Archie truly hadn't expected Steven to appear here.
According to Team Magma and Team Aqua's intelligence, he should have been at the distant Granite Cave—the Mt. Pyre was located on Route 122, and further up lay Hoenn's northeastern corner.
To get here from Granite Cave in the southwest, even Steven would have to expend considerable effort.
It could only be said that the matters at Mt. Pyre were too important, leading to this situation.
Archie suddenly felt that his sworn enemy's words made some sense.
"Do not stand beneath a dangerous wall."
If he had done as Maxie did, sending only his subordinates while hiding in the shadows himself, he would not have run into Steven face-to-face.
But then again.
Archie had been rather helpless in coming personally this time.
Looking into it, Tetsuya was largely responsible as well.
Not long ago, Chao, one of Archie's capable generals and a member of SSS, had been captured by Tetsuya and handed over to Officer Jenny and the League.
Team Aqua had only a few top-tier combatants to begin with, and Chao was their strongest trainer apart from Archie.
Once he was captured, many of Team Aqua's operations had no choice but to halt midway.
And this joint project between Team Magma and Team Aqua could not afford to fail.
Considering that Quan and Di were both somewhat weaker, if anything happened, Team Aqua could not withstand the loss of three major generals in a row.
After thinking it over, Archie simply decided to come himself.
He had figured that with Steven absent, even if he encountered Wallace, he was confident he could escape.
After all, they were both trainers who specialized in Water-type Pokemon, so their thinking was similar to a certain extent.
But he had never expected this.
With a