from his chest and tossed it onto the console.

His originally hunched back straightened bit by bit, and the hot wind whipped up his lab coat, revealing the sturdy shoulders beneath.

Lynn stood by the edge of the magma, leaning on his cane, his voice very low.

"I'm stopping them to save their lives. That sphere is starving mad right now; any living creature that gets too close will be dragged in."

Blaine stared at the surface of the pool, his eye twitching.

He watched as a pillar of fire just spewed by a Magmar was swept away by the black hole, leaving not even a single spark behind.

"Back off."

The six Magmar retreated unwillingly, and Gengar withdrew its shadow.

But the look in Blaine's eyes had changed.

The old Gym Leader's temper had been ignited; he also wanted to test for himself just how much this mad dog before him was worth.

"But you seem to have forgotten one thing."

"This is Cinnabar Island. In the field of Fire-types..."

Blaine waved his hand suddenly, his movement vigorous and powerful, not at all like a dying old man.

"I am the... god here."

"Go! Arcanine! Ninetales!"

"Boom! Boom!"

Two dazzling Red lights flashed.

An Arcanine with a massive build, standing over two meters at the shoulder, its orange mane fluttering in the hot wind like a raging fire, appeared before Blaine.

It did not rush to attack, instead letting out a roar toward the sky.

"Awoooo—!!"

Ability activated: [Flash Fire].

The fire elements in the surrounding air, restless from the churning magma, seemed to have found their true monarch; they rushed madly toward Arcanine's mane, making it look like a living golden flame.

At the same time, another elegant yet extremely dangerous Ninetales spread its nine golden tails behind it like a peacock opening its fan.

Its eyes glowed with an eerie, deep blue light—the sign of Psychic-type energy accumulating.

"Ninetales, Extrasensory! Drag that Gengar out of hiding for me!"

"Arcanine, Extreme Speed! Save them!"

Blaine's commands were fluid and seamless, without a single wasted movement; they were terrifyingly precise.

Hum!

An invisible, high-temperature psychic force instantly locked onto Gengar as it prowled within the shadows.

"Keh?!"

Gengar's movements suddenly stalled.

It was already in a state of energy depletion, and before it could activate [Phantom Force] to turn intangible, it felt an irresistible force strike, forcing it to reveal its purple physical form.

In that moment of paralysis.

Boom!

Arcanine transformed into a golden bolt of lightning, too fast for the naked eye to track, and charged into the shadow pool with terrifying, preemptive speed.

The flames on its body were by no means ordinary; they were a branch of high-purity "Sacred Fire" (legendarily derived from Ho-Oh), and they forcibly burned through the hellish shadow bindings!

"Bang! Bang! Bang!"

Arcanine struck repeatedly, its movements as fast as a blur, knocking all six trapped Magmar out of the shadow pool.

In just one exchange.

Lynn's pride-and-joy crowd control was broken.

This was the substance of a veteran Gym Leader, the former chief scientist of Team Rocket.

On this home turf of Fire-types, he was the absolute authority.

"Ghost King? Hell?"

Blaine sneered, pushing his tinted glasses up the bridge of his nose again. "In the face of absolute high temperature, even shadows will be burned dry. Take him down!"

Arcanine turned its focus, its crimson slit pupils locking instantly onto Lynn.

It opened its gaping maw, and terrifying heat condensed rapidly within—[Flamethrower].

Facing this Elite Four-level suppression.

Lynn did not panic.

Without Porygon-Z's assistance, he couldn't calculate an evasion route, but he didn't even make a move to dodge.

He simply raised his cane calmly, pointing at the massive holographic data screen behind Blaine.

"Blaine, rather than rushing to kill me, you'd be better off looking at this first."

Lynn's tone, transmitted through his gas mask, was unnervingly calm, as if he were discussing how many sugar cubes to add to a cup of coffee.

"Hm?"

Out of a scientist's instinct, Blaine subconsciously glanced at the console.

Just that one look.

The murderous look in his eyes froze instantly.

"Stop!"

Blaine roared.

The flames about to spew from Arcanine's mouth were forced back down by its master's order; it blew two streams of black smoke from its nostrils, staring at its master in confusion.

On the console, the real-time scanning parameters at a depth of 100 meters at the bottom of the magma pool were displayed.

In the center of that viscous, 1200-degree molten core, the black Pupitar had not melted into molten iron as Blaine had expected.

On the contrary, it was undergoing a change that made all biologists feel both horrified and fascinated.

"This... what kind of biological structure is this?!"

Blaine lunged toward the console, his fingers trembling as he zoomed in on the DNA double helix map.

The double helix bloodline chain that originally belonged to a Rock-type Pokémon was currently being forcibly dismantled and reorganized by a black, aggressive, and unknown bloodline.

That black bloodline was like an aggressive virus, or perhaps some kind of high-dimensional life code.

It was madly devouring the massive thermal energy around it, converting it into a brand-new material—a "living obsidian" with ten times the density of diamond, yet possessing biological activity.

"Thermal energy conversion rate... 400%? No... 500%?!"

Blaine's voice turned shrill with excitement, his voice even cracking. "This isn't scientific! According to the law of conservation of energy, it couldn't possibly absorb this much energy and remain stable! Its body should have exploded long ago!"

"Unless..."

Blaine looked up suddenly, staring firmly at Lynn; the hostility in his eyes had been completely replaced by fanaticism.

"Unless there is a 'singularity' inside its body capable of compressing energy."

"Correct."

Lynn leaned on his cane and walked step by step to Blaine's side.

This time, Arcanine did not attack him, because it keenly sensed that its master's mood had changed.

"It is absolutely not evolving."

Lynn looked at the black vortex on the central screen that devoured everything, his eyes flashing with ambition.

"It is... reshaping."

"Blaine, didn't you participate in the Mewtwo project back then just to create the strongest creature that would surpass 'Mew'? But you failed, because you only dared to perform gentle splicing in laboratory test tubes."

Lynn's low voice was full of temptation, like a serpent in the Garden of Eden enticing Adam to eat the forbidden fruit.

"A true god can only be born in purgatory."

"Right now, it is at the critical point of evolution. It needs more energy—enough energy to blow up this island—to fill that black hole."

"But..."

Lynn pointed to the magma level, which was dropping and whose glow was gradually dimming.

"The natural recharge rate of this dormant volcano is too slow. It's like trying to feed an elephant with a straw."

"If you don't turn up the heat, it might fail its evolution due to energy depletion and turn into a pile of worthless waste rock."

Blaine was stunned.

He stared at the energy curve on the screen, which was beginning to level off.

Indeed, although Cinnabar Volcano was active, its current output power could no longer keep up with the monster's consumption rate.

As a mad scientist who had spent his life pursuing the "limits of life" and had even gone so far as to join Team Rocket, letting him watch such a perfect experimental subject—one capable of overturning biological understanding—fail due to "malnutrition" was a hundred times worse than killing him.

"What do you want?" Blaine stared firmly at Lynn, his breathing rapid.

"I know there is a 'Geothermal Amplifier' in this laboratory."

Lynn revealed his true intentions.

"That was something you designed to extract the primordial energy from deep within the earth's core. If you turn it on, you can forcibly extract energy from deep within the earth's crust and pump it into this magma pool."

"You're crazy!"

Blaine gasped, his beard even trembling. "The amplifier is still in the testing phase! It's extremely unstable! Once it's turned on to full power, Cinnabar Volcano might erupt prematurely! The entire island could be blown to the sky!"

"And so what?"

Lynn retorted, his eyes as cold as ice.

"To witness a miracle, is this price... too high?"

"Rumble—!!"

Before Blaine could answer, a violent, muffled sound suddenly came from overhead.

The special alloy armor plates on the ceiling of the laboratory emitted a screeching sound of distortion, and a thick layer of white frost was spreading at an alarming speed.

The temperature in the room plummeted instantly; cold air collided with the heat wave, stirring up a sky full of white mist.

"Lorelei's Blizzard..."

Lynn looked up, feeling the bone-chilling cold.

"Those three annoying guys have already started to seal the mountain. They are creating an ice sheet, trying to turn this volcano into your grave."

"If you let the League people rush in, they will subsequently kill the Pupitar, seal your laboratory, burn your decades of hard work to the ground, and lock you in an undersea prison."

Lynn turned his head, staring firmly into Blaine's eyes, every word piercing his heart.

"Blaine, do you want to be a has-been Gym Leader who guards a dormant volcano waiting for death, only to be treated like a senile old man by the League..."

"Or do you want to be that... Prometheus who personally ignited the divine fire and witnessed the birth of a new god?"

Blaine went quiet.

The Red light of the magma pool was reflected on his sunglasses, as was the violent internal struggle within him.

On one side was reason and so-called safety regulations.

On the other side was the insane temptation to enter the history books and touch the truth.

A few seconds later.

Blaine suddenly grinned, revealing teeth stained yellow by smoke, smiling somewhat neurotically.

"Hahahaha!"

"Screw the safety regulations!"

Blaine lunged toward the console, his old hands—which usually trembled slightly when holding a test tube—now steady as a rock.

He didn't need Porygon-Z to hack.

In this laboratory, he was God.

"Click-clack-click-clack!"

He entered a 32-digit highest-level access password, and a massive Red skull icon instantly popped up on the console: [DANGER! Geothermal Amplifier unlocked! This operation is irreversible!]

Blaine didn't even glance at it.

He gripped the dusty Red emergency start lever with both hands, his veins bulging.

"No hacker assistance?" Blaine looked back at Lynn, a frantic light in his pupils.

"Not needed."

Lynn leaned on his cane, watching him with a smile.

"Because I know you will open it."

"Open... for me!!"

Click! Boom—!!

The lever was pushed firmly to the bottom.

The entire laboratory began to shake violently, as if it were the end of the world.

The massive metal probe that had reached deep into the bottom of the magma pool suddenly emitted a blinding blue light.

Accompanied by the roar of machinery running at overload, a blue geothermal energy, coming from deep within the earth's crust and a hundred times more violent than the magma, was forcibly extracted.

"Output power... 100%! Overload mode!"

Blaine shouted while maniacally operating various valves, laughing like a madman conducting an apocalyptic symphony, "Eat! Eat your fill for me! Let me see what you can turn into!"

"Sizzle—Boom!"

The blue energy pillar was like divine punishment, striking straight into the black vortex at the center of the magma pool.

The magma pool, which had already been somewhat depleted, instantly exploded like a gasoline barrel being lit!

In that blinding, dazzling light.

The obsidian Pupitar's shell emitted a screeching cracking sound.

"Crack..."

A black crack, seemingly capable of swallowing light, appeared on its surface.

An aura so terrifying that it made Arcanine tuck its tail and whimper, and Ninetales shiver, leaked out from that crack.

"This is it! This is the fluctuation!"

Blaine gripped the edge of the console, staring at the off-the-charts data fields on the data sheet, dancing with excitement, "Surpassing a pseudo-legendary! This is... the energy reaction of a top-tier Legendary Pokémon?! Did I succeed?!"

Just then.

"Boom!!"

A loud bang.

The special alloy armor plates on the ceiling of the laboratory finally could not withstand the double pressure from inside and out, and were blasted through by a beam of extreme cold, creating a large hole.

Cold snowflakes fell along with rubble, causing the temperature in the room to plummet instantly.

Three figures exuding powerful pressure appeared above the hole, staring down at this insane scene from above.

Ice-type Elite Four Lorelei, Fighting-type Elite Four Bruno, and Ghost-type Elite Four Agatha.

"Stop! Blaine!"

Lorelei stood on the back of her Lapras, adjusting her glasses, her face livid. "What are you doing?! Are you helping a wanted criminal destroy Cinnabar Island?! Stop the amplifier immediately!"

Blaine looked up, pushed up his crooked sunglasses, and after the trace of guilt on his face vanished, only the arrogance and disdain of a mad scientist remained.

"Shut up, little girl."

"Don't disturb me... witnessing history."

Lynn stood beside Blaine, watching the high-and-mighty Elite Four members in the sky.

He gripped the cane in his hand, a cruel smile curling at the corners of his mouth.

"History has already been written."

Lynn said softly, his gaze cast toward the depths of the churning magma.

"Now, it's time for the monster to make its entrance."

The lights on the experimental console went out one by one, and in the end, only one set of data was still jumping.

Blaine stared at that anomaly, and only then did he not rush to reach a conclusion.

Because it didn't look like failure.

It looked more like some kind of calamity that hadn't finished hatching, breathing behind the glass.