The Beedrill and Luxray brutally battled one another, every bite and claw met with a sting from the relentless insect's forelegs. A SHOCK WAVE discharged through the big cat's fangs caused their illusory foe to disappear into mist, but not before another came into distant view. It was another shiny Luxray that looked exactly like Blitz, with a humanoid figure astride it. From that direction echoed the young, feminine voice again.

"Leave us alone! Whatever Rocket did, Raikou would never choose someone crazy like you!"

Josh saw what he thought was an illusion of Eris Halla being charged by the Luxray. Shouting toward the mist, his voice echoed within the pocket dimension:

"I left that obsession behind! If Raikou truly wants to choose me, he'll come find me! What's most important to me now is making sure that I right every wrong I committed in the name of my chase! To the League, to those in Rocket who didn't deserve it, and most importantly, to Eris Halla herself! If you're out there somewhere, hear my words from the bottom of my heart! I am so sorry for what I did to you, and want to right the horrible wrongs I've inflicted upon you!"

Little did he know that the Eris in front of him was no illusion. She was real.

The power behind Reiner's SPRINGTIDE STORM was immense. As the yellow-and-black feline went flying toward his real-world counterpart, the illusion itself faded into the storm. Not just the Luxray, either. The entire forest. Everything except Josh and Blitz, and Eris and Reiner. He slowly guided his Shiny Luxray toward hers amidst a multicolored mist, the very ground they stood on masked by how dense it was. For now, everything seemed calm, though given his experiences with Navy , it was only a matter of time before one of their inner demons manifested itself from Dream Mist, whether it be Josh's or Eris'.

Once Josh had come within normal speaking distance, he greeted the child, and unbeknownst to him, fellow Mauville Gym Leader. "...Eris? Is that really you?"

Josh intepreted Eris' tension and Reiner's aggressive stance as the girl's wariness of him. The reaction was totally understandable; after all, he had tried to take her life so many months ago! As traumatic of a moment as that was for the Gym Leader, it had to be far more so for the child before him.

And that was precisely why he wanted to make this right.

Josh wanted to not only quash his own demons, but prove to Eris he was genuine. They had more in common than he realized, too; both were victims of a dearth in proper leadership within the League. Perhaps they would be able to one day bond over knowing that it was the same person that ruined their lives, even if Josh was hesitant to put blame on anyone but himself.

Blitz met the unease in Eris and the aggression in Reiner with calm, maintaining a constant speed in his slow steps toward the fellow Shiny Luxray and rider. It was readily apparent in Josh's body language that there was not one bit of ill will harbored within him. "Eris... it really is you... isn't it..." the words left his lips, equally calm as the electric cat the Gym Leader was seated on.

Despite the aggression from Reiner, Josh stood his ground. He figured Eris was just scared, trying to intimidate her former killer away. This was normal behavior; after all, she was looking away from the person who had tried to take her life over an obsession with the Johtonian god of speed. A god that Josh just knew would not accept him as he was back then.

How much he had changed in eight fleeting months.

With a subtle tug on the black and yellow cat's reins, Josh stopped Blitz, again crying toward the young girl. "It's okay! I mean no harm!" To prove it, Josh clipped the other two Poké Balls off his belt and put them in the bottom of his supply bag, well out of quick reach. If Eris looked closely, she would see that Josh's belt of Poké Balls was empty, other than the one that belonged to Blitz.

If that still didn't change the former Rocket's mind, he would make himself more vulnerable by sliding off Blitz's back and withdrawing his Pokémon. He was out of his element: on foot and clearly unarmed. If Reiner really wanted to, the Luxray could ram and trample him with ease.

As Eris and Reiner got out of range, interdream mist erupted around Josh, the rainbow-colored sea of color shifting to the lower level of the Burned Tower in Johto. A bright flash blinded the Gym Leader as the mist manifested itself in two forms: a Shiny Pyroar that Eris may have recognized from the Leader's Gym Challenge in the Forest of Secrets, and the thundercat Josh revered so greatly.

The big cat's form lunged at that of the Pyroar in the blink of an eye. Before Josh could even react, the electric tiger sunk its knife-like fangs deep into the lion's neck. With fangs stained red with the dying lion's blood, the big cat lunged toward the Master of Faster with speed not even he could track, knocking him off his feet and onto the ground in an instant. His head thumped after the back of it met the hard rock beneath him in one of the most painful ways imaginable. The yellow-and-black mistform circled him like a feline predator waiting to pounce and deliver the kill shot. Desperate, Josh reached for the pocket he had put his two other Poké Balls into, but it was too late; he simply did not have the reach while prone. All he could do was play possum. This, too, had to be an illusion... right?

The feline figure flew toward Josh with the speed of a lightning bolt, landing on top of him and pinning him to the ground. The Gym Leader screamed out of fear of the end, knife-like fangs stretching the length of the electric predator's gaping maw. A thunderous bellow from the big cat was the last warning he would get before the majestic foe went for the jugular... until a STONE EDGE came of nowhere, slicing through the mistform and reducing it to pink dream essence.

Bewildered, Josh slowly stood up, but did not advance upon Eris. He simply tilted his red face toward the young child, the expression on his face one of genuine relief. "Eris... you would save my life, even after what I did to you... When I say this, I mean it from the bottom of my heart. Thank you."