Disclaimer: I do not own the Pokemon series or any of its contents.

I was still frustrated with my lack of understanding of what had occurred yesterday . . . my inability to reason with it. But not extensively so. This frustration did not lead to rage. It simply nagged and poked at my mind as a reminder of my want to find the answer. Rather than rage, it led to a curiosity so hungry for knowledge that trying to ponder the subject for even a minute brought on a swarm of emotions and thoughts that left me exhausted.

There was one word that Pippo had said last night that seemed like a good place to start searching for answers. A key to open the first door. Sportsmanship.

But what was it, exactly?

I suspected Pippo had an explanation, since he was the one to have brought it up. However, I did not like asking for help.

The desire for knowledge plagued me well into the morning. It grew with each passing minute while I tried to come up with what "sportsmanship" had to do with all this mess. I couldn't, but my pride was almost as powerful as my thirst for the answer, so I still refused to consult Pippo until Fate offered a hand and brought Pippo to me instead.

I hardly noticed him approach my little corner of the room at first, I was so caught up in struggling to understand my own various thoughts and emotions. I was looking up out of the window, at the sky, as if all the answers to the world were written there. Pippo sat down a few feet away and stared at me. It seemed like it wanted to . . . observe me, or ask a question. Or both.

This was beyond annoying, and it didn't help that Pippo didn't seem to blink. The fact that Pippo had information that I didn't, and that I needed, didn't help matters either.

Finally, with a sigh, I moved my gaze from the sky to Pippo. It was time to temporarily shove the sky from my mind, and focus on the matters at hand. "What are you doing?" I asked moodily.

"Studying you." Now that it had my undivided attention, it said, "What exactly is that 'Challenge' the aged one spoke of last night?"

"Aldemar?" I yawned. "It's a test. A dragon Challenges a human if they find potential for it to be a worthy partner. The dragon has to be the one to issue the Challenge. If the human Challenges a dragon, they are deemed stupid, impatient, and wanting." I snorted. "A dragon would have to be completely idiotic to do such a thing; no human could possibly be worthy. They'll only betray the dragon's trust, especially if they think they can gain glory from doing so! Selfish creatures!" I spat.

Pippo ignored my rant for the most part and instead focused on a single word. "Does the dragon trust the human if it can complete the Challenge?"

I realized the mistake I'd made in my explanation. "No," I corrected hastily. "No. It's a way to be more accepting of its partner. Trust is different. I think. It would have to come with more time after that, if the dragon is ignorant enough to think a human actually is trustworthy."

Talking of such things made my stomach churn with uneasiness. Blaming Pippo for it, I was about to turn away when it asked a particularly unsettling question.

"Have you ever Challenged a human before?"

My expression settled into a steely death glare.

Pippo didn't acknowledge my glare and came to his own conclusion instead. "Well, of course not," he remedied, almost as if he was amused that he'd asked it. "What a silly question. You're too arrogant."

I opened my mouth to say "no" and add on to the ridiculousness of the question, but I found that I couldn't. Puzzled, I wondered why.

In my wondering, a memory came forth, but I couldn't see it. I couldn't read it. Why? Because it was black. It was a black memory, so awful and dark—full of betrayal and mistrust—that it seemed to repel me as I reached out to it so that I couldn't even seem to get my claws around it. I wasn't sure I wanted to. It slipped away.

"I don't know," I finished lamely.

Pippo studied me for a moment, still not blinking. Then it made to bound up onto the bed.

"Hey!" I barked, stopping it. "I gave you information. Now you give me information."

Pippo cast a sideways glance at me, startled as well as amused. "Very well." With a shrug, it sat down on the floor.

"What is sportsmanship?" I asked bluntly, once it was settled and listening.

I braced myself to see it smile or even laugh at my lack of understanding. I braced myself also to punish it for laughing at my expense if I felt it was necessary. Neither of these happened. Rather, I thought I saw a flash of pity, but I may have imagined it because it was gone in a fleeting second.

Pippo took so long to piece together an answer in his head that I began to doubt he would answer at all. Eventually, so much time had passed that I grunted and tapped my foot, hoping that he would catch the hint to hurry it up, but he was unaffected.

"It's chivalry," he said finally. "It's to be noble. It's respect not only for your power, but for your opponent's. Being able to show sportsmanship . . . well, it's a very noble thing indeed."

"But . . . what—?" I struggled, trying to come up with words to convey my thoughts.

"—did it have to do with your lack of anger yesterday?" Pippo finished.

"How did you know—" I demanded.

"—what you were thinking? I've been studying you for days. You're not at all as difficult to figure out as you think you are," Pippo said. Thoughtfully, he continued, "You had a taste of sportsmanship yesterday, whether you meant to or not. Sportsmanship doesn't spark anger. If anything, it counters it. It's about acceptance. It's noble. It brings on a good feeling." He studied me further, watching as I processed this information. I had listened attentively to every word, and he saw that. "There may be hope for you."

"What?"

"If you're so interested in sportsmanship, maybe you do have a sense of right and wrong. Probably not. The chances are very low. But anything's possible." Pippo tilted its head, unblinking. "You're the most arrogant creature I've ever met, but for some reason I think I'll help you."

"I don't need help," I grumbled.

"Of course not," Pippo mocked graciously. He bounded onto the bed and left me.

The room was dark and dimly lit, illuminated only by the dull lights on the ceiling. Shadows black as night filled every corner. This room was normally used for research or meetings and was filled with computers and desks. Now there was no one in it save for a man and, across the room from him, two women. The women were dressed in silver attire with black stripes. The man was dressed exactly the opposite, with black attire and silver stripes. They were arguing.

He was tall and thin and had white hair, though he wasn't old at all. In fact, he was only in his mid-twenties, but he appeared much, much older. The years had not been kind. He was worn, but it was etched in every line of his face that he had a purpose, a drive. From the looks of him, that drive was the only thing keeping him alive, but at a cost. It had driven him mad.

"You tried to capture it?" he was screaming.

"Yes, sir, Vrono, we did," Umi said.

Vrono gave a shout that echoed through the room and overturned the nearest desk with a blow of his boot. He paced rapidly back and forth, seething. "Never did I dream of the day that an officer lower in rank than another would dream of disobeying their superior. This is unacceptable."

The women didn't say a word. Their faces were hidden in the shadows.

"You two must be severely punished."

Reddi spoke. "But it's Rayquaza. It's one of the most powerful Pokemon on Earth. What use would it be if we killed it? Think how useful it's power could be."

"That doesn't matter!"

Vrono slammed his fist into the wall, producing a loud clang that reverberated throughout the room. He looked up, his eyes nearly lifeless in his skull except for the vicious light of his anger.

"What matters," he whispered treacherously, "is that you two disobeyed direct orders from me, a higher rank than you. You must go to the Vault. There is no place for traitors except for that."

Although still hidden by the shadows, the smallest sign of a smirk flashed across Reddi's face.

"I told you," Vrono said, his voice trembling with a wide range of emotions, "I told you, specifically, to hunt down Rayquaza. I told you to find it, and kill it, and make its death as slow and painful as possible. I told you to do that, and not to come back until you brought its head for me to hang upon my wall!"

His voice had again risen to a scream by the end of this, but he was interrupted by a deeper, more authoritative voice.

"Those may have been your orders, Vrono, but they were not mine."

Both Reddi and Umi stepped out of the shadows and Vrono saw their smirks and the deceit in their eyes. He whirled around to find the source of the new voice and saw a larger, broad-shouldered man standing in a doorway at the top of a flight of stairs. The man had cold eyes and a grim smile. Under his arm was an ancient book bound of leather.

"Lord Kubor!" Vrono gasped.

"I thought you might disobey my orders, Vrono. You are a remarkable agent, but unfortunately, you have a mind of your own. I can't have that. I took it into my own hands to see that Reddi and Umi were equipped with my orders, not yours."

Reddi couldn't contain a high, cruel laugh. "It looks like you will be the one to go to the Vault, Vrono. Not us."

Vrono showed no emotion. He clenched his fists, unclenched them, and let them hang loosely, in temporary defeat. At a signal from Kubor, several men dressed in black came forward as if from nowhere and seized him, and dragged him out of sight. He would go to the Vault—their form of jail—as punishment for his betrayal.

With Vrono gone, Kubor descended the steps. All the way, he was stroking the book. He always stroked the book. It never left his side. It was the key to what he was searching for: a great power.

He stopped several yards away from Reddi and Umi. "My orders were to capture Rayquaza. Vrono's were to kill it. I see you have done neither," he said disapprovingly.

"We tried, sir," Umi said regretfully. "We used all of that new equipment. It nearly worked, but Rayquaza executed a Hyper Beam on the mechanism. We lost control and it was too much for both the machine and Rayquaza."

"The remarkable thing, though," Reddi cut in quickly, "is that it didn't seem to die. It . . . it transformed. It's a Bagon now. A Bagon, with a yellow ring on its belly." She drew a ring in the air on her own belly for emphasis.

"How intriguing," Kubor said in disappointment, though he didn't seem to find it intriguing at all. "Did you still pursue it?"

"It pursued us, actually," Umi said. "We tried to capture it again, but we were stopped by a bo—"

"—body of water," Reddi cut in, with a warning glance at Umi. If Kubor knew they had been stopped by a young boy, however powerful his Swellow had been, their rankings would be ripped from them. "There was a storm and it rained. We tried our best, but it got away. We're not quite sure where it is now."

She wasn't sure that she had fooled Kubor. It didn't look it.

"I see . . ." he said slowly.

"We can—we can still look for it, though," Reddi offered eagerly. "It's still Rayquaza even if it's in a different body. Isn't it? We were near Oldale. It may be around there somewhere still."

Kubor shook his head and fingered the binding of the book. "No, I don't think that will be necessary. Rayquaza would not be able serve the purpose I have in mind anyway, because it does not have an Orb. I thought it might be pursuing despite that, but now that it isn't even in its own form, it is of no use to me. Still," he added thoughtfully, "keep an eye on it. I won't forget about it entirely. For now . . ."

He righted the desk that had been overturned by Vrono moments before and gently laid the leather-bound book upon it. With light, caressing fingers, he let the pages fall on one with hand-painted pictures of particular detail.

On one page was a blue leviathan. It had no definite shape and was hidden by the water in which it resided, but there was no betraying its magnificence. Below it was a beautiful, glowing blue orb that looked almost like a pearl.

On the other page was a fantastic behemoth, as tall as the mountains painted around it. It, too, had no definite shape, but it was mighty and fearsome despite this fact. Below it was a shining red orb as brilliant as the sun.

Kubor's eyes had lit up at the sight of the picture. They burned like fire now, as he gazed at it. "We must focus our research now on locating the Blue and Red Orbs," he said hungrily. "And after that, the location of the great beasts of sea and land. Kyogre and Groudon. 'Only when they are bound may the Treasure be found'," he quoted from the book, a single line out of thousands of the legend.

Reddi was disheartened at first at the prospect of leaving Rayquaza behind. But the ferocious light in her leader's eyes was contagious. She and Umi awaited his word eagerly.

Kubor gave them their orders. They disappeared into the shadows. After a final look at the book, flipping through its hundreds of pages even though he had the thing memorized, so did he.

Damion had stubbornly dragged us all around the city in search of Sam, seeking the boy out in order to apologize. By the time we actually did find him, we were exhausted, our feet were sore, and Damion must have ignored a hundred pleas, spoken aloud or silent, to give up on the search since there was a good chance Sam had already left the city or wouldn't be found. Damion was firm. He wouldn't rest until Sam was found; even when we stopped for breaks to sit down on whatever bench we could find, Damion would go on ahead and come back for us in a few minutes or so.

Finally his efforts paid off, and we found Sam in one of the city's parks. Damion offered an apology to the best of his ability. Sam didn't seem happy to see him again, but he listened and accepted the apology without much enthusiasm. Pippo urged me to do the same to Dusty, who was sitting on Sam's shoulder, as an act of sportsmanship.

"No," I said icily. "Why should I?"

"Because your arrogance is annoying," Pippo said simply. "After studying you, I've come to the conclusion that swallowing your pride and apologizing can't hurt. Besides, you owe it to Dusty."

"What! I owe nothing to it, and I won't apologize."

"But its sportsmanship," Pippo reminded me. "Besides," it added with a sour tone, "you could use some humility. At least try to be humble."

Humble.

I chewed on my lip, my heart pounding.

"I hate you," I bit out to Pippo.

"And I you," Pippo returned simply.

I looked up at Dusty, who was looking at me expectantly, having probably heard the whole exchange. Clearing my throat, I swallowed my pride to the absolute best of my ability. Preparing myself to do this was one of the most difficult challenges I had ever faced. I opened my mouth to say the words.

Halfway through the breath, my head turned slightly, involuntarily to the left, then to the right, in protest. "I can't do it," I exhaled, relieved.

"Ah, well," Pippo said next to me, "perhaps that was a tad too drastic."

"Just don't battle with that again until you can control it," Sam said coldly, pointing at me.

Damion cast a glance down at me out of the corner of his eye, following Sam's accusing hand. He choked back something he was going to say to Sam, and nodded stiffly. Sam didn't seem to want anything more to do with us and returned to the park, where he had been playing with Dusty.

Damion watched them for a moment. "I've got to respect that kid for the relationship he has with his Pokemon." He turned away and we began to walk back to the Pokemon Center. "But I'd appreciate it if he wasn't so harsh to mine."

"Ray tried to kill his Pokemon," Dante reminded. "I think he has right to be harsh."

"Well, harsh, sure." He frowned. "But . . ."

"I dunno if you get it. Ray tried to kill his Pokemon."

"Of course I get it," Damion said seriously. "I get it more than you know. I thought about it last night a lot. I haven't decided yet, but . . .

"I'm seriously considering staying in Petalburg until Ray and I have a better relationship."