"The Hoenn Star Tournament, right?" Josh asked as he dished out pasta for them both, its steam lingering longer in the air due to the cooler weather. That white sauce looked heavenly. He couldn't wait to dig in. "I heard a lot of legendary Pokémon appeared in that tournament. I wonder if any more will drop by this time around." Wishful thinking, Josh. Go back to your VRMMO if you want to ride legendary Pokémon.

"Even if they don't let you register late, there's plenty of side events for you to hop into," Josh answered. "They've got eight-person mini-tournaments firing on demand. When eight people want to brawl, they've got three-round Swiss tournaments that take less than an hour from start to finish. I'm planning on entering a few if I don't perform well enough to make it to tomorrow in the main event."

Just as Josh was about to dig in, Aleph came zooming by, blowing all the napkins about. When he left, the entire bread bag was gone, the Type: Null ravenously snarfing it up. "Aleph, come on! That's for all of us, not just you!" The young racer rolled his eyes. "Guess we're not having Alto Maren bread with our pasta," he sighed.

Though he couldn't get his hopes up, this tournament seemed all too similar to that one. And he was doing well. While he wasn't going to catch CIAN MAHER any time soon, the closer he could get to locking up a top spot, the better. He was well on his way. "Any ones you remember in particular?" he asked out of isle curiosity as Aleph rabidly devoured every scrap of food in the bread bag before tearing it to shreds, scattering in the blowing wind.

The Type: Null let out a burp as he returned to Josh's side, eying his pasta, too. "Aleph, I swear..." the Mauville Leader sighed. How could this Pokémon, this one Pokémon above all the other cantankerous ones he raised, be such a handful?

"Knowing us, we'll probably go to this place again tomorrow on our lunch break," Josh mused. "And I'll make sure we get separate bread bags then. Usually he's not anywhere close to this bad. I don't get what his problem is today." The two would connect in due time. Emphasis on due time. If Shalin Nariya 's Type: Null took months to warm up to her, how long would the Gym Leader's take? Years? "Sometimes I wonder what will happen first: getting blessed by a god, or Aleph actually listening to me. Understanding me. Being friends with me."

Aleph turned away and let out a loud burp, followed by a yawn, after snarfing down all the duo's bread. "So that's where Melody and Matias got theirs from," Josh mused. "With how well I'm doing in the tournament, who knows? Maybe it will happen again." Again, wishful thinking, but a man could dream, right? He already got to live his dream; he had done so with Kyle's help, and did so on a semi-regular basis, too. There truly was nothing like racing across the land on the fastest Pokémon on four legs.

Wow, Alex sure was ravenous. Did he have heightened metabolism or something? He was devouring the fat-laden pasta and white sauce. He got a large order, which should have been enough for both of them to have their fill with leftovers! Alex did bring up a point, though; what if Avatar and Patron were not symbiotic with one another? Josh would never have his freedom again. He would be a slave to his partner.

After taking a few more bites of the pasta, the wind suddenly picked up a lot, Josh reaching for the pasta tray's cover to ensure it wouldn't blow away. The sky looked dark from the west, too. Unnaturally dark. "Wait, was it supposed to storm today?" he asked, feeling static from Saber's Poké Ball as well.

"Arceus, Alex," Josh gasped as he watched his friend devour the helping of pasta before him. "Do you even get to enjoy your food?" he asked, though he was unable to get an answer before the storm picked up. The Mauville Leader, quick to react, slammed the transparent lid into place on top of the pasta tray before the wind could blow it over. He hastily scooped the rest of his lunch back onto the tray.

Procuring a plastic bag, Josh carefully opened it to seal their meal the best he could. "Can you slide the rest of our food in here so I can tie this up? We'll have leftovers for tomorrow," he half-shouted over the howling wind. Once it was stowed one way or another, the Master of Faster sent out both Saber and Etali. He wished he had his Sygna Suit with him, but he did not. The electric wolf barked, ready to absorb any stray lightning bolts with his LIGHTNING ROD. He hopped aboard the Kilowattrel. "We should probably finish our lunch inside the building," Josh suggested.

Little did they know that a storm god would deny them the chance...

The storm's downdrafts were extraordinary, making it difficult for Etali and Josh to remain in the sky. It was one of the roughest rides Josh had ever been on in the air, the rider able to feel his mount vigorously flapping his wings just to stay airborne.

Halfway back to the building where the tournament was taking place, a microburst formed above the Mauville Gym Leader, slamming him and his Kilowattrel to the ground. The fury of a WILDBOLT STORM bent away from Josh and toward Saber, the Manectric saving him with the properties of his LIGHTNING ROD. The white lightning provoked a screech from Josh's Sygna Pokémon, the inert Sygna bond they shared the only thing keeping the Manectric from perishing on the spot. When the bright flash cleared, Josh gasped at seeing a Manectric bleeding badly from wounds caused by severe electrical burns.

The THERIAN THUNDURUS, the source of the storm, would not let the Gym Leaders escape so easily, more white bolts crashing around them and reducing grass and trees around them to ash instantly. Even Aleph gave pause to the magnitude of destruction the electric Pokémon wrought. What did the angry Unovan Djinni want with them?

Josh and Etali were both in pain from being slammed to the ground by the Thundurus' microburst. He unzipped the cocoon he was harnessed to before falling out of the now-fainted Kilowattrel's saddle. The Master of Faster only managed to get to his knees before the WILDBOLT STORM and BLEAKWIND STORM clashed in a wind bomb that hurled Josh and his bird into the electrical fire. He let out a wail of pain before dropping to the ground completely and rolling to the nearest side of the fire in a panic effort to put it out. While he was able to douse the flames, his skin had become soft and sensitive from burns. This would not be something he would recover from overnight, even with treatments of Mastema's Life Dew.

Sensing the wind bomb came from the quarreling djinn, Aleph leaped after one of them, doing everything he could to slam one of them to the ground with his CRUSH CLAWS. Unfortunately for Alexei Ivanov , the Type: Null thought it was the dedushka that was their enemy.