The battle was reaching its climax, with most of the Gym Leaders down, but with the addition of Rayquaza, everyone who could still fight started giving it everything they had left, because it was clear, either they beat the duo in this final push, or they would lose.
And the message that May and Brendan were here and could end this as long as they weakened the legendaries enough was another motivator.
They finally had that win condition.
They could stress about the meteor after they dealt with the immediate problem, but here is the thing: just because people in Hoenn could see the meteor did not mean other regions could. Remember, the sky was still being covered by clouds, Rayquaza only cleared it here. Not even all of Hoenn was clear yet.
But here, Rayquaza opened its mouth, immediately flew down, and shot a [Dragon Pulse] at both Groudon and Kyogre.
Immediately the two got hit hard and staggered to the ground, but they quickly recovered, stood up, and looked up glaring at Rayquaza.
Now even though Rayquaza is usually stronger than both of them combined, and that's why whenever it showed up these two knuckleheads would have to team up against it and Rayquaza would always win, now they were in their Primal forms, and this was just base Rayquaza.
As Rayquaza was right now, it had a good chance of losing.
And that was not good for Wally, who was still holding onto Rayquaza's back for dear life, because Groudon and Kyogre immediately started throwing attacks into the sky.
Wally's eyes widened on Rayquaza's back, "WAIT WAIT WAIT THAT WASN'T THE PLAN—"
Rayquaza immediately twisted through the air, avoiding [Origin Pulse], but then had to tank [Precipice Blades] bursting upward beneath it.
Wally held on to Gallade for dear life, but one good thing at least was that Wally hadn't felt like it had been hard to breathe since he came down.
He didn't really know why, but he wasn't thinking about that.
Everyone on the ground was still attacking Groudon and Kyogre but let's be honest, the biggest threat here was Rayquaza, so the duo kind of just ignored them for now.
"Oh no, Wally," May muttered.
"Why is he even, how did he get on Rayquaza?" Gary asked.
"No comment," Ash said as he whistled, and Charizard heard him and flew back to him while also carrying Vee and Pikachu.
As soon as Charizard landed in front of them, Pikachu and Vee jumped back onto Ash's shoulders and Ash jumped onto Charizard's back.
"Anyway, time to end this." Ash didn't give them a chance to immediately ask what he was doing.
He just took off into the sky and no one had the chance to yell at him. They'd probably do it later, but right now was fighting time.
Wallace raised his hand and Milotic surged forward across the water, "Milotic! [Hydro Pump]!"
Now he could finally use Water-type moves to his specialty.
A massive stream of water blasted directly into Groudon's side, making it stagger enough to miss its attack against Rayquaza.
Juan nodded approvingly at his apprentice, "Excellent, but my turn. Milotic."
His Milotic twisted through the air and launched [Ice Beam] into Kyogre's fins, freezing over parts of its body and slowing its movement.
Tate and Liza both pointed forward, "[Psychic!]"
Solrock and Lunatone's eyes glowed and immediately several of the stone pillars that were being shot at Rayquaza cracked and broke apart.
Wally looked down, "Oh thank goodness."
But then another [Origin Pulse] started charging.
"WAIT NEVER MIND."
Back below, Brock whistled, "Tyranitar! [Stone Edge]!"
Massive spikes launched upward and crashed into the water, causing the beams to explode harmlessly away from Rayquaza, weakening them enough for Rayquaza to break through.
Meanwhile, at the bottom, Brendan's Swampert launched itself forward and slammed both fists into Kyogre's jaw with [Hammer Arm], supported by Ash's Sceptile delivering another [Leaf Blade].
At almost the same moment, May and Ash's Blaziken ran together across Groudon's back. May's Blaziken jumped up and delivered a hard [Close Combat] kick into Groudon's neck.
Groudon twisted and was gonna swat her away, but Ash's Blaziken ran in and delivered another kick into Groudon's arm, pushing it away and making Groudon slap itself, letting both of them jump back to safety as Rayquaza shot another [Dragon Pulse] at Groudon.
And that let Ash's Blaziken strike a pose in front of May's, showing off.
Anyway, at the same time, the last Regi Brandon had left was Regirock. The others had already gotten knocked out, but he didn't stop, "[Stone Edge]!"
Hundreds of stone lances launched upward and pinned Groudon's limbs for half a second.
At the same time, Anabel saw what he was doing and copied him, "Alakazam."
Her Mega Alakazam understood. Its spoons began glowing as Psychic energy burst outward and grabbed onto Kyogre, stopping it too.
That left the path open over to Archie and Maxie.
Archie looked up, "…Heh."
Maxie adjusted his cracked glasses, "…One last round?"
Archie smirked.
Then Mega Sharpedo lunged and Mega Camerupt opened every vent, and together they attacked.
"[Hydro Pump!]"
"[Eruption!]"
Both attacks slammed into the opposite target and even with Fire being less effective against Kyogre, like it was mentioned before, Maxie had spent years specifically working on one thing and one thing only: how to beat Water types with Fire and Ground types, so even this was still effective.
The process was basically causing the fire, instead of burning the target directly, to boil the water on their skin in less than half a second, and in case you've never felt boiling water on your skin, that hurts, arguably worse than just sticking your hand into fire.
Green immediately saw her opening and snapped her fingers, copying Ash's pose, "Venusaur! Again!"
Roots exploded upward as she used another [Frenzy Plant]. This time they wrapped around Kyogre's fins and neck.
Kyogre roared and tried to break free.
Green crossed her arms, "Oh come on. You struggled more last time."
Gary stepped beside her and held out his hand in a flicking motion.
"It feels great to be able to use everything again. Blastoise, [Hydro Cannon]!"
Blastoise slammed his hands into the ground and from his back cannon shot a humongous blast of water that hit Groudon and started pushing the massive legendary back, making it crash into Kyogre.
With them bunched up together, Rayquaza fired a [Hurricane], catching them both in it and slamming them down hard into the side of the force field.
Meanwhile, while Alain was flying up debating how he could support everyone, he saw the figure of Ash and his Charizard flying past them, and that's when he noticed, oh hey, another Mega Charizard.
But he shook his head. That was for later. He could look into that after. For now, he whistled for his Charizard to go in for another [Dragon Claw].
As the fight was going on, Groudon and Kyogre recovered quickly and sent out another pressure wave to push everyone else away from them, then quickly attacked.
Kyogre opened its mouth and fired another [Origin Pulse], but this time Groudon didn't follow with [Precipice Blades].
Instead, Groudon crouched down and gigantic pillars of rock erupted upward from below, surrounding Rayquaza instead of directly attacking it.
Rayquaza swerved and blasted through one with [Dragon Pulse], but more erupted upward and cut off every direction.
Then the [Origin Pulse] reached it.
Rayquaza couldn't dodge and got blasted over and over again, and in the explosion Wally got blasted back and started falling. Gallade tried to catch him but just barely missed, so he immediately jumped off Rayquaza and dived to catch him.
"AHHHHHHHHH—" Wally screamed as he looked up into the sky.
The rocks from Groudon were now wrapping around Rayquaza, capturing the dragon and beginning to crush him, leaving only his head exposed so they could hear his roars of pain.
But then instead of falling, Wally felt something catch him.
When he looked up, he saw Latias there smiling at him as she caught him, and she also caught Gallade with her other hand before throwing them both onto her back.
Just then Ash flew up next to Wally, "Yo, Wall, good job getting him here. I'll take care of the rest," Ash said, holding out his hand.
Wally blinked but then remembered and pulled out the Jade Orb he had been clenching the entire time and put it in Ash's hand.
Then he gulped and nodded, "Ash, do your best."
Ash smirked, "I always do."
He whistled and Latias flew off to get Wally to the ground.
Meanwhile, as the rocks were closing in on Rayquaza's head, Ash pulled out 2 purple Poké Balls and threw them out.
As they flew out they opened, and from them came both of Ash's Deoxys.
They blinked when they saw Rayquaza. They still remembered how Rayquaza ran their pockets when they came to Earth.
They looked back at Ash like they were asking him, Seriously, do I have to help it?
"Shut up, don't complain. Free its head," Ash commanded.
Begrudgingly, Deoxys 1 went to move the rocks from Rayquaza's head while Deoxys 2 went into Defense Form to block the incoming hits that Groudon and Kyogre were still throwing at them.
As Rayquaza's head was freed, it growled seeing those two again, but considering he was literally being crushed right now, and this one was freeing him, he could deal with them after the two numbskulls.
Though Ash flew in front of Rayquaza and pulled out the Meteorite and the Scroll and held them up.
"How about some help? Listen to me and I'll help you out of this mess," Ash said, not using the influence of the Jade Orb. It was easier if Rayquaza agreed on its own.
Rayquaza didn't have much of a choice. Also, it saw that Meteorite and it looked pretty tasty. So with a huff, Rayquaza opened its mouth.
Ash understood and smirked as he threw the Meteorite like a baseball directly into Rayquaza's mouth just as more stones started covering it, and right before Rayquaza was fully covered, it swallowed the Meteorite, and Ash ripped the scroll, releasing it and letting the move's energy flow into Rayquaza.
Then when that was done Ash flew back with Charizard, grabbed the Jade Orb, and reached out, "Let's end this now!"
The orb began glowing bright green, tinting the sky green.
And the giant rock where Rayquaza was trapped began cracking and light started bursting out of the cracks before finally shattering.
Now flying in the sky was Rayquaza, but he wasn't in his Mega form. Instead, he had also gone through Primal Reversion.
It looked similar to its Mega form, except for the bright blue energy traced along its sides. It got even longer, and the whiskers began glowing bright yellow, while its yellow eyes turned red.
It became Primal Rayquaza.
With a roar the clouds all disappeared, clearing everything, and Rayquaza looked at itself. It had been a while since it felt this old power.
In the state it was in now, Rayquaza was easily EX rank while Groudon and Kyogre only barely met the qualification for it.
Speaking of that, down on the ground Groudon and Kyogre looked up, seeing the big guy back at full power, and they both looked at each other and collectively thought:
We're screwed.
But they weren't just gonna take it lying down. Now they would go down fighting.
Immediately they fired off [Origin Pulse] and [Precipice Blades].
As both attacks came, Rayquaza was ready to block them, but a barrage of [Shadow Balls] came in from the side and blocked all of them.
As Rayquaza looked over to see who did that, it saw both of the Deoxys floating next to it.
And when it looked down it saw the humans who had been attacking still helping to fight against Groudon and Kyogre.
Rayquaza blinked in surprise.
For once, it felt what it was like to have help.
Usually it always had to deal with both Groudon and Kyogre at the same time every time they woke up and jumped it.
But this time they were the ones getting jumped.
It made Rayquaza want to laugh at them and mock them, telling them, 'How does it feel?'
But it didn't. It had a reputation to uphold. So it accepted the help.
Even if some of them were filthy Deoxys, the joy of making Groudon and Kyogre feel the same helplessness that it always had to deal with was more than worth it.
And now finally the battle turned around.
With everyone attacking and Rayquaza spamming moves down onto the two legendaries, they were starting to sweat, especially with both Deoxys spamming [Shadow Balls] over and over.
And on the ground trainers like Green and Gary, or May and Brendan, or Wallace and Juan, even the Elite Four, began firing everything they had.
And everyone here got their own second wind since hey, their very own Rayquaza was here and on their side, and it got its own Primal form and was schooling those two troublemakers. Love it. Give me three sessions and a movie.
Granted, pretty much everyone, especially the people Ash was really close to, which was pretty much everyone here, was planning on asking Ash how the heck he did that with Rayquaza and why it seemed like he knew this was coming.
But you know, that could wait until after they weren't scared for their lives.
But meanwhile with the addition of Rayquaza, the barrier that Steven's Regi trio made started getting hit more and more, and Steven himself fell to one knee and was breathing heavily, but he refused to stop now.
"Just...a little...more…"
Rayquaza, after shooting another barrage of [Air Slashes], decided to end this now because hey, guess what, it also wanted to deal with that meteor coming towards them.
So Rayquaza flew up and higher, and as it did it began charging.
Groudon and Kyogre recognized that move and immediately for the first time since they awakened, they were afraid.
Immediately they turned and began running, but that's what Ash was waiting for.
"Alright then, you know the plan," Ash said as he grabbed Pikachu and Vee in each of his hands and threw them directly down toward the two, and he patted Charizard's head before leaning back.
As he did, he pulled out his Tera Orb and smirked, "Our turn to show off!"
He threw it upward as he fell.
Charizard dived after it, immediately crashing into the orb, and crystals exploded, covering him in bright red crystals and putting him into Fire Tera form.
As he did, Latias flew in and caught Ash.
As Pikachu and Vee fell, they cloaked themselves in energy and dived down to Kyogre and Groudon respectively.
Pikachu used his new move, [Pika Papow], and Vee lit up using [Veevee Volley].
Both of them crashed into their legendaries, causing both of them to stagger in pain and stopping their retreat.
And that's when Charizard flew in.
Ash smirked and his eyes lit up, "You know what to do, give them every last drop, [Blast Burn]!"
Charizard's eyes turned red too, and he began changing into his Battle Bond × Mega X form, turning bright red.
And while this happened Pikachu and Vee peaced out, dropping a [Substitute] and teleporting over to Green and Gary.
Charizard's flames shot down and exploded into the biggest fireball they'd ever seen, and the fire was so hot it turned violet.
Both of the legendaries actually screamed in pain, especially after Pikachu and Vee's attacks, and it did not go unnoticed by everyone watching.
Then at the last moment Charizard pulled back, flying to the side and revealing that right behind him Rayquaza was soaring down and finally using its move, [Dragon Ascent].
Groudon and Kyogre no longer had time to react.
As Rayquaza crashed into them, the force released was so strong it pushed the barrier to its limit as it shattered, the Regis couldn't absorb any more, and everyone was nearly blasted away from the impact.
But as the smoke cleared, Rayquaza flew out fine, soon after, Groudon and Kyogre stood up again. After all, if they had one thing going for them, it was endurance. Why else would they keep fighting even though every time they wake up they get beat up?
But as they were about to try something, suddenly they stopped and froze in place. Then they calmed down.
Everyone blinked. Slowly they turned over and saw May and Brendan reaching their hands out, and on their hands were the Alpha and Omega symbols again, only this time they weren't going crazy or trying to spread.
After that last hit, they were finally able to take control of Groudon and Kyogre. And they were fine. Actually, they immediately high-fived each other.
"We did it!" May said excitedly.
"It really worked!" Brendan pumped his fists as he marched around in a little circle.
But as he did that, Groudon copied his little march.
"Oh, sorry, I guess I've gotta get the hang of this," Brendan immediately apologized to everyone who was now looking at them, scratching the back of his head.
Ash flew down on Latias over by them and grinned as he gave both of them a high five, "I knew you guys could do it. Good to see my gamble paid off."
"Hey, you did great too. I mean look at what you did with Rayquaza, awesome!" Brendan said with a grin.
"Yeah, we wouldn't have been able to do any of this by ourselves," May said, relieved.
"Yeah, you know I hate to be that guy, but can we focus on THE GIANT METEOR COMING AT US?!"
"Oh...I forgot about that…" Brendan muttered.
"How do we stop that?" May asked, and even everyone around them didn't have an answer.
Well, I mean Ash did, but he was waiting for a certain call, and it should happen right around-
Just as Ash was thinking that Drake received a call, and when he looked at who it was, his eyes widened. He answered it and put it on speaker since this was something everyone should hear, "Joseph, did you find a way to stop the meteor?"
Everyone's eyes turned to Drake, even the exhausted Steven who was fading in and out of consciousness. His father...was trying to help stop the meteor?
"Not myself, but I have someone here who did," Joseph's voice came out, "There is another way. I saw the battle from here, and I see Rayquaza."
I mean that wasn't a surprise. Rayquaza was giant. It would've been more surprising if they didn't see Rayquaza.
Then a second person's voice came through, the missing Professor Cozmo.
"Everyone, I have been studying the meteor, and I found something. It's not a regular meteor, it's filled with Mega Energy, so we can't use normal methods."
"But Rayquaza can do it. Rayquaza can absorb natural energy like Mega Energy," he continued.
This was technically true. Technically it was when Rayquaza ate the meteorite that could absorb energy that it could do that, but meh, specifics.
"So you're saying…" Drake said.
Everyone looked over to Ash, who was still holding the Jade Orb.
"We need to ask Rayquaza to attack the meteorite."
"Yes, that is what my team and I have found," Cozmo said, "But after that, it's possible shards of the meteorite will fall toward Hoenn, so you must be ready to destroy them or it will be just as bad."
This was all stuff Ash personally gave to Cozmo, and before all of this Ash told Cozmo to appear back in Devon and share these results on how to stop the meteorite. Ash just needed a way to not get more in the spotlight.
"We are on our way, and I need to see Steven and talk to him. We are on a boat and on our way, but you must save Hoenn!" Mr. Stone said before hanging up.
Then everyone immediately turned and looked at Ash, May, and Brendan, who all currently had the three legendaries of Hoenn listening to them.
Before anyone could even start trying to beg, Ash whistled and pointed up, "Rayquaza, go do your job and save the planet."
Some people blinked in surprise at how bluntly Ash said that, and some thought, why would he say it like that? But Rayquaza himself felt like laughing, because it was his job. He was going to do it anyway, but man, it's been a while since anyone talked to him like that. Usually everyone talked to it like it was a god.
So Rayquaza looked up into the sky and flew directly toward the incoming meteor.
Meanwhile Ash turned over to everyone, especially May and Brendan, "Well, you guys gonna get ready for the rocks or not?"
Everyone blinked, but they immediately understood and got ready, and May and Brendan made Groudon and Kyogre stand ready to defend Hoenn this time.
As that happened Ash activated his Resonance again and connected to Rayquaza, to give it a small power boost, but also so he could see through its eyes.
He saw them fly out of the atmosphere, then out into space. It would have been beautiful if there wasn't a giant rock coming directly at them.
But Rayquaza, now that it had its full power, charged up and flew directly at the meteor, and as the energy tried to form a shield to protect it, it was no use and Rayquaza burst through anyway, shattering the meteor. Most of it went off into space, but some did start falling to Earth.
Rayquaza was gonna go after those pieces, after all they were food-shaped, but he stopped when he felt something.
It looked back and floating there was a third Deoxys, floating there menacingly, and it looked directly at Rayquaza like it was ready to fight.
Rayquaza took one look at it and slapped it with its tail, immediately sending it falling toward Earth and cracking its core.
I mean what did you expect? If base Rayquaza could take on both of the Deoxys in space, what do you think is gonna happen when Rayquaza in its Primal form faces one Deoxys? Honestly the fact that it didn't die immediately was already impressive.
Anyway as that happened in space, the meteorite shards fell, but with Groudon and Kyogre here no one else even needed to do anything.
With the two of them in their Primal forms they shot out blasts of water and shards of ground that flew up and exploded each individual big piece that would cause any damage, leaving only small pieces that would be harmless to anyone.
However as that did happen, Ash sent a message over to his two Deoxys to go collect some stuff and to find that third Deoxys. They obeyed and went into Speed Form and disappeared from view.
But now, with the exception that some of these stones were spread around the planet, some in every region, it was over.
Finally they won. Hoenn, the planet too, it was safe…Mostly.
Everyone immediately took an exhausted and shaky breath.
And now they kinda had to decide on what to do with Groudon and Kyogre, but before anyone could suggest something, Steven, seeing everything was over, finally smiled and fell off his Metagross, starting to free fall toward the ground limply.
The only one around to catch him was Alain, who was still in the air, so he did a sweep and managed to catch him and bring him to the ground.
"Mr. Steven!" Alain exclaimed.
"Steven," Wallace immediately ran to him too. He took Steven's body from Alain quickly.
"No…"
Immediately everyone looked over and Sidney moved next to Wallace, putting his finger on Steven's neck and his expression darkened, "No pulse…"
"Oh no…" Phoebe covered her mouth as tears filled her eyes, "Controlling the legendary giants must have put too much strain on him."
"He knew there were risks to seeking their power," Drake said quietly, though he lowered his hat to his chest and lowered his head.
Sidney clicked his tongue but looked away, "He must have read that stuff about what those ancient people said...he did know, and he still did it."
"He put the strain of protecting the rest of Hoenn on himself," Glacia muttered, referring to the force field the Regis had set up before.
Speaking of the trio, when Steven fell, they weren't being controlled by Steven anymore. That's what made these ones different. Unlike Brandon's, who stayed with him because they felt like it, the ones Steven had needed to be controlled by him. That's why Steven faced this backlash.
But as everyone was looking at the scene in shock, the unfortunate truth was that even after everything, they couldn't save everyone, and some people sobbed.
Then Ash spoke up, "What are you all crying for? Dry those tears, it's still treatable," he said, walking over and rolling up his sleeves. He didn't have his jacket or he would've thrown it behind him.
"W-what are you-" Wallace started, but Ash stopped him, raising a finger.
"Wallace, good to see you again, but not the time. You want me to save Steven's life or you wanna waste time?" Ash said, "Put him down and stand back."
Everyone had many things to say, but honestly after the day they had, why was this any less strange?
And some people, no names will be said, but I feel like you can guess who, thought, well he's already dead, might as well try.
But the truth is, Steven wasn't dead recently, his heart stopped.
You may think that sounds the same, but it's not.
Basically Steven still had a bit of time before he was irreversibly dead. Now the time varies when your heart stops, it can go anywhere between 1-4 minutes before you need the heart starting again.
Considering this was more on the mythical side of things and the way Steven's heart stopped, Ash would just say he had about one minute before Steven was gone for good. And that was plenty.
He threw his bag on the ground and knelt down, putting his hands on Steven's chest.
Then in front of everyone his hands began glowing blue, and Ash began using his Aura to pump more life energy into Steven and jumpstart his heart again.
After about twenty seconds of tense silence, Steven gasped for breath again and coughed. Success. His heart restarted and everyone quickly started crowding him.
Wallace pulled him up to sit so he could begin breathing properly.
And with that, that was the last of Ash's Aura he had. He finally fell back and laid on the ground for a bit, but he raised a hand and gave a thumbs up, "Now everything is over."
As he said that, the sun finally rose behind them, because now everything was really over. They really all did it.
And everyone finally cheered in celebration.
After this, everything went smoothly
Groudon and Kyogre, on May and Brendan's command, went back to their base forms and began walking to go back to sleep.
Now since everyone was here they talked about where they should drop them off, and after some talking and on Ash's suggestion, May sent Kyogre back to the Seafloor Cavern and Brendan sent Groudon to go sleep inside the volcano at Mt. Chimney.
In doing that the volcano was revived again. Flannery didn't have to go every morning to reset it anymore.
She was more than happy and gave Ash and Brendan a hug and told them they could go to the hot springs whenever they wanted for life.
As for Rayquaza, it flew down and looked at everyone. It didn't see the two Deoxys around, but it relented and huffed in annoyance.
But they did help it, so as a sign of good faith he would give them a short time to leave. In one thousand years they better be off his planet.
As an immortal being, one thousand years was nothing. Rayquaza could sleep for that long. But maybe if they helped out the next time Groudon and Kyogre got rowdy, he'd consider extending it. It was nice to finally get help.
But as for Ash, Rayquaza looked at him and just took the Jade Orb and left. But he did leave behind his mark on Ash's ring. Now if it would work? TBD
Ash doesn't even know what it does technically.
Oh yeah, speaking of Orbs, as soon as Groudon and Kyogre were gone, Ash still had one last shard of the meteorite and he used it to get the Orbs out of May and Brendan.
Sure having powers is nice, but let's be honest, it was more trouble than it was worth.
And Tate and Liza immediately went up and took them, not touching them, they just picked the Orbs up with their psychic powers.
They had to be put back in the secret shrine, but they swear this time no one will take the Orbs.
But then they all heard speakers and looked up.
They saw the mobile Association base floating over them, and the Chairman spoke to all of them.
"I'd like to thank all of you. The Gym Leaders who put everything into your battle, the Elite Four and both Champions who wielded Regirock, Regice, and Registeel to minimize damage, and to you young trainers that stepped up to protect Hoenn. We are victorious! It's time to spread the good news around Hoenn!"
Everyone laughed helplessly. Well at least they could have one last celebration before the Chairman loses his position and the Gym Leaders lose theirs.
At least that's what everybody thought anyway. But they would soon come to realize...Hey the Pokémon Association President has gone missing, strange.
Oh and what is this? Leaked information spread all over Hoenn about the President's corruption and evil plans, and also exposing other high-ranking shareholders with enough material to permanently make them lose everything.
Wow. I wonder how that happened. It couldn't possibly have anything to do with Ash. Nope he would never, you gotta believe me.
And other than that, everything was normal, well except for one thing, over in Ash's bag after Ash used a Aura Pulse to save Steven's life, his bag shook once, but no one noticed it yet, so it was probably nothing, right~