Pokemon: Reborn Rich Alternate Earth

Chapter 1146: Chapter 1363: Seal It

"How is this possible?!"

Refusing to accept it, Hoopa began wildly bombarding Metagross with countless attacks, hurling—Shadow Ball, Dark Pulse, Hyper Beam, Shadow Claw, Psycho Cut, Hyperspace Fury, Psybeam...

In the span of a single minute, Hoopa unleashed nearly a hundred moves.

Yet not a single one of them could even touch Metagross.

Every attack came to a halt less than a meter away from Metagross before vanishing into nothingness.

At the very beginning, the Dark Pulse had at least managed to hit Metagross.

But after seeing that Metagross had withstood it, every subsequent move Hoopa used was unleashed with its full power.

Yet, bizarrely, none of them could even get close to Metagross.

This time, there wasn't even any smoke, so the way Metagross blocked Hoopa's attacks was clearly visible.

The First-class Legendaries surrounding Julian were rendered completely speechless. Xerneas' mouth hung slightly open, its face filled with nothing but utter bewilderment.

Hoopa finally stopped attacking, staring at Metagross while breathing heavily—it wasn't tired.

It was simply breathing erratically because of the overwhelming shock.

"Impossible... This can't be... Absolutely impossible!"

Hoopa shook its head repeatedly.

It even began wondering whether it had never escaped its seal in the first place, and whether everything happening now was merely a dream it was having while still imprisoned.

"Meta~"

While Hoopa was still shaking its head in disbelief, Metagross appeared directly in front of it.

A rainbow-colored Meteor Mash was raised... then came crashing down.

All Hoopa could see was the multicolored light expanding endlessly in its vision.

It wanted to counterattack.

It wanted to dodge.

But its body simply refused to move.

As the Meteor Mash struck Hoopa squarely across the face, an enormous shockwave erupted through the sky.

Hoopa's body shot toward the ground like a falling meteor.

"Metagross," Julian called.

"Meta~"

A blue light flashed through Metagross' eyes, and the ground below was instantly covered by a vast layer of psychic energy.

Hoopa slammed into that psychic barrier with a deafening explosion, then rebounded high back into the air with a loud bang.

Had Hoopa been allowed to crash directly into the ground, the force carried by the impact—given the power of the currently invincible Metagross's Meteor Mash—would have been enough to pulverize the entire landmass of East Africa into dust and trigger earthquakes of magnitude ten or above across the entire globe.

If that had happened, the world wouldn't have been destroyed by Hoopa, but instead by Metagross and Julian's own hands.

As for the shockwave generated by the blow that struck Hoopa, Metagross made it disappear with a single thought.

"Why... impossible..."

Hoopa lay on the ground, staring blankly at the Metagross hovering above it.

After taking that Meteor Mash, it had completely lost the ability to fight.

Julian considered killing it outright. However, Hoopa had been naturally born from the world itself. Killing it would be equivalent to killing a child of the world, and he would suffer backlash as a result.

Moreover, after a period of time, Hoopa would be reborn—although its level wouldn't be at the Forbidden-class, it would still be a late-stage First-class Legendary.

Though that period of time could be centuries, or even millennia.

But the Invincibility Card only lasted for ten minutes.

In other words, Metagross couldn't remain invincible forever. Once the time was up, it would return to its original strength.

Therefore, if he couldn't kill Hoopa, he at least needed to find a permanent way to deal with it once and for all.

The first thing that came to Julian's mind was sealing it.

However, sealing had one drawback.

As time passed, the power of the seal would gradually weaken, and once it weakened to a certain extent, the sealed being would be able to break free—

Provided it was still alive.

And Hoopa would definitely not die—after all, it was an innate First-class Legendary, inherently immortal and indestructible.

"Seal it," Julian commanded Metagross mentally.

In the end, he still chose sealing.

Because right now, Metagross was invincible, and a seal laid down with its current power probably wouldn't fade for billions of years.

By that time, Julian felt that if he was still alive, even if Hoopa escaped, it would no longer be capable of causing any significant trouble.

As Metagross's eyes shone with a brilliant blue light, Hoopa saw its own body slowly turning transparent.

It had experienced this once before—when it had been sealed by Xerneas and the others.

The moment it realized it was about to be returned to that lightless prison once more, Hoopa's face filled with terror.

Only a Pokémon that had once been sealed could truly understand just how horrifying the loneliness and endless darkness of imprisonment really was.

"No! No! I don't want to be sealed!"

Hoopa cried out in panic, turning a pleading gaze toward Julian. "Please, don't seal me! I don't want to go back to that dark place!"

But Julian remained unmoved, because sealing was the only solution he could think of.

"Call him 'Dad' and say you want to be his Pokémon. What's the point of just shouting?" Celebi muttered, sprawled atop Julian's head.

Jirachi nodded in complete agreement.

Whether Hoopa had heard Celebi or not, it suddenly shouted toward Julian, "I'm willing to become your Pokémon!"

"Do you really think saying that now will do you any good?" Xerneas stepped forward.

Looking at Hoopa, who was about to be sealed away, it felt an immense sense of satisfaction.

But soon, it noticed that the sealing process had actually stopped.

"You mean it?"

The next moment, Julian's voice reached its ears. Xerneas immediately looked at Julian in utter disbelief.

"It's lying to you! You can't possibly believe it, can you?"

Xerneas shouted incredulously.

If Metagross hadn't been so terrifyingly powerful at the moment, it would have outright cursed Julian for having no brains.

Julian, however, felt that sealing Hoopa wasn't the only solution.

If Hoopa became his Pokémon instead, wouldn't that be even better than sealing it?

But the problem was, this guy was far too strong.

Once the Invincibility Card's duration on Metagross ran out and Hoopa turned on him, Julian would have absolutely no way to deal with it.

So it needed to be restrained somehow.

Having Metagross seal away Hoopa's power?

No, that wouldn't do.

The very thing Julian valued was Hoopa's strength. If its power was sealed away, then what would be the point of capturing it?

"What if you're lying to me?" Julian questioned.

Hoopa: 'I'm lying to you.'

"Forget it, let's just go ahead with the sealing. Oh, and just so you know—if Metagross seals you with its current strength, you can forget about ever getting out for the rest of eternity."

Julian's words magnified the fear in Hoopa's heart countless times over.

It didn't doubt them in the slightest.

Back then, Xerneas and the other three, despite being weaker than it, had still managed to seal it away for two thousand years.

If the one sealing it now was the Metagross before its eyes...

There was no way it would ever be able to break free.

And given its immortal and indestructible nature, it would be forced to spend endless ages trapped within an eternally dark and utterly lonely place.

That was a fate it absolutely never wanted to experience again.

Inside the sealed space, there was nothing.

No gold.

No diamonds.

No jewels.

No silver.

None of the treasures it loved.

There was absolutely nothing there.