Foundations of the World

by 50caliberchaos

Hoenn lays broken, reeling from civil war and suffocating beneath the tyrannical grip of warlords who rampage across the land. To this shattered country May, Wallace, and their allies bring a message of hope. But can May's idealism survive the realities of war? Can Wallace survive his disease? Fate has them set on a collision course with monsters, gods, and perhaps even each other.

9. Wallace - Chapter 3 - Black Arrows

Wallace – Chapter Three – Black Arrows

The cart jerked harshly to one side as its wheel crashed down on a rut in the waterlogged mud-road. The ensuing splash of murky muck leapt over the edge of the wooden cart and washed over the trainers sitting or lying against the guardrail, leaving them groaning in complaint and wiping at the mud clinging to their red and orange uniforms and armor. At the same moment a bolt of blinding white lightning split the dark sky overhead and vanished with a crack of thunder that left a ringing in the ears of most everyone in the plodding caravan below.

Wallace, stirred from his dreaming by the jerking of the cart and the peal of thunder, groaned and resituated himself in his corner of the vehicle. He licked his already chapped lips and tugged at the deeply green cloak he wore over his orange mail, pulling its folds a bit tighter around his frame and drawing its hood lower over his face. The boy watched a moment as a waterfall of collected rain streamed from the kink in the hood a few inches from his face and splashed against the already saturated plank on which he sat. Shifting around then he turned just enough to look out over the edge of the cart.

His eyes, glittering like emeralds in the light of the lamp hanging on a pole at the front of the vehicle, scanned the scene all around him. Wallace reached for the little tin cup between his legs and drained it of its collected rainwater. "Eighteen days," he muttered too quietly for any of the dozen or so other Magmans in the cart around him to hear. "We've been on this f-," cutting short his curse the boy took a breath as a lance of pain shot through his chest and robbed him of his composure. "We've been on the road for eighteen days without seeing hide nor hair of Aqua or Rocket, or decent sleep for that matter. What possible reason could the boss have for sending us to Rustboro?"

The countryside continued rolling by as the young Wallace stared out at the scenery, a landscape composed of an almost indescribably bleak amalgamation of half-flooded flatlands, miniature foothills, and rocky crags choked with fog. Looking forward, past the bench on which sat the driver, Captain McNomik, over the pair of Tauros pulling the cart, and beyond the dozen other vehicles ahead of them, Wallace strained to look into the distance, hoping to catch a glimpse of their destination. His searching however met with no success, he saw barely to the head of the caravan before the dense fog confounded his vision.

Thinking a moment about how he might use the corner of the cart in conjunction with the wooden shield strapped across his back as an improvised umbrella, Wallace decided the work involved wouldn't provide sufficient protection above and beyond the cloak already shielding him from the storm. Nevertheless he did pull the shield from his back and set it over one knee, creating a little lean-to against which the Pokémon sheltering in his lap and under his cloak immediately curled for further reprieve from the precipitation.

Reaching forward, Wallace tapped the bench by the cart's driver to garner the attention of his superior officer. "Captain McNomik," he said, raising his voice to be heard over the rain. "Respectfully sir, any idea how long until we reach Rustboro?" he asked.

Shifting his substantial frame in his seat to look at his subordinate, McNomik looped the reins of the Pokémon drawing the cart over one knee while he spoke. "Supposed to have been six days ago," answered the burly soldier, "but this damn weather keeps slowing us down. Gods must be angry," he grinned and joked.

Wallace turned and looked south, wondering just how far from the sea he sat. "They might just be," he muttered.

The captain turned back around. "Anyway," he cleared his throat. "Assuming the road doesn't wash out beneath us and we don't run into an ambush, we should hit Rustboro tonight or early tomorrow morning. Once we cross the Volga we're basically there and the river should be just ahead. Good thing too, seeing as how Commander Maxie wants all you rookies trained as quickly as possible."

Raising an eyebrow, Wallace glanced about the cart as the majority of his fellow recruits drifted back to sleep before looking back to his captain. "Mind if I inquire as to the urgency?" he asked. "Is command worried about something?"

"Classified," McNomik answered. "Under no circumstances am I to tell any of you that we've got actionable intelligence Team Rocket is preparing for a massive offensive." He turned about again and looked directly at the green eyed trainer behind him, watching with a measured expression as shock manifested on Wallace's face. "Rocket's forces are gearing up to hit Oldale, almost certainly within the week."

Thinking a moment as his captain went silent, Wallace paled at the realization. "That would make perfect sense," he muttered, drawing up a mental map of the continent as best as he could recollect it from the many such charts his father had kept at their estate. "From there they could use the river-basin to strike at Littleroot, Mauville, and Verdanturf, either in rapid succession or even simultaneously if they could navigate their smaller ships down the river."

McNomik grinned. "You are sharp."

"And," Wallace went on, "If Rocket was in the mood they could invade Slateport as well. Even if they failed to take it they could still lay siege to the city, pretty much strangling Aqua's forces in the south. Gods, they could take control of all the southlands in one move."

"And we cannot let that happen," McNomik stated, his tone growing grave. "They've already taken too much."

Wallace looked over his shoulder, staring east for a moment. "Captain," he blurted, voice still subdued, "we're headed the wrong way. We should be going to Oldale, not Rustboro."

This time the burly captain shook his head, throwing from his hood the accumulated rain. "Nope," he said flatly. "Some time ago Maxie ordered most of our troops in Rustboro to redeploy to and reinforce Oldale, said he saw this coming. Hell, half the garrison was redeployed east to absorb Rocket's offensive, so Rustboro is," he paused. "Well, it's not undefended but it's being held by a skeleton crew. You lot will be trained in and subsequently deployed to defend Rustboro while the hardened vets do the heavy lifting, holding the east against Team Rocket and Team Aqua."

Nodding along, Wallace pulled his hands beneath his cloak and under his shield to shelter them from the rain. "Makes sense," he said, largely to himself.

Feeling a sudden presence in his mind, like a second series of thoughts in his brain occurring independently of any direction from his consciousness, the young trainer jumped in surprise. Wallace sucked in a breath, prompting a pang of discomfort from behind his ribs before pulling his cloak aside just enough to get a glimpse of the little Pokémon curled up in his lap. Struggling to consciously establish communication, Wallace attempted to direct his thoughts at the Pokémon. 'What?' he managed to think.

Speaking purely in her trainer's mind, his Ralts looked up to Wallace while simultaneously shrinking back beneath his cloak to avoid the rain and draw as much warmth from his lap as possible. 'I'm sorry master,' she spoke silently. 'I didn't mean to startle you. Please forgive me.'

Wallace sighed and affectionately dropped his hand on her head. 'No no, don't apologize,' he mentally consoled. 'I'm still just trying to get my head around this psychic-link thing we have going on,' he grinned. 'I've never been mentally fused with anyone before. Speaking of which, why is it still so difficult for me to actually use this link? It's like trying to thread a needle with a dumbbell,' he thought a second, 'using just my brain.'

The Ralts remained silent a moment, then shrugged one shoulder noncommittally before going on to remain silent for yet another minute. 'That is the proper gesture, yes?' she asked, 'Humans shrug their shoulders when they don't know the answer to a question?' the Pokémon trained her big red eyes on her trainer as he grunted in affirmation. 'Good, human communication is strange. You'd think it would be easier for a psychic to pick up on its non-verbal facets.'

Wallace looked up, smiled to himself, and stared without focus into the distance. 'Your vocabulary certainly has grown,' he thought at length.

'I have a good teacher,' the Pokémon responded.

'Seriously,' Wallace went on, 'you're a fast learner. Vocabulary, mathematics, astronomy, even theology and how to dance- You learn faster than I can teach.' He beamed a moment with pride. 'We still need to get you a decent name though. I can't go calling you Ralts once you evolve. It would be like naming a person "teenager" or "human" or-' he mentally mumbled a moment. 'Anyway, excellent job on your lessons so far: really stellar work.'

'I have a good teacher,' the Ralts repeated.

Wallace ignored the compliment. 'What's on your mind?' he asked, shifting around some to reallocate a greater length of his cloak to wrap around the miniature psychic as she began to shiver against the chill in the air.

'Captain McNomik is very, very uneasy,' responded the creature. 'He told the truth about the information on Team Rocket's plan being classified. He has an ulterior motive in telling you about it however.'

Wallace looked down at his Pokémon disapprovingly. 'I told you reading a mind without permission is rude,' he stated flatly.

Immediately looking away and down, the Ralts folded her hands over one another. 'I didn't read his mind,' she answered. 'Or I didn't at first. Please don't be angry with me,' she blurted, pulling aside the cloak to look up at him, even though doing so exposed her to the rain. 'I sensed the captain's concern and I only read his mind a tiny bit to make sure you weren't in danger!'

Opening his mouth to speak, Wallace cut himself off, closing and pressing his lips into a fine line. 'It's alright,' he thought after a pause. 'Just, well just try to keep the probing to a minimum. It isn't polite.'

The Ralts nodded quickly. 'Of course,' she answered. 'Normally I do, but I sensed his fear and, again I just wanted to make sure you were not in danger. I determined that he was telling you the truth and had a hidden motive in telling you, but I couldn't go any deeper to figure out his motive without alerting him to my presence. It is however, what's the phrase?' the Ralts cocked her head to one side, 'eating him alive? He actually wants to bring it up with someone, you specifically I suspect, to get it off his chest.'

"Hm," Wallace toned, mentally thanking his Pokémon for watching out for him while simultaneously turning back to Captain McNomik. The young trainer took as deep a breath as he could, wincing against the discomfort brought on by the action. "Sir," he said, only loud enough to draw the captain's attention, going on when the officer turned back and acknowledged him with a grunt. Wallace stood up then and re-shouldered his shield, drawing some groans of complaint from the other Magma troopers he disturbed. Scooping up his Ralts he stepped over the driver's bench to sit next to the captain. "If I may ask, what's got you worried sir?" he asked almost too quietly for the man beside him to hear over the rain. "With all respect, it's pretty obvious you have reservations about the situation you want to discuss."

McNomik stared straight ahead for several long seconds before he cleared his throat, gripped the reins tightly, and rested his elbows on his knees. Still he stared straight ahead along the caravan, barely able to see the lead cart for the inclimate weather. "You know why I brought you into the fold kid?" he asked, not even a hint of emotion in his tone.

"Well it certainly isn't for my exemplary constitution or my indomitable physique," Wallace smirked. "Is it because I'm filthy-freaking-rich and Magma is dirt-freaking-poor?"

The captain's expression soured. "That's how I plan on justifying it to the review board when they call me up for recruiting a cripple," he answered, then, if possible, looked to grow even more serious. "But no. Obviously I was there the day things went south at your estate. I saw you run down to your father when tensions were running high with Team Aqua, I saw you hesitate to leave him and fight to get back to him once the fighting started. I watched as you and your Pokémon took those two direct hits from the Hyper Beams, and like any sane person I thought you'd be dead when the smoke cleared."

Wallace chuckled once. "Well in all honesty I probably should have been." He put his hand on his Ralts' shoulder and patted her. 'Thanks very much for that, by the way,' he thought at the Pokémon.

The Ralts stirred in his lap. 'Pleasure,' she answered.

Continuing on, the burly captain gripped the reins with such strength his leather gloves creaked. "Magma's failing," he said, almost beneath his breath, "and not just financially or militarily. We're failing morally. I remember serving under Commander Apollyon, Maxie's father? Ever heard of him?" the captain asked, going on when Wallace shook his head. "Apollyon was, he was a hell of a man. Under his leadership we expanded our territory threefold, recruited the best in the land and killed the worst. Moreover we had the love of the people, 'Team Magma' was synonymous with 'honor' and 'strength.' During the civil war Apollyon rose to power and carved out most of Hoenn's northern and western territory for us. It wasn't ideal, the country was in ruin from the war what with almost a half a billion people dead and most of the rest left destitute, but for us and our supporters there was at least a measure of safety and stability.

McNomik took a long, pained breath. "Maxie lacks the," he trailed off as if carefully weighing his words, "moral inclinations his father possessed. Team Magma has in the recent past taken actions that were nothing short of," again the officer's voice faded as he looked for the proper expression. "The organization needs people like Apollyon again," he turned and looked at Wallace, "and you remind me of him, more than a little." Half of the soldier's face looked as though he were attempting to twist it into a smile. "That's why I recruited you. Hell," he turned back to the road. "You even look like the old son of a bitch. You could pass for his son."

Wallace looked down at his lap as his Ralts again shifted about to get warm. "Groudon's breath," he muttered, pulling his cloak around his frame to try and keep in more heat. "Has the weather gone insane? How can it be this frigid, humid, foggy, and raining at the same time?"

McNomik smirked. "Mother nature's a steel-clad bitch?" he offered. "Other than that-" McNomik cut himself short with a curse and tugged hard on the reins, turning both of the draft Tauros aside and bringing the cart to a halt on the side of the road as the caravan ahead of him came to a stop and the vehicles behind him turned to do likewise. "Now what the hell is this?" growled the captain as the rest of the recruits in his cart stirred and some even woke up.

Looking ahead, Wallace saw no obstacle in the road, heard no screams of battle, and sensed nothing out of the ordinary. Even though he could only barely see to the edge of the caravan, Wallace strained to find the source for the delay. Aside from the rest of the carts failing to move however he saw nothing wrong and heard nothing over the howl of the wind and the rain. "Captain?" he glanced to McNomik for orders.

Dropping from the bench and splashing down as the muck and the mud rose well above his ankles, the grizzled soldier turned to the recruits in his cart. "Adams!" he barked hard at the trooper who looked most awake, further shaking the girl from her dozing, "the cart's yours. Try not to lose it," he said before turning to Wallace. "Lieutenant Weaver, you're with me. Let's get this mobile shit-heap mobile again."

Nodding and putting his arm under her haunches to support his Ralts, Wallace jumped down from the bench. As the watery mud rushed several inches above his ankles, Wallace breathed a sigh of relief that he had elected to wear the high boots uniform to his father's soldiers and not the sturdy, yet low-cut, shoes Magma issued to its light infantry and new recruits. "Any idea what's going on sir?" he asked.

Shaking his head, McNomik heaved his feet one after the other out of the mud and forward, step by step cutting a path for himself and his trainee through the mud beside the numerous carts ahead of them in the caravan. "Not a goddamned clue," he said. "But we're coming up on the River Volga and I just pray the fucking bridge isn't out." He growled beneath his breath a moment. "That'd add no less than a week to this already so timely journey."

Wallace followed behind the captain, taking every opportunity to retrace his bootprints through the muck. As they walked the burly officer turned about, glancing to Wallace from the corner of his eye. "You're taking this whole transition rather well," he stated flatly. "Not a lot of people in your situation could keep it together so effectively."

Pausing to lean against a cart for leverage with which to extract his foot from the muck, the younger trainer focused his attention on freeing his boot. "There's," he trailed off, face growing somber only as long as it took him to realize his expression had fallen before he refreshed his subdued smile. "There's nothing I can do about it now," he answered. "It won't do to dwell on it."

"Fair enough," McNomik answered, turning forward again as he and Wallace reached the head of the caravan. "Hey! All eyes over here!" The captain bellowed, drawing a number of startled glances from the recruits in the carts and garnering the full attention of their superiors. "What's the situation up here!? Why aren't we moving?"

Another soldier in red and orange mail, stood between the front of the line of vehicles and a narrow stone bridge arcing over what Wallace then saw to be a cavernous ravine cutting through the countryside, appearing from the white wall of mist, splitting the land, and likewise disappearing into the dense fog. The soldier then turned his attention on the newly arrived captain and made his way towards him. As the Magman soldier stopped in front of McNomik Wallace took another few steps forward, beyond the lead vehicle, and looked cautiously down the ravine, his stomach twisting and his head growing light as he took in the sheer distance between himself and the wide river running at the bottom of the drop.

McNomik glared at the soldier before him before looking beyond him at the narrow stone bridge. "Care to explain why we've stopped?" the officer rumbled.

Looking over his shoulder the young soldier, a boy who couldn't have yet reached twenty Wallace thought, gestured to a number of wooden carriages parked directly in the center of the bridge and stretching half the length of the overpass to the opposite edge of the ravine. Tethered to no draft animals, and occupied by no obvious inhabitants, the several carriages sat abandoned. "Path's obstructed," answered the trooper uneasily. "The bridge is too narrow to go around-"

McNomik stepped forward, leaving mere centimeters between himself and his subordinate as he towered over the younger trooper. "So corporal, have you perhaps thought to push the obstruction out of the way?" he growled.

Standing as still as an animal listening for a predator, the corporal swallowed the lump in his throat. "There's too many and they looked to be wedged in tight sir," the soldier pointed to the stuck carriages. "See how the first few are turned sideways and jammed between the guards? Whoever shoved those in there was either doing it on purpose or else completely incompetent."

Closing the distance between himself and the reporting trooper, McNomik remained focused on the man before him. "So smash the obstructions apart and get this party moving. That's an order."

Wallace turned around then, scanning the fuzzy edges of what small volume of the world he could see within the fog, a deep dread settling into the pit of his stomach as he noted the road along which the caravan traveled lay in the narrow pass between the bases of two shallow hills. Looking first to the north and then to the south up the slopes of the hills, the young trooper froze, spotting at the very edge of the wall of fog an almost imperceptibly faint glint of light. Focusing on the spark, his heart leaping into his throat, Wallace watched as a man-shaped figure rose out of the grass, one hand holding a pair of glinting binoculars and the other raised over its head in a balled fist. The observer with the binoculars, his drab green cloak unfurling to reveal shining black and red armor beneath as he did so, opened his fist and cast it downward in a harsh signal.

Sucking in a breath, Wallace drew his shield from his back, dropped to his knees, and raised the sturdy wooden barrier over his head. "Ambush!" he screamed at the top of his voice despite the pain ripping into his lungs, trying to angle the shield to cover both himself and his Ralts.

Wallace's voice echoed once off the rocky crags to the caravan's east before fading sufficiently as to be drowned out by the rain. All eyes within fifty meters trained on the young soldier in the green cloak as an awkward silence enveloped the caravan. Some faces immediately began scanning the surround while others remained staring in stunned silence at Wallace, until someone on the southern flank of the line of carts screamed.

A sound like a great wind rose over the rain. Bunkered beneath his shield, Wallace watched as countless black projectiles tipped with gleaming silver points rained out of the sky, passing through both troopers and Pokémon in their descent like hail through rice paper, pinning men to the carts where they sat, knocking drivers from their seats and filling the air with dozens of agonized screams and hundreds of loud claps as broadhead arrows shot from the sky and bit deeply into whatever they struck.

Twice Wallace felt a great impact bludgeon painfully into his left arm as little silver points burst through but remained stuck in his side of his shield. A third such impact shook the boy's frame and spattered his face with blood as an arrowhead burst through his shield and tore through his forearm, remaining stuck through wood and flesh and pinning them together. Another of the blocked arrows ceased its descent only after its bladed fin had sliced into the bridge of Wallace's nose, its murderous arrowhead head arrested a single millimeter from the boy's left eye. Yet another of the deadly bolts slapped into the mud beside Wallace's leg, the edge of its wickedly sharp fin cutting through the tough leather of his boot without so much as slowing, opening a long red line down the length of the flank of his foot to the elements. Blood spat from the green-eyed trooper's lacerations and mixed with the runny mud all around to form a rust colored slurry as the screaming of falling arrows faded as quickly as it had first risen, replaced by the wailing and moaning of dozens of wounded soldiers.

His arm, his foot, and his face burning, Wallace knelt in the immobilizing mud, frozen for a split second, his vision reflexively trying to focus on the point of the arrow that had nearly bolted his shield to his face. Breaths coming in rapid and shallow bursts, Wallace tried to scream in both terror and agony as he registered the arrow in his forearm in much the same way one might register molten lead poured into a wound. The scream died in his throat however as he looked out from beneath his shield and over the carnage the single volley had wrought. No fewer than ten corpses lay within his field of view, slain instantly by shafts through their heads or their hearts, or, in one unfortunate victim's case, through both. Meanwhile the screams and desperate sobbing of at least two dozen wounded men and women rose to the sky.

Dropping from beneath his cloak, the Ralts looked up to her trainer, horror flashing through her big red eyes. 'Master!' her voice burst into Wallace's mind. 'Master! We have to get you out of here now-'

Her voice faded as from the mist all around the roars of beasts and howling war cries rose with such volume the din drowned out the storm overhead. Wallace felt his heart drop from his throat into the pit of his stomach with such force he nearly fell to all fours. From somewhere in the mist he heard familiar voices shouting for the recruits to form up and take positions, but each such order failed to break through the screams of the wounded, the whooping bellowings advancing on the caravan from seemingly all directions. Wallace refused to even guess which was worse, the blood-freezing roars, howls, and shrieks of hungry Pokémon shredding through the mist, or the inhuman warcries of the closing humans.

Chaos descended on the caravan.

Wallace heaved himself to his feet, drawing from his belt a long knife as he raised his shield as best he could. The hand of his good arm tightening around the dagger, the young trainer could only watch as the shapes of dozens of men and at least as many beasts materialized in the fog. "Alright little one," Wallace muttered as his Pokémon stepped up beside him and his mouth went dry. From beyond the wall of white the boy heard yet more screams rising from the caravan, each one louder than the last and blending together in Wallace's mind into a maelstrom of dizzying terror. "We've both dodged death a few times too many and it looks like she's come calling for us. Any ideas?"

The Ralts' sanguine eyes flitted this way and that, beginning to glow dimly red. 'I'll protect you,' her words, uttered with an icy edge of total serenity reached him, 'no matter what.' The falling rain grew heavier and seemingly colder as she spoke, further reducing Wallace's line of sight. Puddles began forming atop the mud as the ground reached its saturation point, and the young trainer found his feet sinking yet deeper, almost to the knee, in the increasingly unstable mud.

Wallace steeled himself as numerous figures, some human, most monstrous, charged out of the mist and crashed into all three of the caravan's exposed flanks like a tide rolling over sand. The boy rooted his feet where he stood and braced for a fight, unsure whether he should charge into the fray or attempt to flee over the bridge or simply leap from the cliff behind him and hope for the best. As his mind strained over the question, Wallace watched, frozen, as from the mist a score of Pokémon, Raticates, Machokes, Arboks, Nidorinos, Mankies, Geodudes, and even a massive Charmeleon charged into the caravan's disorganized defenders from three sides. The beasts, followed closely by half as many trainers armed with crossbows or pikes and heavy shields, set to shredding every living person in their path, reducing recruits and Magman soldiers alike to bloody cadavers almost without a fight.

As the screams of the wounded rose even higher and several flashes of dazzling white light betrayed the Magman trainers attempting to recover from the ambush and bring their own Pokémon into the melee, even more Rocket soldiers fitted in gleaming black and red armor filed out of the mist, marching in lockstep and each flanked by yet more Pokémon of all breeds. The new arrivals, no less than fifty in number and standing on the slope of the hill to the north raised their heavy crossbows and trained the weapons on the survivors below.

Managing to position himself a little higher atop the mud and dropping to one knee, raising his shield between the Rocket troops as an indistinct order went up from the rank of enemy soldiers, Wallace bit down hard and braced for the impact. As a volley of the deadly black arrows shot from the Rocket troopers yet more screams rose from the crumbled Magman lines. One scream tore from Wallace's mouth as a broadhead shot by his leg, its fin slicing through his calf and instantly bathing his lower leg in hot blood.

Looking down at his newest wound and then back up as the screaming warcries neared him, Wallace spotted a young soldier with burning green eyes and hair the color of sand on a beach, flanked by a Houndoom and a Sneasel, raced directly at him, bellowing a challenge and raising a heavy flanged mace over his head to strike. Angling his shield at the charging warrior, Wallace took a few steps forward and pulled raised his dagger. 'Now!' he mentally shouted at his Pokémon. 'Hit them with Confusion!'

The Ralts jerked forward, swiping her hands through the air as her eyes flashed with crimson light. A nova of white light exploded in front of the three adversaries, catching the sandy-haired human and the Houndoom in its radius and stopping them in their tracks. As the human and the canine skidded to a stop, leaving little trenches in the mud as they did and pawed at their eyes in shock and pain, the Sneasel raced forward with such speed Wallace lost sight of its blurred silhouette.

It's feline muscles heaving, the Sneasel leapt through the air towards Wallace, crashing against his perforated shield as the boy barely managed to raise it in time to keep the Pokémon off him. Gripping the shield with its hind legs the dark Pokémon lashed over the top of the wooden bulwark, striking at Wallace with its clawed hands and tearing angry red slashes down the length of his face. Screaming in pain and barely able to keep his eyes open for all the blood streaming into them, Wallace drew his shield and thus the attacking Pokémon closer and struck with his dagger. Angling the long knife around his shield, the soldier drove the blade into the Sneasel's flank, missing any ribs and burying the implement up to the hilt in the little Pokémon's core.

As Wallace twisted the blade, ripped it from the Pokémon's body, and struck again, this time tearing open another wound just beneath the first, the boy's Ralts stepped between her trainer and the recovering attackers. Even as the battle drew in around them and what little remained of the caravan's defenses disintegrated, her eyes again flashing with crimson energy the Ralts swept her hands through the air in several constricting circles and another burst of blinding light exploded directly between and in front of the green-eyed youth and his Houndoom. Still dazed the trainer dropped his mace and threw his shield to the ground, screaming and shoving his hands up in front of his face as a splash of blood sprayed from his nose and crimson drops dripped from the interior corners of his eyes, running down the sides of his nose and mixing with the blood clinging to his nose and jaw.

The Houndoom however managed to shake off the psychic attack and charged forward with a rumbling snarl. Its jaws opened wide, the Houndoom's mouth lit up with fire and it heaved forward, expelling a blast of searing gas and bile from between its teeth at the Ralts. Meanwhile the miniature psychic, her eyes fixed on the canine attacking her and hard as steel, spun to one side, tracing her arms through yet another pattern in the air as a sheet of yellow light sprung to life at an angle before her and deflected the deadly flames to one side. In retaliation the Ralts stepped back, balled her hand into a fist, and uppercut the air before her. Simultaneously a flash of red mist exploded beneath the Houndoom's jaw, snapping its head back and leaving the canine reeling off balance.

His left eye blind from the blood pouring over it, Wallace screamed and jumped forward, angling his shield at the ground and subsequently pinning the Sneasel's legs between the sturdy wooden planks and the mud. The Pokémon hissed in fury as the soft ground raced up around its frame and Wallace bore down on it with the knife. Flipping the blade point down, Wallace screamed and stabbed down at the feline Pokémon, burying the knife in the Sneasel's soft stomach and rending the steel blade free again. A spray of the creature's purple blood splashed over Wallace's face and stained and matted the Sneasel's black fur while Wallace struck again and again. The blade flashing through the air no less than five times over the next second or two, Wallace ripped opened the Sneasel's chest and neck, spilling its ropey innards over the ground.

Still however the frenzied Sneasel fought back, striking with its claws at Wallace's face, neck, and shoulders. The boy's mail turned away the worst of the blows, but the claws still tore into his face and left ribbons of flesh hanging from his cheekbones. Screaming with effort, Wallace shoved down on the shield with all his strength, eliciting a shriek from the Sneasel as its legs bowed backwards and one snapped. Without letting off the shield the young trainer slashed down once more with the knife, the tip of the weapon plunging into the feline Pokémon's eye and sinking into its skull to the hilt. The Sneasel went silent in mid hiss, its claws falling away from Wallace's face and plopping limply in the mud as the boy twisted the blade with all his strength.

Sucking in a breath, Wallace looked up just in time to see the sandy-haired trainer look up to spot him finish off the Sneasel. Picking up his shield and his mace, the Rocket trooper charged at Wallace who again managed to raise his shield just in time. The enemy soldier smashed his shield into Wallace's and roared with effort as he shoved forward and upwards, lifting Wallace off the ground like a meal on a platter and throwing him backwards. Wallace collapsed on his back almost ten feet away, the landing knocking the breath from his chest and leaving his vision spinning.

Wallace's Ralts, spun on her heel, watching as the sandy-haired youth stalked forward with his mace raised over his head, ready to bear down on Wallace. The psychic Pokémon turned to run to her trainer, but a searing pain in her leg as the Houndoom snapped its jaws around her ankle immobilized her.

Raising his shield before his face, Wallace braced the bulwark with his good hand just as his assailant struck. Gripping his mace with both hands the enemy soldier heaved down with the mace, slamming it against Wallace's shield and leaving a splintered wreck of two of the boards in the shield's center. Again the standing warrior struck at the prone one, roaring with each blow, battering the shield apart over the course of a mere two additional strikes. When the shield was finished, reduced to splinters barely held together by twisted and broken iron bands, Wallace threw it aside, though the action jerked on the arrow still imbedded in his arm and made his vision flash and fade with pain.

Just as the sandy-haired soldier prepared for the killing blow, Wallace rolled and kicked with all his strength, slamming his foot into his attacker's knee. The assailant screamed in pain as his leg twisted to an unnatural degree, dropping to one knee over his target. Not finished yet, Wallace stabbed with his knife. The blade struck perhaps a millimeter into its target's breastplate before the fury of the attack bent the steel knife and snapped it like a twig. The force of the blow however turned the attacker to the side and threw him off Wallace.

Gasping for air, Wallace sat up and threw himself forward, casting aside his broken knife and wrapping his hands with all his remaining strength around his attacker's neck. Screaming with effort as his muscles quaked and threatened to give out, Wallace throttled the trainer beneath him, leaning all his weight into this last struggle and pressing down with such intensity the Rocket trooper on the ground found his head actually sinking so far into the mud that the brown slurry threatened to rise over his face and drown him.

The Houndoom's teeth still tearing into her leg, Wallace's Ralts twisted around and grabbed the attacking Pokémon's skull, positioning her hands on either side of its head. Her eyes once more flashing red, this time so brightly the Houndoom winced, a red mist exploded out from the Ralts' hands, rocketing her arms backwards and throwing the canine back so forcefully it tore a trench in the mud where it landed. As the Houndoom lay smoking and twitching but otherwise immobile, the Ralts glanced at her profusely bleeding leg for only a moment before turning back to Wallace and his fight.

'Master' she cried out and reached for him just as the last remaining vestiges of Team Magma's defenders fell beneath Team Rocket's onslaught. The Ralts moved to run for her trainer, but a sudden shifting beneath her feet stopped her cold. The little Pokémon, stable and not so much as attempting to walk, still found herself slowly moving towards the ravine. As she watched, the Ralts noticed that Wallace and his attacker, several corpses and more than a few wounded Magmans were likewise shifting at similar speeds to the towards the ravine.

Utterly saturated by the rain and no longer able to remain stable, all the ground within tens of meters of the ravine began to slide over the edge of the cliff.

Wallace heard his Pokémon's call and looked up, spotting her just in time to realize that he was moving, rapidly, under a power not his own. His attention instantly off the man beneath him, Wallace reflexively released his grip, allowing the Rocket trainer to tear his head from the mud and gasp for air.

The young trainer looked to the edge of the cliff racing towards him. "Oh for shit's sake," he yelled, his face breaking while he and all those around him picked up speed as the mudslide accelerated. Clawing at the mud and trying to half-run, half-swim up the mudslide, Wallace found himself speeding towards the edge of the cliff and, before he could even register flying over the precipice, the sensation of weightlessness took him. Suddenly ejected from the mudslide and thrown into the empty air between the two sides of the ravine, Wallace could only watch in utter helplessness as lifeless bodies, wooden carts packed with goods, panicked Tauros with legs flailing for footing, and a titanic wave of mud shot over the cliff above him.

An order to stay back reached Wallace's ears as all the ground around the ravine suddenly liquefied into a river and gravity did the rest. Spinning through the air, Wallace saw the river beneath racing up to greet him and, as he continued to tumble, caught a glimpse of the bridge overhead shifting as though one side rested on a platform atop flowing water. The narrow stone structure twisted with a crack and seemed to almost explode apart as it fell over the edge and crumbled into raining boulders and debris.

Wallace tried again to scream, but a bone-shaking impact against his back stunned the trainer beyond vocalizing and so knocked his head around that his whole world went fuzzy. As the water splashed up around and washed over him, he reflexively gasped for air, but even that simple action proved impossible as a wave of strangling mud and debris fell on him like an avalanche, driving him beneath the suddenly choked waters and blacking out his world.

Feeling himself accelerate downwards through the black water until he hit the solid riverbed, Wallace managed to land on his feet, though the falling avalanche, its crushing weight mitigated seemingly only slightly by the water, still bore down on him, burying the boy to his waist in mud and threatening to immobilize him until he drowned. His muscles spasming and working only part of the time from lack of air and deathly fatigue, his lungs burning and begging for breath, Wallace heaved with all his remaining strength at the mud piling up around him, managing to extricate himself from the watery prison and kick towards the surface.

Opening his eyes Wallace saw a dim light just overhead and with a final pull and kick broke through the surface of the frigid, swollen river, and gasped for air. He managed to take a breath before the weight of his mail and the fading of his adrenaline-induced strength threatened to pull him back under. The water rising back to his nose, Wallace fought to remain afloat, but another scream from overhead drew his attention and he strained to look up. 'Help!' he mentally screamed out for his Ralts as he watched another huge volume of the cliffside sloughed off from the edge of the ravine. Taking with it the enormous stone foundation of the collapsed bridge, the second wave of the mudslide fell at Wallace.

The young trainer ceased his attempts to float, and raised his arms over his head to shield himself from the avalanche just as wave after wave of mud and stone smashed down all around and on top of him, again throwing the trainer beneath the frigid water and blotting out his world. Thrown about like a leaf in a hurricane, Wallace felt himself battered against some unseen obstacle as impact after impact in the water around him sent him reeling through the darkness, carried on waves until finally a tremendous slap of water sent the boy tumbling up onto the stony beach where he collapsed and rolled to a stop on his back.

Opening his eyes and looking up at the grey sky as rain and flecks of mud poured from on high, Wallace managed to roll his head up just enough to look upstream. Numb with shock, the young trainer watched as yet more of the side of the cliff liquefied and collapsed, falling into the river. Shock evolved into fear and disbelief as the river rose up in a tremendous wave of displaced water and rushed at Wallace like a titanic wall of froth and foam.

Taking a final breath before what he guessed would be the end, Wallace dug his fingers into the sand and tried to brace himself. Fatigue and a broken body trumped his determination however, and Wallace failed to hold himself stable as the wave of water rushed over him, lifting him, throwing him downstream and a breakneck speed, before slamming him with dizzying pain into some obstacle. The boy opened his eyes and saw he'd struck a tree growing on the side of the river. Straining with all his remaining strength, Wallace gripped the branch on which he'd snagged and tried to hold on against the current.

Even the tree, rooted down as it was, succumbed to the might of the current. Twisting sideways, creaking and popping and cracking in protest, the tree released its hold on the ground beneath it and slammed sideways beneath the wave, crashing on top of and pinning Wallace against the beach as the water continued rushing over him, invading his mouth and nose and saving no effort to drown him. As the seconds dragged on Wallace felt his head growing light and his entire body falling numb. The young trainer fought to hold his breath and cling to life, but his lungs grew hotter by the second and the searing pain in his chest began to spread outwards and upwards, threatening to force his attempt to breathe if he would not do so willingly.

Suddenly it ended. The rushing water slowed and rolled away, draining into the normal bounds of the river and leaving Wallace's face exposed before receding sufficiently to leave him lying on the bank several meters away from the edge of the river. Stunned almost beyond breathing, Wallace lay staring up at the dark clouds for several minutes as the rain continued to fall. Slowly the boy began to remember the recent beating to which he had been subjected and decided he should inspect his wounds.

Straining to even lift his head, Wallace winced in pain as heavy raindrops fell on his face, burning the wounds and mingling with his own oozing blood only to roll off the strips of flesh still clinging to the muscles beneath. Looking down at himself the young trainer noted the heavy tree laying across his waist and his legs, rendering him completely immobile before he looked to his arm and saw the arrow which had previously pinned his shield to his flesh now served to, somewhat effectively, stop up the wound. He strained for a look at his foot or his calf, but the tree currently crushing him made sure to obstruct his line of sight. Trying to get a feel for the wounds however, Wallace managed to guess that the partial numbness mixed with the burning in his extremities he felt below the waist meant that, if nothing else, the tree was cutting off blood flow to those particular wounds.

Still dazed the young trainer heard a familiar voice in his mind. 'Master!' it called out. 'Master! Can you hear me?'

Wallace lay back down and breathed a sigh of relief. 'I'm here at the bottom of the ravine,' he managed to mentally croak. 'Downstream a fair bit. I'm stuck though. Think you can rescue me?'

'I can sense where you're at and should be there as quickly as possible,' the psychic answered. 'I might be ten or fifteen minutes.'

As a wave of lightheadedness took him, Wallace rolled his head to one side and tried to focus his blurring vision on his left arm. The trainer could only watch as the arrow in his arm, already loosened by the tsunami he endured, had come much more loose and the wound now leaked blood at a frightening rate. 'I uh-' he called out to his Pokémon, 'I might not have ten minutes,' he said. 'Sooner might be better than later.'

'Just hold on!' the psychic cried out, her tone quite obviously on the brink of panic. 'Master, just hang in there! I'm on my way now!'

Closing his eyes and trying to steady his breathing, Wallace relaxed against the sand. 'I think I'm alright,' he answered, his senses beginning to fail him as the world grew darker and his skin grew cold and numb. 'Really. I'm not in a lot of pain. This doesn't seem like too bad of a way to go.'

"Yeah," Wallace sighed. "There are worse ways to die."

"Hello?" an unfamiliar voiced rose above the rushing of the river and the falling of the rain. "Is somebody there? Can you help me?"

Focusing on the voice to clear his head of the encroaching numbness, Wallace forced himself to sit up as far as he could, resting some of his weight on his good arm as he twisted about in search of the voice. "Who-" he began to call out but stopped short, spotting no more than ten feet away the Team Rocket trainer with the sand colored hair and sharp green eyes. "It's you," he muttered in disbelief.

His arm pinned to the ground beneath a great stone beam, a fraction of what remained of the ravine's recently collapsed bridge, Wallace assumed, lay the trainer against whom he had struggled only minutes before. The youth in the gleaming black and red armor twisted at the shoulder to get a better look at his neighbor. "Oh, it's you," he muttered, looking Wallace over once. "You- do not look so good."

Wallace laughed a hollow laugh, though he sensed no sarcasm or glee in his opponent's tone. "Really?" called the boy in the orange mail. "Well, I guess some asshole trainers did decide to sick their asshole Pokémon on me while shooting about a billion asshole arrows at me before I fell off a cliff and nearly drowned in the asshole river. So yeah, I've been better." Wallace tried to go on, but a burst of pain in his leg cut him off as the tree resting on him shifted and threatened to crush him.

"Well," called the Rocket trainer, "for what it's worth I'd help if I could, but it looks like I'm gonna have to chew off my own arm to get out of here. Don't think I'll have much left in me after that."

Wallace screwed his eyes shut and chuckled, his face straining in pain as the tree sank even lower. "Help? Really?" answered the trainer in the green cloak. "If you're just going to mock me then shut the hell up so I can die in peace here."

"Fine," answered the enemy trainer. "I wasn't mocking you though."

Wallace glanced to the other soldier from the corner of his eye. "No?" he asked.

"No," answered the trainer in red and black. "The battle's over. We're both unarmed and neither of us are even remotely capable of threatening the other, I assume, so why bother?"

Laying back in the sand, Wallace thought a moment. "Tell you what," he responded after the pause. "I've got a rescue party en route and they'll be here in a matter of minutes. Now I might be dead by then but if you lay quiet and don't move they'll probably let you live."

"How do you know anyone's coming?" asked the other soldier, looking across the sand to the boy in orange.

Wallace tapped the side of his head. "Psychic," he answered. "You saw my Pokemon."

"Ah, make's sense," came the response. "No wonder you're so damn hard to kill. Hey," he called out, "how about this? I really want to keep my arm and you, I imagine, don't want to bleed to death-"

"And people freezing in hell want hot chocolate," Wallace answered, then paused again. "So, what's your proposal?"

"A trade," responded the Rocket trooper. "I just happen to have a medical kit with antibiotics and, more importantly, lots of bandages in watertight plastic wraps, and I need out from under this big rock. You on the other hand have a good arm and an inbound rescue party but you're in desperate need of not bleeding to death. I'll trade you the kit so you can patch yourself up for your promise that you'll have your rescue party get this boulder off my arm. After that we both go our own ways and if anyone asks we never saw each other. Deal?" he reached to a bag fastened to his back and, as Wallace watched, drew from it a bright red plastic box marked with a white needle crossed by a partially unraveled roll of bandages.

Wallace leaned up on his arm again and twisted to get a look at the case and its owner. "Deal," he called out.

The heavily armored trainer pressed the box between his cheek and his palm and hurled it like a shotput in Wallace's direction. The kit smacked down in the wet sand not a foot to Wallace's right and the trainer in the green cloak instantly went for it with his good hand, popping the seals and dumping the contents out on the sand beside him.

As he set about tearing open a pack of gauze with his teeth, Wallace glanced to his immobile neighbor. Clenching his teeth, the boy gripped the arrow still sticking from his arm and pressed on it a moment, his whole body screaming in protest as he worked the weapon back and forth, pushing it a few inches farther through his wound before repositioning his hand to grasp the shaft just above the end of the broadhead. Screwing his eyes as tightly shut as possible, Wallace ripped the arrow from his arm, spattering blood across the sand beneath him and hurling the shaft into the river. "So," he called out a moment later, hesitating and wincing in pain as he uncorked a little bottle of pure alcohol and poured it into the hole in his left arm. The ensuing pain making his whole world spin even faster, "you got a name?"

"Call me Odin," answered the sandy-haired trainer. "I captain the Seaspear. You?"

Wallace remained focused on his arm, shoving as much gauze as he could fit into the hole before beginning to wrap it up with bandages and finally taping the wound as best he could with one hand. "Wallace," he finished bandaging his arm and began pouring the remaining alcohol over his face to clean the numerous slashes carved in some instances as deep as his cheekbones. Hissing in pain he set the nearly empty bottle aside and began pressing gauze to the wounds, dabbing up the oozing blood. "Thanks for the assist."

"A deal's a deal," Odin answered. "You'll keep up your end?"

Wallace nodded. "Yes, yes," he answered, wincing a little each time he touched the gauze to his face, but stopping when he felt a familiar voice calling to his mind. 'Any guess when you'll get here?' he asked, sensing his Pokémon's presence nearing.

The answer came at the same moment Wallace heard soft but hurried footsteps in the sand. 'I'm right here master,' the Pokémon called out, rushing around the fallen tree and striding into Wallace's field of view. 'Try not to be alarmed…'

Spotting the Pokémon stepping up next to him, Wallace jerked away and shouted in surprise, not recognizing the creature nearing him. "Who the hell-" he blurted out, stopping short as he met the Pokémon's deeply crimson eyes, recognition dawning on his face. "What happened to you?" he asked, looking over his newly shaped partner.

Pausing in front of Wallace, the green and white Pokémon resembled his Ralts in color only. She stood just under a meter high, almost twice as tall as her previous form, with green hair hanging to her shoulders on either side of her face and spiked down in front of her nose. 'Save your strength,' the Pokémon's voice echoed inside his mind, 'and hold still please.'

Wallace watched with no small measure of shock plain on his face as the Kirlia in front of his pressed her slender hands together and her big red eyes began glowing with a misty light, an identical red and insubstantial vapor appearing around the fallen tree. Groaning and popping in complaint as the psychic force slowly lifted it skywards, the downed tree shifted up and off of Wallace before dropping unceremoniously into the sand several meters away.

The Kirlia breathed a sigh and visibly relaxed, kneeling down to Wallace and putting a hand behind his back to help him sit up. 'Hold still just a moment longer please,' she said gently, her eyes, locked on his, beginning to glow again.

Wallace glanced down at his legs as the bandages, gauze, and alcohol, each enveloped in soft sanguine light, lifted off the ground and began cleaning and bandaging his wounds, seemingly of their own accord. As the alcohol poured out and over the slashes in his calf and foot, Wallace winced and looked up to the Pokémon supporting his weight and cleaning his wounds.

'Master,' she said a moment later, pain in her voice as she finished bandaging his legs. She reached up as though to put a finger on his face but thought better of it and stopped, psychically dabbing at his bloodied cheek with some of the spare gauze before setting about wrapping his head in bandages as gently as she could. 'I am so, so, so sorry I wasn't able to protect you. I'll never forgive myself. It won't ever happen again.' Wreathed in red light, a syringe labelled 'Morphine' floated up and out of the medical kit before poking into Wallace's forearm and injecting him with a dose of the painkiller.

A few seconds later Wallace smiled, his whole body flooded with a buzzing warmth that drove off the pain and left him grinning both happily and dumbly just before the bandages rolled over his mouth. "Could have lead with the morphine. But seriously, you did everything you could," he said quietly, spotting the moisture beginning to accumulate in her eyes as the morphine began depressing his breathing. "And I'm alive because of you so don't you dare beat yourself up. I owe you, well my life. Speaking of, you that is," he went on, lightheaded, "I see you evolved?"

The Kirlia looked down at herself and back up at him. 'I suppose so,' answered the psychic. 'After you fell several more soldiers and their Pokémon attacked me and I barely fought my way through. I'd just gotten away from the Team Rocket soldiers and was getting ready to climb to you, but I collapsed and passed out for a few minutes. When I woke up I looked like this.'

From beneath his bandages, Wallace grinned. 'It's a good look for you,' he answered through their link. 'Mind helping me up?'

Sliding her hand under her trainer's back again, the Pokemon helped him roll to one side and up to his feet, sliding her shoulder under his hand and augmenting the support she provided with a boost from the red cloud of psychic mist under Wallace's other shoulder. Spotting Odin, trapped though he was beneath the crumbled debris a few meters away, the Kirlia froze in place, meeting the enemy trainer's gaze as her eyes narrowed and sharpened. 'You,' her voice rang in Wallace's mind.

Odin and Wallace both twitched, eyes widening with unease. The latter however remained steady enough to refrain from shrinking away, despite the frigid timbre of the words the Pokemon stabbed into his mind. 'Part of me hoped you'd survive,' the psychic glared at the trainer on the ground, her frame rigid save the occasional spasm of hatred. 'Every scratch on my master is a signature on your death-warrant!' Her eyes began to glow. 'When I finish there won't be enough of you to bury but first I'll flay you living with my mind and scatter your still-conscious remains from here to Johto!'

Odin sucked in a breath. "Wallace," he called out, refusing to take his eyes off the Kirlia, as the glow behind her eyes grew brighter. "We had a deal and this wasn't part of it!"

Laying his hand on his Pokemon's shoulder, Wallace gave her a gentle squeeze. "We did actually have a deal," he said, drawing the Pokemon's attention. "I get his medkit and we help him free."

Her mouth dropped open some as the Kirlia looked up to her trainer. 'You're joking,' her words faded from enraged to confused. 'After what he did to you? No.' She shook her head.

Wallace cleared his throat. "He did save my life. I owe him."

'That's the morphine talking,'spat the psychic.

A single laugh escaping him, Wallace leaned a little more of his weight on the Pokemon when his head grew lighter. "Might be," he answered. "Still, we had a deal. The bandages in exchange for his freedom. He kept up his end, the fight's over. You're here and he's unarmed. What's he going to do?"

'Come back later and kill you in your sleep!' the Pokemon answered instantly. 'It's what I'd do- duly expect any competent person to do,' she stammered.

Wallace sighed in exasperation. "I gave him my word," he said at last. "Or at least word-giving was heavily implied."

Looking up at her trainer, then shifting only her eyes to glare at the silent Odin, the Kirlia let slip a long, quiet sigh. 'I want it on record that this is a truly awful, stupid, insane idea and we should kill him now.' She looked back to Odin again. 'But if this is your wish then alright.'

Odin sighed and dropped his forehead into the sand. "Thank the gods," he whispered.

Her eyes again glowing red, this time with an intensity that Wallace had never seen in them before, the Pokemon focused her attention on the massive weight of stone debris pinning Odin's arm to the ground. A dense red mist, glowing as with an internal light enveloped the huge piece of stonework. Slowly the air filled with the rumbling and popping of rock attempting to rend itself apart under its own weight, but just as slowly the great piece of the bridge rose just a few inches off the ground. Odin tore his arm from beneath the weight and rolled away as the red mist faded. Suddenly free to fall the already fatally weakened piece of stonework crashed back to the ground and shattered into half a dozen large boulders, missing re-pinning Odin's arm by mere inches.

'Aw,' the psychic broadcast her thoughts to both of the present trainers. 'He was too quick.'

Sighing and taking one deep breath after another, Odin pushed himself to his feet. He and Wallace stared at each other for several long seconds before the latter spoke out. "There," Wallace called. "We're both free. Let's call it a day. I'll head upstream. You go downstream towards the bay and you're little ships. Deal?"

Odin scoffed once but refused to answer, looking on at Wallace with an unasked question obviously burning in his eyes.

"It's a perfect plan of attack," Wallace answered that question. "Clamor in the east, strike in the west. You think you've got us fooled into thinking you'll hit Oldale, but really your ships are in the bay two days from Rustboro, right?"

Looking to the ground even though his face remained hard, Odin straightened up. His face softened notably. "Do your superiors suspect?"

Wallace began to laugh but stopped immediately when a ripping pain stabbed into his chest. "I'm just a lieutenant, not even really, I'm a new recruit and I know what you're up to," Wallace answered a moment later. "My captain told me outright he knew Team Rocket had a massive offensive planned and we've been secretly deploying our troops to get ready for you for weeks."

Another sigh escaped Odin. "Fine," he answered. "Why tell me?" his eyes narrowed.

"You saved my life," Wallace answered holding eye contact with his adversary.

"Fine," Odin repeated, holding his recently freed arm up before his face. He took a minute to inspect the cracked and warped, but still functional, gauntlet before looking back to Wallace. He walked forward, prompting a readied twitch as the Kirlia repositioned to keep herself between the trainers. "For what it's worth," the captain in the red and black armor stopped a few paces after he'd walked by Wallace without turning back. "I really hate fighting. I don't enjoy hurting people or thinking about hurting people. Strategy, siege, killing... war is not my thing," he paused a moment longer. "But I'm actually very, very good at it. And my commander is better than I could ever be. Something to consider." The Rocket trainer resumed his march downstream, his heavy boots leaving trenches which almost immediately filled with rainwater as he shuffled through the sand.

Wallace, his hair streaked down his face by the pouring rain, motioned forward and he and his Pokemon set off, walking opposite the river's flow in silence for several minutes, until Odin had moved well out of earshot. Then, tone urgent, Wallace turned to the psychic. "We need to hurry," he said.

The Kirlia shook her head. 'We shouldn't push, straining might literally kill you.'

"Too bad," Wallace answered, "because we have less than two days to get to Rustboro and evacuate absolutely everyone we can."