welcome to part two of the story, which i have dubbed the Atipamezole section. (the first section is dexmedetomidine should anyone be wondering). please tolerate the brief appearance of an OC. riley just has to start getting some more clues, whoops. sorry this took 30 years to upload, mel, and sorry its really lackluster? my problem with longfics is i get too concerned about plot and not "i started this epic trying to get two characters to be very homo and so far all thats happened is steven has a crush that he just manifests with protectiveness". eventually... real ship chapters.. eventually...i promise..

Practically the entire concept of Hoenn is a novelty to Riley- tropical areas? Islands father away than a few kilometers from the mainland that aren't made of rocky outcrops? Warm water in the middle of March? Absolutely ridiculous.

They landed for an extended amount of time in Lillycove. Steven being Steven, he manages to be in the town for a grand total of twenty minutes before he shouts a "hello!" at someone wandering about the streets. Steven waves exuberantly and glances over at Riley. "I found a friend."

"I noticed," Riley says, complete with a laugh.

The person Steven was waving to trots over, turning out to be a youngish woman with a Masquerain flitting about around her head. "Hi, it's been ages. Who's this? Where you from, hat guy?"

Riley introduces himself and the woman informs him that her name is Rana. From there it more or less goes into lively chatting with Steven - Riley's not too practiced with proper socialization and the blobs of aura from all the people wandering the city make him slightly more distracted than usual. Not that Steven doesn't drag him into being a contributor to conversation.

It turns out Rana owns a speedboat and is more than happy to ferry them to Mossdeep in exchange for someone paying to replace her gas, a duty for which Riley volunteers himself. Setting up takes a grand total of twenty minutes and they're off, Riley and Lucario hanging around the back of the boat and already enthused about Hoenn's oceans before they're out of sight of Slateport Harbor. Rana's let out a Milotic to swim along nearby. Lucario barks at it occasionally, as well as at some aquatic Pokemon they see- the water's clear and so full of stuff, a complete contrast to the water around Canalave, which is generally cold and hosts little visible diversity. Riley interests himself with novelties: Pokemon he's not familiar with, new ocean, and the like.

Steven stays near the wheel for a while, catching up with his friend, as well as briefly going over why he has a companion with him, for once. It's hardly usual. Once Rana has been appeased, Steven feels free to interrupt the man and his dog currently leaning over the railings of the ship.

"As you can see, it's much less dreary than Sinnoh. Also, keep leaning over so far and you're going to fall in."

"Sinnoh's great, and I am not." Riley looks over his shoulder at Steven with a huff, but he can only manage to hold a pout for about three seconds before he gestures out over the water, where a few meters away a couple of yellow, spiked fins poke out of the water. "I found fish."

"Congratulations, Riley, it's Carvanha. They're kind of not the nicest things out here, though." Steven takes a spot next to Riley, looking over the spray from the boat. Lucario keeps sticking her nose in it, apparently on accident, but doesn't seem to mind much.

"If I try hard enough, I can feel some of the Pokemon around here. In the water."

Steven looks over at Riley, expression slightly surprised. "You can? I thought your aura thing was mostly just people and," he gestures at Lucario, "those guys."

"It was, but. Usually I could faintly read Pokemon, if they were close. But I don't know, I just feel like I've been getting better at it lately. And now finding Pokemon aura is a lot easier."

"Huh. Well, with any luck, you'll also be better at blocking out people's aura and not get overwhelmed by the noise and freeze in the middle of a city street. Again." Steven snickers, and Riley swats him in the arm.

"Rude." Though it's not as if Riley doesn't agree with the teasing. He resumes looking out at the water, commenting any time they pass over a particularly large group of fish.

Until they pass near a particularly dark patch of water off to the right and Riley suddenly stands up, expression a combination of alarmed and bewildered. "What- What is over there?" It's this small grouping of people, he can tell. Like a small town, only there is no small town. There's some rocks, and there's some particularly deep water, and there's the definite sense of people down there. More than any reasonable group of divers. Riley glances between Steven and Rana, the latter of whom decided to bend over the wheel, giggling.

"That's Sootopolis, silly."

Steven clarifies, considering the name of the anomaly does not help Riley at all. "It's an underwater city. They live in this weird little air pocket. Geologically fascinating, weird to come across unexpected."

Riley stares over at the deep water. "Weird is right." And now he just wants to go investigate. He concludes that he'll bring it up later and resumes experimenting with how far away he can sense something until it's Steven's turn to jump up and walk to the front of the ship.

Mossdeep rises over the horizon like mist. It's surrounded by rocks and that is what it seems like at first, another vaguely defined piece of stone smacked in the middle of the ocean. As the boat approaches it takes shape. The tower of the Space Center is definable first, then buildings sort themselves into appearing and soon enough the entire island is definable. The boat has to pull to a stop not particularly close to shore, as the sand a submerged rock close to Mossdeep make the water too short to bring the boat through easily.

That does not at all deter Steven, as he just hops over the side railing of the boat and splashes loudly into the sandbank, water coming up to about mid-calf. He grins brightly and holds his arms out to gesture at the island behind him.

"We have arrived."

Mossdeep is a large city considering its location and the ease with which it could flood. It's still not large, but it's not limited to three houses and the Space Center by any means. Buildings emerge from behind mangroves edging the landmass. The Center, of course, stretches over them all and stands as a notifier to ships in the distance that Mossdeep exists. The shallows outside the island feature tiny curious fish, flitting around Steven's ankles to investigate. Riley jumps into the shallows more hesitantly, sloshing around entirely unfamiliar with the landscape. The motorboat starts up again and the group waves Rana off.

Steven sets off toward the stairs leading from the beach to the island proper when he abruptly realizes Riley is no longer behind him. He turns, and Riley is staring with a wide grin at the water around his feet. Lucario splashes enthusiastically next to him.

"Riley, we're.. what're you doing?"

"Look, there's little Remoraids. There's so many…." He trails off, sloshing vaguely and sending the tiny silver fish in surprised circles.

This is the second time Steven's laughed at Riley's enthusiasm over novelties. It's… definitely endearing. That's a good phrase for it. "Yeah, I guess Canalve isn't really a good place for beaches, huh? But c'mon, we should probably put your stuff in the house, first."

Riley sighs dramatically, though his expression is still too happy for indicating disappointment. It's probably the best he's felt in months. Things are new, his friend is happy, and not everything feels like he's wading through mud to get anywhere. It's a nice change and he's allowed his happiness over it. He adjusts the backpack he's got on and follows after Steven (still keeping an eye on the aquatic life and the Lucario that's prancing about after them).

Steven leads the troupe to a cottage near the west coastline, sitting off to the side. It looks very unassuming. Until Steven opens the door and reveals that a ridiculous amount of area is taken up by a rock collection. All carefully labelled and the ones Riley assumes are the favourites in their own glass containers. Yup, definitely the house of Steven Stone.

"Welcome to, uhm… your temporary home for a while, I suppose." Sounds good enough. Steven gestures Riley to enter with a flourish. He does.

"Thank you. Nice stone collection, I expected nothing less."

Steven shuts the door behind him and spends a few seconds eyeing the intrior fondly. Everything's clean and nothing's off. Excellent. He deposits his bag on the couch and gestures for Riley to do the same. He does, but shortly after makes a quiet "oh!" and starts riffling through the backpack.

Steven leans over his shoulder curiously. "What is it?"

"I remembered, I brought the— ow!" The exclamation is more of surprise than pain, and Riley yanks his hand back from the bag. Steven reacts immediately, stepping closer to Riley's side where he can see. No blood, at least?
"What is it? Are you alright?"

"Yeah, I. I thought I grabbed what i was looking for, but something in there burns." Riley sounds curious (and somewhat miffed) which leads Steven to figure he's probably alright. But it's a very weird sentence.

"Burns? Here, let me see?"

"Nah, I got it." Riley reaches back into the bag, and within a couple of seconds he once again hisses in pain. He's not deterred, however, mostly because he wants to find out why things hurt. He procures from the pocket a rock, covered in crystals. He's holding it carefully, touching only the containing rock and not the pinkish crystals growing from it. "There we are. I figured I'd bring it since you wanted to look at it, but I don't know why it's suddenly become some kind of heat sink."

Steven peers at it curiously, then reaches out and pokes one of the crystals before Riley can move it away. "It doesn't feel like anything to me." He takes it from Riley's hand and holds the conglomerate normally. Nope, no sense of heat or anything. No more so than a rock would naturally accumulate, anyways.

"What?" There's no way. It was hot seconds ago, all sharp and burning to the touch. Like Riley touched a spark. Even when he tries to get close again to see if maybe it was just a brief effect, no, he has to draw his hand back before actually tapping the crystal. Riley looks at the rock, then back at Steven, brows furrowed. "Somehow I think this doesn't mean anything very good."

Steven looks equally concerned. "Somehow I think talking to Cynthia is definitely a good idea."