Chapter 575. The Cautious Approach

Once the entire government building had been cleared from top to bottom, Alex even had the foundations dug up slightly to make sure nothing had been hidden underground. Only then did he feel comfortable bringing Rotom and the backpack within range.

From there, he left everything to Rotom to handle.

“Are you sure it’s alright to connect yourself and the portable database to an entire server tower?” Alex asked.

Computers, viruses, and hacking were completely outside his area of expertise. He would have been far more comfortable hauling the entire server back and leaving it to professionals like Nyx to deal with. But if Rotom could extract and compress everything into a fraction of the original size, there was little reason to waste precious storage space.

“Affirmative. Isolating each tower and compiling its data independently will prevent the virus from deploying its full capabilities, regardless of its sophistication. Additionally, digitizing the hardware risks contaminating the backpack’s systems. Data extraction is therefore the safer and more efficient option. It will also allow me to improve my antivirus software through direct exposure to the virus,” Rotom replied in its artificial voice.

“Alright,” Alex conceded with a sigh. “Just be careful and work slowly. Ask the Vikavolt for help if you need it, and shut everything down immediately if anything goes wrong.”

“Understood,” Rotom replied before getting to work, its form flowing into and inhabiting one of the server racks.

Taking the cautious approach, Rotom would disconnect each server tower from the larger system and connect it directly to Nyx’s database. This would isolate the virus, limiting its strength while giving Rotom access to the database’s greater processing power. Rotom would then fight off the virus and any remnants mixed with the data before compressing and storing the relevant information.

One by one, every tower would receive the same treatment until the entire underground server had been sifted through, compressed, and stored. Rotom would also filter out anything irrelevant to Nyx, taking only the information she wanted rather than indiscriminately copying everything. This would minimize the amount of data stored while reducing potential security risks.

It was during times like these that Alex couldn’t help but feel nervous. He was completely out of his element, with nothing he could do to influence the situation. If something went wrong, there was little to contribute beyond destroying the server and Nyx’s database to free Rotom if it were ever captured.

Rather than sit around dwelling on a problem he couldn’t solve, Alex decided to get a change of scenery. He left the dreary basement and stepped outside, hoping for some fresh air. The smell of rusted metal, exposed oil, and old machinery hardly qualified, but it was still preferable to the polluted air of a functioning society. Here, at least, nature was slowly reclaiming the ruins. Sparse greenery pushed through cracks in the concrete, vines climbed rusting metal, and stubborn trees took root among shattered glass and debris.

Outside, he found his Pokémon already hard at work. They were conducting regular patrols around the area, keeping an eye out for any wandering Master ranked Pokémon that might stumble across their location.

“Gardevoir,” Alex called. “Feel free to send the attack team farther out for scouting, especially in the direction of our next destination. Have the defense team ready to provide backup if they get swarmed. We’re going to be staying here for a while, so we might as well make some preparations.”

“Gardevoir~” she replied, immediately setting to work.

With the government building at the center of their territory, she sent the attack team outward in a wide web, covering several blocks before gradually drawing them back toward the center. From above, their movements formed a pattern resembling the petals of a flower.

The scouting parties soon attracted the attention of wandering Paradox Pokémon. Rather than avoid them, the attack team engaged and eliminated them, steadily adding to their already absurd collection of Master ranked corpses. They had already accumulated several hundred over the past two and a half months simply by defending themselves, and now that they were actively hunting, that number was only going to grow.

At this rate, Alex would soon have to start clearing out some of their less valuable loot. Master ranked corpses were far too valuable to leave behind in favor of spare parts.

The scouting raids continued for more than a month, giving Alex and his Pokémon plenty of time to map the surrounding area and identify several potential routes toward their next destination.

Then, at last, Rotom finished its task.

The process had been anything but easy, with several close calls while Rotom worked through the massive amount of data. Still, it had ultimately succeeded, and the experience had pushed its antivirus even further.

With nothing left to accomplish at the government building, Alex and his Pokémon finally moved on to their next destination. This time, they found another social media company, but unlike the previous one, its facilities were still intact.

Roughly two dozen Paradox Pokémon patrolled the area, but the group simply repeated their previous strategy. Gardevoir drew their attention away from the building while Ultra Necrozma bombarded the exposed security cameras, leaving Alex to snipe anything that escaped the barrage or remained hidden indoors.

Once the perimeter was secure, they swept through the building from top to bottom before Rotom connected to the servers and began sifting through the data. Three weeks later, they moved on to the next destination, repeating the same process three more times.

With each operation, Rotom became faster and more efficient at handling the massive databases. By the end, it could sift through an entire server in roughly a week, a remarkable improvement from when it had first been trapped inside a phone.

Finally, after 5 months in this world, they arrived at their final destination, a government-restricted hydroelectric power plant containing a massive database. As expected, however, its security was no joke.

“How many did you say you scouted?” Alex asked, just to make sure he had heard correctly.

“Zoroark!”

“I was afraid you’d say that,” Alex replied with a sigh.

Apparently, there were more than a hundred Paradox Pokémon just on this side of the property, with the total number still unknown. That alone presented a serious problem, as there were simply too many for Alex and his Pokémon to handle on their own.

To make matters worse, the facility also had an army of robots numbering in the thousands. Drones, androids, shield bearers, and tanks made up a formidable force that would require an equally formidable response to bring down. Alex doubted that simply taking out cameras and antennas would be enough this time.

According to Rotom’s evaluation, the robots could communicate with one another and share their computational workload. In other words, they effectively functioned as a massive mobile server, capable of distributing processing power across the entire army while operating in the field.

Taking out a few cameras would no longer be enough. This time, they would have to deal with the army itself.

“I should get Rhea to invent an EMP, or something similar, when I get back home. There are too many of them for us to challenge head-on, but not enough to justify using the B.O.M.B. Besides, I don’t want to risk destroying the database. So... should I just give up?” Alex wondered, wracking his brain for a solution.

Ground combat was out of the question, and using the B.O.M.B. would risk destroying the database. Taking potshots might work a few times, but the robots would quickly adapt. He couldn’t outlast them either, with the hydroelectric plant keeping them fully charged, nor could he divide and conquer since their shared network allowed them to maintain their processing power and coordination. Every option led to another dead end.

Alex was truly in a bind this time.

“Oh well, you can’t win them all,” Alex finally decided as he released Ultra Necrozma. “I guess it’s time to head into Ultra Space and look for your fragments.”

Ultra Necrozma shone brightly and let out a soft trill, clearly excited at the prospect of finally completing itself. It immediately attempted to open an Ultra Wormhole, only to freeze and furrow its brows in confusion.

“What’s wrong?” Alex asked.

Ultra Necrozma gave a dejected response.

“There’s no Ultra Dimension in this universe!?”

Alex was stunned. An Ultra Dimension had existed in every universe they had visited, so discovering that this one simply didn’t have one was completely unexpected.

“I guess we’ll just go home, then,” Alex concluded. “Sorry you couldn’t complete yourself yet. Better luck next time.”

There was little else they could do. Their inventory was already full, with spare parts being discarded to make room for the increasingly valuable corpses. The database still had plenty of capacity, but pushing deeper into the facility was too dangerous to justify. Without an Ultra Dimension, there was also no way to harvest the Sparkling Stones Ultra Necrozma needed.

That left them with only one option.

They were going home.

Alex recalled all his Pokémon and reached for the return beacon. His finger was just about to activate it when he suddenly sensed lifeforce approaching from the distance.

There were a dozen or so, moving straight toward him. More importantly, they were spreading out and encircling his position. They knew he was here.

Alex glanced down at the return beacon before slowly withdrawing his finger from the activation button. He had no reason to stay any further, but there was no reason to rush.

“Let’s at least hear them out,” he decided firmly.

After all, it would be a waste to leave without squeezing everything this universe had to offer.