I would just like to extend the warm hand of appreciation to anyone and everyone who reviewed the previous chapter; ajkent14z and 123Plekill.

Also, 123Plekill: I love to read reviews like that because I laugh and think to myself "you have no idea, dude... No idea." If you're getting excited about the challenges they face now I can't wait to see your reaction to future chapters.

Happy reading, all!

And Then They Grow

The river at the end of the road was the broadest that Tyson had ever seen. The bank on the other side looked so far away and there was no bridge but Tyson could spot a few places where it might be nice to sit down and go fishing. That was on his mind because it was already the afternoon and he was famished. What was even more disappointing was that there was no sign of Mari anywhere. They searched the vicinity but eventually gave up when the older boys noticed Daichi was starting to resort to looking under rocks. The four of them plonked down on the river's edge, sighing dejectedly.

"Dead end," Max muttered.

"Well, it was the only real lead we had," Ray added. "At the very least, we did try."

"Are you sure she couldn't be under one of those rocks?" Daichi asked. "What if it turns out there's a tunnel and-"

"She's bigger than a beetle, Daichi!" Tyson snapped. "Just face it, this was a bust. We just wasted a whole heap of time." His stomach growled loudly. "And I'm starving."

"Maybe it would have been better to wait at the Pokémon Centre," Ray said, gazing across the river thoughtfully. "She might have come back on her own. Mari did promise to coach us with our Pokémon, surely she wouldn't have just forgotten about that."

They all heard someone calling to them from the road behind them and turned to the sound. Hilary was waving to them and carrying a basket in one hand while Kai broodily accompanied her. Tyson's eyes lit up upon spying the basket.

"Please, please, please tell me that that is lunch," he said, drooling a bit.

"Geez, how far did you plan to go?" Hilary as she and Kai approached them. "For a while I was starting to think that you'd all decided to continue the journey without us. What are you doing out here?"

"Weren't you listening to anything we said this morning?" Tyson retorted. "Mari went missing and we've been out looking for her this entire time!"

"What? No way!" Hilary exclaimed.

"Yes way! Pay more attention to your friends!"

"Are you trying to say that I'm a bad friend?"

"Sure, why not?"

"Why do you have to be so rude all the time? I didn't know, okay!"

While Tyson and Hilary were having their petty argument, Daichi was staring hard at the face of a tall ledge. It was quite tall and steep – probably from excavation to build the route – but a few decades of erosion had smoothed parts of the slope and caused others to slump or fall, making a jagged surface that looked fairly easy to climb. The ledge stopped abruptly at the water's edge and the trees closer to that cliff were sparse. Daichi could see the sky and the tops of more distant trees. He cocked his head to the side and folded his arms. It was as if there was a large area of deforested space on the other side of those trees.

"Hey guys," he said, turning around. Except nobody was listening. Max and Ray were still sitting on the bank actively trying not to listen while Tyson and Hilary bickered and Kai looked like he wanted nothing more than to join his teammates by the river.

"You know, I made lunch for everyone just out of the goodness of my own heart," Hilary said, "but I guess you don't want any."

"Come on, I can practically smell those sandwiches," Tyson whined, nostrils flaring to draw in the delicious scent wafting off the basket. "Why don't you stop being such a horrible friend?"

"See what I mean? People who don't appreciate my friendship don't get any lunch!"

"HEY GUYS!" Daichi screamed, making everybody jump and turn to him, except for Kai who just sighed in relief. "Let's climb this ledge. I think there's something on the other side."

Tyson eyed the ledge sceptically. "What makes you think that?"

"Just trust me, okay," Daichi replied. He began to climb before anyone could add input or object.

"Wait, Daichi! Don't run off," Hilary said.

This prompted the whole group to follow their youngest member up the side of the ledge. They made it to the top fairly easily (only Hilary required some assistance) and followed the little redhead to the other end of the knoll. Daichi jumped up and whooped in triumph. He pointed at the sandy area in front of them and everyone else just gaped.

"I told you so!" he grinned.

In front of them was a partially excavated temple complex. The main building had been excavated extensively, making a large hole towards the back of the site farthest from the river but there was clearly more of it closer to the banks. The tops of columns, pylons, walls and even old rooves could be seen poking out of the earth. The grass was shorter and the only trees that had managed to permeate the site were still tiny saplings. Their gazes swept over the site in awe.

"The Team Aqua dudes said something about a ruin earlier," Daichi recalled. "Do you think they were looking for this?"

"Could be," Tyson murmured in response.

"Hey, over there!" Ray exclaimed, pointing towards the riverbank.

Over by the river there was someone sitting on the flattened top of a partially exposed column with their knees pulled up to their chest and their face hidden by them. They had a white Pokémon with brown stripes by their side. The creature was unfamiliar to Hilary and the beybladers but they recognised the long orange hair and the yellow and green outfit. The group called her name and jumped into excavation site. Mari looked up and saw them running towards her but she just turned away again and stared at her shoes, wishing they hadn't found her. Her Pokémon comfortingly nudged her elbow with his nose but she just curled into herself a little tighter.

"Hey, Mari," Max said, putting a hand on her shoulder. "Are you okay? We spent all day looking for you."

"Thanks but I'm fine," Mari replied sharply, shrugging Max's hand off. "I have other Pokémon; I can look after myself." The striped Pokémon growled lowly at Max, warning him to step away.

"What gives?" Tyson grumbled. "We're only trying to help here. Ray and Max were especially worried since they saw how it all went down."

Tyson had expected that maybe he'd get her angry and spritelier with a comment like that but he didn't think that it would make her cry. Mari screwed up her face to hold the tears back but they were too big for restraint. She covered her face with both hands and shuddered with the effort of keeping whatever composure she had left. Tyson looked to each of his teammates frantically for some kind of support but nobody was offering any. Ray sighed. The white and brown Pokémon growled at him but didn't get aggressive when he went over to Mari's other side.

"Mari…" he said quietly.

"Didn't think it would happen like that," she blurted out. "My Pokémon have never been stolen before and it just… felt like I really needed to get him back, it's the most important thing in the world to me right now. I couldn't stand it! Even with Jax leading me down this route, didn't find those thieves or Woofy."

"We saw him," Kai piped up. The whole group suddenly turned him and Mari leapt to her feet hopefully.

"Yeah, that's right," Hilary said, putting a finger to her chin and looking up as if she had to think about it. "We met some shady guys further down the road with a Growlithe all tied up."

"You did? Where are they?" Mari demanded.

"I don't know," Kai answered. "They fled using a Pokémon to screen them."

Mari's face became downcast and she sat down again. Seeing her dejected expression, Ray decided to add: "It'll be okay. We know how you feel-"

"How could you know?!" Mari shouted at him, showing him a wretched expression of tears and anger. "When you have a Pokémon they're not just your tools, they're your friends! Maybe even siblings! If they're stolen it's like taking away a piece of your family."

"I know," Ray said firmly, frowning at her. "Woofy is really important to you and it hurts all over in places you can't reach – in your soul and in your pride."

Mari sniffed and tried to wipe her face clean of tears. "How do you know that?"

"I've lost my Bit-Beast Drigger before. More than once."

"Drigger?"

Ray showed her his beyblade again, letting her take it from him to look at the bit closely. "Drigger is the spirit that lives in my beyblade. Over the years I've formed a bond with it, almost like a familial relationship, so I can understand how you feel. Most of us can."

Mari held the beyblade close to her face and giggled. "It looks kind of like a Legendary Pokémon." She handed Drigger back.

"Is that a compliment?" Ray said.

"Course it is," Mari replied, reaching down to pet her Pokémon. "Every child in every region in the world is told stories of Pokémon powerful beyond imagination, existing at a time before the first humans. Their power and special abilities are responsible for shaping the world and then breathing life into it. Some are even believed to be immortal."

"Really? So they're like the stuff of legends, then," Tyson surmised, taking his beyblade out of its pocket to examine the image of Dragoon. "I've heard similar things being said about our four Bit-Beasts."

"Five," Daichi corrected.

"Whatever. Point is, in our world, some people have tried to steal our Bit-Beasts because of their awesome power. Sometimes they did succeed but we never gave up on them. So don't beat yourself up about your Woofy, just don't give up on him and you'll find a way to get him back."

Mari sniffed and wiped her eyes with both hands. She didn't pull her hands away from her face until she was sure that no more tears were going to fall. "You know, when I first met you guys I thought you were really weird but… you're actually pretty cool."

"Can't argue with that," Tyson grinned. The emotional atmosphere had brightened and felt less heavy that it had before. Before anyone even had the time to bask in the newfound hope, Tyson's stomach growled loudly. He rubbed the back of his head sheepishly while everyone stared at him. "So, uh… who's up for some lunch?"

"Oh, alright," Hilary giggled. She put her picnic basket down in the middle of the group. "Dig in, everyone."

Tyson and Daichi immediately grabbed three containers each and started shovelling food down their gullets. Hilary yelled at both of them to be more civil while everyone else just shook their heads and tried to ignore it. Ray started to meticulously separate anything that looked like eggs or meat from his food, which made Mari look at him strangely. She was about to say something until Hilary beat her to it.

"I didn't poison it, Ray!"

"I didn't think you had," Ray replied.

"Then what's the matter? Does it smell bad or something?"

"It's fine," Max answered for his Chinese friend. "Ray's just suddenly decided to be a vegan."

"A vegan?" Hilary deadpanned, giving Ray a pointed glare. "Are you serious?"

"What's a vegan?" Tyson, Daichi and Mari asked, all with their mouths full.

Tyson swallowed down as much as he could before continuing: "And why do you want to be one?"

Ray's eyebrow twitched in irritation. "I don't know what a vegan is either, let alone want to be one. I still can't believe you guys don't think this is weird."

"Eating meat isn't weird," Mari argued.

"Eating Pokémon is weird," Ray replied.

"No it's not."

"For you it's probably not but I can't help thinking about it. So I'm just not going to eat it."

"More for me!" Tyson sang, scooping the discarded parts of Ray's lunch into his container.

"Don't hog it all!" Daichi snapped.

"Too late."

"Don't be a pig! Share it around!"

"Make me, monkey!"

The bitter feud that ensued garnered a round of exasperated groans and more concerned looks from Mari. Hilary squeezed onto the side of the column that Mari wasn't taking up and gave her a friendly nudge with her shoulder.

"Don't worry about them, they'll get over it."

"Is this going to happen a lot?" Mari asked.

"Yep," Hilary replied, popping open the lid of her container. Mari's white and brown Pokémon leaned over Hilary's lap to sniff her food. "We argue but we're all friends here, really. And who's this cutie?"

"His name's Jax. He's a Linoone."

"A Linoone, huh," Hilary muttered, taking out her Pokédex. "What does it say about this?"

"Linoone, the rush Pokémon. When running in a straight line, it can easily top 100 kilometres per hour. It has a tough time with curved roads. If facing an obstacle, it makes a right-angle turn to evade it."

"Linoone are pretty good with their eyes too," Mari added. "They can see extremely far away when there are no obstacles."

"That makes sense," Hilary said. "If you can run far then it would be beneficial to be able to see far as well. Say, what is this place?" She looked around the half-dug site curiously.

"Some ruin," Mari said dismissively. "Jax spotted it from the road and I thought it might have been where those thieves were hiding out. Turned out to be nothing, though."

"Hm…" Daichi murmured thoughtfully. "Maybe if we hadn't come you would have found them."

"What?" Tyson said. "Daichi, please try to make sense."

"I'm just saying, those Team Aqua guys said they were looking for ruins and maybe if we hadn't crossed them at the road they would have come here instead of running away."

"Can't do anything about that now, right?" Mari sighed. "Anyway, don't think I would have been able to get the best of them in the state I was in."

"What's so special about this place?" Hilary wondered. "Why would thieves want anything to do with a clearly abandoned excavation?"

"Maybe…" Max began, thinking for a possible reason. "It could be a shrine to one of those Legendary Pokémon you mentioned. Do you think they could be trying to eventually steal that?" he asked Mari.

"They could try," she replied. "Honestly, I'm not sure if it's even possible to catch Legendary Pokémon in Pokéballs."

"Maybe we should explore this place a bit," Ray suggested, "and see what's so important about it."

"That sounds like fun!" Hilary agreed. She looked over to Kai, who'd taken his lunch as far away from the rest of the group as it was possible to without losing sight of them. He was sitting on the roof of the temple, looking back towards the river. "Hey, Kai! Do you want to go exploring with us?"

Kai gave her an irritated glare that communicated something along the lines of: 'of course I don't. Do you think I'm a child?' and resumed looking at the river. Tyson scoffed.

"Typical Kai! What a sourpuss."

"Oh, come on," Hilary grumbled, more to herself than to Kai. She put her lunch to the side and stood up to go and talk to him. She stood in front of him with her arms akimbo. "It's not going to hurt, you know. Can you at least try to be a little bit social?"

"Hn."

"Give it up, Hil'," Tyson called to her, throwing his empty containers back into the basket and ripping into some of the sandwich bags. "Kai's pretty much allergic to fun."

"What's he looking at so intently?" Ray wondered aloud, trying to follow Kai's gaze. "There doesn't seem to be anything out there."

"Maybe he's just daydreaming about those Legendary Pokémon," Max joked. "He likes that sort of thing." He stood up and brushed off his pants, depositing his lunch container in the basket. "I don't know about anyone else but I want to see what's inside these ruins."

"Count me in!" Tyson chimed in, stuffing the second half of a sandwich in his mouth all at once.

With lunch break officially over, the group got up to start investigating the ruins. However, it quickly became painfully obvious that they weren't going to learn anything on their own since no one among them (to their knowledge) knew anything about archaeology. Hilary could point out that the columns were fluted like the Ancient Greeks' columns – a little titbit she'd learned in Miss Kinnkay's classes. Max quickly pointed out that Earth history was utterly irrelevant here and Hilary sighed in defeat. They meandered down the rows of columns and pylons until they were at the main building, trying to guess what the carvings meant. Mari thought she could identify what looked like some water Pokémon carved into the column capitals. With very few clues and little know-how, Tyson decided to take a guess at what they'd stumbled across.

"Well obviously," he began, "these columns must be marking out some sort of promenade, right? And they lead right up to the temple from the river so this could be like the procession of ritual death like those ancient tribes in South America." Mari, Hilary and Max all cringed at the thought of standing on a site of ritual sacrifice. Tyson pointed dramatically to the spot that Kai was sitting on. "And that is the altar where the priest would carve out the heart and brain of the sacrifice to ensure the sun would rise!"

"Wrong," Kai piped up in a deadpan voice.

"I knew you were making it up!" Daichi exclaimed, pointing the accusing finger at Tyson. The Beyblade Champion just shrugged.

"Of course I did. I don't know anything about this kind of stuff."

Ray looked up at Kai, who was still staring into the distance. "You sound really sure of something, Kai. What's your opinion?"

"It's probably not the sort of temple for worship," Kai explained, "but for storage of sacred items. The pit behind the building has all the decoration and the big impressions of an entrance but there's no significant lead up to it. It probably goes all the way through to this part of the building, which is actually the back and this promenade," he lifted his chin in direction of the columns, "leads to the real sacred site."

"How do you know all of that?" Tyson asked with a quizzical expression.

"Hn."

"A real answer would have been more appreciated."

"Told ya!" Max grinned. "Kai likes this sort of stuff. Where do you think this 'real' sacred site is?"

"Across the river," Kai replied. He slowly lifted an arm and pointed directly in front of him. "The promenade leads to that mountain over there."

They all turned and tried to follow Kai's finger as best they could. There was a small, uninspiring range of low mountains across the river that looked utterly unimportant. Ray folded his arms and raised an eyebrow sceptically.

"Really? That's an awfully big river to cross," he muttered.

"At the time of the civilisation, the ground level was lower and the river must have been narrower," Kai deduced. "There are probably more ruins underwater."

"Seriously, how are you getting all of this?" Tyson enquired.

"There are signs."

"Like…?"

"All of the buildings are buried, right?" Hilary added. "But it doesn't make sense that the civilisation would just get a whole heap of dirt and pile it on, so either the temple has sunk or the river got bigger and all of the silt and sand caught in the currents buried the site over time. Is that the sort of thing you're getting at, Kai?"

Kai nodded. Mari put her head in one hand and rested her elbow in the other, gazing thoughtfully at the opposite bank. "You think there's something really important on that mountain?"

"It was important to the ancients," Kai said dismissively, scooping up Togepi and his lunch container and jumping down from his perch. "It could turn out to be something useless, stupid and superstitious."

"But it could still be fun to check it out," Tyson countered. "Who wants to go inside?"

Everyone agreed far too quickly and far too excitedly. Kai rolled his eyes at the immaturity. He had been outvoted and so only followed them into the pit to keep an eye on them. Inside the dark hall Mari released Charmy so that the Charizard's tail flame could act as a torch. Jax the Linoone zipped from one place to another, making angular turns as he investigated. The walls inside were covered from floor to ceiling in pictures that were carved and painted.

From the entrance to the exit (blocked by a wall of earth) the pictures progressed through a storyboard devoid of text. Each wall followed their own character throughout the temple but both appeared to be monsters of some sort. One was red and the other was blue. They were shaped differently but both of their stories seemed to be quite the same. They began in a bubble (or perhaps an egg?) and when they emerged they were followed by a great big wave of mass that differed only in colour between stories. As they moved from panel to panel the mass followed them and things would appear behind them – boats, fish and serpents appeared behind the blue monster while huts, humans and trees appeared behind the red one. At the end of both stories the monsters met fiercely with each other, separated precariously by the exit doorway.

Being buried had preserved most of the colour in the images. Hilary gingerly touched an image of the giant red monster with lava dripping from its jaws. "Mari, do you know anything about this?" she whispered, as if disturbing the dense silence in the ruin would cause it to crack. "I suppose they might teach this sort of thing in history classes in this world."

"Looks familiar," Mari replied. "That red Pokémon is called Groudon and the blue one is Kyogre."

"You mean these cool monsters are Pokémon?" Daichi said with a sparkle in his eyes. "So that means we might be able to catch them, right?"

"They're Legendary Pokémon," Mari explained further. "When I was little, dad told me so many stories about The Legendries and we talked about them in school sometimes. Groudon and Kyogre are believed to be the ones responsible for terraforming most of the planet."

"Whoa," Tyson breathed in awe, following the delicately curved lines of Kyogre's later panels in contrast with the sharp angles of Groudon's tale. "That's some really awesome power."

"Yeah, no kidding."

"So what happened to them in the end?" Ray wondered, looking at the confrontational image of the two at the end of the hall. "It doesn't really look like it ends well."

"Many people believe that whenever Groudon and Kyogre meet they will always fight each other, since Kyogre comes from the sea and Groudon from the land," Mari said. "It's still not clear if that's really true or just a myth but I'm not sure if I want to find out. In the mythology, battles between Groudon and Kyogre were responsible for raising and sinking entire regions!"

Ray's eyebrows shot up. "That's incredible!"

"Amazing," Max murmured. "It kind of makes me not want to catch them. I don't know if there's anyone in this world or ours who can handle the responsibility of that kind of power."

"But we have the power of our Legendary Bit-Beasts," Daichi pointed out, "mostly because, you know, they chose us or something. And maybe these guys work in the same way. All we'd have to do is show them how powerful and awesome we are and then they'll choose us to be their masters!"

"I'm sure they'd love for novices like us to be wielding their powers unrestrictedly," Hilary said dryly.

"Hey! It's not like we're going to be novices forever," Tyson countered. "It's not even like we're going to be here forever, remember? We'll find that Porygon Z and it'll zap us back home. Besides, we've got enough responsibility with our own Bit-Beasts. Don't you think, Kai?" Tyson turned to the silent member of the group but Kai didn't seem to be paying attention. He was staring straight up at the ceiling.

"Yo, Earth to Kai. Are you hearing anything that's being said over here?" Tyson asked, walking up to Kai and lifting his head. "What are you looking… at? Whoa!"

Tyson started at the bizarre sight above them, prompting everyone else to look up out of curiosity. Hundreds of carved, stone eyes stared down at them unblinkingly. The entire party cringed and felt their skin crawl at the strangely macabre imagery. Each eye was perfectly round and most of them were unique, having a set of arms that took on seemingly arbitrary shapes but on closer examination were reminiscent of letters in the alphabet.

"This place is suddenly really creepy," Hilary said, unable to take her eyes off the stone ones staring down at everything below. "Can we go now?"

"What…?" Tyson muttered. He wanted to ask several questions at once but settled on the most basic: "What are they?"

Mari gulped at the pictures. She knew so little about them and yet they terrified her all the same. "This is also starting to make me super uncomfortable," she piped up. "We should go."

Nobody had to be told twice. Chased out by the unnerving eyes, the group started to put distance between them and the temple. Yet no one could stop talking about it. The bladers pestered Mari for everything she knew about Groudon and Kyogre all the way back to town.

As soon as they'd packed up and were long gone two familiar figures emerged from the shadows of the forest. Josie sniffed contemptuously as Jemima practically skipped onto the site far too eagerly for the redhead's liking.

"Thought they'd never leave," Josie grumbled.

"Me too but they did and lucky for us, it's still daylight!" Jemima said in a sing-song voice. So get down into those ruins and start getting snap happy!" Jemima waved a phone with a sophisticated camera app at Josie. The redhead curled her lip at her and took her own phone out of her pocket to start snapping pictures of the entrance. Jemima skirted the pit and found a good vantage point on the temple roof to photograph the entire site (as well as taking a few sneaky selfies).

"And what are you doing?" Josie snapped.

"Just documenting the outside and keeping an eye out for more meddling kids. What's the matter, Josie? Scared of the dark?"

Josie growled but stepped into the temple. When she was out of sight, Jemima turned to the river and the mountain she'd seen Kai pointing towards. She raised her phone to snap a photo of that view.

A/N: Just thought I should make this clear early on: Mari has a lot of Pokémon from her previous travels and she'll frequently switch them out at a Pokémon Centre as she sees fit. Keep that in mind so that five chapters later you don't find yourself wondering why she seems to have 8 Pokémon on hand. She doesn't.

Also, I believe that it is a totally awesome and healthy idea to go to bed imagining hundreds of creepy eyeballs staring down at you (do not do this. It is a very dumb and unhealthy idea). Sometimes I creep myself out with my story ideas...

So, what do you think of the group's first epic exposure to Legendaries? Please leave a review? :)