Elf: Rewriting the script, starting with Black Stocking Hanako

Boom!Boom!

Two muffled thuds exploded from a distance, like someone throwing two detonators into the Earth's core.

Jiang Chuan suddenly opened his eyes, sprang out of his sleeping bag, and slammed his back against the tent roof. "Where's that gunfire?"

He blurted it out, his hand already touching the two Poké Balls beside him.

The waveguide power exploded almost simultaneously.

Two streams of energy surged from the southeast of the camp. One was scorching and sharp, like a red-hot blade; the other was cold and viscous, like sludge at the bottom of a swamp. The two streams of energy intertwined, tearing and strangling at each other, their intensity far exceeding any wild Pokémon Jiang Chuan had sensed in this quarry.

He couldn't tell if it was one animal or a group. It was too chaotic; the waveguide signal was like a ball of yarn that had been scratched by a cat.

Jiang Chuan pulled his coat over his shoulders and unzipped the tent. Pikachu darted out from beside his sleeping bag, leaping onto his shoulder in a few quick movements, its ears standing straight up and its tail crackling with electricity.

"Don't rush." ​​Jiang Chuan patted its head and took a step forward.

As I passed by Nanami's tent, the zipper was slightly ajar. Nanami's head peeked out, her hair a mess like grass trampled by a clam, and there were obvious dark circles under her eyes. She clearly hadn't slept well.

But her eyes lit up the moment she saw Jiang Chuan.

"What happened?"

Jiang Chuan glanced at her, but didn't have time to ask what was wrong with her hair.

"Don't come out yet, stay in the tent." He lowered his voice, speaking faster than usual. "I'll go check."

"wait………"

Before Nanami could finish speaking, he had already darted away. His footsteps rustled rapidly on the gravel.

Several researchers at the edge of the camp had also woken up, peeking out of their tents. Jiang Chuan ignored them, fully activating his waveguide to lock onto the two entangled energy sources, and sped towards the southeast of the quarry.

He stopped after running less than two hundred meters.

On a wide, rocky beach ahead, two enormous figures are facing each other.

The Alakazam on the left was entirely yellowish-brown and at least ten times larger than a regular Alakazam. Its spoon was no longer silver, but had a murky, rusty bronze hue, and the handle was covered with fine, pulsating veins. Each time it swung the spoon, a fissure would appear in the air, from which a huge, twisted yellow stone, like a crumpled piece of paper, would emerge and slam into the opposite side.

The Gengar on the right was equally exaggerated in size. Its dark purple body swelled into an irregular sphere, the protrusions on its surface constantly writhing, as if something was crawling beneath its skin. With each step it took, the pebbles, sand, and even a few withered blades of grass beneath its feet were sucked into its body, leaving not a trace. Its eyes were two deep red vortexes, with no visible pupils, only endless emptiness.

Alakazam swung its spoon, and another huge yellow rock appeared out of thin air, crashing down beside Gengar. Gengar's shadow body suddenly expanded, swallowing the rock, then shuddered as if burping, exhaling a cloud of black mist.

Gengar retaliated with a Shadow Ball. The black energy ball flew out, leaving a purple trail, and landed at Alakazam's feet, exploding and carving a crater several meters in diameter into the ground. The rubble around the crater wasn't blown away; it was "eaten"—its edges were smooth as if licked by something.

Jiang Chuan used his wave-guiding power combined with his superpowers to probe forward, and the data he sensed sent a chill down his spine.

The fighting power of these two is ridiculously high.

He glanced down at the Pikachu on his shoulder, then at the Poké Balls hanging from his belt. Pikachu's ears twitched, and it gave him a cheeky "pika," its tone clearly lacking confidence.

Jiang Chuan did the math in his head. Even if he used all his Pokémon, they'd probably just be cannon fodder for these two. That Gengar's body was too strange; it swallowed a piece of something with every step, like a moving black hole. That Alakazam was no pushover either; with a flick of its spoon, it created a seal, covering an area with a giant yellow mass—anything that went in couldn't get out.

After much deliberation, Jiang Chuan decided to call someone of similar size.

He closed his eyes and sank into the special waveguide deep within his heart.

The waveguide spread outwards, like a pebble dropped into the deep sea. Ripples spread outwards in concentric circles, extending towards the unknown distance.

After completing the summoning, Jiang Chuan turned around and ran towards the camp.

The battle between these two ancient Pokémon couldn't be resolved by brute force. Based on his understanding of the script, what finally stopped them was the ancient Jigglypuff.

When Jiang Chuan rushed back to the camp, Nanami was already dressed. Her hair was casually tied into a bun with a pencil, with a few stray strands falling beside her face. She stood at the tent entrance, clutching the hem of her clothes in her hands, and immediately went to greet him when she saw him return.

"What's going on?"

"Your most anticipated research subject has arrived." Jiang Chuan took a breath, speaking quickly, "But it seems a bit dangerous. Quickly take me to see that strange thing you unearthed yesterday."

The ground shook again. A loud crash of rocks shattering echoed in the distance, and several tents in the camp shook violently. Nanami's expression changed, and without a word, she turned and left.

"Over here."

She led Jiang Chuan through the camp, past two crooked tents, to the innermost one. This tent was larger than the others, with an extra layer of nylon rope reinforcing the entrance, and two empty equipment boxes piled up next to it.

Nanami unzipped her pants and crawled inside, followed by Jiang Chuan.

An emergency light shone dimly inside the tent. On the folding table in the center, there was a stone slab.

The stone slab was about an arm's length long, shaped like half a chime bell, with rounded edges and a surface covered with densely packed patterns. The characters were not from any known modern writing system; the strokes were twisted, like a spider web ruffled by the wind, or the skeletal structure of some kind of creature.

Nanami pointed to the writing on the stone slab, her brow furrowed: "It was just cleared out yesterday afternoon, and we haven't deciphered it yet. I can only make out a few symbols that might be related to ancient rituals, but the overall content... there's simply not enough time."

Jiang Chuan stared at the stone slab for two seconds.

"There's no time for you to interpret it."

His eyes suddenly lit up with a blue light.

The blue light surged from the depths of his pupils, like two clusters of cold flames, instantly filling his entire eye sockets. The stone slab emitted a low hum, slowly rising from the tabletop and hovering in mid-air.

Nanami leaned back, nearly hitting the tent wall. She opened her mouth, the words stuck in her throat, and after a long pause, she managed to squeeze out, "Jiang Chuan...you...you have...your super...superpowers..."

The sentences are too fragmented to be pieced together.

Jiang Chuan turned his head and glanced at her. The blue light reflected on his face, making his features appear cold and unfamiliar.

"I'll explain that to you later. Let's go find something new now."

"Something new?" Nanami repeated, her voice still trembling.

But she didn't ask any more questions. She watched Jiang Chuan turn and walk out of the tent, the stone slab floating behind him as if pulled by an invisible thread. She took a deep breath and followed him.

The outside world is in complete chaos.

In the southeast direction of the camp, the battle between Alakazam and Gengar continued to escalate. Gengar's body swelled up again, and black liquid began to seep from its dark purple surface, dripping onto the ground and corroding the rocks with countless tiny holes. Alakazam's spoon swung faster and faster, and the frequency of the giant yellow lumps appearing increased from once every few seconds to several times per second.

The archaeological team had already retreated to the west side of the camp. Several researchers, pale-faced and clutching their laptops and sampling kits, remained. A few others were still trapped inside.

Jiang Chuan glanced at it, and his heart sank.

Three tents were encased in a massive yellow mass, the figures inside vaguely visible, like insects sealed in amber. Two other people's lower bodies were already submerged in Gengar's shadow body, desperately trying to pull themselves out, but with each inch they pulled, more was swallowed back in.

"Don't go over there," Jiang Chuan said to Nanami, without stopping.

He closed his eyes, activated his waveguide perception to its fullest extent, and searched his surroundings along the energy field of the stone slab. The patterns on the stone slab glowed faintly in the blue light, as if in some kind of response.

Have it.

To the northeast, about three hundred meters away, there was a faint waveguide with a frequency perfectly matching that of the stone slab. It was so faint it was almost imperceptible, like a heartbeat buried in the earth.

Jiang Chuan opened his eyes and ran in that direction.

Nanami followed behind, her steps faltering. She looked at the figure in front of her—blue light flickered around Jiang Chuan, stone slabs floated beside him, Pikachu perched on his shoulder, the electric sparks on its tail growing brighter and brighter.

She suddenly realized that this person was even more distant than she had imagined.

Less than fifty meters from the camp, the ground suddenly trembled.

A sharp screech came from Alakazam, and the spoon pointed at Gengar. A beam of yellow light shot out from the tip of the spoon, striking Gengar. A hole was pierced through Gengar's body, but instead of bleeding, the hole began to spin wildly, sucking everything around it into it.

Gravel, sand, tent fragments, and even a few small trees as thick as a bowl were all torn away.

Jiang Chuan turned around and glanced at Nanami.

"Stay close to me."

He accelerated forward. The stone slabs hummed beside him, their patterns growing brighter. The wave guiding the northeast was rapidly intensifying, as if something was awakening from its slumber.

The sky suddenly brightened for a moment.

Jiang Chuan looked up, his pupils suddenly contracting.

A yellow meteor streaked down from the deep blue sky at incredible speed, reaching the sky above the quarry almost instantly.

The sound of air being torn apart arrived a beat late, making people's eardrums ache.

The meteor struck the edge of the quarry, sending up a wave of rubble several meters high. As the dust settled, a massive figure rose from the crater.

Its orange-yellow scales gleamed metallically in the morning light. Its wings, spread wide, blotted out half the sky. Its thick tail, whipped at the tip, sent wisps of pebbles flying.

Ancient Dragonite.

Its eyes were deep amber, sweeping across the stone field, over the fighting Alakazam and Gengar, and finally landing on Jiangchuan.

...

The moment the ancient Dragonite landed, the ground of the entire quarry seemed to sink slightly.

Nanami felt her legs buckle and her knees nearly hit the gravel. She looked up, her gaze following the thick tail upwards, past the metallic scales, past the wings that blotted out the sky, and finally landing on Dragonite's round face, which was magnified to a suffocating size due to its size.

It's higher than a mountain.

Only those four words remained in her mind.

Alakazam and Gengar, standing nearby, suddenly transformed from "world-destroying behemoths" into "slightly bigger troubles" in front of this Dragonite. The Dragonite simply stood there, its wings gently spreading, casting a shadow that covered half of the quarry.

"Jiangchuan..."

Nanami's voice was squeezed out of her throat, breaking into fragments so that even she couldn't hear it clearly.

"Another one is coming! A giant Pokémon! Oh no, this is getting out of control! Should we hurry back and tell Grandpa? Let him contact the League to handle this! We might not be able to manage..."

She spoke faster and faster, her voice trembling more and more, and her hands unconsciously gripped Jiang Chuan's sleeve.

Jiang Chuan raised his head and looked at the ancient Dragonite that was sticking its head in his direction.

Dragonite had large eyes, its amber pupils reflecting the morning light and Jiang Chuan's face. It tilted its head, folded its wings slightly, and the resulting gust of air made Jiang Chuan's hair blow back.

"It's alright." Jiang Chuan patted Nanami's hand, his voice calm. "She's just here to help us."

Nanami paused for a moment.

"what?"

Then she saw Jiang Chuan's feet leave the ground.

There were no signs whatsoever.

Jiang Chuan floated up, pebbles tumbling down around his feet, his clothes billowing slightly as if supported by some unseen force. He rose steadily, as if being lifted up by a hand, until he reached the height in front of the Dragonite before stopping.

Nanami's jaw dropped completely.

Her mouth was agape, her eyes wide open, and the string of "common sense" in her mind was snapping one by one.

I also recognize this Dragonite that's taller than a mountain!

There's so much information!

When Dragonite saw Jiang Chuan float up in front of it, a kind of almost innocent excitement instantly welled up in its large amber eyes. It opened its mouth and let out a series of low and deep calls, like a whale song being stuffed into a brass instrument.

It translates to: "Wow, friend! You can fly now!"

Jiang Chuan smiled.

"Ah, I've learned a little bit, but I'm still much slower than you."

Dragonite paused for a moment, then burst into loud laughter. The laughter reverberated, making the air vibrate and even causing the pebbles at the edge of the quarry to tremble. Nanami covered her ears below, feeling her chest resonate with the sound.

After laughing enough, Dragonite leaned closer, its breath on Jiang Chuan carrying a dry, ozone-like smell, like after a thunderstorm. It asked in a low voice, "Why did Jiang Chuan call me here?"

"Didn't I promise you before?" Jiang Chuan raised his hand and pointed to the two giant beasts still locked in a fierce battle in the center of the quarry. "I'll let you know if I hear any news about your friends or other Pokémon. Look over there... two enormous Pokémon, see if they're your old friends?"

Dragonite followed Jiang Chuan's finger and looked in that direction.

It saw Alakazam's spoon swinging wildly, yellow chunks raining down on Gengar; it saw Gengar's body swell into a twisted, dark purple sphere, swallowing the incoming stones one by one, then spitting out puffs of corrosive black mist.

Dragonite's eyes lit up instantly.

"Wow~ It's them!"

The exclamation contained a hint of surprise.