Late morning saw the three friends on the road again, as at last, a lighthouse poked over the trees ahead of them.
"Finally!" Mary-Sue exclaimed. "We're almost there. Time for some special training with Gyarados!" She smiled at Aaron and added, "Hopefully, we'll meet some other trainers up there, so you can train too."
"Actually…" Aaron said slowly; he'd been pensive all day, and hadn't even pulled out an instrument to play yet. "I think…I'm about ready to give the Cerulean Gym another shot."
"What, like, now?" Mary-Sue asked. "But you've only battled once since then, and you lost!"
"Yeah, but I felt like I learned a lot," Aaron said. "Plus, Grookey evolved into Thwackey, so in a pinch, I'm probably fine now."
"You should at least train with Oddish a little," Mary-Sue pointed out. "I need to train with Poliwag, too." She sighed, realizing how much she had to do. "I need so much training…"
"It won't take too long, though, right?" Aaron asked tentatively. "I don't want to wait too long before trying the gym again…"
"Gyarados is having a hard time," Mary-Sue said in a small voice. "It…really doesn't seem to get just how big it is now. I don't know how long it'll take…" She frowned. "But…we can't split up. We just promised that Oddish and Poliwag will be able to stay togethe - WHOA!"
Mary-Sue was cut off as the ground beneath her boot gave way the moment she stepped on it. She was sent falling, and Aaron and Jovi weren't able to avoid the same fate; they ended up tumbling down and down together, and Mary-Sue closed her eyes and waited for everything to stop spinning.
At last, they came to a stop, heaped together, Mary-Sue on the bottom. After a bit of struggling, they managed to untangle themselves and look around, trying to figure out what had happened. What they found was that they were at the bottom of a deep, circular pit, the walls much too steep and earthy to climb.
"What is this?!" Mary-Sue exclaimed.
"It definitely doesn't seem natural," Jovi said thoughtfully. "Plus, I don't remember seeing a hole in the road, so…it must have been covered."
"But why?" Aaron asked. "Is there…a Pokémon that digs pit traps?"
"I think Trapinch does," Mary-Sue mused, "but those live in deserts, I don't think any would be living around here…"
Quick footsteps sounded from above them, and the trio all looked up. Before any of them could think to call out for help, a figure suddenly loomed over the edge of the pit, and they all froze.
The person - a human - was dressed all in black combat armor, sparse plating gleaming in the sunlight over thick, black fabric; a helmet completely covered their head, and the visor was mirrored, so there was no way to see the person's face. The only part of the figure that wasn't black was the occasional red "R" painted boldly, one on each upper arm, one on the left side of the chest, and one on the buckle of the belt that held multiple holsters and pouches of who-knew-what. In one hand, they held a gun of some sort…pointed straight at the captives in the pit.
For a long minute, no one moved, as though the intimidating person was just as shocked as they were. Then, at last, the gun lowered, and the person let out a heavily distorted sigh.
"Twerps," they grumbled, a voice modulator presumably installed in their helmet making it difficult to tell if it was a man or a woman. "Of course you'd show up and ruin one of my traps."
"Who are you?!" Mary-Sue exclaimed. "Did you dig this pit?!"
"It wasn't meant for you," the person replied. "Just as well you fell in, though - I don't need anyone interfering in my mission."
"You-!" Mary-Sue's fists clenched, fire lighting in her veins. "Who do you think you are?!" she shrieked. "Digging pitfalls for random people to fall into?! Get us out of here right now!"
"You need to stay down there," said the mysterious stranger, straightening up - based on their upright profile, it was presumably a man. "Once my mission is complete, I'll come and let you out…if I remember."
And with that, he turned and started walking away.
"HEY!" Mary-Sue roared. "Get back here, you creep! You can't just leave us down here! Get over here, now!"
"Calm down, Masie," Jovi said, putting a hand on the furious redhead's arm. "I don't think he's going to listen."
"How can I calm down?!" Mary-Sue demanded, whirling on her friend. "Some weirdo just left us in here-!"
"Think for a minute," Jovi told her, and the grimness of her expression caught Mary-Sue's attention. "This wasn't some random prank. He said this pit wasn't meant for us."
"Which means it was meant for someone," Aaron supplied, and he tilted his head thoughtfully. "Do you…think he's with Cipher?"
Jovi shook her head. "If he was with Cipher, he would have attacked me, at the very least," she pointed out. "Plus, did you see those red 'R's on his outfit? My guess is that he's with those Team Rocket people."
"But if he wasn't trying to trap random passers-by, who was he trying to trap?" Aaron thought out loud. "He mentioned a 'mission', so he was aiming for someone or something specific…"
"Based on what we saw outside Mt. Moon, Cipher and Team Rocket don't get along," Jovi said, folding her arms. "Ten to one, this trap was meant for any Cipher peons who tried to come this way. And the way that guy was talking about his 'mission'…it's a safe bet Cipher's in the area right now." She sighed heavily. "If Team Rocket are a region-wide shadow network, of course they'd be more informed than me about Cipher's movements…I wish we could find out what they know."
"Well, if Cipher's here, then we definitely need to get going," Mary-Sue declared. "We're with Team Spirit, it's our job to take on Cipher wherever they show up! And…" She gnashed her teeth, glaring up at the edge of the hole where the Rocket stranger had stood. "…I wanna pay that guy back for leaving us here. Team Rocket and Cipher both need to be taught a lesson." Not waiting for her friends to agree, she leapt up, reaching for a rock poking out of the rough wall of the pit - only for it to immediately yield beneath her fingers and tumble down into the bottom, along with a small slide of dirt.
"I don't think we can climb out," Jovi said.
"Maybe, if we stand on each other's shoulders, one of us can get out and find help?" Aaron suggested.
"There's no time for that," Mary-Sue snapped. "We can't let any bad guys get away." She looked around, then made up her mind, plucking the second Pokéball from her backpack strap. "Gyarados, come on out, we need your help," she said, tossing the capsule above them, outside the pit.
"Gyaaaaaaar," Gyarados rumbled as it materialized at the edge of the pit overhead. It looked around curiously, then down, catching sight of its trainer far below it and blinking. "Gyara?"
"Hey, we're almost to the cape," Mary-Sue told her partner. "But uh, we could use some help. Can you get us out of here?"
"Gyara," it said thoughtfully, its massive head tilting. "Gyar…Gyarados."
With no further warning or prompting, Gyarados thrust its head into the hole, grabbed Mary-Sue's backpack in its teeth, lifted her up, and flung her into the forest behind it with far more force than necessary. She couldn't help screaming as she crashed into the leafy top of a tree, branches and twigs scraping at her as they broke her fall. Another scream and crash denoted Aaron's "rescue", followed by a third from Jovi. Mary-Sue struggled and scrambled to disentangle herself and climb down to the ground; as she did so, everything started shaking, and she managed to see through the leaves that Gyarados was trying to flop its way over to her the same way it would have as a Magikarp, leaping into the air and slamming down repeatedly, leaving craters in the road.
"Gyarados, return!" Mary-Sue called desperately, aiming its Pokéball at it and tapping the button. Though it was a bit of a distance, the beam reached Gyarados and dissolved it into a cloud of red light that was sucked back into the capsule.
Equal parts relieved and frustrated, Mary-Sue wriggled her way down to the lowest branches of the tree she'd landed in, hung by her fingertips, and dropped to the ground on her feet. A few trees over, Aaron fell like a ripe fruit, stumbling as he landed; several trees over from that, Jovi dropped like a lead weight, landing hard on her butt with an "Oof!"
"Everyone okay?" Mary-Sue asked, picking leaves out of her hair.
"Yeah, I'm fine," Aaron sighed.
"Me too," Jovi groaned as she stood up, though she wobbled slightly. "You really need to teach that Gyarados to calm down."
"Yeah…sorry," Mary-Sue sighed. Then she shook her head and refocused. "What's important is, we're out now," she stated, and she turned to the road. "So let's go after that creep before he gets away!"
And the young trainer sprinted past the pit trap in the direction the mysterious Rocket agent had gone as fast as her little legs could carry her. Her friends called after her to wait, but she ignored them, focusing on how mad she was at the jerk who'd dropped her in a pit and left her there. Even Jovi had a hard time catching up, despite her longer legs, as rage fueled Mary-Sue's steps.
After a few minutes, the forest finally ended, opening up to a grassy field edged with rocky cliffs overlooking the ocean: the cape the friends had been hiking towards for days. Mary-Sue burst out into the open…and skidded to a stop in shock.
Across the field stood the lighthouse they'd seen in the distance before; the road was reduced to a thin, meandering dirt path that snaked around in the grass towards it. Spaced across that entire distance, a huge crowd of people and Pokémon roared and shouted at each other, blasts shaking the air. There were a lot of people with white plating and black visors hiding their faces, and almost as many in black-and-white uniforms with big red "R"s on their chests, all facing off and calling combat directions at their Pokémon.
"Thanks for waiting up - oh," Aaron gasped as he stumbled to a halt beside Mary-Sue.
Mary-Sue didn't respond; her anger had blocked out the shock of stumbling onto a battlefield, and she was too busy scanning the crowd, trying to find that one Rocket guy with the special combat armor, though it was difficult to see anything in the chaos.
"Whoa," Jovi remarked as she reached Mary-Sue's side. "This is…uh…"
"Shadow Pokémon," Aaron said grimly, and the girls looked at him to see his blue eyes narrow as he surveyed the crowd. "Lots of them. I think…I think every Cipher goon here is using them."
"Then…we have a lot of cleaning up to do," Jovi decided. She put a hand to the device on the left side of her face, and a small glass screen slid out in front of her eye. Her head moved back and forth as she looked around…and frowned. "Shoot," she muttered. "Too many. The Aura Reader wasn't designed to pick a bunch of Shadow Pokémon out of an all-out warzone." Growing more grim by the second, she turned to Aaron. "I'm going to need your help if I'm going to rescue any of them from this mess."
"Right," Aaron said slowly. "I guess…we should get involved, huh?"
"It's our job as Team Spirit," Jovi declared, and she pulled out Plusle and Minun's Pokéballs and called her allies out. "Come on out, guys, we've got work to do!"
"Plusle plus!"
"Mi min!"
"Poliwag, I'm counting on you," Mary-Sue said, calling on the only Pokémon she could ask to fight in the day.
"Poli poli! Poli?!" the little blue Pokémon exclaimed at the sight of the battle.
"Zigzagoon, Thwackey, let's go," Aaron said, and his Pokémon materialized, only to be equally alarmed at what was in front of them. "Keep it cool, guys," he told them; "there are a lot of Pokémon here who need our help. Don't attack anything I don't direct you to, except to defend yourselves, okay?"
"Same for you, Poliwag," Mary-Sue said. "We're on a mission, don't get distracted with any fight I don't tell you to get into."
The Pokémon looked at their trainers with hard, serious eyes and nodded - even Poliwag, who presumably had only just been told about the whole Shadow Pokémon situation by Plusle and Minun the previous night.
"I need you to lead, Aaron," Jovi said. "Tell me which Pokémon are ripe for Snagging. And keep in mind, I can't throw Snag Balls in quick succession, the Snag Machine needs to cool down between attempts."
"Okay, got it," Aaron said, though there was a note of uncertainty in his voice.
"Good luck, guys," Mary-Sue told her friends; "I'm gonna look for that creep. Let's go, Poliwag!"
"Masie, wait!"
Ignoring her friends' protests, Mary-Sue dove into the fray, Poliwag by her side.
Cipher and Team Rocket seemed too focused on each other to pay any attention to the ten-year-old girl running past them, which was both a good thing and a bad thing - no one tried to stop her, but no one tried to avoid hitting her either. Even when she flinched, though, Poliwag didn't; it wasn't very strong, but it still did its best to shoot bubbles at any bit of splash damage that came their way. It didn't always help, bits of rubble hit Mary-Sue plenty as she clumsily dodged her way between battles, but her clothes turned out to be tough enough to actually reduce the impact when the rocks missed her skin. She sent a thought of thanks to her dad for his brilliant work as she slowly approached the lighthouse.
A mechanical roar filled the air, as helicopters marked with red "R"s approached out of seemingly nowhere, dropping more Rocket agents into the fray. In the distance - or at least it felt like it - Mary-Sue heard Aaron and Jovi shouting. She ignored it all, as she'd finally found her target: right in front of the lighthouse, the same Rocket agent who'd dumped her and her friends in a pit trap was facing off with that Cipher Admin who had set the Shadow Onix on them in Mt. Moon.
"Psycho Cut, Malamar!" the Rocket agent instructed his Pokémon, a strange, floating creature with an oblong body and tentacles for arms that Mary-Sue didn't recognize.
"Shadow Coat, Reuniclus!" Bede called to his own Pokémon, the same blobby thing he'd tried to use against that red-haired guy outside Mt. Moon.
Reuniclus crossed its long arms, a dark shroud whirling around it as Malamar's attack reached it, sabers of light flying from its tentacles. The Psycho Cut managed to break through, if only just, and Bede cried out in alarm; taking a half-step back, the platinum-blond man reached into his big purple coat and took out a round device, lifting it to his lips.
"Master, we're being overwhelmed!" he gasped into the thing. "Please advise!"
"Night Slash!" the Rocket creep shouted through his voice modulator, and his Pokémon began to glow.
"Ma-la-mar," it gurgled, flying at Reuniclus, dark energy gathered around its spear-tipped tentacles.
"Shadow Rush!" Bede responded with no small amount of desperation.
Mary-Sue gritted her teeth, looking back and forth between the two villains she had a score to settle with, trying to decide who to target. Poliwag stood at her side, ready for instructions, but she had half a mind to unleash Gyarados on this entire scene and let that be its special training. Scrambling for ideas, she looked behind her, just in time to see that red-haired Rocket Admin drop down from a helicopter and call out a Typhlosion to blast a tall, thin, flowery Pokémon that was about to slam into a Rocket grunt's Machamp.
Slowly, it began to dawn on the young redhead just exactly what she'd run headfirst into, and she felt herself locking up with uncertainty. Everyone here needed to be taught a lesson, but they were doing a much better job of that to each other than she could begin to. I have a badge, she reminded herself, looking down at the blue droplet-shaped pin gleaming on her shoulder. I'm a real trainer. I can do this.
"Poliwag, use Bubble on that Malamar!" she said decisively, turning back to the battle she'd been aiming for and pointing at the shimmering creature.
"Poli poli, Poli-wag!" her round little partner crowed eagerly, and it leapt forward and aimed a blast of bubbles at the Rocket agent's Pokémon.
"What the-?" The mysterious agent turned his covered face towards Mary-Sue and instantly froze.
"Don't think that just because you're fighting Cipher means I'm gonna forgive you!" Mary-Sue snarled at him. "You're both bad guys, and I'm taking you down!"
"You again," Bede said, and she turned to see him eyeing her, not angry or afraid, more…amused? "Does that mean the girl's here too?"
"We're Team Spirit!" Mary-Sue shouted. "We won't let any bad guys get away with hurting Pokémon!"
Bede only started laughing. "Little girl," he sneered, "you're in over your head. Reuniclus-"
But before he could give his Pokémon any instructions, a sound cut through the chaos, piercing the air like a frigid winter gust: an unearthly howl that chilled Mary-Sue's blood. Almost instantly, everything quieted, the people and Pokémon of Team Rocket and Cipher alike going still and turning in the direction of the sound, just in time to see two dark streaks slicing through the air towards the battlefield, one a deep red, one a dark blue-black. In the blink of an eye, the blurs stopped at the top of a nearby hill, where everyone could see them.
Two enormous Pokémon stood proudly, side-by-side, a pair of wolves with vicious red eyes. One held a sword in its mouth, its body a dark blue-black color with two long lengths of bright red hair framing its face; the other's head seemed to poke through a broad shield, its body mostly vibrant red with black accents. The two monstrous creatures lifted their snouts and howled that terrible howl again as a man descended from the back of the one with the sword.
The man had long blue hair that flowed past his shoulders and was streaked gray, a few wrinkles on his face that weren't hidden by his massive black sunglasses speaking to his age. He wore a long, flowing robe of blue and gray, the cuffs of his sleeves wide enough that the fabric reached down to his knees as he folded his arms beneath them.
"What," he asked, slowly and deliberately, not needing to raise his voice in the stunned silence his Pokémon had shocked everyone into, "is the meaning of all this?"
"Master!" Bede gasped, and Mary-Sue glanced over her shoulder to see the Cipher Admin grinning, almost giddy as he looked up at this newcomer.
Suddenly able to move, fear seized Mary-Sue, and she started shoving her way back through the crowd, searching for her friends. No one paid any attention to her, and she quickly located Jovi by her cobalt hair, rushing to her side and finding Aaron there too.
"Masie," Jovi said in a hushed voice. "Are you okay?"
"Yeah," Mary-Sue whispered, turning back to the hill with the giant wolves; the crowd was parting as the red-haired Rocket agent walked forward to meet the man in the robe. "Is that…?"
"Ardos," Jovi confirmed. "And those Pokémon…I don't think they're just Shadow Pokémon; I think they might be XD models. Just like my brother said…"
"Are you the leader of the group called Cipher?" the red-haired Rocket agent asked, his cold voice unwavering, his chin raised.
"I am," Ardos said in almost the exact same voice despite the difference in age, a small smile twisting his thin lips. "I am Grand Master Ardos, head of Cipher. Who are you?"
"I am second-in-command of Team Rocket," the redhead replied proudly. "Everyone you see here answers directly to me, and when our Boss retires, I will be the one to rise to take his place. As such, I am fully authorized to speak for Team Rocket."
"Do you have a name?" Ardos questioned.
"Heh…" The red-haired young man chuckled softly. "I don't give out my name so easily. Everyone in my squad is the best at what they do, myself included; we don't go by our real names, for our own safety. If you need a name to know me by, however, you may call me Silver."
"So pretentious for a child," Ardos said, half-sneering.
Silver matched his expression. "Feeling self-conscious about your age, old man?" he countered.
"Not at all," Ardos said smoothly, unruffled. "I do of course know better than to underestimate a child." Slowly, he began to walk down the hill to meet the other, the wolves following right at his heels. Silver didn't flinch or recoil as the monstrous Pokémon drew closer, and Mary-Sue couldn't help respecting him for that, if begrudgingly. "So tell me, Silver, second-in-command of Team Rocket: Why are you quarreling with my people?"
"You should have done your homework before you came to the quad-region area," Silver replied in an icy tone. "We are Team Rocket, a long-established group of poachers, thieves, and terrorists; all organized crime across the four regions is entirely under our jurisdiction. Anyone who wishes to operate outside the law in Kanto, Johto, Hoenn, or Sinnoh must answer to us. But you came here without our invitation - without even asking our permission - to pursue your own criminal agenda at your leisure." Boldly, he took a step forward of his own. "We don't take kindly to intruders."
"My sincerest apologies," Ardos said smoothly. "I was not aware the situation was so strict. Tell me, boy: What is Team Rocket's goal?"
That seemed to throw Silver for a moment, but he recovered quickly. "Power and control," he answered. "Region by region, we will take over the world. Already, we run the quad-region area from the shadows, and we will spread."
"World domination, then," Ardos smirked. "What a coincidence; that is Cipher's aim as well." Abruptly, he unfolded his arms from under his enormous sleeves and extended a hand to the Rocket Admin. "We have resources you lack, and vice versa; why not join forces with us? We could work together to pursue our mutual goal. I would be more than happy to make room for Team Rocket in the new world order I shall create."
In response, Silver gave a loud snort. "Join forces with you?" he repeated. A dangerous smile curled his lips, and the look he gave Ardos could have frozen a lake. "As the successor to leadership of Team Rocket, I will tell you something about me: I despise weakness above all else. So long as I live and breathe, weaklings will forge no alliance with us."
"I also despise weakness," Ardos said lightly, taking back his hand to reach for the wolf with the sword and stroke the side of its neck. "Cipher has unlocked the secret to true strength; our power far surpasses anything this world has seen. The abilities of Shadow Pokémon are unmatched."
"Is that so?" Silver smirked. He turned to look towards the lighthouse. "Phoenix, come over here," he said.
"Sir," the Rocket agent in black armor said through his voice modulator, saluting, and he strode over quickly to stand at his boss's side.
"Please," Silver said, "remind me of the information you've managed to gather on these so-called 'Shadow Pokémon'."
"Shadow Pokémon are created by closing the doors to their hearts by artificial means," the agent apparently called 'Phoenix' recited. "Pokémon that are put through this process become mindless weapons, capable only of violence and obeying orders; they lose all ability to recall their natural powers, and instead wield powers forced on them that are extremely effective against any Pokémon not thus changed, and not effective against other Shadow Pokémon."
"Impressive," Ardos crooned.
"Which is more than can be said for your methods," Silver told him. "Power must be earned, and you don't earn this power you wield; you cheat, by forcing Pokémon through an artificial process that turns them into your slaves, stripping them of their natural powers and implanting them with abilities you did not work to teach them. I only know of one type of person who cheats to gain power, or who relies on slaves: the weak." His smirk vanished, his gray eyes turning sharper than blades. "So you see, your organization is everything I despise. There will be no common ground between us."
"I do see," Ardos conceded, his head bowing slightly. "You are blinded by tradition, but I can see you will not be swayed. So be it, then; we are to be enemies." He turned towards the lighthouse, where his own Admin was still standing by. "Bede, did we get what we came for?"
"The so-called Pokémaniac doesn't seem to know anything," Bede answered, "and we couldn't find anything, either, at least not before these losers showed up. I'm sorry to say it, Master, but I think there's nothing to find here."
"What a shame," Ardos sighed. "Well then, there's no need to waste our time or resources by staying." He turned around to face the red-and-black wolves that flanked him. "XD002, XD003, take us and ours from this place, posthaste."
The wolves howled again, sending a shudder through the crowd, and then suddenly, they were moving too fast to see, reduced to a red blur and a blue-black blur; the two streaks wove through the crowd, and where they went, anyone in white armor seemed to simply vanish. Ardos gave Silver one last smile, and then one of the blurs swept by him, and he too was gone. Within two minutes, all of Cipher had been spirited away, the wolves vanishing into the trees and leaving only Team Rocket, and the three young members of Team Spirit, behind.
All was silent for a brief moment.
"Sir?" Phoenix asked, taking a step closer to Silver's side. "Should we pursue them?"
"It would be fruitless," Silver sighed. For some reason, he turned to the lighthouse again, a pensive look on his face. "And it seems Bill didn't break our contract, so there's no need to discipline him. Let's go!" he called abruptly. "Return to base! We will report to the Boss!"
"Sir!" shouted every Team Rocket member, each of them snapping sharp salutes instantly. As one, those with Pokémon out called their partners back, and they all began to march for the helicopters that sat at the edge of the field…except for Phoenix and Silver.
"With your permission, sir," Phoenix rumbled, "I will be a moment."
Silver looked around, frowning, until his gray eyes lighted on the trio standing to the side; at the sight of them, he gave a humorless smile. "Permission granted," he said, turning to follow his team away. "Do not take long."
"Sir." Phoenix saluted, then turned to the three children who had walked in on the conflict.
Mary-Sue gritted her teeth, her fists curling as the mysterious man approached, his Malamar drifting through the air behind him. "What do you want, creep?!" she snarled, her furious expression reflected perfectly in the black visor that covered the Rocket agent's face.
"I had better not see any of you twerps again," he replied. "This is grown-up business; you have no place getting involved."
"We're Team Spirit!" Mary-Sue snapped. "Stopping Cipher is our job!"
"You are children," Phoenix growled, his anger even managing to bleed past his voice modulator.
"I'm a licensed Pokémon trainer!" Mary-Sue shouted at him. "Look, see? I have a badge, the badge from the Cerulean Gym!" She jabbed the shiny blue gem on her backpack strap.
"Do you think anyone here cares?!" the man burst out, waving his hand in a wild gesture as he snapped. "Territory disputes between criminal syndicates are not the same as an enrichment program for children! No one here could care less about your silly little badges!" His covered fingers curled into fists. "Travel the region, train your Pokémon, enter into your little children's tournament at the Indigo Plateau, and know your place," he hissed. "Don't ever get involved in the affairs of grown-ups again."
A burst of static sounded from somewhere on the agent's uniform. "Time's up, Phoenix; report in," came Silver's voice over some sort of radio.
Phoenix pressed two fingers to a button on his collar. "On my way, sir," he said, and with one last glare that Mary-Sue could feel even through his mirrored helmet, he turned his back on the trio. "Let's go, Malamar," he told his Pokémon.
"Ma-la," warbled the strange squid; the spots on its body began to glow, and blue light surrounded Phoenix, lifting him upwards and in the direction the Rocket helicopters had gone, man and Pokémon essentially flying away from the battlefield together.
Back on the ground, Mary-Sue quaked with rage, glaring after the man and his Malamar almost hard enough to kill.
"Aaron? Aaron, are you okay?"
Jovi's soft, worried voice drew Mary-Sue's attention away from her hated foe, and she turned to see Aaron staring wide-eyed at the hill where Ardos had been, his face slack with shock.
"Aaron?" Mary-Sue asked, suddenly worried, trotting over and putting a hand on his arm to shake him lightly. "What's wrong?"
Aaron blinked hard and shook himself, as though waking from a dream, then looked between the two girls. "Those Pokémon," he said faintly. "The ones with Ardos…I know them."
"Huh?"
"The colors weren't quite right," Aaron went on, "but…I could swear…"
"XD models do change colors," Jovi informed him. "XD001, Shadow Lugia, was black with red eyes and white accents, while normal Lugia are white."
"Then…I know them." Aaron closed his eyes, a deeply serious frown on his face. "Zacian and Zamazenta," he said softly, almost reverently. "The Sword and Shield of Kings. The Legendary Guardians of Galar."
"Oh," Jovi gasped. "That's…"
"How could they?" Aaron continued, his voice growing strained as he opened his eyes to look again at where the wolves had been. "How…How could the Sword and Shield of Galar fall to these…these people? And how dare they corrupt our guardians?"
"Aaron…" Mary-Sue drew in on herself, searching for something to say and coming up empty.
"Jovi." Aaron turned to the older girl at last, his jaw set. "I'm sorry for being indecisive," he told her; "I'll join Team Spirit, and do everything I can to help you take Cipher down."
"Are you…okay?" Jovi asked.
"No," he answered, "and I won't be until the Sword and Shield of Kings are free and back where they belong."
Jovi bit her lip. "XD models are designed to be impossible to purify," she said slowly. "But…the professor has made huge advancements in artificial purification technology. It should be doable." Meeting Aaron's eyes, she nodded. "We'll save them, Aaron. I promise."
"Thank you," he said gravely.
Everything was silent for a long minute; a sea breeze blew across the field, stirring the grass and the trainers' hair.
"Well," Jovi said at last, clearing her throat uncomfortably, "we, uh…we made it to the cape."
"Yeah." Mary-Sue looked around; the area was completely empty now. "Misty said trainers come up here all the time…I guess that battle must have scared off anyone who might have been here."
"Maybe they're in that building in front of the lighthouse," Jovi suggested, pointing. "Should we go ask?"
"Yeah," Mary-Sue nodded. "Let's go."
And the three friends resumed walking, making their way up the battle-ravaged path to the only building around for miles.