"We could have skipped the desert entirely! Route 112 is right there!" The irritated teenager stabbed a finger at the map, right on route 112.

"No, not really. That entrance to route 112 has been blocked off by a huge hole. A tyranitar went crazy there and caused a sinkhole. So now the trainers have to pass through the desert and through Fiery Path before getting to Lavaridge. Then go back through to head up to Fall'rbor. Terrible inconvenience. I ain't complaining though, I make a nice buck transporting kids to and fro. But you boys gave me one hell of a scare." The trucker, whose name was Bear, mentioned. He was filling his truck up with gas to go back to Mauville and transport some more trainers. "You guys should go, I'm locking this place up."

Riven groaned loudly. He realized he was complaining like a child, but he had just survived through days of hell in a desert. Couldn't they give him a break? Will simply shook his head and dragged him along outside. More walking. Riven certainly missed his bike right about now. His blisters probably had blisters at this point.

The next few days were full of battling, avoiding flamethrowers, dodging landslides and trying not to fall down onto sharp rocks. Riven had exhausted his stores of potions and had attempted to catch a slugma, but failed and it managed to slink away. Will laughed at him and kept boasting about his epic catch in the desert. Mt. Chimney had also been an interesting sight to see, and the cookies were tasty. Riven tried to take a picture but ended up tinkering with the holo caster before Will snatched it and did it for him. Will was very vocal about Riven's technological backwardness. He was like Ben, but about two times worse, with twice the insults.

The volcano was spewing out hot air and nearly everyone in the vicinity was pouring sweat, except Will. That was peculiar but Riven brushed it off. They stood over the railing for a few minutes before deciding that lava bubbles weren't all that interesting and headed down the jagged pass. There were plenty of hikers and backpackers, Riven half expected to see Ben there too. But he didn't. By the time they managed to climb down the mountain, they had scrapes and cuts on their knees and forearms from one too many falls. Riven had to get new clothes, his were ripped and in bad shape. Will wasn't doing too good in the clothing department either.

All of their pokemon managed to get some experience battling the hikers along the way though, which was good. They also had pocket money for a change in attire, which was sorely needed for resupplying. New bags of formula and potions were in dire demand for both of them. As they saw Lavaridge in the distance, Will opened up the travel guide. "It says they have a hot spring. It heals wounds and relieves stress." He gave Riven a judging glare. "You definitely need it, paranoia extraordinaire."

Riven smirked, pulling Will's hat downwards. "I still don't think it'll help. Besides, I'm kind of craving something first." Watching a spoink bounce around in front of a building was not helping.

Will pulled his hat back up and gave him an annoyed glance. "And what is that?"

"I want a burger so much I can't stand it. Eating dried meat and pokemon formula for so long grates on the nerves." He wanted real food, not that dry excuse they had been surviving on for a while in the desert. They couldn't even gorge themselves either, since they had to ration it.

"Yeah, I hear you. Maybe they have a restaurant in town?"

"I guess we'll see."

The town wasn't all that large. The gym and the hospital were the biggest buildings in the town, with numerous smaller buildings surrounding them. A canal divided both sides of the town and lead into the hot spring area, behind the pokemon center. Many of the people there were trainers and old people. The travel guide said that most old people moved there to retire. It did seem like a tranquil place to retire and die. Well, maybe putting it like that was a little harsh, but it was true. It made sense why the hospital was so big. Riven cackled darkly. He explained the humor to Will, he wasn't pleased, calling him a sick bastard. Well, he tried.

As they approached the center, people were talking about some sort of rumor. They did draw stares, after their encounter with the media. But many of the town's residents and trainers were talking about a skarmory attack near Fallarbor. It had slashed three people to death before being brought down by two passing trainers. The rangers had taken it into custody and put it down already. The three victims were having a funeral in two days. It sounded like wild pokemon were getting increasingly hostile. After scyther and cacturne though, Riven wasn't even fazed. They just continued about their business.

They stepped through the automatic doors and left their pokemon with Nurse Joy. They were pretty beat up after taking many a rock throw to the face. Aine had been stone edged and knocked unconscious. Nez had gotten an unfortunate flame wheel and had a rather nasty burn, he was out cold too. Rika had gotten some experience and Will was able to teach her rock tomb. Now two of his pokemon had a move that could pulverize shiny new bikes. Riven felt for his poor GX135.

Will got his pokeballs back and took out the one with a fire symbol on it. "Maybe I should let Quil-"

"NO," Riven shouted loudly. "No. Not after Petalburg. We don't want to get kicked from this pokemon center too. Nez and Rika are fine, but Quil stays in his damn pokeball. That pyromania is hazardous." Will pouted, it didn't work on stone face Gray unfortunately. His little kid wiles had no effect. They entered the rental room and set their things down. Well, they didn't have many things but they left what they didn't need. It was still early out so they just left the center and explored town.

They found the clothing store and spent a total of one hour inside. Will and Riven spent more time observing a girl walking in and out of the fitting rooms with different clothes. "You think it's a girl thing?" Will speculated as the girl twirled around in front of the mirror, judging how good the skirt looked with the top.

"I'm not sure. Women are strange creatures. They're hard to figure out." Riven didn't understand women. Well, he didn't have much experience with them anyway. He'd only talked to about three in his time here. Amy, Irene, and Roxanne. He never talked to them for more than like five days so they were really unknown territory for him. The attitude though? White Queen gave him enough punishment to somewhat formulate an assumption.

"Oh, she's shaking her head." She went back into the fitting room, the girl had like five sets of skirts and tops on the bench. Will couldn't understand why the girl had so many outfits if she wasn't going to buy them all. Window shopping was so pointless."What's she going to try on next?" he sneered. The kid was having a much better time with this than Riven was.

Both boys were snickering pretty hard after she went in three more times, stopping short of laughter. They watched her for about thirty minutes. They had already bought all of their clothes within minutes of arriving. Fits and looks good? All right, great. But females were just outrageous. They couldn't decide what the hell they wanted. In fact, most of the store consisted of females and the unlucky boyfriends that got stuck with them. Male trainers usually left the store quickly.

Riven chose an outfit similar to his old one. This time he went with a white vest hoodie and a plain black shirt. He bought khaki pants to go with it. He stayed with the same shoes and gloves though. They weren't that beat up. Will replaced his red jacket with a black one that had a red stripe through the middle. He didn't replace his hat but he chose some black cargo shorts, his other shorts were beyond repair.

Leaving the boutique or whatever fancy name they called it, the two boys went over to a restaurant that had a big hamburger sign on it. Riven had brought out White Queen from her pokeball because she got pushy if he didn't for a while. She had given him hell on the way to the Fiery Path after not letting her out during the desert. That ice beam wasn't fun at all.

A trainer at the counter was ordering his meal. "I'll have a number three."

"For here or to go?"

"Here please." Suddenly, he caught a glimpse of Riven's absol and immediately turned back to the cashier. "On second thought, I'll uh, take that to go." Half of the restaurant emptied within the next two minutes after that.

Riven and Will looked around, missing something. Why did everyone just get up and leave? When Riven went up to order, the cashier kept staring at White Queen. "Hey, I want to order. Can you stop staring at her? She gets ice beam happy when people do that." The absol in question was playing around with a plastic soda covering with her paw. The teenager frowned, the threat had instantly lost its threatening factor.

"Oh, ummm…sorry. What would you like?" She looked nervous, like he was going to stab her. If he wanted to, he wouldn't have warned her. He wasn't a cold blooded murderer, he had some morals.

"A number one for me and a number four for my friend here." It was faster ordering at the same time. Riven also ordered the glass poke cola bottle, since it seemed to bring out the flavor more. Will argued that it was a placebo effect but Riven insisted that it tasted better in glass. They bickered about the subject until the food arrived.

Rika stood silently next to Will. She didn't react much. In fact, she was about as close to a statue as a pokemon could get, and she wasn't even a rock type. She only opened her jaws when her trainer fed her. Otherwise, all she did was stare. It was a soul piercing stare too. Riven tried having a staring contest with her, which he lost miserably. He focused on other things."Will, when do you want to go challenge the gym leader?" That was their primary objective after all.

He was stuffing his face full of hamburger and fries. "Wha? Hord on. I'm…eating." He swallowed his mouthful after chewing rapidly. "Tomorrow I guess. We just got here. There's no need to rush." He fed Rika a handful of fries. She didn't show any signs of happiness or disdain. "Besides, I want to hang out in Lavaridge for a while. Hot springs you know." They were a miracle supposedly, he had to find out if the claims weren't just exaggerations specifically aimed at tourists.

"Alright, tomorrow sounds acceptable. Is she tough?" Riven honestly had no idea. He only heard that Flannery was beautiful. Mostly from the male trainers who turned into swooning messes whenever he asked about the gym leader. The female ones mostly made jealous comments in a very curt tone. Granted, his direct questioning without introductions intimidated them often. They didn't like him much, it only made sense that they tried to get him to leave as fast as possible.

"Well, she's a fire type leader. Rika should have no problem if I use her. She's pretty high leveled, being in the desert. Pretty big for a trapinch, so she might evolve soon." He put a hand on her jaws, Riven waited for her to open them and snap Will's thin arm in half. It didn't happen. Ah well, one could dream. "You might have some trouble. Aine won't be of much use, Mischief will only do normal damage and White Queen's moveset doesn't have any type advantages over any of Flannery's. You're gonna have a real battle on your hands." Will took another bite out of his burger.

"That's the fun part, is it not? Exploiting type advantages is easy but it doesn't seem very appealing. Use a water pokemon and sweep her team? No, the badge doesn't feel that great when you do that. I remember using Mischief in Brawly's gym. Didn't feel the same as earning Roxanne's badge." He still felt a sense of pride whenever he opened his badge case and saw it there.

"How did you beat her? I didn't have much of a hard time thanks to Nez but you don't have any grass or water pokemon." Will knew that most fire starters had trouble with her, that's why he caught a grass pokemon early on.

Riven grinned smugly. "Through tactical decisions and a stroke of evolution. Aine evolved mid-fight and beat Roxanne's last pokemon into the wall...literally. I seriously gave up hoping that I'd win until she evolved and went crazy." The younger boy made an 'ow' face and remembered that torchic evolved into a part fighting type, his cyndaquil didn't. That's what he got for having a Johto starter instead of a Hoenn one. His focus was broken when White Queen froze a bunch of fries after burning her tongue with one.

Will watched her failure and teased, "Some tact haha!" White Queen bit him, drawing some blood. "Ow! Rika! Why didn't you stop her?"

"Pinch." She wasn't going to mess with an absol that knew ice beam. She wasn't stupid.

"Traitor." Rika stayed silent and motionless after that, White Queen went back to eating her fries and Riven was nearly done with his food. "Say, why does everyone give your absol the evil eye?"

"She's the disaster pokemon. Go figure. These people are probably a bit superstitious, being in close proximity to Forina." White Queen looked up at him."I guess whenever they see an absol come down here, it comes across as a major 'oh shit' symbol." She took offense to that and bit him as well. Although, Riven was quite used to it already.

"Explains why nearly everyone left then."

Riven saw a girl take a picture of her food. He made a face and pointed in her direction."That girl just took a picture of her food." It looked really out of place. Why was food so important that people took pictures of it?

Will glanced to the side and saw the girl tapping away at her phone. Not everyone had holo casters. Some people preferred cell phones still. Holo casters and phones were compatible so it was no problem. "Oh yeah, people do that."

"Why?"

"I don't know. Some social media thing."

"That's completely stupid. Eat the thing, don't stare at it."

"I agree."

"Whatever. You done?"

"Yeah. Let's go to the springs!" Riven felt like objecting but he humored the kid instead, the town didn't have much places of interest. He reasoned he could use some sort of reprieve after all that walking and battling as well. And it would probably get rid of the smell of ash and smoke in his hair.

Amy and Seab's pokemon were being treated for injuries in Fallarbor Town. They had stopped that wild skarmory from tearing more people apart. However, Seab's lucario had taken a nasty aerial ace to his left side, making a sickening gash. Jak got part of his wool sheared off during a passing the skarmory did with a steel wing and just managed to use thunder to bring it down. Veer and Seab's staravia hadn't done much to it, since it's typing and steel coating pretty much made physical attacks useless. Mila didn't have any moves that could seriously hurt it and it was significantly stronger than what was normally found in the area. Not only that, but skarmory were rare in Fallarbor. Usually there was a bunch of spinda around, not murderous steel birds that slashed people to pieces.

Amy's phone rang. It was Irene, her mom. "Hey mom." She was in the food court with Seab, so she could take calls. The pokemon center wasn't very full anyway, Fallarbor was pretty small, it wouldn't bother many people if she spoke on the phone. If it did, they could fuck off, she could talk on the phone if she damn well pleased. She was a big girl after all.

Her mom's voice boomed. "AMY! DID YOU SEE THE TV?" Amy moved the phone away from her ear, hoping her eardrum hadn't burst. "I've been trying to call you for a week!"

"Mom. Calm down. You nearly made my ear explode. What's got you so worked up?" There were no reporters in Fallarbor, so she couldn't have known she nearly died trying to take down that skarmory. She was probably calling her to tell her about some new artistic inspiration or another egg from the daycare her dad found. The blonde shook her head and took a sip from her soda.

Irene sounded excited and worried at the same time. "Your friend Gray came out on TV!" Amy spat her drink out forcefully, drenching Seab. He scowled in annoyance while wiping his face with a napkin. Did she just hear that correctly? Did she just mention his name?

"HOW DO YOU KNOW HIM?" Now she was the one nearly screaming. How did she know about Gray? She hadn't told her about him. Unless…shit.

"He came over looking for you about three weeks ago. Nice boy, if a little awkward and stiff. I let him stay here for a night because of a thunderstorm. He asked about you." Yup, her fears were realized. Why had she told him she lived in Mauville? Fuck!

"WHY THE HELL DID YOU LET HIM IN?"

"Is it a problem? Is he your boyfriend or something? Why didn't you tell me? He denied it pretty thoroughly, but you're giving me doubts Amy."

"He's not my boyfriend mom! He's just someone I'd like to forget." Great, now it did sound like they had a thing. Amy waited for her mom's crass.

"One night stand? You are eighteen dearest daughter. Teenagers do some crazy things. I hope you used protection! I don't want to be a grandma yet." There it was.

"NO!" One night stand with him? Arceus no. Sure, he was somewhat pleasant to look out, ignoring the scars and face of iron, but she would never think about doing something like that.

"You didn't? Oh my god."

"I meant no to the one night stand! I haven't let any guy touch me that way!

"Then what's the issue?"

Amy decided to come clean, it was no use trying to make up excuses without making herself look like some sort of slut. She sighed, "He's dangerous."

Irene wasn't convinced."Didn't seem like it. He was more like a lost growlithe puppy than an enraged gyarados to be honest." Gray and growlithe puppy didn't even belong in the same sentence. It was like comparing Hoenn and Unova. Stupid isolationists.

"Mom, you don't know. Just…just don't tell him where I am."

"Ok, but where are you?"

"Fallarbor. Uh...what was he on TV for?" She changed the subject quickly, not wanting to elaborate on her issues with him.

"He got stuck in a desert for longer than a week with another trainer. He got so dark. That desert sun must have baked them pretty bad. Both of them looked terrible." She hardly recognized him, he looked really red and sunburned, not his usual pale tone.

"He got stuck in the desert?" Amy didn't think he'd go and get himself into something like that. But she wasn't really surprised he wasn't dead.

"Yeah, why?"

"Because he's a survival nut, if anyone could have survived, it would be him." He did say he spent most of his life in the wilds. He should have known a thing or two about desert survival.

"Oh! He also mentioned you tried to blackmail him." Amy choked. Gray had absolutely no sense of tact. Decent people didn't say those things! Well, she always had a feeling he was a savage.

"Erm…a bit?"

"That's my girl! Keep it up!" Her mom clicked and left Amy sitting in the diner fuming. Seab gave her a wary look. Amy was volatile at times, she cussed out a hiker on the jagged pass for hitting on her. Then she absolutely smashed a guy that tried to mug them on route 111. She was more than a little scary. But she was a good battler. They worked together to take down the skarmory. It was unfortunate that they weren't there to save the three victims though.

"Who are you avoiding?" Seab asked shyly. He was trying not to ignite her fuse. That poor hiker's…family jewels were, needless to say, no longer functional. It hurt him just to watch.

Amy dug into her food furiously before swallowing and sighing in defeat. "Gray. A guy I met near Oldale. I thought he was a quiet guy that was just an above average battler. I didn't know he was like some sort of special ops commando. I saw him kill three guys on TV without hesitation. I still see that video in my dreams."

Seab fit the pieces together and his eyes widened. "No way. Petalburg? THAT WAS HIM?" The guy in the video totally beat the living shit out of all of the guys. Six guys taken out by one man. This Gray was dangerous, that throat stomp was brutally effective enough proof of that.

"Yeah."

"Whoa. That was scary. That last part at the end though…it gave me goosebumps through the screen. That was terrifying." Seab was talking about the beating near the end of the clip. The man's face had been left like a piece of bloody meat that had been smashed one too many times. He remembered flinching and looking away from the screen in the pokemon center in Rustboro. All of the trainers in the center gasped at that very moment. Nurse Joy had to turn the TV off.

Amy poked some lettuce with her fork. "Yeah, it was." She paused for a moment, trying to mentally track the movements of a trainer on the gym circuit. "He's probably at Lavaridge now. It takes some time to get through the jagged and fiery paths. So, they should be about a week or two from coming here then heading back down to Petalburg to battle Norman. Unless they get sidetracked. We should leave before then."

"You really don't want to see him again do you?"

Amy looked unsure of herself. "I don't know. I wouldn't know how to face him. It's just…he killed people, Seab. You don't let something like that go lightly."

The Sinnohan stared out the window, avoiding her gaze."I guess not."

Amy stabbed her fork through her salad like a spear."If I do see him again, I'm going to chew him up." She ate viciously. He said nothing and went back to his burrito.

"You do that. I'll just watch…" Seab was worried about Ren, his lucario. That gash was terrible and he almost bled out on the floor. He was in rapid recovery right now. He wouldn't be battle ready for nearly a week. Seab sighed, he needed another pokemon. Comet was good but he needed something else. A pokemon around here would have to do.

"You're worried about Ren, aren't you?"

"Yeah…he was my starter. If something happened to him, I think I'd break. I've had him since he was a riolu. We grew up together. He's my best friend." Amy smiled weakly, she knew she couldn't really reassure him. His lucario was in bad shape right now. He wasn't in critical condition since they had gotten to him pretty quick but he would have a nasty scar. Scars. That reminded her of Gray. Now she understood why he was so beat up. He was like a soldier or something. But eighteen and trained? There was no way. He didn't make any fucking sense. "I need another pokemon." Seab's comment broke her train of thought and refocused it somewhere else.

"Which one did you have in mind?"

"I'm not sure. But I need one that isn't weak to flying types or fire. You saw how hard Comet fought with Flannery."

Amy remembered that fight. It had been tough. Ren wasn't effective at all and got knocked out pretty fast. Comet had to clutch. It seems like Seab's pokemon are experts at doing that. Amy got an idea. "You can catch a dragon!" Dragons were very strong and had excellent type coverage and resistances.

Seab's jaw dropped. "Sorry, WHAT?" He wanted to make sure he heard right. Seab laughed and thought he misheard.

"A dragon!" Amy smiled wholeheartedly.

No, he heard correctly. Red flags sprang up in his mind. He waved his hands and shook his head. "Oh no. I hear they're difficult to train." On top of that, he wasn't looking forward to dragon fire burns.

"Nonsense. Mila here is nearly dragon, and look at her." Amy pointed up to where Mila was firmly perched on top of her head, snoozing. Her wings twitched occasionally.

Seab frowned. "But I don't think I want a swablu." The cotton bird was the antithesis of menacing. Dragons were supposed to be awesome and deadly. Swablu and altaria just…weren't. He knew they could be pretty powerful but...no.

"Well, I hear there's bagon in Meteor Falls. That means if you evolve them, they'll turn into a salamence,"Amy said that in a salesmen like way. But it actually managed to make Seab feel even worse. He heard about salamence. Extremely aggressive and deemed too dangerous to approach. Only idiots tried to catch fully grown wild salamence. That's why they went after the baby bagon instead. But mothers were fiercely protective and many trainers often got roasted trying to snag a baby. The regional officials had specifically warned trainers not to go near there. Meteor Falls was one huge, enormous, preposterous no.

Seab tried the logical approach. "I don't think that's a good idea. Especially with neither of us having an ice pokemon. And you'd have to evolve Mila first if you want her to take on a salamence." Mila heard her name, salamence, and take on. She freaked out.

"SWAB! SWABLU-BLU!" She flapped her wings rapidly and frantically, demonstrating her disapproval. Salamence were intimidating and strong. She wasn't ready to die yet, she had so much to live for!

Amy had to hold the cotton fluff ball in place so her claws wouldn't shred her scalp apart. "Okay, Mila. You're not going to fight any salamence just yet. But when you evolve you'll be a fierce dragon too!" She stroked the swablu's soft cottony wings while cooing at her. That appeased her enough to prevent her from digging her claws into Amy's skull.

Seab coughed, grabbing Amy's attention. "I'm going to go see how Ren's doing." He stood up and left. The trainer looked really worried about his pokemon. Amy wondered what she would do if one of her pokemon got hurt like that. Would she kill like Gray? She didn't think she could.

"I'm going to kill something," Riven growled.

Will and Riven were at the gym entrance. The receptionist at the doors couldn't stop laughing at them both. This was their third day at the gym and they had spent an hour trying to get through the stupid geysers and holes, completely drenched and pissed off. "I hate this place!" Both of them yelled. Three days and they had yet to get to Flannery. Both of them had beaten numerous gym trainers along the way, but couldn't seem to figure out how to get to the gym leader. They quit the past two days out of pure frustration.

Hence why they were sitting at the entrance, brooding. Once again. "Why do they have to design gyms like this? Wattson's was at least straightforward, if a bit painful. Brawly's was just dark, that was no problem. I walked around all the gym trainers," Riven grumbled, death glaring the receptionist down. His mocking laughter started to irritate him.

"I had some trouble with that. I couldn't even see, I kept crashing into walls," Will muttered.

Riven snorted. "I can see well in the dark."

"That's good, since you would probably fail at making a flashlight work anyway." The older trainer hissed at Will, little boy was going to get murdered soon. "Let's try again," Will said, picking himself up and getting rid of some dust on his new shorts.

"Fine." They stood up, going over to the nearest geyser before shooting up a floor. "I really hate these geysers." Will huffed and fell through a hole, Riven followed him. At this point, they were just randomly picking holes and geysers. After nearly forty minutes of dropping through holes and getting launched up by uncomfortably hot water, the two trainers arrived in a room they hadn't been in before. A girl was standing at the end, fiery red hair tied behind her head.

Riven whispered, "Is that the gym leader?" Will nodded.

"Why are we whispering?"

"I don't know." The older trainer kept staring, almost in a trance.

Will looked at Flannery then back at Gray, noting that he wasn't giving her a regular stare. He grinned from ear to ear, knowing what was going on.

"You're checking her goods out, aren't you." It was so obvious. He was analyzing her like most guys did when they saw something they liked.

Riven snapped out of it and gave Will a piercing leer. "No." The boy was right of course, but Riven didn't want to admit it. He wanted to keep what dignity he had left.

"Liar."

"Argh. Fine. She's attractive." Riven turned a shade of pink. It went away quickly though, he had self control, unlike Ben. He was a horndog that nearly slobbered back in Slateport when he saw girls in their "swimsuits".

"Mhmm. Half of Hoenn is obsessed with her. The other half is obsessed with Winona."

Riven blinked.

"You're hopeless. Winona is the sixth gym leader in Fortree City," Will explained, a little exasperated with his traveling partner's cluelessness. He couldn't even work a toaster, now he had to explain fan clubs to him too? It was ridiculous.

Flannery saw the two boys discussing something and called them over. "You two going to challenge me? I have to go pack soon!" Both of them nearly ran up to the ring.

"Pack for what?" The older one said.

"Gym leader meeting in Lilycove. You two are my last challengers before I close the gym up. So give me a good battle okay?" The redhead smiled and put her hands on her hips.

Riven was thinking something else when Will shoved him. "Yeah, we want to challenge. Your gym is a nightmare by the way." Both trainers were soaked and irritated, they wanted to get this over with.

Flannery laughed. "You haven't seen anything yet. Just try going through Tate and Liza's gym without punching a wall. Or Juan's. You'll get bruises for sure. So, double battle then? It's faster." Riven brightened, he loved double battles. Will smiled viciously.

"Ok! Two on two. You each get two pokemon. Pick wisely. Ref! Get a move on!" The referee ran to the side of the ring and held up two flags. He did the rundown of the rules and announced both parties and so and so.

Flannery, Riven, and Will released their pokemon. Flannery was using a camerupt and a magcargo. Will was using Rika first, and Riven sent out Mischief. The gym leader looked surprised. "You're not using water pokemon?"

They looked at each other strangely. "No. Do we have to?" It seemed like she wanted them to. Exploiting type advantages against specialized trainers was a bit of a dick move in retrospect. The gym leaders had to take it all the time, it must suck. No wonder most of them had some sort of trump card or a "surprise bitch" move in their arsenal.

"No, it's just…everyone uses them against me. It's rare not to see trainers without a water pokemon steamrolling my team." She smiled weakly.

"What's the fun in that?" Riven mocked, flashing a grin that was all teeth. Will couldn't help but join in.

Flannery grinned back. "I guess you're right. Magcargo, light screen! Camerupt, lava plume!" She used the distraction to attack, she wasn't going to show any restraint it seemed.

An inferno of flames advanced towards Rika and Mischief. If they got hit with that, they would probably get one downright nasty burn. Luckily, the pokemon thought quickly. Rika disappeared into the ground and Mischief was already gone. The wall of flames washed over the spot where the two pokemon had been standing, scorching the ground. No pokemon were present. Flannery scratched her head. "Huh?"

Rika dug up under the Magcargo and shot out of the ground, hitting it square in the face. The light screen couldn't do anything to block the attack and the fire type was sent flying to the side. Flannery's camerupt turned and bellowed flames but Rika was already back underground. It was about to use earthquake when Mischief materialized right next to it and blasted it with a confusion. The light screen weakened the force of the attack and only staggered the fire pokemon. Mischief teleported back, joining Rika on the challenger side. They were only getting started.

A long battle and several burns later, Will and Riven walked out of the gym holding their heat badges. Flannery congratulated them both on the battle. She asked them to help her clean up the gym, since it had taken quite the beating during the battle. Will kept teasing Riven about checking Flannery out. Whenever she bent down, Riven just stared. She didn't seem to notice, focusing more on cleaning the gym since she was on a tight schedule. It wasn't his fault he kept sneaking glances. He blamed it on being a teenager.

After helping her clean up, they healed their teams and decided to go get some celebratory food at the usual restaurant. There were some trainers there too and this time Riven's absol wasn't there to scare them away. He kept her in her pokeball this time. The people in Lavaridge were far too superstitious. They learned about the terror of the absol from an old lady near the hot springs. Apparently, the last time an absol came down to Lavaridge, the volcano erupted, destroyed a forest and cut off passage to route 112.

The two victors sat down to eat. "That was exciting," Riven said, shoving some fries into his mouth.

Will smirked mischievously. "Which part? The battle or Flannery bending down in front of you? Maybe both! You practically took a mental picture of her boobs haha!" Riven flashed red and flicked him on the head.

"I meant the battle, devil spawn."

Will rubbed his forehead. "Ok, closet pervert." His smug grin became a more prideful one. "Rika was the star of that match for the first half." She was that much closer to becoming a vibrava. Then, he would train her until she became a flygon. That would be amazing.

Riven ignored the snide comment. "Mischief was the support. If it wasn't for him teleporting Rika out of the way, that solarbeam would have knocked her out." The attack was surprising, coming from a fire pokemon, a fiery horse, no less. Rika wasn't nearly fast enough to dodge it.

"Ok, I'll give you that. But man…I never knew how fierce your absol was." Those razor winds weren't called razor for nothing. And White Queen was no slouch with them. One of them cleaved through some of the stands. Flannery wasn't pleased with that.

Riven chuckled. "Told you. She loves battling, and doesn't hold back. And has a tendency to make dramatic finishers."

"That sucker punch on her rapidash was dirty though."

"We won didn't we?" Dirty or not, it was still valid. Flannery did give him an evil eye for it though. White Queen was a dark type, fighting dirty was what she did. What did they expect, a knight in shining armor with an honor code of gold?

"Can't argue with that," Will agreed, drinking some of his soda. "So, what next?"

Riven rested his chin on his fist. "I don't know about you, but I'm heading to Forina after this. I need to get a dawn stone for my kirlia to evolve. And I think I'll do some lengthy training there." Climbing waterfalls was something he hadn't done in a while. He also had to regain some of the mass he had lost from too many days of minimal food, his body was getting a lot leaner.

"I don't really have anywhere else to be." Will didn't have concrete plan about what he was going to do. He was running through the gym circuit but he knew he needed training to face Norman. They said he was a step much higher above the bottom four gym leaders and he didn't hesitate to beat trainers into the ground. Most of the beginner gym leaders had to seriously pull punches to take it easy on the newbies. He'd heard of Norman's crime busts, he was pretty badass. Best part? He was a normal type specialist, that made it twice as awesome. "I guess I'll come with you. I need to train too. And I heard Forina has some pretty strong pokemon. Maybe I can get a fourth and evolve Rika. Hopefully Quil too. Typhlosions. Are. Freaking. Awesome."

Riven smirked. "Oh, getting attached to your 'brother', how sweet." Will threw some fries at him.

"Asshole."

The smirk faded. "It's fine. I can take you along. Besides, I can teach you how to live off the land. You're going to need it." Will scoffed and went back to his food. The older trainer poked Will in the chest after some minutes of silence and chewing. That strange happening in the desert concerned him. It made little sense, the little boy should have been a pile of ashes. "You still feel a fire in there?" Will stopped eating and placed a hand on the center of his chest.

"Yeah, a bit. It's less hot now but it's still there. Remember Fiery Path?"

"I was baking in there. It was so humid it was unbearable. It's unforgettable, why do you ask?"

"I wasn't even sweating," Will said, in a manner that implied a deeper meaning.

"Really? My shirt was drenched."

"It felt good for me."

Riven was puzzled. It was like ninety degrees in there with tons of humidity, how could he not sweat? He did in the desert. What was different? "You were able to sweat in the desert, what's with this sudden tolerance of heat?"

"I think that orb did something to me. When I see fire, I get happy. That's never happened before." It kind of worried him, he was turning into his quilava. He thought he was going to start torching buildings to the ground soon too, and laughing like a maniac after doing it.

"You sure Quil's behavior isn't contagious?"

"I seriously hope not."

Riven and Will chuckled before the former's holo caster lit up. He looked at the ID and frowned. "Hold on, I need to take this."

"Whose it from?"

"Steven Stone, an annoyance. Nobody of importance really."

"What? Are you freaking serious?!" Will freaked, he couldn't believe it. "You have the former champion on dial?! That's insane! Why would he add you? You're a nobody!" Riven's upper lip rose slightly, a slight snarl.

"Thank you for pointing that out. And he was a champion? I didn't know that. I smashed his face into a table when we first met." Will's jaw dropped and Riven answered the call on non-holo mode. "What do you want, Stone?"

"I saw your segment on TV. You got lucky."

Riven snorted. "I have no luck. What did you call me for? Really." He knew that the busy body wouldn't be calling him for a mundane reason like that. He didn't like running in circles like those claydols. That conversation was basically incomprehensible, all riddles and no answers.

Steven cut to the chase. That was the good thing about Riven, no formalities or pleasantries. Just straight to the point, all business."Your stone. It's man-made, but doesn't seem to serve any kind of purpose." Honestly, despite its intriguing composition and structure, it was effectively useless.

"Good. Because I have one for you that does."

That certainly got his attention. Steven didn't expect such a nonchalant reaction. Especially not a claim of having another one. If it was an evolutionary stone or some run of the mill stone, he was going to have his aggron have a nice chat with the kid. Steven hesitated, but took the bait anyway. "What is it?"

"Blue sphere. Found it in Dewford. Didn't think much of it, but after what happened in the desert, let's just say it does a lot more than glow. One last note, don't touch it without gloves. There might be…side effects." Riven didn't feel like discussing what kind of side effects, especially ones like Will's. The abnormal body temperature and sudden pyrophilia were off-putting. Human quilava was scary in its own right.

"I'll teleport to you right away, where are you? Lavaridge?" Steven was holding his metagross's pokeball. It could jump anywhere in the region, especially a place as familiar as that. Although, Flannery was an embarrassing topic for him, mostly because of Wallace's stupidity.

"Yes, and no."

"What?"

"My friend here told me that you're a former champion. Unless you want to get swarmed by fans, I suggest you do it later. I'm in the middle of a restaurant, enjoying my food." Riven knew for a fact that Steven would not appreciate that. The guy was a shut-in, he hated attention.

"Ok fine. I'll call back in thirty minutes. If you don't pick up, I'm going to teleport there anyway."

"Fine. Oh and bring my stone. I want it back."

"Alright." Steven hung up and Riven sighed. Will was begging him for information.

Riven shut him up with a finger."He just called about a stone that I had him analyze a while ago. I'm giving him the blue sphere." He lowered his voice to a whisper. "You know, the desert one." Will understood and nodded. He looked ecstatic, badly wanting to meet the famous champion.

Minutes passed and everything was quiet when three men in black uniforms came in. They looked around the restaurant, searching for someone. Will saw them and noticed their strange behavior. They were looking at the trainers' faces. As a matter of fact, only the boys. As they approached, Will whispered to Riven, "There's some guys in a black uniform heading this way. They're looking for someone, but only the guys, not the girls. Look dangerous too." Riven instantly got paranoid again. His body tensed and he focused his hearing behind him.

"Not him. Black hair. No, not this one. Keep looking. Has a little boy with him, they're brothers."

Riven exhaled slowly, he knew this wasn't going to end well.