Chapter 11

Ghosts of the Past

The trip back down was, as expected, much easier than it had been the other way. Shelly must have practically ran down the mountain, because even once he'd descended out of the mists surrounding the peak, Caleb couldn't see anyone on the trail all the way down to the shore.

Reaching the end of the path, Caleb turned into the cavern's opening. He doubted the strange woman from before would be so kind as to give him another ride, so the ferry was his only option. On that note, Caleb was rather certain he'd rather not get another ride from creep. Anyone who could refer to Regirock's murderous rampage as a mere "anomoly" was a more than unpleasant person in his book. Person? Being? He resolved to look up another list of the legendaries the next time he got a chance, maybe he'd find one that resounded with that eerie woman.

As he stepped through into the inner sanctum of the mountain, he stopped in his tracks. The entire inside of the mountain, and looking at the stairs winding up in the back it must have been the entire inside, had been turned into a massive graveyard. And he was not alone. There were several people on the floor he was on, all moving between graves. Some murmured softly to companions, but for the most part it was as silent as a…well, as a crypt.

Caleb spotted the entrance off in the distance to his right, and started making his way towards it, trying not to disturb anyone. The place gave off a somber vibe, and after his day so far, Caleb didn't want to stumble into anymore deranged priests. Thankfully he was left alone, and soon was walking out into the sunlight again.

There was a dock a short distance away, hosting a rather large ferry. Definitely not a rowboat. He shook himself at his own stupidity for thinking that the ferry had been such a small thing. What was this, the River Styxx? With a snort, he walked up to the boat.

A grizzled man looked up from a small stool on the dock next to the craft. A puzzled look crossed his face.

"I don't recognize ye." He spat into the water behind him. "You definitely ain't rode this ferry the last few days, but here ye are on this rock."

Caleb frowned, he hadn't thought of this. It was too much to hope that there were multiple ferries. The old sailor's words seemed to imply this was the only one. It would have to be a half truth then.

"Rode over with a friend earlier this morning. Sun was barely up."

"Ah," A long pause. The old man studied Caleb and then shrugged. "Ferry don't run till 8 anyhow, ye musta snuck in early. Ain't my business anyway. We'll be pushin' off on the hour so ye can wait with the rest on board."

Relieved, Caleb stepped past the man and on to the boat. With his new pokenav tucked away in his bag, he wasn't sure when exactly the hour was, but it didn't matter. He'd wait anyway. The other occupants on the boat turned out to be a young couple sitting on one side, talking quietly to each other. Not wanting to disturb them, Caleb took a seat on the opposite side, and leaned back. The whole day had seemed so surreal, and it hardly seemed to be midday yet. He closed his eyes, letting the sound of the lapping water wash over him, and tried to organize his thoughts.

One of the legendaries had "a stake in the matter" when it came to him. He wasn't sure if that meant she was an ally or an enemy, but it was far too early to tell. She hadn't tried to dissuade him from his path, but had instead instilled terror in him with a few words. Was that truly a coincidence? Had his presence somehow awoken Regirock? Would it do the same for other legendaries? The primals, for instance? The old priest at the shrine had certainly seen something in him.

His hand slipped into his coat pocket, feeling the warm orb within. Blue, for Kyogre, the legendary of the sea. Odd then that Shelly, a self-proclaimed pirate, had taken the red orb for Groudon, Kyogre's land-bound counterpart. He didn't believe her dismissive words about the orbs for one second. They had to be significant, and she'd known that without a doubt. Her parting words had implied that they would be meeting again, soon perhaps. He'd ask her then, though he wondered if he'd get a straight answer from her.

Straight answers, he decided, were in short supply on all fronts. He'd just have to continue on the path he'd been following, foolish though it seemed. He was less and less sure that the Space Center on Mossdeep would have any answers for him, but the twins were there as well. He'd not had near enough time to ask the questions he'd wanted to before, and he certainly had even more now.

Going to Mossdeep would also put him in the middle of the ocean. If the orb was going to take the lead at any point, it would be out there. Though he realized he was completely clueless as to how exactly the glowing ball was going to show him anything. Aside from it's unnatural light, the orb seemed completely inanimate.

A shout tore him from his thoughts, his eyes snapping open. The young woman of the couple was pointing at him, her hand over her mouth. Shit.

"Is…that Duskull yours sir?"

"What?" He said, completely taken aback. Then he realized she was pointing, not at him, but behind him. He turned to look and leapt out of his seat with a loud yell. "FUCK!"

For, not even a foot from where his head had been, a masked ghost floated. A dry, cackling laugh emitted from the thing's mask, a singular glowing red eye flitting back and forth between the holes.

Embarrassed, and now angry, Caleb swatted at it. His hand passed completely through it, smacking one of the canopy support poles on the other side. Swearing, he drew back his stinging hand. It laughed again, louder this time.

A thankfully much more human laugh came from behind him. He looked back, and the young man smiled sheepishly at him.

"We can take that as a no, I guess." He said.

Caleb groaned. "Last thing I fucking need right now."

"Eh," The man shrugged. "Toss a ball at it if you got one, or it'll probably just follow you for a bit before it gets bored."

Narrowing his eyes back at the floating ghost, Caleb asked: "Probably?"

"They're pranksters really, but harmless. You've likely just made it's day. Might just get attached to you for that." He gave Caleb an apologetic smile. "It's really not so bad, you look like a trainer anyway. Heard they're hard to train but it's worth it once they evolve. One of the Hoenn Elites has two of them. Gotta be a bit crazy to pull that off though."

Caleb threw his hands up. "You know what, fine. You can follow me for all I fucking care. One big happy fucking family."

He sat back down on the bench, glaring straight ahead. The edge of a mask poked out over his shoulder into his peripheral; he didn't turn to look at it.

A few minutes later, the old captain shuffled aboard. He spared a short glance at the Duskull, but didn't say anything. Moments later, they were pulling away from the dock. Caleb leaned back, and closed his eyes again. Maybe if he waited long enough before opening them, the damned ghost would have grown bored and left.

Impatience won over a few minutes later, and he opened his eyes again to be greeted with the mask face almost touching his own. He groaned.

"Guess you're staying huh?" He fished out a pokeball from his pack. "Can I interest you in this at least?"

The Duskull seemed to consider the ball, its glowing eye dancing behind its mask. Then it bobbed its entire body in what he could only assume was affirmation. Caleb gave a light lob of the pokeball, and was surprised when it actually made contact, dematerializing the ghost into…whatever weirdass pocket dimension these things made. It rolled on the deck for a few moments before clicking cheerily. He was now poltergeist free. Putting the ball away on his belt next to the others, he leaned back.

And so three became four. A small thought crept in the back of his head. His overall quest was to leave this place, and he almost certainly would not be taking any of his pokemon with him. Was that a cruel thing? No. He banished the thought. They had all been fine without him before, that surely wouldn't change.

-[-o-]-

The journey back to the mainland felt like it took much longer than the little rowboat had. Again, he wondered at the surreal event; knowing that woman, she'd likely used some cosmic bullshit power to warp them across. A small smile crossed his face at the insanity of it all. There really wasn't much that could really phase him now.

He was slightly worried about the couple heading the same way as he would be. He didn't really want company on the road again, not after Irene. Thankfully, they were headed back up to the "Safari Zone" Lyle had said they were near. Also, there was a bus to Lilycove.

That fact took him by surprise, as so far it had seemed all land travel in the region was done by either foot or on the back of pokemon. The trip to Pyre must have been the cause of this exception, because the bus was just pulling up alongside the hill above the dock. Caleb shouldered his bag, and walked up to it. Hopefully they didn't charge.

They did.

The bus driver was a man in his forties with a name tag that said "Kade" on it. He held out his hand, presumably for the fare, as Caleb stepped up to the door. Caleb paused.

"I, uh, don't have any money."

Kade squinted at him. "We don't just hand out rides to trainers just because they want to rest their feet for a few miles bud."

Caleb scowled. "I stopped by Pyre on the way through. Didn't realize you charged."

The bus behind the man was empty.

"You're still heading back to Lilycove with that empty bus yeah?"

Kade grumbled, scratching his chin thoughtfully. Then he swore, and said "Ah hell why not, but you gotta get out before the city, boss'll light my ass up the moment he sees you in that station."

Caleb thanked the man, and boarded. He took a seat a few rows back, and vowed to not bother the driver for the duration of the ride. That vow turned out to be meaningless, because the bus was so loud that he wouldn't have been able to get a word in over the roar of the engine.

The road the bus took followed the edge of the lakeshore east for a few miles, with glimpses of the water and the mountain peeking out from between the trees. After a time, it gave way to sparse forests, and then from the window Caleb started to smell the sea.

Poets and romantics always talk about the smell of the sea, as if it were some gloriously fresh and freeing scent. It wasn't. The smell of the sea is the smell of brine and rotting fish. It was sharp and pungent, and took a few hours to truly get used to. Caleb quickly found out that the seas of this land were no different.

Kade kicked Caleb out just as the lights of a city started to appear on the horizon. As Caleb stepped off, the man called after him.

"Hey kid, if you're broke there's always odd jobs at the docks or any of the restaurants near the beach. They pay trainers to cover shit all the time. If you're any good with those pokemon you got you could make a lot more at the show battles."

Caleb frowned as the bus pulled away. He hadn't thought about money, but from his understanding the distance between Lilycove and Mossdeep was well over a hundred miles. It wasn't like he could just start hiking. He'd have to pay for passage somehow, hopefully it wasn't too expensive. He'd already lost a lot of time over the last few days.

With a shrug, he started walking towards the city in the distance. From afar, it looked similar to just about any city back home. As he drew closer though, he couldn't help but notice how much more green it was. The dirt road stopped near a station, clearly the one he'd specifically not been dropped off at. Not wanting to press his luck, he passed by it, and stepped into a city that seemed out of an idyllic children's fantasy book.

The buildings were spread out, dotted by a few highrises but mostly single or double story structures. Clearly, space and population density wasn't a concern in Lilycove, instead the city had been built for appeal. Atop a hill to his left rose a massive, multi-story building that towered far above all the other structures in the area. Neon letters glowed on the second story on the side facing him, but from where he was standing he couldn't read them. The building was lit up cheerily in the dusk that was slowly settling over the city.

A bit further down the central path he found the pokemon center; he stepped in to find it much busier than the center in fortree had been. Clearly the lack of trainers on the road had been due to the foul weather between here and Fortree, now that he was out of it they were everywhere.

We are everywhere. He corrected in his head. While he might not think of himself as a trainer, it was a role that got him into places. It'd be best to start thinking about himself as such, it was also an excellent way to deflect attention. With that thought mulling in his mind, he walked up to the counter, a bored-looking yet pretty woman standing behind it.

"Need a bed to crash in for the night." He had to raise his voice slightly to be heard over the chatter behind him. Several other trainers were grouped around a TV not twenty feet away, yelling and cheering at something on the screen.

The woman glanced past him at the room.

"Rooms are all packed. Unless you can talk your way into someone's bed you'll have to sleep on the couches out here." From the way she looked Caleb's disheveled appearance up and down it was obvious she thought the latter would be the case. "We make them all shut up after ten so don't worry about the noise."

"A couch is fine." Caleb said, "Is there a library in town?"

She thought for a minute. "Yeah but I can't remember where it's at."

Caleb shrugged and walked off. He was exhausted after his hike up and down Pyre, but he doubted he'd find any rest in this lobby right now. A few questions to some of the trainers about a library, and he got good news and bad news.

"Just down the road and to the right, but they close early here." The boy who told him this looked young, he couldn't have been more than eighteen. He was clutching a canteen of…something; that something clearly contributing to his flushed face. The boy gestured at the seat next to him. "Take a seat brother, you look trashed."

Caleb did so. They were by the TV he'd seen earlier. The boy held out his canteen, but Caleb waved it away. Nonplussed, the boy took another swig of it.

"Gotta be careful," He said with a sly wink. "Brenda gets pissed if she finds alcohol in here. Name's Brayden by the way."

"Caleb," He said, then gestured at the TV. "What are we watching?"

Brayden grinned hugely. Easiest way to get on someone's good side was to get them talking about a sport they loved. He proceeded to tell Caleb all about the tournament that was running in Lilycove at this very moment. The tickets were expensive it seemed, at least enough that the crowd in here had been unable to afford it. Nodding noncommittally at what Brayden was saying, Caleb focused on the screen.

A pokemon battle was happening, but Caleb couldn't quite follow what was going on. According to Brayden, the tournament was "mono-water" and the battles were taking place in the bay between two small rocky islands. The tide apparently was no concern. When Caleb asked about that the boy grinned again.

"Here's the kicker right," He took another drink from his canteen. "When the tide's actually up high they just stand in the water above the islands. Only gets up to the knees. Sorts out the fakes from the real water trainers."

Brayden, it appeared, was also a water trainer. Though, Caleb figured, not quite good enough to be participating in this tournament. A thought occurred to him, so he changed the subject.

"I'm heading to Mossdeep, you know how I can get there cheaply?"

Brayden laughed. "Got a water pokemon? Otherwise you're looking at buying passage on a ship, and that ain't cheap."

Caleb frowned. "Er, sort of. Lombre."

The boy nodded. "Well, if you had a stone to evolve it into a Ludicolo you could probably make the trip on its back. Plenty of small islands and outcrops along the way. Those stones cost about two grand though. Been trying to get my hands on one for my staryu for three months now."

"Yeah, that's not gonna be an option for me."

Brayden shook his head glumly. "Join the club."

He leaned back, his eyes blinking slowly. Clearly whatever was in that canteen had him fairly drunk by now. His face lit up, and he looked back to Caleb.

"Actually, if you're willing to wait a few days, you can hitch a ride with me! My gyarados can fit both of us, and we'll make the trip in no time."

Caleb didn't know what a gyarados was, and after the trip on Drake's salamence he wanted nothing less than to ride a pokemon again for an extended period of time. Options, however, were slim. He was unlikely to be able to pay for a ride across the water within those few days, and even if he could get the money together it would be better kept for things later.

"I've never ridden a gyarados, but first time for everything I guess."

Brayden's face broadened in another grin. "You'll love it I swear, nothing beats it. That bag's watertight right?"

Caleb's doubts about the trip increased. "...Yeah."

"Great then!"

The evening passed uneventfully after that. Brayden was eventually so obviously inebriated that either Brenda, who turned out to be the lady behind the counter, had noticed or someone had told her. He was forced to pour out his canteen into a drinking fountain drain while she stood over him with her hands on her hips. She stopped on her way back to the counter and glared at Caleb, as if his presence made him a partner in crime.

"Thought you seemed old enough to know better." She snapped at him.

Caleb raised his hands defensively. He thought about claiming ignorance but figured it wouldn't work. "Didn't really see the problem ma'am."

She shook her head angrily and stormed back to where she'd been. Brayden stumbled back to Caleb and sat down heavily next to him. He gave Caleb a sheepish smile.

"My bad bro," he mumbled.

Caleb shrugged the apology off. "No worries."

The atmosphere was a bit muted after that. All the trainers slowly trickled out to either homes or camps outside of the center, or back into the bunk rooms off to the side. Caleb found he wasn't alone in having to crash out in the lobby. Brayden, along with several other trainers, were also stuck on couches. At ten o'clock, true to her word, Brenda shooed the last few stragglers out and dimmed the lights. Then she hauled out a number of blankets and pillows and passed them out amongst those left.

"I'm off for the night." She announced as she walked towards the door. "Rayquaza help you idiots if I come back tomorrow and those blankets aren't folded neatly on the counter."

Caleb winced, hoping someone had an alarm set. He lay back, pulling the coarse blanket up to his chin. Idly, he reached his hand back into his coat pocket again, running a thumb over the orb's smooth surface. He wasn't sure, but it felt warmer to the touch. It must just be that he had been inside out of the cold for longer. Then he dozed off, the sounds of Brayden's drunken snores from the other end of the couch echoing in his dreams.

-[-o-]-

As it turned out, "a few days", meant an entire week as he found out while helping an extremely hungover Brayden fold up his blanket. The news dismayed Caleb, but either he hid it well enough or Brayden was in no state to notice. Caleb decided he would make the most of the time, and resolved to go find something productive to do after breakfast.

"We'll get a bed tonight for sure," The boy mumbled. "All the follow-ons for the tournament are leaving today, last night was finals."

Caleb wasn't sure exactly what he meant by follow-ons, but didn't bother to press the matter. Belatedly he wondered if he could have caught a ride from one of the trainers leaving, but from most of the chatter he'd heard either ships were being taken or they were flying.

True to her word, Brenda showed up just a few minutes after he and Brayden had put up their blankets and pillows on the desk. Breakfast was delayed as the woman went around berating the trainers who still had yet to clean up their sleeping areas.

"If you want to be a bum, go find a damned street corner to sleep on," She snapped at a particularly recalcitrant girl who had, until Brenda stormed over to her, been sound asleep still. Brenda yanked the blanket off of the trainer, and snatched the pillow up as the girl pushed herself into a sitting position, blinking blearily up at the nurse.

There were a few trainers who seemed quite familiar with the daily process and had already started to pull folding chairs and tables out of a closet nearby. Caleb helped them out; Brenda, after a few sharp words about where exactly tables would be put, disappeared back into the kitchen behind the counter. Moments later, the sounds of clanging pans rang out.

One of the other trainers, a sandy haired woman, snorted. "She's always like this. Been through Lilycove three times and nothing's changed."

Most of them sat down, and a few minutes later Brenda reappeared and picked out a few to help her start bringing food out. Brayden was one of them, likely picked on purpose. He winced as he stood back up, but seemed to know better than to protest.

In spite of the nurse's foul mood, breakfast was a delicious combination of sausage and pancakes. Caleb hadn't eaten much the day before, and scarfed down the food. Brayden picked at a pancake listlessly, clearly a bit queasy still. He saw Caleb's empty plate and wordlessly pushed his own over. Shortly, everyone was done. Little conversation was made as everyone put up the tables and chairs, and plates were returned to the kitchen.

"She puts out lunch on the hour at noon," The same sandy-haired lady told Caleb and Brayden cheerfully. "Usually just sandwiches, but free food!"

Caleb thanked her, and then walked out the door with Brayden. The boy yawned and stretched out, grimacing.

"What's on the menu today, friend?" Caleb started, surprised at the question.

He thought for a moment. "I'm headed over to the library, but it's probably not open yet." It was barely even 7 in the morning.

Brayden nodded, blinking slowly. "I don't think I could read much right now. They got showers around back we should probably hit those up."

The showers turned out to be a rather informal thing, just a handful of faucets above small wooden stalls. The water had one temperature, and Caleb decided that temperature was nowhere near the right temperature. From the swearing in an adjacent stall, it was clear Brayden thought the same.

Freshened up they stepped out from behind the Center. Brayden seemed in a much better mood; the cold water had clearly done wonders for his hangover. They started to make their way down the road, though Caleb wasn't really sure where they were going.

"So," Brayden broke in after a minute. "What's your team look like? You mentioned you had a Lombre right?"

"I'm surprised you remember that." Caleb said drily, earning him a laugh from the younger boy. "Not really much, I don't do much battling just travel."

Brayden nodded. "I dig that bro, too many wannabe champions eh?"

"I'm not super opposed to training though, I just honestly don't know that many ways. Right now I think my strongest pokemon is my golbat, but he's only in the 20s." Abernathy was 26, he remembered from checking after Drake had given the golbat to him.

"Hmm." They kept walking for a minute, Brayden puzzling this over. "That's not the end of the world, but if you're heading to Mossdeep you might want to start pushing for some heavier hits. The sea's not quite as safe as the roads, you'll likely be running into mons all the way up past 40."

Caleb grimaced. That was indeed a problem. "I mean they're mostly water types, yeah? Creature, er my lombre that is, is grass." He was quite proud of himself for remembering the type matchups.

Brayden laughed. "You named your lombre 'Creature'?"

"Wait till you hear the poochyena's name." Caleb grinned. "She was a hellhound when I met her so that's what I named her."

Brayden laughed again, half doubling over. "Shit man, most of the people I know name their pokemon after dead relatives or best friends. Or dumbass natural names tied to their typing. I like yours a lot better."

Caleb stopped in his tracks. "I just realized, I haven't named the duskell I picked up at Pyre." He pulled the last ball off of his belt, the red and white sphere expanding in his palm.

"Damn man," Brayden said, looking a little perturbed. "Just…picked it up?"

"It kinda followed me, and let me put it in a ball."

Caleb shrugged, and tossed the ball out. A white flash of light, and the little ghost was bobbing in the air in front of them. It looked around, sighted Brayden, and a low cackle echoed out from its mask. Brayden stepped back a few paces; the duskull followed him. Not paying any mind, Caleb opened his pokeNav. A quick scan showed the ghost was level 31, making it the highest leveled member of his little team now. Glancing back up, he saw that the duskull was now twenty feet away, slowly stalking towards the retreating boy, laughing maniacally the entire time.

"For fuck's sake," Caleb strode forward. "It's just a little prankster, it won't hurt you."

Brayden shook his head, still keeping an eye on the ghost. His face was pale. He didn't say anything. Caleb groaned. Trust his new friend, adventurous and seafaring, to be absolutely terrified of a ghost pokemon. With a sigh, he recalled the pokemon. Brayden visibly relaxed, though he kept darting nervous glances at the ball in Caleb's hand.

Then, noticing Caleb's deadpan expression, he put up his hands. "Ghost pokemon are scary as fuck dude, they're like…dead and shit y'know?"

Caleb kept looking at the boy.

Brayden groaned. "Listen, it's perfectly normal to be afraid of ghosts, ok?"

Caleb sighed again. "Whatever, it just needs a name."

He thought for a moment, and then grinned broadly.

"Sin. I'll name it Sin. Though," He looked at Brayden. "I guess I'll have to wait a bit to actually let it know huh?"

Brayden nodded appreciatively, the color slowly returning to his face as he realized Caleb wasn't going to bring out the ghost again.

"Sin, huh?" The boy shook himself, clearly trying to be positive. "That works for it I guess, scary lil' fucker. I think I'm gonna head up to the department store and wander around for a few hours, meet for lunch back at the center?"

Caleb couldn't help but notice the omitted invite, but wasn't particularly bothered by it. Give Brayden his space. If catering to the kid's fear of ghosts was another thing he needed to do to get across the water then so be it. He nodded.

"I'll head off to the library, should be opening soon anyway. I need to look up some stuff on training; Sin's a lot higher than the other members of my team and I need to get that fixed sooner rather than later."

Brayden visibly brightened. "After lunch then I can help! I've been a trainer for four years now, I know lots of ways to train."

Caleb nodded. "I'll see you later man."

They parted ways, Braden heading up the hill towards the large building that had stuck out to Caleb when he'd first arrived. Caleb turned and went the other way, following the vague directions he'd received the night before. He ended up getting lost, and had to stop and ask an elderly lady tending to a garden in front of a small house. She seemed more than delighted to help, and before long he was on his way with much more detailed directions. He found the building easily, and stepped inside to a warmly lit room full of shelves. Along the back wall, a line of computers sat on desks. He headed directly to those, sparing friendly nods to other people quietly scattered about.

In the weeks since he'd been at the fortree library, he'd been putting together a mental list of things that needed his attention. He'd never been good at studying or preparing for tests, but this test had higher stakes than any class he'd ever taken in highschool. If he was getting wrapped up in the schemes and events surrounding these godlike "legendaries" then at the very least he needed to know what he was up against.

That part turned out to be frustrating. Knowledge about the legendary pokemon was scattered; there were no clean and concise lists of names and descriptions. Finally, scrounging around on different forums, he was able to come across the listing of some obsessed religious nut. This nameless fellow had put together a rather scattered and poorly organized document of all the Hoenn legendaries. First on that list were the primals, to no surprise.

Kyogre, as Caleb already knew, was a creature of the sea. He resisted the urge to skim over the difficult text. It may be one of the ones he had the most knowledge of, but it (she? According to the nameless researcher) was also the one he was most likely to become entangled with next. According to the document, she slumbered at the bottom of the sea most of the time. There were stories of her taking on a human form, which caught Caleb's attention until he read the description of her as "A blue-eyed beauty with pale skin untouched by the sun's rays of the surface; her body crossed with red lines aglow with the lines of a predator." It was a bunch of poetic nonsense, but paired with what Caleb had experienced near Pyre it seemed that these legendaries could indeed take human forms.

With the orb leading him to her, and her presumably able to communicate as the woman before had, there was a ghost of a possibility that he could find out more about his role in this world. Over the last day he'd come to the realization that his arrival in this world had been at one of the legendary's whim. He could, he assumed, return roughly the same way. He hoped. The more he traveled the more he realized that there was likely no other path back other than the way he'd come from.

Reading on, he actually did skim over the section on Groudon, Kyogre's land based counterpart. There was something in there about a volcano in the center of Hoenn's major landmass, and Caleb immediately disregarded it. He was right next to the sea, and he'd been wanting to speak with the odd twins anyway. Besides, Shelly had taken the red orb at the shrine.

Rayquaza (wasn't that a mouthful) was next. No human form was described, just a list of sightings and mentions in ancient texts. It (and it was referred to as an it this time) spent most of its time in the skies around Pacifilodge, a tiny floating town in Hoenn's southeast seas. Reportedly uncommunicative, it seemed mostly peaceful; the only sightings of it had been around major historical events. The whirl islands conflict that Drake had spoken of was mentioned again in tandem with sightings in the area. As best Caleb could tell, it actually seemed to have human interests in mind, intervening to stop nearby wars and using its godlike power over the weather to completely halt natural disasters in their tracks. The writer accredited Hoenn's relatively calm seas and climate to Rayquaza's presence.

The Regi's were next. There were three of them apparently; a ball of anxiety formed in Caleb's stomach. The woman on the boat had been mostly reasonable, a far cry from Regirock's enraged rampage. With no small amount of trepidation, Caleb read on. Regirock, Registeel, and Regice. They were attuned to their namesake elements, but something after that stopped Caleb's reading in its tracks.

There was a short section on vague locations. Regice was somewhere off of Hoenn's western coast, Registeel was actually closest to where Caleb was, buried in the wilds far off the beaten track south of Fortree, but what stuck out like a sore thumb was Regirock's location. The writer very confidently stated that Regirock had never been sighted outside of Hoenn's central desert. There had been some terrifying encounters within that desert, but the endless miles of sands were ringed with steep mountains, with the only passes in and out of the desert being in the north near Fallarbor and in the south near Mauville.

Regirock had been over six hundred miles from either of those passes, and on the other side of a dividing canal that went through the middle of Hoenn. Simply put, it was nearly impossible that the monster should have been able to attack Caleb and kill Irene. Yet, Steven had said some hapless archeologist had dug it up and died for it only two days prior to the beast showing up by the road. It must have made a direct line straight from its sleeping place to them.

It had traveled from what the document had described as Registeel's most likely place of rest. Clearly this author had not updated in the last couple of weeks, or if they had the Regi's rampage had gone unnoticed. Neither Drake nor Lyle had seemed too worried about secrecy on the matter, but Caleb hadn't bothered to tell anyone either.

So the question that arose was what exactly was Regirock doing on the wrong side of the country, and had Caleb had anything to do with it? His gut reaction was that yes, he'd somehow been the cause of the beast being there. Yet the more he thought about it the less sense it made. Why Regirock? If his presence had awoken the thing, then why had it not just been Registeel, the one who was actually closest? The questions came, but answers did not. Shaking his head, he forced the matter from his mind.

There was a more pressing matter, and the reminder of Regirock had made it even more apparent. He needed to be able to at least escape from a similar situation. That meant training up a team that was capable of either keeping something like Regirock at bay, or of getting him out of the area quickly. If he'd had a salamence like Drake, or a metal bird…thing like Steven, he would have simply been able to leave.

Closing out the document he paused. None of the legendaries mentioned had seemed anything close to the woman who'd escorted him to Pyre. Frowning, he opened up another browser tab. Following a hunch he searched for grass type legendaries, and then narrowed the search to Hoenn's neighboring country of Johto.

Celebi.

A mural depicted it as a small, pixie-like creature. It was said to have made its home deep in the forests of southern Johto. There was a picture of a shrine taken by some traveler. A forest glade, a glimpse of a stream running in the background behind the small wooden shrine. Caleb's breath caught in his throat, the hair rising on the back of his neck. Her voice echoed in the back of his head.

Wind in the trees, the sound of running water behind him.

His breath coming hard and fast now, he desperately kept looking. Despairing, he found nothing. Celebi was elusive, scarcely even worshiped. There was no mention of her in any connection with Hoenn, or even an associated gender. Nowhere could he find even a single sighting reported in the years since the advent of the internet.

Just my luck, he thought glumly, finally sitting back and closing the browser. I finally find out which legendary has it out for me and it's a fucking nobody among them. Well, information was information. At least he had a name now.

We met in St. Louis a few weeks ago. The words returned to his mind unbidden. There was something there, a memory? A sensation of falling came upon him, and he shook himself. He was gasping for air all of the sudden. Glancing around, he was relieved to see no one was looking his way.

Was she an ally? Or was she another monster out to get him? He desperately wished he could meet her again, if only to confront her for answers.

Confront? Who was he kidding, the one legendary that had wanted him dead had nearly succeeded, and he'd been lucky to come out of that with a damn near broken back and a concussion. He wasn't going to confront anyone right now.

"I have to get stronger." He muttered to himself, reopening the browser yet again.

It was barely 10 in the morning, and he had a long day ahead.