"Alright, alright, I give up." Lucius raised his hands in mock surrender, then instantly teleported to the ocean's surface.
With their overwhelming psychic power, both he and Anabel could clearly sense the massive mechanical structure hidden beneath the sea.
"Who would've thought that Team Magma, the ones so obsessed with expanding landmass, would have their main base underwater?" Anabel mused, using her telepathy to scan the jagged, winding sea-path that extended deep below.
"Let's go talk to Maxie," Lucius said, and with that, he teleported directly into Team Magma's underwater headquarters.
The base itself was designed to be accessible only via submarine, which surfaced in a massive holding chamber—the sole entry point to the facility.
But Lucius and Anabel were anything but ordinary. Team Magma's elaborate environmental defenses meant nothing to them.
"Huh? Where did those Pokémon come from?" a Magma Grunt monitoring the security feed blinked at the screen. "Wait—wait a second, is that a Celebi…?"
Before he could alert anyone, Gallade turned to the camera with a smirk—then stepped out of the monitor and into reality.
"Aaaaaah!" The grunt screamed, flipping backward off his stool in terror.
"A ghost!" he shrieked, crawling frantically toward the exit.
I'm not even a Ghost-type and I scared him like that? Gallade thought dryly.
Lucius wasted no time—he released a virus strain into the grunt's body, seizing control. From the unfortunate man's mind, Lucius extracted a complete mental map of the base.
Without delay, he headed toward the command chamber, where Tabitha was stationed.
Of course, no other Magma personnel were spared—Lucius assimilated every one of them into his expanding virus swarm.
"Hmm? How'd you two get in here?" Tabitha squinted, his beady eyes almost vanishing beneath folds of fat as he stared at the boldly approaching Gallade and Celebi.
In a flash of white light, he summoned a Camerupt and Weezing.
But with a flick of Anabel's psychic field, both Pokémon instantly froze in place—paralyzed and completely disconnected from their Trainers.
Duang!—a dull crash rang out as Camerupt's hulking frame was psychokinetically hurled into Weezing, slamming them together in midair.
Tabitha was already panicking after seeing Celebi—he knew this was way beyond his pay grade—but being beaten in mere seconds was still a shock.
Suddenly, his expression changed.
Something foreign had entered his mind.
A second consciousness. Invasive. Consuming.
"N-No…" As a capable scientist, he immediately realized what was happening. He clutched his head, groaning in agony.
But there was no resisting the parasitic infection. Soon, his mind was flooded with memories about the Hive—the same organization Maxie had ordered him to investigate.
Now, all of Tabitha's memories belonged to the Hive.
"So Maxie really was hiding in the Magma base…" Lucius muttered as he sifted through Tabitha's mind.
Tabitha—one of the "Three Fires" who headed Team Magma—was the only person who knew Maxie's true location. Every other member believed he had escaped long ago.
Following the extracted memories, Lucius and Anabel arrived at a secret chamber tucked deep at the base's rear.
No pleasantries.
Lucius tore the control panel clean off the wall using psychic interference, revealing a vast hidden doorway.
"You actually found this place?" A middle-aged man with crimson hair and a pair of spectacles embedded with a Key Stone spun around in a swivel chair, surrounded by glowing screens.
It was Maxie, leader of Team Magma and one of Hoenn's most dangerous criminal masterminds.
"Too easy," Lucius replied dryly. With the Hive's power, they could've stormed the place and taken it by force.
When Gallade opened his mouth and spoke human language, Maxie froze momentarily. But he quickly regained his composure.
"Who are you? The Pokémon League? Or Hive? What do you want, breaking in like this?"
Lucius stepped forward, his tone cold. "It's simple. Hand over the Red Orb, and I'll let you live."
He paused for a second, chuckling bitterly. "Man, I sound like some cliché villain from a TV show."
"The Red Orb?" Maxie gave a low laugh. "Ah… I see now. You are with Hive. You've already taken out Archie and used his orb to control Kyogre, haven't you?"
Lucius didn't bother replying.
A swarm of writhing virus strains shot toward Maxie, overwhelming him in seconds and burrowing deep into his psyche.
No. Something was wrong.
Lucius felt it instantly.
This wasn't Maxie.
Just seconds into the mental invasion, Lucius realized this man's name was Brodie—not Maxie.
"Drop the disguise," Lucius commanded.
Brodie's body stiffened. Reluctantly, he peeled off a high-tech synthetic mask, revealing his true face—long blue hair, with a bright orange streak slashing through his bangs.
Of course…
Lucius recognized him immediately. Brodie had appeared several times in the anime. After Team Magma disbanded, he reemerged as the elusive thief known as the Man of a Thousand Faces—a master of disguise whose impersonations of Nurse Joy and Officer Jenny had even fooled seasoned Trainers. It took Brock's obsessive knowledge of women to unmask him the first time.
They'd been duped.
Again.
Worse yet, Brodie's memories held no clue about Maxie's actual whereabouts.
The mission to capture Maxie had failed.
Lucius didn't care to stay any longer. He ordered both Brodie and Tabitha to absorb the remaining Team Magma personnel into the Hive.
Then, he and Anabel vanished into the shadows—off to continue their pursuit elsewhere.
"Even though Maxie isn't in the base, as long as Groudon is still inside the volcano, he has nowhere to run," Anabel said calmly.
"Hahaha, exactly. And I think I already know where he's heading," Lucius replied with a sly grin.
"Oh?" Anabel turned her head, intrigued.
"You saw it too. There were so many people stationed at Team Magma's base. Clearly, he recalled most of his operatives ahead of time and even had Brodie impersonate him at headquarters. Now, why do you think he'd do that?" Lucius asked.
"You mean... Maxie deliberately wanted us to focus our forces on his main base?" Anabel's eyes narrowed.
"Exactly. Once the League mobilized and launched a full-scale assault on Team Magma's headquarters, he could slip away and head for Mt. Chimney, where the defenses are weaker, and awaken Groudon," Lucius analyzed.
"I see now." Anabel nodded in realization. "Maxie knew we had already secured Kyogre. If he wanted to counter us, he had no choice but to obtain Groudon's power. So, he turned his entire headquarters into bait..."
"That's right." Lucius nodded again. "Even Courtney's leak of Team Magma's base location—it was all part of Maxie's plan."
What Maxie didn't anticipate, however, was that Hive didn't deploy a large strike force to take the bait. They sent just two operatives—yet even with such minimal effort, they managed to capture the base Maxie had built for years, without suffering a single loss.
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