After Ash's Greninja underwent Bond Phenomenon evolution, its strength increased dramatically. With a powerful leap, it easily jumped to a height equal to that of the Hoopa's evil thoughts and grabbed the giant Water Shuriken on its back, hurling it straight at the face of the Hoopa's evil thoughts.
Hoopa's evil thoughts remained calm and unhurried, producing a summoning ring and raising it in front of itself. In the next second, the Water Shuriken passed through the ring and reappeared behind Pikachu.
"Pikachu~!"
Pikachu cried out in pain as it was struck by the suddenly appearing Water Shuriken and sent flying.
"Pikachu!"
Ash shouted in alarm, lunging forward to catch the falling Pikachu.
Clemont's Luxray and Serena's Braixen, seeing what had happened, once again launched Thunderbolt attacks at Hoopa's evil thoughts, but Hoopa used the same trick again. It summoned a ring to redirect the attacks, causing both to hit Greninja instead.
"Greninja~"
Greninja was struck and sent flying backward at high speed, rolling several times across the ground before struggling to its feet, its body scorched black by flames and electricity.
Just as Greninja was hit, Hoopa's evil thoughts flung out two Dark Pulses, simultaneously striking Luxray and Braixen, instantly knocking both Pokémon out of the fight.
"Luxray!"
"Braixen!"
Clemont and Serena cried out at the same time and quickly ran to their fallen Pokémon.
"Give it to Hoopa, or Hoopa won't be polite anymore!" Hoopa's evil thoughts growled menacingly from above, staring down at Ash and the others.
Greninja leapt in front of Ash in a flash, standing off against Hoopa's evil thoughts, but the latter didn't take it seriously at all, its unblinking eyes fixed on the little Hoopa in Ash's arms.
Ash instinctively held little Hoopa tighter, but it struggled for a moment and suddenly flew out from his embrace.
"Hoopa!" Ash called out, but he couldn't stop it.
Though little Hoopa was frightened deep down, it still mustered all its courage and declared, "No... you're not allowed to bully Hoopa's friends. Hoopa is... is going to get angry now!"
Hoopa's evil thoughts glanced disdainfully at little Hoopa, pulled out a summoning ring, and stretched one of its arms into it. In the very next second, that arm appeared right in front of little Hoopa and reached out to grab it.
However, little Hoopa suddenly pulled out its own summoning ring and used its signature move, Hyperspace Hole, to instantly appear behind Hoopa's evil thoughts. Then it condensed a Shadow Ball and hurled it hard at Hoopa's evil thoughts's head.
"Hoopa!!!"
With a wail of agony, Hoopa's evil thoughts clutched its head and plummeted from the sky.
Seeing that its attack had worked, little Hoopa quickly formed another Shadow Ball, intending to follow up with a second strike. But how could Hoopa's evil thoughts allow it to succeed? It used a summoning ring to block the attack, and the Shadow Ball passed through the ring and was redirected—hurtling toward Ash instead.
Fortunately, Greninja had been keeping an eye on Ash. The moment the Shadow Ball appeared above Ash's head, Greninja hurled a Water Shuriken and split the Shadow Ball in two.
Boom!!!
Because little Hoopa was distracted by the attack on Ash, it was struck hard by a slap from Hoopa's evil thoughts and was smashed deep into the ground.
There was still a gap in strength between little Hoopa and Hoopa's evil thoughts. The complete Hoopa possessed six summoning rings. After being split into two beings, little Hoopa only retained two of them, while Hoopa's evil thoughts held four. To a certain extent, the number of rings represents their wielder's strength.
So it was not without reason that little Hoopa feared Hoopa's evil thoughts.
Seeing how Hoopa's evil thoughts kept using such sneaky tricks to attack its friends, little Hoopa became truly angry.
With fury on its face, it flew out from the large crater, threw out one of its summoning rings, and the ring rapidly enlarged. In the next moment, a completely red Pokémon emerged from it.
After this Pokémon came out, it glanced at Ash and the others and grumbled, "Seriously, you guys are always disturbing me!"
Seeing this Pokémon, Ash called out in surprise and delight, "Volcanion!"
Volcanion didn't waste any words. After locking onto Hoopa's evil thoughts, the pipes on its back split open and aimed at the target. With a burst, two columns of water vapor shot out fiercely toward Hoopa's evil thoughts.
This was Volcanion's signature move, Steam Eruption.
Hoopa's evil thoughts dodged Volcanion's attack in time, but little Hoopa used a summoning ring to catch the streams of Steam Eruption and redirected them right above Hoopa's evil thoughts's head.
Whooosh~~
Scalding hot water poured down on Hoopa's evil thoughts's body, making it scream and cry out in pain, and inflicting a burn status on it.
Volcanion acted quickly. While Hoopa's evil thoughts was howling in agony, it used Flame Charge to dash toward it, ramming into Hoopa's evil thoughts and sending it flying backwards, crashing through several large trees along the way.
Hoopa's evil thoughts was furious. Little Hoopa could summon reinforcements through its rings, but now it couldn't do the same.
For Hoopa to summon a helper with a summoning ring, two conditions must be met.
First, Hoopa must know the Pokémon it wants to summon. It can't just summon a Pokémon out of thin air based on imagination.
Second, if the one being summoned is not willing, then Hoopa must summon them while they are caught off guard—at a moment when their mind is relaxed—and take control of them.
Otherwise, even if Hoopa does manage to summon the other party, it still wouldn't be able to control them to do its bidding. (If the summoned one's power is far below Hoopa's, then Hoopa can forcefully summon and control them.)
However, due to Team Rocket's excessive interference earlier, when Hoopa's evil thoughts was being controlled by Ariana, it had repeatedly summoned various Legendary Pokémon. As a result, most of the Legendary Pokémon that Hoopa now knows are extremely wary of it. Trying to summon them again is no easy task.
And summoning ordinary Pokémon serves little purpose, which is why Hoopa's evil thoughts is now stuck in a miserable situation.
Of course, if it wants to summon those few Legendary Pokémon still in Team Rocket's hands, that would likely succeed. But if it does, there's a high chance its whereabouts would once again be discovered by Team Rocket.
After spending some time in the outside world, and based on its understanding of Giovanni, Hoopa's evil thoughts knew that once Giovanni got a hold of its location, he would stop at nothing to recapture it.
Not to mention anything else, just that Shadow Lugia in Giovanni's hands alone would be enough to give him a hard time.
Under the joint assault from Little Hoopa and Volcanion, Hoopa's evil thought gradually found it difficult to hold on. It knew that trying to capture Little Hoopa today was no longer possible, so it took advantage of a moment when Little Hoopa and Volcanion weren't paying attention, used Summon to open a space tunnel, and dove headfirst into it, vanishing from sight.
The Summoning Rings are life-saving tools—even Zygarde couldn't stop them, so of course Volcanion and Little Hoopa couldn't either.
Seeing Hoopa's evil thought flee, Ash, Clemont, Serena, and Bonnie all let out a sigh of relief.
Little Hoopa quickly flew down from the sky, looking worried as it asked Ash, "Ash, are you okay?"
Ash shook his head and replied, "I'm fine. What about you?"
Little Hoopa responded gloomily, "Hoopa is fine too. Ash, I'm sorry…" It believed that Hoopa's evil thought had been drawn in by itself, which had led to Pikachu, Greninja, Luxray, and Braixen being injured. It felt incredibly guilty.
Just then, Volcanion also came over and said with an impatient look, "Can you send me back now? Magearna is still waiting for me!"
Ash gratefully said to Volcanion, "Volcanion, thank you!"
Volcanion said with a stern face, "No need to thank me—just don't bother me like this again next time!"
Hearing this, Ash could only smile and let Little Hoopa send Volcanion back.
After Volcanion left, Ash and the others began treating their Pokémon's injuries.
"That Hoopa might come back, right?" Clemont asked worriedly.
Ash nodded and said as he thought, "Looks like we need to come up with a countermeasure…"
—Meanwhile, over with Yuga.
Using the address recorded in the key, Yuga easily located the position of the laboratory.
The lab wasn't far from Laverre City. Beneath Laverre City, there was a village called Koni Village. Not many people lived there—only a few dozen households—but no one knew that among them, a member of Team Flare was hiding.
Yuga didn't want to alert the rest of the village, so he quietly snuck into a rundown house at the edge of the village in the middle of the night, groping his way to the owner's bedside in the dark.
The house's owner was extremely vigilant—Yuga had been very cautious, but the old man was still awakened. The Hitmonchan keeping watch in the house punched at Yuga with lightning speed.
However, before Hitmonchan's fist could touch Yuga, it realized it couldn't move. Beside Yuga, a Mismagius with glowing purple eyes had appeared.
"Who are you?" the house's owner asked hoarsely.
This house belonged to an elderly man in his sixties who lived alone. He usually had very little presence in the village, but no one would have imagined that this very person had once been a member of Team Flare—or rather, he still considered himself part of Team Flare even now.
Yuga already knew the old man's identity from the data stored in the key. His file had been recorded together with Mayor Raul's.
The old man was named Kondo. He used to be an adventurer from Santalune City and had once been an Elite level Trainer. Years ago, he had some renown in Santalune City.
Over twenty years ago, Kondo's only son was diagnosed with a terminal illness. In order to treat his son, Kondo exhausted all efforts and drained his family's fortune. Before long, he went from someone with modest wealth to a penniless man.
But the cost of treatment for his son was too high. Even after spending everything he had, it still wasn't enough. So to raise more money, he began taking on missions non-stop.
Fortunately, Kondo was a pseudo-Elite level Trainer. There was no shortage of people willing to pay handsomely to hire him, so after covering the steep treatment costs, his son's condition temporarily stabilized.
However, the higher the mission fee, the greater the danger. And Kondo's luck was indeed not very good. During one of his missions, almost all of his main Pokémon were killed.
After losing his main Pokémon, Kondo could no longer receive high-paying missions. Although his employer at the time gave him a large amount of compensation, the money didn't last long.
Soon, Kondo ran out of money. Because his son couldn't receive effective treatment, his condition kept deteriorating. In order not to burden his father, Kondo's son even attempted suicide—but was discovered in time and stopped by Kondo. This pained Kondo deeply.
After all, that was his only family!
Just when Kondo was at the end of his rope, Lysandre approached him. Not only did he pay for the high cost of his son's treatment, but he later also arranged for his son to be transferred to a better hospital.
Because of the proper treatment, Kondo's son ended up living for over ten more years. Although he still eventually passed away, he died without a trace of pain.
When Kondo's son was first diagnosed with the terminal illness, the doctors had said he'd live for three to four years at most. Now that he had lived more than ten years, Kondo felt deeply grateful.
Because of this debt of gratitude, after his son's death, Kondo joined Team Flare and was extremely loyal to Lysandre.
Unlike Raul, who could easily betray Team Flare like a fickle traitor, even now, with Team Flare already destroyed, Kondo firmly believed he was still a member of Team Flare and persistently guarded Lysandre's laboratory.
From the time he was sent to guard the laboratory five or six years ago, Kondo had lived under an assumed name in the village, rarely interacting with others. In the village, he had completely taken on the image of a pitiful, lonely old man.
And that laboratory was hidden right beneath this house.
The lab he guarded was a secret laboratory, one that only the five major scientists of Team Flare—Xerosic, Aliana, Bryony, Celosia, and Mable—were qualified to enter.
But the five of them were mostly busy and rarely visited the lab, so the laboratory's keys were split and kept by Raul and another person.
Kondo was merely a pure caretaker. Now that most of Team Flare's members had been arrested and the leader Lysandre had been sentenced to life imprisonment, he still silently guarded the laboratory.
Yuga did not answer Kondo's question and first had Mismagius knock out the Hitmonchan.
This Hitmonchan usually stayed by Kondo's side doing chores and housework, never showing anything special. Probably no one in Koni Village would have guessed it was a pseudo-Elite level Pokémon.
After dealing with Hitmonchan, Yuga turned on the light in the room. Since it was located at the end of the village, as long as there was no major noise, no one would notice.
As soon as the room lit up, Kondo immediately saw Yuga's face clearly and recognized who he was.
How could he not recognize the person who had brought down Team Flare? He didn't just recognize him—he wished he could skin Yuga alive and drink his blood. That was how much he hated Yuga.
Without saying a word, Kondo lunged at Yuga. But he was, after all, old and not very agile. Before he could even touch Yuga, he was restrained by Mismagius.
Now that he couldn't move, Kondo started cursing at Yuga. Mismagius glared at him angrily, and his curses abruptly stopped.
Yuga looked around the room and quickly found a rope. Then he tied Kondo up and stuffed a cloth into his mouth.
After throwing him aside, Kondo looked at Yuga with intense hatred in his eyes. But Yuga ignored him completely and groped around under Kondo's bed. Before long, he found a hidden mechanism.
With a "click," Kondo's bed automatically slid aside, revealing a pitch-black passage below.
Seeing how Yuga had easily and confidently found the laboratory's entrance, Kondo made muffled "mmm mmm" sounds through his gag. Yuga found him annoying and simply had Mismagius knock him out before heading toward the entrance of the lab.