I spent the next two and a half weeks holed up indoors. One of those days was at Wallace's house, and the rest were at the Sootopolis Pokémon Center. My friends, as well as my team, came to the unanimous decision that it would be best for me (irony) to lay low for a while in case the Insurgents were trying to pursue me. And I didn't disagree with them, not at first.

When I agreed to stay hidden, my trepidation made me sign the metaphorical contract before my common sense could read the fine print. I didn't know "laying low" meant that I was to be put under lock and key with River and Vinya being physically with me at all times.

Really, I understood completely why they in particular wanted to be near me, but that didn't mean I liked it. It reminded me all too much of my life before I left home, confined to my home with only my books, parents, and television among other news sources to educate me about the outside world. But at least when I was at home, I didn't have a certain two Rock-types practically stapled to me.

River's and Vinya's presences were beyond intrusive. I would ask them to give me space and they would, only for them to slowly inch their way back to my side minutes later. I didn't know why they did this, it wasn't like I was planning on trying to sneak out!

For hours on end I had to lock myself in the room's bathroom to get away from them, feeling awful for being annoyed at their truly loyal gesture but disliking it all the same. I felt like I was being smothered. I hated it, no, despised it. I didn't know how I was able to live like that for so long before my journey.

At the end of those few weeks, saying that I was stir-crazy was putting it lightly. I was stir-insane. All I wanted was to see the sun, and not a quick peek through curtains I had to close a second later.

On that long-anticipated day, I met with Wallace and Winona in the Pokémon Center's lobby. I had insisted that they have a separate room from mine because of River and Vinya. We regrouped and finally left the building.

It was euphoric going outside again. The sun absolutely blinded me, but I knew my eyes would readjust soon enough. No artificial lights, no muted noise, and no stale air. I could freely walk around without worrying about tripping over River's tail or bumping into Vinya's... well, everything. Most of all, I could admire Sootopolis for the amazing city it was.

Built inside a crater created a millennia ago by a meteorite, Sootopolis came about when people found out it was a natural oasis of sorts after the discovery of the large freshwater pool that now dominated the city's center. And while an "oasis" in the middle of the ocean sounded preposterous, humans and Pokémon gathered here nonetheless. That made it an unconventional but ideal place for the eighth Gym.

Water, water, and more water. How much does anyone wanna bet the last Gym Leader is a Water-type Trainer? Meteor asked no one in particular.

"You wouldn't have to bet anything because you'd automatically win," Wallace answered. "The Leader here is a man named Juan, and he does specialize in Water-types."

Oh joy, a Water Gym, I sighed internally. It wasn't like over half of my team were part Rock or Ground-type. But at the same time, I had been in tougher spots before, and I was able to get through them. With some planning, I could overcome this. Getting over my displeasure quickly, I started asking questions. "Do you know if he uses pure or duel-typed Water Pokémon?" I might as well get a leg up on the competition, Arceus knows I needed it.

"I know he uses a Milotic, and that's a pure Water-type," Wallace replied.

Well, that's a start. I now had something to work with. I could use Meteor or Maverick against that, it all depends on how fast Milotic is. And Orbit should set up a Light Screen beforehand to deal with any Special moves... unless Juan's Pokémon have Physical Water moves. I sank into deep thought, tuning out everything around me in favor of move descriptions and type matchups. That was until Winona thankfully rescued me from my thoughts.

"You can think about that stuff later! We have things to see!" she said, spreading her arms as if she were showing off the rest of the city.

"What is there to see here?" I asked. "Haven't we already seen a good majority of the area?" For having the name "Sootopolis City," there wasn't very much "city" to accompany the name's former half.

Winona frowned when the same realization hit her. "Umm... we could..." Her eyes narrowed as she thought. "We could show you the Cave of Origin?"

"'Show' is all we can do, Winnie. You know we're not allowed inside the cave itself," Wallace said, sounding wary. "And besides, you know I don't like going near there," he added after a pause.

"Then we can show him the crazy tall tree outside of it! I dunno, do you have any other ideas?"

"No, not really..."

I cleared my throat loudly to get the their attentions. "Excuse me, but what is the Cave of Origin?"

"You'll see when we get there!" Winona interrupted him, playfully grabbing my hand and pulling me. Unlike the previous times she had done this, she actually managed to yank me a step or two forwards, which surprised me. Either she had gotten stronger in the past months, or I had somehow lost some of my own strength. Hoping it wasn't the latter, she and Wallace guided me towards the city's center.

Running along the northernmost side of Sootopolis were two moderately wide channels of water that connected to the center pool, and between said channels was a piece of land. Identical bridges spanned the rivers, granting access to the island in the middle.

This island was one of the few places in the city that had grass or any real greenery, which was why the huge tree growing there didn't fit in with its surroundings. Every one of its branches were covered in emerald green leaves, and though it looked hundreds of years old, its trunk seemed perfectly intact and ready to support its canopy for decades to come.

"This doesn't look out of place in the slightest," I commented, raising an eyebrow at the tree.

"My mother calls that The Tree of Origin, named in light of the Legendary Pokémon of life that can take the form of a tree," Wallace said. "Hundreds of years ago, an ancient Kalosian king had supposedly brought and planted that tree here. Because of the powerful natural energy that flows beneath Sootopolis, the tree was able to put down roots and thrive. Since then, people have said that the tree is what keeps the water here pure, keeping the city alive."

"Interesting. I know every city has its bit of lore, but the way you phrase it makes it sound very... er, showy," I said.

"That's because it is," he said. "Sootopolis is known as 'the mystical city where history slumbers.' It's called that because of the massive amount of lore that originated here. Most of it is focused around Hoenn's Legendary Pokémon."

The Legendries were yet another subject I knew next to nothing about. But for once, I wasn't in the dark about something Pokémon-related. For how important the group of deity-like creatures were, so many people hardly knew about them. Their names and basic lore circulated the media, and nothing else.

"People always flock to Sinnoh's Canalave Library to research the world's legends, but Sootopolis goes almost unnoticed. I don't know why, this place is one huge library in itself. All you have to do is ask the right people for information."

Wallace's face had taken on a look of reverence as he spoke, his tone suggesting that he had said this before.

"The first sightings of the Eon Twins, the site where the Legendary Titans appeared before they were sealed away, and the Cave of Origin itself are mere samples of what's been recorded in this area. It's amazing what stories you can come across here." His gaze lost its sagely look and he shrugged. "So I've heard."

Hearing what Wallace said was more intriguing than the words themselves. He had never struck me as someone who would be interested in myths or legends. It was like coming here had unearthed a new side of him. "Really? That's fascinating. Where did you hear this?"

"... Around," he said simply. A short, uneasy silence commenced afterwards.

"So, the natural energy you mentioned previously... Does it have anything to do with the Cave of Origin?" I took a glance around the grassy area, hoping to locate the apparently elusive cave.

"Yes. It's the source of the energy. And since you're curious, it's there." He pointed across one final bridge to a building carved right into the wall of the Sootopolis crater.

It was a rounded structure that had foreboding stone doors and two small, circular windows leaking pale yellow light. A duo of waterfalls flowing from an indeterminate source emptied into the channels, feeding them with deep blue water.

"Inside that shrine is the entrance to the cave. Like I said earlier, nobody is allowed to go in... except for the Sootopolitans." His face took on a hardened, almost frustrated expression when he said the strange-sounding term.

"And they are..?" I questioned.

"They guard the shrine and make sure no one enters," he stated in a way that made it sound like he didn't want to further explain it.

"Okay, that sounds interesting. But what's so important about the cave that no one may enter?" I asked.

"The energy. Sootopolis is the epicenter of the world's natural energy. It's supposed to have to do something with Hoenn's main Legendary duo. What exactly, I'm not too sure."

"Perhaps it's simply a place to honor them?" I threw out a guess, not expecting an answer. Instead, something else happened. An all-too-familiar chill hit me and I instinctively braced myself for what would come next. I had no clue why a premonition would occur now of all times, but it wasn't like I could object.

When I next opened my eyes, a blast of heat assaulted me. It was so intense that I briefly reeled from it. The scorching temperature was accompanied by an absolute lack of humidity, and the area, while unchanged in appearance, was unnaturally bright. And the reason for that hung in the sky like a beacon of death. The sun, seemingly twice as large as it should have, dyed the ordinarily blue sky shades of orange and red, colors that belonged in a sunset but in the daylight looked menacing.

In front of me stood a group of four people, two men dressed in all red and black, a third man in all blue, and a girl in her early teens. While the men clearly seemed to be part of some group or organization due to their outfits, the girl looked like a normal Trainer. My confusion was expected, and I just let the events play out.

The men were talking to the girl, gesturing to the Cave of Origin. The man in blue snapped to the older man in red stating, "We all have to take responsibility for this, so stop pinning it on yourself!" The other man muttered an apology and continued talking to the girl, who was listening intently.

I took a shuddering breath, my lungs taking in blistering oxygen. It was so hot that it felt like the air itself was burning. I wiped away the beads of sweat running down my face, grimacing at the unpleasant sensation. A sense of guilt nagged at me, amplifying when I heard what the gruff man said. We all have to take responsibility...

"Are you okay?"

My attention was drawn to the oddly familiar voice, and I was shocked to see Wallace standing on my left side. At least, I thought it was him. His hair and clothes were different as well as his voice. It sounded slighter lower than it should, older. That was it, he was older. He seemed like he was in his early to mid-twenties. If it weren't for his face looking relatively the same, I wouldn't have known it was him. How far in the future was this event taking place?

I nodded, shrugging indifferently. "Yes, you don't have to worry." The voice that spilled from my throat sounded almost nothing like mine. While it remained nearly the same in terms of pitch minus the slightest of deeper tones, it held none of the uncertainty or slight stutters I usually favored, making it sound incredibly different to me. "It's just..." I sighed. "I feel that my contribution to this catastrophe is far greater than anyone else's. I knew this was coming. I could have prevented this."

"Did you hear what they said?" Wallace asked incredulously. "Everyone has their fraction of the fault to bear, so don't blame yourself. And yes, you did know, but so did the others when you told us. We all thought we could prevent it. Fortunately for us, there's still hope." He looked at the girl. "And it all falls on her. She can stop Groudon. She's capable of it, you said it yourself."

I managed an awkward smile, an action not at all fitting of the circumstance. "I suppose I had."

The past is in the past, as you've told me. You can only move forwards, an unidentified voice spoke to me in my mind.

I remember that occasion clearly, Meteor. And you know I speak from experience, I responded. So that was Meteor who spoke to me. Why didn't I recognize his voice? Had time really changed it that much? "My apologies to the both of you, I've let my doubts get the better of me. Falling back into old habits, it seems," I said, gazing in the girl's direction, my smile turning grim.

And then it was over. I emerged from the premonition, not completely baffled. There was a feeling present, one that took over the moment the vision ended—dread. A gut-wrenching sense of dread, and its cause was what my future self had said.

I knew this was coming. I could have prevented this.

That meant one thing in my mind. The blazing sun, the overwhelming heat, it had begun. In the future, the drought had Hoenn in its reach, and before long it would have held the region in its grip. And the drought's cause now had a name. Groudon.

"Um, Stevie? Are you listening?"

My eyes snapped up, focusing on a confused Wallace and Winona. "Huh? Um, no, I wasn't. I'm sorry." I didn't know how to tell them about my vision without unsettling or scaring them. The apocalypse wasn't exactly a pleasant conversation topic. "Wallace, do you happen to know what a Groudon is?"

"Groudon?" he echoed. "It's one of Hoenn's Legendary Pokémon. Why do you ask?"

"I... had a premonition," I admitted through a sigh. "I heard the name Groudon being mentioned, and I want to know what it is." It was the best way I could think of wording it.

"My mother could tell you about Groudon," he offered. "She knows a lot about the Legendries. She wasn't home when you were there, but we can see if she is now." He sounded reluctant, as if he were proposing an unfortunate last resort. It didn't go unnoticed by me but I decided to leave it be.

"That would be very much appreciated. And it would be nice to finally meet your mom," I said with a forced smile. He nodded brusquely and turned on his heel, walking in the opposite direction. I saw Winona gazing after him sadly, very much reflecting my attitude then. "Is he okay? Did I say something wrong?" I asked her.

"Nah, you didn't," she said, briskly shaking her head, causing her Tepig-tails to bounce about. "He just doesn't like his mom that much. She wants him to do this thing here in the city, but he doesn't want to. She asks him about it whenever they talk, and he tries to avoid her as much as he can because of it. That's why he wanted to go stay in the Pokémon Center after you weren't feeling sick anymore."

"Oh, is that it? Now I feel horrible for asking if I could talk to her."

"Don't feel bad! If she's there, Wallace will probably try not to talk to her that much. You're good, 'kay?" She gave me a reassuring thumbs-up.

I chuckled and smiled at her. "Okay, I believe you."

Half an hour later we were back at Wallace's house, hoping that his mom was indeed home. Our question was answered when a middle-aged woman answered the door. A woman of impressive height, sharp facial structure, and brilliant sea-green hair with matching eyes, she bore little resemblance to her son other than hair and eye color.

"It's good to see you again, Wallace," she greeted her son curtly, giving him a quick hug. "I heard that you had come back home for a little while with Winona. Are you here to tell me you've decided that—"

"No, mother. It's not about that," he spat the last word. Already I could see the tension between them Winona had spoken of. "My friend wants some information about Groudon, and I told him you were the best person to explain what it is."

"Your friend?" She looked at me and I offered her my hand in anticipation of a handshake as well as my name. She took it, introducing herself as Telia. "If you want to know anything about Hoenn's legends, then you've come to the right person," she said. "Follow me, please."

We followed her into the home's spacious living room. She took a seat in an armchair and signaled me to do the same in the chair across from her. Wallace wordlessly ushered himself and Winona from the room, one more eager to leave than the other.

I felt a little nervous now that I was alone with Telia, but I told myself I had nothing to fear. She had no reason to hurt me, and while a bit icy, she was certainly no Valerie by any stretch of the imagination.

"So what do you want to know?" she asked, crossing one leg over the other casually.

"Uh, everything, I guess," I said. "I don't have a certain detail in mind," I admitted sheepishly.

"Then we'll go with a broad spectrum," she seemed to decide to herself. "Starting off with the basics, before the regions ever existed, there was nothing but ocean spanning the entire planet.

"Arceus saw this as a detriment to the world he wanted to build, and so he created Groudon, a Pokémon born from magma and earth. It was to be the Pokémon that would raise the land. And so it did, crafting landmasses from the ocean floor and bringing the regions to the surface as continents by means of intense evaporation. It was called by many names, most of which have been lost to time. The Continent Pokémon, a super-ancient creature, a primal beast, and the Omega."

I took all of this in, hanging on each and every word. Some of the terms and words Telia had used were strikingly familiar. Groudon was a being of earth and magma, a primal creature, the one that had raised the continents... against Alpha's will. A puzzle was swiftly being put together in my mind, all I needed was the last piece. "I know we're talking about Groudon, but is there a Legendary that was referred to as 'the Alpha?'" I asked.

"There is, actually," Telia said. "Kyogre is the Pokémon the dwelled in the ocean before Groudon was created. It had been the one to create the ocean in the first place. It has been called the Alpha by some in opposition to the Omega."

"I see..." I muttered to myself.

"Over the next several thousand years Groudon and Kyogre fought constantly for control of the earth, whether there would be more land or sea. It was said that their battles were so cataclysmic that by the will of a being not known to the world then, some of their power was removed and imprisoned in two orb-like stones known respectively as the Red and Blue Orbs.

"These stones have been moved around for centuries, never separating from the other, being hidden in places known by but a few chosen keepers. If these orbs were to fall into the wrong hands and brought before the now sleeping super-ancient Pokémon, they would awaken and revert back into their original forms, like the process of Mega Evolution. I can explain that to you if you don't know what that does."

"I know what Mega Evolution is," I said. "But why were they called the Alpha and Omega?"

"Because the sigils their original forms bore looked similar to the symbols Alpha and Omega," Telia answered.

She got up and retrieved something from a bookshelf, turning to a specific page before returning. On the page she showed me were two symbols. One looked like a slightly warped version of a lowercase "a," and the other resembled a horseshoe. The first symbol was completely foreign to me while the second was recognizable in an instant. It was the marking I had seen on the creature from my vision in Granite Cave.

And then it all fell into place.

The being of earth and magma, the primal one bearing the marks of Omega, the super-ancient deity that raised the regions against Alpha's will... The warning Xatu had informed me of... It was talking about Groudon.

All the air seemed to leave the room, leaving me one step short of gasping for breath. "I-I see." I stumbled to my feet, wanting to leave. "Thank you. That was... that was quite interesting," I muttered, trying to look appreciative but feeling dreadfully ill on the inside. I knew what Groudon was now, yes, but what was I supposed to do with that knowledge? I couldn't prevent a world-ending drought with some names and ancient legends. There was simply too little information presented here.

"You're welcome, Steven," Telia replied. "It's wonderful to see someone your age taking an interest in mythology. If only my son were the same way. He could have been the one to tell you about Groudon had he been doing his reading like I've insisted he do," she said. Not wanting to pry, I stayed quiet. This, coupled with me still being in the room, apparently was an incentive for her to start explaining. "See, Wallace has—"

"I know what you're going to tell him, and I've told you I'm not doing it!" a voice abruptly yelled from the doorway.

"Wallace, were you there listening this entire time?" Telia demanded, standing up from her seat. Her son stepped into the room, arms crossed and sea-green eyes smoldering.

"Yes mother, I was. And I've told you that I want to be a Trainer, I don't want to deal with any of that Sootopolitan crap!" he shot back.

"You were chosen to do this, you should be honored to fill that role," Telia said.

"Then why can't someone else do it? I wasn't the only person who had been born here during that generation. They could pick someone who actually wants to do it!"

"Because you, and only you were chosen! I've told you this so many times, I'm shocked that you can't seem to recall it!" she stated angrily. I stood there, caught in the crossfire, utterly shocked. One second I was having a revelation of the greatest proportions, and the next I was witnessing a familial dispute.

"Why can't you see it from my point of view?" Wallace continued, underlying sadness in his voice. "I want to do something with my life!"

"You will be doing something with your life. You'll be given the greatest role anyone born here can ever achieve. Isn't that enough?" Telia asked.

"No, it isn't. Not in my eyes!" Wallace stormed out of the room, and a second later I heard the house's front door slam with such a force that I flinched from the sound.

"Why won't he accept it?" I looked at Telia, seeing her pressing her fingers down hard on her closed eyelids in exasperation and rambling to herself. "I let him go on his silly 'journey,' parading himself and his Pokémon around like a bunch of stage performers, thinking that he would tire of it and finally grow up and want to take responsibility. But no, two years later he goes running off on another pointless journey..."

"I-I can try to talk to him..?" I quietly suggested, bringing her back to reality.

"Would you?" She smiled weakly. "Please try to talk some sense into him. He needs to understand where I'm coming from."

"Okay. Thank you again for talking to me." After I said my thanks I left as well, what I had learned about Groudon at the back of my consciousness. Not fully agreeing with either of their arguments, I had no intentions of trying to sway Wallace. I just wanted to better understand his views, and why he never told me about this.