Sister froze for only a moment before a look of undisguised mockery spread across his aged face.
"I thought you'd uncovered something truly impressive. Turns out you're just taking things out of context. Immortality? I can see why that would tempt an old person, but my ambitions are far greater than that."
Evergreen had concluded that Sister sought immortality largely because of the organization's plan to capture Legendary Pokémon.
Sister had ordered Hodgepodge Organization members across every region to keep watch for any trace of Legendary Pokémon.
By the time those orders reached Evergreen, they had turned into the operation targeting Darkrai, which had once appeared in the Sinnoh region.
Combined with the organization's research into extending certain Pokémon's lifespans, Evergreen had assumed someone among the leaders hoped to achieve a longer life for themselves.
Looking at the cold, proud figure standing atop the stairs, Luther silently pieced together everything that had happened along the way. One memory after another finally clicked into place.
His fists tightened.
"Evergreen... I'll finish what you started."
All of Evergreen's scattered theories had already formed a rough outline in Luther's mind. He began climbing the stairs.
Lucian instinctively moved to stop him, it was far too dangerous, but Bertha reached out and stopped both him and Cynthia.
"Years ago, I met someone who wore that same expression before our battle," she said quietly. "The confidence in his eyes... it was as if he could see through every thought and move I was about to make."
She glanced at Cynthia. "Let Luther go. This is something he has to settle himself. If you want to defeat someone, you need the courage to face them head-on."
Luther stopped in front of Sister. He met those arrogant eyes without the slightest change in expression.
"More than twenty years ago... I..."
His voice caught for a moment.
"My parents were the first to come up with the basic design for the Amplification Device. They also wrote the paper that made its experiments possible.
"Everyone in the Hodgepodge Organization saw it as the ultimate weapon for overthrowing the Pokémon League. But you, the organization's founder, never intended to use the Amplification Device to seize power by force. You'd already seen what happened to the people who openly challenged the Pokémon League. From the very beginning, you chose a different path."
Sister raised a hand, signaling for him to continue. He was completely at ease. After all, he was convinced that no one could possibly see through the plan he had spent decades building.
"The Hodgepodge Organization lives up to its name," Luther said. "It's nothing more than a collection of undisciplined rabble.
"In the beginning, you gathered researchers and Pokémon scholars. Under the banner of leadership, you appealed to their obsession with research and their frustration at how League regulations slowed their work. That's how you built the organization's first upper ranks.
"I always wondered how an organization like the Hodgepodge Organization could survive. It had no grand ambition, no clear objective, just a loose band of scattered people who believed the Pokémon League failed to recognize their talent.
"If research was all you wanted, a handful of researchers and enough guards to protect them would have been enough. Yet you kept recruiting more people while growing increasingly secretive to protect your secrets. That's a contradiction."
Luther fixed Sister with a piercing stare.
"After the mining base exploded... I finally understood. From the very beginning, the Hodgepodge Organization was created to be destroyed.
"As the leaders pushed their research forward, their ambitions grew. They demanded more authority and greater freedom to expand the organization. But you never wanted the Hodgepodge Organization to become powerful. All along, you were secretly holding it back."
One of Sister's eyebrows rose. "I'm the founder of the Hodgepodge Organization. Why would I sabotage my own group?"
"Because you had to," Luther answered coldly. "You needed those leaders to complete the Amplification Device for you. But once the results were in your hands... you wanted every last one of them silenced forever."
"That's quite a ridiculous story," Sister sneered.
Luther ignored the interruption and continued.
"Your real objective was to obtain an Amplification Device with minimal side effects that could reliably boost power... along with a proven research path that others could continue developing.
"That's why, once Type 4 was completed, you made your move. You destroyed the Hodgepodge Organization yourself, eliminated everyone whose identities had been exposed, then used the Pokémon League to wipe out the remaining loose ends. After that, you disappeared completely into the shadows.
"And tonight's attempt to assassinate the Sinnoh League leadership was your next step," Luther said. "Once Sinnoh's strongest trainers and half its executives were gone, you could step in as one of the Nine Overseers and temporarily take control of the League.
"Over the past several years, you've already planted your own people throughout the various Pokémon Leagues. At a moment like this, they'd all speak in your favor, making your rise to leadership seem perfectly natural."
Cynthia caught a subtle tremor run through Sister's body.
"So after twenty years of work, you're saying my Amplification Device was just decoration?" Sister laughed, trying to hide his shaken emotions.
Luther didn't take the bait.
"You'd claim that you recovered the Hodgepodge Organization's research. Then you'd present the low-side-effect Type 4 Amplifier while selectively leaking part of the device's research data.
"You'd tell everyone that Type 4's side effects are negligible, and that continued research could produce something even better. At the same time, news that the Sinnoh League possessed such a device would 'accidentally' spread to every other region.
"The other Leagues would gather to pressure you, and you'd graciously agree to share the data.
"From that point on, every Pokémon League would start asking the same question: Should this technology exist? Should we keep researching it?
"There are countless people in this world who can't draw out the full power of their Pokémon. If there's even the possibility of becoming stronger at little, or no, cost, they'll take it very seriously.
"Those are the people you need on your side."
The contempt had vanished from Sister's eyes. So had the arrogance. He stared at Luther through clenched teeth, as though trying to peer into his very soul.
"You'd deliberately hide all the darkness behind the research and tempt everyone with enormous benefits," Luther continued. "You'd make them overlook the blood and suffering behind the Pokémon experiments. They'd willingly cheer you on, paving the way for Pokémon to be exploited all over again in the name of accelerating research.
"You'd push everything forward step by step... like boiling a frog."
Luther fell silent.
Bertha finished the thought in a trembling voice. "Once that door is opened... every boundary can be crossed. After that, nothing will hold anyone back."
Luther had no interest in learning what lay at the end of Sister's horrifying scheme. Power. Immortality. Or perhaps the ancient belief that humans should once again dominate and enslave Pokémon.
It didn't matter. There was no point trying to understand someone whose heart had long since fallen into complete darkness.
To achieve his goal, this man was willing to drag the entire world into the abyss, to undo centuries of trust painstakingly built between humans and Pokémon, perhaps even destroy it altogether.
His promises of profit might well be opposed by those who truly loved Pokémon, and people like that were still the overwhelming majority. But even so, he would succeed in planting suspicion. He would reignite conflict.
For the sake of his own ambition, Sister sought to shatter every bond: between humans and Pokémon, between people themselves, and between wild Pokémon and those raised alongside humans.
His plan was full of flaws. Maybe it would never unfold exactly as he imagined. Maybe it would fail completely. But no matter how far it progressed, it would leave behind countless seeds of distrust, causing people who should have stood together to doubt one another.
Whatever he truly desired, his crimes were unforgivable. There was only one fate waiting for him: death.
Someone like him had no place in this world. He was even more insane than Evergreen.
And yet he still claimed, again and again, that he was leading humanity toward progress, that he was bringing about true change.
But the world of Pokémon had never been built on humanity standing above Pokémon. It had always been a world where humans and Pokémon relied on one another, supported one another, grew together...
...and moved forward together.
(End of Chapter)
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