Making Do

Leaf and Blue practice on the beach, racing Crimson the pidgey against Maturin the wartortle in target-striking drills. Leaf takes a call from Professor Oak, who believes Giovanni's cover-up of Yuuta's murder serves a larger purpose. Oak firmly warns Leaf to stay out of the investigation, noting she lacks the power to survive the forces involved. While Leaf reluctantly agrees, Blue later encourages her to keep digging quietly; knowing the truth is always better than ignorance.

Blue faces Misty for the Cascade Badge in a grueling 6v3 Challenge match. The arena is a tiny sandbank that offers no cover, enforcing Indigo League limits on withdrawal times. Misty unleashes a relentless, high-speed barrage of swaps and custom commands using her Marshtomp, Swanna, and a starmie. She predicts Blue's counters flawlessly, keeping him off-balance and physically exhausting him with rapid, continuous pokeball throws. Her Starmie proves devastating, utilizing near-impenetrable barriers and rapid cellular regeneration to shrug off Ion the shinx's Spark attacks.

Realizing Misty is using her psychic empathy to sense her own pokemon's status and bait him into predictable attrition, Blue abandons his battle rhythm. He forces himself to act unpredictably, rapidly cycling Maturin, Ion, and Zephyr through a dizzying array of attacks and Quick Attacks. The chaotic tempo breaks Misty's control, allowing Maturin to land a decisive Bite on the Starmie. Misty awards Blue the Cascade Badge, praising his adaptability.

At Bill's house, Red struggles to lift a stone with psychokinesis. Reviewing Red's data, Bill confirms that abra with low "Other" percentages demonstrate significantly higher psychokinetic strength. The null hypothesis is defeated; the pokedex is detecting an unknown biological factor linked to psychic manifestation.

Bill gifts the trio tickets to the S.S. Anne Cruise Convention, revealing the theme is storage technology. Bill's ultimate goal is to reverse the human-storage error, rescuing those trapped in pokeballs. Red is struck by a terrifyingly hopeful epiphany: dying people could be suspended in pokeballs now to be healed by future medicine. He becomes enraged when Bill refuses to illegally manufacture human-capture balls for Red and his friends, prioritizing his own safety over their lives. Red tries to use his fledgling psychic empathy to understand the inventor, feeling a wash of regret, fear, and shame. Bill coldly dismisses him. Red leaves, realizing that Bill's isolation is a prison built of his own paranoia.