Despite being in the presence of multiple Pokémon that would be considered gods in Hoenn, their PRESSURE simply was not as intense as that of the real thing. That of Kyle's Entei was so intense that he could barely stand when he was in the Battle Arcade. If he wanted to be a Champion, he would have to overcome that pressure. "Could you feel the differences in Infinity Energy between Rayquaza and those two? It was... nowhere close to as overwhelming as what I felt when I rode Rayquaza. Or when I battled Entei at Kyle's Battle Arcade. There's something different about those two Raikou. It feels weird saying that phrase. But that's what it is."

Saber galloped to the top of a nearby hill, using MAGNET RISE to gain a little more altitude and let Josh see a greater distance. He wished he had brought a flying Pokémon with him. Even a silhouette of the distant Lilycove City's skyline was visible. Every town and city in Hoenn 820 seemed to correspond to a megalopolis thriving to such a degree that it choked itself on its own growth. The land simply could not support the population growth nor the expansive wildlife that Hoenn 820 could. Only the strong survived; perhaps that was why they saw only Pokémon that were considered legendary in their own Hoenn?

"What I wouldn't give to stay here, though. Could you imagine it? Being able to fly on Rayquaza whenever you wanted?" he tried to relate in words the dragon maniac would understand.

What was more concerning was the lack of life in general. The presence of so many legendary Pokémon, even if they were only shards of the gods, made it difficult for other life to thrive. A bright light caught Josh's attention as a Pokémon battle was taking place a good distance from them: an ORIGIN PULSE crashed into the wings of a floating Latias, the psychic-type unable to fully deflect its Kyogre foe's strongest attack with its MIST BALL. The colliding signature moves radiated a shockwave so intense that Josh was blown off his Manectric steed.

"...I think they're the least of our worries. My Sygna suit stopped working all of a sudden," the Gym Leader said, his Manectric surrounded in purple wisps. Growling aggressively, the electric-type looked ready to interrupt the distant battle by ramming the oceanic Pokémon down!

"You do have a point," Josh mused. "Given how few Pokémon there are that we consider gods in our own world, there would be a lot less variety," he nodded, keeping a careful eye on Saber as the Shadow Pokémon bounded toward the Hoennian sea behemoth. The Gym Leader grabbed Aslan's Poké Ball and mounted up, his suit's Sync Stone humming. The two glowed with a faint red aura, Infinity Energy flowing between them as though nothing were wrong with his suit.

The bond between Josh and Saber really had been badly damaged, hadn't it?

The Latias, overwhelmed by an ICE BEAM from the Kyogre, disappeared into mist and soared away, refracting the light of the dystopian environment around herself to render herself invisible. A black electric blast shocked the Kyogre, a SHADOW BOLT piercing the water-type's natural defenses and leaving a black mark on the finned giant. It had other cruel weapons at its disposal, slamming into the ground with a vicious EARTHQUAKE that brought the Electric-type to its knees. The shockwave was far away enough that Aslan could simply leap over it.

"Saber!" Josh cried. "Double time, Aslan! Faster, faster, faster!!" With an urgent, almost panicked expression on his face, the Master of Faster jabbed at the lion's sides repeatedly. His faithful feline steed bravely galloped at full speed toward the Manectric that remained standing by sheer force of will.

The Kyogre roared and the Shadow Manectric barked as Josh's Shiny lion sprinted. "Help Saber out! TAKE DOWN, Aslan!" The feline monarch threw his body into the air, on a collision course with the titan of Hoenn's seas. His Sync Stone glowing brightly, the Gym Leader drew on Rani's powers, goading the water-type with demeaning words. "Nobody messes with Saber on my watch - especially not some lonely whale," he TAUNTED the foe.

Water spraying out of the Pokémon's spout, the behemoth opened its jaws wide, spraying them both with an ORIGIN PULSE that left Josh shivering and his steed on the brink of unconsciousness. He shakily withdrew Saber and Aslan for Rani, another Pyroar that was a little smaller than Aslan, but could put on some real speed. Quick-switching to a fresh feline, the two turned tail and ran from the Kyogre, catching back up to Andrea Vaneau with little trouble. While the aquatic legendary was powerful, it also was not very fast: their salvation.

"I think we lost it," Josh breathed a deep sigh of relief. Turning back toward the devastation the clashing legendaries wreaked, it was little wonder how lifeless and dystopian this Hoenn was.

Andrea was right. Josh did want to bring back one of the Raikou for himself. The Poké Balls he had on hand never would have been able to capture a Pokémon so rare and powerful, making that impossible. If they were anything like Hoennian gods, forcibly catching one was on its own a bad idea. Introducing a potential Infinity Energy imbalance was an even greater risk; if what he had learned in cyberspace last year was true, Hoenn 820 could tear itself apart from such an imbalance. Bringing even a shard Raikou back to that Hoenn would be a selfish, unjustifiable reason for doing so.

"We could always try," Josh shrugged. "It could be worth learning more about this place." Or it would have been worth speaking to the two trainers if they weren't already gone. "If that's the route you want to go, might be worth checking out Mauville. If it's even called Mauville here."

If Andrea agreed to the idea, Josh would ride Rani toward the towering city's east gate, his jaw dropping wider to see the scale of the skyscrapers rising above the dimensional version of the tri-level city he was used to. With very little vegetation in the area, the entire landscape reminding him of what he saw in Terminal Six in cyberspace, how did such a population feed themselves?

As they rode toward the city, a local on the back of a shard Xerneas approached them and asked, "I've never seen Pokémon like those before! Where did you get them?" Josh was too paralyzed with fear to respond. Was this a Hoenn where only shard legendary Pokémon existed?

The Xerneas' trainer was taken aback by Chomper's presence, too. All the Pokémon the two aliens had, common in other worlds, seemed to simply not exist in this one. As she listened to Andrea's story, her jaw dropped. "Great to meet you both, Andrea and Josh! So you're both Avatars? If you got here through a rift and survived, you have to be Avatars, too." She wasn't entirely wrong, either; Josh's Sygna Suit made him almost a Manectric Avatar. Almost.

The person on top of the Xerneas was someone the Gym Leader remembered from his own world. That face was the spitting image of one of his Gym Trainers.

JACKIE MYERS.

Lost in thought, Josh pondered what her reaction would be to learning that in an alternate Hoenn where everyone reached their full potential, she would befriend Xerneas. It was a legendary Pokémon Josh knew of, but did not know much about. "That's a really nice name! The Gym Leader in town is also named Josh! You two should meet up!" Hoenn-820's Josh did not respond verbally; all he could do was quiver in his heightened nerves.

Josh similarly answered the Xerneas and trainer. "I wish. The Pokémon that you have are ones we could only dream of having. Like... Raikou. I want one so bad. But..." He knew the consequences from his trip to cyberspace so long ago. Had it already been almost a year and a half since he and his Manectric were nearly deleted? He shook his head. As much as it pained him, he could not bring a Raikou back to Hoenn-820 without risking the dimensional fabric of every Hoenn tearing itself apart.

"But what's stopping you?" the Jackie look-alike asked the Gym Leader. "That's all the more reason for you to see Josh! There's no one that can teach you about raising a Raikou better than he could!" She turned toward Andrea. "We can, too! All except Illumina Pokémon - what are those?" That question may have gone unanswered as a large shadow passed over the two of them in the blink of an eye.