Yeah, this chapter is shorter than the others. It's more fillery too. Sorry. A couple of scenes that just really expanded on their own, because dammit I try to be realistic with injuries!

...I hope you like it. I hope it doesn't suck.


The hospital hummed with the flickering of fluorescence that cast light everywhere. The stark sterile whiteness, the clinical atmosphere, the complete lack of shadows, even at night, gave this temple of medicine an eerie feel. Standing next to a doctor-Dr. Lanski, according to his nametag-by Bree's bedside as his friend awaited the verdict, with Bianca sitting in a chair picking at a loose thread, Cheren couldn't help but feel apprehensive and ill at ease.

"Do you realize," said the doctor to Bree as he looked over her medical report, "Just how lucky you are?"

The final score of injuries that Bree had collected from falling several hundred feet off of her Archeops? A litany of assorted cuts and bruises, a mild concussion, a badly twisted ankle, two cracked ribs, and a dislocated shoulder. An EMT had realigned her shoulder on the scene before muscle spasms had the chance to set in and the Icirrus hospital was well-known for its orthopedics unit. Bree was incredibly lucky.

But luck could only go so far with more serious injuries, an unpleasant truth that Bree was learning just at that moment.

Dr. Lanski adjusted the sling that would hold Bree's shoulder in place until it healed more. "I want you to stay here overnight," he said. "I need to make sure there are no underlying injuries before I can release you."

Bree groaned, partially out of frustration, partially from the pain that cut through the sedative. "And then can I take off this stupid sling and ankle bandage?"

The doctor shook his head. "Bree, I don't think you understand your injuries. Even with our medical technology, your ankle will take two weeks to heal, your ribs will take a month, and your shoulder will take two months. And it will take longer for everything to return to full function. I don't want you taking off that sling for two weeks, and the bandage until the end of the week. Then I want you to do some physical therapy exercises to return to normal function more quickly."

"What?" Bree sat up on her good arm in the hospital bed in protest. "I can't do that! I need to get going right now!"

"She doesn't have time," said Cheren. "There's an emergency."

"Yeah," Bianca added as she stood up. "There's, like, something really important that she's got to do right now!"

"Well," said the doctor eventually, "There are two experimental treatments, all injections, that would work, but they would cost extra. One is an anti-inflammatory medication followed by a steroidal agent that promotes the repair of connective tissue such as ligaments, which were damaged with the sprain and dislocation. The other one is a sort of artificial bone, like the surgical glue sometimes used. It's derived from the silk in cocoon pokemon like Metapod, and it will provide a mesh framework for your ribs to repair themselves more quickly, as well as cushioning them so you can breathe more easily."

Bree nodded, so vigorously that she looked like a bobblehead doll. "Why didn't you tell me before? Let's do this!"

Of course, when the doctor actually came back with the medicine, Bree's mind registered, NEEDLES! and so immediately went into Panic Mode. And so Cheren and Bianca (since pokemon who didn't work for the hospital weren't allowed out of their pokeballs during treatment) found themselves in the unenviable position of holding down their thrashing friend with one hand, holding her hands for comfort and support with the other, and somehow growing a third hand to untangle the IV cords that she had gotten snarled up in her panic while Dr. Lanski quickly administered the injections.

Whimpering as the needles were withdrawn, Bree burrowed her head into the front of Cheren's jacket. "I'm sorry," she said.

Cheren merely brushed back her hair. "It's okay. No, seriously. We're all stressed right now."

"But N's gotten so much stronger now," Bree protested. "And look at you! You've gotten stronger too. Hector's even evolved while Erik's still a Litwick!" Indeed, Bree had seen Cheren's dragon-type as she was being loaded into the back of the ambulance. The beige Axew had evolved into a muscular Fraxure; his coal-black hide studded with gleaming cobalt markings. The scars from Idoun's attack were barely visible, only discernible in the right light.

And yet Erik remained the same, unevolved, stuck in his basic state. And Idoun was nearly as recalcitrant as when she was first caught. It wasn't that Bree was jealous; it was just that...

...How could she get strong enough to defeat N now? How strong would she have to be, and how quickly could she get that strength?

Something small with three prongs was placed into the palm of her hand. Bree looked down to see Cheren's hand withdrawn, the Freeze Badge where it was a moment ago, resting comfortably in her palm. She glanced up, her brow furrowed in confusion.

"Brycen said to give it to you."

"He said you earned it for going after N in the tower," called Bianca from the corridor as she walked back from the bathroom. "And that you're going to need it so he shouldn't waste your time, or something like that."

Digging out the badge case from deep within her bag, Bree slid it into place with her thumb. "Why didn't he give it to me personally?"

"I believe he's on the phone with Champion Alder," Cheren said, staring out the window in the general direction of the gym. "He hasn't gotten off since you arrived." That was at least three hours ago.

And now the doctor was returning with a slip of paper in his hand. "You said that you needed to get out of here more quickly, right?" At Bree's loud agreement, he continued. "There's not much else I can do to help you heal more quickly, but I filled out this prescription for you."

Cheren looked over his friend's shoulder to read the barely-legible script. After several failed attempts (seriously, was illegible handwriting a job requirement or something?), he managed to sound it out.

"Codeine? Why did you prescribe that?"

Then Bree began to feel the previous dose of painkillers begin to wear off and made the reasons for prescribing it very, very clear.

Cheren and Bianca soon left to let their friend rest. However, with one hand resting on the wall by the door, Bianca looked back. Her hair flopped over and her beret was still slightly tilted from the fight as she said, "Bree, please promise me that you won't push yourself too hard. We'll figure out how to stop N, I promise."

But Bree said nothing, didn't even give Bianca a token nod as she stared out the window, at the tower several miles away.

Slowly closing the door, shoes sliding on the tiles, Bianca ran down the bare hall and embraced Cheren, stifling herself into his shirt. A hesitant hand pulled her into a hug.

What else could they do?


It came down thick, hard and fast. Not just snow, but a bona fide blizzard, raging and howling to the point where Bree could barely see twenty feet in front of her-the rest of the world was lost to the white.

And yet here Bree was, less than twenty-four hours past her fall, back on the pathway up to Dragonspiral Tower. Here she was, in a blizzard so violent that even snowbound Icirrus canceled school for the day, training herself and her pokemon.

Her ankle had screamed in pain the first several halting, limping steps out of the hospital, but the codeine soon took care of that. And now the snow which sucked her in several inches deep numbed the sprain further. It didn't hurt to walk; all she felt was a dull ache.

She had to get stronger. She had to get stronger, and so did they. N had Reshiram. N was going to win. N was going to take over Unova and force everyone to release their pokemon and she'd never see Kazumi or Kaylee or Simon or Eve or Erik or Idoun again, and her friends would never see their pokemon again either. And did N even know what he was doing? Was he even sure anymore?

That look in his eyes...That frantic, wild-eyed, My god, what have I done? look; thinking about it, Bree realized it was the look of someone who had backed himself into a corner and had just realized he had left himself with only one option. It wasn't a look she was going to forget any time soon.

Combined with the command...No, the plea...Bree was becoming more and more convinced that N truly had no idea what he was doing. That someone else was busy pulling the strings.

Bree had an inkling of whom it could be, but she wasn't focused enough at the moment to think about it. Because no matter who the real head of Team Plasma was, it was N who had Reshiram, and it was N she had to beat. No matter how much it might hurt.

So there she was, in the blinding snow, training (grinding) Erik and Eve until her Archeops would burst in and out of snowy mounds without losing speed, and Erik evolved into a Lampent. The moment of evolution was played out before her, in the form of a melted ring of snow, and the scattered shards of his radiation cap that broke upon his change. But the Lampent no longer needed an artificial shield, for he had grown his own.

And yet, even as hail began to pelt down, in large enough chunks to send Eve diving for cover and back into her pokeball, Bree continued to train.

Shielding himself against the howling snow and pounding hail, Erik tugged on the hem of Bree's jeans. Bree, what are you doing? Please, it's not safe for you to be here in your condition.

What Bree was doing was training with Kazumi. Training herself with Kazumi. As in borrowing one of the shell blades and fighting her Samurott with it, blade against blade. Listing to one side, compensating for the weight shifted off her injured ankle and the heavy blade gripped in one hand tracing a line in the snow, Bree beckoned with the hand wrapped in the sling, involuntarily wincing at the movement. "Shut up, Erik. I'm fine. We've...got to be...stronger. Come on, Kazumi!"

But the Samurott shook her head, shaking off build-up snow and ice from the movement. No, Bree. I won't spar with you in this state.

"No," the teenager protested, utterly refusing to take no for an answer. She wiped off the sweat that beaded on her brow despite the bitter cold and continued to stubbornly train. Hefting up the large blade with her good hand, staggering back a few steps, Bree righted herself and, swaying erratically, approached Kazumi. The sword swung wildly, without any form or direction.

With an imperceptible twitch of her muscles, Kazumi effortlessly blocked the erratic swing. Grabbing the dangling sword, she plucked the blade out of Bree's hand and sheathed it. Kazumi dropped to all fours and looked her hunched-over trainer in the eye, red meeting blue.

Bree, Kazumi said in a level tone, a slight curling of her upper lip the only sign of her shortening patience, You need to go back to the hospital. You're shivering. You seem very pale. Your lips are blue. You can't train like this. You can't defeat N if you kill yourself!

"...'m okay," Bree mumbled through numb lips and paralyzed mouth, her eyes half-closed. She swayed on the spot. "...Not even cold..."

And it was true. Bree wasn't feeling cold anymore; if she thought about it, she would have realized that she stopped feeling cold a while ago. The bitter slicing winds, the damp chill that soaked through her jacket and clung to her bones, Bree no longer felt any of that. Even the sprain, the healing dislocation, the cracked ribs, Bree barely felt those injuries any longer.

Instead, she felt numb. Nice and tingly and a pleasant numb all over. She closed her eyes. It felt so nice and cozy here in the snow. All she wanted to do was curl up and fall asleep in this blanket of white.

A soft sigh escaped those frostbitten lips as Bree toppled over, falling unconscious into the snow.

Kazumi and Erik immediately ran over to her; the Samurott tried to nuzzle her trainer back into consciousness while the Lampent cradled her, holding his trainer close to his heat. It was when they placed their limp trainer onto Kazumi's back that the two pokemon realized-truly realized-just how small and frail and weaker than they she was. How easily and effortlessly they could leave her to freeze, or finish the job themselves.

Warming her with his inner flame, Erik shielded Bree from the cold as Kazumi walked them both back to the hospital. And when the movement jostled the pokeballs strapped to her belt and Kaylee popped out, the Stoutland shared her thick warm coat with Bree without even thinking about it.


Wherever she was lying, it was warm and soft. It hurt to move. It hurt to breathe.

Those were the first three thoughts to enter Bree's mind as she slowly regained consciousness. Cracking open her heavy eyes, she looked up into a white plaster ceiling, with a row of flickering fluorescent lights casting their pale glow all over the room. Which was also white. She was back in the hospital.

Raising her head and coughing violently (it hurt so much to breathe), Bree looked around at the figures by her bedside.

"Bree," cried Bianca, "Thank goodness you're awake! Your pokemon dragged you in; why did you do that?"

Cheren shook his head in disbelief. "Even for you, that was unbelievably foolish. Why you thought running yourself ragged in a blizzard after being severely injuried was a good idea is beyond me."

You're okay! said Kazumi, her muzzle resting on the bed by Bree's side. She lifted her free hand and scratched her Samurott just behind her ears. I got you here as fast as I could, but you were so cold...

Dr. Lanski's head was buried in his hand and for a while he refused to speak. "What," he finally said, "Were you thinking?"

Bree pursed her lips and thought about it. It was incredibly hard to think; she had a pounding headache that felt as if someone had placed her head in a vice and was slowly tightening it. "...I don't know," she finally said. "I needed to train, and train fast."

"Well," said the doctor, "You're not going to be training for the rest of the month because not only did you further injure your ankle, but now you also have pneumonia."

A short pause hung in the room, broken only by the beeping of the heart monitor connected to Bree. She closed her eyes and leaned back against the headboard. "Fuck."

At this point, as the doctor left, both Leader Brycen and Champion Alder entered the hospital room, their faces worried with concern. Alder spoke first.

"Brycen told me what happened," he said. Even through her feverish haze, Bree couldn't help but notice how much more stiff and strained the champion's voice was than before. "I don't know why N is so adamant about having you find Zekrom. To have both legendaries fight again...Last time, according to legend, they completely destroyed ancient Unova!"

Bianca's head snapped towards him. "What? But isn't that, like, really dangerous? Doesn't N want to protect pokemon?"

"Exactly," said Brycen, "Which is what leads me to believe that N does not fully understand what he is doing." He drummed his fingers on the nightstand next to the hospital bed. "Still, I don't think we have any other choice but to press forward here. Reshiram is...Extremely powerful. I know I wouldn't stand a chance."

"I might," said Alder, "But...It would be best to have Bree search for the Dark Stone."

"Why are you talking about me as if I'm not here?" she mumbled, drawing herself back into the land of the awake. "I said I'd do it. Remember how I got myself into this situation?"

"By being even more rash and stupid than usual," said Cheren in a serious yet not unkind tone.

Alder stood up straighter. "I've traveled all over Unova, so I have an idea where it might be. The Relic Castle by Route Four is as old as Dragonspiral Tower. The Dark Stone might be there."

Bianca pounded Bree's back; her friend had gone into another violent coughing fit. "But Bree's sick right now. There's no way she can travel to Relic Castle. And what if, like, Team Plasma gets there first?"

None of the teenagers were expecting Brycen to smile and Alder to laugh. "That's the first problem we had to take care of," said Alder. "And I think you're going to love my idea."

He leaned in close, as if sharing a secret to close friends. Which, in a way, he was. "There are so many caverns and tunnels in Twist Mountain," he said, "And Clay said that some of those tunnels were probably created around the time that Dragonspiral Tower and the Relic Castle were built." Alder smiled, waiting for everyone to get it.

Cheren was the first, and the grinning smirk that spread across his face would make a Gengar jealous. "Twist Mountain as a decoy hiding spot to distract Team Plasma while Bree recovers. I like it."

"Exactly. Clay's going to set up the decoy first thing tomorrow. Team Plasma may not fall for it forever, but they should long enough for Bree to get better."

"Which I'm going to do as fast as possible," Bree said, sitting up straighter even though her muscles weighed her down like bricks. "And my pokemon and I will be unstoppable, and we'll show N what he refuses to admit!"

Kazumi rumbled in agreement. You can count on me.


Curled up in a little ball, his white shirt pulled down over his scrunched-up knees, N was nearly invisible as he cried into Reshiram's sleek shining fur.

Ghetsis rolled his eyes and gagged silently. The scene was disgusting. It made him sick.

"I didn't mean for her to get hurt," N whimpered. The white dragon's fur tickled his lips as he spoke. It tingled in an odd but good way.

It made N think of Bree, and that...kiss(?)...back in Nimbasa. And now he felt that strange fluttery churning, painful-but-pleasant feeling in his gut again.

But it hurt even more to think about Bree, especially after...What he...

"She's not dead," said Zero. "Merely injured. She will recover."

A smirk and scoff from Ghetsis. "But not in time to recover the Dark Stone, right? Even if we can't summon Zekrom..."

N shouted, "No!" Five sets of eyes-three yellow, one red, and one blue-turned to the boy king. The designated hero found the ground crumble under him, but somehow summoned the strength to continue (just how Bree must have felt chasing after him). "She's the hero, F-Ghetsis. She has to get Zekrom! That's how it's got to be! And then, and then I'll defeat her. I'll win, because she's the other hero and I...I'm the real hero, right? Of course I am, I'm the real hero! And, and then I'll win, and she'll know I'm right, and she'll set her pokemon free and they'll...be happy. And then she'll know I'm right and she'll say I'm the king and she'll be my queen!"

His eyes were screwed shut, his hands were curled tightly into themselves as the words tumbled out. Ghetsis didn't notice his hesitation there, did he?

The sage's scouter flashed, but he said nothing. It was Bronius who entered the room and broke the silence by saying, "Sage Ghetsis! I got a report saying that some odd cavern has been found deep in Twist Mountain!"

The smile on Ghetsis' face was the kind that approaches very fast and has a fin on top. "Perfect," he said. "Shadow Triad? Let's go. N, quit your whining and come too. It's not kingly."

N stifled a sob and stood up. Not kingly? He couldn't be that. He was the king, that's what he was raised for his whole life. The king of Team Plasma, the friend and liberator of enslaved pokemon everywhere (Kazumi didn't seem enslaved. Neither did Kaylee, or Simon, or Eve, or Erik), the hero whom Reshiram had chosen.

He had felt trapped up there, trapped while Reshiram breathed behind him and the wind swept back his wild green hair and menger sponge dangling off his belt. Trapped in a corner of a maze that he had put himself with, while searching for the truth, and now he had found...something...and had to put it back because no way could it be true.

It wasn't true. It wasn't, it couldn't be! He was N Harmonia, the hero who was born for this, the prince who was crowned on his birthday! (He could remember only bits and pieces of the ceremony.) His (imaginary (according to Ghetsis)) people friends were somewhere too, cheering him on. So what if so few people were cruel to their pokemon on the Outside? So what if most pokemon liked being with their trainers? So what if people found other ways to help his hurt friends and punish the meanies without liberating all the others? He pushed the evil parts of him, now growing and threatening to take him over, now begging and pleading not to do this, somewhere far away.

He would show them! He would show Bree! He was the hero! He was right, right, RIGHT!

He would win!


A/N: OH MY GOD, BREE YOU ARE SUCH AN IDIOT!

Seriously, I can't believe how impulsive she was here! Aarrgh! Her injuries were pretty serious (a dislocated shoulder takes about 3-4 months to fully recover, and even in the pokemon world it wouldn't be all better immediately), and yet she trains in a blizzard? I really need to smack her.

So yeah. Now Bree's not only got the sprain, dislocation, and two minor fractures from before, but now she's also got pneumonia to boot. And she already has asthma! Don't worry, she won't die from it. But Bree's basically out of commission for the rest of the month, in-story time. Which means that she won't be able to battle until January (it's December in the story), and she won't be 100% until February.

She doesn't have that much time. Granted, Alder's little plan (didja like?) granted them a few more days of it, but...Oh, Bree...

And N! What do you think of him there? Please tell me you liked.