I want to thank srgeman for not only reviewing but for agreeing to beta this story. I can't put into words how much your help has meant to me. A million thanks.

Let me warn you all, this chapter gets a little violent.

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Chapter 21-

Tristan saw the beam of light start to form and it hit him right in the eyes. He had no idea what to expect, but he expected something to happen. It surprised him then that nothing happened. At least he was pretty sure nothing happened. He looked over his body to make sure he wasn't injured. He quickly listed the pokemon that he owns in his head to make sure he still had all his memories. He went through the 12 times table to make sure he still had cognition. It looked to him like everything was still in order. Then he turned his thoughts to the blue orb. There were no thoughts there. No secret memories were unlocked. He still had no idea what it looked like let alone where it was hidden. Clearly the big bad memory unlocking ray was a big failure for Team Aqua. Tristan was sure that they'd take this crushing failure and huge loss of money well. Or not.

"Tristan, can you hear me?" Matt asked.

"Yes I can." he replied.

"Do you know where you are?"

"I'm at Team Aqua's hideout."

"Excellent!" he said as now more Aqua people closed in around Tristan, excited looks on their faces. He became acutely aware of the fact that he was strapped completely to a table and unable to do anything to defend himself from the almost certain anger his lack of new knowledge was about to cause.

"So, why don't you just tell me about the location of the blue orb then?" Matt asked.

"Yeah, about that. You see, I don't think the machine worked, because I have no new memories of the blue orb."

Matt looked at me with a frown on his face. "Are you blackmailing me for the information? You do realize that you have no bargaining power here. You will tell me the information I want to know or I'll be forced to become unpleasant."

"I'm serious! Do a lie detector test or something. I'm telling you, the machine didn't work. There are no new memories unlocked in my head."

Matt punched the wall with anger. Then the woman who had attached the sensors to Tristan walked over to Matt.

"Admin Matt, there is a possibility that it could take some time for the memories to be unlocked. Think of it like clearing away fog. It takes some time of the sun shining on fog to make it go away. We've hit the kid's memories with the ray, now it might just take some time for the fog to clear out."

Matt looked at her, then over at Tristan. "I guess that makes some sense. Okay, we'll put the kid back in his room and give it an hour. If he does not tell me where the blue orb is by then, then he is in for a world of hurt." he said, glaring at Tristan. "Oh, and you'll be fired." he told the woman. "Take him away."

The two grunts from before came over to Tristan and ripped the sensors off of him, causing Tristan to wince in pain. Then they undid the straps and tied his hands up again before shoving the gag back in his mouth and leading him back to his room. After they got there, they undid the rope and threw Tristan into the room. One of them threw his shirt in as well. Tristan got up and brushed himself off as the two slammed the door behind him. Tristan put his shirt back on, then began pacing around the room nervously. He had no idea what to do. He was pretty sure that the machine had not worked and there were no memories inside his head to be unlocked. But even if they did suddenly appear to him, should he tell Team Aqua where this orb is? He had no idea what they wanted with Kyogre, but it couldn't be good. Plus he had not forgotten about Flannery being locked away in the facility somewhere. All in all, things did not look good for Tristan…

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Gary stood with Officer Jenny, Gabrielle, and Sophie at the airport as the League helicopters landed. There were three of them and Gary assumed each held several trainers. Sure enough after landing, each helicopter was shown to be carrying four people. Gary recognized Wattson and Brawly, as well as Steven from his prominence as the league champion, but he was unfamiliar with the rest. He assumed they were gym leaders and elite four members and other powerful trainers. He leaned over to Gabrielle.

"So could you tell me who they all are?"

"Sure. You know Wattson and Brawly from your gym battles. Then that's Norman- he's the Petalburg gym leader. That's the elite four- Phoebe, Sidney, Glacia, and Drake. Then that's the current champion Steven. Then there's Kyle, the Orchid Town gym leader- he's Tristan's best friend just so you know. Then there's the current top coordinator Claudia, and I don't really know who those other two people are."

"Wow, that's a lot of high ranking people."

"Well, it is a shot to bring down Team Aqua, so I guess they're going all out."

The twelve new arrivals made their way over to the group of four. Norman went over to Sophie to see how she was doing while Steven and several others talked to Jenny. Kyle meanwhile made his way over to Gabrielle and Gary.

"I should be surprised that you're here but for some reason I'm not." he said to Gabrielle.

"Shut up Kyle. By the way, this is Gary. He's been travelling with Tristan."

"Nice to meet you. Tristan told me he was travelling with Professor Oak's grandson." he said, shaking Gary's hand.

"I'm the one and only." He replied. Gary was surprised to see how similar to Tristan that Kyle looked. The only big differences were that Kyle had black hair and brown eyes and looked like he worked out much more than Tristan.

"Well I don't know about you two, but I'm ready to do some serious ass-kicking. No one gets away with doing something to Tristan and Flannery."

"Ahh yes, I know how you would hate to see something happen to your dear Flanny-wanny." Gabrielle said mockingly. Kyle immediately turned a few shades redder.

"Yeah well, I know you're only here so you can get Tristan to like you as much as you like him. I guess we're even." Now it was Gabrielle's turn to blush. Meanwhile, Gary was confused.

"Wait, Flannery likes Tristan. The way she acted when we were in Lavaridge was crazy. And you like Tristan? As in like like?" Gary asked Gabrielle incredulously.

"Well…" Gabrielle said.

"What did Flannery do in Lavaridge?" Kyle asked.

"She was fawning all over him, trying to give him massages, hugging him a lot- it was ridiculous." Gary said. "Tristan was kind of weirded out by it though."

"Well of course he was weirded out. He knows how I feel about her." He said matter of factly.

"Hey you three, are you ready to move out? Let's go." Steven called out. Everyone made their way to the docks to get on two high powered speedboats. Everyone had agreed that going by air would be way too easy to track by Team Aqua and it would be hard to land several helicopters at the base without getting attacked immediately. So they rode on the boats to try and gain the advantage of surprise. It would take them about one hour to get there…

--

Tristan was still pacing around his room when he heard people at his door. Now he was starting to actually panic for the first time since he was taken. The two grunts from before came in followed by Matt. He shut the door behind him.

"So Mr. Chillar. I hope those cobwebs have shaken themselves loose enough to give you those memories back. Are you going to tell me where the blue orb is?"

"Um…yes. Yeah everything has come clear to me. I saw the whole thing in my head. It's a blue sphere thing right?" Matt was looking at him intently now.

"Yes it is." He replied.

"Yeah, it's in Meteor Falls." Tristan said, hoping beyond hope that Matt would buy it.

"The orb's at Meteor Falls?" he asked. "Of course, that makes perfect sense." He said, getting up and starting to walk around excitedly. Tristan inwardly sighed in relief. "It makes so much sense, that must be why we thoroughly explored Meteor Falls last year." He said, turning towards Tristan angrily. "Clearly you don't realize the magnitude of the situation you are in. Boys, take him to his new room. And why don't you give him the special on the way." He said as he stormed out.

The grunts advanced on Tristan and tackled him hard into the ground. They tied his hands behind his back and put shackles around his ankles that barely allowed him to walk. They then tied another rope around his neck which one turned into a makeshift leash to hold onto Tristan. They then proceeded to pull Tristan by the rope around his neck down the hallway. This made things very difficult for Tristan since the two grunts were walking normally and he was having trouble keeping up due to the shackles. Before long he tripped and fell. The rope tightened so much around his neck he could barely breathe. The grunts just kept walking, dragging Tristan along the floor. Tristan just focused on putting all his effort into breathing. He was able to stand up again when they entered an elevator and regain some control over this breathing. When the elevator opened, he did a better job with keeping up with the grunts. Maybe they were walking slower out of pity.

After going down a couple hallways, they stopped in front of a room. The grunts led Tristan in. It looked like a dungeon. There were stone floors, chains dangling from the walls, and several instruments that looked like they were designed to inflict pain. The grunts sat Tristan down on a wooden chair in the middle of the room and tied him to it. They then went out the door, leaving Tristan alone. He had not realized things were going to get this out of hand as quickly as they did. He warily eyed the chains on the wall as well as the torture stuff, wondering just how far Matt would be willing to go to get Tristan to talk. What truly scared Tristan was that there was no information to be tortured out of him. Which meant Matt might go to extremes in regards to his methods of extracting information. He might wind up being killed. Just as that thought entered Tristan's mind, Matt came in the door.

"This is going to be fun." he said. "I'm going to give you another chance to tell me where the blue orb is. Tell me and there will be no need to go through any pain. We will let you go, I promise. Just tell me what I want to know. And don't lie to me, it will only make things worse."

"I'm telling you, the machine doesn't work. I have no idea where the blue orb is."

Matt looked at him for a second. "You bring this on yourself then."

He took a table from one side of the room and put it near Tristan. He then took Tristan's left arm and outstretched it, laying his hand on the table. He then picked up a baseball bat and walked back to Tristan. While holding Tristan's arm outstretched with his left hand, he swung the bat down with all his might with his right. Tristan realized what was about to happen and tried to wriggle his arm free but couldn't. When the bat made contact he felt the bones in his arm break right in two. He screamed out in pain, his yells echoing around the room. He looked over at his arm and saw half of his forearm and his hand dangling about an inch lower than the rest of his arm. It hadn't broken the skin, which made it look even more horrible. He could literally see the ends of the bones. He looked back at Matt with a shocked look on his face.

"I like to start off with a bang." Matt said. "I've found it gets people's attention and forces them to realize that I'm not fucking around. So, about the location of the blue orb. Where is it?"

"I'm telling you…" Tristan wheezed through the pain, "I don't know. Please stop this."

"Me stop? You're the one that can stop this. Just tell me what I want."

"Please stop, just stop, just stop…"

Matt backhanded Tristan across the face, then punched him in the stomach and kicked him in the chest to get him to shut up. Tristan's breaths came in ragged gasps. Matt then went and untied Tristan from the chair. For a wild second Tristan thought he was being released. Then Matt grabbed him by the hair and dragged him over to a large basin filled with water. He then shoved Tristan's head into the water and held him under for a while. Tristan struggled to get out of his grip to get some air but to no avail- his damaged arm limited his ability to fight back. Just when Tristan thought he was about to die, Matt lifted his head out of the water.

"Did that help refresh your memory of where the orb is?"

All Tristan could reply with was coughing up water before finally shakily answering with a "No. There's no memory."

Matt screamed in anger and flung him against the wall.

"This is gonna hurt." he said. He then took Tristan's broken arm and put it in the shackles that were chained to the wall. Tristan's arm was just hanging straight out from his side. It didn't hurt at all really. Matt then pulled a lever that raised Tristan's arm above his head and then stretched it out some more. Little flashes of light burned in Tristan's eyes as the pain overwhelmed him. He couldn't even scream it hurt so badly. It felt like his arm was going to be ripped in half.

"Let me give you some time to think about your answer to my question." Matt said as he left the room.

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I warned you!