A much quicker update that my past several ones. I hope to continue to have more than jsut one ever month, that's not a schedule that I was happy with. Anyway, we've got our first chapter in the new story arc, The Asylum. It's really fun to write, so that might persuade me to get more of it done faster.

Review Response: Keldabe- Dexter was there when Dawn was getting attacked by Ruby, Dawn just didn't recognize him during her point of view. When it comes to Night, his mind is under the power of sugestion (kinda like how Dark types still get effected by hypnosis,even though it is a psychic move) I'll go more into explaining how that Kadabra can do it. But yeah, Psychic types are just so fun to make strong, so can't argue with you on the op part. (They need a nerf lol)

Alright, that seems to be everything for the pre-chapter round up. Onto Chapter 25!

I had her, she was right in front of me and I let her get away.' Sounded my thoughts as I realized how close I was to getting the revenge I'd been craving for years. She was right there and all I had to do was finish her. Not kill her, just… just.

"Ruby."

I raised my head to see Aqua looking at me with concern. Ion had convinced me to waste the day at this fancy little cavern in the city underground. The reds and violets made it warm enough so I was trying not to have the worst day of my life. Ion and Dexter were off somewhere or something, I really wasn't paying too much attention so they could've been in Johto for all I knew.

"What?" I responded bitterly. The Vaporeon was sensitive so I usually kept by anger hidden when around her, but I didn't have the mental facilities for that anymore.

The water type flinch "I-I was wondering i-if you were, um, okay? We can talk if you wan-"

"I don't want to talk about it, really." I said bluntly as I sighed "It won't help."

Aqua gave a weak smile "I don't know, my mother always told me to vent .It helps more than you know." She shrugged "I mean, what else did you want to do to that Purrloin? You already hit her and scared her."

I shook my head "That's not enough. She deserved worse."

Aqua rose a brow in worry "Like what?"

I looked away. I didn't want to kill her, just beat her up some more. In the moment though… I wasn't so sure if I would have stopped if no one intervened. "I don't know… she hurt me Aqua, really bad. Worse than anything else. I wanted her to know that, so she'd know how much pain she'd caused."

"But what would that do? Yeah she'd feel worse but that doesn't affect you." Said Aqua logically, problem was I didn't have time for logic in my selfish anger.

"You don't understand." I mumbled.

Aqua looked at me with sad eyes. Maybe she liked me for some reason, we were the only non- males around. Did she feel bad for me? No, I wasn't that pitiful yet. "Okay. I don't, I'm sorry for making you talk about it more."

"Don't worry about it." I said with a smile that perfectly hid my still boiling anger. Dawn was still going to pay.

I just needed to wait for another chance.

Dexter's point of view

"So Dexter, what did you do before you got caught?"

My ears snapped to attention, it was time to lie again. Ion, like the other Pokémon in my new group, seemed nice enough. He hadn't given me any reason to think negatively of him. But after you've lived through what I had done it was much easier to fib than to explain.

"Nothing special. I'm just an Espeon trying to find something to do with his life." I said boringly hoping to put the subject to bed.

Ion smirked a bit "Oh come on. Nothing. Not even a story for those blue eyes?"

"Blue's an exaggeration, they just have slight blue tint because my mother is a Vaporeon." That was a pure lie. I had no idea who my parents were and had no time to worry about it, but the Vaporeon part did spice up the lie.

Really wanting to get off the subject of me I shifted the conversation to Ruby. "Tell me Ion, does Ruby always act that impulsive?" I very much wanted to see how he would answer.

The electric type sighed and looked about the room "Dexter, Ruby's a tough one okay? She's usually a bit harsh but rarely does she ever get the way I saw her today." He looked at me "Don't judge her for it. Dawn and her go way back and there's some seriously bad blood between them-"

"That no one feels comfortable actually saying." I responded.

"No offense Dexter, but you've been with us for a day." Replied Ion with a laugh "People aren't going to open up their guts for you."

I smirked and flicked my ears "Fair point." But that didn't quell my appetite for information. I couldn't read his mind, I promised Night and myself that I would stop that. I had to put those thoughts away and recognize that there were some things I would have to find out the old way.

Ion sighed "Maybe we should head back to the Pokémon Center. I hoped this whole thing would blow over but everyone's all bummed out now."

"Perhaps we should. I do find it bizarre that my trainer would just let me loose like this the day after I was caught. I could just run away." I said, thinking out loud, hoping that he would respond.

"Jack's a trusting human. Plus he gave you a chance to leave yesterday before he officially caught you." Said Ion "By the way, what kind of Espeon just accepts being caught like that?"

I raised a brow "I'm sorry?"

"Like, you just accepted being caught like you expected it." Mentioned the Jolteon.

"I was lonely." I said honestly "Being independent is nice and all but there was a crushing isolation about it. You may not know it, but when you are alone for a period of years with just your thoughts…" I paused before I said too much "Just know that I'm glad to be able to talk with people now."

Ion smiled again "Don't worry about it. I even made you tell me something about yourself."

I laughed a bit "Looks like you did. Well then how about we makes things even?"

Ion raised a "What do you wanna know?"

"It seems like you know about the Resistance, how?" I asked hoping he'd honestly answer me.

The Jolteon smiled "I don't know if you noticed, but I knew that Machoke we saw earlier. He's an old friend from Pallet town that was really into freedom and such. The Resistance started to get some attention when they started to attack Team Rocket compounds and squads, so he went to join them."

"What do you think of them?"

Ion shrugged "The Resistance, they must be alright if Choke's with them."

Razor's point of view

"They're not here, of course they aren't here. Why would they be? They needed some free time too." I complained as we realized that Katherine, Desmond and Jack were nowhere to be seen.

"It's fine Raze. They'll be back and then we can tell them everything." He stopped himself "Well, Fern can write down what happened."

I frowned "I know, I know. But I had it all planned out. We'd walk in. Then they'd freak and we'd explain via Fern here. We can't do that now. Now we have to wait here awkwardly until they show up. They'll wonder where Night is and it'll be so much worse."

"Why?" Asked Fern "If anything this gives me more time to write the note."

"Yeah, But we still have to wait... I hate the waiting." I said nervously.

"Why don't you go for a walk then? It's a couple hours past noon so everyone should be back soon. Get some air and calm down." Suggested Spark

I sighed, maybe that was what I needed. It had been a while since I was that on edge. A walk sounded perfect "You're right." I walked to the door "I'll just calm myself down…"

The moment I stepped outside I took in a deep breath, a really deep one. The air wasn't a pure and crisp as the stuff in Pallet Town, but it did feel good. I let the sunlight bath me and let my bulb do the work of energy maintenance. You wouldn't know this, but as a grass type the sun was the end all be all. It was the best thing about any day. If it was a drug, then I was addicted.

'I might not even need a walk.' I thought 'This is enough by itself.'

As I thought that some movement caught my eye, something had just moved in the alley next to the Pokémon Center. I looked behind me through the glass doors and saw Spark and Fern looking over a piece of paper.

"I can check stuff out by myself." I said to no one "Just need to quell my curiosity."

After making sure that Spark and Fern didn't see me look back at them I walked towards the alley. It was probably just a wild Pokémon or something but after the day I had just had I needed some type of closure in a situation. Rounding the corner I found myself in a tight corridor with just enough space to fit me twice. Looking ahead I saw a blue form sticking out from behind a trashcan.

"Hello?" I asked "Anyone here?"

"You're from the road." Sounded a slithery male voice in my ear. I jumped and turned around. A Pidgeotto, the Team Rocket one that we had fought on the way to this city, was perched on a trashcan. His large talons gripped the lit so tight I could see dents forming and in the shadow of the alleyway his amber eyes seemed to shine.

"Um yeah I am." I said quickly regretting my little adventure.

"Don't be so creepy Ace." Spoke a feminine voice from further down the alley. Twisting around again I realized that the blue form I had seen was the Glaceon that the Rockets were using to fight. The ribbon-like appendages that hung from the crystal formation on her head blew in the slight breeze and an unimpressed looked adorned her face.

"Crap." I said quietly. I had to come up with a plan "Don't do anything stupid now. I have two friends in the Pokémon Center and if there's any trouble here…"

"Stop panicking, I'm embarrassed for you." Said the Glaceon "Any why would we be picking fights, we have our own lives."

"We just need to know something." Said the Pidgeotto from behind me. He hopped down from the trashcan as the Glaceon got closer "What the hell did you and your friends do to our trainers?"

I blinked in surprise "What?"

"We woke up on the side of the road and everyone was gone. You, your friends and trainers, and the Resistance members we had apprehended. We just want to know what happened." Said the Glaceon.

"How do you expect me to know? We got knocked out too. I know as much as you do… I guess I'm sorry that your masters are missing but-"

"If that is true than why is that Espeon in your group trying to blackmail us?" demanded the bird. I back up into a wall and both of them stood in front of me.

"An Espeon… Dexter? How did you talk with Dexter, and when?" I asked in worry.

"He approached us and said he wanted to trade information tonight, he even talked about how he knew they were missing." Said the Glaceon before putting a paw on my chest "I won't get physical, I don't hurt people that might be innocent. But if I find out anyone in your group has anything to do with this…

"We don't-" I tried to squeak in.

"It's a world of pain if we find out you were involved." Finished the Pidgeotto. Both of then turned and walked further down the alley in silence.

'Dexter talked with them… he must've done it sometime today when he was with the others.' I thought as I made my way to the light of the sun. Whatever had happened with their trainers Dexter was now my concern.

"What the hell was that Espeon doing making deals with Team Rocket?" I asked myself.

The only way to get an answer was to talk to him.

Crystal's point of view

Team Rocket has done some bad things, I can be the first to admit that. Granted, what organization didn't do shadowy things to gain some power in this world. I'm not going to defend them, their actions speak for themselves. We do what is necessary to unite Kanto and Johto and what was necessary at that moment was finding my trainer.

I'm a Glaceon like most others except I'm in a region most of my kind never even heard of. We're mostly bred in human hands so we are mostly pampered and never have to worry about the troubles of the world. I don't have that luxury and as Ace and I made our way to the other side of the alley way I knew that the problems of the world were all around us.

"That went as well as it could've." Said Ace with a sigh "Do you think he'll tell his friends."

Ace… what can I say about Ace? He was a life-long friend, the best one I ever had. We had different opinions of course and had out occasional argument, but that was what made our friendship strong. We'd been through a lot in Team Rocket, we just needed to get through this too.

I shrugged "Doesn't matter. If they have anything to do with Andrew and Amber's disappearance it will be in our favor. If he does speak then the others will wonder why the Espeon spoke with us, if he doesn't tell anyone we still get to talk with the Espeon."

"What if he talks and they just ambush us at the meeting spot?" asked Ace.

"That's the lucky part. We just talked to that Bulbasaur in the best spot possible, right where we were told to meet the Espeon." I said.

Ace smirked "So I'll be on lookout and you'll be close by. If they come with a group then I can tell you to get out of there. If he comes alone than everything will be safe."

"Yep." I replied "If all this works out and they know where Amber and Andrew are we'll be able to squeeze the information out of them."

"But if they know nothing we'll have to take the fight to the Resistance, and for that we'll need to find a way to contact command." Mentioned Ace.

"You're right. But we can't worry about that now. Let's just assume that the Bulbasaur keeps everything to himself and we meet the Espeon… how credible do you think he is?" I asked.

Ace shook his head as we stepped out into the sunlight at the end of the alley, on the other side of the Pokémon Center "It's hard to tell. Part of me want's to say he's just a phony, but name dropped the Rook by codename. How the hell would he know about that?"

"Maybe he's ex-Rocket." I said "But that doesn't answer why he knew her gender."

"We don't even know the Rook's gender." Replied Ace "He could be lying there. If we had access to the database we could search for any ex-Rocket Espeon's."

"But we don't have it because our trainers were the ones with the communications with headquarters. Crap." I said.

"No use talking about things we don't have control over right?" asked Ace with a smirk "We'll get through this."

I sighed. He was right.

"You alright Crystal?"

I gave a fake smile "Yeah. We've never spent this long away from them is all."

The Pidgeotto nodded "It's hard, I know. But we have to stay focused if we want the find them."

Nodding I looked back at the alley we had just left "Then we should get to it, we have an Espeon to meet."

Dawn's point of view

Darkness. That was all there was. I looked around, the dark was so pure I couldn't tell if I had gone blind. The only thing reminding me of my sight was my warm breath hitting the cold air in front of me.

"Hello?" I asked, hoping someone would hear me.

Silence.

Fear started to creep into me. This wasn't natural, this wasn't a real place. I looked down at my feet and they were just standing in the darkness. Nothing existed here, just me.

"Nothing? That is where you are wrong Purrloin." Boomed a deep, powerful voice.

I gripped my arms tightly and gave a short scream at the mysterious voice. My mouth started to tremble making it impossible to speak. I looked around frantically for any sign of another being but was greeted with nothing.

"The Dark is something Purrloin. The Dark is pure. The Dark is me." Sounded the same voice.

How was he reading my thoughts? Was this a dream? No, no dream I had ever had was this vivid. It was real, almost more real than consciousness, like this place was true existence.

"W-Who a-a-a-are y-y-" I shuddered.

"You don't ask questions girl, not to me. Not to the Dark." Responded the voice. It wasn't like a normal sound, it came from all directions, like I was inside it.

"I'm s-s-sorry-"

"Did I say you could speak? I don't recall giving you permission!" shouted the already loud voice. I pulled my ears down to my head and fell to my knees. I had closed my eyes, but when I did it felt lighter. The darkness I was currently in was darker than closing my eyes. This couldn't be real.

"Did I scare you Purrloin? Look up." Spoke the voice again.

I continued to tremble hoping that this was a dream and waking up was only moments away. My heart spiked as I felt a wispy form softly clutch my jaw.

"I said look up!" boomed the voice as my head was forced up. My eyes must've been tricking me, there was no way.

His piecing blue eyes were like a match in the darkness that illuminated the white collar around his head. His body, if you could call it that, seemed to blend into the darkness around it making it impossible to discern from the environment.

"Do you know me little girl? What's my name? You are a dark-type so you must know me at least." Questioned the Pokémon before me.

"Y-you're Darkrai."

"And what a pleasure it is to meet me."

"Dawn-"

My eyes opened and it was like the sun glaring into a dark room. I gasped as I felt my body on something cold and metal. My breathing sped up as I realized I was out of… out of wherever I had just been.

"Dawn calm down." Spoke the voice of Pyro, who promptly leaned over me "I get the feeling we've been out for a while."

I blinked and forced myself to at least sit up. The red light was the first thing I noticed, the second being the cage we were encased in. It took my eyes a second to adjust to seeing light again, but when they did I turned to Pyro.

The Charmander looked relatively unhurt, which was impressive after he had been slammed into the wall by that weird looking Ivysaur. The cloth bandages around his waist and arms was a little dirtier and had some dried blood on it. A smile still shown on his face and besides a few scratches he looked fine.

"Pyro." I said "What happened?"

"They knocked us out." Pointed out a new male voice from behind me. My head snapped to the direction and a pair of glowing red eyes and yellow rings was my reward. An Umbreon, one of the more popular Pokémon in the human world, was standing there.

Pyro faced him "You're up, good. I was hoping you weren't hurt."

"I'm fine." Replied the male Umbreon as he started to walk towards us "Just a tiny bit groggy." I recognized him from before, the Umbreon that Kadabra had brought to us before we got knocked out. He had a confident air about him and the way he walked made him look like he thought he was important. He was on the chubby side, but that might be my bias from starving for the past few years of my life.

Then I remembered, the Oran berries that Espeon had helped me get "My bag, they took it…" I mumbled. The Espeon… why did I feel like I had just seen him?

"We'll get it back." Quickly said Pyro.

"That isn't the main problem right now though. I wanna figure out where we are." Spoke the Umbreon "But I guess we should introduce ourselves first since we appear to be trapped together in whatever this is."

"Trapped?" I asked as I looked around. A cage, we were in a cage. Granted it was the largest one I had ever seen but the idea still scared me.

"Well, Dawn and I already know each other." Said Pyro "What do you call yourself?"

"Night." Replied the Umbreon "Your names are Pyro-"he looked at me "And Dawn right?"

"Yeah." I said still looking around the metal cage we found ourselves in. The place wouldn't have been so intimidating if there wasn't that ambient dull red light that gave everything a sinister sheen.

"It's nice to meet you, even if it is in a piece of crap place like this." Said Pyro with a smile.

"There are Pokémon in the cages around us." I said as my hearing cleared up "I can't tell how big the room is but it sounds like a lot of them."

Night sighed "Then this must be some kinda bizarro creppy status dungeon place."

"I'm pretty sure that this is the Asylum." Commented Pyro, something that got both of our attentions.

"Asylum, like a mental hospital?" I asked.

"No, it's just a name. I heard about it from the Resistance. It's apparently a underground facility that captures Pokémon." Said the Charmander as he thought.

"Really?" asked Night "Sounds like those Team Rocket guys might be behind it then."

"I'd say that too if those goons who captured us didn't have that speak about them being from Team Galactic, another band of idiot that just happen to follow some other megalomaniac bend on exerting control." Replied Pyro with a sigh "Either way things aren't looking too hot." He waved his tail around "Get it, cus I literally make fire?"

"This is serious Pyro." I said with worry.

"I liked it." Peeped Night.

"Yeah, the thing about the Asylum is that it's never been confirmed. Everyone that goes in is said to never come out." Said Pyro.

"Then where do the stories come from? The fricken' ether?" questioned the Umbreon.

"Intel I guess." Answered Pyro.

"But stories won't help us know." I said before sighing "Right now we're stuck in this cage and that giant lock says we're headed nowhere until someone in charge wants us too. I think we wait it out and see what happens and-"

A loud metal pang rang through the room as the three of us turned to look in the direction. Another cage across the room was lifted up to a now open part of the ceiling. Once the cage, which seemed to be floating by itself, was in the hole it closed up leaving us with that red light in the darkness again.

"What was that?" I asked to no one in particular.

"Don't know, but it just became the thing that we're waiting for." Said Night before sighing "This might be a good time for a nap."

"Yes Purrloin, go to sleep. Join my domain again." Boomed Darkrai's voice in my head.

My body shook, that wasn't a dream voice, that was real and in my head. Darkrai couldn't just be in my head, impossible.

"Come on now Purrloin. You should know that when you're dealing with me… nothing is impossible."