Chapter 29:

"His name is Archie," Professor Europa began, referring to the gentleman holding up the now glowing orb. "That thing in his hands is called the Red Orb. I don't know much other than what I overheard Commander Shelly saying about it, but I do know that it has the power to control the legendary Pokémon Kyogre."

"And Kyogre has the power to flood the world…" Eziray trailed off.

"Precisely."

As Archie held up the orb, it shined brighter and brighter. Kyogre hummed obediently, sinking down into submission as it gazed into the orb's light. Archie chuckled as he watched his own reflection in the legendary Pokémon's massive, glistening eyes.

"We have to do something!" Lyla exclaimed, trembling slightly.

"We need to get Jirachi to send Kyogre back to wherever it came from," Aiden began, eyes fixed on the Grumpig standing over Jirachi. "But that Grumpig appears to be controlling his subconscious."

"Leave it to me and Gracie!" Eziray exclaimed.

"Perfect. Lyla, you and me are going to distract Team Aqua," Aiden replied.

"R-Right," Lyla stuttered.

"Sounds like a plan! Charo, Baby, Speedy – back them up!" Eziray exclaimed, sending all her Pokémon out. "Gracie, you stick with me!"

"Got it!" the Kirlia exclaimed.

"You guys come out too," Lyla said, sending out her Pokémon as well. "Pikachu, take it easy because you're still recovering. Stay here and protect Professor Europa. Only attack if you need to!"

The Pikachu crossed her arms and rolled her eyes as she slumped to the ground. To be honest, she had no interest in fighting alongside the trainers anyway. But then again, she really didn't want to be babysitting some random human either.

"Okay guys, you come out too!" Aiden exclaimed, sending out Espeon, Combusken, and Electrike. "Espeon, stay with me. You two, split up and take out as many grunts as you can."

"That's a good idea," Lyla began. "Skitty, you're coming with me. Eevee and Marshtomp, you can split off too. Oh and Marshtomp?"

"Tomp?" the Water-type replied, cocking his head.

"Wreak as much havoc as you possibly can!"

"MAAAAAAARSH!" Marshtomp cheered, throwing his arms into the air and running straight out into the Team Aqua crowd. Lyla, Aiden, and Eziray promptly smacked themselves in the forehead.

"Not yet…" Lyla choked.

"What in the world…" Shelly trailed off as Marshtomp started freezing some of the grunts solid.

"Shelly, take care of this!" Archie snapped.

As grunts began charging at Marshtomp, he hosed down the ground around him with Mudshot and they began sliding around and crashing into each other. Marshtomp grinned widely as Shelly ordered her Sealeo to wash the mud away with Water Gun. The Mud Fish Pokémon immediately froze that water solid and jumped, using the ice to gain momentum before slamming into the Sealeo with a great force.

"Damnit," Shelly muttered as her Sealeo tumbled through the dirt. "Get up! What in the world is wrong with you?"

"SHELLY!" Archie barked.

"S-Sorry sir…I'm on it. Mightyena, use Shadow Ball!"

Shelly's Mightyena charged forward, firing a dark purple orb from his mouth. Marshtomp responded with Bide and then used the power it absorbed to blast away as many Aqua grunts as he could with double the force.

"Well…we did need a distraction…" Aiden trailed off.

"I'm going in!" Eziray exclaimed as she got up and began to sneak over to where Jirachi was.

"Ready Lyla?" Aiden asked.

"I-I guess…" she trailed off, completely overwhelmed by the severity of the situation.

The two took off and charged in, their Pokémon racing along beside them. The ones assigned to split off did so and Lyla ordered Skitty to sing as many grunts to sleep as possible while Espeon used Psychic to fling them all out of their way.

Meanwhile, Marshtomp had somehow intercepted the Red Orb and was being chased around by Shelly's Mightyena. The Dark-type was much faster than him, however, and was quickly catching up so he turned his head and froze one of its legs to the ground with Ice Beam. The Mightyena tripped over itself, shattering the ice, and went tumbling.

"Tomp! Tomp!" the Mud Fish Pokémon exclaimed victoriously.

His celebration was short-lived, however, and he soon found himself surrounded by Shelly's Sealeo and Crawdaunt and Archie's Starmie, Walrein, and Masquerain. They all had their eyes fixed on the Red Orb in his possession so he acted on the very first thought to cross his mind, which was to launch it as far as he possibly could. There was a pause as Kyogre's trance was broken and it shifted restlessly in the insufficient pool of water below.

"Sir, Kyogre…" Shelly trailed off uneasily as Kyogre grumbled and growled lowly.

"I am AWARE of the situation," Archie snapped. "But I cannot quite grasp the fact that no one has gone to RETRIEVE MY RED ORB!"

He took a look around and noticed that the vast majority of his grunts were either sleeping, frozen solid, defeated, or in the process of getting their ass handed to them.

"Masquerain, go get it…" he growled.

The Pokémon nodded and fluttered off as Marshtomp held his ground and Kyogre snarled rowdily.

"The rest of you, go get rid of those damn kids. THIS IS NOT A DIFFICULT TASK!" Archie continued. "Starmie, take out that nuisance!"

The Starmie let out a low screeching sound and shot forward, rapidly spinning itself into a blur as the other Pokémon surrounding Marshtomp dispersed.

"Marsh-TOOOMP!" Marshtomp exclaimed, giving it a blast of Mud Shot to counter the enemy's Rapid Spin attack.

The Starmie continued forward, completely unfazed by the mud splattering off the sides of its body. Marshtomp took the hit hard and rolled back in the dirt a bit as the Starmie halted and stuck its landing, demonstrating its complete control. Marshtomp stood and charged at its foe with Tackle, but the other Water-type countered it with Blizzard, releasing a dense blast of snowy wind. Marshtomp skidded in his tracks, bringing an arm up to block his face as the attack continued. Then he began to glow brightly with a wide grin.

"TOOOOOOMP!" he bellowed after Starmie's attack faded and he was ready to release Bide's energy.

Archie's Starmie couldn't do a thing. The explosion launched it back into a tree with a great white flash of energy. The Mysterious Pokémon slid down and hit the ground, but immediately lifted itself. Marshtomp tried to hit it with Water Gun while it was down, but it responded with Water Pulse. The powerful orb of water was much stronger than Water Gun, and it pushed right through as it closed in on Marshtomp. He gritted his teeth and used Ice Beam, freezing both the attack and the Starmie solid.

"Marsh. Marsh. Tomp!" he exclaimed, placing his hands on his hips victoriously.

"ZRRRZZZEEEE!"

The odd noise directed his attention back to Starmie's ice-encased body. The Mysterious Pokémon's gem was glowing brightly and Marshtomp cocked his head in confusion. Before he could figure it out, the icy envelope shattered as Starmie used Psychic. Then it shot forward with Rapid Spin once more, slamming Marshtomp against a large boulder. It didn't even allow the Mud Fish Pokémon to stand before launching him through the air with Psychic.

"MARSHTOMP!" Lyla cried as her Pokémon flew by and slammed right into Kyogre. This was what finally set the restless Sea Basin Pokémon into a ferocious fit of rage.

"ROOOOOOOAAAH!" it roared as Marshtomp ricocheted off and landed on the ground just in front of the pool of water.

"Tomp…" he trailed off as he sat up and rubbed his head.

The Kyogre went silent as it opened its jaw and began to charge up a Hyper Beam. Lyla shouted as loud as she could to warn Marshtomp but he was too beat up to move and he disappeared in a massive bright flash of terrifying power. He was blasted back and immediately lost all consciousness, crashing into the ground with a loud thud.

The rattled Sea Basin Pokémon shook and churned violently, splashing water all around it and scanning through the crowd of humans furiously. Who dared to disturb its slumber? Who dared to remove it from its resting place?

"Pika!" Lyla's Pikachu exclaimed, eyes shifting from Marshtomp's limp body to the now rampaging Kyogre thrashing about in the pool of water.

"Boss, without the Red Orb, we can't control it. It's going to destroy us all if we don't back out now!" Shelly pleaded.

"I'm not leaving here without it!"

"But we can come back! As soon as we have the Red Orb again, we can just come back…"

"Pika-pi!" Pikachu exclaimed as she tore off towards the legendary Pokémon.

"Where are you going?" Lyla demanded as the Electric-type raced past her. "PIKACHU, NO!"

Pikachu ignored her 'trainer' and continued towards Kyogre. She didn't care if she was still recovering. She didn't care how powerful Kyogre was. All she cared about was putting all her self-training to the test by taking it out. If she could accomplish that, she'd feel like the most powerful Pokémon in Hoenn.

[BAR]

"Thanks, Speedy!" Eziray exclaimed as her Grovyle victoriously held his foot over the fallen Grumpig. "Gracie would have been delayed taking down a fellow Psychic-type all by herself, so thanks for looking out for us and saving us some time."

"Vyle!" the Grovyle exclaimed.

"Hurry, Ezzie!" Gracie exclaimed, tugging at Eziray's shirt as Kyogre let out another thunderous roar. "Kyogre's out of control and Jirachi still needs our help!"

"Right!" Eziray exclaimed as she raced over to Jirachi with Gracie. "Uh oh, better hurry…"

Gracie glanced up and noticed that Pikachu and Kyogre were engaged in battle and no matter how many jolts of electricity were sent its way, the Kyogre wasn't even fazed despite its theoretically low tolerance for Electric-type moves.

"Gee, legendary Pokémon sure are strong aren't they?" Gracie observed as she positioned herself next to Jirachi and gently placed one of her hands over his forehead. "Jirachi, you can feel safe now because I'm a friend. We've come to rescue you! I would like to make one last wish and then you'll be free to rest until the next Millennium Comet…"

"Hurry up, Gracie," Eziray said as she noticed Archie closing in on Lyla who was desperately trying to return Pikachu to her ball.

"Who the hell do you think you are?" he demanded. Lyla turned to look at him just as Kyogre blasted Pikachu away with Hydro Pump. "This was quite the little stunt you pulled. I had no idea you all were actually decent trainers. Walrein, get over here."

"Eevee, Skitty!" Lyla called, realizing that she'd been separated from her other two Pokémon.

The two Normal-types raced to her side and Archie studied them all for a moment. Then his tone suddenly changed.

"I've met you before…"

"Never," she replied.

"Hmm…" he trailed off, lost in thought as Shelly hurried over with her Mightyena.

"I wiped out the boy," she began. "He shouldn't be a problem anymore. I can take care of this one too, if you want me too."

"Aiden…" Lyla's thoughts trailed off as she bit her lip and slumped down slightly.

"That's quite alright. Walrein, use–"

Before finishing his statement, Kyogre lifted a fin high into the air, prepared to bring it back down on the three with a crushing blow. Lyla shrieked while Archie and Shelly just stared in disbelief and large droplets of water crashed down around them from the raised fin. Suddenly, Kyogre began shimmering with white Psychic energy and it brought its fin down slowly as if it understood that it was going home. Archie and Shelly watched in dismay as the legendary Pokémon slowly vanished before their eyes just as the Masquerain returned and dropped the Red Orb into its master's hand. He turned to Eziray and Gracie who were both jumping for joy with Jirachi who had closed his Eye of Truth and was now wide awake, sitting up and rubbing the back of his head in confusion.

"No matter…" Archie trailed off as he aggressively shoved Lyla aside and made his way back to Jirachi.

"Eziray!" Lyla warned as Shelly's Mightyena let out a low snarl to silence her.

"Huh?" Eziray asked as she looked up and saw the Team Aqua leader headed her way.

"Don't worry, Eziray," Jirachi began. "I'm really sleepy now. I wouldn't be able to summon Kyogre again even if he forced me."

"Jirachi…" Lyla trailed off as the Wish Pokémon floated gently into the air and began glowing brightly under the Millennium Comet's fading glow. Archie halted.

"Lyla, Eziray, Aiden – thank you! Thank you for bringing me home and thank you for being my friends! I didn't mean for all this trouble and I'm sorry. Please know that I am eternally grateful for all your help and that I'll never forget any of you! I hope that you'll make it out of this situation safely," he said as his body began to hum and glimmer.

"Jirachi, don't be sorry! None of this is your fault! I'm just glad you're okay!" Lyla replied as the legendary Pokémon smiled. "And I know you have to go now, but I just wanted you to know that you will be missed!"

"Good bye, friends! I'll miss you too," Jirachi replied. "But before I go, I'm going to do what I can to help you. Doom Desire!"

In a bright flash accented with stars, just as the attack in Lyla's dream, all of Team Aqua's Pokémon who were still out of their balls were knocked out, along with any remaining grunts that weren't already unconscious. When the attack was over, Jirachi slowly began to crystalize as he floated back down to the ground. Lyla rushed forward and caught him, holding him tightly as his body finished its transformation.

"And thank you for being our friend, Jirachi!" she exclaimed, brushing a tear away from her face as Jirachi's body became so bright that none of his features were distinguishable any longer. "Good bye…"

"Good night, Lyla. I hope all of your wishes come true!" Jirachi's voice echoed in her mind as the light faded and revealed his fully crystalized body.

"Sweet dreams," she whispered.

"Do you realize…" Archie trailed off, completely shattering the mood of the moment as he withdrew a Pokéball from his pocket. "Who exactly you've crossed? You three are in a whole load of trouble now!"

"Not good," Lyla thought to herself as she looked around at all the fallen Pokémon and Aqua Grunts scattered around the area. "It looks like Skitty, Eevee, Speedy and Gracie are the only Pokémon that can still fight. Who knows how many those higher-ups have got left…Stay strong."

Lyla stood tall and strode forward towards the man. Shelly proceeded to join her leader at his side but he held out his hand to stop her, curious to see what Lyla would do once she got close. The young girl's expression displayed a combination of both intense fear and passionate courage as she trudged on.

"Ready when you are," she said in a low, solemn tone.

"…How nostalgic," Archie whispered.

There was a very long moment of silence and stillness as he watched Lyla quiver in fear while standing as strong as she could. After staring into her eyes for a moment, he dipped his head down and sighed.

"Boss?" Shelly inquired.

"Move out," he murmured.

"Excuse me?" Shelly asked, baffled by his sudden change in heart. "Are you positive, sir?"

"You heard me. This whole operation was nothing but a roll of the dice anyway; I was expecting it to fail. It's not like any of this had anything to do with our original plans. We'll stick to them and Kyogre will be ours," he explained.

"But we would have had it sooner! This is their fault! They need to be–"

"I SAID MOVE OUT!"

Reluctantly, Shelly retreated from the scene, kicking the grunts out of unconsciousness as she passed them and jabbing Eziray in the shoulder on her way by. Archie turned back to Lyla.

"For a moment, looking into your expression, you reminded me of someone I used to know a long time ago and whom I miss very deeply. That just saved your ass I suppose…so take it as a blessing and let me make myself perfectly clear. If I ever even suspect that you or your friends are meddling in Team Aqua's affairs again, I will ignore these absurd lingering emotions and cut you down where you stand!"

And with that, he turned and retreated as well, the grunts sluggishly trailing behind him.

"What…just happened?" Lyla asked, falling to her knees once the gang was gone.

"Lyla!" Eziray exclaimed as she and Aiden arrived at her side, Eziray holding Pikachu and Aiden holding Marshtomp. Both were unconscious and badly wounded.

"What did he say? Why did he let us off the hook so easily?" Aiden demanded.

"I remind him of someone he said…" she trailed off, running her fingers along Jirachi's dormant, crystalized body.

"Are you three alright?" Professor Europa gasped, hurrying over to them. "Your Pokémon don't look well…"

"Could you take us to a Pokémon Center?" Lyla replied shakily, calling Marshtomp, Pikachu, and Eevee to their balls.

"Certainly, but there's something we must do first. When you three are ready…"

"I understand," Lyla said, eyes fixed on the ground in front of her.

She stood and made her way to Jirachi's pedestal inside the cave, she placed the crystal upon it, and she watched as it sunk in before her very eyes. She shivered a bit, still worked up over the situation they'd been in. Then she smiled slightly and whispered one last time, "I'll miss you."

[BAR]

"She's been so quiet…" Eziray trailed off, watching as Lyla wrapped a fresh bandage around Marshtomp's left shoulder near the back of the van. Professor Europa was focused on the road, Aiden was riding in the passenger seat, and Eziray was sitting against the back of his seat so she could keep an eye on their friend.

"Leave her be," Aiden replied as Lyla ripped the bandage with her teeth and gently laid the motionless Pokémon down. "She just had to say goodbye to a friend, half her team is severely injured, and she went face-to-face with a dangerous gang leader. She's a little more than shaken up."

"But it's been nearly three days!"

"Eziray…"

"Professor Europa said we'll be arriving soon," Lyla murmured to Skitty. The Kitten Pokémon looked up at her, purring. "Do you think Nurse Joy will be impressed? With the bandages I mean…I've been changing them every day, and cleaning their wounds, and applying medicine. Everyone looks great! But Marshtomp…he still hasn't woken up yet. Why won't he wake up?"

"Myaa…" Skitty trailed off as a tear rolled down Lyla's cheek.

"He's gonna be okay, right? He's gotta be. Skitty, we can't lose anyone else to one of those gangs; it's not fair! What did we ever take from them? Certainly nothing worth someone's life! How could they possibly think that this is making the world a better place? Stealing from people? Terrorizing them? Ripping them from loved ones? Using innocent Pokémon for their own sick, selfish purposes. They're not helping the world; they're spoiling it."

She lowered her head into knees and cried softly, prompting Aiden and Eziray to take a seat on opposite sides of her and place an arm around her shoulders. Skitty rubbed against her, purring in an attempt to comfort her as well.

"I miss her…so…much," Lyla whispered.

Author Notes:

A little shorter, but I hope you still enjoyed it! I can't wait to reveal more Team Aqua/Magma plot; so many great twists! I also hope to transition Lyla into being the medicine-savvy person of the group who tends to their Pokémon's wounds when Nurse Joy isn't around. What do you guys think? And sorry for the long wait – this quarter was crazy! I hope to have lots more chapters up this summer. Be sure to leave a review with your thoughts!