Unitas

Unitas (Japanese: ユニタス Unitas) is the villainous team in Detective Pikachu Returns. Their goal is to control Pokémon through the use of Control Cubes. However, it is later revealed that the Unitas project is simply a channel to further Merloch's true goal to merge his consciousness with that of a Pokémon. 
==Overview==
After the R incident , Unitas is founded by Howard Myers, the mayor of Ryme City. He incorrectly believes that the development of Control Cubes will be a peaceful solution to foster friendship with Pokémon, but is unaware of its full capacity to control the will of Pokémon. For its development, Unitas pays Will Butler, the chief of the Pokémon Protection Bureau, to wrongfully detain Pokémon to experiment on. Detective Pikachu discovers Chief Butler's motives after finding documents in his office while Pikachu is arrested and detained at the Ryme City Police Station. He determines that Butler has been controlling to into other Pokémon, and create fake incidents to arrest as many Pokémon as possible. 
Throughout the story, Unitas appear to be involved in seemingly unrelated incidents. Unitas is first encountered in the Southern Ruins when Tim, Pikachu and Rachel explore the ruins to locate Professor Gordon who has become lost. Here, they meet a mysterious man who attacks the group with a and unsuccessfully attempts to steal Pikachu. They later see a similar group controlling a swarm of to attack while transporting away the body of Harry Goodman. 
The group next encounter Unitas at Bamboo Forest while exploring the forest with Rachel's friend, Jessica Miller, who they believe is being targeted by Unitas after Pikachu discovers a photo of Jessica in Butler's office. Here, Jessica is attacked by a controlled by a Unitas member, and has her thumb drive stolen. Jessica reveals that the thumb drive contained the research Rachel's mother, Emma, which she had given to Jessica for safe-keeping out of fear it could be used to harm people and Pokémon. The research suggests a way that would make it possible for a person and Pokémon's consciousness to be combined.
Tim and Pikachu discover that Unitas is likely using the abandoned Pokémon Unity Lab as its base. While exploring the lab, they find out that apart from developing the Control Cubes, Merloch has been using Unitas to conduct his own research for his own purposes. They find out that Merloch convinced Howard to restart research into Emma's previous project and was also behind the kidnapping of Harry Goodman's body. They also realize that it was Unitas that orchestrated the stealing of the Aurora Drop earlier and that Merloch has been trying to activate the Aurora Drop using energy from meteorites which were mined from the Southern Ruins. 
When the group confront Merloch, he explains that his goal is to merge his consciousness with that of a Pokémon. He activates the Aurora Drop to reveal its true form, , before then using the energy from Pikachu and Harry Goodman's body to fuse his consciousness with that of Deoxys. soon arrives to fight off Merloch in Deoxys's body. Pikachu takes the energy capsules containing energy extracted from his and Harry's bodies and smashes into Deoxys with them, returning Merloch to his own body and Deoxys back to its Aurora Drop form. Merloch is later arrested and incarcerated.
==In other languages==
Category:Detective Pikachu Returns