Pokémon: Trainers Start as Bounty Hunters.

Page 407

Amidst the clouds, a bird-like creature, entirely blue, revealed itself.

The beautiful blue feathers shimmered with an icy sheen, and the crown on its head, composed of three deep blue rhomboid feathers, gleamed brightly in the wind and snow.

Its eyes are red, its beak is short and gray, and it is the same color as its long and thin legs.

Its long, flag-like tail was even slightly longer than its entire body, and its deep blue color matched that of its crest.

With its appearance, an indescribable aura surged forth.

"Such a strong sense of oppression."

Tetsuya raised his head with the electric dragon, his expression very solemn.

Under normal circumstances, the oppressive effect is not that strong; at most, it will only increase the opponent's stamina and energy consumption by a very small amount.

However, for true mythical beasts, with their immense power, they can render their opponents powerless to attack or even knock them unconscious simply by their oppressive nature.

It is, after all, the most common characteristic of legendary elves, and the sense of oppression is equivalent to announcing the arrival of a divine beast.

This was the first time Tetsuya had truly experienced the oppressive feeling of a divine beast; the three holy beasts had been quite friendly to him before.

"Quick, put all the materials into the machine!"

Higher up, the Team Rocket squad leader hurriedly directed the team to restrict Articuno's movement.

It's still the familiar red square rock, and the activation material is still expensive.

One team member couldn't help but feel envious: "If only I had all this stuff, it would be enough to train at least a team of Elite Four level Fire-type Pokémon."

"Who says otherwise? This thing is too expensive. I really don't know where the organization got it from."

"Hurry up! Any more procrastination and we'll be dead!"

As Articuno's gaze gradually shifted towards them, the squad leader, drenched in sweat in the heat, was just about to slap the two guys.

With brains like that, how have they survived this long?

"Gudong"

Someone swallowed hard, and all the Rockets players instinctively sped up their movements.

No matter how good something is, you have to be alive to enjoy it.

They now only hope that the data provided by the PhD researchers and the like is correct, otherwise they have no chance of surviving the enraged Articuno.

Articuno's gaze swept downwards to a human accompanied by a Pokémon. The human's aura was mixed, including his own, that of his kind, the Ho-Oh's guard, and the Lake Gods. He could also vaguely make out two adults.

Another group of strange humans carried the bloody scent of the elves from the snowy mountains, but nothing else.

It quickly determined which side was friend and which was foe.

“Li—”

Angry shouts echoed in the air.

Articuno has worked hard all these years to go out and demonstrate its strength, all to prevent any Pokémon or human from coveting the power of its future offspring.

With the deadline fast approaching, these humans, oblivious to the danger, actually ventured into its lair.

Articuno had only one thought in its mind right now—to bury these damned humans in the overwhelming snow.

With a flap of its icy wings, the bird swooped down at a speed invisible to the naked eye.

"not good!"

Upon seeing Articuno suddenly disappear, the team leader immediately knew something was wrong.

However, the materials had only just been placed, and the instrument still needed about ten seconds before it was officially started.

Thinking about this, he wanted to curse those scientists. Why couldn't they just set it to start with a single button press instead of making him wait a while?

He hadn't considered how destructive such a massive burst of energy would be.

"Everyone, prepare to attack!"

As he frantically pondered, he shouted for his teammates to release their Pokémon.

Dozens of sprites of various sizes and shapes instantly filled the entire hilltop.

"call--"

A cold wind blew slowly by.

To the astonishment of the Team Rocket members, the seven or eight Pokémon that had been blocking the front line were instantly turned into specimens in ice.

The entire process, from top to bottom, takes no more than one second.

"this..."

Before coming here, everyone had heard other team members mention the power of the mythical beasts, but when they experienced it firsthand, they realized that they had underestimated the definition of power.

That was a team of seven or eight elite Pokémon, including some with extremely high resistance to Ice-type Pokémon.

Even the Ice-type champion couldn't do it so effortlessly.

One ice block after another took shape.

Suddenly, the Rockets players found themselves being swept away by a cold wind.

Their expressions changed drastically, and they couldn't help but retreat backward, shouting for their Pokémon to rush forward in hopes of stopping Articuno's indiscriminate attack.

Feeling both fondness and disgust, Articuno did not immediately destroy the strange machine.

Moreover, it did not believe that these weak humans posed any threat to it.

But it felt a vague unease deep down.

"Let's deal with these humans quickly and go talk to that human whose origins we don't know."

Articuno thought to itself as it manipulated ice-type energy.

One, two...

Amidst the horrified gazes of the Team Rocket members, Articuno's attack hurtled straight towards them, seemingly ignoring the Pokémon charging towards it.

"Just a little bit more, just a tiny bit more."

The captain, hiding in the back, looked around the instrument with a flustered expression. If he had known this would happen, he would have had the materials put in first.

Although it will result in the loss of some activated energy, it is still better than the current situation.

He was puzzled because the Zapdos and Moltres that other teams encountered were not this powerful.

What the squad leader didn't understand was that strength was one aspect, and environment was another.

In a snowy mountain setting, Articuno can unleash far greater power than Moltres in a volcano.

Tetsuya, who was not far away, even felt that he didn't need to make a move. It seemed that Articuno could easily take care of these people.

His eyes gleamed intensely as he looked at the priceless instrument.

Arceus, he swore he had never seen anything so luxurious.

If he can get rid of these guys, maybe he can get some stuff out of them.

Tetsuya stated that he was not greedy. Although he could only see a very small part from his perspective, the red glowing thing in the middle was clearly the core and something he could not possibly swallow.

But with all those rare fire-type items around, secretly hiding a hundred or two hundred million shouldn't be a problem, right?

"It's here! It's here!"

Tetsuya kept muttering to himself.

He finally understood why they were so rich; it turned out the Rockets were doing all the work for them.

If Articuno has to pay this price, then the price for other legendary Pokémon will only be higher, not lower.

If you do the math, it's a huge profit.

Tetsuya felt it was time to reveal his identity as a sworn enemy of the dark organization.

He just wanted to earn some hard-earned money.

"Speaking of which, what are these guys waiting for?" Tetsuya frowned as he looked at the few remaining Team Rocket members.

According to Zero's detection, only two of the Pokémon they released reached the Elite Four level.

Even if Lance and Cynthia are strong and good at stalling, the Rockets wouldn't send these oddballs to deal with Articuno.

So even though he really wanted to destroy that device, Tetsuya hesitated and didn't launch a surprise attack.

If the opponent releases a Champion-level Pokémon at close range, not only will the damage be difficult to avoid, but his safety cannot be guaranteed either.

"Om-"

Above the white snow-capped mountains, a crimson ripple flashed by.

"cracking!"

The Articuno made a completely different call than before.

A small portion of the snow surrounding the instrument began to melt gradually.

"Holy crap, it's that effective?"

Tetsuya's eyes nearly popped out of their sockets. The snow on the summit of White Snow Mountain could be seen as an external manifestation of Articuno's ice-type energy, and melting it with fire-type energy was not as easy as it seemed.

"Sidoran?"

The same thought that Kona had had before instantly popped into his mind.

The main issue is that while there aren't too few fire-type legendary Pokémon, Seadra is the easiest to bully.

As a spirit born in a volcano, its strength is not considered powerful among legendary Pokémon, and it has no powerful backing.

However, Tetsuya quickly overturned his own idea.

Even if Heatran himself were present, he might not be able to suppress this Articuno, let alone a related item.

"Ho-Oh, Reshiram, or Groudon?"

He quickly set his sights on the three level-one gods with fire-type abilities.

Ho-Oh was ruled out first, because its relationship with Lugia was so good that Tetsuya didn't believe it would stand idly by if its item caused Articuno to get injured.

Moreover, the core that was glowing red didn't look like a feather at all.

Groudon is also impractical.

If Team Rocket knew that the Earth God was sleeping somewhere unknown, they would have already started fighting Team Magma.

So, only Reshiram, one of the Three Dragons of the Way, remains?

Team Plasma is so useless; they're in Unova and Team Rocket is still stealing their kills from them.

Zhe also expressed his concern.

He knew that most of the leaders of the Black Organization, except for Sakaki, were somewhat foolish, but he really didn't expect them to be this foolish.

I stretched my neck a bit.

"It's true, hesitation leads to defeat; the ancients were right."

He sighed.

However, after seeing the Pokémon that the other side released, he secretly rejoiced that he hadn't gone up against them.

"Roar!"

The enormous Charizard, its body covered in black stripes, roared at Articuno.

"Dark Charizard, use Flamethrower!"

The squad leader sneered repeatedly, and now that he felt confident, he directly commanded the uniquely shaped Charizard to launch an attack.

The black flames, amplified by the instrument's flame field, surged toward Articuno.

The articulated bird flapped its wings, sending up trails of fine snow.

The enhanced Charizard's flames were indeed powerful, but they were quickly reduced to mist and dissipated into the air by Articuno's attack.

But this is far from the end.