Manon hummed to herself as she ran her hand over Chespie's quills. The small Chespin chirred in delight and shifted deeper into her lap. She could hear Alain shifting around in the kitchen, grumbling to himself quietly, though she was more than sure it wasn't half as bad as he seemed to be making it out to be.

Sycamore had left the two of them in charge of the lab while he and Cosette were away on a vacation. The two were currently in the Alola region, probably relaxing on a beach or exploring some tropical jungle with dozens of Pokémon Manon had never seen before. The younger girl was a bit jealous that she wasn't with them, but part of her knew that Sycamore and Cosette deserved some time to themselves.

Manon sighed and gave Chespie a quick scratch under his chin, which had the tiny Pokemon melting at her touch. Finally, she pushed herself up off the floor and went to see what had Alain pacing around in the kitchen.

Alain had left the door on the refrigerator wide open. Jugs of milk and an assortment of foods were tossed onto the table behind him as he rummaged through their groceries. Manon had to jump to the side as a block of cheese hurtled past her head.

"Alain, what are you doing?!" She grabbed the cheese for the floor. Once she had it in her hand she noticed it had spots of green staining the original orange colouring. With a grimace, she dropped it onto the table.

"I thought Sycamore would have thought to at least buy some fresh groceries before he left . . ." Alain backed out of the fridge, turning to face her for the first time since she had entered the room. "He knows that I don't like grocery shopping . . ."

"It's not the shopping you dislike." Manon pointed out, raising a finger in the air. "It's dealing with the manager. I should add that the only reason he dislikes you is because you yelled at him when the store stopped selling that sketchy no name food you bought for Charizard."

"Please don't remind me . . ." He bit his lip, hands scrunching up the sides of his lab coat.

Chespie peeked into the kitchen at the two trainers. His quills twitched and he leaped up and scrabbled onto Manon's shoulder, nuzzling her. "Chespie and I could go to the store for you. Just make a list and we can pick up everything." She grinned eagerly, but Alain didn't return her optimism.

"No, I'll go. I can get it done faster anyways." Alain replied, lifting the lab's reusable grocery bag from the floor by the table. He was about to walk out when he noticed the pout on Manon's lips. "I'll pick up some sweets for you, okay?"

The girl instantly brightened. She nodded hastily and Chespie mimicked her, also looking forward to the sweets he knew Manon would share with him. Alain had to hold back a laugh as he waved his hand over his shoulder on his way out the door. Manon had certainly grown over the last few years of traveling, but she never lost her childish energy.

"I'll only be a bit, so keep an eye on the lab for me!" He called before closing the door behind him.

"Well, what should we do now, Chespie?" Manon muttered, her shoulders drooping as the Pokemon hopped off of her. Most of the work around the lab had been done earlier that morning. Alain and her had swept the building from top to bottom, and Alain had sorted through Sycamore's papers before she had even woken up. He never let her touch the professor's papers, and the only reason Manon could really assume was because he was scared of her somehow tearing them or making them more of a mess than they already were.

Chespie tugged at her pant sleeve and waved excitedly in the direction of the greenhouse. Without having to say anything she nodded and he instantly scampered off to play with the other Pokémon, leaving her to find something else to do. She had fed and examined all the Pokemon already . . .

A few days ago, Alain and Sycamore had found a wounded Vileplume and had taken it back to the lab. Sycamore said it seemed like a wild Pokémon because of how it acted towards humans. Chespie had grown attached to it immediately, wanting to help it recover and get comfortable with the other Pokémon in the greenhouse. He was definitely going to see his new friend now.

Wait, Alain said he bought some new books about mega evolution yesterday!

She was running towards Alain's room in an instant. Right inside the small, and overly organized space, was a bag of books that still carried the smell of fresh ink on paper. She didn't wait to start rummaging through the small pile. Whenever Alain went out to buy new research material he would always get a book for her, one with more pictures for her to look at. It was easy to find her book within the bundle of hefty novels. She pulled it out of the bag and flopped on Alain's bed, flipping the cover open and smiling already as she was greeted with an incredibly detailed painting of a battle between a Mega Mawile and a Mega Charizard Y.

The room was quiet with nobody else around. Occasional chatter of Pokémon from the garden seeped in through the open window, but it wasn't enough to distract Manon from the book she was reading. Each picture came with a short, but detailed summary for the corresponding mega Pokémon. Not only were there pictures, but there were actual photographs of the Pokémon in intense battles, and ones of all the known mega stones as well.

Roughly fifteen minutes had passed when the soft sound of the front door creaking open caught Manon's attention. She set the book down on the bed and swung her feet over the side, looking towards the door hesitantly.

Is Alain back already? That was pretty fast, especially for him . . .

She couldn't shake off the strange feeling building in her gut that something was wrong. Alain would usually call to her to let her know he was back, but right now she wasn't even sure she had heard the door open in the first place.

It was too quiet . . .

Manon shuffled towards the hallways, listening to the muffled footsteps coming from the main entrance. She wanted to call out to Alain, but something was holding her back. She hurried down the stairs towards the entrance, but the sound was gone now, the giant room completely empty.

"Alain, is everything okay?" Manon called, her voice wavering slightly. She was sick of this. Why was he acting so weird? She was about to call again, when the feeling of someone behind her made her spin on her heels. A man was looking straight at her, a pile of binders in his arms. It wasn't Alain. "What are you doing here? The lab isn't open to visitors right now . . ." She took a small step away from him, the worry in her gut growing.

The man set the binders down, and Manon recognized some of them as ones Alain had organized that morning. They belonged to Sycamore. She looked towards the man again. He was dressed almost entirely in black, and was wearing a thick coat despite being inside.

"You should have stayed upstairs." The man said, his voice hushed. He inched closer.

Manon bit her lip, her hands shaking. "Chespie!" She yelled loudly, knowing her Pokémon would hurry to her side in an instant. But he didn't. She tried to call to her partner again, more frantically. She spotted movement out of the corner of her eye and turned expectantly, only to have her heart fall. It was the Vileplume from before, the one that they had rescued only days ago. Why was it here instead of her Chespin?

The Vileplume's eyes rested on Manon for a moment before it stalked over to the stranger, rubbing against his leg affectionately. It wasn't a wild Pokémon at all . . . It belonged to this man, the one that had broken into the lab.

"Where is Chespie?" Manon demanded, her voice shaking. "What did you do to him?"

The Vileplume turned her head away as Manon took a trembling step forward. She didn't have any Pokémon to protect her, but that wasn't going to stop her from protecting the research that Alain and Sycamore had slaved over for the last year. It hadn't been released to anyone yet. That information was completely restricted to the people that worked with the Professor.

"All the Pokémon are asleep in the garden, with the assistance of my Vileplume." He pattered the flower Pokémon before stuffing his hands into his pockets. "You however . . . You've seen me. I wish you hadn't."

Shoving her own unease aside, Manon closed the distance between her and the intruder. She wasn't sure what she was going to do yet, but she knew she wasn't going to let him get away with those documents.

Her eyes darted to the man's feet, spotting him taking a small step away, and then she lunged at him, knocking him to the ground. His hands still in his pockets, he wriggled under her. She wouldn't be able to hold him down for long. With no chance of beating him in hand to hand combat, Manon shoved herself towards the papers he had dropped, reaching over him while trying to pin him with her knee. She had almost reached a pile when he grabbed her and slammed her onto her back against the cold tiles.

The air was knocked out of her instantly. She tried to catch her breath and hurl the weight off of her, but he had her completely overwhelmed. Her mind screamed and she yelled for the only help she could think of.

"ALAIN!, ALAIN HEL-"

Her voice was cut off suddenly when a burning pain burst through her entire body. Her hands flung to her stomach. She could hardly get out a scream as her throat seized up with agony. Manon bit her lip, forcing herself to breathe. Her eyes struggled to watch as the man on top of her pulled a blood-soaked knife out of her gut. It wasn't like anything she had ever felt before. She had been hit by more Pokémon moves than she could count while working with Sycamore and travelling with Alain, but those injuries seemed like scrapes compared to what was happening to her now.

She grabbed at her wound, her limbs spasming. Tears pricked her eyes. She wanted to scream, to cry, but she could hardly make a sound except for the shuddering rasps as her body fought for air.

The thief tucked the knife back into the pocket of his coat and slowly gathered the research from the floor. He turned his head to Manon once more. Through the haze that had shrouded her mind, she thought she caught a glimpse of regret in his eyes. She couldn't be sure, but her eyes were growing heavy. She could hear him walking away, his Vileplume following with the same unnerving calmness that his footsteps carried.

The research was gone . . .

I failed . . .

The tears began to fall. Her fingers squeezed her shirt lightly, and she could feel the blood ooze between them. She was lying in it. She could feel it being absorbed by her clothes.

Alain . . .

She didn't know if she wanted Alain to come back. She didn't want him to see her now. She didn't want him to know that the work he had done had been for nothing. She didn't want him to know that she had failed . . .

I . . . failed . . .

"Manon, I'm back." Alain called tiredly, dropping the two grocery bags as he stepped in through the kitchen door. "That dumb manager was there again today. I brought you and Chespie some snacks." He paused, waiting for her to reply. "Manon?"

Confused, Alain left the kitchen to find her. Maybe she had gone out to the garden to check on the Vileplume with Chespie? Or maybe she was in his room, against his wishes, reading the book he had gotten for her. Or maybe-

He stopped dead.

Or maybe she was laying on cold tiles of the main entrance in a thick puddle of blood, her own blood . . .

"M-Manon . . . w-what- I . . ." He couldn't think, couldn't talk or breathe or feel anything other than icy cold shooting through him.

"MANON!"

He threw himself to her side. Her eyes were hardly open. She didn't move, or raise her head to look at him. Her hands clung weakly to her gut, they were hardly visible by the blood that cloaked them. He didn't wait to press his own hands to the wound. He didn't stop to think how this had happened, it didn't matter. All that mattered was that Manon was in front of him, bleeding out on the floor of the place he had always thought of as his home.

"A-Alain . . ."

Alain almost flinched. He looked down to Manon's eyes again, seeing them resting on him. Without moving his hands from the wound, he leaned down to close the distance between them. His head pressed against hers and her faltering breaths brushed against his cheeks.

"It's g-gone . . ." She stammered, coughing. New spots of blood speckled the tiles. "I f-failed . . ."

Alain shook his head furiously. "Stop talking." He ordered firmly. With one of his sticky hands, he dug his phone out of his pocket and used the "Emergency Call" option for the first time in his life. The entire time he was on the phone, he had his eyes on Manon, watching her chest rise and fall, watching the blood leaking out of her one droplet at a time.

Five minutes it would take the ambulance to arrive . . . Five more minutes . . .