Chapter 4:

Disorientation. That's all Ash felt as he slowly woke up. It felt like he was underwater. Unable to really hear, see or breathe for that matter. He sluggishly made an attempt at opening his eyes and found them to be almost non-functioning. He was also dizzy which was only made worse by movement. This scared Ash and he usually didn't scare easily.

He tried to move his arms, but felt them held fast to his sides. Ash then tried to move his head to look around, but found that he couldn't move his head either. Something cold and hard pressed against his ears almost painfully. Also, there was a strap that rested across his forehead allowing the blocks on either side of his head to be practically immovable.

He startled himself when his fingers brushed up against something soft. He used what little of his fingers he could move to stroke the underside of whatever was on top of him and found it to be a blanket.

Ash then noticed the smell. It was sterile and almost like he had been in some sort of medical wing. Ash managed to open his eyes just a bit to make out the white walls and the blazing white light shining down on him. This confirmed in his own mind that he was exactly where he thought he was.

The young trainer was in a medical wing of some facility.

This realization caused Ash to resume his struggling against the restraints.

Ash quickly stopped struggling however when he heard the sound of voices. Muffled as they were, he could make it out to be talking about some sort of device that someone else had made. Tried as he might, he used what little hearing he had to try and listen in on the conversations going on around him. But was only successful in sneezing, alerting the others in the room to his presence.

"He's awake," someone nearby lowered the blanket that had been placed around his shoulders to where the top of his chest was exposed. The person now standing above him adjusted something attached. This caused the sound of beeping from another device nearby to ring loudly in Ash's ears.

"Can you hear me?" A guy wearing goggles and appeared to have a small ponytail sticking straight up from the top of his head.

It was still muffled.

"A little bit," Ash gasped in surprise when he realized how slurred his voice had become. He couldn't remember what had happened to lead up to these events.

"You'll be talking like that for a while," The man voice started sounding extremely familiar and Ash tried to jog his memory to attempt to try and figure out why though.

The cold of the room began to get to Ash. He began to realize that he no longer had his shirt and jacket on. Now the only thing sheltering him from the cold was his own body and what little blanket was still covering him.

"Lysandre sir, he has awoken!" The com system in the room lit up with the sound of the familiar voice.

"Good! Bring him to holding chamber one! And bring him in without the stretcher," Everyone in the room rallied around the bed Ash was laying on and began to unhook straps and blocks restraining the young boy. Ash quickly sat up, even though he was as shaky as a leaf about to fall off a tree, but was met with a wave of dizziness that engulfed him to the point of nausea.

He was then roughly taken off the stretcher which didn't help matters any. He almost collapsed as soon as his own weight was placed on his legs and feet. If it wasn't for the two men holding him firmly by the arms, he probably would have fallen to the ground. Ash felt the unease and panic begin to rise when the crew around him began to almost drag him out of the room and into the long hallway to who knew where.

Ash's nerves lessened slightly when he could feel the effects of whatever had knocked him out begin to dissipate. It was like he had been stuck with a basket on his head and now he was allowed the freedom of being completely aware of his surroundings.

But he didn't want them to know that.

So, he allowed himself to be almost dragged into the room they were bringing him to. \

The feeling of freedom didn't last long however, for when Ash entered the new room, there stood Lysandre. And next to him, strapped into some device, was Greninja. The water Pokemon made eye contact with Ash, he looked terrified.

"Nice of you to join us!" Lysandre called out from the other side of the room.

Ash just froze. He didn't know if it was more from terror of seeing Lysandre again or the fact that one his Pokemon was now strapped down and at the mercy of this monster of a person.

"Let him go!" Ash ripped his hands from the men's' grasp and ran a bit forward. He was pursued by them, but with a hand gesture from Lysandre, they stopped.

"Why Ash! I don't plan on doing that. Why don't you come over here and see what I've created!"

Ash's curiosity was peeked, but not enough to want to go over there, next to his kidnapper. But one of the men behind him pushed him forward not allowing there to be anymore hesitation from the trainer in front of them.

He slowly made his way over, stopping only once to glance over at Greninja. Greninja seemed to be just as terrified as he was which, for some odd reason, brought comfort to Ash.

He was glad he wasn't the only one scared.

"Isn't it beautiful?" Lysandre held his hands out towards an object obscured by some sort of tarp. But it soon fell off to reveal a device not unlike the one that Lysandre tried to use on Ash during the last time Ash was captured by the man.

Ash instinctively backed up. He wanted nothing to do with this.

So, Ash turned and ran away.

"What should we do?" Xerosic walked up to his boss.

"I've got this," And soon Lysandre was following Ash.

With a few quick strides, Lysandre soon had caught up to the fleeing trainer. He didn't think about it, but he lashed out and punched the boy square in the face. This stunned the boy enough to where Lysandre could pin Ash's arms in a crisscrossed manner against the boy's chest almost as if the boy was hugging himself. He allowed him to struggle a bit and even heard a few times Ash demanded Lysandre to let him go, but nothing was going to change his mind. Lysandre reveled in the closeness of his captive. He wasn't about to let Ash go that easily.

"Let Greninja go!" Lysandre turned himself around to where Ash was now facing his own Pokemon. Ash had now changed his tune from asking for himself to be set free, and instead pleaded with his captor to let his Pokemon go free.

Ash had stopped struggling by this point and watched others take a hold of Greninja and lift him out of his confinement. He stood there absolutely confused as to what was going on and so did Greninja.

"Greninja get out of here!' Ash called out to the water Pokemon. But he didn't make a move. He just stared into Ash's pleading eyes not shaking his gaze at all.

"You see, Greninja won't leave." Lysandre pulled tighter on Ash's arms, this time moving his hands to the boy's wrists, "I told him if he tried to escape after I caught you, I'd hurt you."

Ash froze and stood staring at his Pokemon. Greninja was one of his most powerful Pokemon he'd ever caught and now, seeing him reduced to nothing but a pawn was heartbreaking.

"Now let's make this simple, shall we?" Lysandre let Ash go, confident that the boy wouldn't try anything, "You will activate your bond phenomenon with Greninja. If you don't I will hurt you and we all know that hurting either of you causes pain in the other. Am I right?"

Ash couldn't mutter a word in response. He continued to stand there immobile, seemingly almost lifeless. His determination not to give Lysandre what he wanted seemed to be mirrored in Greninja's eyes. Even though without the bond phenomenon, he couldn't feel what Greninja was thinking, but he saw it. And it was enough for Ash to make a decision.

"You've got it all wrong Lysandre!" Ash's voice rose as the anger quelled inside of him, "First we only feel each other's pain when we are synced. And second, you should know by now that we won't be controlled by the likes of you! And we will never continue to do so."

Lysandre smirked. He figured this would be the kid's answer.

"Fine then. We'll do it your way."

Ash heard a whine coming from somewhere, sounding like some electrical device was charging up. He couldn't quite pinpoint the source of the noise.

But as the noise grew louder, he could tell exactly where it was coming from.

It was coming from his wrists.

He looked down and saw two identical, black bracelets strapped neatly to his wrists. He then looked up to Lysandre who he saw was standing near some control panel. Lysandre must have attached them to his wrists when he just had a hold of him.

"Like I said, Pokemon would be the death of you one day," and he hit a button which caused a surge of electricity to pulse from the bracelets and into Ash.

Ash had been hit by many of Pikachu's thunderbolts and electricity before but nothing had prepared him for this.

It felt like a ton of tiny daggers just lightly but at the same time very harshly away at his body. He could feel his muscles tense and relax almost in simultaneous motions that some didn't feel right. This scared Ash to his core.

Ash soon collapsed when the device was turned off and in stride Greninja came running up alongside it's trainer. Ash picked himself up onto his knees only looking into the eyes of the water Pokemon standing in front of him.

"Ash do you agree to my terms now?" Lysandre walked over and knelt in front of his opponent.

Ash just glared. He had no intentions of willingly giving himself, or Greninja for that matter, over to this madman.

"You know our answer!" Ash clenched his teeth in anticipation of what was to come, watching Lysandre's every move after that.

"Very well then!"

And here came the shock.

And it lasted longer this time.

"Alright!" Ash fell on the ground once again due to the lack of control over his own body, "We'll do it!"

The electricity stopped.

"Excellent! I knew you would come around to our way of thinking!" Lysandre's grin grew to twice its original size.

"But first you must tell me what your plan for us is!" With the help of Greninja, Ash stood up, not letting the pain he was feeling get in the way of showing he was strong.

"You promise that you will still go through with it if I tell you?"

"Promise!"

Lysandre's smile turned into a smirk. This boy was a lot smarter than people gave him credit for.

"Well then," Lysandre turned his back towards Ash, "I recently acquired some knowledge that you Ash have the ability to see and use Aura. Now that's not something I've seen a lot in people. Pokemon that's one story, but a human! Man! The possibilities are endless!"

Lysandre now turned towards Ash.

"After I learned that of you, I thought back to our last encounter and in my research, I learned that any Aura user can combine the powers of one of their own Pokemon with that of others. And I thought why not experiment it with you? With your bond phenomenon with Greninja and the power that some certain Pokemon here on these islands possesses, I would be unstoppable."

"You know I would never agree to that!" Ash shot forward in an attempt at attacking Lysandre, but was soon restrained once more by the other members of the New Team Flare that were in the room.

"Ah! But remember we just made a deal!" Lysandre wagged his finger in front of his face, reprimanding Ash's words, "But I had anticipated this sort of resistance, so I had Xerosic here remedy that."

Xerosic grew all excited! His device was sure to work this time and their famed enemy would now be there slave.

"You see that device I showed you earlier is a mind control device. It's the same technology behind what I used on you before, only this time I'm using something much stronger than Mega Evolution energy."

Panic began to arise in Ash. He didn't want to be mind-controlled again, especially not to the likes of Lysandre. But he had no choice. He made a promise that he wouldn't change his mind if he was told of this evil man's plot.

"Now all I need is for Ash-Greninja to appear and we have the beginnings of a human/Pokemon weapon on our hands!"

The men restraining Ash let him go and Ash fell to the ground on his knees.

He could feel the tears welling up in his eyes before he even registered that he was crying. Ash wouldn't put anyone in danger, at least not willingly anyway, but now the rules were changing.

"It's time." Lysandre whispered into

Ash stood up again, with tears streaming down his face, and looked Greninja square in the face. He didn't even know if it would still work as well as the bond worked before Greninja and Ash had departed. But for both their sakes, he would have to try.

Greninja walked up to Ash and put Ash's hands in his. Then the water Pokemon reached over to his trainer's face and wiped a tear off that just fell. This reminded Ash of the times where the two of them would do clasp hands as sign of letting each other know they would do this together. The wiping away of tears was new, but he took it as a sign that their bond never wavered. Even when each other were in distant regions it still remained strong. He smiled, even though it was a small smile at this notion.

"Ready Greninja?"

He croaked his approval.

"Then let's get stronger together once more," Ash let go of one of Greninja's hands and prepared himself for what was to come. He could feel the shroud of water fall over the Pokémon's body and soon he himself was soaked. Then the water abruptly stopped and soon Greninja had a giant water shuriken appear signaling that the transformation was complete.

The sentimental moment was quickly ended however when a beam of red light overcame Trainer and Pokemon. Ash immediately felt an invisible force try to enter his mind and consume it. The caused pain and with the lingering effects of the electricity that he had been previously zapped with it worsened.

"There's no use in fighting it Ash! It's more powerful than you can ever imagine!" Lysandre raised his voice to be louder than the machine.

But his triumph was short lived however when the power to the device cut out leaving some very confused people standing there frozen due to not having the slightest clue as to what was going on.

"Xerosic what's going on?"

"There seems to be a crack in the power core." Xerosic adjusted his goggles to his eyes.

"How long will it take to fix?"

"A couple of hours!" Xerosic rounded the corner to behind the machine, "And that's if I don't find other problems."

"Well get to it then!"

Lysandre was furious. At his moment of victory, it ended in disaster as normal.

And in his mad fury, he let it all loose on Ash who couldn't defend himself.

And the way it ended was Lysandre getting a water shuriken to the face.

The end resulted with Ash sporting a bloody nose, several cuts on his face and arms and what appeared to be an injured wrist due to Ash holding his hand really close to his body. Ash was also sitting on the ground, breathing raggedly, with an angry Greninja standing over him, ready to move if given the command.

"Lysandre what do we do with him?" One of the men pointed toward Ash.

"We're going to let him go!" Lysandre spoke through clenched teeth.

"Let him go?" Xerosic poked his head from behind the mind-control device.

"He's of no use to us right now! And I certainly don't want the authorities finding out of our plans before we enact them."

Lysandre's eyes then fell on Ash and didn't move from the boy. But then he pushed the button and the electricity from the bracelets came to life once more. Ash could do nothing but take it that is until he passed out right in front of everyone. Greninja even faltered and the Ash-Greninja form disappeared. He soon sat next to his trainer, showing that he was exhausted as well, but soon conformed to unconsciousness as well.

"Why Lysandre? If we let him go now then he will still alert the authorities!"

"He doesn't know where we are," Lysandre smirked, "And in reality, it's all going to plan. He will lure the four to us."

Xerosic's smile grew.

"And then we will have the means of taking over the world!"