After making some simple preparations, Yuga and Mr. Harrison set off on their journey to Kalos.
Yuga had a strong feeling that this incident wasn't going to be simple, so before leaving, he brought along the siblings Latias and Latios.
Although Yuga's bond with the two siblings wasn't close enough for them to fight in perfect sync, he had seen firsthand how powerful they were. Perhaps, in a critical moment, they could prove helpful.
Yuga and Mr. Harrison rushed to Camphrier Town in the Kalos region at the fastest speed. According to Mr. Harrison, once they passed through Camphrier Town, they would arrive at Zenith Academy.
After getting off the transport in Camphrier Town, Yuga followed Mr. Harrison to a riverside, where they rented a small boat.
"Taking this boat downstream, we'll come across a village, and behind that village is where Zenith Academy is located," Mr. Harrison explained to Yuga.
"Then let's not waste any time, let's go quickly!" Yuga urged.
The two of them boarded the small boat, and just as the boatman was about to start rowing, they suddenly heard someone calling out Mr. Harrison's name from the shore.
Mr. Harrison turned to look toward the sound and saw two people on the bank waving vigorously.
"Senior Kaga and Ross!" Mr. Harrison exclaimed in surprise, then immediately instructed the boatman to steer the boat toward the shore.
After some explanation from Mr. Harrison, Yuga learned that the two people waving on the shore were an upperclassman of Mr. Harrison's named Kaga, and a fellow student named Ross.
Once the boat reached the shore, Mr. Harrison asked his senior, "Senior Kaga, are you also heading back because you couldn't reach the Academy?"
Kaga, a white-haired old man, was actually a member of the Fairy Remnants, though he didn't stay at Zenith Academy. Instead, he went out to wander the world, but unexpectedly lost contact with his fellow clansmen, prompting him to rush back in a hurry.
Although Mr. Harrison had once been part of Zenith Academy, he didn't actually know that the Academy was a gathering place for the Fairy Remnants, and thus he also didn't know Kaga's true identity.
In fact, most of the students who came to study at Zenith Academy didn't know who had founded the Academy, including Ross, who returned with Kaga.
Hearing Mr. Harrison's words, Kaga answered with a worried expression, "Yes, we came back in a hurry and couldn't find a boat to rent. Then we saw you heading back as well, so we wanted to ask for a ride."
Camphrier Town wasn't a bustling place, and the obscure Zenith Academy was even less frequented, so it was perfectly normal for Kaga and Ross to be unable to rent a boat.
"Well then, the two of you hop on quickly, we're in a rush too!" Mr. Harrison called out.
"Alright! Coming right away!"
Kaga and Ross understood that this wasn't the time to be polite. Supporting each other, they climbed onto the boat.
Seeing this, Mr. Harrison gave them a hand and couldn't help but complain, "You two aren't young anymore. Why didn't you bring a youngster with you? What would you do if something happened?"
Ross shook his head and said, "We left in a hurry. There wasn't time to think about that."
Once the two were seated on the boat, Kaga turned to Yuga and asked, "And this is?"
Ross also joked with Mr. Harrison, "Could this be your grandson?"
Mr. Harrison grumbled, "You're getting more and more shameless with age! I'm a solitary old man — where would I get a grandson? This is Gym Leader Shimizu, the Gym Leader from Verdanturf Town in the Hoenn region. He has someone in his family studying at Zenith Academy, so he's come along."
Yuga politely greeted the two old men, "Hello, Mr. Kaga, Mr. Ross."
Upon hearing that, Ross immediately understood, reined in his expression, and greeted him formally, "Ah, I see. Gym Leader Shimizu, nice to meet you."
Mr. Kaga exclaimed in surprise, "So this is Gym Leader Shimizu? I've heard so much about you!" As a member of the Fairy Remnants, he naturally knew about how Shimizu Yuga helped heal Magearna, and he also knew how formidable this Gym Leader was.
The four of them took the boat and followed the river downstream. After more than two hours of sailing, they finally began to see the vague outline of a village.
Mr. Harrison said excitedly, "We're here. Boatman, dock at the edge of the village!"
Mr. Harrison was well aware that the village was actually not welcoming to outsiders, having always lived in isolation from the world. But Kaga knew that the people living in the village were all of his kin—the reclusive Fairy Remnants who had always avoided conflict with the outside world and were not welcoming to strangers.
"Alright!"
The boatman responded, speeding up the boat, and the group soon disembarked.
After Yuga paid the fare, he sent the boatman off.
They walked into the village, but strangely, there was not a single person in sight. At this moment, Mr. Kaga had a very bad feeling.
"We'd better hurry to the Academy and take a look!"
"Okay!"
The group didn't have time to worry about the village's condition and quickly released their riding Pokémon to rush toward Zenith Academy.
However, when they arrived at their destination, they were dumbfounded.
"The Academy… Could it be that it moved while I was away all these years?" Mr. Harrison said in disbelief.
"Impossible!" Mr. Kaga shouted. If the Academy had moved, how could he not know? The Headmaster was his own elder brother!
But where the Academy should have stood, there was now only emptiness. The entire Academy had actually vanished, no wonder no one had been able to contact anyone inside.
Just then, Yuga seemed to sense something off. He took a few steps forward but was seemingly blocked by something invisible—after turning around, he found himself right back where he started.
Seeing this, Mr. Harrison and the others all widened their eyes in shock.
"Yuga, what's going on here?" Mr. Harrison asked.
Yuga thought for a moment and replied, "It must be that some special presence has distorted the space. Zenith Academy has been hidden inside a spatial rift."
At that moment, Mr. Kaga suddenly realized something. Could this all be caused by that thing their clan had been suppressing?
More than half a year ago, his elder brother, Headmaster Fontaine, had told him that the thing their clan had been keeping sealed was becoming increasingly restless, and Magearna was finding it harder and harder to suppress it.
"Is there any way we can enter the Academy?" Mr. Kaga asked urgently.
"Let me think, let me think!"
Yuga furrowed his brow and paced back and forth. After thinking for a long while, he took out two Poké Balls.
As the Poké Balls opened, Latias and Latios appeared in the air.
"Latias and Latios?" Mr. Kaga exclaimed in shock.
After Yuga consulted with Latias and Latios in a flurry of chatter, the two Pokémon flew to the place where Zenith Academy had vanished, their eyes beginning to glow with a purple light.
With their powerful psychic abilities, they could influence space—Yuga's goal was precisely to have Latias and Latios pull the Zenith Academy back from the spatial rift!
As Latias and Latios continued exerting their powers, the space indeed began to distort.
"It's working!" Mr. Kaga couldn't help but shout in excitement, and Mr. Harrison and Mr. Ross also held their breath in suspense.
The space only distorted slightly for a moment before showing signs of returning to its original state. Yuga frowned and said, "Latias and Latios's power isn't enough!"
After thinking for a moment, he released Chimecho, who was also a Psychic-type, and said, "Chimecho, give Latias and Latios a hand!"
Although Yuga had the stronger Lunala, Lunala was his trump card, and it was best not to reveal one's trump card lightly.
"Chimecho~"
Chimecho responded with a chime, quickly flying to Latias and Latios's side. Its eyes also began to glow with a purple light.
With Chimecho joining in, the spatial fluctuations indeed became more pronounced. As the space twisted, Yuga and the others could even see the corner of a building.
After confirming that this corner of a building belonged to Zenith Academy, Mr. Kaga and the others were overwhelmed with excitement.
However, just then, strange and bizarre symbols suddenly emerged within the twisted space. As these symbols continued to float and ripple, the distorted space actually began to calm down.
The symbols weren't physically real but appeared as distortions of the space itself.
"What are those?" Mr. Harrison exclaimed.
Mr. Kaga answered uncertainly, "They seem to be… Unown!"
Unown—one of the most mysterious Pokémon in the Pokémon world, known both as the strongest and weakest existence!
The appearance of the symbols further convinced Mr. Kaga that the being suppressed by their clan had undergone a change.
Just as it seemed the space would settle again under the influence of the symbols, something also began to change on Yuga's side. All of a sudden, various black symbols of differing shapes started surfacing on Chimecho's body. Then, countless Unown poured out from Chimecho like a fountain.
A massive swarm of Unown appeared out of nowhere, darkening the sky into pitch black.
These Unown had attached themselves to Chimecho when Yuga entered the Mirage Tower more than three years ago. For a long time afterward, they had remained dormant and hadn't affected Chimecho in any way. Yuga had nearly forgotten about them. Who would have expected them to reappear today?
The Unown swirled and danced in the sky, emitting a strange wave of energy. The previously calming space began to twist again, and the symbols reappeared as well.
The shapes of the symbols were identical to the Unown. It was now clear that the disappearance of Zenith Academy was deeply connected to the Unown.
Dulu-hulu~
The air filled with the cries of Unown. It seemed a tug-of-war had begun between the two sides, lasting for over half an hour. In the end, Yuga's side appeared to gain the upper hand, as a spatial rift was slowly torn open, revealing a glimpse of Zenith Academy within.
Upon seeing this, Yuga quickly said to the three elders, "Let's go, we'll enter from there!"
"Yes, yes…"
The three of them quickly go to follow Yuga, diving headfirst into the spatial passage.
Latias and Latios, seeing Yuga enter, also plunged into the passage. The Unown finally ceased their struggle with the symbols on the other side of space, transforming once more into sheets of black symbols and surging like a tide back into Chimecho's body, disappearing without a trace.
Just before the space passage vanished, Chimecho darted in quickly.
After passing through the spatial passage, Yuga and the others tumbled onto a patch of grass. Thanks to the cushioning of the grass, they weren't injured.
Latias, Latios, and Chimecho followed soon after, bursting through the space one after another.
However, after Chimecho came out, its face was full of exhaustion. It had a symbiotic relationship with the Unown inside its body, and clearly, the Unown had consumed a great amount of energy in order to open this spatial rift.
"Chimecho, are you alright?" Yuga held Chimecho in his hands, his face full of concern as he asked.
"Chimecho~ Chimecho~"
I'm fine, I'm fine!
Seeing how worried Yuga was about it, Chimecho was overjoyed, and all its fatigue seemed to vanish. It forced a smile and responded to Yuga.
"Get some good rest." Yuga could tell Chimecho was forcing itself to act strong, so he carefully placed it on top of his head.
However, after a glance at their surroundings, everyone's expression drastically changed in shock.
"This… what is going on?" Mr. Harrison exclaimed in surprise.
Yuga looked up and saw that the outer part of this space was shrouded in gray mist, as if they were inside a sealed eggshell.
But since this was a spatial rift, the condition of the surroundings wasn't the strange part. What was strange was that the air in Zenith Academy was filled with black fog, and most of the academy's buildings were encased in a pink, crystal-like substance. The substance layered and stacked together, forming a structure similar to a castle.
In the vast academy grounds, not a single figure could be seen. The silence was eerie and unsettling.
"Let's go take a look!" Yuga said as he looked toward the pink crystals.
Mr. Harrison, Mr. Kaga, and Mr. Ross quickly followed upon hearing his words.
As they got closer and closer to the crystals, Yuga and the others finally saw their first person. Judging from his clothing, he should be a student of the academy, but at this moment, he was sealed inside the crystal, and the fear on his face had not yet faded.
"This… this…"
Mr. Kaga pointed at the student encased in the crystal in disbelief. He couldn't even form a complete sentence.
As Yuga and the group continued to approach the teaching buildings and dormitories of the academy, they saw more and more students sealed in the crystals. These two areas were also the main bodies of the crystal encasement.
The incident had probably happened so quickly that the students' expressions were still frozen in the same state as when they were encased.
Afraid of accidentally harming the students, Yuga and the others didn't recklessly attempt a rescue. Moreover, Yuga could sense that the students still had strong vitality, and there was no immediate danger to their lives.
The crystals had not only frozen the students' bodies, but also preserved their life state!
When Yuga and the others walked up to the main body of the crystal at close range, they discovered that the academy buildings were sealed up tightly, making it completely impossible to get inside.
The teaching buildings and dormitories were where the majority of people were.
"What should we do now!" Mr. Kaga looked anxiously at the thick crystals.
"We can only figure out a solution if we find out what caused the appearance of these crystals!" Yuga also didn't know how to deal with the crystals for the moment, so he could only say this.
Just as Mr. Kaga was about to say something in response, another change occurred. A funnel-shaped vortex suddenly appeared above their heads, and one after another, Unown began pouring out of the vortex, fighting to emerge first.
What was important was that the state of these Unown was very strange — their entire bodies were wrapped in black mist, and their originally white eyeballs were filled with blood-red veins.
Yuga activated his Insight skill and looked at one of the Unown.
...
[ Unown (Corrupted) ]
Type: Psychic, Dark
Ability: Levitate
Gender: None
Potential: Orange
Level: 25
Move: Hidden Power
...
Originally only Psychic-type, the Unown had now gained the Dark type as well, which reminded Yuga of that Shadow Lugia from Team Rocket.
And it wasn't just the one Yuga examined — all the other Unown were in the same condition!