In the middle of the Orre desert stood the few acres of oasis forest where Kenta and Hibiki landed. In the middle of the forest acres stood Krane Laboratories itself, surrounded by dirt paths leading up to the doors. In the middle of Krane Laboratories sat the first-floor reception room, and in the middle of that, the receptionist's desk. When Kenta and Hibiki entered through the sliding panel door leading to the center of centers, it was as if they had walked into the center of attention. Three guards eyed the brothers suspiciously as they strode towards the woman behind the desk, and she herself looked up them with a raised eyebrow.

"Yes? Can I help you with something?"

Hibiki pulled his traveler's cloak tightly around him, so that he'd have as little of himself showing as possible. Kenta pointed at him, putting on a stern, yet sympathetic face. "Please, could we get a cup of water for this kid?" he asked. "I was on my way over here when I found him wandering around in the middle of the sand dunes. The lad seems to have gotten separated from his caravan, passing through here."

"Oh!" Like magic, the receptionist's defenses vanished. "Yes, yes, just wait here, and I'll be right back!"

She hurried out of her seat and walked smartly towards the double-doors in the back left corner of the room. They opened before she got there, and two people walked out, apparently in the middle of conversation with each other. The first was a middle-aged man in a white lab coat, with untidy brown hair and a pleasant smile on his face. The other was a boy about fifteen years in age, wearing a gentlemanly suit and tie. It clashed terribly with flamboyant hairstyle, which was a mane of long red hair that clashed between spikes and dreadlocks.

The two parties looked at each other for a moment in mild surprise, then the receptionist stepped hastily to the side. "Oh dear, pardon me, Professor-!"

"Not at all, Kaoru, go right ahead . . ."

"That's him," muttered Kenta in undertone, so that only Hibiki would hear. "Professor Krane himself. And it looks like his office is still unlocked during business hours."

That's odd . . . I was expecting more resistance than that. I know for a fact that he stored the Snag Machine in there the other day, before closing up.

Kenta had only seen the Snag Machine one other time from when he'd spied Krane carrying it into his office. It had been a couple years back, during an Internet search he had done on criminal-made tools and technology. A file photo titled "snag machine" revealed a mechanical arm of sorts, wired to a metallic sphere shaped like a trash can lid. The photo bordered on classified information, and Kenta felt lucky to have seen it at all. It would definitely come in handy now.

The receptionist bustled out of Krane's office with a glass of tap water, and handed it to Hibiki as soon as she'd returned. Hibiki, who was actually somewhat thirsty after riding through the high-wind sky environment on Bolt, snatched the glass and gulped down the water instantly, putting on a convincing show. Kenta silently congratulated him in his mind, and pulled out his Master Ball to show the receptionist.

"Um, I've been asked to deliver this to Professor Krane," he said in a modest voice, looking over the receptionist's shoulder at Krane's retreating back. Playing dumb, he pointed in Krane's direction. "That wouldn't happen to be him, would it?"

Kenta glanced at the receptionist; she was staring at the Master Ball in silent astonishment. Remembering that the Master Ball was a very sensitive item, he pushed it back into his pocket. She looked back up at him. "Krane? She asked distantly, then came to her senses. "Oh! Excuse me! Professor Krane!"

Krane, who had been getting into a backroom elevator with his younger companion, turned to the redheaded boy with a diffident smile. "Would you excuse me, Maikeru?" Kenta heard him say. "I'll be up in just a minute."

"What? But . . . I need you with me for this-"

"Mr. Krane, sir?" asked Kenta, walking up to him and saluting officially. He noticed that Hibiki was still right beside him, clinging to his arm now. "I've got something for you. Can we go to your office for just a minute?"

He held up the Master Ball for Krane to see. Almost identically to the receptionist, the professor stared at the ball as though it were a snake, and all traces of his pleasant expression gave way to horror. Beside him, the boy named Maikeru looked at him with a confused expression . . . and was Kenta imagining it, or was there suspicion?

"Professor," said Maikeru interrogatively, looking from the Master Ball to his associate, "what is the meaning of this? You don't have the clearances to be holding a Master Ball anymore. This project was supposed to be dropped."

"This . . . this isn't for me," stammered Krane in objection, backing away from the ball fearfully. "I never ordered anything of the sort! I know my boundaries!"

"Sir, this isn't actually for you," said Kenta hastily, improvising on the spot. "I just need you to pass it on to the right person. You are the head of the lab after all." He motioned insistently at Krane's office with his head. "Can we please go in there for a minute?"

The professor looked at Kenta with a mingled expression of guilt and frustration, then pointed at his office doors in a swift arm-sweeping movement. "After you," he muttered, and Kenta hurried in without a second's delay, pulling Hibiki with him. Krane looked to Maikeru beside him, and putting up his arms in defense, mouthed "I don't know!" silently. Following the young man in the officer's uniform and the cloaked younger man with him, he shut the doors behind him without another glance at Maikeru.

Kenta barely had time to sweep the rather bland and empty office with his eyes when Professor Krane was in his face, beside himself with fury. "Who told you to bring one of those things in here?" Krane demanded, pointing at the Master Ball in Kenta's right hand. "Don't you know who I was just talking to?! Don't you realize what you might've done? Who is your commanding officer, huh?"

"I'm sorry, Mr. Krane, sir," said Kenta, tugging him gently towards his desk, "but you need to step away from the door, please."

"Wh-? Get your hands off me. What do you think you're doing?"

"Protecting you from being squashed. Hibiki!"

That was his brother's cue. Hibiki reached into his pocket, withdrawing the Heavy Ball within, and flung it towards the door. In a burst of light, Snorlax's gigantic body was covering the entire front half of the room, completely blocking any avenue of escape. A security camera on the ceiling crumbled to bits as Snorlax's flab pushed relentlessly against it.

Krane looked baffled. His eyes grew even bigger as Kenta removed the cap and military jacket from his upper torso, revealing an inner layer of clothing- the Birch costume. Tugging Brendan's trademark headband on, Kenta returned his focus to the shaken professor, his eyes glinting in the office light. It was time to talk business.

"Professor Krane, developer of the world's first official Snag Machine. We need to borrow your technology for a short amount of time."

Kenta watched as Krane's eyes flickered over to his desk, before returning to his own. "Who are you children?" he asked, putting on a brave front. "What do you want with the Snag Machine?"

"What do you think we want with it?" snapped Hibiki, who was already going through the desk and scanning the walls. He turned to Kenta with a worried expression. "It's not here."

"It is here," Kenta told him sternly, hoping as hard as he could that it was. "It's just well-hidden. They'll have amped up security after the Cipher incident three years ago. Try knocking on the walls and floors, see if you can find a hollow spot."

"The people of Cipher were low-down thieves! Crooks! Kidnappers!" shouted Krane in panic, backing away from Kenta until he tripped and fell against the pudgy body of Snorlax behind him. "Just like you!"

"Don't be so quick to judge," said Kenta as composedly as he could- which was an effort. "Do you think we would use the Snag Machine to take someone else's pokémon? No. We would not."

"Oh, really?" Krane pushed fruitlessly against Snorlax's belly, but the fat and heavy pokémon wasn't budging an inch. "What other use could you possibly have for it?"

"How about . . ." Kenta eyed Krane sharply. "Taking back our own?"

Professor Krane looked back at him with a new astonishment, then resumed his outrage. "Steal back your own?" he snapped with a mirthless laugh. "Ha! So you can pull more stunts like this? This is precisely why Maikeru took Cipher's shadow pokémon from them, years ago. They were a danger to society!"

"Let me get your opinion on something, Professor," Kenta interrupted forcefully, cutting off Krane's rant. "Let's say there were two boys on a playground, and one was playing fetch with a new puppy he'd been given for his birthday." He narrowed his eyes. "But the second boy didn't like what he saw, so he dog-napped the puppy. If the first boy then tried to rescue his puppy back . . ." He crossed his arms resolutely. "Would you consider him a thief?"

"That's misrepresenting the issue entirely," Krane fired back. "Why don't you try looking at it this way? What if the first boy was learning how to shoot a sling, and the second person was really his father, who knew the danger of slingshots? He would be no thief, if he took the sling away for the good of his son. On the contrary, his son would be a disobedient scoundrel if he tried to take his sling back!"

"My concern is that the father becomes too obsessed with the slingshot, himself," Kenta parried. Krane let out another humorless laugh. "That's ridiculous!" he said dismissively, flinging his arm in heat of the debate. "No father figure would do that!"

"Then maybe we should've stuck with my example," said Kenta tenaciously. "The only thefts so far have been committed by the members of G.R.I.P. Call me disobedient if you want, but I consider my pokémon family. I don't care if you consider them weapons. It only proves to me that you're of the same mindset as Cipher. Like you, they were only ever able to see pokémon as tools of destruction."

Krane opened his mouth to respond, but no words came out. His expression softened from hard anger to horror. "No," he gasped. "I would never-"

"Kenta!" called Hibiki, sounding excited. "I think we've got something! The floor under Krane's chair- it's hollow!"

"Nicely done, Hibiki!" exclaimed Kenta, running immediately over to where Hibiki was standing behind Krane's desk. He turned back to the professor, with an apologetic look. "I'm sorry, sir," he said, "but please tell us where the button is for opening up the floor here. Otherwise we'll just have to bust through manually."

Professor Krane was silent for about five seconds. "The red one," he finally said. "Under the desk."

Kenta was too late to stop Hibiki as he reached for the button and pressed it. "Hibiki, no! Don't-!"

"What? What?" Hibiki looked at him, terrified. Kenta gritted his teeth. "It's the silent alarm. He made us hit the panic button!"

"G.R.I.P.'s intentions for your pokémon are better than anything you can do for them," said Krane with gritted teeth. "They're going back to nature. Where they belong."

Kenta pulled out his Friend Ball and glanced over at Krane for one second. "If you seriously believe that," he said, letting it drop, "then I'll forgive you tricking us. You're not a bad man at heart."

One second later, Bolt's gigantic form stood before the Nyna brothers. Kenta pointed at the floor, where Hibiki had spotted the hidden trapdoor. "Right there, Bolt. Use Brick Break!" The dragon pokémon immediately slammed its rock-hard head into the floor, and it gave way with a great shattering like glass. Concealed beneath the broken trapdoor sat a concrete stairwell leading down to a hidden basement of sorts, a descent into darkness. As Kenta and Hibiki gazed down into the passage, a banging from the front of the room issued behind Snorlax's relaxed body.

"Open this door!" came a muffled demand from outside, from one of the guards. "Let us through, or we'll force our way in!"

"We haven't got much time," muttered Kenta, motioning Hibiki to follow him. "Hand me the flashlight. We've gotta search quickly!"

Hibiki, who had been in charge of their backpack, pulled out a heavy-duty flashlight from the side pocket and pushed it hurriedly into Kenta's hands. The latter clicked it on and galloped down the stairs at once, beckoning Hibiki to follow. As the two brothers reached the bottom, Kenta spotted a light switch at the bottom of the stairwell and clicked it on. The downstairs chamber was flooded with light, revealing everything in Krane's storage room. Mostly, there was nothing but scattered pages of notes all over the place, along with bits and pieces to old machines. However, in the very back left corner of the room, lying on the upper torso of a headless mannequin, sat the very prize that the brothers had come all the way out into the desert region seeking. Kenta beamed the flashlight onto the Snag Machine and nodded to Hibiki, who hurried forward and removed it, putting on gloves as he went. Without wasting another second, hearts pounding from the pressure, they scurried back up the stairs as fast as their legs could carry them.

"Kenta," panted Hibiki, as he followed his brother back out of the opening in the floor, "weren't you saying the Snag Machine was made of metal? It feels light . . ."

Kenta chanced a glance at the arm-and-chest shaped device in Hibiki's arms, and he felt his stomach plummet at the sight. This Snag Machine was like the Snag Machine he had seen previously in shape only. The whole thing was made of plastic, wires and all, and had no movable parts to it at all. It was a fake.