Does running away from a Minior Core count towards the defeated outbreak counter?

Question

For those who don't know, running away from a Minior Core despawns it, similar to how running away from Ditto/the Zorua line despawns them (this doesn't apply to the Meteor form). Since I'm hunting the Minior Cores, I need to see which cores the outbreaks are. This question is mostly curiosity, since auto battling them is much more efficient, but for the purpose of getting to 60+ defeated, does running away from the core count (would I see any of the outbreak messages about the number of Pokemon from the outbreaks starting to go down)?

Personally I doubt so, since despawning Pokemon by normal means (getting far away/picnics/despawning zones) doesn't affect the counter, but I'm curious if despawning by exiting a battle has any effect.

Answer 1

Yes, it does.

Like usual with most of my obscure questions, I managed to finish my hunt and answer it on my own. I managed to get an outbreak to one away from dispersing. Auto battling, Minior using Explosion, and running away from a Minior Core all cleared the outbreak, while immediately running away from a Meteor Form Minior did not clear the outbreak.

Interestingly, even though I activated a Minior's Shields Down and got it back above half health to return it from Core Form to Meteor Form, it still despawned and dispersed the outbreak when I ran away.

I also got a bonus shiny Orange Core Minior while testing so that's neat.
Thanks for helping, me!