Yeah, so I told myself I'd get my challenge oneshot done before I started this. Obviously, I break my own promises to myself.

...that and the fact that I wanted to get this fic started before school was thrust upon me D:

So, yeah. The pairing(s) might seem a little strange at first, but for now this first chapter has Rayquaza/Latias hints to keep you all busy! ...yes, even I know how much I suck. But anyway, the romance itself won't be happening for a while yet, if I manage to maintain interest in this fic. And it doesn't help that I'm juggling this, pre-AP classes, swimming, my Kingdom Hearts fic, and my .hack/G.U. fic all at once...

...yeah, so enjoy?

Disclaimer- I don't own Pokiemanz or any RL things that might appear in here. Like the Cloverfield monster.

"And now, my friends, I have a particularly sad piece of news to share with you."

Upon hearing the words of the god Pokemon Arceus, the bipedal space deity Palkia sat up straighter in his chair. Finally, he thought, something interesting. It felt like Arceus had spent the entire meeting gabbing on about the world's problems – something Palkia knew all too well about already. And he had to face it; listening to the others discuss the issues just bored the hell out of him, but his attempts to tune that out crashed and burned when his counterpart Dialga suddenly became determined to use any means possible to make him pay attention, like, oh, say, nearly impaling him with one of the spiked plates along her muzzle. Needless to say, the biped welcomed the interlude from the previous situations.

But Arceus' words made the ruler of space's crimson eyes widen in shock, even as the qilin lowered his head in grief and murmurs seemed to explode among the other Legendaries.

"Our friend, Latios, Latias' sister and former assistant guardian of the Soul Dew… has passed on."

Passed on, yeah right. Palkia knew that that was just a euphemism for "died", a euphemism that seemed popular around old people and Arceus.

The space deity couldn't help but glance over in Latias' direction, a pang of nervous anticipation going through him at the pain he would undoubtedly detect in her own almond eyes. "Pain", it turned out, was a gross understatement, as the female eon dragon had her face buried in her small hands, claws splayed over her forehead, and tears cascading unashamedly over her. The chair to the right of her was empty.

"He… was a true friend and strong ally, and could not have been a better older brother." Latias' sobbing grew just a tad louder at Arceus' eulogy. "May he rest in peace," the god added heavily.

"So wait," Raikou suddenly cut in. The thunder tiger was staring thoughtfully at Arceus, his furry golden head tilted to the side and his forepaws on the top of the pedestal that resided in front of his chair. "If Latios is dead… doesn't that mean his spirit is in the underworld?"
Palkia's own, longer head cocked to the left. Nearby, Latias raised her head, hope in her tear-darkened golden eyes and etched into every line of her fine-furred face.

"Yes," Arceus answered carefully.

Everyone, it seemed, glanced over to Giratina, the ruler of the aforementioned pit of death. Palkia didn't mean to term it like that in his mind, but he'd been down there before and he shuddered at the slightest hint of that place. Turnback Cave – he could never understand why anyone went near there anyway. It was foggy, icy cold, and filled with enough moaning and groaning from the catacombs far beneath the earth to scare the piss out of the Cloverfield monster. Thank Arceus that that little encounter had taken place millennia ago, when the god Pokemon was taking everyone around to the other Legends' homes in case something happened.

Pulling himself out of his unpleasant reminiscence, Palkia refocused on Giratina. The basilisk looked as irritated and apathetic toward the whole situation as she did with everything else, which, for some reason, sent an irrational surge of anger pulsing through Palkia with hot little fingers. As everyone else looked on, her glare darted from one side of the room to the other, and finally to Arceus himself before it focused on a point on the wall behind Mesprit and Azelf, the two pixies who sat directly across from her. Sometimes Palkia felt truly and deeply sorry for the beings of emotion and willpower, respectively, for their seating assignments at these meetings.

"I don't know where you're going with this," she began, and Palkia nearly snorted aloud; of course she knew, she was just looking for a chance to be sarcastic, "but I can assure you that once a spirit has come to the underworld, there's no chance of it being able to return to life again. For one, it needs a vessel, and most people aren't willing to go grave-robbing or kill a living creature and use its body, even if it means getting the person they cared about back. And for another, sometimes…" She hesitated uncharacteristically. "Sometimes, it just doesn't work," she finished somewhat lamely. Her wine-colored, slitted eyes turned to Latias, whose face had dropped into her hands again, and Giratina sighed softly, causing Palkia's own eyes to widen. Was that sympathy he detected on her face?

"Sorry, Latias; but that's the way things are. You lose someone, you cry for a while, and then you get up and move on. Latios won't come back." Giratina pulled back slightly from the circle so that her entire lithe body was back in her little "bubble" again, clearly finished speaking.

Arceus took a deep breath. "Latias may or may not be able to guard the Soul Dew by herself for a while now, so I will send someone to help you until that time." He looked slightly uncomfortable, but empathy had covered his face in a tired-looking mask. Emerald eyes searched the group, and Palkia couldn't help but cross his claws behind his back and think not me, not me, not me. Not only did he hate seeing females in pain, but, hell, having to stay with the grief-filled, blubbering mess that was Latias would just about do Palkia in.

"Palkia!" Dialga hissed, butting her counterpart hard in the shoulder. Palkia winced as her face plates poked briefly against the sensitive pearls on his shoulders. "Latias is grieving over her counterpart, and all you can do is hope that you don't 'have' to keep her company?"

Palkia indignantly opened his mouth to object, but clearly Arceus had already made his decision. "Rayquaza," the qilin sighed, closing his eyes and leaning back against the wall behind his tall pedestal, "can you afford to leave the Sky Pillar for a couple of weeks or so and stay with Latias in Alto Mare?"

"What?" the green dragon hissed, folding his arms even more tightly across his narrow chest. "Of course not! What makes you think I would want to –"

But then his eyes fell on Latias, staring at him with her claws lowered slightly and trembling just a bit. Rayquaza growled irritably and looked away. "All right, fine. But the instant she feels better, I'm leaving."

Arceus gave one of his subdued smiles, while Mew, Groudon, Jirachi, and Raikou simply glanced at one another and smirked. Palkia couldn't hold back a small grin of his own; Rayquaza tried so amusingly hard to hide it, but just about all the Legendaries knew of the green dragon's not-so-little crush on Latias – everyone, of course, except for Latias herself. "Right," the god Pokemon said, straightening regally. "Rayquaza, you will set out to Alto Mare tomorrow morning."

"Whatever," Rayquaza grumbled, glaring at the floor as though he could take out his feelings on it.

Arceus raised his head to look at the others, still with his lips quirked slightly upward. "This meeting is adjourned."

Dialga and Palkia set off toward the entrance near the middle of the group of Legends, being careful not to step on Shaymin or Manaphy as the space-time duo followed the others, Dialga lecturing Palkia in a steady, angry growl all the way. Palkia shut his eyes in an attempt to tune her out, but then he almost ran into Mewtwo's back and decided it would be better if he ignored her while he could see – a decision reinforced when the clone whirled around and snarled a threat against Palkia's head if the space deity ever did that again. Palkia caught sight of Latias, hesitantly smiling at Rayquaza and then sighing and looking away when he failed to look her way, and the bipedal dinosaur let out a sigh of his own. He hadn't known Latios particularly well – the only Legendaries Latios had really spent time around were Latias herself and, occasionally, Lugia and the legendary bird trio – but Palkia knew that the male eon dragon would be willing to throw himself in front of a speeding bullet for his sister if he had to. That knowledge was enough to make the space ruler ache in sympathy for Latias.

As he passed into the long hallway that led to the meeting room, he could have sworn he heard Giratina mutter, "I can't bring back the dead," causing him to turn his head sharply toward her. The basilisk was plodding along at the back like always, but when she saw Palkia looking bemusedly at her, she narrowed her own eyes, as if to ask what the Turnback Cave are you looking at?.Palkia quickly glanced back to the front, stifling the overpowering urge to swallow uncomfortably. That bitch never failed to terrify him; that was one thing he was certain of.

Again, though, he heard Giratina murmur something under her breath, something he couldn't totally detect. But that something was "I wonder if he's there already…"

Ow… where am I?

Everything around him seemed to have suddenly congealed, to form this confounding fog. And he could have sworn he heard something in the distance, something that sounded suspiciously like "Latios… please wake up…"

Latias?

He struggled to get up, to get to his sister in time; but suddenly his own figure had become part of the mist, and then he was falling, falling, falling.

When he awoke again, the sense of clarity that assailed his senses nearly caused a severe sense of vertigo. Compared to just a few moments ago, this kind of clearness was almost dizzying. He attempted to pull his body up, but he more than succeeded as his sleek, gray-and-azure form fell into its typical hover.

Where the hell am I? Wait… Latios' eyes widened at the severe irony of his question. He'd only been down here once, but the memory was so vivid in his mind that he recalled the location almost at once.

Quickly, he went back over what he remembered. Annie and Oakley had hooked him up to that machine… Latias and Ash and the others had come… he and Latias had tried to hold back that wave…

And then the next thing he knew he was waking up in this place with the kind of fuzzy sensibility that he felt certain newborn human children must first have.

"So, you're finally awake. In a sense, of course…"

And he recognized that voice: raspy, feminine, perpetually irritated. Latios very nearly got whiplash from turning toward the owner. Predictably, none other than Giratina stood there, one eye slightly narrowed as she appraised him with annoyance and something he couldn't identify in her gaze.

He tried to speak, and found with a twinge of satisfaction that his voice could indeed come to him, even in this strange situation. "Giratina," he greeted, ignoring the way his voice cracked slightly, as though he hadn't used it in a while. He slowly allowed his maroon eyes to observe the area; hesitated, hating to ask the question he all along knew the answer to. "Where am I?" he managed at last, and narrowed his eyes when Giratina smirked. "What's so funny?" he queried calmly.

"Oh, nothing," she answered nonchalantly. "I just find it rather amusing that you're asking me something you know the answer to."

Latios' eyes widened. A sudden thought struck him – weren't the spirits here translucent? If he could see the color of his own body clearly, then that meant he wasn't… that D-word. That meant he could go back to Latias.

Though really, if he did turn out to be alive, the possibilities of why exactly Giratina would kidnap him damn near gave him a headache. Latios shuddered a bit. Maybe that rumor about Giratina having a bondage fetish was true, despite the beating she'd given Raikou for spreading the rumor in the first place.

Quickly, before he could distract himself, the male eon dragon raised his hands to look at himself. What he saw gave him a feeling like his heart was sinking into the pit of his stomach, even though he knew now that that feeling was just an illusion, a vestigial emotion from life.

Though the gray and azure colors of his body remained at the edges, for the most part, he could see the mist through himself. The feeling was strange and would have made him vomit right then and there were he able.

Then Giratina spoke those sealing words, casually and almost in a tone of relish.

"Congratulations, Latios. You're dead."

Damn, I just realized how much of a bitch I made Giratina... -faceplant-

But God, I'm going to love writing this so much. XD Future chapters should be longer, btw.

Review plox!