A/N: SUPER IMPORTANT.A whole pile of characters with super weird names await ye. You're going to recognize them as characters from Pokémon Adventures, but you need to know that these ARE NOT the same characters. I've borrowed/will be borrowing some of their habits, but these are not the same characters. These are the playable characters and their rivals from the main string of games. So I get a little bit of creative license over them, okay? ;3 And thank you to those who have read / reviewed / favourited / whatever. It makes my day! I hope this chapter doesn't disappoint. =3

Warning: Major spoilers for the end of Pokémon Black/White lie herein. You have been warned.

Disclaimer: I own the scenario. Other than that, I've gone and taken a bunch of characters owned by other people, and stuck them together to see what would happen. It's like one big party.

On Earth as in Heaven

Chapter 2 – Caught Up in the Crossfire

"… heard something like Unava… Oonava… Yunuvo… something like that. Anyway, I've never heard of the place. It must be pretty far off. Might not even be inhabited by Pokémon. I mean, these two came in clean, without a Pokéball between them that I saw, so I'm not sure why they're here. They're not like us."

"Well, they look pretty normal. Not like the guys from Sinnoh. And the girl… doesn't that look like a Pokéball design on her hat? Maybe she's just starting out and doesn't have any Pokémon yet. She looks like a traveler, all covered in mud like that, don't you think?"

All covered in mud like that.

Why did everyone seem so fixated on the fact that I was covered in mud?

I screwed my eyes shut tight, trying to go back to sleep. Not a second later, and my eyes snapped open again with a start.

Where am I…?

Wherever it was didn't believe in lighting, natural or otherwise.

I strained my eyes to see properly, blinking sleep from my eyes. My head felt kind of fuzzy – a little like my broken Sceiver, really – and I couldn't open my eyes very wide without flinching. Not that there was much to see anyway. There wasn't nearly enough light to see by, and I had yet to become feline enough to see in the dark.

I was lying on my belly, on what I assumed was the floor. It was cold, flat, and not terribly comfortable – very floor like, really, but definitely not five-star hotel quality. However, what it lacked in comfort, it made up for in shininess (always a plus in my book). Looking-glass shiny, like someone had polished it – for a very long, long time. It was a nice touch, anyway.

It was shiny enough to reflect what little light there was, and I could actually see myself in it – a little too clearly, truth be told. I could see my cheek pressed against the floor, my groggy, dazed expression, and my hat slipping sideways off my head. I could even see the mascara streaks under my eyes. If there had been any doubt in my mind that I'd wake up looking better, that hope was quickly dashed. Still looked like shit.

As my eyes adjusted, I could see N lying on the floor a few feet away from me. He was lying awkwardly on his side, facing me, eyes closed and breathing shallowly. He had a gash in his forehead, running clean from his scalp straight down to his eye. It looked sticky, like it was new and the bleeding was just now starting to stop.

He didn't look particularly conscious…

I blinked a few times, trying to gather my bearings and keep my breathing even. Let's do a quick rundown. I can hardly see. N's unconscious and hurt. I have no idea where we are, who slashed N, or what we're doing here. Sounds like a fabulous start to the day. I swallowed back the bile rising in the back of my throat.

Just stay calm… just stay calm… Step one: figure out just what the hell is going on, I instructed myself.

Easier said than done.

"… and Platinum – oh, sorry. I mean Berlitz – doesn't look that weird. She's a prissy, stuck-up brat, but she doesn't look weird. She's just trying to do diva when she's not nearly old enough to pull it off. Diamonds are a girl's best friend, but she's just not ready for them yet. No matter how much money her daddy throws at her."

What the hell kind of name is Berlitz? I thought quietly to myself. I'd be a prissy, stuck-up brat if I was stuck with a name like that, too.

I shook the thought from my mind – that was really not important at the moment. What was more important was that there were at least two other girls (at least they sounded like two girls) somewhere around me, and they'd mentioned a third. Now all I had to do was decide if that was a good thing or not.

Then, I'd been unconscious, asleep, whatever, around them for God knows how long, and if they'd been intending to knife me or something, I figured they would have already done it. No, it seemed unlikely that they were very malicious. Still…

"She wears a scarf, a toque, and boots, paired with a tank and a skirt, Kris. She needs to decide what the weather is already," one of the girls replied with a little laugh. She sounded kind of quirky. "I guess that Diamond guy isn't a lot better, though. Sinnoh must be a weird place. Strange climate. Ever been?"

"No," the other girl (was it Kris?) said. "But I know Gold and Soul – " She stopped so suddenly it felt like the world had suddenly been turned to mute. A nervous silence filled in the space between her words, like pure tension vibrating in air. She took such a deep breath, I could hear it. "I mean… I know Gold met a couple of Sinnoh's Gym Leaders, once."

"At least we've heard of Sinnoh," the other girl said quickly, focusing elsewhere. I thought she'd probably sensed the uneasiness in the air (she would have had to work not to, after all). "But that Yunuva place? We'll have to ask one of them when they wake up. I always thought Kanto, Johto, Hoenn, and Sinnoh were the only human-inhabited places out there. Maybe I just misheard when they was brought in."

That sounded an awful lot like my cue. Yunuva? Honestly.

"It's – " I tried to stay, but my voice came out like a squeak. I coughed, clearing my throat before trying again. It felt like I'd swallowed an awful lot of sand in the last few hours, and my mouth tasted like grit. This wasn't quite the entrance I'd been hoping for. "It's Unova. We're from Unova."

"Oh! You're awake!" One of them – I couldn't tell which – squealed as I tried to push myself into a sitting position. My back hurt terribly when I tried to move (damn you, Reshiram), but I managed to get myself on my knees more or less, leaning heavily on my arms, so I could look around.

There wasn't much light sitting up, either. There must have been some somewhere, though, as it wasn't pitch black, just kind of… dim. Like it was dusk and I was walking through fog. Kind of shadowy and hazy, like the air was filled with smoke. It didn't taste smoky though; it tasted wet like mist, and that helped get the gritty taste out of my mouth. But it did make me notice how thirsty I was.

My first impression looking around was that we were in a cave – but not a cave made from rock, or carved out of a mountain face, or anything like that. It looked almost like it was made out of onyx: dark, glassy, and semi-precious. That would explain why the floor had looked so dang shiny, as if it had been made out of jewel.

The other thing that didn't exactly scream cave was how man-made the whole place looked. The floor was perfectly level everywhere I could see it, not undulating and rocky like I would have expected. The cavern we were in looked too big. I could have played a good baseball game in here, I thought.

The walls rose up so high they looked to reach into infinity, and I couldn't see the ceiling. Whether that was because of the lack of light or because it really did go on forever, I couldn't tell. The walls didn't look quite so manufactured, either. They looked a little too crystallized to be strictly normal, and it looked like chunks of the onyx (or whatever it was) were trying to grow out and up, into the chamber we were in and pressing in on us from all sides. It was a little claustrophobic, actually.

If I strained my eyes, I could see five – no, six – shadowy enclaves in the walls in different spots. They looked a bit like tunnels leading elsewhere. I had to wonder how big this cave-thing we were in really was. Massive. It had to be massive.

I felt displaced. I'd been in one of the most technologically advanced cities in all of Unova. And now I was in – for all intents and purposes – a cave. It just didn't match up.

And what had happened to my Pokémon? Was this why N told me to release them? Had he known something I hadn't? That we were going to be – I didn't even know what the word was – kidnapped?

Speaking of…

"Which one of you was the one screaming?" I asked bluntly, turning my attention to the two girls sitting cross- legged on the floor a few feet away from me. "Someone was screaming."

One – the older one, I subconsciously labeled her – was a brunette, with hair falling loose easily to her waist, and startlingly ice-blue eyes. She was very feminine and lithe-looking; not terribly powerful, but swift and cunning as hell, I thought. She wore a blue tank and a red skirt – it must have been warm wherever she was from – with a white boater perched on the top of her head. I was pretty sure she was older than I was.

The other one – the confident one, I labeled – had (and I did a bit of a double take) blue-brown hair, tied in two pigtails on the sides of her head. She had an athletic build, like she worked out, with muscle definition in her legs I could see even in the dark. She seemed practical; not as pretty as the older one, but better prepared. She wore shorts, a jacket which looked pretty much everything-proof, and a pair of severely battered runners.

They looked awfully innocent, but I wasn't about to let my guard down.

"Screaming?" The older one gave me a funny sort of look, and a smile that made me feel like she knew more than she was letting on. It put me off her in a heartbeat. "I wasn't aware anyone was screaming. Were you screaming, Kris?"

The confident one – Kris – shook her head. "You might have hit your head pretty hard. Er – they might have hit your head pretty hard," Kris explained easily with a wave of her hand. "You probably imagined the screaming. I know Sapphire didn't come out of it too well, either, and Silver was screaming bloody murder himself when he finally woke up here."

Oh. Now that just made me feel so much better. They thought I had imagined it. They thought I was crazy. Great. Number one way to be considered competent by strangers? Make them think you're deranged. Works every time.

And who were these people with ridiculous names, anyway? Silver? Sapphire? Really? I knew White wasn't exactly awe-inspiring, but still…

I shook my head even before Kris had finished, completely dismissing the notion. "No. My – N said he heard someone screaming. Back in Raimon City. He said we had to get out. And then I passed out. Someone was screaming."

Kris pursed her lips, not looking entirely convinced. "No one was screaming. It was probably just the beginnings of the miasma used to knock you out. I know when I was abducted, before I fainted, I thought – " but she cut herself off and didn't finish. "Anyway, it causes hallucinations."

I wasn't going to take that as an answer, but didn't say anything. Maybe sometimes I didn't like N much, but I would trust him with my life in a heartbeat. Hadn't I already? Someone had definitely been screaming. He hadn't told me to abandon my Pokémon for nothing.

"You said abducted?" I asked instead, no longer feeling too amiable towards either of the two girls. "N and I have been abducted, and so were you? By who? Why? What happened?"

The other girl answered this time. "Sorry to say we can't answer many of those questions. It's safe to say you've been abducted, though. Red, Green, and I have been here for almost a month now, judging from the dates the others were abducted. We haven't figured out much in that time. What we do know is that there are fourteen of us here now, including you and… what did you say his name was? N?"

"N," I agreed quietly, casting a quick glance over my shoulder back at N, still very much unconscious on the floor. I watched him for a moment longer than I usually would have, as the words of the older girl sunk in.

… Have been here for almost a month now…

… Haven't figured much out…

… There are fourteen of us here now…

We'd been abducted. N, me, and twelve other strangers had been abducted. We were being held here – wherever here was – and it didn't seem like anyone knew why. Or even how long we'd be kept here.

It seemed surreal. I started to feel a little shaky, and tried to take in deep breaths. I didn't have my Pokémon, and I was here in a place I didn't know with complete strangers being told I'd been abducted.

Without knowing why I did it, I stood up suddenly, walked over to where N lay unmoving, and collapsed down beside him. I clasped one of his hands between both of mine, and then pressed our clasped hands to my mouth, almost like a prayer. I tried to remember how to breathe, but it felt like the air was getting stuck somewhere between my mouth and my lungs.

I squeezed my eyes shut, concentrating on just breathing. In… out… I felt like I was choking. I didn't know what to do. And N was the only thing that seemed solid in that moment. I knew N. N had saved my life. N brought day to endless nights.

Then the moment passed.

I felt like I could breathe again. I didn't have time to mope around. If I had been abducted, I needed to figure out how to get out of here. Sooner, rather than later. I needed to figure out what was going on. I didn't let go of N's hand.

"What do you know?" I asked, but it came out as a whisper despite myself. "What have you found out?" I continued a little more strongly, looking back up at the two girls with N between us. Somehow things felt safer from here.

"No one's out to hurt you," Kris said quickly. "I mean… they're not exactly gentle with us, but you're safe here." Judging by the slash on N's forehead, that had yet to be seen, but I didn't say anything. "Actually… it's a little strange. Other than when someone new is brought in, we haven't seen our abductors at all. It's just us twelve – or, fourteen now, I guess."

"Yeah," the other girl continued quickly. "Everything's actually pretty normal. I mean, if you can get over not knowing anything. They feed us three times a day, we have rooms to sleep in, showers… everything."

That wasn't making me feel a lot better. I felt like I had a knot in my stomach. "Where are the rest of you? The other ten?" I asked quickly. "What do you do all day, if you're not being kept here for a purpose?"

"Oh, we explore around the caves a lot," the older girl continued easily. "They go on for practically forever, and when you get in deeper, there are all sorts of weird drawings in there. We're trying to decipher some of them, see if there's a way out, that kind of thing. Sometimes the guys invent sports and things, to let off some steam. I know Red and Gold are in Tunnel One, and I think everyone else is in Tunnel Six. Except for Berlitz, of course. She's in her room, like always."

Berlitz. There was that name again.

"So you have no idea why we're here, where we are, or who abducted us?" I pressed, hoping against hope that they would somehow develop a more concrete answer.

"Not a clue," the older girl confirmed, and I felt my heart sink. "I mean, we're obviously somewhere near – what did you call it? Unova? – somewhere near Unova. But I don't know where we'll be going next. I don't even know where Unova is. Never heard of the place." She made a bit of a face, like just the word Unova tasted off to her.

She hesitated for a moment, like she was lulling something over in her mind, before she finally asked, "You don't have… another really close friend or anything, do you? Maybe someone you've traveled with or something? Make your little duo with N into a trio?"

"Bianca. Cheren. Black," I said without thinking about it, then realized she had no idea who these people even were. "I mean… well, me, and three other friends of mine are a bit of a quartet, but… me and N… aren't really close…"

"Hmm… well that kind of breaks that little pattern, huh, Kris?" The older girl mused, but then shrugged. "It's nothing. There were just three of us from Kanto, three from Johto, three from Hoenn, and three from Sinnoh. We're all kind of close. You're throwing off the balance."

Throwing off the balance…

What else was new in my life? I was practically born to throw off the balance.

I let that thought slip from my mind. She hadn't meant it like that. How could she, if she didn't even know Unova existed? "Kanto? Johto?" I asked. "Where are those? I've never heard of them."

"You've never heard of Kanto?" Kris suddenly broke in, disbelief written all over her face. "I thought everyone had heard of Kanto." When I looked no less enlightened, Kris pressed. "It's practically where Pokémon training began. You do know about Pokémon, don't you?"

"Of course I know about Pokémon," I said a little defensively. "I have eight badges. I've beaten the League Champion." I caught the legendary dragon of light, I added silently in my head.

"And you haven't heard of Kanto?" The other girl continued. "You've never heard of Red? He's practically a legend, anywhere you go. Green is… well… he's not too shabby either, training-wise. He was Kanto's League Champion for a bit, and is a Gym Leader in Viridian City now. Or, he was, until he was abducted."

I had definitely never heard of anyone named after Christmas. And Alder had been League Champion for like… ever. "Never heard of either of them," I admitted dryly.

"You've never heard of Kanto…" the older girl breathed, as though this mystified her. "So you've probably never heard of Johto, either… Have you heard of Hoenn? Or Sinnoh? Or anywhere other than Unova?"

I shook my head, searching my mind for any time I might have heard the words Hoenn or Sinnoh, but I came up with nothing. I thought about the map of Unova, how the borders disappeared into nothingness. There was nothing on the other side of the League. Pokémon didn't even live there. It was a wasteland.

I'd been there. Not very far, but I'd breached the borders of Unova a time or two, just out of curiosity. It was eerie, like walking through a graveyard. Something about the air had felt static and dead. And through all of the trees, ancient and twisted, I'd found not a single Pokémon. Ever. Not even a sign of one.

No. I'd always thought the borders of humanity and Pokémon alike had been the borders of Unova. Nothing lived outside of those borders.

And now these girls were telling me there was so much more. The way they talked about these places – Kanto, Johto, Hoenn, Sinnoh, I subconsciously ran through them in my head – they sound big. Probably as large as Unova. Countries in their own right. I couldn't even imagine.

"You said you had eight badges and defeated the League Champion?" Kris suddenly broke into my thoughts. When I nodded slowly, she continued, "But you've never heard of Kanto, Johto, Hoenn, or Sinnoh. And we've never heard of you."

Kris turned to the other girl, who was running her fingers through her hair precariously. "Isn't it a little strange we'd both run on the same system, training-wise? Eight gyms… Leagues… And yet we've never heard of each other?"

The other girl pursed her lips, mulling it over for a moment, still combing her hair. "I suppose a little. But Pokémon are Pokémon. I always figured it was universal. But the configuration is a little strange, I'll agree."

Maybe it was odd, but I couldn't find myself caring a smidge about it. I was more concerned about the present situation, thanks. "Never mind that. Just who are you two?" I asked.

"Hmm?" the older girl turned her attention back to me. "Oh, we're your Welcoming Committee, of course." She said matter-of-factly, as though this were the most natural answer in the world. "Ah – Welcome, by the way. We're self-elected, so maybe we weren't the best suited for the job. Just be glad I jumped in before Red could. Not that he ever would, but he's been a real grump lately."

"My what?" I asked the moment she'd finished speaking, staring at her in disbelief. Welcoming Committee? This had to be some sort of joke. The thought was just too ridiculous to even consider.

"Your Welcoming Committee," the older girl repeated with a shrug. "We thought someone should be here when you woke up. It's a little unnerving, after you've fainted and you wake up somewhere totally different, robbed of anything you had on you but your clothes."

It wasn't until she said those words that I realized my bag was gone. I had my empty belt still loose around my hips, but my bag was gone. A little dazed, I looked around, but it was pretty clear it wasn't here. It was gone, and with it, the broken Sceiver N said he would fix. Or someone had said they would fix anyway, since it evidently hadn't been N I'd talked to over the Sceiver that had invited me to Nimbasa City.

That would have been a link to humanity, right there. The perfect link to humanity.

And it was gone.

I felt my heart sink lower. It seemed I really was trapped here, with my Pokémon gone, and with no one knowing where I was. I hadn't told anyone I was going to Nimbasa City. My mother had expected me home for dinner. I was supposed to have seen Black. And phoned Bianca.

No one knew where I was, including me. I was alone here.

I gripped N's hand a little more tightly. He still wasn't awake. "I meant who are you two specifically. If we're going to be…" I swallowed hard, just getting through the words. Just keep putting one foot in front of the other for now, White, I coached myself. "If we're going to be stuck here together for a while, I'd like to know at least your names."

"Oh, of course," Kris said easily. "I'm Crystal, but everyone calls me Kris. Here and back home. And for the record, I'm from Johto. You'll notice later we all have our little groups. I'm with Gold and Silver – you'll meet them eventually."

"And I'm Blue," the older girl finally identified herself, and gave me a little wave. "I'm from Kanto, home of the great. I came here with Green and Red – the legends themselves. Don't let them shadow me – I'm easily the one with the most personality." She winked at me conspiratorially. "And who are you?"

"White," I said simply, and figuring I should say more, I added. "From Unova, the place you've never heard of. And N… he's from Unova, too." I thought it was probably best not to mention anything about Team Plasma. Or the fact that N went by Lord. It just wasn't something that screamed we come in peace.

"You two said you had Pokémon," I continued quickly, trying to turn attention away from me and N. "Where are they? They're okay too, aren't they?"

Blue hesitated, then opened her mouth like she was about to say something, but no sound came out. She chewed on her lower lip, looking over to Kris to fill in the words she couldn't say.

Kris quickly averted her gaze from mine, but said, "We don't… really know what happened to our Pokémon. Don't take it the wrong way, White – we think they're safe, too – but we don't really know where they are. We all woke up without any Pokéballs. Did you have any on you when you were abducted?"

I swallowed. For the second time since I'd woken up, I had to wonder if N had known something I hadn't. Why he'd told me to release my Pokémon… had he known we would all be taken? "No. Right before it happened… N told me… he said to release them, and tell them to run. So we both did. I have no idea where they are now."

This didn't seem to sit well with either of them, and I realized I'd played N out to be some sort of deranged psychic. Hearing people screaming, telling me to release my Pokémon like he knew something was coming…

"Your friend… sounds like quite a curious person. It will be interesting to meet him." Blue finally said, and I suddenly didn't want N to meet her at all. N was… well, he was different. But a good kind of different. And I got the feeling that Blue wasn't going to appreciate that.

"Yes. Yes, he is," I replied, catching Blue's eye and holding it a moment too long to be strictly friendly.

But before the tension between us could build much, N suddenly started to move. I started a bit, and looked down at him. He'd rolled over on his back, and was gripping one of my hands so tightly it hurt, his expression a mixture between pain and concentration. He lost a little of his angelical innocence, with his face like that. It just didn't fit him right.

"They're still screaming, they're still screaming…" he whispered, his brow knitting as he continued to bruise my hand. "Have to help them. Have to help them get out of here. They're so afraid. They're screaming."

I leaned over him, pressing the back of the hand he wasn't trying to break against the side of his face. He felt kind of feverish. "No one's screaming. You need to wake up, N. No one's screaming." I said simply, conscious of Blue and Kris still watching us.

He wasn't crazy. He was just unique. And maybe he did have a bit of a sixth sense I didn't understand, but that didn't stop me from thinking he would never use it to do anyone harm. This just probably wasn't a great first impression for either Blue or Kris.

N quieted down after a moment or two, and his eyes started to open. He stared at my face, above his, and into my eyes for a long moment as his own eyes worked back into focus. Even then he didn't stop looking at me, reading my expression through the mirrors that were my eyes. The story they told was probably less than stellar.

"White…" he murmured, finally releasing my hand and reaching up to smudge a bit of mascara off my cheek with the pad of his thumb. Normally I would have hated that he'd done it, but right now I didn't mind as his skin brushed past mine. "The Pokémon?"

"I released them like you said," I whispered. I felt like some sort of calm had washed over me with him awake. He would know what to do, like he always did. He would know what to do to get out of here and back to the real world. He was the true Hero – I was the tag-along.

He shook his head a little. "Not our Pokémon, White," he whispered back. "The Pokémon already here. They're screaming. They're afraid, White. More afraid than I've ever heard a Pokémon be. They don't understand what's happened to them. They're trapped somewhere, screaming for someone to help them."

I stared at him, but I knew he was being honest. N wouldn't – couldn't – lie. "Before, on the Ferris Wheel. It wasn't a person's screaming you heard, it was – "

"A Pokémon's," he agreed quickly with a little nod of his head. "You can't hear them? There must be fifty, sixty voices, maybe more. They're crying. They're afraid. We need to help them."

Pokémon screaming. In a place like this. Pokémon missing. From twelve abducted trainers. It was no coincidence. N had heard the voices of the Pokémon of the twelve abducted trainers.

"That's why you told me to release my Pokémon – you heard the ones here screaming?" I asked immediately. We think they're safe too, Kris had said. Maybe not. "Where is the screaming coming from? Somewhere close?"

"I heard Pokémon screaming for the wild one's around Raimon City to run," he conceded. "And they sounded like they were in so much pain, and the sound appeared so suddenly, I couldn't just ignore it, White. It's an empathy link, between me and Pokémon. It wasn't a hoax. They were trying to warn everyone to get away. We have to help them. You have to believe me, White."

"I do believe you," I said quickly, and I did. I knew he had an empathy link with Pokémon. And yes, I thought it was the strangest thing ever, but I also knew that it was honest. If he could hear Pokémon telling us to get out, there really were Pokémon telling us to get out. "But can you tell where they are, N?"

"No…" he breathed, and I watched as a bit of the light in his eyes started to die. I could tell he hated himself for not being able to tell just where they were. Hated that he couldn't help them. "No… but they're close, and and they sound like they're in pain, and we have to try and help them."

"How many of them are there?" Kris suddenly broke into our moment. I'd actually forgotten that she and Blue were still there. I glanced up at her, and she was on her feet, fists tightly clenched as she watched N closely, a fire burning in her eyes. "Can you tell which Pokémon? Is there a Meganium? Or an Arcanine?"

N looked over at her, but he didn't seem surprised that we had an audience. He didn't even ask who she was, or where we were, or what had happened, like I had. He fell into things, like he already knew. I supposed in a way, he did. The Pokémon had told him all he cared about. And the things that mattered to him weren't people.

"None of them are Pokémon I recognize. I've never heard of Meganium or Arcanine," he admitted easily to her. "But there are easily sixty voices, maybe more. Somewhere around us. I can't tell… there's too much noise to tell just where."

It was so quiet I could have heard a pin drop. "Seventy-two," Blue suddenly piped up, and her eyes looked strangely glazed over. She'd made the connection between the wounded Pokémon and her missing ones. "There should be seventy-two voices. All twelve of us had six Pokémon a piece when we were abducted. That makes seventy-two voices."

"Do they sound badly hurt?" Kris quickly broke in again as N sat up so he could properly address Kris' questions. "Are they… really, really in pain? Is there anything we can do? Can you tell them we'll come rescue them, or are the voices just one way?"

"I can only hear them," N said quickly. "I can't speak to them over distances. And the voices… are drowning themselves out… it's difficult to tell. But they're definitely afraid, more than anything. Really, really afraid. These Pokémon are yours?"

"Yes," Blue said breathlessly, a look of utter defeat falling over her face. "Yes, they're ours. But we didn't – that is, we didn't know where they were. We thought they were as safe as we were. We didn't think…" She bit her lower lip hard and screwed her eyes shut, not finishing.

"We have to find the others," Kris said quickly. "We have to tell them what you've told us, and we have to devise a plan to get the Pokémon out of… wherever it is they are. We were content to wait and see what happened – but this is one step over the line. If they've touched our Pokémon… There's no time to waste. Can you stand, N? And White – you come, too."

Things had turned around so quickly, that I balked a little when Kris turned her attention back to me. One moment, I'd been worried about Kris and Blue taking N the wrong way, thinking he was deranged, and now they were eating up anything he could tell them. Had they sensed the sincerity in him, too?

Or was what he'd said about the Pokémon voices so jarring to them, they couldn't help but believe him? Did they care so much about their Pokémon, that at one word of their being in pain, they'd drop everything to find them again?

I didn't know. I wasn't even sure how I'd react if it was my Pokémon that had been abducted.

Thank God N had saved me from that.

N was up and standing in a second at Kris' suggestion, but didn't look exactly sure on his feet. When I stood up, too, he gripped my wrist with a hand to help steady himself. He looked a little dizzy, and I wondered just what it had been that had caused the gash on his forehead. Had it been a hit? A hit hard enough for a mild concussion? I didn't know. I didn't even know what it might mean if it had been a hit that hard.

"Red and Gold first," Blue said quickly as she stood up beside Kris. "Tunnel One. Down this way. We call it East," she said brusquely, waving her hand down towards one of the tunnels I'd spotted earlier. "If we're lucky, they're already on their way back. It's almost dinner, and Gold would never miss out on anything edible."

And so we started down towards the mouth of Tunnel One. From the top of it, it looked like a drop straight down – I couldn't see more than three feet in front of my nose, and the step down into the tunnel I could see looked steep enough in its own right, thanks. But Blue and Kris didn't seem to mind, leading the way down into the Tunnel.

I stepped in after N anyway. He was still holding onto my wrist to help steady himself, so I had little choice but to follow after him, even if I didn't like the idea. This connection ended up being a good thing – I couldn't see a thing in the dark, and the only thing stopping me from walking into walls was N leading the way. How exactly he managed to negotiate the tunnels in the dark, I wasn't sure.

Ten or twenty feet down, stumbling around blindly in the dark, and suddenly the cave seemed to brighten up. I didn't know where the source of the light was, until I looked a little more closely at the walls.

It looked like the light was coming from inside the crystal-like rock. It was like the whole wall was being lit from behind, and the onyx glowed a kind of dark purple from within. Glowed was the wrong word – it pulsed. Like it was a live, and the light was a heartbeat.

I shivered, and pressed a little closer to N on reflex. The eerie, grave-yard feeling was here, too. Like it was alive, but only just. Not really in the land of the living, not as cold as the dead, but somewhere in between. Some static place in between. I didn't like it.

It was eerily quiet down here, too. So quiet I couldn't even hear the sound of my own feet against the stone underfoot. N didn't seem to agree, though. He kept muttering, "Somewhere down here, maybe. They're louder down here." I couldn't hear a damn thing.

N's occasional musings were the only sound. Neither of the other two girls said a word, and if I didn't know better, I would have thought I'd gone deaf, such was the pressing silence.

Thankfully, we didn't have to go to very deep into the tunnel and the terrible silence. I just wished our little foray into the unknown hadn't ended so unpleasantly.

"Blue, Kris!" A male voice I didn't recognize called out from somewhere ahead of us all at once. "No! Get back! Turn around and get back! The tunnel's caving in! You've got to get out of here!"

"Gold?" Kris called back and was about to go running further down the tunnel when Blue caught her wrist and stopped her. "Are you guys okay?"

At that moment, the ground beneath our feet started to shake, and I grabbed onto N's arm, staring at my feet. My knees were quickly starting to buckle beneath the vibrations, and not so much as a second later, there was a deep, rolling rumble echoing off the walls of the tunnel. The light in them was flickering a little.

"Fucks' sake, Kris! Get out of here before the whole thing comes down! Me and Red will be there in a sec!" The voice was closer this time, and I got the feeling that this Gold character was running towards us and out of the tunnel.

"We need to clear the way!" I yelled as the rumble echoing from inside the tunnel quickly grew into a roar, nearly drowning out my voice. "We need to clear the way for them and get out of here, now! He's right!"

Kris hesitated for a moment, but I didn't stick around to find out if she was going in deeper to investigate or follow us out. I did a quick about face, N still attached to my wrist, and started running back up the incline we'd just struggled down. It was a lot harder on the way up.

I kept slipping as the ground rolled beneath my feet, and throwing my arms out to catch myself against the walls before I fell flat on my face. The stone was cold and sharp beneath my fingers, and after the third time I'd slipped, I could feel blood running in sticky rivers down my palms. I swallowed back bile at the feeling.

Had it been this far on the way down? It hadn't felt like it. My lungs burned when I breathed, and my legs were swiftly getting tired from trying to stay steady and run uphill. I could feel sweat starting to run down the back of my neck.

I didn't realize right away when I emerged back out of the collapsing tunnel, N in tow. It was too dark to tell much difference, and the ground had been so unsteady that when I stepped on level footing, it didn't seem much different. I might not have noticed for a while longer, if it hadn't been for the little throng of people milling around in the chamber I'd woken up in.

All of them – seven, I counted quickly – turned towards N and I as we came skidding to a stop near a blonde boy in an orange–on-white striped shirt. He looked at us with sharp, orange eyes, and I backed up half a pace on reflex. He looked… intense.

"You're…" he started, but then glanced over the top of my head to see Blue and Kris running up behind us. He waved a hand up in the air, "Blue! Kris! It's Tunnel Six – it's started to collapse! The inner tunnel supports have already totally given out! Red needs to – Oh."

I looked back over to the mouth of the tunnel to see two boys – startlingly similar to look at – emerging from the mouth of the tunnel we'd just escaped from. They must have been Red and Gold, but which was which I couldn't say. They could have been brothers. Then, maybe they were.

One of them – the one still standing – had harsh gold eyes and a shock of messy black hair hidden beneath a black hat he wore backwards (and a pair of goggles – though why he'd need them, I wasn't sure). He was a little too tall, like he hadn't quite grown into it yet, but as athletic-looking as Kris, if not more so. He was wearing a red hoodie, and black track pants.

The other boy had one arm slung across the shoulders of the other and was gingering his left leg. He winced hard whenever he put any weight on it, and my stomach turned a little watching him. His jeans had been torn to pieces from the knee down, revealing deep, bloody gashes, and his leg was twisted unnaturally. It looked broken.

"Red!" Blue cried out as soon as the two boys cleared the mouth of the tunnel, running towards them. The boy who could still stand shrugged a little and helped the other one sit down, leaning against one of the walls of the cavern. Blue was there in a second, crouched beside him and his mangled leg. "What happened? What the hell happened? Gold?"

"Roof fell on him," the other boy – Gold – said with a grimace, running the back of one of his arms against his mouth to get some of the dust and debris off him. "He was deeper in than I was, and got the worst of it when the tunnel started to collapse."

"The hell is Yellow when you need her?" Another boy I didn't recognize growled, striding quickly to where Red was sitting. He knelled down beside Red, opposite Blue, taking a brief glance at the carnage of Red's leg before turning his attention back to its owner. "You okay, man?"

"Do I look okay?" The other boy snapped back between clenched teeth, leaning his head back against the wall behind him. His breath came in hisses, and he kept his eyes screwed shut – it must have hurt a lot. "Fuckin' caves. Stupid, fuckin' caves. It's always in stupid, fuckin' caves."

Gold had shrugged out of his hoodie, now standing in a tattered white tee, and threw it to Blue, who caught it and gave Gold a dumbfounded look. "Can't you bind it or something? Before the guy bleeds to death?" Gold asked incredulously.

Before she could even answer, the other boy had snatched the sweater out of her hands. "Blue can't put a Band-Aid on by herself," he explained haughtily, leaning a little so he was closer to Red's feet. "Give him something to bite," he snapped, nodding towards Blue as though he hadn't just insulted her. "And Gold – you still got that cue? He's gone and broken it."

"Ass," I heard Blue hiss beneath her breath vehemently, but she was quickly loosening the empty leather Pokébelt around her hips before getting Red to bite down on one end of it. It wasn't hard to see that her hands were shaking.

Gold, likewise, had rolled a little white knapsack I hadn't noticed before off of his shoulders, and was rummaging through it blindly with one hand, like I would have. It took him a moment or two, but he eventually drew out a short, plastic stick. He quickly unsnapped it, locking joints into place, until it was a good three feet long. It was a pool cue.

He tossed it to the other boy lightly, and he caught it one handed, putting it down on the floor beside Red's mangled leg. "This is going to hurt, buddy," the boy said shortly, and I didn't realize what he was about to do until he was doing it.

He'd put his hands on either side of Red's calf, and had pulled on his mangled leg, straight back. Red had groaned, his face scrunching up in pain, and I could tell he was biting Blue's belt hard so hard he'd be leaving teeth marks embedded into it.

Blue was looking away from both the other boy and the injury, and Red was holding her hand so hard I could see her skin turning white as her circulation cut off. She didn't seem to mind though. In fact, she looked like she could burst into tears at any minute – all glassy-eyed and hurting in a way Red wasn't.

"Honestly, Blue," the boy sighed impatiently, and gave a sudden kind of twist to Red's leg that made me feel like I was about to vomit. Red nearly screamed, biting down hard into Blue's belt, but the boy seemed to be done setting the leg. "Stop being so fricking frigid and hold the cue for me."

Without saying anything, Blue reached over Red with her one free hand and took the cue the other boy was holding against Red's leg. The other boy then started twisting Gold's sweater around itself, using the two sleeves to separate it into a long kind of rope of fabric.

"Hold it steady, Blue," the boy snapped as he pulled one end of his makeshift rope under Red's knee. "Both hands. Going to do a shitty job of this if you're shaking like a leaf, and it's going to be twice as bad for Red if I have to do this a second time."

"I only have one free hand," Blue snapped right back, but at that moment Red let go of her other hand. She closed her eyes, and I could see her resisting the urge to scream. When she opened her eyes again, her jaw was locked, and she held onto the pool cue with both hands, one on either side of the break in Red's leg.

"Not there, here," the other boy commanded, grabbing one of her hands to move it further down the pool cue. She jerked away from his touch so fast she could have gotten whiplash. The cue clattered to the floor, echoing loudly in the silence.

She stared at the other boy for a long moment, breathing hard. There must have been some unspoken communication between them I didn't understand, because a moment later she was holding the cue again against Red's leg. She didn't look at the other boy, staring at her knees instead, and I saw the hard line of frustration in her jaw.

The other boy quickly looped Gold's sweater around the break once on the top, crossed in behind, and looped it again below the break, tying the cue tight to Red's leg at the same time.

"That's going to have to do for now," he said, leaning back on his heels as he finished tying the knot holding the whole ensemble together. He'd somehow made his makeshift bandage and splint press against the worst of the gashes in Red's leg, to help curb the bleeding. "We're going to have to figure out something more permanent. Maybe something will show up tonight. Does it feel any better?"

Blue had taken her belt back from Red so he could speak, and I could see that he had beads of sweat clinging to his hairline. He slumped forward a little, wincing, but nodded. "Y-Yeah. Thank Arceus you have training in this, Green. I owe you one."

So this was Green. This crude paramedic that had brought Blue to the verge of tears with just a few simple words. Here, in front of me, were Red and Green – the so called legends, as Kris and Blue had called them. As I weighed them in my mind against my own definition of legend, I found them lacking.

Then, I didn't figure I made a great Hero, either.

Red looked a lot like Gold – maybe a smidgen older, but Gold through and through. He had the same shock of messy, black hair hidden beneath a baseball cap, and too-bright red eyes (but I couldn't tell if that was from the injury or not). He was thin, kind of lanky like N but not nearly as elegant in it, and looked rough. Not rough as in hardened, rough as in a ceiling had just collapsed on him and he'd been caught unawares.

Green looked… mean. Kind of sharp, calculating, and arrogant, like his head needed deflating. There was nothing soft about him – no compassion, no nothing. His eyes were bright green, focused and hard, and his coffee-colored hair fell into them. He was wearing all black (which didn't help any) – a shirt he'd popped the collar of, and cargo pants. I thought I saw something hanging around his neck on a chain, but I couldn't be sure. Something was catching the light, anyway.

"Damn straight, you owe me," Green retorted, raking a hand through his hair as he sat down beside Red, edging away from Blue. "You owe Gold, too. How you going to repay us, huh? Dragging your sorry ass out of the caves you wanted to explore?"

But before Red had a chance to answer, the floor suddenly started to rumble again, and the whole cavern shook hard.

Someone not very far away screamed and I grabbed hold of N's arm as my knees started to buckle again. I made the mistake of looking up, only to see bits of crystallized rock falling from the endless ceiling, and buried my face into N's arm, afraid one would hit me.

A second later and it all stopped again. I blinked my eyes open, but couldn't see anything. What light there was had disappeared again, and my fingers tightened in the fabric of N's shirt, just so I could be sure he was still there.

"The one named White. Step forward," a voice boomed suddenly, but I couldn't tell where it had come from. It didn't echo off the walls like I would have expected, just kind of sounded out of nowhere, out of nothingness, everywhere and nowhere at the same time. I glanced around uncertainly, but still couldn't see anything.

"White. Step forward," the disembodied voice repeated, emotionless, and I felt my heart jump into my throat. It didn't sound like a force to be reckoned with. Quickly, I found N's hand with my own and he gave my hand a comforting little squeeze, but said nothing.

I took a hesitant step forward, and N took it with me. The moment my foot touched the ground again, light suddenly shone up around me and N from below with a whoosh like wind. It was blindingly bright white, and I couldn't see all over again. I blinked, but all around me was white noise, and I couldn't see anything beyond it. I shielded my eyes with an arm.

"White," the voice echoed all around us at once. "You have pulled the trigger of Armageddon. You have tilted Earth into the walk of ruin, by sparking the collapse of the balance. For this you have been charged, and it is to this you will answer."

I've what?

I felt all the air in my lungs leave at once as those words sunk in, and I felt like I was drowning for the second time. In seconds, blood started to pound behind my ears, and my heart was racing wildly, beating a tattoo into my chest. I felt cold all over. I was drowning in liquid ice.

Armageddon… pulled the trigger… Earth… walk of ruin… collapse of the balance…? Words ceased to make sense to me. It was just a whirl of color in my mind's eye, rivers of crimson, but the words were meaningless. The night without day… The Apocalypse had finally come to claim us all…

Oh, God…

This voice… it knew about the balance and Reshiram and Zekrom. No one was supposed to know about that – no one, but me and N. We'd tried so hard to keep it that way. And yet now, here this voice was, accusing me of breaking the balance, and triggering Armageddon. How did it know about that? How did it know about any of that?

Did it know about the night without day, too?

How we'd all thought the end of the world had finally come?

It sure sounded like that was what it was talking about.

Armageddon.

"How do you answer to your crime, White? Will you embrace death, or will you fight to rectify the balance you have broken?" The voice continued before I was ready to hear it.

"I didn't do anything!" I shouted all at once, as loud as I could, screwing my eyes shut and releasing N's hand so I could cover my ears. "I didn't break the stupid balance, or whatever! I was just trying to stop Team Plasma! Reshiram broke the balance, not me! She awoke on her own!"

"Regardless of circumstance, you are her Hero, child," the voice continued as though I hadn't said a thing. My hands didn't hinder the voice from reaching my ears at all. "You are the reason both dragons were allowed to awake prematurely. If only Zekrom had awoken, he would have fallen back into slumber on his own. But in awakening Reshiram, you locked the course of this planet to ruin."

"What?" I snapped, staring up into the burning bright light. "But – they were both captured! The balance is intact! It has to be!" It had to be, it just had to be. After N and I had started releasing Zekrom and Reshiram together, everything returned to normal. Everything. Hadn't the "Apocalypse" ended, that night? That night when N had saved us all?

"You managed to momentarily curb it, momentarily rectify the balance, but this is a temporary solution. Both dragons awoke. The dragons were created for one purpose – they are the harbingers of death and life. In their sleep, this world was allowed to thrive, but in their wakefulness, this world can do naught but crumble.

"The die has been cast. Now how do you wish to answer? Do you bow to death, or do you fight against that which you have broken?"

"Nothing is broken!" I screamed, but I was ultimately ignored once again. My heart was racing, and I felt adrenaline begin to flood my veins. Not in a good way – not in the way it had when I'd been trying to capture Blitzle. The way it had that third night without day. The way it had when I'd thought we were all about to die.

"Do you bow to death, or do you fight against that which you have broken?"

"Neither!" I spat defiantly, my hands balling into fists despite myself. "Nothing is broken, and the balance has been fixed! You were the one who abducted us all, weren't you? Now let us go! Let us go, and let the Pokémon go!"

"Armageddon will not be allowed to come to pass. Do you bow to death, or do you fight against that which you have broken?"

"Shut up!" I screamed. "Just shut up and let us go!"

"We will show you your choice," the voice said, and everything went black again and I felt like I was falling. I tried to scream, but no air would come to my lungs, and I felt like cold hands were wrapping around my throat, chocking me.

Then suddenly Reshiram was in front of me. She was chained; shiny, purple-silver metal links tying her wings in tight to her body, her muzzle knotted closed. She was in a cage so small she couldn't move made of the same purple-silver metal, and she was gazing at me evenly with those too-bright blue eyes I'd come to hate so much.

"If we were to kill one of the two dragons, the other would fall back into eternal slumber and the balance that once was would be restored," the voice explained somewhere behind me. "You handed her to us. You handed us the legendary dragon, Reshiram. Do you bow to her death?"

Reshiram disappeared again like smoke in front of my eyes, disappeared over a wind I knew wasn't there. I threw my arms out in front of me, trying to catch the image, but it slipped between my fingers like water running through them.

New images flooded my mind's eye. Pokémon I didn't recognize. Giant birds taking to the sky, ancient dragons that looked more architecture than nature, great beasts roaming through mountains, forests, riverbeds… and lastly, Zekrom. Zekrom, flying above N's Castle, watching me carefully with that same level gaze Reshiram had in her cage.

"The thirteen others with you here, they all have a special connection with the Legendary Pokémon that have shaped this planet. Do you draw them into battle with you, and capture the Pokémon that have given rise to the world in which you have lived? Do you capture all the awakened ancient powers, and return the world to the state it was always meant to have?"

"You don't even have Reshiram, you liar! I released her before – " I cut myself off as my stomach dropped with an unpleasant lurch.

I hadn't released Reshiram.

I'd thrown her Pokéball in my bag back in Nimbasa City…

… Hoping I'd never have to see her again.

And I didn't have my bag – the voice did.

I felt cold all over. "You abducted thirteen people just so you could make me go out and catch Pokémon for you?" I asked, but my voice sounded weak even to me. "You don't even know that they'll help me!"

"You were lured to Nimbasa City to be brought here, to answer to your crimes. The other thirteen were brought here to lead you to those ancient Pokémon whose capture will allow the balance to be restored. They will help you, if they treasure their own Pokémon."

"You'd – " I hesitated, my chest constricting painfully. I'd seen how seriously Blue and Kris had taken a threat to their Pokémon, once N had told them that they might be suffering. How they'd taken action immediately, without hesitation. "You're going to… blackmail them with their own Pokémon?"

"If it is necessary to restore the balance, these Pokémon will be sacrificed. The cooperation of the thirteen is strictly necessary – by any means, it will be done. Sacrifices will be made. Now make your choice, child. Do you sacrifice the dragon Reshiram and be released immediately, or do you draw the thirteen into your battle and capture the ancient powers?"

I was numb and shaking, and that was the only thing I felt like I could be thinking about. What had happened, that I wasn't out training a newly captured Blitzle? That was definitely what I should have been doing. Out on Route 3 and 4, training a little, baby Blitzle.

But I wasn't. I was here, and someone was telling me to make a choice between killing my Pokémon, and endangering thirteen people (twelve of which I didn't even know) and their Pokémon so I could capture Legendaries.

"Time is a precious thing, child. The balance has already been broken for too long. What of the dragon Reshiram, what of the other remaining ancient powers that walk this Earth? Make your choice quickly, White."

Where the hell had I gotten the authority to make a decision like this? Where the hell had I gotten the authority to make a decision like sentencing Pokémon to death?

It shouldn't have been a difficult decision to make. Hadn't I always said that I would jump at the opportunity to be rid of Reshiram? Hadn't I always hated her, and everything she stood for? This voice was offering me an opportunity – to be finally rid of her, once and for all. I'd never have to see her again, I'd never have to fly half-way across Unova again so she could be with Zekrom, and I'd never have to see people killing innocent Pokémon to some god again thinking that that would end the Apocalypse.

I'd never have to do anything like that, ever again. Life would be normal again. I wouldn't have to be a Hero. This voice was offering me an escape, quick and easy.

N was still standing behind me, stock still, hardly breathing.

N, oh, N.

I could still see the way he'd looked that night-without-day, after having watched hundreds of innocent Pokémon die. How he'd looked dead himself, and how he'd gotten past that to save us all. He'd made a choice that had saved the Earth once. He was the true Hero of Unova, not me.

I'd never liked N much. He was too innocent, where as I liked to think of myself as a little less tea party and a little more rock star. We clashed that way. He was too perfect, and I was too… not.

And maybe it was that, that made me feel like I couldn't condemn a Pokémon to death in front of him. It would have been so much easier to tell the voice to just kill Reshiram. It would have been so easy, and then I could have gone home, N could have gone home, the other twelve trainers and their Pokémon could have gone home. Today, right now. The easiest, most simple thing to do…

And I couldn't do it.

I couldn't kill a Pokémon in front of N.

I couldn't believe I was saying it, but…

"I'll fight. And the others will fight with me."