Chapter 203. Half a Stone Tablet
This was a device.
The electronic components inside were all encased in blood-red crystal, preserved as if in amber.
And this device looked extremely familiar to Natsume.
He looked left and right and became certain—this was the hand-made translator he had given to Meowth!
Could the groundwater here be connected to Ampere City?
Natsume quickly shook his head in denial.
No—the casing of this thing wasn't one of the two he'd given to Meowth.
Natsume had given Meowth two translators in total.
The one that got lost had a Meowth-head shell, and the one Meowth had now used an Arbok shell.
As for the translator in Natsume's hand—even though its shell had already turned chalky, was extremely brittle, and had been crushed into fine pieces under Natsume's foot—it still wasn't hard to tell that this should be the Jigglypuff-shell translator.
With a strange look, Natsume pulled a brand-new translator from his system space, and it just so happened to be a cute Jigglypuff shell as well.
Ever since Meowth lost the translator last time, Natsume had prepared quite a few and stored them in his system space.
He pried open the Jigglypuff shell, exposing the electronic components inside.
On close comparison, the two were almost identical.
These translators had very simple construction, all hand-assembled by Natsume from spare small parts.
"Mm—"
Natsume fell silent.
He turned back to look at the miserably dead Eternatus, then turned again to the Rotom floating at his side, which looked a little dazed.
No way… was this Eternatus blasted out of existence by a future Mecha Rotom?
After a moment, Natsume shook his head.
He wouldn't do meaningless things.
Click!
The Jigglypuff translator he had just taken out suddenly made a sound.
Startled, Natsume instinctively pinned it in place with telekinesis, cutting off its transformation.
All of a sudden, a spark lit in his mind, and he looked excitedly at the two Jigglypuff translators in his hands.
If this broken Jigglypuff translator could transform, maybe he could learn something!
"Please don't be fried, chip—please don't be fried!"
Even knowing the odds were low, Natsume kept praying in his heart.
As long as the chip wasn't dead, he'd just need to strip some parts off his intact Jigglypuff translator and transplant them into the broken one!
Having decided, Natsume sat cross-legged, blue-violet light flashing in his eyes.
After a round of inspection, Natsume let out a breath.
The broken Jigglypuff translator's chip wasn't broken!
With utmost care, he scraped off the red crystallization bit by bit with telekinesis and removed the chip.
"Ninten Toys Co., Ltd.…"
Natsume read out a line of tiny text on the chip.
He froze.
These translators were ones Natsume had modified from Pokémon smart toys that Gary Oak didn't want anymore.
It seemed like they were released by some "Nin-something" company…
No way—was I the one who did this?
Natsume glanced at Eternatus's remains behind him, one eyebrow lifting.
So what happened in the future?
Natsume didn't know.
He directly took the chip out of his good Jigglypuff translator, ready to swap in the broken one's chip.
Suddenly, Natsume's pupils trembled and his fingers stopped in midair.
"Nintan Toys Co., Ltd.…"
The imprinted manufacturer name on the two chips wasn't the same!
If it wasn't him, then who?
Pushed into the unknown, a faint unease rose in Natsume's heart.
This resemblance with slight differences wrapped around him with an uncanny-valley chill.
"It can't be that even the company names are this similar, right?" Natsume frowned.
Forget it—fix it first.
Natsume quickly mounted the broken Jigglypuff translator's chip into the intact Jigglypuff translator.
Click!
Snapping the Jigglypuff shell closed, Natsume withdrew his telekinesis completely.
Before long, the Jigglypuff translator began to transform.
"Click—ka-click!"
With a sound like a jammed gear, Natsume witnessed a classic head-rear swap.
After transforming, the Jigglypuff translator's little ears became legs, and its whole body was perfectly round.
It stood there, vacant.
"Can you hear me?"
Natsume opened telepathy.
"Jigglypuff warrior, depart!"
A sweet, soft voice suddenly rang out from inside the translator, making Natsume jump.
After a good while, Natsume realized it was a built-in toy voice line.
"Can you hear me?"
Natsume opened telepathy again.
From his experience with the lab instruments, once these things came to life, they could communicate.
"Jigglypuff warrior, depart!"
The Jigglypuff repeated the line, and Natsume shook his head in disappointment.
Unfortunately, it didn't have a powerful chip—practically none at all—only able to accept a fixed external trigger and repeat that one sentence.
Once "alive," its intelligence was the kind that would be steamrolled by Dragonite.
Natsume suddenly felt a bit of regret.
When he was a kid, he shouldn't have coaxed Gary Oak into watching pretty girls and Pokémon warriors.
If the toy line he was into had been a higher-end smart robot or something, maybe this would be a toy chip that could actually converse.
Just as Natsume was regretting it, the Jigglypuff robot suddenly contracted, its hands, feet, and ears pulling in as it turned into a ball.
"What's this—"
Seeing the Jigglypuff translator start to roll, Natsume hurried after it.
It rolled along Eternatus's skeleton straight toward the water's surface.
Curious about the Jigglypuff translator's destination, Natsume's blue-violet eyes flashed; he paved the way with telekinesis to keep it unobstructed.
"Jigglypuff warrior, depart!"
The sweet voice echoed through the space, mingling with the sound of flowing water, rippling into the distance.
Soon, the Jigglypuff translator stopped before a large hole in a cliff wall.
"What is this place?"
Natsume looked at the big opening in the rock face.
It was the end of the water source, with trickling groundwater constantly flowing out here to form an underground lake.
The shallow underground stream outside was fed by this lake.
"Jigglypuff warrior, depart!"
The Jigglypuff translator stopped at the lake's shallows and kept hopping.
But each time it was about to touch the water, it was blocked by Natsume's telekinesis.
"Underwater, huh?"
Muttering to himself, Natsume stepped into the shallows where the Jigglypuff translator was hopping.
He reached out and wiped away the mud and sand below.
As the murky water cleared, half a stone tablet lay quietly at the bottom of the lake.
"This thing doesn't have anything like the Rotom black-mist function, does it?"
Puzzled, Natsume picked up that half stone tablet and flicked the water droplets off with a doubtful look.
Below, the Jigglypuff translator was already bumping against his pant leg, looking rather impatient.
Natsume put the tablet down, and the translator rolled onto it and popped open like a pop-open ball.
"Jigglypuff warrior, depart!"
With that sweet voice, the Jigglypuff translator burst apart, splashing a fair bit of water that soaked Natsume.
Natsume silently watched the Jigglypuff translator explode.
In the next second, a strand of black mist slowly seeped out from the shattered chip and poured into the stone tablet.
The instant the black mist touched it, a golden chain manifested on the tablet.
The black mist merged into the golden chain and vanished.
Staring at that golden chain, Natsume froze.
He seemed to have seen this when those super-ancient Pokémon departed.
"Hold on!"
As if recalling something, Natsume tossed the Mewtwo Ball.
Rotom No. 2 understood and slipped inside.
"Then—Motorbike Rotom!"
Natsume called out the Motorbike Rotom with missing limbs.
"Release black mist toward Mewtwo-Ball Rotom!"
Eyes intent, Natsume watched as the black mist flowed unobstructed into Mewtwo-Ball Rotom.
The next second—
Bang!
Several rays of golden light burst from Mewtwo-Ball Rotom's body, forming golden chains identical to those on the tablet.
Once the chains appeared, they went taut at once, and like two strong magnets snapping together, they sank into Motorbike Rotom's chest.
An instant later, Mewtwo-Ball Rotom popped up atop Motorbike Rotom's head.
Bang!
The golden chains bound the two bodies tight, and Mewtwo-Ball Rotom crushed the bike's original head flat, taking its place!
"Combine?"
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