Hello! This chapter was finished earlier than expected at the request of TeaKat, this storie's first reviewer and a new fanfiction friend of mine. This was finished at four in the morning because I was stupid enough to agree to watch the weeping angels episode of Doctor Who right before bed with my family and then I couldn't sleep. Couldn't even turn the lights off without my imagination and spooked-ness getting the best of me. *shudders* freaky. Anways, please enjoy!

Chapter 1: The Heiress

"Alodia! Hey, Alodia! Up with you!" Someone was poking me. Someone. Was. Poking. Me. And only one person does that.

"I swear Emily if you don't stop that I will hire someone to kick your ass." I growled into my swan feather pillow.

"Great, you're awake! Now get up." Silence. "Alodia…"

"I'm serious, Emily. I'm sure I could get some lowly commoner hit man for five hundred bucks or less." I replied. "How much money will it take for you to let me keep sleeping?"

"You know I don't work that way, Alodia! Money can't buy everything."

"Yes it can. And, by extent, I can have whatever I want. And I want more sleep. What time is it, anyways?"

"Well someone's demanding!" Emily said with a sniff. "Besides, you know I can't tell time."

"Then ring up a servant to tell you. And while you're at it get them to bring us some breakfast." I buried my face deeper into my pillow. "It's not your place to wake me up anyways."

"Well I am the daughter of the champion."

"That means nothing to me. Now shut it and let me sleep."

"Not everything is about how much money you have, Alodia."

"Didn't I tell you to ring up a servant?"

"I already did before I started trying to wake you up. Now up with you! You're too stubborn." She's poking me again. "Poke poke poke, poke poke poke. I am poking Alo-di-a." She sang.

"I'm serious. I'll hire someone to hurt you."

"I know you will. You do it at least once and week and my pokemon decimate them every time!"

…

…

…

"Alright, how much money do you wa-"

"Can't say I didn't give you a chance! Aqua, you know what to do."

And I'm flat on my back on the marble floor, soaked to the bone courtesy of my best friend's Empoleon. I pull my wet hair out from in front of my face and was unsurprised to find Emily sitting on my bed, swinging her legs back and forth without a care in the world. Emily's shorter than me, around 5'5 with shoulder blade length brown hair and sightless green eyes. She's wearing a light cream top, blue jean shorts, and no shoes. I glare at her partner pokemon which is standing next to her and grinning. "I'm going to hire someone and-"

"I know you will, Alodia. Now get up: the servant will be here any minute with food!"

…

….

…

"Aqua use-"

"Fine, I'm up!" I snapped, attempting to pull myself to my feet only to slip and smash my head into the floor. "Ow, my head! My billion dollar head!"

Emily winced, turning her eyes in my general direction. "That made a pretty large conk. Are you bleeding?"

"I hit the back of my head, how am I supposed to know?" I replied.

"Hehe…sorry. Aqua, could you help her up?" Emily said, sheepishly rubbing the back of her head.

"Empoleon." The large water starter says and picks me up with ease.

"My word!" A pair of breakfast trays clatters to the ground as the servant in the doorway stares at me in shock. "Lady Alodia, what on earth happened to you?"

I sighed and rolled my eyes. "Get me a clean outfit, a towel, and fresh breakfast trays."

"Yes, my lady." The servant bowed and quickly scurried away.

Next I looked up at Aqua. "Set me down next to Emily." Aqua just looks at me.

"Please do it, Aqua." Emily said. Aqua nodded and sat me down next to Emily.

"I thought you told that pokemon to listen to me." I said, crossing my wet arms over my nightdress.

"I did. Doesn't mean she listened." Emily replied with shrug and a slight smirk.

"I bet she'd listen if I bought her enough treats."

"Aqua doesn't work that way either, Alodia." Emily said. "Pokemon tend to take after their trainers, you know." Aqua nodded in agreement.

"Lady Alodia, I've returned with the requested items." The servant was in the doorway again, this time holding the requested supplies.

"Good. Set them on the bed." I said. The servant obeyed, bowed, and left.

I got up and pulled my soaking wet nightgown off, unconcerned with Emily's presence. She's blind, it's not like she could see me. I dried myself as best as I could then pulled on the dark purple dress I'd been supplied with. I tried to wrap the towel around my hair but failed. "Emily, get my hair in the towel." I handed the fluffy item to the girl. She shrugged and quickly did so with a practiced grace.

"There. Can we eat now?" She asked, sniffing the air.

"Sure." I picked up one of the trays and placed it in front of her. "Scrambled eggs, top left. Hashbrowns, bottom left. Pancakes, center. Napkin and silverware center right. Fresh squeezed orange juice, top right." After telling her where everything was so she didn't stick her hands in the eggs I wrinkled my nose. "This is kind of a low class meal, don't you think?"

"No." Emily replied, picking up her fork and jabbing them into her eggs. She lifted it to her mouth and took a bite. "Yum!"

"You just got egg on your nose." I said, then proceeded to take a bite of my pancakes. "Did you forget to order syrup?"

Emily froze, her fork halfway to her mouth. "Uh…oops?"

-Hofuna-

"So what do you want to do today?" Emily asked as we headed down the hallways of my house. "Snowboarding? I'm sure your mom wouldn't mind if we took the jet to Snowpoint. It would only be for the day anyways."

"We did that last week." I replied. "Besides, if I hadn't warned you about that cliff ledge in time you'd be in the hospital right now."

"Good point." It was quiet for a minute or so. "How about we go to the beach at Hotel Grand Lake?"

"Works with me." I said, then turned to a passing maid "Have the jet ready to fly in thirty minutes. We'll be going to the beach at Hotel Grand Lake so have beach bags prepared as well." The maid bowed and continued down the hall.

"So what do we do for thirty minutes?" Emily asked.

I looked down the hallway. "If you remember correctly the jet is kept at the other end of the house. About twenty five of those thirty minutes will be spent walking there."

-Hofuna-

"So what do I have to put on?" Emily asked as the jet smoothly landed next to the hotel.

I glanced down into her bag. "Green bikini."

"Ah, shoot. I was hoping for a tankini." Emily said, pulling the two pieces out of the bag. "What did you get?"

"Orange one piece." I frowned. "And made of common swimming material, too."

"Want to switch?"

"And get stared at by boys I could buy out of house and home? I'll pass."

"Aw…" Emily pouted for a minute more then got to her feet. "Could you change in the bathroom? I may not be able to see you but you can still see me."

"Fine." I said. I took my bathing suit out of the bag and walked towards the bathroom. "You're lucky it's large or I'd make you change in there."

"I know you would, Alodia." Emily replied as I shut the door behind me. I rolled my eyes before I pulled off my dress and undergarments and pulled on the orange bathing suit. The material was itchy and tight, I would have to have a word with the staff about getting me the proper clothing when we returned. I waited for a minute until Emily called "okay, you can come out now."

I walked out of the bathroom to find Emily standing in her bathing suit next to the door with both beach bags in hand. "Come on, let's go swim!" She said. "Will you open the door? I can't remember where the knob is."

I sighed and grabbed hold of the desired item. "It's to your left by about two inches." I pulled it open to find the pilot had already set up the ramp. "You remember how to get down the ramp, right?"

"Of course!" Emily replied and happily skipped down the ramp. "Do we need to check in before we go to the beach?"

"The pilot is taking care of it. That's his job, after all. We can just head straight down to the beach." I stepped out onto the runway and looked down the long path that led straight to the beach. "Follow me."

"Just keep talking and I'll know where to go."

All in all we had an excellent day at the beach. A few commoner boys flirted with Emily, which the both of us found annoying. After a bit Emily brought out Aqua and ordered her to blast any boy who tried to flirt with her. Needless to say we were left alone after that. We went swimming and ate lunch at the Seven Stars Eatery and while there Emily came up with the idea of surfing on Aqua. Despite the connection with her partner and all the training she's gone through to predict movement through the use of sound a sudden turn took her by surprise and she wiped out.

After that we just stuck to swimming.

The sun was setting as the jet approached the house. I was just nodding off when the intercom crackled to life and the pilot spoke. "Girls, I'm afraid we have a bit of a problem. If you'll look to your left you'll see the mansion and…it's not looking great."

I instantly darted to the window and stared in shock out the window. The mansion was completely surrounded by security. Police cars, helicopters. "What is the meaning of this?" I shrieked.

"What's happening? Tell me, Alodia!" Emily said, face pressed hard against the window as if she would suddenly regain her sight if she stared hard enough.

"The whole place is crawling with police." I said, still staring down. "It's…it's awful."

"Oh Arceus…" was all Emily managed. "What now?"

"Calm down, girls. I've got one of the officers on the line." The intercom crackled once again and went dead.

For a few minutes we sat, hovering over the house in tense silence. Eventually we heard the tell-tale sign of the intercom coming on, attracting both mine and Emily's attention. "Girls, I'm sorry to say this but there's been a kidnapping. Alodia, I've been ordered to get you to a safe place. Any suggestions?"

My heart dropped into my stomach. "Oh, Arceus." I said feebly. "My mother, my little sister. I feel sick." Emily placed a comforting hand on my shoulder.

"Take us to my house." She said. "My dad's the champion, so we live in the Pokemon League with the Elite Four and their families. Doesn't get much safer than that."

"Right, we'll head there. If you need to you can call your dad. Just keep it short, okay?"

"Roger that."

Once the intercom turned off Emily returned her attention to me and began gently stroking my back. "Come on, we don't even know that's who they kidnapped. Maybe one of the maids was secretly an undercover spy."

"No…why break into a mansion and kidnap anyone but the multi billionaire and her daughter?" I replied. "This doesn't make sense…so much security…who could get past that? I think I'm going to be sick." And I was. It was disgusting, seeing my lunch come up again in the form of yellow, acid-like liquid.

Behind me Emily held my hair and continued to gently stroke my back with the other hand. "I'm so sorry, Alodia." She said softly.

"There's got to be a way to fix this." I croaked out, the last of the contents of my stomach dribbling to the floor. "I could hire a private investigator. Or I could pay the person who brings them back five million dollars. That could work. Right?" I looked up at Emily.

"Don't worry, I'm sure the kidnappers will demand a ransom. Then we just give them the money and you'll have your family back." Emily replied. "Look, I may not be able to see what you look like right now but I bet it isn't good. Go lay down on the foldout bed and try to get some sleep."

"But the blankets are made of cotton."

"Have you ever slept in cotton sheets?"

"No."

"You'll love it. Come on." I allowed Emily to help me to my feet and lead me over to where I knew the foldout bed was. I, who had never done a bit of manual labor in my entire life, simply watched as Emily searched for the place to grab then pulled the bed out. I couldn't help but raise an eyebrow at the quality. It was tiny and the sheets were clearly nothing compared to what was on my bed back home. "I know you're not impressed. Just lay down, in your state you should fall asleep quickly." Emily said, sitting down on the couch next to it.

"Fine." I said, trying not to betray the fact I knew she was right. I lay down and pulled the sheets up to my neck. Even though the pillow was flat, the blankets itched, and the bed was tiny beyond reason I quickly fell asleep.

-Hofuna-

My first thought the next morning was that I needed to fire the maid who replaced my pillows and sheets, this felt downright awful. The pillow was flat, the sheets thin and itchy, and the mattress too stiff. I tried to do a full roll to see if that would make it any better and ended rolling off onto the carpeted floor. This was not my bed.

Then I remembered why I wasn't in my own bed and the pain in my head didn't seem so bad by comparison. I blinked my eyes open. I was in a room that, by my standards, was small beyond reason. The floor was covered in brown carpet, the walls were light yellow, and the bed was white. This was where Emily lived? No wonder she delighted in getting away from here once a week.

"Hm? Oh, you're awake." I turned to see a woman around twenty standing in the doorway. "That's good." She had purple hair (her roots were growing in blonde) in a ponytail so long it brushed the floor, yellow-brown eyes and fair skin. She also wore a v-neck t shirt and jeans but what really attracted my attention was the gruesome scar that ran from the base of her neck to under her shirt. "Helllloooo? Eyes up here." She said, and I looked up to find she was smirking. "I'm Alex. You're Alodia Hofuna, right?"

That's when it clicked. This woman –whoever she was- was clearly a commoner. So, like any decent lady I stuck my nose in the air and said "I don't talk to commoners."

The woman shrugged. "Eh, like I care. Oh, and this is just a suggestion but you might want to get off the floor. The boss and his daughter don't bother cleaning up in here very often." And she left. Just like that.

"Hey come back here and bring me something to eat!" I shouted.

The woman poked her head back into the room. "Do it yourself. I'm not your servant."

"E-excuse me?" I gawked at the woman. "If you're not a servant, then what are you?"

"Elite Four member. You know, Alex the Merciless Toxic Maiden?"

"Emily spoke about you once or twice." I replied, my look of shock quickly melting into a frown. "If you're not a servant than who is going to get me breakfast?"

"I already told you to get it yourself." Alex replied, back to her original position of standing in the doorway. "But I'll show you to the kitchen if you want."

"That's below me." I replied. "Get me something."

"No."

It turned into a staring contest, her yellow brown eyes against my dark brown ones. I had inherited mom's eyes, but unfortunately not her death stare. Finally I could stand Alex's smoldering glare no longer and looked away. "Fine. But this is still below me!"

"Get used to it, kiddo. By all standards we've got it good here." Alex stretched, then looked down at me. "You coming?"

I sighed in obvious complaint, but got to my feet anyways. "Yes, I'm coming."

"Good" with that, Alex walked out of the doorway and headed down the hall.

My eye's widened. "Hey, slow down!"

"You speed up!" And with that she started jogging.

"This is completely below me!" I shouted back as I started racing down the hallway after her.

-Hofuna-

The second Alex opened the door my hands flew to my ears. The kitchen was small, loud, and chaotic. At least five people sat in chairs around the table in the center of the room. They were talking, eating commoner's food and laughing. "Morning!" Alex said, walking over to the fridge and pulling a carton of milk out. I just stood in the doorway, shocked by the state of the room. "I brought the other kiddo."

"Alodia!" A familiar voice from the table yelled. Next thing I know Emily had jumped up from where she sat next to her father, raced over to me, and embraced me in a huge bear hug. "Good to see you up!"

"Uh…yeah. Good to see you too." I replied.

Emily pulled back and grabbed me by the hand. "I saved you a seat. Come on." And with that I found myself pulled into the room and sat down in one of the poor quality, stiff wooden chairs. Emily sat back down on my left and cheerfully took a bite of her toast.

"Anyone want anything while I'm up?" Alex asked, putting away a carton of cereal.

"Make me a sandwich, bitch!" A red haired young man who looked around twenty one shouted.

Alex pulled out a jar of peanut butter and threw it at him, hitting him square in the forehead. Apparently this happened a lot because when he fell to the floor with an undignified yelp everyone laughed. "The bread's on the table." Alex called to him, then picked up two bowls of cereal and sat down on my right. She placed one of the bowls in front of me. "Here. It's no gourmet meal but try not to spit it out on us, kay?" Unless you want to spit it on Ryan." She nodded at the young man who was pulling himself back into his chair. "That's perfectly acceptable."

She had no place telling me what to do, but I decided to keep my mouth shut. I picked up the spoon, a pathetic excuse for silverware if I've ever seen one, and scooped up a bite of the low quality meal. The second I put it in my mouth I discovered why Alex had warned me. I resisted the urge to do a million dollar spit take and forced myself to swallow the foul mixture. Is this what passed for food these days? "Someone get me a cup of tea."

"We have ginger ale. I think you'll like that." Emily replied. She got to her feet, walked over to the fridge, and was back in just a minute with a commoner's cup filled with strange liquid. She placed it in front of me.

I picked it up and looked warily at its contents. "What is this?"

"I already you: its ginger ale!" Emily replied cheerfully. "Take a sip."

"Well…okay." I lifted it to my lips and sipped. This time I really did do a spit take, but I hadn't drunk enough to get anyone wet. "Oh my goodness! It's all fizzy and bubbly."

"Well duh, that's what it's supposed to taste like." Emily replied. "Sorry, I forgot you've never drunk soda before."

"Never drunk soda!" Ryan shouted. "That's got to be some sort of crime."

"Shush." A woman in her forties flicked him in the side of the head. "Soda is horrible for you anyways."

"Ow! Is it just pick on Ryan day or something?" He complained.

"Well you got to admit we do get the best reactions out of you." An African American man said, looking up from his novel.

"And how would you feel if someone stole your book, Mr. The unbeatable flying master?" Ryan said, still pouting.

"The culprit would die in minutes." He turned the page. "Now shush, I want to finish this chapter."

"Aw, come on Helio!" Emily complained. "You promised you'd train with me this morning!"

"And I will. Once I finish this chapter."

While I was watching Emily and Helio, something was shoved in my mouth. I spat it out to find it was a piece of toast, low quality but better than the cereal. "If you're not going to eat your cereal at least eat that." Alex said, revealing she was the culprit and ignoring my glare. "Knowing this group's way of doing things you're going to need some energy." She picked up her bowl and with one large slurp downed the rest of the foul mixture. I wrinkled my nose at the sight and picked up the piece of bread. In a very unlady like fashion I stuffed the whole thing in my mouth and swallowed as quickly as possible. I could bear this, but it was still far below my standards.

Alex picked up both bowls, placing my full one on top of her empty one and stood up. "Well I'm off. Any signs of trainers?

"One." The older woman said. "A fourteen year old girl. All Kanto gym badges, team of six in the forty five to fifty level range. Types include grass/poison, flying/normal, bug, water, psychic, fighting, and fire. Need any more information?"

"Nope, that'll do. This shouldn't take long." Alex placed the bowls in the sink and headed out the door.

Helio closed his book. "Ready, Emily?"

Emily got to her feet. "Yep! I'll see you later, Alodia." And with that she headed out of the room.

"I believe our leader has something to discuss with our guest." The woman rose to her feet and nodded to me. "I'm Leah, psychic specialist and final member of the Elite Four. Nice to meet you." With that she left.

Ryan got to his feet and stretched his arms up over his head. "Well I'm going to follow the other's lead. See ya later." And he too was gone.

I looked to Emily's father. He was a close friend of my own father but I'd only met him a few times. He and Emily shared their skin tone and eyes, but his hair was black and his cheekbones thicker. "Leah said you had something to discuss with me."

"Yes, about that…you see, it's about the kidnapping yesterday." My stomach dropped. "We've received a letter from a mysterious new group. They haven't demanded a ransom, it simply warned the police that if they got any more involved they'd start finding the heads of civilians."

"So? Continue with the search! This is my family. Half those people wouldn't even be employed without us."

"Better poor than dead." He replied, giving me a disapproving frown. "We've discussed it with the police force and decided to try and get as many young people out on pokemon journeys as possible. Among them will be undercover police with the aim of taking down this organization. Emily agreed to help, on one condition. She wants you to come along."

For a minute there was silence as my mouth opened and closed like a fish, my eyes wide with shock. Finally I managed to stutter out "are you serious?"

"I'm dead serious. Emily and her older brother" at my look of shock he smiled slightly. "Their mother and I are divorced. Jake decided to stay with his mother while Emily chose to stay with me. Emily and her older brother Jake are two of the trainers we're counting on inspiring others to head out again. They're going to face all the gym leaders in Sinnoh again and join in every tournament they find along the way. Leah's twin sons are also part of this as is Helio's niece and Alex's younger sister. But those two, the renowned children on the champion and the final, strongest gym leader will be the main focus."

It took a minute, but I managed to get a hold of myself. I stuck my nose in the air as my mother had taught me and frowned. "And just why would I ever do something as low as that?"

"Because the lives of your mother and sister may depend on it." I stared into the green eyes that were so similar to Emily's and knew he was dead serious.

For what could have been three minutes or three hours I stared at him blankly on the outside while on the inside I was at war.

This is completely below you! You are from the house of Hofuna, leave this silly matter to the police!

But they're also from the house of Hofuna! They're your family! Not to mention your best friend is counting on you.

Excuse me? Are you sure we're the same person? As I already said, this is completely below you! It's not like Emily won't go if you don't!

There's no guarantee of that, and even if she does go she'll feel so betrayed! For the first time in your life people are counting on you, are you really going to let them down?

My internal battle was interrupted by Emily's father suddenly breaking the silence. "Oh, I almost forgot! I have something for you." He began rummaging around in his bag, pulling out several things along the way. I saw two pokeballs, a calendar, some blankets, and a travel sized container of pokemon food. All were surprisingly high quality in comparison to the other things I'd seen here.

"How did you even fit all of this stuff in that bag?" I asked as a pokemon comb went sliding across the table.

"Trainer's bags are designed to be small on the outside and huge on the inside. There's really no limit to how much you can fit in here." He replied as continued to throw stuff out, almost hitting me in the face with an ultra ball. I was getting ready to yell at him for that when he practically shouted "ah, here we are!" He gently put his hands into the bag and pulled the item out, cradling it gently in his arms as if it were a baby.

As it turns out it was a baby of sorts. A pokemon egg. The egg was the typical green, but yet inside it I could swear I saw something moving.

It was almost like the time when… "Shit." I said under my breath. "Of all the times to remember things like that…"

The thing was, the egg reminded me of the one my little sister Camillia used to have. It was probably two years ago, when she was still a sweet little eleven year old girl. She was taking a break from her journey for a few weeks and had told me she had something exciting to show me. So I let her lead me to her room, where she sat down on the bed and, with delight and joy in her eyes, held up an egg. "It's the first one I've ever gotten!" She had said. "The nice man at the daycare said it didn't have an owner and asked if I'd like to have it. He told me how to take care of it and how to know when it's about to hatch. According to what he told me, it should hatch soon." She cradled it in her arms and looked at me with such delight in her eyes that I couldn't help but smile.

"Alodia? Are you okay?" The man's voice snapped me back to reality and I was shocked to find my eyes were watering. I quickly used my hands to wipe them dry.

"I'm fine." I managed to choke out, still thinking of my sister. "I'll…I'll do it. It's completely and utterly below me, but I'll do it."

Done! I hope you enjoy reading this chapter half as much as I enjoyed writing it.

-Hero of the Dark