Nina had found herself staggering of late. They'd been dealing with rough waters ever since the news of Hoenn being struck had reached them. Not that she understood what a "Randomizer Wave" was exactly, but seeing how most of the others on the ship had been dealing with the swells, the sudden lack of balance seemed to only be affecting her. Besides, rough waters wouldn't have explained the visions, would it? Given her state of perpetual dizziness, she'd already spent a good portion of the week in bed trying to recover. And while her visits with the lower shipmates had been nice, it was obvious that her tales of the shore, vivid daydreams of riding along the wide open roads, were concerning to their elders. At least she hadn't told them the full of it. Merely of bike rides, and Pokemon, and a boy… It had to mean something, right? Her father seemed to think so.

While she hadn't fully recovered, the girl was sure that if she wasn't sick already, then she was going to get sick staying in bed any longer. The ship had finally started to steady itself, so that was a sign the storm had passed, right? Right. It was late, for certain, but at least with most being able to take the calm for a chance to sleep, there'd be far fewer people to trip over in the halls. Nina pushed herself out of bed, carefully aligning herself toward the door in an attempt to move straight.

Feeling her way along the walls, supporting herself as their floating home decided to sway, she had been making fairly decent progress to reach deck. Surely, all she really needed was some fresh air to clear her mind.

"We're on a boat!" "Don't go out, we'll be fish bait!" "SHARKBAIT! OOH HA HA!" "Sharpedo bait?" "Doesn't have the same ring to it." "GO FIND MOM!" "I wanna go back to our room. We have games in there, right?~" "Aqua grunt?" "GET HIM!"

Yes… clearing her thoughts would be welcoming right about now.

The "grunt" didn't stop as he passed by her, but instead gave a playful pat on her head as he stepped by. Whether he meant to or not, the sudden distraction did seem to help bring her out of her scattered daze. Nina glanced after him, half curious if he even looked back to check on her before she tried to straighten her hair ribbon. It was then that her ears caught another voice, one much more familiar. Her parents seemed to be arguing over something again, judging by her mother's tone, but as she crept up to the door, it seemed different. Generally their bickering was almost playful. Light banter over petty things such as someone's Pokemon was caught sleeping in the kitchen, or that one of them forgot to do something, but now… Nina gave a careful glance around before darting into the linen closet. Few had come to realize that the back corner of the closet allowed such a perfectly undisturbed listening spot. Of course, most weren't small enough to press themselves into the corner as she did, though even she was starting to get to old for that now.

"But she's only a child! I don't care if she's considered a "young adult" now, she's still too young to be going on a long term mission by herself. Going inland means she can't even take any of her Pokemon with her. And trying to go inland at all right now is practically suicide!"

"She could still take her Pokemon if she wanted but I think it'd be a safer bet for her to appear to be startin' fresh. Draw a lot less attention that way. And it ain't like she's goin' alone. Granger and I've been communicatin' for a while now-"

"For, what, three days?!"

Nina curled into herself as she started to feel guilty about listening. Not that it surprised her to realize they were talking about her, but it suddenly made sense why her mother had made no mention of the trip the last time she came to see her in bed. Perhaps she should have asked, then they could have talked about all this. It was a big a change after all…

"Shhhh, let me finish. Me and him have been talkin' for far longer than that, given he was applyin' for his new job at the time. Nina gettin' involved is all that's changed. I thought he might've used his position as a leader to help us in getting' answers, but Nina ought to be able to be a lot more direct. These tactless thieves may not be very strong, or organized, but they ain't dumb. That much is for certain."

Her mother's temper turned soft as new concerns sunk in. "You don't think it's IGN, do you?"

Nina perked up at the name and tried to turn to where she could press against the wall to make sure she heard that correctly. Dad never made mention of them when he explained to her about the plan earlier.

"If it is, it ain't the gang from last time. I wouldn't dream to call Maxie and me friends, but I know him to be a man of his word. Don't mean it's impossible though. A snake without its head will still thrash for a while." She could hear the added weight to his voice as he heaved a sigh. "A long while, this one…."

"We could barely do anything last time, what makes you think this time is going to be any different? We weren't welcome before, no one would take our word now."

Her father had been doing surprisingly well to keep his voice level. Nina moved slightly from the wall as she heard his footsteps on the hard wood floors coming near her. "Which is why I'm thinkin' Nina may be our only hope." He began to pace. "We could storm the shores, we have the numbers, but what good would that do? Incur another blasted turf war? Bring on the full wrath of Hoenn against us for wantin' the chance for a place to live? I'm no land lover, but the very least they could do is give us a choice. For three generations-"

"Yes, for three generations lost at sea, the Aquarians have paid for what your grandfather did. Everyone knows that, but if you're wanting to somehow redeem us, why not do it yourself? This is your daughter, YOUR DAUGHTER, and you want to send her into the Seviper pit for… For what? Hmm?"

"I don't…. I don't know really."

Nina could hear the pacing slow as if the words took hold of him. She couldn't help but blink at the darkness of her small hiding place as her thoughts, racing with nagging voices, chattered frantically to each other. Some screaming about snakes, some wailing at the thought of divorce, some still giggling about being "blind" in the closet, and some she couldn't even make sense of at all. If her father wasn't crazy, she was certainly getting there. At the very least, she could keep still while sitting down. The girl fiercely shook her head as if she could shake away these stray feelings and try to focus.

Her father had at least stopped pacing, that much she could tell, but his normally booming voice had become almost inaudible as she pressed against the corner again to hear. "All I know is she can't stay here. If it were me, I'd gladly take her place, but Nina, she's…. I'm sure you've noticed, but there's been a change lately. The others been telling me how she's been doin' and I…."

"Is that why you asked Granger to take her?"

"He'll keep her safe, for sure, but there's more to it than just that. You may call me a man of superstition, but it can't be coincidence. First I get word that Granger's got plans to come back to Hoenn with hopes of becoming Petalburg's leader. Then we get this randomizer wave comin', and now we got Team Aqua claimin' to be back with "grand plans". Three guesses as to what those plans are gonna be. They may be old stories, but lore runs deep in Hoenn and they'll be lookin' for a hero. They think history's gonna repeat itself, then I say we let 'em believe it. Nina's gonna pose as his daughter and arrive with the move. People try to put two and two together, we're gonna have ourselves the second coming of Slash."

"I still don't like this…"

"I know… But even if we could try to keep her from goin' she'd never survive out here. And you know They won't leave until the deed is done. She'll be fine, I promise. She's our girl, so she's gotta be somethin' special, right?"

Nina began to shift uncomfortably. Because of the Voices, because of the heat, because she'd never known her father to be at a loss for words like this, just something. She needed to move, but she wanted to stay. She should interrupt them, tell her how she really felt about all this. Their voices dropped to almost a murmur, but Nina didn't want to hear any more. She knew of the plan, for sure, thought how she was going to be treated like an adult, how she was to become like a secret agent all cool, and calm, and fighting bad guys. A lone Aquarian able to strut the streets of Hoenn as she sought out answers. The sudden wave of uncertainty started to show itself as water softly began to stream along her cheek. She needed to get outside. But as the Voices screamed happily that she had gotten up, allowing for them to push her down the hall once more, she really only had one thought of her own: Her father was wrong. She WISHED she was something special, but now she knew she had to leave because she'd been broken

A/N Okay! So the story actually starts from here as leading up to where the last one started. Given I'm not sure how many people followed the Randomized Alpha Sapphire Run, I'll try to explain things along the way.

1) IGN was the team we fought against in Omega Ruby given they were Magma in-game, but due to us playing at the day of release, and the popular "Too Much Water" meme IGN became notorious for at the time, it all made sense.

2) Granger is the name given to this Run's Norman because he was a Rock-type specialist. Credit for the name goes to MegamanOmega.

3) "Second coming of Slash" though it'll be explained in more detail later, Slash is in reference to Camilla A. Slash, our protag for the Emerald Run.