I’m sure you know by now that this was a conspiracy.

I don't own Pokémon. But you're free to pay me royalties.

As to the charges that the Designer is mean…well, searching for the right nature Feebas found in six out of 400 squares on a river and then having to max out its Beauty to evolve it could hardly be called anything short of sadistic, neh?

No review reply! Read ahead for spoilers!

---

—KYOGRE woke up!

It attacked in a grumpy rage!—

The angered leviathan of the sea burst out the ceiling of its underwater cavern as its prey disappeared in a flash of light. It headed, by instinct, northwest towards Sootopolis.

Towards its mortal enemy.

All Sootopolis was abuzz as Groudon and Kyogre burst atop the waves for their battle. Strangely to Wallace, the two seemed not to be actively fighting each other, but raging at the nearest thing as if they were still half-asleep. "Ah, well. The kid can go wake up RAYQUAZA. At least the plot's back on track."

---

"I still don't understand…" Maxie was grumbling.

Suddenly, Archie noticed the dark clouds in the sky as Sootopolis and the surrounding areas were awash in a downpour. Then the sun came out, piercing through the clouds, and the plants on Mt. Pyre even seemed to wither in the intense heat.

"Look! GROUDON has awakened!" Maxie called.

"And KYOGRE! So the Orbs really did work! They…just took a little longer than normal!"

Maxie and Archie slapped high-fives before they realized it. "Grr…But now," Archie grunted, "I will use the power of KYOGRE to expand the ocean!"

"No, I will use the power of GROUDON to create more land!"

"What are you talking about?" the old man demanded.

"Aren't the Orbs supposed to awaken and control the legendary Pokémon of land and sea?"

"YOU IDIOTS!" the old woman screeched with fury. "Of course not! If the Orbs were—well, have been—used to awaken them, they will go on a rampage and destroy the world!"

"Destroy…the world?"

Archie and Maxie looked up at the rapidly-shifting sky and then at each other. With that, the two men hurried off to Sootopolis for their catharsis.

---

"Um…I think you're supposed to go save the world or something. Wallace said so."

"Oh. Really? Well…okay."

"And this time for real."

"Uh? Oh, right."

Rayquaza roused itself from its nap and floated off towards the most massive weather disturbances. It arrived just below cloud level to an undiminished chorus of "Ooh"s and "Aah"s before looking down on the two feuding Pokémon.

"Ah! RAYQUAZA!"

"Hey, I know you," Rayquaza said, acknowledging Wallace.

"FINALLY! The prophecy, or at least the plot, will come to fruition!"

Rayquaza floated over Groudon and Kyogre, who took a temporary break from their halfhearted wrestling match to stare at it.

"Fighting isn't nice…shouldn't we get along?"

---

"It's…it's the legendary RAYQUAZA!" Archie exclaimed.

"Yes!" Steven answered. "See how its great roar is pacifiying the beasts of land and sea!"

Wallace rolled his eyes. What he was hearing was "You know, it'd be all much better if we could be friends…"

"So, I suppose, we're here to say we learned our lesson," Maxie began. "Well, here goes…"

He was silenced by another earth-shaking roar.

"Uh, I think we can skip that. For now," Wallace replied, with Rayquaza's "Wouldn't you rather have others be nice to you?" in the background.

---

"Or we could just all hold hands and sing 'Kumbaya'…" roared Rayquaza thirty minutes later.

The other two legendary Pokémon, having completely lost interest in both fighting and Rayquaza's speech, slowly started to sink into the water.

"That's right, we could all take a nap! It's good to take a nap when you're grumpy!" Seeing that its audience was almost asleep, Rayquaza continued, "Yes, and I'll go take a nap too. We could all use a nap from time to time." With that, it turned tail and departed as the skies became clear and the mysterious light in the background faded, silencing the denizens of Sootopolis.

The show being over, they returned to their homes.

"And with that, it's on to the Pokémon League!"

"Hold it kid! We haven't said how we've learned our lesson!"

"Yeah!" chimed in Maxie. Holding hands, Archie and Maxie stepped before the Trainer and said in unison, "We are regretful and have learned our lesson."

"Hey..that wasn't in the script," Maxie muttered to Archie as the Trainer left.

"Oh, who cares? We improvise what we can."

---

"Marvelous!" the Producer exclaimed as the Trainer biked away in the ending credits. "You never told me about the Battle Frontier feature!"

"Well, it's supposed to be a secret," the Designer explained.

The Programmer, still hacking away at the keyboard, looked up. "I've figured it out now. We'll give the legendaries random natures, that only show up when the kid tries to catch them. Just like regular wild Pokémon. So every time the game is reset, they'll have new random natures."

"Very nice, Mr. Programmer," said the Designer.

"Of course…there's still a few design bugs…" the Programmer sighed. "As for eliminating the 'Virtual Game World' entirely, that's out of the question. There are always going to be things like this." The Programmer smiled with delight. "But now that the game is almost perfect, that means we can start on the next one!"

"Oh, we'll start on the next one ay-sap. But you're not going to be working on it."

"I'm…not?"

"As a matter of fact, you're not going to be working on any more. Because you're fired."

"What? I'm…fired?" It took a while to sink in, then the Programmer started bawling. "Y-You can't fire me! I'll do anything! Please! ANYTHING!"

The Designer looked down with a sadistic smile. "Anything, Mr. Producer?"

---

The Producer found himself in a dark room. Cave, he corrected himself. Despite the limitations of the designated light space, he could discern two large figures. Groudon and Kyogre, he realized, judging by the markings on their backs.

He searched through his possessions and found nothing save a PokéNAV with a Radio card. "What? I thought these things were so last generation…"

At about that moment, sweet, melodic Poké Flute music began to play over the radio…

Fin.