Chapter 38 A Dab of Heaven and Hell

For the evening after something so horrible, the night sky over Humilau looked beautiful. Skyla wasn't sure what to feel about that as she clung to her Skarmory's back, shuddering against the bitter cold that permeated the air. It was a far cry from the frigidity of Opelucid's ruined streets, but after spending so long there, everywhere felt too cold. Tired, hungry, and mentally drained after the day's events, Skyla was already upset to have been sent to deal with Marlon, but Champion Iris had insisted they couldn't wait. Marlon's refusal to assist with something so severe was unacceptable given the oath he had taken as a gym leader a while ago. Cautiously, she kept to the sky, suddenly not so sure she wanted to be on the ground in a city under Marlon's watch.

She expected to have to go to his home and wake him up, but she caught sight of a figure sitting in the opening at the back of his gym. Upon closer inspection, she realized that he was hugging himself tightly as he dangled his feet in the saltwater below. With a tap of her heel against her Skarmory's side, she gestured to him and the pokémon softly cawed in acknowledgment, angling herself to dive at the gym leader. Skarmory flared her bladed wings wide to catch herself just before ramming into Marlon, sending water spraying up onto him and causing him to stumble backwards as he tried to get away from her. Skyla took the opportunity to land her Skarmory there, blocking Marlon's escape into the ocean, and then slid from her pokémon's back. Narrowing her eyes, she looked around carefully, inspecting the dark, empty gym for anyone hiding, potentially waiting to handle her. She hated those paranoid thoughts…

"Gym Leader Skyla?" Marlon squeaked, then cleared his throat. He was in a light jacket and long, blue pants. "What—what are you doing here…?"

Crossing her arms, Skyla mulled over what to say, but honestly, all of it felt so pointless. She wanted to cry, to scream, to beg him for answers, but more than anything, she just felt like all the energy drained from her body at the very thought of it all. Exhaling defeatedly, she hung her head and clamped her hands over the back of her neck, just brokenly mumbling, "Marlon… why?"

"Why… why what?" he asked in that stupid, bumbling tone of his, nervously clutching at his hair.

Still, she just shook her head. "Why didn't you help with Opelucid? Neo Plasma attacked using a… a flying sailboat." She knew how ridiculous it sounded. "It shot ice all over the city. Froze the place. Dropped the temperature to some negative sixty degrees, Marlon. People died. Pokémon died. Gym Leader Drayden said he called you and you told him no… because…" She gritted her teeth, feeling a tiny flare of that fire in her belly, fighting so hard against the tidal wave of defeat to bring her back to life. "Because you were at the fucking store. Marlon. What the hell?"

As if to emphasize her point, Skarmory shrieked at him, shaking out its thin, bladed wings.

"I… I… I couldn't…" Marlon started to sputter, clutching his hands together and backing away. "Sk-Skyla…"

"Gym Leader Skyla!" she snarled, that anger finally managing to overwhelm the bitter hopelessness. Yet, it was just anger. Under different circumstances, when she wasn't as exhausted and perhaps hadn't seen as much death in a single day, she would have possibly been more sensitive to his obvious panic, the rising distant look in his blue eyes, but that day… It just pissed her off. She circled him, cutting him off from his escape route through the rest of the gym, stalking toward him with her shoulders arched. He backed up against her Skarmory and cowered from its sharp beak as Skyla snapped her next question. "What were you thinking? You're a gym leader! When things get bad, you help!"

"Sk—Gym Leader Skyla, you don't get it!" Marlon begged, starting to sink to his knees in front of her Skarmory, digging so tightly at his hair she fleetingly thought he might rip chunks of it out. "I—I can't fight Neo Plasma, I just can't, I'm sorry!"

"What the fuck do you mean you 'can't?'" she demanded, stamping a foot. She had to fight the urge to slap him as she loomed over him. Every fiber of her being wanted to. She couldn't believe him right then. "Do you think the rest of us had fun doing it? Not everything's meant to be a goddamn game, Marlon! Sometimes, things fucking suck, and because you're a gym leader, you have got to get up and deal with it anyway, because that's part of our fucking job!" She wiped her eyes and whimpered, biting her lip against the emotions that wanted to spill free. "Do… do you think I've been having fun?" she asked brokenly, that horrible emptiness threatening to pull her back under. "If I could have just afforded to give up without hurting others… Marlon… I would have. We all would have…" But we couldn't. I had to keep fighting. For everyone else's sake. So, why the fuck didn't he?

At her words, Marlon just cringed harder, scrabbling at the floor to get away from her. He accidentally leaned against her Skarmory's chest and the pokémon hissed, but didn't do anything to drive him away. Marlon reacted by practically curling into a ball, cowering as he covered his head. That gave Skyla some pause and she raised a brow, but before she could question him, he all but wailed, "I'm sorry! I—I'll do b-better! Won't happen again… L-Lord Ghetsis…" He was shaking like a leaf and sounded as if he were maybe crying.

Yet, Skyla staggered away, feeling as if she couldn't breathe. "Marlon."

"I swear, it w-won't, please… Don't… I know y-you don't like me to beg, j-just… I can't…"

"MARLON!" Skyla screamed.

He jolted and fell over. Her Skarmory screeched and slapped him away with its beak, putting some distance between itself and him. Looking lost as to where he was, Marlon leaned up on an elbow and looked at her. "Sk-Skyla…?"

"Why did you just say 'Lord Ghetsis?'" she pressed tearfully, feeling her legs start to shake.

"I… Skyla… I can't fight Neo Plasma because I was in Team Plasma!" he utterly howled, collapsing back to his side with his hands clutching at his hair again. "There! There! Now, you know!" He swallowed hard. "N-now you can do… whatever… you want…"

"I can't believe you!" Skyla burst into tears and jumped back onto her Skarmory. She hadn't heard the 'was' in his words. In her exhausted hysteria, all she had heard was that he still called Ghetsis, that horrible man, by his title, and that he was involved with Team Plasma in some way. His refusal to assist seemed to spell it all out for her. Gym Leader Drayden had given up on Unova all those months ago, but Marlon had been actively helping with Team Plasma, further gnawing at Unova from the inside out. She and the rest of the gym leaders had been fighting a losing battle. Wracked with sobs as she clutched her Skarmory's neck, she whimpered, "Sk-Skarmory, just… take me… Icirrus…"

Marlon scrambled from the ground, the light returning to his glassy eyes as he seemed to return to the present. "Skyla, wait!" he begged.

"No!" she howled. "No! St-stay h-here in Hum—Humilau!" she heaved at him as her Skarmory flew into the air, putting a good distance between her and the other gym leader. Overwhelmed, Skyla didn't know what they were going to do about Marlon yet, but as far as she was concerned, Marlon was no longer a gym leader and Humilau was no longer safe, as much of a warzone as Opelucid itself was.

Yet, on her way to Icirrus, where most of the other gym leaders had gathered along with the majority of Opelucid's evacuated citizens, she just bawled, and bawled, and bawled. She had tried so hard to battle the seas of hopelessness in herself for Mistralton and for all of Unova, but… she felt like she was drowning and couldn't keep her head above water at the thought of continuing to do so. She had taken the oath of gym leader, but that was before everything had gotten so bad. She missed the long nights hanging out with Elesa and helping her pick out her newest outfits or listening to her agonizing attempts at comedy routines. She missed when their meetings involved announcements such as Clay nerding out over another Plume Fossil until someone cut him off out of frustration, or when Burgh announced his newest initiative to handle the overpopulated pokémon communities that gathered around Castelia. She missed when her biggest threat from day to day was whether she'd make a flight in time. Even so, she couldn't quit; as vehemently as she had gone off at Marlon, part of it had been her projecting, she was sure. Before he had admitted he had been involved with Team Plasma, she had felt almost jealous of his willingness to give up. In fact, she was jealous of Drayden, as well. She wished she could have understood how they could both have just… given up.

Giving up sounded so wonderful right about then…

Sneaking into Icirrus hadn't been difficult. It was trying to find somewhere to shed that suit without getting spotted that she struggled with. Rosa cursed herself as she ended up deciding vanishing into the woods for a while before returning in the chaos was best. It was late in the evening and her adrenaline was flowing. She knew Nate and Hugh were in the city somewhere, assisting with the people that had been evacuated from Opelucid. Fleetingly, she thought back to Professor Juniper's grandmother, and hoped that the elderly woman wouldn't alert them somehow that she had snuck out rather than telling her she was leaving… Rosa had received a bone-chilling call from Dr. Colress back in that house in Lacunosa and had immediately left with the suit on, ready to defend Hugh and Nate at Opelucid. She was glad she had gone there, too; Nate had been trying to chase down a member of the Shadow Triad, undoubtedly leading him back to the Plasma Frigate for a trap!

There was, of course, something else… She found that, as much as she felt like crying when she looked at the suit and thought of the innocent Stoutland she had killed alongside Nate's horrid father, she lavished the rush of power that came with slipping it on. She had feared it at first, that frightening high that seemed to consume her when she wore that suit for too long, but that day… She had cherished it. The delicious escape from that nausea that had made its home in her stomach and the tears that had left her head throbbing with pain. Yet, with that suit covering her body and knowing Dr. Colress could have been in her ear or watching through her visor at any point in time… It was a disturbing, strange solace, a medicine that cured all that temporary pain. She was no longer just Rosa beneath that protective, metal shell. She was the Queen of Diamonds. Untouchable and unreal.

"Miss Rosa," Dr. Colress' voice suddenly filtered into her helmet. She paused everything and gleefully grinned beneath the visor, failing to notice his urgent tone. "You must lay low for a while. I see that you interfered with something Ghetsis was ordering the Shadow Triad to do…" She heard him swallow hard. "Why… why would you do that?"

"Why does it matter?" she asked confusedly. "They didn't do anything to me."

As if on cue, a dark figure appeared in front of her, and then two more at her sides. She jumped and glared at them.

"Miss Rosa…" Dr. Colress sounded strangled. "I didn't realize they were…" He paused. "Just… don't fight them…"

"I don't…" Panicking at that, she trailed off, then yelped as the three of them each grabbed her at once, stilling her arms. The third touched his free hand to her Emboar as well, and before she knew it, she and her Emboar were somewhere else entirely, somewhere even colder than the frozen streets of Opelucid. She felt the suit seize uncomfortably around her, as if the mesh suddenly couldn't move, and that wave of nausea resurfaced with vengeance. She quickly fought to get the helmet off herself, only just barely managing it before she vomited. Convulsing with the aftermath of that, she looked up from her knees fearfully, realizing she was in a dark, massive room. Part of the floor ahead of her looked to be made up of a cage, with eerie blue light providing the room with its only light. More pressingly, however, was the man in the dark cloak ahead of her.

Shuddering, she desperately hoped to hear Dr. Colress voice in the helmet again, but it never came. Furtively glancing behind her, she realized that was because he was there in the flesh, standing just a few feet away. His eyes sagged tiredly, focused on the floor, as if uninterested in her for the moment. His hands were clasped behind his back and his breathing was fitful.

"So, nephew," the man in the black cloak crooned (so Rosa had to conclude this was Ghetsis), "this is what you've been working on in your spare time?" He leaned on a sleek, silvery cane, boasting the Team Plasma insignia on a plaque at the top, leaning uncomfortably close to her. She grimaced at the way he referred to her. 'This.' Like I'm a thing. He grunted as he placed all his weight on his left leg, using the cane to shakily push at her chin, forcing her to look up at his face. Wrinkled and grizzled with age, she swallowed uncomfortably as she noticed the red eyepiece over his right eye, the way the right side of his lips failed to move with the rest of his face, especially as he smirked. "She's pretty, Colress," he coughed, a gross, wet cough.

Rosa thought to slap his cane away at the comment, but her suit was constricting her movement in the bitter cold, and she did fear this man. She had heard nothing but horrifying stories about him… including Dr. Colress' own tale he had spun for her. Her Emboar tried to heat himself up to assist her, but Ghetsis swiftly lashed it in the face with that cane. The Emboar squealed in shock and then cowered. Rosa thought to yell at him, but then thought twice as he brought that cane back to her chin, pressing alarmingly close to her throat.

"She's nothing more than an experiment," Dr. Colress adamantly insisted from behind her.

"Experiment, eh?" Ghetsis drawled. He pressed the cane painfully in on her throat. "Stand up, girl. What's your name?"

"Rosa," she hoarsely whispered as she shakily rose to her full height, wincing at the metal of the mesh that dug into her legs.

"That's quite the getup you're in," Ghetsis commented, red eye glittering in the dim light. Before she had a chance to respond, he leaned back on that cane and then staggered over to her, moving much faster than it seemed he should have been able to. Taking her up from behind, he used his left arm to press his steel cane across her chest, pressing it so hard against her body she found it difficult to breathe in his iron hold, and then he moved his unsteady, weaker right hand to cup her chin, digging his nails in painfully. Her eyes bulged fearfully as she could just barely see the wild grin he held as he vigorously shook her face, wolfishly glaring at Dr. Colress. "Is this what your plan was, Colress?" Ghetsis gleefully asked. "Is this your newest member of the Shadow Triad? Mm, Shadow Quartet, maybe." He just barely let go of her chin and stroked her cheek, far too gently considering the painful hold he had on her. She shivered at the way he softly crooned at her, "Aw, but she doesn't listen to my commands… She listens to yours… How quaint. My nephew couldn't get himself a mate, so he made himself one."

"D-Dr. Colress," Rosa whimpered, "what… what's going… what's happening?" She shuddered as Ghetsis stroked her face again, wanting so badly to fight him off, but the suit… it was so cold… She gritted her teeth as she remembered Dr. Colress briefly telling her something about how it didn't work well in extreme cold… Pleadingly, she looked at Dr. Colress. "Please…" Make him stop. Make this stop. You can make it all stop. Why haven't you?

Yet, Dr. Colress did nothing. His eyes just glistened in the blue glow of the room and he rubbed his face uncomfortably. "Uncle, she is just an experiment. She does not work the same as the Shadow Triad nor would you want her." He flicked his gaze to her momentarily and she thought she saw frantic anxiety in that normally spacey, amber stare. It gave her a sliver of hope. "She is an experiment into the effect of human emotion on action, given the appropriate tools. The Shadow Triad are obedient due to their suppressed minds. She operates on no such level. She is just an experiment."

"Aw, is that all she is?" Ghetsis frowned and clutched her chin again, moving forward, forcing her to stumble along with his steps. He was so strong… How was he so strong…? Those thoughts were lost on her as Ghetsis suddenly kissed her left ear and she felt the urge to vomit all over again, managing to instinctively struggle against his vice grip slightly. It only seemed to delight him, though, as he hummed contentedly at her attempts… or perhaps moaned. That made her feel so, so dirty and she whimpered pathetically in his hold. Dr. Colress watched and his lips twitched, flickering to the beginning of a snarl, then fading immediately. Please, Dr. Colress, say something, anything, she internally begged as Ghetsis carried on. "My, my, nephew, are you sure that's all? She is beautiful, and with your technology, you wouldn't even have to convince her to love you. You would just have to get her to obey. After all, no human would love someone as broken as you, would they?" Ghetsis murmured in her ear. "You knew no girl would dare touch a man like you, so you sculpted someone who would…~"

"That's enough, uncle!" Dr. Colress spat suddenly, baring his teeth like a vicious Herdier. He took a decisive step forward, trembling. "Leave her alone!"

Rosa didn't care what Ghetsis was talking about anymore. She just wanted him to let her go. She shivered violently in his grasp, both from the cold and from his horrible touch. It made her feel slimy and unclean. Yet, Dr. Colress' outburst, at last, drew forth her hope and she sighed loudly. Oh, thank Arceus, he's going to help me, she thought. Come on, Dr. Colress… you can do this, she mentally encouraged him. I know you can. I know you can do this!

"Why, nephew?" Ghetsis cruelly demanded, shaking her head again by the chin, moving the cane slightly from over her chest so that he could slip his hand closer to feel over her body. She cringed and tried to fight against him again, but the energy was gone from her frozen, seizing muscles, and her breaths came in rapid gasps, the biting cold stinging her lungs. She felt like she was losing more oxygen than she was gaining. Instead, she just clenched her eyes shut as the old man drew circles with a finger over her left breast. "Does this bother you? I thought you didn't care at all for such simple pleasures. You inhuman monster." He incredulously asked in a high-pitched voice, "Do you think she loves you, somehow, nephew?"

Dr. Colress pressed his lips to a thin line, staring Rosa dead in the eyes. "No."

"And why is that, Colress?" Ghetsis called expectantly. She wished so badly to be able to fight him. To scream at Dr. Colress. It was suddenly so clear to her that Ghetsis' hold on her was not about his own desires at all, but was sheer manipulation of his nephew. Gritting her teeth, she squirmed and struggled, but the metallic mesh of her suit bit into her flesh and she yelped in pain, forced to fall still. Still, she practically growled as she thought, He can play Dr. Colress like a fiddle… and he has no idea… He's got no idea… She eyed the scientist longingly. Probably because he's still got the emotional intelligence of a child beneath all that earthly knowledge…

Still staring at her in a way that made her feel so hollow, Dr. Colress answered as if reading from a script. "Because I am not human. Nobody would want someone like me. All I know is science and I could not even provide a family should I want to. I have no other use."

"But that's not true!" Rosa exclaimed at last, wanting to cry but feeling as if her tears were freezing in the air before they had a chance to escape. "I like you! You can do better than this! Dr. Colress, I don't care whatever it is he's talking about, I just want—"

He rapidly waved a hand at her and shook his head violently, wordlessly telling her to shut up, but she didn't catch the memo in time.

"—to get you away from all of this! I know you can be better, I know you can do better!" She shivered a little at the prospect of the next thought, but she couldn't tell if that was from cold, apprehension, or… anticipation. "Think of all the amazing things we could do, you and I!"

"There it is," Ghetsis laughed darkly, stroking her chin uncomfortably. He let her go at last, shoving her in the back with his cane. She squeaked at the sharp pain in her spine and collapsed to the floor. "I knew I could get one of you to break," Ghetsis sneered. He jabbed that cane after Dr. Colress and jeered, "You thought you could one-up me! You pathetic excuse of a man! I made you! I could order the Shadow Triad to kill her right now and there would be nothing you could do about it!"

Wincing against the pain, Rosa tried to get up, but the suit pinched and resisted her too much. She fell back, flat against the ground, and looked up at Dr. Colress desperately. "Dr. C-Colress…"

He glanced between her and Ghetsis, then back at her again, looking frightened in a way she had never seen before. That sensor in his head sparked and he hung his head at last. "Please, uncle… She will do no harm to you or Neo Plasma… I promise, she is nothing more than a personal experiment…"

"Is that what you call it in that broken head of yours?" Ghetsis taunted, staggering toward his nephew. "What is wrong with you? You know you can't love anyone. Anyway, if she is so inconsequential, then you won't mind me borrowing her for a while. That suit does look so carefully crafted… Especially for something so inconsequential," Ghetsis mused as he looked her over again. She wished she could have moved more. Despite her entire body being covered save for her face with the visor open, she felt naked and violated under his gaze. "I noticed that someone in that battle at Opelucid was riding a pokémon nobody's ever truly seen before. At first, I thought he was just astride a Sawsbuck, but after a while, I noticed it was something far more interesting. I believe it may be a legendary. Perhaps one of Unova's fabled 'Swords of Justice.'" Ghetsis paused and raised his chin. "I want him out of the picture. I'm not leaving anything up to chance anymore. Can she handle that problem for me, Colress?"

Rosa felt like all the air had been knocked from her body, and she blanched, her tongue drying to sandpaper. Dr. Colress had been in her ear explaining to her what Virizion was when she had encountered Nate on the ice. He was the only one in the battle that had been astride a pokémon like that. Her brown eyes bulged, and she desperately stared at Dr. Colress. Please don't say yes. He wants me to kill Nate. Oh, my Arceus, Dr. Colress, please don't do this… I can't do that… I can't do that for you… She was already shivering from the cold, but she shook even harder at that thought. Not only could she not even consider harming her friend of many years, but… selfishly, it would force her to reckon with having killed his father. If Nate was gone, his story erased from the source, what did that make her? No longer had she killed a pedophile. She had just killed a man and later, his son. That thought was just… too much…

Dr. Colress licked his lips, trembling in the cold air of the ship. Staring her dead in the eyes again, he deliberately whispered, "Yes, uncle. She can take care of any problem such as that…"

"No!" Rosa wailed. "Dr. Colress, no! I can't do that!"

"You should have thought of that sooner," he said, his expression looking so distant suddenly, as if looking through her. "Should have thought of that before you agreed to learn more about me…"

"Oh, she doesn't like that idea," Ghetsis gasped in faux shock. He chuckled darkly. "I wonder, does she like that boy? Does she like him more than you, maybe, Colress?" Rosa glared at him hatefully. She hated him. She hated him so fucking much. He must have seen me protecting Nate from the Shadow Triad, or maybe they told him… she thought. What a fucking monster. Did he plan all of this from that moment, or did he just spin this up on a whim to torture Dr. Colress? That made her despair somewhat, biting her lower lip. Am I even the target of this? Or am I and Nate just collateral damage in him trying to teach Dr. Colress a lesson…?

Dr. Colress shrank from Ghetsis' words and rubbed the back of his neck nervously.

"Dr. Colress, no! I like you!" Rosa begged, desperate, willing to say anything to get him to reconsider, get him to be the powerful, frightening man she had seen before… even though part of her knew she wasn't going to get it with Ghetsis present. "I just… just… liked you a lot… I promise, I like you, no matter what he says…" It sounded so lame, putting it that way, especially knowing what Ghetsis wanted her to do, but she did. She wanted this all to go away. She wanted, somehow, for her and Dr. Colress to get out of this unscathed and together. She didn't know why or when she had started caring so much for him… but she did.

"You shouldn't," Dr. Colress mumbled, taking a step back. "This is who I am, Miss Rosa. You are an experiment and here is your next task, your next trial."

"There's a good boy," Ghetsis called, wearing a satisfied grin as he started to hobble past his nephew. "Have the Shadow Triad take her back. I don't care how she does it, as long as she takes care of him. Two years ago, I was cocky and let a loose end be. That was a mistake." He patted Dr. Colress' face, similar to the way Dr. Colress had done to her in the past, as he walked past his nephew. "I will take no such risks this time, Dr. Colress. Understand?"

"Understood, Ghetsis."

With that, Ghetsis marched out of the room. Rosa cried some dry tears as Dr. Colress stiffly moved closer to her and started to peel the suit from her body, clearly recognizing that she couldn't move thanks to its poor tolerance for the cold. As soon as he freed her from its confines, she whirled on him, grabbing him by the collar of his jacket and snarling, "Why? Why are you letting him do this?" she wept. "I've done so much for you! I just want you to see that he's using you so that you'll stop all of this! I just—I want you, you fucking idiot! For as smart as you are with tools and whatnot, you're really stupid with emotions!"

He cringed under her words and looked away. "Miss Rosa," he tersely said, "stop… just stop…"

"No!" Rosa barked. "No, I won't stop, not until you explain!" Frustrated, she shook him the jacket, fighting the urge to throttle him. "Why are you so convinced that nobody could like you? Why do you let him tell you that?"

She regretted her outburst as he sprung to life. Smacking her hands away, he abruptly latched his hands to her throat and growled, marching forward until he flattened her against the opposing wall, raising her slightly. He bared his teeth and narrowed those gleaming, golden eyes, the glassiness more apparent than ever. Was he tearing up? She didn't know, as she was too busy scrabbling at his frightening vice grip to free herself. "Because he made me that way!" Dr. Colress spat at her, spilling like the contents of an overturned glass. She had finally cracked his code and oh, how terrible was that message hidden beneath his encryption… "He groomed me into his tool, then he threw me away for that son of his! Everything I told you before was true, but I… left out some details, Miss Rosa… He… he… chemically sterilized me so that I couldn't muck with his plans. Even if he had the option to kill me, he wouldn't have, because he needed me! He took away everything that ever would have let me walk a different path!" He was tearing up… A thin rivulet of tears escaped his eyes and froze in the cold air of the ship. "Everything I ever do ends up being for him, and now you are, too! All because you had to go and fuck with the Shadow Triad!"

She was starting to see stars, having difficulty keeping up with all he was saying. Her right hand trembled as she reached out to lightly touch his face, brushing the short, blond stubble on his chin gingerly. Dr. Colress… please… I don't care about any of that… Just let me go… That's him talking, he has you thinking all of that is way bigger a deal than it is… You not being able to carry on the Harmonia name or whatever isn't that bad… Not everything you do is for him… He just makes you think it is so you feel dependent… Please… Dr. Colress…

He froze at her touch, and then dropped her, clutching at the back of his head. That sensor arced with electricity dangerously as she coughed and spluttered, gasping for breath. "And now, for some reason, despite knowing all of that, despite knowing how little sense it all makes, I am worried for you! I hate that, Miss Rosa," he snapped, whirling on her again. She flinched and huddled against the wall, bracing herself for another choking hold that didn't come. He just jabbed a finger at her. "I am worried for you! That isn't allowed to happen! That shouldn't happen!" He frustratedly slammed a foot to the ground. "I am Dr. Colress! I research the potential in pokémon and humans, and I will own this world before long by understanding them both to the fullest extent, and using them to… to…"

"To what…?" Rosa hoarsely croaked, head swimming. She wasn't even sure what she intended to do with that knowledge once she received it.

He swallowed, floundering fearfully for something, but then jerked his head from side to side angrily. "It doesn't matter! I will understand! I will, I will, I will! And you!" He pressed that finger to her chest. "I believe the person Ghetsis spoke of was your friend, Nathan Daniels. Kill him."

Shaking her head, Rosa desperately whimpered, "Dr. Colress, I can't do that…"

"If you claim you love me so much," Dr. Colress sneered, "then it should be no problem. After all, you certainly seemed to have your fun and take your time with Mr. Daniels in Undella."

"That was different!" she wailed. Was it, Rosa? a small voice alarmingly pressed her in her mind.

He glared at her darkly. "Shadow Triad, come to me!"

"Dr. Colress…" Rosa breathlessly begged, "Please… Don't do this…"

"Time for the next trial," he growled. He deftly folded her suit and tucked it into her bag, then shoved it into her grasp again. "Goodbye, Miss Rosa. Shadow Triad, take her to Icirrus City."