Ellie was one of the fastest swimmers I'd ever known, probably due to her brazen optimism. I mean, I would think that someone who wanted to help me end all human life wouldn't be so damn cheerful all the time, but I guess I couldn't tell her how to live her life.

I followed her until we reached Sal, another luvdisc in the herd. Everyone was floating around him, listening to him tell his story.

"So, yeah, I was just swimmin' along, right? All of a sudden, a huuuge group of phione passed me so fast I nearly spun off and hit my head on a rock! At the head of 'em, I swear, was Manaphy!"

"Ooh! Ooh!" Ellie started swimming in a circle excitedly. "Where did you see her?"

Sal grinned. "Not far away! Y'know where that, like, big pile of rocks is, near the corsola guys?" He paused for a moment, but no one responded. "Aw, c'mon, guys! The corsola guys, y'know, the buncha corsolas that hangs out by the big pile of rocks?"

"We know who they are," I interjected. "So Manaphy swam by them?"

"Yeah!"

"So if we asked the corsolas, would they agree that Manaphy was there?"

Sal's expression turned sour. "What, are ya saying ya don't believe me? I'm not a liar!"

"Alright, no offense meant. Just wanted to make sure." I turned to Ellie and nodded, and we left the group to head off towards the herd of corsolas. Sal had been right when he said that it wasn't too far away, it was just about a five minute swim. Sort of made me wonder why Sal was the only one to have seen the legendary pokémon in our group.

After the short trip, we passed by a small mountain of rocks and saw about fifteen corsolas.

"Hi guys!" Ellie exclaimed excitedly. "We heard you might've seen Manaphy!"

The corsolas turned towards us and the biggest one hopped forward. "Yeah, we saw her. She and her phiones swam by really fast."

"Did you see which direction they went?" I asked.

The corsola's eyes narrowed. "Why do you wanna know?"

I rolled my eyes. "What do you think I'm gonna do, try and hurt her? I'm a magikarp."

The corsola paused for a moment. "I guess." He hopped to his left so that he was facing the east. "They went that way. But if you're wanting to catch up to them, you'll have to try really hard. I don't think I've ever seen anything move so fast."

"Thanks so much," Ellie replied. She turned to me excitedly. "It's a race! Are you ready, Puds?"

"I don't really have much of a choice," I replied. "Try not to leave me in the dust too badly."

"Readysetgo!" She swam off like a bullet, and I tried to follow. She was a way faster swimmer than me, but I managed to keep up enough so that she didn't leave my line of sight, at least.

We swam for what seemed like an eternity before I saw her stop. I caught up to her, huffing and puffing.

"Why," I wheezed, trying to catch my breath, "why did you stop?"

"Looook," Ellie murmured, almost to herself. I stared forward to see two sharpedos a short distance away, standing guard in front of a huge entrance to a cave. They seemed to be completely motionless. I gulped nervously. I hadn't met any sharpedos before, but I'd heard that they could be really angry and intense.

"I wonder if they've seen Manaphy," Ellie whispered. The two intimidating pokémon seemed to have not noticed us yet, and I kinda wanted to keep it that way.

"I think we should just go past them, I really don't wanna bother them."

Ellie turned to me. "Puds, don't be silly! What's the worst that could happen?"

"Is that a serious question?"

"Psssh, I'm sure it's fine!" With that, Ellie rushed forward before I could stop her and made a beeline straight to the two deadly sharks.

I cursed inwardly and slowly followed her with a huge sense of dread weighing me down.

"Hi guys!" Ellie exclaimed with a cheery tone. "My name's Ellie, and this is my buddy, Puddles!" The two sharpedos slowly focused on us, silent and menacing. After waiting a moment and not getting any reply, Ellie continued, "Err... my friend and I are on a journey to try and find Manaphy, and we heard she might've gone this way. Have either of you seen her?"

The sharpedo on the left narrowed his eyes. "Manaphy, huh?" His voice was deep and gravelly. "What would two little fishies like yourselves possibly want with the guardian of the seas?"

Something told me that using sarcasm would be a bad idea this time. "Ahem..." As the first bit of sound left my lips, the two sharpedos glared at me menacingly. "Uh... we were... uh... just wanting to talk to her. Be kinda cool... err... to meet Manaphy. We're big fans."

The two sharpedos glanced at each other. "Sorry, kids," the sharpedo on the right said in an almost identical voice, "we ain't allowed to let anybody in."

"Huh?" Ellie and I looked past the sharpedos, but all we could see was darkness inside the cave. "You mean she's in there?"

He bared his teeth in response. "We were... employed by her to keep her and her kids safe. No visitors."

I blinked. "Well if that's true, then why tell us she's in there?"

The sharpedo on the left snickered. "What does it matter if we tell you? Ain't like you're gonna overpower us and get through."

"Eh, that's a good point," Ellie replied. She turned to me. "Well, in that case I guess we should go, huh, Puds?"

"Uh-" before I could finish my thought, Ellie rushed forward and tried to make it past the two sharpedos. To my surprise, though, the two moved quicker than I thought possible, coming together to form a wall that Ellie slammed into.

"Ow!" Ellie bounced off the two and I saw a pretty bad scrape on her face.

"Nice try, kid." The sharpedos returned to their original positions. "There's a reason Manaphy chose us to guard her. We're the best of the best."

I paused, trying to think of a way through this situation. There was no way we could fight our way past them, and if their reflexes were so good that Ellie couldn't slip by, there was no point in me trying it too.

"Alright. We'll be going now." I gestured with my fin to Ellie and we floated away.

"What're we gonna do, Puds?" Ellie whispered to me as soon as we were out of earshot.

"We're gonna wait," I whispered back, "Manaphy's gotta come out of there at some point. Once she does, we'll get her attention and ask to talk."