35
"Smart allocation," I said, handing the gear out. "Tammy, the goggles are yours—stay in the shadows. Kage, take the compass; if we get turned around in the volcanic ash, I'm counting on you to find North."
Tammy purred, adjusting the straps of the goggles over her ears, looking like a high-tech saboteur. Kage gave a solemn nod, securing the gold compass to his belt next to his ironwood stick.
The Wildcard: The Deep-Sea Sediment
I held up the glowing, water-resistant tube. The sediment inside didn't look like normal dirt; it pulsed with a faint, bioluminescent rhythm, almost like a heartbeat.
"Steven, what about this?" I asked. "Tammy swiped it from a secure locker. It feels... heavy. Not just in weight, but in energy."
Steven took the tube, his jeweler's loupe clicking into place over his eye. He went silent for a long time, his brow furrowed. "This isn't just sediment, Jake. These are Micro-Fossils of the Primordial Era... and they're coated in a high concentration of Infinity Energy."
He looked at May, then back at the tube. "This is the 'food' that fueled Primal Reversion. If Aqua was collecting this, they weren't just looking for Kyogre—they were looking for a way to supercharge it. I'll take this back to the Devon labs immediately. If we can reverse-engineer a suppressant from this, we might be able to 'short-circuit' a Primal Awakening."
"Keep it safe, Steven," I said. "We've got a mountain to climb."
The Ascent: Mt. Chimney
We took the express path to Mt. Chimney. The air grew thin and sulfurous as the cable car ascended. Below us, the lush greenery of Hoenn faded into jagged, volcanic rock.
[Chat Log (Back Online - Restricted Mode)]
GymBro_Chuck: VOLCANO ARC! Let's go!
IceCreamQueen_C: Jake, the thermal readings at the summit are off the charts. Maxie isn't just heating the crater; he's destabilizing the entire tectonic plate.
PervySage: Wait... is that a Magma uniform on the roof of the car ahead of them?
As our cable car dangled hundreds of feet above the jagged rocks, a thud echoed from the roof.
"Guests," Raven whispered, her horn glowing.
The door was kicked open. Two Magma grunts stood there, but they were shoved aside by a familiar figure. Courtney stepped in, her visor flickering with a staccato rhythm. She didn't have her Poké Ball out. She was holding a tablet, staring at the "Why?" log I had returned to Steven.
"Calculation... incomplete," she said, her voice skipping like a broken record. "You returned the data. You didn't delete the error. Why?"
May stepped forward, her bandana tight, the Shell Bell around Genji's neck humming in the heat. "Because Jake says even a calculator needs to know if the math is hurting people, Courtney! Look at the mountain! It's crying!"
Courtney tilted her head, her gaze shifting to the glowing red vents of the volcano. "The mountain... is inanimate. It cannot cry. Yet... the seismic vibrations match the frequency of a distress signal."
"That's the 'Truth' I was talking about," I said, leaning against the cable car's railing. "Maxie's 'Progress' is just a louder way to scream. Help us stop the Meteorite, Courtney. Finish the calculation correctly."
Courtney's visor turned a solid, frozen blue. "I cannot betray Lord Maxie. But... I can 'fail' to notice your infiltration for exactly 300 seconds. The Meteorite is in the center of the crater. Move."
She stepped back out onto the roof and signaled her grunts to retreat.
The Crater Floor: The Meteorite
We sprinted off the cable car at the summit. The heat was a physical wall. In the center of the platform, suspended over the bubbling magma by high-tech beams, was the Meteorite. It was glowing with a sickly, purple light, vibrating so hard it was cracking the stone beneath it.
"May, the Shell Bell! Kage, Sun Breathing—cool the core!"