This was supposed to be much longer, but I felt guilty for not publishing another chapter since forever, so I cut it into two or three parts first.

Five

The rodent and the Gay Ogre

Where they lost the egg

They didn't come into each other's way for the rest of the evening.

Rayquaza kept quiet about this, but it didn't take Uxie's brain to have the whole Island figure out that something happened in the Azure Hall on that very day. Celebi announced shortly after they left the throne room, that she will be leaving soon sometime tomorrow. She followed Meloetta back to her house, and Rayquaza brought his children back to theirs.

Kyogre decided to fix some instant noodles for his growling stomach. Meanwhile, Groudon didn't have the appetite, so he went to the front yard and played some ball alone (after feeling much too awkward in the newfound silence and calling Kyogre a trout, and he replied that Groudon was no better off as a Slowpoke).

Hours later, sweat had pooled on the back of Groudon's red shirt which had a fading Growlithe print. He walked, and sat by the front porch of his house, drinking mouthfuls from his bottle of water. He sighed and squinted in the afternoon sun, only to see two black and white figures coming his way.

He started panicking at first, until he realized the white figure was half a head shorter than the other. Arceus and Giratina were supposed to have the same height.

Groudon glared at them. Curse them for making him so antsy.

'Hey Groudon.' Reshiram waved. His voice had a softer accent. Instead of stressing on the first syllable of Groudon's name like most people would, it ended up sounding like 'grow-din' from his mouth. Kyogre once joked that it sounded similar to 'rodent', and they had a full-on fight for that, while in Groudon's defense Zekrom's heavier accent somehow managed to change from the name Kyogre to the word gay ogre.

'I heard you went to the Azure Hall today. What's up?' the shorter of the two chirped as he sat down next to Groudon on the porch. Meanwhile Zekrom stood, looking as if he took a great interest in the sun and sky.

Groudon stared at Reshiram's beaming face for a while. 'Have you ever gone into the Azure Hall yourself?' he asked.

'Oh, definitely. One time, grandpa wanted to complain about the roof leakage and wanted to find Dialga for help, but somehow he ended up there, and we had to fetch him back. It was a little embarrassing.' The albino laughed heartily, albeit a little nervously. Zekrom side-glanced his cousin, who was still grinning from ear to ear, and sighed.

'We saw our own statues, if that's what you're wondering.'

'Oh.' Groudon looked away. 'Uh, how was it?'

'Let's just say Zekrom wasn't very nice about his comments on my pillar.' Reshiram huffed, while Zekrom just went straight to the point.

'A little pressuring. The pillars are built there, to remind us of our roles as Legendaries and what we are to the mortal world.'

Groudon only had one word to say. 'Scary.' He muttered, and took another mouthful of water. 'How is your grandpa?'

'Oh, he's perfectly fine. Don't take in mind that we have lost him again. I'm pretty sure he finally memorized the way to Dialga's and started making some friends.'

'And after that he'll forget the way back.' Zekrom countered Reshiram's cheerful answer. 'Again.'

'Don't be such a downer, Zek. Let's play some basketball, come on.' Reshiram pulled Groudon to his feet, and the three young people started playing ball.

Meanwhile Kyogre nearly burned the kitchen down. Fortunately Rayquaza was there to save his day, and reheated the leftover spaghetti with meatballs for him. Kyogre sat on the kitchen counter savoring his food while Rayquaza stood by the kitchen island, admiring his child with mild amusement.

'Aren't you the slightest bit embarrassed that your cooking skills are far from being as good as your rival's?' he mused.

Kyogre gave him a look, as if his uncle were asking him why he liked the color blue. 'Uncle, we have better skills to compare with each other, like my intellect with his sweaty workout sessions.' he waved a hand in the general direction of the basketball's half court that they have in the front yard. Then he resumed eating his spaghetti. 'Cooking is nothing.'

'So are you telling me that you boys are only fighting over the skills that you both excel in?'

'In a way, it's a little tiring to fight over every little thing. That was when we were kids.' Kyogre gestured with his fork, which had a meatball on it.

Rayquaza shuddered at the earlier years of Groudon's and Kyogre's childhood. It was much more violent than their teenage years, everyone would very much agree, even though it didn't influence others as much and cause chaos. Both of them still had the many scars to prove it.

Later they both cleaned up the kitchen, and Kyogre was keen on indulging himself in his own books in the lounge for the rest of the day. Halfway through his indulgence Rayquaza said something about going to Deoxys' place again, and he just waved a hand indicating he got what he said (he didn't).

He hoped to never be bothered for the rest of the day, and that Groudon would keep his ass outside until dinner time.

'Dude, how can you not break a sweat? You're wearing black, black's supposed to absorb all the heat, but look at you. And look at me.' Reshiram spread his arms and took a turn to reveal his sweating back and armpits. Groudon called out a noise which expressed both disgust and laughter, while Zekrom merely looked at his cousin with bemusement.

'It's in the genes, Reshi.' Zekrom replied.

'Well that doesn't make any sense. If I sweat like buckets and you don't, then what does that make our grandpa?'

'You think too much.' Zekrom patted his cousin's hair, which was wet with the water he constantly poured over himself throughout the game. Now all their bottles are empty, and Groudon invited them in to have a drink in the kitchen.

When they were settled by the kitchen island, Groudon realized Rayquaza's not around. He poked his head into the lounge. 'Hey nerd! Where our guardian at?' he asked, a little louder than he could've needed to a normal person. But a little louder is definitely needed to get Kyogre's attention away from his books.

Without looking up he answered just as loud, 'Café with Deoxys, and you stink.'

Groudon stuck his tongue out at his rival and scurried back to the Tao cousins. 'My uncle went to Deoxys' place again. I guess you can stay for a while.'

'Uh-huh. Hey, you haven't answered my question.' Reshiram mumbled as he took a huge bite from a sandwich he found in the fridge. 'What were you doing in the Azure Hall this afternoon?'

'Nah, that Celebi girl found an egg and brought it to the Island, and we had to tag along with our uncle to go see Arceus to decide about it. Kind of boring, nothing to see.' The last part was obviously a lie, but nobody said anything about it.

'Cool. So what happened to the egg?'

'It's with the dude in the living room.' He looked out from the kitchen again. 'Hey, you have the egg right?'

'Shut up Garbodor, I thought you wanted to take first watch.'

'No I didn't.'

A silence ensued.

Kyogre looked up from his book to face an equally horrified expression. 'What did you do with the egg, you block of hummock?!'

'I didn't do anything, stupid Feebas, when was the last time you saw it?'

'In the Hall with you.'

Another piece of silence.

'You lost the egg.' Zekrom concluded for them while eating the cold pizzas he found in the fridge, giving a bemused glance to the lot of them.

'What, do we go back to Azure Hall or something?' Reshiram muttered.

'Are you crazy?' Kyogre snapped. 'If we go back and announce to the whole world that we couldn't even take care of a single egg…Arceus is going to Judge us so bad.'

'Then what do we do? We can't exactly ask around either!' Groudon scoffed. 'I am so not enduring Aunt Meloetta's Hyper Voice again. That woman is scary. She's supposed to be Dark in my opinion.'

'Look,' Reshiram cleared his throat for some attention. 'We can just look for the egg, just the four of us. We don't need help from anyone! How hard is it finding an egg? How big is it? Any patterns?'

So the four boys, matured by looks but far too young by heart, set out on a treasure hunt to find the egg.

They separated ways so they would cover more ground. Reshiram volunteered to go back to his own neighborhood to keep a look out, and at the same time keep tabs on Zek and his grandpa. Zekrom made himself the brave warrior by volunteering the Azure Hall on the Other Side of the Island to find the egg without neither Arceus nor Giratina catching him.

That left Meloetta's neighborhood, and the family park on the South part of the Island. Kyogre and Groudon exchanged their common glare, before Groudon took out a coin. He was about to flip when Kyogre snatched it mid-air and stuck his tongue out. 'I'll do the flipping.' He muttered silently as he readied the Magikarp coin by his thumb.

'Hey, it's my lucky coin. I flip it.' Groudon hissed as he snatched his own coin back.

'What, just because you found it on the floor outside of the Game Corner? If it's your lucky coin, you're basically asking me to choose Aunt Meloetta's place. Gimme that.' Kyogre made a grab for it, and they swatted hands at each other for a silly moment.

'Could you stop it?' Reshiram whispered. 'Just do a scissors paper stone, dumbass.'

'But he's insulting my Lucky Coin.' Groudon groaned.

Zekrom and Reshiram gave them both bemused glares, and the other duo gave into them. Groudon tucked his lucky coin away, and Reshiram counted down the numbers for them. 'Three, two, one.'

They each pulled out a hand. Kyogre had his palm wide open while Groudon had his in a fist.

'Three times for good measure?' Groudon asked hopefully, but he only earned a fistful on the side by Reshiram. Kyogre smirked in victory, and he scowled back in reply.

'Now tell me,' Zekrom said as the four boys settled back into place. 'Why are we whispering behind a couple of bushes in Aunt Meloetta's backyard?' the view wasn't much from their place, not like Meloetta liked gardening as much as Celebi anyway. After a brief waving of farewell, Reshiram and Zekrom started to leave by jumping over the fences and thus going away to their separate patrolling areas.

'Better start now, Groudon,' Kyogre teased. 'Better not keep her waiting.'

Groudon snarled and made a gesture of hitting him, just so Kyogre could just go away. He could have made do without the fading laughter though. For one, it's attracting attention.

Groudon sucked in a breath, and started to walk out of the bush. 'Just another day on the Island.' He muttered to himself. He brushed off the leaves on his jacket and started to look out for the egg.