"You flatter me. Let's continue the battle," Steven said with a chuckle.
"Hydro Pump!"
"Earth Power!"
Empoleon pulled its arms close to its chest, gathering a swirling ball of water, then thrust it forward. A thick column of water rushed straight at Claydol.
Claydol's many eyes glowed. In an instant, the ground beneath Empoleon's feet cracked open, and a faint yellow-brown light poured out from the fissures.
Boom—
Empoleon's Hydro Pump struck Claydol, while Claydol's Earth Power erupted right beneath Empoleon. Both attacks found their mark. Both were super effective. Both Pokémon took heavy damage.
A clash of equal strength? It really did seem possible.
"Extrasensory!"
Empoleon froze in place, caught by the strange psychic force. It wanted to break free at once and push through with sheer determination, but its current strength wasn't enough. Extrasensory lifted Empoleon high into the air, then slammed it hard onto the ground.
Bang—
"Ice Beam!"
Empoleon rose again, raising its right arm. A ball of icy-blue light shot out, freezing everything nearby. Claydol, still floating, couldn't dodge in time and was frozen solid before dropping to the ground. Still, given the gap in power between the two, Claydol would break out of the ice before long.
"Empoleon, Hydro Pump!"
This was the chance to wear Claydol down further.
Rumble!
A sudden bolt of thunder flashed across the sky. Strange, since the weather was clear and sunny — nothing like a storm. The unexpected thunder cut off the battle between Steven and Steven. Empoleon's attack was interrupted mid-motion, and at the same moment, Claydol used Psychic to shatter the ice covering its body.
Both trainers looked up at the impossible thunder. A small glowing blue light was falling from the sky.
"It looks like we'll have to pause the battle," Steven said quietly.
"Right," Steven answered, watching the falling light with a helpless look.
Perhaps some regret was only natural. Steven had already worked out, more or less, why these fragments kept appearing here. His own presence in this world was likely caused by the same thing — the clash between Dialga and Palkia that had shattered the two orbs. Disturbances in time brought forth people who shouldn't exist and events that shouldn't happen. Steven was never meant to meet himself, and Steven was never meant to meet Steven.
"Let's go, my other self from another timeline," Steven said, recalling Claydol and turning toward Steven.
Steven recalled Empoleon as well and gave a small nod. Both trainers released their Metagross and flew off toward the place where the light had fallen. Even the two Metagross seemed startled, staring at the person riding the other's head — like looking into a mirror.
Thinking about it, solving this mystery alongside Steven was something worth remembering too, wasn't it?
"By the way, what should I call you?" Steven asked, using the short flight to the site as a chance to talk. "Stone? My other self? Or... Little Steven?"
"Pfft—"
Steven couldn't hold back a laugh when he heard the last suggestion. He hadn't expected Steven to have such a sense of humor. Though, it wasn't entirely wrong — Steven really was younger than Steven right now.
The two fell quiet for a moment, looking at each other.
"How about I call you Daigo, and you call me Steven?" Steven suggested. It felt a little strange to hear his own name used for someone else after all these years.
"Sure," Daigo agreed. He couldn't think of a better way to tell them apart anyway.
"Steven..."
"Hm?" Steven looked over, a little surprised.
Daigo still found it odd calling him that — like staring into a mirror and saying his own name out loud.
"How old are you now?" Daigo asked, curious.
"Almost seventeen," Steven answered with a small smile. He figured he could make it back before his seventeenth birthday. (In truth, that day had already passed — as mentioned earlier.)
"Ah, so you're already a Champion?" Daigo chuckled, as if remembering something from his own past.
Steven nodded. "Yes, but I handed the Champion title to Wallace."
"Wallace?" Daigo blinked, then smiled. "Same here. I had a feeling something was going to happen to me, so I passed the title to him too."
"I gave it up because I knew I was about to travel through time," Steven explained. "By the way, Daigo — did something happen to you?"
Daigo let out a short laugh. "I actually died once, during the battle against Groudon and Kyogre. By some chance, I came back. Wallace wanted to give the Champion title back to me afterward, but I turned it down."
Steven nodded slowly. Even if Wallace offered it back to him one day, he wouldn't want it either. There were responsibilities he'd accept, sure — but the daily duties of a Champion? He didn't need those.
"Still, you're not quite like me," Daigo went on. "At your age, you already fought beside Rayquaza and took down several Legendary Pokémon." Talking about Groudon and Kyogre had reminded him of the news he'd seen recently.
"Rayquaza was just being kind to me," Steven said, waving a hand. It was true — he'd nearly collapsed just from fighting alongside it. Daigo, on the other hand, had commanded the three Legendary Regis in battle for an entire month. Even with the huge difference in power between Rayquaza and the Regis, what Daigo managed was still impressive.
"Are all your Pokémon Steel-type?" Daigo asked, moving to a new topic.
"At least one of my teams is, yes," Steven said. His second team even included a Diancie — a Pokémon Daigo had always dreamed of owning.
"That's quite different from my team," Daigo said with a small nod. Besides his Steel-types, his team also included Fossil Pokémon.
"Hm, it seems only Metagross, Aggron, and Skarmory are the same between us," Steven said. "The rest of mine are Lucario, Scizor, and Empoleon."
"Then would you tell me how you met them?" Daigo asked, clearly curious about the differences between their teams.
Steven gave a brief account of how he'd come to have these three Pokémon. Even keeping it short, he couldn't leave out how important Jielan Mustard and Cynthia had been in each story.
"Cynthia?" Daigo asked, surprised. He knew of Professor Sorrel, but he'd never heard that nickname for Cynthia before.
"That's Champion Cynthia," Steven clarified.
Daigo stared at him for a moment, then asked, half-curious, "You have that kind of connection with Cynthia too?"
Steven gave a helpless little smile. In truth, the connection ran even deeper than that — he was simply too embarrassed to say more.