Shell Game II

Returning to the Interpol saferoom, Red learns from Looker that Bill has intentionally taken down the entire regional internet to halt a digital invasion. Looker confirms this means the teleporter network is completely disabled; they can only coordinate via radio. The realization hits Red with dual horror: not only are his guards stranded in Cinnabar, but if the strange technological anomalies are spreading from the network, Pallet Labs might be compromised. He immediately has his abra teleport him home.

He arrives to find Pallet Labs a shattered warzone. Researchers are locked in desperate combat against jagged, twitching monstrosities that have formed out of the lab's computers and machinery. The monsters defy physics, occasionally blinking through space or shrugging off elemental blasts. Using his battle calm to suppress a surge of grief at seeing his childhood haven destroyed, Red merges with his charizard to strafe the area with fire, then swaps to his starmie. When a glowing anomaly teleports into the air, Red tries to telekinetically hurl it, but it crashes down and violently snaps a defender's pinsir in half. Dr. Madi explains that the objects in the lab simply started transforming, and standard capture attempts fail. Realizing Pallet's defenders are outmatched and more monsters are emerging, Red rapidly teleports to a nearby Ranger outpost to sound the alarm, then to Blue's house to recruit a half-shaven Professor Oak, before teleporting back to Interpol.

Looker has Red dump his helmet's recording data to preserve intel. Reviewing the footage, Looker notices that the technological monsters don't appear as physical objects on camera; they render as surreal, glitching splotches of static. Looker forcefully grounds Red, warning him that his frenetic rushing is playing into an enemy's hands. He points out that Red is diving into unknown threats without backup, entirely cut off from his PC roster. Looker argues that this systemic chaos is likely designed to isolate Red, wear down his psychic partitions, and distract him from the true objective. Looker orders him to drop emergency radios at the surviving labs to coordinate, but strictly forbids him from staying to fight, demanding he check in every ten minutes.

Red agrees and teleports to Viridian Gym to drop a warning, then returns to Pallet. The battle has intensified. A massive, fused anomaly splits into two faster entities. One fatally drags a researcher's tangrowth into the air, while the other dodges an acid attack and badly gouges Red's nidoqueen before Charizard incinerates it. Professor Oak takes stock of the situation. Realizing there is no way to know if the anomalies will stop pouring out of the building, the visibly grieving Professor decides to cut their losses. He mounts his dragonite, Goldie, and commands her to unleash a devastating barrage of Draco Meteor. Red watches numbly, feeling the ambient grief of the surrounding researchers, as Kanto's most eminent scientist completely destroys his own life's work to prevent the infection from spreading.

After using Starmie's alien sensorium to tag the remaining invisible anomalies with fire for the Rangers to clean up, Red leaves a radio and returns to Interpol. He admits to Looker that the constant psychic exertion is indeed causing his partitions to fray, mirroring his cognitive vulnerability during the Silph Co. incident. Trying to think like his enemy, Looker guides Red to work backward from the opponent's likely goal. Red deduces that if the strategy is to keep him exhausted and distracted while a vulnerable, high-value target is hit—someone whose security might fail without the internet—it wouldn't be Silph or a heavily guarded gym. It hits him: Bill is alone, not a trainer, and sitting in a secluded laboratory packed with advanced technology.

Red immediately teleports to the front of Bill's house. Pulsing his psydar, he senses an unnatural, alien presence below. Detecting a desperate chase moving through the facility's tunnels, he rushes inside to join the fight.