Chapter 17

"Ouch." Sara muttered softly as she was dragged and placed in front of the sea that was known as the boundary between Elemental Ridge and another more remote region. The two brutes that had dragged Sara and tied her up to what felt like a wooden pole moved to stand in the group of Dominus's army, who were watching with interest in their eyes. Something big, bigger then all of them, was about to happen.

"Glad you made it." The now familiar cold, heartless voice of Dominus came from just out of Sara's range of sight. He approached her with a triumphant grin spreading across his pale face.

"I'm sure you know what you're doing, Dominus?" Another man's voice, belonging to the one who had ventured to stand next to Sara, who was giving her a good look-over. "You've got a young girl tied to a pole… that just seems a little primitive…"

"SILENCE!" Obviously, Dominus had little more respect for his guests then for his enemies. "This is all needed! When I told you there would be some sacrifices made, I did not lie!"

"Sacrificing her?" The other's voice sounded dubious, "Are you sure?"

"Positive. Now if you're done gaping like an idiot, we've got a Pokemon to summon."

Dominus, along with the doubtful looking man, shifted so that they were standing at the edge of the sea, standing there like they were waiting for something. In this time, Sara got a good look at the back of the other man's head. He was tall, with a heavily muscled body that gave her the impression that he lifted weights often. A blue cap covered the top of his head, yet did nothing to the sideburns and goatee that were beginning to grow out of control.

"His name is Archie." Rio's voice in her ear made Sara jump, and the ropes around her neck tightened slightly. "Team Aqua's Archie."

Team Aqua. Sara had heard of them, the strange group of men and women that ran around saying that expanding the world's oceans was the best thing for us all. She personally believed that they, along with Aqua's exact opposite, Team Magma, were completely off their rockers.

As she was lost in thought, Rio slipped away to stand next to Dominus, yet his focus was on Sara, not what his master was doing. Dominus was tracing a last touch of blue ink over a miniature Kyogre, which was immersed in dark sapphire blue water, while a second Pokemon stood on ruby red ground, its large head tilted towards the sun, which was clouding over. All of this was on a large square block of pale stone, and seemed to have been made by hand.

"There." He grumbled, standing the stone up on its side with the picture perfectly facing Sara.

As if from an order, the rest of the onlookers stepped back a good distance away as Dominus's voice rose to a boom. "King of the sea! I order you, come forth and banish this planet in dark clouds of rain."

Nothing happened. The darkness lord stood there for a split-second, arms spread, awaiting the rise of a beast that didn't want to rise. Archie cleared his throat loudly, "Maybe you should be a little louder."

"Don't tell me what to do!" Dominus hissed in reply, "King of the sea! Come forth NOW and banish this planet in dark rain clouds!"

Again, nothing happened except Dominus roared in rage and fury at the motionless sea. "Maybe it has to be dark." Archie supplied when his icy gaze had turned to him.

"Rio." The darkness lord turned to his servant, who jumped in surprise at being addressed. "Make it dark."

There was a sigh from behind Rio's mask, "Okay." He finally responded in an angry tone as he snapped his fingers in the air. Sara couldn't see what exactly he was doing, yet she knew something was going on, as the day's sky had turned dark and starless without a trace of going back.

"Alright then." Dominus said, popping his neck in a way that made Sara cringe as he boomed even louder, "I order you to come forth, King of the sea! Come and wash these pitiful mortals in your watery glory!"

He had said the magic words then. If it was the darkness, or just the way he had added 'mortals' in, Dominus had done something right. The stone with the scene of battle came to life, showing Kyogre drench his opponent with a gigantic wave of water before rising out of the water in a show of beautiful glory. As her eyes darted from stone to water surface, Sara saw that the same was happening in real life, the huge head of Kyogre appeared out of the water, followed by two wing-like fins. His yellow eyes were still half-open, as if he was awakening from a very, very long sleep.

Instantly, as the two fins glowed red along different vein-like openings in Kyogre's body, heavy rain began to downpour from seemingly nowhere. It was as if the Pokemon had opened a hole in the heavens themselves, as it was impossible to see the rain clouds that were causing all this rain.

Kyogre let out a very high-pitched, scary shriek as his entire body made it out of the water to seemingly fly in open air. Under the rain, Sara could just see Dominus's drenched outline make a bee-line in her direction. This is it. Sara thought sullenly, knowing exactly what organ he'd rip out, I'm dead meat.

"Dominus! Look over there!" She could barely hear Rio's voice over the howl of new wind, but Dominus had heard him, as the darkness lord's head went swiveling to the side. "A Vulpix!"

"Vulpix are worth nothing to me!" Dominus roared over the intensifying wind as he continued to try to get to Sara, but was now fighting Mother Nature herself to get there. Or, Father Kyogre, who had started this mess in the first place.

"But is a Manectric?" Another boomed above it all as Sara saw what looked like a blue dog that was giving off sparks from soaked orange-yellow mane fur.

A cloaked man had come to the rescue, and he was holding a very familiar Pokemon that made Sara scream about the rain, to the surprise of all, "VULPIX!"

Kyogre, with another loud shriek, flapped his fins like wings and was leaving before Dominus had a chance to sacrifice Sara to him. With a roar of pure fury, Dominus changed into his Pokemon form, complete with long silver claws and soaked black fur. His narrow red eyes locked on one thing to attack, the unfortunate Manectric.

Dominus hopefully got the shock of his life when his silver claws came in contact with the Manectric's flank. Off the top of her head, Sara remembered that Manectric stored all their electrical energy in the patches of yellowish fur, and shocked anything that came in contact with that fur. The darkness lord had been quite unfortunate as to have grazed the fur that puffed out from his back legs.

"Come on!" Rio growled to her, he had been cutting the rope that bound her to the pole without her realizing it. She took one last look at her drenched Vulpix and the mysterious man that was holding her before darting after Rio, as he was leading the way back to the stone castle Dominus called 'home'.

It seemed that the cloaked man was to keep Dominus in a fury, yelling for his 'army' to help him, but they weren't moving for the world to lay a finger wrong and be killed by their master. Rio and Sara burst into the castle soaked to the bone and shivering, yet there was no time to dry themselves as they pelted away from the rest of the world that was living as usual in the castle.

They carefully snuck down the stone staircase that was only lit by torchlight down to the dungeon room, where Sara had been held. It seemed that Elvina and Drake were there too, she had just not been able to see them on the either side of her prison. They both looked as if they'd known that this would happen all along, Rio had probably paid them a visit too, by the look of the Pokeballs at both trainer's belts and the backpacks waiting to be heaved onto their shoulders.

"Finally." Elvina blurted as her prison was open. She gave Rio a slight glare as she passed him, and stalked over to ruffle Sara's wet hair. "Thought you wouldn't make it, I did." She said gently, looking up. But Rio hadn't heard as Drake was freed as well and they all had assembled together.

"You're soaked." Drake said matter-of-factly as they all climbed the staircase and followed Rio into another corner of the castle, where he doubtfully opened a room to reveal an Abra sleeping on her own.

"Abra! Wake up sleepy!" Rio exclaimed, then sighed as the Abra rolled over in her sleep. "Come on… I know I'm not your trainer, but really…"

One sleepy eye registered the drenched Rio, and the Abra sat up abruptly. "Abra!" She exclaimed.

"She said, 'What do you want? I was having a good dream.'" Elvina said with a tone of importance.

"All that from one little word?" Sara murmured to Drake, who shrugged good-naturedly and hugged Sara briefly.

"Come on, come on! You can tell Sara you would have missed her, later!" Rio roared with impatience as he had gotten the Abra to agree to teleport them first to the sea-side, then to as far away as possible.

Sara, along with the rest, placed her hand on Abra's tail and felt a slight rush of wind along with the feeling of rain pelting her face once again. The Manectric was still fighting, yet he looked weak and was going to slip up and get seriously injured very soon. At sight of Rio and the Abra, the cloaked man recalled Manectric and dashed over to them before Dominus could hurt him too.

The last thing she heard before Abra teleported once again was Dominus's shrieks of pure fury.

Suddenly, they were in a clearing that Sara soon recognized to have the same purple shrubs as the path that led from Cobalt Strip to Twilight Town. She, yet again, felt cold from being completely soaked, and she wasn't alone. Water dripped slowly from the sides of Rio's mask, Elvina and Drake had become wet as well, and the cloaked man had tossed his cloak away in its wetness.

"Tabitha at your service, ma'am." Said a thuggish voice from the still soaked man that had been hiding under the cloak. A hood now covered the top of his head, ending with two black horn-like stubs. They all could recognize him as a member of Team Magma.

"Thanks for your help, Tabitha, make sure you tell Maxie to promote you…" Rio said with a nod to the Magma member.

"Oh no! There is nowhere for me to go but down from here!" Tabitha responded with a good-natured laugh, "I'm already second in command!"

"Good for you." Sara interrupted them, "But why in the world is Team Aqua and Magma involved in this anyway."

Tabitha's pale face turned from smile to scowl, "Sit down, all of you. This is something that you need to know."