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.

10. Wallace - Chapter 4 - Old Wounds

AN: Welcome back everyone and let me just say thanks for reading this far! I don't really have anything too noteworthy to report, except my sincerest thanks to everyone who has taken the time to leave me some feedback, whether that's in the form of a review or a PM. I am all too aware that everyone is busy with their own lives, but feedback on what's working for you all as readers, what isn't working, what can be done differently, and what you would all like to see not only plays a role in the writing process, but is also pleasant to see. Seriously, you guys rock.
Also, just another item of thanks to everyone who takes time out of their day to keep the tvtropes page updated. I have a policy of not sullying it and as such all the credit for everything there, and it is a good looking page, goes to my awesome readers. Again, thank you all very much, y'all are awesome!

I had a thought for everyone reading this far though. I have over two hundred thousand words worth of what I'd call 'supplementary' materiel (an arc on Professor Oak's history, short stories on Dawn prior to meeting Ash, chapters written from Elm's, Giovanni's, Sabrina's, and Officer Jenny's perspectives, etc.: items that take place in this universe, but don't really fit into any of the four major arcs I'm writing and aren't long enough to merit their own independent stories) that I've been thinking of gathering up and posting. Were I to organize these lesser tales into a coherent collection of one-shots and short stories would anyone be interested in reading it?

---

Wallace – Chapter Four – Old Wounds

Hands trembling with fatigue and spasms of pain, Wallace reached up and carefully trailed his fingers over the bandages wrapped around his face, sending searing bolts of discomfort stabbing into his cheeks and forehead. Gritting his teeth against the pangs, the young trainer kept up his probing, unsure of exactly what he hoped to learn from the effort or if he looked simply to use the pain to stave off passing out as he hobbled. Either way, the battered Magman soldier limped along the sandy riverbank, shifting his weight awkwardly to the little Pokémon walking beside him and serving as his crutch each time he needed to step with his wounded leg. His whole body shaking as his muscles threatened to fail for exhaustion, the young trainer pulled his hood a little lower to shield his face from the driving, deafening rain, even as the intensity of the storm raging around him picked up and the wind threatened to bowl him mercilessly to the ground.

Stopping suddenly, Wallace's Kirlia looked to her trainer and jumped up. Grabbing his wrist and dropping back to the ground, the psychic Pokémon pulled Wallace's hand away from his face. Still holding her trainer's gaze the Kirlia gripped Wallace's hand for a few seconds prior to gingerly releasing his fingers. 'Master, please,' she pleaded. 'If you continue interfering with the wounds they won't heal properly.' She stabilized herself as Wallace again leaned a sizable portion of his weight against her and continued walking. 'I'm not telling you what to do master. I'll do for you whatever you ask, but if you don't rest,' the Pokémon trailed off a moment. 'Master, between your vasculitis and your wounds, continuing in this state will very likely kill you. And I couldn't-' she stopped abruptly, shivering as they walked through the crushing rain along the riverbank.

Tucking his grievously wounded arm into his cloak to guard the bandages from the elements, Wallace shook his head. "Can't stop," he muttered through the wraps across his mouth, continually struggling to keep shuffling one foot in front of the other. "Get to Rustboro. Have to warn them," he said, stopping and standing still as his head swam. "Team Rocket, no rest, have to," he trailed off.

Wrapping her arm around his leg and summoning around Wallace's shoulders a crimson cloud of psychic force to steady him, the Kirlia planted her narrow feet in the sand and glanced pensively up to her trainer. 'Master?' she probed, watching uneasily as the boy rocked from side to side in the wind.

Wallace's eyes lost any vestige of focus. "Warn them," he muttered, knees shaking and threatening to buckle. "Have to warn," the young soldier's eyes rolled back as he rocked forward and fell towards the sand.

'Master!' the Pokémon's psychic shriek shot through the mist all around as she quickly summoned another cloud of force to catch her trainer. Lowering him gently to the ground, the Pokémon rolled Wallace onto his back. 'Master! Master!' she screamed, kneeling over him, hands on the boy's chest. Not waiting for a response, the Kirlia gripped Wallace's cloak and ripped it open. Eyes glowing red, she waved her hand and her trainer's pant leg tore itself to shreds, giving her a look at the bandages beneath. Seeing no blood seeping through the bandages around his leg, his arm, or his face, the Pokémon returned her hands to the boy's shoulder and leaned over him.

Eyes slowly closing, Wallace's head lolled to one side and he lay unmoving as the torrential rain continued to fall around him, filling the little impression the trainer left in the sand and leaving Wallace utterly still in a puddle of dark water.

SC

Head spinning and pounding, his ears ringing so intensely it hurt, Wallace began to gradually return to consciousness. For some time he refused to open his eyes, worried what scene might await him should he come to and look around, but after what felt like years of floating in a void, sick to his stomach in every conceivable way, aching all over, and desperately thirsty, the young trainer sensed the world around him taking shape. As the buzzing in his ears subsided he heard what he could only imagine to be the burning of wet wood, a symphony of popping, gently wafting air, and crackling while. Likewise as the scent of blood ebbed from his nostrils, every breath filled his lungs with the smoky aroma of a campfire. Opening his eyes then, Wallace found himself staring at an all-encompassing sandy dome overhead, illuminated by dancing rays of light streaming from a small fire encircled by stones some feet to his left.

Hesitant to sit up, the boy instead turned his head towards the fire. Finding himself in a small cave, wrapped not only in his cloak and mail, but in a thick layer of woven grass and a heavy blanket also, Wallace looked around for his Pokémon, only then noting the lack of bandages around his face. Failing to spot his psychic companion, but unable to imagine she wouldn't be somewhere nearby, Wallace sighed and turned back again, almost jerking with surprise to realize his head came to rest on something soft rather than the hard ground.

"What the hell?" Wallace muttered, glancing around the cave again to get a feel for his surroundings, spotting then the darkness beyond the mouth of the chamber from which he could hear both rain and rushing water. "Must be near the river- Oh shit!" he blurted, trying to roll to one side as he realized that during his unconsciousness nightfall must have come and gone. The severity of the action however left the trainer reeling in agonizing pain. Every sense he possessed exploded in reaction to the motion. His vision flashed and blurred, his ears rang, his skin felt as though he'd thrown himself into the campfire. "Ho!" the boy gasped, clenching his fists, closing his eyes, and deciding to lay motionless a moment longer.

Remaining still and staring at the ceiling, Wallace tried to clear any thoughts of Team Rocket or his recent battle from his mind. Nevertheless, the shadows from the fire rioting across the walls and ceiling seemed insistent on shaping themselves into familiar and disturbing shapes. The trainer's memory molded the shadows into the images of a charging Houndoom or an attacking Sneasel. To escape the waking nightmares dancing above and around him, Wallace tried closing his eyes again, but found no relief; the shadows continued harassing him in the form of phantoms and specters darting around behind his eyelids.

Hearing footsteps on the stone floor, Wallace opened his eyes and looked to the mouth of the cave. "Thank goodness you're alright!" he called out, spotting his Pokémon walking into the chamber. "I was beginning to worry-"

The Kirlia, seeing her trainer beginning to slowly sit up, threw down the brown leather pack she wore slung over one shoulder and ran to him. As the psychic moved, the bag spilled open and across the sandy floor rolled a glimmering red orb slightly larger than an orange. The glassy artifact bumped against the stones ringing in the campfire and, its movement arrested, sat glittering by the fire and filling the cave with points of sanguine light that danced and darted across the walls and ceiling. Skidding to a halt beside Wallace and dropping to her knees, the little Pokémon reached behind her trainer's back with one hand to hold him steady while gently taking his unwounded hand in her other. 'Master please, don't move too suddenly,' her words practically flowed together with urgency. 'You're in no condition to be awake, much less sitting up or walking around.'

Leaning forward and resting his elbows on his knees, the young soldier took a shallow breath. "How long did I sleep?" he asked. "Is-" Wallace lurched forward, involuntarily gasping for air before loosing a raking cough that filled the cave with a sound like ripping of paper. He slapped his hand over his mouth and coughed several more times, each such rattling expulsion of air weaker than the one that came before until finally the boy drew his hand away from his lips, bloody. "How long was I asleep?" he repeated, glancing down at the blanket bunched up in his lap and the canned rations sitting inconspicuously by the fire. "Where did you get the supplies?"

Her hand still resting on his back, the psychic gently rubbed her fingers across Wallace's shoulders. 'Several hours,' she answered softly. 'This cave was only a few minutes upstream from where the mudslide washed out the bridge. Several of the carts carried off the cliff landed on the beach directly below or washed up on the riverbank a short way downstream. I've been sifting through the wrecks for anything useful,' she paused before nodding to the brown leather bag resting by the mouth of the cave. 'I managed to recover your pack,' she said. 'Are you hungry?'

Wallace grinned and closed his eyes a moment as his stomach growled in response. "You are a goddess," he said, "my own guardian goddess of mercy. And actually I'm starving if you don't mind sharing the salvage."

Hopping to her feet, the psychic spun round and practically jumped to the silver cans resting a few feet from the crackling fire. She swept her hand through the air and one of the tin cylinders flashed red, its lid peeling open with a loud pop as the Kirlia grabbed the can, scooped up a spoon setting much closer to the fire, and offered both to Wallace. The young trainer accepted and, glancing down at the beans in the tin only momentarily, set about devouring the contents of the hot can as best he could with one functional hand. As her trainer ate, the psychic Pokémon stood silently by, her gaze growing increasingly watchful as she looked between the young soldier and the mouth of the cave. More than once she paced to the inky entrance and looked cautiously outside before returning to her trainer's side.

Lowering the can of beans and the spoon, Wallace looked quickly to the Kirlia as a thought leapt to his mind. "Sorry," he said in a rush, proffering what remained of the meal to the Pokémon, "did you want any?"

The psychic shook her head. 'Thank you master, but I've eaten already. Everything I've gathered is for you.'

Wallace nodded slowly, even that simple action prompting his muscles to clench so painfully in protest his head swam. "Thank you so much," he answered a moment later, eyes closed as he hunched over the can in his lap. "For everything," he looked up at her as the Pokémon knelt down beside him and put a delicate hand on his shoulder. "Gods," the boy muttered, very slowly shaking his head from one side to another, "how many times over would I have been dead if not for you? Four? Five? More depending on how you tally it up? How in the world can I even begin to thank you?"

Her big red eyes softening as she looked into his emerald ones, the Kirlia held her hand on his shoulder. 'You're my master,' she stated with an air of plain fact, as though her words represented a completely self-evident observation. 'You don't have to thank me, and you never will,' she went on. 'Everything I'll ever do, I'll do for you.'

Wallace's face twisted with curiosity. "Why?" he asked at length. "I've wanted to ask for weeks, and, I don't want to sound ungrateful or insulting, but that's something a slave would say. I," he stopped and stared at her. "You're no one's slave, least of all mine."

'You're my master,' the psychic repeated. 'It isn't slavery. It's service, and it's how I show-' she stopped mid-thought. 'And I-' she started again, as though she couldn't quite bring herself to express the statement. The Pokémon fell silent for several long seconds, looking away from her trainer and then back up and into his eyes. 'It's my nature, my joy, to serve.'

Refraining from an answer, Wallace turned his attention back to the nearly empty can of beans. "Well," he went on a moment later. "Thank you," he looked to his Pokémon, smiling. "If there's ever anything you need or want, I'll do everything I can to make it happen."

The Kirlia, still kneeling by his side, rested her hands in her lap. 'My pleasure,' she answered, pausing and looking back to the mouth of the cave, her expression soft but focused. 'Actually,' she continued. 'I have one request if you have the time,' her tone grew more reserved.

Wallace began to nod but stopped himself the instant his neck started to ache. "Name it," he responded. "Anything you want."

Still looking through the cave's mouth and into the darkness beyond, the Pokémon made a sound like a low sigh. 'I'd very much like to have a name,' she said, turning to glance to her trainer, a look of plain unease on her features. 'If it isn't too much to ask.'

"Of course it isn't too much to ask," the young soldier set aside the empty tin as the sound of falling rain intensified and the cave filled with the scent of the river. "Well," he paused, very slowly leaning himself back and resting his elbows on the pillow at the head of his bedroll. "Guess I'd never given it much thought," he said a moment later. "Thanks to our link I never needed to shout for your attention so it never occurred to me you might need a name. Did you have a thought on the matter? Anything you'd prefer or want to avoid?"

The Kirlia shook her head. 'No,' she answered. 'It is entirely up to you.'

Staring at the roof of the cave, watching as the shadows danced across the sandy stone, the boy thought a moment. "Well, I've heard of a lot of trainers using their Pokémon's species as a name," he glanced to the psychic, trying to gauge her reaction but failing to spot any change in her demeanor. "I'm not feeling it though," he muttered. "I might as well name you 'Ralts' and that could change again when you evolve. Besides, we don't go around naming people 'Human' or 'Teenager.' So," he pressed his lips into a fine line. "You sure you don't have a preference?" he looked to the Pokémon.

The Kirlia again responded in the negative. 'What's the first name that comes to mind?' she asked.

Wallace looked at the ground. "A goddess of mercy," he said almost beneath his breath, a grin spreading across his face. "In the old stories," the young trainer went on, "after the three titans carved the world out of the chaos and retreated to the edges of creation to sleep, the sun and the moon looked down, saw the world was empty, and decided to fill it with life. The sun birthed humanity and the moon created all the different types of Pokémon. Afterwards the moon retired to the night to rest but the sun, seeing its children were struggling in the wilds, came down to earth and showed mankind how to tame nature. She taught us agriculture, metallurgy, and how to build cities together, and after she saw we could thrive on our own she went back to the sky and she's been watching over us every day ever since. She even put the stars in the night sky to watch over us when she couldn't be there," Wallace turned to his Pokémon. "Different versions of the myth have different names for the sun, but here in Hoenn the story goes she was named Radiana." He paused a moment longer. "So, how about Radiana?"

The little psychic stared at her trainer for a few seconds before her gaze tilted upwards towards the ceiling. 'Radiana?' she said plainly. 'Does it please you?'

"That's not what I asked," Wallace said. "You're the one who has to live with the name so I'll put it forward as an option but if you don't like it then we can find something else."

'No,' the Pokémon turned back to the soldier. 'I like it. I'll take it.'

Wallace grinned, an expression reflected in his Pokémon's eyes. "Radiana it is," he said happily. "There, you officially have a name." He reached over and put his hand affectionately on the psychic's head. "Oh, and as a nickname maybe we can call you Rara."

The trainer and the Pokémon fell silent a minute, their faces growing blank. "No," both answered in unison, though it was Wallace who continued. "No, Rara's a stupid name," he said. "That was just the morphine making me say something dumb. Forget it."

Radiana concurred. 'If it's all the same to you, no nicknames please.'

"Fair enough," Wallace added. "When I was littler everyone I knew insisted on calling me 'Wally'," his expression morphed into a jumble of amusement and irritation. "I can't tell you how much I hated that stupid nickname," he half-laughed. "My name is Wallace, not Wally. If my parents had wanted to name me after some euphemism for a man's genitals, rather than the ancient hero who fought a god to the death to save the world from eternal darkness, they'd have damn well done so."

The corner of Radiana's lip turned upwards, though she refrained from speaking for several seconds. 'Well then, perhaps we can both refrain from giving the other a stupid nickname,' she stated.

Wallace sighed, turning to look out the mouth of the cave. "I've lost so much time," he said, his face falling. "We'll never make it to Rustboro in time."

Scooting a little closer to her trainer, Radiana looked with him outside. 'You're safe,' she countered. 'That's what matters.' The Pokémon glanced from the very corner of her eye to Wallace as his face grew tense. 'Master, if I may ask, why fight so hard for Team Magma? We could be free, go wherever you want, do whatever you want, and tying ourselves to them seems counterintuitive at best given they verge on destruction anyway. What makes them so worthy of all your efforts?'

Another shallow sigh escaped the young trainer. "It's a long story," he muttered, turning to look at the glimmering red orb sitting by the fire.

Radiana reached over and put a hand gently on his shoulder. 'You're right,' she answered, a grin just beginning to tug at her lip as she looked around the sparsely furnished cave. 'We're too busy. Best wait until we're bunkered down somewhere safe with nothing to do.'

Wallace laughed, then stopped. He waited for the pain of the action to catch up with him but went on when it failed to materialize. "It goes back to before the war," he leaned to one side, propping himself on his good arm. "Back then Hoenn was an affiliation of kingdoms, each ruled by a royal family and collectively controlled by a high king. The system was actually pretty simple; every five years the crown would rotate in a set pattern between the different royal families in an effort to minimize any fighting over power. For the most part it worked. There wasn't much in the way of open fighting between the royal families. There was a huge amount of political tension, saber rattling, and espionage, but the actual bloodshed was pretty minimal."

Crossing her legs and leaning forward, the little Pokémon focused her attention on her trainer. 'So what happened?' Radiana asked.

"Good question. No one is quite sure but," Wallace shrugged and trailed off. "My father told me that the Haruka clan, one of the royal families, got greedy, not wanting to give up their power. Their turn to rule was coming to an end so Norman and Caroline, the ruling patriarch and his wife, used the crown's authority to levy a number of huge taxes on the other families and emptied their coffers hiring the best mercenary armies from around the world. Naturally the other clans saw where that was going and they all allied against the Harukas, hoping the threat of total annihilation would be enough to force them to back down and surrender the crown peacefully."

Transfixed on her trainer, the psychic swallowed the lump forming in her throat. 'I suppose it wasn't?" she asked.

Wallace slowly shook his head. "No," he answered, his words solemnly masking a quivering in his tone. "It might have, if not for the efforts of two mercenary generals by the names of Samuel Oak and Utsugi Elm," he took a breath. "Elm sided with Norman and the rest of the Harukas, supplementing their already formidable armies with hundreds of trainers and literally thousands of Pokémon bred specifically for war. Oak meanwhile sided with the other allied clans and during the opening days of the war he and my grandmother tried to end things early by attacking Elm and Norman in their base in Petalburg. When the smoke cleared Oak and Elm were gone, Norman, Caroline, and my grandmother were dead, and Norman's two youngest children were missing. Everyone thought the Haruka's would surrender after that, but Norman's bastard Brendan stepped up and crowned himself high king. Without Norman's genius, and in light of Brendan's lack thereof, the war spiraled completely out of control. The allied clans exterminated the Harukas to a man, but Brendan took almost all of the other royal clans with him to the grave." He stopped and took a deep breath.

'You certainly know a great deal about-' Radiana cocked her head to one side. 'Your family wasn't one of the royal clans, was it?' she asked.

Wallace nodded, "My grandmother would have been high queen after Norman Haruka, had he stepped down when he was supposed to. My father was the only royal to survive, and he was the youngest son from his family."

The psychic's eyes twitched wider a moment. 'So you're actually royalty,' she stated. 'You have every bit as much claim to a hypothetical throne as this May Haruka, more even, since your family's turn to rule would have come after hers. You never mentioned any of this. I've never even heard it cross your mind.'

"It's not relevant," the young soldier shrugged. "The old kingdom's are gone, and that's," he paused and turned to the psychic. "That's why I'm going to give everything I've got to Team Magma. They're not perfect, not even close, but they're the best chance we've got for bringing some semblance of peace to Hoenn."

'What makes you say that?' asked the sanguine-eyed psychic.

Grimacing as he took a breath, Wallace slowly rolled to his stomach and stared at the glowing campfire and the glittering red orb beside it. "Team Aqua started out as a pirate alliance," he said. "They grew from a pair of run down ships with captains too weak to fight each other over territory into an armada of more than five hundred ships that pillaged Hoenn's southern and eastern shores without opposition until Magma stepped up to challenge them. Now they may control almost half the continent, but at heart they're still those pirates, more concerned with looting than with actually ruling anything. And May Haruka, with her Team Rocket thugs," he angrily fell silent. "She's no better than Aqua, not really. She wants Hoenn to bow down to her and she doesn't care who she has to kill to get there. She's just looking to finish what her father started." The young soldier went on, "And my father told me about hers. If his daughter is anything like him, then we cannot let her take the hypothetical throne," he looked to his Pokémon. "Hoenn can't survive another Haruka at the helm. Just look at how many people she's already killed and how many more are poised to be slaughtered just because she wants to say she rules the continent."

'I think understand,' Radiana answered.

The young soldier clenched his fists. "No, I really don't think you do," Wallace answered. "The last time our families fought over Hoenn, almost half a billion people died. Some four hundred million human beings were slaughtered or starved as a direct result of the war, and now, thanks to May and Aqua, history is primed to repeat itself. I cannot let that happen. I have to stop it Radiana. My family couldn't prevent this mess, so it's on me to clean it up." He went silent and stared at the fire.

Reaching forward again, the psychic put her hand gingerly on Wallace's. 'That's too heavy a burden for any one person to carry,' she said a minute later, stopping when he turned and looked up at her. 'I'd be happy to help you bear this, if you'll have me.'

Wallace lifted his wounded arm and set his hand on the psychic's, closing his fingers around hers. "I wouldn't have it any other way," he answered.

Giving his hand a squeeze, the psychic looked between and the campfire. 'I'll keep watch tonight so you can rest easy,' she said. 'We can make for Rustboro first thing in the morning if you're feeling well enough to walk.'

Wallace very slowly shifted onto his back and scooted onto the bedroll beside him. "Well enough or not," he responded somberly, "tomorrow we need to get moving. As much as I like this," he looked slowly around the cave, "secret base of ours, Team Rocket isn't going to wait for us to catch our breath."

The young trainer managed to roll to one side, angling his face away from the campfire and closing his eyes. Listening as his Pokémon got quietly to her feet, Wallace took a shallow breath and pulled the blankets bunched around his waist up over his shoulders. A few minutes slipped slowly by and the only sound in the cave, a mixture of the crackling campfire and the driving rain outside, slowly closed in around the young trainer's consciousness.

Wallace's face twisted into a grimace as, even with his eyes closed and his world slowly growing fuzzier, a single point of light flickered to life in the center of his field of view. So gradually Wallace found the change almost impossible to track, the point of light expanded to envelop his entire range of vision, taking on different colors and filling with shapes the soldier recognized. Even with his eyes closed he could see out the mouth of the cave in which he lay as plainly as though he personally sat by the entrance.

Confusion playing across his features, Wallace opened his eyes and silently rolled over to look towards the mouth of the cave. Spotting his Pokémon vigilantly standing guard at the entrance, Wallace's mind turned over what he had seen. "Odd," the trainer muttered, rolling back and closing his eyes again.

SC

His eyes snapping open, Wallace sucked in a startled breath as a wave of stiflingly heated air rolled over him. Looking around in an effort to get his bearings the young soldier felt his heart beginning to race as the total darkness in which he found himself grew hotter and hotter. In a matter of seconds the air be breathed into his lungs burned with such intensity the boy wondered what prevented him from catching fire. Worse still was the searing, fiery pain in his hand and, as he lifted his arm in a terrified bid to locate the source of the heat, Wallace spotted clenched involuntarily in his fist the glittering red orb he'd carried the past weeks.

Radiating an infernal light, the glassy artifact cast out sanguine rays that both illuminated and burned the boy's face. Filling his ears with a sickening noise and his nostrils with a nauseating odor, the sizzling and popping of roasting flesh sounded from the edges of Wallace's hand where his fingers gripped the orb. Wallace opened his mouth to scream and tried to release orb, but as he dropped to his knees, struggling desperately to overcome the block between his brain and the muscles in his arm, his fingers remained locked around the artifact. Even as his knees struck the ground Wallace felt an even greater heat engulfing his legs. Looking down the boy immediately realized he'd knelt on a floor of molten lava.

Looking up, too shocked to feel any more pain, Wallace found himself on his knees in the center of a lake of boiling magma that stretched in every direction as far as he could see beneath a sky blotted out clouds of dark smoke. As the superheated air whipped up around him, burning the boy's face and throwing his hair about, Wallace watched in utter awe as a tremendous bulge pushed up on the magma some hundreds of meters away, like a city sized bubble attempting to break through the surface of the molten lake.

As the orb in his seared hand grew yet hotter, glowing white hot with an intensity to rival the sun, Wallace watched as the rising bubble of lava rolled away and fell back to the lake, revealing beneath what the young soldier could only describe as a monster the size of a mountain rising up from the boiling magma. The beast stood on two legs, though the tremendous arms descending from its shoulders nearly brushed the surface of the lake of lava on which it stood and its enormous tail, flanged like a clawhammer, sprawled out hundreds of feet behind the monster. Its whole frame glowed and pulsed with crimson light that lit the clouds, which hovered just above its massive horned head, for thousands of feet in every direction and left Wallace terrified he'd combust from just the monster's radiating body heat.

The titanic monster rumbled, its simple act of breathing stirring up the surface of the lake of boiling rock like the wind of a storm. It turned and angled its head, a horned and bony structure covered in crimson plates of armor, directly at Wallace. Glaring at him with blank eyes of white fire that smoked and sparked, the creature opened its jaws wide, loosing a cascade of red hot lava from between its teeth that rolled over its tongue and out its mouth, falling like infernal rain.

Wallace lurched up in his bed, the monster's roar splitting the silence within his mind and catapulting him from the dream. Instantly the jerking motions bathed his whole body in a fiery ache that shattered his vision with flashing orbs of colorful light and before the young trainer could feel anything more, he noted a gentle hand fall to rest on his back. Looking over he spotted Radiana, looking to him with worry plain in her eyes.

'Master?' the psychic probed.

Taking several breaths to steady himself, each a little less painful than its predecessor, Wallace leaned forward and moved to rest his elbows on his knees. Only then did he register the weight in his wounded hand and, glancing down, spotted the glassy red orb locked in his fingers. "When did I grab this?" the trainer asked nervously staring at the artifact.

Radiana fell silent. 'I didn't see you get up,' she said slowly, stopping to examine the ground between Wallace and the campfire. 'You've slept uninterrupted since last night.'

His stomach sinking, the young Magman soldier set the orb on the ground, only then noticing the impression in the sand by the campfire where the artifact had previously rested. His eyes following the shallow trough in the sand that ran from the orb's previous resting place to just beside his bed, the trainer swallowed the lump in his throat. "Well that can't be good." He turned to his Pokémon. "Can you hand me my bag please?"

The psychic motioned her hand through the air and, flashing dully red, Wallace's heavy leather pack leapt through the air. The trainer raised his good hand and snatched the bag from the air, setting it between his knees and opening the flap. Quickly reaching inside, Wallace drew out a thick woolen blanket and wrapped the glassy artifact within its confines, immediately thereafter depositing the mass back in the bag and tying the leather pack securely shut. "Alright," the young soldier pushed himself to his feet, prompting Radiana to jump to his side and offer him a steadying hand, "let's get moving." The psychic and her trainer then took several minutes to give their secret campsite another going over, gathering up as many useful items as they could stuff into Wallace's bag before setting off from the cave.

Raising a hand over his eyes, Wallace looked up and stepped onto the sandy riverbank as the first rays of sunrise crept over the edges of the cliffs above and bathed the high stone walls in all species of color. For the first time in weeks the young trainer could actually see the sky as there floated not a cloud overhead as far as he could see from the bottom of the ravine. As the pair angled themselves north and walked opposite the flow of the river while the hours ticked by, the sun gradually rose into view and the red and orange lights flickering throughout the canyon faded, replaced by a light of such crystal clarity and intensity that Wallace frequently found himself shielding his eyes with his good hand.

As the trainer and his Pokémon followed the twists and turns of the river, the boy noted a distinct lack of pain in his left arm or in his wounded leg. Even his chest felt considerably lighter and less restricted than Wallace felt accustomed to, and with each passing mile the boy looked to limp less and less. By midday, the trainer moved with not only a renewed purpose but with a grin on his lips as well.

Offering Radiana the remains of a seedcake he did not intend to finish, Wallace broke the relative silence of their mobile lunch. "I should pass out from exhaustion more often," he said to his Pokémon as she accepted the bar and took a bite. "I'm actually feeling pretty decent, not great but better than I've been in weeks, maybe even since I got sick."

'Excellent,' responded the psychic, still chewing on her morsel. 'We can count that as good fortune.'

Wallace took a long and slow breath, gauging just how deep he could breathe before the spasms and pain in his lungs curtailed the action. After several seconds his lungs reached capacity without complaint and the boy exhaled, leaving his face slightly redder and his head light. "I'm almost afraid to hope this is the beginning of a trend."

Walking beside her trainer, the psychic reached up and put her hand on belt to get his attention. 'Master,' her words bore a coloring of anxiety as they echoed in Wallace's mind. 'Last night while you slept I sensed something,' she paused before going on, 'unusual.'

"And?" Wallace prompted when she failed to continue. "What happened?"

Radiana's eyes narrowed with thought as she walked. 'It's difficult to put into words, but I felt our connection, this,' she gestured between herself and the boy, 'link, grow stretched. It was as if, even though your body was within arm's reach, you yourself, your mind or whatever part of you with which I can psychically communicate, was far, far away.'

Wallace grimaced, remembering his dream of the lake of lava and the monster which rose from it. "That is odd," he muttered, then adding, "Any idea where I was?"

Shaking her head, the Pokémon released her grip on her trainer and resumed looking straight ahead. 'It's impossible to tell, but it felt as though you were many thousands of miles away or, more accurately,' the rhythm of her words slowed, 'and I hesitate to even say this, it felt like you were many thousands of miles below me. What's more, immediately after you awoke, I felt our link change,' the psychic looked over to him again. 'It's as if there's a great weight pressing in at your mind: crushing levels of anxiety and dread that seem to claw at your mind almost as if with a mind of their own.'

Wallace raised an eyebrow and the pit of his stomach twisted. "Well," he began slowly. "I believe you completely of course," he said cautiously, "but honestly I'm really not feeling any of that. I'm anxious to get to Rustboro and I'm worried Team Rocket will beat us there, but I've been more afraid of a dark room back home than I am of anything right now."

'That's because I'm shielding you from the effects,' Radiana answered flatly. 'For me it's easy enough, but if I weren't protecting you from it,' she stopped abruptly. 'Trust me, you'd be extremely unhappy right now.'

Walking another half mile or so in silence, Wallace stared at the sand moving beneath his feet and thought. "Any idea what's causing the," he looked for a word, "effects? Is there an outside source or is it all in my head?"

The Pokémon shrugged her shoulder noncommittally. 'I honestly can't say. If these effects persist I might be able to figure out what's going on.'

Wallace grumbled. "Fair enough." Stumbling a moment he reached down and put a hand on the psychic's shoulder. "This isn't going to divide your attention is it? Will shielding me from this, this dread, be distracting if we get into a fight?"

Radiana began to nod but curtailed the action. 'Possibly,' she answered. 'As it stands now the effort required is relatively minimal, though if we get ourselves into serious trouble the added distraction might prove a hindrance.'

"Well, thank you," Wallace smiled to his Pokémon, resting his hand on her shoulder. "Believe me, I appreciate it."

The psychic reached up and put her hand on Wallace's, walking in silence a moment longer. 'Pleasure,' she answered.

As the pair walked on Wallace relayed to the psychic the dream he'd had the night before, paying special attention to the glassy orb's apparent role in the happenings. As he spoke Radiana listened intently and without interruption, staring straight ahead as the ravine through which they walked grew narrower and the walls towered higher. By the time Wallace finished his story, the trainer and his Pokémon found themselves traversing a narrow strip of beach only a few meters wide as the river beside which they walked continued to widen.

As the sun passed its zenith and began its lazy descent into the west, Wallace and Radiana stopped on the edge of the river, by now more than twice as wide as it had been when they set off. Across the shallow ford before them, rising out of the bank opposite where they stood, the Pokémon and her trainer saw carved into the ravine's sand colored wall a high tower, running from the beach below to the very top of the canyon. Through the windows punctuating the tower's exterior wall both companions could see the winding staircase within, the sight of which made Wallace's heart sink.

Sensing the distress in his thoughts, Radiana turned to her trainer. 'Are you alright master?' she asked.

Looking up the wall of the tower, itself reaching at least a hundred feet high, Wallace swallowed the lump in his throat. "I'll be fine," he said nervously. "It's just," he again surveyed the tall, narrow steps within the tower. "I really hate stairs," he instinctively shifted his weight from one leg to the other as every muscle between his ankles and his waist began to ache in dread of the coming climb.

'I could carry you,' Radiana responded. 'It wouldn't be hard.'

"No," the boy answered. "Honestly the exercise will be good for me. If I pass out though you be sure to catch me."

The psychic nodded. 'Understood master.'

Wallace managed to avoid passing out during his ascent of the tower, though by the time he and Radiana reached the top the boy had to stop and rest his hands on his knees, gasping for air and dripping with sweat. As the young soldier tried to catch his breath, Radiana put a hand on his back in silent solidarity, after which the two companions took a moment to get their bearings, angle themselves westwards, and resume their march towards the setting sun. By the time the sun had set, Radiana and Wallace arrived on the road which had until recently connected Rustboro to the lands to the east via the now demolished bridge. Unwilling to surrender to fatigue, Wallace pressed forward until almost midnight.

At Radiana's direction however the two partners stopped and made a rough camp some ways off the road. Refusing to light a fire for the possibility of alerting anyone to their presence, they shared a cold dinner of stale rations before turning in for the night. Against Wallace's concerns, Radiana kept watch insisting she could rest and recuperate while monitoring their surroundings for any hostile creatures or people. As such, Wallace spread a bedroll and curled up beneath the threadbare blanket he'd tucked away in his pack.

SC

Finding himself on a craggy shore of sharp black stones bordering a vast ocean of glowing magma, Wallace stood and stared dumbly for a moment. Regaining his focus, the young soldier twitched as he registered where he stood, taking his time to look around for any landmarks that might betray his location.

"Ah," the trainer mumbled, looking straight down and seeing the magma lapping at the shore like the surf on a beach, the glowing liquid stone sluggishly rolling up to the very tips of his toes before draining back out into the molten ocean. "I must be dreaming again." He glanced upwards, seeing again the ceiling of dark smoke from his previous dream stretching out in every direction.

"Intruder," the single word rumbled simultaneously through Wallace's mind and his ears, a voice speaking both a human tongue and as a psychic echo of such volume the young soldier reflexively dropped to his knees and pressed his hands over his ears with all his strength. "You are not Samuel."

Still shoving his palms against his ears, Wallace doubled over towards the ground as he looked around for the source of the voice, seeing only the shaking of the surface of the fiery ocean as the words rumbled and echoed from every direction at once. The boy felt as much as heard the voice as even the ground on which he knelt shook with every syllable the invisible speaker uttered. "Where are you?" the trainer managed to shout, his every nerve buzzing from the voice having physically so shaken him. "Who are you?"

"Human," the enormous, rumbling speaker continued, leaving Wallace crumpled as though the single word had struck against him a crippling blow. "You fumble in my mind, ignorant, utterly incapable of comprehension." The voice grew yet louder, speaking with a perfect serenity but rumbling such that Wallace wondered how the world kept from flying apart before the intensity of the sound. "I am Groudon,"it said.

Dropping his forehead to the ground, Wallace gave up searching for the source of the voice and instead closed his eyes and braced himself against the shaking.

"Tell me," the voice demanded, "who, or what, are you?"

The young soldier looked up only slightly. "My name's Wallace," he answered after taking a moment in an effort to compose himself. "Wallace Weaver. I'm sorry," he called out, "I don't know why I'm here. I didn't mean to intrude."

"Yet here you are," Groudon's response shook the boy to his core, "fighting to survive even the most superficial contact with but the tiniest fraction of my mind, a mote of dust struggling against the winds of a hurricane. However," Groudon's tone grew introspective, "perhaps you could prove yourself useful to me."

Shifting such that he could both rest his elbows on the ground and resume his search for the source of the voice, Wallace suddenly sensed that no matter where he looked in the apparently empty hellscape he stared straight into the eyes of an alien being of immeasurable power. Paralyzed with fear, he tried to breathe but barely succeeded in even parting his lips. "I'll be leaving," he managed to call out. "I'll just get out of here and be out of your hair."

A thunderous clap knocked Wallace prone, followed by another such explosion and then another. As the rumblings subsided Wallace realized the entity was laughing. "Yes, you will," the voice returned, "for you are of no use here."

The young trainer looked up, confused. "Use to you?" he asked, his tone a combination of terrified and curious. "What do you want from me?"

"You will help me finish what began a generation ago,"Groudon rumbled. "You will undo my shackles that I may burn the filth from this world."

"What?" the trainer gasped. "Burn the filth? What on earth do you mean by that?" Wallace found his thoughts beginning to stabilize and his fear lessened in intensity without ebbing away entirely.

"You will free me that I may end the reign of man and cleanse from my world all impurities, all traces of the wind and water," Groudon answered. "Too long has mankind claimed mastery of nature and too long have agents of the deep roamed unchecked across my land. Your service," the voice focused in on Wallace, "will be as the falling of a stone that launches the avalanche. Groudon will rise. All will burn."

The knot in his stomach twisting and growing hot, Wallace felt his terror beginning to give way. Looking up again he tightened his jaw and balled his hands into fists as he pushed himself to his feet. "I don't know who you think you are," the boy called out, looking around for an agent he could face. "But you don't get to order me to do anything!"

"Presumptuous, arrogant speck," Groudon sounded in a low roar, threatening to knock Wallace to his knees again. "Yours is not to challenge or dare to deny me. The sum total of your purpose is to grovel to serve me, to beg I deign to make you an instrument of my will."

"Don't like it?" the young soldier shouted, an edge of defiance overtaking and rising above the fear in his voice. "Blow me!"

A blast of searing air bowled into Wallace from above, crashing against his shoulders with such force he dropped to his knees, his nose filling with the smell of his own burning flesh. "Insolence gains you nothing," Groudon's bellow threw Wallace to his back on the hot ground, every word striking the boy with such crushing force Wallace felt as though his very bones would break beneath them at any moment. "You will serve me. The only question is whether or not you will do so of your own will or because I have so broken you that no choice remains."

Lying flat, his arms out to his sides and immobilized by an invisible, crushing weight, Wallace strained with all his strength to move, but failed to even budge. "And you say I'm the ignorant one," the biting defiance in his words sharpening further. "I said I'm not doing anything for you, so blow me you- Ah!" the trainer screamed as his eyes snapped open painfully wide. A screeching howl stabbed at his ears and into his mind like an intangible knife. Wallace screwed his eyes shut, straining to turn his head to the side as if to escape the psychic edge he felt sawing into his skull.

"Resist," Groudon laughed the word. "Please, fight with all your strength. Put your heart into it if you think it makes any difference."

Howling in pain, Wallace heaved against the force holding him in place. Wrenching one arm free of its invisible restraints, Wallace raked his nails down his forehead. "Stay out of my head!" he screamed, his skull boiling with pain as if unseen talons dug into his head trying to pull his skull wide open. "I am not helping you!" he screamed.

Wallace froze, wanting nothing more than to stand and walk away but unable to move or even speak. He clenched his jaw and ground his teeth together, closing his eyes tight and pressing his cheek to the ground. Wallace took a breath to scream, but an instant later felt the infernal heat and the crushing oppression of the malevolent presence vanish. He shook with the sudden change of stimuli as he found himself laying on a bedroll beneath a threadbare blanket, early morning sunshine streaming down on his face. His breathing punctuated by short and rapid spasms in his chest, Wallace opened his eyes and spotted Radiana kneeling above him, her own big red eyes staring down at him with no shortage of worry.

'Master,' her voice, psychic as it was, shook with nerves. 'Are you alright?'

Wallace looked around their little campsite before taking hold of the corner of his blanket and pressing it against his forehead, pulling it away soaked with sweat. "I don't think so," he muttered, dropping the blanket and sitting up as his Pokémon shuffled back a few inches. "Something is very, very wrong," he rested his wrists on his knees, staring at his backpack as if he expected the orb within to burn its way out at any second.

'Yes,' the psychic responded. 'Master, moments ago the defenses I raised in your mind nearly shattered. Something tried to smash its way in and it took everything I had just to keep your mind intact,' she went on. 'You were tossing in your sleep whenever the attacker tried to force its way in so I woke you, hoping that would end the attack.'

Wallace sighed and dropped his head. "Good call," he answered. "Thank you."

'Master,' the Pokémon leaned forward and put a hand gently on her trainer's arm. 'What happened?'

Still shaking with fear, Wallace turned from his companion and stared at his backpack. "I'm not sure, but either I'm having the worst and most realistic nightmares in history, or we've stumbled backwards upon the most powerful, most evil, creature I've ever imagined," he said, pushing himself to his feet. "Come on," he said, reaching down and shouldering his pack. "We've got to get to Rustboro. We can talk on the way."

Radiana swept her hand through a quick motion and her trainer's backpack, flashing red, shot through the air and into Wallace's hand. 'Master,' she began sheepishly as Wallace stuffed his bedroll and blanket into the leather pack, 'I don't know what we're dealing with, and I want you to know that I'll do everything in my power to protect you from it, but unless the power I felt today accounts for absolutely everything this,' she took a brief second to choose her next word, 'adversary can throw at us, I doubt I'll be of any use against it,' the psychic looked up and into her trainer's eyes, anxiety and something approaching sadness plain in her own as tears threatened to spill down her cheeks.

Without a second's hesitation, Wallace knelt down in front of his Pokémon and put his hands on her shoulders. "You'll do your best and I'm positive that will be enough," he said firmly. "I have total faith in you and that won't change no matter what happens. Clear?" he smiled.

Her breathing still noticeably shaky, the Pokémon hesitated only a second before jumping forward and throwing her arms around Wallace's neck, burying her face in his shoulder and pulling herself tight against him. 'I'll get stronger,' she answered. 'I promise I'll never stop working until I'm strong enough to protect you.'

Embracing the psychic as best he could with his wounded arm, Wallace patted her back. "That wasn't what I meant for you to take away from this," he said as comfortingly as he could. "Don't worry. We're going to be alright. Now," the young soldier leaned back enough to see her eye to eye, reaching up with one hand to wipe a tear from her cheek, "we've got an invasion to stop."