Pokémon: Hoenn Travels.

-The Important Stuff:-

1) I am not at all affiliated with Game Freak nor Nintendo, or any other companies that write/produce Pokémon.

2) I do not own any part of Pokémon.

-A Waiver:-

1) This is not a direct steal from anything already Pokémon-related that exists, not the show or a game or a novel/book. It is my own creation, therefore I may bend the rules a little bit to fit my needs.

2) The names of Professors, Gym Leaders, and Cities were taken from Ruby Version.

Chapter Fifteen:

Heating Up

Doug and I left Slateport City and by early afternoon had made it to Mauville City. On our way to Mauville, I got the abbreviated description of the events of the previous night from Phantom.

He snuck into the tower first, what had been showed on the security footage the news station had. He destroyed the generator and therefore cut the power, and then Doug entered, using Steelix to burrow down the elevator shaft and get to the fighting pit. Between the two of them, they recovered every Pokémon in the building before leaving, checking twice according to Phantom. Doug tasked Phantom with running the pokéballs containing the injured fighting Pokémon to Mauville City, leaving the pokéballs containing them just inside the door for someone to find and tend to. Meanwhile, Doug safely released all the healthy bait Pokémon into the woods east of Slateport City. They had been confused, but as soon as they felt the ground under their feet, they disappeared into the wilderness.

Once the Pokémon were taken care of, except the Breloom that needed extra attention, Doug released his Steelix again. The Pokémon easily demolished the building in a matter of minutes, all the way down to the foundation.

Doug then had the Breloom examined before returning to the hotel. The entire excursion had taken less than two hours.

When we arrived in Mauville, we stopped for lunch, switching topics to discuss our Hoenn Pokémon successes. I had caught my Ralts, who was now a very strong Kirlia under Luma's tutelage, I had the small bird Pokémon that Luma had knocked out in the Petalburg woods, but had since released him back to the wild. The Wurmple that Doug had given me had evolved into a Silcoon and then while battling against Doug's Wurmple, which had evolved into a Cascoon, mine evolved again, into a Beautifly. I had the Lanturn and the Aggron, who Typhlosion was still enamored with even though she hadn't warmed up to him, from Dewford. Every time I released the Aggron, she was hesitant to take direction from me and she would try to charge Typhlosion.

And though I counted them as successes, I had caught and released the Plusle and Minun outside of Slateport, Doug was adamant that they didn't count because I had immediately released them back into the wild. I finally conceded to his argument, I hadn't used them in a fight or trained them at all, I merely restored them to full heath and returned them to Route 110. It brought my final caught to only four, since Doug had caught my Wurmple and the Breloom that he had recently given me.

Meanwhile, Doug had his Mightyena, both Wurmples, the Electrike from Route 110, and the Breloom he had rescued, placing him one catch ahead of me. We had decided that since my Swellow was counting even though I had released it, his second Wurmple counted as a catch too.

As we concluded our meal and our discussion, we left Mauville and headed north on Route 111. From our quick search, it seemed our route to Lavaridge Town was going to be a little roundabout. We had to traverse Route 111, onto Route 112, cut through the Jagged Pass, and eventually drop directly into Lavaridge.

The road was vacant, we didn't come across any other travelers or trainers as we walked, and we kept mostly to ourselves. As we made it onto Route 112, our surroundings changed. It became drier, hotter, and more arid. Our pacing slowed down, and though I wasn't going to be the first to admit it, I was getting more and more exhausted from the heat.

We were nearing an incline that led up towards a mountain-side. I had to assume this was Jagged Pass that would bring us into Lavaridge Town.

Our climb was slow, and a little tortuous. About halfway up the peak, Luma requested to be returned to her pokéball, the heat was too much. Phantom had long ago retired to his, the heat was draining and he was cranky.

When Doug and I finally made it into the dark entrance, we found a sign and were mildly defeated by it. We weren't on the Jagged Pass, we were climbing to the summit of Mt. Chimney, which would dump us out onto Jagged Pass. Eventually.

We slumped against the inside wall of the small cave, grateful for the coolness of the shade. We stayed, breathing heavily, and relieved from the break from the sunshine. However, once the initial relief brought on from the shade passed, I released the air in the pass was heavy and stagnant too. It was just as hot in the cave as it was outside of it.

As I thought about commenting on it to Doug, I heard nearby voices. Young voices, excitedly calling and cheering. I froze, glancing up at the side of Doug's face. He was staring off into the darkness ahead of us, in the direction of the voices.

"Trainers?" I whispered.

I could discern his head nodding, and swore quietly, annoyed that we hadn't gotten a change of clothes. Doug waved me off. "We can make this work," he said, his voice soft. "Just follow my lead?"

I agreed quietly and followed after him as he pushed off the wall and further into the pass. We warily approached the voices, trying to get line of sight on them before we made any further move. As we came around a curve in the path, I could see a group of trainers out ahead of us. They were young, three boys and one girl. The boys were cheering on the girl as she battled a wild Pokémon.

Doug lightly grabbed my arm, pulling me back around the curve in the path and therefore where we could not see the kids and they could not see us. "We wait for their battle to be done," he muttered, "then we walk past, discussing Team Magma, make it sound like we are members. We let them try to talk to us."

I bobbed my head up and down in the darkness, unsure if he could actually see my response.

After a few moments, a loud cacophony of cheers came up, indicating that the battle had finished. Doug asked me if I was ready, I said yes, and he immediately went into character. He began the conversation, a little bit loudly, before he started walking, so that it sounded like we were coming up on the kids.

"I told you, he mentioned that we were meeting at Mt. Chimney, we are setting up base there," he said to me.

"I get that our name is Magma, but if the base doesn't have air conditioning, I'm probably out," I replied.

He waved me to follow him and we started walking up the path again.

"You said that last time, and yet here you still are," he said with a chuckle. "I'm telling you, this is why you're still a grunt."

"You talk like you're a commander, no one is going to put you in charge of a unit."

We rounded the corner, I threw a quick glance in the direction of the kids. They had fallen silent and were staring at us. "I'll be in charge before you are, I don't complain nearly as much."

"Did our squad leader at least say what our next mission is?" I asked Doug, we were definitely within earshot of the kids now.

Doug didn't respond so I glanced up at him. Though he was still walking, he was staring warily at the group of children. Suddenly his elbow met my ribcage and he made a big theatrical show about shushing me and jabbing in the direction of the kids.

I fell silent, staring at them too as we walked past. Doug and I both held eye contact as we meandered past and then continued down the pathway. We remained silent, heading toward an opening a short distance from us. The entire pathway through the cave had been on an upward incline, telling me that we were still heading up toward the top of Mt. Chimney. The temperature was also rising.

"Stay quiet," Doug muttered as we came through the opening and back out into the sun. "They're following us."

"You think they bought it?" I threw a glance up at the side of his face.

"As much as I don't want to be stuck out in this heat, slow down, wait to see if they just follow or make contact with us."

Our pacing slowed way down, which ended up being for the better. Outside of the pass, the walkway was rough and rocky. We kept having to climb over rocky outcroppings and shirk around jagged corners. It was only getting warmer and warmer as we continued our climb.

It wasn't long before we finally came to the top, over looking the top of the dormant Mt. Chimney. The volcano, though not active, clearly had been recently, and I had to assume would be active again. We followed the pathway around the summit of the volcano, signage pointing us towards the side opposite that we had come up. 'Jagged Pass, half a mile!' The signs happily provided us with directions, as though whoever wrote them was completely unaware of how miserable the walk was.

"I should have brought more water," I breathed, pulling my sweat-soaked shirt away from my body.

"Yeah, I'm right there with you," Doug agreed. His black t-shirt was suctioned to his chest, making it easy for me to make out all of his musculature. "Can you subtly look behind us and see if they are following? I don't want to keep walking this slow."

"Yeah, hang on." I grabbed a pokéball from my bag and fiddled with it, finally letting it roll from my fingers and drop to the ground. Because of the incline of the mountain, it rolled behind us. I let out a quiet oops and spun around to chase after it. As I bent to pick it up, my eyes flicked upward and down the path behind us.

Several yards behind, the kids were sheepishly following after us. When they noticed that I had turned, they did their best to look like they hadn't been deliberately looking in mine and Doug's direction. I scooped up the sphere and jogged back next to Doug.

"Still following, closer now," I assured him.

He pointed out ahead of us, where a set of stairs were peaking up over the crest of the summit. They descended down the side of the volcano, with rope banisters on either side of the rocky stairs. A sign at the top informed us that we had made it to the Jagged Pass. "Let's make it down a short ways, and then stop to get some water and catch our breath. See if they approach us."

We did just that. Jagged Pass was a relatively straight, downward walkway. Due to the steepness, the path would have a set of steep steps, nearly straight down, and then the path would meander on a flat plateau for a short distance before another set of steps led further downward.

We made it down three sets of stairs before tucking ourselves off to the side and sprawling ourselves across a large, flat boulder. Doug looked relax after he dug a water bottle from his backpack and then fully reclined on the boulder, stretching out his legs and laying mostly on his right side. I sat, cross-legged, across from him, sipping my own, relishing in the coolness of the drink. However, because we had been out in the heat so long, it was not so much cold as it was just cooler than the heat of the day.

"See them?" I asked Doug, as he was facing back, looking up the path.

"They're on the stairs right behind us now."

"Should we pretend to be in a midst of a mission-based conversation?" I asked and he nodded, so I jumped into character. "He stated that we needed to have an entire party of Fire Pokémon, right?"

"Yeah, Fire. He said Rock type is also acceptable," Doug stated, his voice louder than his normal conversational mutter.

"I'm halfway there, how about you?"

"Once again, I am better than you," he scoffed. "I already have four."

"Wow, one more than me, how are you so awesome." I rolled my eyes as I overplayed my sarcasm.

"They're walking this way," he breathed so softly I almost didn't hear him. "Keep going, pretend you don't know they are there. Let something major and obvious slip."

I panicked for a moment, as I was making everything up on a whim. "That many Fire Pokémon, I can't wait to see what happens while we are in Fortree," I finally decided on, mentioning the only other city I knew for sure in the Hoenn region. "A place built entirely in the trees, you know that place is gonna go up in flames."

"Excuse me." A quiet voice spoke behind me, I wasn't certain if it was one of the boys or the girl.

I went completely rigid and slowly spun around to look at the speaker. I found all four kids staring up at Doug and I, their eyes huge and mesmerized.

"Mike," I spat in Doug's direction, picking a random name to call him. "You didn't say that someone was coming up behind us!"

"I wasn't paying attention to them," he shot back at me, his anger very believable. "I was listening to you, I haven't gotten all the details about Fortree yet."

"Mike!" I shouted again. "They're obviously not Magma members." I covered my mouth and dropped my voice when I said Magma, but I made sure that the kids would still be able to hear me.

Doug slapped a hand over his face and collapsed backwards onto the rock, groaning to himself about how he was going to get kicked out of the gang.

"It's ok!" The girl suddenly chirped, pushing past the boys and offering us a big smile. "We want to be! That's why we are out here!"

Doug and I both paused. They were buying our charade.

"You do?" I asked.

"Yeah! Ever since we got the first flyer, we have been trying to catch up with you guys!" The girl was still animatedly talking. "First, there was that meeting in Rustboro, but that fell on the same weekend as Norman's stupid 'new trainer weekend event'," the girl was explaining. She rolled her eyes as she mentioned Norman's attempt to get kid's excited about Pokémon training.

I glanced over at Doug, worried that they were going to realize he was the guest speaker that weekend. However, my panic passed quickly.

"Yeah, thank Mew we were able to get out of that by faking sick," one of the boys said. The other boys cheered and they all exchanged high fives.

"We don't need some stupid old man telling us what to do with our Pokémon!" Another of the boys said.

"I already had six Pokémon by that point, I stole some of my older sister's from her PC!" The third boy quipped.

"Dan, shut up, I am trying to talk to them," the girl slapped at the boy who had just spoken. "Oh! I am Abby, this is Dan," the boy who had stolen his sister's Pokémon, "that's Tim," the boy who referred to Norman as stupid, "and that's Mark," the boy who had explained how they had gotten out of Norman's weekend. "After we missed the Rustboro grouping, we arrived like right afterwards, there were Magma members handing out a second set of flyers."

"Yeah, our Slateport get-together," Doug said.

"Yeah, and we were there," the girl said, gesturing to herself and her friends. Then her expression grew dark, and she planted her hands on her hips. "But you guys weren't!"

I glanced over at Doug, concerned about how we played this off. "I guess B Squad never showed up for that," he commented with a shrug.

"I heard about some kind of power outage issue, I guess that scared them off," I retorted.

"They're called B Squad for a reason," he chuckled, then he smoothed his face out and looked back to the kids. "Listen, kid, I don't know what you want from us. We can't help you."

"We want to know how to join!" The girl stamped her foot as she shouted at Doug.

"They must know something we don't," I shrugged. "We have been working on Immolation: Fortree, I don't know what they're talking about."

"Immolation: Fortree sounds so cool!" One of the boys, Dan, I thought, cheered.

"My grandma lives there," Tim muttered to himself.

"You guys don't know about the recruitment event your own team is doing?" The little girl scoffed at us. She was surprisingly perceptive and I couldn't imagine our charade would last much longer.

"Do you know how big Team Magma is? We have way more issues than worrying about whether or not a bunch of wannabe trainers want to join. We rank higher than the stupid recruitment grunts," Doug hissed in her direction, gesturing between his chest and mine. Lies came so smoothly to him.

"This isn't just recruitment!"

"It sounds like just recruitment," Doug scoffed at her. "Come on Rachel," he slapped his hand against my knee and started to push himself off the rock. "We gotta get going, we aren't far from the meeting spot."

"We are just going to follow you!" Abby shouted at us. "Tell us what we want to know."

"We have no information on recruitment!" Doug shouted back at her.

The girl flung her backpack off her back and rifled through it. After a moment, she pulled out a piece of paper. She carried it over to us and waved it around in our faces. Doug leaned forward, snatching it out of her hand. "You're telling me you know nothing about this?"

Doug pulled the paper up to his face, I leaned closer to him to look at it too.

Team Magma needs you! The flyer screamed from the top line. There was a picture of two Magma members standing back-to-back with their arms crossed over their chests. If you want to be a part of the most amazing, largest battle in Pokémon history, gather your strongest Pokémon, and get to Rustboro for further instructions!

"But we missed Rustboro, so we don't know where to go, and then your people never showed up to Slateport!" Abby was still yelling at us as Doug and I exchanged glances. "So, just tell us where to go next."

"I didn't realize we were telling everyone about the Omni-Battle," Doug suddenly whispered, but whispered loudly.

"Omni-Battle?" The girl echoed.

"I didn't say that," Doug spat at her.

"You really suck at whispering," she stuck her tongue out at him.

"Look, ok, if we tell you what we know, will you go and not mention us to anyone?" I held a hand up, silencing Doug's remark as I stared hard at the little girl.

"Yes! I promise! We just want to be a part of this!" Abby squealed.

"It's so cool!" Mark agreed.

"I like fire!" Dan shouted as well.

"All of the meetings that never happen and the vague directions are just to weed out those who aren't strong enough or smart enough to be a part of Team Magma," I told her, lowering my voice like what I was saying was some big secret. "We are all meeting up for the Omni-Battle, it's true. It's going to be a huge, historical event and you're going to want to be a part of it."

"Where is it going to be? How do we get further instructions?"

"I can only tell you what I know, they only tell individual teams part of it so that in case we get caught, adults won't have the full story to stop us," I whispered, leaning in closer to the kids. They had huddled around the base of the rock, drinking in my every word. "We were told to meet in Fortree; Immolation: Fortree is just a distraction, to pull attention away from where the real action is happening."

"Where is the real action happening?" Tim breathlessly asked. His eyes were huge with wonder.

I had dug myself a hole, I had no idea where the fake real action was happening. I glanced back at Doug, looking at him for help. He cleared his throat, positioning himself to lean into the conversation. "Where do you think?" He said, his tone suggesting that they already knew.

All the kids gasped dramatically at the same time and exchanged excited glances. "Ever Grande City!" They cheered.

"Yup!" Doug agreed, then leaned back, satisfied with his addition to the conversation.

"You can't tell them that we told you," I impressed upon them again.

Abby nodded her head, agreeing vociferously as her friends excitedly discussed the best way to get to Ever Grande, and the fastest way.

"Come on, come on! We gotta get back to Slateport!" She turned and ushered her friends back the way they had come. They scrambled up the steep steps and out of view on Mt. Chimney's summit. Doug and I watched them go, and then exchanged glances.

"Omni-Battle?" I muttered.

"I don't know," he shrugged. "They wanted information about a big, huge battle and that's the first thing that popped in my head to call it."

I laughed, shaking my head. "So, did we learn anything?" I asked.

"I learned you lie really well," he commented.

I laughed. "Right back at you Doug."

"You already knew I did. I had no idea you had that in you, I almost forgot this was all pretend."

"But did we learn anything useful?" I asked him.

He waved the flyer. "We learned that their information is inconsistent. Come to Rustboro for an amazing battle, go to Slateport for an adventure of a lifetime," he said. "This all feels like a front at this point, we have no idea what Team Magma is up to."

I pursed my lips. "We need to find whoever destroyed the powerplant. They completely derailed Magma's plans in Slateport. Whether or not we like it, whoever destroyed that plant is doing the same thing we are trying to do."

"Yeah, stop Team Magma."

"And except for that one member in Rustboro, we haven't even seen a person of this team yet."

"Or of their rival gang."

"Yeah, Team Aqua."

Doug rubbed his hands over his face, groaning about the heat and the sweat. "I can't think right now, it's too hot."

"We can't be far from Lavaridge now," I said. "Let's pick up the pace."

Lavaridge Town was just as warm as Mt. Chimney and the Jagged Pass. The heat was oppressive and exhausting, and as Doug and I entered the PokéCenter, it took all my personal strength to not collapse against the cold floor and soak up as much air conditioning as I could.

We sat for a while, inside, releasing Luma and Phantom once again to enjoy the air conditioning and to get fresh water.

"What now?" Doug asked. The sun was starting to begin its descent as evening settled over Lavaridge Town. I imagined that there wouldn't be much difference in the temperature if the sun was up or not.

"Gym battle?" I questioned.

Doug looked around, spotting a pile of brochures on the counter of the PokéCenter. He walked over to the counter and picked one up, carrying one back to us. "Flannery," he read out loud. "In a surprise to no one, she uses fire Pokémon."

He handed the brochure off to me, it was a single sheet of paper. It was just an introduction to the young, red-headed woman.

"Hot-headed and fiery spirit," I read. "They love their puns, don't they?"

"I don't have any water Pokémon," Doug muttered. "I'm going to have to actually try."

"I have a water Pokémon."

"The Lanturn, he seemed pretty solid the last time you were battling with him." Doug collapsed into the cushion next to me.

I relaxed into the seat next to him, not quite ready to go back out into the heat. My eyes slowly closed, mostly against my will, but I was exhausted just from getting to Lavaridge.

A shrill ring echoed through the center, but only for a moment. What followed it caught Doug and I off-guard.

"Is there a Douglas Evergreen present?" An employee loudly called across the room and Doug and I both shot into an upright position.

He stood, turning to face the counter as well as the person who had called out. "I'm Doug Evergreen," he said.

She held up the phone that was pressed against her face. "Phone call."

My eyebrow arched as I vacated my seat and followed Doug to the counter. He grabbed the corded phone from the woman and pressed it to his ear. "This is Doug."

I could hear a woman's voice on the other end, but I couldn't make out what was being said. Doug listened intently, his eyes on my face, and his expression stoic. Every few seconds he would mumble a single syllable response, but otherwise added nothing to the conversation. After several minutes, he finally spoke.

"Yes, I understand. Thank you, I appreciate it. You too, bye."

He handed the phone back to the employee, who hung it up as we stepped away from the counter. "Who was that?" I asked when he didn't offer the information up.

"Cornelia Rowe," Doug muttered.

"Rowe?" I repeated. "What did she want? How did she know we were here?"

Doug waved for me to follow him, calling for Luma and Phantom too as we exited the building. "She said that Wattson called her and let her know that we had tried to help with the powerplant and that we were interacting with trainers in Slateport, trying to find out more about what's going on with the lack of trainers. She wanted to extend her appreciation for our continued help, and that she could tell that we had made a change so far. While she wants us to keep up the good work, her direct quote, she also wants us to know it's ok to relax for a day too."

"What does that mean?"

"She assumed that since we had beaten Wattson, we would end up here next so she has been calling each day waiting on our arrival," Doug continued. "She pulled some strings and got us tickets to an exclusive Lavaridge location."

"Oh Doug, I think I have learned my lesson with exclusive locations after our side trip in Slateport," I sighed, shaking my head.

"Yeah, I don't think this is going to be anything like that."

"No?"

"No, these were reservations for the hot springs," he told me.

"Oh, that's nice of her."

"She said after we finish up here, Fortree should be our next stop to continue the gym leader challenge."

"That's a really weird phone call, Doug."

"I know."

"Wattson called her?"

"Yes."

"Why?"
"I mean, it makes sense Rowan. All the Gym Leaders are directly tied to the Elite Four and to her, it makes sense that they would all be in this trainer issue together and be contacting each other about it."

"And we are trying to help with the issue, so of course they're going to update each other on our progress," I added, admitting to myself that his logic made sense. I just didn't want to give Cornelia Rowe any credit.

"According to her, since we left Petalburg, a new wave of trainers has come through to begin the Pokémon Trainer challenge," Doug shrugged. "Maybe we are helping."

"Sure, but until we figure out what Team Magma is up to, the threat to these kids is still going to be there," I reminded him.

He let out a long sigh and ground his palms into his eyes. "This is frustrating and it's still hot."

I patted his arm and pointed out ahead of us. "Maybe a gym battle will help clear things up."