"This way," the Team Aqua grunt said, standing on the back of her Sharpedo. She held onto her pokémon's dorsal fin for balance, and then she and Sharpedo turned and rocketed through the dark ocean waters.
Swampert took off after them, as did Brendan's Wailmer and, above them, Lisia's Altaria.
May couldn't help herself – she turned and scanned the passing rock formations for a familiar silver glint.
Where are you?
"So where is he?" Brendan called from his place on his pokémon's back.
"Not far from here," the Team Aqua grunt called back, and May had to remind herself that they were talking about Wally.
She looked up to the skies and tried to pick out any traces of silver from the dark gray.
Lisia and her Altaria flew down to hover alongside the group.
"How close is he to Sootopolis?" Lisia asked.
The Team Aqua grunt looked over at her. "Close," she said.
That got May's full attention. You need to focus, May! Of her list of priorities, stopping Wally was at the top. Looking for Steven could come later. Steven was fine.
But what if he wasn't? asked an ugly voice in her head, and she felt an icy fist grab her chest.
She forced herself to breathe through the sudden tightness. No, she thought. Steven was fine. He had to be. He was strong, even if he didn't always think so. She knew he was. So how could she possibly doubt that he was okay? Wasn't she the one who got upset whenever he called himself weak?
Her shoulders had tensed without her realizing. She forced them to relax.
Steven was fine. But neither he nor the rest of the country would be if she didn't stop Wally from getting to Kyogre.
As usual, Wally was one step ahead of her. And without the Master Ball, she didn't even have a solid plan. But even so, she had to try to stop him. She couldn't afford not to, not when he was close to Sootopolis.
She focused on the direction the Team Aqua grunt was leading them in. They were nearing the dormant volcano that housed Sootopolis. And there, just past the city's underwater entrance, was Wally.
She saw him, even from a distance. It was hard not to, when he was glowing a bright blue, and everything else was dark and gray.
He was crouched at the top of a small rock formation that jutted out from the sea. Surrounding him were a dozen members of Team Aqua, each one mounted on a Wailmer or a Sharpedo. The waves around them were littered with a hundred failed pokéballs.
"I got her!" the Team Aqua grunt called to her teammates as soon as they were within hearing distance. She and her Sharpedo added themselves to the formation of the group's circle.
"Thank Arceus you're here!" one of the members called to May. May looked over and found Shelly standing on the back of her own Sharpedo.
"I would've called but I lost my nav in the water," Shelly continued. Her gaze landed on Brendan and Lisia. "Nice," she said. "You brought back up!"
Someone threw a Timer Ball, and May watched as it opened, encased Wally within a light much more brilliant than his glowing skin, and drew him inside. It clicked shut, and then landed onto the rock below. The pokéball didn't even move once before Wally burst right out of it and back onto the rock. The failed pokéball fell into the ocean.
Water splashed over May as another trainer and his Sharpedo skidded to a stop beside her.
"There you are, you little scamp! We've been waiting for you!"
May wiped water out of her eyes, and found herself staring into the face of Team Aqua's leader. "Archie," she said. "How long have you guys been –"
"Too long," Archie said. "Tell me – do you have the Master Ball?"
"No. I – I couldn't find it. I couldn't find Charles."
"Damn. There goes that plan." Frustration deepened the lines of his face. "How about the meteorite, then? You still have that, don't you?"
She did. She had the meteorite that Steven had given her right before he'd helped her look for Wally. He'd been so selfless, and now, she wasn't even looking for him -
She forced him from her mind. "Yes," she said. "I still have it."
"Good. Get it ready." Then he bellowed, "Continue to execute Plan B!"
His team shouted back in affirmation. "Roger that!" "Got it, Archie!"
"What's Plan B?" May asked.
Archie reached into his drenched coat pocket and retrieved a Timer Ball. "Plan A, but without the Master Ball."
"You're still going to try to catch him? Didn't you try that already?"
"Not when the lad was paralyzed."
As another Timer Ball sailed through the air, Wally growled and raised his arm as though he meant to bat it away. His arm froze midair, and a shudder ran down his entire body, before he was once again encased with the pokéball.
"I don't think this is going to work," May said as Wally broke free again.
"It might," Brendan called over to her and Archie. "A Timer Ball won't ever be as effective as a Master Ball," he continued, yelling over the wind, "but if enough time passes, it will definitely be stronger than an Ultra Ball. And that, combined with Wally's paralysis, will increase our catch rate substantially."
Archie grinned. "Ha! Hear that? I knew we weren't crazy!"
"How many more pokéballs do you guys have?" May asked.
Archie's grin disappeared. "Not many," he said. "We're down to less than half of our stock."
"And that's after we cleared out almost every pokémart in Hoenn!" Shelly added.
Legally, I hope, May thought.
"Hold onto those!" she called to one of the Team Aqua grunts, who'd just retrieved yet another Timer Ball from the bag he was carrying over his shoulder. "We can't use all of them up before enough time has passed."
"Then what do you suggest?" Archie asked. "We can't keep him in place without catching him, and we've already run out of every other type of pokéball!"
"You got any other pokémon you can use right now?"
Archie shook his head. "Our Mightyena can't fight out here."
May was already reaching into her bag. She pulled out a pokéball. "Go, Salamence!"
Salamence emerged above them, and a second later, so did Brendan's Tropius.
Wally stared at the flying pokémon. He growled, and then crouched as though he meant to launch himself into the air. Before Salamence or Tropius could fly in to push him back, a small, thin bolt of lightning struck the rock he was standing on, and he immediately straightened from his crouch.
May looked up. Lisia's Pichu had been summoned, and was standing on Altaria's head.
"We'll help, too!" Lisia called down.
As they had done in Fortree, Salamance and Tropius kept flying down and pushing Wally back every time he took so much as a step forward. The effects of Wally's paralysis aided their efforts, as did the long distance support from Pichu. The members of Team Aqua looked on, each one holding a Timer Ball at the ready.
"Now?" Archie asked after what felt like an eternity.
"Now," May confirmed.
Archie threw the Timer Ball in his hand. Again, Wally was encased inside the pokéball, and it landed onto the rock. But this time, it moved once before Wally broke free.
It was another failed attempt, but the mood of the trainers seemed to have lifted. The pokéball had actually moved. Finally, there was some progress being made.
But the look on Wally's face then made May uneasy. His sharp teeth were bared, and he was shaking not from the effects of his paralysis, but from pure, vicious fury. It appeared that he, too, was able to tell that the group was making progress in capturing him.
His skin and eyes shone brighter, and he released a roar so loud that every trainer and pokémon there reeled back. The gray clouds above them darkened and swelled. Lightning streaked through the sky. A heavy curtain of rain fell over them as quickly as water fell from a faucet.
Wally roared again, and the ocean began to rise and fall as though it were breathing. The waves crashed against the rock formation with increasing violence, and the surrounding waters turned white with seafoam.
Shelly gasped. "Is he -?"
Her question was cut short as the sea beneath them dipped low, and then swallowed them whole.
May and Swampert were tossed down towards the seafloor. She held onto her pokémon as hard as she could. The ocean's grip on them was strong, but Swampert was stronger. He was able to right himself and swim back to the surface, even as the currents tried to drag him back down.
May coughed up water and looked around her. Rain continued to fall down, and the ocean waves were still rough. She didn't see anyone from Team Aqua. She didn't see Wally, either.
Gusts of wind fanned her face as her Salamence anxiously hovered above her. Near him were Lisia and her pokémon.
"Brendan!" Lisia was calling, her eyes desperately scanning the water below. "Brendan!"
One by one, the other trainers began to surface. Among them were Archie and Brendan, and Lisia's relieved cry could be heard through the rain.
Shelly and her Sharpedo surfaced next to May. "Where…" Shelly coughed. "Where is he?"
"You, on the Altaria," Archie barked at Lisia. "Which way did he go?"
Wide-eyed, Lisia shook her head. "I don't know. I wasn't looking for him, I… I'm sorry."
May wasn't new to disappointment, but still, it hit her hard. Wally was gone. Again.
"Archie," Shelly said. "You're bleeding."
Sure enough, blood was trailing from Archie's right temple to his chin.
"Where?" Archie felt around his head until he found the open wound. "Ah, damn. Must've hit something when we went under." Surprisingly, he began to laugh. "That lad's really trying us, isn't he? I haven't felt like this in a long, long, time."
The sight of blood stirred the darkness of May's thoughts, the darkness she'd been trying so hard to keep away.
What if Steven is hurt, too? it asked her, and it showed her an image of Steven with blood trailing from his temple.
She squeezed her eyes shut, but that only made the image more vivid.
He's fine, he's fine, he's fine –
The water behind her moved as something rose to the surface. Startled, May turned, and found herself face-to-face with a Milotic.
The trainer on its back removed his air mask.
"Now what," Wallace asked, "is going on out here?"
"So you're saying all that was Wally," Brendan asked the members of Team Aqua. "That he can control the weather, just like that?"
They were all crowded on the first level of Sootpolis City's gym. The inside of the gym was cold, adding an extra chill to the trainers' still-wet hair and clothes.
"What, you don't think so?" Archie snorted. The cut across his temple had stopped bleeding, but the surrounding skin was raised and pink. "You were there too, boy. Didn't you see the way that rain came down?"
"Or how rough the ocean got?" Shelly added. She had her arms wrapped around herself. "It makes perfect sense. The blue orb is the physical manifestation of Kyogre's power, and right now, it's all trapped inside that stupid kid. He can do anything that Kyogre can do."
May felt like her hair was turning gray. Phoebe's grandfather had outright told her that Wally has the power of the legendary pokémon within him, but she hadn't known that meant he possessed abilities beyond just physical strength. Now that she knew he could make it rain and control the sea, they had little to no chance of stopping him in the water.
Not an ideal situation, when their nation had way too much water.
"If Wally can make it rain," Lisia started, "then is Hoenn already in danger of drowning? Even without Wally getting to Kyogre?"
Archie shrugged. "Beats me."
"So we could already be doomed," Brendan said. "Great."
"I don't know," Shelly said. "I mean, think about it – it stopped raining just minutes after we lost him. And if he caused that storm last night, then that didn't last that long, either. At least, not when you compare it to something that Kyogre can make."
"So what you're saying," May said, "is that Wally can't use the blue orb's power for that long."
"I don't know," Shelly repeated. "Maybe. It just seems that way to me. But if this is true, then we definitely can't let him get to Kyogre. Because once the blue orb gets to its rightful host… well, you all remember what happened four years ago."
"I remember," Wallace said, contributing to the conversation for the first time since he'd led the group back into his gym. He was sitting on the steps that led up to the gym's upper platforms.
"You know what else I remember?" he continued. "Whose fault that was." He flashed a smile a Team Aqua, but it was small and tight.
The members of Team Aqua went very still.
Archie threw a withering glare at the gym leader. "We've reinvented ourselves. If you don't like it, then you can go straight to –"
"Hey, I don't mean any offense," Wallace said, still smiling that too-tight smile. "Just thought someone should point it out."
"Uncle Wallace," Lisia said, "aren't you worried?"
Wallace turned his attention to his niece. His smiled softened with sincerity. "Worried? Why would I be worried?"
"Um." Shelly's eyebrows raised. "Because Kyogre is in your city?"
His attention went back to the Team Aqua member. His green eyes glinted like knives. "Yes, dear, I'm well aware of that."
"Don't," Shelly said, her voice razor sharp, "call me 'dear.'"
Wallace simply shrugged.
Shelly's arms dropped to her sides, her fingers flexing like claws. Around her, her teammates began to grumble amongst themselves, like a pack of Mightyena right before a hunt.
"What is with you today?" Lisia asked her uncle. "Why are you being like this?"
"Apologies, Lisia. You know I don't mean to upset you. It's just…" He looked down at the Team Aqua members as though they were stains on the bottom of his shoe. "I just don't see any reason why we should even be in the company of these criminals."
"Alright, that's it." Archie stomped closer to Wallace. He withdrew a pokéball from the inside of his coat pocket. "You wanna fight, pretty boy? Let's go, you and me, right now."
"Pretty boy?" Wallace stood up, withdrawing a pokéball of his own from his pocket. "I'm flattered you think so, but unfortunately for you, I happen to like women."
It took multiple members of Team Aqua to keep Archie from lunging at the gym leader.
"Stop this." May stepped between the two men. "Nobody's fighting right now. Wally is still out there."
So was Steven, the darkness reminded her.
I know, she told it. I know.
"Ah, screw this!" Archie yanked his arms out of his team's grasp. "Let's get outta here." His next words were directed at Wallace. "Don't come crying to us when your city starts to drown."
With that, Team Aqua stormed out of the gym.
"Hm." Wallace was frowning at May.
She frowned right back at him. "What?"
He turned away. "Oh, nothing."
"Uncle Wallace." Lisia sounded exasperated. "Did you really have to provoke them like that?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Because I don't like them."
"Uncle Wallace –"
He waved a hand around as though trying to clear the air of a foul scent. "Please. Let's not talk about those criminals anymore – doing so will only leave a bad taste in my mouth." He closed his eyes and rubbed his temples. When he opened his eyes, he smiled at his niece. "I've heard through the grapevine that you've been training your pokémon. For battling. Is this true?"
Lisia nodded. "I think it's time I started branching out from the contest life, you know?"
"Ah, so you've decided to follow in your uncle's footsteps, have you? I can certainly get behind that. So how is your training come along, then?"
Lisia's face lit up. "Good, I think."
Wallace turned to give Brendan a pointed stare. "I trust that you, Mr. Boyfriend, have been keeping my adorable niece here nice and safe?"
"Of course," Brendan said. "Though at the rate she's been training, she'll be the one keeping us safe."
"Oh, stop that," Lisia said lightheartedly. "It'll be a while before I'm on your guys' level."
"Nonsense," Wallace said. "You're my niece, so you were born for both the contest halls and the battlefields."
Lisia's face turned pink. "Thanks, Uncle Wallace."
"No need to thank me. I'm just stating the facts. But, hmm." His eyes raked over the trio. "You all look exhausted. Why don't you head back to my place for a bit? Get dried off, get some rest?"
Brendan and Lisia turned to May.
She didn't want to rest. She wanted to go out and search for Wally, because once she found him, she could stop him, and once she stopped him, she could start looking for Steven.
But after staying up with her all night, her friends were clearly exhausted, so she said, "You guys go."
"But what about you?" Lisia asked.
"I'll come join you in a while," she said. "I want to speak to Wallace alone for a sec."
Brendan's eyes narrowed. "You're not gonna leave us to go back out by yourself, are you?"
That was, in fact, exactly what she was planning on doing.
"I'll meet you guys after I'm done here," she said. It wasn't, she told herself, a complete lie.
"Alright," Brendan said. "Then we'll see you there in a bit." They turned and left the gym.
"You lied just now, didn't you?" Wallace asked as soon as the front door closed. "Why did you lie?"
"I won't be gone for long," she said. "But someone needs to go out and search around here." She swept a glance around the near-empty gym. "Unless your students are already doing that…?"
"Nope. I made them go home once yesterday's thunderstorm hit. They'll be reporting back here soon, though."
"Okay. But I still want to a bit of searching right now. The police haven't made it back to the area yet, and I have no idea if Team Aqua was planning on sticking around here in the meantime. Speaking of which, did you really need to provoke them?"
"Speaking of which, did you really need to get in the way?" Wallace shot back at her. His mood had soured again.
"Get in the way of what?"
"Of me and that Neanderthal. I've been really itching for a battle lately, and I was finally about to get one."
"What, you mean Archie?"
"I don't care for his name."
She'd had enough of his attitude. "Why are you being like this?"
And then it hit her. Of course. Wallace was upset for the same reason she was. He was upset because he'd gotten a call from his niece last night, asking him if he knew where his friend was. He was upset because Steven was missing.
She remembered how Lisia had been after Fortree. How she'd used Brendan as an outlet for her frustration. How she'd lashed out at him, how she'd tried to pick a fight with him. Her uncle, it seemed, wasn't so different from her when he was in a similar state of mind.
"Sorry," she said quietly.
Wallace had sat back down on the steps. "For what?"
She shook her head. "You've been worried sick, haven't you? Because of… what's happened."
He didn't say anything.
"I have, too," she said. "To the point where I'm having trouble focusing on anything else."
That seemed to open him up. "It's that obvious, huh?" he asked. "That I… haven't been thinking straight. At all." There was a forlorn qualify to his face that made him appear much older than he was. With him sitting above her, he looked like a lonely and miserable king perched on his throne, high above everyone else.
"It's terrible," he said, "feeling like this, and not being able to do anything."
She understood all too well. "I know."
"I just wish I'd been there," he continued.
"Me, too," May said. "If I'd just gone with him instead of in the ocean, then he –"
"Wait. Him?" Now Wallace looked confused. "Who are you talking about?"
It was May's turn to be confused. "Aren't we talking about Steven?"
"Steven? What's he got to do with anything?"
"Um." She blinked. "He's missing?"
"Oh, right," he mused. "I forgot about that."
She searched his face for any hints of mockery, but there were none. He was serious. He really had forgotten about Steven.
In pure disbelief, she asked, "Aren't you worried about him?"
"No."
He may as well have insulted her. She felt the heat of anger consume her as quickly as a flame took to kindling.
"Why not?" Her tone was hard.
"Why should I be? It's Steven."
Her hands curled into fists. "You know, he puts way too much pressure on himself to be perfect. He doesn't even think he ever deserved to be the champion."
"And do you agree with that?"
"No, of course not."
"Then what's the problem?"
"What's the problem?" May repeated. "The problem is that he has all these… these expectations put on him, and he doesn't think he's good enough to meet them."
"Well, he is. Don't you think so, too?"
"Yes, I do," she snapped. "But he doesn't."
"Because he's a perfectionist. He always has been, even when we were just schoolboys." He chuckled. "Ah, what fun times those were. He was such a nerd. He was the type of kid who asked for extra credit whenever he got an A-minus on a test.
"But you know, that's why I made him Champion. It's the most important role in the region, and who better to fill it than someone who's never settled for anything less of perfection?"
"Well right now, this isn't a matter of him being a perfectionist or doing a good job. This is a matter of him being missing." The word would never feel right to her, no matter how many times she said it. It felt like bile.
"And I'm trying to tell you why you don't need to worry about him. This isn't the first time he's gone off the radar. Plus, he's the strongest person I know." He paused. "Aside from you, of course."
The fire in her was raging on. "How can you possibly be so sure that he's okay right now? He disappeared. In the middle of a thunderstorm. He never came home, and he's not answering his nav, and nobody, nobody, knows where he is! Not me, not you, and not any one of the million cops that were in the area. And the worst part? We can't even look for him now, not with Wally still out there, not with all of Pacifidlog gone, and I just –" The back of her eyes burned as though doused with salt. "I just can't stop thinking about him."
Wallace watched her in contemplative silence, as though her short, heat-filled rant were a thought-provoking lecture.
"Interesting," he finally said. "You sound just like he did."
"What?"
"You sound like him. Steven. He had a meltdown that sounded just like yours, when you went missing." He leaned back and crossed one ankle over the other. "Before that, I'd always wondered what it would be like, to see him lose his composure for once and just snap. " He shook his head. "Let me tell you - it's not as entertaining as you'd think."
That cooled the fire in her. She'd already heard multiple times, even once from Steven himself, what he had been like when she'd run away. But hearing it again now was still jarring to her.
He'd nearly lost his sanity over her, when she'd thought she meant nothing to him.
Wallace stood up and started walking towards her, his arms folded over his chest.
"Tell me," he said. "Tell me how it feels, not knowing where he is."
Yes, May, the darkness within her said. How does it feel?
"It feels awful," she said quietly, even though what she was feeling couldn't simply be described by just one word.
Wallace nodded as though he understood. He stopped in front of her. "Just know that whatever it is you're feeling now is what Steven felt for an entire year. And you, during that entire time, were always okay. Weren't you?"
She had been. She'd been living on top of the sea, far away from the buzz of the media. She'd been, in Steven's words, "safely tucked away in a nice home," while he'd searched everywhere for her.
But…
"I think the circumstances of my disappearance back then were different from Steven's now," she whispered.
"True," Wallace agreed. "But we both know he's no less reliable than you."
It was refreshing, and more assuring, to hear this from someone other than herself. "You really think he's okay?" she asked.
"I would be pulling my hair out right now if I didn't." He placed his hand on her shoulder. "He'll find his way back to us. He always does. You'll see."
He'll find his way back to us, May repeated in her head, and the darkness retreated further and further back.
"Thank you, Wallace," she said.
He nodded and took his hand off her shoulder. His face reverted back into the forlorn expression she'd seen on him before.
"If you weren't talking about Steven before," May said, "what were you talking about?"
He turned and started back for the steps. "Nothing that you don't already know about." He lowered himself onto the bottom one. He said something too soft for May to hear.
"What was that?" she asked.
"How badly," he said, his voice just above a whisper, "was she hurt?" And then, when May didn't say anything immediately, he said even softer, "Winona."
That's right, May thought. He and Winona had once been in a relationship. And from the way Wallace's voice had quieted when saying her name, and from the way Winona's face had paled when saying his, the relationship appeared to have ended badly.
"She's okay," May said. "Her upper arm got cut –," Wallace's jaw tightened, "-but one of the nurses patched her up."
His jaw remained tight as he stared straight ahead. Finally, he rubbed his face with both his hands.
"Look at us," he said. "Look how crazy love has made us."
Love.
May hadn't put a specific word in place to describe her feelings for Steven. But now she knew.
She loved him. She probably had ever since she'd reunited with him at the Devon Party. From the moment he'd defended her against Evan Grady, she'd been hooked on him, as helpless about it as a Magikarp on a fishing rod.
She loved Steven.
She didn't realize that Wallace had stood up and walked back over to her until he spoke again.
"Let's go join the other two," he said. "You look like you could use some rest yourself, and, well, Steven will have my head if I let you go out there alone."
