Mewtwo was exceptional in more ways than its origin. Most Pokémon capable of Mega Evolution had exactly one form available to them. Charizard was the rare exception with two, one pushing Special Attack to its ceiling and one built as a mixed physical attacker. Mewtwo was the same.
Mega Mewtwo Y had been the extreme Special Attack form. What stood before them now was the other side of that coin.
Mega Mewtwo X was built for physical force. Where Y was sleek and precise, X was layered with muscle-like structures across its entire frame, an appearance more raw than refined. In terms of aesthetics, Y had the clear edge. In terms of what it could do in a close fight, X was something else entirely.
More critically for this moment, the X form added the Fighting type alongside Psychic. Fighting was the direct counter to Dark. Lugia was being driven primarily by Yveltal's dark power, and while the Flying type was still present, the Fighting type angle was exactly the right tool to apply against the corrupted version they were facing.
"It evolved again?" Charon stared. He had arrived to find Mewtwo already in the Y form and had no reference point for what the original looked like. As far as his eyes could tell, he was watching a Pokémon evolve past a Mega Evolution. The concept didn't have a framework in his mind.
Everyone else felt the same confusion for a moment. Mewtwo hadn't reverted to its base form before shifting, so the transition looked like a second evolution rather than a form change. Even Cynthia, who had processed a great deal in a short time, initially reached for the same conclusion.
Then her mind caught up. "Two Mega Evolution forms," she said quietly, thinking it through. "Like Charizard. That's what this is."
She looked at Mewtwo with open curiosity. "A man-made Pokémon with two Mega Evolution forms. Mega Evolution is essentially an atavistic return to an ancient state of a species. For a Pokémon with no natural lineage to possess that, the question of what Mewtwo actually is becomes very interesting."
It wasn't the time to pursue that question, and she knew it. She filed it away.
"Sorry, Lugia. This is going to be rough." Champion Ash's voice was steady. "Mewtwo, Close Combat."
He was going to have Mewtwo drive directly through the dark power inside Lugia's body and shatter it. If Charon managed to escape with Lugia now, getting another clear opportunity at this would be significantly harder.
And beyond strategy, he hadn't come here to leave his other self with a worse problem than the one he'd arrived to solve.
Charon read the intent immediately. "Lugia, Aeroblast!"
He had originally planned to release Yveltal's power in a burst and use it to pull Lugia back and run. With Mega Mewtwo X now between him and any exit, turning their back was no longer an option.
The fist that would hit them in the spine made that choice very clear.
They had to take the attack head-on first.
With Yveltal's power flooding through it at full burn, Lugia's crimson eyes held nothing. No recognition, no resistance, no trace of the consciousness that had been quietly fighting back. It was pure destructive drive now.
Its wings moved at a speed that was difficult to follow cleanly, and the air in front of it folded into a pale blue cyclone that built a sharp, solid sound as it condensed.
This Aeroblast was categorically different from the ones before it. Earlier, Lugia's own will had been weakening its attacks from the inside, bleeding off power before the move could fully form. With that internal resistance completely suppressed, what formed now was Aeroblast without restraint.
The cyclone hit the ground as it traveled and rocks were simply gone, pulled up and crushed in the rotation. A gap tore open through the cloud cover above. The wind pressure moving ahead of the main body of the attack was enough to feel at distance.
A blue barrier had already lit up around Cynthia and the others. Lorelei had cleared the Shamouti Island residents toward the far side of the island before the battle began, which had been the right call.
Anyone in the path of this wouldn't have had time to process what happened to them. The barrier Ash had left behind before the fighting started wasn't rated to absorb a direct hit from corrupted Lugia, but it was more than sufficient for the aftershock traveling out from the main exchange.
"Such strong wind pressure, is this the power of the legendary Lugiah?," Cynthia said, her voice quiet and focused, fists tight at her sides. "Controlled, corrupted, and still this terrifying. Any ordinary Pokémon wouldn't even be able to approach this fight."
The gap between Champion level and God Level was already enormous. The gap between Champion level and God Level Peak was something else entirely. Watching this fight from behind a barrier, the humans on the island felt how small they were against it.
Mewtwo didn't dodge.
Its muscles tensed, pale purple body radiating a cold stillness. It planted against the air itself and launched forward like something fired from a cannon, Psychic energy and crimson Fighting-type energy spiraling together around its body.
The two types were folding into each other, Psychic enhancing the physical power rather than replacing it. This was everything at once.
Mewtwo's fist met the Aeroblast.
The sky cracked with the impact. Time didn't freeze but it felt like it wanted to. Blinding light erupted at the collision point, wild air currents and dual-attribute energy twisting around each other, space visibly distorting in the immediate area. Anything caught within the radius was simply gone.
For a moment it was even. One fist against a God Level Peak Aeroblast, holding in mid-air. Then Mewtwo moved.
The barrage came too fast to track cleanly. Fist after fist, each landing with a deep concussive sound as air broke around the knuckles, crimson Fighting energy detonating with each impact.
The cyclone that had seemed as solid as a drill began to lose its shape. Air layers at the surface shattered and barely managed to reform before the next strike hit them apart.
"That's pure physical strength," Charon said, barely audible. His pupils had constricted to points. "A Psychic-type Pokémon. With physical strength at that level."
He wasn't wrong to be confused. Psychic-types were fragile in close quarters. That was the standard. Even Psychic-type Legendary Pokémon followed the pattern: exceptional Special Attack, underwhelming physical output. Aura Sphere was a special attack.
Watching it earlier, that had tracked. This was something else. This Close Combat was several tiers above what Aura Sphere had been, which made no sense by any framework he had.
Lorelei and Cynthia were thinking the same thing from the other side of the barrier. Mewtwo had shattered common sense twice in the same fight.
The assault continued. Mewtwo's pale purple form moved through the collapsing cyclone at a frequency that left afterimages, striking faster than the air could settle between impacts.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
The core of the Aeroblast broke.
Mewtwo gathered everything remaining into one final punch and drove it into the center of the cyclone. The Aeroblast came apart in a single massive detonation, scattering into fragmented air currents that hit the ground and sea in every direction.
Dust rose dozens of feet. Waves surged outward across the surrounding water. None of it touched Mewtwo.
Moving through the residual currents like a shadow, Mewtwo closed on Lugia in an instant. The fist that connected carried the full momentum of everything that had come before, compressed into a single point. Fighting-type energy drove through Lugia's scales and feathers and into the dark power at its core.
Lugia screamed.
The dark red mist surrounding it convulsed at the point of impact. Then it began breaking apart, spreading outward from where Mewtwo had struck, peeling away in pieces like shattered glass. The feathers underneath emerged from the dark coating, dulled and corrupted, then gradually recovering the white they had started with.
The madness in Lugia's crimson eyes began to drain. Clarity came back in fragments, then more steadily.
Charon had seen it going wrong the moment Aeroblast broke. He had staked everything he had left on that single combined surge. The Fighting-type energy had hit all of it while it was concentrated together and undone months of work in one exchange.
He had not only failed to create an escape window, he had handed Lugia back to Ash and probably closed his last clean route out.
Lugia lost the strength to stay airborne. Mewtwo raised one hand and caught it with Psychic, lowering it gently onto the island beside Ash.
Ash, Cynthia, and the others moved quickly to check on it. Lugia had overextended, the exhaustion more mental than physical, the cost of fighting the dark power from the inside for as long as it had. Physically, despite everything it had absorbed, the injuries were minor.
The life force of God Level Pokémon was genuinely in a different category.
"Even after all of that, the physical damage is light," Champion Ash thought to himself. "If this had been a straight fight without the control factor, we might not have found a result in a full day. That's what God Level resilience actually means."
Capturing a Legendary wasn't just about having the combat power to match it. It was also a test of endurance, for the Trainer as much as the Pokémon.
With Lugia confirmed stable, Champion Ash looked up.
Mars had already mounted Articuno and was in the air. Charon had retreated to the submarine and was diving.
Two separate escape routes, the calculation being that Articuno would be the obvious first priority and the submarine could use that window to get clear.
It was a reasonable gamble. It was also wrong.
"Mewtwo, stop both of them."
Mewtwo, back in its base form, extended one hand and made a single grasping motion.
Articuno, already a thousand meters out, locked in place mid-flight.
The submarine, already beneath the surface, went completely still.
God Level Peak Psychic had no preference for altitude or depth. Sky and sea were the same distance from Mewtwo's reach.
That was the end of the Orange Islands incident. Team Galactic had lost two of its four commanders, their God Level assets, and whatever advantage the element of surprise had given them at the start of the operation. Mars and Charon were taken into custody and handed to the League.