As the sun sets, she stares at the vortex of dark clouds outside Goldenrod Pokémon Center and asks what Lucy thinks of Raikou.

"It's pretty, but it's not really a pokémon," says Lucy, blinking. "It's – well, it's the stories of a thunder beast that runs with storms shedding from its back. It's already everyone's, it can't belong to anyone, so it's not a pokémon."

Maggie has felt that way. Memories have overriden the myths. The mythic painting under a bridge of a great billowing lightning-colored beast with a cape of bruise-colored clouds, next to a grumpy old luxray about the size of your average girafarig. She can't say she dislikes it but the way the storm shrieks behind the window... compared to the exhausting physicality of actors and people, watching a real storm sparks something in her heart that theatricality had tamped down. The burning tower– Maggie closes her eyes and can almost remember the heat and frenzy of the legend.

She says, "It's said that Raikou comes out on days like these, days where the sky is dark and hot like the day of the fire. They say he appears to trainers in the afterimages of lightning."

What if Raikou was to leap out of those storm clouds right now?

Was that thundercrack Raikou's roar?

Lucy says something that the noise drowns out.

"What?" Maggie shouts back.

She points at the wind-thrashed trees outside and repeats, "If Raikou comes out on days like these, let's go looking for it."

Maggie shakes her head. "You want to go out on a walk in this weather?"

A gleam of lightning lights up Lucy's smile."Walk? No way, we can't walk to Burned Tower. That'll take way too long." She holds up a pokéball.

The flash is just as blinding, and Maggie blinks it away to reveal a small pink pokémon. "When did you get a clefairy?" she asks, giggling at the two-fistedness of it. "Did you get it after that trainer–"

"My clefairy is strong, not just cute," Lucy says, pitching her voice at the last word. The clefairy peeps in agreement. It's bigger than the one Maggie saw at Goldenrod Gym, going up almost to Maggie's knees, and has droopy brown ears that might look sad if it wasn't for the wide, vacant smile on its face.

Lucy kneels down to hold one of its hands and Maggie moves to do the same, feeling an odd thrumming in her fingers where they touch fuzzy pink fur. Lucy tells it to teleport to Ecruteak City.

Two seconds later they're back in the Goldenrod Pokémon Center. "Hang on," Lucy says, "I forgot something."

This is how Maggie learns that Lucy's three (four?) pokémon aren't even her only pokémon. Lucy goes to the upstairs of the pokécenter as Maggie wrings out her hair and pulls on a jacket. In a few minutes the whir of a trading machine goes through, and Lucy walks through the door to catch a scarf that Maggie throws at her. Lucy opens her new apriball, and they teleport again.

The drought that Lucy's mom's ninetales brings with them quiets the rain and focuses the moon through the clouds. There's a ninety inch bubble of peaceful weather and silvery puddles around them that makes it possible to go walking without getting soaked. And the ninetales itself– it's beautiful, with a white coat that sparkles under its own sunlight, but it has an cold look in its eyes that keeps Maggie from approaching. It seems like a part of its sunlight aura instead of the other way around, somehow.

Burned Tower isn't technically in the part of the wild that would be called hiking, but it is derelict and a home to wild pokémon, so Maggie considers that they should have their pokémon out with them. But when she sends out her own hoothoot, it flaps its wings wildly and pecks at her wrist and its ultraball until Maggie puts it back in. So much for that.

The other pokémon sent out undeniably have feelings other than immediate hatred of everything around them. Lucy's pikachu is running around, sparkling with ambient energy that intermittently arcs down its tail. The drifloon, gazing around restlessly, has its strings wrapped around Lucy's arm as Lucy crouches to recall the clefairy.

"You really don't like this," Maggie murmurs to her hoothoot's ultraball, letting the storm patter over her voice. She thinks back to the forest outside Azalea where she'd caught it to have a pokémon for the Azalea gym. The ultraball hadn't shaken once before clicking. A pokémon that didn't want adventure. The plastic and metal is still as shiny and smooth as the day she had thrown it. It feels heavy in her hand.

Maggie walks closer to Lucy. At her approach, the drifloon frees one string and wraps it around Maggie's arm instead, winding it around and around until the balloon head is bobbing just above their wrists. The string is tight against Maggie's skin, but Maggie doesn't mind. She holds the little yellow heart in her hand.

"Ready?"

"Let's go."

The walk up to Burned Tower is steady and pleasant, with not even a single droplet of water hitting the tops of their heads. Maggie listens to the ninetales' footsteps hiss against puddles and splashing of the pikachu, feels the gentle shudder of the drifloon's tugs. With the storm breathing around them, walking through it is like walking in a bubble of peace. Just her and Lucy and their pokémon and the rain all around.

A rattata rushes out of a bush. Lucy's pikachu sparks wildly, but a quick flamethrower from the ninetales knocks it out before Pikachu can make a move, the rain beating down the remainder of the flames.

Unsatisfied, the pikachu parks itself in front of the ninetales and snarls. The ninetales only steps over the little rat, gracefully ignoring the little bolts of electricity that touch its legs, as unconcerned as an angel drifting over a car wreck.

Maggie can't help but giggle at that, and Lucy crouches to offer her arm to her sullen pikachu. The electric pokémon takes the offer to ride on her shoulder, accepting Lucy's kiss on the top of its head as it starts to lick its damp feet clean.

They reach Burned Tower... but Burned Pit might be more accurate. It looks like it hasn't been touched since the day it burned down, with piles of rubble strewn about a collapsed floor and a layer of rainwater sloshing around the collapsed basement. The floor creaks under Lucy's feet as she fearlessly walks up to the edge of the pit, followed closely by the ninetales. A hesitant Maggie hangs back with the drifloon, who is beginning to unspool from Lucy's wrist. Maggie glances behind her.

"There's something down there!" Lucy exclaims, and Maggie feels strings suddenly tighten around her arm. She sees Lucy's hand leave the floorboards as the girl drops down into the pit, followed by a quick bound of the ninetales.

"Hey!" Maggie shouts, but as she gazes around helplessly she realizes that the rain is catching up, drawing closer the farther the ninetales gets. Her hand brushes over the ultraball at her belt, and she feels the drifloon jostle where it's wrapped around her arm. She looks down into the pit, holds her breath, and jumps down.

Her feet touch water, though less than she expects. Maggie stumbles a bit as she regains her balance, one arm yanked up where the drifloon had pulled. There's a sudden bright flare, and she blinks away dazzling afterimages. As she regains her eyesight, a noise of excitement leaves her mouth.

There's something, a pokémon, shaped marked out by a trio of flames. Two for the head, one for the tail, moving as their owner moves around, all right there in front of her. Vertigo forgotten, Maggie stares entranced at the squawking, hissing form of a magmar.

It's reeling back from an attack, smoke hissing from its forehead as rain strikes the magnificent flames adorning its head. Its body is red and glowing. Maggie wants to take a step forward, to try to catch a glimpse of its beak or the shape of its head and pick out details, but the drifloon around her arm is pulling fiercely back, and she can only watch as it lurches further away.

And then, Lucy throws a pokéball.