A/N: This is the last of the three Pokemon stories I've been planning for a long time! After this, I'll start to update each of them as consistently as I'm able.

The blizzard caught Sasha and her Pokemon by surprise. It shouldn't have, since they were on the outskirts of a city literally named for snow, but the Snowpoint weather forecast hadn't predicted anything worse than a light flurry. She abandoned her hunt for a shiny Snover and made her way closer to the city and away from Route 216, tucking her jacket tight around her chest and rubbing at the hot packs in her pockets. "Taz, return," she said as the snow got worse, and her Pidgeot disappeared into her Pokeball with an expression of relief. Her Glaceon bounded ahead, his ability allowing him to disappear into the snow like a mirage, then came back and rubbed against Sasha's legs.

"Glaceon," Kirby told her, then nipped lightly at her glove and dashed back into the snow. Sasha followed as close as she could manage and bent her head against the wind.

Her white parka had been chosen mostly so she could be nearly invisible while she searched for her next target, but it wasn't as warm as the furs the Nurse Joy at the Pokemon Center had suggested; Sasha was starting to regret choosing stealth over comfort. Hell, she was starting to regret coming to Sinnoh in the first place- Kanto was never quite this cold. At least she had an Ice-type to help her out in the snow.

The cold bit at Sasha's face, and she pulled her face mask up over her nose, blinking past the snow that landed on her eyelashes. "This isn't fun," she mumbled. "Are you sure there's shelter?"

"Ceon," Kirby promised. He waved his tail like a banner as he stepped through the snow, footprints disappearing as quickly as they were made. Sasha tromped after him and tried to focus on her starter. No drowsiness, no sitting down just for a second, no licking icicles... She'd been briefed pretty well by the locals. Apparently Snowpoint always seemed like a nice tourist destination until some naive Unovans went off on their own and froze to death or got eaten by an Ursaring. Sasha didn't plan on being the next body found after the spring thaw.

The blizzard whited out the landscape. Still, slowly, a tall building came into view; Kirby stopped and scratched at the door, glancing back to Sasha with a worried expression, and Sasha stumbled over some stairs that had been hidden by a snowdrift. She tried the door, found it unlocked, and went in with a huff of relief. Kirby pushed the door closed behind her.

There were rows of pews leading up to a podium on the other side of the building- a church, that much was obvious- and stained glass windows on the sides, showing a progression of events. The first one was shades of dark blue and green, surrounding a luminous pale egg in the center; the second showed that egg hatching, with a white figure climbing out of it; the third showed the white figure in all its glory, golden rings surrounding its torso like a halo. The other three showed other Pokemon: a pink and white Pokemon with a pearl on its shoulder, a four-legged blue Pokemon, and a trio of floating fairy-like Pokemon. That was rare- Sasha didn't usually see worship of Azelf, Mesprit and Uxie combined with worship of Arceus and the so-called Creation Trio. Giratina's absence from the stained glass artwork, however, was completely expected. The Distortion World didn't lend itself well to worship of the divine.

The church was warmer than the outside, but its stone floors still carried a painful chill. Sasha shivered and sat down in the front row, facing a giant depiction of Arceus lined with gold, and tucked her gloved hands into her armpits. Kirby went up to sniff at the statue, then came back and curled up a little away from Sasha, licking his paws unconcernedly. Sasha sighed out a white puff of breath and released Taz in the hope of extra warmth.

"Pidgeot," Taz said as soon as she was back on the ground, glancing around the church with an unimpressed expression. She squinted at Sasha and pecked at her experimentally, and Sasha remembered that she'd forgotten to turn on any lights. No wonder everything looked so dim and strange. She dug around in her pack and pulled out a camping lantern, then clicked it on and placed it on the ground between the two columns of pews. The lamplight made everything look desaturated and pale, turning the church from holy to surreal, and Sasha felt disconnected from the rest of the world. She wondered who took care of it, so far from town. Maybe some of the locals?

She would have scrounged for votive candles for some extra warmth, but the thought of disturbing this place made her uneasy. Best to be respectful, in an empty church. Kanto didn't have much in the way of religion, but Sasha had come across a few shrines to Mew in her time, and anyone who vandalized them always seemed to come into bad luck just after.

Sasha touched the multicolored charm around her neck- three little stones carved into feathers, one quartz, one amber, and one citrine- for the familiar comfort and curled closer into herself . Her Legendaries were much less merciful, when their territories were disturbed. Historical records of the Orange Islands put proof to that.

"Taz," she said out loud, after listening to the harsh winds outside got boring. "You want me to keep reading that book to you? I think I've still got it on my tablet."

Her Pidgeot chirred and moved closer, towering over her where she sat and patting her back with a wing. Sasha dug an extra scarf out of her bag and draped it around Taz's neck, then pulled out her tablet. "You look dapper now," she told Taz with a shiver. "Too bad I don't have about eight more of those. Here, where were we, chapter five or six?" A distraction would do them all some good, she thought.

Kirby leaped over and touched the chapter five icon with his nose, then settled in just a few inches from Sasha's leg, radiating cold. Sasha was glad he wasn't touching- if she got frostbite from her own Pokemon she would never hear the end of it. Ice-type forum goers were vicious.

"Right," she mumbled, settling in. "Chapter Five: Riddles in the Dark. Oh, hey, we were a little past the first line." She cleared her throat. "No one was anywhere near him. Just imagine his fright! He could hear nothing, see nothing, and he could feel nothing except the stone of the floor."

Something hit the double doors, and Kirby jumped, ears pricking like he was prepping for a fight. Sasha watched the door for a moment, but when nothing else happened she continued, "Very slowly, he got up and groped about on all fours, till he touched the wall of the tunnel-"

A loud knock interrupted her. Sasha growled under her breath and turned the tablet off, tucking it back into her bag as she stood. Bag on her back in case she needed to make a quick exit, Taz and Kirby at the ready... If this were someone looking for trouble, they'd find more than they'd bargained for. "The door's unlocked!" she called out in Sinnohan. "You can just come in, if you like!"

The door opened, and a man in a thick black coat stepped in neatly and closed the door behind him. A flash of light that might have been a Pokemon being returned to its ball accompanied his entrance; Sasha flicked her eyes to her Pokemon to communicate stay vigilant and didn't bother to smile.

The man shook snow off his boots and rubbed his gloved hands together, obviously savoring the warmth. "Thank you," he said perfunctorily. "A nice place to shelter, isn't this? In the bosom of Arceus himself."

"Itself," Sasha corrected, keeping her eyes on the man's hands, on how close they strayed to his waist. Three Pokeballs there. She'd be outnumbered, if his Pokemon were experienced. Sometimes she regretted not keeping more of the Pokemon she caught. "Legends don't have gender, usually. Not the way we think of them."

"Hmph." The man came closer, ran a hand down the side of one of the pews, glanced up at the stained glass windows with a light gaze. "Seems a little uncharitable, doesn't it, calling a Legendary an it? Still. I suppose you wouldn't balk at being a little irreverent." He switched from Sinnohan to Kantonese for the last sentence, Kanto accent dropping to a flawless Lavender Town lilt.

"Excuse me?" Sasha asked, drawing back and falling into Kantonese herself. "I don't know you." But then, there were a lot of people who knew her when she didn't know them. It was just that potential employers were usually a little less cryptic and a little more polite.

"You will very shortly, Miss Murai." Sasha stiffened; Taz ruffled her feathers to make herself enormous and gave a low, threatening whistle. So he was an employer. Sasha wondered how he'd even tracked her down. "My organization has a proposition for you."

"Not interested," Sasha said flatly. "I work on the legal side of things, thank you." And anyway, she was busy with another commission: that Snover wasn't going to catch itself.

The man gave a chilly smile. "You catch shiny Pokemon for anyone who pays you enough. Would you call that ethical?"

"I call it legal. And I vet every client before I accept their money," Sasha said with a glare. "I'm hardly a Rocket."

And if this guy was one, could she take him out? He was slender, and a little taller than her— but that coat could hide a lot of muscle. If his Pokemon were strong...

The man shrugged. "Shame. Still, our proposition isn't precisely illegal, itself. There's no reason for it to be, because no one has ever attempted something of such a magnitude before. If you succeed, you'll be paid very well."

Sasha felt a spark of interest despite herself. "And what exactly would you have me doing? If you're just collecting shinies for a collection, or some type of showroom, I won't be involved. They'll have to be well-treated after I acquire them."

"That won't be a problem, since we aren't asking you to catch shinies," the man said. Sasha's brows furrowed. Then what...? "We're asking you to catch legends."

What.

Sasha stared, uncomprehending. "Catch them?" she asked weakly. "Like, with Pokeballs? Like a fucking Rattata?" How- she didn't even know what to say. You didn't catch Legendaries. You didn't even find them unless they wanted you to, and they wouldn't appear to just anybody. The idea of catching them like trophies, like pets- "That's not going to happen. I- no. Definitely not. I can't imagine a Legendary would be happy with any trainer, much less some type of organization. It wouldn't be ethical."

The man sent her an unimpressed look. "We'd be paying you almost five hundred million Pokedollars," he said, and Kirby jumped, staring in shock. Sasha wavered. Five hundred million Pokedollars. That would be enough to provide her Pokemon with everything they'd ever needed. To have everything that she'd ever needed. That was nearly inconceivable nowadays, for her.

Her hand crept up to the charms around her neck, though, and she hardened her resolve. "No deal," she said. "I'm not about to go up against a bunch of Legendaries for any amount of money. Find someone else."

"No one else has your qualifications," the man said, sounding like he was starting to get angry. "No other shiny hunter has anything near your track record for hunting down rare Pokemon. You caught the shiny Nidoking that lived in the deepest parts of Viridian Forest. You found two shiny Eevee for the founder of Johto's Pokemon Club. You've accomplished things that no other hunter has. Don't you want a real challenge? Don't you want to go down in history?"

Sasha shrugged. "I'm not a publicity kind of person. You'll have to find someone else."

The man drew back and gave a deep sigh, sending a white puff out into the air. "That's a shame. Really. That's... quite a shame. I do wish it hadn't come to this." Sasha was just starting to tense up when he added, "Your trainer license lists you as twenty-one years old, doesn't it? But there's no way that isn't forged, is it, Miss Murai." A deliberate pause, and then: "My mistake. I suppose I should say Miss Nakada. Tell me, how old were you when you gave birth to your daughter?"

Sasha lunged before she could think about it, started to shout a command- and was half-pinned to a pew by a mass of webs, with an Ariados standing less than a hair's breadth away from her body. Its mandibles dripped with ready poison. A Nidoqueen appeared between her and Taz, rumbling like she wanted to bring down the whole building, and Sasha flinched back from its massive form without meaning to— Nidoqueen were known to be particularly deadly to humans.

Kirby growled and froze his fur to icicles, inching around the Nidoqueen like he wanted to try going for the man's throat. "I wouldn't suggest trying to attack, if I were you," the man said to Kirby, motioning at the webs pinning Sasha's arm to the pew. "If you do, my Nidoqueen can bring down the whole building. I would be able to escape in time. You would, too, maybe. But your trainer can't get out of that binding quickly without flaying her arm. Would you like to risk her death?"

Kirby faltered, looking back at Sasha like he wanted direction. Taz cawed and glanced between Sasha and the Nidoqueen like she was trying to think of a way out. "Stand down," Sasha told them after a long moment, wondering if she could convince them to get out without her if the man decided to cut down on the number of threats. Her heart was beating hard in her chest. "All right. I'm listening, since I don't seem to have any choice. What do you want?" She shivered. Nakada. Miss Nakada. She hadn't been called that since- since-

The man tilted his head like a predatory bird and said in that same eerie Lavender lilt, "I want to know how old you are now, first of all. Given medical records and the passage of time, I'd say... seventeen, maybe? If barely. That would mean that you delivered your daughter at the age of fourteen. What a cruel world we live in, that children birth children while adults stand back and watch. Were your parents even in the delivery room?"

"Fuck off," Sasha snarled. "If you just want to taunt me about a mistake-"

"Didn't you ever wonder what happened to her?" the man continued, relentless. "Didn't you wonder who took her in? Who fed her, kept her close, raised her as their own? Didn't you wonder what she was named? We could always help you find out."

"I already know all that," Sasha said, trying to get her anger (her fear) under control, "And like I said, I'm not. Interested."

"Fair enough," her attacker concluded. "Still. I suppose we're done talking about this the easy way, aren't we. How about this, then, Miss Nakada? You'll take the job, full pay, and do just as our organization says. Or we'll go to your little daughter's forever home and take her from it, and we'll burn it down with her new parents inside, and then..." His smile was a slash of teeth.

"We'll take a video of her murder to send to you. Just so you might see her face one last time. Just to be merciful." Sasha was petrified. "That's the hard way, Miss Murai. It's really a shame that you drove us to it."

Sasha didn't answer. Instead, she looked blankly down at her feet, trying to think of escape plans and coming up empty. She hadn't ever met her daughter face to face, and she'd made a point not to ask her contact where she lived. She didn't know where her daughter was. These people did. She shouldn't have cared at all about the fate of the thing that had ruined her childhood- that had grown inside her for nine months while she was pulled out of school, while she was friendless and mocked and helplessly angry, while she was abandoned- but she did and had for a while, and these people knew it. If they'd already managed to hunt her daughter down... there was only one option, wasn't there. No way out but through, and she could think of a way to get out of the job then. She slumped. "All right. I'll do it."

"One would think five hundred million Pokedollars would have been persuasion enough," the man sighed. "Still. I'm glad we could agree." Sasha glared poison at him, but he only smirked, clicking his tongue at his Ariados and calling it back to be returned. The Nidoqueen backed up slowly, keeping Taz and Kirby in her sight, before following her trainer through the double doors and out into the snow.

Sasha watched them as they went, and caught a glimpse of an enormous green and white figure before the doors slammed shut. An Abomasnow. The blizzard hadn't been natural after all.

Kirby made an unhappy sound, glancing over at her, then bounded down to the pew the man had touched and game back with a card in his mouth. Sasha took it from him and read the contact information, feeling a low burst of dread start up in her gut, then turned it over to see a large, crimson 'R'.

Team Rocket. It was starting to dawn on her just how thoroughly she was trapped.