Aj was sitting in the back room of the Snowpoint gym, where normally no one was allowed. Roark and Candice were discussing her genes in a way that even she couldn't understand… It might even have been gibberish to Kyle. Well, maybe not Kyle.

The first test had been a complete failure. While they had found out her skin had more water and metals in her than most humans, they somehow couldn't find her DNA in it. Aj barely kept a straight face when Roark had to remind Candice why they couldn't find her DNA in her blood ("Crap. No nucleus."). Hair would have been the next option just for availability. The problem? No DNA there either. It was the same for finger and toenails. The two gym leaders had all but given up, and were staring at the magnified skin cell on the computer screen.

"Wait a minute!" Candice zoomed in on a small point in the picture. "Look at this!"

Aj squinted at the blurry image. It was one of the places they said had more water and metal. Now–

"Is that a double helix?" Roark pushed his glasses farther up his nose.

"Yeah! Maybe that is her DNA! Look, instead of deoxyribose on the sides, it's… holy cr*p… iron?"

"What normally would be nitrogen bases are mainly water," Roark determined. "With… heh… other metals."

"What other metals?" Aj asked, interested.

"Tungsten," Candice showed the atomic structure, "This one has nickel and chromium. Its pair has manganese and carbon. The other base has vanadium."

"In other words, all metals that can be alloyed with iron to make some type of steel," pointed out Roark.

"That's so weird," Aj said, who was starting to get seriously creeped out by her own genetic makeup.

"But you're half water, half steel, right?" Candice confirmed. Aj nodded. "So maybe if your friends have DNA with their own things…"

"Are you saying Mike's DNA can fly, Kyle's genes are psychic, and Ashley's DNA is made of 'dark'?"

"Ehh… No. But Mike's DNA could have… aah… feathers…"

"Right. But why are we that way?" Aj continued.

"I don't have a guess," Roark shrugged. He turned to Candice.

"Me neither," she agreed.

"Thanks anyways," Aj replied. "Am I done then?" Roark nodded. "Oh, and can I keep this?" She held up the journal Roark had found in the underground hideout that afternoon.

"Go ahead," he said.

Aj went out.

The sun had almost completely set, but Ashley could still see. She even saw the red speck on the horizon. Annoyed, she told Sagitta, "Ignore him. Just keep going." Sagitta, seeing the aerodactyl, understood and kept flying towards Snowpoint City. Suddenly, an icy wind hit them, followed by hail. Sagitta bounced around in the storm, hardly getting anywhere. The aerodactyl, with powerful wings that pushed forward rather than let him glide, was gaining on them.

Sagitta's part dragon, Ashley thought, so ice is super effective… "Sagitta!" she shouted. "I'm going to put you in your pokeball."

"Well, hurry up if you're going to!" Sagitta yelled back. Ashley called her back. She fell a few feet before spreading her own wings and propelling herself as fast as the aerodactyl. I'm still a dragon, she thought, but at least I'm going faster. But the aerodactyl wasn't far behind. Ashley's violet eyes could see his jaws open and begin to burn with bright orange flames-

Oh, h*ll no, thought Ashley. Fasterfasterfasterfaster…

CRUNCH

"OW!"

She retaliated using dragon tail with her other wing, knocking him away. She looked over at her left wing; it was torn through. She was sinking… but she was almost there… she could see the gym… come on, make it…

She landed right in front of the gym.

Aj walked out. "Hey," she said, "What are you doing here?"

Ashley told her about Fyr. Aj told her about the DNA and Lynch test. Got it? Good. Axel's laziness rubbed off on me =D

"Oh, hey, they're probably gonna want a skin test of you too," thought Aj.

"You're obsessed with skin tests now," confirmed Ashley. She went ahead and dragon clawed a piece of skin off. "What?" she said to Aj's disgusted face. "Seriously. I'm in dragon mode. Aren't dragons supposed to be violent?"

Aj had to shrug as Ashley walked into the gym. "She'll be normal as soon as she's normal again," she muttered.

"I appreciate your logic," a vaporeon popped out of her ultraball, "but it really needs work."

"Who asked you?" Aj asked, aiming the button on the ultraball at Vaporeon.

"I did!" Vaporeon dodged the beam of red light. "And haven't we been neglecting Ash and Dawn long enough?"

Aj froze.

"Oops…"

Due to a time warp between Unova and Sinnoh that no one knew about, Ash returned to Unova, stayed there with Iris and Cilan a bit, and came back to Sinnoh, seemingly within a day. Then he swapped his pokemon out for his Sinnoan ones.

"Why'd you do that?" was Dawn's first comment.

"They know J better than anyone else."

"J? I thought we'd be doing something... well, not relaxing, but -"

"You know me. I'm too nosy for my own good," Ash answered.

"Pi, pikachu," Pikachu comfirmed.

"Who asked you?" Ash muttered. He closed his eyes and focused his mind. Shifty reiatsu in that direction… nope, random kid who didn't do his homework… guy thinking up a sacrificial battle strategy… oh, hey, hunter and henchmen?

"Found her."

"Man, you should have learned that for when Team Galactic showed up," Dawn said.

"I know right?" Ash threw out Staraptor's pokeball. "Hey Staraptor, we're going to Snowpoint City, okay?"

"Starrr," Staraptor trilled.

Something flew past them. Ash only felt a rush of wind and a "Tos," before it was gone.

He looked over at where Dawn had been. "Aw, man," he said, hopping onto Staraptor's back. "And Iris tells me I'm impatient."

Mike was walking through the Pokemart, hoping to find some hyper potions, when a voice whispered behind him, "Do you feel like someone's following you?"

He looked at Kyle and said, "Nooo… Why?"

"Because someone is. I can't believe you still haven't noticed him." Kyle gestured at a huge blond guy looking directly at them. He had on a leather jacket and a stare that didn't let up. When he saw them looking at him, he folded his arms across his chest.

"Oh, you're cool," Mike snickered.

"C'mon, let's get out of here," Kyle said.

"All right, all right."

They went out onto the street in Eterna City. It was way, way past sunset.

"What was your sudden obsession for hyper potions?" Kyle asked him.

"I ran out," Mike shrugged.

"Aren't you supposed to get full restores at your pokemon's level?" Kyle reminded him.

"Hey, If one of them is down 170 hp, I'm not going to use a full restore," Mike said.

"I guess. Did you find any?"

"One."

"You need hyper potions?" a voice growled.

They both jumped. A guy stepped out of the shadows. Dark shades concealed his eyes. He had a leather jacket exactly identical to the man who Kyle had seen in the Pokemart.

"Yeah, do you know where I can find some?" Mike asked him, completely unafraid.

"Somewhere this way. Here, I'll show you." He motioned for Mike to follow him. "You can stay here, it shouldn't take too long," he told Kyle.

Kyle nodded, even though he was suspicious. "See you later," he said to Mike. He leaned against a tree.

"Excuse me," someone else said, "Would you follow me?"

Kyle turned around and saw the man who'd been following Mike. "I have something I want to show you," the guy said.

He probably wasn't following anyone, Kyle thought. He hasn't done anything to erase my trust. Kyle followed.

They went through the trees to a lake Kyle hadn't even known was there. It wasn't that big, and trees covered it overhead. They waded through the pond and came out on another shore. Kyle noticed it was starting to get chilly. His town map said they were going around Mount Coronet toward Snowpoint City; that would explain the small patches of snow. They walked through another grove of trees and found a completely flat clearing. In the middle was what looked like a bunch of black building blocks that had been stacked together to make what could have passed for an airship.

"Excuse me?" The man didn't turn around. "Um, what's that?" He didn't answer, but Kyle knew something was up. He stopped walking.

The man noticed. Without turning around, he said, "Come on. We're almost there."

"Where are you taking me?" Kyle said calmly.

"Where do you think?" He gestured at the black boxes.

"What is it?"

"You'll see soon enough."

"I insist you tell me."

"I insist you follow."

"I insist on turning back then."

"Web him, Galvantula."

"Web – what?"

A net of spider silk came out of the darkness at him. Kyle blasted it away with the power from his transformation alone. He drew his sword.

"HA! HAHAHAHAHA!" the man laughed. "There goes my cover, just like that!" A giant yellow hairy thing with four legs and six eyes crawled out of the forest. She clashed her pincers together menacingly.

"What the h*ll is that?" Kyle shouted. She looked… disgusting…

"I would tell you, but that would give you the advantage," the man told him. "Galvantula! I won't call any attacks and give you away, so you're on your own."

Galvantula clicked her pincers and tried again to spiderweb Kyle. While he vacuum waved it away, he tried to figure out Galvantula's type.

Tarantula… That much is obvious. So a bug type. That shouldn't be too hard. But what about the galvan?

He dodged a pin missile. Was pin missile a steel type move? The galvan could be named for galvanized iron, right? He spun his sword and conjured a mach punch. He closed in…

…and got spiderwebbed.

Fail…OW! Kyle thought. The web shocked him. An electric spiderweb? Seriously?

Galvantula smashed an electroball into his face. Galvanized iron conducts electricity, Kyle realized. This is an electric bug. The spider electrowebbed him again, adding onto the other one.

Kyle sliced through the net with a sacred sword and jumped right out of the clump of webbing. He landed on the galvantula's head using hi jump kick, and sprang right off to the side. He finished by sweeping his sword around using his sword without any attack.

"Galvantula, return," the man said, retrieving the fainted spider.

"I don't know your name, do I?" Kyle realized.

The man smiled. "My name is C. I know you'll make some snide comment on that, so I'll just tell you that us henchmen are J's cousins."

"That's…" Kyle shook his head. "That's really lame."

"Hey! Nurse Joys can have a million sisters! At least our family had enough creativity to give us different names."

"Yeah, cause naming kids after letters of the alphabet is sooo creative."

"Two things. One, we did that for fun, we do have real names, and two," the corners of C's mouth twitched. "You let your guard down."

CLANG!

Kyle brought his sword arm up to counter the blow that came at his back. "What are you talking about?" he argued, turning around to face another obviously Unovan pokemon. His face was hidden beneath a black and red helmet-like structure with a bronze blade protruding from the front. His forearms were like gallade's, but silver and with shorter swords on the elbows. A pair of blades surrounded his ribcage, pointing forwards, and his legs were shaped somewhat like a lucario's, except red and silver. Sharp claws tipped his silver feet.

"Interesting," commented Kyle. "I like the gallade plagiarism. That's about as good as you can get without actually being gallade."

C laughed. "You're acting like I created it. Bisharp's pretty tough."

Kyle smiled. "Then I'll have to go secondary on you."

C's smile turned into shock. "Wait, wha-"

Kyle slammed his sword into the ground. Immediately his body was enveloped in blue light. When it faded, he was still standing there, but he'd changed (which you may have guessed). His shoulders, chest, and back were covered in a lightweight armor, and his sword's shape had changed. It was larger and had a triangular guard that seemed to hover, unconnected to his sword. He held this one with two hands.

"Your sword changes with you, eh?" C asked.

"Yeah, it's sort of a part of me," Kyle said. He faced the bisharp.

They began with a normal sword fight… Normal, that is, if you ignore the fact that neither of them were entirely human. Kyle used arm thrust with his sword. The bisharp blocked them with his elbow swords, causing minimal damage even though it was super effective. They both used brick break, Kyle swinging down, Bisharp sweeping up. Bisharp nearly tripped on Kyle's low sweep. Kyle countered a poison jab with his sword –

"Where'd he go?" he said in shock. Bisharp had disappeared.

C laughed. No, I mean he cracked up. No, he lost control of his funny bone.

Kyle felt Bisharp's blade slice his arm from behind. Ow - oh, faint attack. Kyle charged a focus blast with his sword.

"Thief!"

C spoke a command for the first time in that battle. Before focus blast had charged, Bisharp grabbed Kyle's sword and punched him simultaneously. He leaped to C's side, leaving Kyle standing there, unarmed.

"Now come with me to my cousin's vehicle," C said to Kyle.

"Aren't you forgetting something?"

Kyle had a sneaky grin on his face. "No, I'm not," C tried to sound defiant.

"My sword is a part of me."

The focus blast exploded, hitting Bisharp in the face and knocking him out. Kyle's sword disappeared and reappeared in his hand, before his secondary form disappeared entirely. He was human again… sort of.

"HAH! I thought you'd lost there!" C laughed. "I'll have to have my other pokemon with me next time we meet."

"Yeah, sure," Kyle turned and left. His arm was already healed.

"Hey," Ash said, "How long is it gonna take to get there?"

"You're the one who got hungry," Dawn said. "You're asking me?"

"I'm kidding. J's ship is right below us."

Dawn looked down at the unmistakable black ship. "You could have told me you were joking."

"And ruin the fun? Come on, I think someone's going in. Now's our chance."

Whew! That took so long... Review the chapter this time.

I had no idea this chapter would focus so much on Kyle. I'll probably do more of an Ash and Dawn chapter next time.

Unless I lied.

MUAHAHAHAHA -

Aj: (slap) Shut up! And why'd you have to make me so nerdy?

Ashley: Because YOU'RE A NERD!

Aj: Am not!

Mike: Yeah you are. All right, so how come all I did this chapter was buy hyper potions?

Aj: CUZ YOU'RE DUMB LIKE THAT

...thus starting a huge brawl, meanwhile...

Ash: When do you think they'll stop?

Dawn: When the next chapter comes out.

Aj: Why didn't Kyle say anything down here?

Mike: (sweatdrops)