Fixation or Psychosis

by RevampWriting

She'd always known she was different, but she never imagined she would meet someone who'd talk about things so ludicrous they'd make her let out a stunned, quiet "What?" (and if she flinched a little afterwards because that wasn't how she meant to say it, nobody had to know) who she'd never know how to feel about. Odd!Touko

This is an N/Touko story at its core, but Touko is portrayed very differently in this fic than in others; the "real" Touko is reckless, rowdy, and tomboyish, with a fierce love for Pokémon, while the Touko in this story is… Not. I won't tell you what she's like because of spoilers, but you could probably guess from the synopsis posted with this fic – this is just one way I chose to interpret everybody's favorite tomboy.

Anyways, as this is my first fanfic for the Pokémon fandom, I hope everyone enjoys it! (N is my baby, and N/Touko is my Pokémon OTP [one of many], and I kinda feel bad for twisting their dynamic, but hey, it seemed like a good idea when I made it up.)

I do not own Pokémon, any of its creatures or characters.

(Oh, and P.S., for anyone who recognized the title, this fic was based on Far Too Young To Die by Panic! At the Disco, so if you want the full experience, I suggest buying it on iTunes and listening to it on repeat.)

…

Fixation or Psychosis

"This one," she murmured, deep blue eyes fixed upon the scaly green creature in the center of the trio. Behind her back, she felt her friends exchange surprised glances, and almost sighed aloud (or maybe turned around to scream at them, because really, after all this time, how were they surprised by anything she did anymore?), but she didn't. How were they to know she which Pokémon she would pick? It wasn't surprising that they were surprised; it probably would have made more sense for her to chose the cute little blue and white otter (she'd always had a soft spot for cute things) or the spirited black and orange fire pig (she'd always been fond of fire types), and yet she had instead chosen the aristocratic green snake, snivy. It wouldn't make a lot of sense to her friends, but she was sure of her choice. "I want this one."

She picked her new partner up off the table, carefully lifting him up and enveloping him in her arms, instead of picking him up under the arms like most excited new trainers would, because she knew if it didn't hurt the Pokémon, he or she definitely wouldn't like it. She raised her new partner to eye level and gave him a small smile that didn't need to reach her eyes because they were already filled with anticipation and nervousness and plans, oh, such plans. Her partner looked a little bewildered at her expression, but there was a smile creeping across his muzzle as well, and he looked just as excited as she did. "Do you already have a name?" she asked him, and he tilted his head to the side a moment, as if thinking about it. Then he shook his head, and her smile grew wider as she continued, "Is it okay if I call you Dynasty?"

Her friends stopped their squabbling for a moment (she thought perhaps they were fighting over which of the remaining two Pokémon they would each receive, but she wasn't paying attention, so she wasn't sure) to send odd looks her way, but her attention was solely focused on her Pokémon, watching until he nodded, at which point she practically beamed at him, her arms tightening around him in an almost-hug. Her friends were probably wondering why she had named him something like Dynasty instead of something… Else. She couldn't think of a good example for what her friends were expecting; her brain only worked one way, and she thought Dynasty was perfectly fitting. Then again, she was herself, and she had always known her mind worked very differently from others'.

She turned around to smile at her friends, allowing the grass snake Pokémon she was already beginning to care for clamber out of her arms and onto her shoulders, seeing the tepig and oshawott from earlier safely secured in Cheren and Bianca's arms, respectively (and she couldn't help feeling self-satisfaction at that, because it took years to drill into their heads the proper ways to lift Pokémon, to get them to stop hoisting them up from their underarms, but it was finally paying off). She discovered that Cheren had named his fire pig Lewis, and Bianca had named her sea otter Romero (and she suppressed the automatic instinct to cringe, because she honestly thought there were better names for the two Pokémon, names like Kai, or Sully, or Zucco, or Sokka, things that weren't Lewis or Romero), and she grinned at her friends, quiet joy and excitement climbing the walls of her throat. This was it: the day she was starting her journey towards strength, maturity, and adulthood. She was ecstatic – albeit quietly – to (hopefully) discover who she was, and where she was headed in life. The fact that she was heading out on the journey with her best (and only) friends in the world made it that much sweeter.

Bianca challenged her to a battle. Then Cheren. She won both. The former was more impressed with her friend's victory, while the latter was busy beating himself up over his loss. She took time out of getting high off the indescribable feeling winning a Pokémon battle that filled her heart to offer the bespectacled boy a quiet but heartfelt, "Thanks for the battle, Cheren." He looked up at her words and nodded once; he knew she was no good at articulating what she wanted to say, knew she was so lost in her own head half the time that she rarely caught any of the things that went on around her – he knew her words of gratitude were the closest she could get to words of encouragement. She wasn't apologizing – she had no reason to, really, she'd won fair and square, it wasn't her fault he had issues with his self-confidence – but she was trying her best to make sure her friend knew that she, at least, didn't think he was useless, or pathetic, or any other self-deprecating word his brilliant mind could come up with.

"No problem," he replied.

…

She had hardly started her journey (it was glorious, it was incredible, it was everything she could ever hope to dream of and all the things she never thought to wish for, and oh, how she loved it) when something went wrong. She met with Cheren in Accumula Town, after her little trio had split up to do their own things for a bit before reconvening. They both noticed people crowding around an area in a pack, and headed over themselves to investigate. What they found shocked them: a large, imposing man wearing a cape was standing in front of a group of people wearing strange outfits of silver and blue, practically preaching to those people huddled around him who were foolish enough to listen. This man – Ghetsis, he called himself – was speaking of Pokémon and humans being separated, of how Pokémon battles were cruel and damaging, of how trainers should release their Pokémon, because it was sick and wrong to keep them the way most did.

On her shoulder, Dynasty let out a series of indignant hisses that she didn't understand word for word, but knew meant he disagreed with what the green-haired man was saying. She placed a comforting hand atop his head, shooting him a soothing glance as she turned to face Cheren after Ghetsis had left and the crowd had dispersed. "What the Hell was that about?" the bespectacled boy snarled, and she almost took a step back at the raw fury in her friend's voice; her childhood friend rarely got angry, only irritated. "Liberating Pokémon? That's utter nonsense! People and Pokémon depend on one another! Separating them would be catastrophic."

"For humans, maybe."

They both turned. She didn't know it then, but the person standing before them, watching them through stormy eyes, was someone she was going to run into a lot before her journey ended (though really, there would never be an ending, only a series of firsts that began with this conversation, their first interaction, the one where they both decided the other was crazy, or that they themselves must have been). Standing before her was someone she didn't know she was going to need in the days that followed. He was all messy hair and tallness and eyes that were neither blue nor gray but somewhere in between, and, most of all, he was green. She didn't know what to say; Cheren didn't seem to, either. But Dynasty did.

Her troublesome little starter Pokémon propped himself up on her shoulder and hissed defiantly at the stranger (though he was never really a stranger, just parts of a puzzle, and puzzle that made up every aspect of her being, and his pieces were already beginning to be slotted into the picture), his amber eyes full of anger. The stranger tore his eyes from – oh, God, from her, she hadn't even noticed, damn this mind of hers, always wandering, she ought to keep it on a leash (and she didn't want to acknowledge the fact that he was looking at her, because not only was it embarrassing that she hadn't noticed sooner, it was also a little bit creepy), and turned his gaze to the reptilian Pokémon on her shoulder. His eyes widened as the grass snake continued on what appeared to be either a tirade or a thorough chastising (or perhaps a combination of the two), and his formerly neutral face slipped into an expression of slight shock and blatant disbelief, and the expression stuck long after Dynasty ceased his noises. Sensing our dumb stares on him, the stranger spoke, never taking his eyes off of her partner. "You… Your Pokémon… Just now, it was saying…"

"Slow down," Cheren interrupted, apparently coming to his senses. He pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose, though they had not slipped. It was what he did when he thought, she knew (and she envied him a little that he could do something so innocent as push up his glasses when he thought, whereas she couldn't think without silence and isolation and words, oh, such words, pouring from her lips, sometimes, or onto paper, others; she could not successfully think anything without words being a factor, silent or audible). "You talk too fast," the dark-eyed boy claimed, but she could smell the confusion and the faint, undeniable fear rising from his skin, and she knew he was only trying to deny what he had heard. "And what's this about Pokémon… Talking? That's an odd thing to say."

"Yes, they're talking," the stranger affirmed, and the fear on Cheren was thicker now, more noticeable, at least to a feral thing like her (oops, that was self-deprecation kicking in; that happened sometimes, but she tried not to let it). The unknown had always scared him. It scared her, too, but she didn't think it was as severe (it was worse). The dumb stares continued. The stranger's squared, narrow shoulders slumped, if only slightly; now he seemed disappointed. "Oh." It was a simple phrase, comprised of only one syllable, but it spoke volumes, of pain and loneliness and a desire to protect, of things she could not yet hear, things she did not yet understand. "Then, you two can't hear it, either… How sad." And it was. Just hearing him say that, she believed it. "My name is N."

Cheren glanced at her from around the corners of his eyes. What a strange name, they said. Indeed it was; not many people could say their names were comprised of only one letter, and she knew that's what his name was, just a single, isolated letter (just like him, she later discovered, but that was not something she knew just then). She could tell just from the way he'd said it. Her eyes agreed with those of her friend. "My name is Cheren," the bespectacled boy beside her introduced, and, sensing her silence, knowing she was quiet, and feeling as though he just ought to, he added, "And this is Touko."

(In the space of a second, she saw this N's eyes flick towards hers, and she met him there, her own eyes bright and burning and full of something that must have terrified him, because his eyes left hers lonesome but for each other in the next instant, refocusing on those of her friend, and she had the briefest sensation of being taken apart like bad glue on a futile get well soon card left in the dull, fading sunshine on the windowsill, then being strung back together with a needle and thread. The feeling itself was unpleasant, but she found out later that the events that would make the feeling more than fleeting were worse.)

"We were asked to complete the PokéDex, and we just left on our journey," the black-haired boy explained, and her first thought was Oh, Cheren, you shouldn't have said that, because somehow, she knew this N before them would not like what he heard (why she cared if he liked what he heard or not was not a mystery she pondered until much later, when it was hardly relevant anymore but to wonder how the whole thing started). She hardly heard her companion add, "My main goal is to become the Champion, though" to his previous statements, so closely was she watching the minute changes in the tall, messy-haired, strange-color-eyed, green young man in front of her; she watched his body go rigid when he heard the word 'PokéDex', watched as his eyes gradually and almost unnoticeably narrowed, watched the absence and resolve build within him as he hardly listened to the handful of words that were last presented, just the same as her.

"The PokéDex, eh?" he checked, and though the not-quite-question itself was innocent – if not entirely rhetorical – there was a dryness to his voice, a sarcasm, a cynicism, that made it completely unsurprising to her when he tacked on "So… You're going to confine many, many Pokémon in Poké Balls for that, then." There was an accusation there, one that made Dynasty shift irately across her shoulder blades, but she placed a soothing hand atop the grass type's head, and he settled a bit, though she could feel the vibrations of a suppressed hiss trapped within his body on the back of her neck. Cheren took offense as well, apparently, because he narrowed his eyes, nostrils flaring as he took a step forwards and opened his mouth to protest, but N cut him off. "I'm a trainer, too, but I can't help wondering… Are Pokémon really happy that way?"

Somehow, knowing he was a trainer reassured her that this nonsense his head was filled with was coming from a good place, a place where he was only concerned about the wellbeing of Pokémon. Yet, if everything she had taken from this conversation was true – that he was questioning the place of trainers in the world, and that he could hear and understand Pokémon – she couldn't help but wonder how he could possibly think that humans were bad for Pokémon (or at least as mad for Pokémon as he seemed to think). Lewis and Romero already seemed to like her two childhood friends, and her own partner seemed rather fond of her as well. How could this N possibly not know how strong a bond could be formed between trainers and their Pokémon?

His eyes flickered to hers again, but this time, they stuck there. He could see the intensity with which she was looking at him, and – though there was a brief flash of bewilderment, of confusion, of slight, almost unnoticeable, barely-there uncertainty – he matched it with his own, his stormy eyes kicking up a gale that tore at her skin without touching her once. "Well, Touko, was it?" he established, and she was both surprised and completely unsurprised at the sudden authority in his voice, at the abrupt finality he poured into his words where only moments before he had been speaking with a quietness that spoke of down-trodden ambiguity and plans, plans, plans (and she knew a thing or two about those, oh, yes she did). "Let me hear your Pokémon's voice again!"

When the battle was done and the green-haired young man returned his defeated purrloin to its Poké Ball while Dynasty raced back to her as she caught him up in her arms with a smile, a laugh, and a soft "Good job, Dyna", she looked up just in time to see his mouth open and a handful of stunned, almost-soundless words tumble out from behind his tongue and his teeth. "I never expected to hear Pokémon say such things…" The words were spoken almost under his breath; she knew at once that they were private words, and was almost sorry she'd heard them. Then he shook himself, and as his clothes resettled over his lean frame, he declared in a much louder, crystal clear voice, "As long as Pokémon are confined in Poké Balls, Pokémon will never become perfect beings."

"Nothing is perfect," she interrupted him, and he stared at her, not-quite-gray-but-not-quite-blue eyes piercing through hers and seeming to enter her brain for the sole purpose of poking around, trying to discover what exactly made her tick (but it was a pointless exercise, because even she didn't know, really).

He looked away, off to the side and slightly towards the ground, and she could almost taste the bitterness of questions that burned on his tongue, so potent were his emotions. She saw his shoulders shaking imperceptibly. "I have to change the world for Pokémon, because they're my friends," he told them, his timbre full on sincerity and certainty and the beginnings of an instability that would only increase with every time they faced each other, but went unnoticed for now. He gave her one last look out of the corner of his eyes as he turned away, then he was walking the opposite direction, leaving the two rookie trainers to stew in the shock he left in his wake. The bespectacled boy at her side muttered something about N being strange. She agreed. Then he said he wasn't going to worry about the young man whose hair was the color of green tea. "You should," was the only thing she said in response.

Her best friend sputtered and floundered for a few wasted moments, then he changed the subject entirely, thrown off by her statement (and he must have known that she wouldn't be able to give him a straight answer as to what exactly she meant if he had asked). "Trainers and Pokémon should help each other out!" As if she didn't already know that. As if both of them weren't already in the process of doing exactly that. He made his excuses, saying that he wanted to battle the gym leader of the next town, Striaton City, so he could get stronger. She wished him good luck as he began to leave, and he offered her a faint smile as he went. She watched him until he was out of sight. Dynasty hummed in her ear, and she craned her neck to smile at him, murmuring assurances as she headed for the Pokémon Center, promising to get him all healed up before they continued on. The odd green-haired man who called himself N was pushed aside and forgotten.

(But that in itself was a lie, because she couldn't forget him, not now, not when her journey had only just started and she had no idea how important he was to become.)

…

She was in high spirits as she made her way towards the Nacrene City gym, having already defeated Chili in Striaton a few days prior. She had caught several new Pokémon since then, including a panpour she called Downpour, a pidove she named Nittany, a blitzle she christened Delancey, and an audino she dubbed Razzmatazz, who seemed to be quite infatuated with her serpentine partner (not that he noticed, the oblivious flirt that he was). Despite sharing the strongest bond with Dynasty, she felt good about her the new members of her team; she was confident they liked her already. The group seemed content, and she in turn was content as well, glad that her Pokémon were getting along, and growing closer as well as stronger each day. It was a beautiful thing to see. She was certain her team was ready to face Lenora and her normal types… Though really, she was more excited about the archeological aspect of the gym; her Pokémon were all exasperated with her incessant buzzing about fossils by now, she was sure.

Yet – despite the innumerous amount of times any and all of her Pokémon had told her (with hisses and chirps and other noises, and eyes that glared in the most fearsome, aggravated fashion) to shut up already – she was at it again. "It's just unbelievable the sorts of Pokémon that used to live on this Earth," she babbled, gesturing wildly with her hands as her head swung back and forth so she could direct her words at all of her Pokémon (or at least try to), who were all traveling out of their Poké Balls beside her. "You look at bird Pokémon now and think they've always just been birds, but they weren't, they're related to Pokémon like aerodactyl and archeops and Pokémon that hardly look anything like them, if at all. It's incredible." She grinned a mile wide, energy that she almost never had and expressed even less often filling up the cavity of her chest. "Evolution is amazing. Pokémon are amazing."

I agree. The words weren't spoken aloud, but she sensed them fly through the air, and when she turned sharply to check whether she was really going crazy (although it wasn't really a matter of going, she was already absolutely mad), her gaze caught on familiar stormy eyes, and she saw the passion that simmered and smoldered there. She stopped walking. She hadn't thought all that much about N since their last meeting, only on occasion, and only in passing, like in the Dreamyard, and when Team Plasma stole that little girl's Pokémon (but those people are nothing like N, she'd thought, and she didn't understand her own conviction, N truly cares for Pokémon, and doesn't want them hurt; she understood even less when she found out later how wrong she was, yet couldn't shake the idea that he was different). She stared at him, her enthusiasm leaving her in an instant, but refusing to take her energy with it, leaving her hollow torso vibrating with light and uneasiness and ambiguity. The emotions clattered against the frame of her ribs so noisily and gracelessly that she was certain he and every one of her Pokémon could hear them.

She wanted to speak, but it was like she had forgotten how. Her tongue felt like lead in her mouth, her saliva bitter ashes, and her teeth iron bars all welded together to prevent her mouth from opening even a fraction. It didn't help that she had absolutely no idea what to say (that was a lie, a blatant lie, but she wouldn't admit that, not even to herself, because the truth was, she had too many things to say to him, and she really shouldn't, not to some boy with green hair and eyes that aren't gray but aren't blue, who didn't understand the importance of the relationship between trainers and Pokémon and was so familiar to her yet so undeniably strange that it hurt). All she could think about was the look on his face when Dynasty had hissed at him, and after she had defeated him in battle, like he had discovered a tear in the fabric of the universe that had once seemed to be nothing less than indestructible (later, she discovered that this sentiment was almost true). Her indiscernible thoughts were making it hard to breathe. She needed to speak, before the words clogged themselves in her throat and choked her. "Why are you doing this?" she settled on asking, because it was really a good question (no it wasn't; it wasn't a good question at all, because at that point, she really had no idea what she was asking, but she would before it all ended).

He observed her silently for a moment, then he took a step forward, then another, and another, at a pace that could only be described as deliberate. She stumbled back twice as fast, faltering to a stop a few feet from where he was staring down at her. Another pregnant pause passed between them. "I… Want to see things no one can see." Finally. She was so relieved at his the fact that he'd spoken that she almost missed what exactly he'd said. "The truths of Pokémon inside Poké Balls. The ideals of how trainers should be. And a future where Pokémon have become perfect." His intentional use of the word she had informed him was nothing more than a fantasy the last time they had seen one another did not go unnoticed; she straightened up as soon as 'perfect' glided off his tongue. She wanted to protest, or at least reiterate her earlier sentiment, but he was studying her with a new expression on his face, an expression she couldn't quite place but decided looked a lot like genuine interest. "…Do you feel the same?" he inquired, his tone nothing but polite, but she was aware of a stranger, deeper, less formal meaning lurking beneath, if she could tell anything from the slashing rain she saw in his eyes.

"Yes." It was all she said. But it was enough. They both took a moment to feel the relief there, the comfort that her answer brought, the reassurance that neither of them was insane enough to imagine the familiarity that prowled ominously between them, hidden within every movement they made and every syllable they uttered. But it was also an answer to the actual question he had asked her, the question of whether she could see the future he described, a future where people and Pokémon were equals (but they already were, weren't they, people and Pokémon depended upon one another, how could he not see that?), and all trainers treated them as such. What she didn't say was that, though she could see the future he spoke of with such reverence, she wasn't entirely sure that it was the right one, if Pokémon and humans being separated was a part of it. She supposed he must have known, regardless.

"That so?" he questioned, raising his eyebrows as his eyes dulled and mellowed – the eye of the hurricane. He knew, certainly. He must have known that she didn't approve of or agree with the methods he was using to achieve his goal. She sensed his movements before he made them, seeing him reach towards his belt and pull out a Poké Ball, twice; once in her mind, and once in the reality in front of her. "I think my friends and I should test you to see if you can see this future too." And he swung his arm back to toss the Poké Ball in an arch, and they both watched it burst open in the shower of sparks and red light he was so convinced was nothing more than a cage.

When the battle ended, and her team swarmed around her, howling with triumph as they all tried to clamber over her in some manner or another, the green-haired boy recalled his final Pokémon, watching in confused, solemn silence as the blue and beige tadpole disappeared back inside the Poké Ball. She quieted her Pokémon when she saw N staring silently – almost forlornly – at the cold red-and-white metal sphere in his palm, patiently awaiting his next words (for she knew he would speak, even if she shouldn't). "Perhaps it is I who cannot yet see the future…" he murmured, and again she almost felt guilty, because his words were more expressive now, and she could hear the mixture of perplexity and disappointment and fear in his near-silent timbre, and the words were, once again, not meant for her. "The world is still to be determined…" For a brief moment, his grip tightened around the Poké Ball, then he returned it to his belt and raised his head to look at her, the storm stirring in his eyes once again. "Right now, my friends aren't strong enough to save all Pokémon. Maybe I can't solve the equation that will change the world." After helpless admissions like those, his next words were somewhat of a shock: "So, I need power… Power enough to make anyone agree with me."

"There's no such thing," she interjected, and his eyes went sharp and flinty, flashing in the afternoon sunlight, but two could play at that game, and she stared back at him just as hard. She became slightly unbalanced when Dynasty decided to scramble up onto her shoulder (he wasn't so small or light since he evolved, she noted with amusement, but once she regained her balance, she decided she didn't mind much, so long as he didn't stay up there for long). "I don't think there's any power on Earth strong enough to make me think that humans are bad enough for Pokémon to justify ripping them away from each other." Her starter Pokémon hissed shortly, then rubbed his head against the side of her neck, practically purring. She placed a hand atop his head to stop him; she was trying to judge just how far she had taken things by how fast the winds were blowing and how fiercely it was raining within the ambiguously-hued pools from which he stared out at her.

"Yes there is." Dread pooled in her stomach; the threat and finality in his voice made her think that perhaps, even if he couldn't make her agree, there were things powerful enough in the world to make her opinion irrelevant. "It's my turn to become a hero – with Pokémon by my side, I will have friends enough to change the world."

Their conversation was over. He continued on his previous path forwards, and this time, instead of stumbling clumsily back, she stepped to the side, allowing him to pass her. It should have been – would have been easy to simply leave it at that, to let him have his last hurrah, to let him carry on with his plans (and if there was one thing she respected about him, it was his ability to plan, because plans were her specialty, and as far as she was concerned, they were beautiful), but somehow she couldn't do it; somehow, she couldn't let him believe that she wasn't prepared to try and stop him. "Even friends in the holiest of spaces can only get you so far," she warned, her bright blue gaze flickering with danger and denial and determination, "So long as there is at least one person brave or foolish enough to oppose you."

There was a beat of silence.

N left.

…

Worry nagged at her conscience, the pesky emotion slowly gnawing away at her organs; she could only hope Bianca would be all right, after the confrontation with her father earlier that day. Her beloved partner had noticed her gloomy mood, and he insisted they go do something fun to cheer her up, though she was certain he could tell it wasn't really working, as her concerns refused to leave her. The emerald snake had stretched himself out across her shoulders like a scaly scarf so as not to get in the way of others – he had learned his lesson already, his tail having been stamped on earlier by a passerby in some sort of hurry – and the rest of her team was snuggled safely in their Poké Balls, so as not to hinder anyone.

She could feel the majority of them against her hip through the fabric of her bag, all buzzing happily, communicating through the metal and circuitry in a language she did not understand; Razzmatazz said something to Nittany, who droned back in what seemed to be an exasperated manner, while a newer member of her team named Diaval – a gentle sandile she had picked up along Route 4 on her way over from Castelia, whom she was certain was going to be her ticket to victory when she faced down the gym leader of Nimbasa – seemed to make a cautious suggestion that had him immediately drawn into the conversation when the usually mild-mannered audino snapped back at both her friends. Delancey was holding a conversation as well, but hers was going considerably less well, as her partner in dialogue seemed to be nothing but unpleasant and nasty – Touko almost regretted reviving the troublesome fossil Pokémon; he couldn't remember his own name, having been stuck dormant and unconscious in a rock for countless eons, so she called him Raincheck, and he was probably the least likeable of her team, being a stubborn, prideful ass often enough to evoke feelings of spite from her other Pokémon. She doubted anyone could get the tirtouga to quit being so negative, but she admired her blitzle for trying.

She nearly fell forwards when she was forced to stop abruptly, waving her arms frantically to regain her balance as a couple of squealing children raced past her. She forced herself to refocus on the world around her, instead of getting lost in her own head, as she so often did. Blinking away her stupor, she turned her head enough to see the narrow face of the serpentine Pokémon over her right shoulder, offering him a smile as she picked up one hand and stroked him along the back of his neck. He purred in response, shutting his amber eyes briefly, then opened them again, energy radiating off of him that made her laugh (quietly, though, because laughing loudly made people stare, and the more they stared, the deeper they looked, the more they would realize she was strange, strange, oh so strange, no, not strange, eccentric, bizarre, outlandish, yes, outlandish, that was the right word, or at least a better word than something as common as simply strange). The grass-type snake propped himself up with one of his leafy arms, pointing with the other as he chirped brightly. She smiled softly, walking forward carefully in whatever direction he pointed, until he either hissed with frustration and displeasure or gently pulled on her ear with his teeth, guiding her a different way, playing along with whatever it was he was trying to do with good cheer because how could she not feel good, with her Pokémon at her side (oh, right, because Bianca's father found her and yelled and might continue to be horrible, and Bianca felt poorly, and damnit, she was getting anxious again, wasn't she)? She felt Dynasty's exasperated exhale against her collarbone, and her fond smile turned apologetic; she didn't want to be a downer, especially when her partner was in such high spirits. "I'm sorry, Dyna," she murmured, stroking the scales beneath his chin, "I know I'm being miserable – no…" She paused, brows furrowing and lips curling as she paused in deliberation. "I know I'm being melancholy," she corrected with a triumphant tone to her words, perking back up and regaining the sympathetic look she previously wore, "I'm just worried about Bianca, is all. I'll be okay." The vibrations of some unidentifiable placating sound entered her upper back and shoulders through his scales, and the grass-type's verdant tail twitched upwards to flick her playfully on the cheek.

She giggled at her starter's actions, giving him a few extra pats out of gratefulness, then continued on with their previous path, which seemed to be towards the food courts located towards the back of the theme park. However, she had hardly taken more than five steps before her cherished serpent was stiffening and rising from his position, hissing a warning that caused her to whirl around… Too late, it seemed, for she felt a foreign, smooth-skinned hand fasten it's grip upon her upper arm, and she was being dragged away before she could so much as think of screaming (but she wouldn't have done that, no, because she was a crazy, stupid girl who probably would have thought to ask her abductor's name before she would ever think of screaming, if only because Dynasty and the rest would probably tear them limb from limb, whether she asked them to or not). She was motionless with shock for a moment, then she began kicking and struggling, digging her feet into the ground in an effort to stop – or at least slow – the journey to wherever whoever had her arm was taking her.

She didn't stop struggling for a moment, and at one point she even thought she was might get lucky enough to get away – Dynasty had leaped off her shoulders, presumably to attack whoever had been bold or foolish enough to grab her, and through the grunts of annoyance and pain that issued from her abductor, their grip on her arm loosened momentarily, and she almost slipped away, but then there were blunt, even nails digging into her skin, and irregular movement from out of her line of sight ceased, and she was trapped again (if only she could think to scream, maybe someone would be kind enough to help her) – but alas, she was unable to escape, and was dragged unwillingly to her captor's destination. She would have done a double take if she were anyone else once she realized where exactly that destination was: none other than the famous Nimbasa City ferris wheel. Again, shock rendered her momentarily incapable of moving, and that was all the time her kidnapper needed to yank her inside the registration and throw her into an open compartment (though perhaps 'throw' was too strong a word, for whoever this was, he or she most certainly hadn't thrown her; the way in which she was moved was sharp and abrupt, yet cautious and gentle, and couldn't be described with any word she currently knew). She shook her head free from cobwebs and dizziness – a difficult task, with the awful sensation of her stomach flipping over filling her core as the capsule that was presently her cage began to rise into the air – and looked up, blue eyes impossibly intense in a rare, aggressive glower.

Her expression shifted to one of complete and utter shock, however, when she finally saw who it was that had nabbed her.

Hair the color of green tea, immeasurably messy, long and disorderly, tied back in a careless ponytail, the thick locks cascading down his back, eyes tempestuous and turbulent as ever, gray and blue mixed and swirled in patterns that were constantly changing, shadowed by the poor lighting that reached them inside the ferris wheel capsule, staring straight across at her; it was N. In his arms lay a motionless Dynasty. Of course – of course – this was when she thought it fitting to scream. It was a blood-curdling sound, she was sure, but she couldn't hear it; all she could hear was the pounding of her heart and roar of blood in her ears, the incessant racket shrieking at her noiselessly protect him, protect him, protect your partner! She straightened out form her crumpled position on the metal seat immediately, and she hardly stumbled when the pod rocked wildly as she stood, her focus solely on her Pokémon and this peculiar acquaintance of hers. Dimly, she heard herself screeching at the top of her lungs, "What did you do to him?!", but in her mind, her speech sounded slurred, as though she was unwittingly swallowing her own tongue, and her vision was blurring with hot, salty tears, the sight of her (hopefully) unconscious Pokémon upsetting her too deeply for words.

Instantaneously, panic filling the young man's body, his shoulders tensing while the muscles in his face went slack, eyes widening drastically. He let go of the grass snake, holding has hands in front of him, palms up, in a peaceful, pacifying nature, though the action had no effect on the raging, protective trainer. "It's okay, it's okay!" he assured hurriedly, his voice a few octaves higher than it had been during any one of their other meetings, his alarm at her sudden state of distress affecting his vocal capabilities. "He's only asleep, there's this little pressure point under the left shoulder that sends his evolution line right off, he's completely fine! For the love of Arceus, calm down!" Hearing that her dear partner was alright put an end to her screaming, but she continued to plunge vicious blades into his flesh with her eyes, and she refused to sit down, remaining in her vertical position with her fists clenched and shaking with wrath. The green-haired boy cowered slightly as she snapped furiously, "Who the Hell do you think you are? And why did you bring me here?!"

The red and white container rocked again, causing a momentary distraction that allowed N the opportunity to grasp Touko by the wrists and grab her attention. "I promise you, it was only to talk," he pledged, the octave of his tone lowering once more, although it was still a little more high-pitched than normal.

She didn't stop her fierce staring, but her fingers uncurled, and she seemed to settle more stably as she pulled her wrists from his grasp none-too-gently. "Who abducts people when they want to talk to them?" she snapped, shoving down the protesting voice in her head that was calling her a hypocrite, because she had surely done stranger things for stranger reasons. He didn't need to know that, though, and – if his cringing was anything to go by – he didn't. He honestly thought she was accusing him of something odd (which she was – she hadn't been lying when she said she'd never met anyone that dragged others into the bowels of amusement parks just to have a friendly conversation, although she hadn't actually said that, or at least not in so many words). What she couldn't figure out was why exactly he cared if she thought his actions abnormal; from their previous meetings, she had determined him to be the type not to care what others thought… Though she supposed it wasn't impossible for her to have misjudged things (though it was a little impossible for her to avoid the sensation of wanting to scratch away all her skin until her arms were raw and her flesh was exposed, because she was wrong, she was wrong, she was wrong, damnit)…

"Sorry, I…" He petered off, biting his lip slightly, fingers fidgeting along her Pokémon's spine – she took the opportunity to snatch her cherished serpent out of his hold – and refusing to meet her eyes, the very picture of awkwardness and insecurity. She could hardly believe that this young man was the same one that had so boldly announced his beliefs in Accumula Town and Nacrene City, the one who had so boldly (and arrogantly, ignorantly, a thousand other phrases that would fit better but she didn't have the space in her brain to think of in so little time) told her he believed that she was wrong, like so many other trainers in the world. He knotted his fingers together in his lap, seemingly in an effort to keep them still. He still would not meet her gaze as he managed to elaborate, "I love ferris wheels. The circular motion… The mechanics… They're like a collection of elegant formulas." She was amazed at the soft reverence in his tone; his obvious love of something other than the 'liberty' of Pokémon made the fire that had ignited within her the moment she saw Dynasty passed out in the green-haired boy's arms die, just a little bit. She refused to let go of her anger, stubbornly repeating to herself that he deserved to be yelled at, not only because of his so-not-long-in-the-past-it-could-be-counted-as-present unacceptable behavior towards her, but because of the things he'd said to her previously… Not that anything he had previously said to her could have been perceived as offensive by anyone else, but she was who she was, and even if his words weren't offensive and he only meant to state his opinions by speaking them, she could practically smell the uneasiness and discomfort they were going to cause one another, and she didn't like it one bit (she had no right, thinking that when she did; she had no idea, no idea, what she was getting herself into, but she somehow wasn't entirely sure she would have wanted to).

"They're beautiful," she agreed quietly, and she watched as he looked up sharply in surprise. She wasn't sure why he was surprised (then again, he didn't know her, and she didn't know enough about normality to understand why it should have been surprising), but as she sat down properly for the first time since they'd entered the Poké Ball-themed capsule, she decided to offer him a sincere but paper-thin smile, just to let him know she wasn't making fun of him (but she was once again perplexed as to why she cared). She looked around, seeing nothing but numbers and equations and the milky multicolored light that leaked into the metal pod from the city outside, turning it's insides into a kaleidoscope. She watched the city grow smaller and smaller beneath them as they rose in the air for a while, then turned back to the storm-gazer, her own bright eyes beginning to harden once more. "What did you feel was so important that you had to drag me onto a ride at a theme park to tell me, again?"

He didn't react awkwardly this time; she wasn't sure if she was glad or not, or whether or not she should have been. Instead, he only sighed, bowing his head for a moment, then looked her right in the eye with an apologetic, tired look on his face. "First, I should tell you… I'm the king of Team Plasma."

At this, her brain completely shut down. Her blue eyes widened to the size of dinner plates (she had never understood that hyperbole; there were much better things to compare the expanding of the eyes to), her jaw dropped slightly, and her grip on her grass type partner went a little slack, her mind having immense difficulty processing the bombshell of information that had just been dropped on her. She did not hear his next words – "Ghetsis asked me to work with him to save all Pokémon that exist in this world, no matter their numbers" – until later, when she managed to work through the fog that surrounded the incident when she was alone in her rented room in the Poké Center, and realized he had said something after his original sentence at all. She didn't see as he seemed to get lost in his own world for a few seconds before refocusing on her, watching her face intently to see her reaction – there wasn't one. She stared, mouth agape, eyes taking up half her face, all thoughts completely halted, unable to think, or speak, or breathe (the air was crushed out of her lungs before she could even think to use it, the weight of all the possibilities that could come from this – come from them – overtaking her, even if she couldn't think about them, even if she couldn't even tell they were there). There was nothing in her world but a vacuum that pulled everything she knew and everything she loved out from under her feet, leaving her free-falling in empty space.

Finally, she let out a stunned, quiet, "What?" (And if she flinched a little afterwards because that wasn't how she meant to say it – what he had just said was so outrageous, her exclamation deserved more emphasis – nobody had to know. Least of all him.)

He opened his mouth to reply, but then the door to their compartment was being opened and the attendants were hurrying them out, eager to get them off the ride with so many others waiting in line. She remained silent the whole time, numb with the revelation that this strange young man she had become acquainted with throughout the beginnings of her journey (but really, it had been so much longer, it was days and decades and eons, even if they didn't know it, even if they couldn't feel time and space shifting around them, circling them like vultures) was the leader of an organization she had seen do wicked, terrible things, an organization intent on stealing Pokémon and destroying the lives of people who cared for them. The organization responsible for everything that had gone wrong on her journey so far was ruled by the green-haired boy she didn't know (didn't she, though?) but she thought she could trust (and she could, truly, but not right now, not until it was too late to trust him with anything, when her world splintered and cracked into jagged shards and there was nothing anyone could do but watch).

There was suddenly anger everywhere. She didn't scream, like she had in the ferris wheel (that had been a different kind of anger, a more desperate, panicked kind, not like the burn that she felt now, not like the hot, slick rage that flowed through her bloodstream); she whirled to face him, her face contorted and dark as she balled her right hand into a fist, then slammed the appendage into the side of his face as hard as she could. Pain immediately blossomed between her knuckles, its stem shooting all the way down to her wrist before spreading roots to her elbow, and for once, she reacted like a normal human being – she let out a cry, yanking her arm away to cradle her throbbing hand as best she could while also cradling her still-unconscious starter Pokémon. Her moment of human-ness vanished, however, when she managed to forget her own injury, watching the subject of her abuse reel backwards, waving his hands about before they found their way to his face, clutching the spot where she punched him. She realized belatedly that he had uttered a cry as well when she struck him, and now some people in the surrounding area had turned to watch them, all frozen in place, uncertain as to what exactly they should do (which made little sense to her; why wouldn't they know what to do, when it was so obvious?), some of whom she noticed were headed their way. However, this registered in only one corner of her mind, a part that she was currently not focused on; she was focused on the part of her brain that was forcing the words, "WHO IN THE NAME OF ARCEUS DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?!" out of her mouth at a deafening volume, the part of her brain that continued, "After all the things that they have done, you're proud to claim Team Plasma as yours? I thought you cared for Pokémon!"

It should have been his turn to be livid – and he was, judging by the way his expression drastically darkened the moment the words broke through her tongue and her teeth – but she was hardly effected, steam-rolling him before he could get a word in edgewise. "Team Plasma is responsible for every horrid thing that I have seen happen to Pokémon so far; they use Pokémon as tools! They stole my best friend's Pokémon from her under the guise of 'liberation'! I've even seen them abuse Pokémon! And you call yourself their leader?"

"How dare you!" he finally managed to interrupt, eyes somehow no longer stormy, but instead burning with fierce blue-gray flames. "Team Plasma would never – "

"Is there a problem, my lord?" a voice chimed in from over her companion's shoulder. The green-haired young man turned to face the speaker, whom she realized was a member of the very outfit they had been arguing about, the medieval style to his clothing giving him away. Her muscles tensed and tightened at the sight, her fingers digging into Dynasty's green scales, causing her Pokémon to finally stir from his induced slumber. Her nose scrunched up and her lips were peeled back in an almost feral snarl before she could stop them; the second grunt – she'd hardly noticed there were two, so alike were they in appearance (although she supposed all the grunts looked more or less the same) – shot a look her way that was at once frightened, disturbed, and disgusted. It made her blood boil. She opened her mouth to say, "Yes, there is a problem", ready to take them all on if they challenged her, but then her companion (she had to stop calling him that, he wasn't company, he was a kidnapper, and apparently the king of an organization she despised) broke in, replying, "No; there's no problem. You are part of the people we brought in to help us save Pokémon, and therefore you are both under my protection. Go quickly, and let my battle cover your retreat." He must have known she would challenge them.

As the two grunts fled, N turned back to face her, his jaw set and his eyes stony. She did not back down from his stare – she had noted how he purposefully chose his words when he spoke to his subjects, noticed how he picked the words that would implicitly spell out for her that he didn't appreciate her suggestion that his kingdom was made up of criminals, words that would let her know he didn't believe her in the slightest, and knowing that he so carefully monitored what came out of his mouth told her that he monitored his facial expressions just as attentively. They both remained stagnant and soundless for a long moment, watching one another. Eventually, the boy with hair the color of tea spoke. "Now then, Touko," he murmured, eyes never straying from her form (and even though his intent look didn't frighten her, his words did, at least a little bit, because she didn't think it was normal to want to curl up in a ball on the floor to shiver and cry at the sound of one's own name, even when it was spoken by someone like him), "Do you follow my logic?"

"What logic?" she spat, eyes spiteful and just the tiniest bit smug, because even if no one else in the world would have thought of it as even a half-decent insult, she was slowly beginning to figure him out, and she knew the three-syllable phrase would hurt him. She was right; she watched him flinch violently away, taking a stumbling step back as if she had clouted him a second time, his eyes widening and flashing for a moment, the sparking oddly-colored orbs wavering a silvery color for just a moment… But then he shook his head a little and refocused, gaze turning from identical shocks of bright, ashy azure to twin pools of bluish steel.

"So that's how it is…" he trailed off, a hint of a growl in his tone (but she could hear genuine remorse in his voice, sincere regret, like he wished there was some other outcome, even though she was sure he had done the math, and he had already figured out there weren't going to be many other possible conclusions, and even fewer positive ones). "That's unfortunate." (And once again, she could tell he meant it, even though she was quite sure he was a practiced liar, and she really shouldn't be able to tell all these things about him when she didn't even know him, not really.) "Then… The future I envision… Perhaps I can't beat you here and now, but I'll battle you to buy time for those members of Team Plasma to flee." At the very least, she was glad to know he understood that she was stronger than him, even if it was only for now, and even though he didn't know the reason (she wanted to tell him – wanted to inform him that the reason she kept beating him was because she had a pure and true bond with her Pokémon, as many other trainers did – but she did not, and she was never able to figure out if it was wise or not to withhold such information by the end of things).

At the end of the battle, she recalled an awakened Dynasty back into his Poké Ball, eyes never straying from the face of Team Plasma's king, her gaze inexorably obdurate (oh, such glee; she hadn't found words so perfectly fitting for her own actions in a very long time). Her adversary stared back, but his eyes had lost their conviction; his gaze was once again stormy, and slackened with shock and defeat. "The results are the same as those of our previous meetings…" he observed – rather uselessly in her opinion – as he withdrew his defeated sigilyph. "But you…" His face warped, his lips twisting sideways, his brows pulling together, his eyes crinkling at their sides; he gave the impression of complete and utter bewilderment, doubt clouding his movements. "Who are you?" he asked finally, and his voice was so full of lostness and questioning that she wondered a bit herself.

"Didn't Cheren tell you, in Accumula?" she retorted, rhetoric laced through her tone, along with a sarcastic snark that she didn't know she possessed. She glared at him unswervingly. "My name is Touko."

"…You're quite strong," he complemented, after what must have been the longest silence to ever pass between them, his voice not at all reluctant or grudging to admit such a thing (and that was when she got her second affirmation that she was, in fact, human in that night, for she found it a little odd that he wasn't sore about losing, if not because he was a man – well, a boy – or that she had just beaten him quite thoroughly, then because they were enemies, now), but instead filled with a strange mixture of finality and insecurity. "But I have a future that I must change. And for that future… I'll defeat the Champion and become unbeatable, unlike any other! I'll make all trainers free their Pokémon!" Her face morphed into the most fearsome scowl she could manage, despite that fact that she was convinced that he had come up with his methods at the last minute, as though he had something else he wanted to say, but had dodged the responsibility of saying it a split second before he should have. "If you want to be together with Pokémon, your only hope is to collect the badges from each gym and head for the Pokémon League. That is where the true battle will be fought; if your conviction is not strong enough, you will never be able to defeat me."

She wondered absently where the somewhat soft-spoken boy she had talked to in Accumula and Nacrene had gone.

"My conviction is strong enough to defeat you," she assured him, even as he was stepping away to leave, only half listening to her at this point. She watched him as he went, waiting to see if he was still alert enough to hear her next words, and what his reaction to them would be if he did. "I'm just not sure if my conviction will be strong enough to save you." She felt a prickle of some foreign emotion that was too knowing to be something like regret or pity, but too soft to be anything close to wickedness or amusement travel down her spine as she watched his head whip around (she winced a little at the sight; it was a wonder he didn't snap his neck – but then again, it wasn't, because she was sure he would have calculated to make sure it didn't, and she was pretty good at calculations, too), his blustery regard startled beyond belief and woefully chaotic, a maelstrom of sentiments she couldn't identify swimming in the blue-gray depths.

There was no beat of noiseless immobility, this time: he blundered onward, hardly faltering, beating a hasty retreat as her scrutiny and her words chased him.

…

She watched quietly as Clay retreated back up the path, returning to Driftveil, until he was out of sight, then turned her head back to the gaping cave mouth before her, eyes catching on the remaining tendrils of electric silk that drifted and floated from the rough rock. She belatedly recognized that she hadn't thanked the ground type specialist for clearing the way, but she felt little shame – she wasn't overly fond of the man; the gym leader was rather self-righteous, and was so infuriatingly prudish and old-fashioned – not to mention so stereotypically southern – that it made her head ache. She had been glad to defeat his gym, as she was certain she would have broken something if she'd had to stay for much longer than she did (not out of spite – okay, maybe a little – but simply because she hated how the layers of dirt were terribly mixed and meshed together, uneven and infuriating, and she swore one of the other trainers would have had her thrown out by security if she hadn't found Clay when she did, because her entire body was convulsing and twitching from looking at them). She appreciated the TM he had donated to her – despite the fact that she would probably never use it – but she didn't think enough of him to waste her energy on words that tasted so frivolous and wrong on her tongue (weren't there better ways of saying thank you without actually saying it?). She was brought out of her revere by a sympathetic buzz from one of the Poké Balls she had tucked away in her bag. She smiled, placing a hand inside her bag to rub her thumb along the cool surface of the metal device, before retracting her limb and letting it drop to her side again.

Taking her first few steps into Chargestone Cave, she was immediately aware of the temperature difference between in the cave and the route outside; the air was cool and refreshing, though stagnant from a lack of wind to stir things up. The cave itself was bathed in cerulean light, the gem-like stones suspended in midair and sticking out of the ground illuminating the darkest parts of the cave so there were almost no shadows. She looked around, eyes scanning back and forth – doubly blue in the eerie glow – along the cave walls before they quickly turned away, worried the sight of the uneven stones would set her off again. Bianca had seen her state when she had left the gym, and offered her a battle and soft words to calm her down; she would hate to have to drag her friend away from her journey just to help her again, especially when it was only going to keep happening. The brunette swiftly came to the conclusion that she needed to distract herself, so she busied her mind with admiring how much stronger Bianca had gotten since their last battle (not enough to beat her, though, fortunately or unfortunately), and how well she had been faring ever since she left her home. Cheren was doing spectacularly as well (again, still not well enough to beat her, to the detriment of his self-esteem), though she supposed she wasn't as up to date on his progress as a trainer, as she hadn't battled him since their duel on Route 5. Regardless, she was aware of his declining confidence, and she made a mental note to herself to do everything in her power to cheer him up the next time they crossed paths (except for lose, because she knew he would know if she let him win, and he wouldn't appreciate that, and maybe she had a bigger ego than anyone thought she did, because she really didn't want to lose).

As it turned out, her idea to divert her attention was a bad one; before she had even finished her train of thought, there were suddenly three white-haired, pale-skinned people wearing dark clothes and masks encircling her. So abrupt was their appearance that she wondered if it really would have mattered if she were paying her surroundings any mind. She stared up at them wide-eyed for a minute, her pupils skittering back and forth within her irises, before a deep voice raspy from lack of use issued from the one furthest to the right: "…Come." When she did not move for several seconds that could have been hours for all she knew, each one of them roughly grabbed a different part of her body – the one on the right snatched her arm, the one on the left seized her other arm, and the one in the center put his hands on her shoulder blades, pushing her along – and spun her around, marching her further into the cave before she could utter a single word (not that she would have; she was sure it had already been established that she was not a normal human being, even if she did cringe in pain and make the deduction that there would most certainly be bruises). She didn't understand what they wanted from her until she saw a familiar figure standing alone to one side of one of the many caverns within the Chargestone tunnels.

There was a pause when they stopped in front of him – a lull in sound and movement. She took the time to take in every detail she could about him. She observed astutely that his shirt was wrinkled approximately three inches above his waistline, and his crossed arms were about two and a half centimeters too high on his chest (which made her cringe inwardly, and then mentally applaud, because she was getting very good at keeping her strange, impulsive ticks to herself), not to mention the slightly purple marks beneath his eyes – with which she was well acquainted – that indicated a lack of sleep. He looked disheveled and disorderly compared to all the times she had seen him previously; something must be bothering him tremendously for him to forsake his usual exactness… Or perhaps not, she reminded herself, because after all, she apparently didn't know him as well as she once thought she did (and even then, she shouldn't have thought such a thing, or at least not to the extent that she had, because honestly, they met twice before he told her of his royal title, and all they had done was argue, and that wasn't a healthy enough relationship for her to even consider knowing him in the slightest).

He turned around when one of the trio – the one to her left, she thought (but it was hard to tell over the thumping of her heartbeat in her ears) spoke in the same gravely voice as the first, "We brought the one you wanted, sire." (She supposed maybe she wasn't as good at keeping in her ticks as she thought, because at hearing one of the ninja-like people pronounce that pronoun made her visibly flinch, because despite having already guessed that these three served N, she recognized that some small part of her still didn't want to believe that he was connected to something as awful as Team Plasma. As soon as she identified this, however, she shoved it down into an ever-darkening corner of her mind where she kept all of her most treacherous notions, a corner of her mind that was beginning to become clogged with nothing but thoughts of the boy with tea-green hair that stood before her.)

Her self-loathing was cut short when his blue-gray eyes widened drastically, and he all but yelped at the sight of her among his men. Although she did not for a moment consider that he was surprised to see her, or alarmed at her presence in any way, she was a bit confused until he both raised and lowered his voice at once, sounding strained as he said, "Arceus, what did you do to her?" She didn't understand his distress. Perhaps she looked ill? "I didn't ask you to force her to come!" Oh. He was talking about the death grips they had on her arms. Or perhaps not – now that she was really thinking about it, she was sort of feeling a bit ill… She heard one of the ninjas apologize, but she couldn't make out their exact words, and they all sounded like they were underwater, or on the other side of a very long tunnel, calling out unintelligibly to her. "All of you, go, now." She wondered if it was just her feverish state playing tricks on her, but she could have sworn all three of her abductors simply turned in place and disappeared into thin air.

There were hands on her shoulders, and eyes holding her gaze (or at least trying to – hers kept sliding, and shaking, and skipping left and right, unable to focus on a single, solitary thing), but she hardly heard anything that was spoken to her, though she was (almost) certain someone had said something. She began shaking her head, a low whine like the kind a television or some manner of electronic device made when it was turned on ringing in her ears. She pulled away from whoever was holding her – she assumed it was none other than the king of Team Plasma, but she couldn't be sure, not when her vision was suddenly swimming – and clapped her hands over her ears, a feral wail fleeing from the cage of her throat as she lurched away, doubling over and beginning to breathe heavily. The buzzing in her ears grew louder, and she keened again, sinking to the floor, barely aware of the commotion that was going on around her (or perhaps the hubbub and loud noises were directed at her, she couldn't tell, could hardly even recognize the voice that dominated the clamor, though some part of her told her she should have). All she could see was the azure gleam of electrically charged stones, and the uneven, unspecified, unorganized angles of the walls, and the edges of rocks, and the merging of colors and textures on the walls, and it was driving her absolutely crazy. Had those black-clad men done something to her? Or was this a natural episode? Her fingers trembled violently, and she bit her lip hard enough to make it bleed.

"Five, ten, fifteen, twenty…" she began to burble, forcefully conjuring images of the numbers in her head, trying to calm herself with the names and figures of them. "…Twenty-five, thirty, thirty-five, forty…" She thought of alphabetical bookshelves that just happened to be color-coded as well, of perfectly aligned papers and pencils on cold wooden desks, of perfectly symmetrical faces, faces with skin that was a little pale, and cheekbones that were effortlessly defined, and eyes that weren't quite blue nor gray, and framed by hair the color of green tea, and oh, look, there was that face now, but why was it leaning over her and why did it look concerned? "…Forty-five, fifty, fifty-five, sixty…" She was so wrapped up in her artificial world of facts and arrangement and digits that she wasn't aware of the murmuring on the edge of her conscience until it reached out a grabbed her, at which point she realized it wasn't murmuring at all, but a perfectly real, perfectly aligned, perfectly detestable person, and that person was N. Her knee-jerk reaction was to push him away – and she tried – but it was just too hard to force him, especially when his face was everything these caves were not, when his face was enough to keep her sane.

"Hey," he said quietly, and for a moment, she thought perhaps he would comfort her, would reassure her, would do what would have been only natural when he was kneeling in front of her with one hand on her shoulder and the other on her face, but then something squirmed around beneath his eyes, something too small and too fleeting for her to ascertain when she was so close to coming undone, and instead of stating "It'll be alright", he queried, "Are you alright?" She barely had the strength to shake her head, so crushing and all-consuming was her disappointment (but hey, at least her head had stopped spinning).

"That was the Shadow Triad," he informed her, and at first, she didn't really know what he was talking about, but then she recalled the trio of men (and she wanted to snort, because really, the Shadow Triad? – something more original would be nice). "They've been my personal guards since Ghetsis enlisted them in Team Plasma; I was just a child, then. They've served me very well over the years, even if they are a bit…extreme…" The slight fumble at the end of his sentence was the only thing that gave away exactly how terrible he felt; the wobbly quality of his words betrayed his guilt and concern (and she really wished he would stop it, because how was she supposed to hate him when he acted like that?).

"Chargestone Cave… I like this place," he asserted. She tried to give him an incredulous look, but she didn't think she was feeling well enough to look even half as disbelieving as she felt. He must have seen her look (or perhaps he didn't), because he went on to explain, "Formulas express electricity and its connection to Pokémon…" That's true, she thought, her brain finally beginning to put a stop to her unsystematic panic attack, beginning to calm down. She glanced around cautiously, worried the uneven (flawed, imperfect, going against every organizational method and theory and probability, and it was wrong to her eyes, oh so wrong) dirt would set her off again, but was surprised to find her eyes hurting significantly less seeing them now than they had when she had seen them when she first walked into the cave. (Part of her wondered why, but most of her knew, and she cursed the king of Team Plasma to the kingdom of Arceus and back; she hated that he could calm her despite the fact that he was connected to something that made her stomach turn so horribly, despite the fact that some part of her had been foolish enough to trust him – albeit subconsciously – when she hardly knew a thing about him.) Before she could reflect on that fact, however, the green-haired idiot opened his mouth again to say, "If people did not exist, this would be an ideal place."

Immediately, she felt indignation flare in her chest. However, since she was (as has been established but will always need to be established again and again and again because no matter how many times it is established, it will never be enough to fully describe the fact) not at all a normal human being, the indignation was not out of pride for her species, not derived from the patriotism of mankind that everyone she had ever met aside from the monarch who knelt before her (she hadn't realized he was still kneeling, why was he still kneeling, and why was she getting distracted?) flaunted without restraint. No, her offense came from the fact that she knew she'd already told him to stop saying things like that, things that made it seem like there was no good in any human being, that Pokémon should live without them; her problem with the notion came from the tag-along implication that suggested that all Pokémon thought humans to be horrible, which was entirely untrue (and not at all from the implication that all humans were, in fact, bad, all humans including her, as though N was blind to the bonds she had with her beloved Pokémon, as though she was just another face in the crowd to him). Before she could protest, however, he added, "You have been chosen, you know. Does that surprise you?"

"I've been what?" she managed by way of response. Immediately afterwards, she went back to muttering numbers under her breath – "sixty-five, seventy, seventy-five, eighty, eighty-five, ninety" – but she didn't have to envision them anymore, and the pain in her eyes had dissolved, softening to a dull ache that was impossible to ignore, but far easier to bear. In truth, she was hardly paying attention to her reassuring integer-mumbling anymore, more focused on what green-haired king in front of her was saying, more focused on finding out what in the name of Arceus he was talking about (she resented her desire to listen to him, loathed her incessant longing to listen to whatever he had to say, no matter how inane or ridiculous, or hurtful). She swallowed, and hoped he wouldn't notice (she might have slapped herself – mentally or physically, she wasn't sure – for caring what he thought, but she knew that the real reason she hoped he wouldn't see was because she hated the idea of him seeing the conflict he caused within her, the weakness he exposed without even meaning to, uncovering flaws in her calculations).

She heard him sigh slightly, but it sounded like it was coming from far away. "I suppose such news should be a surprise," he muttered, half to himself, then continued in a quiet, almost reverent voice, "You're destined to be a hero, Touko, and I along with you. You and I are going to be legends; he who tried to free Pokémon, and she who tried to stop him." She watched him observe her with a critical, calculating gaze, mostly unreadable, but she could see a little trepidation, a little hesitancy, a little bit of stark, cold fear seeping through the cracks that his expression left exposed. "It is yet to be determined who will be remembered as the hero, and who as the villain…"

She was tempted to say that he would most certainly be the villain, but she actually wasn't so certain, and before she could even open her mouth, he was saying something new (and her instincts compelled her to listen, damn them): "I told Ghetsis about you and your friends, and of my interest in you." (She sincerely wished it didn't sound so much like he was addressing her specifically, because it made her uncomfortable, but it did, and she couldn't do anything about it.) "The Shadow Triad has been watching you three, gathering information; Cheren is pursuing the ideal of strength, while poor Bianca has faced the sad truth that not everyone can be the very best, but you… You are not swayed either way – more of a neutral presence… Which is apparently a good thing."

She wasn't sure how to take that last part, so she merely blinked at him.

"Team Plasma will be waiting for you up ahead," he informed her after a beat of silence. "Ghetsis wants to see what kind of Pokémon trainer you really are." Even though he said the head sage's name, she could hear the subtext beneath the words, where Ghetsis was autocorrected to I; she exhaled through her nose in response, and straightened from the crouched position she'd half forgotten she was in. She appraised him as he did the same to her, neither of them speaking as the latter slowly rose from his own stooped stance, never breaking eye contact as he stepped away. A moment – long and terrible – passed between them, in which silent accusations were thrown every which way, along with threats and insults and praises, and treacherous, unstable promises that left them both inwardly reeling, wondering how they could know one another when all they knew really knew were the tense and unkind interactions they'd shared. "…Good luck," he told her, breaking the silence, then stood and left, disappearing into the darkness faster than she would have thought possible (or perhaps she just wasn't watching, because even if it didn't hurt to look at the cave anymore, her head was still a little bit cluttered, and she could no longer determine whether it was because of the fractured mathematics that surrounded her or if it was linked to the boy with tea green hair who had a habit of leaving her all alone).

When the grunts had all been swept aside, and she made her way towards the surface once more, she found herself locking eyes with a familiar pair of storm-colored orbs, and they both knew without words what had to happen. He threw out his Pokémon and she threw out hers, and when her beautiful grass snake knocked out his tri-legged ore Pokémon, her team fighting fit with hardly a scratch on any of them, they still did not speak. Neither of them said anything until Juniper and Bianca caught up to them, and her rival (and it felt so wrong and so right to call him that, because what else could he be but her rival when they had such strongly differing ideals and fought one another at every turn, but how could they be rivals when there was an underlying hum of understanding that resided just out of earshot between them?) began to reprimand the Pokémon professor for her beliefs. She glared at him as he spoke, because really, criticizing a Pokémon professor and essentially calling her stupid just because she hands out PokéDexes to kids who need something to do with their lives? – it seemed harsh to rebuke her so brutally for something so harmless. He must have noticed her disapproving gaze (or perhaps he wasn't as convicted as she thought he was, though that didn't seem likely; but then again, why would he care what she thought, anyways?), because he slowly began to lose steam, trailing off quietly, and a little bit uncomfortably, too, she thought, a little bit insecurely. There was a stretch where no one spoke or moved, but then he spoke up again, despite the way her nostrils flared and her eyes turned flinty: "I refuse to tolerate the existence of a world where people can treat Pokémon as they please – I refuse to let any more Pokémon get hurt."

"Hypocrite," she hissed, low and dangerous, and he looked at her like she had just slapped him across the face – angry and indignant, but hurt, and confused, and just slightly lost. "You speak of protecting Pokémon, of making them happy, but you want to take them from trainers. Not everyone is as horrible and abusive as you make them out – no, perceive them to be – and not all Pokémon resent people. You would be hurting more people and Pokémon than you would be helping by separating the world in such a way." She stared at him steadily, her eyes smoldering blue ashes. "Your entire campaign is based on false facts."

He didn't stay to hear or say anything else.

Futile though it may have been, she tried not to think about the green-haired boy as she left the cave, wishing not for the first time (and not for the last, no, it wouldn't end there) that she did not know him.

…

She was aware of his presence the moment she stepped out of the Mistralon gym, but she was no less surprised by the sight of him; he still had that slightly (barely noticeable, barely there, but it stood out to her like a single error in the most beautiful mathematics she had ever seen) disheveled look about him, the same as he had in Chargestone cave, which, if it had been unsettling then, was downright cringe-worthy now, but she supposed the reason she was most surprised was because she hadn't expected to see him again so soon. They seemed to only see one another spasmodically, with varying but mostly rather long stretches of time where they only heard of each other through Team Plasma, so seeing him again so soon after their last encounter (or encounters, she supposed, since she had seen him on two occasions that seemed pretty separate in her mind, since the first one involved comfort and a breakdown, while the second involved a battle) was rather surprising. She guessed that the reason she was so surprised by his presence was at least partially due to the fact that he was looking right at her with an indiscernible expression on his face, holding out an umbrella to her. She hummed inaudibly – she hadn't even realized it was raining.

She schooled her own expression, looking blankly at him, waiting for him to explain himself. When he did not, she merely raised a single eyebrow, one corner of her mouth stretching flatly, and stepped under the proffered rain shield, never once taking her eyes off of him. Still, neither of them spoke. Eventually, realizing it was pointless to continue her silence when he clearly wasn't going to speak unless spoken to, she ordered, "If you're offering to accompany me to provide shelter, I'm heading to the Pokémon Center." She didn't add what she half-wanted to, that if he was simply there to challenge her again, or continue his tirade about Pokémon abuse, she didn't want to hear it, and that she would much rather he leave her alone, but she got the feeling it was so deeply ingrained in her tone of voice that he got the message anyways.

He sidestepped, sweeping his free arm grandly, inviting easily in that quiet, even voice of his, "Lead the way."

They walked in silence for a ways, passing through the airfield that housed the gym without speaking for so long she almost (almost) dared to hope that maybe this time, he wouldn't bring up that which always tore them apart. But then, of course he had to ask, "Did you win?" and she knew immediately that she wasn't about to catch the break she was so desperately craving. She sighed heavily, and managed a nod. She knew he wouldn't stay quiet when he only nodded back, and she wasn't disappointed: a few moments later, he began to mutter with a clarity that didn't match his tone of voice, "I don't understand why anyone would participate in gym battles – any battles, really, but especially gym battles." He glanced her way out of the corner of one stormy eye. "I know that you have to, to stand up for your beliefs, to stand up to me… But that doesn't excuse the fact that trainers battle simply to compete. They claim it is to understand Pokémon better, but they just end up hurting one another's Pokémon." When she said nothing, he let out a noise of frustration that was far too loud in comparison to both his previous words and the emptiness of the airstrip, gesturing so wildly that the rain briefly reached her, causing her to shiver as the icy water fell against her scalp. "Am I the only one who finds that wrong?" he posed to no one (or at least no one in particular, as he couldn't be addressing her; he already knew her feelings on the matter).

"Obviously not," she refuted, watching him measuredly as he turned back to her, readjusting the umbrella to once again shield them both from the elements, "You're the king of an organization that is dedicated to stopping that sort of thing. Why would anyone join if they didn't agree with what you were saying?" She doubted herself when she saw his eyes roil in response to her words, as if he didn't know how to react, as if he, too, doubted her (but that was such an unlikely, improbable, unexpected possibility that she thought that maybe it was true).

"Whatever…" he dismissed, staring off ahead of them grumpily, and she almost lost her composure and laughed. He was the picture of everything he was not in that moment: saying something as casual, offhanded, and common as 'whatever', while also being as moody as he seemed to be, made him look younger than she had ever seen him, like one of those stereotypical angsty teenagers she heard that her age group was so often mistaken for. She gave a little half-smile, but quickly forced it off her face as he continued, refusing to let him see it (too late, she realized belatedly, for when she looked back on it later, she remembered seeing his gaze soften and mellow, and she could have sworn his lips curled slightly as she turned her head), "I'd rather talk to Pokémon than people, anyways. I've been living with Pokémon since I was born, so I've always found it easier to talk to them."

She almost forgot to lean away cautiously when he turned to her and reached out a hand, so struck was she by the realization that that was why he was so set on separating Pokémon from people, that the Pokémon he grew up with (the ones he considered kin, holy Arceus, no wonder) must have had something against humans, and that the distrust they expressed must have transferred to him. She only snapped out of it when the hand he extended took ahold of her hand, or more accurately, the Poké Ball that she had forgotten was still in her hand. He didn't take it from her – a wise decision on his part; perhaps he'd learned not to mess with them, since screamed at him and punched him in the face, back in Nimbasa – but he did lift it up, forcing the rest of her arm to tag along, until he was eye level with the red-and-white sphere. "Hey there," he greeted the Pokémon inside – Delancey, she recalled, and felt a stab of worry, remembering that she really ought to get to a Pokémon Center – with such gentleness, with such care and friendliness and love that she momentarily forgot to breathe (or perhaps she just forgot how, because really, this was a night of realizations; if the Pokémon he grew up with hadn't had issues with people, he might have been this way with other human beings as well as Pokémon). She felt the electric type within the Poké Ball warily buzz as an answer to the greeting, and watched as her green-haired rival smiled. "Would mind telling me what sort of trainer Touko is?"

Emotions spilled over the edges of their containment units, splashing her innards, the moisture short-circuiting her brain. She managed to identify a few of them – indignation, anger, fear, confusion, and something else she knew she had felt before but couldn't quite recall the name of (this was, of course, a lie, but she dared not delve into the truth, not now, when she was awaiting her zebstrika's response just as eagerly as her rival, not when said rival was so close, not when she was about to either being proven right or lose it all) – before they became overwhelming, and she had to shut down to avoid an episode of the same variety that she had experienced in Chargestone. How dare he ask such a thing, with her standing right there! – plus he already knew the answer to that (didn't he?): he'd seen how well she interacted with her Pokémon on the occasions that they'd met before, on the occasions that they'd battled before. Or was he right? She knew Dynasty adored her, and she knew her other Pokémon liked her (or tolerated her, in Raincheck's case), but she didn't really know if any of them trusted her. Dynasty must have, at least to some degree, having been with her for so long, but she wasn't so sure about Delancey – after all, she had allowed the poor zebstrika to fall far behind in levels near the beginning of her journey, which could have been very dangerous, if the rest of the team had been knocked out and she was her only option to take out an opponent. Why would he even ask in the first place? It wasn't as though he had any reason why he would want to know – if his plans went the way he wanted (she hoped that that wouldn't be the case, but she digressed), he would separate all trainers from their Pokémon, so what did it matter how she acted towards them? And why would he ask her? Why had he chosen her? What did being chosen mean? Regardless of whether she was 'destined' to be his rival in heroism, she didn't understand why it had been her and not someone else.

She was snapped out of her thoughts (and she thanked any and every higher power in existence that she had been, regardless of the method, because she was treading dangerous waters, and she did not want to attract the sharks she knew lurked below) by the whirred response the addressed electric type gave from inside her Poké Ball, which must have caused him some sort of distress or shock, for when she turned her blue orbs on him once more, his symmetrical face was slackened, adding to the already-disheveled look about him (though she supposed 'disheveled' might be too strong a word, considering he hardly looked different, only enough for her to notice, certainly not enough to draw any normal human's attention). He stared silently at the Poké Ball for a moment longer, then met her curious gaze, unreadable. Eventually, he murmured, "She said that she trusts you." The look on his face was so profound, yet so indescribable that she sort of wanted to find a river to jump into, but she was sure if she so much as tried to lift a toe, she would find her feet firmly frozen in place.

They shared another one of those moments, the kind that she didn't try to identify because aside from the fact that she knew she couldn't, she really didn't want to; their meaningful silences always seemed too heavy to decipher, too important to even think about (despite half wishing she had talked to him when it was over, she held onto the belief that those moments were not meant to be analyzed). He must have seen something intense or thoughtful or downright terrified (for, as much as she tried to pretend, that was exactly what she was) in her eyes or on her face, because he brightened purposefully, insisting, "That's good!" She hardly heard him, hardly connected the meaning of those words to that of his previous statement, but she managed to shake herself out of her head to pay attention, to register his assertion, and when she did, she blinked carefully. He offered her an unsteady smile, clouded with anxieties and distractions and plans, plans, plans, and he went on cautiously, as though he knew (and he did) that his next words might upset her, "If every person and Pokémon cared about one another like you two do, I could watch over the future without having to liberate Pokémon from those who simply use them."

"You don't have to do anything," she informed him sharply, and the gale in his eyes picked up a little more with protests and responsibilities and protective, quiet fury, but she did not allow him to speak. "I understand why you're doing this," she admitted, watching his face blanch and his breath escape him in a mist, lightning flashing in his eyes, stunned. "But there's a lot you don't know, or don't realize, or refuse to acknowledge. By doing this, you're tearing lives apart. I don't believe that people are going to be okay with that, and I don't think you believe it either."

He considered her for a moment, seemingly still trying to come to terms with something she'd said, or something she'd reminded him of. When he spoke, she almost sighed, because his words were measured once more, manufactured and painstaking and artificial, and she knew it meant he was trying to shut her out, "It doesn't matter if they agree. I found the power I need to make them listen."

Cold fear swept through her entire body, and her eyes grew until they took up a good portion of her face, her mouth dropping open slightly and her grip on Delancey's Poké Ball tightening: he had found the power he promised existed back in Nacrene, the power he could sway anyone's (except for hers, because damn it all if she wasn't stubborn and strange and right) opinion, and it terrified her to know that he was going to use it. He was going to tear lives apart – lives including hers – with whatever power he had found, and she knew that unless she complied with his orders (for what else could she call them, really?) to claw her way up to the League, she had no chance of changing what was to come. Her hands tingled, wanting to strike him like she had that time after the ferris wheel, but she knew it would do nothing but anger him and make her knuckles ache for hours. After all, what was her opinion to his? She was not yet the hero he deigned her to be, no matter what he said, and she couldn't change his plans (she admired that – the fact that his plans were so potent and so powerful that they couldn't be changed, even by the likes of her, someone who had plans marching in and out of her head day in and day out like toy soldiers).

"…What is it?" she asked, because she had to know.

"Ghetsis is using Team Plasma to search for two very important stones – the Light Stone and the Dark Stone." She felt lightheaded at this, and he must have seen the blood drain from her face, because his expression hardened a fraction. "You know of their lore?" he pressed, and she could do nothing but nod weakly (because this was his plan, this was his endgame, and Arceus, how was she ever going to stand up to this, to him?). "The dragons await a hero's arrival… I intend to befriend them, to resurrect them, and to show the world that I am the hero which history has been waiting for. Then I will have the power to make anyone and everyone release their Pokémon," he filled her in on his blueprint, setting what she had already figured out in stone. The stormy gaze she hated and feared (the one that mattered in a way she was unwilling to admit to) watched her, waiting for her reaction.

She was fairly certain he wasn't expecting her to laugh. Such a hollow, broken sound had never before escaped her, but now, standing before him at the edge of the Mistralon airfield, hearing for the first time what he actually intended to do, she couldn't help herself. Such arrogance, such self-assuredness, such truth was contained within his little speech that she almost threw her earlier consideration out the metaphorical window to punch him right in the nose, hopefully with enough force to break it. She fought back the tears in her eyes; she refused to allow him to see her cry. "So your plan is to change the world without violence, because violence causes resistance, and you know that will only end up hurting Pokémon," she summarized, and she made a mental vow to dissect every one of her previous failures as punishment for sounding as choked up as she did. "I understand, I do: I believe just as strongly as you do that Pokémon aren't tools. But this… This is madness!" (She winced internally at how cliché and dramatic that sounded, but she dared not open her mouth to correct it, because she knew some trope even more tired would come out to take its place.) She blinked at him, and she prayed that he thought the shimmering of her eyes was only because of the rain (which he was shielding them from with his umbrella, damn), and when he stayed silent through her accusation, she deflated. "…You're really going to do it, aren't you?"

(She wanted to slap herself for even asking – of course he was going to do it, he had been talking about doing it since the day they met, even if she hadn't known at the time. Why would she inquire so foolishly? She refused to accept the malnourished, neglected part of her heart that beat out of tune with the impossible hope that maybe he would change his mind that maybe she could change his mind, so what else was there to drive her investigation?)

"Yes," he affirmed steadily, staring impassively. "…And as a result, Pokémon and trainers who truly care about each other, like you and your Pokémon, will be separated." She had hardly noticed they had been walking for most of that time until they stopped, and she redirected her gaze to her surroundings, rather than continuing to look his way. "And that does break my heart a little." She looked up sharply at his quiet admission, and she really had to try to hold back tears now, because not only was he admitting to wanting to destroy everything she had ever known, but he was also looking at her with some mien that was soft and steely and horrible, and she wanted nothing more than to run, run, run, until she passed out of this plane of existence and phased into one where she didn't know him, because oh Arceus, why did he have to say such awful things and follow them up with little assurances like that that made her incapable of loathing him the way she wanted to?

Without another word, he stepped back, withdrawing from her until he turned and disappeared into the rain-swept night, the sky above their heads thundering enough to match his eyes, leaving her alone to be chilled to the bone by the rain and his words.

…

"Come on," Cheren urged grimly, a hand on the small of her back guiding her along in his wake at a hurried pace. His blue eyes glinted like molten steel behind his glasses, and his dark brows were drawn low on his forehead, determined and firm, more focused than she had seen him in a long time (he may have thought pursuing strength was a good idea, but she knew it only drove him to distraction, only made him distressed and haggard and everything he did not wish to be). She followed after him with equal determination, anxiety clawing at her mind and heart as their footsteps echoed within the stone halls of the tower. She feared and anticipated what they would find when they reached the top, had felt the shaking walls and heard the primal roar, and she remembered with stinging clarity what she had discovered upon talking to him when they last met; she suspected she knew what was going on, and it was great and terrifying and tragic. She let her friend lead her along because she knew not what else to do, fighting her way through Team Plasma's lackeys alongside him because she knew it was the only thing she could do, if she was right.

She stopped thinking (or stopped thinking about what possibilities laid ahead of her, at least, for she never truly stopped thinking, not even for an instant) when they rounded the next corner, reaching the top of the stairs – a large group of grunts stood waiting, preventing them from passing. Her black-haired companion moved forward to face them without hesitation, passing Brycen – who was already fighting some of them off – as he went. The blue-haired gym leader glanced over his shoulder at the two of them, then spoke to her when he saw where the bespectacled trainer's path would take him: "We'll hold them here, Touko! You go on ahead!" She nodded at him, but her eyes remained upon her best friend, silently asking him questions she herself could not distinguish. He met her gaze as he pulled a Poké Ball out of his bag, and he blinked at just the right angle to answer anything she may have subconsciously asked, without even meaning to. Just for effect – as they were both sure the gym leader wasn't aware of their ability to hold silent conversations – he muttered aloud, "This is nothing! But there sure are a lot of them… Oh, what a complete bother!" Snorting breathily, amused at the line he uttered (so cliché, so predictable, so very like him it was painful, but almost reassuring in the same instant), she brushed past the two, plowing onwards without pause and sweeping aside any member of Team Plasma who dared to try and stop her (she sounded arrogant saying such a thing, but there was nothing else to say, not when the circumstances were so dire and ridiculous).

Advancing through stone and rubble, she moved deeper and deeper into the tower, climbing in spirals and twists and turns and all manner of magic happenings that did not truly exist. She froze, entire body seizing up with tension and horror, when she heard a voice that was too familiar to her to even bear let out a wild yell, enunciating clearly enough for her to hear, even from such distance, "It's shocking!" She choked on some primordial sound that rose in her throat at his words, and she bit back pure agony in the form of tears. She tore onwards until there was nothing between her and him, until she was at the peak of Dragonspiral Tower, and she could finally see what the green-haired boy she knew (but wished she didn't) had wrought.

The wind shuddered past, whipping at her neck and shoulders, as she stepped out between shattered marble pillars, her eyes widening drastically as she observed the situation before her. Even with his back to her, she could recognize N easily; his messy green hair, tied in the not-quite-perfect ponytail she was growing accustomed to seeing (but did not like any more, because it was disorganized and absent-minded, and unlike the systematic young man she thought she knew), coupled with his usual attire, made it effortless to identify him. He stood amongst the dust and ruin like he belonged there, but he didn't, not in the slightest, because he was supposed to be a king, and kings didn't do this, not this, not this, not this… King didn't stand before huge black dragon Pokémon that had eyes red as blood that glowed like a fire's dying embers, didn't stand back and stare and revel, didn't stand there disorderly and triumphant like they had already won their battles. And the dark legendary Pokémon kings didn't stand before didn't stay still, either, she didn't stare unblinkingly at those kings that didn't stand before her, didn't incline her head just slightly to them, didn't breathe with purpose and integrity and strength that exuded power, power enough to change that world (she should have believed him back in Nacrene, when she had the chance to prepare herself, prepare for the horror and devastation and blatant terror).

She must have moved, or made some sort of noise, or perhaps both (for when she actually stopped to check herself, she had tears in her eyes and a hand over her partly opened mouth, an inane and pointless action that she wanted to slap herself for performing, but doing so would mean moving her hand, and it was currently the only thing keeping her from screaming), because the eyes of the dragon suddenly turned towards her, meeting her azure gaze with fiery amber pools, silently killing her where she stood, tearing her mind apart with a glance. Her rival turned as well, and when his eyes landed on her, they were more distant than she had ever seen them, more cold and convicted and confident than ever before, and it was disgusting to look at, but it was also too hard to look away. "What do you think, Touko?" he called across the rift between them, voice older than that with which he had spoken to her last, as though he had lived years in the several days since their last meeting (and perhaps he had – the bags under his eyes were more pronounced, now, and he looked even worse for wear). "What do you think of the legendary dragon who appears before you now? What do you think of this Pokémon who will fight beside the hero that will forge the way to a new world?"

She didn't know when she started shaking her head, nor when the tears that had previously been quite content to stay in her eyes and block her throat escaped their cages and charged to freedom down her cheeks, but once they started, she could scarcely stop. When she managed to force the lump in her throat away, and the burning in her eyes and sinuses to ease, and managed to reply between sobbing breaths, "It's beautiful. All of it. Zekrom, Dragonspiral, Team Plasma, Pokémon, the plans you have – especially the plans – they're all absolutely beautiful", she caught a glimpse of him through the saltwater of her tears, and was so intensely relieved to once again see doubt, uncertainty, shock, and fear for the future on his symmetrical features that she almost laughed aloud (but that would have been wrong, and she hated being wrong, and Holy Arceus, this was actually happening). "The only part that's not beautiful," she continued, as she tried to ignore the way her voice was shaking, "Is the fact that it could fail. You've set up your entire equation with flawed numbers, you've left yourself open. Why devise such an elaborate and brilliant plan – such a beautiful plan – with such weakness?"

He blinked at her, lostness leaking through his mask, before something akin to compassion settled over his face, and he answered, "The chance is one I am willing to take; the only way you can stop me now is to become a hero yourself – find Zekrom's counterpart, Reshiram, and awaken him. Then and only then will we be even, and that is when you may try to stop us. I control this situation as of right now: there is no flaw in my formula. I set it up the way I did because I need to know whether the Pokémon who believe in you so strongly are right, if you are really the only one who can interfere with my formula for changing the world." He seemed to hesitate before adding his next statement, as if speaking would disturb some malevolent god that would damn them all in a heartbeat, "You need this as much as I do."

She stared at him as he turned back to the dragon she had half forgotten he was standing beside (as comrades, as partners, as friends, goddamnit, she was so completely and utterly fucked, because what precisely was she supposed to do against that?), his words sending her reeling for once. As he stroked the obsidian reptile's muzzle, he went on, "If you want to protect the bonds between Pokémon and people, you must find Reshiram. Search for the Light Stone, and the Dragon of Truth will grant you the power you will need to defeat me – I'm sure of it." And with that, the king stepped away, his dragon taking flight before scooping him up as though he weighed nothing. They were long gone in the sky before she was once again fully aware of her surroundings once more.

After the revolutionary duo – a misguided king and a loyal dragon Pokémon – departed, Cheren and Brycen joined her on top of the tower, babbling some unimportant, incredulous drivel about being unable to believe that N of all people was the hero the world had been waiting for, but she hardly heard another word spoken until the following morning when she woke cold and petrified in her rented room in the local Pokémon Center. For the first time since discovering his motives – for the first time since her journey began, really – she began to doubt herself: why would she need to be a hero, like him, if she was really doing the right thing?

…

Too late, too late, too late, she acknowledged belatedly as she sprang up the steps two at a time, approaching the champion's threshold despite her screaming muscles and aching lungs. She had already seen the scuffmarks at the foot of the stairs, could read the meaning behind the various fractures in the marble platforms; she was too goddamn late already, she couldn't reverse this, she couldn't stop him. Her dread was all-consuming and frenzied, mixed with desperation and fury and the fear of insecurity. Even as she hurried to stop him, her heart thudded painfully against her chest, traitorous in its doubt, despite her mind's knowledge that really, she had as good a chance as anyone to stop him (which still wasn't a good chance, was really rather a poor one, but if his words could be trusted – and they couldn't, she reminded herself ferociously, because even after all this time, she still had to remind herself that he wasn't trustworthy, that he was the enemy, that they were fighting for the world's very future, for Arceus' sake – her chances might improve; he had said she needed to find the Light Stone, which she had done, and if Reshiram recognized her as a hero and awoke, their brawl would be as good as fifty-fifty).

She reached the top of the stairs with her heart in her throat, hurrying inside with panic gnawing at her conscience. The fight was audible now, and she had to force her body not to seize up when she heard the mighty roar of Zekrom, heard the dragon deal the final blow, listened to Alder's final Pokémon fall before her might. She reached the summit out of breath, and stopped where she was as the scene greeted her, inspiring horror (she knew already what she would see, of course, but actually seeing it made her want to run and hide and count to infinity by fives): N stood over a defeated Alder, the fearsome legendary Pokémon he had befriended beside him, while the champion (or former champion, perhaps, considering he had just been defeated) knelt on his hands and knees, his head bowed and his face anguished. He placed a Poké Ball back on his belt slowly, as if every movement hurt him, while Team Plasma's king watched, silent and unmoving and algebraic.

"It's over!" he declared coldly, but there was pride in his tone, satisfaction at having defeated the one who was supposed to be the strongest trainer in the region. "Never again will Pokémon be made to suffer or be held captive by humans. You may have the title of champion… But you cannot stop a Pokémon as potent as Zekrom with a mere title. You have lost your strength as a result of your grief over losing your most beloved partner – who knows how longs it's been since you battled with your full strength?" His expression softened as he stared down at the defeated champion, and he added in a bit more gently, "I like that about you, though – it shows that you are one of the few who truly care for Pokémon." His momentary kindness vanished, and his voice turned hard again as he declared, "Unfortunately, there are far too many who do not; as a trainer who not only stands beside a legendary dragon, but also far outmatches the champion, I shall issue an order across Unova: Trainers of the world, release your Pokémon!"

She had never taken him for the type to preach and gloat. It was almost funny.

Finally, Alder lifted his gaze from the ground, and she saw in his eyes a final act of desperation, tinged with the bitterness of defeat and the faint resignation that came from knowing his next plea would be refused. "I beg you!" he cried, and she knew without a doubt in her mind or heart that he was really, truly begging, not just using the word. "Separating people from Pokémon… Do anything but that!"

The boy with tea green hair offered a simple glare, filled with impatience and irritation and a sliver of arrogance that had grown since last she saw it emerge, arrogance that had gone from merely being able to understand Pokémon where others could not, to an arrogance that boasted his strength as a trainer (as one of the things he abhorred, she noted: how ironic), an arrogance that made him think himself better than others, an arrogance that made him even more convicted and inclined to believe in his ideals (but he had the right to, didn't he – he had defeated the champion, he had Zekrom of all Pokémon on his side; the only thing that stood in his way was her, holy Arceus wasn't that a lot of responsibility?). "You and I both put our beliefs on the line and fought with all our strength – and I won. Be silent."

She knew for a fact that she had not made any sound this time which drew his attention (in fact, she realized with sickening transparency, he must have known she was there from the moment she arrived, and had made his speech with the knowledge of her presence in mind; he was showing her what she was up against, trying to scare her – and it had worked), but he turned to her all the same, stormy eyes tumultuous as ever. He stepped forward, leaving the defeated champion in the dust, focused only on her. "…I've been waiting," he stated, as if she hadn't already known. He stared long and hard at her, scrutinizing her every feature, making her mind whirl and her heart beat faster and faster and faster until she was sure her brain would fall out of her head and her heart would rip out of her chest. She tried to force away her anxiety, but it would not go, not now, not under his ever-intensifying gaze. "You have obtained the Light Stone," he acknowledged measuredly. He turned his head slightly when the legendary beside him rumbled lowly, continuing, "Zekrom responds to it…" Suddenly his eyes went wide, and he turned from her, spreading his arms out to block his friend Pokémon (which looked a little ridiculous, frankly, because if one of the legendary creators of Unova really wanted something, she could crush him in moments; what good would throwing his arms about do?) and imploring, "Stop! This is not a suitable place for a battle between legendary dragons." She was half surprised when the dark electric type listened to him; she had half expected the Deep Black Pokémon to squash him (or perhaps she had merely wished for it, because facing down a legendary dragon was one thing, but facing down a legendary dragon with N commanding her was something else entirely).

He did not let his gray-or-blue-or-something-in-between orbs leave her trembling form as he pressed a hand to his ear, activating an earpiece she was ashamed of herself for not seeing earlier. "From the ground, rise up – the Castle of Team Plasma!" She knew he must have been giving orders to whoever was on the other end of that line, but she didn't expect an actual castle to burst forth from the ground all around the Pokémon League.

She surprised herself (or maybe she didn't) by not being afraid as the ground shook violently, stone walls and pillars and turrets and battlements all tearing through the earth. The sky was dark, and riddled with flashing lightning (a result of Zekrom's presence, perhaps?), illuminating the somber masonry of the castle as it rose. All around the League, the walls cast shadows, darkening the place as Team Plasma's palace surrounded it. She was once again surprised when she didn't jump or jolt when certain parts of the castle opened up, shooting out what at first seemed like projectiles, but she identified moments later as ladder-like stairways; the black steps crashed violently into the foundation of the very building they resided in, making her stumble, but still, she was not afraid of the noise or clamor (perchance because she was already terrified, possibly due to her prior knowledge that there were already things – or people, more accurately – that deserved her fear far more). A final staircase rocketed down, breaking through the solid stone above their heads and burying itself within the stone floor inside the dome, the force of impact sending her sprawling. She covered her eyes as she was showered with dirt and rubble, and when the dust settled, she only lowered her arm – she did not rise, did not have the energy to face him the way he wanted her to, not yet, not now (she wished not ever, but that wasn't an option, not when he had prepared and risked so much for them to face off as equals, not when all the world's fate rested on her unwilling shoulders).

"I will wait for you in the throne room," he told her, no hint of malice or force in his tone, simply an almost pleasant invitation that she could not refuse (both because there was no way out for her, and because some part of her that she had tried time and time again to kill would never want to deny him anything). "Everything will be decided there: whether Pokémon will be liberated from people, or whether Pokémon and people will live together… We shall see whose belief is stronger, and the result will change the world."

She was inconceivably calm. She didn't understand it herself how she could be so stone-faced and unemotional on the eve of the battle that would decide everything, but she found herself staring back at him with dry eyes as she asked simply, "Why are you doing this?" She saw annoyance and confusion flash like the lightning above them through his eyes, wondering why she would ask a question she already knew the answer to; but he had misunderstood her. "I understand your need to protect Pokémon – they're your family, you have to take care of them." She saw his shock elevate, because he hadn't actually told her that, simply said that he had grown up with Pokémon, that he was more comfortable around them. "I still don't fully understand why you're letting me try to stop you, either, but I'm getting there." She sat up, and began slowly and laboriously standing up once more as the citizens of strength rebuilt their city inside her chest. "But I don't understand why you're doing this. You could do anything else in world to protect Pokémon – Plasma is supposed to be an activist group, not a terrorist organization – but you choose to call upon power no one alive could ever possibly understand to separate every Pokémon from every person in the world. Why take such drastic action? There are ways in which you could put a stop to all the abuse and mistreatment of Pokémon without doing this – granted, they would take a long time, and more Pokémon could be hurt while things are still being fixed, but it could be done. You've been systematic and logical, almost flawlessly so, but as I said, you've left your plan open to corruption; if your plan fails, there's no telling what will become of your ambitions. You losing could give those who see Pokémon as tools the idea that they've been given permission to treat Pokémon however they want: even more Pokémon could get hurt if you fail."

She got the feeling she had effectively terrified him, but he didn't show it aside from the odd shine that his eyes gave off; he merely stepped back, signaling nonverbally to Zekrom – who took off without complaint and vanished through the hole the staircase had left in the ceiling – as he shook his head vigorously, glaring at her like they were children on the playground and she had just stolen his favorite toy, angry but helpless to get it back. "I won't fail," he snapped with conviction that she knew he didn't feel. "And I am sorry for whatever will happen to you when I win – the new world won't be kind to those who hold fast the old world's beliefs." She hadn't thought about that before, he must have known, because he retreated up the stairs and into his castle with smooth, straight shoulders and a confident stance (and though it was false – she had made points that he could not refute – it was still at least a little satisfied that he had gotten the last word, that he had made her squirm before he fled in fear).

And now she collapsed (not physically this time), now she fell apart, now she gave in to the blurry, undefined panic that surged and bubbled and fermented within her, now that he wasn't here to see exactly what he did to her; she shook uncontrollably, and her eyes stung painfully, though there were still no tears in them. She wrapped her arms around herself and bent woodenly at her waist, trying to remember the way to breathe healthily as she counted backwards from a thousand by multiples of five. She was not completely disconnected from her surroundings – she heard footsteps leaping up the steps behind her, saw Alder stand from a few feet in front of her – but she didn't hear what Cheren said to the (former) champion, didn't hear the words the pair exchanged, and it took far longer than it should have for her to realize that her friend was calling her name. She looked up at him hopelessly, and he approached with pity and comprehension and encouragement in his eyes. He didn't speak, not at first, just sank to his knees beside her an enveloped her in his stolid arms, eventually he had to put a stop to the endless stream of numerals that flowed from her mouth like water, to keep her from going mad (or madder than she already was, because she was not a normal human being, if she was anything at all). "It's all right, Touko," he soothed her, though she didn't believe him, and he didn't seem like he believed himself. "You have the Light Stone: you have Reshiram. You can defeat him. And even if you lose, we're all here to help you, to stop him if you can't – me, and Bianca, and Alder, and every gym leader and Elite 4 member and trainers who believes in the trust between themselves and their Pokémon, we're all behind you. We'll help in any way we can."

They were empty words – filled with things that he couldn't possibly promise, not really, because if she was beaten, she who held the Light Stone and (hopefully) had the power of the Vast White Pokémon on her side, then really, no one stood a chance – but comforting ones, and she let herself taper off after eight hundred seventy-five, letting the rest of her countdown go on only in the (relative, crumpling, increasingly untrustworthy) safety of her own head. She straightened gradually, looking around the ruined Champion's hall with trepidation, staring up at the black staircase that her greatest rival had disappeared upon, and tried to convince herself that she had a better chance of winning than he did (but it didn't work, because she knew it would be an ever match, knew she wouldn't have anything but a fifty-fifty chance). She smiled at Cheren thankfully after a while, and her smile broadened when he continued, "Tell N that he's wrong. People grow stronger by being with Pokémon, and Pokémon grow stronger by being with people – my Pokémon and I are proof. Ending things the way he's trying to isn't the right way to go about correcting society, and it's going to blow up in his face quite spectacularly." She laughed softly at this, nodding as she stepped away from him.

"I should have been able to demonstrate the bonds between people and Pokémon," Alder pitched in, though his tone was far more lugubrious. "That would have shown the brat the worthlessness of his outrageous dreams."

"His dreams aren't worthless or outrageous," she corrected (and immediately wanted to hit herself for defending him, though she knew she was right to do so), "Just different."

Alder gave her a very concerned, very disbelieving look in response to her comment, but Cheren just sighed and shook his head, scattering dark hair across his pale brow; the (former) champion was not used to her oddities as her best friend was, didn't understand that no one could understand what she meant except for her (and even that wasn't always true), wasn't aware that she was introspective and internal and entirely too meticulous with her own feelings to really explain what she meant outwardly, even though she was right. To his credit, the (former, damnit) champion didn't grill her on what she meant, or try to denounce her claim, instead simply offering a troubled "be careful" before he stepped aside and let her tread towards the stairway to Team Plasma's castle.

Cheren wouldn't let her go without a hug first, which she teased him for because that was usually Bianca's thing, but she didn't mind (but really she did, because she had never actually been all that great with close proximity, and the hug was too tight and too desperate and too stunning and within reality to communicate anything but utter desolation and stark, cold fear, and his feelings mirrored hers so perfectly that she wanted to pry him away and run and forget all about the monarch named N who she shouldn't trust but still somehow did).

…

But there is nothing more beautiful and terrifying as innocence.

Touko reflected that her rival's "sisters" probably didn't know the extent to which their parting remark had touched her, nor how the comment had affected her, but she supposed it was just as well: after all, she was fairly certain they wouldn't want to see a girl (the label felt wrong, though she was of the female gender, because "girl" implied humanity, and she wasn't normal enough for that) as unstable as herself storming through their castle with fire in her eyes, intent on beating their beloved brother in the battle he had been preparing for since they met (and even if this was a slight exaggeration, she could still hold it against herself, still berate herself for not seeing it earlier, for not getting out while she still had the chance). Her rampant horror had not vanished, but it had morphed since she first left the ruined chamber where she had seen the king defeat Unova's champion (she hadn't actually seen it, and Alder wasn't the champion anymore, but she decided to shut that train of thought down, because she could only run so many at once and it really wasn't important): instead of being cowed and afraid, her emotions had welled and boiled and frothed until she felt only rage and determination and an unpleasant numbness that gnawed at the edges of her consciousness and nibbled away at her bones. She hardly stopped to breathe, sliding across the sleek black halls of the palace without pausing to admire the sights. She only halted her progress when a familiar pale figure clothed in black materialized in front of her. She snarled unpleasantly, like a feral beast.

The ninja was not deterred, though she thought she saw a flicker of something squirm in his eyes at her guttural utterance. "Our lord N awaits you at the castle's summit," he informed her. She rolled her eyes at the unnecessary announcement – as though she had needed to be told… It wasn't as though she was stupid (for it mattered not how disjointed or discordant her mind became, she was not by any means an idiot, just insane, and that was an entirely different matter): she had guessed where her the monarch would be several chambers ago. However, the ninja went on, "The room at the top of these stairs was his highness's world when he was young… Perhaps it may offer insight into his mind, insight which you do not yet have." She blinked, and it was all the time the odd man needed to vanish.

She bounded up the dark steps and peered into the room as soon as he was gone, staring in confusion at the colorful chamber that greeted her eyes. She felt something twist and constrict painfully within her chest as she stared inside, gaze taking in all the features that described a child's room. The floor was painted like the sky, and decorated with toys of all varieties, their wheels and edges and non-child-proofed points all scattered remotely to different locations. The place was simple enough, and unusually organized for the room of someone so young (then again, it was N's, and he had always been the most systematic, precise person she had ever met, aside from herself, of course), but it gave off an aura of such untouched ignorance and purity that she withdrew almost immediately, her steady heartbeat disrupted by the knowledge that a place that had once housed such virtue belonged to someone who was now trying to destroy everything she knew, everything she believed in. Without looking back, she fled, tearing through the long stretch of corridor and scampering up the last stairways that lead to her destination. She did not pause by the great door, did not breathe deeply and steel herself: the time for precaution had passed (she never imagined there would be a day in which she would believe such a thing, but there was unfortunately a first time for everything, especially the unpleasant ones) – she only marched on, advancing through cold stone to face her enemy (and it still felt wrong to call him that, no matter how hard she tried to ignore it, because he wasn't a bad person, not really).

The highest tower of the castle was remote and desolate, but seemed too full at the same time, brimming with white marble tiles and pillars, with invisible memories and unidentifiable sentiments, and the crackle of tension that sparked and burned violently between them, for there he stood, partially obscured by his equally green-haired father, whom she had not even comprehended she was about to run into. She stopped in time and stepped back, staring up at Ghetsis as one hand instinctively went to her bag, where she grasped Dynasty's Poké Ball firmly, ready to summon her grass snake if the sage decided to start something (again). Instead of challenging her, however, the monarch's father simply greeted her, "Welcome, holder of the Light Stone." She thought it rather odd until he continued (at which she had to hold back a snort, because the sage was even more pretentious than his royal son, and his words were pointless and petty, by now), "The king of this castle is the strongest trainer in the world: he is accompanied by legendary Pokémon, he has defeated the champion, and his heart burns with the desire to improve the world. If that is not what makes a hero, what more do you need? The stage is set for us to seize peoples' minds and hearts. We can bring into being the world that Team Plasma desires more easily than you can imagine! Only we will be allowed to use Pokémon, and we shall rule the powerless populace." He smiled, sinister and slimy and everything she despised. "Go onward, discover what makes a hero, if you can – whether you win or lose decides the fate of every trainer in the world."

Instead of replying, she glanced over the sage's shoulder into the chamber in which everything was to be settled, knowing at once that Ghetsis would not have spoken loud enough for Team Plasma's ruler to hear of his true plans. She turned a glare as blue and powerful as every vast ocean upon him, raising her head high as she felt her starter Pokémon buzz encouragingly against her hand from within his red and white sphere, and still without speaking, she stepped around him, advancing into the throne room at long last, feeling his baleful stare on her back as she went. She knew he had been trying to discourage her, to intimidate her, but it wouldn't work, not this time (because she already knew everything there was to know about the matter, already knew all the consequences of both the scenario in which she lost, and the one in which she won).

As soon as she entered, she met a storm head on as it gazed at her, not removing her hand from her bag, drawing courage and purpose from the smooth surface of her very best friend's enclosure. Though she knew her opponent had not heard her exchange with his father (if you could call it an exchange, one-sided as it was), she saw his brows wrinkle momentarily as his focus flickered, seeing the swirl of Team Plasma's most esteemed elder's robes disappear behind the corner, and she determined that he must have deduced that something had transpired, for she knew he was a mathematician along with a revolutionary, and he must have realized the time between his father's complete departure from the throne room and the time said man began to do so didn't translate unless some other interaction was factored in. However, in the next moment, his forehead smoothed once more, and he met her stare evenly, as if he wasn't calculating and manufacturing and planning, planning, planning every second of every day. He did not falter (as he would have all those days and weeks and months ago when she first met him) when she challenged fearlessly, "What now?" – only lifted his chin an equal (and equally fake) show of confidence, replying firmly, "I fight for a world that belongs to Pokémon alone, so they can regain their original power, and you fight for a world that Pokémon and people share. It's time to settle this once and for all."

"I won't lose," she asserted, with a certainty she did not feel.

He raised his eyebrows with disbelief that he had to force out of him. "If that is so, prove it to me – show me the depth of your determination!"

He rose from his throne – which she hadn't realized was inches and feet and yards away until he did – and advanced towards her across a blue carpet, its shade deep and lovely, but for the way it lay prone against the pale granite. When he at last stepped down the tiny, unnecessary flight of stairs and stood before her on level ground, the pair of them stood staring at one another for a long while, but for once in their fierce hurricane of a relationship, the time felt shorter than it truly was, rather than longer. "You came all this way to battle me…" he observed, and she felt a little of the same dread and panic and self-loathing that he had (un)wittingly instilled in her earlier return at the almost disappointed tone his voice took on. "But Reshiram is not responding…" He squinted slightly, as if he were trying to read her (but it was wasted and ineffectual, because she was not one of those books he poured over, not some crumpled note to be unfolded and smoothed out and understood, no, she was a collection of hieroglyphs, all mismatched languages thrown together, iconic representation that someone so well-versed in the symbolic could hardly dream of understanding – she knew from experience), before querying in a manner than was oddly accusatory for him (over something that wasn't the supposed liberation of Pokémon, anyway), "You haven't yet been recognized as a hero, have you?"

(And for just a moment she let herself drown in the anguish and defeat and crushing, soul-scorching, world-shattering hate, hate of herself and every tiny, trivial mistake she had ever made that led up to this one, the one that wasn't small or insignificant in the slightest, the one that actually mattered. She let go of her carefully maintained self control to scream soundlessly, continuously, with the pain of a thousand jagged knives plunging into her back over and over and over again. She was torn between throwing herself at him and tearing him down with her bare hands – for she was sure she could do it, if only she were brave enough to try – and finding some dank, remote rock to curl up under and live until she died, or until the world as she knew it withered away instead. But just as quickly as she was overtaken by all of her doubts and nitpicks and criticisms – and everything else she never found the right words or enough time to say, or think, or imagine – she felt her starter Pokémon hum against her skin in a manner that was comforting and defiant and scolding all at once. She had to fight. She had no choice: she was not about to lose her most beloved partner.)

"How disappointing." The green-haired boy opposite her didn't seem to notice her troubles, nor did he seem all that troubled by the new development (at least on the surface, but she somehow learned to read him a long time ago), but he was really close to crushed, seeing his plans – flawed though they were – crumble before him, knowing that the one person he thought he would be standing up to in the end wouldn't be a match for him. He gave her a look that was probably meant to be calculating and indifferent, but really betrayed such dissatisfaction and sorrow that it would be impossible to see to anyone else (but she saw, and saw it clearly). He seemed not to be aware of himself as he turned his storming eyes towards the ground, mumbling in a voice that was still perfectly audible, but lacked the sweet assertion it had previously, "I actually really liked you…" She wasn't sure exactly what to make of that (but she knew what she wanted to make of it, oh yes, but she wasn't about to let herself so much as think such things, even if it was utterly hopeless, because that dark corner of her mind where she had kept thoughts of him for so long had burst wide open, and was now festering and rotting in the sunlight, crying out for attention), so she chose to ignore it, instead listening as he went on in a daze, "Through our many battles, I got the feeling that you might be a trainer who truly cares for Pokémon… But I was kidding myself: the thought of trainers getting along with Pokémon through battles is ridiculous!"

This time, she did not keep silent. "How dare you," she hissed, low and vicious; he seemed to snap out of whatever trance he had been in at her tone of voice, blinking at her with a mixture of confusion and denial and something else dribbling down his face. "Are you really that naïve? Trainers don't get along with Pokémon because they battle them – we bond because we see one another's potential. We build opinions of one another based on hopes and dreams, on who we are. Battles aren't what make trainers. And for you to assume I don't know that…" She examined him with practiced disdain, a false front to hide her hammering heart. "Maybe you aren't as smart as I assumed – presumed, expected, anticipated… Anticipated you to be."

All emotion drained from his face to be replaced by a sudden deepness that was unreadable and unwelcome to her eyes, and he retorted in a voice so cold she thought of Sinnoh for a brief moment, "You have two options: challenge me to a fight you can't win, or leave this place and watch the birth of a new world where Pokémon are free of people." He raised one arm above his head, eyes never leaving hers, and called in a tone that demanded respect, "Zekrom! Come to me!"

It occurred to her only after the great amber-eyed reptile had smashed her way through the wall behind N's throne that she hadn't thought about what she would do once she lost (for it was certain now that she would, because even if she hadn't considered the aftermath, she was clever enough to know that whether she fought or simply walked away, there was no possibility of keeping things the way they were, the way she knew they were supposed to be). When the dragon let out a deafening bellow, she only watched, mind racing as she tried to think of where someone like her – someone who had challenged the leader of the new world (for even if her options led to the same outcome, she knew her Pokémon wanted her to try, and she would do anything for them, even throw away the rest of her life trying to escape her sins) – would be welcome, or at least tolerated, once everything changed. She reached the conclusion that the only place she could go was everywhere as the Deep Black Pokémon released a powerful wave of electricity that sparked and crackled around her, realizing with equal amounts of annoyance and sadness that she would never be allowed to stay in one place. When the voltage subsided, she sighed mutely at her rival, understanding and resignation and a last dying glimmer of rebellion in her cerulean orbs, and she knew that he knew she had made her choice, even though it would only result in her persecution.

But the variables were destined to change, it seemed, for they both broke eye contact to stare at her bag as her Poké Balls began to rattle inside it, warning her of the sudden trembling of the Light Stone. Dimly, she heard her adversary sputter incoherently as he stepped back, but she paid him no heed, carefully removing the quaking artifact from her pack instead, staring at it until she gathered that the blue eyes staring back at her did not belong to her reflection. The stone glowed brilliantly, drawing air and light into itself seemingly from nowhere, before it began to spin violently, slipping from her grasp. The orb seemed to grow and twist, then unfold, blanching and shifting until it took the form of the very legendary dragon it had promised to be from the beginning: Reshiram. The Vast White Pokémon spread his mighty wings, letting out a resonant screech, arching his back as the generator on his tail kindled savage flames. Fire whipped around him like a gale, and though she saw her opponent and his own dragon shrink back before the inferno's might, she simply stood, transfixed and awestruck, staring at the legendary Pokémon who had deemed her a worthy hero. He turned his vivid eyes on her, and for the first time in what felt like a very long time indeed, she smiled, pure and genuine and broad, and felt hope slink back into her heart for the first time since Team Plasma's king had revealed his plans in Mistralon City.

When the Dragon of Truth moved aside, she met her foe's gaze once more, and she saw in his eyes recognition, and a mishmash of admiration and pleasure. "He wants to battle with you," he informed her, and she glanced at the white reptile for a fraction of a second, as if for confirmation. "He wants you to prove you are worthy of being his friend and ally."

In a flurry of grins too carefree for the situation and colors too cheerful for a place so dire, the battle commenced… And ended what felt like moments later, as an exhausted Diaval turned and split his long, scaly muzzle in a wide grin, reveling as his equally beat up teammates crowded around him in an excited, triumphant swarm. The defeated legendary inclined his head first to them, and then to Touko, meeting her gaze steadily. She tentatively extended a hand towards her new friend, and let out a startled, disbelieving, utterly joyous breath when he stooped a little lower to allow her to run her fingers across his skin (although she doubted it was skin, or even scales – it was soft and downy enough to be feathers or fur, but Reshiram was an ethereal being, so who was to say he wasn't made of something no human had ever even heard of?). He only stepped away from her when her rival approached, growling threateningly as the boy with tea green hair offered her Pokémon healing with more humility than she had seen him exhibit in a very long time (or maybe for the first time ever, because even when he hadn't been being arrogant, he had been a king, and there was really nothing humble about that).

And finally, finally, the stage was set: they were equals.

(And the clarity with which she realized only one of them would be getting back on their feet after this battle burned her, but her insight was belated, and there was no turning back now.)

In contrast to the blurry haze that the battle with her dragon, the battle with N was in stunning focus; the two legendary Pokémon that used to be one creature both stepped forward, roaring challenges to one another, trusting their respective trainers and their beliefs to lead them to victory. Her team stepped back to gawk and stare as the two primal beings – counterparts, for even if they were once one, they had grown up and wide apart since then – faced each other, Zekrom firing a Fusion Bolt, and Reshiram discharging a Fusion Flare. Slashes were exchanged. An Extrasensory was met with a Zen Headbutt. The pattern of applied moves repeated erratically, the palace shaking with the legendaries' fury. By the time the battle eventually ended – as everything did (thank Arceus for that, but curse him, too, because ending things meant saving the world, but it also meant things she had not yet guessed, but soon would, and would regret) – the two dragons were heaving with ragged breaths, and their great armored scales were slick with sweat; it ended when the Deep Black Pokémon opened her sturdy jaws to charge another Fusion Bolt, and her brave and true counterpart ducked low, rushing at her with a sudden burst of ferocity and loosing a Dragon Breath before she could strike him. The super-effective move hit the darker reptile before she could do a thing about it, and she staggered under its force. After approximately three and a half tense moments of staring at the Dragon of Ideals as she breathed deeply, the king's companion's fiery eyes rolled back in her head, her limbs went limp, and she collapsed, out cold and defeated.

For several stunning moments, everyone stared silently at the fallen reptilian Pokémon, but then the Vast White Pokémon let out a victorious howl, and then the two so-called heroes of Unova locked eyes, and within each pairs, there was defiance and conviction, and they both knew the confrontation wasn't over yet (of course it was: Zekrom was down, and that meant that they were no longer equals, because she had always been stronger than her rival when it came to battling, and if he didn't have Zekrom, then he wasn't going to win).

Diaval Crunched and Dug, Delancey Stomped and Discharged, Raincheck Surfed and Rock Slid, Razzmatazz Retaliated and Took Down, and although Reshiram eventually fell, shooting one last Fusion Flare, Dynasty did not let his team fall to his trainer's greatest enemy (but he wasn't, really, he was just someone she had to defeat because he was attempting to destroy the world as everyone knew it – she wouldn't have done this if there was any other way, wouldn't have fought him so viciously if she had any choice but to tear his aspirations to the ground), Giga Draining, Leaf Blading, Wringing Out, and Returning with incredible strength and intensity and trust in his trainer, until the boy with tea green hair was overpowered. As soon as the battle was over (truly over, because it was, now, even though she should have known he would never win from the moment it began, because he had left his plans open to corruption, and none of his beliefs could stand up to her sincerities when it came down to it), a great whooping cheer rose up from her Pokémon, and they immediately crowded around each other and her, shouting and crying and laughing in their foreign voices, voices she could not understand word for word, but comprehended none the less. She allowed them to sweep her up, to shower her with affection, to gloat to no one in particular and thank Arceus they had won, because she was doing the same thing, though not all of it was done verbally. She hugged each of her Pokémon fiercely – her krookodile smiled in toothy bashfulness, her zebstrika hugged her back with motherly gentleness, her carracosta stood awkwardly and patted her back with grudging affection, her unfezant crowed proudly and pecked her teasingly on the head, her audino wrapped her arms around her and refused to let go for several moments, and her serperior wound himself around her and squeezed until she was breathless with laughter and bombarding him with her unbridled care – before gathering the Poké Ball with her legendary dragon inside up in her arms and planting a kiss on the smooth metal surface, hoping the reptilian Pokémon could feel her gratitude and relief from inside, despite his less-than-healthy state.

But the monarch she had defeated suddenly caught her eye, and she immediately shushed her Pokémon when she saw him staring at the Poké Ball he had recalled his last friend into with a bleak expression on his face. For many agonizing moments, he stood motionless and silent, then slowly, almost as if it pained him to say (and it probably – definitely – did), he muttered hollowly, "Zekrom and I…were beaten…" His arm unexpectedly dropped to his side, and his knuckles paled as his grip tightened drastically on the Poké Ball. "Your truth… Your feelings… They were stronger than mine, it seems…" Of course they were, she thought irreverently, but the thought wasn't prominent in her mind. She tried to feel triumphant – tried to be happy that she had won (and she was, really, just not right not) – but she was more perceptive than she would like to be, and she could see his dreams and endeavors scattered like broken feathers and shards of shattered glass at his feet; her victory was hollow (it wasn't, not to the world, but to her it was starting to seem that way) and bittersweet when such good intentions as his had been so thoroughly and scathingly razed. "Truth and ideals… Could… Could they both be right?"

She didn't know what she said (she still didn't, even after all this time, no matter how sharply she focused or how hard she tried), but she suddenly and unexpectedly shrieking at him with unrestrained fury; she hardly saw him shrink away from her with widened eyes, hardly paid attention as her team (with the exception of Nittany and Dynasty, the former of who ascended into the air and circled once before flying out of the tower, to find the rest of the League, as she later discovered, while the latter wound himself tighter around her, attempting to either comfort her or snap her out of it) recalled themselves back into their Poké Balls to protect their eardrums (but not to avoid getting hurt, because they knew she would never do that, no matter how angry she got) in response to her wrath. When her starter's administrations eventually got through to her, she stood with fists clenched and shaking, watching him with storming eyes (oh, what a turn of events), for she knew without asking that she had refuted his beliefs at long last, with a finality that neither of them could deny (though she almost wished they could), livid at his unbelievable ignorance. "Of course they were both right!" she was screaming at him when she eventually became aware of her words once more. "Why do you think I was trying to stop you? You were trying to separate truth from ideals – trying to separate people and Pokémon. Your ideals were never wrong, you were just doing the wrong things with them! That's why your ideals 'weren't strong enough': because you twisted them to oppose the truth, rather than working with it!" She breathed deeply in an attempt to calm herself, and went on in a deadly tranquil tone, "It's not by rejecting different ideas, but by accepting them that a chemical reaction is formed – that is the true formula for changing the world, and people would have realized that eventually, if you hadn't… If you hadn't done this."

He stared at her with bewildered but comprehending eyes, looking so lost and broken and utterly, completely alone that she was about to reach out a hand to him when he opened his mouth to begin, "Ghetsis – ", but he was cut off when a gravely, thundering voice snarled at him from out of the blue, "After all that, do you think you're still worthy of sharing the name Harmonia with me?"

She whirled to see the very man her fractured rival had spoken of stalking towards them, his one visible eye burning and his face twisted grotesquely. "You good-for-nothing boy!" he snapped at Team Plasma's king, and she saw said royal shrink under his pseudo-father's harsh words. "You've ruined everything! How is Team Plasma supposed to gain power now?! This was pointless – you could have won without this conflict, but you insisted, all because of that damn girl! And after you insisted on putting your beliefs on the line to engage in a battle to see which one chosen by the legendary Pokémon was the true hero… You lost to an ordinary trainer!" The green-haired boy was almost cowering under the older man's unforgiving glare. "You're nothing but a warped, defective boy who knows nothing but Pokémon!"

He turned to her once his sentence was finished, looking at her coldly and hotly at the same time, wholly ignoring the betrayal on his quasi-son's face in favor of growling at her, "You! I never would have thought the legendary Pokémon would choose a trainer like you, but it doesn't change my goal: N will be Team Plasma's figurehead, but I will rule utterly, and manipulate the hearts of those who know nothing. But for that to work, you – since you know the truth – you must be eliminated!"

"Touko!" She heard the cry before Ghetsis had shifted his cape and thrown out his first Pokémon to initiate the battle, but she didn't register that it was N who had spoken until her Regal Pokémon was slithering out onto the field to meet Team Plasma's true leader's cofagrigus head on. And though the ensuing skirmish was perilous and imposing, she could not get his voice out of her head, because the irony of it all was scorching and heartbreaking and hilarious (she had just torn down everything he had ever known in his life, cleaved his hopes and dreams in half, and he was shouting out like he was concerned about her safety), and, as had been stated so (too) many times in her life, she was not a normal human being. Slowly, cofagrigus was defeated, followed gradually by bouffalant, seismitoad, eelektross, bisharp, and finally hydreigon. "What?!" the twisted sage exclaimed when he was beaten, almost stumbling backwards as he glared at her with such intense hate that she almost felt uneasy. "I created Team Plasma with my bare hands. I am absolutely perfect! I AM PERFECTION! I am the perfect new ruler for a perfect new world!"

"Do you still think people and Pokémon should be separated?" she asked quietly, but she wasn't answering the opponent she had just vanquished, no, she was staring over his shoulder somberly and meeting the stunned, conflicted gaze of her rival, her true rival, the one who really couldn't be called a rival at all, because he had been manipulated, had been twisted, had been shaped and molded into something he was not: a tool to aid in the exploitation of Pokémon, and that was not his fault.

"He's a freak without a human heart," the senior Harmonia spat, and she instinctively balled her fist before punching him, the movement starting in her core and extending up through her chest and shoulder until it reached her arm and fingers, colliding with the center of the green-haired sage's face with as much force as she could muster. "You're the one without a human heart," she sneered at him, though her hand was throbbing, and she was sure she had broken a bone or split her knuckles or both, and that glare he was sending her looked extremely homicidal.

"You little brat!" he bellowed, and would have lunged at her with the intent to maim and kill, if there hadn't suddenly been two very familiar figures moving past on either side of her to restrain him. She blinked at Alder and Cheren as the wrestled the bulkier man into submission, formless but mild surprise drifting through the cavity in her chest at seeing one of her oldest friends – who was indoors-y and bookish and more likely to study into the night that go outside and play with the other kids – muscle a man far stronger (admittedly, the ginger-headed ex-champion was helping, but he didn't exactly seemed like the burliest, either). Nittany circled above her head a few times before spiraling down and landing with a flutter beside her (as she was now far too big to land on her shoulder), and she smiled at her avian Pokémon, stroking her head feathers gently. She listened without looking as Alder berated Team Plasma's most superior member, knowing that he would be taken in for questioning, and he would be far too proud not to admit to his plan for taking over Unova and regions beyond.

She did not turn to face them again until Cheren called out to her, and when she did, she met her bespectacled friend's inquiring gaze steadily. He jerked his head towards the (former?) ruler, who was still standing vacantly with his head down, asking brusquely but not disrespectfully, "What are we doing about him?"

She brushed them aside, replying, "Leave him. Let him think for a while. I'll let you know."

He nodded, understanding her at least partially, and began dragging off the traitorous manipulator that had once been a father to the boy with tea green hair with Alder's help. She watched them go before giving her Proud Pokémon one last smile and returning her to her Poké Ball. Sliding the red-and-white sphere into her bag, she turned to face the would-be hero she knew well (and it was okay to admit she knew him, now, because it was over, the world was safe, she didn't have to try to hate him anymore – she doubted she could, seeing such a sad, embittered expression on his face – but she didn't really know how to act around him, yet, either), her mouth twisting into an uneven line as she watched him. Eventually, after waiting for him to speak long enough to realize he wasn't going to, she tilted her head to one side, observing him neutrally (or what she hoped was neutrally, because she had felt her face soften for a few moments, and though she had forced her mask back on – because she needed it, because she wasn't ready for facing him now that she had brought down the beliefs he used to fashion his own flimsy veneer – she could feel her artificial indifference slipping every time she tried to correct it). "…You weren't pursuing ideals because of Ghetsis, you know," she murmured, meeting his eyes across the distance that now felt like a bottomless trench in the middle of the undiscovered ocean, seeing disbelief in those not-quite-gray-but-not-quite-blue orbs and giving a half-shrug of one shoulder, barely distinguishable. "At least not entirely. You were really inspired by the Pokémon you grew up with – that's why you were able to meet Zekrom in the first place."

"But…" he protested faintly, stormy gaze choppy and unsettled for a different reason than it was in the past. "I have no right to be a hero…"

She quirked one eyebrow, the slightest hint of a smirk curling at one corner of her mouth as she disagreed rhetorically, with a hint of teasing, out-of-place sass, "Is that so? Well, what you and Zekrom are going to do from now on is important, isn't it?"

He gazed at her uncertainly for a while, then his lips turned upwards at the sides, but it wasn't out of happiness or amusement, no, this was a twist of lips and teeth and shadows that would forever lurk on his walls that expressed nothing short of absolute misery, the agony of his carefully cultivated plans meeting only ruination and disgrace at the hands of a madman who he had once called 'father', of discovering childhood memories were riddled with lies, of uncovering manipulation and emotionlessness and cold, meticulous control in places where he had once thought love had thrived driving his eyes to moisten and squint in a poor attempt to keep the tears from falling. He went to take a step towards her, but stumbled, and she stepped back, because watching him do the things she had done what felt like eons ago was too much for her to process in that moment (and every moment after). He looked at her as though he expected her to give him the answers he needed, and she could do nothing but stare impassively (and completely un-impassively) back at him, because she wasn't the answer for the questions that he still had – he would have to find them on his own.

He seemed to recognize the unspoken message in her eyes, because he let out a single choked sob before taking a deep, shuddering breath and standing up a little straighter, reigning in (at least some of) his emotions before taking another step towards her, this one steady and deliberate, and followed by a few more just like it, until he was standing directly in front of her. Almost cautiously, he lifted a hand to grasp hers, bringing it up between them and staring at the injured appendage. She was not surprised to see the blood dripping down her torn skin, but watching the red fluid shimmer and trickle onto his pale, unmarred hands unsettled her in some strange, indescribable way. She could not hold back a snort when he noted softly, "He hurt you…", contradicting him in a tone of voice that was identical to his but for the slight sarcasm in it, "I hurt myself. It was stupid to punch him."

He shook his head at her claim, but said nothing, only dropping her hand (but he didn't step away, not yet). For the first time in her life, she fidgeted in the silence, her mind darting a million different directions at once, too quick for her conscience to register anything (a lie, but she didn't want to concede some of her thoughts, as dismal and doomed as they were). Finally, finally, after she was reaching the point where she could no longer subdue her urges to rip out her hair and scrape off her skin, he inhaled lightly and told her, "I'm glad I met you…"

She wanted to express her skepticism vocally, but some intangible force suddenly clogged her throat, and she could only try to get her point across with her bright pools of blue. "I wasn't always," he admitted, then trailed off, "But now…" He blinked at her, then shook himself and went on, "I think I knew I would be, at least… When I first met you, back in Accumula Town, I was shocked by what your Pokémon was saying – I was shocked because your Pokémon said he liked you." The shock of learning the reason for his reaction to her on their first meeting was not given a chance to fade, as he carried on with a tone that acknowledged the irony, "I couldn't understand that. I could hear him forming words, I could hear him telling me these things, but I couldn't understand. I couldn't believe there were Pokémon in the world who actually liked people – until that moment, I'd never known any like that… My disbelief led me astray."

"They were your family," she found herself soothing him, locking all of her joints to keep herself from reaching out to brush away the tears in his eyes. "How could you believe anything else?"

He shook his head again, seeming to refuse to do anything but ridicule himself (but she couldn't judge him for that, not really, because she did the exact same thing far more often and with much more severity). "…But the longer my journey continued, the more unsure I became. You weren't the only one I saw who communicated with Pokémon through friendship rather than words, but you were the most important one: the first person I'd met who wasn't a member of Team Plasma who understood Pokémon, the first one to refuse my point of view. That was why I needed to battle you to confirm my beliefs – because I wasn't sure of myself anymore, and because it was you, not anyone else." He stepped away from her, backing towards the hole in the wall where his dragon had made her dramatic entrance earlier. He turned his back on her, staring out into the sunlight outside for a collection of fathomless moments, before adding in a voice that almost lost its way on its course to reach her because it wasn't really meant for her, "That's why I have to leave…"

"What?" The sound left her mouth before she could stop it, and it was so jarringly loud (though it was said in a tone only slightly louder than one used in a normal conversation) in comparison to all their previous statements that he jumped almost imperceptibly and faced her with barely widened eyes. She saw the Poké Ball that contained the Dragon of Ideals clutched in his palm, and she twitched for a moment, clenching her wounded hand into a fist simply because she needed the pain to register, needed to be sure this wasn't a dream, needed to be sure she wasn't delusional as well as crazy (she actually wished she was – anything would have been better than realizing he was completely serious, and the situation was completely real).

"I'm leaving," he repeated, a bit more final this time, a little less absent. He didn't turn away from her again, but he threw the Poké Ball behind him, and the Deep Black Pokémon emerged from the sphere in a burst of bright light and pixels. Seeming to understand that there was an important exchange going on, the legendary dragon remained quiet, hovering outside the castle's tower, waiting for her trainer to do something.

"…Okay," she all but whispered, her voice so congested and emotional that the two syllables came out almost like a squeak. She had never been prone to naiveté, but now, standing before the departing figure of the boy with tea green hair she didn't know how to feel about (it was a lie, but one she threw herself into, because the truth was painful and pointless and unforgivably cliché), she wished she didn't know that it was entirely possible he wouldn't come back. She knew that if she were just a little bolder, a little more outgoing, a little quicker and less tactical with the comebacks, she would – or at least could – make him stay, but she was herself, and wasn't sure she would want him to stay: he reminded her that she had one of those treacherous organs called hearts beating beneath her skin, threatening ominous emotions and she did not want to feel. It was terrifying to watch him go, but it would be perhaps even more terrifying if he remained.

At her one-word phrase, he stared inertly for a moment or two before he gave a barely-there nod and turned from her once more. A sharp pang of raw, excruciating poignancy stabbed her in the throat, and she had to fight back tears as she watched him mount his dragon, preparing to depart; no matter how she looked at it, no matter how many possibilities she considered, she could not escape the simple fact that he was an undoubtedly, invariably, unbelievably good person, however misguided, and it hurt to see someone like that vanish from her life, especially because she had no choice but to make it her own fault. "I wish I hadn't met you," she told him in a diluted bawl (it really was more of a sob, because she wasn't being that loud, but she had already described his tears as sobbing, and she hated using words twice in such close proximity), and her eyes were so blurred that she almost didn't see the bewilderment and suffering flicker across his face as a result of her words. "It wouldn't hurt if I hadn't met you…" She was being incoherent, she knew, but she couldn't muster the energy to care (although she did care when the winds and tides in his eyes changed and he looked as if he grasped the meaning of her words perfectly).

He faced her again, but this time his posture was different in some way that made her sure he was going to leave soon, that he wouldn't keep doing this for her, to her. He unexpectedly raised his hand again, but this time he lifted them both, one taking her injured hand once more, while the other traveled to cup her cheek with hands (un)surprisingly smooth and velvety. "I could never measure up to you," he mumbled to her, and there was an openness, an honesty in his voice and gaze that had never been there before, a sort of look that she knew meant more than it did, one that she could jump to conclusions about without making any assumptions that weren't true (but she didn't want to do any of that, because she was not okay, damnit). "Dream your dream, and follow a path of truth that will make that dream a reality – someday you will achieve it. If anyone could, it would be you." He did a strange thing, then (as if he hadn't already done strange things, as if she hadn't done things just the same): he leaned his forehead against hers and closed his eyes, like he was trying to commit everything in that moment to memory, then exhaled slowly, his warm breath wavering against her skin, before pulling away from her comparatively shorter form and stepping back, one hand elevating to lay on one of his dragon's dark scales. "Until then… Farewell."

And he mounted his dragon, the beautiful beast rising into the air with her trainer on her back, and the Hero of Truth could only watch as both her dragon's counterpart and her own climbed higher and higher into the sky, until the Deep Black Pokémon's energy generating tail was set alight with crackling blue electricity, and the pair was speeding away from Team Plasma's castle, and Touko decided what hurt the most was the fact that she could imagine never seeing him again a lot easier than she could imagine N returning to her life.

"…Goodbye…"

…

…Well alright then.

For anyone who was hoping for an AU ending: I'M SORRY, BUT I THINK CANON MAKES THEIR DYNAMIC BETTER. But, for those of you crying your eyes out, fear not: I will have happier fanfics in the future (possibly even including a sequel to this fic – but don't quote me on that, I have a lot of other work to do, so even if I do write that, it won't be for quite a while). Lokfan323, you know I'm talking to you in particular. I'm really sorry, darling.

Anyways, I intend to write more Pokémon fanfics in the future, both with the human characters of the universe, and with the Pokémon themselves, so prepare yourselves for more shipping, because that's my main function in life.

Don't forget to comment and favorite!

Vamp.