AN: All of her party members have names. I know that Yin and Yang are reversed here, but there is a reason for that. All truths have Ideals and all Ideals have truth, and when they meet in the middle they mix like fire and water, and a little of one is in the other. So they have the opposite. Also, if there are some readers who have problems keeping the names straight, I will post a list at the start or end of each chapter, or PM you the list. Zekrom and Reshiram are not always referred to by therir nicknames; the names and nicknames are used equally, but this is only done with them because of who they are.
Ch.1: Gone Baby Gone
"N!" White screamed as he disappeared from her life through a hole in the crumbling wall. Her outstretched hand grasped at empty space which he had occupied mere moments beforehand. She heard the slap of Reshiram's wings as she took flight. White rushed forward to crane her neck around the jutting jumble or stone and masonry. N's green hair rippled in the wind. Reshiram's wing gusts knocked White back against a protruding beam, a sharp cry of pain accompanying the audible crack of a few of her ribs breaking. Her team crowded around each other a few feet away, doe-eyed and worried.
Upon witnessing her distress, they rushed forward. Zekrom-now Yin- bent his great head and muzzled the crown of her skull tenderly, ruffling her hair with his breath. Darla, the Darmanitan, and Sprinkle, the Simipour, each sat by her and took a hand each: Darla her left and Sprinkle her right. Szev, the Serperior, laid his head by hers, tears brimming. Belectra, the Zebstrika, was openly crying. Yuna began to shroud White in dream mist. A mirror-image of N appeared, but quickly flickered out when White's trembling and silent tears began.
White curled into a fetal position and simply held herself together, feeling as though her chest were being slowly crushed. Her pokémon had grown fond of him as well, and their common agony mingled. The gilded throne room doors boomed open.
"N, brother, where are you?"
White kept her teary eyes shut even as she spoke. "He's gone," she whispered brokenly. "N is gone."
A sharp intake of breath. The birth of spontaneous weeping. More calling for N. More weeping.
White sat up weakly, breathing raggedly. Concordia and Anthea were holding each other and sobbing into the other's hair. White stumbled up, wincing and grunting in pain. Her team moved forward.
"No!" she shouted. She recalled them all, save Yin. "Come."
After hearing his voice when he was summoned from the stone, she was already used to it.
'Mistress, you are injured...'
"I'm well enough. My pain is of no concern."
'A storm is rising. I fear that if we leave now...'
"I don't bloody care. I have to find him. It's imperative-"
A resounding boom of thunder and a vibrant display of lightening interrupted her, crackling against the night air.
'No one is going anywhere, White, not in this weather.'
He growled as the sky opened up, spilling the Earth with tears of its own.
"We'll lose their scent trail, Yin! And the farther they are away...-"
'Better than being dashed against a cliff face or the like out in that,' he growled sarcastically. 'You have a lifetime to find him.'
"And still may never achieve the goal," she snapped bitterly.
She spent the night at the castle to wait out the storm. Anthea and Concordia offered her a room near them, but she refused, instead climbing into N's vacant Snorlax bed. She pulled up the pokémon-decorated sheets and buried her head into the mattress and pillow. Her little family slept around her, barring Yin: they were either on top of or underneath the covers, or sprawled on the floor beside it. The quiet dark soothed her into a fitful slumber.
White was greeted in the morning by the steady dribbling of an after-storm rain shower. She laid in bed staring at the ceiling and walls for an hour or so before finally rolling onto her feet. Szev rose up, blinking groggily. Sprinkle's dreadlock-like head poked out of the mass of blankets. Darla and Belectra were snoozing side by side on a rug, while Yuna had stretched out on one of the pillows
White smiled sadly and went to shower. She cleaned up her pokémon, brushing and grooming them lovingly. It was just before dawn: time to leave. Sighing, she called them back, preparing to step into the corridor.
Miles out, a white dragon flapped slowly through the steady rain. Her rider's slicked green locks clung to his drenched clothes and skin. The air was icy at this altitude.
"Did I do the right thing, Yang? She was my only friend. I don't know much about human emotions or relationships, but I can't help this feeling. Is this guilt?"
Reshiram remained silent beneath him, falling and rising in a rhythmic pattern with each wingbeat. Her body rumbled neutrally. 'She'll wait for you to return if she is truly your friend. And she will forgive you. She has already taken her quest. Now it is your turn.'
"Do you think I'll see her again?"
'I'm sure you will, N. I'm sure of it.'
Yin touched down in a clearing just outside of Nuvema Town. White slid off of his back and landed with a soft thump. It had been two months, and she had rounded up the Seven Sages for Looker. It was her duty to protect the people of Unova now. She was their Champion and Hero, practically their leader. And she was going to be like Alder. Wandering Champion Alder.
Yin's muscles rippled in the bright sunlight as he bent to speak. 'I think I'll wait out here, if it's all the same to you.'
White nodded distractedly, gazing at the sun. She turned and ran home. A home without N. She approached the front door slowly.
She extricated her key and turned it in the lock. The talons slid back into place and she pushed the door open with her shoulder. She expected exclamations of surprise or delight, or perhaps a chid or two. She did not expect silence. White gazed around her empty house and slumped against the door jam. Where was everyone ? Feeling empty, she let the rest of her team out and climbed the stairs to her room, where she locked the door behind her and pinned up blackout curtains.
White drifted around her room listlessly. Sitting on her bed, she gazed morosely out of her window. She was still there when she heard the door open and close downstairs that evening.
Cheren and Bianca had searched for White after the last battle of what would late be called the First Plasma War. Everyone from Professor Juniper to Looker to the Champion had been searching for her. Even children had. It wasn't that they were worried. They knew she was capable. It was the fact that her Region, her people, needed to see their Hero. She was the new head and face of Unova, and people were slow to forget that.
Cheren and Bianca had just been at the Professor's lab with White's mother, River, and her twin, Black.
"Hey, wasn't the door unlocked when we came in just now?" Cheren asked, frowning. He stood in the entryway. River was already in the kitchen, preparing refreshments for them all, and Bianca was in the parlor.
"Oh, I don't know, Cheren, why?" River called distractedly.
"Because I'm sure you locked it when we left, Mrs. Shale."
Right then, a board overhead creaked. Cheren's hand went to his belt where his team was clipped.
"Did either of you happen to hear that?" he inquired, narrowing his eyes and adjusting his glasses.
Bianca poked her head through the doorway.
"It kind of sounded like it came from White's room, didn't it?"
"My thoughts exactly."
Bianca blinked passively. "Well, maybe White came home and just wants to be left alone."
"Or maybe it's Ghetis, come after River," Cheren replied darkly.
They looked long and hard at each other, nodded, and then began creeping in sync towards the stairs. Cheren put his finger to his lips and Bianca nodded.
The two stopped outside of their friend's room door. Cheren held up his fingers. He put them down one at a time in a countdown. On "three", they tried the door. It was locked.
"White, is that you?" Bianca queried timidly.
White blinked. She shook her head, stood up, and opened the door.
"OMG, WHITE IT IS YOU!" her blonde friend exclaimed, crushing her in her embrace. White put on a tender smile for the girl. She turned to Cheren with the same fixed expression and gave him a hug.
"Is mom with you guys?"
"River's down stairs fixing refreshments," Bianca supplied. "We didn't know you'd come home."
Cheren always called River "Mrs. Shale", but Bianca habitually used her given name.
The trio descended the stairs together. Their pokémon played and chattered just like they used to. White was distant and less responsive than usual. Eventually, her two friends left and she retired for the night. White fell into what was classified as depression. She never left her locked room, barely spoke to anyone, and hardly ate. River finally begged her to come out, but it just pained everyone to see her. She became sallow skinned, with wild, unruly hair and sizable violet rings under her darkening eyes.
The month ended. June came. July crept by.
August.
September.
One evening, White stumbled down the stairs. She had heard voices again. She stopped in the hallway and hid in the shadows.
"...just so worried about her," her mother was saying.
"I am too," Cheren remarked.
Bianca's little-girl's voice piped up. "You don't think she's lost it, do you? She changed after that battle..."
"She changed after him," Cheren corrected scornfully. White flinched in her hiding place.
"Now Cheren, I don't think-"
"He did something to her, I know he did! He-he broke he somehow, inside, and even though she won, she's still lost."
The room grew quiet. The chairs creaked. Someone stood.
"Well, I think I should be going now, River..."
"I'm leaving as well, Mrs. Shale."
White scampered back to her room and tried to close the door quietly. Cheren glanced up the hall to her room just as she managed to do so.
White relocked her door and sat in the floor with her back against it. She knew she was being stupid, but he left, maybe forever, and this time, she didn't have a chance to cock her head sassily to the side and say, "To be continued?"
This time they hadn't locked eyes before parting. This time she truly had no idea where he could be, or if he was alive, and his being a thousand miles away or across a sea left a chasm a thousand long miles deep in her heart. This time she couldn't peek at him shyly from underneath her long lashes, or wish they could hug again before they were enemies again. This time she hadn't asked when, where, or if they would meet. This time he was just gone.