Ch 3

Ein poured over the samples of scales and flesh that lay strewn before him on the table, each labeled carefully in their own petri dish. Sera merely watched the scientist as her newest Pokémon was sent through the heart-closing process, safely sealed within the stolen Master Ball from the Devon Corporation.

"I knew it! I bloody well knew it! If Evice had just waited a few months more, I would have had the final piece of DNA needed to complete the experiment and have the Pokémon he had wanted!" Ein declared, holding up one of the dishes as if it were a revered treasure, "Just think of it! If I could get my data back and a fresh sample of Seth's DNA, I could filter out the human genetic code and replace them with this!"

"Would the result be human or Pokémon?" Sera asked, wrinkling her nose at the green scales set in the petri dish.

"I don't know. Pokémon, most likely. But that's the best part! Finding out the end result!" Ein replied happily. "However, I do know that the Pokémon would possess enormous power over the world's weather. We could control the rains and the sunlight, the very winds that circle the globe to provide life all over the planet!" Sera perked up with a glittering smile.

"Ingenious! If we control the source of weather, we can control the world! People who don't obey our rule would be besieged with natural disasters of our creation!" she laughed and spun around joyfully. "Is there any way to insert that DNA into Seth as he is now? I do hate having to wait another few years for the opportunity to display that much power."

"With the Pokémon we've managed to capture from Sky Pillar, you should have that show of force for quite some time." Ein pointed out, "As for this and Seth being joined together, well, that will be a rather sticky puzzle for me to figure out. I suppose it can be done, but I'll need time and research to see if it'll work."

"I'm sure you can do it, Ein. You'd just better do it quick." the woman ordered and sighed, "Isn't it done yet? I want to have my Pokémon ready for battle now!"

"It's a legendary, Miss Evice. Give it another hour." Ein muttered, already beginning a run of tests on the samples, "In the meantime, why don't you go and see how Team Samba and Team Berserker are doing in Johto and Kanto?" Sera considered it briefly, then shrugged and whirled away, laughing at the thought of being queen of the world in a few short hours.

"Are we there yet?"

"Not yet."

"Now?"

"No."

"How 'bout now?"

"Will you give it a rest?!"

"Can't this thing go any faster?! The sooner I'm back on the ground, the better!"

The argument had started almost as soon as the gang left Petalburg, the Latias swiftly winging her way towards Lilycove City to the northeast. May sat at the base of her neck, Brendan behind her and growing irritated at the Snagger directly behind him, Rui behind Seth and in awe at the view she beheld.

"What is your problem with flying around? You afraid of flying?" Brendan snapped back over his shoulder. Seth kept his eyes shut throughout most of the trip, but now opened them to scowl at Brendan.

"No!" he shot back then looked aside, mumbling, "Just the falling part." under his breath. The Latias cried out and started looking around. May stroked the neck and looked back at her friends.

"HeartSong is getting tired already! We'll be landing just outside of Fortree City to let her rest!" she declared as the dragon banked to find a clearing for herself.

"Good!" Seth griped, stomach lurching at the sudden drop in altitude.

The ground had never looked so good before. HeartSong lay off to one side of the clearing, dozing lightly. May sat beside her, stroking the sides of the dragon and cooing gently to her while Brendan unpacked a lunch and his phone, dialing Team Aqua's leader, Archie, as he set down sandwiches and cans of soda. Rui swung her feet back and forth, smiling brightly as she sat on a boulder, the Snagger had gone into the forest in an angry huff, but Seth's bad mood couldn't bring her down from her bubbly happiness. She had ridden a cute dragon!

"That was so amazing! Where did you catch your Latias? Are there more?" she asked May. The trainer smiled back at her and laughed.

"She's one of a kind! HeartSong is a legendary Pokémon, and I ran into her on my way to the Berry Master's house. She'd been chomping down on the berry trees I had planted and I threw the Master Ball at her to get her to stop." May replied, "But she looked so cute pulling berries off and munching away, that I just had to make her a part of my team and raise her to be the cutest Pokémon in Hoenn!" She gestured at the assortment of ribbons hanging around the dragon's neck, overlooked during their original awe at the creature's appearance. "She's a Master Rank Cute Contest winner!"

"Okay, I just a call back from Archie. According to him, Maxie's gotten himself stuck in Shoal Cave 'cause he doesn't have the brains to bring along water Pokémon. Maxie's griping that the cave's flooded and it's a ploy to keep him out of the planning." Brendan cut in after hanging up and tossing the phone into his pack.

"Were they drunk again?" May asked flatly. He shook his head. "Oh great, we're getting shot before we stand. Where's Seth?"

"Probably doing the same; griping his head off at everything. I don't know what his problem is, but I'm gonna go find out." Brendan replied and got up, "I'm starting to get a little sick of all this crud. We don't have time to fight each other; we have the Elite Four to protect!"

May and Rui watched him leave, then sighed. The trainer walked up to join Rui at the rock and leaned against it, gazing at the forest.

"Well, just you and me here, now." she remarked, "Any ideas as to why Seth's acting like this? Does he usually act this way?"

"No, not really." Rui replied and clacked her boots together. "He's just out of his element. This region is too foreign to him. It's freaking him out a little."

"How can it be foreign? Hoenn is a beautiful region! Way better than Johto and Kanto!" May declared proudly.

"Have you been there?"

"Unless magazines count, not really."

"Orre is a desert region, with very few wild Pokemon." Rui explained, "Seth is from the desert, not many plants, harsh environment, you get the idea. Now he's been plopped into a land where there's so much around him and he got there in a mode of transport that he really hates. You can see why he is the way he is." She sighed and smiled cheerfully. "It's a little tough traveling with him, but I wouldn't leave him for the world!"

May raised an eyebrow and looked back at her, but said nothing else.

"Hey! Seth! Where the heck are you, man?!" Brendan yelled out as he walked through the tall grass, bending it aside as he traveled along. "Dude! Say something!"

"Does 'shut up' count?!" Seth yelled out, "Get over here but don't call attention to yourself!" Brendan pushed on in the direction of the Snagger's voice and peered through the last batch of grass.

Seth stood with his back to a wall of stone, a Poké Block Case in one hand, a pile of candies in the other. He was glaring at a pack of Mightyenas that had decided to jump in on his break and were now surrounding him, snarling and growling. Brendan waved at him to catch his attention and the Snagger looked towards him. Tossing out another pair of candies at the wolves to distract them, Seth nodded at a pair of Poké Balls that lay not too far from both of them. Another Mightyena stood over them, growling viciously. A candy dropped ahead of it and it darted forward to snap it up, eyeing Seth with the same hungry look it had given the blocks in his hand.

"Get the twins." Seth said loud enough for Brendan to hear, "They knocked them out of my hands before I could call the twins. Hurry it up, they look like I'm the main course and I'm about out of appetizers." Brendan nodded and carefully stepped around the pack, making his way to the two Poké Balls on the ground.

One of the wolves leaped forward and snapped, trying to bite into Seth's leg. The Snagger jumped aside and tossed another block to appease it. The Mightyena ignored it and leaped for him again, sending the others in the pack after him. Cursing loudly, Seth ran from the group, dashing into the grass as Brendan grabbed the two balls and chased after them.

"I've got them! What do I do with them?! What are they?!" he yelled as Seth led the group in a wide circle back to the rock.

"Jupiter and Pluto! Let them out! Hurry!" Seth called back and fell over a ledge, the wolves leaping over it to attack. The Snagger shrieked in a fury as they grabbed onto his jacket and started to tear at it, trying to rip away the tough material.

"Dark type weak against fight type. Best I have is..." Brendan muttered as he raced in and pulled out a Master Ball of his own, "Groudon! Earthquake!" He threw the ball ahead of him and a huge Pokémon emerged, towering over the pack of Mightyena and the Snagger pinned beneath them. The sunlight suddenly grew brighter, shining more hotly on the ground. Brendan held up and arm to shield his eyes, starting to sweat from the new heatwave. The Mightyena turned to face the creature, backing away and growling. Seth pushed himself to all fours, heard the roar of the Groudon behind him and leaped up in unison with it. Brendan watched in confusion as both the legendary Pokémon and the Snagger came down on the ground at the same time, landing solidly on their feet. The earthquake knocked him to his rear, shaking the ground and flattening grass all around the epicenter of the quake. The pack of wolf Pokémon crumpled and yelped, staggering to get up and flee the scene. Groudon roared again, its red and black body standing out against the green of the grass and trees, the claws glimmering as it swept its arms up in victory, tail sweeping the fallen shrubbery behind it. Seth merely stood before it, looking out at the retreating pack. He had been completely unaffected by both the ground-shaking attack and the intense heat caused by the Pokémon's ability.

"Seth! You okay?!" Brendan yelled out, getting up and running to him, staring at him as his eyes adjusted to the light.

"Yeah. Thanks." the Snagger murmured quietly, gazing down at his feet as the Groudon bent to be petted by the trainer, mouth cracked in a semblance of a grin, sharp teeth lining it. "So... that's Groudon." he added, looking up at the legendary thoughtfully. Brendan nodded, rubbing its snout and pulling forth a berry from his pack to give to it. "What's the matter with you?" Seth asked suddenly, taking in the trainer's bedraggled look.

"What's the matter with me?! I was gonna ask you that!" Brendan finally declared, "I go out to find you and you're being chased by Mightyena as a snack, and they don't eat people! My Groudon's Drought ability sends everything to hell and you act like it's perfectly normal weather! It uses Earthquake to flatten everything here and you just jump right along with it like it was something you do all the time and now you're just standing there as if nothing's wrong!" The Groudon turned its gaze at Seth, a rumbling coming from deep in its throat as it stared him in the eyes.

"Don't give me that." Seth growled back at it, "I may smell like a Pokémon, but trust me, I'm nothing like one!" Brendan shook his head in surprise, staring at the two of them. The Groudon merely rumbled a bit more. "No, I'm not a funny-looking Groudon and I don't have Earthquake. I just know how to deal with them after Dakkim kept using it over and over."

"Now you're actually talking to it!" Brendan shrieked, "What kind of a guy are you, Dr. Doolittle?!" The Groudon rumbled again and slurped its tongue out, giving Seth a huge lick that nearly knocked him over. "Aaagh!"

"Will you quit it?!" Seth yelled at the Pokémon and looked at himself in disgust, "This is disgusting! Ugh! I'm not your kid, I'm not your brother, I'm not a Pokémon, so quit treating me like one!" He wiped his face as best he could and glared at Brendan, holding out his hand for the twins' Poké Balls. "Just give me my Pokémon and put yours away. I'm going to go and take a bath as soon as I find a pond or something." he grumbled. Brendan handed them over, dropping them into his hand to avoid touching him. Seth whirled around and stomped away. "By the fires of Ho-Oh, I HATE this place!" he added in a shriek upon stepping on a Shroomish that rewarded him with a blast of Stun Spore.