Virus Evolution: Pokémon, Marvel & Beyond

Just moments ago, after Arceus descended into the planet's core, Lucius's surface avatar immediately used the Spacetime Key to transfer all the compressed energy stored aboveground.

The ∞ Energy Device, originally modified by Devon Corp for meteorite teleportation, was now used in reverse. By channeling the energy inversely, Lucius generated a powerful gravitational field that pulled a meteorite from near-orbit straight toward the surface.

As Arceus's avatar teleported away toward the ground, Lucius struck first.

While Arceus's offensive power might not have decreased with half its Plates missing, its defenses were undeniably compromised.

A colossal fist, born from endless shadow, smashed down on Arceus.

Light and darkness flickered wildly across its form as it tanked the blow head-on.

The impact sent violent tremors through every inch of its body, as if thousands of blades forged from different elemental energies had burrowed into its flesh, slicing apart its cells one by one.

Lucius had mimicked Judgment, focusing every elemental force into this strike. And with half of Arceus's Plates missing, several of those elements would inevitably breach its defenses.

Though it endured the blow, Arceus didn't counterattack right away. Instead, it activated its Transfer ability, displacing the damage to one of the massive energy-extraction conduits.

The conduit, several hundred meters in diameter, instantly exploded into pieces under the redirected force.

Space-time energy warped. A vast crimson wormhole, hundreds of meters wide, was suddenly twisted like crumpled tissue paper.

As the balance of space-time threatened to collapse, a massive hand formed from black mist appeared once again.

This hand, each fingertip swirling with a different elemental vortex, grasped the mountain-sized Arceus in its palm.

The fingers then twisted and spiraled, morphing into a rotating energy prison, locking Arceus inside.

Although the earlier punch had been deflected, Lucius now understood the specific elemental vulnerabilities caused by Arceus losing half its Plates. This time, his attack didn't contain all types of elemental energy, only the few that could specifically counter Arceus in its current state.

Arceus summoned its temporal power again. Inside the energy prison, time began to reverse, unfolding the prison back into a slowly opening hand.

But Lucius had anticipated this. He didn't stop after the first capture. A second giant hand, again shimmering with five elemental lights, seized the first cage. Then a third grasped the second.

Because these elements directly countered Arceus, it couldn't reverse time outside the bounds of the cage. For every layer it unraveled, another followed. Even if it escaped one, the next waited, and then the next.

Lucius had infinite energy. He could afford to stall for eternity.

Meanwhile, the crimson wormhole had reopened, reconnected by the Arceus of the Ultra World Core. The breathtaking tunnel linked both worlds' planetary cores. A vine-like conduit, now even thicker than before, over a kilometer wide, pierced through the wormhole and plunged into the core's glowing sphere, devouring energy in massive gulps.

While chaos raged beneath, Arceus's surface avatar, formed from half the Plates, glimmered with metallic light. Wreathed in dazzling flames, it launched itself toward the descending meteorite.

BOOM—!

The deafening explosion shattered what remained of the already broken atmosphere, obliterated by a chain of cataclysms.

Under the ongoing cracking noise, the massive meteor split from within, fracturing in countless directions.

A heartbeat later, a golden-tailed figure burst through the meteor's far side like a shooting star, breaking into space.

It pierced through.

Arceus had punched straight through the meteor.

The behemoth rock disintegrated midair, splintering into countless shards raining down upon an already devastated world.

The shattered land, ruined by endless battles, was now reduced to even more rubble beneath the meteorite barrage.

Arceus's avatar, gasping heavily in the void, hovered above.

The meteor was simply too massive. Even with half its Plates, Arceus had only barely survived thanks to reclaiming over half of the world's Primal Energy beforehand.

Still, the effort left it grievously wounded.

Just then, a flash of rainbow lightning split the sky.

But instead of vanishing, the light twisted and collapsed inward, opening into a vortex, an entrance to an unknown dimension.

"What is this...?" Arceus muttered.

This world had never been visited by outsiders, none save the Virus. This was the first time Arceus had seen an Ultra Wormhole.

And from that rift flew in a Pokémon with wings spanning over 150 meters, its silver-blue feathers glowing with lunar light.

Dawn Wings Necrozma.

After Lucius had linked the future world and Ultra World via wormholes at the planetary core, Necrozma had locked onto this world's coordinates. Now it could pass through Ultra Wormholes directly.

Following behind came a black Rayquaza, Xerneas, the Original Dragon, Primal Groudon, and others.

A Prismatic Laser erupted, igniting a new divine battle.

Under normal circumstances, not even an avatar of Arceus could be overwhelmed by these Legendary Pokémon. But after being severely injured from shattering the meteor, it was now being encircled by nearly ten mythic beings.

Arceus was forced onto the defensive.

Lucius's goal was clear: stall the avatar, keeping it from returning the remaining Plates to the original body.

Without those nine Plates, the true Arceus at the planetary core had weaknesses, vulnerabilities Lucius could exploit to restrain it.

The massive conduit kept siphoning energy from the core. The once-blazing sphere now shrank and dimmed.

Arceus's true form had shattered hundreds of those dark-mist cages, but each time it broke free, another one closed in.

Even worse, its power source, the planetary core, was fading. Each new cage was harder to destroy.

Meanwhile, the Ultra World Arceus, nourished by the stolen core energy, had not only returned to full strength but had revived its own planet's core, reigniting its radiance.

Once the Ultra World's core fully awakened, Arceus would no longer need to serve as its "battery."

Time kept ticking.

The original Arceus was now taking five, sometimes six, seconds to break free from each prison. Before, it had taken just two.

On the surface, its avatar, already battered, shattered completely under the relentless assault of the mythic Pokémon.

This version had no way to replenish energy. Each blow added up until it could endure no more.

Nine Plates fell from the sky under the watching eyes of the Legendary Pokémon, only to be snatched up by a hand of black mist.

That was the final straw.

As the Old One Virus, Lucius didn't merely steal the Plates, he brought them into the Ultra World.

There, as the realm's sovereign, he represented its worldwill, and could rewrite the fundamental rules within the Plates, just as he had once corrupted the original Arceus's powers.

Now, he had tainted nine more in one sweep.

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