Arzu stepped from her small wooden boat onto the eastern shore of Johto's route 33. She was wearing a white dress with horizontal pink stripes and a straw hat. Arzu spent so much time at sea, her only pair of shoes was a long set of free diving fins, so she went barefoot during her time on land.
She made her way west along the route until she made it to Azalea Town, battling a few trainers along the way. She turned left as she reached the charcoal kiln and continued along the path through the centre of the town until she spotted the sign for Kurt's house. She knocked on the door and heard Kurt slide the metal bolt across as he opened it.
"What do you want?" he asked gruffly.
"I need a Pokéball," Arzu replied, her accent giving away her Hoenn origin.
"Obviously," Kurt replied impatiently. "You'll need to be a bit more specific than that."
"I need a Pokéball that can open under very high pressure-"
"All of my Pokéballs work perfectly underwater," said Kurt, sharply.
"In my experience, they don't open at all more than 200 metres beneath the surface."
Kurt's eyes widened.
"That's impossible, SCUBA trainers can't go deeper than-"
"Who said anything about SCUBA?" replied Arzu, with a smug expression. "I'm from a long line of free divers. We don't get the bends unless we do something really extreme. I need a Pokéball that can open 450 metres beneath the surface."
"I can't sell you something like this, no one can survive that far down, and you definitely can't get there by holding your breath."
Arzu reached into her satchel and produced a flash photograph of her sitting cross-legged on the sea bed with her Wailord, her dive watch on one hand showing a depth of 420 metres and her other hand giving a victory salute. She was wearing a hooded wetsuit and a noseclip. Her mouth was smiling but her eyes betrayed the struggle within her.
"My Buizel took that picture of us on an underwater inspection camera. I've been there and back a dozen now so what makes you think I'll drown myself this time?"
"Come back tomorrow at 2PM, I'll have a pack ready for you. What is it you want to catch down there?"
"Nothing you'll find in the Pokédex," replied Arzu as she stepped out of Kurt's workshop.
Arzu walked to the Pokémon centre two doors down and spent the night there. She knew that SilphCo had detected the Pokémon as well, and she felt as though she was one step ahead of them. She woke up the following morning and felt almost sick with excitement as she waited in the Azalea Caféfor the clock to strike two. After her third cup of coffee, she looked at the clock and skipped across to Kurt's house to collect her new Pokéballs.
"That'll be $20,000, and I'd like you to sign this waiver in case your family come asking questions."
"I can do that... just," she replied as she scribbled her name on the paper. A life as a sea nomad was not a financially secure one.
Arzu gave Kurt a nod as she picked up her net of Pokéballs and left the shop. She walked back to her boat as the sun began to dip beneath the horizon and made camp under the stars. In a few days she would have her name in the history books among figures like Professor Juniper and Professor Oak.
She was awakened by the sun the following morning and quickly began to pack up her things. She put on a more practical pair of trousers along with a long sleved shirt before carefully folding and stowing her dress. She pulled out the hook securing the boat to the beach and rowed carefully out into deeper water. Arzu dropped the centreboard with a clunk and hoisted the rectangular sail up the mast before pulling it tight and setting a course for the uncharted water east of Hoenn.
Arzu sailed throughout the day, with her Buizel keeping her company. Having been hatched by Arzu the previous summer, he was now even able to adjust the sails on his own. With the ocean bathed in the evening sun, she reached the area of the sea in which she had glimpsed the ancient beast she was determined to catch. The sea's depth dropped suddenly from a mere thirty metres to an abyssal four-hundred and fifty. She dropped anchor and began to prepare her dinner of nori and rice before spotting something ominous looming on the horizon. A glance through her binoculars confirmed her fears: it was a SilphCo frigate with a submersible hanging from a crane on the rear deck.
She knew that she was now racing against the clock, but she also realised that she was too physically drained from her day of sailing to accomplish such a feat of athleticism as diving half a kilometre on a single breath, so she decided to have her meal and a good night's sleep. She snuggled into a waterproof sleeping bag with her Buizel lying at her feet and slept soundly, despite the mounting pressure. There was no doubt of her success in her mind.
She decided against breakfast in the morning, knowing that digestion burns oxygen. Arzu began her day by slipping into her wetsuit and fins, ready for some warmup dives. She picked up two nets, one containing her Pokémon and the other Kurt's new Pokéballs before rolling out of her boat into the water. Buizel knew how to recognise a blackout and was ready to rescue her if she pushed it a bit too far.
She finally felt as though she was in her element in the water and began by practicing a few breath holds on the surface. First she held her breath for five minutes, then ten, and finally for twenty minutes. Arzu felt completely at ease for the first two holds, but the twenty minute breath hold was a battle of mind over matter, she began having contractions - a diaphragm spasm caused by a buildup of carbon dioxide - after the eigth minute and by the tenth they were almost unbearable. Arzu trusted her body and detached herself from the pain. When the stopwatch rolled over to 20 minutes, Arzu flipped over and allowed herself to breathe again.
Arzu called out her Wailord and began to prepare for a practice dive: 250 metres. Her Buizel swam over and clung on, and, after a few deep breaths, she signalled to Wailord to begin the dive. Arzu let some water flood up her nose at the beginning of the dive and only put on her noseclip as the light began to fade away. As she descended deeper into the ocean, she held her nose and exhaled slightly, balancing out the pressure on her ears, a task made easier by the water she allowed in at the beginning of the dive.
Slowly, the turquoise water turned inky black as she descended deeper and deeper. Eventually, her watch beeped as they reached their target depth. Arzu could see nothing apart from what was illuminated by the small torch strapped to the right sleeve of her wetsuit and even that was blurry, the pressure here was too much for her to be able to wear her glass snorkelling mask. She got a happy nod from both Buizel and Wailord, who were a damn sight better equipped for holding their breath than she was, and she kicked off and began to swim over to one of the huge cliffs she was diving between.
Once she became accustomed to the pressure, Arzu relaxed completely and settled down on a rocky outcropping. The water was cold here, and though her wetsuit was keeping her body warm, her face felt the sting. A Relicanth swam past, curious, and Arzu ran her gloved hand along her as she did before slipping off the rock and swimming lazily along beside. She wished she could stay forever, but a burning sensation was rising in her chest, and she decided to swim back to Buizel and Wailord, but they were nowhere to be found. Still, Arzu remained calm and content. There was no point in panic when all it meant was death.
She swam in an almost grid like pattern across the abyss, hoping to bump into her Pokémon, without whom she wouldn't return to the surface alive. Her diaphragm contractions began in earnest, but she detached from her corporeal need to breathe and swam calmly on. She decided to glance at her dive watch and saw it was reading a depth of 304 metres, she had inadvertedly sunk far beneath Buizel and Wailord. Arzu began to kick upwards, closing the gap as quickly as possible while keeping her eyes glued to the large and blurry numbers on the dive watch. Suddenly, she felt her head hit something soft and large.
Arzu look up to find she had headbutted her Wailord. She duly patted him, manuevered onto his back, and clung on, she beckoned Buizel over and, once he also had a firm grip, signalled for Wailord to swim them back to the surface. Arzu's chest heaved and convulsed as her body begged for air but she knew that there was no use dwelling on it, the only cure was a breath and that was still some distance away. After what seemed like an eternity, beams of light broke through the blackness and soon the surface was within sight. Arzu signalled to Wailord to pause for what felt like the longest minute of her life as she decompressed. The moment her watch beeped, she signalled for Wailord to continue. Arzu broke the surface and gasped with palpable relief.
Arzu felt happy about her dive, things had gone wrong, sure, but she had dealt with them and made it there and back within her limits. Her watch showed that she had held her breath for 16 minutes and reached a depth of 306 metres. She was confident that her next dive to the full depth would be a success as well. Arzu decided to rest on board her boat for a few minutes before the attempt, and with the higher vantage point afforded to her, could see that SilphCo were preparing to launch their submersible. She knew that she needed to make her move as soon as she got her breath back.
Arzu slipped back into the water and spent a few minutes re-acclimatising and relaxing before her final dive. After a few deep breaths, she began her descent. Arzu meditated as her Wailord plummeted into the depths of the ocean, she was determined to expend as little energy and oxygen as possible. The seconds ticked by and the pressure began to take effect in earnest, soon the air in her lungs was so compressed, it felt as though they were empty. Still, she kept calm and trusted her body. Her watch rolled past 300 metres and she began to smile with excitement.
Suddenly, her Wailord arrested their descent as the bottom came into view. Arzu had made it, all that was left for her to do was to find the creature before she ran out of air. She kicked gently along the sandy bottom until a massive writhing fractal tentacle faded into view. She signalled for Buizel and Wailord to begin their onslaught, but the sheer size of the writhing mass before them gave them pause. It took a bit more non-verbal encouragement from Arzu before Wailord fired a shot across the creature's bow in the form of a Hydro Pump.
The creature recoiled backwards and attempted to flee, but its immense bulk held it firmly against sea bed. The towering cliffs penned it in, and Buizel harried it with Slashes while Wailord alternated between Aqua Tail, Hydro Pump, and Scald. The creature seemingly had no means of attack of its own, and Arzu was beginning to wonder if it was even capable of coordinated movement. Its individual limbs recoiled after each strike, but it didn't appear that it could see either Buizel or Wailord or deduce where they were.
Soon Buizel and Wailord were exhausted, and Arzu was becoming gripped by the urge to breathe. Suddenly, the battle was bathed in light from behind. Arzu turned around and came face to face with the SilphCo submersible. Despite appearing to her as a purple and black blur at the end of a long pole, Arzu had no doubt that the craft was armed with a Master Ball. She could only watch helplessly as the ball was deployed, but instead of opening, it simply clicked and sank to the bottom. The pressure was too great for it to open.
Arzu gleefully threw one of Kurt's specially constructed Pokéballs and it quickly enveloped the creature. It shook once, and then again, before bursting open and excreting a mass of squirming tentacles. Encouraged, she threw another. It shook four times and Arzu had to force herself to calm down, lest she burn through too much of her remaining oxygen, before the ball clicked, unleashing a surge of relief. Arzu, her chest now throbbing, kicked over to the ball and affixed it to her weight belt. She beckoned over Wailord and watched him swim towards her when suddenly a net swung down in front of her and pulled tight.
Arzu was dragged backwards by the net to the submersible. She tried to slash it with her knife but it appeared to have been made from steel cable. She struggled and squirmed but she was firmly ensnared she stared piercingly through the sub's front window, hoping to appeal to the operator's humanity, but it had no effect. The submarine turned and began to make its way back to the surface, much too slowly for Arzu to have any hope of surviving the trip. Arzu's entire body was shaking as her body begged for air. Her chest burned with an intolerable intensity until suddenly a wave of comfort and euphoria came over Arzu. She recognised it as the sensation she felt when she last pushed beyond her limits.
She looked down at her fingers and saw that they were turning blue, her time was almost up, and she needed to act fast. Arzu unclipped the ball from her belt and pushed it through a gap in the net. She clicked the button and released the great writhing creature back into the abyss from whence it came. She thought about how just minutes earlier, she expected her name to be in the Pokédex, now she wasn't even sure if she'd be reported missing. Soon these thoughts gave way to an empty dreamless sleep as the sub carried her blue lipped and lifeless form back up to the surface.
The next thing she knew she was lying in a hospital bed in a cold metal cell.
"Tell us where you got that Pokéball, Arzu," a figure shouted through the bars.
Arzu didn't reply.
"She was starved of oxygen," said a figure in a white coat. "We don't know the extent of the damage yet, but if there's anything left, we'll get you your answer."