AN: Okay, I really don't have too many excuses for why I didn't update, other than... Life.

Hey, what can you do when you were in a schooling system different from everyone else's for 5 years and suddenly plunked back into the original schooling system, but in a totally new school environment?

Disclaimer: I am not afflicted with Pokémon or other official derivatives.

After bidding Burgundy goodbye, the triplets began throwing question after question at Scarlett, Milo, and Teresa. They diligently answered each one.

"So, Scarlett. How are Ash and Serena?" Cilan inquired. He hadn't received a postcard from Ash for quite some time, so naturally that was the first thought that left his mouth.

"They're both great, and Pikachu is fine, too." Scarlett plastered a smile on her face, hoping it was convincing enough. She had no doubt that her mother was all right both physically and mentally, but emotionally, she wasn't so sure.

"Who're you challenging next?" Chili grinned at Milo, who was only too happy to reply. Teresa rolled her eyes, wondering if the only thing guys thought about were Pokémon battles.

"We're going to Nacrene City to challenge the Gym there!" Milo half-screamed, causing everyone surrounding him to cover their ears in haste.

"Oh, really?" Chili nudged Cress lightly with his eyebrows raised. "You'll have a blast. That Gym's pretty challenging right now…Did you know they're grooming a new Gym Leader?"

"I did!" Teresa interrupted abruptly. "According to the media coverage, she's the daughter of the current Gym Leader. They disclosed the girl's name, but they said she was the perfect candidate."

Cress nodded in agreement. "Ah, I have met Lenora's daughter once," he paused slightly, wincing as he remembered the chance meeting. "She's a very spirited girl, let's leave it at that."

"So she's gonna be hard to beat?" Milo had found his first Gym Battle exhausting to the core. His mind was totally blown at how well Chili and his Darumaka had worked together. He didn't want to go through it again.

Scarlett wasn't fazed at all, and instead she fist pumped before declaring, "I'm all for a challenge!"

Her friends shook their heads in wonderment. Both Teresa and Milo couldn't comprehend how Scarlett was always up for a challenge, even when said challenge was unnecessary.

'Ring-a-ling ding ding ding!' chirped an over-enthusiastic ringtone over and over again.

"Oh, that would be mine," Cilan apologized before answering his X-Transceiver's call. He recoiled from the device's screen, startled by the face across from him. "Burgundy?"

"Cilan, tell your brothers to come to the market immediately. A man's giving a speech, and I don't like what he's saying. The citizens…they're really riled up about it." Burgundy's serious face shone with worry. Her eyebrows were creased, and her lips were upside-down. "Please hurry."

"Right," Cilan nodded firmly. "We're on our way." He disconnected the call. Without a word or even a glance, the Striaton triplets sprinted for the door.

"Should we go, too?" Milo tilted his head, questioning his friends.

"I don't think that's a good-" Teresa didn't finish her reply, as Scarlett was out of the Gym's door already. Not wanting to be left out of the action, her friends followed.

"Don't be so rash, Scarlett! Let's think this through!" Teresa called out, lagging far behind Milo and Scarlett, but Scarlett didn't hear her friend's pleas. She was only focused on making it to the marketplace. She shoved through the throngs of people, ignoring their jeers and antagonizing comments. I've got to inform Cilan, Cress and Chili before it's too late. If my instincts are right, that man making the speech could be working for the group my dad warned me about.

When she finally arrived at the heart of the market, she noticed something was off. The stalls were not hovered over by expectant customers, nor were there any attendants or salespeople assisting them. The activity was all directed to a makeshift stage standing in the middle of the road. Raised above the heads of the crowd stood a young man and woman. Both of them couldn't have been older than eighteen. The man had blonde hair that curled slightly at the ends and piercing gray eyes. He was speaking into a microphone, a smooth and persuasive voice flowing from his mouth.

The woman had blonde hair as well, and she had striking eyes that were not blue, but not quite green either. Scarlett noted that the woman's right eye was slightly darker in colour than her left.

Both of them had pointed and delicate features, leading Scarlett to believe the two of them were siblings. They could have even been twins!

But she pushed those thoughts out of the way for now while sliding to the front of the crowd. Scarlett spotted Burgundy and the triplets standing next to her at the very front of the stage. Each of the brothers had a sour expression on his face. Burgundy's arms were crossed over her chest, and her facial features were twisted in an unpleasant expression that bordered disgust.

Scarlett wondered what the man was saying that was making the four adults so angry. Having not caught the first part of the speech, she carefully listened in, hoping to understand the gist of the speech.

"… are looking for people with a special talent," the man was saying, holding a microphone in his hands to enunciate his voice, though he clearly didn't need it. "This talent is extremely rare, but is powerful when mastered. If you wish to know more about our cause, please stick around afterwards."

Scarlett carefully concealed her shock beneath an icy glare directed at the siblings standing high-and-mightily on the stage. She had been right, but she couldn't inform the Gym Leaders and Burgundy right now. Everyone would overhear her, and she'd be in huge trouble. "Promise me you will not speak of this again ever, unless you speak with me or your mom face to face. Got it?" She assumes her dad meant friends as well, but she had to inform the Gym Leaders, at the very least.

Cilan frowned; deciding the perfect opportunity to speak out was now. He said authoritatively, "This is completely ridiculous." About half of the people agreed with him, and the bolder citizens began voicing their opinions out loud, their voices swirling together until it was almost incomprehensible.

"I agree with Gym Leader Cilan." A middle-aged man said, with his Munna floating beside his head.

"That's right," a young woman said, her voice quavering slightly.

The woman tapped her parasol on the wooden stage three times, and the crowd quieted down. It was as if the girl was controlling them, and Scarlett shivered in fright. But she was worried as well, for half of the crowd had not said anything, or given a single notion that they even cared about what Cilan had said.

Cress crossed his arms. "As a Striaton City Gym Leader, I will have to ask you politely to leave the premises immediately."

The man inclined his head slightly, and his companion followed his lead. Cress only frowned some more, as he felt the man was mocking him.

"As the Gym Leader Cress wishes," the man then held up a hand. "But, I will leave only after I finish the job that I came here to do."

Cress turned his nose up. "See that you do." He wanted to leave the marketplace so he wouldn't need to see the man anymore, but he had to stay, to hear what he was going on about. Chili and Cilan both placed their hands on his shoulder, showing that they supported their brother's decision to remain in the market.

Everyone who spoke up with Cilan left, not wanting to bother with the man and woman any longer. The remaining people gathered around the stage or further information. It was at this time that Milo and Teresa finally caught up with Scarlett.

"There you are. We lost you in the crowd," Teresa whispered. "So, do you know what's happening?" She gestured to the stage, and then back at the greatly diminished audience.

Scarlett shook her head, letting her friends know that it was a negative, and that she hadn't learned anything yet. "Whatever it is, the Gym Leaders and Burgundy aren't too happy about it."

She and her friends weaved through the crowd to stand beside the four adults. Cilan's eyebrows creased as he realized who was standing beside him. "You shouldn't be here," he scolded the group. "Who knows what that man is up to?"

"We can't just stay away!" Scarlett protested while twisting away from an attempt of Chili's to secure her wrist. "This concerns all Pokémon Trainers."

Milo stood firmly behind Scarlett, with Teresa next to him. "That's right!" he said, thoroughly convinced that he was doing the right thing.

Their attention was turned back to the man on the stage, who had begun speaking again. His words seemed to flow out of him mouth like honey dripping off of honeycomb, syrupy and smooth.

"As all of you already know, we are looking for people with a particular power. The power of Aura."

The remaining people began muttering amongst themselves. A man voiced what all the other people had been thinking, "What is 'Aura'?"

"Aura is a kind of energy that can be found in all living things. Pokémon, people, and even plants."

Unconsciously, Scarlett found her hands forming into tight fists. She had recently been reminded about Aura from none other than her own Dad, and he had told her that he was one of the very few that could manipulate the energy. There was no doubt at all in Scarlett's mind now, they were part of that group her dad told her about. And she believed they held high positions in the team, from the way that they spoke to their audience.

"Then, what do you plan to do with this Aura?" Burgundy spoke up for the first time. She said the words quietly, but they were powerful enough to catch the pair's attention.

"We plan to change the world entirely! In this world, there will be no pollution or conflict."

Cilan's eyes widened, unable to believe what he had just heard. He thought that anyone who had a hint of sensibility would know about the horrors that had happened whenever anyone tried to 'fix' the world. Pokémon and people both suffered at the hands of ambitious others. While they may start out with good intentions, certainly their path would turn to darkness much father in the future. Look at the after-effects Team Plasma had caused in Unova. Look at Team Galactic in Sinnoh, and Team Magma and Aqua in Hoenn. Nothing good ever came out of an attempt to 'change the world for the better'.

The man who had asked about Aura earlier scoffed. "And you think two children like you can stop all of that?"

The girl on the stage shook her head, "No, I don't think we can. But if everyone unites for the same cause, surely a great change can happen!"

That was when she couldn't take it anymore. Leaping forward despite her friends' calls for her to stay put, Scarlett took to the stage, heavy feet trampling up the stairs three at a time. When she reached the top, she dashed for the centre of the stage. Ripping the microphone off the stand, she began to speak.

"Do you really think that 'changing the world for the better' is going to work?" She spoke passionately, putting all of her emotion behind the microphone. "Look at what happened with the Team Plasma incident. The team claimed that Pokémon deserved to be free, but were the Pokémon really happier being away from the Trainers who promised to help them get stronger? The friends they had made?" She drew in a huge breath before continuing. "And in the end, Team Plasma's leader was just using the Pokémon they 'freed' for his own selfish plans. What's to say they won't be any different?"

She whipped her head back to the man and gazed at him with all of the suspicion she'd gathered in the last few minutes. He gazed right back without a trace of emotion in his face.

"Young lady, just what do you think you're getting at?" The blonde woman delicately raised an eyebrow.

"What I'm getting at is this: your plan is never going to work, and even if it should, Pokémon and people will find a way to stop you!" With those final words, Scarlett leapt off the stage just as fast as she had run on. Dodging the stares of the crowd, she pushed rather violently through the throngs of people, and continued running farther and farther from the stage that held the two figures, whose icy eyes followed her every move. Scarlett felt the tiny hairs on the back of her neck rise up, but she ignored the feeling and kept running.

"Hey, hold on a moment!" Milo yelled, before taking off after her.

"Scarlett, come back!" wailed a distraught Teresa, but her friend didn't hear a single word of it. All she focused on was the thumping of her footsteps on the cobblestones, and her fiercely pounding heart.

Unable to stand still after watching their friend run away, Milo and Teresa followed in pursuit, sprinting out of the crowd. Burgundy gritted her teeth lightly before turning to face the stage once more. She promised in her thoughts to go after the young teenagers soon, but not until the duo have left the premises.

After the commotion settled down, Cilan gave the speakers an icy glare. "I hope you realize that if you should be lying about the 'great change' you propose, the League will hunt you down and dispose of your team, just like they have done in the past."

A slight incline of the head was all the green-haired Gym Leader received, and once Cilan decided it was over, motioned for his brothers and Burgundy to go find the teens. With all of them in agreement, they weaved out of the crowd.

As the crowd dispersed back to their regular lives, the mysterious duo began to disassemble the stage and pack up, probably to go to another city to tell the public about their mission.

The young woman's tone was steady as she spoke to her brother, but her eyes betrayed her fury and suspicion. "Who did that little girl think she was?" She dropped a plank of wood heavily on the ground before huffing. "Some sort of authority figure?" Her lips twisted, and her eyebrows furrowed. There was no denying it now; she was incredibly agitated. "She had no right to stand up there and address the audience!"

Her brother turned to her and soothingly patted her back. "Now, now. Remember to control your temper, Lacie."

"Whatever! You can't tell me what to do!"

His sister burst into a flurry of rather impolite words, all of which the young man ignored. He merely rubbed his chin in interest. "That girl is rather spirited. She'd fit right into our ranks, once she sees our way of thinking."

The young woman immediately ceased her racket. "Jordan, you can't be–"

"I am serious about this. I'm sure there's more to that girl than meets the eye."

Scarlett ran. She had never run harder in her entire life. She dodged the pedestrians with leaps and turns, and still she kept running. She couldn't pinpoint the truth of why she was running. Perhaps it was to run away from the watchful crowd. Maybe it was an attempt to remove the threat posed by those mysterious siblings. Or, it was to run away from the truth of what she had witnessed.

"Scarlett! Get back here!" Milo shouted, tearing at the ground with his swift movements.

Unable to keep up with her friends, Teresa collapsed to the paved road, clutching at her stomach. She opened her mouth to heave for air, before letting out a loud cry. "Where are you going?"

The girl kept running until she reached the end of the line. She climbed the stairs at a breakneck pace; stopping briefly only once she reached the top. She shoved at the doors as hard as she could, and when they burst open, she tumbled into the empty building. Slamming the doors shut behind her, she knelt on the carpeted floor and finally let her emotions run loose.

Tear after tear spilled onto the carpet, and Scarlett was powerless to stop them. Her nose involuntarily sniffed multiple times, before she let out a hacking cough. Her hands flew to her throat as she sucked in a large heaping of breath, only to begin violently coughing again.

She heard the faint sound of footsteps outside. They abruptly stopped, replaced by an insistent banging noise.

"Scarlett! Please, you have to let us in!" Burgundy's voice rang like a bell through the doors, slapping the sobbing girl in the face repeatedly. "What you did was the right thing!"

"Please don't be so rash," Teresa called out. "Let's work this out together!"

"Scarlett, they're gone now, so there's not need to get riled up about it!" Chili bashed his fist against the door once, startling everyone with his ferocity.

"Scarlett!" Milo's soul-crushing tone of voice snapped Scarlett out of her reveille. "You've gotta talk to us! Just one small chat!"

The girl slowly rose to her knees, before raising an arm to open the heavy doors. She had barely laid a hand on the door when it burst open from the other side. With a sudden leap, her friends crushed her in a group hug.

The adults also made their way into the gym, carefully going around the gigantic tangle of limbs that were Scarlett, Milo and Teresa.

"My, you had us all pretty worried there, Scarlett," Cilan remarked easily.

The girl sniffed loudly once, before rising to her feet. Teresa bit her lip in concern, and Milo stepped away from his friends, arms crossed firmly over his chest. He certainly had agreed with the passionate speech his best friend had made, and wished there was some way to alleviate the pain the duo had brought to her

"You did the right thing back there, Scarlett." Burgundy carefully patted Scarlett on the back. "Not many people would have had the guts to do that, especially with an audience who many not have shared the same opinions as all of us do." She gestured to the people who stood around them. "You're a very brave girl."

"I-I don't think that running off the stage was very brave." Scarlett's head drooped from mention of the marketplace.

"There's no need to be ashamed of yourself." Cress said in a pensive manner. "You wanted to get out of there, and there was no option other than to run out of the place."

"Yeah, and there's no use in crying over spilt Moo-Moo milk," Chili stated plain as day. His brothers glared at him for his lack of sensitivity, but he ignored both of them. "Come on now, instead of moping, you should be celebrating about getting your first Gym Badge."

"I guess you're right," Scarlett's voice was tiny, not at all filled with her usual excitement.

"You and Milo are planning on challenging the Nacrene City Gym, so it's high time you moseyed on out of here." Chili then proceeded to pushing all three of the young teenagers out of the door. "Go on, get moving!"

With a final wave, Burgundy, Cress and Chili all ventured deep into the restaurant, with the purple-haired woman declaring that she needed food after such an eventful day, and that she expected the Striaton Brothers to be courteous and allow her to have a free meal. This led to an outraged Chili demanding for her to pay her dues, no matter the circumstances.

Milo ran down the stairs, with Teresa following him much more slowly. Scarlett hesitated, still not feeling well from her tactical retreat.

"Hey," Cilan gently placed a hand on Scarlett's shoulder. "I promise that if they really are bad people, we will stop their plans." He stared into her eyes, spring green on emerald green, before he realized something very important. The girl wasn't only sad about that group's speech. Something about that group had deeply disturbed her, and he was curious as to what it was. "Is something the matter? Something bigger than that announcement they made just a few minutes ago?"

Scarlett wanted very much to tell him what the true matter was, but now that she had the chance, something held her back. Whether it was intuition, hesitation, or following orders, she knew that now wasn't a good time to spill. So she kept her mouth shut and shook her head, as she didn't have a good reply.

Cilan backed away from the girl with an inquiring stare, though he didn't ask anything else. "If you ever need any help, know that you can call me. I know what your dad has been through at times."

Scarlett nodded once before wiping her eyes on her arm. "I know." In her mind, she knew that if she had any trouble, she wouldn't call Cilan, or any of her dad's friends for back up. This was a secret in the family, and she wasn't about to betray it easily, without good reason.

"Scarlett, it's time to go!" Milo called over his shoulder. "Come on! Nacrene City and that Gym Leader-in-Training are waiting for us!"

"I wish you the best of luck," Cilan turned to open the doors of the Gym, but he stopped for a moment before his palm rested on the door. "And all three of you should stay as safe as you can." With those final words, he pushed the doors open and vanished into the building.

AN: And we finally meet a few of the big bads. On one hand, a calm and charismatic young man. On the other, a vivacious and sassy young woman.

Notes/Questions to Consider:
1. Though Scarlett is often at odds with Serena, in this chapter she protected her mother at least twice.
2. Now, a fairly obvious (but perhaps not so much when closely looked at) question: Are the mysterious duo really bent on changing the world for the better? Do they have an ulterior motive, a different agenda? Or is this their honest belief?

And of course, please review if you like it, or have an idea you want me incorporate, or if you have constructive criticism!

Stay tuned!
Sweetie147