A haze of dust and darkness rescinded before Erik’s eyes. The mountain of rubble before him motionless as he wondered whether the Pokemon buried underneath still lived.

“May,” he called, turning to his friend who lay slouched up against the yellow rock wall. “Fancy giving me a hand moving these rocks? We’ve got to try and rescue Roller and Marshtomp.”

May didn’t seem to hear him, her eyes fixed on the pile of yellow rock. Erik had never seen anyone take the death of one, maybe two of their Pokemon so badly, but then most trainers were prepared for that eventuality when they received their trainer licence. May was just a researcher, it’s doubtful she had even considered this could happen.

Erik scooped up a rock and threw it to the side, repeating the process over and over alongside his Pokemon, who wanted to help save Roller. May didn’t move a muscle the entire time, her mind remaining elsewhere. Half an hour had passed before Erik and his team made any real progress, a large gap in the gigantic pile of rubble emerging, almost tunnelling through the rubble, like an entrance to the inside of it.

Erik crawled through the tunnel having recalled his Pokemon as it was only large enough to fit one, maybe two people through. He could only manage to see a couple of inches ahead of him at a time with the threat of the tunnel collapsing on him ever present. He pushed forward, hoping Roller was alive, as well as May’s Marshtomp. His friend would never be the same again if her Pokemon had been killed, as she thought it had been.

He stopped suddenly, the tunnel had reached a dead end.

Erik pushed the rock in front of him in desperation, expecting it to move only slightly, if at all. To his delight the stone pushed away and fell a short way, rolling across the ground until it hit another rock on the ground. This rock was different to the others, it was orange in colour – a Numel.

Erik climbed out of the tunnel into the clearing. there was enough room in the enclosed space for him to crawl as he checked Mylos’s Numel for signs of life, discovering there were none. He looked up to see two more tunnels, one to his right and the other straight ahead, leading to the other side of the pile of stones. He took the latter route.

A flash of green caught his eye as Erik continued making his way through the second tunnel, this one slightly more spacious than the last. He used his arms to drag himself forward, shaking Roller to attempt to awaken the Gulpin, but it was no use. Roller had died when the rocks fell. A sharp pain gripped Erik’s heart, but he had to continue, there was still a chance Marshtomp was alive, however small that chance was.

“ERIK!” echoed a scream through the tunnel, a female voice reverberating from behind him.

He climbed back out the tunnel entrance, having never crawled so fast in his life. May was exactly where he had left her, but now had company.

Her marshtomp had collapsed before her, its shallow breaths indicting life still remained within the Pokemon.

“She came out the tunnel a little bit after you went in, I don’t know if she’s still alive. Help me Erik,” May said in a voice as weak as her Pokemon, eyes welling up. She looked as if she had aged twenty years in the last couple of hours with bags underneath her eyes and makeup running down her tear-stained face.

Erik reached into May’s bag, the leather bumbag which she always carried around with her, and pulled out a potion. Spraying Marshtomp’s wounds caused a slight groan from the creature, but it remained extremely weak even after the potion had been applied.

“We need to get her to a Pokemon centre as soon as possible,” he informed May. “Withdraw Marshtomp into her Pokeball and come through the tunnel with me, I bet we can easily get to the other side and then get out of here.”

A soft nod was all he got in reply from May, as she withdrew Marshtomp as Erik asked and followed him through the tunnel. She seemed a lot better now that her favourite Pokemon was confirmed alive, but seeing her Shroomish killed as well as the Magma grunt still looked to be too much for her to handle, as she limply followed her friend through the rocks.

Erik reached the end of the second tunnel, realising that in Marshtomp’s desperation to escape the enormous pile of stones she had attempted digging in all directions, one after another, in order to get out. She must’ve taken Roller with her the first time too, before becoming too weak to carrying the Gulpin along with her. Erik carried on digging his way out where May’s Pokemon had left off, Marshtomp had almost reached the end of the second tunnel anyway, so it took him only a couple of minutes to see a light beaming through from the other side.

He pushed the last rock aside, he could see clearly out of the tunnel. Mylos was standing over Cozmo, it looked like he had beaten the professor relentlessly with the meteorite now bulging in the Magma Admin’s back pocket. But the two of them were no longer alone.

“Look, if I tell you, will you allow me to leave this place?” Mylos asked of the three newcomers. They clearly hadn’t noticed the Magma member now had the meteorite as it was hidden from their view.

“Fine,” replied the leader of the group. He bore a scar above his left eye, encrusted upon his dark skin. 

“Okay, well you have to remember that only Maxie knows all the details, so I will can only tell you what I know. Which isn’t much.” Mylos was blabbering helplessly, he was terrified of the three men in navy blue cloaks standing in front of him.

Erik was well hidden within the tunnel, but had a full view of the scene unfolding before him. May was also listening in behind him, but she had remained silent since asking Erik to help heal her Marshtomp.

“Out with it,” the leader of the trio snapped. His two accomplices were hiding their faces behind hoods, they dressed exactly the same as Team Magma, just in navy blue rather than crimson red. The leader, however, had his hood down and instead wore an aqua blue bandana with a patch covering his right eye.

“S-sorry,” Mylos continued. “Cozmo here had the information we needed for plan B of our scheme, to be used if plan A fails.”

“What are these two plans?” the leader growled, his voice as rough as a raging sea. Erik knew who he was; Archie, the leader of Team Aqua.

“Plan A is to use Mt Chimney, activate it with some ancient power and harness its energy to do something, I don’t know what. We set up camp at the summit a few weeks ago but have only gained access to the ancient item recently.”

“What item?” Archie demanded, his voice growing fiercer each time he spoke.

“A meteorite. Boss says the fragment will have enough power to cause the volcano to become active. He has it now.” Erik knew that Mylos was lying, but didn’t dare shout out. He trusted Archie and Aqua almost as little as he trusted Magma.

“And the backup plan?” Archie followed, as his two goons moved forwards slightly.

“All I know is what I overheard from Maxie one time, ‘We will release and control the ultimate power.’ Cozmo here knew nothing about any sort of ultimate power, my mission failed.” Another lie, Erik thought, as his focus once again shifted to the meteorite in Mylos’s back pocket.

“Right, take him,” Archie ordered his two grunts, who promptly grabbed Mylos by the arms and dragged him out of the cave.

“You said you’d let me go,” the Magma member complained repeatedly.

“We will,” Archie eventually replied as they left the cave.

Erik ran out to check on the professor, but Cozmo was too shaken to reply. May weakly followed behind, a slight smile appearing on her face when Erik asked if she was feeling alright, the smile fading as quickly as it had appeared when he looked away.

“Lets get out of here,” he spoke to both of them. Erik half carried Cozmo out of the cave, the professor too weak to walk by himself. May lagged behind silently as they followed Archie and Mylos out of the southern exit.

---

They reemerged from the southern exit to the top of a hill, which overlooked the entire town of Rustboro, but before Erik had time to admire the view Cozmo threw out a Pokeball. A Skarmory emerged from the device, the professor rapidly jumping on the back of it with the Pokemon flying away; back to his home, Erik presumed.

Erik would’ve tried flying away on Steel, but remembered what had happened last time he tried riding one of his Pokemon, he had nearly drowned after trying to cross a lake with Lady. Besides, Steel was still weak from the earlier battle.

“I want to go home, Erik,” May informed him, her voice extremely shaky and weak. “I want to go back to my Dad.”

“Would you like me to you?” he enquired, making sure to smile as he said so.

“I need some time alone,” she said emotionlessly, seeming as if all of the spirit had been drained from her. Her skin appearing as pale as snow with her eyes painfully bloodshot. She seemed unable to keep eye contact with Erik for more than a moment.

“Okay, I will go to Mt. Chimney, although it’s a long way.”

“You can cut through Verdanturf Tunnel, they finished clearing it out last week,” May said as she began walking into the distance.

“I thought they stopped the project?” Erik asked, but May ignored him as she strolled away. “Will she ever recover from this?” he pondered quietly to himself.

Erik made the walk down to Rustboro, he would need to heal his weakened team at the Pokemon Centre as well as withdrawing a new sixth member of his team. He would take Glutton out of storage, directly replacing one poison-type Pokemon for another and although his team didn’t seem to like the Koffing when they first met him, they’d bond with her over time.

---

The journey back to Mt. Chimney was uneventful, as was the climb back up the mountain. Erik remembered where all of the footholds were and wasn’t half as phased by the ascent as he had been the first time. His father’s words when he was younger had proved true, “Most of the challenge of trying something new is in your own mind.”

Erik lifted himself over the final ledge of the climb, finding himself facing the cable car station once more. This time, however, there were no Numels to greet him as the station looked to be devoid of life. All was quiet, except from the faint noises creeping down from the summit, noises which sounded like raging battles as voracious as the lava within the volcano’s depths.

He entered the station, the large metal door unlocked this time, allowing him to easily push his way inside. The interior of the large building consisted of two huge boxes held by a strong looking rope. The two boxes, or cars as they were known, were made entirely of glass, allowing someone to see for miles out of it as they rode it to the summit. Erik assumed that there were two further cars at the top station too, so he would be able to make the reverse trip if need be.

As he stepped into the glass cage, he pulled a lever on the platform just outside the door. Someone else was usually meant to pull these, someone that worked here maybe, but from the stiffness of the lever it had barely been used for a while now. He dived back into the car as it began its ascension to the top. The metal rope that held all the cars was now revolving, groaning and squeaking.

The view from the car was astounding, Erik could see everything. The car shuddered violently from time to time but he felt strangely safe inside of it, especially as he had released Steel from her Pokeball just in case, to catch him if he were to fall. Hoenn spread out before them as if it were on a map. He could retrace his journey through all the towns he had been to, seeing the next Gym town, Lavaridge, nearby with his father waiting in Petalburg to await him if he was victorious.

He could also see where he would journey afterwards if he managed to defeat his dad, he would next need to cross rivers and oceans to get to some of the destinations on his Gym challenge. Erik realised that he had probably expired all of his favours from Mr. Briney, not wanting to take advantage of his old sailor friend, so he would need to discover a new way to traverse water.

The cable car stopped suddenly at the summit station, Erik making a careful step out of the glass cage and back onto solid ground. This station came across exactly the same in appearance as the lower building, and was again unmanned. Erik left through another giant metal door, this time letting out a huge squeal as he opened it

The air scorched Erik’s skin as he walked onto the rocky surface of the volcano’s peak. Straight ahead of him was a descent through a jagged-looking pass which he knew from his earlier view from the cablecar led to Lavaridge Town. But what interested him came from behind where he was now standing, the shouts and roars from both Magma and Aqua members duking it out in titanic battles.

Erik remarked that the summit’s surface was surprisingly flat, solid and stable ground leading his vision through a heat haze, all the way up to a large pool of lava which seemed to go on forever. He spotted Grant battling with an Aqua member before him. Archie must’ve held his word and released Mylos from his custody, as he stood with the admin and Maxie all looming on a ledge which bore over the lava pool further ahead. Maxie clutched the meteorite in his left hand.

His vision flicked back to Grant, who had just defeated his adversary with his Poochyena now approaching the Aqua member with intent. A quick nod to Steel sent the Skarmory zooming towards the Poochyena, picking it up in her claws, flying ahead and dropping it into the pool of lava.

“Erik!” Grant snapped, sweat trickling down his face, even the Magma members were struggling with the intense heat. “So you’re working for Aqua now?!”

“No,” Erik replied as he made his own approach to the Magma grunt. “I’m here to stop you.”

“I’m a lot stronger now you fool!” Grant roared, a cackle escaping his throat afterwards. Erik was unsure whether the grunt had laughed intentionally or was choking on the ash-filled air.

“We’ll see about that,” he replied, ing Glutton’s Pokeball into the air, the Koffing escaping from within the capsule.

Glutton floated from side to side cautiously, with Grant’s Poochyena growling noisily at the thought of fresh battle. The Koffing emitted thick smoke, suffocating the battlefield, the smokescreen blinding Erik’s vision. He could no longer see Grant, or his Poochyena until the hound bolted out of the fumes to crunch his fangs down on Glutton’s purple shell.

The Poochyena’s eyes shot open, it looked repulsed by something, leaping off of Glutton and back down on the mountain surface. The scene causing Erik to remember Fiery path, where his team retreated from the Koffing due to it’s foul stench, the incident repeating itself with the Poochyena.

Glutton blasted a wave of poisonous liquid at his opponent, sending the Poochyena rocketing back into the cloud of smoke and disappearing from sight.

A minute passed, which seemed like an hour, before the smoke cloud slowly evaporated. Grant’s Pokemon strolled out of the fog and roared, the ground beneath them shaking so violently from the effect it felt as if the volcano was erupting.

Glutton looked terrified, he was only a new Pokemon and not used to battle so he was easily frightened by the prospect. The Koffing backed off towards Erik and hid behind his trainer, unwilling to continue the battle. 

“Come on Glutton, you were doing so well,” Erik whispered to the Koffing, but it was no use. Glutton was too scared to reenter the field of battle.

“Who next,” Erik pondered, each of the Pokeballs on his belt. “I guess it’s time for Dancer to show if she’s really ready to fight for me.”

Erik’s Pikachu looked back at her trainer as she stepped up to face the weakened Poochyena, Erik could tell that she was eager to prove herself to him now she had committed, a bond had been established between the two and he could feel it. Grant’s Pokemon leapt in with its fangs, Dancer gracefully moved out of the way, causing the Poochyena to slam face-first into the ground. A follow up electrical jolt from the Pikachu electrifying her foe and winning her the fight.

“Not again!” Grant cried out, face flushed red with anger and wounded pride. The Magma grunt grabbed his other Pokeball, a Koffing emerging from within after being launched through the air. Erik responded by shouting out his Skarmory’s name, Steel flying back to him in order to fight.

Koffing hurled poisonous gas into the air, releasing the fumes from its body for Steel to inhale. The Skarmory remained unperturbed, to Grant’s horror.

“Steel types are immune to poisoning,” Erik laughed as Steel used her aerial superiority, swiping at the Koffing with vicious claws before flying off again, over and over. The Koffing couldn’t keep up. After a few more attacks the Koffing had seemingly given up, giving way for Erik’s Pokemon to land a finishing blow with an attack by a wing made from solid steel.

Grant remained silent, staring blankly. As Glutton, Steel and Dancer all leapt for joy at the victory, Erik pulled three berries out of his backpack, one for each of his three victors, as way of a reward. Glutton moved at an incredible speed, gulping down the three berries then looking up at Erik with a smile as if he hadn’t done anything wrong, as if he thought all three were meant for him. Dancer scorned Glutton with a slap and a growl, with Steel flying back into the sky.

Erik wordlessly moved past Grant, towards the three men hovering over the pool of lava below. He hadn’t realised just how deep the drop off the ledge into the lava pool was until he got closer, the ledge was around twenty metres in length but the drop was enough to kill anyone even without the scorching liquid at the bottom.

“You shouldn’t be here kid,” was all Erik got from Archie as he strolled up to the leaders of both Magma and Aqua bickering whilst overlooking the ocean of lava below. Mylos stood behind them, almost like a lapdog.

“You should leave here Erik, it’s not your time yet,” Maxie followed, sparing Erik no more than a glance.

“I’ll get rid of the little pest, boss,” Mylos added, gesturing to Erik with a finger pointing further down the ledge, a Pokeball clutched in his other hand.

“I’ll take you down for what you did to May and Roller,” growled Erik. “Then I’ll do the same to your boss.”

“Good luck with that,” replied Mylos with laughter erupting from his throat. “There’s a job opening up as second in command of Magma, this is my chance to impress Maxie.”

“Enough talking,” Erik snapped, he wanted this over and done with so he could move onto the bigger fish.

“As you wish,” came the reply, as the Magma admin threw his Pokeball into the air, a Koffing emerging out of the bright light. Erik replied with a Koffing of his own, Glutton floating out with a smile painted across his face.

Glutton approached cautiously, still slightly frightened by the thought of battle. Mylo’s Pokemon remained suspiciously unmoving, just floating there.

“You want to know pain?” Mylos screeched as Glutton got close to his Pokemon. “You complain about Roller and your girlfriend, but you have no idea what true pain is. I will give you another taste of it.” Mylos turned his gaze from Erik back to his Koffing, “Now!”.

The Koffing inhaled, and closed his eyes, expanding slightly. It was as if the Pokemon was trying to force something out of him, then the ground beneath them shook violently, with the air turning to smoke as Erik’s ears rang noisily. The Koffing had self-destructed, taking Glutton with it.

As the smoke cleared Erik looked around, Glutton was nowhere to be seen, almost as if he had evaporated. Mylos had already thrown his second Pokemon into battle, a Numel.

“You just throw your Pokemon away like that?!” Erik roared, fire rising within him from the pain of losing another Pokemon.

“We at Magma have plenty,” Mylos smirked, completely unphased by losing his own Koffing. “We don’t need to follow the rules of one Pokemon per route, we’ve caught over a hundred Numels living within this volcano alone!”

“Because no one dares to stop them,” Erik thought to himself. “They can do whatever they like with no consequences.”

Erik sent Ice out for round two, the Mightyena howling as he entered the field of battle. The Numel began harnessing the energy of the lava all around it, soaking up the heat and fire from all around it and erupting like the volcano it stood on with scorching hot liquid, directed at Ice. The Mightyena screamed out in pain as the heat scolded him to the bone, and leapt through the air despite the pain. Ice wrapped his fangs around the Numel’s orange shell, freezing it as the cold flowed through his teeth into his opponent’s skin. The ice froze the Numel’s veins solid.

Ice ran back, then charged into the frozen Pokemon, launching the Numel into the lava. Mylos’s warrior’s blood changing temperature from sub-zero to unbearably hot in a split second, causing it to explode much like his trainer’s Koffing before it.

“No!” Mylos blasted. The explosion attracted the attention of both Maxie and Archie.

“Impressive..” Maxie commented. “Mylos is one of my three admins, yet you defeated him without breaking a sweat. What I’ve been told about you seems to be correct.”

“Not bad, kid,” Archie followed. “Let’s take this scum down together.”

“Why would I help you,” Erik snapped.

“Because Maxie here plans to throw the meteorite into the lava, the reaction would cause this here volcano to become active. Maybe even erupt.”

“Not true,” Maxie said cooly, “all it would achieve is to allow us to fully harness the power of the meteorite.”

“Neither of those sounds good, Maxie.” Erik looked directly at the Magma boss as he spoke, he felt no fear, even if Maxie was supposed to be a much better trainer than himself.

“Oh, but with this meteorite’s harnessed energy, we will be able to help people all over the region,” Maxie smiled, keeping his eyes locked in contact with Erik’s. “Hoenn is becoming overcrowded, and is surrounded by ocean. But with the power we harness we will be able to expand the landmass, allowing space for new homes to be built; for both people and Pokemon.”

“You don’t want to help others, only yourself and that boss of yours,” Archie retorted, veins throbbing in his neck as the Aqua leader spoke.

“Boss? I thought you were in charge of Magma, Maxie?” Erik asked quizzically.

“I am Erik,” Maxie replied, as calm and collected as ever. “And if you help me out today, I will allow you to be my second in command. You have truly proved yourself as both worthy and capable of the honour. I will even allow you to keep the fully charged meteorite, as a welcome gift.”

“What would I do with a meteorite?” Erik questioned, intrigued.

“Up to you, but it would have immense power. It could even allow your Pokemon to evolve by your will, or boost their strength dramatically.”

Erik thought to himself for a moment, he didn’t know who to believe. Maxie sounded convincing, and the power of the meteorite would make him almost unstoppable in his quest to become Pokemon champion.

“You honestly trust this guy?!” Archie said furiously.

“I don’t trust either of you,” Erik replied, he had made his decision. He had remembered how he had left May, the thought of how hurt and despondent she was because of Magma. “I don’t know which of you to believe, but I do know one thing. You must be stopped here and now Maxie.”

“You’re seriously outnumbered here Erik,” a smirk appearing on Maxie’s face as he spoke, “even if you manage to defeat me, my grunts will be finished with Aqua soon.”

“You’re the one who’s outnumbered, Max,” Archie interrupted, with a matching smirk. “Two against one here, right Erik?”

“I don’t want your help,” Erik snapped at the Team Aqua leader, “I fight my battles alone.”

“Then if you don’t win I’ll just take down a weakened Maxie, either way, I get what I want.”

---

Blaze squared up to Maxie’s Mightyena. Erik could sense the dark-typed Pokemon was well trained, and maybe even stronger than Blaze. He felt nervous, fearing for his oldest friend as molten lava spit up from the pit and almost reached the two battling Pokemon.

Blaze leapt through the air, aiming to kick his foe over the edge and into the molten magma below. The Mightyena was knocked back, his hind legs slipping off the edge but he managed to hold on, then roared. Blaze nervously stepped back, before launching another kick at his opponent. As the Combusken was in midair, another roar caused him to crash land, Blaze looked terrified and struggled to get back up at the Mightyena climbed fully back over the ledge. Blaze ran back to his trainer, Erik comforting him and throwing out Leaf’s Pokeball. He had never seen his Combusken so frightened before.

“What’s wrong, why are you so afraid,” he whispered into Blaze’s ear, but the Combusken just hid behind him, like a child hiding behind their parent.

Out on the battlefield, Leaf was using her usual tactic of attracting her foe with pheromones, but it didn’t have the intended effect. The Mightyena was unaffected and open its mouth to roar once more, but Leaf seized the opportunity to launch a powerful stream of poisonous liquid into the opening, sending the Mightyena crashing backwards, over the edge and into the lava.

Maxie made a groaning noise that sounded rather uncaring, before throwing his second of three Pokemon out into the field, a Numel. But before Erik had time to send his own Pokemon out, Maxie withdrew the meteorite from his back pocket.

“Just being around the natural power of Mt. Chimney has slightly charged it, watch and learn, Erik.” Maxie threw the small rock with force at his own Pokemon, the Numel being knocked onto its side. The meteorite then started glowing, first orange, then green, then a bright white. The Numel followed suit, glowing the same bright white as the rock that had been thrown at it.

Erik shielded his eyes from the light. Waiting for it to dissipate before removing his arm from his face, seeing that the Numel had been forced to evolve into a Camerupt.

“Not only has he evolved, but he is also much stronger. I used up half of the meteorite’s stored energy at once to create this super-Pokemon.” A smirk reappeared on Maxie’s face, stretching all the way across his defined cheekbones from one side to another.

“Is this why Blaze was so afraid? He sensed you’d used a supernatural power on your Mightyena?”

“I didn’t use anything on my Mightyena, even though you only defeated him by using the lava pool he was completely normal,” replied Maxie, smirk remaining firmly in place. “Your Combusken was only so afraid because of you, he felt your fear, channeled it. Join us and I will teach you to control it, control everything about your Pokemon.”

“I have no fear,” Erik roared in response, but deep down he knew he was lying. He wasn’t as naive as he used to be, believing that Blaze was so reliable that he was almost invincible. After losing so many Pokemon and seeing what had happened to May after she thought she had lost her first Pokemon, he knew he would be exactly the same if he ever lost Blaze. He refused to send his Combusken back into battle.

He each of the Pokeballs on his belt once more, Ice was weakened and the rest of them had weaknesses to the Camerupt’s fire and ground dual-type. Ice would have to do.

Ice howled, trying to intimidate the Camerupt, but his foe remained unperturbed. Maxie’s Pokemon seemed to focus its energy, bright white lines appearing throughout his skin. The power of the meteorite. The Camerupt roared.

The ground shook as if the roar had caused an earthquake, then suddenly the rocky surface beneath Ice’s feet collapsed, the Mightyena disappearing down into the newly formed hole. As quickly as the hole had appeared it was replaced by a stream of lava, shooting up into the sky with Ice at the summit.

Steel was already in the sky, so she flew over with haste, grabbing Ice in her talons and attempting to swoop back to the ground to return the Pokemon to Erik. Camerupt roared again, sending another plume of lava shooting up into the sky, and another, after another. Steel deftly dodged a few, one scorched a wing, another crashed into her beak, she released Ice from her talons, close enough to Erik for him to retrieve the Mightyena into its Pokeball, before his Skarmory’s steel skin was melted entirely by a final lava sprout, evaporating the Pokemon.

Ice was too weak to stand, nevermind fight. Glutton and Steel were gone and Blaze too frightened to move. Leaf and Dancer were all he had left and both weak to fire and ground respectively. Leaf’s spore effects were his only hope.

“You need to attract it and send it to sleep, then poison it, I believe in you, Leaf,” he his Gloom as he whispered to her, tears clouded his eyes turning his vision hazy as he sent his last hope off to fight.

The initial plan worked, Leaf attracted her opponent before quickly sending it to sleep, but the poison afterwards didn’t. Each time Leaf attempted to poison her foe, bright white lines appeared on its surface, seemingly absorbing and destroying the toxins. The Camerupt’s eyes shot open as he inhaled for a fiery blast that would annihilate Leaf.

Erik took out her Pokeball at lightening speed and withdrew her as searing flame blasted past where her body once was, he had lost all hope and turned to Blaze. His Combusken’s beady eyes met his, sadness making a home within. Blaze hugged him, wrapping his arms around his trainer and holding so tightly Erik felt the air escaping from his lungs. Then Blaze marched out to face his opponent.

Blaze danced around blasts of fire from the Camerupt, kicking him with force and pushing the creature closer and closer to the lava. The Camerupt planted all four feet on the ground, spreading itself wide and roared once more. Blaze backed off slightly, before continuing launching kicks, but this time his opponent held its ground. Blaze could push him back no further.

“Damn! Go go go!” Archie roared at his three Pokemon, a Sharpedo, a Golbat and a Mightyena. Lava once more began shooting out of the ground from the roar of the Camerupt, Blaze was too close to Maxie’s Pokemon for the lava to come near him, Archie’s three charging Pokemon were the targets.

All three danced through the lava streams, dodging from side to side. The Mightyena was an unfortunate victim of one such stream however, the wave of magma launching him into the air before sending him helplessly into the pool of lava below.

The Golbat and Sharpedo both made it to the Camerupt, who jumped into the air, picking out the Golbat and killing it as easily as Erik could catch and crush a fly. Whilst the Camerupt was in the air, it was vulnerable. Blaze leapt in, slamming his foot so hard into the Pokemon it rocketed backwards. The Camerupt’s body fell over the ledge, but it managed to grab on with his front paws, before Sharpedo launched a blast of water at it, sending it crashing downwards into the lava below.

Erik ran up to the edge besides Blaze. The Camerupt was unable to be seen, buried within the ocean of lava below, Erik had won, or so he thought. A bright light appeared from underneath the lava’s surface, in the shape of the Camerupt, Blaze pushed Erik back sending his trainer crashing into the ground a distance away from the action.

A stream of lava shot up from the pool, and riding on the top was the Camerupt. Archie’s Sharpedo blasted aqua at the Camerupt, the beast replying with a wave of flame. When the two attacks collided, along with the Camerupt and lava entering the impact zone, it caused another explosion.

Blaze was sent crashing backwards into Erik as both the Camerupt and Sharpedo were evaporated in the blast.

“Blaze!” Erik screamed, seeing Mylos tackle and restrain Archie on the ground in the corner of his eye. His Combusken lay unmoving as four Magma grunts approached the scene, Pokeballs in their hands. Maxie sent out his final Pokemon, a Zubat, then followed the same technique and used the other half of the meteorite’s stored energy to force it to evolved into a Golbat. As they all closed in on Erik, he was too focused on checking for signs of life in Blaze, struggling to find any.