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.

11. Wallace - Chapter 5 - Flame on the Water

Wallace – Chapter Five – Flames on the Water

Cresting the tall and grassy hill, Wallace stopped and leaned forward as though the beating down of the scorching sun overhead physically weighed on him. Resting his hands on his knees and taking several deep breaths while his head spun, the young trainer opened his eyes and looked down as the little Pokémon beside him reached up and put a hand on his leg. Responding with an affectionate pat on her head, the boy stood up and stared along the slope of the hill under his feet.

Flowing towards him from the horizon far to the west, the ocean glimmered like a sheet of polished sapphire beneath the glowing sun in the cloudless sky, unbroken by visible waves or disturbances of any kind save the great protrusions of stone and sand jutting into the water from Hoenn's western coastline. The resulting bay of placid water, a great basin perhaps two and a half or three kilometers across stood open to the ocean on its western flank, shielded in the north and south by the arms of sand and stone extending westward, and adorned by a beach of glittering yellow sand on its eastern front. Built up along the beach and extending inland more than a mile stood the city of Rustboro, a collection of hundreds of structures consisting of every shape and size of building from single story shacks to towering skyscrapers. Laid out on a nearly perfect grid of streets and ringed in by a network of watchtowers and low palisades the city looked exactly as it did in his father's old maps. As the sun rose higher in the sky, less than an hour from attaining its zenith for the day, Wallace surveyed the bay and the ocean beyond it, spotting no ships or landing craft or any artificial constructs of any kind.

Raising his hand to shield his face, the young trainer stared out to sea, straining to catch a glimpse of Team Rocket's armada but seeing nothing of the sort.

Smiling, the lieutenant stood a little straighter. "I guess we beat Rocket here," Wallace turned to Radiana, feeling as though a great weight lifted itself from his shoulders.

Her eyes narrowing, the psychic maintained her trainer's stare to the west. "Perhaps the misdirection you fed that Rocket soldier bought us some time after all. Forgive me," she looked up to him abruptly as her words faded into the back of her trainers mind. "I did not mean to doubt you." The Pokémon turned again to look off to sea. "Well played."

Sighing with relief and letting his head droop forward, Wallace visibly relaxed and put a hand on Radiana's shoulder. "C'mon," he said, surveying the lay of the city and talking himself through the search. "Captain McNomic said our headquarters are on the outskirts of the city, just south of the fifteenth watchtower from the north," the young soldier stood on the hill and, spotted the first of the prominent stone towers ringing in the city, counted his way down. "There," he pointed to a two story structure with a large mast-like lookout post protruding from its roof. Unlike the rest of the city the particular building to which Wallace gestured looked to have been constructed recently and primarily of wooden timbers rather than the light grey and white stone which dominated the rest of Rustboro's architecture.

Motioning for his Pokémon to follow, Wallace set off down the hill, maintaining his pace despite the burning in his legs and the fatigue gnawing at his arms and his back. As he walked, despite Radiana ambling directly beside him and frequently reassuring him with a pat on the leg or his side, Wallace felt a nebulous dread creeping into the pit of his stomach and slowly spreading throughout his core. Almost in tandem with the darkening of his spirit Wallace suddenly noticed the world around him beginning to grow darker as well; the grass beneath his feet dulled until the hitherto glistening spikes of emerald foliage looked almost dead, and the shining cerulean ocean's luster faded. The waters took on a murky cast. Nothing physically changed, but Wallace's senses and perceptions clouded with sudden, aggressive despair.

Her whole frame jerking as though she'd suffered a blow, Radiana dropped to her knees and gasped, her hand snapping out as she grabbed a fistful of her trainer's pant leg to steady herself. 'Master,' she gasped as Wallace instinctively dropped to one knee and wrapped one arm around her to hold the psychic steady. 'Master!' she this time screamed, the psychic echo radiating barefaced fear. ' Something is here,' her breathing grew rapid. She reached with her free hand and pressed her palm to her temple, squinting and projecting an icy focus. 'Groudon, the orb, it's angry. It's clawing at your head.' She dropped to all fours. 'I can barely hold him off.'

Wallace looked up and felt his mouth grow dry. "Radiana?" he muttered nervously, unflinchingly watching as the sky darkened. Grey clouds that grew blacker by the second climbed over the western horizon and rolled east with an unnatural speed on the calm afternoon, darkening the water beneath them. The air likewise seemed to grow both dark and dry as the gathering clouds sucked any moisture from the atmosphere. Overtaking the sun and plunging the world as far as Wallace could see in an inky gloom the clouds continued their relentless race east, flashing occasionally with internal lights, punctuated by regular and frequent rumbles of thunder.

Tugging at her trainer's belt, Radiana looked to Wallace as he looked down to her. 'We need to leave, now. Team Rocket is coming,' the psychic stated, her tone growing more calm as she stood up and refocused her attention on the horizon. 'And they've brought something-' she paused just long enough to search for a proper descriptor, 'big, something that has Groudon raging mad...'

Wallace gritted his teeth. "I don't see any ships yet," he barked, putting his hand on Radiana's, wrapping his fingers around hers. He scooped her up on his shoulder and set off down the hill again. "We've got to get to headquarters and warn them!"

As Wallace ran his motions grew ever heavier and more awkward, the exhaustion, the weight of his mail, and lack of practice bringing him to the brink of collapse. And still the clouds overhead grew yet darker and seemed to descend towards the city below until perhaps only a few hundred feet separated the tops of Rustboro's shortest buildings from the bottom of the now black haze. By the time Wallace arrived within a hundred meters of the Magman headquarters he could clearly make out the figures in orange armor standing atop the watchtowers and the shorter building's roof. Too tired to call out, the young soldier focused instead on closing the distance between himself and the town.

Her voice piercing into his mind, Radiana grabbed her trainer's hair and pulled him to a stumbling halt. 'Master Stop!' she shouted. 'We're too late. It's here.'

Looking to the clouds above the Magman headquarters, Wallace's mouth dropped open. A single bolt of lightning blazing brighter than the sun shot between the clouds and the roof of Team Magma's headquarters. An instant later Wallace's whole field of vision exploded in a white flash as the wooden building only a few hundred feet away disappeared in a silent fireball the size of a city block. The deafening roar of the detonation then bowled Wallace to the ground, throwing him to his back and leaving him ill and wheezing.

The young soldier pushed himself to one elbow as Radiana knelt to help him up, both trainer and Pokémon looking up as the fireball that had been Magma's headquarters rose and carried aloft in its wake all manner of debris, smoke, and dust. Even over such a cacophony Wallace and Radiana heard from above the clouds the shrieking and roaring of dozens of Pokémon, spotting mere seconds later many winged shapes as they'd heard warcries descending out of the gloom.

His heart dropping into his stomach, Wallace felt his chest clench in fear. A dozen Fearow and as many Pidgeot, Golbat, Pidgeotto, and Venamoth, even a pair of Charizard dove out of the sky and angled for the watchtowers surrounding the city. As the flighted Pokémon engaged the trainers in the watchtowers, a brief flurry of bolts of lightning and blasts of fire shot through the air and illuminated the gloom like fireworks. Seemingly mere instants later the towers nearest the demolished headquarters burst into flame and continued burning like torches as their assailants turned their attention on the still shocked inhabitants of the next targeted tower. Wallace watched in horror as the towers blazed and smoked, unable to look away as more than once a humanoid shape would leap from the burning post and hurdle towards the ground some fifty feet below.

'Master!' Radiana's voice snapped Wallace from his shock. 'We need to leave!'

Shaking his head, Wallace pushed himself to his feet. "There could be survivors!" he shouted back, running for the still burning wreckage of the headquarters. "We need to help them evacuate however we can!"

As the young soldier passed between two of the watchtowers, running through an abandoned gate in the palisade, he heard the roaring of the spreading fires and the screams of the wounded and the terrified. Everywhere he looked people had begun stepping out of the surrounding buildings or poking their heads out of windows to see what was going on and, as he neared the ruins, the trainer spotted numerous men and women and their Pokémon standing and staring dumbstruck at the burning headquarters.

Skidding to a stop in the midst of about a dozen trainers and Magman soldiers gathered at an intersection of two roads, Wallace took in the faces around him as the other soldiers, most as young as if not younger than himself he saw, turned to look at him. "I'm Lieutenant Wallace Weaver!" shouted the young trainer, Radiana right beside him. "Who's in charge here?"

A young woman stepped forward and slowly raised one hand to draw Wallace's attention just as the wailing of sirens began rising up from all throughout the city. "Our Gym Leader and all of Team Magma's officers were in there," she pointed to the burning wreckage, her voice barely audible as the wind from the fire violently tossed her light brown hair about. "I think that makes me the new Gym Leader," she went on, shock plain in both her trembling voice and her crimson eyes. "And if you're a lieutenant then that probably makes you the garrison's ranking officer."

Wallace flinched, but quickly shook himself out of it. "Fine, whatever," he barked. "What's your name?" he asked the trainer with the sanguine eyes.

Another explosion demolished yet another watchtower only a block away, prompting everyone gathered around wallace to cower and guard their faces against flying debris. "Roxanne," the fresh Gym Leader answered, gasping then as if just regaining her senses. "What's going on?" she hand went to her belt and grabbed a pokeball. "What's attacking us?"

Before he could answer Wallace turned as one of the trainers in orange mail beside him screamed for everyone to watch out. An instant later a Charizard and its armored rider streaked out of the sky towards them. As the dragon opened its jaws, angling for the gathering of trainers, Wallace grabbed his Kirlia's wrist, wrapped one arm around Roxanne's waist, and threw himself to the side with all his strength. Radiana swept one hand through the air and instantly a sheet of pale yellow light sprang to life between her trainer and the diving Charizard. The trio collapsed to the ground just as the dragon shot by and the road on which they'd stood a moment prior burst into flame, several of the tongues of fire and bits of burning debris turned away from the would-be victims only by Radiana's shield. Two of the Magman soldiers tumbled away from the attack, their bodies engulfed in fire, as the remaining juvenile troopers likewise leapt away or dove screaming for cover.

Even as dirt and bits of debris rained down on them, Wallace turned to Rustboro's newest Gym Leader and they both shifted up to their knees. "Roxanne!" he shouted over the noise all around. "Listen to me, Team Rocket is here! We don't have near enough manpower to stop them so we need to fall back or we're all dead!"

Roxanne's features visibly fell as what little color her face possessed drained away. "That's impossible," she shouted back over the noise. "Rocket was supposed to march east! They weren't going to target Rustboro!"

Wallace jerked to one side to look skywards as another grating roar tore through the still darkening afternoon, but turned back to Roxanne when no immediate threat materialized. "Well they're here!" he answered. "Now we need to get as many personnel as possible out of the city before it's overrun. With HQ gone how do we order a full retreat?" Wallace waited a moment, his frustration obvious, for Roxanne to respond. "Hey!" he barked again, the shout leaving his chest tight and pained as the young woman beside him looked blankly at the ground. "We don't have time for this! How can we get our people out of here!?"

Features still blank with shock, Roxanne looked between Wallace and the ground without answering.

Stepping up beside her trainer, Radiana crossed her hands behind her back. 'Slap her?' suggested the psychic.

Wallace shook his head, instead putting his hands on the Gym Leader's shoulders. "Roxanne," he said as calmly as he could, though an edge of anxiety still colored his tone, "time is not on our side, please," he pleaded, very lightly shaking her shoulders as if to wake her from sleep. "How can we get our men away from those flyers and out of the city?" He paused to wait but grimaced as Roxanne remained silent and shifted her full attention to the ground at her knees.

'She's in shock,' the psychic put her hand on Wallace's shoulder. 'We should get out of here.'

Thinking a moment, Wallace tightened his grip on Roxanne's shoulders before taking a breath and visibly steeling himself. Shifting quickly forward the young soldier closed his eyes and jammed his lips against Roxanne's, forcefully kissing her and pulling her closer to him as both Radiana's eyes and Roxanne's snapped open wide. The latter sat stunned for a moment before her focus returned and she began to pull away, slapping Wallace across the face several times with both hands before he let go and leaned back.

Wiping one hand across her lips, Roxanne scuttled back and pressed her other fist over her chest. "What the hell do you think you're doing?" she yelled, glaring at the young soldier.

Shielding his face as another fireball lit up the city around them, Wallace met Roxanne's eye. "Getting your attention!" he shouted back, pushing himself to his feet as Roxanne mirrored his action and Radiana took a step backwards. "Now I need you to tell me right now, how can we evacuate Team Magma's and your Gym's people?"

"Uh. We could, uh," Roxanne stammered, her eyes flitting from side to side as she gathered herself. "The sewers," she answered a moment later. "Rustboro was built above a series of tidal caves that were drained, sealed off, and repurposed for the sewer system. It's more than spacious enough to allow for everyone to get out, plus there are tunnels running between the Gym and Devon's main office that feed into the sewers."

Wallace nodded. "Good start," he answered. "How do we get everyone into the sewers and where do we go from there?"

Roxanne moaned quietly, her hands shaking as she balled them into fists and pressed them against her temples while she wracked her brain, desperately trying to maintain a semblance of her composure. "The tunnels come out a few kilometers north of town. Route 115 is heavily forested and leads towards Fallarbor."

A wide but nervous grin spread across Wallace's face even as the roaring of fires consuming the city's watchtowers and Magma's outposts grew louder. "Excellent," he almost cheered. "Fallarbor has a formidable Magman presence. How do we get the word out for everyone to evacuate?"

The sanguine eyed young woman tugged at her hair. "Normally we'd use the emergency broadcast radio," Roxanne answered.

"Alright," Wallace responded. "Where's that?"

Roxanne pointed to the burning ruin of Team Magma's base and Wallace's face fell. The lieutenant cursed, but Roxanne quickly went on, "If we could get to the beach there's a weather station with a radio; it's old but powerful and if I can get a few minutes I should be able to rig it up to send out an emergency broadcast."

Turning to his Pokémon, Wallace looked between the street before him and Radiana. "Care for a walk on the beach?" he asked.

Speaking almost too calmly for the situation, Radiana nodded. 'Lead the way,' she answered flatly, an edge in her words.

Running from the middle of the street Wallace, Radiana, and Roxanne ducked beside one of Rustboro's many stone buildings and began hurrying west as quickly and clandestinely as possible. More than once they had to flee into an alley as a whole squad of flighted Pokémon soared overhead and rained fire and bolts of lightning on any Magman troopers in the street, only emerging from cover when the threat had passed. As they ran the trio heard the roaring of fires growing quieter and the frequency of diving attacks by Rocket's airborne forces decreasing. Nevertheless the panic sewn in Rustboro by the attacks from above took hold and froze the city in panic. Everywhere groups of people would emerge from their homes or other buildings, only to flee back inside at the sight of the monsters flying overhead. Anyone showing signs of resistance, trainers unleashing Pokémon or soldiers drawing weapons, were swooped down upon by the Rocket Forces and either driven inside or slain in the streets, cut down by flashes of lightning, bolts of fire, or a mounted archer's well-aimed missile.

As the party ducked out from between two buildings, Roxanne looked skywards, watching as a Charizard flew west, followed by no fewer than a dozen Fearow and as many other Pokémon. "Where are they going?" asked the novice Gym Leader. "All our flyers would have been killed at the HQ."

Rounding a corner and finding themselves on a wide, paved street running parallel to and along Rustboro's lengthy beach, Wallace skidded to a stop, prompting Roxanne and Radiana to do the same. The city ended abruptly at the road, with none of its structures or streets spilling out onto the beach save a single concrete building sporting a steel antenna perhaps a hundred feet high poking out of the sand on the water's edge. Neither the structure nor the beach on which it sat drew Wallace's attention however.

The young soldier stood silent and shocked, staring at the bay beyond the beach on which floated at least twenty warships painted black and red, completely blocking the exit from the bay to the open ocean beyond. Beyond those warships Wallace saw what he guessed to be a number of transport vessels, short but wide vehicles of black steel which outnumbered the battleships at least two to one. Next to draw Wallace's attention were the many dozens of landing craft, small steel boats shielded from attacks from the front and above, floating in formations before the larger warships. Having yet to begin their race for the beach, the assault craft waited menacingly as Wallace watched even smaller boats ferry men in gleaming black armor from the warships and transports to the landing craft.

Wallace could only imagine the resources Team Rocket had poured into this invasion.

Spotting the heavy chain securing the structure's entrance, Roxanne meanwhile sprinted across the beach to the door of the weather station, jumped, and threw her shoulder against the deadbolt. A loud crack filled the air but the door remained fastly closed. "The damn thing won't open!" she swore through clenched teeth, tears forming in her eyes even as she drew a pokeball from her belt and kicked at the door. When the door steadfastly refused to give and Wallace remained motionlessly staring at the waiting Rocket armada, Roxanne threw the pokeball to the ground. As the little orb split open and the whirling dervish of white light materialized, Roxanne stepped back. "Geodude!" she shouted as a squat, spheroid Pokémon boasting inhumanly muscular arms and a skin the color of slate rolled out of the light and awaited orders. "Get me in there now!"

Wallace snapped to, shifting his attention from the warships less than a thousand meters away to the young woman and her Pokémon as the Geodude invested the next several seconds in smashing the metal door messily off its hinges before throwing the obstacle from its trainer's path. "We're not going to have enough time," Wallace muttered, turning back to fleet, then to Roxanne, then back again. "How long will you need to get that radio broadcasting?" he shouted.

Looking over to Wallace, Roxanne's features grew hard and serious. "Depends, maybe ten minutes, how long do we have?"

Watching as the last of the loading boats disappeared behind the warships and the dozens of landing craft began chugging through the water for Rustboro's beach, Wallace muttered beneath his breath, "not nearly so long as that." He motioned for Roxanne to go. "Just get it done!" he shouted. "No matter what happens, you get that radio functioning and you give the order to evacuate! If you can, send a force to get the treasury out of Maxie's palace. We can't let Team Rocket capture that gold!"

Roxanne nodded. "I'll have the instructions blaring from every radio in Rustboro. Where will you be?"

Waiting a moment to answer, Wallace looked to his Pokémon as the psychic stepped silently up beside him. "No telling," he answered too quietly for her to hear before going on. "Just get it done!" he shouted. "Forget me!"

"Hey Wallace!" Roxanne called, poking her head out the door. "Try not to die!" She disappeared inside the building with her Geodude, leaving Wallace and Radiana alone on the beach as no fewer than one hundred and fifty Team Rocket landing craft, each packed with soldiers and trainers, charged for the beach.

The young trainer turned to Radiana. "Any ideas?" he asked.

Radiana slowly shook her head without looking up. 'You never seem content to flee with me to safety,' she shrugged one shoulder. 'So no, none at all.'

"Alright," Wallace answered, dropping to one knee and pulling his backpack around before him. "Well then let's hope this works." He unfastened the leather strap holding the pack closed and upended the leather bag, dumping its contents out in an unceremonious heap. An instant later the red orb, glowing as ever with its own internal crimson light, plopped down on the beach with a loud thud and a small spray of sand that hinted at the artifact weighing much more than it appearance suggested. "Radiana," Wallace said as calmly as he could, though his voice still shook with anxiety as he picked up the orb, "drop the shield around my mind, please."

Spinning on her heel, the psychic faced her trainer, her eyes wide and her expression aghast. 'Master no,' she answered, her words rushed nearly to the point of unintelligibility. 'There's no way to know what will happen or if you can even establish contact,' Radiana got a grip on the meter of her words and reached with one hand to grab at her trainer's belt. 'This Groudon wants to crush you and I can see no good coming of asking its help.'

Wallace nodded as the Rocket landing crafts closed within five hundred yards of the beach. "If we had the time I'd work on a better plan," he answered, wearing a nervous smile as the roiling and glowing smoke within the orb seemed to spin just a little faster at his touch, "but on such short notice this is the best I can do. Plus," he thought for a brief second, "the way this weather just rolled in, almost supernaturally fast and hard, something tells me Groudon might be inclined to help."

Tightening her grip on his belt, Radiana began to tremble, going quiet for a second before she spoke again. 'Master I'm sorry I was-' she cut herself off, looking out over the bay to the approaching transports. 'You're sure you want to go through with this?'

Wallace shook his head, laughing nervously for a few fast heartbeats before getting a grip. "Not in the slightest," he answered. "Do it."

Radiana continued shaking lightly. 'I'll be right beside you the whole time,' she said, straightening her shoulders as if bracing against an impending attack, 'even if you can't see me.'

Wallace took a deep breath, feeling suddenly a profound sense of nakedness despite his mail and cloak as he looked down and saw the red orb clenched in his fist begin to shine with the intensity of a miniature sun. An instant later the young soldier felt his stomach twist with nausea as both a deathly chill and a hellish wave of heat overtook him. He looked up and about, finding himself still on Rustboro's beach with Radiana at his side and the Rocket assault crafts closing, but struck by an overwhelming sense of isolation. Never before had he felt smaller or more alone.

Beginning as a trembling in the air around him that grew into a bone shaking, explosion of a sound that Wallace felt only he could hear, Groudon's presence made itself known in the young trainer's mind. "Human," the thunderous greeting echoed through the trainer's skull, the single word nearly bowling Wallace over. "You terminated our previous exchange prematurely. I should destroy you for that." Groudon's voice trailed off and, Wallace sensed through the cloud of fear scratching at the edges of his mind, bore a hint of curiosity.

Beginning to shiver, Wallace violently shook himself once to put an end to his trembling. "You mentioned last time we talked that you had a job for me, something about releasing you from a binding of some kind," the young trainer called out, his voice carrying off and into the distance with unnatural clarity. "I thought we might be able to make a deal."

Trembling again as he sensed the chill stabbing into his spine grow more intense, Wallace glanced around, another sensation taking hold. Prompted to scan his surroundings by a sense that something was sickeningly wrong, the young soldier instantly noted the flaw in the world around him: it seemed to be standing still in time. As he looked down to Radiana, Wallace saw her holding onto him, unbreathing and unblinking, still as a statue. Likewise looking out over the bay Wallace spotted the landing crafts frozen in place, some cresting a wave while others sat unmoving in the trough of an identically motionless dip in the water. The world as far as the boy could see sat still as a photograph. Even he himself, the young lieutenant felt, actually stood still; he was moving neither his head or his eyes, as both were as frozen as the rest of the world, he merely sensed the world around him as though he could look around… perhaps because that was the only way his brain knew to interpret the stimulus, Wallace thought to himself.

"You overestimate your utility," Groudon's booming voice returned, "a bacterium attempting to bargain with god."

Wallace felt as though he turned around and watched as, from over the eastern horizon a hazy, almost transparent form seemed to take shape in the atmosphere. Like a mountainous storm cloud walking on two legs, the incalculably huge figure of a titanic beast rose up and towered over Wallace, staring down at the boy with eyes like the sun shining through fog.

"I don't doubt your power," Wallace stated as calmly as he could, "and I'm all too aware of how easily and how quickly you could wipe me off the face of the world so, as rude as I've been, I have to wonder why you haven't." Wallace went silent a moment, waiting for an answer from the titan above him but continuing when Groudon remained silent. "I think you need something, and I think that something is this," Wallace brought the orb to the forefront of his mind and, though he could not actually lift it, to the monster's attention. "Am I right?"

The glowing eyes set in his monstrous form narrowed but Groudon remained silent.

Unable to prevent a smug but still nervous grin from spreading over his face, Wallace let himself relax ever so slightly, feeling he had scored a point. "So," he began, "you should probably know I've left express orders with my psychic companion here, the one capable of fighting off your influence, that should anything happen to me she's to take this artifact as far over the horizon as a ship can carry her and send your orb to the bottom of the goddamned ocean," Wallace lied as forcefully as he could. "So have I got your attention now?"

"And you should know," Groudon's booming voice grew lower and somehow more menacing, "that if she does, your destruction will be slow and complete. Nothing of you will remain to crawl off to whatever afterlife awaits you microbes."

Wallace took a deep breath. "So that's a yes," he said. "But you seem to think that destruction scares me. Groudon," Wallace shifted his weight from one foot to the other, "as near as I care, I died months ago and every second since is just one more I have to put up with living in this condition, just waiting for a relapse to finish me off. I don't think you understand how little I fear the worst you can possibly do to me because believe me, big guy, when I say I've been through worse." The young soldier paused as he felt the oppressive heat and withering chills ebb away slightly.

"What do you want?" Groudon asked.

Again Wallace allowed himself a flicker of hope as he felt Groudon giving ground. "Team Rocket is closing on this city as we speak," Wallace answered, pointing with his mind towards the bay and the ships floating thereon. "When their forces land they'll seize control and either kill or imprison every Magman and Gym Member they find. You're going to stop them and buy my people time to evacuate. In exchange I won't dump this orb in the middle of the ocean. Fair?"

The monstrous figure looming over the eastern horizon grew larger as though it took a step closer to Wallace, its two shining eyes burning with what the boy could only assume to be fury. "In exchange," Groudon's words thundered in Wallace's mind, confirming the young soldier's suspicion as to the titan's mood, "you will do exactly as I say with the relic."

"Deal," Wallace answered. "So, you'll put an end to this invasion?"

At that Groudon's avatar began to draw away, its form shrinking back over the horizon as its glowing eyes faded and went out. Wallace then turned back to the west and looked out over the bay as, ever so slowly, motion crept back into the world around him. He watched as the actions of the waves resumed at a tiny fraction of its previous pace and the Rocket ships resumed chugging through the water. Radiana likewise continued her truncated breath and her eyelids just started to roll downwards to blink.

The young soldier looked down at his hand when he felt the orb he clutched begin to vibrate. Holding it up before him as the world all-around began to speed up again, Wallace cocked his head curiously to one side, unsure of exactly what it was he witnessed while the crimson smoke inside the artifact boiled about with a speed the boy had not seen before.

A thunderous explosion centered on the orb threw Wallace backwards, snapping his arm to one side and sending the trainer tumbling through the sand as the crimson sphere hovered in midair for only a second before dropping to the ground below like a stone. Wallace lay stunned, his head spinning, his ears ringing, the taste of blood in his mouth. It took the trainer a moment to realize Radiana had dropped to her knees beside him, her hands desperately clutching at his, her big red eyes full of concern. Even though the boy felt the echoes of the psychic's words bouncing around inside his mind, his shaken brain struggled to comprehend exactly what it was his partner mentally shouted at him.

Pushing himself back up to one elbow, Wallace groaned and clenched his eyes shut, stabbing pains slashing through his chest with every heartbeat. "What did you say?" he managed to mutter, opening his eyes enough to look at his psychic partner.

'Are you alright?' asked the Pokémon. 'I lowered the shield and an instant later the orb exploded. Did you contact Groudon? Did it hurt you? Are you OK?'

Wallace began to nod but then shook his head. "I've been worse," he coughed. "Though I think I just blackmailed a god-" the young soldier stopped and flinched as a beam of sunlight broke through the dark clouds overhead and struck him in the face. Watching from his trench in the sand, Wallace's eyes grew wide as the tiny pinhole of light in the clouds overhead exploded outwards like a shock wave propagating through smoke and opening in its wake a window to a clear and brilliant sky above. "Oh crap," he muttered, his skin growing cold as the color drained from his face. "Radiana-"

Unable to finish his sentence, Wallace gasped in surprise as a tremor cracked through the ground beneath him with sufficient force to throw the boy and his Pokémon several inches into the air before they landed again in the soft sand. Within a second the sky overhead shone completely free of clouds and sunlight so warm as to border on uncomfortable streaked down from above. The tremor continued on, shaking the ground and stirring up the sand as though a herd of Pokémon rumbled by and, as Wallace looked to his left and then to his right he saw the whole beach vibrated with sufficient energy to generate a fog of sand that hovered a full metre above the ground.

Taking several seconds to get a steady footing, Wallace pushed himself upright and looked out over the bay, curiosity and terror both struggling for total control of his mind. An instant later the rumbling along the beach stopped and the low cloud of sand dropped back to the ground and lay still as the world likewise seemed to go quiet by comparison. Wallace licked his lips and braced himself like a boxer waiting for an incoming blow.

Then the ground shook once and hard. The air filled with a thunderous rumble and the shrieking of tearing metal as Wallace looked out on the water and witnessed a dozen of Team Rocket's warships lurch several inches into the air, carried up by enormous slabs of red stone rising out of the water. The earthen tables lifted the hulls with unrelenting power, leaving the vessels beached and immobile on the great rocks. Several listed to one side before coming to rest and one tipped completely over, its massive hull crumpling under its own weight without the water to buoy it.

As Wallace's jaw dropped and the ships ceased their metallic groaning, several with propeller shafts visibly spinning ineffectually above the waterline, another rumble coursed through the earth. As quickly as the first volley of stone slabs had erupted and beached the warships, more stone blocks, far greater in number but also considerably smaller than their predecessors exploded underneath the oncoming ranks of landing vehicles, throwing, as near as Wallace could see, every such craft clear out of the water. Some were flipped upside down before crashing back into the water while others flew to pieces and others remained simply impaled and hanging in the air on the spikier stone protrusions.

Still unable to grasp exactly what they watched, Wallace and Radiana looked at each other, dumbly, for only a moment before turning back to observe as a third tremor shook the beach. This time however the pair bore witness to only a single enormous spike of stone, the color of obsidian, erupting from the water, its leading edge as sharp as a knife sawing through the hull of Team Rocket's massive flagship and rending the vessel in two. A spray of oil and fuel erupted from the mortally wounded vessel, dispersed through the surrounding water and splattered over several other unhurt ships by the force of the blow just as a cloud of sparks born of the striking of the stone on the steel descended from the strike.

Further lighting up the already bright day, the resulting fireball forced Wallace to turn away. When he looked back, shielding his face against the heat with his hand, the shock on his features immediately evolved into abject horror. The flagship burned with an intensity that threw the tiny, humanoid shapes desperately flinging themselves from its deck into stark relief. Worst of all, Wallace thought, were the numerous black flecks in the water, little more than ants to his eyes, that screamed and flailed their arms as the flames on the water engulfed them.

Turning away, the young trainer felt his stomach turning as he reached for and picked up the orb, wrapping it in a blanket and depositing it back in his pack. "Come on," he said only loud enough to be heard over the cacophony at sea, putting a hand on Radiana's shoulder. "I'm going to need that shield of yours as strong as you can get it, please."

"Right," the psychic answered, shock and unease plain in the tone of her thoughts. "Not even a fool would continue on in the face of such," she paused and thought a second, "monstrous power. Let's take advantage of the window and get out of here."

The boy and his Pokemon retreated from the scene, moving to the entrance of the weather station and stopping at the top of the stairs beyond the wrecked door. Wallace stepped forward, but Radiana put a hand on his leg to delay him, moving first down the stairs and raising one hand as a small wisp of light sprang to life in her fingers, illuminating the steep steps as she and her trainer descended the spartan concrete passage. As they walked, Wallace's thoughts turned to the men he'd seen in the water, first thrown overboard by the stone pillars and then cremated alive.

The boy flinched in the privacy of his thoughts. What did you expect? he asked himself, his thoughts bitter. Groudon wasn't going to politely ask them to turn around and leave. As the young trainer reached the bottom of the stairs and found himself in a small concrete room full of ancient looking radio equipment and a single young woman and her Geodude at its far end, he couldn't clean from his mind the sight of the flailing victims, his victims in no small way, Wallace thought.

Voice shaking, Wallace called out. "Roxanne," he said, watching as the girl at the radio twitched and her Pokemon instantly raised its fists defensively. Wallace immediately stepped back and raised his hands placatingly as Roxanne drew another pokeball from her belt and whirled around. "It's me, it's me!" he shouted, relieved to see the novice Gym Leader likewise relax some. "Have you got the radio working?"

Roxanne nodded and set down the antiquated microphone with one hand, reaching to the main body of the radio and fiddling with a few dials with her other. "I think so," she said, reaching out again to adjust a lever and a knob on what looked to be an entirely separate radio. "If not we'll only know when we get to the rendezvous point and no one's there," she pressed a button next to the microphone and flipped a switch on the radio labelled 'repeat' before stepping back. "I broadcast a retreat order and set it to loop. I also made contact with a surviving recon squad and sent them after the treasury," she grimaced. "It was a garbled conversation but I think they got the point."

Sighing without much relief, Wallace folded his arms over his mail. "Let's hope this worked," he said quietly.

Roxanne looked over her shoulder at the radio and took a deep breath, her features falling as she reached up and wrapped her arms tightly around herself. "That should be enough to at least get everyone going in the right direction, but Team Rocket will be hearing it too so let's get the hell out of here."

"Team Rocket is a little busy at the moment," Wallace turned and headed for the exit, Roxanne, her Geodude, and Radiana in tow, "but you're absolutely right. We need to get moving. How long will that message run?"

Shrugging one shoulder, Roxanne followed behind the lieutenant as they climbed the steep concrete steps. "This place hasn't been used since the civil war broke out and most of the generator's fuel was siphoned off so, maybe twenty-four hours? But the signal is really strong so it should reach any patrols before they come back to town and get caught by Team Rocket. If they're smart they'll know to make for Fallarbor where they'll be safe."

Wallace groaned, but kept climbing, the exertion slowing his pace and turning his face red. "That should be plenty then."

Stepping out and onto the beach, Wallace made an effort and saw that Radiana did likewise to avoid looking out to the bay. Both knew however that Roxanne must have looked to the scene when her footsteps stopped cold and the young Gym Leader gasped. "Groudon's breath!" the young woman swore, "what happened out there?"

Wallace looked to the other trainer and, seeing that her already fair features had further paled as she stood frozen, reached out and took her by the wrist. "We were given an opportunity to fall back," he said flatly, "and we're not going to waste it. I'll explain once we meet with the others north of town. Fair?"

Roxanne looked between the green lieutenant and the ships, lingering on the titanic wreck still burning in the bay. Over the wind and the crackling fires she plainly heard hundreds of screams for help as what few battleships and troop transports remained undamaged and unentangled attempted to launch rescue boats to fish their comrades out of the still burning bay. Every second however seemed to carry fewer and fewer of the terrified screams ashore. "Right," Roxanne nodded, swallowing the lump in her throat. "Follow me, I know the shortest route to the caves."

SC

Panting, sweating, and so exhausted that simply raising one foot to flop it down in front of the other, Wallace emerged from the small rift in the stone that formed the mouth of the cave, blinking in the sunlight. Following behind Roxanne and stepping into the small clearing in the densely forested and rocky hills, the young trainer cast about and felt as though his heart turned to stone in his tightening chest. "So few," he muttered, looking around and guessing that no more than fifty, maybe fewer, men and women waited in the clearing.

Looking down, Wallace felt a ginger touch on his hip and saw Radiana's big sanguine eyes looking up at him. "It's still early and we got out almost immediately," her mind whispered to his. "There will likely be more coming soon. Take this time to rest." She looked down and back up when Wallace glowered.

Several of those gathered in the clearing, each dressed in either red and orange fatigues or in charcoal and garnet uniforms like Roxanne's, stood up or approached the pair of newly arrived trainers. Flanked by snarling and growling Pokemon, one of the sentry's called out, greeting Roxanne. "We worried you didn't make it out," said the young trainer in Rustboro Gym's uniform. "We heard your message but saw headquarters burning and feared the worst."

Roxanne stepped forward and shook the trainer's hand. "Good to see you too Arim," she said. "I used the old weather radio on the beach to get the word out. Is this all that made it?" the Gym Leader looked over the congregated men and women.

Arim flinched but nodded. "So far, yeah," he answered, reaching up and running a hand through his rust colored hair. "Since Zeke was at the Magman headquarters I'm going to guess he's presumed dead and you're in charge?"

This time Roxanne flinched but likewise confirmed her subordinate's supposition. "Unless Zeke turns up," she paused and took a breath to steady herself before turning aside and gesturing to Wallace. "This is Lt. Weaver," she shifted direction. "And unless we have any other officers around, he'll be commanding the Magman forces on the journey to Fallarbor."

Again Wallace looked around the gathered troops, seeing several of them shaking their heads or standing to weakly salute in his direction. Shouldering his pack and glancing to Radiana for some measure of comfort before he stepped forward, the young soldier walked to the other Magmans and motioned for them to gather around. "Bring it in," he called, making every effort to mask the nearly crippling exhaustion in his voice as the three dozen other soldiers moved closer to him and shaped into a formation ten men long and about three deep. "First thing's first," he began, looking amongst the faces before him and guessing none of them had yet reached the age of eighteen, "I know you've all got to be tired and more than a little confused, but we need to stay as organized as possible so to that end I need to know what we have in the way of supplies; anyone with any kind of rations at all, step forward."

His chest growing yet heavier, Wallace counted only eight troopers that stepped forward, pulling packs from their shoulders. And here I had the gall to think we might get lucky, he thought, looking over his new subordinates and noting their uniformly sunken eyes and pale, frightened faces before turning to Radiana as he felt her mind tugging at his.

"You might be cautious," said the psychic. "These men have little hope. Most have already resigned themselves to death."

One of the youngest looking troopers stepped forward and saluted but remained silent. Looking to the single silver dot on the boy's collar, Wallace turned to face him. "Something to say recruit," he paused and looked at the name sewn onto the soldier's uniform, "Recruit Jensen?"

The younger soldier nodded. "Sir," he said, voice sounding as though it verged on breaking. "I was on the road bordering the beach when the order to retreat went out. I saw the incoming ships thrown up on those huge rocks coming out of the water. What happened? Was that one of our Pokemon?"

Wallace glanced around as murmurs echoed around the troops then, looking over his shoulder he saw Roxanne and several of her subordinates looking intently in his direction. "Well," he began, stopping when he again heard Radiana whispering to his mind.

"Several of these men saw the proceedings on the bay," the Pokemon advised. "Those that did are scared and very disquieted over it."

Thinking a moment, Wallace quickly reached around his back and pulled from his pack the bundle of blanket he'd hastily shoved there before the retreat began. Unwrapping the orb and holding it out for everyone to see, the young trainer summoned up his last reserves of energy. "This," he called, his voice bordering on a shout, "is what I used to buy us the time to retreat! It's an ancient artifact of enormous power and trust me, as long as I have it in my possession, you're all going to be alright," he paused, desperately hoping the recruits bought his bluff. "Stick with me until we get to Fallarbor, and I'll protect you."

Everyone present stared at the glowing crimson orb for a second before a terrified scream from the ranks of Magman troopers shattered the afternoon's relative calm. The young Recruit Jensen dropped to his knees, pressing his palm to the ground and staring at Wallace and the orb. "Don't you all know what this is?!" screamed the boy, looking around at all those around him before staring back at the glowing artifact. "That's Groudon's Bane! It's a piece of the divine made manifest in the world! Whoever carries it carries the favor of god!" Jensen then pointed insistently at Wallace. "He's a prophet! He'll save us! He'll protect us! Haven't you heard the stories?"

Wallace watched, his disbelief fading to relief, as the recruit shouted a moment longer, mostly repeating what he'd said before but also claiming that Groudon's Bane being present meant they would be safe on the journey north so long as they obeyed Wallace's every command. Just as his shouting began to subside Jensen fell forward, face first into the grass. Wallace stared intently for a second at the boy's eyes before they closed and the recruit ostensibly passed out. The young trainer cleared his throat and stood as resolutely as he could while the remainder of the troopers glanced and muttered amongst themselves before each and every one saluted with more purpose in their faces. Several even got on one knee before him. Wallace took a breath, readying to speak but unsure of what to say before a rustling behind him drew his attention. He glanced about and saw emerging from the cave a string of people garbed in either red and orange or grey and garnet, interspersed with men and women wearing more civilian clothes and carrying backpacks and small crates. Behind them a few men in Magman armor pulled sleds loaded with cargo covered in tarps. These newest arrivals bore the unmistakable berets of reconnaissance troopers and amongst their cargo he heard the jingle of coins and precious stones.

Wiping the shock from his face, Wallace turned back to the Magmans before him and motioned over his shoulder. "Everyone up," he called out, relieved beyond words that the Magman treasury would not fall into Rocket's hands today. "Let's get these people organized and ready to move. Collect any supplies anyone's carrying and gather it up by the mouth of the cave. We're going to wait two hours for stragglers and then we make for Fallarbor."

A collective "yes sir!" went up from the troopers as those that knelt got to their feet and the unit moved forward to receive the new arrivals. Wallace watched for about fifteen minutes as young troopers and refugees emerged from the caves, adding to the gathering in the clearing until no fewer than two hundred people, a sizable minority of whom bore a considerable number of supplies, waited patiently for orders. The young trainer he heard numerous whispers about Groudon's Bane and saw many fingers pointed in his direction. Additionally, he saw a great number of hopeful expressions propagating throughout the troops and refugees.

As the next hour slipped by, more refugees emerged from the cave and reports to Wallace indicated that while Team Rocket had yet to launch another invasion of Rustboro, their ships remained in the harbor and a sizable portion of the civilian population had decided to follow Roxanne's orders and fall back with the Magmans and the Gym Members. Wallace meanwhile searched in vain for a senior officer to take command; recruits, privates, and civilians made up the entirety of the mob emerging from the caves. Finally, as the sun had just begun to grow low in the sky and the fading afternoon began casting amber light throughout the forest, Wallace sighed and sat down with Radiana atop a small bump in the land on the outskirts of the makeshift camp.

Reaching out to mentally contact his Pokemon, Wallace leaned his back against a tree and took as deep a breath as he could. "So," he probed, drawing the sanguine-eyed psychic's gaze. "I guess I should resign myself to leading these people north."

"You're the most qualified," Radiana answered. "Your father poured considerable effort into preparing you to lead the Weaver family when your time came. Now that some morale has been restored and they believe you can lead them to safety, I'm sure you can."

Thinking a moment, Wallace looked out over the crowd. "Wise words," he said. "Wiser than I've ever heard from a human your age." He looked to her with a smirk.

"Physical age has little to do with it," answered the Pokemon matter-of-factly. "In what little time I knew her, one thing my mother managed to impart is that psychics grow up as quickly as they can gain experience. I might be a year 'old' yet possess more maturity than most humans."

Wallace thought on that a moment. "It's a wonder psychics don't rule the world then," he said. "You outpace humans at every turn. Why is that?" asked the young trainer.

Radiana shrugged. "I don't know," she answered. "I can honestly say however that I've never felt any compulsion to seek out or congregate with other psychics. If that's a sentiment shared by all psychics then I would imagine humans have the advantage of being naturally social. Perhaps it's as simple as being inclined towards cooperation with others of your kind."

"Hadn't thought of that," Wallace said, almost dreamily, his muscles finally beginning to relax, even though his chest continued burning from the day's exertion. "By the way," he leaned in and whispered to his Pokemon, "that was a nice trick with Jensen. But let's file that kind of mind control with mind reading under the 'only when absolutely necessary' heading. Usurping control of someone's free will is just," he paused not wishing to insult his partner, "well it can be a little off putting."

Radiana froze, only glancing to her trainer from the corner of her eye. "You noticed that."

Wallace smirked. "I'm pretty sure I'm the only one who saw the red spark in his eyes. Even if I wasn't, I don't think anyone else would know what it meant, let alone that you were involved."

"Master, I'll make sure he has the appropriate memory of events when he wakes up," Radiana answered. "It did save morale and the unit's cohesion and, by extension, possibly numerous lives."

Laughing once Wallace scooted a little closer to the psychic and rested one hand on her shoulder. "What am I going to do with you?" he asked, watching as another troop of refugees walked out of the caves to join the rapidly growing gathering while he scooted closer to the Kirlia.

Radiana's stomach rumbled. 'You could feed me,' she offered 'or,' her timbre grew unreadably blank. 'You could explain to me why you kissed that girl.'

Beginning to laugh but stopping before he finished the motion, Wallace wound up halfheartedly sighing. "I read about it in a book one time," Wallace explained, going on when his partner remained silent. "Father had this book of common literary devices that I used to read all the time, over and over. One of the sections was all about kissing in stories and I remembered this one entry about motivating someone, usually the hero, with a kiss. Another section was on princes waking a cursed princess with a kiss," Wallace laughed aloud and shook his head a little, tension visibly evaporating from his frame. "I can't even begin to explain why that stupid book came to mind in such a dire situation, but I decided to give the motivational wake-up kiss a try. I'm just glad it worked," he snickered and rubbed his recently slapped cheek, risking a glance at Roxanne as she helped lift a box onto a sled, "sort of at least."

Folding her arms in front of her chest, Radiana sat with a quiet huff and turned away while Wallace stared off into space.