Interceptor's Wish

by Masterdude21

What started as a young man's search for his abducted mother spirals out of control. Soon, he is fighting a desperate war for survival against greater odds than a more generous God would have allowed. The enemy is everywhere and allies are far too few. With the entire region at stake, who can prevail when fate itself seems set against you? - Novelization of Pokemon Rejuvenation.

39. Into The Belly of The Beast

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Chapter 9 – No Time Left To Lose!

Into the Belly of The Beast

"Have I ever mentioned how much I hate morning people?" Said the messy-haired, half-dressed, cranky rockstar formerly known as Veronica Vasile. "Because I do. I hate them."

Will, who had gotten up, put on his clothes, folded his blanket, brushed his teeth and solved world hunger by the time Venam was finally awake enough to string together a coherent sentence, knew he was one errand quip away from bloodshed and decided to stay quiet.

"All Storm Chasers on location are required to report in at seven in the morning, no exceptions," Melia said. She put her hair tie between her lips, gathered her golden hair in her hands and then started tying her hair up in a loose tail. "Us having to get up at seven is a rarity."

A loud and pained groan suggested that Venam might not have approved. "Seriously? That's so messed up! What kind of training has to start at seven in the freaking morning?"

"Personally, I agree," Will said.

Melia shot him a surprised look. "Really? I can't remember you ever struggling to get started in the morning."

Smiling as innocently as he could, Will replied, "Everybody knows the real adventure starts at three instead of seven."

"Gonna kick your ass," Venam muttered angrily as she strapped on her boots. "The moment Melia looks away, imma…plant these boots up your - "

"A-Anyway!" Melia hastily interrupted. "How about some coffee, maybe some scrambled eggs and fresh toast?"

"Ohh…toast…" Venam moaned.

"You had me at coffee."

They headed downstairs, where Will wasted no time in scrounging together a functioning kettle, coffee powder and a handful of cups and spoons. He wondered how Kanon took his coffee. He seemed to be a cream and sugar kind of guy.

Venam sat down into one of the chairs at the table in the living room and eased her head down onto her arms. Melia, meanwhile, pulled an apron out of a cupboard and started scrambling eggs.

"I hope your boss wasn't too angry about the cafe," Will said. He poured three cups of coffee, then set one apart for himself.

"Oh, they were mad," Melia said. "Just not at me. They're not in the know, so they think you three were just some rowdy teens looking for trouble."

He found sugar in another cupboard and added three spoonfuls to Venam's mug. "Hmm."

"Speaking of…" Melia fished some butter out of the fridge, sliced off a piece and then began heating a frying pan. "What was that even about? I saw that Kanon was the first one to send his Pokemon out, but there must have been a reason."

Will set Venam's mug apart, added a spoon of sugar to Melia's coffee. He misjudged the distance and accidentally dumped half the spoon across the kitchen counter. He slapped away the mounting sense of frustration and, after a moment of introspection, added some cream to her coffee as well. He couldn't imagine Melia taking her coffee in any other way. "Venam made a joke. He took it the wrong way. Venam took that the wrong way. Boom, dragons."

Melia snickered, but then her smile faded and her expression became serious. "Hey, so, about the entrance through Valor Mountain…how'd you know?"

"Know what?" He asked, spooning some coffee powder into the next mug. He moved slower this time, taking care to lower the spoon into the mug before turning it over just to make sure he didn't misjudge things again.

"About the…the forest. Spacea and Tiempa said they made the entrance specifically for me. Nobody else could have used it, but you knew?"

Oh yeah. That. He'd been so wrapped up in the craziness of Madame X casually rewinding time that he'd forgotten all about it. "I'm not sure you'll believe me."

"Will, it's going to take a lot for me to be skeptical, given what we've all seen and been through," Melia gently said. She heated the butter up in the pan, then began adding salt and pepper to the eggs. "Besides; you're not the type to lie. So, I'll believe you."

Will stared at her. "Just like that?"

She gave him a smile that did weird things to his insides. "Yeah. Just like that."

Will took his coffee mug from the counter. He rotated it idly. "It just popped into my head when I saw that door," he admitted quietly.

Melia kind of blinked at that. "It…popped into your head?"

He nodded. "Like an intrusive thought. Forest."

"...okaaaay," she said slowly. "That's…kinda weird, actually. Hmm…have you been having any other intrusive thoughts?"

His mind instantly went back to last night, watching Melia in her nightgown as she stretched her arms over her head. "No," he said, perhaps a bit too quickly. "At least…not that I can recall." He hesitated for a second, before pushing Melia's coffee towards her. "It's weird. I know."

Melia looked at the mug fondly before meeting his gaze. "And then the day I bring you and Venam here just so happens to be the day Indriad Theolia goes crazy? That's not weird at all. That's suspicious. Not because of you!" She quickly added when she saw the alarmed look on his face. "I'm thinking…it would have been a weird coincidence, but Spacea and Tiempa are really weirdly powerful."

"You're thinking they're involved?" He asked, picking up Venam's coffee too.

She shrugged. "I'm thinking we can't rule that out. Maybe they put some sort of spell on my route? As a test? I dunno."

Well. The good news was, Melia didn't think he was crazy. That was good enough for him.

He headed back to the table, put Venam's coffee in front of her and nudged her. "Huh, wha?"

Melia made them some delicious eggs and velvety toast and they enjoyed a leisurely breakfast. About forty minutes later, Professor Irvin walked inside. He muttered to himself as he glared at a letter of sorts.

"Ob dear…" Irvin said. "This is troublesome…"

"What's wrong Irvin?" Melia asked. "What's that piece of paper about?"

"My Indeedee found this on Kanon's bed," Irvin said, putting the paper down on the dinner table with a concerned scowl. "It's a letter. But not from Kanon himself."

"Eh?" Venam said. "Who else could it have been, then?"

"It's from Spacea and Tiempa. They took Kanon and the explosive orb."

"What?!" Melie cried out. "Why would they do such a thing?"

Because an explosive weapon capable of leveling a city was likely far too useful to just get rid of, Will would guess. But damnit, what was the point of taking Kanon as well? Losing his Pokemon was already a huge blow, and now they'd…what, jumped him at night? Kidnapped him while everybody was sleeping?

"Let me read out the letter," Irvin sighed. He smoothened out the paper and cleared his throat. "Dear Irvin, we have received your request and are delighted to see that things are moving nicely."

Nicely? They thought that Indriad and Gardevoir being on the loose and Kugearen nearly going up in flames was going along nicely?

"As a test for Venam and Will, we have taken Kanon and the explosive orb. They have been safely relocated to West Gearen in the present time. If Kanon is not rescued within the next few days, the orb will explode. Will and Venam will take this test to become official members of our group. As they are not official members, they are not allowed to know the classified info they have been presented. Failure to succeed will result in their memories of this time being wiped. As well as a tough penalty for Melia for allowing outsiders. We have arranged another member of our group to aid them in this quest."

Venam threw up her arms. "Are you kidding me?"

No way. Absolutely not. Nothing was going to get anywhere near his mind ever again. "I have some memories I can do without," Will said, forcing his breathing to remain calm and relaxed. Memories being wiped. His entire body revolted at the notion. It made his skin crawl. "Does your organization have any more personal screw-ups you need us to fix?"

Professor Irvin shot him a weary look, frustration in his gaze. "That is not entirely fair - "

"No, Will is right!" Melia said. "They saved our city, including our headquarters, from an enemy we didn't even know we had! And this is what they get?"

"I thought it was okay for us to be here!" Venam yelled, slamming her palms against the table.

"There aren't any rules against bringing in friends!" Melia snapped. "This is too convenient. Those two are pulling this new rule out of thin air!"

"I…must admit that I have not been made aware of this as well," Irvin said.

"And what did she mean by she arranged another member to assist us?" Venam demanded.

Their shouting was almost enough to drown out the subtle creak of the doorknob ratcheting. Almost. Will pivoted when the door opened, turning his entire body so that he could actually see who entered. Alarm turned to confusion when he saw Karrina of all people walking inside, looking exactly like she had the day he first met her.

"I'm going to guess that she meant me," she said coolly.

Will eyed her warily. She was a Storm Chaser as well?

But then it clicked. Of course she was. She'd been the one to keep them distracted with a false lead while Melia needed them the most. It was because of her that Ren, Venam and him hadn't been able to save her.

All the time that Melia had spent here, alone and miserable, was because of her.

"HUH? Karrina!" Venam said. "What are you doing here?"

Karrina's face lit up with recognition. "Mm…Venam?" She glanced at him as well. "And Will? I didn't expect to see you two here. You got a bit of a rugged look going on now, Will. I guess it suits you. And Melia! You seem to be doing well. Compared to last time, at least."

Melia looked away uncomfortably.

"You knew that Karrina was part of this too?" Venam asked her.

When Melia replied, her voice had that cold and distant tone to it that Will had come to associate with her trying to mask her anger and stress. "I've only met her a couple of times, but yeah? I never said anything because it was against the rules of the house…"

"Got a letter last night saying to report back. So here I am," Karrina said, all business. "I'd really like to take care of this soon. I have something to take care of back in West Gearen."

Well then. This had all the makings of Karrina's lucky day…

"According to this letter. you are to assist Will and Venam in rescuing Kanon, who is currently in West Gearen," Irvin told her. "It should also be noted that he has a highly explosive object on him that will detonate in a couple of days."

Karrina stared at him for a moment before she processed that. When she did, her eyes went wide and she took an alarmed step back. "What?" She yelled. "There's already enough issues happening in West Gearen, and now on top of that there's an explosive?! And to add on TOP of that, those two space idiots decided that saving an entire city should be left up to three teens?!"

"Hey, we've been through a lot, thank you!" Venam hissed, her eyes blazing with anger. "We're perfectly capable of doing this!"

"If we don't, they'll wipe Will and Venam's memory of this place!" Melia said urgently.

Karrina rolled her eyes. "And why am I supposed to care about that?" She snapped, and Will felt the confusion slowly turn to anger. "And I mean no disrespect to you, Will. I'm grateful for what you did at Amethyst Cave for me, but - "

"But screwing us over to help kidnap Melia was just more important?" Will said back, his voice low.

Karrina bristled. "Oh miss me with that white morality crap! A mission's a mission. What would you know, anyway?"

Her voice of words sent another spike of anger through him. "Enough to realize that what you people did was wrong."

"Newsflash kid," Karrina growled as she took a couple of quick steps in his direction. "This is bigger than you. Bigger than all of you. I'm going to be the one who takes care of this." She glared at him for a few seconds longer. Then, she said, "I'm going to grab some of my stuff upstairs and head on out. Don't try and stop me."

She stormed off after that, hurrying up the stairs towards her own room.

"Talk about a huge fuckin' ego," Venam said. "She has a point, but we could've just tagged along and acted as backup."

Could have? Karrina didn't have enough battleships in her armada to keep him from heading to West Gearen and pulling Kanon out of whatever mess those two witches had thrown him in.

"Instead, she wants to act all high and mighty," Venam continued with a frustrated sigh. "What a waste of space."

Melia stared at her empty coffee mug. "I"m not leaving it at that," she said slowly. "We're going on this mission."

"Of course we are," Will agreed.

Irvin reclined back in his seat. "I'm not one for conflict or confrontation. Spacea and Tiempa may have picked Karrina very well knowing that she would act this way. I suppose this would be step one of the mission."

"I understand," Melia nodded. "We've gotten stronger. We can handle this."

"You got a plan?" Venam asked.

Melia mulled that over. Then, the corners of her mouth rose in a shrewd smile. "Yep."

And what a plan it was. Simple, elegant and just violent enough to make their stance on this whole situation known.

A few minutes later, when Karrina left the room opposite of Melia's with her backpack full of equipment, she found herself flanked on both sides. Will heard her gasp. "Goddamn, you scared me! What are you doing?" The supposed gang leader demanded of the two girls.

"We're not going to let you stop us from what we have to," Melia said resolutely.

"Is that right?" Karrina challenged her. "What are you people going to do about it? I'm confident that I'm stronger than all three of you."

Another overconfident Storm Chaser. Kanon wasn't the only one then. How could people training for such absurdly high stakes be this self-assured?

It didn't matter. Karrina would find out soon enough.

"You sure about that?" Venam pushed back. "Even if it were true, we don't need strength to beat you."

"And why's that?" Karrina demanded, her voice gaining something like a cocky edge to it.

"Because!" Melia said. Will could just imagine how pleased she looked at that moment. For his part, he felt his pulse quicken. He was so not going to mess this up.

"We have the power of foul play," Venam said.

Will flung the door open and threw himself at Karrina before Venam had even finished her sentence. It wasn't a Blaziken-style tackle, all fluidity and perfectly-controlled muscles. It wasn't a Nidoking style bodycheck either, even though Karrina's wiry body was thinner and Will likely had ten, or even twenty pounds over her. What it was, was messy and violent. Will wrapped his arms around Karrina's thin waist and dove her hard into the ground, putting his entire body weight into the tackle.

Her back slammed into the ground with a hefty thud, driving all the air out of her lungs and leaving her dazed. Will was back on his feet in an instant, hurrying back out of the room while Venam urged him to lock the door.

"Ice the hinges and the lock!" Will snapped.

Froslass wasted no time in dragging a thin beam of ice across the spots he called out, sealing up the room with Karrina inside.

"Yeah!" Melia whooped, pumping her fist in excitement.

Karrina's scream of outrage was music to his ears. "LET ME OUT!" She yelled.

"Rule number one of the Amberette house," Melia sing-songed, crossing her wrists behind her back and leaning towards the door in delight. "Destruction of the property is forbidden and won't be tolerated. So unless you want a penalty, I suggest you stay in this room until we let you out later."

"So sit tight while we take care of things, sweetie," Venam yelled back at the door, before breaking down laughing.

"You're wasting your time, you idiots!" Karrina shouted back. "West Gearen City is under lockdown, which means there's no one going in or out! I'd like to see you try to fix things without even getting the chance to do it!"

Oh no, a lockdown! That meant they couldn't possibly enter the city via the sky, or the water, or by simply infiltrating through an unguarded section, or by knocking out the first guard who made the mistake to patrol around alone, which they always did.

Karrina lacked imagination.

"Now that that's settled, let's get out of here and make our way to Kugearen Woods," Melia told them.

"Why the woods?" Venam asked.

"There's a quick way back to Gearen City there. I'll show you guys." She turned back to the stairs and they all headed back down again. "Nice moves, by the way. Aelita teach you that?"

Will shook his head. Aelita would have made that look so easy.

"Whatever, it looked cool as hell! Now, what's the game plan once we get back to East Gearen?" Venam asked.

Melia opened the front door and they filed outside. "Karrina said West Gearen was under lockdown, which means it's gonna be real difficult. But if I remember from when I was in Gearen, she had a boat, right?"

Man, they'd stolen Karrina's mission, locked her in her room and now they were gonna steal her ride? He almost felt bad for her. Almost.

"Yeah?" Venam snorted. "Well, I hope you know how to drive one."

"Uh…I"m sure they have those automated navigation systems or something?" She replied somewhat nervously. "Besides! Even if it didn't, I'm sure it's not that hard?"

"Tesla's has those systems," Will pointed out.

"Yeah. but that's a yacht," Venam replied. "Doesn't count."

"Well, we'll figure it out once we get there, alright?"

In the brief moment between Melia finishing her sentence and Venam starting her reply, Will heard the sound of wood creaking above him. It was pure instinct that had him looking up -

- only to see Karrina leaping down at them from above.

His mind screeched to a halt. There was no time to warn the others. no time to do anything other than move.

Will managed to scamper backwards just in time to prevent Karrina from crashing down on top of his head. She nailed Venam instead, violently riding her to the ground to break her own fall. She was on top of Melia the next instant, throwing the younger girl over her hip and flinging her violently to the ground. Will felt Melia's body slam into the ground hard. White hot anger coursed through him, but he barely had the time to register that before Karrina whirled on him as well.

Fast - ! Will had the time to think before Karrina's leg snapped out. He barely managed to get his arms up to block the kick she aimed at his ribs. His forearms protested the blow and he backpedaled, his right hand dropping towards his satchel to scoop up Froslass' Pokeball.

If Karrina wanted a fight, he'd give her one.

"Rule number one!" Karrina panted, dropping into a fighting stance that was vaguely similar to Aelita's. "Sometimes you have to bend, or even break the rules to win! Musharna, use Hypnosis, put Will to sleep!"

Under normal circumstances, Will would have spread his arms, closed his eyes and embraced the chance of getting some free hours of uninterrupted sleep. Since he had to save Kanon from the clutches of his own freaking leadership and then save an entire city from a kingdom-ruining explosive, again, he'd have to ask Karrina to postpone his nap. Politely. "Froslass, use Shadow Ball!"

As Karrina's floating, puffy ball of pinkness emerged from its Pokeball, Froslass appeared amidst a flicker of the wind and wasted no time in flinging a boiling orb of dark energy at her foe.

"Musharna, dodge it!" Karrina yelled.

"Keep firing, fast and low-power shots!"

Musharna, who was literally still in the process of putting its hypnotic suggestion in place, couldn't shift gears fast enough. It angled away from the ghostly energy coming towards it and the first orb was a glancing miss. The second one, however, slammed into the rear end of its body and sent it tumbling through the air.

"Musharna, fire back a Psyshock!"

Froslass had the initiative. As Musharna struggled to right itself and gather its wits enough to fight back, Froslass simply kept pummeling it with one Shadow Ball after another. The ghostly projectiles tore through the air, impacting on the Psychic-type's body with such force that they sent it careening out of control.

"Tch, you had your Pokemon out this entire time?" Karrina demanded.

Will ignored her. "Get closer, hit it with a full-powered Shadow Ball!"

Froslass happily surged towards the Musharna, trailing pinpricks of black light and ghostly energy as she did. A sphere of boiling, inky energy gathered at the mouth-section of her mask.

"Musharna! Dazzling Gleam!" Karrina ordered.

Disoriented and in pain, Musharna exploded in a flash of white-pink energy. The eruption of brilliant light expanded across the battlefield in the blink of an eye, a flash of Fairy-type energy that consumed Froslass's outlines.

"Froslass, aim for its face! Will ordered.

When the light faded, Froslass had crossed the distance. She lobbed a spherical mass of ghostly energy larger than a human's torso straight at Musharna's head and it had no time to evade.

Shadow Ball splashed across Musharna's face and this time and it fell out of the sky like a plane that had suddenly lost one of its wings, spiraling out of control in a downwards motion. Froslass, ever vigilant, was already gathering energy to unleash a second attack, but Karrina thrust her Pokeball forwards and snapped, "Musharna, return. Runerigus, it's your turn!"

Her next Pokemon was another one Will had never seen before. It reminded him of a tombstone, or some sort of oversized clay tablet with the red outlines of an eye-eyed serpent drawn across its body. A pair of arms and a long, ribbony tail uncurled from the clay tablet.

"Use Shadow Claw!"

With surprising speed, it flung one of its claws at Froslass. His Ice-type backed away, but the ghostly claw didn't stop; it lunged after her for far, far longer than Will would have thought possible and raked at her before she could turn intangible.

Froslass cried out with pain as the dark claws struck her body. Her concentration wavered and she dropped several meters before recovering her wits.

"Keep pressing with Shadow Claw!"

A physical attacker, then. Not good; he hadn't seen anything to indicate Runerigus used elemental energy to attack. It didn't look like a Steel-type, either. If this thing could hurt Froslass, it was either a Dark or a Ghost-type. Had he still had Houndoom in his team, he would have called Froslass back and tried to figure it out. He could have sent Blaziken out to see if this thing was invulnerable to simple melee attacks, but something told him that wouldn't be a good idea.

Froslass quickly tried to back away from her foe, but it easily kept pace with its claws, which it seemed to be able to control from great distances. Getting closer wasn't an option, either. In that case -

Out of nowhere, Runerigus' shadowy tail shot towards Froslass. Just as she managed to avoid one of its claws swiping at her head, that weird, ghostly energy wrapped itself around her frame and bound her tight.

"Good, pull her close, use Shadow Claw again!"

Runerigus jerked the immobile Ice-type towards his body. Its right arm came in from above, its weird, stubby fingers wreathed in massive, shimmering claws of darkness.

"Froslass, use Blizzard! Keep that thing off of you!"

Froslass wasted no time in unleashing a blast of frigid air at her foe. A storm of frozen air blew Runerigus' free arm out of the way, preventing him from landing another Shadow Claw. From that range, there was no avoiding the attack either.

"But that should have - fine! Runerigus, you have to shield yourself against the cold!"

Runerigus curled in on itself. pulling its limbs back into its body, perhaps to protect its weak points against the frigid temperatures. Ice began coating its outer layer, clogging up several portions of that serpentine print on its coffin-like shell.

"Shadow Ball!" Will snapped.

The Blizzard ceased. Runerigus unfolded itself and swept at the chunks of ice clinging to its body, but there was nothing it could do. Froslass' Shadow Ball sailed straight and true and nailed the weird coffin-Pokemon against its head, which snapped backwards under the impact of the projectile.

"Keep fighting Runerigus! Another Shadow Claw, quick!"

Froslass was on to her foe by that point. Its right appendage came in from below and she gracefully avoided its nails, breathing Icy Wind on it as she did. The physical nature of Shadow Claw meant that there was no way for Runerigus to truly defend himself against it, and the ice that clung to its limb weighed it down long enough for Froslass to zip away again.

One more Shadow Ball was all it took. The ghostly orb of spectral energy washed over Runerigus' body and both of its arms just slumped to the ground. Slowly, its coffin-like body began toppling backwards.

Karrina scoffed. "Fine. Runerigus, come back. Alakazam, it's time to wrap this up!"

In Runerigus' wake, she sent out a humanoid Pokemon, with an almost emaciated, yellow body and a well developed moustache. Its head was large and spiky and it brandished a pair of spoons as if they were daggers.

Will's blood ran cold. He'd barely staved off a powerful Psychic-type Pokemon in the form of Gardevoir. He doubted this Alakazam could even come close to the absurd levels of power Gardevoir had displayed, but that didn't change the fact that his team was vulnerable to strong Psychic types, and Alakazam was one of the strongest. This thing could handily beat Nidoking, throw Blaziken and Fraxure around like a ragdoll and easily overpower Kirlia and Froslass.

This was bad.

"Froslass, Shadow ball-!"

"I don't think so."

Alakazam reached out at Froslass and her movements just stopped. It didn't box her in with invisible barriers or push her back with psychic energy, it just pulled her out of the air as if with an enormous, invisible hand. The inky mass of her gathering Shadow Ball fizzled away as she cried out in surprise.

"Knock her senseless!"

With a simple flick of its wrist, Alakazam sent Froslass slamming into the ground. Her ghostly body didn't phase through the ground like Will had expected. Instead, she connected with the pavement in a violent crash. Tiles shattered underneath her impact.

"Froslass, try to break free!" He shouted.

"Keep her pinned"! Karrina ordered.

Tired from her initial clash with Karrina's first two Pokemon, Froslass couldn't muster the focus or the force to wrestle free from Alakazam's grasp. Her body flickered in and out of existence and Alakazam's began glowing as he renewed his effort to pin her down. Her will clashed with his as the air began vibrating. A deep, humming sensation settled within Will's bones. Froslass snarled in exertion -

Again Alakazam slammed her into the pavement.

"Good. Prepare a Shadow Ball, but don't let her escape!"

With his free hand, Alakazam began gathering ghostly energy to himself as well.

Will racked his mind for a way to break out of this situation, for a way to take back the initiative and score a solid hit. Alakazam was incredibly powerful, but its body was also frail and vulnerable. A good physical attack would take it out of commision. That, or an equally powerful Pokemon could stalemate it from a distance and force it to waste its energy.

Neither of that was a possibility. Froslass didn't have any quick-fire moves like that. Those Shadow Claws must have hurt her more than she'd let on.

"Keep fighting Froslass!" Will ordered. "Make them work for it!"

Her doll-like body trembled as she pushed back against Alakazam's body with all her might. Karrina's strongest Pokemon had to dismiss its conjured Shadow Ball and reach out with its other hand as well. His spoons began trembling as well and he began leaning towards Froslass, as if pushing back against an invisible wall.

Suddenly, his entire body got shoved back a solid meter.

"Hey, Alakazam, stop playing around!" Karrina ordered. "Shadow Ball that thing, we've got places to be!"

Alakazam renewed its effort and Froslass cried out in pain and rage. Ice began coating her body and the air around her grew misty and heavy. With a trembling arm, Alakazam began gathering energy for another Shadow Ball again.

"That's right! Give it all you got!" Will shouted.

Froslass cried out again, fury bleeding into her ghostly voice. Spears of jagged ice began erupting all around the battlefield in random directions and formations. The sky slowly grew grey and dim. Alakazam's hand, the one holding her prisoner, began freezing over.

A mound of ice exploded from the ground not a meter away from Will. Sand and little pieces of stone rained down on him from above.

How…no, what was she doing?!

"Now!"

Still, Alakazam managed to fire off his Shadow Ball. It splashed across Froslass's body and she went limp.

The ice around him shattered and fell apart.

Alakazam jerked his frozen hand back. The ice coating his skin erupted outwards.

"Well done, Froslass," he muttered, recalling his exhausted ghost. "You've done your job." He plucked his next Pokeball from his satchel. "Pidgeot, take the sky! Take out Alakazam no matter the cost!"

His majestic flier materialized mid-air. With practiced ease, he turned his forwards movement and turned it into an upwards angle.

"Alakazam, shoot him down with Psyshock!"

Good luck with that, Will thought as Pidgeot beat his wings furiously. Just four or five flaps were enough to throw up a wicked windstorm. Trees began shaking, sand and debris went everywhere and Karrina was nearly blown off her feet.

Alakazam shoved its spoons towards Pidgeot and created a thin, almost bubbly shield around itself only visible through the outlines of sand and rubble smacking into it.

With the initial hurdle taken, Pidgeot was off, shooting through the sky with a speed that would have turned any human to paste. Purple-colored beams shot from the center of Alakazam's forehead and shot towards the sky like lightning, bending and twisting in impossible angles to take after Pidgeot.

Compared to the hellish crossfire Team Xen had erected at Route Six, this was nothing. Pidgeot climbed and banked to evade the energy fire, then came around in a wicked U-turn.

"Keep firing Alakazam! Shoot it down!"

Pidgeot pulled into a sharp descent and began plummeting towards the ground at a supersonic velocity.

Alakazam acknowledged her command with a snarl. He thrust his arms forwards and fed so much energy through his spoons that they began writhing in his hands like a pair of thrashing snakes.

Dozens of beams of energy exploded from Alakazam's form, shooting towards the oncoming storm.

Pidgeot covered several hundred meters in the span of a single second. Will could have blinked and missed the extreme violence that followed. A blur of motion, a storm of air that threw both him and Karrina to the ground and the deafening clamor of something just detonating. At the same time, a shockwave of psychic energy swept outwards from the point of impact.

A heavy cloud of dust hung in the air where Alakazam once stood.

"Alakazam!" Karrina shouted. "Get up! Can you fight? Alakazam!"

Motion rippled through the dusty haze. Pidgeot dragged himself out of a freaking crater he'd smashed using Alakazam's body. He favored one leg, and his left wing hung behind him like a feathery curtain, clearly in too much pain to move it along with him.

But Alakazam lay motionless in that shallow crater and he did not rise again.

Dive-bombing a powerful enemy with such speed was among the most reckless and dangerous tactics he had, but Alakazam would have shrugged off anything less. Then, he'd have taken the initiative once again. The second Alakazam took a hold of Pidgeot with his telekinesis, the battle would have been over.

"Dependable as always. Well done, Pidgeot," Will told his battered, but conscious warrior. "Come back. You've earned the rest."

Pidgeot lowered his head as the white light enveloped his body. He returned to his ball. Three down. Going by the way she'd talked, Alakazam had been her ace. For good reason, too. It could have been an enormous threat if he didn't have Pidgeot on his team.. How many Pokemon did Karrina have left anyway?

It didn't matter. He'd beat them all. "Kirlia, you're up. Be ready for anything."

"Granbull! Your turn!"

Karrina's tactics grew more aggressive. Granbull, this big, bipedal dog-like Pokemon with a massive underbite, immediately went on the offensive. Fire wreathed its hands as he lunged for Kirlia with a wild hook.

"Teleport away!" Will snapped.

In a flash, Kirlia had disappeared and Granbull struck empty air. It spun around, its angry eyes looking for its target, but it couldn't easily find Kirlia.

Kirlia, however, didn't have that problem. With all the damage the fight against Alakazam had caused, there were plenty of craters and piles of rubble to hide amidst. A physical powerhouse like Granbull was only dangerous enough once it got close, meaning Kirlia just had to keep fighting at range.

"Psybeam! Keep your distance!"

A ray of bright, multi-colored light speared the air from behind Granbull's position. It struck its left leg and the bitey Pokemon whirled around with a snarl. It began charging towards Kirlia's position, but she'd teleported away again. With no way of finding where the intrepid little Psychic type had gone, Granbull began warily searching its environment again, panting.

Kirlia disappeared in a little flash of light and reappeared again, this time to Granbull's right flank. A ray of Psybeam struck its other leg and it uttered a frustrated bark, stomping its other foot to the ground and whirling around.

"Flush it out with Earthquake!" Karrina yelled.

Granbull leapt into the air and came back down hard, stomping both of its feet against the surface and sending a pulse of energy into the ground that swiftly turned into a real freaking earthquake that shook the entire battlefield around them.

"Teleport away!" Will yelled.

A flash of white light told him that Kirlia had heard him over the violent quakes. As the ground began splintering and throwing up rubble in several places, he spotted a shadow coming into existence a dozen meters above Granbull.

"Raw firepower, just like in the forest!"

As she fell, Kirlia spread her arms. Shattered wood and crumbled rocks began twirling up into the air like leaves dancing on the wind, Fighting Gardevoir had shown them both just how deadly psychic abilities were if pushed to their limits by a truly twisted mind. Her eyes and singular horn glowing in a menacing red hue, the small Kirlia flung a telekinetic storm of shrapnel and debris towards her foe.

Granbull could possibly have dodged an attack like that, but not this omni-directional wave. Like Angie had shown, if you threw enough pointy stuff at someone, eventually they would start bleeding.

At the apex of her fall Kirlia flickered away again and the hail of improvised projectiles slammed into Granbull's body from all directions. Stones flattened themselves against its thick hide, shards of wood burst into little clouds and the sand carried in their wake only served to blind the vicious-looking Pokemon.

"Another Earthquake Granbull, you don't have to see where you attack!" Karrina called.

Blinded, aching and likely very pissed off, the Granbull lifted one of its legs to stomp down on the ground again.

But Kirlia didn't need to see her enemy to know how to hurt it. "Use Psybeam again, aim for its face!"

Then, Karrina grinned. "Thunder Wave!"

Kirlia fired off a multi-colored pulse of energy that carved through the air and the dust and struck Granbull across its head, narrowly missing its face and scorching one of its big, flappy ears instead.

Following the trajectory of her attack, Granbull was able to guess where she was. As it tanked her attack the fur on its body stood upright and several sparks of blue electricity flickered through the air. Kirlia, too focused on maintaining her attack, wasn't able to dodge them in time. The burst of energy washed over her and her body crackled with yellow lines of electricity.

Kirlia cried out in pain and dropped to her knees, clutching her head as her broken horn began bleeding purple energy.

"Now Granbull! Time to Play Rough!" Karrina yelled.

"Kirlia, ready a teleport!" Will said.

Granbull lowered his large head and began charging Kirlia's way. The little Psychic-type struggled to get to her feet but she wasn't able to. The electricity crackling across her body was too much.

"Come on Kirlia, you can do it!" Will urged her on. "Fight through the pain!"

He realized what he was asking of her. It was lunacy to demand another person to endure agony on your own behalf. But what choice did they have? They'd all suffered to get this far. Defeat, as always, simply wasn't something they could afford.

"One teleport! Ready it! As high in the air as you can!"

Kirlia's body trembled in silent agony as she raised a trembling arm.

Granbull barreled towards her with no intent of slowing down. Its feet kicked up dirt and sand with every thundering step it took. It would on her in seconds.

It really was now or never. "Now Kirlia! Teleport Granbull!"

With a scream that went unheard by everyone on the battlefield, Kirlia managed to push through the paralysis and the reddish glow of her eyes intensified.

Before he could realize what was happening, Granbull's body flickered out of existence, only to reappear high up in the sky.

"What!" Karrina exclaimed.

Its momentum and weight now worked against it. Granbull plummeted to the ground, helpless to stop his fall in any way. As its trainer watched in horror, it smashed a crater into the earth.

When the dust settled, Granbull remained motionless in its crater.

"Incredible work, Kirlia," Will said. "I'm proud of you."

Karrina sent out her own Nidoking next, thinking perhaps that he would keep his adorable Psychic-type in the field so that she could rush her down with powerful attacks from range. It wasn't an unreasonable assumption, as Will was confident that Kirlia could reach out and touch Nidoking with her abilities, but he wouldn't put that to the test. Not while she was still paralyzed from the surprise Thunder Wave.

What was more, if his Nidoking found out he'd had the chance to finally throw down with another Nidoking and his trainer had robbed him of that, he would get cranky. Crankier than Venam in the morning. Worse than cranky Venam, Nidoking would get pouty. Will's heart just couldn't handle that.

"Kirlia, come back. Nidoking, the world is yours!"

In a flash of white light, his own Nidoking took the field. He spotted his enemy and something like a shudder ran down his spine. They'd been through enough scary situations together for Will to know that it wasn't fear, but anticipation.

"Nidoking, Earth Power!" Karrina shouted.

"Earth Power, but keep moving!" Will yelled at the exact same time.

The two purple powerhouses moved at the same time. Karrina's slammed his fist into the ground and the familiar flash of orange light caused the ground all around Will's to erupt into a graveyard of spikes of exploding rocks. By that time however, his Nidoking was already on the move. He barreled towards his foe on all fours, his heavy, armored tail keeping him balanced as he zig-zagged across the battlefield to avoid the various crags of stone that kept detonating around him. As he ran, he dragged his right claw across the ground, sending smaller, more localized pikes of burning stone erupting across the field towards Karrina's Nidoking.

"Don't let that hit you!" She ordered. "Keep him away with Flamethrower!"

Flamethrower? "Take cover!"

Her Nidoking opened its toothy maw and a beam of fire burst from its mouth. It tore through the air and splashed across the series of toothy stones that his Nidoking had just rolled behind. Will had expected the flames to simply pop those rocks like an overripe fruit, as the likes of Tesla's Charizard and Houndoom could. Much to his surprise though, the Flamethrower failed to blast through Nidoking's improvised cover.

Very interesting. Not all flames were born equally, it seemed.

His Nidoking slammed his tail against the superheated formation of rocks like a whip. The rocks shattered into a cloud of shrapnel towards Karrina's Nidoking, which was forced to break off its attack and cover its face with its armored forearms.

As the two Nidoking's tore their surroundings apart, Will spotted something funny. Venam still lay sprawled on the ground, even though he could have sworn that Karrina's attack hadn't actually connected with Venam's head and Melia, meanwhile, wasn't where he had last left her.

That meant Melia had the opportunity to do the funniest thing.

His own Nidoking was free to advance. Karrina's tried to get another flamethrower off, but then Will's Nido was upon him and the resulting clash of armored bodies slamming into each body was as violent as it was noisy.

His Nidoking slammed a heavy fist against his foe's head, sending him staggering back. Undaunted, Karrina called for another Flamethrower and her Nidoking chained a furious roar into a wide-mawed spray of searing flames.

His Nidoking got one hand around his foe's throat, shoved him back and then gripped his forehead with his other claw. Before the torrent of flames could do much much more than heat up his thick chest plating, Will's Nido violently jerked Karrina's against the floor, slamming his skull through the already shattered pavement.

His flames interrupted, the opposing Nidoking put his stocky arms beneath his body and violently shoved himself back to his feet, driving his diamond-hard horn at Nidoking's throat as he did. Knowing full well the consequences of not protecting his throat area, Will's Nidoking managed to tuck his head in before the horn could sink into his flesh, and the horn nicked his chin instead. In retaliation, he pivoted and swung his massive tail against his foe, sending Karrina's last Pokemon tumbling across the field.

"Earth Power, before he recovers!" Will yelled.

But Karrina's Nidoking wasn't done yet. He came to just in time to spot the ground beneath him brimming with light and fiery lines and swiftly rolled out of the way before the ground. He climbed to his feet and screamed a challenge at his scarred opponent, which no Nidoking on the planet could have ignored.

The two barreled towards each with the speed and force of speeding cars. Will's Nidoking lowered his shoulder and rammed Karrina's out of the way, but hers replied with a furious punch to his jaw and a quick mouthful of flames. His Nidoking reared his head back and then brought it down against his foe's face, narrowly avoiding his horn. Stunned by the savage blow, Karrina's Nidoking staggered backwards.

"Quick and dirty Earth Power, get him off balance!" Will ordered.

Nidoking slapped his tail against the ground and sent a pulse of energy through the battlefield. A singular mound of rocks exploded outwards right beneath his opponent's feet and flung him off his feet. His Nidoking immediately pressed the advantage, grabbing a hold of his fallen enemy's tail and heaving, pulling him off his feet like a ragdoll, overhead and smashing into the ground.

"Nidoking, get up! You have to keep fighting!" Karrina urged him on.

To his credit, her Nidoking did groggily try to push himself back to all fours. Another tail smack from his Nidoking across the face put an end to that.

"I…what!" Karrina snapped. "HUH? When did you get so strong!"

"Stay out of our way," Will growled back.

She kept her gaze determinedly locked on him. "How are you stronger than me at this point?" She demanded. "I've been training far longer than you have!"

Will wasn't sure what kind of training the Storm Chasers underwent, but if it kept them this blind to the strength of their opponents, it couldn't possibly be a substitute for the real deal.

Then, something in Karrina's gaze changed. She raised her fists, rolled her head as if working out a sore muscle in her neck and said, "Well, you may be better at battles, but let's just see how you fare against me in physical combat!"

Really? With his Pokemon right there?

Nidoking snorted in bewilderment. Will shared that sentiment. He wasn't going to harm Karrina, but…was she really confident enough to visibly attack a Nidoking's trainer when said Nido already had his blood up?

Without another word, Karrina charged towards him, her eyes determined and promising violence. In doing so, however, she left herself completely open to a threat she hadn't quite neutralized.

A bolt of the brightest blue light splashed across Karrina's back, turning her forward charge into a nosedive straight to the ground. Her entire body went limp as she uttered a pained cry.

"Rule number two!" Melia yelled from the entrance of the Amberette house, leaning casually against the doorframe. Hapi fluttered in front of her, looking very pleased with himself. "Don't take your eyes off the enemy! Lest you get hit directly in the back with an Aura Sphere. You're not putting a single finger on him."

Will sucked in a breath. There was something oddly thrilling about Melia being that confident, that smug.

Calmly, with the utmost confidence, Melia recalled Hapi and casually strode towards Will. She passed by Karrina, who swayed on her feet and visibly struggled to even remain conscious, let alone try anything funny.

As it turned out, a confident Melia was more dangerous than an angry Nidoking when it came to defending their own. Man, he wasn't used to seeing Melia like this, so…so in control. He liked it.

"...Kanon's most likely in the West Gearen Sewers…" Karrina said as she half fell, half sat down on her own volition. "There's been a…report of something wrong with…going down there…but…the city lockdown…it's…the only…place…I…can…see…him…Ow."

She went out like a light.

"Thanks for the tip," Melia hummed. "Just leave this to us."

"...I love watching you kick ass," Will blurted out.

The faintest beginnings of a blush colored Melia's pale cheeks, though that could have also been the exertion from the fight. "W-Well, yeah! I couldn't let her put her hands on you, so…"

Still lying where she had fallen, Venam groaned in pain. "R-Rule number three…don't put objects in your back pocket on the off chance you fall on that side. B-Because it may result in painful ass syndrome. Ow…"

Melia smiled and shook her head with mild disapproval. "Will you get up? Don't be so silly."

"Fine…" Venam grumbled.

"Anyway! That was awesome, Will!" Melia said, and when she smiled at him again, it was luminous. "You really have gotten strong in a small amount of time. It's really admirable."

"I'm cool too…" Venam protested weakly.

"No, you're on the floor," Melia chastised her. "Let's get to Kugearen Woods already…"

Venam stiffly climbed back to her feet. "Ow…oof, ah, pain…"

After Venam shrugged off her mortal injury, the three of them headed back into the woods. The first few hundred meters took them dangerously close towards the route to the Theolia Mansion, but then Melia suddenly veered off to the left and headed deeper into the forest itself.

"I can't believe the nerve of that bitch," Venam began after half an hour of trekking. "Showing up all cocky despite having lied to our face the first time we met…good thing we shut her down hard."

"Heh, yeah," Melia said. "Still, didn't expect her to break open that window. Can you imagine what would have happened if she knocked Will out, too? Sheesh…"

"She seemed very sure of herself," Will said. "Do you think the space idiots genuinely added her in as a test?"

He didn't notice that both Melia and Venam had frozen until he was a good few meters ahead of them. Turning around, he saw that Melia was staring at him all mortified, while Venam had raised her eyebrows so high that they threatened to disappear into her hairline.

"What?"

"...I don't think you're supposed to badmouth them," Melia said.

"Karrina came up with it," Will protested.

"Karrina's one of us! A Storm Chaser!" Melia said, warily looking around as if she expected Spacea and Tiempa to be peeking at them from behind a tree or something.

"And I'm one of me, so that doesn't matter," Will shot back.

"I - wait, huh? How's…no, that makes no sense!"

Worth a shot.

"C'mon, don't diss the guy when he's finally learning to stick up for himself!" Venam said. "We just solved one giant freaking mess for those two, and now they're threatening to like, wipe our memories and…" Her voice trailed off as if she just now put two and two together. Which, Will realized, she likely did. "Uh…yeah, that! And that's fucked!"

"I know, I know," Melia replied. "It just feels so wrong. They're the founders of the Storm Chasers, they're the ones who gathered us all together."

And how. "They also abducted Kanon from his room after he just lost Salamence and placed a city-leveling explosion in a major population center just to test two teens," Will shot back.

"And they couldn't even be bothered to thank us for solving a mess that they should have seen coming, if they're so all-knowing that we can't talk shit about them in a random forest," Venam added.

"Let's…let's just see what else they've got planned for us, okay? I get that you're angry, so am I! I just think we should use our indoor voices when we express that."

Half a minute of silence went by before Will asked, "Can I call them space idiots if they make us Storm Chasers as well?"

The look of exasperation, coupled with the barest hint of a smirk pulling at Melia's lips, was completely worth it. "As long as you're not saying that to their faces, I guess?"

Finally, they reached their destination. It seemed to be a very small pathway through an overgrown section of thorny bushes. Definitely not a place people would go looking voluntarily.

"It's through here," Melia said. "Just tug on this vine that's hanging and…this vine pushes some of the branches away. There's a small grove here now."

"Lemme guess, there's another crystal in this little grove," Venam remarked.

"Yeah, and it leads to East Gearen City."

Venam glanced at the grove with unease. "I'm just wondering where in the world this crystal would even be? I've been through every corner in East Gearen and I've never seen anything like that."

"Good!" Melia smirked. "It's supposed to be hidden, remember? If anyone could just walk up on it, that'd be a pretty big problem, don't you think?"

"Perhaps?" Venam said with a shrug.

"Let's go, we probably don't have much time!"

They pushed through the narrow opening in the thorny foliage and ended up in a small grove, just like Melia had told them. They wasted no time in gathering around the blue outcropping of time crystals, counted down on Melia's sign and then took a hold of the crystals.

One horrible teleportation session later, all three of them found themselves in a dusty, empty room of sorts. The checkered tiles seemed familiar somehow, but it was the horrible smell that really stood out to Will. It almost smelled like -

Venam flung the door open. "We're at the Abandoned Sewers! Has this always been here?"

Melia and Will followed her out. Venam was right; they were in the sewers beneath Gearen City. It wasn't just any random location, either.

"According to Irvin, this is a popular spot for Stormchasers to come to this time," Melia explained.

Will stared at the empty room. Vivid memories blossomed in his mind and it all came rushing back to him. A doorway made out of solid light, an impossible passage through dimensions…the fear that Venam blamed him for his inability to keep Melia safe.

"I don't understand, the crystal in Kugearen City and the woods are close. But Gearen City and Valor Mountain are extremely far apart. Wouldn't it make more sense if we were somewhere close to Valor?"

This was the last place he'd seen Maria after she remembered.

"Maybe distance doesn't matter?"

"Huh?"

He vaguely recalled reaching out to the girl as she beamed down at him, her golden hair and vast powers casting a halo about her head as she called him Willow for the last time.

"I'm saying the location probably doesn't matter. It isn't a matter of distance, it's a matter of which crystal is linked…if that makes sense. If crystals were linked up, that means location isn't a factor in where you end up."

Will closed his eyes. He could almost feel the warmth of Maria embracing his soul. The brilliance of her smile. The sadness in her eyes as she sent them all back.

"So technically we could use these crystals to travel places faster?"

"I suppose you could look at it that way, sure."

Where was she now? Had she found happiness? Had she destroyed Indriad Theolia completely, or had the monster somehow escaped her fury?

"It's been a while, but Karrina's base should be just upstairs."

Would he have to finish what she started?

"Yeah, and her boat is hanging by the docks there, too."

"Awesome! C'mon guys! …Will?'

This place…it wasn't somewhere he'd expected to see again. Gearen City was fine, but the sewers? Where Ren and him had teamed up for the first time, where he'd caught Mightyena back when he was still a little Poochyena? It wasn't right. This wasn't a place he should be again.

"Will?"

These crystals, what were they made of? How did they work? It was here, this had been the place where Maria's world clashed with theirs, what if it hadn't been a dimension thing at all? What if it had been time all long, time bleeding through the crystals, bleeding into their dimension, bleeding -

"Will! Hey, Will, look at me!"

He pulled himself out of the thought, out of the memory, staring at Melia. "What?"

"You were staring."

"Yeah, blankly, off into space," Venam said, frowning.

"Fine," he said. "I'm fine. It's…I didn't expect to return…here, is all."

"Uh, oh, yeah, fuck, this is the place isn't it?" Venam then said.

Will nodded tersely.

"The place?" Melia said, looking between them both. "The sewers…you mean the mansion? Don't you? Indriad's mansion, that first time?"

With inhuman effort, Will turned his back to the entrance. He tried not to remember how small and fierce Poochyena had been. How Ren had laughed when he missed that first Pokeball throw. How young and happy Melia had been when he "met" her for the first time in that computer room.

"I don't remember how I got back," he said.

"That's 'cause we had to carry your ass back to the hospital, thinking you were leaking brain matter all over the floor," Venam snapped. The harshness in her voice took him by surprise, but he knew that wasn't aimed at him. "We - they - that was the first time you almost scared the shit out of me by almost dying."

Absentmindedly, Will ran his hand over the back of his head. The Theolias, Anju, Angie, the frozen prison, the dolls in the apartment lab…he was still missing something important, something that was staring him in the face. "Head wounds bleed a lot."

"Yeah, they really freaking did."

"Lot's of memories in this place, then," Melia said quietly. "We better move on."

Nobody disagreed. They headed back to the surface. Once again, the foggy, smoky air of East Gearen slapped them in the face. Venam was right; Karrina's ride had been tied down at an improvised pier to their left. Undefended and unguarded.

Melia rested her arms on the pier and gazed out over the dark blackness of the sea, eyebrows furrowed. Venam, meanwhile, headed down to check if the boat still had its keys inside.

"...you never went back to Gearen in those years?" Will asked.

"No," Melia quietly said. "It's been so long since I've been here…I'm just basking in this familiar air."

He wasn't sure what to say to that. Everything that had happened to Melia was wrong. It wasn't fair. This entire conspiracy to spirit her away from everything she knew and loved to…to groom her as some sort of fighter just repulsed him. Nevertheless…what was the alternative? Her sticking around in this time period as the fifteen - sixteen? - year-old girl with only a Togepi to her name? If Zetta and Geara didn't get her, Madame X sure would have.

Those three years hadn't just spared her from their cruel plans, they had given her the experience and the tools to fight back. He couldn't rationally hate Karrina, Spacea and Tiempa for doing what they;d done.

But that wouldn't stop him from trying. Was it petty? Yes. Did he care? Less and less with each passing day. .

"Wow!" Venam's voice rang from Karrina's ride. "Karrina just leaves the keys in her boat like it's nothin'! She must be really confident if she forgets she lives in East Gearen City. Melia, we're ready to go."

Melia didn't reply. She continued staring at the horizon even as Venam poked her head out from the cockpit. "Melia? Uh, you okay?"

Will placed his hand on her forearm and gently shook it. "Melia."

She snapped out of her thoughts. "Oh, I'm sorry," she quickly said. "I was just…basing in nostalgia, I guess. Like I said, it's the first time in three years since I've been back in Gearen City. This air…I missed it."

They didn't say anything to that. What was there to say?

After another minute of almost regretful silence, Melia straightened herself and pushed away from the railing. "Sorry, I'm done. Let's leave."

They filed inside of the boat, which actually looked a lot like Tesla's yacht from the inside. It also reminded him of Rorim's boat, albeit Karrina had accumulated a lot more wealth in her life, which translated to a bigger, fancier boat.

Will sat down in one of the backseats while the girls scampered into the cockpit. There, Melia took the driver's seat. Boat-driver seat. Boater's seat?

Melia took the boater's seat and Venam sat down in the co-boater seat. The two looked like they knew what they were doing. Venam started fumbling with the controls while Will laid down on the seats. There were five of them, all of them padded with leather and lined with pillows.

"Uh oh," went Venam.

Uh oh?

"What's wrong?" Melia asked.

Venam slammed her first into the console and spat a curse. "This thing has to be driven manually! It's not like Tesla's Yacht."

"Mm…How hard can it be, you know?" Melia said. "I never did get my license, but…how do you start it, at least? Hmm…Process of elimination, work in my favor!"

He heard Melia turn the key and the motor roared to life.

"Wow, I think that was the right button!" Venam remarked.

"Venam, you turn the key to turn on an engine. Anyway, let's test out this bad boy!"

Melia proceeded to put the medal to the metal and the boat went from zero to about a thousand knots per hour, whereupon it slammed itself into the pier so violently that Will found himself flying through the cabin and rolling across the floor.

"Gyah! Melia!" Venam shouted. "That's not what you're supposed to do!"

Groggily, Will rose to his feet again. "Wh-what?"

"Uh…what about this?"

Somehow the boat lurched to the side, slammed into the side of the sewer building and threw Will off his feet and across the table, shoving his legs back onto the sears again.

"That's it!" Venam snapped. "I'm taking over!"

"H-Hey! This is mutiny! Will, tell her this is mutiny!"

Will peeled his face off the wooden surface of the table. "I am three seconds away from voluntarily walking the plank."

"Wiiill!" Melia mewled.

An intense, if brief kerfuffle broke out in the cockpit as Venam initiated her mutiny. Melia kicked and fought tooth and nail, but it was futile. Ultimately, Venam won ownership of Karrina's boat and wasted no time in turning the tub around.

"Alright, got it oriented the right way. Just leave this all to me," Venam remarked.

Once they were safely underway, Melia managed to banter and barter her way back to the captain's seat. Venam took that moment to join Will in the cockpit and draped her legs across the table. "So…question. Will, Melia. On a scale from one to ten…how mad is Karrina?"

Considering he'd physically assaulted her, locked her in her room and then trounced her in a Pokemon battle before Melia exerted her dominance by nailing Karrina in the back, it was safe to say that Karrina wouldn't be joining them for coffee any time soon. "About a ten?"

Venam smirked. "I wouldn't doubt it. She was anggrrrrry."

"Personally, I'm looking at an eleven," Melia remarked from the cockpit. "That throw she gave me sent anger vibes throughout my body."

"Maybe it started out at a seven, and it got ramped up to an eleven after you shot her dead on with an Aura Sphere."

"It's her fault for attacking us first!" Melia said, miffed. "That seriously hurt."

Venam was in the process of nodding in agreement when she suddenly stopped and frowned. "Do you…think we're doing the right thing? Maybe Karrina should've handled this."

Will shot her an incredulous look. Really? She was having those doubts now?

"I don't think that matters anymore," Melia quietly replied. On a more confident note, she added, "Besides, she lost to Will. If we were as incapable as she said we were, then she would've won."

"Guess so," Venam sighed.

"Three of us will always be better than one of her," Will pointed out.

"I think we owe Kanon too," Melia continued. She tapped a few commands at the console and then joined them in the cabin, sitting down opposite of Venam and Will. "His quick thinking saved us from an explosive end. By the way…did you guys learn something new about the memory loss? Is it possible to reverse that?"

Venam started answering, but then she stopped herself and glanced over at Will. "Did we?"

"As far as I know, my life still began on the S.S. Oceana," he sighed.

"So you guys weren't even allowed a personal victory," Melia sighed. "Something about this whole Marble Mansion thing makes me feel so uncomfortable."

That was probably her survival instinct…

"I mean, it's very creepy and weird," Venam agreed. "Will and I had to get out of there before we were torn to shreds by cultists. I kinda hate how everything ended so abruptly, but there's nothing we can do about it."

Melia uttered a weary sigh. Climbing back to her feet, she said, "We just need to get stronger. That's what I believe this test is about." She gripped the steering wheel of the boat. "I often think about how things could've turned out differently if I was just stronger."

That was a line of thinking Will had often followed himself. The what-ifs kept rolling through his head at night. What if they'd been stronger, what if they'd been faster, what if they'd been smarter…

Until one day, Tesla had asked him a what-if he hadn't ever stopped to think about.

What if he'd been weaker?

What if he'd been less determined, less capable, less driven? Things were bad right now. But…they could have been worse. A lot worse. They had fought like hell and they had bloodied Team Xen each and every time they engaged each other. Yes, they'd lost people, from Sheridan Village all the way to Valor Mountain. But…they'd also saved many people throughout their fights. That meant something, too.

"If we want to defeat Team Xen for good, that's something we should all strive to improve," Melia finished.

"Yeah," Venam agreed.

But now was not the moment to share that little nugget of wisdom. "Right," Will quietly said.

"...I can see West Gearen coming up on the horizon, let's get ready," Melia commented.

Venam and him stacked up the exit of the boat, getting ready for an instant Pokemon battle the moment they stepped out. When Melia pulled the boat up at the nearest pier and docked it, she joined them as well.

"Okay, here we are," Melia said, shutting the engine off.

"Get ready," Will told them.

Venam gave him a terse nod.

Will reached for the doorhandle, flung it open and barged outside, quickly followed by Venam and Melia. They stumbled into West Gearen City -

- and immediately wished they hadn't.

"Oh god!" Venam said, her hands shooting upwards to cover her nose and mouth. "What is with that smell?"

Ah yes, the smell. It was like Helojak Island's swamp, except someone had dug up said swamp, dumped it at the bottom of a toilet that hadn't been cleaned in weeks and then installed said toilet into the Abandoned Sewers.

Will regretted not having taken a new balaclava with him. He would have given everything just to have a layer of fabric between his nose and this awful smell.

"J-Just endure it," Melia said, covering her lower face as well. "Let's rescue Kanon and get out of here as fast as we can!"

Venam inched back towards the boat. "Can I just stay on the ship? This city is under lockdown, after all."

"NO," Melia said firmly. "If I have to go through this, then you two do as well!"

West Gearen City's Sewer Entrance was dead ahead. Once they made it off the pier, they headed into the concrete city proper, crossing a narrow street before heading into the entrance proper. Unlike the entrance in East Gearen, this one led them straight into the main hall of the sewers.

"Augh!" Venam cried out. "It smells even worse in here."

"It's not that much worse," Will commented.

"You've taken too many hits to the head!" Venam snapped.

"Possibly."

"It's a sewer system, I don't know what you expected," Melia calmly said.

"Yeah, but it smells like people from West Gearen really need to go see a doctor!" She coughed. "Cause this stench is NOT normal!"

"Karrina did say something went wrong down here. But what could it be?"

"Maybe someone took a mutated dump, and now it's roaming the waste."

Mortified, Melia took several steps back. "I'm going to pretend I didn't hear - Will! Stop laughing, it's not funny!"

Will had fought and lost a legendary battle to keep from cackling at what had to be the stupidest, yet most elegant joke he'd heard out of that girl in a while. "I'm n-not laughing."

"You so are!" Melia said with a frustrated pout.

"Hey, it's gross, but gross jokes can be funny!" Venam said. "Will's on my side here!"

With a metallic whir, a security door to their right slid open and a figure with long, blue hair and a gasmask strapped to their face came walking out, laughing. "I thought it was kinda funny too!"

Alarmed, Melia and Will leapt back from the unknown figure, especially when they spotted a grey-colored Electivire following him out.

"Don't scare me like that!" Melia said.

"Sowwy, I forgot that this mask can look really creepy," the person commented. Seeing how the Electivire didn't make any attempts to attack them, Will didn't send out Nidoking just yet, though he kept his fingers near his ball just to be certain.

"Speaking of masks, you guys aren't wearing any. That must really suck." He rummaged around in a bag hanging over his shoulder. "At least put on these nose filters. You'll be able to get through the nasty smell."

Will was reluctant at first, but when Melia and Venam both hurried towards the unknown man to take the little translucent masks he offered them, Will decided to follow along. The masks had filters attached to their sides and seemed designed to fit tightly over the mouth and nose. The three of them strapped them on.

This guy was telling the truth; the moment Will tightened the leather straps behind his head, a vague, plastic smell replaced the overwhelming stench of the sewers.

"Ah…sweet relief!" Venam sighed. "Much better."

"So like…what are you guys doing down here?" The stranger asked. "Didn't you hear the news about the lockdown?"

"Yeah, we did, and we're here to help out," Venam said.

"Wha?!" The man exclaimed in surprise. "Really? Um…I dunno how good of an idea that is, but…I'm not really here to refuse help, so b-okay! My name is Erick, the Gym Leader of West Gearen City!"

"You're Erick?" Venam said with a loud groan, as if this was the last person she wanted to be meeting down here.

"You know him?" Melia asked.

"Uh,...yeah, do you know who I am?"

"Yes, that's Erick," Venam grumbled. "Saki's boyfriend."

Saki's boyfriend. Saki's boyfriend?

"Wh-WHAT!" Poor, poor Erick sputtered. "NOT TRUE! Saki and I are just best friends!"

Saki's boyfriend. If he knew his Saki - and Saki had worked tirelessly to ensure that he did, whether he wanted to or not - it was very likely that she had a…particular set of tastes. Man, poor Erick. Or…well, maybe not.

Freaking Saki. Even in her absence, she had him questioning things.

"And what do you know about Saki?" The guy hotly said.

"Erick, it's me, Venam. I just don't have the purple hair anymore."

Erick's attitude flipped on a dime. "Oh, that makes sense. Hi Venam! You don't visit anymore," he pleasantly said.

"I know," Venam all but bit at him. "I thought Saki was the leader of West Gearen? Did she finally get fired?"

"We switched places, that's all. Anyway, you guys wanna help?"

"That's why we're here," Melia offered.

"So…Lemme explain. A week ago I was watching anime and and - well, something showed up here in the sewer systems. At first we thought it was just a regular ol' Pokemon causing havoc, but it was something we've never seen before. It was extremely powerful too. A lot of people have gone to face it on the lower levels, but none have returned."

Will bit back a groan. This sounded like one of Team Xen's Rift Pokemon.

"In fact," Erick continued, "I was just on my way to see what was really going on, but you guys are here now! What luck!"

"Any chance you've seen a boy with white hair around here?" Venam asked.

"Boy with white hair…oh, yes I have! He showed up here and he was helping out for a bit. But…he took the elevator to the bottom floor and hasn't returned since. I can't even get the elevator to respond down there either, so…Wack."

Great. Will sensed an excursion deep into the bowels - heh - of the West Gearen sewers coming up.

"Brilliant," Venam deadpanned.

"Kanon…just tell us what we need to do!" Melia said firmly.

"Excellent! Though this system is small so it's better if we send the strongest member down there instead of all of us."

Will was about to speak up and tell them that he was heading down there when Venam beat him to the punch. "That would definitely be Will," she said.

"Hi," Will offered.

"Hey there!" Erick approached and offered a hand. "I hope you're Will?"

"That's what it says on my trainer card."

"Heh. Cool scar dude. Where'd you get that?"

"Knife-fighting a terrorist atop a volcano."

Erick continued shaking his hand. His gasmask made it hard to judge what he was thinking. "You and I are not compatible.'

Will snorted. Despite Venam's mood, Erick seemed like a really fun guy. "Can you take my bag with you? It has some things that can't get wet if I go swimming."

"Yeah, sure. Okie! So everyone who doesn't have Will printed on their trainer card please follow me!" Erick then declared.

Venam wasted no time in following after the guy, but Melia lingered. "I don't feel comfortable letting Will go down there on his own," she said. "I'm going with you!"

Just hearing Melia say that she didn't want to leave him kicked up a flutter in his heart.

"The tunnels down there are like, really long and winding, but also narrower than most people think," Erick commented. "Ever seen one of those funny movie moments where two guys try to run through a door together and they both get stuck? Imagine that happening when there's a big monster trying to eat your face."

"But - "

"Come on Melia, you've seen Will in action, right?" Venam said. "Dude's like a force of nature. He'll be fine."

Unconvinced, Melia shot him an unhappy look. "Will - "

"It's fine," he told her. "If it comes down to fighting, I'll need all the room I can get."

"Are…you saying I'll get in your way?" Melia asked in a quiet tone.

"Never," Will immediately replied. "I'm saying that, if we're bunched up and the monster catches one of us to eat, it's better if he catches me." He paused when he saw Melia's mortified expression. "Uh, I mean - "

"Yeah, nice one," Venam said.

"Shut up. What I meant - "

Without warning, Melia bounded towards him and wrapped her arms around his waist in a sudden embrace. "I know what you meant," she reassured him. "Just be careful, please?"

"You know me," Will said.

She looked at him, her expression all concern and uncertainty. "Yeah, I do. That's exactly why."

"Doh…it's so heartwarming…" Erick said. "Ouch. Hey, that's my foot, Venam. Alright, last farewells uttered, let's - Ouch, that's my other foot, Venam."

Reluctantly, Melia stepped away from him and joined Venam and Erick inside of his security office. Will was still in the process of deciding if he would have to swim through that sea of garbage or if there was a better route, when a drone almost identical to Madelis's shot from Erick's office.

A big, goofy face made out of blue LED lights was plastered on its square frame. It floated a few feet above the floor using some sort of antigravity device, or magnetism or something.

"Hi! I'll accompany you using this!" Erick's voice emanated from a pair of speakers. "That way I won't get in the way. Oh, Melia and Venam are here too, by the way. They can see everything!"

His face switched off, showing Melia and Venam peering at him instead. "Hey Will!" Venam said, waving at him. "Hope you don't mind swimming!"

"Venam!" Melia said, horrified. "That's not funny!"

"Who said it was a joke? Do you know how much rainwater comes through the sewers each week? I'm betting the water level's so high you can't even wade through. So yeah, have fun with that."

"Venam you are just horrible at times!"

"That's okay," Will said. "When I come back, I'll make sure to give you a big, long hug, Venam."

Venam scooted away from the screen in a heartbeat. "Erick, how do you lock this door?"

The camera footage cut away and the electrical blue face was back. "Okay companion buddy! We're going to get to the bottom of this, literally! Lead the way companion buddy!"

Will headed towards the southern part, where the central catwalk area narrowed down into a foul-looking pipe. He grabbed a hold of the cold, wet frame and eased himself inside. The drain pipe was slippery - he hoped to god that it was just algae or something - and just barely large enough to stand in. Will climbed through, his sneakers slipping in places until he made it to the other side. There, he climbed out again and found himself on a different catwalk.

"Oh, hey, there's the rainwater of yesterday!" Erick said when his drone crossed a small, frail-looking pipe covering a roaring river of brown, foul-looking water. "Don't fall in."

Thanks for the advice, Will thought as he carefully shuffled his way over the pipe. It groaned beneath his way and he wasted no time in scampering towards the other side, half-expecting the thing to collapse beneath his feet.

Thankfully, the sewers' infrastructure didn't fall apart on him. With another section of relatively dry catwalk to look forward to, Will began making his way forward again. The hallway wasn't much broader than a meter or three, which meant that he wouldn't be relying on Pidgeot for the coming battles. Down here, Poison-types reigned supreme.

When he reached what looked to be an elevator to his right, a heavy quake nearly threw him off his feet. It lasted for maybe a second or two before the sudden rumbling ceased again.

The next second, Melia's voice came through the speakers. "Woah, that tremor was so powerful we felt it all the way back here…"

"Ya, super weird," Erick chimed in. "Usually we don't get stuff like that up here. Welp. Good thing we're safe back here."

Will shot the drone an annoyed look.

"Oh, sorry Will," Erick said, not sounding sorry in the slightest.

"Rude," Melia scoffed.

The elevator was, of course, locked, so deeper into the sewers he went. He hadn't made it another six meters before a second quake shook the entire sewer system in its foundations.

"Oof, that one felt really close," Erick said. "Particularly to Will's location."

Will cautiously inched forwards. A shadow slowly came into vision up ahead. At first, he wasn't sure what he was looking at. The shape was massive and tattered, its silhouette broken at seemingly random locations by misshapen limbs and bulges.

He watched with a mixture of awe and revulsion as the shadow lurched closer, revealing itself to be a massive blob-like creature, easily twice the height of a human and far, far wider to the point it barely even fit in the hallways. The entire upper section of its body was one massive, gaping maw big enough to swallow him whole. Sharp, craggy teeth lined its lipless, abyssal mouth. One massive, oversized arm swung into view as the monster shuffled by in the distance.

"That's the thing that showed up!" Erick's voice hissed through the drone. "What's it doing on the upper floors?"

"Huh…it looks sort of…familiar…" Melia said.

"Familiar? Really? That thing just looks like the mutated dump I mentioned before!" Venam said.

"Uh…so I didn't expect us to run into this thing so soon so I didn't get to explain," Erick said. Was it just him, or did the guy actually sound nervous all of a sudden? "But this thing has the tendency to kidnap people and drag them to the lower floors. If we fight this thing now, we risk whoever may be inside, so…!"

Will watched the beast shuffle by. There were people stuck inside of that thing?

Suddenly, the misshapen mass stopped moving. As he watched with mounting dread, Will saw the monster start to lurch into motion again…and this time, it was very clear where the monster was going.

Straight towards him.

"Yikes!" Erick exclaimed as the misshapen blob began advancing on him like a fleshy wall, moving with alarming speed. "Run into that room, quick!"

Will didn't need to be told twice. He broke into a flat sprint, his shoes slipping across the filthy floor as he darted forwards. Something erupted from the back of the monster and an appendage of sorts shot through the air. Will caught a glimpse of several reddish, pulsating organs held together by what looked like bone tissue before he threw his weight against the door and it flung open. He all but stumbled through the opening, Erick firing off a constant barrage of "hurry up" and "it's going to eat you hurry up!" in his ears.

Will pivoted and flung himself against the door, shoving it close just as something solid and massive crashed into its frame. The door shook dangerously as Will fumbled with the lock, narrowly managing to lock the door in place.

A ghoulish, low-pitched moan reverberated across the sewers from right outside the door. That sound…that horrible. nightmarish noise was filled with hunger.

Will backed away from the door.

"Phew…so close," Erick casually said. "Let's make sure we don't attract it with anymore noise."

"There's people inside?" Will whispered.

"Ayup! So no violence until we've gotten them out."

"What if - "

"Hey!" A woman yelled at them and Will jumped, startled to find three other people inside of the room with him. A pair of women, one of them a tall, bespectacled blonde, and a tall, stocky man with a heavy-looking camera resting on his shoulder.

"Wh-What are you doing in here missy!" Erick demanded as the drone suddenly flew across the room and got all up in the blonde's face.

"No need to get so mad!" The woman shot back. "I'm fine! See?"

"Isn't that the Gearen News reporter?" Venam's voice drifted from the speakers. "Volta?"

Huh. So she was. It had been a while since he last saw her.

"Charmed," Volta said. "Don't worry, I wasn't put here cause I volunteered to do it. My mom, Ms Lady in Charge said it'd be good for me to report on this lockdown stuff."

Erick's digital face appeared on the drone again and it looked pissed. "Yeah, I know that, but I said you weren't allowed!" He snapped. "It's already too dangerous for the police and other actual personnel, so in extension to that - "

"We were just on our way out, but we got cornered by that blob thingy!" The other woman said. "Listen, we'll stay put, behave and put on a smiling face for the audience! So pleaseee let us stay!"

"DIE, BURN IN A FIRE, Okay you can stay."

Will sensed some deep, personal issues, there. "Do you…want to talk about it, Erick?"

"But pls don't sue me if something bad happens to you. I have no money."

"Got it," Volta said as if she'd just nailed some sweet deal.

With that…interaction…Erick's drone hovered back towards Will. "C'mon companion buddy. Let's see where else we can go!"

Wordlessly, Will headed towards the exit on the left, leaving the trio of intrepid reporters on their own. As he left, he heard the cameraman saying to himself, "Man…I so don't get paid enough for this.'

Suck it up buddy, Will thought as he headed back out into the wet, slippery hallways of an unfamiliar sewer system that was patrolled by a people-eating blob-monster that carried live hostages within its gullet. At least you get paid.

Erick had him take a left and then a right turn, navigating him towards the verification terminal that would allow them access to the workers' entrance, at the lower levels. "Just swipe your trainer card and you'll be good to go," the guy told him.

So he did. He took out his trainer card, slapped it against the card reader and -

"ACCESS DENIED

- the card reader began screaming at the top of its lungs.

"Uh oh," Will murmured.

"Oops," Erick said.

A loud, moaning roar reverberated through the dark hallway, followed by heavy, wet dragging noises, as if someone was trying to push the world's biggest mop through a tiny opening.

Instead of the world's biggest mop however, Erick and Will found themselves face to face with a starry-eyed, blob-shaped monstrosity.

Instinctively, Will stepped towards the threat, his Pokeball in hand -

"Hey, remember, no fighting back, if we hurt these people I am going to get in deep legal trouble and that's a no bueno!"

"Got a different plan?" Will asked.

The monster uttered another deep, wheezy moan and shuffled closer. Thankfully, Volta the reporter chose that exact moment to fling the door open - loudly - and stepped outside. "Hey! I was waiting for you, mister Monster!"

The enormous mass of flesh and garbage turned its head all the way around.

"Would you be so kind as to honor us with an interview?" Volta yelled. When the monster began lumbering her way, she started leading it back to the room. "Yes, please, step this way sir! We're pleased to have you!"

She darted back inside and the abomination wasted no time in trying to beat the doors down again.

"What a martyr … ;o;," Erick commented.

He sounded just like Saki.

"Good thing I didn't kick her out, huh? Legal trouble truly isn't fun! Okay, so I totally forgot that you need to be an employee to go any further down. Cuz like, it'd be kinda weird if anyone could just - a-anyway, there's a room just up ahead that will open the way!"

"Anything else you forgot to mention?" Will asked. With a loud *crack!* the monster bashed the door down and began squeezing its enormous, fleshy body through the tiny opening inside.

"Err…if I did, i can't remember. To the panel!"

With that, Erick's drone fluttered off again, leaving Will with no other option than to follow along.

Erick's panel room reminded him a lot of the generator chamber where he'd first officially met Melia. Only this one was much darker, with solid steel plating and dark, metallic walls that cast a permanent shade across its interior.

Walking up to the oversized console that dominated the room, Will held out his trainer card and Erick snatched it from his hand. "Yup, yup. This is the panel! I'll just take your trainer card and - "

Sparks erupted from the machine.

Erick smiled. "Alright! ] That's done. Let's get the heck out of here."

The next moment, they heard screams and shouts coming from the room Volta led the monster inside. Will could only hope that they had the good sense to make a run for it as well.

"Uh oh," Erick muttered. Without another word, he guided his drone out of the panel room and, presumably, back towards the reporter's room. Not half a minute later he came zooming back. "So, yeah, she's probably dead."

"What?"

"We should run to the verification terminal and make our way to the lower level," Erick siad, his voice far too chipper for Will's liking.

"Wait, what happened to Volta?"

"Died for the cause. Such a tragedy. If only she'd picked a more meaningful cause to die for than journalism. Oh well."

"Erick!"

His electrical face mimed an eye roll. "Fine. They got eaten. So either they're dead, or worse, they're hostages. Come on, let's get a move on before that thing decides it wants to eat you as dessert!"

This time, the card reader didn't start loudly blaring when Will swiped his card against its scanner. Instead, the heavy metal door swung open. He peeked inside, just to be sure.

He spotted a nice, potted plant, a desk with a computer screen on it and a large ventilation shaft to the right, or a crawlspace or something.

Just looking at that dark tunnel made Will's skin crawl. He gave it a wide berth and headed down the stairs, into the proverbial belly of the beast and as far away from the literal belly of the beast as he could.

It occurred to him that these weren't so much sewers as they were a combination of a sewage disposal system and storm drains. The distinction was a bit hazy, however. Will spotted more murky sewage flowing beneath his feet, thundering below the filthy metal catwalks, but he also spotted several pipes running through the interior, wide enough to walk through.

Together, Erick and Will rounded the corner and came face to face with a disheveled-looking scientist. His labcoat was filthy and tattered, looking like it hadn't been its original white color in days. The man's spectacles were crooked and foggy, covering a pair of frantic eyes.

"What? Who - who let a teen down here!" The man exclaimed.

"Uh, HELLO?" Erick thundered. "I'm clearly right behind him, so clearly he has permission!"

"Look, there's a blob on the loose," Will told the man. "Either hunker down and hide or you can try your luck getting to the surface. But you shouldn't stay here."

A distant, meaty noise suddenly came from the nearest storm pipe.

"No point, no point at all," the scientist stammered. "Find your own hiding place!"

A faint moan drifted through the air. Will decided against hanging around. He left the scientist to his own devices and continued along. He made his way through several long, winding halls, his breath slowly fogging up the rebreather Erick had given him. He passed by more of those pipe entrances. Sometimes he'd hear a metallic clang coming from one of them and he'd freeze in place, listening intently for any sign of trouble.

Damnit, he felt like he was being watched. Something was snooping around there. He couldn't see it, but whatever it was likely had its eyes on him.

Eventually, he reached the end of the line. A literal canal of raw sewage blocked the way forward. Ot stretched out for twenty meters or so and went around the corner. Will spotted a metal ladder leading down into the murky depths, but if he could help it, he would rather not swim through raw sewage without a very good reason to do so.

A deep, horrible moan echoed through the hallways, sounding much, much closer than before.

Great. One very good reason to swim, coming right up.

~~~~~~~(II)~~~~~~~

---

West Gearen City

WG Sewage Management

Thanks to Erick's sophisticated and superior drone tinkering skills, Melia and Venam could see and hear everything that happened as if they were really there with Will. They heard what he heard, saw what he saw. They were one heartbeat-monitor away from feeling what he felt. So when the beastly roars began again, the two of them exchanged a nervous look.

"Is that what I think it is?" Venam said.

"He has nowhere to run," Melia said, leaning towards the screen to more closely observe Will's surroundings. Erick steered his drone around in a circle, showing that Will was stuck in a ninety-degree corner with a veritable tunnel of sewage in one direction and, very likely, the monster approaching from the other direction.

It was a dead end.

"Looks like you're getting your wish now, Venam," Erick commented.

Melia shot him a furious look.

"Hey, I was only kidding!" Venam sputtered. "Come on Will, whip out Nidoking or something. Start defending yourself!"

"He can't, that thing has hostages in its stomach, remember?" Erick said.

"There is no alternative," Melia firmly said. "If it comes down to it, I'm heading down there myself to get him out."

"Well…swimming beats getting eaten, right?" Erick said.

"Dude, look at that shit!" Venam snapped. "A person's gonna die of a massive infection before they get halfway across! He's got open wounds and shit. No way!"

"Eh," Erick shrugged. "Luckily for us, there's a third way. Okay companion buddy! See that terminal there on the wall? To your right? More to your right? That's the left? Yean, that right. How about you drain the water level and I'll go get a look?"

As he left Will to tinker with the terminal, Erick guided his drone back towards the entrance. There, on the other side of the hallways with nowhere to run, the enormous blobby monster had finished squeezing itself through the drainpipe and was bearing down on the poor scientist man.

"Oh man. Now that's not good! I told you guys it was using the pipes to get through the facility!" Erick chastised the guy.

"Erick, do something" The scientist yelled. "This thing is going to capture me if we don't - "

In a display of spectacular grossness, the monster's body suddenly elongated and its jaw unhinged. The lower section of its mouth just dropped half a meter, turning its gaping maw into a cave big enough to swallow a man whole.

"Eep!" Erick exclaimed. The drone bumped against the scientist and sent him stumbling towards the monster, which wasted no time in snatching him up with its many appendages. "Take him, not me! I'm just a teenager!"

"Erick! How could you do this to your own staff!" The man cried out just as Erick turned the drone around and gunned it.

"Will? Will!"

Melia was relieved to see that Will was still alright. He stared at the slowly-decreasing sewage level with an air of calmness that just didn't fit with the situation at hand. "Over here. Why isn't the sewage draining anymore?"

The drone came to a sudden halt in front of his face. "Kay, so. That monster reached this floor so we should probably leave."

Probably, yeah. Hey, wait a minute…" You know you're controlling a monitor right now, right?" Melia said.

"Yes?"

She gave Erick a stern look. "Which means you could've sacrificed the monitor to buy that guy some time!"

"Shoot," Erick said impassively. "Yeah you're right. RIP. Well, what's done is done. I'll give him a raise later if he turns out to be okay and doesn't sue me. Alright companion buddy let's continue post-haste!"

The roar that came through the hallway was so intense that Melia felt her seat vibrate. "Uh, guys?"

Will raised an eyebrow and looked around the corner. "Erick, didn't that thing eat your colleague?"

"Yup, sure did."

"And it also ate Volta and her crew."

"Yeah. Luckily she promised not to sue me :3, so we're okay."

"So why is it coming this way?"

"Huh?" Erick steered the drone around and looked over Will's shoulder and what the heck the sewage monster was right there! It was like, twenty meters away and closing in!

"Ah crap, you gotta fight!" Venam snapped.

"But the hostages - "

"That thing's gonna eat him!"

Will shot one look at the heavy layer of filth that was still left on the floor ahead, sighed, and then grabbed a hold of the ladder and slid down. He sank to his calves into the sewage - Melia and Venam both eeked out in collective horror when they saw that horror - and began slogging his way forward.

Not five seconds later the monster rounded the corner. Its beady eyes found Will and it hopped down into the murkwater as well to give chase. Its bulky heavy body might have slowed it down, but it was much stronger than Will, and the sewage didn't slow it down at all. It began coming after him.

Venam leapt from her seat, nervously wringing her hands as she yelled, "Will, run you idiot! Run!"

He did. The filthy water sloshed around his legs as hel picked up the pace, pushing heavily through the water as the monster started gaining on him.

"I think he is running, Venam," Erick casually said as he piloted the drone towards the other side of the canal.

"Run faster damnit!"

The stretch crossing the half-drained canal was the longest one in her life as Melia watched the distance between Will and his pursuer melt away. The strange monster started unhinging its maw again, its gaping maw slowly growing bigger and bigger as it prepared to swallow her friend whole.

Oh god, oh no, that thing was closing in! "Will, come on!" Melia yelled at the screen. "You gotta run faster!"

Will skidded around the corner, nearly lost his footing and just barely managed to stay upright. Erick's drone buzzed after him. There, on the other end of the hallway, Melia saw something like a bulkhead hanging at the midway point. She'd seen it on one of the maps in the room before and she was fairly confident it might still be online.

"That bulkhead!" She called out. "Erick, can you close it!"

"Oh sure, but it takes like ten seconds to close. Too late, and that thing gets through. Too early…"

Damnit. Damnit! At this rate, that monster would catch up with Will and…and…

"Do it," Will said.

"Huh?"

"What?"

"The bulkhead," he said with a level of calmness that simply did not fit with the situation. "I'll make it."

"Sure buddy, it's your fun- err, fun-time decision!" Erick said.

Crimson alarm lights came to life as the heavy, metal door began descending. Alarms blared through invisible speakers.

Twenty meters to go.

The monster started gaining on Will just a bit faster than Will could close in on the heavy security door, Venam hovered nervously over Melia's shoulder, all but hopping from foot to the other as she muttered, "Come on, faster, faster, come on!"

Fifteen.

Melia wasn't sure if she meant the door or Will. The strangely familiar creature uttered a deep, booming cry and it flung one of its appendages towards their friend. By some miracle, the beast missed, but Will still nearly stumbled.

Ten.

The doors were closing more rapidly now. Faster and faster they descended, getting to a point where a person had to duck their head down to pass underneath.

Five to go.

Another booming roar. Erick's drone surged ahead and narrowly sailed through the ever-narrowing gap between the door and the floor.

Wil dropped into a slide and he managed to duck through the bulkhead just before it fully closed behind him.

Melia nearly sagged with relief. It flooded its way through her veins, making her go loopy and light-headed for a moment.

He'd made it. He was alright!

Good god. I'll make it. He'd sounded so confident but he hadn't known at all! He'd just taken another stupid gamble. Oh, Melia wasn't sure if she wanted to kiss him for being alright or smack him for taking stupid risks again!

"Did he make it?" Venam hissed. "Oh thank fuck. That was the most awful and dramatic timing I ever saw! Was that deliberate? I swear to god Will if you did that on purpose - "

Will remained there on his knees for a second. He rested his right hand on his knee and pulled his gasmask off with his left, taking deep, grateful breaths of air as he visibly struggled to catch his breath. "Venam…" he gasped. "Hey…Venam?"

Venam bowed towards the computer screen. "I'm here. That was too freaking close dude! You good?"

"I think…I think I stepped on your mutated dump!" Will said, looking up at the ceiling and laughing. Shaky and exhausted, up to his calves in murk and having just narrowly escaped the clutches of a horrible monster, Will still found it in himself to laugh and…and the sound of it filled Melia with warmth.

Venam looked at him and laughed as well, a brief, incredulous sound. "You…you fucking…are you for - "

Boom.

"Eep!" Melia cried out as the door shook violently.

Erick and Will turned towards the door at the same time.

Boom.

The noise droned through the entire rest of the hallway as the door shook again.

"Are you freaking kidding me?" Venam breathed.

Boom boom.

"Yeah, so companion buddy, I am going to make a tactical call and say that I do not want to be here when that door breaks," Erick said.

"Right." Will slipped the gasmask back on. "Good call."

He headed deeper into the sewers.

The violent thudding against the door, meanwhile, had stopped. The silence that followed in its wake was far more unnerving.

But at least he was safe for now.

~~~~~~~(III)~~~~~~~

---

With sopping socks and soaking-wet shoes, Will headed into the last security office the sewers had to offer before the lowest level. He didn't even make it halfway into the room before someone whirled from behind a dusty old bookshelf, brandishing a steel table leg.

"I'm not afraid of you all!" Kanon yelled. "I'm - Will? They sent you to this dimension too?!"

"Oh my…Kanon!" Erick said.

"Kanon!" Melia exclaimed. "Are you okay? Are you hurt?"

It was such a breath of fresh air to hear those words directed at someone else for a change.

"What are you doing all the way down here, bud?" Venam laughed.

It was very likely that Kanon had decided to take a breather.

"Melia…and Venam too?" Kanon said, staring at the happy expression on Erick's drone with the utmost confusion. "Just what's going on here?"

"The Hags sent you into the pres- er, my home used you as a test for us," Melia siad.

…Hags? How was space idiots worse than hags?

Kanon fixed the drone with a look of annoyance. "Well, that's irritating. So this isn't some pocket dimension, or something?"

"No, this is reality, sadly," Melia told him. "We came here to rescue you!"

"Well, I'm here," Kanon said. "But…there's kind of a problem."

A worse problem than the people-eating mutated Pokemon blob monster with hostages?

"When I woke, I came into contact with this strange monster and it ate the orb…" Kanon sighed.

…okay. Will started to feel like they had a worse problem on their hands than a people-eating mutated Pokemon blob monster with hostages.

Things couldn't ever just be simple could they?

"I tried to fight it," Kanon continued quietly. "But of course, I don't have any Pokemon to help with that. It got hurt while chasing me and its form dissipated, only for it to regenerate itself!"

Venam broke the silence that followed. "Great, so not only is it deadly, but it could explode at any moment."

"Regenerate itself?" Erick mused. "It's possible this thing is searching for things to eat so that it can provide energy for it to do so. But if that "orb" you mentioned before is explosive, then it would contain a massive amount of energy to begin with. Eating other people would not be necessary to sustain itself. At least, for a while."

"Maybe it's looking for something?" Melia offered.

Will guessed that the monster simply liked the taste of people better. That would fit with the kind of day he'd been having.

"Or someone?" Erick said. "It's only eating humans." Then, he turned towards Will and the blue face on his drone was the saddest, droopiest little sad face. "Also, now that you found your friend…you're not gonna leave me, are you? :("

"We're here to help," Will reassured the guy.

"Oh…you guys…;o;. I really owe you guys something. I dunno what, but it's gonna be good. Okay, first things first! I'm gonna give Will authorization. Let's go, companion buddy."

Sometimes, making friends was as simple as outrunning giant goop-monsters in the sewers.

Erick took his Trainer Card again and tinkered with it at the security console. "That's done! Kanon, you told me before that you don't have a Trainer Card, right?"

"I don't," Kanon said.

"A shame. We'll figure something out later. Maybe you can go crawling through the pipes, hehe."

"...can't I just let him through with my card?" Will asked.

"...no. Impossible. Inconceivable. That would be the height of security failure! Alright, let's march ahead!"

Kanon shot Will a puzzled look. For his part, Will couldn't do more than shrug. "It's a real funhouse down here."

"I…fail to see the fun in this situation."

Finally, someone whose sarcasm-radar was even more impaired than his own. "I see you haven't found the mutated dump then."

"The…I…the what?"

"Will, please," Melia chastised him. "This isn't helping."

"I am very confused," Kanon said.

"Welcome to the club," Will replied. He'd been in a permanent state of confusion ever since he saw Crescent standing on the S.S. Oceana's deck. "Come on."

Their brave, remote-controlled guide took them out of the security office and back into the sewers proper. They passed through a nexus of sorts, where the catwalks fanned out in multiple directions.

The last security gate was just up ahead. Kanon leaned against a wall nearby another storm drain. "I'll wait here. I don't want to cause too much trouble," he said.

"Good guy Kanon!" Erick remarked.

Will guessed that made sense. Tight quarters, big monsters, multiple people running around were just too much of a risk. He followed Erick's drone towards the door, took out his Trainer Card and -

"H-Help!" Kanon cried out.

Will spun around and saw a massive, misshapen hand clutching Kanon's arm from the inside of the storm drain. He sprang towards him, reaching for Kanon's free hand, but the monster was faster. He pulled Kanon inside of the storm drain with sudden force.

"Kanon!" Erick cried out.

Within moments, Kanon's screams faded into the distance, and without the ability to actually engage this thing, Will knew crawling after him was pointless.

"This is awful!" Melia said.

"No it's not!" Erick snapped with sudden anger. "Kanon is stupid! Stop getting kidnapped you dingus! If that guy graduated from damsel in distress college I would say "yeah". The guy literally stood next to a pipe when there's a monster rummaging through them! [."

…Kanon had decided that facing down Gardevoir and Indriad at the center of their power was a good idea. Karrina had decided that running past an angry Nidoking to smack the crap out of his trainer was also a good idea. These people were brave, but it was as if they had zero survival instinct.

There was a moment of contemplative silence on the other side of the channel. Then…"He's got a point," Venam said.

"But you just can't - " Melia haltingly said, but her voice trailed off before she could even finish that sentence. "Yeah…" She admitted reluctantly.

"DINGUS!" Erick yelled. "Well, it's a good thing we're heading down there anyway. He'l be fineeee."

"I hope so…" Melia muttered.

"We'll find him," Will promised.

With the trio reduced to a pair again, the two of them headed through the last security terminal and down what was hopefully the last set of stairs.

They ended up in another narrow walkway noticeably lacking in the whole gunk and sewage department. Instead, the passage had been overrun by plants the same way old, abandoned houses often were. Nature had reclaimed this part of the sewers, for which Will felt weirdly grateful.

"Huh…this place is looking kinda nuts," Erick said. "I haven't been on this floor in a while, so seeing it like this is shocking. Shockingly annoying! I'm gonna have to be the one to chop all of this off! And I'm gonna have to pay someone to get rid of it. There goes my investment in Annie Mae season 3…it's all hopeless."

Through the plant-infested sewers they hiked, passing by overturned containers, large, bulky machines and several locked maintenance doors until finally, the passageway opened up into a larger room. There, in the top left, was the elevator door. It was likely that the doors had choked the mechanisms off, rendering it unable to open or something.

Finally, he could invite the others to join him in the funhouse…

"Hey! That's why the elevator isn't working!" Erick said. "It's covered with vines! Let's clear out the way."

Under Erick's guidance, Will managed to remove the majority of the thick vines that had wrapped themselves in front of the doors. Erick was right; after some time, the elevator actually arrived down there and Erick wasted no time in heading back up to get Melia and Venam.

While he waited, Will took a moment to assess the damage. He'd have to replace his shoes, burn his socks and cut away everything below the knees of his pants. He wasn't sure if the waste was actual sewage or just brown murkwater carrying dirt and other stuff with it through the pipes, but he wasn't going to find out.

The elevator doors parted again and Melia, Venam and the actual, physical Erick filed out. "Phew, there. We can finally be useful," Melia remarked. "And you! Do you have any idea how worried you had us!"

Before he could even start to defend himself, Venam jumped on the bandwagon as well. "I'll make it," she said, lowering the pitch of her voice to imitate his. "God Will you can be so dramatic at times!"

"I'm not dramatic," Will protested.

"Do it, the bulkhead, I'll make it," Venam repeated, putting up a dark, stern expression as she growled in her Will-voice. "Dramaaatic."

Everybody had their own ways to cope with stress, but he had to draw the line somewhere. "Like you were so helpful," he grumbled back. "Run faster damnit, faster, faster. Gee, thanks for the suggestion! What the hell do you think I was doing?"

"Taking your sweet-ass time to make that timing as dramatic as possible!"

"Okay, alright, break it up you two, you're acting like an old married couple with the vocabulary of sailors," Erick said, turning towards the passageway that lay ahead.

Venam stuck her tongue out at him.

Melia pulled at one of her pigtails and Venam winced.

"This is the last floor, so that monster must be just up ahead," Erick continued, blissfully unaware of the drama going on behind him. "Let's be careful okay?"

They headed into the final chamber, which could have once been a storage room or something. Nature hadn't just reclaimed that one, it had somehow morphed it into a cavelike structure. Vegetation grew everywhere and several layers of rocks had formed around the outer layer of the room. Figures lay sprawled across the rocks, nearly a dozen of them.

The monster sat in the very center of the room, its small, beady eyes centered squarely on Melia as she, Venam, Erick and Will entered its domain.

"All the people the monster took seem to all be in one piece!" Melia gasped. "Volta and the other reporters are here!"

"There!" Venam said, pointing to a spot behind and a bit to the monster's left. "Kanon's here too. Thank goodness."

Good. Now that the monster didn't have its hostages anymore, they could fight it, subdue it and then rip the orb free, hopefully without rupturing it and turning East Gearen City into just Gearen City.

"Are we just gonna ignore the beast that's literally right in front of us?" Erick said. "You guys need to pay more attention."

Melia squinted at the creature, as if trying to discern something.

"So this should be easy," Venam smirked. "If all the people are here, that means it doesn't have anyone in its belly. Let's rip it to shreds."

Will began stepping forwards.

"Wait!" Melia then said, putting herself between Venam, Will and their target. "There's something about this thing that's been bothering me!"

"Well, of course," Erick said, annoyed. "I mean, just look at it. It's horrendously ugly and smelly.

"No, I mean…it's familiar." Melia turned to look at the creature again. "I know. I've seen it before."

Before…before Amethyst Cave, then? That meant…

Wait…

It couldn't be.

He took a closer look at the oddly-impassive beast. "Then…Zetta has…" Will whispered.

Melia smiled, seeing that he understood. "Heh. Its attitude is familiar isn't it? The rude attacks. The aggressive personality. We've seen it all before. A very long time ago. It's you, isn't it? Garbodor!"

Will saw it. Damnit, he saw it now. How didn't he figure this out before? It hadn't been more than a few months.

The creature - Garbodor - uttered a low, wheezing moan.

"It is!" Melia said triumphantly. "Will, Venam, this is the same Garbodor we encountered at the Abandoned Sewers! The same one who saved us from Team Xen in Goldenwood Forest. The last time we saw you…you were fighting off Zetta. He must've done this to you."

"Done what exactly?" Erick asked. "This is a Pokemon then?"

It used to be. Zetta must have turned this thing into a Rift Pokemon. Why? Why hadn't he used this thing before? It would have been a perfect weapon to unleash on Valor Mountain.

Because it was never a weapon, Will realized a second later. It had never been about gaining a tactical edge. This…this cruelty, this mockery of nature…it was punishment. Punishment for interfering.

Punishment…and a death sentence.

"Zetta had the power to turn Pokemon into Rift Pokemon," Melia explained.

"So what do we do then?" Venam demanded. "It can't stay here. Did you guys ever figure out how to save these things?"

No, they hadn't. There was only one way of dealing with Rift Pokemon. Zetta had known that when he made his call. They had to kill it.

…or did they?

"This has gotten real personal real fast," Erick said. "Maybe we don't have to destroy it. It's possible we could revert it back to a regular Garbodor."

"Is it?!" Melia gasped. "What do we have to do?"

Erick turned to look at the miserable creature sitting in the center of the room. "I'll need a sample of it. Maybe I could take a look back at the lab."

"Garbodor…" Melia said. "Would you allow me to?"

The creature slowly slid towards Melia, pinching off a section of one of its misshapen limbs and placing it on the ground for her.

A sample of its body.

"Please. Garbodor," Melia pleaded. "The people you brought down here don't belong here. Please, I'm asking you with all my heart, set them free! They have nothing to do with this. We'll find a way to fix this!"

The blob-shaped monster turned its massive bulk around, as if contemplating her words.

"Garbodor?"

It whirled around with sudden fury, unhinging its cavernous maw and uttering a bone-rattling screech.

Melia immediately backed away and the creature grew larger, as if physically reshaping its body to appear more menacing.

"Friend or not, Garbodor is still corrupted!" Venam snapped. "It'll attack us if it feels threatened in any way!"

"We should retreat for now. The sample should give me enough to work with back at the lab!" Erick said.

Nobody disagreed. Together, the four of them fell back from the sewers, forced to leave both the hostages as the explosive orb behind.

Rain came down in dreary, grey sheets by the time they made it back to Erick's lab at the heart of West Gearen City. A veritable army of fellow scientists, engineers, workers and other people staffed the massive complex. Will even spotted a couple of guards hanging around the entrance, warily eyeing Erick's guests as they walked inside.

"First things first. I'll get my people on this project right away," Erick said, all business as he took them through the halls of his building. "Will, showers are that way. I'll send one of my people there with a fresh set of clothes and some towels, and ask them to put your old clothes through the chemical cleaning station. Shouldn't take more than a few hours to get them sanitized. Venam, Melia, please follow me."

Confident that he could trust Erick, Will took his offer. While the girls followed Erick towards one of his labs, Will broke off and headed towards the shower block. He was the only one there, thankfully, so he picked one of the stalls, locked it behind him and began the arduous process of peeling his clothes off. He spent the next twenty minutes carefully rinsing every square inch of his body, washing off the sweat, grime and other stuff that caked his limbs. As he did, he let his thoughts wander.

Had the Space Idiots known that Garbodor roamed the sewers? Was that why they abducted Kanon from his bed and sent him, along with the explosive, inside? Garbodor was the sole reason behind West Gearen's troubles, so that seemed likely.

Why, though? If the Stormchasers followed their guidance, they couldn't be bad leaders and yet, they risked the total destruction of a major population center to…what? Teach Melia a lesson? To test Venam and him?

And Madame X…how did she fit into this?

Because of this ability to change…

What had he changed? Did she mean the plans he had disrupted? The people he'd saved in Sheridan, Blacksteeple and Terajuma Island?

I've saved you countless times…

She'd dropped that so casually, so out of the left field, as if she'd that to be the least important info to share. .

Why are you so important?

He thought Team Xen thought him important because their leader had said so. If Madame X, the absolute authority of Team Xen, didn't know why he was important, that told him two crucial facts.

One: someone or something with enough power or authority had declared he was important. Two: said authority had not informed Madame X about their reasons. That suggested they were at odds.

We have work to do, Will. So much work.

Will stared up at the faucet as the water poured down on him. He blinked up through the water.

Was it Spacea and Tiempa? Was that why he'd known what to expect inside of Melia's Valor Summit doorway? Was that why Crescent had been able to bring him back to life?

"It doesn't matter," he reminded himself. Focusing on the bigger picture would cost him his thoughts again. Better to keep it contained to the smaller things. The here and the now. Fixing Garbador, saving Kanon, neutralizing the explosive. Something told him that was what the Space Idiots wanted them to do, anyway.

After thoroughly rinsing himself off, Will closed the valve, dried himself off and put on the clothes Erick had brought him. A casual black T-shirt, a pair of blue jeans and some sneakers. At least the socks were warm and snuggly.

Clean, warm and smelling faintly like industrial soap, Will swung his backpack over his shoulders and headed back down to Erick's laboratory. The first thing that caught his attention was the man-sized testing tube that stood nestled between a set of heavy machines. Garbodor's sample floated in some sort of blue liquid there. He'd assume those machines flanking it were busy scanning or analyzing it.

"Ah, Will!" Erick said as he saw him enter. "Perfect timing. I was just about to start explaining."

"Welcome back," Melia said. "Better?"

"Much," Will replied.

"Did ya wash behind your ears?" Venam quipped.

Will pulled up a metal chair and sat down. "Erick, what's the situation?"

"So…we're focusing on the sample Melia got from Garbodor," Erick explained. "Currently Garbodor's body is filled to the brim with a substance called "Rift Matter". I assume this is what causes Pokemon, or perhaps even people, to mutate into what we know as Rift Beings." He turned towards the massive test tube. "Separating the Rift Matter from the host seems to be dangerous to do. We're trying our best, but with the knowledge of what we have now…I dunno."

Will noticed Melia staring at the sample with a pained expression.

"What are our options then?" Venam asked. "Surely we can't just leave that thing down there. It's causing too many problems."

"Can we capture it somehow?" Melia suggested. "Maybe in a Pokeball or something?"

Erick shook his head. "I doubt any Pokeball would work as it would have trouble registering Garbodor's Pokemon signature. It's like if you were to throw a Pokeball at a human, it'd just hurt and give you seasonal depression."

Melia looked away. The corner of her eyes were wet.

"I'll let my partners do all they can, but if we can't figure it out by tomorrow…" Erick said with a quiet, solemn voice.

"The only option would be to destroy it," Melia said dully. "I understand."

Destroying Garbodor would be like burning one of the few connections Melia had left to her old life. Worse, it would be putting an old friend out of his misery. So soon after the death of her father…

No. He couldn't accept that. The suffering had to end somewhere.

"Melia…" Venam muttered.

Melia didn't look at any of them as she said, "First and foremost, the people of West Gearen are the priority. That includes the people Garbodor is keeping hostage down in the sewers. Not to mention, that orb Garbodor is holding can explode any time…it's too dangerous to keep this going."

"There's still hope though!" Venam said. "We have until the morning!"

"I…don't wanna get my hopes up…" Melia said. She was getting better in keeping the emotion from showing, but Will could see how devastated she was. She seemed to be a mere push away from breaking down. "I'll be waiting in the lobby." She pushed herself to her feet and began leaving.

Screw fate. And screw Zetta. The suffering would end now. "Erick…" Will started.

"We're…we're doing the best we can," Erick began, perhaps to defend himself, but Will cut him off.

"No, I mean…" He rummaged around in his backpack and pulled out the weird diary. "Maybe this can help?"

Erick took the diary and flicked it open. "Dunno, seems pretty lengthy, but I'm sure it's…important…" He began skimming through the book and turned each page with more and more glee. "Th-This is incredible!" He shouted. "Oh my goodness! Eureka!"

"What!" Venam said. "What is it? C'mon, tell us!"

"Will, I don't know where you got this book, but it has so much information on Rift Pokemon!" Erick excitedly said. "With this info, I think it may be possible to save Garbodor!"

Finally, some good news.

"What!" Venam shouted. "Really?"

"Please go get Melia!" Erick urged her. "Will, seriously, where did you get this?"

"Found it in an abandoned apartment," he said. Back in the lobby, he heard Melia's high-pitched shout of surprise. Moments later, she and Venam came barging into the room.

"How - but - a-are you sure!" Melia stammered. "For real?"

"Y-Yeah! It seems a lot more simple than I thought too!" Erick said. "You see, while Rift Matter IS in fact fused with the DNA of Pokemon…it's distinguishable enough where there is a safe, but long and arduous process of separating them." He put the diary down on the table. "With this method we would have to go through each strand one by one and - "

"Yeah, yeah, we get it!" Venam interrupted him. "We can save Garbodor? That's fuc - "

Erick wordlessly glared at her, as if silently daring her to speak one more word and invite ruin over herself.

And Venam took a few cautious steps back. "Friggin' awesome and all, but how do we get it to the point where we can separate the Rift Matter from its body? Something tells me that going down there to Garbodor and trying to explain that we can save it will go well."

"Oh, yeah. So you know how Kanon said that Garbodor dissipates when defeated, but then slowly regens?" Erick replied. "Someone would have to defeat Garbodor in battle and bring back whatever's left of it in its broken-down form."

"Done," Will said, getting up to leave -

Without warning, Melia flung her arms around him and hugged him so fiercely that they both stumbled back. Before Will could say anything else, Melia pressed a kiss on his cheek and every thought and process inside of his mind stopped working. "Thank you," she said. "Just…thank you! I don't know when, or even where you found this, but…thank you!"

"...y-you're welcome," Will murmured. The spot where her lips had graced his skin felt tingly and warm.

"Preferably, it would be the both of you," Erick said, looking a bit uncomfortable. "The Rift Matter has greatly widened its battle capabilities, after all."

Melia released him again. "Garbodor saved us back in Goldenwoof Forest. I think it would be wonderful and appropriate if…if you and I went down there together. What do you think?"

"Let's save him. Together," Will said, and the smile he felt coming up was bigger and more genuine than he'd felt in a long time.

"Yes!" Melia exclaimed, pressing her hands together and all but leaping with joy. "I knew you would be on board! This is amazing news! Should we go immediately? Yes? Great! Ler's go then!"

Maybe this was the point of their "test" in West Gearen City. Maybe, in some twisted way, Garbador had been meant to die. Zetta certainly had tried his best. Had it not been for Kirlia spotting that apartment key and thinking on her feet, they would have been setting out to execute an innocent victim instead of saving his life.

This fight against Team Xen had taken the lives of many innocent people and Pokemon alike. Will knew that, before this was over, it would probably go on to claim many more lives. He wasn't sure if he could change that. All he knew was that he had to start making a change somewhere. This was as good a moment as any to get started.

~~~~~~~(IV)~~~~~~~

---

AN: I can't seem to stray away from 20K+ chapters. Oh well. As always, thanks for sticking with me so far and don't forget to leave a review if you liked this chapter! Best way to keep me motivated to keep writing more. I will see you all with the next update!