Disclaimer: Pokemon don't belong to me :(

Some of you may recognise the bottom half of this chapter as it's pretty similar to what it was before, but the first part is completely new and I hope you'll all find it really entertaining :)

Enjoy.

Chapter Three

~ Run ~

Dawn's POV

It was dark in the closet, and cramped. My arm had pins and needles and I also needed the toilet. "When do you think they'll let us out?" I wondered aloud. Silence. "Paul?" Still only silence. I poked him experimentally in the arm, to see if he had somehow managed to fall asleep standing up.

"What?" he growled.

I gasped. "So you are awake!" Paul just grunted, and I prodded him again. "Why didn't you answer me then?" I asked accusatively. No reply. "Pauuuul," I whined.

"What?" Paul almost snarled at me.

I grinned, even though he couldn't see me because of the lack of light. "I'm bored," I told him. I heard Paul groan and thump the closet door. "Hey, be careful! I want my clothes to come out of this unscathed!" I cried reaching out to try and pull as may clothes as possible towards me, away from Paul.

"You call these clothes," Paul stated.

"Yes!" I exclaimed, taking offense at his tone. "Why, what do you call them?" I asked guardedly, turning my face to the side so I could speak clearly without being suffocated by the material.

"Abominations," Paul grunted.

I glared at Paul, the anger rising clearly in my voice. "How dare you insult my clothes?" I snapped the question at him. "At least my clothes are colourful! Yours are so dark and depressing that they look like they're suffocating you!" I ended up shouting, seething. In my anger I began moving my arms around in angry gestures, and my feet also began stamping to emphasise my point.

"Will you stop moving, Troublesome? No need to get so worked up," Paul muttered.

"No I will not stop moving. You insulted my clothes and now you're going t- mmph!" I choked as Paul reached out and covered my mouth with his hand. This just got me even more worked up and I tried hard to wriggle free but it turned out Paul was much stronger than I expected him to be.

I began moving about even more as Paul tried to stop me. We were so caught up in our own private argument that neither of us noticed when the closet began to wobble until suddenly – CRASH!

The closet fell over.

The impact was so jarring that I screamed, more out of shock than physical pain. But hey, it was scary!

"Will you shut up? You're the one that got us into this mess in the first place, Troublesome," Paul grunted.

I stopped screaming. "Yeah well it's not my fault you wouldn't get into the closet!" I shot back.

"Oh for goodness sake," Paul growled. "We can argue later: for now we need to figure out how to get this closet off of us."

I frowned and stopped talking long enough to take stock of our situation. The fall had broken the lock on the closet but we were still trapped inside. How were we going to get out of this one?

Suddenly Paul began rolling around on the floor. At first I thought he'd gone crazy and I yelled at him. "Paul, what are you doing? Are you trying to kill me?"

"I'm trying to get us out of here, and you're not helping," came the muffled, very annoyed, reply.

I huffed. "How is rolling about like a five year old going to get us out of here?" I had to curl up in a ball at the bottom of the closed to avoid being hit by Paul as he kept rolling from side to side with vigour.

"Because," Paul grunted.

"Becauuuuse?" I asked, drawing the word out impatiently.

Paul took a deep, noisy breath. "Because if I can cause the closet to over balance then it will tip onto its side and the door won't be blocked by the floor anymore, so we can get out," Paul explained irritably, not ceasing his rolling.

"Oh," I said. "That's actually not a bad idea," I admitted. Then I grinned. "You know, that's the most I've ever heard you speak," I said mischievously.

One of Paul's feet clipped my ear. "Ow!" I exclaimed indignantly.

"Accident," Paul muttered. I rolled my eyes. Of course it was. "Are you going to help or not?" he snapped at me.

"Okay, I'm helping," I replied snappishly, matching his tone as I also began rolling about.

A few minutes later, the closet was shaking so dangerously I was scared it was going to collapse on us. But Paul showed no sign of letting up so I didn't either and a moment later the closet finally rolled onto its side. The doors flew open as soon as the floor was no longer trapping them and Paul and I tumbled out in an unceremonious heap onto the cold, stone floor.

"Oww," I mumbled, clutching my head.

"Troublesome," Paul grunted through gritted teeth.

I blinked as my eyes adjusted to the brightness of the room. "Yes?"

"Get off of me."

Looking down I realised I was sprawled awkwardly on top of the purple-haired trainer. Oops. "Sorry!" I squeaked, jumping off of him only to trip over and fall back on the floor again. Behind me, Paul picked himself up in a calmer manner.

"Are you always this clumsy?" Paul asked me.

I scowled. "No." I waited for Paul to help me up but he just walked past me and I glared at him, picking myself up. "Hey, doesn't something seem different?" I asked suddenly. Paul turned back to me with a raised eyebrow. I looked around the empty room. Empty. "Where's everyone else gone?" I gasped.

Paul heaved a sigh. "Who cares? I'm going back to bed," he informed me, heading for the door.

"Wait," I blurted out, shivering.

"What?" Paul asked stonily.

"I don't want to be left all alone," I whispered, edging after him.

Paul looked at me. "Not my problem," he said simply before leaving the room.

I gritted my teeth and looked around the room. Then I screamed. "AHHHHH!"

Paul ran back into the room, throwing the door open with a bang. "WHAT?" he bellowed at me.

I raised a shaking hand and pointed at my now-destroyed closet. "My clothes!" I wailed. "They're all destroyed!"

Paul slammed his head against the wall. "Give me strength," he muttered.

Crystal's POV

I stood on the steps of the Ice Academy, shivering. It was well named, for it's always freezing inside and in the grounds.

"You must be Crystal. Welcome to the Ice Academy…" Nurse Joy began emotionlessly as she opened the door. She trailed off when she saw me, however.

"It's good to see you, too, Nurse Joy," I replied smugly. "Bet you never thought you'd see Vulpix and I again, huh?"

Nurse Joy narrowed her eyes. "At least my Vulpix evolved into Ninetales. I see you're still so incompetent you don't even know how to evolve a pokémon," she snapped nastily.

"Evolution isn't everything. I could still whip you in battle," I remarked, pushing past her after waving goodbye to my chauffeur. Dropping my bags on the floor I stared around at the candlelit reception room. A clock on the wall chimed just gone midnight. "It's good to be back," I smiled.

"Yes. Well, your room is this way," Nurse Joy said frostily, turning around abruptly.

"Aren't you even going to check my pokémon are in good health?" I asked as I ran to catch her up.

Silence.

"Pix," Vulpix said from my shoulder.

"Yeah, she must be tired. I bet she's pulling an all-nighter, with it being the night before school starts officially and everything," I commented to Vulpix, with a sideways look at Nurse Joy.

"What? Why should tonight be any different to other night?" she demanded to my satisfaction. As she led me to my dormitory she kept pestering me, but I gave her no answers.

We were passing through a long corridor when I could just make out a group of pupils ahead, standing around a door. I coughed, hoping to alert them to our presence before Nurse Joy noticed them – I didn't know them but I didn't want them to be caught – but to no avail.

"What? Pupils out of bed!" Nurse Joy screeched. She sent out a Lampet to illuminate the group as they turned towards us, startled.

I saw they were a group of four girls: one red-head, one with straight brown hair, one with light brown hair tied back with a red bandanna in a dog-eared style and the other with chocolaty hair in a high ponytail. They looked about to run, but realised they had no hope of escaping and so stood frozen to the spot until we reached them.

"You four! Why are you out of bed?" Nurse Joy hissed at them in evident joy at finding someone to punish. "What are your names?"

I frowned. If Nurse Joy didn't know them then they still had time to get away, but they just stayed still.

"We-" the redhead began only to stop when the door they were grouped around opened.

"So, finally dared to show your face I see," a boy's voice could be heard, and a second later a group of four boys trooped out into the corridor. I smacked my palm against my head. Why do boys always have to make things worse?

"Aha!" Nurse Joy crowed and the boys turned around in horror. But while Nurse Joy began a tirade against them all, my gaze was fixed on a tall boy with spiky brown hair whom I hadn't seen since… since a long time ago. He looked up and saw me, just as shocked.

"Crystal…"

The moment he uttered my name, my gaze turned cold. "Burn him," I ordered Vulpix. A million questions were running through my head, Why was he here? being top of the list.

"Wait-" he began again but Vulpix jumped off of my shoulder and issued a strong Flame Thrower at him. I watched with cool indifference at the fire shot towards him. If it wasn't for the redhead's quick reaction, making her water pokémon douse him with water, he would be dead by now. He deserved to be dead. As it was, the fire merely charred him, however it hit the wall and spread back towards Nurse Joy and I. I strode forwards and grabbed the boy's collar.

"Just fulfilling my promise," I said quietly. "I told you I never break my promises." Upon releasing him, I turned around to see Nurse Joy cut off from up by the flames, but it wouldn't take long for her to send out a water pokémon to vanquish the flames.

"Take my advice – in a few moments, Nurse Joy will put out that fire," I said to the group. "You're lucky, she doesn't know who you are. If you value your lives, then run."

"Who are you? And what-" the redheaded girl started, but I cut her off with a look.

"Run."

May's POV

I started to run blindly the moment I heard the strange girl's order, my legs obeyed the command I hadn't consciously accepted. All I knew was that Misty, White, Leaf and I had gone to find the boys at midnight like Drew had told me (even though he'd only told me to come the other girls wanted to come for the adventure). Of course we knew we were breaking the rules by disobeying curfew but it was a risk I had been willing to take at the time. What I did not expect was some girl with silvery hair down to her waist and stormy grey eyes to try and kill Gary and then order us to run.

As I ran down dark corridors too numerous to count trying not to crash into any walls I became aware of someone else running alongside me, their footsteps matching mine perfectly.

"I think we're safe – Nurse Joy won't catch us now," panted a boy's voice. I stopped in surprise.

"Drew?"

"The one and only," he replied, stopping alongside me. I could see his smirk in the dim light that came from an old fashioned lamp stand at the end of the corridor we were lurking in.

I rolled my eyes, but I was glad I wasn't alone. It would have been really creepy on my own. "Oh, I'm so sorry Drew, I thought you were that cute boy who helps in the school kitchens. He told me his name was Drew, and you sounded just like him," I retorted smugly.

"You thought I was the kitchen boy? Wow April, that's dumb even for you," Drew shot back. "How come you know the kitchen staff already anyway?" he added.

I felt myself flush. "Uh, well you remember earlier when you found me in a corridor? Well I was kinda lost do I was just wandering around when I stumbled across the kitchens, so I thought I should acquaint myself with the places and people I'm going to be spending it with anyway– and my name's not April!"

Drew flicked his hair. "Whatever. I plan on leaving next year anyway," he informed me casually.

"What?!" I exclaimed loudly. "But the law says-"

Drew gave me a long look. "You don't know? There's an exception to the law: if you can win the Kanto Challenge when you're sixteen then you're allowed to leave school," he informed me.

I straightened my bandana which had shifted slightly to the side when I was running, and thought about what he said. "But you – and me – are Coordinators, not Trainers," I said.

Drew shrugged. "We still know how to battle, right?"

"I guess… hey, what's that?" I suddenly saw something small and blue hurtling towards us. "W-wait – Piplup?" I gasped as it got closer. Upon hearing my voice it skidded to a halt in front of me. "It is Piplup!" I cried in astonishment. "But where's Dawn?"

"P-p-piplup…" Piplup shivered, his eyes wide as if something had frightened him.

"Hey, it's okay," I murmured, kneeling down and holding out my arms. I hadn't known the small pokémon that long, but long enough to learn of his devotion to his trainer.

"Who's that?" Drew asked curiously as I stood up again with Piplup in my arms.

I looked up at him, apprehension clouding my blue eyes. "Piplup is Dawn's pokémon," I said softly.

Drew's eyes narrowed thoughtfully. "Is Piplup prone to running away from Dawn?"

I shook my head as Piplup squeaked indignantly. "No, he's devoted to her…" I trailed off. "You – you don't think Nurse Joy caught her do you?" I winced even as I suggested it.

Drew shook his head. "I saw Paul running towards her before I started to run," he reassured me. He looked around. "But then, I've heard myths about this place…" he lowered his voice and leaned towards me. "They say this place is haunted."

I shivered and he smirked. I glared at him. "Yeah, right. Everyone knows ghosts don't exist."

Drew gave me a knowing look. "But Ghost pokémon do," he reminded me.

Just then, the lights began to flicker.

Author's Note: Am I evil? I know, I just couldn't resist. Originally this and the next part were all one chapter but I decided to leave you with a cliffhanger this time :) You may thank me later :D

I hope Dawn wasn't too OOC... for some reason I'm finding her kinda hard to write...

Also I know some of you probably don't really like Crystal at the moment - she's an OC who's going to play a main part and you can't feel any connection with her yet etc. Please just give her a chance though, I'll develop her character more when I get the chance.

Pwease review! :D

~ Jay