The smell of fresh pancakes and the rustling of the Autumn leaves outside of the window woke 17 year-old Touko White. She slightly parted her eyelids to see a sunlit room, she couldn't help but wanting to stay like this forever; with the sun's warm rays kissing her skin, sadly all good things must come to an end.
Right on cue Bianca slammed the door open with such force that Touko was surprised it hadn't fallen off its hinges. "Morning Toukoooooo!" said the always-cheery blond. "Time to get up sleepy head! I'm surprised you haven't fused with the bed, you sleep like a bear in hibernation!" she exclaimed. Touko softly groaned and staggered to her feet. "It's too early to be so excited Bianca" groaned Touko in reply. "It's never too early to be excited Touko, come on your mom can make some mean pancakes, the best I've ever had!" chirped Bianca. Touko couldn't help but grin, this was the optimist green-eyed best friend that she always loved to have around. "Okay give me a second to freshen up." Bianca nodded in agreement and headed out the door and down the stairs with a bounce in her step. Touko slowly dragged her feet to the closet and opened it, took out her usual attire; consisting of the white top with a black vest, ripped up short's, and a Pokémon cap. She grabbed other necessary items and headed for her bathroom.
Five minutes later Touko stepped out of her room looking fresh and renewed, with a smile plastered on her face. "Good morning darling." said Touko's mother, she was setting down plates stacked high with pancakes on the table. "Morning mom" replied Touko as she sat down in one of the chairs, too busy looking at the pancakes to notice Cheren staring at her with such intensity that he could have burned a hole through her head. "As always too focused on food to notice anything else." said Cheren. Touko looked at him and giggled an apology.
"Touko, Cheren and I thought that today we could hang out, just the three of us...since you've been so busy battling trainers because you're the league champion we thought you could use a break." said Bianca. "That sounds great Bianca." replied Touko, "We could go to Nimbasa City, and ride the Ferris wheel or watch musicals, maybe even watch the athletes play." Bianca trio swiftly finished their breakfast and ran out the door.
"Come out Reshiram!" said Touko, soon the trio mounted the vast white Pokémon and flew off towards Nimbasa City. It was a short flight, and soon they all jumped off and landed swiftly on their feet. Except Bianca. "Owwww" said Bianca rubbing her head, soon after, they all exploded in short and lively laughter.
The trio watched some musicals; Touko's favorite being the one with the cute Gothorita, Cheren exclaiming that musicals were useless with no educational purpose whatsoever, and Bianca squealing every second of it. They exited the large illuminated building and walked over to the amusement park, ready to ride the Ferris wheel, until they saw a Plasma grunt.
Bianca gasped, " Didn't they split up!?" Cheren grunted and pushed his glasses up, poke ball ready in his hand. The grunt noticed them and walked over exclaiming " Give me your Pokémon!" suddenly a battle broke out between the grunt and Touko. " Serperior come out!" said Touko. "Serperior, leaf blade" the grass snake Pokémon swiftly attacked the Liepard and it was an instant K.O. " I can't believe I lost to a kid" said the grunt.
Before he could muster another word Cheren had his hands on the grunt's collar screaming "Where is your hideout? Why is team plasma still active? Who's your leader?" The grunt looked down at the angry teenager with an emotionless expression on his face, raised his hands up in surrender and said "I don't know! But team Plasma will never surrender, our dream will come true and we will liberate the suffering Pokémon from humans!" Cheren growled and pushed the grunt away in disgust. Touko stared at the ground wondering if their leader was the same as before, the green-haired, blue-eyed teenage tyrant, N. She snapped out of her thoughts to the sound of the grunt getting away, Cheren was about to bolt after him until he heard Bianca, "Stop Cheren it's not worth it." Cheren sighed in frustration and looked over to Touko. "Could it be him?" asked Bianca, "could it be N?"
Just then a Braviary took off into the sky from the forest where the grunt had run off to, "Lets trail him, and we'll find out" said Cheren, already summoning his Unfezant. "I guess we have no choice" said Bianca, jumping on Cheren's unfezant with him, due to the fact that she did not have a flying type with her. Since Touko didn't want to attract a lot of attention she summoned Swanna and hoped on. Both Pokémon took off for the sky, following the Braviary a couple of feet ahead of them, they made sure to maintain their distance so that the grunt wouldn't notice them, and after thirty minutes of flying they saw something very familiar in the distance, they saw the castle where Touko had battled N, the castle where she had last seen him until he took off on Zekrom into the vast blue sky.
The castle was repaired, it showed no signs of their last battle at all, it even looked like if it had been rebuilt; it looked brand new. As they landed on the second floor of the castle Touko had butterfly's in her stomach but it felt unpleasant and she was nervous. Would she see N again?
As soon as they landed they saw three grunts running towards them "So much for a smooth invasion" sighed Cheren, he was about to take his poke ball out until he was stopped by Touko, who told him that instead of battling them, they should take the grunt's clothes and sneak into the castle.
Soon after, the three of them were dressed in the Plasma uniform."Okay let's make sure we don't get caught" said Bianca while pulling out duct tape from her bag, the grunt's eyes widened in fear, Touko couldn't help but laugh and Cheren sighed and nodded his head sideways wondering why she has duct tape and not potions in her bag, seriously, where did she get these things from? "We should split up from here" said Cheren "if we do then we will cover more ground. If one of us finds something important we'll contact each other through our X-Transceivers." They all nodded and split up, all three headed for different directions.
Touko's POV
As the three of us split up I headed to the nearest entrance, once inside I looked to a nearby window and saw my reflection, I looked just like all the the other grunts, my plan was perfect. I smiled to myself and started walking praising myself, on my way down the halls I noticed how there was such an abundance of grunts, even more than outside, some nodded at me while I walked and I nodded back, there were beautiful glistening waterfalls at the end of the immense halls; the waterfalls were probably bigger than my house, what did these people do for a living beside steal other people's Pokémon?
Suddenly the other grunts started bowing down and so did I to blend in, and I saw why they were bowing: it was Athena, she was a pink haired beauty and one of N's care-takers. I bowed down lower hoping she would not remember my face from our short encounter so long ago. The beautiful goddess stopped right in front of me and told me to raise my head, and I did so in obedience, trying to not look her in the eye. "You must be the new grunt that was assigned to be the chef" she said, "Uhh, yes! Sorry but since I'm new I couldn't help but get lost in this huge castle, it's such an honor to be working for team Plasma!" Suddenly the other grunts cheered "Long live team Plasma!" What have I gotten myself into?! "Follow me" said Athena, already walking away.
As I entered the kitchen I couldn't help but stare and gawk like an idiot, it was gigantic like everything in this castle. Athena led me to a short girl dressed in a chef's apron; she had short blonde hair and lively teal eyes. "This is Rain" she said, "she'll be guiding you and telling you what to cook." "Nice to meet ya" said Rain with a smile on her face. "Same here" I replied with a genuine smile. After that, Athena left to fulfill "her duties" and Rain started walking around telling me where everything was, "Oh I forgot!" she exclaimed, "here take off your uniform and put on this apron." I felt the blood drain out of my face as I turned white as snow. "Uh it's really cold, can I keep wearing the Plasma uniform?' I asked hopefully. "I guess.." replied Rain with a questioning look on her face. "You feelin' ok?" she asked, and I nodded slowly in agreement. "Your task is to make vegetable soup, do it swiftly 'cause we need it ready in 25 minutes." With that she left me standing there dumbfounded. I was never a great cook, more like an ok cook and now with the pressure I felt ready to snap.
After lots of sweat and hard work (just standing there until Rain hit me in the head with giant broccoli and told me to cook) I finally finished my delicious (barely edible) vegetable soup. I stood waiting until Athena popped up "I need you to take the soup you made to the prince" said Athena. Prince? "I usually do these task's but I'm busy with other important things so I ask this of you" she said. Was it N? I could feel my heart beating like a drum as I stumbled to get the words "Oh-okay no problem" out of my mouth. With that, Athena left and I was left standing there. I've done an awful lot of standing I thought to myself and sighed, this was draining what little energy I had left.
As I walked up the stairs I convinced myself that I had to do this for mysel-err the sake of Unova, once I reached the top I walked slowly, looking for the largest door where Rain told me I would find 'the prince', when I spotted it I straightened out my uniform, got a better grip on the plate containing the soup and knocked on the door.