Was the League out of their mind? Josh had gotten out of the hospital, was only days into rehab, and they wanted him to fight Kyogre? On top of that, he had to protect nabi park ?

This could only end in disaster.

The Gym Leader walked onto Lilycove's beaches, the rain weighing his clothes down. Beneath his short-sleeved shirt were thick bandages that kept his left arm mostly straight, almost like a less restrictive kind of splint. "About as ready as I'm gonna be, Nabi," Josh answered. "I wish you didn't have to see me like this. It's unbelievable how much we take our health for granted."

Clicking open two Poké Balls, Josh released an Espeon and a Togekiss, both of them quite large for their kind. With powerful PSYCHIC power from his honed mind, Janus lifted his trainer into the Togekiss' saddle, the Gym Leader needing it to sit on a Pokémon's back at all. With one hand on the reins, he was ready to take to the sky.

As a wall of water crashed toward Lilycove Lighthouse, breaching its floodgates and sending sea water surging into the building's entrance, Josh plucked the RAINBOW FEATHER from his shirt. "Nabi, we can't hold anything back. You might have a hard time believing what you're about to see, but... I have a very special friend that will be the ticket to repelling Kyogre today." Raising the feather above his head, Josh drew the summoning Sign, leaving behind a trail of electrified ash in the rough shape of a lightning bolt.

"This is Swift," Josh gestured toward the monochrome Raikou.

Seeing Swift's thundercloud billowing in the whirling winds made Josh want to sit astride the Beast. Alas, he could not - doctor's orders. Instead, he remained out of harm's way astride his Togekiss, watching the ashen thundercloud glow white and yellow with electricity.

Swift's ferocity was met with equal aggression from the water-type behemoth, torrential rainfall pounding at them all. "I can't see it!" the Champion shouted, though he wasn't sure whether he could be heard. He could barely hear himself with low loud the rain rang his helmet.

Josh wished his helmet's visor came with windshield wipers. Might be worth the investment if he did more aquatic racing; the rain was so heavy that it reduced visibility to within feet -- barely enough to see the WATER SPOUT erupt from the underwater legendary's blowhole.

CLOUD NINE may have negated ordinary weather, but this was extraordinary, primal weather. Weather the earth was not capable of producing on its own. Josh grunted, wincing as a powerful turn felt like it was going to tear his left arm out of its socket. Seeing the Altaria, it didn't take him long to realize what Nabi was trying to do.

"Cloud Nine and other ways of stopping weather won't work on primal weather," Josh called out as the WATER SPOUT dropped a torrential deluge upon the ashen feline. Shaking himself clean as though he was a real cat, the Beast roared before surrounding himself in an electrical sphere, landing on the Kyogre's back with another SPARK attack.

The point-blank ORIGIN PULSE wreaked total devastation upon Josh's prized Beast: a CRITICAL HIT to his soft, white underside. "Retreat, Swift! QUICK ATTACK!" the Champion ordered, but it was too late. The ashen Raikou's body disintegrated upon contact with the primal wave of water that raced toward Josh, passing beneath him and his flying Togekiss. Beach huts were torn to pieces amidst the crashing waves, floodwaters shooting toward Lilycove City and threatening to wash away vehicles parked in the streets. Were Nico to remain too close to the Kyogre during their SKY ATTACK, they may have suffered the same fate.

"It's too powerful! We need to retreat!" the Champion cried, urging Nabi to get to safety before another ORIGIN PULSE was aimed at either one of them directly. Such water pressure would tear Josh from the saddle, and the resulting injury would likely be one he would never recover from. As a Champion, he could not allow himself to be bedridden like that any longer.

There was just something special about Kyogre; it was as though the aquatic god was on a completely different barometer of power than even Josh's legendary partner. It withstood a barrage of electric attacks from the fastest Pokémon on land, only to fire back with ORIGIN PULSES and WATER SPOUTS strong enough to overwhelm even the sacred Johtonian Beast.

The Gym Leader grunted loudly, the arc of Mastema's swoop to avoid the aquatic violence putting great pressure on his healing arm. It throbbed, Josh able to feel his heartbeat through deep parts of his skin being pinched. "Nabi! We can't afford to be here any longer!" As lamentable as it was to abandon Lilycove City against the threat of Kyogre, he was a Champion. One of a few. He had to live to fight another day. Hoenn had already lost one Champion. They could not afford to lose another.

The most concerning part of Josh's battle was learning just how lacking Swift's power was in his current state. Discovering how to make the Beast into the one he remembered was going to be a task of utmost importance. If the Raikou wasn't at full strength by the time the war came around... he didn't want to think about it.