Interlude XX - Change

Sabrina reflects on her childhood as a gifted psychic, dealing with the loss of her parents and struggling to adapt to the "ungifted" world, where spoken language felt alien compared to the pure honesty of telepathic emotion. After developing novel ways to project concepts directly into other minds, her unique talents caught the attention of an ambitious Gym Leader—Giovanni—who recruited her to his private academy.

In the present, Sabrina assists in defending the city's perimeter from the swarm of shapeshifting pokemon. Overwhelmed by the sheer scale of the stampede, she merges her mind with her entire 4-badge team simultaneously, suffering devastating mental blowback as they are slowly overpowered and killed. Through the chaos, Sabrina relies on the psychological mantra of "trusting them anyway," despite the inevitable failures of those around her—including the mysterious betrayal of Mazda (Mewtwo), whose escape still haunts her. Just as the defense is on the verge of breaking, a devastating aerial bombardment from Lance's and other Elites' dragonite obliterates the remaining stampede. Sabrina receives word of the total destruction of the underground lab, leaving her to mourn the loss of the only place she felt a connection to her childhood equivalent, Mewtwo.

Days later, at an emergency summit of Kanto and Johto's Gym Leaders and Elites, Professor Oak formally names the new shapeshifting species "ditto" (though they also use "metamon"). Oak explains that ditto mimic the biology of any living target and can reproduce by acting as a parasite to an egg-laying species. As the leaders debate the military implications of weaponizing ditto to mimic legendary pokemon, Blaine drops another bombshell: wild unown have been spotted flying in patterns near the Cinnabar caves. Giovanni passionately argues against allowing the public to research the unown, warning that widespread abiogenesis (spontaneous pokemon creation) could end the world. Lance agrees, placing a temporary moratorium on unown research, though Sabrina suspects Giovanni is manipulating the League to protect his own secret monopoly on advanced technology.

Later, Blue meets with Sabrina in Saffron City. He asks if it's true that pokemon grow stronger when they are pushed into a life-and-death struggle, contemplating using the controversial "adverse improvement" method on his abra. Sabrina recognizes Blue's ruthless drive to become Champion—and defeat Lance and the Stormbringers. Realizing that Blue might be exactly the kind of ally she needs in the coming conflicts, she tells him to challenge Koga in Fuchsia City first, subtly encouraging his ambition while giving herself time to test the brutal training method.