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Guzma watched grimly as the sky darkened to a swirling maelstrom of shadow. An unearthly roar shook the altar grounds as Necrozma pulled itself through the portal, jagged claws digging into reality and leaving scars across empty space. There was something distinctly wrong about the interdimensional being, something painful in the way it carried itself. Clutching his golisopod’s pokeball with a sinking feeling in his gut, he gritted his teeth and readied himself for the battle ahead.
As Necrozma emerged fully, looming above the stone shrine, something else caught Guzma’s attention. Amid the crackle of purple thunder and lighting, raspy breathing of the ultra beast, and his own heartbeat pounding in his ears, there was a discordant tone.
The high-pitched sound started quiet, just a faint noise in the background, but it eventually grew loud enough for Guzma to discern that there truly was no pattern to it. It was almost reminiscent of a radio signal, an odd beeping that he could’ve sworn he’d heard somewhere before—
Against all sense of self-preservation, he turned away from the beast and looked behind him. Standing there on the edge of the stairway, polite smile firmly in place, was Colress. Guzma crooked an eyebrow incredulously.
“The hell are you doin’ here? Didn’t you get the warning, there’s a—” Necrozma let out a scream, cutting him off. He took a step back, bracing himself as the winds picked up. This wasn’t going to be easy, that was for sure.
He knew that the foreign scientist was kind of odd, but seeing him placidly type away as a giant alien from another dimension prepared to destroy their world was a few steps past just odd. Necrozma made a whimpering noise, and when Guzma looked back he saw that it was clutching its head. “Uh, hey, Colress? Don’t got some science gizmo that can beat this thing, do ya?”
The other man said something, but his voice (along with the beeping) was drowned out by Necrozma’s shriek. It swiped jet-black talons across the air, and a Night Slash knocked Guzma several feet away, onto his back. “Shit!”
“Are you alright?” Colress stepped forward, steel-toed shoes clanking against stone as he knelt beside Guzma.
“Never been better,” he wheezed in reply. The attack had cut straight through his shirt and jacket, and he almost laughed at the realization that he matched that Gladion kid. Almost. Damn, this was worse than the time he had stumbled into a kommo-o’s territory. He tried to sit up and felt pain shoot all across his chest as blood dripped across the altar ground. Colress pushed him back down, no longer smiling, and Guzma frowned up at him. “Shouldn’t you be off with everyone else? Ain’t they all down by the docks?”
“I came to see if it was a pokemon causing the disruption. Don’t move, you’ll exacerbate the wounds.”
“Exa-what?” He got the idea, though. Glaring at the ultra beast, Guzma held tight to Golisopod’s ball. Did he have type advantage? It looked like a dark type, but it never hurt to check… “Hey, you got a pokedex that can tell me about this thing?”
“Oh, ah, yes.” More rapid-fire beeping. “It’s psychic type, with mostly psychic, steel, and rock moves. Don’t move!”
Guzma slammed his fist into the stone ground anyways. “Shit. Shit.” Okay, Golisopod couldn’t outspeed it, and there was no way he was gonna get off more than a First Impression before the thing used Stone Edge or some shit. “Do you got any pokemon?” He hated to ask Colress for help, but if they wanted to get out of this alive then teaming up was their best bet.
“I do, but—”
Another scream from Necrozma. Did this thing never shut up? He sent out Golisopod, who took one look at the ultra beast and gave Guzma a disbelieving cross-eyed stare. “C’mon, we gotta beat it. I’m bleeding here!”
Golisopod hissed unhappily, but took up a battle stance anyways. Colress frowned, reaching a gloved hand down to Guzma’s wound, only to be smacked away.
“I have a first-aid kit on hand, and I do have knowledge of medical procedure. Let me—”
This time Guzma interrupted. “Hell no! Are you even a real doctor?”
“I don't have a license or certification, but if you don't receive medical attention soon you'll bleed out. It may be superficial, but you’re bleeding quite a lot. First-aid is very important, and as I said before, I am well-versed enough to help,” Colress replied solemnly.
Guzma knew the scientist wasn't wrong about the urgency of the situation—he was already feeling lightheaded himself—but he'd had more than his fair share of quacks. He opened his mouth to say no, only for Golisopod to fix him with a harsh glare. “… Ugh.”
Above them, Necrozma slammed its hand against its head, growling, and Golisopod flexed its claws. “Fine, whatever,” Guzma muttered. Colress nodded and produced a sleek box that looked more like a laptop than a first-aid kit. He took out bandages, gauze, tape, a pair of surgical scissors, and even a bottle of antiseptic (which Guzma swore couldn't have fit in the box).
It was painful, yes, but Colress was quicker and smoother at dressing the cuts than Pokecenter nurses were. He’d had to stop the scientist from cutting up his shirt further with the scissors, and while he knew it was just to see the wound better there was still something embarrassing about it. Guzma had never liked having normal people see his bare skin (well, he was covered in blood so it wasn’t like anything was really visible), still much less some random stranger.
Regardless, he was no longer in much danger of catching some sort of horrible alien disease, all thanks to Colress. Guzma hated being in debt, but from what little he’d seen, the scientist didn’t seem like the type to hold it over him. Truth be told, he hadn’t heard anything really bad about Colress at all. The grunts gossiped about practically everyone, but the worst they came up with for Colress was just jokes about his outfit.
Of course, no one had mentioned the fact that the scientist seemed to have no concept of danger, but here they were. A normal person would’ve run just because of the freaky thunderstorm, and once they saw the monster itself? Guzma had only stuck around because he wanted a good fight and he was too foolish to know when to back down. Not exactly a great example of smarts.
But Colress had apparently come to the center of the chaos just out of curiosity. Guzma didn’t give a damn about science or the pursuit of knowledge, yet his impromptu battle partner would do whatever it took to research the scariest pokemon on the face of the earth.
Well, Guzma had heard of worse things. If he was going to take Necrozma down, he’d need more than just luck, and if Colress had the brains to back him up… it might just work. They might be able to defeat Necrozma and seal the portal. He clutched the scientist’s arm despite his protests.
“Okay, what’ve you got?”
“Pardon me?”
“What’s your team?”
“Oh, I’ve got Klinklang, Beheeyem, and Electrode on hand…”
Guzma rubbed his brow. He didn’t even know what the first two were. Maybe they were specially-designed UB-killing machines and they’d K.O. the necrozma in one hit. Maybe the Tapus themselves would come to strike down their foe. Fat chance of that.
“But that’s what I was trying to tell you earlier, we don’t need to fight it.”
Guzma gestured to his midriff in response, and to his mild satisfaction Golisopod gave the scientist an equally skeptical glance.
“I meant… oh, it’ll be easier to just show you.” Colress pressed some buttons on his arm devices and raised his palm to face Necrozma. His suit made a strange sound, an accelerating vwoop vwoopvwoopvwoopvwoop —
Necrozma was engulfed in purple lighting, odd electric currents arcing off it and crackling into thin air. The beast screamed again, a roar of anger. Guzma’s jaw dropped as the beast was pulled through a portal. Reality seemed to twist, curving in on itself for a long moment before snapping back into place like a rubber band. Necrozma vanished alongside the darkness, and Guzma squinted against the bright Alolan sun.
“What the fu—”
“See? No need to fight it!” Colress smiled blithely down at him.
“What did you do? How in Tapu’s name…?”
Colress’ golden eyes lit up, and he began speaking quickly. “I simply altered its dimensional ‘channel’. By warping the quantum reality of the space around it to a certain degree, the subject can be transported through a ‘portal’ to another dimension. Certain ultra beasts seem to have evolved to create this phenomenon themselves, which is a fascinating form of power!”
Guzma sighed. “… Neat.” He was willing to put aside his usual bullying for the moment, this guy had just saved his life. Golisopod leaned over to sniff Colress, hissing contentedly, and he reached out a hand to weakly wave it away. “Hey, c’mon, leave the guy alone.” Although, Colress didn’t seem particularly disgusted. He regarded the giant bug-type with the same innocent curiosity he’d had for Necrozma.
As the adrenaline rush faded, Guzma was left feeling utterly exhausted. The pain had lessened to a dull ache, nothing he wasn’t already used to. Too tired to do much more than lay on the ground, he reflected on how he’d reached this point. It had been a really dumb idea, fighting a pokemon that powerful, but it had somehow turned out alright. Plumeria would be pissed about his clothes, and she wouldn’t forgive him for running off like that, but all his worries seemed far away now. Gentle beeping lulled him, and he closed his eyes and fell asleep.
Voices echoed around him, garbled words that he couldn’t quite make out. Still lost in dreamland, a discombobulating beep beep beep resounding in his ears, growing louder and louder until it was nearly deafening. There was something that was growing clearer, in the hazy light. A stupid coat and a stupid smile and stupid golden eyes.
Guzma groaned, trying to raise an arm only for it to be tangled in—sheets? The last thing he remembered was passing out at the damn Altar with Colress. He forced his eyes open, and the first thing he saw was Plumeria’s angry expression. Somehow, he was back in his room in Po Town. Closing his eyes again, he freed a hand enough to facepalm.
“You absolute numbskull. You’re lucky I kept the grunts from following you, they would’ve gotten themselves killed. Did you even think about what you were doing?”
“When do I ever?” he grumbled.
“I’m serious,” she frowned, crossing her arms. “If that guy with the weird-ass hairdo hadn’t helped you, you’d be dead. What was it that was up there with the storm? The little Champion said something about Ultra Beasts, whatever the hell that means.”
“Sci-fi aliens or some bull.” He leaned against the ratty pillow, gingerly touching the bandages. “Damn, this hurts.”
“The guy who brought you back offered us some pain meds and some sort of… ‘foldable first-aid kit’, but I told him we weren’t taking charity.”
“Damn, really?” Guzma sat up and winced. “We should try to find him. Pokecenter ain’t gonna give me any pills.”
Plumeria rolled her eyes. “I think he’s in that old man’s cat-infested station, actually. The cop in the brown coat looked real pissed to see him, dunno why.”
“Alright, then let’s go see what’s up.” Plumeria blinked in surprise, before nodding and getting her pokemon.
Ordinarily, Guzma would’ve let Nanu do his business without drawing attention. There wasn’t any need to go around giving him excuses to do arrests. But after facing down an ultra beast, taking a hit from it and still living, he was feeling more than a little cocky.
Interpol could whine all they wanted, Guzma was getting those painkillers.