Chapter 2
June 5th, 2006

Iris stormed up the stairs of the center. She pushed open the door that led to her room. She was sharing with the other five girls. She slammed the door open. The noise already causing one of the girls to wake up.

"Iris?" Misty muttered as she sat up groggily.

"Get up." Iris ordered. "We already have somewhere we need to go." She walked to the large window and threw open the curtains. This immediately gained some more groans from the sleeping girls.

"What are you doing?" May groaned and lifted her head slightly. "It's like six thirty in the morning.

"Get up." Iris repeated. Now walking to her bed and packing up her things. "Get everything ready, we're leaving."

Serena yawned and stretched her arms out wide. "Where are we going?" She asked.

"Unova," Iris responded curtly.

"What do you mean Unova?" Dawn asked. "Wasn't Unova a safe region?"

Iris glanced up at her and laughed. "Not anymore it's not." She swung her bag onto her shoulder. "I'm waking up the boys, get your stuff ready now, we're leaving as soon as possible." And with that she quickly walked out of the room, closing the door behind her and marched down the hallway of the pokémon center. Her eyes skimmed over the numbers before finding the right one and began to slam her fist against the door, making as much noise as she could to wake up the six that slept behind the strip of wood.

She heard various groans in between her knocking and a shuffle behind the door before it finally swung open, revealing her still very tired boyfriend who still looked impeccably dressed even in his striped pjs. "Iris?" He questioned. "What are you?" She brushed past Cilan and waltzed into the room. There was an open bed to her right as soon as she walked in which was most likely Cilan's bed. She grabbed the pillow off of it and turned to the next bed, a shirtless Gary who was really only wearing boxers. He was still fast asleep.

"It stinks in here." She declared and smashed the pillow directly onto his face. Gary jumped and sat up quickly.

"What the hell?" He grumbled.

"Get up!" She shouted. "We need to leave, now!"

"Iris," Cilan tried again, "What are you doing here?"

She turned and stared at him. "Unova." She said simply.

Cilan stared at her confused for a moment then his eyes widened. "What?"He hissed. "Again?" Iris just nodded. Surprisingly, Cilan actually cursed and hurried to his bed, already packed, he just had to grab his clothes for the day.

Ash gaped at the two of them; he was wide awake by now. He clambered out of his bed, tripping over his thrown sheets and scrambled to stand up. "Okay, what the heck is going on?" He demanded. "First of all, did you hear Cilan? He said shit! Cilan actually swore so that means I know this is serious and two, you're more feisty than usual."

Iris gave her friend a hard glare. "Do you even know what feisty means?"

"Yes!"

She sighed and rubbed the bridge of her nose. "Just get up; the girls are already getting ready." She then pointed to Ash, "You give me your pokégear."

"What? No way! Why?" He spluttered.

"I need to contact Lyra." Iris stated simply.

Ash quickly shook his head, "No! Do it on your own!"

Iris groaned and threw her head back. "You're idiocy in the morning is worse than in the afternoon." She tilted her head back to where it was supposed to be and stared at Ash. "I would if I had her number. It's kinda hard to call her without it."

Ash's face visibly deflated. "Oh, yeah sure then." One of Iris' hands quickly shot up and she smacked herself in the face. Ash was digging through his bag and he placed the red pokégear in her hand. She turned it on and frowned.
"There's a password on it?" She looked back up at him.

"Oh yeah right!" He scurried over again, quickly typing it in and handing it to her.

"His password's 6556." Paul said.

Ash whipped around to him. "Hey! How did you know?"

Paul pointed to the device in Iris' hands. "I watched you." He shrugged. "That's not a very good password anyway." Ash quickly reached for his pokégear again but Iris swung her arm away.

"You can change the password after. Get washed and dressed." She turned around. "Actually, all of you wash; at least one of you smells disgusting and really need to take a shower."

"That's Paul." Ash quickly said.

"Uh, no it's you." Drew added in. "It also Pikachu. You sleep together and both of your sweat mingling isn't very pleasant to smell."

"Sorry As, but it's true." Clemont said with a light laugh, "I've smelt this on more than one occasion in Kalos. Bonnie was the one that told you to go jump in the river."

Ash slouched over. "I thought that you out of everyone would be on my side."

Clemont gave his friend an apologetic smile, he shrugged his shoulders lightly. "Guess not."

Iris ignored the rest of the conversation and left the room in a swift motion, the noise level was too high for her to properly focus on the phone call. She made her way down the hallway and down into the main lobby. She searched through the countless names in his contact list, of course, Ash would be the type of person to collect numbers from people he's met only a couple of times in the past. The names were in alphabetical order.

May, Marley, Morrison...

Iris frowned, "To far." She muttered and scrolled back up, finally successfully finding Lyra's contact information paired with a photo of her hugging a Chickorita, she was clearly many years younger. Iris pressed the call button and quickly held it up to her ear. She was praying that Lyra would wake up from the noise and answer.

Ring... ring... ring...

Finally the ringing stopped and there was a muffled sound of what could be bed sheets. "Hello?"

"Lyra!" Iris exclaimed. "I have really important news; we need to leave for Unova, today."

There was silence on the other line. "...W-what?" She managed to say.

"We're leaving for Unova today, that's the next place we have to go to, the legendary protectors."

"I-I..." Lyra halted, taking a deep breath. "I don't think I can..." She admitted quietly. Iris froze at that statement. "It's too soon... after Khoury..." She continued on. "I'm a mess right now and I'll be even worse trying to help you. I... I think some time at home at least for now would be more helpful than I would be if I went with you right now... I'm really sorry about this."

Iris nodded her head quickly, afraid that she was taking too much time to respond. "No! That's completely understandable..." Iris replied. "I think that your health and happiness is an important key thing to keep in mind and I'm glad that you said so. You don't have to come with us to Unova."

There was more silence. Lyra then spoke again. "I feel really bad about this; I'll try and come to the next region if I can. At least we know that my help isn't really necessary because I already helped Johto."

"Don't feel bad!" Iris insisted. "If the same thing happened to me, I would be doing the exact same thing." Her heart clenched uncomfortably at the scenario. If Cilan was the one who... she didn't even want to think about it. "For now you should just relax and go back to being one-hundred percent!"

There was a laugh from the other side. "Thank you Iris. I should probably let you get ready to go though. I promise I'll see you all later, the next mission."

"You better keep that promise!" Iris agreed. "We'll keep in touch with you as much as we can okay, so don't you worry a little brown hair about us." And with that they bid each other farewell and Iris hung up.

As if on cue, she heard the chatter of some of the boys coming down the stairs. She smiled as she saw Cilan with them. A few girls were scattered in the group, namely Serena, Leaf and Misty. Dawn and May were nowhere to be seen. Neither was Ash. She laughed a little; glad he was most likely now taking a shower.

Cilan spotted her and led the group towards her, a bag slung over his shoulders. Before, when they first started traveling together and with Ash, he would always offer to carry her bag and she would always decline. She didn't need help. She was capable of doing a simple task such as carrying her bag.

He stepped next to her and she smiled up at him. "Would you like to carry my bag?"

He blinked, then furrowed his brows slightly, "If you would like me to I can." He was clearly surprised at her question, oblivious that it was a joke.

"No, I can do it myself." She replied, her smile growing.

Cilan shook his head and laughed at her. "Of course you can."

Misty stepped up next to Iris. "You know Cilan; you can always carry my bag if you want." She grinned and took off one of her bag straps. "Ash isn't that nice to me. He always tells me to carry my own bag. You know medical supplies can be heavy."

"I can do that." He agreed. "But Ash might get jealous." He teased.

"Even better!" Misty exclaimed. "Then he'll want to carry it himself!"

Iris laughed. "We should try that and see if he actually does it!" She looked back up at her boyfriend, curse him for being tall and giving her a pain in her neck. "Please Cilan?"

He shrugged. "I suppose so. It would be funny to see." He holdout his hand for Misty to place her bag in it.

She slung the other red strap off of her shoulder and handed the yellow bag over. "We're so mean I love it!" She chuckled. Cilan grabbed the bag and slung it over his shoulder.

There were loud footsteps banging from the stairwell, fast footsteps. Iris jerked her attention toward it like much of the people who were awake in the pokémon center. Ash leaped down his final three steps and Dawn scurried down after him, May wasn't too far behind.

"Aha!" He shouted. "I won! And guess who got last? May!" He pointed at her and let out a loud laugh. "I told you!"

"Oh shut up!" She smacked his hand away. "We've already proven that I'm faster than you, it's not fair that you can skip four steps at a time with your gangly legs."

Ash bent over and poked her legs. "I'm glad I don't have legs as short as a skitty!"

"Shut up Ash!" She exclaimed again.

"How about you all shut up?" Paul's voice boomed. "We need to go so get your asses going and out the door!"

May sauntered up to him and poked him in the chest. "You know, that's a very dad thing to say, practicing?"

Paul ignored her and was the first one to leave. He was right, they did have to go. She grabbed Cilan's hand, shooting Misty and smile and dragged him to the door, she knew where they were going and she wanted to lead the way this time.


June 7th, 2006

Clemont stared at the tall looming building in awe. The building he was looking at was none other than the Indigo Plateau. The league building for both Kanto and Johto. Being a gym leader, the only league building he had ever visited in was the one in Kalos. The Indigo Plateau was a tall tower, the Kalos league was only two stories, this one seemed to be six or seven, possibly eight stories tall. Four for the elite four, one for the champion, and the other three could hold offices for the elite four and the champion and most likely the G-Men.

"Wait, so the mysterious destination was the Indigo League?" Leaf asked.

"That's right." Iris agreed. "We're meeting a friend who can help us here. Then we're catching a plane directly from here to Mistralton City. Then we're taking a train to get to Opelucid City and from there to the Unova League."

"You really have this all planned out." Ash said, adjusting the two bags he was carrying.

"Because I know exactly what we are doing." Iris stepped forward, casually pushing open the front door.

Clemont was in awe again. It was just as amazing inside as it was outside. It had a very old fashioned theme to it, yet it was also regal. There were many staircases that lead up to a third, balcony type area. The people working at the pokémon center and pokémon mart inside gave nods to the group as they were busy restocking their supplies. Iris stepped up to the two body guards who were on either side of a metal door. They stepped up closely beside her. Cilan wasn't too far behind, providing a barrier for Iris from the others. Clemont found it strange. He could see the guards nodding to them and they stepped aside, opening the door and allowing the group to proceed through.

"I haven't been here in almost eight years." He heard Ash mutter, there was also a quiet agreement from Gary and Misty.

The hallway was nice and there was a set of stairs that led up to an open door. Clemont was near the front of the group, behind Ash who had Misty next to him and Leaf and Gary in front of them while Iris and Cilan led the way. Paul was walking next to him. Clemont felt a little intimidated.

The first room they stepped into was Will's. He was a psychic type trainer. The room was purple everywhere. A big purple themed battle field was in the middle of the room. He could see little clear glass-like cubes floating around above them, too high for people to reach. They quickly sped through the room and up another set of stairs and into the next.

The next room looked like a dark forest. There was hardly any lighting and whether it was sound effect or real, pokémon cries and rustling could be heard from the small forest. This was Koga's room. A Venomoth flew past them. A shriek echoed around the room and Misty made a mad dash for the stairs. He could hear Ash sigh and he ran after her. "She's still scared of bugs?" Gary wondered.

As they stepped into the third room, Clemont could feel heat press against him much like the fire he had experienced only a few weeks ago. The fighting-type elite four's room, Bruno. There was what looked like to be real magma flowing under some kind of protective clear barrier. The heat was sweltering and choked Clemont. He could feel the sweat begin to for on his lower back and pressed uncomfortably against his jumpsuit thanks to his backpack.

The fourth room was dark as well. Accommodating for Karen's dark type speciality. Large curtains were drawn open in the middle of the room to reveal another purple battling field. Large blue crystals jutted out from the depts. of a pit. The room had a very elegant and feminine feel to it. It even seemed like a performance hall.

There was one final, very large staircase. This staircase led to another hall which occupied anther smaller staircase. This door was open as well. The room was gold. Gold flooring, gold walls, gold statues of tough looking dragons that screamed strength. Chandeliers hung from the ceiling and there was a red carpet that ran down the length of the room. There was an elevated platform that had another field on it.

The stairs were gold as well. Clemont could see a person standing at the top of the stairs, on the platform. His back was facing them. Everybody in the world could recognise the man standing there. He had a long flowing cape and dull red hair.

The Indigo and Johto League Champion, Lance Grayson.

"Hello Iris." He said and slowly turned around. He looked like a Hoothoot or a Rowlet. He turned the rest of his body and stood still. A blank look on his face.

Iris nodded to him. "Lance." She greeted.

His powerful gaze swept over the group of people standing before him. "Is this all?"

"All minus one, plus an extra that is trusted. She was a prisoner or so to say." Iris explained. "Lyra Stevens is the one missing. You would know why I presume?"

There was a pondering look that swept onto Lance's face. He then nodded. "Agent Khoury Noisi?"

"Yes."

Again, Lance nodded. "Understandable." He looked behind him. "We should proceed up to my main office where it's more private." His cape whirled around as he turned. Iris proceed up the gilded stairs, climbing up them like she had taken the steps many times.

Clemont blinked and scurried up the steps himself. Being careful as if he could actually break the specular surface.

Everybody was quiet now, more so than before. Lance's embodiment powered over everything and nobody dared to say a word in fear of disrespecting him.

He led them past the hall of fame and towards an elevator that was hidden in the wall. There was a pass code that he punched in and the sound of the moving elevator entered his ears.

There was a quiet ding and the door opened. The elevator was large. "We can all fit inside," Lance explained. "This elevator is one of three; they're all big to accommodate large numbers of G-Men." He stepped in first, closely followed by Iris and Cilan, like they had done the whole time.

The elevator dinged as it reached their destination floor, the top floor. Clemont blinked, he was standing nearest to the door in the slightly now crowded elevator. "Off here." Lance instructed. Clemont gave him a slight nod and stepped out, waiting patiently for them to be led to the correct area again. Lance made his way to the front and started walking towards a corner, where it held a hallway, a long hallway.

Down this hallway were pictures of past champions. He read through the names, a few he knew, such as none other than Charles Goodshow, Blue Oak who was an uncle of Gary, related to his grandfather as a brother. Lance was on the wall only once, before Blue. When Blue had unexpectedly passed, Lance took over the role of being the Champion again, though there wasn't another picture like there should have been. Clemont blinked. After Blue was a man with dark black hair, Red Papenbrook. He didn't know of a Red Papenbrook, he had never heard of this name. Ash paused next to him, looking at the picture. Clemont looked to Ash; his eyes were narrowed as he stared at the picture. Ash turned and continued to walk, leaving Clemont by himself. Serena then approached him. He glanced to her, the group was still moving. "Who is this?" He asked and pointed to the picture. "I don't remember him."

Serena frowned. "Red Papenbrook?" She pronounced. "I've never heard of him either. Lance took over again after I moved." She shrugged. "We would've known about a new champion though." She took in every aspect of the picture. "Maybe he back down from the position?"

"Maybe..." Clemont agreed. He glanced back at the group who were filing into a room, "We should hurry." He said and carefully picked his way over, Serena beside him.

The room was fairly large also. The walls were a gleaming royal white with arching windows. The room had a very regal dragonesque feeling to it. There were little dragon decals around the room, added by Lance most likely. Some of his personal belongings.

Lance sat at the head of his desk, gesturing quite familiarly to Iris to pull up a seat next to him. Clemont felt himself frown again. Why was Iris allowed to sit next to the Kanto and Johto Champion? Lance then gestured for people to get comfortable around them. There were various chairs, they looked as if they were placed there on purpose because there was just enough for everybody to sit in a semi-circle around the desk.

Lance looked to Iris and she took a breath, he could see Cilan flash her a look and she gave him a gentle smile, rising to her feet. "I have to share something with you all, which none of you know, aside from Cilan because this is top secret information directly involving the Unovian League." Her formalities were confusing; Iris didn't normally speak like this. He could see Ash lean forwards in his chair, clearly indicating his interest.

"I don't know?" He asked calmly.

Iris shook her head. "No you do not. Nobody was really to be informed, Cilan knows because he too works in the Unovian League. He previously ran a gym with his two brothers and since has closed it down in replacement for a restaurant in the past few months. What I am about to tell you has happened before he closed down the gym and before we had stopped communicating with each other." She held her posture firmly, showing no signs of fear or contemplation. "Alder Ray is no longer the Champion of Unova. He was defeated in a fair battle on the twenty-second of November of the last year."

Ash shifted again, his arms moving to cross over his chest. "No way, really?" He asked. "So Unova has a new champion and they kept it secret from the other regions?"

"Yes and no," Iris stated. "The other champions are aware of the new champion but no gym leaders from separate regions are aware. And I know you will ask, 'who is the new champion'?"

The thought sliced through Clemont's mind and he jerked to sit up straighter. Iris' chocolate eyes danced over to him and a smile graced her lips with a small laugh. "You figured out who already Clemont?"

"I've been thinking over things for a while and I just understood why everything seemed to be so... weird. I do know who it is now. You can announce it; I know you're wanting to."

Iris smile grew, "I am very keen on doing so, thank you Clemont." She cleared her throat and stood up a bit straighter. "The new champion of Unova is me, Iris Arifiani."

The room was quiet, nobody spoke. Suddenly there was a loud shout, from the only person in the room who could make that much noise.

"Wait!" Ash yelled, "It's you?"

Iris gave him a sheepish look, "I wouldn't have said otherwise if I wasn't. Again, sorry for not telling you but it was necessary and I expect this information to not leak into any other leagues." At this, she was looking very directly at a few people, namely Clemont, Misty and even Gary. The people in the room who had direct contact with the league or an important person who was close with the league himself.

"Now that that's over with," Lance started, shifting in his seat. "Let's get to the point of your next mission."

"Mission...?" Serena asked. "Why call it a mission?" She shifted, uncomfortable under the eyes of many, Clemont sympathised for her. "We're just ordinary people doing what we should. If we're granted to be a protector, it's our duty to protect them."

Lance smiled at her. "You saved a region, and you have more to save after it. All of the incidents occurring in the other regions can't just be a coincidence to happen." His face turned serious. "There's a common goal that is to happen for each region and that is for it to be abolished. For the wrong side to take lead."

"We're going to Unova because there has been attack; this is the third one in the past few months. When refugees were coming, Unova was unprepared, I hardly got a say in the matter when Alder gave them the go. Everyone was under the assumption that Unova was doing fine and that it was facing no sense doom. Unova didn't give out what was happening. It was a secret. Unova is a proud region and we don't want to ask for help from the others, plus these attacks were from our own region, Unova's having a civil war." Iris explained.

"This is the third time Team Plasma has dome this to the region." Cilan said lowly. "I've done some researching on it." He admitted. "From what I can tell, over the course of five years Reshiram, Zekrom and Kyurem had two previous protectors each. We are still in contact with all six of them."

"I thought you said you ran a café with Cress and Chili?" Ash questioned.

"That was said because we were not in a safe place to properly explain things. Yes I run a restaurant with my two brothers, but the three of us also still continue to work with the league. You can't just close down a gym; you know too much important information. To be frank, I'm surprised that none of the past gym leaders have been targeted, more than one has backed down from their positions. Leona and Brycen have left as well. Leona is looking to have a family and run the museum with her husband and Brycen is focusing on his career as an actor." Cilan spoke.

"That could've happened." Iris said slowly. "All I have been informed of was that there was an attack." She glanced at Lance. "I'm sure that you weren't informed on much either. If Alder and Drayden are in charge right now they wouldn't disclose anything to you."

Lance shook his head. "They knew you went to Kalos and contacted Diantha who had said that you were here, thus they contacted us and we happened to see you at the funeral. Clair ended up being the one who informed you, I had to come back here." He abruptly stood up. "Now that you're aware of what's happening in Unova, we should send you off as soon as we can."

Iris stood up herself. "Right, let's go then."


So my exams are in two weeks so next week I'll post a chapter but not the week after. I kinda need to study really well for them because it's math and science and they aren't exactly my strongest area... Plus they're right after each other soooo barely any time for studying!

Also, just to give you a heads up, in a little over a month I'm going to be travelling in the summer for two weeks, it's the first two weeks of August, and the start of the third, so there won't be any updates then because who knows if I'll have wifi? Even if I do have it I will hardly ever be at the place I'm staying and will be out doing other things. I'll still try and write a few chapters every now and then.

Good luck on those who also have to suffer with exams!