ClicheStorm

[GalladeRocks]

Okay, that was one messed up chapter. At least some of Hilbert's Pokemon blatantly hate him, Zebstrika is a Shadow Pokemon in Pinwheel Forest of all places, and Victini has made his way to fight with N of all people! WHAT THE HECK?!?!

On another note, Victini is already one of my favorite characters. Groovy.

[Son_of_Shadows]

... If Victini isn't named "Caruso", I will be disappointed.

Interesting twist on the Shadow Pokémon. This will almost certainly harden N's attitudes towards people, but will he actively go after Cipher? Time will tell, I suppose.

[Ysavvryl]

Coffee Break

"I don't think it's respectful to nickname a legendary Pokemon," N said.

Victini was sitting on one of the chairs, sunglasses on. "It's not really necessary, but hey, I wouldn't argue if it could match my chill." He snapped his fingers.

"I'd call him Dude," Hilda said, smiling. Victini gave her a thumbs up approval.

"Yes, but Dude could be anybody," N argued. "He's special; you can't give him an ordinary nickname if you were going to nickname him."

She raised an eyebrow. "So what would you nickname him?"

"I don't have to answer that one," he said.

"Aw come on, have some fun," Victini said. "Anything said here doesn't have to be canon to the story."

"Whatever he said, I think," Hilda said. "What do you think, Hilbert?"

"My part sucks," he said, with his head hidden behind his arms on the table.

"Like it's any worse than mine is for this chapter," N said, shivering.

"What, does the Shadow Zebstrika eat you?" Hilda asked. "Because that'd be awful anti-climatic."

"What's with you and Pokemon eating people?" Hilbert asked.

She shrugged. "Guess it's Kyurem's attitude rubbing off on me."


Chapter 15: Miscellaneous Bones


afternoon, 12/21

For training today, Hilda had decided to go into Pinwheel Forest itself. It had been two and a half weeks since she broke her leg; the doctor said the cast could come off in another two weeks. She had told her that she could go exploring around as long as she was careful. As long as she stuck to dirt paths, at least, she found it not too hard to get around.

“This place is kind of barren,” Hilda said, watching tiny snowflakes start to appear. “I know it’s cold, but you’d think there’d be Pokémon around.”

“It’s the winter equinox,” Kyurem noted. “Many are in hibernation.”

“I guess. It’ll make the training go slower. Still, there should still be a few hardy souls around.” She paused and looked at one of the giant stumps that seemed to be everywhere. “You know, this spot seems awfully familiar.”

“Does it?”

“Yes… look!” She felt for a secure spot to put her left crutch down on, then pointed to a muddy mark on the trunk. “Yeah, this is where I fought that Pansear with Olette. I didn’t notice we were going in circles.”

He came over and looked at it. “Hmm. Seems so. I wouldn’t say that we’re lost, though.”

“And how’s that?”

He pointed to the southeast. “Nacrene is that way.”

Looking that way, Hilda could only see leafless trees and bushes. No path. “Yeah, but how are we supposed to get there when I’m not supposed to go off the path?”

He looked her in the eyes, neutral as always. “What will you do?”

For a moment, she glared at him. Then she sighed and headed north. “Is this another test? Well whatever you’re thinking, I think I saw a path heading east this way. If all else fails, I can always get a ranger’s attention.” She thought for a moment, then began singing loudly as she moved along the path.

Kyurem followed just after her, silent, but he did sometimes reach out and touch tree branches, adding more frost to them. If nightfall were approaching, then he’d be more active for the sake of her safety. But for now, he still needed to observe how she did things.

-+-

“Ain’t nothing to it,” Victini said, slipping out his sunglasses again now that the battle was over.

“Good work Victini,” N said, smiling. After spending a few days with the legend, he decided to try the Castelia Gym with just him. And it worked out nicely.

“Yes, that was a marvel of a battle,” the Gym Leader Burgh said. “The field was fairly equal for us and you pulled ahead well. And to acknowledge your skill, here is the Insect Badge.” He passed over a wing-like badge.

Nodding, N took it and the other rewards. Still, something had been bothering him. “If you don’t mind me asking something…”

“Go ahead,” Burgh said, interested.

He put the badge in his box while talking, “I heard that as an artist, you try to paint things from the viewpoint of Pokémon. But how can you be sure you’ve got it right?”

He brightened as the subject was of great interest to him. “Oh, well that’s just my imagination at work. I’ve always wondered about it, how it is to be something different than human and how that would affect how I saw the world. It only fascinated me more when I learned, as a child, that Pokémon often have different eyes than we do, seeing things truly differently. Especially in the complex eyes of Bug types. They see movement and light better than us, and their interpretation of colors is very different. Some people wouldn’t expect an artist to be following biology journals, but I do, keeping an eye out for any on the senses. Then I try to reproduce that on paper.”

From that answer, N was mildly impressed. “It is good that you follow science,” he said. “But I think you’ve got it all wrong.”

“Why’s that?” Burgh asked, uncertain now.

N indicated one of the areas below. “I don’t think you really get Pokémon and their interests. I understand their language and know what they mean. And I’m quite sure that they, especially the Bug types you have, wouldn’t be interested in vases and bottles, like those still life paintings over there, or the landscapes over there. No, if Pokémon could paint and draw, they’d be more likely to draw where to find berries and food, flowers that had good pollen in them, and maybe other Pokémon to say, ‘this kind is friendly’ and ‘this kind is trouble’.”

“Really?”

N nodded. “That’s what they talk about most of the time.”

Burgh put his hand to his chin. “When you say it, it does make sense. I’m not sure how to portray that, I mean, if there was…” then he waved his hand. “Oh, sorry, I don’t mean to bore you. Congratulations again, and good luck on your travels.” Before long, he was back to musing, taking out a small pad of paper and jotting something down.

As N left, he wasn’t sure if that had the effect he meant it to. Probably he should have said something more than just about the art, something more of how Pokémon didn’t like being confined and forced to battle. But if Burgh was serious about considering it, maybe he would come to the right conclusions himself. After all, the words of Ghetsis and Plasma were getting out to the public now. Surely that would help change his ideas.

Victini walked right by his side as they left the Gym. “Using a person’s interests to get a message across is a nice idea,” he said. “But then you’ve got to worry about having your real message drowned out or watered down.”

“I guess,” N said. “I’m still working at it. I want to get as good as Ghetsis is.”

“Keep at it. Hey, I’ve done something for you today. Would you mind doing something for me?”

He looked down at the Pokémon, but Victini was more focused on getting through the crowd without getting stepped on. “I was going to set you free again.”

His ears flicked. “I know, but something other than that. I want you to do something that interests me.”

It couldn’t hurt, could it? “Sure, if that’s what you want.”

“Ha-hah, awesome! Come on, we’ve got to catch the boat! I hope they have enough for an extra.”

“A boat?” N asked, but Victini started to hurry ahead, forcing him to do the same.

-+-

Hilbert was back in the museum, looking over a display of stone tablets. His old Pokémon fossil wasn’t on display yet; presumably they were cleaning it up for better looks. Andrew had greeted him warmly, but over the course of their conversation, he seemed to become uncertain. “Has something changed about you?” he asked. “You don’t seem as bright and confident as usual.”

“Yeah, something’s changed,” he admitted. “I agreed to take on a trial for Reshiram’s approval, but… it’s not what I expected it to be. It sounded so easy that I thought it was a joke, but it’s really not.”

“A lot of things are more difficult than the surface suggests,” the museum director said. He turned around and gestured at a large dragon fossil that dominated this room. “Like this skeleton. It doesn’t sound hard to put it back together the way it naturally is formed, but it is. You’re only given a pile of bones, which may not all be there, and none are labeled. And then some fossils get mixed up with each other… but you keep at it and you get rewarded with this glorious sight.” He turned to Hilbert and smiled. “Your trial might end in you becoming a better person for it.”

A while ago, he would have said there was no earthly way he could get better than he was. Now, he nodded. “I hope so too, or that I figure some way to control it… hey, what’s with all the Plasma knights?”

“Hmm?” They looked around the room, seeing about a dozen of the armor-clad men and women milling about the display. Andrew clutched his clipboard close. “Oh dear. I hope they’re not here to make trouble. Lenora would want to know… excuse me.” He went off up the stairs to reach the Gym area.

Hilbert watched them, but they seemed to be doing nothing with purpose. A few stayed looking at exhibits, not moving on, while another paced around, observing the large dragon skeleton. And yet another moved between the groups, making short exchanges of words before moving on. They were up to something, but what? They wanted to help their King, but even knowing that desire couldn’t tell Hilbert what their plan was.

The one pacing around looked up the stairs, then grinned. “Nice timing, director and Leader,” she said. The others began to converge to the center of the room as Lenora and Andrew came down the stairs. “And good to know that we have an audience for our show. I always wanted to be a magician, so here you go. Now you see us…”

The one knight then threw something at the ground, which burst into a huge cloud of tan smoke that filled the room. Unable to see anything, Hilbert put his hand over his face and tried to keep from sneezing. There was the sound of flapping wings, then a rush of feet leaving the room. Then even that noise was blocked out by a combination of the smoke alarm and the ventilation system kicking into overdrive.

“Stay here a bit,” he heard Lenora say. The smoke was already clearing, so Hilbert was fine doing so.

As it did, it became clear that there was no fire, just the spent smoke bomb. Nothing in the room seemed to be broken. But on looking at the dragon fossil, he noticed that its head was now missing. “Hey, they stole the skull!” Hilbert said.

“What?” Lenora asked, angered. “We’d best go quickly and catch up. Come on Hilbert; honey, you make sure the museum’s okay!” And she was already through the door.

Hilbert ran after her. “All right!” Maybe a bit of daring would get him admiration again.

Right outside the museum, there was a small crowd of people who had left and people who had gathered to see what the fuss was about. In another part of town, a siren rang out from the fire station. One member of the crowd stood out: the Castelia Gym leader Burgh. “Oh, Lenora? What’s..?”

“Did you see which way those Plasma knights ran off to?” she interrupted him. “They stole the skull to our best exhibit!”

“Oh, they went that way, towards the forest,” Burgh said. When they went back to running, he came after them. “Want some help?”

“Thanks, that’s much appreciated,” Lenora said. “Can’t waste time.”

They got to the entrance to the forest and heard that the grunts had indeed gone in there. But past that, the witness didn’t know which path they took. Quickly, Lenora sent Burgh off to the other exit, leading to the bridge to Castelia, while she sent Hilbert into the wilderness path. Hopefully, the thick forest would help trap the grunts in here.

-+-

It was the first day of winter; the waters were not yet freezing, but they were close and there was a light snow falling. Yet here he was, dressed in a black body suit that had a skull and crossbones figure on it, his hair soaked, out on the shore waters. All because Victini wanted to take him surfing.

Although technically, it was just body-boarding, not surfing. N really wasn’t finding this enjoyable. “How can you like this?” he asked while sitting on the board and waiting on the waves to be right. “You have thick fur and you’re a Fire type. I would think you’d want to stay away from the ocean.”

“It’s the thrill of it,” Victini said, standing on the end of the board without any sign of discomfort. “Getting soaked to the bone is a drag, but when you get going smooth and work with the waves, that’s groovy, best feeling in the world. That makes the dunkings all worth it.”

N clenched the side of the board; it was so cold. “The end victory makes the troubles worthwhile, huh?”

“Exactly,” the Pokémon said. “The fun too, and the dudes I hang out with, they make it all better. Oh, try that one!” He pointed out to a roll that indicated an incoming wave.

Going back over the procedure he’d been given, N got the board ready to catch the wave. This time, he managed to stick with it and for that time, it was amazing that the two of them could get control over the wave with so little. But then the water decided to flip his board over again, leaving him to swim back to shore.

At least that time Victini didn’t ask him to go out and try again. N went back to the bathroom in the ferry house to get out of that wetsuit and take a quick shower to get rid of the salt water. Then he changed back to his regular clothes, went to return the supplies to the surfers he’d borrowed them from, and got a hot tea from a coffee shop stand. Victini kept running the hand dryers to dry off; he joined N with his fur puffed up in static.

The tan Pokémon just grinned, though. “Don’t I look sexy?” he asked, making a spin around the small table.

“You look like a puffball,” N said. “Hang on.” He searched in his bag until he came up with a brush to fix the fly-aways.

“Aw, thanks,” Victini said, cooperating by holding still. “So what’re you going to do after all this?”

“Once I get through Castelia again, I’m going to go into Desert Resort. Virizion recommended that.”

He pricked his ears up. “Oh yeah? That’ll be rad. But no, what I meant was, what’re you doing after all this? After you win the Championship and get people to let go of their Pokémon? Cause you’d have to do that too, right?”

“That is the plan,” N said. It was the plan; it was the right thing to do. He tried to keep that thought foremost despite an unsettling worry that started knotting up his insides.

Victini turned his head slightly so that he was looking up at N’s face. “And then people and Pokémon would live all apart, huh? I’d stick with the Pokémon all the time, and you’d be with other humans all the time. So fewer people and Pokémon get hurt.”

“Yeah, that’s why,” he said. That was why… but on hearing Victini say it that way, it hit him like never before. He’d be with the other humans. He’d never see his Pokémon friends again, never speak with or sing with them again. And he’d be stuck in cities! All the natural places would be left to the Pokémon and he’d be in these crowded streets of concrete and glass for the rest of his life. That wasn’t what he…

No, it didn’t matter what he wanted. N clenched the brush; he had to remember that. The alternative, Pokémon continuing to remain in servitude and mistreatment at the hands of careless humans, that was much worse. Making things right was worth the sacrifices.

“What are you going to do then?” Victini asked in a softer tone, putting his paw on N’s hand.

“I have to focus on getting there,” N said, going back to brushing Victini’s fur down. “I’ll handle that when the time comes.”

“All right, if that’s what you want. But you’re gonna want more human friends when you get there, I’d think. Hey, if you want that, then you ought to come back to Castelia in four days. Before eight in the morning, at the subway station. Yeah, that’ll do.” He made a pleased swish of his tail.

Puzzled, N asked, “Why, what’s so important about four days from now?”

He laughed. “Oh, you’ll see.” Then he slipped out of N’s reach and off the table. “Well you’ve done what I wanted and let me go; my work here is done. I’ll go report to Lady Zekrom about this.”

N got out of his chair. “Wait, Zekrom? Victini?”

“Stay chill, dude!” He then rushed out of the ferry station in a blur, gone before N could take a step after him.

Not seeing a chance in catching up, N dropped back into the chair. So he had been working for Zekrom. Could Victini sense his doubts? That would be a disaster. There was still time, right? He could settle those doubts and increase his focus on his goals for Team Plasma. By the time he made it to Icirrus, surely he’d be ready to be a true hero.

But didn’t his goal mean leaving behind Zekrom as well?

-+-

“I think we’re making progress!” Hilda said as she followed the path through Pinwheel Forest. “No longer going in circles now.”

“If you say so,” Kyurem said, following just behind her.

“And that makes it true.” She looked over to the side, where Fedora was now walking with her. His hat fit better as he was a Servine, which let her see his eyes half closed. “You doing all right, Fedora? You look sleepy.”

“Sssiisssll,” he replied, making sure to look wide-eyed and awake. It didn’t work so well.

“He is a cold blooded reptile that can’t shiver,” Kyurem said. “He’d normally be hibernating.”

To that, Fedora threw a fit. “Krishshkii!” he replied, hopping in his gait. But it didn’t last long; his tail drooped, but he made himself walk on.

“Stubborn.”

“Well I don’t want to make you sick,” Hilda said, feeling worried. “Maybe I ought to get you a coat. Would that keep you warm enough?”

He made a quiet hiss, although Hilda couldn’t tell what he would mean by that.

“Do you know if any of the rest of the team should be hibernating?” she asked Kyurem.

“They should be fine. I’ve seen their kind in winters before.”

Then it was just Fedora she had to worry about. Things just wouldn’t be the same without Fedora around. And yet, Hilda could see how he wouldn’t be as effective in winter, especially if Kyurem was going to be a constant presence. And he could get sick. In that case, it might be better to have her Mom or Professor Juniper take care of him until spring came.

They came to an opening in the forest and found a strange man there. He was dressed in long orange robes and had an odd hat; it made him look like some member of the Catholic clergy. Having seen no other human for several hours, Hilda felt glad. “Hey there, man! Kind of cold to be larping, huh?”

“Excuse me?” he asked. “What do you mean?”

She stopped at a point ten feet from him, where the ground felt sturdy enough to support her crutches. “Live action role playing, duh. You don’t see people dressed up like you standing around in the forest without reason.”

Shaking his head, he said, “I’m here to meet with someone. It’s of no concern to you.”

“You sure?” she said teasingly. “Anyhow, I’m lost; do you know the way out of here?”

He nodded and pointed off another path. “Yes, that’s a more or less straight shot to the main path. You can find your way from there. Although, there’s a ledge that could be tough to take with a cast.”

“Oh joy. Thanks anyhow. I’ll get down there one way or another.”

“Sage Gorm!” With only that as a warning, a woman dressed in the Plasma armor ran into the clearing. She was carrying something large in her arms, but Hilda didn’t get a clear look at it. “We got the dragon skull, but we’re being pursued. The others stayed to stall them…”

At that, the robed man looked irritated. “I told you to check the research before you did this. This skull isn’t what we need; it’s worthless to our plans.”

“What? But, but you said that this was rare and…”

While Gorm took the skull and berated the female knight, Hilda glanced over at Kyurem. “Looks like they’re stealing bones now. Wonder what for.”

Kyurem narrowed his eyes at the Plasma members. “I can make a solid guess. May I eat them?”

“Not in front of me, gross.”

“Otherwise?”

“Go for it. We can fight ‘em do you think?”

“Certainly.” He tensed, gathering energy and forming a strange starry crest on the ground beneath his feet. Then he swept his hand through the air as if he were slashing it without his sword. Immediately, tall ice crystals burst out of the ground, surrounding them in a large circle. While they could see through barrier, it was clear that they weren’t getting out easily.

The knight and the sage looked startled. “Wh-what is the meaning of this?” Gorm demanded.

“You have disturbed the remains of the dead,” Kyurem said sharply. Fedora tried to hiss, but was nowhere near as menacing. “And we met her at Wellspring Cave with a load of stolen Pokémon. Just who do you think you are?”

While the knight turned pale, the sage held his hand up for her to remain quiet. He stepped forward. “I am Sage Gorm of Team Plasma. There are seven of us sages, including the one who gathered us, Ghetsis, all bound to serve the blessed King. We are here to change the world by any means necessary. For the sake of solving the great injustices of the world, we will even take abused Pokémon from their thoughtless owners by force. You young Trainers don’t see what is wrong with what you are doing, but you should. It will become clear in days to come; Ghetsis will change this land through words alone! Now, who are you to think that you can intimidate us?”

Kyurem frowned, but Hilda whistled. “Nice speech! You been practicing?” Gorm glowered at her.

But then the dragon boy began to speak. “There is only one of me. I am Kyurem, the one who scours the land of Unova clean of corruption with the sharp winds of winter. It is impossible to find mercy from me if you have gone against the laws of the land. You may have a beautiful philosophy behind your words, but you have the ugly callousness of thieves behind your actions. Perhaps the greed of thieves as well. For that, I find you guilty. You had best be glad that I have a Trainer who finds the mercy to spare your lives despite your sins.” There was a growl beneath his words that made it fairly clear how inhuman he truly was.

Hilda smiled. “I think he’s got you beat, Gorm. Would you give back that skull?” While she wasn’t sure what happened, she had a good idea of where it was supposed to be.

Giving a brief glance at the woman, he replied, “By the ice that surrounds us, I’ll believe that you’re Kyurem for now. Still, your idea of justice is too harsh. She may be foolish, but I’m not leaving one of our followers to face you. You’ll regret going against us.” He then took a Pokeball from a pocket in his robes and called out a blue Frillish.

“Going the old-fashioned way to prove your new-fangled ideas?” Hilda taunted. She took Fedora’s Pokeball to recall him, but he came onto the battlefield and prepared to fight. “Fedora?”

While he huffed and seemed like he wouldn’t move, Kyurem came a step closer to her. “It’s going to be just as hard on the opponent. He’s best against it, so leave him.”

She nodded in thanks. “All right then. Keep lively, Fedora, and seed it!”

Gorm had given his orders while Hilda was dealing with her Pokémon; his Frillish was gathering some violet glow. Fedora gathered his forepaws, then flung small seeds at the Frillish. The jellyfish then sent the orb at him, where it began whirling around his head. For the next couple of minutes, the Servine kept trying to fight off the light instead of the Frillish; Gorm just had his Pokémon keep using Absorb, although the Leech Seed kept it evened out. When Fedora managed to get a Leaf Tornado to hit his opponent (partly by luck), the Frillish used Recover.

The battle thus went nowhere until Fedora managed to shake the light off. He followed through with a Leaf Tornado, but he was already slower than he had been at the start of the battle. On the other side, the Frillish seemed tired too, closing its eyes a bit too long when it was ordered to use Confuse Ray again. Fedora managed to be quicker with another whirl of leaves, knocking the Frillish out.

“Fedora, you’re stepping out,” Hilda said, recalling him to his Pokeball. “Kyurem?”

He nodded and transformed to his normal form. In the meantime, Gorm had called out a Blitzle. It acted startled when faced up against the dragon, but its Trainer said, “Stand your ground and use Swagger.”

“Use Ancient Power,” Hilda said, hoping that Kyurem could do so before the Blitzle went. Not so, as the Pokémon stomped its hoof down and snorted in a prideful manner. Kyurem roared and summoned half a dozen large stones to hurl at his opponent. The Blitzle was knocked out immediately (as was the female knight), but Hilda recalled Kyurem to his Pokeball. At the moment, it didn’t seem like a good idea to have him out in an enclosed area while enraged and confused.

“Power alone will not get you what you want,” Gorm said, calling out a strange muddy-colored Pokemon that looked like a flat fish. That was a Stunfisk, right? “History has proven this time and again.”

Hilda just smirked. “Luckily, I have more than power on my side,” she said as she called out Olette.

-+-

“Let’s not… have any… more battles…”

Hilbert ran through the woods, following where the Plasma knights had gone. He’d run into five of them along this path, but none had the skull. All they were doing was trying to slow him down. And if he ran into another fight, then he’d be stopped right there, most likely. It had happened yet again: the fourth team he’d put together after getting the Light Stone had started to hate him, not wanting to obey his orders. They had done enough to win against the one or two Pokémon teams the Plasma knights had. If he ran into another battle, he felt like he couldn’t rely on them.

It was aggravating. At this rate, he was going to clear out all of his Storage Boxes in letting the ones that hated him go. He considered that he could work to get their respect again. But when faced by one that hated him, he completely lost his nerve. What had he done to deserve this? He’d trained them to be stronger and spent some time with them. It had seemed like enough before.

Back when Attract made everyone like him.

Before he could get far with that thought, he had to slow down as he encountered a wall of solid glass. No, not glass; a touch proved that it was ice. Past the ice barrier, he saw Hilda and Kyurem, with the latter in his dragon form. Across the field from them, there was a female Plasma knight knocked out on the ground, a man with a large mustache and a strange sage-like outfit, and a Beeheym. Kyurem sent a blast of violet energy across the field, knocking out the Beeheym with Dragon Rage.

“I’m surprised that a Pokémon liberator like you would have a full team,” Hilda said. “But you chose to do things this way. Are you going to give up that skull now?”

Hilbert was bewildered for a moment. She had a broken leg! How did she catch up to the thief before he did? Unless… she probably had been here when the theft happened. The man walked over to her and passed over the skull. “Very well. It wouldn’t have helped us much anyhow. But your time with your Pokémon is limited. Before you know it, we will have all Pokémon taken away from their Trainers.”

“Right now, you’re going to find yourself in serious trouble,” Hilbert heard Lenora say. There was a flash from Kyurem and the ice wall shattered. On another path into the clearing, Lenora and Burgh were there blocking the way out. “We’re going to take you in and make you take responsibility for the actions of your followers.”

Hilbert stayed where he was, to keep this path blocked (at least, visibly). Strangely, the sage, if he was that, did not look bothered. “Don’t bother; we’ll deal with this problem. Enjoy your position, Gym Leaders, while you have it.”

Then there was a loud snap and a bright flash of white light. Hilbert cringed, trying to shield his eyes until it was dimmed. When it cleared, the knight and the sage were gone. But Hilda was still there. Kyurem grunted, then shifted to his human form.

“How are they getting away so fast?” Lenora asked as she came into the opening, Burgh beside her.

“They’ve learned from ninjas,” Hilda said, rubbing her eyes with one hand. “Does this skull belong to you?”

“Yes, it belongs to the museum,” Lenora said, taking the skull from Hilda when she offered it. “Thanks for getting it back, miss.”

“No problem.” She blinked, then grinned. “Boy, am I glad to see you all. I’ve been lost in these dang woods for hours. Hey Hilbert.”

“Hey there,” he said, nodding. “You probably already recognize the Gym Leaders, Lenora and Burg. This is Hilda.”

“So you’re Kyurem’s Trainer,” Lenora said, shaking hands with Hilda. “Good to meet you.”

“You too. He’s not always helpful, but it’s good when he does.”

“It’s not too surprising that you’d get lost in here,” Burgh said when he shook hands with her. “There are ways to tell where you are along the paths, but it’s confusing at first. Still, you and your Pokémon put on quite a battle there.”

Lenora nodded. “Yes, we only got here when you were against that Blitzle, but it was impressive. Look, I need to get back to the museum to settle things; it had already built up to a large fuss when we left. Could you stop by later on today, Hilda? Just tell the receptionist that I asked for you.”

“Oh sure. I’m sure Hilbert can help me out of here.” She grinned at him.

She seemed to want to cause trouble. “What are you planning?” he asked, trying not to be worried.

“You’ll find out.”

The two Leaders then laughed and headed back out to the main path quickly. “By the way, what were you doing in my town, Burgh?” Lenora asked.

“The usual,” he said. “I had an interesting challenger come into the Gym this morning; he gave me some things to think on, but I’m not sure about…” his voice quieted, the sound partly absorbed in the trees around them.

“What was that about?” Hilda asked, adjusting her bag before heading off in that direction. “I started talking to that guy, Sage Gorm, and then that knight ran in with the skull.”

“They took the skull from the dragon fossil in the museum,” Hilbert explained. “But Lenora and I were there when they did, so we pursued them out here, with Burgh joining us on the way. I’ve been running through these woods, fighting with the other Plasma knights. It’s lame that they just took off like that. Was that guy really named Gorn?”

She shook her head. “Gorm, not Gorn. Kyurem thinks that Plasma is trouble, and I do too. So when we found out that they’d been stealing things again, we decided to take them on. Although that fight was longer than I expected. He really knows how to drag things out. At least it seems that the way I’m training my team is working out.”

“It didn’t help that every single one of his Pokémon could inflict confusion,” Kyurem said, sounding annoyed.

“Yeah, sorry I kept recalling you like that,” she said.

“It was safer.”

A short distance out of the field, there was a two foot ledge drop. Hilbert was going to offer to help her down, but she called out her Sawk and the Pokémon carried her down the ledge. Hilbert took her crutches and followed them down. “There’s going to be another one further down the path,” he told them.

“All right,” she said. “You mind taking me that way, Lance? We’ll get you all healed up when we’re back in Nacrene.”

The Sawk glanced at Kyurem, then agreed to take her that way.

“Are you doing all right getting around?” Hilbert asked, feeling a bit useless. Sure he’d defeated a few of the knights, but it hadn’t accomplished much. Hilda had done more for getting the skull back promptly and she hadn’t even been there. Really, he could have not been there and it would have ended the same way (Kyurem could carry the crutches, at least as a human).

Hilda rolled her eyes. “Well if I’m getting lost in the middle of the woods, I’m doing pretty well in getting around. I don’t think the painkillers are affecting me that much; I’m weird even without them. Though, if I beat that guy, I’m thinking that I want to try out the Nacrene Gym now. But I’ve seen pictures at that place, and they have some steep stairs, right?”

Thinking back over the building, he nodded. “I didn’t notice anything particular at the time, but those could be tricky for you to navigate.”

“I’ll talk with Lenora about that later,” she said.

-+-

It was an hour later, but Hilda and Hilbert came into the museum and asked to see Lenora. A few spectators were around, asking about what had gone on earlier and if things were safe. The museum had a closed sign on the door, although they were allowed in when they asked about the Leader. Inside, there were some police officers searching around the main display area for clues to the identities of the Plasma knights. Andrew was up on a ladder checking out the still headless statue, seeing if there was damage. Lenora wasn’t there at first, but she came shortly after they asked about her.

“On behalf of the museum, I want to thank you both for helping to get back the skull so quickly,” she said. “From the looks of it, we’ll be closed down for the rest of today, but we can open back up tomorrow with everything in place. That may not have happened if you hadn’t helped.”

“Glad to help, Lenora,” Hilda said cheerily. She noticed that Hilbert just nodded; he was a lot quieter today than he’d been in the past, like he wasn’t sure what he should be doing.

“And it seems that you have defeated one of the leaders of Team Plasma. That’s quite an accomplishment for a young Trainer. In honor of that deed, and your selfless actions, I’ve decided that you deserve to have this.” She then passed over a small white box with the Gym’s badge taped on top.

“Whoa, seriously?” Hilda accepted it, and the badge did seem to be the authentic Basic Badge. “But I haven’t even participated in any battles in here.”

Lenora chuckled. “I’ve been battling for many years and I know happy Pokémon when I see them. Your team followed your words because they respect you, and you directed them effectively against another skilled Trainer. I’m especially familiar with the Minccino line and yours looks to be shaping up into a great fighter. I’m glad to give this to you for your reward on getting the skull back. Although if you don’t mind a bit of advice, you could focus on the Sawk for a little while to improve him; he seems nervous.”

It was because Kyurem had scared him so badly that night she had gotten Lance, Hilda knew that. “All right, I’ll work with him for a couple of days.” She handed the box to Kyurem for now, as she’d rather sit down to get those things dealt with. “But even though I have the badge now, can I still challenge you to a battle? Just to know that I would have gotten it anyhow.”

Nodding, she said, “Of course, if you’d like. I’ll meet you outside then.”

“Great!” She then looked to Hilbert. “You gonna hang around?”

“Oh, um, no thanks,” he said. “I, I need to deal with my own team. I’ll see you around.” Then he hurried out before she could change his mind.

“I hope he’s okay,” Hilda said, starting to head outside herself. “You think I scared him off?”

“Perhaps,” Kyurem said. “What were you planning on doing to him?”

After giggling, she whispered, “Nothing but make him worry about what I was going to do.”

[GalladeRocks]

First things first, I still love Victini. Righteous, dude.

Lady Zekrom? And I thought Palkia being a girl was weird . . .

Curse Team Plasma and their ninja training!

[Ysavvryl]

Yes, Zekrom is a lady. It's pretty simple, actually. Yin is associated with black. Zekrom is the black Yin Dragon. Yin is also feminine. Therefore, Zekrom is feminine.

[scizorstrike]

Fear the +2 attack enraged man-eating dragon, for he will eat you, then eat anyone near you! And stuff.

I agree with GR. Victini is awesome. I now have a picture of a Victini wearing sunglasses and surfing stuck in my head. If I was at all artistic, I would draw it, but...

I'm fairly sure that most people, if they have Z&R in a fic, tend to cast Reshiram as a girl, despite the Yin aspect. I've seen quite a lot like that, actually.

[GalladeRocks]

Yes, Zekrom is a lady. It's pretty simple, actually. Yin is associated with black. Zekrom is the black Yin Dragon. Yin is also feminine. Therefore, Zekrom is feminine.

Huh, never thought of it that way before. Makes a lot of sense.

In my fic, I cast Reshiram and Zekrom both as male. Guess that makes me an oddball around here, not that there's anything new about that :P

[Eeveeon8]

Wow, I haven't been here for a while. I want a Victini wearing sunglasses riding a surfboard!!!

[Ememew]

Coffee Break

"I'd call him Dude," Hilda said, smiling. Victini gave her a thumbs up approval.

"Yes, but Dude cold be anybody," N argued. "He's special; you can't give him an ordinary nickname if you were going to nickname him."

I think you mean "could" here. Is N feeling the bite of winter while he's saying this? With that green hair, he could be mistaken for a Grass-type.

Anyway, I like the idea of Zekrom being female, but I seem to remember Bowling Ba- er, Kyurem referring to both of them as male a few chapters ago. I can't remember where exactly, unfortunately.

Anyway, I am enjoying this fic. It's cool to see N realizing the scale of the implications of his goal bit by bit. And Hilbert's starting to go through a transition of sorts as well. I also like how the change in season is portrayed as more than simply the passage of time and actually plays a role in the story in terms of the effects of the cold weather on Fedora.

EDIT: Hmm, I went back to the chapter where I thought Kyurem called the other dragons his "brothers" but didn't find it. Maybe I'm just misremembering things.

[hailflameblast]

Hey Ysavvryl!

*bats away a rusty spoon*

I read all the chapters of this fix that are up currently. and I really like the premise of the fic, and the way you've portrayed N.

Please put me on the PM list!

[FairoNeko]

I have always curious of B&W's storyline, especially the fanfics ver.
I must say, this story is really interesting.

I don't have much to say except one question: would Hilda go to her pokemon's dream again? (I forgot what it called)

May you put me on the PM list?

[Ysavvryl]

Coffee Break

Hilda held out a reddish-orange utensil. "So what do you do with a rusty spoon?"

Bianca made a face. "Ew, don't put it in your drink."

"I wasn't going to do that," she said, tossing the spoon back over her shoulder. "And those of you who like our hacked Victini, don't worry, he'll be around again. Like shortly."

"How's he hacked?" Bianca asked, puzzled. Then she put her hand to her mouth. "Oh right, right, that's why." She smiled. "Well if the shoe fits..."

"Of course! Let's see, and there was something about Kyurem referring to his siblings as brothers." She looked at the dragon boy.

He shrugged. "I thought I'd always said siblings."

"I thought that too, but something might've been missed."

Bianca leaned on the table. "So what about that Dream Connector? We haven't seen or heard of that since you got Mimi."

Hilda rolled her eyes. "Yeah, it's kind of hard to work in because really, most of the dreams are boring. She said she'd work on that, but there is a definitely a use later on. Much much later on, so it might be months until it shows."

Giggling, she said, "Yeah, like how the Christmas chapter is going to show up in February?"

"It's on time, its own time," Hilda insisted. "Now let's get going; we have an OC to meet."


Chapter 16: A Black Ferry


morning, 12/22

The streets of Nacrene were slushy that morning, mixed with wet snow and a salt mixture to keep ice from forming. Past the streets, there was a light dusting of white from the snows of yesterday. Kyurem stepped ahead and opened the door to one of the converted warehouses. “Thanks,” Hilda said as she went inside. After doing her best to knock the slush off her boot, she looked around until she spotted her friends talking at a nearby table. “Hey, good morning Bianca, Cheren!”

“Good morning!” Bianca said, among a few echoing calls from the Pokémon around the table. “Oh gosh, it seems like such a long time since we’ve been together like this.”

“It’s only been two or three weeks,” Cheren said, passing his menu over to Hilda. “But a lot has gone on.”

Hilda sat down on the bench before letting other members of her team out. “I’m glad to see you guys again. Especially you, Bianca. How have you been doing?”

“I’m doing all right,” she said, smiling but not as much as she usually did. “I finally beat Cilan in battle a couple of days ago. He was really great about it too, telling everybody there that I had been working so hard for that victory and not giving up on it. He even said that he was proud of me for it, so that was really nice.”

“That’s awesome of him, but you don’t sound too excited about it. Come on, you won!” Hilda patted Bianca’s arm.

She blushed. “Yeah, me and my Pokémon have been working hard. But I’m just not doing that well compared to you two. I mean, Cheren’s got his Basic Badge now.”

“I hadn’t heard about that,” Hilda said. “How’d that go down?”

“It was close,” he said. “Got it early yesterday afternoon, but then there was that uproar about a theft in the museum, so my victory wasn’t up long on the gym’s website before it got lost. But I did see that you were involved somehow.”

“It was a total accident, but yeah, my team kicked *** against a Sage from Plasma,” Hilda said. Then she told them about what had happened yesterday.

Bianca was wide-eyed by the end of the tale. “Oh wow… you did amazing Hilda! Did you beat Lenora then?”

She nodded. “Yeah, we did. After that earlier battle, it wasn’t that much of a challenge… well they did have quite a kick with that Retaliate move. But you did good too.”

Nervous, Bianca shifted her beret. “Well I don’t know. I’m not too good with battling. I was thinking of stopping with the League, actually. At least until I get better.”

They got interrupted briefly by the other breakfast orders coming in. The waiter took Hilda’s order, then left them to get back to their talk. “What are you going to do if you do stop?” Cheren asked Bianca.

She sighed. “I don’t know. My dad would like it if I came back home, but we’ve been looking forward to this for so long. I don’t really want to stop traveling. But I don’t know what to do if I’m not going to participate in the League. I do like working with my Pokémon though. Look, see? Suzy used to be so shy, but I’ve gotten her to be braver, right dear?” She rubbed the head of her starter Pokémon.

Having evolved, the Dewott was sitting on the bench next to Bianca. She was still toying with her scalchops, but she wasn’t trying to hide away from the group. Suzy murmured something fondly in response to the head rub.

“There’s lots of other things you can do with Pokémon,” Cheren said. “Did you look into the Daycare Center? I think you could do well at something like that.”

“Maybe.” Bianca frowned, causing Suzy to look up at her in concern. “It’d be nice to work with those Pokémon, but it doesn’t really jump out at me.”

“Why don’t you travel with me for a little while?” Hilda offered. “I’m heading up to Castelia after breakfast to check things out. Might even get some Christmas shopping in at the stores there. It’s gonna be awesome.”

“Sure, that’d be good if you don’t mind me tagging along,” she said, looking a little cheered up. “I hear the decorations there are amazing every year. Some have come up here, but still, it’s not Castelia.”

“Cool. We’ll make sure to make it memorable,” then she laughed.

Cheren rolled his eyes. “Ah, well if I hear of things exploding, I’ll know you two are probably involved.” The two girls laughed at him.

“Oh, where’s Fedora?” Bianca said after a moment. “He’s such a funny little guy.”

“He’s not quite so little now,” Hilda said. “I’m letting him sleep. He’s supposed to be hibernating at this time, so I may have to take him off my team for winter.”

“That’s too bad,” Bianca said, worried. “But yeah, he shouldn’t be actively battling if the cold is going to work against him.”

“He didn’t want to yesterday, but he wasn’t having any luck fighting it off last night. I’m sure my Mom will look after him.” She thought of something and hit the table. “Oh yeah! If you’re going to come along with me, Bianca, then you’d better know that I have a stalker.”

“Do you?” she asked, raising her eyebrows. “Is he cute?”

“You could say that,” Hilda said. “It’s Hilbert.”

Bianca squeaked and looked surprised. “What, him?”

“That annoying pretty boy?” Cheren asked.

Hilda nodded. “Yeah him, because I said that I didn’t want to be traveling with him. He doesn’t take rejection too well, I guess. Oh, but Kyurem says that he actually had some kind of Attract effect on him and that’s why he was so interesting. That’s been taken care of, though.”

“A human with Attract? That’s so weird.”

“That’s impossible,” Cheren said. “Sure, some people have strange abilities, but it’s never on a level that Pokémon can do naturally.”

“It’s true,” Kyurem said.

Hilda leaned over a little closer to Bianca and said, “Although if I had a say in the matter, I’d rather be stalked by N because he’s cuter. Not by a lot though; he’s kind of a stick in the mud.”

Bianca giggled. “Yeah, you were telling me that you met him at the cafe the other day. Have you seen him again?”

“Not since then, no. It’s a pity. What do you think of them, Cheren?”

Sighing over-dramatically, he said, “Do you two have to involve me in your girl talk?”

They just laughed at him. “Well you are our brother,” Hilda said teasingly.

“Yeah, like the sacred swordsman, we swore that,” Bianca said.

He held up a hand. “I know; I wouldn’t forget about that. There’s just some things I don’t feel comfortable talking about, like how attractive some guy is. So just don’t ask, unless you’re actually asking about a girl.”

“Oh, you silly,” Bianca said.

“More like we all silly,” Hilda said. “And you know that if you said you’d like some girl that we’d whip up some crazy plot to hook you up with her.”

“Only if I knew that she wouldn’t be scared off by you two,” he said, but smiled and eventually laughed.

-+-

Cheren had planned on training in Pinwheel Forest, leaving Hilda and Bianca to find their own way to Castelia City. If things had worked out right, they would have liked to race across Skyarrow Bridge. It was such a grand and large bridge that it only seemed right to enter Castelia by running across the bridge walkway. But with her broken leg, Hilda wasn’t going to be running any time soon. At the end of the paved Pinwheel path, they came to a station that had stairs leading up to the bridge and a ramp leading down to the old ferry docks.

“How much will the ferry tickets cost?” Bianca asked, looking around the docks for a sign.

“League Trainers get free passage across the river,” Hilda said. “I called them last night and unless you want to go to Liberty Island or somewhere else, we won’t have to pay so long as we show our IDs. And even if you drop out, the card’s good for a whole year.”

“That’s good.” They looked around the dock, which was strangely quiet. There was only a single boat in at the time, one that was painted entirely in matte black. Bianca put her hand to her chin. “Huh. Do you think they’re not as active because of the bridge?”

“Could be.”

“Hey, you three!” A large man on the black ferry waved at them. “Hurry up and get on; we’re leaving soon.”

“Uh, okay!” Bianca called back. “Unless we want to wait?”

“Eh, let’s go now,” Hilda said. The two girls and Kyurem headed for the boat.

Shortly after they departed, three other young people ran down the ramp. “I can’t believe you made us so late!” one of the girls said.

“It wasn’t my fault,” the one guy said. “But they should be… uh-oh.”

The three of them looked around, but the only boat there was the black ferry in the distance. “Was that supposed to be our ride?”

“Dang it, we were supposed to reach the training for Team Plasma today. I couldn’t get a hold of the recruiter. What now?”

The guy held up his hands. “Hey, don’t blame me.”

-+-

The first sign of trouble came when the captain said, “I wasn’t told I’d be picking up a handicapped person.”

“It’s only temporary,” Hilda said, bluffing away any concern. Bianca bit her lip and Kyurem sat up straight, even more attentive.

“True,” the captain agreed. He was steering the vessel and seemed to be the only crewman on deck. “Shouldn’t cause much trouble during your training period, but will it come off after that?”

“Probably. What’s training going to be like?”

“That depends on what the Sages think you’d be good at. Don’t worry; Team Plasma has a place for just about anybody.” Someone came in over a radio and the captain started talking there.

Bianca leaned over and whispered, “Team Plasma? We’re in trouble.”

“Shh,” Hilda said, more to Kyurem who was starting to growl. “We do need to get off this boat. But, we might learn something interesting if we play along for a bit. It depends on…” she leaned forward and called out, “Hey man, where are we going exactly?”

“Can’t tell you exactly yet,” the captain said. “But we’re going to stop by Liberty Island first; we might end up there for a while. Take those papers over there and read them.” He pointed them out to some papers that were held down with some thick rope.

“Okay,” Bianca said, going up to get some of the papers. She passed sheets to Hilda and Kyurem.

Unfortunately, the papers were taken up by strange charts, lines and checks after numbers. Only a few parts were understandable. Hilda’s first paper said, ‘Subject E: Success, shifts- moderate, lost-located, progress: insufficient data.’ The next said, ‘Subject F: Success, shifts-high, dead.’ Peeking at Bianca’s paper, there was ‘Subject R: Success, shifts- high, watched, progress: exemplary.’

“Um, sir?” Bianca asked. “Why were we given genetics charts?”

“So that’s what happened to my reports,” another man said, cold and sharp, yet not yelling. “I thought I told you to be careful with my papers.”

“You shouldn’t have mixed them up with the novice leaflets,” the captain argued back.

“I’m sure that even you could tell the difference between them?” He took the papers from the three of them. “I apologize for the mix-up. This ended up being the most convenient time to pick all of us up, it seems.”

“Looks like it,” Hilda said. “Who are you?”

He smiled. “Don’t get too attached to identities.” He was a thin pale skinned man, wearing light brown sunglasses and a large long ash-gray overcoat. Most noticeably, his black hair was streaked with grays and whites, with strands messily going in all directions, even partly over his left eye. “Most of us never let our names out to outsiders. But you’ll be one of us soon. I’m Dr. Umber, a genetic researcher. Although,” he patted Bianca on the shoulder, “it is impressive that a young lady like yourself can identify a genetic chart based on site.”

She blushed. “Oh, I’ve seen them, in biology class, and that’s what they looked most like.”

“Hmm. Still, I wouldn’t be surprised if you turned up as a new assistant to our branch. It would be good to have a young sharp mind around again.” He sat down on the bench beside her.

Bianca glanced nervously at Hilda. She took her friend’s hand and squeezed it, showing her support. If they were stopping by Liberty Island, that gave them a window to get away in. But while they were here, they might as well try to find something out. “Maybe. Excuse me, but what were those charts about?”

Shaking his head, Umber said, “It’s an old project, but being on-going, I can’t reveal much on it. It’s something I’ve been working on since before Plasma started supporting me, nearly thirty years ago.”

“Gosh, really?” It helped that Bianca did seem to be genuinely curious about this. “It must be a big study to go on that long.”

And it helped that Umber was pleased with the attention, proud of his work. “Yes, very big… and very important too. It has the potential for great change in the world, but I must be patient. I think it won’t be long now until undeniable proof appears in one of the subjects. Maybe by then, you’ll know more about it. Ah, here we go. These are the papers you’ll need.” He passed over some papers that had the symbol of Team Plasma on them. “It’s good to see the group flourishing. When I joined, there were barely two dozen of us.”

“Have you gotten to meet the King?” Hilda asked. “I was listening to Ghetsis the other day and he was so amazing. I would think that the King could only be more amazing to get such respect from a man like him.”

“Yes, the King is an amazing person. I’ve spoken to him several times and I always get the impression that he’s a person who should be part of an old legend, someone you wouldn’t believe to exist if you’d never met him. It’s very... inspiring to be around him.” He smiled in a fond manner.

“Will we get to meet him?”

Umber shrugged. “Maybe, maybe not. Plasma’s quite large these days, plus he’s on a vital mission for the sake of everyone. Many have been asking to see him and I believe they may get him to make a speech in days to come, to raise morale for everyone.”

“Doctor, we’re coming up on Liberty Island,” the captain said. “Are we going to be here long? We need to get the recruits up to the reception hall on time.”

“It might, or might not,” Umber said. “It depends on how cooperative things are. I have to see how the situation is. I’ll call you if I think it could take longer than half an hour. Just tell them to send someone else to pick me up.”

“You’d better call if you have to take more than fifteen,” he left off, mumbling something probably insulting.

Umber just chuckled. “Relax; it’s not good for your blood pressure to be so angry.” Then, for some reason, he patted Bianca’s shoulder. “You young folk do your best during the testing. I’ll be keeping an eye out for you.” Then he got up and headed over to leave the boat.

Once he was looking away, Bianca shuddered, “Ugh, creepy old man. I hope I never see him again.”

“I agree,” Hilda said. “Eat him sometime, Kyurem.”

“As you wish,” he said, smiling a little.

The captain did some checking of things in the pilot area, then opened up a door in the floor to go below deck. Kyurem got up and went to the dock to watch for Umber and anyone else suspicious. When he waved to them, the two girls got up and left the ship as quickly and quietly as they could manage.

Liberty Island was a small one, with some rough sand beaches, the ferry station, a garden, and a tall stone tower. Again, there were no other ferries there. But there were other people who didn’t seem to be in Team Plasma, including a small group of surfers who were using wetsuits to avoid the chill. The girls quickly decided to head for the ferry station, along a wooden pathway over the sand.

“Man, I’ve wanted to learn how to surf,” Hilda said.

“In this weather?” Bianca asked, disagreeing. “I couldn’t stand the cold water.”

“Maybe not in winter.” She looked over the surfers, some on shore and some out on the water. But one of them looked odd. “Hey… look at that! They’ve got a Pokémon out surfing with them.”

“Hmm?” Bianca looked out and soon spotted the furry Pokémon out riding the waves on a short board. She laughed. “Oh wow! That’s so cute. It looks like it’s having fun.”

“So there are others active at this time,” Kyurem said, sounding like he was satisfied with learning that.

“Others?” Bianca asked. “You mean other legendaries?”

He nodded. “That would be Victini, the herald of victory. I’ve only met his past incarnations in combat, so I don’t know how he is from day to day.”

“He seems to be quite playful to me,” Hilda said, watching Victini coast onto the sand gracefully.

Then, he flung his board over to the group on shore and dashed across the sands on all fours. He ended up six feet in front of them, standing up on the sand. “Coo chu pa ka fre ki sho tu, ku re?” he said, in a blur of sound that seemed almost constant.

“I am not here to make trouble,” Kyurem replied. “I’m keeping them out of trouble.”

Victini grinned and winked, then started chattering away as fast as ever.

Kyurem crossed his arms over his chest. “They’re asleep… possibly… a little over a month… yes, both… I don’t have to answer that… it’s your choice… why?”

At that point, Victini took on a serious expression and began explaining something slower, even using gestures. But it was hard to figure what he meant, at least to Hilda and Bianca. It was something about the ferry station, or involving it.

And that got a serious response from Kyurem, as he bowed his head, thinking. “I see. I know of him, but I didn’t know that. If that’s so, are you sure about doing this?”

Victini grinned again. “Tchi.”

“It’ll be interesting to watch, at least.”

“What are you two talking about?” Hilda asked.

“It’s not important at this time for you to know,” Kyurem replied. “Except one thing. Bianca, he wants to challenge you to a battle and see how your Pokémon are doing.”

Bianca’s eyes went wide. “What, me? Why me? I’m not so good at battles.”

“Hey, he’s the herald of victory,” Hilda said with a grin. “My team’s doing all right in that regards; maybe he wants to help you out.”

Victini seemed to laugh and waved at Bianca to try.

“Try to catch him,” Kyurem said, walking a little further down the walkway to be out of the way.

“O-okay,” Bianca said, pulling a Pokeball out of her purse and calling out her Dewott. “Suzy, use your shell attack.”

The Dewott looked surprised to see Victini there, doubly so when he pulled a pair of sunglasses out of thin air and put them on. Then she got serious about the battle, taking her scalchops off her hips… just in time to get knocked back a foot by a massive wave Victini had summoned. Suzy got her footing back and leapt across the sands, slashing at Victini and hitting him hard. Victini asked something, which Suzy gave a cautious answer to.

“Whoa, looks like he knows Surf!” Hilda said. “Although he doesn’t look the sort.”

“It’s certainly a new trick,” Kyurem said.

Both Pokémon in the fight looked battered just from that one exchange. Bianca recalled Suzy, then released her Munna. “Don’t fret, Timmy, use yawn.”

Victini then sent a small burst of fire at the Munna, but succumbed and fell asleep a short time later. Bianca then searched out an empty Pokeball, activated it, then threw it at Victini. While it bounced and rolled across the sand, it stayed shut and eventually went still. “Wurrra!” Timmy said, pleased.

For a moment, it looked like Bianca didn’t believe what had happened. Then she smiled wide and ran onto the sand to get the ball. “Hey, I got Victini! Oh my gosh, I don’t believe it!”

“Well you’d better,” Hilda said. “That’s great!”

“That was quite lucky,” someone said from a short distance behind Hilda. Kyurem growled and when the two girls turned around, they saw Dr. Umber standing there. “You must not be the recruits we were meant to pick up today.”

“We got on your ship by accident,” Hilda said. “But we aren’t going to be joining Plasma at any time soon, no thank you.”

“I’ll have to speak with someone about checking IDs next time,” he said, not angry but somehow unnerving with his calm demeanor. “You’ve gotten a rare Pokémon there, young lady. Could I buy it off you for a million Poke?” When she didn’t immediately answer, he said, “I could do two million.”

“Cuuso,” Timmy said, not sounding too friendly towards Dr. Umber.

Bianca clutched Victini’s Pokeball close. “Um, no, I won’t be selling him. He wanted to come with me, I’m sure.”

He shrugged. “If that’s what you want. But I will remember this.” He gave a toothy smile, then walked back to the docks with a quick pace.

-+-

Umber walked down further into the castle. It looked as though this place was complete. Pity there wasn’t a way to test the mechanisms before they were needed. While it had worked in the experiment stage, the full project was a wholly different scale. But once it emerged, there was no way to hide it from the eyes of Unova again.

Giving a friendly wave to the guards, he entered one of the offices. “Ghetsis, you’ve done much too well with the boy,” he said.

Looking up from a book he was reading, Ghetsis raised an eyebrow. He was dressed down from how most people saw him. Then again, most Plasma members wouldn’t dare just walk in. They weren’t allowed. “Have you met him on the road?”

He shook his head and dropped down in a chair. “No, but I got word from Carol that he had captured Victini. Victini of all Pokémon, and then he let him go after beating Castelia Gym. I didn’t think there was anyone who truly believed in the power of the legends that would do such a thing.”

Ghetsis smiled. “He’s doing what he’s meant to do. Did you go after Victini?”

“Of course. But by the time I caught up to him, he’d been captured by another Trainer. Intelligent young woman, but she probably won’t be letting him go any time soon. I didn’t need him, but still, having Victini on our side would have been an advantage.”

He nodded. “No big loss; I don’t think that shifts power too much. Do you have the proposal and budget projections on the fossil project?”

“Right here.” He pulled out a thick folder and passed it over. “Can we get this by N?”

“If he starts asking questions, let me handle it.” He opened the folder and began glancing over the files. “You wanted to stop the Shadows?”

The scientist nodded. “The situation about the Pokémon can be replicated, but the situation with the populous can’t be replicated here in Unova. It could be made to work, but it’s too much of a risk and expensive besides. Can we pull the ones out there and pass them out of our hands?”

“Very well, I’ll put that order through. And the other project you lost; have you found them?”

“All of them,” Umber said. “But just because I’ve found them won’t make it any easier to test the theory.” He started explaining what was going on with them. Ghetsis was his key financial backer, so he had to have the man’s favor.

[hailflameblast]

Interesting. Bianca obtains Victini. I giggled a bit at Umber calling her an "intelligent woman", considering what she's like ingame, but hey, this is fiction!

I'm guessing that the fossil project is
    Spoiler:- :

Show Spoiler

 
Genesect
 

A question: Since Castelia City is where Meloetta's ingame event for Ancient Song occurs(Meloetta itself having no ingame place of encounter), can we expect an appearance/reference to it in the next chapter(or two)?

[FairoNeko]

Nice chapter.

I'm surprised to find out Bianca captured Victini. I though Victini would have returned to Lady Zekrom instead of surfing out there. Also, why no one tried to capture Victini when it was surfing?

To tell the truth, I'm kind of confused about the time an event take place. Between, Hilda's, Hilbert's, and N's. Like in this chapter...

[scizorstrike]

Coffee Break

Hilda held out a reddish-orange utensil. "So what do you do with a rusty spoon?"

Ye cut yer haert out wiv it!

He shrugged. "I thought I'd always said siblings."

So did I.

“He’s not quite so little now,” Hilda said. “I’m letting him sleep. He’s supposed to be hibernating at this time, so I may have to take him off my team for winter.”

Another thing that bugged me about the games fixed.

“That’s good.” They looked around the dock, which was strangely quiet. There was only a single boat in at the time, one that was painted entirely in matte black. Bianca put her hand to her chin. “Huh. Do you think they’re not as active because of the bridge?”

The ferry... OF DOOM! Or cupcakes. Or Plasma. Or whatever.

Unfortunately, the papers were taken up by strange charts, lines and checks after numbers. Only a few parts were understandable. Hilda’s first paper said, ‘Subject E: Success, shifts- moderate, lost-located, progress: insufficient data.’ The next said, ‘Subject F: Success, shifts-high, dead.’ Peeking at Bianca’s paper, there was ‘Subject R: Success, shifts- high, watched, progress: exemplary.’

Biogenetic technobabble containing high-grade analytic theoretical geneic engineering?
.

“Whoa, looks like he knows Surf!” Hilda said. “Although he doesn’t look the sort.”

The fact I had a Victini surfing image stuck in my head is rather fitting now.

He nodded. “No big loss; I don’t think that shifts power too much. Do you have the proposal and budget projections on the fossil project?”

    Spoiler:- :

Show Spoiler

 
GENESECT. It's specifically mentioned to be a revived fossil, and it's the only 'mon that has a Team mentioned in a Dex entry.
 

Calling it now. As well as the last N battle's Archeops and Carracosta.

[Ememew]

Careful, Hilda. Kyurem will take you up on these offers to eat people one of these days. Now that they're in Castelia, maybe she'll get Bowling Ball's nickname fixed.

Team Plasma definitely needs to be better about checking IDs.

Like I said, I probably just misremembered about the words used for Reshiram and Zekrom.

    Spoiler:- Speculation:

Show Spoiler

 
It's very interesting that Plasma seems to have connections to Shadow Pokemon. Do they have connections with Cipher as well? Shadow Genesect sounds like a frightening prospect.
 

Also,

I giggled a bit at Umber calling her an "intelligent woman", considering what she's like ingame, but hey, this is fiction!

Well, Bianca does end up as Juniper's assistant in the games, so I don't find it all that farfetch'd.

[The Warrior of Many Faces]

Let me just say that you are the only person I know that can pull off a Legendary starter without making it automatically unrealistic. Maybe it's the fact that you write so compellingly. Maybe because you're playing it for laughs a lot of the time, while still keeping things (somewhat) serious. The fact that he has a distinct personality and a reason for being there definitely has something to do with it.
I also like Hilda's relaxed approach to training; quite unusual and quite refreshing. N's characterization is also quite noteworthy. You have a masterful grasp of his character; I particularly like his inner conflicts about releasing his Pokemon. Brilliant.
I could go on picking out what I like about this fic, but I have to go. Keep up the good work!

[GalladeRocks]

Hooray! Bianca finally got a Timmy to go with Lassie! Let's just hope he doesn't fall down a well . . .

This Team Plasma stuff is getting serious. First Shadow Pokemon. Now     Spoiler:- SPOILER:

Show Spoiler

 
Genesect
 

What's next,     Spoiler:- MORE SPOILER:

Show Spoiler

 
Shadow Genesect?
 

[Ysavvryl]

Coffee Break

Hilda and Bianca were groaning. "That was a pretty bad pun," the former said. "But good description on the speculation."

"How many clues did she drop last chapter again?" Hilbert asked, re-reading it. "My head's still in a whirl after going through 18."

"That was 16," Cheren said. "It was a fair amount."

N glanced at the others around the table. "So why are there so many of us in this chapter again?"

"Because it's Christmas!" Hilda cheered, jumping up in her chair.

"It's February," N stated.

"And that's exactly what I commented on last time," Bianca said. She clasped her hands together. "And I'm not sure how my Timmy would fall down a well. He floats."

"You never know," Hilda said, patting her. "But you are smart; you had even better science grades than Cheren did."

"Not by a lot," Bianca said, blushing. "I like science."

"Can I at least get in an explanation of timing in this break?" N asked.

"Go for it," Hilbert said.

He nodded in thanks. "Well sometimes Ysavvryl will go for putting exact dates in, but she didn't this time. It's all fairly vague, but there are mentions here and there of how much time has passed since certain events. But then some days spread over multiple chapters. She could at least put a month marker with chapters, since she does it with that other story."

"There is also the issue of having an outdated timeline already," Hilda added. "We're trying to pin down when the Dragonspiral event happens at the moment, but that in turn depends on how events in Nimbasa turn out. And we're still working through the Castelia events in, what, Chapter 20? AND WHO HIT THE SUBMIT BUTTON?!"


Chapter 17: Home for the Holiday


morning, 12/25

It was a chilly Christmas morning, with light snow dusted over everything. Castelia was actually quiet. After several days of bustling crowds and continual noise, it was peaceful with only a few people walking on the streets. The lights had gone out, but tinsel, garland, ribbons, and bells were everywhere, with candles still in many windows. The three friends and one guardian walked along the streets, headed for the subway station.

“My Dad’s not going to be home for today,” Bianca said. “It’s weird, though. I should miss him; he always made colored popcorn balls on Christmas, remember? But I’m kind of glad he won’t be there, so he won’t bother me about being out here with you guys.”

“Does he call you and try to make you come back home?” Hilda asked.

She shook her head. “No. Whenever I call Mom, he makes a point to say in the background that he’s not talking to me until I decide to come back home. I wish he wouldn’t make such a fuss about this.”

“Yeah, he needs to give that up already.” Then Hilda winked. “I do hope that he’s left some popcorn balls for us. Those things are good.”

Cheren put his hand to his chin. “We need to put together a plan to make him see that this is better for you. Maybe you can leave some photos of what you’re doing.”

“Only if we can put in subliminal messages,” Hilda quickly said.

That made Bianca smile. “We might need that. What about you guys? Anyone else coming to the party?”

“I was hoping to trap a certain pair to come along,” Hilda said. “But I haven’t seen them in the past few days and I don’t have phone numbers for either of them.”

“You think it wouldn’t be hard to get numbers from a couple of guys who seem interested in you,” Cheren said jokingly.

“I know!”

“I think my siblings are going to be there,” Cheren said, his mood turning downcast. “My sister’s got her new baby and you know how my brother is.”

“Quite the show-stealer he is,” Hilda said, nodding. “But you’ve been doing good on the road, so you have something to brag back about.”

“I don’t know if that would be enough,” Cheren said.

Bianca then tapped Hilda’s shoulder. “Hey, there’s one of the guys now,” she said in a loud whisper.

And close to the subway station entrance, there was Hilbert, walking out from a side street. He hadn’t noticed them yet, looking down at the ground and somehow seeming gloomier than Cheren. “Geez, what’s with everybody having the blues on Christmas?” she asked of her two friends, then called out, “Hey Hilbert! What’s up?”

Jumping at the call, he turned to them, then put his hand to his head. “Oh, hey Hilda. It’s nothing you need to worry about. Nothing much is going on.”

“What, a famous guy like you doing nothing on Christmas?”

She had meant it as a joke, but he winced. “Yeah. As I said, don’t worry about it.”

“But something’s the matter with you,” Bianca said. “What is it?”

When he didn’t reply, Hilda said, “Well if you ain’t doing nothing today, you wanna come with us? We’re going to a Christmas party and I’m sure we can fit in an extra person.”

“You sure about it? I wouldn’t want to intrude.”

“I’m sure it’ll be fine,” Cheren said. “Although your attitude seems to have changed sharply, for the better.”

“Has it?” Hilbert shrugged. “It’s… stuff. I guess I could come along, thanks.”

Hilda grinned. “Awesome! It’ll be fun, but we have to catch a train to Accumula to go down Route 1. They don’t have a station in Nuvema, after all.”

They headed down the escalators, then headed off to the ticket booth to check on times. It was quiet down here too; everyone seemed to be home. Strangely enough, they found N there. With a Darumaka sitting by his side, he seemed uncomfortable and uncertain of how to leave a conversation where the ticket seller was droning on about some story involving a drum line waiting for a subway train.

“I think I have to buy a ticket,” Hilbert said. “I’ll go talk with him.” He then went up and interrupted the ticket seller, allowing N to back off.

At least until Hilda said, “Morning, N! Whatcha up to? Going home?”

Looking at them, he seemed briefly worried. But then the Darumaka said something that made him relax. “No, I’m not. Why would you think that?” He then patted the Pokémon’s up-reached hand. “Sort of, I guess; it’s complicated.”

“Well you’re in a subway station today,” Hilda said.

Bianca smiled. “Yeah, and if anybody wasn’t home, then they’d be heading home, like we are.”

Somehow, N still had a total blank look on his face. “Why would that be? I don’t think there’s any law requiring that.”

Much as they might have tried not to, the three of them laughed. “Of course’s there’s no law,” Hilda said. “But it’s Christmas, you know?”

He was still drawing a blank.

“You do know that, right?” Hilda asked. “It’s one of the biggest holidays of the year.”

“I’ve noticed all those decorations and some talk about something coming up,” N said, starting to speak quickly again and looking nervous. “But I didn’t think anything of it. I hadn’t known of it until a few days ago.”

“Oh, so your family doesn’t celebrate Christmas?” Bianca asked. “It’s a little odd that you wouldn’t have heard about it, but it’s okay. You can still go home for the day and be with your family and friends back home.”

“I can’t really do that,” N said, starting to say something more, but then quickly changing it to, “because I, well, I’m not supposed to waste time, but Victini suggested that I, er, it’s…”

“You’ve spoken to Victini?” Cheren asked, surprised.

“Really? That’s funny!” Bianca took a Pokeball out of her bag and released Victini. “I just met him a few days ago. He’s a sweetie, isn’t he?”

N was actually left speechless for a moment, staring at Victini. The tan legend chuckled, snapped his fingers, and said, “Chi ka re da na!”

“But I let you go just a few days ago,” N said. “What’re you doing with her?” Victini gave a rapid-fire response, which only confused him. “A party?”

“Oh yeah, you want to come with us if you’re not going to go back home?” Hilda asked, interrupting. “We’re going to a Christmas party. Even if you don’t celebrate the holiday, you can at least work on your socializing skills with other people.”

Victini chuckled at that and wagged a finger at N teasingly. That made him blush. “I… I suppose I could try. At least figure out what this holiday of yours is all about.”

Cheren glanced at Hilda, who was already looking mischievous. “If you’re going to explain things to him, at least be nice for once and don’t make it crazier than it really is.”

“Aw, but that’s so ordinary,” Hilda complained. Then she laughed at herself. “Although for your sake, N, I suppose I could try that.”

“The fares are free today,” Hilbert said, coming back to the group while giving N a cautious look. “And the next train for Accumula should be here in eight minutes.”

“That’s fine,” Hilda said. “Cause we’ve got to teach N here some things about holidays.”

The subway ride to Accumula didn’t take long, but it was close to eleven by the time the group reached Nuvema. Part of it was because Hilda wasn’t supposed to walk too fast with her crutches (although she claimed that she could) and partly because they talked all the way down there. Hilbert even brought of some of why he was bummed that day by the time they reached Nuvema. “I used to go home at Village Bridge to see my Uncle Giallo around Christmas,” he said. “But he told me he was busy this year and couldn’t meet with me, even though I’ve come back for longer than usual.”

“Wait, Giallo’s your uncle?” N asked, one of the few things he’d contributed to the conversations. “He has that crinkly-curl dark blond hair and he’s kind of short?”

Hilbert nodded while he activated his Xtransiever to find a picture. “Sounds about right. Do you know him?”

After looking at the screen, N nodded. “Yes, I know him quite well. He taught me about mythology and the legendary Pokémon.”

For a moment, Hilbert looked at the phone fondly, then closed it down. “Me too. Huh, I knew he did some tutoring for other kids, but didn’t think that he would’ve taught you. Small world. He’s really passionate about it.”

“That was the great thing about him,” N said. “He could tell the stories much better than anyone else, and he knew so many.”

Hilbert finally smiled at that. “Yeah, he has this huge collection of books to find such obscure items. He told the best ones about Reshiram and Zekrom, though.”

“That was where he was the best.”

“I don’t recall him telling much about Kyurem, though.”

Kyurem shrugged. “Not as many stories to go around.”

“You do tend to turn up as a force of darkness and destruction often,” N said, sounding wary but curious.

“There is such a thing as necessary evil,” he said, not caring that it might sound bad. “Not this time.”

“Here’s the place,” Hilda said abruptly. “This is Cheren’s house, cause it’s the biggest place to have lots of people over.” Cheren went ahead and opened up the door for them.

Bianca’s mother met them at the door. “Welcome back, and merry Christmas!” she said, inviting them in and hugging Bianca when she came by.

“Hi Mom,” Bianca said, smiling. “It smells wonderful in here.”

“Lunch is still getting prepared,” she said. “But come on in and join us. There’s a group already playing Scattergories if you want to join in.”

Before long, the three of them were being welcomed back, and introducing the others who had come with them. The house was already filled with people, causing the party to split up into different rooms. But the hosts tried to make sure no one got left out of the cheer and chatter.

-+-

And it wasn’t just the number of people at the party, but the number of Pokémon. Bianca’s mother had brought her old Lillipup over, so now both him and her new Lillipup Lassie were playing together. Suzy was a bit overwhelmed by all the people and stayed close to Bianca, while Victini found the top of a recliner a good spot to lounge and observe the party. Her Munna Timmy was quite excited, checking out everyone who was there and everything that was around. It seemed like most everyone was having a good time.

Setting a folding chair down in place, Bianca glanced at the two long and one card tables that had been set out. “Mom, do we need any more chairs?”

“Put that one closer to the corner, for Becky,” she said, then looked around counting. “It seems that should do. Do we have everything in from the kitchen, Leslie?”

Once all the dishes were set out on the table, Cheren was sent to get people from other rooms to come in for lunch. Bianca went to sit by her mother, soon having her younger sister take the chair on her other side. “I found a nice monkey,” she said, letting the Pansear sit beside her.

Bianca laughed. “Yes, he is a nice Pokémon. Now you behave yourself Flicker.”

“Ook ka,” the Pansear said giving a thumbs up sign.

Once everyone was at the table, Cheren’s father offered a prayer over the meal. Then the food was served, which led to a lot of plate passing and moving around in order to get everyone what they wanted. There were all sorts of things there to choose from: ham, smoked turkey, mashed potatoes, baked sweet potatoes, jasmine rice, green bean casserole, spiced apples, fruit salad, rolls, and even a pimento salad (which Bianca didn’t like, but some of the others there really liked it). There was a lot of talking over the meal, sometimes several conversations going on at once. Being back home made Bianca happy. Still, she still wanted to see the rest of Unova before she settled on what to do.

Over most of lunch, she ignored thinking of those things and played with her sister and her Pokémon. As everyone was finishing off their plates, Bianca’s sister said, “’scuze me, I have to go.” She left her chair and went to the bathroom. Without even hesitating, the Pansear went after her.

“Flicker and Lauren seem to be getting along really well already,” Bianca commented to her mother.

“Yes, I’ve noticed,” she said. “She’s liked Fire types for a long time, you know.”

“Yeah. Hey, would it be all right if I gave Flicker to her? Because I’ve got Victini now and the two of them seem to really like each other. I wouldn’t want to give you much trouble with another Pokémon.”

“Is Flicker well-behaved?”

“Pretty much, yeah. He was raised by a breeder, so he’s used to people.”

“I think we could handle a second Pokémon. I’m sure the Lillipup will like the company. Thanks for doing this; it’s generous of you.”

“It’s okay, he’s a good Pokémon, but if Lauren really likes him, it may be better like that. And I hadn’t really gotten her a Christmas present; I was just going to give her some money.”

“I’m sure she’ll take good care of him.” Then she chuckled. “It’d be good for her to learn that responsibility. So how are your preparations going for the next Gym?”

Bianca blushed. “Um, not so good. I mean, I took so long to beat the first one, even though I should have had an advantage with my team. I don’t want to stop my journey just yet, but I don’t know if I’ll keep with the League.”

Her mother patted her hand. “It’s all right, dear. I’m sure you and your Pokémon gave it your best shot. Why, I can see how happy they are and know that you’re doing well. You decide what you want to do.”

Feeling relieved, she smiled. “Thanks Mom. I’ll keep doing my best.”

Across the table, she noticed that N was watching them with an odd look to his face. But before she could ask him what he was thinking about, Lauren and Flicker came back. “Hey sis, can I ask you something?”

-+-

Cheren glanced over and saw his parents kissing under the mistletoe. Rolling his eyes, he turned his attention back to the conversation between his older brother and sister. “No, I think it’s a good idea to have us out there,” his brother said. “A lot of the places that we’re getting sent out to are the long and winding areas, like Twist Mountain, or other toughies like Desert Resort. Having trained doctors out there can help with Trainers who get into trouble and don’t want to send out their badly injured Pokémon.”

“But a decent Trainer will be prepared for that kind of place,” she replied. “Anyone with any sense would bring Repels, Revives, and Potions in case of trouble.”

“Well not everyone has the sense we do,” he said

“And the Pokemarts won’t let you buy a lot of things until you have the right amount of badges,” Cheren aid. Not being able to buy Revives was frustrating when it came to training. The further out areas would have more powerful Pokémon to fight. But when one got into trouble there, one would have to run all the way back into town to get Pokémon fixed up, unless a nurse or doctor who know what to do was nearby.

His brother smiled. “Well if I see you out on the road on those days, I’ll know to help you.”

Although he felt offended by the statement, Cheren didn’t say anything. Maybe he didn’t mean it to come out that way. Or maybe he did; he had always tormented him when they were younger, for being a weak little kid. If they did meet out on the road, Cheren wanted to prove that he didn’t need his brother’s help, even if he was a doctor.

“Well that’s nice for you to do for your brother,” their mom said, coming over and patting Cheren on the head. But her attention was more on his brother. “So how’s that girlfriend of yours? Are you brave enough to ask her?”

Cheren bit his lip and glanced over at Smokey. The *Tepig was listening to the talk, but looked to him questioningly. As much as he should like being home, Cheren was already wishing that the day would be over and done with. He had always been the ‘unexpected gift’, which to him meant that he hadn’t been wanted at the time. Not only that, but his parents spent so much more attention on his older siblings than him. Yet he wasn’t looking forward to getting their attention when he was older, when they’d probably be pressuring him to get married and have kids too.

A tap on his shoulder brought his attention to Kyurem, who had walked up silently behind him. “You are to distract Hilbert.”

“Huh?” He glanced around and spotted the other boy leaning against the wall, right where the mistletoe had been placed. “What for?” he whispered back.

“Hilda said just do it,” he replied.

Well if it was Hilda’s idea, it had to lead to something interesting. He looked back over and said, “Hey Hilbert, want to play a game? We’ve got all sorts in the cabinet here.”

Hilbert looked over. “Game? What exactly do you got?”

“Let me see.” He got up and went to check the board and card games they had, although he was fairly certain there wouldn’t be anything new.

Just then, Bianca came up behind Hilbert and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek. While he was looking surprised at that, she ran into the room laughing, with Hilda following behind her. The two girls then took seats at the end of the table. “Yeah, let’s play a game!” Hilda said. “How about Pictionary?”

“Hey, what was that for?’ Hilbert asked, sounding confused.

Bianca and Hilda giggled. “Well you were standing under the mistletoe,” Bianca said, between laughs.

“And I know you were trying to get one from me, so I won’t do it,” Hilda said, mockingly shaking her fist in the air. “Not gonna reward your stalker behavior, after all. But come over here and play a game with us. N, where are you? We’re gonna play a game!”

“Do you need me to drag him in here?” Cheren offered, putting the Pictionary box on the table.

“You might have to,” she said.

-+-

There were a lot of human and Pokémon in this house. If he had his way, N would only be talking with the Pokémon… no, if he had his way, he wouldn’t even be here. But Victini kept teasing him when he tried to get into conversations with the Pokémon. N felt obligated to try talking with the other humans.

This party was so different than he was used to. There was no schedule; it was so informal, with everyone apparently wearing normal clothes, or holiday related ones. There were a few taking pictures of things that didn’t seem important, like when he and the other young people had been playing Pictionary. That had been an interesting experience, trying to relate ideas with only pictures, but it was just play. Things happened when people decided to do them; sometimes they just wanted to talk.

And there were some things that he knew were probably wrong, or were definitely wrong. Like all these Pokémon being inside. The little girl had taken a liking to tying ribbons on the Pokémon, decorating them for no good reason. And there had been some accidents, like one of the Lillipups trying to jump onto the couch as someone was trying to sit in it, and occasional bumping into others. His Darumaka had been tense about all the people, so N was keeping her away by letting her stay outside. Really, all of the Pokémon should have been left outside.

And yet the Pokémon were having fun. There had been the home-bound Pokémon who were delighted to see their people friends back, and they seemed healthy and happy unlike Darcy had ended up. There had also been that moment of pure delight when the one girl Bianca had passed down her Pansear to her younger sister. True, that Pokémon would no longer be in battles, but to be handed over like an item like that…

No… the way Bianca and Lauren had been wasn’t like passing an item around. It was more like sharing a friend. But that wasn’t right; he had thought people were ignorant to the feelings of Pokémon, but these people seemed to respect them.

The people here were different. Or were they? N didn’t really know how normal people lived, he realized. Even this house wasn’t what he expected. There were all kinds of pictures on the wall, images of past memories. There were items given some prominence in where they were placed, but he couldn’t see what was so important about them (like a little ceramic Mareep on a lace doily, on a prominent shelf with pictures). And the people here were so close, happy to just be together.

He was interrupted in his thoughts by one of the women there. “Oh, could you hold onto Maria for a minute, please? I need to get something.”

“O-okay,” N said, without thinking on it much. He was then handed the baby, a girl who was wearing a little red dress and a pink cap.

“Here, like this,” the mother said, adjusting how he was holding the baby. “That’s better. Thanks.” She then went over to a large bag and began rummaging through it.

N wasn’t sure what to do. He’d encountered baby Pokémon plenty of times, but they were often up on their feet within a few hours or days. From what he had studied, humans spent a lot longer being dependent like this. Sleepily, the baby girl looked up at him, but decided it wasn’t worth a fuss and closed her eyes again. “Why do you want me to hold her?” N asked. There was a baby seat nearby.

“She falls asleep better when someone’s holding onto her,” the woman said. “And she should have a nap now and take a break from all the people and noise around. Otherwise, she’ll be cranky tonight.”

“Does that bother you?” he asked.

“It makes me cranky too,” she said. But when she stood back up, strapping what seemed to be a small radio to her belt, she was smiling. “But you learn to deal with it. I’m learning that a baby might be a lot of work, but she’s a blessing that I treasure and love. Okay, I’ll take her back now, and get her upstairs where it’s quieter.” She took her baby back and began humming to her as she went up the stairs.

A baby is a blessing to treasure and love…

…Ghetsis wasn’t paying attention to him, which N didn’t like. But he was six now, and he shouldn’t whine or fuss or otherwise he’d have to be punished for being bad again. He looked around and noticed a pair of kids down the aisle, picking up something from the shelf. It was a toy bull dozer, painted bright yellow. The kids pleaded to buy the toy, but their father said no. The bulldozer was put back, although one boy made it clear that he was disappointed.

And there were other people talking about other things. N closed his eyes; he didn’t like too much going on at once. When he managed to put them out of mind, he opened his eyes again and looked at the aisle. There were a lot of toys there, things that looked interesting but maybe not useful.

“Now there’s an interesting thing to see,” Ghetsis said, startling N. He watched as he took one of the toys off a display rack. “A Rubik’s Cube with a belt clip. A practical way to keep it around, I suppose.”

“What is it?” N asked, interested because he was interested in it.

“It’s a puzzle. You turn the rows and columns so that each side is the same color. It’s tougher than it looks, but experts can really make a cube seem to fly. It’s an amazing thing to see. Did you want it?”

Something that could impress Ghetsis? N nodded. “Yes please.” And it was the first toy that had ever been bought for him.

…N ran over to Ghetsis, showing off the Rubik’s Cube, which had all the sides the right colors. “Look, I did it!”

He glanced at it and gave a slight nod. “Good, but we need to speak about your education. You have great talents, but you must hone them properly.”

Although he felt a bit disappointed in the lack of a reaction, he nodded. Maybe he had to be able to solve the cube several times, to prove that he really could do it.

…He was thirteen, sitting at a school desk while Ghetsis gave him a lecture about royalty. At his side, he wore the Rubik’s Cube. His hands shifted it around, solving the puzzle, undoing it, making even rows. He had said that he was impressed by experts at it. But he never made a comment on how well N could manipulate it. It really wasn’t important, yet it was so frustrating. Almost enough to get angry over.

Ghetsis hit his desk hard with a heavy book. “Are you paying attention?” he asked sternly.
He was caught for a moment between anger and shame.

Leaning closer, Ghetsis said, “You owe it to yourself to do the best that you possibly can. And it’s not just us involved in this effort now. There are people and Pokémon who know of your mission and support it fully. They’re all depending on you. Do you know how disappointed they’ll be if you fail because you faltered in your attention at this early stage? They would be disgusted at your insincerity. You don’t want that, do you?”

N let go of the Rubik’s Cube. “No, I don’t.”

…

He needed to calm down, but being in a house full of mostly strangers wasn’t going to help. N left the living room and looked around the hall until he spotted an unoccupied bedroom. Hopefully they didn’t mind him coming in here for a few minutes. Sitting on the edge of the bed, he closed his eyes and tried to refocus his thoughts. He wasn’t going to cry; that was a weakness he had grown out of at an early age.

“Is something the matter, N?” a woman asked him.

He looked over and saw a brown-haired woman in the doorway. That, that had been Hilda’s mother, right? They certainly looked alike. What was her name? It didn’t really matter. “Don’t worry about it,” he said. “I have trouble getting overwhelmed around a lot of people at times.”

“Ah.” She shut the door, but instead of leaving him alone, she came into the room and sat near him. “Are you sure that’s it? You looked pretty upset when you came in here.” When he didn’t initially say anything, she said, “I won’t tell anyone if you don’t want me to, promise.”

“It doesn’t concern you,” he said. “And even if it did, I don’t know how to explain it.”

“I’m making myself concerned,” she said, in the same kind of friendly defiance her daughter had. “Try.”

His mind didn’t want him to say anything, but it was also fighting against feelings that were stronger than he had expected. “Well it’s just seeing all of you here, as family and friends, and the way you act around each other. I, I was told I was special, but I didn’t think anything was unusual about it because I just was, but then seeing how other people are and how they relate, like Bianca and her mother, I heard them talking about how she wasn’t doing well in the League but her Mom said it was okay and that she should do what she wants, and to keep calling home every week. I, my father and I haven’t really talked since I started the League, about the same time they did, and I hardly knew Christmas even existed until this morning because we never celebrated things like that. He isn’t bad, he just tells me to do my best no matter what.”

He was probably talking too fast again. But worse than that, his eyes were getting teary. N tried to rub them out of his eyes, but it wasn’t really helping. His mind tried to regain discipline. This once, though, it wasn’t working. And it didn’t help that when she put her hand on his shoulder, it was like a relief to have someone listening to something he didn’t usually voice.

“I have to succeed, or I’m worthless.”

-+-

Hilda and her mother were back in their house briefly. It was getting dark, so Fluff the Petilil was dozing in her usual box. In a spare room, Fedora was out hard, asleep. His chest expanded in a slow steady rhythm, but he didn’t move otherwise. Hilda reached down from the chair and petted him. “Yeah, he’s been like this for the past few days. Juniper said that it was a normal hibernation, though. Thanks for looking after him.”

Her Mom smiled. “No problem. I just make sure there’s water nearby if he stirs, right?”

“Yup, and you may need to give him some food the first couple of times. He was sunning and eating quite a bit, but I don’t know if it’s enough.”

“Sure. Are you kids headed back to Castelia tonight?”

“Yeah, the weather’s still tolerable. Not that we don’t love you guys, but got to get back to training and stuff tomorrow.”

She nodded. “I understand; I’ve done it all before, remember?”

“Like a billion stories,” Hilda said, laughing.

Leslie chuckled, then turned oddly serious. “Oh, one of your friends left Nuvema already, N.”

Puzzled at that, Hilda tried to recall the last she’d seen of him. He had been talking with Cheren’s sister and holding onto the baby, but then she’d gotten into a conversation with Cheren and his family. “He did? Did he say why?”

“He’s just not used to crowds, as you know,” she answered. Then she came over and helped Hilda out of the chair. “But now that I’ve met them, I think that was a good idea you had, bringing those two boys over and being friendly with them. They could both use a good friend about now. Just be careful about getting too close to one unless you know the other won’t be jealous about it.”

-+-

With the encouragement from her mother, Hilda made her way over to where Hilbert was standing, by the fence at the edge of town that stood over a cliff. “Admiring the town?” she asked.

“Hmm?” He turned to see who it was, then shrugged. “Kind of. Reminds me of my home some, the style of houses and how small it is. Although nowhere near as compact. I was watching Kyurem too.”

“What’s he up to?” Hilda said, looking where he had been looking. Kyurem was down on the small riverbank at the base of the cliff. He was in dragon form crouched down with his wings close in, looking to the small island that blocked Nuvema from being on the ocean shore.

“I dunno,” Hilbert said. “But based on what I can sense from him, just enjoying the weather. It’s getting near freezing.”

“Of course he likes that.”

“Yeah.” He seemed uncertain, then turned back to her. “Do you mind if I talk to you about something?”

“Nah, what’s on your mind?”

“I… you just want to help me?”

Hilda felt puzzled at that sudden shift. “Yeah. I didn’t say anything, but if you just want to talk, I got nothing pressing to do. Except if you take too long and we have to set out for Accumula.”

Hilbert bowed his head. “It’s my power, sensing what people want. It’s just that I don’t often run into a simple want like that, unless it’s something basic to life like wanting to eat or sleep. Thanks. It’s about your Pokémon. How do you get them to like you and be happy like they are?”

She thought about that for a moment. “Can’t really say what it is. I try to have them out with me a lot, not just Kyurem. I do train them, but I make it fun like playing football with them. And I keep up on their grooming. Mimi has to be brushed every night, but Olette’s good with an occasional nail care if she gets to roll in the dirt a bit. Lance is touchy, though, and doesn’t let me groom him; he seems happier when I set up a bathtub of water for him and leave him to take care of himself. Kyurem’s the same way, except I don’t know if he takes baths or not. Probably in the rivers while he’s off somewhere else.”

“Then you spend a lot of time on them?” Hilbert asked.

“Yeah.” She chuckled a bit. “Might even spoil them a bit, I guess.”

He shook his head. “I wouldn’t say that.”

“Why’re you asking that? I mean, you’ve been taking care of Pokémon for nearly ten years, right?”

“Just about.” He shifted his posture nervously. “That’s what they tell you: take care of your Pokémon and they’ll grow to love you. It worked for me for years. I thought I was doing all that I was supposed to, training them well, helping them win battles, giving them breaks, having them out occasionally. I was doing just fine, I thought.”

“You didn’t have any of your Pokémon out at the party,” Hilda said. “Not that I noticed, anyhow. There were a lot, but even N had that cute little Darumaka out for a short time.”

His face went red at that. “Uh, yeah… but I couldn’t really do that. I mean… before I met you, I had over two hundred Pokémon.”

“Whoa, that many? I didn’t take you for a hoarder.”

“Well they were in the computer Storage Boxes most of the time,” he said, although that didn’t help his anxiety about something. Being wrong? “And I thought that was the mark of a great Trainer, you know. Make a lot of Pokémon happy and powerful, be known for being able to use just about any Pokémon out there. I did have a lot. Now I’m down to ten, and two eggs.”

“Downsizing is all right,” Hilda said. “Plus now those Pokémon can be out doing things too.”

He looked away and didn’t speak for a moment. When he did he sounded ashamed. “I didn’t mean to do it that way. I, I had to. Once that Attract state was broken, they all started hating me. I could get them to work with me for a few minutes, but then… it was like they were waking up from some kind of dream. I didn’t realize that I could also sense hate until I felt it from them. Maybe I am a wimp, but I just couldn’t face them when that hate was there. I gave them all away: no trades, no money, just transferred them over to an adoption agency “

“That’s not exactly being a wimp,” Hilda said. “Passing on a Pokémon if the only problem is that it dislikes you isn’t bad.”

“Maybe. But I don’t have much hope for the other ten being any better. And those eggs, I can’t even remember what kind of Pokémon they came from. I don’t know what to do now.”

“Maybe try spoiling yours a little bit.” Hilda considered what she might be able to do to help. Perhaps… “Hey were you still looking to travel with me? Bianca’s traveling with me too, but if you don’t mind hanging around two girls, it should be fine.”

He looked skeptical at that. “Are you sure? You said no before.”

“That’s cause you were a jerk back then. But you did have reason to believe you were that great, even if it wasn’t that good. You’re kind of all right now, and I know we aren’t going to be crowded out by a bunch of your fans.”

He finally smiled a little at that. “I guess. I don’t know, let me think about it. But thanks.”

“No problem.”

[scizorstrike]

Coffee Break

N glanced at the others around the table. "So why are there so many of us in this chapter again?"

"Because it's Christmas!" Hilda cheered, jumping up in her chair.

Only in Ysavvryl land.

AND WHO HIT THE SUBMIT BUTTON?!"

You did.

Cheren glanced over and saw his parents kissing under the mistletoe. Rolling his eyes, he turned his attention back to the conversation between his older brother and sister. “No, I think it’s a good idea to have us out there,” his brother said. “A lot of the places that we’re getting sent out to are the long and winding areas, like Twist Mountain, or other toughies like Desert Resort. Having trained doctors out there can help with Trainers who get into trouble and don’t want to send out their badly injured Pokémon.”

Ah, so that's where random doctors who heal Pokemon come from.

He was in dragon form crouched down with his wings close in, looking to the small island that blocked Nuvema from being on the ocean shore.

And you know what's off that way?    Spoiler:- :

Show Spoiler

 
GENESECT.